Hi guys, sorry its been so long! Here's the next bit, poor danny! Same disclaimers for language and content. I dont own any of the csi crew blah blah copywritecakes.
R+R and i'll try not to take so long with the next one!
Aiden's full lower lip quivered almost imperceptibly as she stared at the chain and pendant which Mac had bagged and sent back up to the apartment while he continued to scour the alley way, making his way slowly but purposefully toward the door. He was gathering up anything that could have been evidence, making sure he photographed and documented everything, trying to assure that he could build the strongest possible case either for, or against, Danny Messer.
"Oh," Aiden said quietly, holding the bag high so that the light glinted off the silver chain. "Damn it Danny," she breathed.
Stella frowned, stepping closer to the younger CSI. " Hey, you okay?"
"Yeah," Aiden said resignedly, placing the bag carefully in her kit.
"We'll find him," Stella told her, her voice holding a promise.
"This is so screwed up Stella," Aiden snapped, her Brooklyn accent thickening with emotion. " This is Danny's chain! Danny's apartment, Danny's life that's all messed up… I just cant get my head around it Stella… you spend your days with some one, then just like that, everything changes." She shook her head, unaware that she was closely mimicking something Danny had once said after a particularly tough case.
She took a deep breath and picked up her case. "I'll take what we have back to the lab, then I'm gonna come back and get on that search team," she stated.
"Aiden you might be better off staying at the lab. Once we've finished with the scene there's not a lot more we can do here." Stella gave Aiden a sympathetic look. "You know I feel as scared and worried as you do, but you and I will be better utilised helping analyse the evidence, finding out what happened here, maybe where Danny is," Stella said.
"Stella you know as well as I do none of this was planned… whose ever fault it was, it was all random… nothing we analyze is gonna help us find him," Aiden shot back, not harshly, but not exactly friendly either.
Stella let it slide. " Go to the lab, get the techs working on what we have. Then…see what Mac says about coming back…if he torpedoes it, stay away, you don't want him ordering you off, but if he's okay with it…be careful. And bring our boy back." She gave Aiden an almost conspiratorial wink and the younger CSI nodded and walked away, taking her kit with her.
Stella marched back through Jack Theroux's apartment, glancing around as she went, her trained eyes taking in everything. The apartment was already imprinted in her mind. As she walked now, she automatically filled in the spaces where things had been removed, including Jack's body. She stopped, standing in the centre of the den, her feet either side of the blood pool. Taking a deep breath and pulling on a new pair of gloves, Stella crouched over the pool. She closed her eyes, trying to visualise how things might have gone;
Jack, possibly drunk, has been raising a fuss, maybe beating on his son… Stella opened her eyes and pictured the scene, her imagination conjuring ghost like images of the players, Jack appearing whole, the child, of whom there were still no pictures, simply a smaller, shadowy figure…yelling about whatever, the kid being up so late, the lack of fresh alcohol in the house… Stella looked over at the open door, moving so she could see Danny's apartment across the hall…Danny is eating his dinner, drinking, maybe unwinding after the difficult sexual assault case. He hears the noise and… Stella reluctantly let her mind follow the path Mac had seemed to be following…in his own inebriated state comes over and lets himself in, the neighbours reported hearing him thumping on the door and yelling, but were not sure if he told Jack he was a cop or not. Danny comes in and sees Jack, his anger aided by alcohol, overriding common sense and cop training. Danny goes for Jack, they fight, Danny gets the upper hand, gets the gun and executes Jack mob style, then takes the kid and the gun and flees the scene, again, the alcohol causing him to react differently than he normally would… Stella shook her head. They had already established that the bleeder from the den was the bleeder who had escaped, meaning that at some point, Danny or the kid had gotten wounded. Stella reset her internal playback and tried a different version…Danny is still drunk but not overreacting, simply trying to defend the boy, and himself from Jack, who had almost a foot and half of height and at least a hundred pounds in weight on Danny. The fight ensues and Danny's street instincts kick in, the gun appears, it goes off…the boy gets hit? Stella flinched as her imagined child figure took a bullet, slumping to the ground. The neighbours who had called it in had reported gunfire but there was some trouble establishing whether it was one or two, the stories where not totally collaborative. Stella looked down at the puddle of blood, her imagined boy now laying over it…with the boy now hit, maybe mortally wounded, Danny really loses it and executes Jack, then takes the kid and leaves… 'But why?' Stella mused, 'Why leave the scene, why not stay for help…Danny could have been drunk, that was true, but even drunk he wouldn't have been so stupid, surely? Stella frowned again and followed the third possibility…Danny is drunk, in the apartment, they're fighting, the gun appears, there's a struggle…Danny gets hit…Stella blew a deep breath out as she visualised Danny laying over the blood stain. It was not easy to do, but she gritted her teeth, determined to tough it out…Danny some how gets the gun back and kills Jack, then takes the kid and leaves…But again, why did he leave? Stella shook her head again. She looked at her watch and realised she had been in the room for almost forty minutes.
