16.
The ringing of Horatio's cell phone woke him up the following morning. In one smooth roll, he was out of the bed and padding his way to where he had left it in the salon. Schell barely stirred, still very much asleep
He returned a few moments later and carefully sat down on the edge of the bed. He looked a little rumpled as he reached up and ran his fingers through his red hair. Watching Schell sleep, he was loathe to wake her up, but he knew he had to. Turning toward her, ignoring the jab at his side, he reached up and stroked the white hair away from her face. She had at some time rolled over to face him and now she frowned a little, stirring at the contact. She moaned, and curled herself toward him, causing him to smile as he leaned over, bracing his arm on the other side of her. With his free hand, he continued to stroke her hair.
"Hey," he murmured in her ear. A decidedly delicious smile curled her lips impishly causing him to smile down at her as she curled her hands under her cheek.
"You never moved…" she said sleepily.
"Hmmm?" he asked, his fingers stroking the darker grey hair at her temple.
"You said something about going forward, but you stayed put all night." She cracked an eye open, glancing at him.
"I did," he confirmed.
"I know…" she twisted, around looking up at him. "You were sound asleep."
"Been a long time since that's happened," he commented, unable to hide his smile.
Schell studied him for a moment, then she reached over and took his left wrist in her hand, pulling on it to see his watch. It was approaching 7:30AM.
"Haven't slept this late in ages," she said.
"You needed it as well, I'm just sorry I had to wake you," he replied, a look of regret in his eyes. "But I needed to," he added.
"What is it?" she asked.
He glanced at her, his lips pursing a little in a smile, then said, "My cell went off, it was Captain Payton." His eyes revealed the seriousness which drove any lingering sleep straight out of Schell's brain. She sat up, pulling the blankets up around her and looked at him.
"What…" she started to ask as he glanced down, folding his fingers together.
"They found Paul Hirsch this morning."
Just the soft tone and seriousness told Schell enough and Horatio saw the colour slowly drain from her face. He twisted, winced and pulled her to join him, sitting side by side on the bed. He took her hands in his.
"He was found at a warehouse near the Duwamish Head?"
He raised an eyebrow at the pronunciation of the river's name. "Payton wants us both to come down there. They found another man with him."
"Another man?" she asked.
Horatio nodded, and Schell sighed, running her hand through her hair. "I told the captain that we needed some time to get ready, he said that was fine."
She nodded, heaving a sigh, as the few remaining pleasant memories of the night were replaced by that all too familiar knot of fear and worry that seemed to have become a permanent part of her. Horatio smiled slightly, full of regret and leaned over to lightly buss the top of her head.
"Ladies first for the shower. I'll get coffee on," he said and stood up. She sighed again, nodded and looked at his back with her own regrets. She pushed the blankets aside, got up and shut the door after him.
For many years, the main five mile stretch of that small river called the Duwamish, which emptied out in two forks at a place called Terminal Island, had been on the government Superfund clean up list. So long polluted that even several years after having been protected and cleaned up, there were still dangerously high levels of carcinogens in the fish and crabs taken from it. Yet salmon were returning to the river, seals were congregating on nearby barges and even Peter Jennings got caught on national television with an eagle making a spectacular catch; live for all America to see.
Still, Terminal Island was a major staging area for Todd Shipyards, and the Port of Seattle. There were still hundreds of warehouses and storage facilities, the rail yards and a creosote yard that treated logs for future use as telephone poles, railroad sleepers, and pilings. It was still a very industrialized area of Seattle. Nearby was the old West Seattle draw bridge and soaring far above it was the 'newer' four lane bridge which was now a permanent Seattle landmark. Further west, was the tip that marked the beginning of popular Alki Point.
On the drive over, Horatio noticed Schell's nerves were on edge as she rambled a little about how there was at one time an enormous amusement park built on the tip. Luna Park it was called and it had been burnt to the pilings in the late 1920's. Only on very low tides could the old pilings be seen and the treasure hunters would come out, to this day still able to pull the occasional five dollar gold coins from the ooze. She blushed then, apologized for letting herself ramble on and lapsed into silence.
