31.
Startled, Constance Lange jumped, still holding the pillow-encased gun and snapped her head around quickly, her mouth dropping open in horror. Inside the door way, with his pistol firmly trained on her, was Horatio.
"Don't even think about it!" another, even bigger, man said, who had appeared from behind the patient's restroom door.
"I..." Connie started, staring from one man to the next and frozen with indecision. "I.."
"Put it down, Connie!" Horatio ordered loudly. "Now!"
Constance Lange's eyes flickered when she caught sight of the janitor appearing in the doorway, also holding a gun on her. She started to turn towards the figure in the bed when Horatio's sharp, commanding voice snapped,
"Put the gun down!"
Torn, she looked at the person in the bed then back at Horatio, then glanced at the bed again. It suddenly occured to her that the person in the bed hadn't moved at all...
She gasped in comprehension, a disgusted look crossing her face as she realized that there was a mannikin in the bed.
"Put the gun down, Connie..." Horatio ordered, "Right now."
Moving slowly, Connie obeyed.
"Back away..." he ordered her, still holding his gun firmly on her, his head tilted to one side, his blue eyes dark and dangerous. Connie slowly moved away, a range of emotions playing across her face. When she was effectively out of reach of the gun, Horatio lowered his, while Frank and the officer disguised as the janitor kept theirs trained on her.
Holstering his pistol, Horatio reached behind him and pulled out his set of handcuffs. "Keep your hands up, Connie, and face the wall," he ordered, approaching her.
Connie started to move towards the wall as he came up to her, the metallic clink of the cuffs loud in the room. As he reached up to take her wrist, Connie abruptly moved, turning around on him so fast that Horatio wasn't prepared.
A resounding slap ricocheted across the room causing Horatio's head to jerk back and he looked at her in shock, his hand flying to his face.
"Don't you touch me, you damn Yankee!" She spat like a wet cat into his face as he looked at her.
Blinking in surprise, his fingers gently probing his face, Horatio only said one word.
"Frank..."
"Up against the wall!" Frank's distinctive Southern drawl, barked out loudly. "And don't you dare call this Texan a damn Yankee!" he added as he pushed past Horatio, reaching up to snag Horatio's cuffs from him and forcing Connie to turn around.
"You're under arrest!" Frank snapped, slapping one cuff on her wrist and forcing it up behind her back, causing Connie to gasp out loud. "For being stupid!" He reached up and grabbed her other wrist, pulling it around and forcing her to lean into the wall. "You're also under arrest for murder, attempted murder, and for assault on a police officer!"
Frank began reading her the Miranda rights as the disguised janitor, glancing once at Horatio, stepped back and holstered his gun. As Frank turned Connie around from the wall, she looked at Horatio defiantly, jerking her head to toss back her hair out of her face.
"I want my lawyer!" she snapped at him, as Horatio, pulling a pen out of his lapel pocket, slid it through the finger guard on the .22 to lift it up and inspect it.
"You're gonna need one," Horatio murmured, as he smiled coldly and looked at her with contempt in his eyes. "Frank, get this piece of trash out of my sight," he added.
Connie, gasping in indignation, was forced ahead of Frank as he added sarcastically, "I should put you under arrest for insulting Southern women also. Too bad Calleigh wasn't here, she'd do it for me."
"She just might get a chance," Horatio said, as Frank led the indignant Connie away. Horatio nodded at the janitor who instantly followed after them. Horatio stood alone in the room, still holding the pistol with his pen. He looked at it a moment, before setting it down on the pillow, then he dropped his head and heaved a sigh.
A moment later, he pulled out his cell phone and called Eric to come and process the room as a crime scene.
In the interrogation room, Owen Parnell sat like an immovable orange clad statue, and ignored the officer standing behind him. He also studiously ignored Calleigh as she came into the room, holding a pair of files to her chest.
Without a word, she sat down in front of him, placing both files before her and looked directly at him. She had been in the observation room for some time, studying him and considering his background and military training. Already she knew he was mentally locked away in that place where a SERE trained soldier went to to avoid interrogation from the 'enemy'. Calleigh had been considering several angles in an attempt to see which move she should make to get her suspect to talk.
"Mr. Parnell," she started, as he looked at her coldly. "Are you aware that your brother, Cletus, is dead?" she asked.
He stared at her for several seconds, then blinked as he frowned at her. "What?" he asked.
"Your brother, Cletus Parnell?" Calleigh said and flipped open her top file. Extracting several pictures she turned them around and set them out for him to see. "Is that your brother? Cletus Parnell?"
Owen leaned forward and stared at the pictures, then he looked up at Calleigh, suspiciously.
"What kind of a sick joke is this?" he hissed.
"I assure you, it is no joke. Your brother was accidently killed a couple of weeks ago and no one has come forward to identify the body. Is that your brother?"
