12.
In a more suburban part of Miami, Horatio deliberately parked the Hummer just outside of a taped-off crime scene. Pulling up next to another Hummer, which effectively blocked Schell from seeing anything, he was out of the car in an instant and gone. Police cars, a medic unit, fire trucks, and a few other official looking vehicles, were everywhere, including a huge handful of gawkers, kept at bay by the crime tape and several vigilant police officers.
The first thing Schell noticed, however, was the very serious and sober looks on the faces of the policemen crawling about the scene. An attempted suicide that involved an officer, Horatio had mentioned. Pretty serious stuff. She settled in for the wait with a sigh, grateful he'd rolled the windows down now that the A/C was turned off.
Horatio had arrived while the paramedics where still frantically working on a black man lying in the street, while nearby, a distraught policeman was being consoled by his partner. Several detectives had fanned out asking questions and taking notes from the nearby crowds. A Miami-Dade patrol unit, lights flashing, with dented hood, and an utterly smashed in windshield, sat sideways, nearly through the intersection, with a long track of skid marks behind the car. Eric Delko was slowly beginning to circle the vehicle, to take the initial photographs.
Horatio paused, his hands on his hips, and surveyed the scene, his sunglasses hiding the furious activity behind his eyes. He glanced at the consoling policeman and nodded. Reassuring his partner, he stepped over to Horatio.
"Officer Reed…" Horatio said by way of greeting, he glanced at the other policeman, who was barely maintaining his composure. "Your partner?"
"What can I say, Lieutenant?" Reed said. "It happened so damn fast. We were building up speed to respond to an 18 call, when this guy literally jumps out in front of us. Bob tried to stop, but it was way too late for that, we couldn't help but hit the guy."
"How fast do you think you were going?" Horatio asked, his sunglasses hiding the sympathetic look in his eyes as he glanced at the man's partner.
"I dunno, 40 maybe 45 miles per hour. There was an 18 call, three blocks west of here." Reed said, looking at Horatio.
"Okay, son, that's easy enough to verify. Don't worry."
"The guy came out of nowhere. He just threw himself in front of the car…"
"It's all right, son, I understand." Horatio said. "Why don't you go back to your partner. We can get everything sorted out, later. Right now, just try not to worry? All right?"
Reed nodded his head, looking miserable, then turned, going back to his partner.
"They're gonna have to be relieved of duty, you know," A familiar voice said from behind Horatio.
"Rick." Horatio said, turning around to look at Stetler. He leaned forward, chin tucked in as he glanced at the Internal Affairs agent over the top of his sunglasses. "Taking up ambulance chasing now? Or surfing the scanner for something to do?"
"It's an officer involved accident, you know I have to be here."
"Accident being the key word," Horatio pointed out.
"Until proven otherwise," Rick added.
"And until then, I have a job to do." Horatio replied, his voice traced with subtle sarcasm, as he turned away from the IA agent. Stetler, looked at his retreating back, a smirk of disgust on his face and his dark eyes glittering with a suppressed anger.
"Eric," Horatio said as he approached his CSI, who was in the act of photographing the skid marks from the car. "What have we got?"
"Initial evidence says it was all an accident H," Eric said, snapping his photos and rising. "Skid marks began there," he said pointing to an area ahead of them. "Followed by impact, there's glass from the headlight and blood evidence, indicating an estimated impact point. The victim flipped over the car and fell where you see him, and the car stopped where you see it. So far, there is no indication that anything else occurred. It's just a bad accident." He looked at Horatio, who was surveying each spot Eric mentioned, and nodded. "So why is he here?" He nodded his head at Stetler, who was standing in front of the two policemen with his hands on his hips and looking intimidating.
"You know he has to be here when it involves officers," Horatio said with a sigh. Just glancing around the scene, he could see that it was all Eric had summed it up to be. He looked at the activity still going on around the victim, now being loaded onto the gurney and rushed to a waiting ambulance. Just from what he could hear from the medical personnel, it didn't look good for the victim surviving. "We have any information on the victim?"
"Trickling in now. Don't have a name yet, as the paramedics had the first priority."
"All right, no hurry there," Horatio replied. "What about the 18 call?"
"Dispatch is working that out, apparently there was a hit and run three blocks west." Eric nodded his head in the direction. From the crowd, a very tall, burly, partially balding man in a suit turned and spotted Horatio.
"Frank." Horatio said as the man approached, he nodded at Eric to continue to work as the detective, holding a small notebook and a pen, walked up to the redhead. "What have you got?"
"Some conflicting accounts, typical for this kinda thing. Got a community activist in there trying to stir things up." Frank Tripp replied in his Texas drawl. "Says that the white cops deliberately ran the black brother down." He sighed; he'd heard it a hundred times before.
"And the others?" Horatio asked.
"Several others say that the man, Leon Jenks, has a history of mental illness. Lives with his mother three houses up that way. That he has attempted suicide before, in a variety of ways, apparently, and that they are not surprised at all that he would throw himself in front of a speeding car."
"Where is the mother?" Horatio asked. Frank nodded towards a small cluster of people at the back of the fire truck. Several neighbors were consoling an older black woman along with a fireman and another paramedic. It was apparent arrangements were being made to help her get to the hospital. Horatio dropped his head a moment and sighed, then nodded for Frank to follow him. Together they went to speak to the victim's mother.