Having given him the general directions, it wasn't very hard to find which warehouse they needed to go to. Several police units had the parking lot blocked off and even more units, plus aid units, the coronor's wagon and several other cars where already there. Horatio pulled up to one of the police cars, rolled down his window and told the suspicious officer that Captain Payton was expecting them. A radio call later and the policeman backed his car up enough to allow Horatio to pull in, before he blocked the entrance after him.
Spotting Rick Turner's car, Horatio pulled in next to it and shut the engine off, he glanced at Schell. She looked wan and pale as she offered him a slight smile, while he toyed with the keys for a moment. "It would probably be best if you waited here for a moment. Let me go in and see if they've cleared a path through the scene, then I'll be right back out to get you, all right?"
She nodded, "All right." she said softly.
He held the keys out to her. "I'll leave these with you in case you get cold," he said as she took them from him. "Just do me a favour and lock the doors after I get out." He smiled at her gently and opened his door. She did as he asked and he heard the door locks pop as he headed for the main entrance, wrapping his long black overcoat around him a little tighter.
Beckman, looking grim, met him at the standard door next to a huge roll up door. Inside the building the main lights had been turned on, flooding the place in light, and as his eyes adjusted, he spotted a group of people, painstakingly going about the job of collecting evidence, and photographing around the body of a man, lying face first in a large dark pool of blood. Further in, toward a enclosed office space was another team around the body of a second man, amongst whom was Payton, and Rick Turner, who was examining the body. Walking carefully around evidnce markers strewn about like scattered autumn leaves, he approached Payton.
"Caine," Payton said by way of greeting, causing Rick to look up and grin.
"Fancy you being here, H…" he greeted, feeling gingerly around the back of the dead man's head.
"What have we got?" Horatio asked, looking the scene and the warehouse over carefully. There were crates and boxes stacked in various areas all over the huge space, in the far corner was a temperature controlled semi-truck container, humming loudly while a group of CSIs were processing in and out of it. Horatio's eyebrow rose in curiosity before Beckman's voice got his attention.
"Got a call come through dispatch at 4:30 this morning," Beckman replied. "Security guard checking the premises spotted his body," he nodded at the dead man closer to the entrance. "He saw the blood pool and called it in immediately, then he secured the place until we got here. Looks like Paul came here," Beckman nodded at the body Rick was carefully examining. "And, for some reason or other, got into it with him. They both shot at each other, at least that's what preliminary investigation is saying."
"Rick?" Horatio asked.
"Paul here died first," Rick said and turned the dead man's head. "Bullet entered at the base of the neck here," with a latex gloved finger he indicated a hole near the man's throat. "No through and through, so the post will locate the bullet no doubt. I suspect it hit the spinal column and was a very fast death." he glanced up at Horatio as he turned the dead detective's head back to a normal position.
"And the other?" Horatio asked, looking that way, his mind racing.
"The other guy is an unknown, straight through and through, though they haven't located the bullet yet. He exsanguinated on the spot and it took a little while. The techs seem to think Paul was the first to shoot, but that's yet to be proven."
Horatio glanced at Payton, questioningly.
"So far all they've found are casings matching Paul's service weapon. The other vic has a gun in his hand, and it's been fired but we've yet to locate the casings and the rounds. This place is big and dark, and full of cubby holes." The captain replied. "Our folks have been here for a while now processing everything."
"So why ask Miss Demereau here?" Horatio asked.
Payton, smirked and jerked his chin at the cargo container. "Because of what's in there. Plus I thought maybe she could identify our stranger. "
Horatio nodded and looked at Rick. "What kind of time frame are we looking at here?"
"Liver temp suggests somewhere around two or three this morning," Rick replied. He glanced at Horatio who was looking thoughtful, before his gaze shifted to the junior M.E.
"Is he ready to be moved yet?" he asked nodding at the stranger.
