A Little Bit of Texas: Speed
Part Two
A couple of weeks later Speed and Calleigh showed up at a crime scene, and walked into their first case with Detective Dayna Campbell.
"CSI?" was the first thing she said when she saw the pair walking into the apartment.
"That's right. I'm Calleigh Duquesne and this is Tim Speedle," Calleigh held out her hand to the detective.
The detective shook hands with Calleigh, saying, "Please call me Dayna. Good to meet you," then shook with Tim. "Glad to know you."
She once again had her long brown hair pulled back into a ponytail, wearing black jeans and a scooped neck grey t-shirt tucked in. The badge was still on a chain around her neck, and Speed could see a silver chain around her neck, but still couldn't see the pendant. She had on mascara and lipstick, but no other make-up. She had pierced ears; a single jade stud in each ear. Standing next to her Speed could smell her perfume, which was a subtle floral scent, reminding him of honeysuckle.
While Calleigh and Speed opened up their cases and got ready to start working the scene Speed looked up at Dayna, "What've we got?"
Dayna's eyebrows drew down slightly as she said, "What it looks like is a murder/suicide. Apparently the husband, a man named Kirk Grear, came home last night, shot his wife Cathy, then himself."
"Neighbors hear the shots?"
"Nope, no one heard anything. The kid who cleans the pool called it in. He was working and happened to look in the window. When you get to the room you'll see feathers everywhere. That could explain the lack of noise."
"We'll get to work." Calleigh said.
Speed hesitated, looking at the detective, who was faintly frowning as she stared into the hallway leading to the crime scene.
"Something, Detective?"
She snapped out of her contemplation, focusing her eyes on him, "Dayna. I don't know yet. I think I'm making this more complicated than it needs to be." She started walking with him to the room, "It just feels a little too neat to me."
When Speed looked into the room all he could see at first glance were feathers and blood, covering most of the room. There was blood spatter high up on the wall to the right, with feathers mixed into the gore. His eyes followed the wall down, and saw the body of a man, the back of his head missing. Across the room, to the left, Alexx knelt next to the body of a woman. More blood covered the sofa behind her, and more feathers. Feathers had drifted between the two bodies as well, blessedly free from red stain.
Dayna turned to Speed, "Neat in more of a metaphorical sense, I mean."
Speed looked at her for a second, the side of his mouth twitching, then went in and got to work.
Dayna stopped at the threshold of the room, "Do you have anything yet, Alexx?"
"Liver temp on this one puts the time of death between one and four a.m."
"And the man?"
"Haven't gotten to him yet, sugar."
"Right. Sorry. I'll just wait right here until you get done."
Alexx looked at Dayna, standing in the doorway, arms crossed across her chest, "Is there something bothering you?"
"Yeah. Trouble is, I don't know what it is yet. Just keep your eye out for something...just something, okay?"
"Always do," Alexx said with a smile. "Why don't you see if the transport for the bodies has arrived yet?"
"Translation: Get out of your hair. You got it," Dayna walked away from the room.
"Where does she get off, telling you how to do your job?" Calleigh asked angrily as soon as Dayna was out of earshot.
"I don't think she meant anything by it. I think she's got a feeling, and there's no way for her to follow up on it until we get done. You have a problem waiting on other people too, Calleigh, so you should know how it is," Alexx gently chided her, walking over to the man's body.
"I know, but I don't tell people how to do their jobs."
Speed stopped taking pictures for a minute, "Well, there was that time you told me how to process a mask."
"Okay, you know what, let's just all get back to work."
Dayna came back with the transporters a few minutes later. Alexx had finished her preliminary investigation by that time, and the bodies could be moved to the post-mortem theater.
Dayna looked at her, eyebrows raised.
"Keith's liver temp was the same as Cathy's. It's the same time window. I'll page you when I have something more for you."
"Hey Alexx," Speed called out, and then looked at her questioningly.
"I'll page everybody, okay?" Alexx smiled, shaking her head, as she followed the transporters out of the room.
"I'll get out of here before I step on anyone else's toes. I'll call y'all in a few hours, see if anything has turned up."
Speed nodded at her, then turned back to his work. Calleigh hadn't even acknowledged her leaving.
