Disclaimer: Don't own 'em.
Author's Notes: All the information in this story about Bullet Ants was obtained easily on the web by searching "Bullet Ant".
"Oh my God. I can't eat any more," Catherine said, groaning and pushing her plate away. When they had arrived back at the department, the sheriff had been as good as his word. Gil, Catherine and Mel had lunch waiting on them in one of the conference rooms. Gil was looking sleepy as he took the last bite of what Mel had called Hummingbird cake.
"This sure beats egg salad from the deli," Gil said. He couldn't remember the last time he had eaten like this, if he ever had. Baked ham, fresh green beans, sliced tomato, andmacaroni and cheese had been piled into the take out plates. If that wasn't enough, that Hummingbird cake had been wonderful. He thought about how fast that would have disappeared from the break room at the lab. Yes, that and a pot of Greg's coffee, and he could have handled a double shift easily.
"Mel, how do you eat like this all the time? First that biscuit, now this lunch," Cath said, standing and putting her containers in the trash. "I am going to gain 10 pounds by the end of the day."
"The sheriff eats like this everyday, not me," Mel said. "I am usually lucky to get my ham and cheese sandwich out of my cooler by 10 pm, much less get a whole meal for break." She too began picking up the remains of her lunch. Unlike Gil, she still had a whole piece of Hummingbird cake left. "I am going to go put this in the break room. I don't like coconut," she said, going out the door.
Catherine pulled out the coroner's report and tox screen. Gil was looking out the window of the office building. From here, you could see the shimmering green of the mountain. She followed his line of sight and thought about how foreign it seemed. It was beautiful, but there was almost too much color. Vegas was colorful, but it was all neon and costumes. The desert was colorful in it's own way. As strange as it seemed, this much green and blue seemed unnatural.
"So, now what Gil?" she asked. Gil blinked and turned to look at her. He sighed and clasped his hands together in his lap.
"Are you still mad at me for making you leave Atlanta?" he asked. She was surprised he was still thinking about that. The fact was, she was beginning to be intrigued. If Gil was right about this ant, how had the victim come to be stung, not once, but several times. And why had the body been moved?
"No. And you know that. I meant now what in terms of the case," she said, smiling. "You knew once I found out that body was moved, I was hooked."
"Yeah, I could see that look in your eye," he said, smiling himself. It was the most relaxed she had seen him in a while, and she thought she knew why. No supervisory crap, no politics, no Sara – it was just Gil getting to be a CSI about his favorite thing – bugs. She wondered how much longer he would stay in Vegas. She knew he got offers constantly. How much more would it take to lure him away from them? Would he even tell anyone? Would he even tell her? He had been her friend for a long time now. He had been one of the first CSI's to let her tag along on a case. They had taught each other a lot over the years, but somehow, they still seemed worlds apart.
"This is way better than Charlie's seminar on blood spatter," she conceded. Gil was still chuckling as Mel came back into the room.
"So, I was wondering if you would like to take a look at the trace I pulled off the victim's clothes," Mel said to Grissom.
"Actually, I would. And maybe Catherine could go back over the file and interviews with you. Construct a time line of events before the body was found," Gil said. Catherine nodded. She was ahead of him on that piece. It wouldn't take long to complete the time line and go over the reports that had come in that morning.
Mel led Gil back to the lab and set him up with the trace and a small laboratory.
"I know this looks silly to you. Y'all probably have all kinds of great equipment in Vegas," she said.
"All the equipment in the world means nothing if you don't have the skill set. The first step is processing the scene. The second step is processing the evidence itself. Whether you have fancy equipment or not, the evidence gathering is number one," Gil said. He was surprised at how much evidence Mel had catalogued. Mel smiled, which was disconcerting to Gil. It totally changed the serious young woman's face. It was almost the same with Sara; when she smiled, genuinely smiled, it lit up her face and made her totally captivating. "Always back to Sara?" he thought to himself.
"Well, I'll go work with Catherine. We can meet back in here later," Mel said, and left Gil to his thoughts, which at the moment were still tinged with Sara. He physically shook his head to clear his thoughts and got to work.
He was surprised when Mel and Catherine came back through the lab door a little later.
"You finished already?" he asked.
"It's been a couple of hours," Catherine said. "I guess you've been lost in bug world," she said, smirking.
"Actually, I have been, and it's been interesting to say the least. I have identified pieces of mealworm, grasshopper and roach eggs, to name a few. And this," he said, holding up a slide, "is gypsum cement. I can't be sure, but I'm guessing. And gypsum cement is used to pre-form tunnels for ant colonies."