"Now that I'm finished with Paul, yeah, he should be. I didn't want him moved until I finished here. Why?" Rick asked.
"I just think it would be a be a bit better to have him on a gurney instead of in a blood pool if we're going to have Miss Demereau try to identify him." Horatio pointed out.
Rick chuckled, "Good point!"
"I think we can arrange that, all right to move him too then, Doc?" the junior ME asked Rick.
"Be my guest, might as well bring in both gurneys, let's take Paul out of here." Rick sighed and stood up. "Damned bad way to start a morning, having to pronounce on a guy you know."
"Amen to that…" Horatio said softly as an all too familiar, and still painful, scene passed through his mind with one of his own coworkers.
"Guys?" Rick called out, "Let's take 'em back now."
"While they get them ready, come over and look at this," Payton said, and nodded at the truck container.
The two men started towards the trailer and Horatio judiciously asked, "Have you had time to think about what I said regarding Thorpe earlier?"
"Uh huh…" Payton said with a grin, "It was strange him showing up that fast, I plan on letting Carl loose on him after we get finished up here." He smiled even more when Horatio chuckled. "I have an odd itch where he's concerned."
"I think I've had that itch before…" Horatio commented dryly.
"Any identification on the other guy at all?"
"Other then the Glock 17 in his hand? Not yet, but one of our CSIs is processing a car found around out back. We think its his." Payton replied as they approached the open back door of the trailer. A large portable light had been set up and flooded the interior, while the generator the tempurature controller container was hooked up to continued thrumming with power.
"I suspect that these were what Paul and Miss Demereau stumbled across when she says they found original paintings. Thorpe's concerns about protecting the paintings at the studio from the elements really rang a bell when we opened up this big tin can."
Inside where a great deal of very carefully crated and stored paintings of various different sizes. A few techs were carefully going over them as Horatio looked in, pondering.
"This entire place seems to be a storage area for art; statues, tapestries, paintings, sculptures… you name it. A look in the office shows paperwork indicating they are shifting it from one exhibit to another or storing it for when it goes on display at its next facility. So a lot of it is original stuff, but this batch apparently has no 'paperwork' per sé," Payton commented. "Reading over Paul's notes on the case, it looks like they are stealing works and replacing them with forgeries, then bringing the originals here and selling them illegally to collectors."
"Which would help to explain why Paul brought in Miss Demereau to help identify forgeries from replicas and originals." Horatio commented. "And with the kind of money mentioned it would make an excellent motive to kill…"
"That it would." Payton agreed, "And since Paul was posing as a collector, his cover had to have been blown somehow, and it caught Miss Demereau in the net, as well.
"Question now becomes, who saw them in here and identified them to the man behind all this?"
"Excatly what I've been wondering. We've been trying to locate the owner, but so far we keep running into dummy corporations and getting nowhere."
"Hmmm," Horatio mused.
"Yeah, my thoughts as well, come on over to the office." Payton lead the way again as they carefully made their way around paths 'cleared' for people to walk through in the dead center of a huge crime scene. Horatio was gratified to know that all the stops had been pulled out in investigating the death of a fellow police officer. Miami-Dade would do no less.
Payton led him into the office. It was a typical office, with a bank of file cabinets, a desk, computer, office equipment, etc. There was also a huge quantity of cash on the desk next to the keyboard for the computer.
"I take it robbery was not a motive…" he said dryly as his head calculated how much could possibly be sitting there. With the cash was assorted paperwork.
"This is what indicates they were selling originals on the sly, those notes contain pertinent information about the pieces being stored here and sold. Kind of a slick operation; they store the real objects, someone forges them, they switch the two around and ship the fake off to where the original goes next and most anybody is none the wiser. The original goes black market to the highest bidder."
"Until Paul Hirsch stumbled on the operation." Horatio said quietly, thinking things through. He respected Payton a great deal on his intelligence and thoroughness. "Sounds like things are well in hand though, I think Miss Demereau will be relieved."
"Shall we go get her?" Payton suggested, Horatio pursed his lips slightly and nodded.