Here's part 2. See part 1 for disclaimers, etc., etc. Warning: The
cliffhangers get even more cliffy for the first few chapters. We have to
go down before we can climb back up. Thanks for the feedback, and I'm glad
so many of you liked part 1.
***
"I am the Ghost of Christmas Past." "Long past?" inquired Scrooge. . . "No. Your past."
Charles Dickens, "A Christmas Carol."
***
Horatio sat at his desk in his office, doing paperwork. He had deliberately picked the most mundane task he could think of, to try to convince himself that the world was an orderly place. His mind was far from orderly at the moment, though.
"Horatio?" He looked up at Alexx, standing uncertainly in the door of his office. She obviously wasn't sure whether he wanted to talk or not. He nodded toward the chair in front of his desk, and she came across to sit down. He didn't even notice she had coffee until she handed him one of the cups.
"Thanks," he said, taking a gulp. It burned his tongue, but it was worth it.
Alexx didn't ask if he was okay. She didn't want to force him to lie to her. The lie would only add to the things bothering him at the moment. "Horatio," she started gently, "I really think you should get out of this case and leave it to the boys."
"I'm already off it," he said. He had no intention of making himself work this one. Justice needed to be done, but he had confidence in his team, and he knew his own limits, even if he didn't admit them.
Alexx let out a small sigh of relief. He apparently was going to be reasonable. "I also think you ought to call Calleigh and get her to come back tonight." She modified her assessment, watching his expression. He wasn't going to be that reasonable.
"She's speaking at that conference tomorrow morning. It's been planned for months, and they've paid all her expenses already. Everyone at the conference is expecting her. She has an obligation there. I'll tell her, but not until after the conference is over. Besides, it's a real honor for her. She deserves it."
He did want her to come back, Alexx could tell. Having finally discovered how to share problems with someone, he no longer wanted to be alone in them. But he would never rank himself ahead of an obligation. She sighed again, this time in exasperation. Telling him to think of himself for once would be pointless, like telling him to stop breathing. At least he didn't seem to be totally shutting down and denying that anything was wrong this time. Calleigh had gotten under his defenses. If she knew, she would come back tonight, obligations or not.
Horatio read her mind. "I don't want you calling her and telling her to come back tonight either. I'll be alright. I hadn't even seen Marcella in eight years. I mourned for her a long time ago."
Alexx leaned forward slightly, meeting his eyes. "As a wife, maybe, but not as a person. And to see her like that. . ."
"I kept thinking something was familiar at the scene, but I couldn't pin it down. I can't believe I didn't recognize her, though, even without a face."
"Her own mother wouldn't have recognized her." She saw him recoil and knew instantly that it was the wrong thing to say, but she wasn't sure why.
Horatio took another quick gulp of coffee as the mental image of Marcella was replaced by the far worse one of his mother, whose face had also been destroyed beyond recognition. That one, at least, he knew how to deal with now, thanks to Calleigh. He closed his eyes and pictured his mother in life, with all the warmth and strength of her personality. It worked after a few seconds, and he opened his eyes to find Alexx watching him worriedly. "I don't want you calling Calleigh," he repeated. "Let her get through her presentation tomorrow. She'll be back tomorrow night anyway."
Alexx hesitated. How far should she intervene in the name of friendship? She reluctantly decided to leave it alone. It was only one more day. There was no reason why she couldn't try to fill in for Calleigh a bit in the meantime, though. She couldn't replace her, but anything was better than nothing. "All right, then, I won't. But I want you to come home with me after work tonight," she said. "I'll make spaghetti and meatballs." She knew it was one of his favorites.
He accepted the distraction. Calleigh really was making progress with him, Alexx thought. "Okay, I will. Thank you, Alexx." His cell phone rang at that moment, and he answered. Alexx continued watching him during the conversation. How much can one man be asked to deal with in life? It just isn't fair, she thought.
Horatio ended the call. "There's another case down by the beach. I'll take this one myself."
Losing himself in work would probably be good for him. "See you later, then." She reached out and gave his arm a light, sympathetic squeeze as he went by. He hesitated for a second, then went on. Alexx sat there alone in his office for a long time after he left, staring at the phone, but she did not call Calleigh.
***
"Hey, H!" Speed's voice halted Horatio right before he exited CSI. He turned around to face the trace expert.
Speed came up to him uncertainly. He wasn't sure what to say to people half the time under normal circumstances, and he was really lost here. Communication had never been his forte. "Um, I'm sorry, H."
"Thank you, Speed." Horatio took the words for the intent. "You and Eric be sure to find this perp."
"We will. I need something from you, though. You know that hair that Alexx found stuck in all the . . . um, on the body?"
"Yes. Have you matched it?"
