Disclaimer: The CSI characters aren't mine, OC's are, storylines are (if similar to others it's purely coincidental), um... thinks that's it for now.
Pretty long chapter, poor Flack eh? If only he'd gone to see the guy...
Chapter 14
Startled and not really knowing what to do, Flack drags himself out of bed and dresses. He decides that it's important enough to call Mac, and dials his number.
"Urrrrrr Taylor..."
"Mac, it's Don, um, I just received a call, my suspect, Liam Johns has just been found hanged in his cell." Flack explains.
Mac stays silent.
"Mac?"
"Yeah, um... I say call Ryan and Greg, take yourselves to lock up, get them to process the scene."
Flack sighs and hangs up, he'd pulled the worst case.
He calls Ryan and Greg and the three of them make their way to lock up where their suspect, well victim's cell was now cordoned off.
Ryan and Greg get to processing the cell, checking around the body and on the floor. While they are searching the medical examiner shows up, they help to lower the body, Liam is declared dead and the body is cleared for them to process his outer garments.
...
Flack speaks to the guards on duty, wanting an explanation, he was tired and cranky.
"So it was just you two on duty right?" He addresses the two guys standing opposite him.
"Sure, me and Benton here." Says the first guard.
"And you are?" Flack asks, noting down the information in his notebook.
"Tom Coldfield"
"Who found Liam?"
Benton jumps in, "I did, I was doing the rounds and he was just hanging there. I'd brought him dinner only three hours before."
"He was okay at dinner time?"
Benton shrugs, "not really, he'd called for you remember, said he wanted to talk. He wasn't happy you wanted to wait til morning."
"Annoyed enough to kill himself?"
"No way" Benton shakes his head, "I was in the bathroom just before I done my rounds, that's why I didn't hear anything, but Coldfield said he didn't hear anything either."
Flack turns to Coldfield, "that right? You never heard anything?"
"That's correct sir."
"Did you see anything?" Flack probes.
Coldfield frowns, "like what?"
Flack groans, "anything unusual...a visitor, did you let anyone in?"
"No way!" He grunts, indignant.
Flack's done. He goes to find Ryan and Greg. They haven't found much and are frustrated. The M.E's guys had arrived to move the body and they step aside to let them get at the body.
Just then Ryan tenses, "stand still, everyone."
Everybody stops.
Ryan looks at the floor, "I don't believe it..."
"What is it?" Greg asks moving closer.
"Pass me the camera" Ryan demands urgently.
Greg passes the camera and strains to see what Ryan can see. Once he'd taken the photographs, Ryan points out the footprint he'd spotted in the dust, inside the cell. It was now very familiar.
"Nike Air Max!" Exclaims Greg, "no way!"
They look at Flack, "those guards wearing training shoes?" Ryan asks.
"No, department issue boots."
"They say if anyone had been here?" Greg joins in.
"No, no visitors, I asked that question already."
"Someone's lying, tell them to come in for questioning once their shift is over." Ryan tells Flack.
Flack nods, he hates being lied to...
...
The others all start to arrive at the HQ, refreshed from their night's sleep they're all raring to go. Mac greets his team slightly bleary eyed, and explains about his late night call from Flack.
Lindsay snorts, "I better Flack was impressed with that call!"
"And Greggo!" Nick drops in.
Calleigh looks at them both, "Ryan was probably unaffected...he's kinda like that," she adds shrugging.
Marc Stretford followed the conversation between the CSI's smiling, he'd gotten to really liking this bunch of people.
Picking up one of the files, Mac turns the attention back to their case. The now infamous Jacob Davies, who's name had appeared on the disc recovered from another crime scene.
...
"Today ladies and gentlemen we will finally be visiting the Pentagon" Mac announces, "After all of yesterdays excitement postponing our pre-arranged visit!"
Nick whoops, that's what he's been waiting for!
"After that we will be going to Jacob's home address, he was unmarried, and his home has been left untouched, still awaiting clearance." Mac finished.
They nod in agreement with Mac's plan of action. Nick leaves to find a car for them to use, hoping one of the larger ones was available. Although the metro would take them right there, a car would be a better option.