Back at the lab, Speed and Calleigh started on the evidence they had collected. They had gathered enough to keep them busy for several days. If nothing appeared soon to contradict the apparent murder/suicide angle, however, they wouldn't end up processing all of it. Other crimes that needed their skills where happening all the time in Miami, and this appeared to be an open and shut case. GSR was found on the hand of Kirk, and nothing in the evidence appeared out of the ordinary until the blood results came in.
When Dayna called Speed told her the news.
"Ruffies?" Dayna asked. "Both of them?"
"Yeah. That will make it harder to track down. It's very popular here; the date-rape drug of choice in Miami. With these levels in the blood they both would have been incapacitated. Keith couldn't have killed Cathy or himself."
"Okay, so what evidence do we have of a third...Speedle, hold on a sec," Her voice sounded like she had moved the phone down, away from her mouth, but hadn't covered the mouthpiece. "Yeah, he's still in there. We're going in as soon as the warrant is signed." She spoke to Speed again, "'Kay, I'm back."
"What's going on?"
"One of my other cases. It might even be wrapping up tonight, if all goes well. Have you found anything we can link to a third person?"
"Not yet, but we still have plenty to go through," Speed replied.
"How much longer are y'all going to be there?"
"I don't know. I'll be here a couple more hours, probably. I don't know about Calleigh."
"I don't think I'll be done here before then. I'll come by the lab first thing in the morning to coordinate the next steps. Thanks for the info, Speedle. See you then," Dayna hung up.
Calleigh looked at Speed, already looking hostile around her eyes, "Well?"
"She's coming by the lab tomorrow morning so we can all talk about where to go from here," Speed told her.
"Oh, good, I can hardly wait. We sure wouldn't know what to do next without her here," Calleigh said sarcastically.
Speed looked at her for a second. Then, "Okay, so why exactly are you so down on her?"
"She thinks she can come here and just take over!" Calleigh looked a little surprised at her own vehemence.
"Really? It hasn't seemed that way to me."
"She's got you fooled just like everyone else," Calleigh started to sound a little sulky, and Speed knew that would upset her more than even the new detective did. "Look, I don't know why I don't like her, or don't like working with her, but...I just don't."
"She seems to respect the evidence. That's more than a lot of detectives do. Even Hagen wants to ignore it on occasion, and he knows how often it breaks the cases."
"That's pretty much why we broke up. There's just something about her."
"Hey, maybe she just reminds you of someone who was mean to you as a kid or something," Speed decided to lighten the discussion up a little, hoping for a smile.
Calleigh did laugh a little, "That must be it. I'll try and figure it out later. Right now I want to finish up this run of tests and go home."
Calleigh left a little later, but Speed was there for hours more. It was worth it though; he found trace of a third person.
The next morning Speed was the last to arrive. There was no conversation in the room: the machine sounds of the lab, Calleigh walking between the machines, and Dayna's coffee mug being put on the counter abnormally loud in the room. Calleigh was running tests, while Dayna was going over reports.
Speed looked like hell, hair still wet from a morning shower, stubble thicker than normal on his face, and his eyes slightly blurry from sleep cut too short. Still, he looked better then the homicide detective. Dayna Campbell could be an entry into a walking dead contest. She obviously hadn't taken a shower yet; her hair was dirty and lank in her ever-present ponytail. She has smudges of dark skin under her heavily lidded eyes, and was wearing the same clothes as she had on the last time the CSIs had seen her, at the Grear crime scene early yesterday. They were now remarkable wrinkled, however. She was fighting back against the grey wave of sleep her body needed, judging from the coffee mug clenched in her right hand, and the empty can of Jolt cola next to her.
Speed could finally see what was on her necklace. It was a small silver pendent in the shape of Texas.
"So, you moved here from Texas?"
"Huh?" Dayna looked at him a little blurrily, her fingers reaching up to touch the pendent, almost like it was a talisman, "Oh. Yeah, I'm from Texas."
"So what brings you to Miami?" Speed asked.
Dayna looked at him a moment, then managed a small, tired smile, "The great state of Texas asked me to leave. Apparently I managed to piss off 51 of the population, and they voted me out." Dayna interrupted herself with a huge yawn, covering her mouth with her hand. "Excuse me. The interrogation took longer than expected. I haven't had any sleep yet, please forgive me if I don't contribute much to today's brain storming."
"So why are you here at all?" Calleigh asked her.