"There is a root, but that DNA isn't in the system. I was thinking, though. It really looks like one of your hairs. About the same color, anyway. You were leaning right over the body in the grave, checking her out, and I wondered if it could be accidental contamination."
"So you want a sample from me to try to match."
"Right." Horatio pulled out a couple of hairs and handed them to him. "Thanks, H."
"Speed?" Speed looked back on his way to the lab. "Keep me posted, okay?"
"Will do." Speed headed for trace to try to match DNA.
Horatio entered the elevator, hoping devoutly that this newest vic was someone he'd never seen in his life. It almost had to be, though. He was really running short of people close to him who hadn't already been killed. "You aren't a jinx," he reminded himself. The elevator doors opened, and he pulled himself together and collected the Hummer. When he arrived at the crime scene 20 minutes later, he was the picture of calm professionalism, as always, and the detective coming across to meet him wondered admiringly if anything could ever ruffle that man.
***
Horatio unlocked his front door and came in, instantly turning on every light switch close at hand to make it a little less lonely. He went into the kitchen to get a drink out of the fridge and saw the answering machine light blinking. He hit the button, and Calleigh's voice filled the room. "Hey, Handsome. It's 9:00, and if you're still working now, you shouldn't be. In one hour, I'll send out a posse to arrest you and drag you out of CSI. I love you. Give me a call when you finally come up for air." Grinning, Horatio checked his watch. 9:35. He called her hotel room.
"Hello, beautiful."
"Hi. Where have you been? Trying to make up a week's work in one night?"
Horatio sat down at the kitchen table, smiling. Even the sound of her voice could erase stress. "Actually, Alexx invited me over for dinner. Spaghetti and meatballs. Then, I was playing with her kids until it was their bedtime. So I'm falsely accused. I wasn't working."
"Falsely accused tonight, maybe." Her voice trailed off a bit, and he knew she was thinking about the children. The one disappointment in their marriage so far was that Calleigh had not gotten pregnant yet.
"We'll have our own someday. It's too soon to get worried, Cal. We haven't even been married a year yet."
"What if we can't have them, though?"
"Then we'll adopt some. How was your day?"
"Thrilling as most conferences I've been to. I'm already nervous about tomorrow, though."
"No reason. Just imagine me sitting out there, instead of all the audience. It'll be just like giving me a report on a case."
She smiled, and he heard it in her tone. "An audience of one. I like it. I do wish you were here."
"So do I." His tone was a little too fervent, and he almost saw the question mark rise out of the phone.
"Horatio? What's the matter?"
"We got a new case today that's pretty disturbing."
So that was why Alexx asked him over, Calleigh thought. She's trying to fill in for me. "What kind of case?"
He hesitated. "Calleigh, I really don't want to talk about it tonight. I just spent all evening working on forgetting about it. I'll tell you tomorrow night, okay?"
Calleigh wished she could see him, meet his eyes, to gauge the situation better. His unfailing strength was not itself a front - he was the most capable man she'd ever known - but he could use it as a front sometimes. It was very hard to measure just how much this case was bothering him from only his voice. Still, he wasn't denying that anything was wrong, just saying he didn't want to talk about it. She would see him tomorrow night, after all. She decided for the moment to accept Alexx's assessment. The ME read people so well that if she had lived a few hundred years ago, she would have been burned at the stake, and her decision apparently had been to distract him. "Okay, but I'll hold you to it. So, do you want to hear about the most boring conference speaker in the history of forensics?"
His velvet laugh reached over the phone line and tickled her ear. "Sure." He settled back into his chair to listen. By the time they finally hung up, he sounded totally like himself, and Calleigh felt a little more reassured. Still, she would be glad to see him tomorrow night.
***
Eric got to CSI early the next morning. He and Speed were going to process Marcella's apartment this morning, and he needed to pick up the field kits. When he entered the lab, though, Horatio was already there, running tests himself. Eric hesitated, looking him up and down and wondering if he'd had any sleep at all. "Hey, H. You're here early."
"Couldn't sleep," said Horatio, "so I thought I'd get a head start on the evidence in that beach case. It looks like an easy one, though." Actually, he had been able to get to sleep; he'd just decided at 2:30 AM that he didn't want to sleep any longer. The whole night to that point had been a repeating three-phase nightmare. The first part was Marcella in the open grave, with her face eaten away by acid. Somehow, though, while he was kneeling by the grave, checking out her body, it suddenly changed to the body of his mother in the kitchen where she had died, and Horatio was kneeling next to her with her blood covering his hands and clothes. The third part of the nightmare, the part that was real, was waking up alone with Calleigh not there. Horatio suddenly realized that Eric was watching him with concern and gave his friend a half-hearted smile. "I'm okay, Eric."
"Right." Eric started collecting a field kit.
"Are you processing her place this morning?"
