Nick Stokes and Catherine Willows were now two hours into wading in ankle-deep garbage in Mason Ziegler's bedroom and they had come up empty-handed so far, but they had managed to clean a good part of it. They could now see the carpet, which was in desperate need of a steam cleaner, underneath all the clothes and rubbish and CD's…and petrified food.
"Ugh. Remind me to never eat pizza again," Catherine groaned as she held up a plate with an aged slice of pizza on it and turned the plate upside down. She and Nick watched in horror as the slice of pizza didn't fall—just stuck to the plate. Not only that, it was rock hard.
"Same here," Nick winced. "Jeez. I'm starting to think inactivity was not Hannah Ziegler's only reason for kicking Mason out of the house."
"I can only hope and pray Lindsey never gets this bad," said Catherine as she shook out the sheets of Mason's makeshift bed, the mattress-and-box-spring deal. "Nick? Help me lift this mattress?"
Nick shuffled over and took one side of the mattress by it's handles and Catherine took the other.
"Count of three?" Nick asked.
"Go for it."
"One…two…three!"
They lifted and managed to plop it onto the floor. It landed softly, cushioned by the piles of garbage and such. They heard something crack, possibly a CD case, but they weren't interested in that. The only interest they had was the drug paraphernalia hidden beneath the mattress.
"Holy shit," Nick chuckled, taking his hat off and wiping his brow with his forearm. "Some surprise, huh, Cath?"
"Never would have guessed," Catherine murmured sarcastically, kneeling to examine it all.
Mason had, for the better part, been very creative in "hiding" his bongs and pipes. He had cut out a large square of fabric that covered the box spring and filled the hollow to the brim with every piece of drug paraphernalia he owned.
"Bag it all," was Catherine's solution.
"Hey, Cath, ever see the movie Half-Baked?" Nick asked as he picked up a rather large party bong, one that Mason had in there lengthwise. It stood at least two feet tall. "Meet the star—Billy Bong Thorton."
"Very funny, Stokes."
"Nah, dude," Nick said, making his voice spacey and disconnected, not unlike Zip outside. "That's Smokes."
"I pity your future children," Catherine shook her head and pulled her hair back with an elastic band. "Let's bag it, drag it back to the lab…and pray we don't get pulled over," Catherine smirked. "Then we dust it for prints and test for DNA, obviously."
"What if these things are new? Maybe this is how Mason kept coming up with the cash to stay here? Meinka did say she thought he was drug dealing. Maybe he's selling accessories, too."
Catherine picked up one of the pipes and sniffed it. "Well, I don't smell anything on these things."
"Could be cleaned after each usage," shrugged Nick.
"Nick, look around you. Mason wasn't exactly the cleanest human being on planet Earth. You'd really expect he'd remember to clean each and every pipe he used? They'd have to be new."
"Point taken," Nick replied.
By the time Nick and Catherine finished emptying out the box spring, the sun was beginning to set and they had a hefty collection of thirty-two pipes, seventeen bongs and four dozen lighters.
"My God," Catherine stood back, amazed.
Nick, however, was confused, "Wait a sec…all this equipment and no pot?"
"Hmm, you're right. Looks like we'll have to delve deeper."
"Can I get some fresh air first? I think I may catch a disease if I stay here any longer. When I get home I am taking a long, scalding hot shower."
Just as Catherine was about to agree, there was a knock on the doorframe. They turned and saw Greg Ziegler.
"Hey," he said, his voice throaty. "You do windows too?" He was now dressed down considerably. He was not wearing his button-down shirt anymore, but a white wife-beater stained with paint and clay. His hair was tousled and his glasses were off. His hiking boots were replaced by pair of rubber thongs and a small tattoo of a tribal-looking alligator was on the top of his right foot.
"Hello," Nick nodded. "Been working as hard as us?"
Greg looked down at his wife-beater. "Uh, yeah. I'm working on a collection of drinking vessels to bring to the next show Meinka and I have. Our work is being featured there, so we've been toiling over a hot pottery wheel for weeks. We've been putting in a lot of overtime, especially now, since Mason's…" his voice trailed off and sounded choked with sobs.
