Disclaimer: I don't own CSI. Though I sure want to. Many thanks to Tinuviel Undomiel and Nerwen Aldarion for the input, ideas, inspiration, and for your forgiveness for my half-hour tardiness. I shall never catch the wrong bus again. I swear. (PS You guys RAWK)
It was one of your quiet, average neighbourhoods, with all the houses in the street looking alike. The only real thing that made each of these suburban mousetraps was the colour of the house and the stuff on the lawn. Warrick trudged up the driveway with his kit, taking in the toys scattered all over the lawn. Obviously, a neighbourhood that the parents felt safe letting their kids play on the lawn in. And the house itself? Just an average happy family home.
Or at least, until grandpa dropped dead in the living room.
Once inside, Warrick set down his case and looked around. Nothing seemed disturbed, out of place... It was like the old guy had just decided to take a nap.
In the middle of the living room. With his head on the coffee table. While watching TV and enjoying a glass of... Warrick sniffed the glass, then winced. Prune juice.
"Ick." Warrick commented under his breath. He looked over his shoulder at Vega. "So, detective, what's the word?"
The detective flipped a few pages back on his notepad, then reported, "David Carson, age eighty-six. Suffered from heart problems. Was keeping an eye on the grandkids while the parents went out. The seven-year-old dialled 911. Said his grandpa wouldn't wake up."
Warrick's lips pursed slightly disapprovingly. Nick gets a murdered trophy hunter, the CSI thought wryly, and I get the old guy dying of a heart attack. Out loud, Warrick asked, "So what, exactly, makes this a 420? The old guy could have died of a heart attack."
Vega didn't answer for a minute, then smiled an insincere smile. "Could have something to do with the fact that grandpa just won half a mil in a local lottery. And the fact that the kids didn't call 911 for three hours after grandpa 'fell asleep'. Long after their parents got home."
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"Man." Nick looked around the apartment, shaking his head. "I'm glad Sara's not on this case. She'd freak."
Heads lined the walls, staring blankly back at Nick. Stuffed animals crouched in forced poses that made them look menacing, powerful, beautiful... and worth shooting. And covering shelves and lining whatever space that was left in the apartment were horns, teeth, feathers and other animal paraphernalia. Trophies galore.
A grizzly bear loomed near the doorway, its paws raised in the air above its head and its fangs bared in a snarl. Several pelts of the deer and buffalo variety covered the floor, like macabre throw-rugs, over the tacky cream shag carpet. A hollowed-out elephant foot held umbrellas near the door.
Jim Brass looked around the apartment, and whistled, impressed. "When they said trophy-hunter, they meant trophy-hunter."
Nick shook his head. "And they let him get all this in the country, how?"
Brass shrugged. "Ask no questions, get no lies."
"Well," Nick led the way through the small apartment, "It's our job to ask questions." He shone the torch over the kitchen counter. A man lay sprawled face-down in a pool of his own blood, a small hole in his spine. "And as long as we ask the evidence, then we can't get lies."
"Yeah, right." Brass consulted his notebook, and snorted. "I kid you not, this guy's name is Matthew Hunter. 31, single, won prizes all over the globe for - guess what? - trophy hunting. And with a name like Hunter, I'm not surprised."
Nick knelt down by the corpse. "Well, if he was a trophy hunter, you think maybe he would have realised there was someone else in his home? Aren't hunters supposed to be super-alert or something?"
Brass shrugged. "Maybe with all these animals staring at you day after day, you lose the paranoia."
Nick suddenly felt his skin crawl. He shone the flashlight around. From the apartment's unusually spacious living room, a puma cub was frozen in a spiteful hiss from atop a TV, and a moose, a buffalo, and a rhino - all heads on plaques - glowered down at him malevolently.
Paranoia. Yeah.
The corpse of Matthew Hunter was frozen with rigor mortis. Nick gingerly turned him over. The man wore an expression of surprise - but not fear. Had he known his attacker? The gaping wound in his chest suggested the attacker had to be up close. And the hole in the man's stomach looked like it had been punched through with... well, it wasn't a knife. It was blunt. And judging from the size of the injury, the man had been stabbed in the gut, several times, and the weapon was so long that it had pierced through the man's back, slicing through his spine.
But what kind of blunt weapon with a fist-sized diameter could pierce?
"Grissom was right," Nick muttered, "I am going to need help with this case."
Jim looked down at his watch, then patted Nick encouragingly on the shoulder. "Well, don't give up now. Just do what you can, ok?"
"Where're you going?"
Brass smiled back. "I have to go pick someone up at the airport." Brass grinned. "Don't let the animals freak you out too much." The detective waved a farewell, then ambled off.
Nick signed, resignedly. "Thanks." He got to work. It was going to be a long night.
TBC
A/N: This fanfic is based around season two... since there is so much more potential for cases and extra characters in that season. Don't flame me if what happens doesn't match up with what happens in seasons three and four. This is a fanfic. Enjoy.