"Yeah, I'm meeting Speed over there."
"Where did she live?" Eric looked up for a minute, surprised. "No, I don't know. I hadn't seen her or talked to her in eight years." Eric gave him the address, and Horatio considered it. "Pretty good neighborhood. She must have been doing well." His mind jumped back to the image of her body without a face, and he shuddered slightly, then turned back to his tests on the beach case.
"We'll get him, H," said Eric.
"I know. You'd better get over there. Speed will beat you, and you'd never live it down." Eric grinned, and Horatio smiled back at him, but there was still no humor in it. Eric collected what he needed and left, and Horatio turned back to the tests, trying to focus on this victim, this evidence. But his mind kept tracking off again on the other case, and it would always somehow wind up, not at the open grave, but in his mother's kitchen.
***
Speed stood staring at the biggest dilemma of his CSI career. He was in Marcella's bedroom, working at picking up any evidence. She obviously hadn't been killed here - there would have been blood spatter from her heart wound - but the killer might have been here at some point earlier. So Speed went through the standard routines, carefully looking for trace evidence, working it like any other case up until he checked the bed. In the sheets, he had found two hairs. Red hairs. Length, texture, and color were all identical to the ones he had spent yesterday processing, the one from Marcella's body and the matching sample Horatio had given him. Of course, the DNA tests would have to be run, but Speed knew instantly, like a hard blow to the gut, that these two would match the others. But Horatio had told Eric he'd never been here, didn't even know the address. Speed believed him. But if he reported this evidence, it would point straight to Horatio as the prime suspect. And if he didn't report it, he would be compromising every standard Horatio as his mentor had taught him.
"Speedle." He turned around, surprised. Eric hardly ever used his full name. Eric was standing in the door of the bedroom, looking sick.
"What's wrong, man?"
"Come here." Eric led the way back into the study, where he had been processing the desk. In the center of the polished wooden surface were three letters. "I found those in her desk drawer. Read them."
Speed picked up the first one, his eyes immediately leaping to the signature at the bottom. He knew it, had seen it thousands of times on reports and case files. On his own yearly performance evaluations. On the marriage license he and Eric had signed as witnesses. Horatio. His eyes came back up and met Eric's.
"Read it."
Speed read it. The words were almost as acid as the substance that had destroyed Marcella's face. His hands shaking slightly, Speed picked up the other two letters. More of the same. All typewritten, but signed at the bottom. Horatio. Speed felt as sick as Eric looked. "He didn't write these. He's not capable of it."
"I know," said Eric. "But it is his signature. I'd swear it's his signature."
"Someone's setting him up." Speed explained his own discovery of the hairs. "We thought the one yesterday was accidental contamination, but I don't think so now. How could somebody get some of his hair?"
"Break in? Steal it from his comb?" Eric suggested. "But how could somebody get his signature on these letters? If that's forgery, it's first class."
"Maybe they were buried in a stack of other papers, and he was just signing through them."
Eric snorted. "Have you ever in your life seen H sign something without reading it?"
"No." Speed thought it out. "And he'd never sign blank papers and give them to somebody, either." He met his friend's eyes, and they stared at the dilemma together. "We have to report this. We can't hide evidence. Even if it's planted."
"I know. H wouldn't want us to hide it. But who hates him enough to frame him for murder?"
"Can't be an average crook out for revenge. Who would know his ex-wife's name and address?" Speed wondered. "Hell, we didn't even know his ex- wife's name."
"We've got to warn him," said Eric. They both almost ran for the door and nearly crashed into Tripp as he came through.
"Speedle, Delko, found anything yet?" An agonized glance passed between the two CSIs. Tripp saw it, and he wasn't known for his patience. "What is this, a Quaker meeting? Speak up. Have you found anything yet?"
Eric stared at the letters he was holding, at the envelope with the hairs Speed was holding. He thought of Horatio, his friend, his boss, his mentor. Horatio was special in many ways, but perhaps the strongest was his unfailing integrity. The integrity that he demonstrated every day to them on the job. Eric took a deep breath and apologized mentally to his friend. "Yes, we have."
***
Speed and Eric broke the speed limit back to CSI. The elevator was too slow. They galloped up the stairs side by side and burst into the glass- lined beehive with such vigor that everyone working there stared at them. Speed hooked the nearest person. "Tyler, where's Horatio?"