After a while Nick places a call to Mac's phone and calls the team down to the lot, he'd secured a seven seater car complete with three CSI kits.
...
Arriving at the Pentagon, a journey of a whole twelve minutes across the Potomac River, Nick was trying hard to contain his excitement whilst in the company of the New York supervisor. They show their identification and are led into a side room, Nick glancing around at everything in awe.
A guide arrives and introduces himself. "I've been asked to help you with your enquiries," he shakes Mac's hand, and smiles at the others, "what do you need?"
Mac explains and they are quickly lead to Jacob's workplace.
"This is where he worked, you may speak to anyone here," he points out an empty room, "you can use that room, for privacy."
Mac thanks him, and as the guy goes to leave remembers something, "Excuse me, where's Jacob's computer?"
"His computer?" The guide thinks, "I'd presume it's been disposed of, we had an upgrade not two weeks ago, everything was sent to be recycled."
Mac sighs, typical.
...
Meanwhile Grissom's team had finished with a visit to the White House, Daisy Leeman, their victim worked there. In a different department from Dory and Jimmy. She was being honed for a high flying job, a secretary, expected to work directly with the President himself.
They'd searched her workstation, and asked some questions but the answers gave them no help at all, the computer she worked at had been wiped clean and re-loaded after the last investigators had finished up.
Frustrated Grissom turns to his three subordinates and asks what they'd like to do next.
"I say head straight to her home, the crime scene" Danny says in his strong New York accent.
Natalia nods in agreement, "I second that!"
Joseph Mendels also agrees, "best course of action boss!"
Grissom leads the way to the Metro station, unfortunately there had been no cars available for them when they had left the FBI Headquarters, but the metro is punctual and not so busy outside of rush hour and so they arrive at their destination pretty quickly.
...
Daisy's boyfriend still occupied their small one bedroomed apartment and was quite happy to accommodate them in their investigation.
"It's hard still living here, especially when she died here." He tells the attentive group.
"You never considered moving?" Natalia asks sympathetically.
Jason, the boyfriend replies, "I just can't afford it," he sighs and looks around, "there's good memories too." He shrugs.
Danny smiles at him, "so, Jason, can you tell us how you found her, and where? I know it must be hard, I know you've been through this before."
Jason shrugs once more, "I'll tell it over and over if it helps to find who killed her," he continues, "basically, I came home from work, I didn't expect Daisy to be home, she's never in before me. I put the TV on, got myself a sandwich and sat down. Then I heard Kip, that's our cat, meowing from the bedroom, poor guy had been shut in all day! So I went to open the door to let him out, and that's when I saw her, on the bed. I thought maybe she was just sleeping, she didn't reply, so I checked her pulse, she wasn't sleeping. She was in this funny position, I didn't move her." Jason looked haunted.
They were used to seeing dead bodies, but even if they felt for the victims, they weren't loved ones. They all felt their hearts wrench at Jason's downcast face and hunched shoulders.
Joseph asks if Jason minds if he takes a quick look around, Jason agrees readily. He takes a look at the set out of the apartment, entry points etc.
"The killer must've entered through the door, do you think it was possibly someone she knew?" Joseph questions.
Grissom looks at him, "I agree Joseph, one hundred percent," he turns to Jason, "no sign of struggle?"
"None, they told me she was poisoned, there were no cups or anything in the sink, but they say it was ingested with a soda. They couldn't find any cans or anything."
Joseph, now on a roll asks, "Did Daisy have a desktop computer, or laptop?"
"Yes, I had to sell it, it's not cheap to live here, I only have one income going into the household now!"
Danny touches Jason's arm, "it's fine Jason, don't worry about it."
...
Jacob Davies home was rather large, much too big for one person really, this puzzled Mac, "why would a single guy need such a big house?" he questioned.
"Maybe he had a lot of guests." Nick offered.
They let themselves in with the provided key, the house was so void of life every footstep echoed. Calleigh sighs and shakes her head.
Marc Stretford marches into the house, takes a big sweeping look around. "Wanna split into teams? I'll take upstairs with Lindsay and Nick and you guys can check out down here?"
