17.

Schell couldn't help but notice the buzz of activity as a pair of coroners wagon drew up closer to the warehouse doors, and she shivered in her coat as she waited for Horatio. She had noticed her headache had returned, and to divert her attention from the current proceedings she mentally reviewed what it was she yet needed to do before making a move of the magnitude she was about to make. Moving over 3000 miles was no small undertaking. She wondered if there really was a way to move earlier and decided that getting a hold of the rep for her Florida commision would be the best thing to do.

As she sat there in the car her thoughts drifted back to the previous evening, and how exquisite it had felt to be held by someone, a man, throughout the night. He was so gracious, she thought, then heaved a sad sigh, chastising herself. That feeling of safety and security was not going to last; he eventually had to go home. And even though she was soon to be moving to Miami, who knows where she was going to end up at and he would be back to his normal life. (Which was no doubt on 24 hour call.) Who was she kidding? Schell scowled at herself, hating her flights of fancy.

"Why do we do this to ourselves?" she muttered to herself, rubbing at her aching eyes. The sound of footsteps caused her to look up and check the rearview mirror. Horatio and Payton were approaching the car. Heaving another sigh, she popped the locks and climbed out as Horatio reached for the door, opening it for her. As she stood up he glanced at her, with an eyebrow raised in query, but she said nothing as Payton greeted her.

"Morning, Miss Demereau," the Seattle Captain said, "I appreciate you coming down here, and I know this is going to be unpleasant. If at any time you feel the need to stop, just say so. What I need for you to do is to take a look at one of the men we found and see if you recognize him? All right? Then after words I'd like you to tell me what it was Paul showed you that you identified for him."

Schell nodded her head, tucking a strand of white hair back behind her ear, she glanced uncertainly at Horatio. "I've never been on this side of a crime scene…" she murmured.

He smiled slightly, "It'll be all right. They've made paths for us to walk in. Just don't touch anything when we get inside the building. You just stick with me, I'll guide you through it." She drew in a steadying breath and nodded.

Payton led them to one of the coroners wagon's just as a team was bringing a gurney out. On it a large black body bag lay, and was being escorted by Rick Turner. A quick glance told Horatio it was Paul Hirsch being taken out first and the three paused as the men loaded the body into the back of the wagon. Seconds later the other team came out and Payton stopped them at the back of the second vehicle.

"Are you all right with this?" Payton asked as Carl Beckman appeared in the doorway. Schell shot a quick glance at him, then back at Payton.

"Yeah…" she said softly, aware that Horatio was standing behind her. Payton nodded at one of the attendants, who reached up and unzipped the upper portion of the body bag.

The guy actually looked perfectly normal, she thought to herself in mild surprise, even though it was apparent he was dead. She stared a moment then cast a look at Payton, looking a touch nauseated and apologetic. She shook her head no.

"I don't know who this is," she said regretfully.

"You sure about that?" Beckman growled.

"I don't know who he is," she replied, shooting a dark eyed glare his way. She looked at Payton. "Is the other one…?"

"Paul Hirsch? Yes it is." Payton said gently.

"I'm sorry…" she said distantly, looking troubled, as the attendant zipped the body bag back up. "Paul was a good man…" her voice trailed off as the realization continued to sink in that the detective she had been helping was dead.

"Yeah he was…" Beckman rumbled, fixing his eyes on her, "Too good to end up dead in a place like this."

Horatio saw the frown that crossed Payton's face as he looked at the detective. "Carl…" he started to warn.

"Detective are you insinuating something?" Schell suddenly asked, catching Payton and Horatio by surprise. Horatio licked his bottom lip, looked away suddenly and tried to smother the smirk that was tugging at the corners of his lips. Schell seemed to bristle with a pent up energy.

"You know… over the past five days someone has tried to kill me twice. I've been hospitalized, shot at, nearly drowned, blown up off a boat, threatened with charges and interrogated by the police so much that I can't even think straight anymore." Schell's voice cut through the morning chill like a knife, the tone rising as she stared hard at Beckman. "I can't even enter my own studio to do my work and now I'm standing here having to identify a dead body. I've never even seen a dead person…" her voice abruptly cut off in a choke, and she suddenly struggled for composure.

She tore her gaze away from Beckman, her hand sliding up to cover her mouth as she wrestled with her emotions. She glared back at him, as he stood there with his hands on his hips and glared back at her. "And to have you suggest that I am somehow involved in all this against myself is starting to get beyond credulity! Are you really as Neanderthal as you sound?" She snapped, dropping her hand.

"But you are involved in this aren't you?" Beckman sniped back. "You are the one who identified for Hirsch which items were real and which ones were faked. Somehow or another that information just led to him being carted out of here in a body bag."

"And I am involved with that how!" Schell snapped back, the anger beginning to bubble out, "You tell me how I am involved with that?" She demanded.

Beckman, grimacing in disgust, looked away from her. Schell looked at him with contempt and stepped closer to him, her chin rising in defiance. "Come on? Tell me? You're the big, bad detective, what are your conclusions? What are your accusations? You've been hinting and dodging and implying that I'm more involved in this than I could possibly ever be. What have you found out? Huh? Come on, detective," she spat the word out. "Tell me?"

Beckman jerked his head back around, looking down as Schell took another step closer to him; a small indignant body of barely controlled anger. Her dark blue eyes bored steadily up into his own. The detective was about to open his mouth in retort when Payton stepped in,

"Carl, enough!" he barked sternly. Carl glared at his captain a moment, before he scowled and looked away. Schell just looked at him in disdain and shook her head, looking away as Horatio stepped up behind her, his hand touching the center of her back to nudge her forwards towards the door.