"I need to know what direction we're going to take, so I can keep up my end of the investigation."
"And you couldn't have done that with a phone call?" Calleigh retorted.
"I usually like to keep as much human contact as possible," Dayna replied, her face hardening under the layer of fatigue. "Is that all right with you?"
Calleigh opened her mouth to respond, but Speed stepped in. Every instinct he had screamed at him not to wade into a brewing catfight, but he had news and there was a case that needed to be worked.
"Yesterday we found some hair on the sofa. It's black hair and it's from a third party. The DNA marks it as male."
"So all we have to do is find the men in their lives with black hair and compare DNA," Calleigh said.
"Yeah," Speed continued to take the lead. "Calleigh and I will go back to the house and go through the other rooms, see what we can find."
"Right. I'll go through their phone records and the bills. See if there's anything that turns up there," Dayna said.
"Go home and get some sleep first, or you could miss something," Speed told her.
"Heh. Right now I wouldn't recognize a clue if I fell over it. I'll call if I find anything," Dayna nodded at Speed. She looked at Calleigh, "Duquesne" she said, then she left the lab.
"Calleigh, what the hell?" Speed asked when Dayna had left the room.
"Speed, leave it alone. I don't like her."
"You don't know her, and besides that, I've seen you treat murderers with more respect then you've been showing to one of our own, and she's been doing everything right."
"Alright Speed, I get it. Let's just get back to the house, all right? And I'll work on the way I react to the amazing Detective Campbell."
"Sure. Sounds good," Speed said, then started grumbling to himself, "Hey, when did I become the diplomatic one? I don't like it, it's against the natural order."
The CSIs were finally getting finished with the house, right around sunset. Campbell had called a couple of hours earlier, telling them to look for evidence of a boyfriend. On Cathy's personal credit card there were hotel charges, romantic restaurants, and lingerie purchases. Dayna had taken a photo of Cathy to the hotels listed on the bill, and she had been described as being the company of a tall, white man with black hair. Once they knew what to look for Calleigh and Speed had found plenty to corroborate the existence of the boyfriend in the house, including hidden letters and x-rated photos.
"Why keep this stuff in the house where you husband could find it?" Speed asked disgustedly.
"Maybe she wanted him too. Sometimes women stray when they aren't getting the attention they need at home. Sort of like kids acting up when there's a new baby in the house," Calleigh suggested.
"That's messed up. You want you husband to pay attention to you, so you sleep with another man? Isn't that kind of like beating your wife to show her you care?" Speed shook his head.
Calleigh's phone started ringing, interrupting whatever she was about to say. "Duquesne," she listened a moment, then walked out of the room. Speed looked after her a second, pretty sure he knew what the phone call was about. Part of the problem working with CSIs day in and day out is that you are left with very little privacy. Calleigh tried hard not to let people know her father had a drinking problem, but really the whole building sympathized. No one said anything, knowing that it would be horribly embarrassing to the blonde.
When Calleigh came back into the room, Speed was packing up the equipment. "I think we've done all we can do today," Speed said to Calleigh. "I know I'm ready to head home. I'll drop this stuff off the lab, then call it a day. We'll start figuring out who the boyfriend is first thing tomorrow. With the sheer volume of stuff we have here, we'll find him in no time at all."
Calleigh gave Tim a relieved smile. "That sounds good. I'll see you tomorrow, bright and early."
It was a little past 'bright and early' in the morning when Calleigh managed to come in. While normally a morning person, the southerner's genuine smile was incongruous to the sleepiness in her eyes.
"Late night?" Speed asked, wanting to help, but knowing that Calleigh could be sensitive when it came to her father.
"You have no idea. Hey, I wanted to let you know you were right." Calleigh started. Whatever she was about to admit to was derailed when a detective breezed into the room. Undoubtedly one of the most attractive women on the police force, Detective Yelina Salas had a warm smile for both of the criminalists in the room.
"Hey, Yelina. Always a pleasure. What brings you into our neighborhood this morning?" Calleigh asked.
"Looking for you actually. I have some bullets for you to work on. I was going to ask you to put a rush on it, if you possibly can. I don't know how long we can keep this guy where we can see him, and the sooner you can get me the results, the sooner we can arrest him once and for all," Yelina explained in her accented voice.
Calleigh looked at Speed, who shrugged.