"Hey," Flack called out. " We might have kind of a problem." He was standing in the door way, his face grim.
" What is it?" Stella asked.
" We should get to Mac first." Flack looked at her. " It's not looking good"
NYNYNY
Vincent felt his stomach drop through the floor as the box he was standing on wobbled suddenly and he was almost thrown to the floor. He froze, regaining his balance and pulled the small medicine cabinet door open. " Jackpot," he breathed at the sight if a dusty, but not too old, first aid kit.
He pulled the kit down and jumped off the box, carrying the kit over to the small office he had found and crawling under the desk. Not wanting to be spotted, Vincent had moved the desk lamp into the alcove under the main panel of the desk, creating a little cave for himself. He routed through the kit, setting aside bandages, antiseptics, and gauze. He held up a spool and a small box of medical needles and squinted to read the instructions. "Suture kit," he grinned.
He gathered everything together in the kit box, taking the lamp too and headed back to the storeroom, to Danny, humming to himself, feeling a spark of hope that things might be looking up.
NYNYNY
"We got a couple a few floors down who say they rode the elevator up with Danny and our vic…they say…they say Danny got into it with Theroux, threatened him, was even aggressive with the couple…they got off before our boy and Theroux so they don't know what might have happened. But there was definitely tension between 'em." Flack looked from Mac to Stella as he spoke, registering the set of their faces. " They say Theroux bumped Danny at one point and something in Danny's bags broke, Danny, in their words, overreacted."
Stella cursed as Flack's words mirrored her thoughts from only moments ago. They were standing in the alley way which was becoming more easily accessible as crews worked to remove the garbage pile that blocked the entrance.
" Did Danny get violent?" Mac asked calmly.
" They say he didn't exactly throw any punches, but he was confrontational," Flack confirmed.
" Shit!" Stella spat.
Mac opened his mouth to speak again but a high chirping sound interrupted him. Stella jumped and reached for her cell phone.
"Stella?" she heard Hawkes on the other end. "I'm here with Aiden, we might have something," he told her.
Stella immediately set her phone to loudspeaker "Go ahead," she said aloud.
"Remember that bloody handprint on Jack's face?" Aiden's voice sounded. "We swabbed it and compared it with the blood from the floor in the den, they're a match for one another but we're still running for a name. It also looks like it may match the blood that was on Danny's…on Danny's chain." The team pretended not to hear the slight quaver in Aiden's voice. "Oh and we checked, the hand print isn't ideal for finger prints, too smeared."
"Meaning that blood could be Danny's," Flack said.
" Or it could be the kid's and got on Danny's chain when he carried the kid out the window," Stella grudgingly admitted, " or even Jack's except that we've established he died in the kitchen."
"Well here's something else, that blood from the bathroom? There was some if it that was full of mucus, from a bloody nose I'd bet…that blood, doesn't match the blood that was on the chain, in the den, but it does match Jack." Hawkes told them.
"So…so Jack was in the bathroom, near the window after he was beaten," Mac surmised
" And after some one else got hurt," Flack added.
" So… wait… there's no evidence to suggest Danny or anybody went back into the apartment, so who shot Jack?" Stella asked aloud.
"Hey, we're not done, we ran the blood samples…Jack was drunk, way, way over the limit," Aiden called. " And the other donor, based on the large sample we took from the den floor…had maybe... maybe one beer in him." Aiden's voice was smug and Stella could almost see the grin the young CSI would be sporting. " Meaning the other donor is Danny, and he wasn't drunk," she told them.
Mac sniffed, blinking up at the falling snow. "And," he added reluctantly, "meaning if he did shoot Jack, he was sober when he did it, so he couldn't even plea for manslaughter," he reminded them
"That's the other thing." Aiden's voice was harsh, clearly she was pissed at Mac's comment, and even Stella shot him a look.
"I'm just being realistic," Mac shot back, fairly.
"As I was saying, Jack has GSR on both sleeves of his shirt, meaning he fired the gun twice," Hawkes spoke again.
" Or held it with two hands and fired once," Flack reluctantly voiced his own doubts.