As he passed the stewing Beckman, his eyebrows rose, his blue eyes bright with barely concealed mirth. He smirked at him.

"Neanderthal, " he whispered directly to the man as he leaned towards him, his eyes fixing on his, "I liked that… nice touch!"

"Go to h…" Beckman started when Payton stepped up as Horatio escorted Schell towards the door of the warehouse.

"Say it Carl and I swear to god you'll be sitting at a desk for the next six months." Payton hissed. Beckman glared two seconds at his boss then backed down.

"Sir," he grumbled.

"Go interview the Thorpes." Payton ordered. Beckman sighed in disgust and instantly stalked away towards his vehicle.

Sighing with scorn for one of his men, he approached Schell and Horatio.

"Miss Demereau I apologize for his behaviour, Carl can sometimes be very difficult…" he started to say but Schell only gave him an aggrieved look, looking weary and drained.

"You shouldn't have to apologize for him," she said quietly, her head dropping as she reached up to pinch the bridge of her nose. "One of your colleagues is dead, I can understand being upset by that."

"Still that's no excuse for his behaviour." Payton replied.

"And it's about time you started getting mad at what is happening to you." Horatio pointed out, causing Payton to smile slightly.

"That's right, and taking it out on Carl isn't such a bad idea." Payton said with a hint of humour, despite their situation. "Shall we go on in?" he asked, indicating the door.

Schell smiled reluctantly, as Horatio led the way to the door.

"Just stick with me, I'll walk you through it," he encouraged, deliberately using himself to block as much of the blood pool from her view as possible.

Payton slipped around them as he led the way inside, heading for the trailer. "Do you recognize the trailer at all?" he asked.

"Yes…" Schell said a little distantly as she swallowed uneasily. "Paul brought me here last week, they had just brought that trailer into the warehouse and he was wondering why it was hooked up to the generator. He said that whoever was running this operation must have been getting ready to do something really major. When he opened up the trailer and I saw what was inside, I knew why it was hooked up the way it was."

"What made the artwork in the trailer more important then the other art that is stored in this place?" Payton asked.

"The paintings in the trailer? Aside from being originals they are incredibly old. I can tell you right now that several of them are from some major museums and I know they don't know that their originals are gone… Some of those painting are from the 18th and 19th centuries. Because of that age, they must be kept at a constant steady temperature or they will suffer irreparable damage."

As they approached the back of the container Schell got a good look at what was inside and nodded. "Yeah, they're all still there. Paul and I must have been in that trailer a good hour or so as he let me take a look at the works in it. There was a Sotheby's encyclopedia in the office and a comprehensive antiques guide, the kind used by appraisers, between those two sources we identified about fifteen of those paintings. He had taken a lot of notes on them."

"I want you to think hard about this next question, Miss Demereau." Payton said, "While you and Paul were in cataloging these paintings, could someone else have come into the warehouse and seen you?"

Schell stopped, turning to look at the Seattle captain a moment, then she glanced at Horatio.

"It was 3:00 in the morning…" she said slowly as the implications of Payton's question sank in. "I…," She stammered and looked confused. "I suppose it's possible," she said softly. "We were in here."

"That's probably when you were made." Payton surmised.

"Uh huh…" Horatio confirmed. "What day was that Schell? In relation to the day you rented the sailboat?"

"Two days before," she said looking at him.

"Time enough and to spare…" Horatio quoted thoughtfully.

Payton nodded. "Come on over to the office, Miss Demereau and show us just what books you consulted. You know I am thinking it might not be a bad idea for you to come on down to the precinct and let us get your fingerprints recorded…"

The look she shot Horatio was one of pure alarm.

"It's to rule you out as a suspect," he explained. "They need to be able to place every fingerprint they find in the proper context. If you can tell the Captain just what it was you touched, that will go a long way to helping them sort the puzzle out." He looked at her expectantly.

"Okay…" she said, letting his information sink in, she glanced at Payton. "I can tell you that they are probably all over the paintings in the truck," she said.

"All right, how about in here?" he asked as he led them into the office.

One of the evidence techs was sitting at the desk, going over the contents, carefully cataloging items on a notebook before he would seal them into bags and envelopes. He was flipping through a rolodesk containing business cards as Schell told Payton just where she had been and what she had touched. She identified the books she had handled as she approached the desk. She was explaining to the captain the purpose of the books in question when she looked at what the lab tech was doing. Her sentence cut off in mid word, as she reached down and laid her hand on the tech's wrist.

"Ma'am?" he asked, stopping what he was doing and looking at her in mild surprise.

"Did you see something?" Payton promptly asked. Schell looked up at Horatio and he could see confusion in her dark eyes.

"Can you flip back a few?" she asked the tech quietly.

A glance at Payton, his nod of assent and the tech smiled. "Sure," he said and began flipping the cards back.

On the third card, Schell's fingers gripped the tech's wrist and she froze, suddenly looking ill. Horatio frowned, as the tech stopped, looking at the two men and Schell in confusion. He leaned over the desk, and read the card.

"Schell?" he asked her softly as she stared at the card in growing horror. She looked back at him, swallowing uneasily. The card was for a 'PNW Nautical Art Collections' with a stylish logo of a clipper ship on stormy waters imposed over crossed paintbrushes. There was a contact number and fax number imprinted on the bottom left corner, but no contact name. Horatio could see realization and dread colliding within her.

"Schell, what is this? Who's card is it?" he asked her. She swallowed again, started to speak and had to clear her throat when nothing came out.

"Horatio," she whispered, in despair, "What have I gotten myself into?"

"Who's card is it, Schell?" he repeated as she glanced down at it again, then looked away.

With anxiety creeping into her words she quietly whispered, "Randall Thorpe. That is Randall Thorpe's business card."