Author's note: Thanks for the reviews. Elsandra, I had you in mind when I wrote the hospital part.
Chapter 6 Unprofessional Behavior
At the precinct
Faith and Jelly have been questioning all the people they had locked up earlier. All of them have the same story; they were at the dinner waiting for Dr. Kirkland, the guest of honor, to arrive. When news of the car on fire in the parking lot spread, everyone went outside to see if they could help the victim. Of course it was too late to save him but they all just instinctively went to work trying to find evidence to learn of what happened.
During the questioning, Dr. Hawkes from CSI New York called Jelly to tell him that all the fingerprints they had run so far, all belonged to CSI or forensic technicians except for one they found on an empty pack of cigarettes. The print belonged to a Romel Harris who had just been released from Rykers nine days earlier. He had served time for murdering a man and trying to cover it up by starting a fire. The accelerant used to start this fire is the same kind Harris used to start his fire. Even more substantiating was the fact that Dr. Kirkland was the ME that actually processed the evidence in the case that put Harris away.
Faith and Jelly quickly finish questioning the last of the crowd they had placed in lock up and send them on their way. They are anxious to get out and look up this Romel Harris. They get an address from his parole officer and head over to his apartment. They knock at his door and get no answer so they sit out in their car and wait for him to come home.
At the hospital
Doctor Natalie Durant from the MI team, is wearing her hazmat suit. She has just finished taking blood and the vitals of Doctor Connor and Doctor McCabe who are lying in beds in a quarantined section of the hospital. They have not yet begun to show signs of contamination from the terrorist's injections. She sets up her laptop computer so she can connect with the NIH center. She notices a group of doctors walk past the glass wearing masks. She turns to greet them when they enter the unit.
A tall thin doctor, walking with a limp and leaning heavily on a cane is leading a team of three young doctors. He has short brown hair that is in need of a good combing, he has cold blue eyes and a two day growth of stubble that is not quite hidden under the mask over his nose and mouth. He is wearing a white lab coat that is as wrinkled as his clothes. The masks which his team are wearing seem to emphasize their eyes, and Natalie notices that they look nervous as their eyes dart uncomfortably around the room.
She stands and introduces herself. "I'm Doctor Natalie Durant." She nods towards each bed. "This is doctor Connor and Doctor McCabe. We are a mobile medical team from NIH specializing in infectious diseases. We appreciate you helping us with this."
He stares at her for a moment with no emotion then says, "I'm Doctor House and this is my team of..." he turns and looks at them as if he is unimpressed with them and says, "...well this is my team. We're not here to help you. I don't help. We're here to take over where you left off. Uh...except we're not going to inject ourselves with the disease like your guys did. We'll use them as the guinea pigs, and with any luck we may be able to figure out what they got before it kills them."
"Just a minute here." Connor insists. "I am not yet incapacitated by what ever they've injected me with. I am still in charge of this case. We have the best resources on infectious diseases, and what we need from you is to just run the tests and give us the results."
"Look pal, you may feel ok but you don't look well at all." House informs him.
"He looks fine. He's not presenting any symptoms yet." Natalie interjects.
House looks him up and down. "Are you trying to tell me he always looked like a manikin?"
She is totally stunned by his rude manner and now she realizes what his team is nervous about. They knew he was going to embarrass them. "Excuse me!" she says angrily.
"Why did you fart? You don't need to excuse yourself when you're wearing a hazmat suit, you can only offend yourself."
"What the hell kind of doctor are you? Is this a joke?" Connor asks.
"I am the only doctor who may have a chance at helping you. Like it or not, I'm all you got." House turns to his team and says, "Well, lets try to look professional, shall we. You...examine the manikin, and you...check out Doogie Houser over there. I'll be down on the third floor examining a TV star with a GSW who is also suffering from a terrible case of can't-act-atosis. We'll meet in my office in two hours so you can tell me what you find here and give me your summations on what you think they have." He turns to leave then turns back to Natalie and adds, "By the way...I loved you in that movie, War of the Worlds."
Back to Faith and Jelly
After waiting about a half an hour a car pulls up and a man gets out with several bags of groceries. They recognize Romel Harris from his mug shot. They approach him and identify themselves and tell him they want to ask him a few questions. He hesitantly agrees and they go into his apartment so he can put down his groceries.
They step inside and there is a noise from another room. "What the hell was that?" Romel asks.