"In the interrogation room. They pulled in a prime suspect on that beach murder. H is breaking him now." Speed and Eric were gone before he even finished the sentence. They stopped at the interrogation room window. Horatio was obviously at a critical point in this one, leaning forward slightly, head tilted, nailing the probable perp with the full laser force of his eyes. For some reason, even with the urgency of their mission, Eric and Speed stood on the other side of the one-way glass and watched him for a minute. The brilliance, the dedication, the passion for justice. There was no possible way Horatio had written those letters. If the evidence said he did, it was wrong. Speed lifted his hand to knock on the door, and at that moment, the perp inside the room broke wide open, like they had seen so many others. Horatio leaned forward, nailing in the coffin lid, and the detective came around the table with the handcuffs. The trio came out of the room, Horatio walking behind, watching the murderer with sad satisfaction. Justice was done, but he still regretted that it had been needed in the first place.
"H, we've got to talk to you." The urgency in Eric's voice stopped him in his tracks.
"What's wrong?"
"We found . . . " They had waited too long watching the interrogation. Even as Speed started his explanation, he saw Horatio's head lift suddenly, looking over his shoulder. He turned to see the captain, Tripp, and another man he didn't know heading down the hall.
"Lieutenant Caine, we need to talk to you." The captain's voice was regretful but firm. Behind him, Tripp looked at the floor, not meeting his eyes. What the hell, Horatio thought. Tripp not wanting to meet his eyes? The captain glanced at Eric and Speed, and at the curious coworkers who were starting to pay attention around them. "You might prefer it to be private."
"These are my friends," said Horatio. "Whatever it is, we can talk in front of them."
The captain sighed. "Your call. It's about your ex-wife's murder. You hadn't seen her in eight years?"
"Right. Or talked to her." Horatio's tone was puzzled.
"This morning, two of your CSIs found these letters in her apartment. Also some hairs in her bed which they are confident will match one already found on the body. Your hairs." The captain held out the letters. Horatio read them slowly. More CSIs were gathering around the fringes now. They were waiting for Horatio to put it all together, to explain everything, including proving his innocence. It didn't happen. The blue eyes were utterly stunned. He looked like he had been knocked unconscious but his body had forgotten to fall.
The captain reached out and took the letters back from Horatio's slack fingers. His voice was still regretful. He hated this himself. "Can you explain these letters?"
Horatio's tongue unfroze. "I didn't . . . I could never write that."
"It is your signature, though."
"Yes, it is." None of them had ever seen him look bewildered before. That was almost more frightening than the thought of someone framing him.
"Someone's setting him up," Speed insisted.
"The murder apparently happened on April 4th. Can you account for your movements that day?"
A slight spark of life woke in the eyes. "I was with Calleigh. All week. We were on vacation, and we never even left the house all week. I've got an alibi for every second of April 4th."
"You never even went out for errands?"
"We never even opened the door. We were together 24/7. All week." Horatio knew it sounded odd, saw the thought in the captain's eyes. If he was working this case himself, he'd call that too good of an alibi, a preplanned alibi.
"Where is Mrs. Caine?"
"She's at a conference upstate. She'll be back tonight."
The captain sighed. "Look, in view of your exemplary record for more than 20 years, we're willing to consider the possibility that you are being set up for this crime."
"The possibility?" Speed sputtered.
"But," the captain's voice overrode the trace expert's, "we cannot ignore this evidence."
"Of course not," said Horatio.
"We will talk to your wife about the alibi. But at the moment, I'm afraid we have no choice. Lieutenant Caine, you are hereby suspended without pay until further notice while this investigation continues. And you are not to leave the city of Miami." The captain indicated the third man, the unknown one. "This is Lieutenant Wilson. He is temporarily in charge of CSI."
Wilson stepped forward cockily, looking around. A crowd of more than 20 people had formed around them now, all staring in shocked horror. Mount Rushmore was crumbling. "All of you, get back to work. Now! You have jobs to do, and I intend to see that you do them."
"Go to hell," said Eric fiercely, stepping forward.
"Eric." Horatio's voice froze Eric in his tracks. There was an icing of affection and gratitude spread over the top of the admonition, but it was still an admonition. Eric reluctantly backed down.
"One more thing," said the captain. "Since you are suspended, we will need you to surrender the keys to city-owned vehicles and your weapon. And I am sorry, Horatio."
Moving in slow motion, Horatio pulled out his key ring and removed the keys to his Hummer. He handed them to the captain. "The gun is mine," he said softly. "It was a wedding gift." He met the captain's eyes for a minute. His weren't accusing, but the captain looked down first. Horatio turned away.
"Horatio." For the first time, he spotted Alexx in the crowd of onlookers. She had pulled out her own car keys, and now she held them out to him. Without a word, he took them from her and slowly headed for the elevator. No one said anything and no one moved until the doors had slid shut behind him.
"Get back to work!" Wilson insisted. "I'll go check out my office." Eric fought the fury down and headed for his own workstation. Slowly, the crowd dispersed as they all resumed work, not because of Wilson's orders but out of respect for Horatio and what they knew he would want them to do. At least, their bodies resumed work. Their minds had all accompanied that tall lonely figure, entering the elevator without a backward glance and only flinching slightly as the doors snapped closed behind him, shutting him off from CSI.