"The angle doesn't match that, if he clasped the gun in two hands and fired, there would be GSR from one shot spread more or less evenly over his chest and arms. He has enough GSR on either side to tell us he shot twice, the gun in one hand each time," Aiden told them.
"SIR!" a voice called.
Flack turned to see a young uniformed officer running toward him. "Harrison, what is it?" he asked.
The portly young cop came to a stop beside the CSI's. " Sir, I'm getting some kind of screwed up information or something, I got a lady in… uh… this apartment here," he pointed to a window two stories down and six across from Jack's, " saying she heard one gun, then a kid screaming, then a guy yelling at some one to come back…she says it sounded like the father yelling after people, yelling for his kid, something in the tone she says, gives it away… Then she heard a second gunshot… which to me says that Messer and the kid left before the second shot was fired… but I've been hearing that this guy was dead before Messer left the apartment, so I figure, either she got it wrong, or you did. And while I'm not inclined to doubt you science guys, I listened out of her window and I don't know if it's the alley or the snow but the acoustics are good enough that I kind of… I kind of think she knows what she's sayin'." The kid was blinking rapidly, the effort of telling his bosses he doubted their wisdom clearly taking its toll on him.
"You got her statement written down?" Flack asked the kid.
The kid gave Flack a 'do I look stupid?' glare. " Course."
Flack looked pointedly at Mac, and Stella still holding her phone.
"Don't give me that look," Mac said, " we still have a dead body, a missing murder weapon and two missing people, at least one of whom is severely wounded. This evidence is good but it doesn't clear Danny completely, Jack was shot in the head and the gun is gone, if it was suicide, where's the weapon?" Mac reminded them.
"I'm coming back," Aiden snapped before she disconnected the phone.
Stella put her phone back on her belt as Flack thanked the kid and told him to go and try to confirm what the woman had told him. "So, now what?" Flack asked them.
Mac thought on it. " Okay…alright, the EMS and FDNY are almost through the garbage wall, when they get in here we're gonna set up for a search, starting through there," Mac pointed to the doorway. " So far I've found blood trails leading in that direction, so its pretty obvious where we need to start. When Aiden gets here I'm gonna have her tear up that house and find the gun, if its there," Mac told them. "Flack, put out an APB for Danny and this boy…well for Danny at least, we still don't know what this kid looks like… say he's possibly armed and to be approached with caution if spotted. Say he's a trained cop, and he may be injured or in shock," Mac told the blue eyed detective. "I know that sounds negative and bad for Danny but those are just the facts. Make sure they know he's one of ours," Mac stated.
Flack stared at him for a beat, then turned away, pulling a walkie talkie from his belt and officially relaying the orders.
" Nicely worded; makes sure people will be careful without it looking too bad for Danny," Stella admitted.
"I can't pretend this isn't still bad for Danny, Stella. We've got witnesses now saying he confronted the guy in the elevator," Mac reminded her. "Even if it turns out this was some terrible accident, those statements mean Danny could still be hit with manslaughter for instigating the fight that led to Theroux's death."
"Well, Mac, you know, sometimes… sometimes with all the paper work in a case, sometimes certain things, statements, get lost." Stella shrugged.
Mac stared at the ground "Yeah," he mumbled. "Sometimes"
He tilted his head slightly "But not this time" he said to her quietly, firmly, but not angrily "Danny isn't in the clear just yet, we don't want to risk doing anything to compromise the case, even if we think it'll help him…if it comes up later…" he trailed off as she nodded.
"We just have to hope then that he's alright" Stella shrugged.
As she spoke her phone rang again. She answered it and listened for a few minutes then hung up, looking pale again "Sheldon ran the blood in the snow, it matches the handprint and the blood in the den…and the ID came back…it's Danny" she said , her voice a little ragged.
Mac sighed, sounding exhausted. "Alright, get the word out, we now officially know we have a wounded officer" he picked up his flash light began to walk towards the door way "I'm gonna start looking…make sure the emergency crews get some high power lights and torches too" he told her.
Stella nodded and walked in the direction Flack had gone, fighting back the tears that where threatening to break out.
She actually had to pause and take a deep breath as Flack walked over to her.
"Whatsamatter?" he asked her.
Stella regained her composure quickly and told Flack that it was official, the blood was Danny's. She relayed Mac's orders.
Flack nodded and asked again if she was okay. "Yeah…its just all of a sudden its real" she shook her head, reigning herself in "I'll be fine, its just a shock seeing all that blood and relating it to one of our own" she explained.
Flack nodded "I know Stel but…he's Danny" he gave her a tight grin and a shrug as if it explained everything.