He said, "You might as well go ahead. I'll get started on this stuff."
"Thanks Speed," Calleigh said, taking the evidence envelope from Yelina. "This shouldn't take too long, and then I'll come back and help you."
"That's fine. Campbell will probably come by and help read through the paperwork."
Yelina raised an eyebrow at the mention of the Texan, "She's the detective on your current case? Well. That must be fun."
Speed's forehead furrowed as he looked at the Cuban-America, "I don't get what you mean."
"She quite a handful, everyone's noticed," Yelina explained. "Nothing is every good enough for her, unless it's been personally been handled by her."
"Oh, I hadn't noticed," Speed started walking out the room, expecting Yelina and Calleigh to start a mutual bashing society. He didn't want to deal with it this time of the morning. He stopped mid-stride when Calleigh started speaking.
"She's just focused on getting the job done right," Calleigh said, prompting Speed to wonder if this was all a dream he was having.
"What she's focused on is herself," Yelina snorted.
"Well, I can see why you would think that. She has made quite a splash," Calleigh tried to change the subject. "So is this from the case you're working on with H and Delko."
"Quite a splash? She's a hotdog, she doesn't care about the victim, all she cares about is another checkmark on her cleared case list."
"Now, that's just not true. She cares about the victims, maybe even a little too much. Listen Yelina, I would have been the first to agree with you, but she's a good cop, and a good person. Now let's drop the subject. Tell me about the bullet." Calleigh was using the same body language Speed had seen when watching her with a suspect she was getting angry with: a stubborn insistence on professionalism when what she really wanted to do was start yelling. Speed realized he was staring at Calleigh, eyebrows almost to his hairline, disbelief freezing his face.
"Come on Calleigh, her own police department didn't want her. She screwed up so badly she was not only thrown off her own force, she was thrown out of her beloved state. She came her begging for a job, and someone high on the ladder was stupid enough to give her a second chance," Yelina's accent almost managed to make her voice sound sweet. Almost, but not quite. Venom soured her normally pleasant demeanor, turning a beautiful woman into something dark around her edges.
How can such a gorgeous woman suddenly be so unattractive? Speed wondered, safely within his own mind.
To his everlasting amazement, Calleigh lost her temper. He had never seen it happen before, and couldn't believe what he was hearing as Calleigh lashed out.
"You can have whatever opinion about Dayna Campbell you want, Salas. It's not going to matter to her. It's not going to matter to anyone else, either because everyone, and I mean everyone can see what the real problem you have with Campbell is. You're jealous."
"Jealous?" Yelina's Cuban temper was short and hot, and met Calleigh's southern heat head on. "She's nothing and nobody. She's thinks she's the best, and that means she's going to get a lot of people hurt when she finds out that she's not. Reality is the best teacher of all, and I hope you're not standing next to her when the lesson comes."
"I'll stand next to her any day, Detective, because she's a hell of a cop, with fantastic instincts. On her worst day she's more of a detective than you'll ever be. All you do is nod your head and agree with whatever Horatio happens to be saying at any given time," Calleigh's eyes had narrowed, chest heaving as if she were in a physical fight, instead of a shouting match. "What makes it even sadder is that H doesn't respect you for agreeing with him. You may be his family, but he already respects Campbell more than he ever will you, simply because she had the guts to stand up to him. He'll always think of you as Ray's wife, no more. You can't even impress him professionally." With all the instincts of a predator, Calleigh attacked at Yelina's most vulnerable spot, not noticeably pulling any punches.
She stopped Yelina cold, the taller woman staring at the petite blonde. Her brown eyes filled with pain, and she took a deep breath, "You'll call me with the results on the bullets, won't you?" She turned on her heel and walked out of the room.
Speed thought about asking Calleigh about her reaction, but decided to become all business until everything had time to settle down, from Calleigh's temper to his nerves.
He walked back to the table from his position at the door, and picked up the first letter. He started reading the letter, concentrating on the writing so hard he wouldn't have been surprised if he suddenly developed tunnel vision.
Calleigh picked up a different letter, also reading with an intensity she normally reserved for comparing bullets. There was a thick silence in the room, starting to suffocate them, when Campbell came into the room.
