The three men approached the courthouse with as much dignity as they could muster with all those people in the main hall staring at them like a fireworks display. It would be a lie, Nick thought, to say that he didn't like the attention. There were probably three or four good-looking ladies in that crowd relying on him to be the hero of the day and solve the case. I won't let you down, ladies.

Warrick walked past the crowd without a second glance at them. They should all be ashamed of themselves, wasting their time with something like this. Did they all expect to watch them work the scene like some popular crime drama? They could be writing a newspaper article or interviewing someone else or doing something useful instead of waiting here for definite answers that they weren't going to get. They all had to just do their job and ignore the press. Grissom had put them on this case, so there must be a reason for it. I won't let you down, Grissom.

A guard unlocked the door to the cell and an unpleasant smell filled the air. Greg looked down to find David the coroner crouched over the dead body of David Mason. Upon seeing this man dead, he felt a strange sensation: it was almost surreal. He remembered how this despicable human being tried to kill him several times, remembered how he chased after him on a deserted highway, how he had turned a gun in his face over and over again. But now, they had to investigate his murder. But this wasn't for him. It was for his brother, to prove his innocence. I won't let you down...Roger.

The air in the room was automatically tense. It felt as thought they had stepped into a comic book and they were the heroes. Greg even thought he felt a small breeze through his hair, but it must have been his imagination, for there were no windows.

David stood up. "Well, how he died is a no-brainer," he said, indicating the body. "Gunshot wound to the head."

"Well, if Roger did it," said Greg, thinking out loud, "he would have wanted to do it right."

"I'm not so sure he did do it," said David honestly. He motioned for the CSIs to come over and see what he was talking about. He pointed to the wound. "It's perfectly center. right between the eyes, execution-style. If he got shot from the next cell over, the culprit had very good aim. But...that's just my small analysis. You guys are the CSIs." He took the body and left.

With a nod towards each other, the three of them spread out, crawling on hands and knees with flashlights in hand, searching for clues. There were a few minutes of silence. All that could be heard was the soft scuffling of knees across the stone floor.

"Murder weapon!" called Warrick, holding up a standard cop gun and then bagging it. The other two looked up, then turned back to their work. There was a much longer period of silence. Now it was so quiet that they could hear the grouped reporters outside the cell, coaxing the guard into telling them what was going on in there. Then -

"Uch!" cried Nick from David Mason's cell, which he had shuffled into when the coroner had left with the body. Both Greg and Warrick turned, hoping to find something interesting, but then Nick called, "nevermind, my hand just...slipped in the bloodpool...that's all. Yuk." He quickly put on another glove over it and continued what he was doing.

"Alright, I can't find anything in the culprit's cell," Warrick announced. "Greg, I'm coming over to your side of the chamber. Maybe there's something interesting by where the guards stand." He stood up and walked over to where Greg crawled, looking in corners for any signs of anything. Warrick leaned over his shoulder. "Ah, you rookie," he said, "you missed something already."

"What? Where?" said Greg eagerly. Warrick took his forceps and lifted what looked like a small, round, white pebble.

"It looks like a breath mint," said Greg, squinting at it.

"More like an aspirin. But who knows, in this town?" said Warrick, chuckling, putting it in a small plastic bag.

Nick tried to ignore them as they laughed behind him. Everything echoed around the room, making it difficult to concentrate. There wasn't much in this cell, either, besides that large puddle of blood he'd been trying to avoid. He scanned the flashlight along the edge of the wall. Dust, dust, and more dust. He wondered if some of the prisoners had asthma attacks here. The light scrolled over a particularly dusty edge and he saw something that definitely wasn't lint. It was a bunched-up ball of some soft material. He picked it up and saw that it was lined paper. Wondering vaguely what it was doing there, he carefully uncrumpled it. There was a note in clear black ink, roughly written because of the tough surfaces to lean on. His eyes widened as he read the wording.

"Guys...?" he said loudly.

They both came over and he could feel them reading it over his shoulder, both of them shocked at what they were reading. It was either a Red Herring...or a case breaker.

I'm sorry, Roger

It's all my fault we're in here.

I didn't mean to hurt you. I didn't mean for any of this.

I love you.

Goodbye.

Author's Note: I realized to keep it dramatic I would have to split the investigation into 2 chapters instead of one. The next chapter will explain what the significance of everything they found. Yeah...all three things.