Mac nods, "fine with me, Calleigh, you take the right half of this floor, I'll take the left."
They split up.
...
Upstairs the home is perfect, plenty of guest bedrooms, all neat and tidy, many with en suite bathrooms. Rooms obviously used as places to gather with couches and small tables were here and there.
Downstairs, there's a few rooms like the ones upstairs with couches and tables, a huge dining room with a table long enough to seat about thirty, a massive kitchen, a couple of bathrooms, and a door which led to a garage.
Entering the garage Mac and Calleigh got a shock! It was like a huge technological centre. Computer screens, hardrives, recorders, and other technology that they didn't even recognise.
"Wow!" Calleigh exclaims, "you think all of this is wiped clean too?"
Mac replies "only if the 'murderer' knew about it all, it's not in the report" open mouthed himself. "I'm calling Adam in to work on this, the other two will have to cope without him."
They hear their names being called.
"In here" Calleigh calls back.
The other three CSI's join them.
"Wow! And I thought what we had to show you was gonna be good!" Nick exclaims
"What have you got Nick?" Mac asks the Texan.
Lindsay answers for him, "a laptop Mac, wiped clean again, and no storage media. That is definitely a pattern right? With all of the cases old and new."
Mac nods, curiouser and curiouser.
...
Flack, Greg and Ryan decide to drop in on the autopsy of Liam Johns, the Medical Examiner was accommodating, and passed them all protective clothing as they entered.
"I'm nearly done gentlemen, I already sent a few samples to be analyzed, the results should be back in soon." The red haired M.E tells them.
He points to the cadaver's neck, "these marks are post mortem and are on top of some deeper bruising, he was already dead when he was hung, he couldn't have done it to himself," he walks around the body, they three younger men watch closely, "there's bruising to his wrists, looks like fingermarks."
"What would your conclusion be?" Flack asks from behind his face mask.
"Pending the results of toxicology, I think he was drugged, manually asphyxiated, then hung to make it look like suicide," he smiles, "I think that is for you guys to prove though right?"
Ryan nods, "and we will prove it!"
Just then Kevin Peters the federal lab guy appears, "I ran the tox screen for you Reuben, it's pretty busy up there right now."
Reuben, the medical examiner takes the print out from Kevin, reads it, raises his eyebrows and hands it off to Greg, who reads it along with Ryan and Flack.
"Flunitrazipam" Greg reads aloud slowly, "that sounds familiar."
Ryan nods, "sure it does, it's roofies, it's what Delko and the others found had killed Jimmy Pennant, their vic."
"And it was used to drug Marcus Seymore the bodyguard that Horatio's team are investigating the death of." Flack says, proud that he remembered something.
"Not enough to kill your victim however, just enough to knock him out." Kevin injects into the conversation.
"Another link, but I still don't feel like we're getting anywhere!"
...
Tripp leads the way to the door of Dennis Alverston's apartment, he knocks, there's no reply. Tripp bangs again, this time accompanying it with a yell, "FBI open up!!" He looks at Eric and whispers, "I love yelling that."
Eric grins back at him.
There's still no response, so Tripp motions for Catherine, Warrick and Eric to stand back, and kicks the door, right by the lock. The door buckles, they enter slowly, guns drawn. Eric pans off into a door on the left hand side, he sees a figure climbing out of the window onto a fire escape. "IN HERE!" he yells, before setting off in pursuit.
Warrick joins him swiftly, Eric is running down the metal steps on the outside of the building taking two, sometimes three at a time. All the time yelling for the guy to stop. Warrick isn't far behind Eric, yelling encouragement for his team mate. As Eric gets to the second to bottom section, he leans over the edge, they're never going to catch the guy, he takes a breath and launches himself off the contraption. He lands with a thump, catching the guy on the shoulder and taking him down with him. Warrick catches up, secures the suspect, then checks on Delko.
"Owww, my ankle!" Delko is grimacing, holding tightly to his joint.
Catherine and Tripp exit from a door on the ground floor.
"What happened?" Catherine asks with concern.
"He had to jump to catch him." Warrick explains.