As Horatio went about his work, Schell still sat in the Hummer. She had found a notebook in the glove box and was lazily fanning herself with it, still utterly unadjusted to even Miami's November temperatures and humidity. Realizing she was in for a long wait, she simply began reviewing information on local shipwrecks, trying to cull out the unnecessary from the necessary, and was thus promptly lost in another world.
It was with a little shock therefore when a man's voice, practically in her ear, snapped. "Excuse me!"
Blinking, Schell sat up, snapping her head around and staring at a man standing by her door, fists on hip. A brunette, with dark eyes, he was wearing a light tan suit, with a gun and a badge on his belt. He was easily a few inches taller than Horatio, though at the moment he was stooped slightly as he looked in at her, suspiciously.
"Who are you?" he snapped, "And what are you doing sitting in this vehicle?"
Schell, looking at the man, frowned a little at his abruptness, and reached up to flip the visitor tag she had clipped to the front of her jumper around for him to see.
"Schell Demereau, and I am a ride-along." She said then asked, "And who are you?"
"I need to see some identification, Miss Demereau, this is a police vehicle you're sitting in and I am unaware of any ride-alongs being authorized for a CSI."
"My identification for yours," She promptly shot back, her dark blue eyes locking with his brown ones.
Pursing his lips and looking away from her sourly, the man reached down and tugged off his ID card from his belt. Schell, with the faintest of smirks, reached down slowly and picked up her handbag, aware that he was watching her movements like a hawk. She pulled out her wallet then slipped out her driver's license.
As they exchanged cards, he added. "I want to see that visitor's tag, too."
Schell's eyes narrowed in suspicion as she reached up and tugged it off her dress. She held it up for him to snag out her hand, before looking down at his identification. Sergeant Rick Stetler. Internal Affairs, followed by his physical description and his ID numbers, identifying him as a Miami-Dade Police Officer with several years of experience.
Stetler immediately frowned again, shooting her another suspicious glance. "This isn't even a Florida driver's license," he said flatly, holding up her Washington State card. He looked at it again, then at the visitor's tag.
"I'm gonna have to ask you to step out of the car, Miss Demereau," he said, holding back from giving her her identification.
Holding back his as he held his hand out for it, she looked at him with an arched brow and said.
"I don't think so, Sergeant," she said simply, holding his card up and away from his reach.
"Excuse me?" he said, looking at her with his brows rising, "I'm an officer of the law here, and part of Internal Affairs. You don't just say no to an IA agent. Now give me back my identification and step out of this vehicle." He reached up and snagged the handle of the door, jerking it open.
"Sergeant Stetler," Schell said, not budging. "I signed paperwork stating that I was to stay in this car at any crime scene, and I fully intend on doing just that. I was also ordered to remain in this vehicle no matter what." She smiled at Stetler, holding her hand up for her ID, "and the last time I looked, a Lieutenant trumps a Sergeant, and I think that goes for his directions, as well."
The sound of someone clearing their throat from behind Stetler caused the man to pause as he was getting fired up to argue with her. She saw a distinct look of annoyance cross his face as she looked past him at Horatio and a uniformed policeman. Horatio had a very neutral expression on his face, but by the way he was carefully balanced on his feet, his fingers tapping the butt of his gun, Schell could see he was ready for anything to happen. It didn't take long to figure out there was something deep and dark between them both as Stetler straightened and looked at Horatio.
"This is extremely irregular. A ride-along in a CSI's vehicle?" He waved Schell's ID and tag at Horatio. "I have no paperwork supporting this whatsoever, now what is she doing is this car?"
"Riding along." Horatio replied, reaching up to remove the cards from Rick's fingers. "Paperwork was filed for it last week. You need to check with your office for it. She is perfectly legal and I was out on a code 11 before answering this call. And as you can see, Miss Demereau obeyed my instructions."
"Code 11 huh? Personal business?" Rick asked, looking at him skeptically.
"Call dispatch and verify it." Horatio replied, not backing off an inch.
"Oh, I fully intend to. And this so-called paperwork."
"Why don't you do that, Rick," Horatio said and stepped past him to offer Schell his hand. "Schell, I need to attend to things here for a while, so I asked Officer Jessup to give you a ride home."
"All right," she said, taking his offered hand and sliding out of the car as Horatio handed her back her identification. She looked Stetler in the eye and held up his ID. Stetler took it from her, his eyes locked with Horatio's as Horatio put a proprietary hand in the center of Schell's back and steered her towards a patrol unit.
"Sergeant," Schell said in simple dismissal, letting Horatio nudge her past the man.
"You know I'm gonna look into this," Stetler said.
"Do whatever amuses you, Rick, since you have so much time on your hands." Horatio replied, as Jessup opened up the passenger side door of his patrol unit. As Schell released his hand to sit in the car, he glanced over the top of his sunglasses at her. "I'll call you later," he said to her ears alone, his eyes warming just enough for her before becoming dark and inscrutable. She nodded, saying nothing as she shot a look at Stetler before Horatio shut the door.
"She'll give you the address, Jessup." Horatio said as he straightened and looked at Rick.
"Sir," Jessup replied, and got into his car.
Horatio waited until Jessup had pulled away, then he nudged his sunglasses back up his nose. "Now if you'll excuse me," he said flatly and walked away from Stetler, flicking his jacket back into place.
"I'm not done with this, yet!" Stetler snapped.
Horatio just ignored him.