SailorStar9: After getting Chapter 53 out, this is Chapter 54 of this fic. (Sighs) Guys and girls, is it too hard for you to leave a review, instead of just putting this fic up on your favorited list and story alerts?

Disclaimers: I own nothing, except for the plot bunny which, unfortunately, is still alive and kicking.

Chapter 54: Ending Happy


"Yeah." Sheriff Ned Bastille nodded. "One of the gals fished him out of the pool, and the owner called me. No one's touched the body since."

"Where's your coroner?" Grissom asked.

"Oh, couldn't get him on the horn." Sheriff Ned Bastille replied. "Probably out in some barn, up to his elbows in a cow's vagina."

"Excuse me?" Sara echoed.

"Oh." Sheriff Ned Bastille nodded. "Yeah. Coroner's a part-time gig here in Brime County. He's a veterinarian. That's his money gig."

"Control, this is CSI Sidle." Sara spoke into the radio "We're going to need a coroner for that 419 out at the Sugar Cane Ranch."

"Excuse me, ladies." Sheriff Ned Bastille cleared his throat, looking at the crowd of bikini-clad women who were gathering around the pool

"This is a strange crowd for a cathouse." Grissom noted, as the crowd parted to let them through.

"Hey, Sheriff!" Milton, an elderly man in his robe, was standing in front of the neon sign. "Di-Did you hear about my wife? Somebody shot my wife. Yeah, I'm telling ya, they shot my wife."

"Yeah." Sheriff Ned Bastille calmed the frantic man. "Okay. All right. Settle down, Milton. Settle down. Okay. Ned Bastille: His wife died about ten years ago of a stroke." He told the two CSIs.

"What is with all the old-timers out here tonight?" Sara asked.

"Oh, they live here." Sheriff Ned Bastille replied. "Yeah, all over these hills. Cheap rents, abundant sunshine. Life is good here in Brime County. Guy's name is Lorenzo Morales." He looked at the floating body.

"'Happy' Morales." Grissom remarked. "I saw him fight LeRoi Steele at the Sands a couple of years ago. Took a vicious beating. Never touched the mat once."

"Well, he's definitely down for the count." Sara noted.

"Listen. I want to tell you something." Sheriff Ned Bastille warned. "George and Doris Babinkian own this place. Run a real tight ship. Never had a problem in all the years they've been here. Just good people. Pay their taxes, provide employment, pillars of the community. You know, last month actually, they had a..."

"Ned, you left this in my room again." Aimee handed the Sheriff his gun belt.

"Oh." Sheriff Ned Bastille nodded. "Thanks. Thanks, Aimee. She..." he started, looking at Grissom.

"Look at this." Grissom remarked, after Sheriff Ned Bastille left them alone to work.

"Gunshot wound?" Sara questioned.

"Maybe." Grissom shrugged and snapped a photo of it.

"He's got a contusion over his right eye." Sara noted. "Could be associated with the incident."

"Well, he was a boxer." Grissom pointed out, taking more photos.

"Feels like bathwater." Sara put her hand in the water. "It's got to be 90 degrees. There's no way we're going to get an accurate TOD."

"Places like this always keep their pools warm." Grissom stated. "Encourages the girls to swim topless. It's good for business. So they tell me." He added, seeing Sara's look.


"Boxers all end up the same-beaten, broken and forgotten." Dr. Robbins tsked, 'Happy' Morales' body laid out on the table.

"Hmm, yeah, Joe Louis, George Foreman, Ali, Marciano, Frazier, Tyson… Who are those guys?" Warrick mused.

"Whoa." Catherin gaped and stopped snapping pictures, after Warrick pulled down the body's boxers.

"Genitals are distended and patchy and covered with large red welts." Dr. Robbins continued his report. "Testicles are swollen, roughly three times the average size. Scrotum is filled with fluid. It's consistent with cardio edema or an STD. Maybe an infection of some kind."

"Either that or this guy's got the world's ugliest Johnson." Catherine stated, causing Warrick to shake his head to hold back a laugh.

"Okay, I'll just slice the scrotal sack and draw out a fluid sample." Dr. Robbins stated.

Oh, Doc, could you wait till I leave?" Warrick requested. "Thanks."

"This guy's got a nasty crack on his head." Catherine noted, continuing taking photos.