***
"I am the Ghost of Christmas Past." "Long past?" inquired Scrooge. . . "No. Your past."
Charles Dickens, "A Christmas Carol."
***
Horatio sat at his desk in his office, doing paperwork. He had deliberately picked the most mundane task he could think of, to try to convince himself that the world was an orderly place. His mind was far from orderly at the moment, though.
"Horatio?" He looked up at Alexx, standing uncertainly in the door of his office. She obviously wasn't sure whether he wanted to talk or not. He nodded toward the chair in front of his desk, and she came across to sit down. He didn't even notice she had coffee until she handed him one of the cups.
"Thanks," he said, taking a gulp. It burned his tongue, but it was worth it.
Alexx didn't ask if he was okay. She didn't want to force him to lie to her. The lie would only add to the things bothering him at the moment. "Horatio," she started gently, "I really think you should get out of this case and leave it to the boys."
"I'm already off it," he said. He had no intention of making himself work this one. Justice needed to be done, but he had confidence in his team, and he knew his own limits, even if he didn't admit them.
Alexx let out a small sigh of relief. He apparently was going to be reasonable. "I also think you ought to call Calleigh and get her to come back tonight." She modified her assessment, watching his expression. He wasn't going to be that reasonable.
"She's speaking at that conference tomorrow morning. It's been planned for months, and they've paid all her expenses already. Everyone at the conference is expecting her. She has an obligation there. I'll tell her, but not until after the conference is over. Besides, it's a real honor for her. She deserves it."
He did want her to come back, Alexx could tell. Having finally discovered how to share problems with someone, he no longer wanted to be alone in them. But he would never rank himself ahead of an obligation. She sighed again, this time in exasperation. Telling him to think of himself for once would be pointless, like telling him to stop breathing. At least he didn't seem to be totally shutting down and denying that anything was wrong this time. Calleigh had gotten under his defenses. If she knew, she would come back tonight, obligations or not.
Horatio read her mind. "I don't want you calling her and telling her to come back tonight either. I'll be alright. I hadn't even seen Marcella in eight years. I mourned for her a long time ago."
Alexx leaned forward slightly, meeting his eyes. "As a wife, maybe, but not as a person. And to see her like that. . ."
"I kept thinking something was familiar at the scene, but I couldn't pin it down. I can't believe I didn't recognize her, though, even without a face."
"Her own mother wouldn't have recognized her." She saw him recoil and knew instantly that it was the wrong thing to say, but she wasn't sure why.
Horatio took another quick gulp of coffee as the mental image of Marcella was replaced by the far worse one of his mother, whose face had also been destroyed beyond recognition. That one, at least, he knew how to deal with now, thanks to Calleigh. He closed his eyes and pictured his mother in life, with all the warmth and strength of her personality. It worked after a few seconds, and he opened his eyes to find Alexx watching him worriedly. "I don't want you calling Calleigh," he repeated. "Let her get through her presentation tomorrow. She'll be back tomorrow night anyway."
Alexx hesitated. How far should she intervene in the name of friendship? She reluctantly decided to leave it alone. It was only one more day. There was no reason why she couldn't try to fill in for Calleigh a bit in the meantime, though. She couldn't replace her, but anything was better than nothing. "All right, then, I won't. But I want you to come home with me after work tonight," she said. "I'll make spaghetti and meatballs." She knew it was one of his favorites.
He accepted the distraction. Calleigh really was making progress with him, Alexx thought. "Okay, I will. Thank you, Alexx." His cell phone rang at that moment, and he answered. Alexx continued watching him during the conversation. How much can one man be asked to deal with in life? It just isn't fair, she thought.
Horatio ended the call. "There's another case down by the beach. I'll take this one myself."
Losing himself in work would probably be good for him. "See you later, then." She reached out and gave his arm a light, sympathetic squeeze as he went by. He hesitated for a second, then went on. Alexx sat there alone in his office for a long time after he left, staring at the phone, but she did not call Calleigh.
***
"Hey, H!" Speed's voice halted Horatio right before he exited CSI. He turned around to face the trace expert.
Speed came up to him uncertainly. He wasn't sure what to say to people half the time under normal circumstances, and he was really lost here. Communication had never been his forte. "Um, I'm sorry, H."
"Thank you, Speed." Horatio took the words for the intent. "You and Eric be sure to find this perp."
"We will. I need something from you, though. You know that hair that Alexx found stuck in all the . . . um, on the body?"
"Yes. Have you matched it?"
"There is a root, but that DNA isn't in the system. I was thinking, though. It really looks like one of your hairs. About the same color, anyway. You were leaning right over the body in the grave, checking her out, and I wondered if it could be accidental contamination."