"Is there someone else here?" Faith asks him.
"No. There shouldn't be." He notices his window is open. "I didn't leave that open. Did you guys search the place while I was gone?" he asks angrily.
"No." Faith pulls out her gun and calls out, "Hello? This is the police. We know you're there, step out where we can see you."
She gets no response. Jelly cuffs Romel to the fridge and tells him, "Stay right there."
"This is the police, if you have a weapon toss it towards the door and come out with your hands above your head." They work their way to the bedroom and push the door open. They see no one so they step inside. Jelly grabs the knob on the closest door, and Faith is ready with her gun. He flings the door open and a woman in the closet throws her hands up in the air and hollers, "Don't shoot!"
"Step out. Who are you and why are you hiding in there?"
"Uh, this is really embarrassing. You're gonna laugh when I explain."
"Wait...I know you." Jelly says.
"Yah, we're on the same team. I'm Jordan Cavanaugh. The ME from Boston. We met at the car fire."
"You know Romel Harris?" Faith asks her.
"No...I was..." she glances around and says quietly, "I was looking for evidence to nail this guy in the murder of doctor Kirkland. You understand, right?"
"Yah...I think I do. Let me see your warrant."
"Well...I didn't get one yet. Can't I ride on yours?"
Faith glances at Jelly then spins her to the wall and barks at her, "Hands behind your back. You're under arrest."
They walk her into the kitchen and Romel says, "Who the hell is that?"
"Do you know her?"
"No. The bitch musta been robben me."
"You wanna press charges?" Faith asks.
"Damn right I do."
"Good, we'll go down to the station and do the paperwork, then you can answer a few questions for us and be on your way."
They are walking them out to the car and Romel notices that the trunk of his car is open. "Hey...I didn't give you permission to search my car and I didn't see a warrant."
"That's not us." Jelly says as he hurries over to the car. He finds the redheaded guy from the Miami CSI team vacuuming the trunk of Romel's car. Jelly startles him by grabbing him by the collar of his coat and pulling him to the ground. "Horace...what the hell are you doing in this man's car?"
"The same thing you're doing here. I'm gathering evidence on a suspect. And my name's Horatio."
"Gathering evidence. Oh, why didn't you say so." Jelly lifts him up and brushes him off. "I didn't realize you had a warrant. You do have a warrant, right? This would be a good time to pull it out, otherwise I would advise this man to press charges against you."
They place handcuffs on Horatio and put him and Jordan into the back of the car, and Faith pulls Jelly aside. "What the hell is going on. How did they find out about this guy?"
"They must have taken evidence from the scene and passed it on to coworkers that we didn't scoop up."
Faith looks over his shoulder. "You gotta be kidding me."
"What?"
"That red headed CSI woman from Las Vegas is walking this way. Don't turn around yet. She's going into the building. I can't believe this."
"We're gonna have to put a unit here to protect this place. Something just isn't right. What are the odds that there were so many clues at the scene that everybody got one and they all point to the same guy?"
"Lets put them in a cruiser and have them brought in and booked, then we can talk to Harris alone. Someone is going out of their way to set him up."
On their way back to the precinct, Jelly gets another call from Hawkes, the ME on the CSI team in New York, who informs him that the burnt body was already dead before it had been set on fire and had been through some kind of trauma like being hit by a car. That is what he found to be the cause of death. There were multiple breaks and contusions and massive internal injury. The body had also been dead longer than they first estimated, possibly a few days...more if it had been in a cooler, and he did find some indication that it was a probability.
"Do we even know that this is the guy that we think it is?" Jelly asks him.
"The latest dental records show that it most likely is. Although..."
"Although what?"
"Well...the face of the victim was burned quite badly in the fire. It is almost as though who ever set the fire didn't want us to find out who the vic was. The dental x-rays show the same dental work but the bone structure is off a little. That could be from the fire though, most of the head is charred badly."
"So what else can we use to be sure of the ID. Can you run any finger prints?"
"I'm afraid not. There were no fingers left. We can run a DNA test but the results will take two to five days."
"Five Days! M'adone " Jelly comments. "On TV they get the results in an hour."
"Yah well that's TV. It's actually impossible to run DNA in less than twenty four hours."
"I guess ya just can't believe what you see on TV, like the fast food commercials...the only thing fast is how quickly you get hungry again."