"So our vic was in an ant colony," Mel said.
"An ant colony that is man made and being maintained. This is not the detritus of a naturally foraging bullet ant colony. Someone is taking care of them," Gil finished, grinning. Catherine could feel the excitement from him. She wasn't sure if it was because this was a big clue in the case, or because Gil thought he might get to see the giant ant colony in person. Maybe it was both.
"We found something as well," Catherine said. "Victim died from lack of oxygen," she said.
"From the allergic reaction? Closed off his airway?" Gil asked.
"Yes, but carbon dioxide was in his blood. The allergic reaction would have probably killed him due to asphyxiation, but the carbon dioxide sped it along. Also, he had close to one hundred stings on his body, mostly his back and the back of his legs. Might be consistent with being face down."
"So, what about your time line?" Gil asked.
"Nothing really new there," Mel answered. "I am going to make some calls on the meal worms. If someone is feeding a large ant colony, they are probably having to buy a lot of feed."
"I am going to make some calls as well," Gil said. "I may have an idea on the carbon dioxide."
An hour later they were in Sheriff Doublon's office, laying what they had found out for him.
"Sir, Heff down at the feed store remembered putting Tern Fowler in contact with an online supply company for live meal worms. He also said Tern had been buying a special ant vitamin," Mel said. The sheriff was looking doubtful, but he continued listening.
"And the vic's brother said that he was going to talk to Tern the day before he was found dead. Mr. Fowler claims he never saw Ted Nelty the entire week before he died," Catherine added, reading from the time line she and Mel had constructed.
"We just want to go talk to him again," said Gil. "Would this Mr. Fowler have any connections in South America, or with any zoos?"
"No," said Sheriff Doublon. "No, Tern is a lifelong resident of Cherastowee County. He might have been gone during the Korean war, but otherwise he has always been here. Tern is not going to take kindly to Mel coming up there with two strangers. He is likely to get ruffled. It might be best if I go with you," said sheriff. He stood and buckled his gun belt. Gone was the jovial man Gil and Catherine had met earlier. In his place stood a man who meant business. Gil guessed that he could be an intimidating interrogator.
They all rode in the Suburban back up the mountain. Gil and the sheriff sat in the back seat.
"So why was our vic, Ted Nelty, going to talk to Tern Fowler?" asked Gil. He had not read the file as Catherine.
"Ted and his brother wanted to sell a piece of land adjoining Tern's. Tern was against it. Didn't want the folks from Atlanta building a bed and breakfast up here," said Mel. "He and Ted had words about it before. Ted wanted Tern to give a right of way across a piece of his property so that Ted's would have access by two roads. Make it more attractive to the buyers."
"I just have a hard time believing that Tern would intentionally kill someone," the sheriff said. He shook his head slowly. "I just don't think he would take it lightly."
"I take it you know Mr. Fowler," Gil asked. He wondered if the sheriff coming with them was such a good idea. He had been around buddy politics in Vegas too many times before. The sheriff looked at him cautiously.
"Dr. Grissom, I've lived in the county all of my life. For twenty years I've been sheriff. For fifteen years before that, I was a deputy and then a detective. I am either related to or I know someone in just about every family here. And I've probably arrested someone in just about every family," he smiled grimly.
"That must be tough," Catherine said from the front seat. Even in Vegas, each of the CSI's had been involved in cases that questioned their objectivity. How would it be if you knew everyone involved?
"Yeah. The toughest arrest I ever made came after the funeral of a woman I had known all my life. Went to school with her brothers – hell, fought with one in Vietnam. Her boy dated my daughter briefly in high school.
"So I went to that funeral, and I went to her house afterwards. Waited for most of the family and friends to leave. Her husband came up to me outside, crying, asking me to find the SOB that put her in the ground. I just looked at him and said, 'We know who did it'. His tears dried right up, and I cuffed him. He used to sit two pews down from me in church. I could have sent one of my deputies to do it, but I felt it was my place."
Catherine wondered at this man. What would it be like to have someone in the office of sheriff who was this tough, who had this much integrity? She herself knew what it was like to see someone she liked and cared about proven guilty by the evidence. But she had taken the money anyway. She looked briefly at Gil, whose own eyes were unreadable. She wondered if he would ever forgive her for taking Sam's money.
"We're here," said Mel. They were at a small, neat brick house. The yard was landscaped just as neatly, the riotous colors held in check by mulch and landscaping timbers.
Tern Fowler had the front door open before they were even up on the small porch.