Tripp helps Delko onto his feet, "we'll drop into the hospital on the way to take this guy in." He motions to the suspect like he's the most disgusting thing he's ever seen.
...
Back at headquarters, Grissom and his team are updating their file with any new information they had gathered that day already.
Natalia decides to take a second read, "Dr. Grissom?"
Grissom looks up, "Natalia?" He responds.
"I'm reading the interviews that were conducted, there's this one guy, um, Dean Fox, he was due to be interviewed, but he just never was."
"Dean Fox? What's his connection with Daisy?"
"I'm not sure, but if his name is here it must have been quite important right?"
"Give him a call, get him to come in."
Natalia calls Dean, he agrees to come in, but couldn't come in until the following afternoon. Natalia agrees a time and reports back.
...
Stella and Lilly enter the trace lab and come face to face with Hodges, "what can I do for you ladies today?" he asks them.
"We had some trace." Stella tells him.
"Oh, the trace from next to the bed of one Marcus Seymore, am I correct?"
They look at each other, "yes that's correct." Lilly tells him.
"Well it was biological, sent it to DNA, they checked it, I was bored, followed up, your results." He hands them a print out.
Stella smiles, "thorough!"
"I aim to please."
They read the print out. Lilly sighs, "Just him, a sneeze, eww!"
Stella laughs, "good eye though Lilly, no one else saw it there."
...
Dennis Alverston is sat opposite Tripp, who is now fuming, his friend and colleague was hurt because of this guy. Eric was lucky, his ankle wasn't broken, but badly sprained and he was now having to use crutches.
"We have a fingerprint of yours at a crime scene, do you have anything to tell us?" Tripp starts slowly.
Alverston doesn't respond.
Warrick slams his hands on the table, "You were let out of prison on good behaviour, you weren't due for any sort of parole, how did that happen?"
Once again, there's no response.
"Come on Dennis, help us to help you," Catherine tries, "there must be something going on, we have evidence that ties you to our crime, you could spare yourself some time inside if you help us out."
Dennis lets out a cynical laugh.
"What does that mean?" Tripp asks angrily.
Alverston looks at him, "I've been on a road trip, for four days, out of town. If what you are talking about happened during that time, it couldn't have been me!"
Warrick wrinkles his brow, "road trip?" He asks, "what car have you got?"
"I don't drive a car, I ride a bike."
Warrick looks at Catherine, his eye sparkling, "Cool, I love bikes, what have you got?"
"Custom made Chopper..." he cuts off at Warrick's smile. "What?"
Warrick leaves the room to make a call to get the motorcycle impounded.
Tripp tries to get his attention back, "Alverston, we want to know why you killed Jimmy Pennant."
"Seriously man, you think I'm going to tell you anything? Look what happened to Liam! No way, lock me up man."
...
Grissom pulls out his phone, he'd been thinking about something for a while now, but decided he needed to run it passed his fellow supervisors. He calls first Mac, then Horatio and asks for them to both meet with him in a private room. They each leave their teams and convene in a room up the hall.
"Dr. Grissom?" Horatio questions once they are all in the room.
"I called you here because I have a huge concern." He looks between the two of them, "I trust that you all have faith in your guys one hundred percent."
Mac and Horatio both nod.
"I think we have a mole in our midst. It seems almost anyone who says they'll come forwards with information is killed."
"You think one of our guys is talking?" Mac asks, shocked.
Grissom shrugs, "we all meet up at the hotel and share information, but we all meet at the end of each day too, the federal CSI's are also present for that. Also the federal lab technicians work alongside ours, maybe they are talking among themselves. I think there's a leak."
"I think it's something we should monitor, but keep to ourselves for now. I don't want to start having people not trust each other, trust is important" Horatio states.
Mac nods in agreement.
Grissom looks at them, "Ok, for now, but one more thing and we're going to have to address it properly and with the rest of the team."
They all agree and leave to get back to work.
A mole? Dun dun duuuuuuuuuuuun, or not? Thanks to everyone for reading, and reviewing, and favouriting, and alerting... More reviews welcome...and appreciated whole heartedly!