Horatio Takes a Vacation

chapter 5

Speed looked around the newly cleaned office and sighed heavily. They had spent the better part of the evening restoring the order and at the same time, gathering evidence. When they finished, they had collected several fingerprints and a bonus, a discarded piece pf tissue. Speed glanced at his colleagues and gave them a weak smile. They had every right to be pissed at him, but they weren't. They were actually happy that they could help. He realized then that his colleagues were more than just that. Much more.

" Speed, I'll run these prints in the morning," Eric said as he launched into a deep yawn.

Speed nodded and looked at his watch. It was two thirty in the morning and Horatio would be back in four days.

" I think I'm going to stay and process the tissue we found. I'm also going to go over the files. She may have taken something from there," Tim said as he gestured to the computer.

" Maybe, you should go home too, Speed," Calleigh chimed in. Her eyes drooped slightly , giving the signal that she was indeed tired.

" I'm here for the night. This is my mess, my mistake, I have to pay the price for it."

Eric shook his head and grabbed the fingerprints, " We are a team. If one stays up , so do the rest of us."

" Speak for yourself , Eric. I'm going home," Calleigh said as she moved to walk out the door. She caught Eric glaring at her and stopped, " Alright, alright. I'll stay. Jeez , can't you guys take a joke?"

" Cal, it's two thirty in the morning," Speed informed her, slightly irritated. He was working on his last hold out of energy.

" I'll take the computer, you take the tissue," Calleigh compromised.

" Deal. Delko, on those prints, isolate Horatio and myself and let me know of any prints that don't belong in here,"Tim said as he picked up his kit.

" Sure thing, Speed. But listen, what are we to do if we get a call out?"

" We take it. Like I said before, this is my mess, so if anything goes down, I'll take the heat for it. There's no need of you guys risking your job on the count of me."

" Kinda makes you feel all warm inside that you have friends that care about you, doesn't it Speedle?" Calleigh intoned in her thickest southern accent as she sat behind Horatio's desk.

" Doesn't feel half bad," Speed returned with a smile. " Now , if you will excuse me, I have some test to run."

Speed walked out of the office , down the stairs and into the trace lab. Eric glanced down at Speed as he settled in and placed his head phones on his ears. He then turned to Calleigh who was furiously checking into the files stored on Horatio's computer. There was definitely something brewing between those two.

CSI

Two hours later, Calleigh burst into the trace lab with a print out from the computer. She noticed as Speed was still bobbing his head to the music that blared from the head phones. She walked over to him and lifted the head phones, startling him.

" Jesus, Calleigh, let some one know before you do something like that," Speed said as he pulled the head phones completely off. Calleigh smiled widely and handed him the print out. " You found something?"

" You know , you can learn a lot from string bean if you actually listen to him. I ran a check on the key strokes and found what she took. By the looks of the office it seems like she tossed the place before actually thinking to look on his computer."

" So, what did you find?"

" This," Calleigh said as she pointed to the sheet.

" A report about an inmate in county lock up. It's an evidence retrieval," Tim said as he dropped the folder slightly.

" Yes, she figured if she stole the report the evidence would be inadmissible in court and whoever she was trying to spring would get off."

" So whoever she is, she knows the operating procedures of the CSI lab. Is she a former CSI?" Tim asked.

" What does the DNA say?" Calleigh asked as she glanced over to the sample that had been ran. The door opened quickly and Eric peeked his head in.

" Speed, I think you need to come and see this."

Speed got up and followed Eric to the fingerprinting lab with Calleigh following closely behind.

When he got there, Eric pulled up the computer screen on the state of the art plasma screen that covered the entire wall of the fingerprinting lab.

" I found almost five different types of fingerprints in Horatio's office. I excluded you and Horatio and that left me with three."

"Fantastic mathematical skills there Delko, but is there a point?" Speed asked , letting his exhaustion show. When this was all over ,he was going to sleep for a week.

" If you can be patient, Speed. Like I was saying, I had three left. Out of those three, I found partials. I ran them first in AFIS, not getting a match. Then I ran them in the department database. I got hits off of all three of them."

" And?"

" And one set belongs to Rick Stetler, another set belongs to a trustee, and another belongs to an Savoy Roberts."

" Stetler? What's he doing in Horatio's office?" Calleigh asked. The mere mention of the IAB agent's name made her skin crawl.

" I don't know ,but that wasn't the weirdest thing. Savoy Roberts hasn't worked in the CSI lab in almost eight years."

" That's before all of our time."

" And before Horatio's time as a Lieutenant. She was the LT for the lab back then."

" So it would make sense that her prints would be in that office. It was hers," Tim reasoned.

" Speed, that office has been cleaned so many times in eight years, there's no way a print could last in that environment. The print was fresh, and I got it off of his desk and the file cabinets. Savoy Roberts was in that office."

" I want to get DNA evidence before I put out an APB out on her. But great work you guys," Tim said as he broke a smile across his face.

" Well ,my job for three hours at least, is done," Calleigh said as she stretched and yawned at the same time. " I'm going home."

Speed nodded to her and shot her a killer smile. She reciprocated and waved back to them.

" You know, you can leave too , Delko. I've got this."

" You sure?" Eric asked as he yawned.

" Yeah. If I have to , I'll sleep on the couch in H's office. I got a change of clothes down in my locker."

"Alright, I'll see you in three hours then," Eric said as he walked out the door. Speed turned off the equipment and shut the lights off, returning back to the trace lab. He would wait for the DNA samples to clear, then maybe, maybe he would lay his head down .

TBC...