"Yeah." Dr. Robbins nodded. "Probably a fracture. Wouldn't surprise me if there was a hematoma to go along with it."

"There's linear markings on the contusion." Catherine added.

"Looks like letters of some kind." Warrick turned on the ALS and looked at the markings while Catherine worked. "What is that?"

"I think it's backwards." Catherine looked at the digital image on the camera and flipped it. "I-N-C-H."


"The blow to the forehead caused bruising to the right frontal lobe." Adeline was explaining Dr. Robbins' findings to Catherine. "It's significant, but definitely sub-lethal by itself."

"And what are those grey spots?" Catherine asked.

"Just old scar tissue." Adeline replied. "See it on boxers all the time. It's impossible to know what kind of brain damage the guy was already living with."

"So what killed him?" Catherine pressed.

"In addition to the brain trauma and the holes in his throat, he has needle marks on his thighs, arms and buttocks." Adeline answered. "I don't know for certain what he was shooting up. Still waiting for Henry's report."

"Well, he was found floating face down in a pool, so let's start with the obvious." Catherine noted. "Any evidence of drowning?"

"His lungs were partially filled with blood and water." Adeline replied. "However, the neck wound transected the trachea below the epiglottis. So the air and the water could have entered passively post-mortem." She explained, sticking a pink tube through the holes in the neck.

"Well, the entry and the exit are the same size, but... it doesn't look like a bullet wound to me." Catherine noted.

"No, it seems more like a straight-through puncture." Adeline agreed. "The bruising here is more developed than here. At this point, all I can say for sure is the neck wound occurred before the blow to the head."


"Happy was on the verge of anaphylactic shock." Dr. Robbins voiced. "His trachea was almost completely blocked. And then he got shot. The arrow reopened his airway, in essence gave him an emergency tracheotomy."

"So the guy took an arrow through the throat, and it prolonged his life?" Brass echoed, later that night.

"Apparently." Dr. Robbins nodded.

"And what are the odds of it not hitting a major artery?" Catherine asked.

"Whatever comes right before zero." Dr. Robbins rolled his eyes.

"So COD is anaphylactic shock?" Catherine asked.

"Not entirely." Dr. Robbins replied. "The epiglottal tissues are only slightly swollen, which suggests the anaphylaxis had enough time to subside. Not now, David." He added, hearing Dr. Philips clear his throat at the door.

"I'm sorry, but Happy's antigen assay came back." Dr. Philips replied. "The anaphylaxis was a reaction to shellfish."

"I didn't find any seafood in his stomach or small intestine." Dr. Robbins noted. "Just six and a half pounds of undigested red meat."

"Well, that explains the flatulence." Brass shrugged.


"Binky used Doris to induce Happy's allergic reaction to shrimp as a sort of test of her fidelity..." Grissom stated in the hallway with Catherine.

"And Happy ends up dead." Catherine added, taking a drink from her water bottle. "Not bad. Who's Brass going to charge?"

"Don't bother." Dr. Robbins cut in. "You can't charge either one."


"On secondary examination of the body, I noticed a patch of necrotic skin on the right calf." Dr. Robbins voiced. "Looked like a bite of some kind. So I sent blood off for prothrombin time and blood venom ratio. It came back positive for snake venom." He concluded in Grissom's office.

"Smashed with a crowbar, shot by a crossbow, poisoned by shrimp and now bitten by a snake?" Catherine echoed.

"Sort of…" Dr. Robbins shrugged. "Happy had Western Diamondback Rattlesnake venom in his system, the real deal, but it wasn't from a bite. I histo-ed the wound and checked the cross-section. Snake bite punctures are typically curved."

"Yeah, these are straight." Catherine noted, taking a look at the photos. "And one's deeper than the other. Look like needle marks."

"As you can see, the tissue around he wound was pretty badly degraded." Dr Robbins added.

"Greg found this in the trash of one of the girls' rooms." Grissom picked out a photo of a syringe.

"Which girl?" Catherine asked.


"Our cases just keep getting weirder and weirder, don't they?" Archie muttered, sighing after Adeline related to him their latest case. "So," he looked at his fiancée who had slid in with him "What's the call on this: a series of unfortunate events?"

"Or what Nick would put it: the lawn chair did it." Adeline joked.


SailorStar9: Now that's done, read and review.