Speed began to wonder if he would ever see the detective well rested. While she looked better than she had twenty-four hours before, she still had bloodshot eyes and the slightly weaving tread of the truly exhausted. Speed had been in the same condition himself too many times to count. Too much work on too little sleep; the only cure was to crash hard and stay asleep until your body repaired the damage. Speed wondered how long she had been ingesting caffeine, how much her skills were degrading with every passing hour.
Calleigh was thinking along the same lines. "Did you get any sleep at all?" she asked. The way she asked the question surprised Speed. She sounded exactly like a woman who was worried about her friend's condition—hell, she had asked him that exact question in that exact tone at least once a month, when he pulled an all-nighter at the lab.
Dayna smiled at the blonde, "Yeah, I slept some. I've got some serious downtime coming to me in about 3 hours. I can hold out until then, as long as I don't have to do anything that required the slightest hand-eye coordination. I picked up a cold espresso double-shot so I can I can get my caffeine through a straw. I honestly believe I could miss my mouth right now." Dayna pulled the small can out of her purse, along with the straw.
Speed realized his mouth was slightly opened. Women. You never know from one minute to the next what the hell they're going to do.
Shaking his head, Speed handed over a portion of the photos, letters, and a magnifying glass to Campbell. The three settled into a routine of looking at the memorabilia, calling out anything that could lead to the identity of the boyfriend. After two hours they knew the couple had met at the gym, that the man knew Cathy was married, and he had one tattoo on his hip (a black devil with horns and wings) and another on his upper right arm (tribal scrollwork in red and black.)
Campbell pulled out the papers she had been working on independently the day before. She went through the numerous credit card statements until she found the ones with the two gyms on it.
"His and her gyms. I wonder which is which?" Calleigh asked.
"Should be easy enough to find out." Dayna stretched, then looked at her watch. "They should be open right now, right?"
All it took was two phone calls to find out that Cathy had belonged to: "Bodywerks," a temple to body worshippers in Miami.
"So all we have to do is show his picture around and see if we can get a name," Calleigh said.
"You know, most of these places have a photo database. I wonder if we fax the photo over there if we can get the name faster?" Speed suggested.
"I dunno. Are there any that show his face?" Dayna asked, remembering the graphic subject matter of the photos.
"Wait, I think I have one in my stack," Calleigh found a non-pornographic photo, and they faxed it over.
The gym personnel on shift did not know his name, which made it impossible to match him up in the database. They didn't have a way to pull up a membership based on a picture, or indeed any way to give a list of just the male members in the right age and race range.
They did catch a break, however. One of the trainers recognized the man in the photo as someone she saw in the mornings, usually between 8 and 10.
"So we'll be there by 8 tomorrow morning, see if we can get a name off his picture, and maybe we'll get lucky with a personal appearance," Speed said. He looked at Dayna, "That should give you plenty of down time. Do you have to do anything else before you head home?"
"I've got some reports that I just need to turn into my lieutenant, and then it's straight home, straight to sleep. Hell, the way I feel right now, I might pull a Sleeping Beauty. 100 years sounds just about right. If that falls through, I'll meet you at the gym tomorrow at 8," waving over her shoulder, Dayna left.
Calleigh busied herself cleaning up the evidence and putting it away correctly. Speed stared at her, arms crossed over his chest, a questioning look on his face.
"Tim, it's not polite to stare," she finally said.
"So, what happened between you and Dayna?"
"Nothing happened, I just realized you were right," Calleigh turned and gave Tim a mega-watt smile, coupled with eyes filled to the brim with innocence and honesty.
Tim snorted, then gave her a look of amused disbelief, "The look, the smile, and telling me I was right? Do you actually think that's going to work? You would have been more convincing if you hit me and told me to go to hell."
Calleigh laughed out loud.
"Come on, let's grab some lunch and you can tell me all about it," Speed offered.
"Tim, some of it's kind of personal."
"In that case, I'm buying. Let's go, Calleigh; you're not getting out of this. You did a one-eighty and I deserve to know why."
"Then we'd better make it dinner, it'll probably take a while."
They ended up at Hector's. Good Mexican food at good prices, and the best part was that the tourists didn't know about it.
Speed ordered a margarita for Calleigh and a beer for himself. He waited until the waitress had come back with the drinks, and they had placed the order for their entrée. Waiting for the main course to arrive, munching on the chips and salsa, Speed gave Calleigh a stern look.