"So you want a sample from me to try to match."
"Right." Horatio pulled out a couple of hairs and handed them to him. "Thanks, H."
"Speed?" Speed looked back on his way to the lab. "Keep me posted, okay?"
"Will do." Speed headed for trace to try to match DNA.
Horatio entered the elevator, hoping devoutly that this newest vic was someone he'd never seen in his life. It almost had to be, though. He was really running short of people close to him who hadn't already been killed. "You aren't a jinx," he reminded himself. The elevator doors opened, and he pulled himself together and collected the Hummer. When he arrived at the crime scene 20 minutes later, he was the picture of calm professionalism, as always, and the detective coming across to meet him wondered admiringly if anything could ever ruffle that man.
***
Horatio unlocked his front door and came in, instantly turning on every light switch close at hand to make it a little less lonely. He went into the kitchen to get a drink out of the fridge and saw the answering machine light blinking. He hit the button, and Calleigh's voice filled the room. "Hey, Handsome. It's 9:00, and if you're still working now, you shouldn't be. In one hour, I'll send out a posse to arrest you and drag you out of CSI. I love you. Give me a call when you finally come up for air." Grinning, Horatio checked his watch. 9:35. He called her hotel room.
"Hello, beautiful."
"Hi. Where have you been? Trying to make up a week's work in one night?"
Horatio sat down at the kitchen table, smiling. Even the sound of her voice could erase stress. "Actually, Alexx invited me over for dinner. Spaghetti and meatballs. Then, I was playing with her kids until it was their bedtime. So I'm falsely accused. I wasn't working."
"Falsely accused tonight, maybe." Her voice trailed off a bit, and he knew she was thinking about the children. The one disappointment in their marriage so far was that Calleigh had not gotten pregnant yet.
"We'll have our own someday. It's too soon to get worried, Cal. We haven't even been married a year yet."
"What if we can't have them, though?"
"Then we'll adopt some. How was your day?"
"Thrilling as most conferences I've been to. I'm already nervous about tomorrow, though."
"No reason. Just imagine me sitting out there, instead of all the audience. It'll be just like giving me a report on a case."
She smiled, and he heard it in her tone. "An audience of one. I like it. I do wish you were here."
"So do I." His tone was a little too fervent, and he almost saw the question mark rise out of the phone.
"Horatio? What's the matter?"
"We got a new case today that's pretty disturbing."
So that was why Alexx asked him over, Calleigh thought. She's trying to fill in for me. "What kind of case?"
He hesitated. "Calleigh, I really don't want to talk about it tonight. I just spent all evening working on forgetting about it. I'll tell you tomorrow night, okay?"
Calleigh wished she could see him, meet his eyes, to gauge the situation better. His unfailing strength was not itself a front - he was the most capable man she'd ever known - but he could use it as a front sometimes. It was very hard to measure just how much this case was bothering him from only his voice. Still, he wasn't denying that anything was wrong, just saying he didn't want to talk about it. She would see him tomorrow night, after all. She decided for the moment to accept Alexx's assessment. The ME read people so well that if she had lived a few hundred years ago, she would have been burned at the stake, and her decision apparently had been to distract him. "Okay, but I'll hold you to it. So, do you want to hear about the most boring conference speaker in the history of forensics?"
His velvet laugh reached over the phone line and tickled her ear. "Sure." He settled back into his chair to listen. By the time they finally hung up, he sounded totally like himself, and Calleigh felt a little more reassured. Still, she would be glad to see him tomorrow night.
***
Eric got to CSI early the next morning. He and Speed were going to process Marcella's apartment this morning, and he needed to pick up the field kits. When he entered the lab, though, Horatio was already there, running tests himself. Eric hesitated, looking him up and down and wondering if he'd had any sleep at all. "Hey, H. You're here early."
"Couldn't sleep," said Horatio, "so I thought I'd get a head start on the evidence in that beach case. It looks like an easy one, though." Actually, he had been able to get to sleep; he'd just decided at 2:30 AM that he didn't want to sleep any longer. The whole night to that point had been a repeating three-phase nightmare. The first part was Marcella in the open grave, with her face eaten away by acid. Somehow, though, while he was kneeling by the grave, checking out her body, it suddenly changed to the body of his mother in the kitchen where she had died, and Horatio was kneeling next to her with her blood covering his hands and clothes. The third part of the nightmare, the part that was real, was waking up alone with Calleigh not there. Horatio suddenly realized that Eric was watching him with concern and gave his friend a half-hearted smile. "I'm okay, Eric."
"Right." Eric started collecting a field kit.
"Are you processing her place this morning?"
"Yeah, I'm meeting Speed over there."