"Hey Jimmy. Good to see you," the man said cautiously, looking over Catherine and Gil. He looked to be around 65, though the file had him at 80 year old. His blue jeans were pressed and his short sleeved shirt starched. He had a John Deere baseball cap on his head. His work boots were aged and worn, but had recently been shined. "What you doing way up here?"
"Tern, this is Gil Grissom and Catherine Willows. They are helping us out with a case. We would like to ask you a few questions about Ted Nelty," the sheriff said. Fowler didn't look very happy about this prospective questioning.
"I've done told that girl deputy of yours that I didn't see him that week. Where is she, anyhow?" Tern asked, looking around the trio on his front porch.
"She'll be up here in a minute. We can either do this here, or you can travel back down the mountain with us," Sheriff Doublon said. Tern's shoulders slumped and he led them into his home.
"She better not be poking around my yard," he said tersely. "You know I got them beehives out back."
"Do you also have an ant colony, Mr. Fowler?" asked Gil. He was looking at a bottle of ant supplement sitting on the kitchen counter. Tern narrowed his eyes at Gil, then turned back to the sheriff.
"Jimmy, I ain't gonna be responsible if she gets stung by those bees out there," Tern said. He looked worriedly out the door they had just walked through.
Catherine looked at a small, framed plaque in the dining room.
"You retired from the University?" she asked. "Did you ever work for the Entomology department?"
They were interrupted by a loud banging at the back door. They could hear Mel yelling.
"Open that door Tern," the sheriff ordered. Tern rushed to do so, and Mel practically fell into the door, holding her arm.
"One of the little bastards got me," she said. She grimaced, clearly in pain. "They weren't kidding when they called it a Bullet Ant," she said. Tern was visibly upset.
"Are you allergic to any insect bites?" he asked. He rushed back into the kitchen. The sheriff had his hand to his gun. Catherine suddenly wished she had her own piece.
"No," said Mel. "And only one stung me. A few got out though," she said. Tern came back with a bottle of Benadryl. He tossed it to Gil.
"Give her the maximum dose. It'll help with the reaction to the poison, and it'll make her groggy, which helps with the pain. We need to get her to the ER," he said. Gil and Catherine looked at each other in shock.
They bounded into the Suburban, the sheriff at the wheel and Tern riding shotgun. Gil and Catherine had Mel between them in the back. She was getting extremely groggy from the high dose of antihistamine.
"Tern, I swear to God if anything happens to that girl, I will personally kick your sorry wrinkled ass," the sheriff growled. To everyone's surprise, the old man began to cry and sobbed silently the rest of the way down the mountain.
The sheriff didn't want to leave Mel at the ER alone, even though the Benadryl had knocked her out. The doctors assured him that she would be kept under observation, though she was not showing any signs of allergic reaction. The sheriff had called another deputy to come and sit with Mel. He was under strict orders to call when she came to.
Now he and Gil were in a small interrogation room with Tern. Catherine was in the even smaller room behind the glass. She had the cell phone in case someone called about Mel.
"Now, Tern, despite what I said earlier about kicking your ass, I want you to know you can have a lawyer if you want it," the sheriff said. Tern just shook his head.
"No, Jimmy. I never meant for any of this to happen," the old man said quietly. "I am just glad that girl is OK. She dated my one of my grandson's before she went into the Marines. She's tough, a lot tougher than I would have thought and I've never been a fan of women in law enforcement," he said.
"She's a good deputy, Tern," the sheriff said stiffly. "You know I wouldn't let her do the job if she wasn't capable. I wouldn't let anybody do this job if they weren't capable."
"I know that, Jimmy. Look, I'm just gonna start at the beginning. Then you can do whatever the hell you want. But I'll say it again – I never meant for anyone to get hurt." The man rubbed his eyes tiredly. "You know, Sarah died before I even got to retire. We had all these plans – plans that didn't mean anything after she was gone. How did I let the time get away from me?"
Gil was looking at the old man, struck. He thought about the Sara in his life. How did the time get away from us? He inadvertently looked through the mirror to where he knew Catherine was standing.
Catherine stood on the other side, wondering if anything would ever prompt Gil to action. Everyone deserved a life outside of the lab. Did he even get that? Did he understand that everyone but him and Sara had someone, something outside of CSI? And Sara was getting her act back together, it seemed. She would be moving on before long, and Gil would be too late.
"I had worked in the Ag department at the college forever. But I've always been interested in insects and arachnids. I was fascinated by them as a kid. Had bee hives and those little ant farms for the kids when they were younger," Tern was saying. Gil turned back to him, understanding at least the beginning of the story. "In Ag, all I seemed to do was kill insects, so when I got a chance to work with the Entomolgy department some, it seemed like a good thing. Sara had been gone about 3 months, and I needed a change. Plus, it would keep me from having to retire. The Ag department was cutting out some of the maintenance personnel.