"So, when you left last night you couldn't stand Campbell," Speed prompted.
"That's a little harsh, Tim."
"But not inaccurate. And then this morning when Yelina started bad-mouthing her you acted like someone was threatening your first-born."
"Yeah, I went overboard with Yelina. I don't know if we'll ever get past that," Calleigh said, sighed, then took a swallow of margarita. "Yesterday, when we were at the house, I got a phone call," she started the story, her eyes down, playing with the stem of her margarita glass with intense concentration, avoiding Speed's eyes.
Tim drank some beer and said, "It was about your father, right?" He wasn't really asking a question.
Calleigh's eyes flew up and met Tim's briefly. Speed shrugged, then nodded.
"You know my father has...a problem. When he gets too drunk to drive he calls me, or more usually someone will fish my card out of his pocket," she paused.
Tim tried to find the right thing to say, "That's rough, Calleigh. I'm sorry. I wish I could help."
She waved him off, "Family. What can you do?" She took a deep breath. "Anyway, most of the time Dad is attracted to nice places like hotel bars or ones in nice restaurants. Last night, though, he ended up at a real dive. He had been talking to a client. He stayed afterwards to have a few, and I eventually got called. It was dark inside, and I don't even want to know what I walked through on that floor. The people in there, Speed, I've never seen such a malevolent group in my life outside of a prison population. I went over to my Dad, and he was so far gone I had to sling one of his arms over my shoulders and hold onto his hand with mine. It was my right hand."
Tim nodded, knowing that her right was her gun hand. He didn't say anything, though, knowing how hard it must be for Calleigh to tell him any of this, and not wanting to interrupt her. He couldn't figure out what Calleigh's dad had to do with Dayna Campbell.
"I had my left arm around his waist. And that's when I got surrounded. I dropped Dad's arm, and went for my gun, but Dad stumbled and started to take me down with him. There were four men, and when they saw what was happening ..." she took a deep breath, "I think they started to close in."
She stopped fiddling with her glass for a second, and looked into the liquid, like someone trying to divine the future in a bowl, "You know I can take care of myself, right? I've been through a lot. I've worked hard to be just as good as the next guy, and even harder at being accepted as good as the next guy."
"Calleigh, you're better than anyone I know at being a criminalist and being a cop. I'm just glad you feel comfortable enough with me to tell me these things," Tim managed to get out.
"It's still really hard to admit it, though. Admit that I was scared. You asked me what made me change my mind about Dayna."
"Huh?" Speed's eyebrows drew down at the apparent non sequitur.
"I was in the bar, off balance, my hands tangled up with my father, thugs all around me. Then from the front entrance I hear a shotgun being pumped." She took another swallow of her drink, "They say that's the loudest sound in the world, that you can hear it through anything." She looked at Speed and smiled, "They're right."
"It was Dayna?"
"It was. She had her back against the wall, next to the front door, shotgun in her hands. She kinda looked around at all the people, and as calm as anything she said 'Hiya, Duquesne.' Everybody in the room was frozen. Then she said 'Duquesne, let this guy and this guy carry your dad.' And she used the barrel to point out two of the guys who were near me. I leaned Dad on the bar, got untangled from him. I felt better once I could reach my gun. The two men each took one of Dad's arms and hauled him out the door. Dayna told me to go with them, that she would watch the room. When the guys went back inside I swear I think I held my breath until she came out. She got into her car and followed me to Dad's place, and helped me put him to bed."
After a few seconds of silence "Why was she at the bar?" popped out of Speed's mouth.
"I asked her that," Calleigh replied. "She had gotten some sleep, then had been running down a lead on one of her other cases. She saw my jeep outside the bar, and figured that anyone in that place would need back-up. So she grabbed her shotgun and eased in, sizing up the situation. When things got tense, she was ready." Calleigh looked grim for a moment, "I gave her no reason to care that I was in there, no reason to help me. She saw that there was a cop in trouble and she dove in. That's why Yelina got me so upset this morning. Dayna's a great cop with great instincts."
"So is that why you two were so tired this morning?" Speed asked.
"Yeah. Dayna and I talked for hours afterwards."
"That's a hell of a way to make a friend, Cal," He observed.
Their food arrived as Calleigh said, "I get the feeling Dayna's a hell of a friend to have."