"Killed?" Owen asked, frowning as he looked at the pictures again. "Killed?"
"Your brother attempted to kill a raccoon that had gone down a culvert located in the backyard. After dumping a large quantity of gasoline in the culvert, he slid down inside of it and lit a match. The force of the explosion propelled him out of the culvert and he broke his neck when he hit the side of the house," Calleigh explained.
Owen stared at her in disbelief, "That's impossible!" he snarled at her. "Not to mention ridiculous."
"I assure you, Mr. Parnell, not only was it possible, there were four other witnesses to the event. Your brother and his friends were drinking heavily and trying to shoot the raccoon before your brother, who was very drunk, decided to take the matter into his own hands. He died as a result."
Calleigh looked back at him cooly, her green eyes unblinking.
Owen stared at the photos of his dead brother.
"I am sorry for your loss..." Calleigh said to him, "However, I am not sorry to have to tell you that we've added the charges of murder and attempted murder to the other charges that we are holding you on. Not only for the cases pending in Seattle, but also for the murder of Lionel Harrison two days ago and the attempted murder of Schell Demereau."
His head snapped up so fast that Calleigh couldn't help but see the look of shock in his eyes.
"Demereau?" he growled.
"You missed her, again..." she said with a slight smirk of triumph. "You shot at the passenger, not realizing that Schell Demereau was driving the BMW and you killed Lionel Harrison instead." She pulled out the photos of Lionel in the other file and set them before him. "Just like you missed her when you tried to kill her in Seattle."
"We have DNA evidence, as well as financial records, connecting you to the rifle and gun that were used to kill Detective Paul Hirsch of the Seattle Police Department and Joe Miller, whom you were hired to kill. Miller for not completing the job of killing Miss Demereau the first time, and Paul Hirsch for exposing the forgery-swapping scam that Constance Lange had set up."
"We also have more than enough evidence connecting the two of you together in these cases as well as the evidence needed to convict you for the murder of Lionel Harrison and the attempted murder of Schell Demereau here in Florida. Constance Lange manoeuvred Miss Demereau into a postion where you simply could not miss killing her a final time. She even waited long enough to make sure that Miss Demereau was lulled into a false sense of security thinking that the attempts on her life were over."
"However," Calleigh paused, "You didn't count on the possibility that Schell Demereau would be driving the car on Ocean Beach Drive, and not be in the passenger seat, when you decided to shoot her from the pedestrian overpass in North Miami Beach, using this Kimber .22 Classic rifle..." she pulled out the photo's of the rifle, both buried in the trash heap and later laid out on the ballistic table. "The bullets retrieved from Lionel matched this rifle registered in your name," she laid the registration certificate on top of the pictures. "Paid for with money given to you by Constance Lange. Who also paid you for your piercing job and supplied you with clothes and god knows what else, to accompany her to her social gatherings, once she knew that her husband would never be able to do anything about her activities."
"We also matched the bullets retrieved from Paul Hirsch with the rifle and gun we retrieved from your brother's residence," Calleigh said.
So intense was the scrutiny and focus on Calleigh, that Owen never looked up when the interrogation room door silently opened, allowing someone to enter. He never broke Calleigh's stare. She never looked up, knowing who had entered.
"Our forensics also tied the rifle bullets fired from your illegal 'Hush Puppy' with those that were found at Schell Demereau's studio in Seattle," Calleigh said as Horatio moved silently behind her. She smiled coldly as Horatio leaned over and set both his hands flat on the table.
Owen at first refused to break his stare with her until a more powerful presence made itself known. Frowning with annoyance, he blinked and cast a glance at the other person now staring at him with a slight, chilling smirk on his features.
He did a classic double take, his mind flashing back to the trees in Golden Gardens Park as a tall redhead had opened his target's door instead of the intended victim.
"Recognize me?" Horatio purred.
Owen's mouth started to open...
"Blood evidence retrieved from a bullet you fired into the studio, matched the blood evidence found on a shirt given to the Seattle Police Department from my colleague," Calleigh continued, forcing Owen to look back at her unblinking green eyes. "All irrefutable evidence that you were hired by Constance Lange to eliminate any person who could expose her scam of selling stolen originals to collectors, who would pay millions for original works of art to add to their private collections."
Parnell stared hard at Horatio for a moment, then licked his lips and glanced at Calleigh. "I want a lawyer!" he muttered.
"I bet you do," Horatio said in disgust, leaning forward towards Parnell. He said nothing for several long moments as he stared at him in contempt. Then he murmured in a low growl, "You're lucky I wasn't armed that day, " he said slowly, "Because when I fire a weapon?" He leaned forward a little further, beginning to invade Parnell's personal space, "When I fire a weapon," he growled,
"I... never... miss!"