"We understand," Catherine said quickly. It was obvious Greg had been working through the pain of his little brother's death.
"Are you guys done?" Greg cocked his head, changing the subject.
"Not even close," Catherine sighed.
Greg craned his neck behind the CSI's and widened his eyes. "What the hell is that?"
Nick looked over his shoulder. "Uh, some things we found in Mason's box spring."
"That's more than a few things," Greg said angrily and pulled his glasses from the pocket of jeans and put them on and went into the room, kneeling in front of the long line of evidence bags Nick and Catherine had placed on a cleared square of carpet. "God-damn it."
"Greg," Nick said, "where do you think this came from?"
"I can tell you what I think," Greg replied, looking at Nick over his shoulder. "But I'm afraid I'm wrong."
"Tell us what you think then," Catherine said.
"I think," Greg wrinkled his brow, "that Cole gave him this shit. He's the only one who's capable."
"Cole? The bald one?"
"Yes. His full name is Coltrane Carter," Greg said slowly. "I can give you the names of the other peanuts, too."
"Great, great," Nick gave a broad smile and pulled a small pad and pen from his vest. "Hit me, Greg."
"Well besides Coltrane Carter," Greg said, "there's Daniel Friedman, also known as Zip; Marcus Orasmyn, who goes by Freak and then the aptly named Evan Baker."
"Got it," Nick scribbled furiously. "Thanks. This should help. Zip, or rather, Daniel had said earlier that he'd give us their real names…but he couldn't remember them."
"Mason, Cole, Dan, Marcus and Evan have been tight since junior high," Greg said. "They were together a lot."
"What do you think about Mason possibly in the drug dealing game?"
"Drug dealing?" Greg gave an expression that made him look as if he's bitten into a rotten walnut. "What would give you that idea?"
"I suggested it," came a fourth voice.
Greg whirled around. "Meinka? What made you think that?"
"Because Mason never worked," said Meinka. She was standing just outside the door, still topless in her overalls, but her hair was now piled on top of her head in a bun/beehive hybrid. Her peace sign earrings shone in the dimness of the corridor. "Sure he went, but who knows how often? He never gave us a check, Greg, only cash and we both know Steve Markham would never pay under the table. He must have been doing something else!"
"But drug dealing?"
"What else did he know? What else could he do? He could not even clean his room like a normal human being! Wake up, Greg, welcome to reality!"
Greg's face froze in anger. His shoulders tensed and so did Catherine. She would be ready to pounce if he should act violent toward his girlfriend. Instead, Greg gave Meinka a nasty glare and said, "Go back up to the studio, Meinka."
Angrily, Meinka crossed her arms across her bosom. "I'm not going anywhere. This is my house too, Greg. I pay half the bills; I eat, sleep and live here and I have as much as right as you to know what's going on within it."
"Just what are you implying?"
Catherine cleared her throat and the squabbling couple looked at her. "Just keep in mind," she said, "neither of you will know anything until CSI Stokes and I know, and right now, we haven't a clue."
"So cool your jets," Nick added as an afterthought.
Greg sighed, hung his head and mumbled an apology and then something about calling his mother. He stormed out of the room, even pushing Meinka aside to get away. Then they heard the front door open and then slam closed.
After a few moments of silence, Meinka stepped out of the shadowy corridor. "Sorry about that," she said. "He's been in a really bad way, and—"
"It's okay," Nick assured her.
"He's probably going to take out his anger on a helpless slab of clay. He needs to relax. You know, up till this point, I think Greg believed his little brother could do no wrong. He hates hearing the truth. I guess you could say his glasses are rose-colored." She stepped further into Mason's bedroom and looked around. "It looks halfway decent in here. I can't remember the last time I saw the carpet," she said. "What are you going to do with all the…you know, the pipes and stuff?"
"Well, they're evidence," he said. "They're going back to CSI with us."