Stella looked at him "he's not super man"
NYNYNY
Danny Messer was twelve but he was small for his age, kind of scrawny. He looked younger and while it could be a nuisance, sometimes it could be a blessing "Please mister!" he opened his blue eyes wide, pouting his bottom lip just a bit, I don't have the ten cents…its only ten cents, please can I have the soda?" he curled his fingers over the top of the raised counter, knowing that all the shop keeper would be able to see would be his mop of blonde hair, which was darkening slightly as he got older, his bright blue eyes behind the glasses he wore and his small hands with their bitten down finger nails.
The man sighed and slid the can over to Danny, fixing him with a stern glare "Just this once kid, alright?" he stated, his accent strong, harsh.
Danny's accent was just as pronounced as he thanked the guy and grabbed the can, running out of the shop.
He held out the can triumphantly as he reached the group of boys who stood on the corner. "You ready?" he asked one kid, a tall, dark, obviously Sicilian boy who flashed Danny an impressed grin.
The kid took the can and dug into his pocket, holding up two packets of pop rock candy. "I don't think you're up for this Messer" he shook his head, holding the pop rocks just out of Danny's reach"
"Screw you Sonny I can take anything you can dish out" Danny jumped and swiped the bags, giving Sonny a triumphant smile.
Sonny took one bag back and tore it open as Danny did the same.
The counted to three then tipped the contents of the paper bags into their mouths, then opened the soda and each taking a huge swig.
They held the mixtures in their mouths, holding one anothers gaze. They nodded, then swallowed. "You feel anything yet?" Sonny asked, his face still smug despite the faintest quaver in his voice.
"Nope. You? Afraid ya gonna explode Sonny?" Danny asked.
"You wish Messer" Sonny scoffed.
The surrounding kids watched both boys intently. Danny made a pained face "Hey…" he muttered, rubbing at his own stomach "something…something's wrong" he doubled over, clutching in pain at his own stomach.
Sonny, arrogant mask giving way to fear watched him closely "Messer? You alright? You're kidding right?" he asked, his voice shaking again.
"No…I don't feel so good" Danny said through gritted teeth.
He dropped to his knees, still clutching at his stomach, groaning loudly.
The boys around them looked at one another fearfully as Sonny began to sweat, reaching for Danny's shoulder. Danny began to gasp, falling down to the ground. "Danny!" Sonny yelled "Danny, oh man, Danny come on!" Sonny was on the verge of tears.
He knelt beside Danny, leaning close to Danny as Danny's breath seemed to slow. He was staring at nothing as he stopped breathing. Sonny cursed and grabbed Danny's face between two hands, leaning close, trying to hear for breath. Danny belched, long and loud directly in Sonny's face, his face splitting in a delighted grin. He burst out laughing, a high pitched giggle that spread through the group as a red faced Sonny stood, digging Danny with the tip of his sneaker.
"That's not funny Messer" Sonny snapped.
"Yes it was!" Danny shot back, laughing as he stood "You should have seen your face, I swear, you where gonna cry!" he giggled.
"He got you Sassone" another kid put in.
"Shut up, no he didn't! Sonny shot, but he was beginning to smile.
"See, I told you it was crap, you don't explode you just burp like a son of a bitch!" Danny gave Sonny a friendly shove.
"So we gonna play ball or what?" a fourth boy hefted his bat.
"Alright" Danny grinned again and the group started walking.
"DANNY" a voice bellowed out and the group as one stopped and looked across the street as Leo Messer staggered out of a bar "Come'ere kid!" he snapped.
"Aw man" Danny pulled a base ball from his pocket, seemingly more upset about not being able to play than about his fathers state or mood.
He tossed the ball to Sonny "I'll catch up later" he told them, jogging across the street.
"Where you been?" Leo loomed over Danny.
"Just with the guys" Danny told him truthfully, falling into step with his father, having to skip just a little to match his fathers longer strides.
"You clean the kitchen in the apartment?" Leo slurred.
"Yeah, and I did the laundry and there's some steaks defrosting in the sink" Danny told his father brightly.
"You do ya home work?" Leo belched and spat a gobbet of phlegm.
"Yessir" Danny nodded.
"Good kid, good kid" Leo sniffed. "Did you talk to the building super about the pipes?" he asked.
Danny frowned at him "What about the pipes?" he looked up at his father "I didn't know anything was wrong" he stated.
"You lazy little shit!" Leo, apparently not having heard his sons last remark grabbed Danny's upper arm and dragged the boy forward, forcing Danny to go up on tip toe "I told you the pipes where'nt runnin right and to call the super!" he snarled.
