Olivia looked at the ME in surprise. "Who could have killed him. We locked everyone else up."
"Well, I won't know that until I do the autopsy, but what I can tell you now is that he's been dead for approximately three days."
Amanda's eyebrows shot up. "That long?"
Warner nodded. "Yup. I need to get the body back to the autopsy lab. I'll call you when I have something."
"Thanks, Melinda," Olivia said and she and Amanda headed off to find Fin and Kat. The sergeant and the youngest member of the squad had been talking with the CSU techs.
"What did you two get from CSU?" Olivia asked as she approached them.
"They found a phone which we bagged to take back to TARU. And they got some samples from his clothes," Kat answered.
"They think they found the murder weapon, but they're gonna test it to be sure," Fin added.
Olivia nodded. "Good job, guys. Let's get back to the station."
The squad stopped off for lunch on the way back and then got immediately to work, digging up what they could on Alfredo Perez, which wasn't much.
"The guy's a ghost. I couldn't find anything on him anywhere. Someone has erased his existence."
The room was silent for a moment before Amanda suddenly thought of something. "Or he's not really Alfredo Perez."
The others looked at Amanda with wide eyes and Kat realized, "You mean it's an alias, or our perp killed the wrong guy?"
"Amanda, take Kat and talk to Rodrigues. See if he can ID the photo," Olivia ordered. She was about to say more when her phone pinged.
"What are you and Fin gonna do?" Amanda questioned. Olivia's phone pinged again.
Olivia looked up from her phone and said, " First text was Georgie. The second was Warner. Fin and I will go to Autopsy first and talk to Warner, then we'll head over to CSU and see what Andy has for us."
Amanda and Kat nodded to show they understood and everyone grabbed their things. Then the squad headed out in opposite directions.
At Autopsy, Warner relayed her results to the captain and sergeant.
"Cause of death was a bullet wound at point-blank range to the chest. As I had suspected, He has been dead for three days. Wednesday morning at seven AM. Also, our victim is not Alfredo Perez. Surprisingly, the DNA from the victim belongs to Josue Rodrigues. His DNA matches Rodrigues'. It's not his Nephew. It's his son."
"His son? Why did he change his name? Why pretend he was a nephew?" Fin inquired.
Warner smiled "That's for you guys to figure out. My job is to look at the evidence from the autopsy."
Did you get any DNA matching the perp?" Fin asked.
"I did. It's not in the system. Either It was a passion crime or the perp just hasn't been caught yet," Warner answered.
Olivia felt her phone buzz and took it out to check it. "I just got a text from Kat. He did ID the photo. He still referred to the Vic as his nephew. I told her and Amanda to see if they can get the truth out of him."
"Hopefully. We'd better get to CSU. ," Fin replied.
Saying goodbye and thank you to Warner, Fin and Olivia headed out.
Once they arrived at CSU, they talked to Andy Sung.
"I got some fibers from his pants that indicate that he was beaten in his apartment and then taken to park. This was definitely a rage motivated killing. The perp picked a spot with very little traffic. He also used a silencer on the gun. I've positively ID'd it as the murder weapon."
"That's great. Is that all you've got right now?" Olivia questioned.
Andy got a grim look on his face. "Well, there is more. I was able to pull prints from the weapon."
"That's good, isn't it? Why the long face?" Olivia asked, dreading the answer.
Andy sighed. "Guys, the prints belong to Elliot."
To Guest: Thanks for your review. I went back and fixed what you pointed out. I had been watching the show regularly and after over 400 episodes I might have gotten some scenes mixed up. Thanks for pointing it out.