"This professor had captured a 500 plus bullet ant colony in Costa Rica. He had it back in Clemson and had a pretty nice set up. Wanted to do some research, whatever. But he was going to a conference during Christmas break. Some of the grad students were supposed to be taking care of the ants. Bullet ants take a lot of maintenance – temperature gradients, nectar, and they get tired of eating the same kind of live prey – you have to vary it," Tern was visibly more relaxed once he started talking about the ants.
"You know an awful lot of the bullet ants," Gil said, partially impressed by the man in front of him. A man who, according to the dossier, hadn't finished past the tenth grade.
"I made some calls, read a lot of papers. Bullet ants are tricky to keep going. So, you can imagine when I decided to check in on the colony one day and half were dead. I just went by on a whim. I liked to look at them.
"Anyway, the grad students hadn't been keeping up with nectar supply. Water supply was dry. And right there I decided the stupid SOB's didn't deserve to try and save the ants. I packed up what remained of the colony. Thankfully, the queen was still alive, and some of the larvae. I took everything out to the truck and brought it home. Told the professor that they had all died. I'll never forget the cussing he had given those grad students. I felt a might bad, but then again, had I not found them, the ants would have all been dead.
"It's funny, but bringing them home made the house not so empty. I kept thinking that Sarah would have killed me, but she was gone. I also kept thinking that the professor was going to catch on, and I was going to get fired. I never did. Just retired five years ago, like planned. Of course, by that time I had built the underground chamber that the girl deputy found." Tern looked relieved to finally be telling the secret he had been keeping for so long.
"Five years. How long have you had this colony? I don't think Cincinatti even had their colony going until about ten years ago," said Gil incredulously. However, everything Tern was saying had been confirmed a little while earlier by a colleague over the phone. The local university had a failed giant ant colony about the same time Cincinatti had gotten one started.
"I've had it at the house about 6 years," Tern said, smilingly a little at his accomplishment. "I never even got stung. Sarah always said I was a bee charmer. I guess it applied to ants as well."
"So what about Ted Nelty? How did he end up stung by the ants?" the sheriff asked, gently. Tern winced and hung his head sorrowfully.
"That stupid Nelty boy. Kept aggravating the tar out of me about an access way to the main road. All so he could sell that land to some hoity-toity couple from Atlanta. That land has been in his family for generations! I lied to that girl when I said I hadn't seen him all week," Tern admitted.
"We figured that," Sheriff Doublon said.
"Mr. Fowler, I can tell from the evidence on Mr. Nelty's clothes that he was actually inside the ant colony. He also had carbon dioxide in his system. I think I know how, but maybe you could explain it to me," Gil said. He tried to be as gentle as possible. More and more he didn't think this man had intentionally put Ted Nelty's in harm's way.
"OK. Ted had come by. He was obnoxious and disrespectful, so I told him to get off my property. I was walking out to the back field, where I keep the hives for sourwood honey. He stopped and noticed the carbon dioxide bottles behind the shed. He asked me what they were for. I said paintball, and then I told him again to leave. He acted like he was going to, so I walked on out to the back field to check on my hives.
"When I came back, it was time for me to vacuum out the colony. I do it about one every week or so. I get rid of any waste and check everything out. Well, I turned on the carbon dioxide for a few minutes. It induces narcosis, briefly, in the ants. I put on a little scuba mask and small tank I got at the flea market. That way I can go in and clean up quickly while the ants are coming out of their little nap. Keeps us all safe.
"I get in there and Ted Nelty is covered up. I don't know what that little bastard thought. He must have traced the carbon dioxide tank lines to the covering I have over the chamber. It looks like an old well house. He just got too curious. Why he felt like he had a right to go snooping around, I'll never know." Tern took a break from talking and looked down for a minute. Gil and the sheriff looked at each other, wondering where to go now.
"Tern, how did you get Ted Nelty's body over to Lancaster's field, where we found him," the sheriff asked.
"I got him out of the chamber. He was already a goner. Some people have allergic reactions, and he had been stung bunches. I got all of the ants off of him and I laid him out in the shed until well after midnight. Then I drove out to the field. Parked with my lights off and carried him into the field. Laid him out.
"I hoped everyone would just think he had gotten into a nest of yellow jackets. I just didn't want anyone to find out about my pets. I never meant for anyone to get hurt," Tern said again. The old man was crying softly.
Catherine stepped in quietly.
"Mel has regained conciousness at the hospital," she said to the men.