"Good," Meinka replied, putting her hands in the pockets of her overalls. "Just as long as they never come back into the house again."
"Nope. You won't be seeing these babies for a long time."
Meinka gave a hearty nod. "Great. Because we don't need anything like that here anymore. Hopefully with Mason gone, his friends will disappear as well."
"Don't blame you for wanting that," Catherine said.
"And I meant what I said about Mason, you know, drug dealing," she continued. "I wouldn't lie about something like that. I have no reason to. I'll readily admit that I didn't like Mason but I would never—"
"It's okay Meinka," Catherine assured the young woman. "We don't doubt it."
Meinka pressed her lips together and then her eyes darted around the room. "If I were you," she said softly. "I'd unzip the mattress."
"'Unzip the mattress'?" repeated the CSI's in chorus.
Instead of answering, Meinka just left the room. They waited for the sound of the front door to close for them to speak again. Catherine turned to Nick,
"Did she just say—"
"Unzip the mattress," Nick nodded. "Yeah. She did."
"Shall we?"
"We shall."
Nick and Catherine had, only ten minutes before Greg Ziegler appeared, dragged Mason's mattress into the hallway and until now it had held no particular interest in it—it had been only the box spring thus far.
"So we should look for some kind of zipper?" Nick asked. "She did use the phrase 'unzip'."
"I guess so," Catherine said. "Help me turn this upright."
They grabbed the side handles of the twin-sized mattress and turned it vertical. With flashlights they looked over the mattress, searching for a glint of a zipper.
"Found it," Nick announced. "Down here."
Catherine stood at the foot of the mattress, behind Nick, to see what he saw. The "zipper" looked as if it was not meant to be there. It looked as if someone had bought a zipper attachment at a craft store and stitched it on. However, the workmanship was poor and it was shoddily sewn.
"Now, I'm no Martha Stewart, but even I can sew a straight line," Catherine said. "That's got to be the worst sewing job I've ever seen. See how the stitches are big and crooked?"
"I can do worse," Nick shrugged. "Is that…blood?"
Catherine leaned in, her flashlight shining on the small brownish-red stains surrounding parts of the zipper, "Someone must've poked himself with the needle."
"Or herself."
"No. It must be a he. Meinka doesn't look like the sort of girl who would stab herself with a needle."
"Well, there's only one way to find out. Hand me a swab?"
Catherine went to her field kit just outside the doorway and handed Nick a swab and an envelope. When he was done, he stood, turned to her and said, "Ms. Willows, would you like to do the honors?"
"I'd be honored to do the honors," Catherine fluttered her eyelashes in mock flirtation and reached over. She grasped the zipper pull and tugged. It opened easily once she got it going. When it was done, nothing magically fell out, as she was hoping. She was not ready to stick her hand in there.
"Well, what's the big deal?" Nick put his hands on his hips.
"I have a feeling that I'd rather put my hand in the mouth of a komodo dragon."
"Want me to take care of it?"
"No," Catherine replied, quickly. "Just…gimme a sec."
Catherine pulled her glove as high as it would go without it tearing and, tongue between her teeth, stuck her hand into the gap. She felt around for a few seconds, not really sure what she was looking for, until she felt…something. Her facial expression must have changed dramatically because Nick eagerly asked what she'd found.
"I don't know yet," she answered. "Wait…got it!"
She grabbed hold of what felt like plastic wrap, or a plastic bag, and withdrew it. What she extracted was not one, but two jumbo-sized bags of marijuana.
"Well, we'd spent nearly four hours searching the bedroom of a pothead and we didn't find any pot. Voila," Catherine added sarcastically. "Catch, Nicky."
She tossed the bags to him and he caught them like a baseball. His nose crinkled.
"Phew. You can smell this stuff through the bag!" Nick held out both bags. "These are gallon-sized! Do you know how much this stuff would go on the streets?"
"Well, whatever the amount," Catherine sighed as she handed Nick an evidence bag, "It cost Mason Ziegler his life."