"Where did she live?" Eric looked up for a minute, surprised. "No, I don't know. I hadn't seen her or talked to her in eight years." Eric gave him the address, and Horatio considered it. "Pretty good neighborhood. She must have been doing well." His mind jumped back to the image of her body without a face, and he shuddered slightly, then turned back to his tests on the beach case.
"We'll get him, H," said Eric.
"I know. You'd better get over there. Speed will beat you, and you'd never live it down." Eric grinned, and Horatio smiled back at him, but there was still no humor in it. Eric collected what he needed and left, and Horatio turned back to the tests, trying to focus on this victim, this evidence. But his mind kept tracking off again on the other case, and it would always somehow wind up, not at the open grave, but in his mother's kitchen.
***
Speed stood staring at the biggest dilemma of his CSI career. He was in Marcella's bedroom, working at picking up any evidence. She obviously hadn't been killed here - there would have been blood spatter from her heart wound - but the killer might have been here at some point earlier. So Speed went through the standard routines, carefully looking for trace evidence, working it like any other case up until he checked the bed. In the sheets, he had found two hairs. Red hairs. Length, texture, and color were all identical to the ones he had spent yesterday processing, the one from Marcella's body and the matching sample Horatio had given him. Of course, the DNA tests would have to be run, but Speed knew instantly, like a hard blow to the gut, that these two would match the others. But Horatio had told Eric he'd never been here, didn't even know the address. Speed believed him. But if he reported this evidence, it would point straight to Horatio as the prime suspect. And if he didn't report it, he would be compromising every standard Horatio as his mentor had taught him.
"Speedle." He turned around, surprised. Eric hardly ever used his full name. Eric was standing in the door of the bedroom, looking sick.
"What's wrong, man?"
"Come here." Eric led the way back into the study, where he had been processing the desk. In the center of the polished wooden surface were three letters. "I found those in her desk drawer. Read them."
Speed picked up the first one, his eyes immediately leaping to the signature at the bottom. He knew it, had seen it thousands of times on reports and case files. On his own yearly performance evaluations. On the marriage license he and Eric had signed as witnesses. Horatio. His eyes came back up and met Eric's.
"Read it."
Speed read it. The words were almost as acid as the substance that had destroyed Marcella's face. His hands shaking slightly, Speed picked up the other two letters. More of the same. All typewritten, but signed at the bottom. Horatio. Speed felt as sick as Eric looked. "He didn't write these. He's not capable of it."
"I know," said Eric. "But it is his signature. I'd swear it's his signature."
"Someone's setting him up." Speed explained his own discovery of the hairs. "We thought the one yesterday was accidental contamination, but I don't think so now. How could somebody get some of his hair?"
"Break in? Steal it from his comb?" Eric suggested. "But how could somebody get his signature on these letters? If that's forgery, it's first class."
"Maybe they were buried in a stack of other papers, and he was just signing through them."
Eric snorted. "Have you ever in your life seen H sign something without reading it?"
"No." Speed thought it out. "And he'd never sign blank papers and give them to somebody, either." He met his friend's eyes, and they stared at the dilemma together. "We have to report this. We can't hide evidence. Even if it's planted."
"I know. H wouldn't want us to hide it. But who hates him enough to frame him for murder?"
"Can't be an average crook out for revenge. Who would know his ex-wife's name and address?" Speed wondered. "Hell, we didn't even know his ex- wife's name."
"We've got to warn him," said Eric. They both almost ran for the door and nearly crashed into Tripp as he came through.
"Speedle, Delko, found anything yet?" An agonized glance passed between the two CSIs. Tripp saw it, and he wasn't known for his patience. "What is this, a Quaker meeting? Speak up. Have you found anything yet?"
Eric stared at the letters he was holding, at the envelope with the hairs Speed was holding. He thought of Horatio, his friend, his boss, his mentor. Horatio was special in many ways, but perhaps the strongest was his unfailing integrity. The integrity that he demonstrated every day to them on the job. Eric took a deep breath and apologized mentally to his friend. "Yes, we have."
***
Speed and Eric broke the speed limit back to CSI. The elevator was too slow. They galloped up the stairs side by side and burst into the glass- lined beehive with such vigor that everyone working there stared at them. Speed hooked the nearest person. "Tyler, where's Horatio?"
"In the interrogation room. They pulled in a prime suspect on that beach murder. H is breaking him now." Speed and Eric were gone before he even finished the sentence. They stopped at the interrogation room window. Horatio was obviously at a critical point in this one, leaning forward slightly, head tilted, nailing the probable perp with the full laser force of his eyes. For some reason, even with the urgency of their mission, Eric and Speed stood on the other side of the one-way glass and watched him for a minute. The brilliance, the dedication, the passion for justice. There was no possible way Horatio had written those letters. If the evidence said he did, it was wrong. Speed lifted his hand to knock on the door, and at that moment, the perp inside the room broke wide open, like they had seen so many others. Horatio leaned forward, nailing in the coffin lid, and the detective came around the table with the handcuffs. The trio came out of the room, Horatio walking behind, watching the murderer with sad satisfaction. Justice was done, but he still regretted that it had been needed in the first place.