"No you didn't!" Danny yelled back.
Leo turned and began stalking toward his building, dragging Danny behind him. Danny struggled to keep up ad s his father pulled him by the arm, and asked his dad to slow down. Leo drew up short and dragged Danny forward, wrenching Danny's shoulder. Danny screamed as he heard a pop and felt something in his shoulder move in a totally un natural way.
NYNYNY
Danny gasped as he opened his eyes, feeling panic rise up in his chest before Vincent shushed him soothingly "Don't move I'm almost done" the boy told him.
"What?" Danny croaked, his voice painfully dry.
"I found a first aid kit, I'm sewing up the wound, you're bleeding way too badly" Vincent explained "Just hold still another second"
Danny turned his aching head slightly to see that the kid had widened the hole in Danny's shirt and had done a half decent job of sewing the wound up. Danny didn't feel any new pain, just the dull ache from the original wound, and couldn't tell if that was a good thing or not. "Good job" he croaked, taken aback by the kids talent.
"Here" Vincent passed him a bottle of water "I found a fridge too"
As Vincent finished up, Danny use his good arm and sipped the water, knowing too much would making him ill, so only taking little sips even though his dehydrated body cried out for more.
"You're still feverish and I don't know what to do to fix it" Vincent stated as he pressed a bandage over the wound and began to tape it in place.
"It'll just be my body reacting to the bullet, it'll be fine" Danny croaked "Now we ought to get moving soon, he'll be home any minute and if he sees the mess we made in here we're both gonna get it" he told Vincent.
Vincent gave him an odd look and Danny frowned "What?" he asked.
"Nothing it's just…never mind" Vincent chewed his bottom lip.
Danny struggled but with Vincent's help, he got to his feet. He had a moment of dizziness but it passed, and he leant on Vincent "Head to the front of this place, get us back to people" he told the boy.
They walked, slowly reaching the front of the store that seemed to be a small stationary out let.
"How do we get out?" Vincent looked up at Danny.
Danny regarded the door which, miraculously, didn't have metal covers over the glass, but did have some heavy duty locks on it and sniffed, much in the way his father had the day he dislocated Danny's shoulder. He looked around and located a heavy looking pricing gun and chucked it at the door. It was a bad throw with his wrong hand but it hit the glass and smashed through. No alarm sounded and most of the noise of the breaking glass was muffled by the snow. They hobbled forward and Danny punched the remaining glass out of the frame, telling Vincent to go through. Vincent did so, then helped Danny and the walked out onto the street, peering around.
"Any ideas?" Danny asked the boy.
Vincent noticed that other than his odd remark in the store room, Danny seemed more coherent and aware than he had been. He wondered if it was the rest that had helped. "I got nothing" he said, by way of answering Danny's question.
"I think we should try and find a sub way…get some where familiar maybe?" Danny suggested.
"You got any money?" Vincent looked up at him.
"No…go back in the store and see if you can find anything…it's okay, its for an emergency" Danny said to Vincent's shocked look.
Reluctantly, Vincent climbed back in through the door and headed for the counter and the till first.
Luckily for them both, the till was an old one and opened with out needing a pin or code. There was only a few dollars in the tray, and some coins, so Vincent took everything and headed back out to Danny.
"Alright kid, now, if you where a subway station…where would you be?" Danny gave him a ghost of a smile.
Vincent, again feeling that little spark of hope, returned the smile and looked around "I think…."he pointed "That way" he guessed.
"Well we'll find one eventually" Danny told him, and they headed out, the swirling snow already covering their tracks.
NYNYNY
"You know I heard this guy already killed another cop" Officer Jason Macnulty gazed idly out of the window of the cruiser as the car moved slowly through the snow covered streets, "and everyone knows about the…Tanglewood stuff" he added, running a hand over his pock marked, acne scarred skin.
Simon Liu, who was driving the car, shrugged in agreement "I cant believe they ever let him be a cop" he snorted "guys clearly a mob plant" he shook his head.
"You know they want us to try and bring him in safe?" Macnulty scoffed "As fucking if!" he frowned.
"if he's got a hostage, and a gun, I don't see how see how we can…I mean we know he can shoot…I say, we see him…we take him out before he gets a chance to do the same to us" Liu nodded "Plus how goods it gonna look if we save the kid? And when we off this guy, it's all gonna come out about him probably being a plant any ways so we're gonna be flat out heroes!" Liu smirked.
"I'm so glad you said that man, so glad…so we're agreed…we see Danny Messer, he's a dead man"
