Chapter 4

He was staring so intently at the sample under the scope that he didn't hear Delko come in and sit down at the counter until he heard Delko say, "Hello, earth to Speed, come in, Speedle?"

"Huh?" he asked, looking up and blinking.

"Ah! He is in there," Delko said grinning. "I've only been trying to get your attention for the last five minutes. Where'd you go?"

He shrugged. "Nowhere. Thinkin'".

"What about?" Delko asked, indicating the scope.

"Sample from the body. It's lubricant," he said, turning back towards the scope.

"If you know what it is, why are you looking at it so hard?" Delko asked reasonably.

He frowned. "Dunno. What'd you need, Delko?" He really didn't want to deal with Delko right now. He liked him well enough, even thought of him as a friend, but there were times he got on his nerves. Too cheerful.

"Can you run something for me?" Delko asked.

He sighed. "Isn't Sam around?"

"Probably. But I don't want Sam to run it. I'd rather you did it," Delko explained. "It'll be faster."

Tim had to concede his point. "What is it? And why can't you do it yourself?"

"It's an unusable print in this sticky stuff, with print powder over it, and I can't do it myself because you don't like me screwing with stuff up in your lab," Delko replied with a smile.

"It's not that I don't like you doing things in the lab, it's that I can't ever find anything once you're done," Tim muttered. "Sticky how? Like candy sticky or like tar sticky?"

"Like stuff in your car sticky," Delko replied.

"Probably soda," Tim said.

"I don't know," Delko said. "It didn't smell like it."

Tim shrugged. "Ok. Is this priority?"

Delko shrugged. "Might be. I don't know yet. H is out following a possible lead, and this might confirm the lead or it might not be anything."

"Or might be something else altogether," Tim said, nodding.

"Or it might be something else altogether," Delko agreed. "We don't have much. I got some useable prints from the same spot with this stuff, but they didn't score a hit."

"Ok," he sighed, holding his hand out for the sample. "Give me an hour, ok?"

"Sure," Delko said. "I can wait."

Tim shrugged. He didn't care if Delko hung around so long as he wasn't in a chatty mood. But people pretty much knew not to expect a whole lot of conversation out of him when he was processing things, and Delko knew when to shut up. Most of the time, anyway.

He moved around the lab, setting Delko's sample to processing and checking on some things he'd set up previously from a batch of night shift evidence he'd been left to deal with. Delko didn't say anything, just leafed through the file folder that presumably held reports from his case. Some time later, the mass spec beeped and he turned to grab the printout. Before he could give the results to Delko, Calleigh breezed into the lab and said "Hey, so I talked to Alexx."

He turned to look at her. "So did I. What'd she tell you?"

"Tox came back mostly clean. Little bit of alcohol, not enough to be an impairment. And she told me about the post-mortem stuff. Which is odd, since DNA processed those bed sheets, and there's a "contribution" from our vic," she said.

He tilted his head. "Recent?"

She nodded. "Yup. Carrie said it was definitely within the last 12 to 24 hours."

"That's not a function of sphincter relaxation," he mused.

"I didn't think so, but you'd know better than me," Calleigh replied. "Of course, there's plenty of explanations for it."

"True," he said, frowning. That was a detail that didn't jog his memory, but it didn't feel out of place, either. It still followed. He looked down at the paper in his hand. "High fructose corn syrup, citric acid and red dye 40."

"Excuse me?" Calleigh said, confused.

He shook his head at her. "No, Delko's thing."

"Great," Delko said. "So why do I get the impression that doesn't narrow it down any."

"Probably because those are the top three ingredients in just about every junk food known to man," Tim shrugged.

"How do you remember these things?" Delko sighed.

"It's my job, Delko. Go do yours," he said, irritably, holding the paper out.

Delko smirked at him as he took it. "All right. See you guys later."

Tim turned his attention back to Calleigh. "What else did DNA say?"

"Well, there's only one contributor to the sheets, and that's our victim. Nothing from anyone else that they found," she sighed. "So that's a dead end."

He nodded. That did go along with the other things he remembered. "Right."

"What do you have so far," she asked.

"Lubricant, from the victim," he said. "And some fibers, but they don't seem to be foreign to the scene, so nothing there."

Calleigh frowned. "So how does that make sense?"

He shrugged. "Doesn't, really, yet. It's part of the set-up," he said. She looked at him oddly. "Make it look like a sex thing gone bad," he explained.

"Where's your evidence, Tim?" she asked, gently.

He shook his head. "I don't know yet. It's there, somewhere." He was sure of it. He just couldn't prove it yet.

"Tim…" Calleigh sighed.

"I know, Cal. I know. I'm gonna find it. I just…haven't yet," he said, sitting down and looking at the papers on the counter. "It's here somewhere, I just don't know where."

"Alexx said something about a foreign object," Calleigh offered.

"Confirming it?" he asked.

"No, just saying it was a possibility. You thought so?" she asked.

"Maybe. Well…no. I don't." he said slowly. "Why would you lube up a foreign object?"

Calleigh shook her head. "You're right. That doesn't follow. But there's no DNA."

"Condom," he said, blinking. "Our guy wore a condom."

"There wasn't one at the scene, though," Calleigh said.

"Took it with him," Tim replied.

Calleigh winced. "Ew."

"I know," he said, nodding.

"Maybe he dumped it in the trash bins outside. I glanced in them, but didn't look that closely, since I didn't see any prints in the mud," she offered.

"Worth a look," he shrugged, standing up.

"Worth a look tomorrow," Calleigh said, shaking her head. "It's almost dark already and it's raining again. You'll never see anything tonight. It'll hold for the morning."

He sighed. "Ok. What do you have on victimology so far?"

"Well, that's the thing. It's really thin. Neighbors didn't notice anything, didn't know the victim, and didn't care. And there wasn't much in the house to point us. I can't find hardly anything on him, either," she said.

"What do you mean," Tim said, frowning.

"Well, on paper, he looks like a recent transplant, but there's not much to indicate where he came from," she explained.

"Witness Protection?" he asked.

"Maybe," she said. "I didn't trip any alarms, though, and he didn't look like someone who wasn't from around here, either."

"True," Tim said nodding. "Can I take a look?"

Calleigh hesitated a moment, but handed him the folder. "It'll wait for the morning too, you know."

"Mmm," he mumbled, looking through the papers she'd gathered.

"It is getting late," she said.

"Right," he said, still not looking up at her. She'd been right. There wasn't much on this guy. That was a new wrinkle, something wholly unfamiliar. He chewed on the inside of his cheek as he thought about how it fit in. Someone who wouldn't be missed, from the looks of things. Someone who maybe wasn't using his real identity? Had they run the victim's prints yet?

"Well, I am going home," Calleigh said, pointedly.

He looked up. "That's fine."

"Just don't stay too late," she sighed.

"I won't," he said.

She shook her head and he thought he heard her mutter something along the lines of "Sure you won't" as she walked out of the lab, leaving him alone to ruminate.