"H, we've got to talk to you." The urgency in Eric's voice stopped him in his tracks.
"What's wrong?"
"We found . . . " They had waited too long watching the interrogation. Even as Speed started his explanation, he saw Horatio's head lift suddenly, looking over his shoulder. He turned to see the captain, Tripp, and another man he didn't know heading down the hall.
"Lieutenant Caine, we need to talk to you." The captain's voice was regretful but firm. Behind him, Tripp looked at the floor, not meeting his eyes. What the hell, Horatio thought. Tripp not wanting to meet his eyes? The captain glanced at Eric and Speed, and at the curious coworkers who were starting to pay attention around them. "You might prefer it to be private."
"These are my friends," said Horatio. "Whatever it is, we can talk in front of them."
The captain sighed. "Your call. It's about your ex-wife's murder. You hadn't seen her in eight years?"
"Right. Or talked to her." Horatio's tone was puzzled.
"This morning, two of your CSIs found these letters in her apartment. Also some hairs in her bed which they are confident will match one already found on the body. Your hairs." The captain held out the letters. Horatio read them slowly. More CSIs were gathering around the fringes now. They were waiting for Horatio to put it all together, to explain everything, including proving his innocence. It didn't happen. The blue eyes were utterly stunned. He looked like he had been knocked unconscious but his body had forgotten to fall.
The captain reached out and took the letters back from Horatio's slack fingers. His voice was still regretful. He hated this himself. "Can you explain these letters?"
Horatio's tongue unfroze. "I didn't . . . I could never write that."
"It is your signature, though."
"Yes, it is." None of them had ever seen him look bewildered before. That was almost more frightening than the thought of someone framing him.
"Someone's setting him up," Speed insisted.
"The murder apparently happened on April 4th. Can you account for your movements that day?"
A slight spark of life woke in the eyes. "I was with Calleigh. All week. We were on vacation, and we never even left the house all week. I've got an alibi for every second of April 4th."
"You never even went out for errands?"
"We never even opened the door. We were together 24/7. All week." Horatio knew it sounded odd, saw the thought in the captain's eyes. If he was working this case himself, he'd call that too good of an alibi, a preplanned alibi.
"Where is Mrs. Caine?"
"She's at a conference upstate. She'll be back tonight."
The captain sighed. "Look, in view of your exemplary record for more than 20 years, we're willing to consider the possibility that you are being set up for this crime."
"The possibility?" Speed sputtered.
"But," the captain's voice overrode the trace expert's, "we cannot ignore this evidence."
"Of course not," said Horatio.
"We will talk to your wife about the alibi. But at the moment, I'm afraid we have no choice. Lieutenant Caine, you are hereby suspended without pay until further notice while this investigation continues. And you are not to leave the city of Miami." The captain indicated the third man, the unknown one. "This is Lieutenant Wilson. He is temporarily in charge of CSI."
Wilson stepped forward cockily, looking around. A crowd of more than 20 people had formed around them now, all staring in shocked horror. Mount Rushmore was crumbling. "All of you, get back to work. Now! You have jobs to do, and I intend to see that you do them."
"Go to hell," said Eric fiercely, stepping forward.
"Eric." Horatio's voice froze Eric in his tracks. There was an icing of affection and gratitude spread over the top of the admonition, but it was still an admonition. Eric reluctantly backed down.
"One more thing," said the captain. "Since you are suspended, we will need you to surrender the keys to city-owned vehicles and your weapon. And I am sorry, Horatio."
Moving in slow motion, Horatio pulled out his key ring and removed the keys to his Hummer. He handed them to the captain. "The gun is mine," he said softly. "It was a wedding gift." He met the captain's eyes for a minute. His weren't accusing, but the captain looked down first. Horatio turned away.
"Horatio." For the first time, he spotted Alexx in the crowd of onlookers. She had pulled out her own car keys, and now she held them out to him. Without a word, he took them from her and slowly headed for the elevator. No one said anything and no one moved until the doors had slid shut behind him.
"Get back to work!" Wilson insisted. "I'll go check out my office." Eric fought the fury down and headed for his own workstation. Slowly, the crowd dispersed as they all resumed work, not because of Wilson's orders but out of respect for Horatio and what they knew he would want them to do. At least, their bodies resumed work. Their minds had all accompanied that tall lonely figure, entering the elevator without a backward glance and only flinching slightly as the doors snapped closed behind him, shutting him off from CSI.