Chapter Nine
The Deductions
Greg escorted Teddy to the waiting room. The rest of the cast was already there; Angela and Corky were sitting down in the row of chairs to the right. Patty and Dicky looked up as Teddy entered the room and sat down between them. Kenneth was in the corner and Wayne poured a cup of coffee from the small stand. A sharp short yap came from somewhere in the vicinity of Angela's feet.
With a glance to the uniformed officer standing next to the front wall -put there by Brass to make sure none of the suspects spoke to any of the others- Greg left the waiting room and headed to the conference room.
He was the last to arrive; everyone else was already gathered around the table, chatting amongst themselves. Warrick sat coolly relaxed in the chair, one arm hung over the back as he and Nick discussed Angela. Sara pulled out the chair between Nick and Catherine, a mug of hot tea in her hand. Catherine, Grissom and Brass spoke quietly at the end of the table closest to the door. Greg walked in quietly and took a seat next to Warrick.
Grissom glanced up at Greg's arrival, and waited a moment while Catherine finished her thought. "Ok," he declared, getting everyone's attention. "Who else came up with a motive from their interview with their suspect?" Every CSI raised their hand. Grissom raised an amused eyebrow. "Ok. Catherine, you're up first."
"Mrs. Peacock blamed the victim for her sisters death." The others listened as Catherine quickly went over the details.
"Why'd she take the job in the play if she hated Fred so much?" Greg asked.
"She didn't know he was involved until it was to late," Catherine tapped her pen against the note pad in front of her. "Mr. Green apparently took care of the business end."
"Yeah," Nick spoke up. "He had the money, that is until he became partners with the vic."
"Fred took him to the cleaners?" Warrick guessed.
"Right. The victim was pretty free about spending Mr. Green's money, and with cashing the ticket sales checks, which he never bothered to tell Mr. Green about."
"Ok," began Grissom, "so far the vic has been called a cad and a possible embezzler. What else?"
"Scarlet," Warrick spoke up "is on a Rowdy Girls DVD, something her daddy –the televangelist- wouldn't appreciate. And the victim blackmailed her into staying with the show." Warrick glanced at Nick as he spoke, and found his friend shaking his head, as if he should have known.
"I've got a bit of blackmail too," Grissom added, telling them Dicky's story. "And," he added as he finished, looking at Brass "I don't believe he knows the victim was his son."
Brass nodded at the comment, "Corky -Mrs. White- confirms she never told Dicky; not about the baby in the first place, and not when she found out Freddie was their son a few weeks ago."
"What's her story?" Nick asked, then listened raptly as Brass went over the highlights of what Corky had told him.
The group was quiet when Brass finished, each of them wondering what kind of hatred the victim must have had boiling up in him for so many years.
After a moment, Grissom interrupted the silence. "Sara? What did the butler have to say?"
"Wayne wrote a movie script about the life and insanity of King George the third," Sara began, "and had the unfortunate idea to share the idea with the victim, who promptly stole the idea and was talking to Professor Plum about playing the role of the King, the one Wayne Wayne wanted for himself."
"Wayne Wayne," Greg muttered through a quiet laugh.
"Greg," Grissom said somewhat sternly. "Your suspect?"
"Well," Greg sobered up quickly, "Professor Plum inflicted the head wound." Grissom and Catherine exchanged a glance. "He was examining the candlestick with the idea of hocking it to pay off part of his gambling debt, when he says it slipped out of his hands and hit the victim. Poor guy's been thinking he killed him all night."
"We don't know that he didn't," Grissom reminded him. "All right," Grissom looked around the table. "Where does that leave us?"
"Murder on the Orient Express?" Sara offered. She caught Greg's confused expression out of the corner of her eye. "Everyone did it," she explained.
"Possible, but not likely," Grissom said. "Arsenic is more of a one person kind of crime."
"Poison is usually a female weapon," Catherine offered.
"I don't know about that," Nick said, "sounds to me like Col Mustard had the most to gain by the victims death."
"Scarlet seems more the poisoning type to me," Sara began, "passive aggressive, never had a man say no to her."
"I did," Nick countered and took a sip from his coffee cup.
"Should we run that coffee through the lab?" Sara asked with a pursed lip smile.
The younger CSI's erupted in laughter, until Grissom stopped them with his voice. "All right," he slid off his glasses and rubbed his eyes tiredly.
"Griss?" Henry appeared in the doorway.
"Yeah, Henry come on in."
"I got the results on the victims stomach contents," he handed Grissom the report.
"What'd you find Henry?" Catherine asked as she leaned over, reading the report as Grissom slipped his glasses back on.
"Flour, milk, sugar, butter, almond paste…all the ingredients for almond cookies."
"Almond flavoring might mask the arsenic." She glanced up, "Thanks Henry."
"Cookies laced with arsenic? That's clever." Sara noted.
"Yeah, but we still have the same problem, who gave him the cookies?" Greg asked.
"The video," Nick said suddenly.
"What video?" Grissom asked over the top of his glasses.
"The tourists in the audience. They recorded everything." Nick answered as he stood up and headed for the door.
--
"Archie," Nick said, as he entered the AV Lab and clapped the lab tech on the back. "You get a chance to run that video I brought back from the hotel?"
"Yeah," Archie turned around to find the entire night shift standing in his lab, "But…I didn't see anything probative."
"Run it for us, Arch." Grissom ordered.
Archie nodded and turned to his keyboard, punching a few buttons in quick succession. In mere seconds the hotel lounge replaced the ATM footage he'd been working on when the team walked into his lab. With a click of the mouse, the video came to life. They all watched in silence for a moment, as if the wife with the pocketbook had caught the actual murder on tape and in focus and had just forgotten to mention it to anyone.
Scarlet batted her eyelashes and flipped her feather boa at Professor Plum, flirting with him. A moment later, the victim, Fred in the character of John Boddy walked up to them and began an argument among the characters.
"Ok," Grissom said, he's alive right there, fast forward till he's on the floor, then rewind till we see something.
Archie did as he was instructed, his fingers flying across the keyboard, eyes intent on the screen in front of him.
"There," Catherine called out. "Stop."
Archie did, and they all watched as the commotion of the fake dead body was discovered; the tourist wife had zoomed in on John Boddy lying on the floor. "Ok, Arch, now rewind it in slow motion."
With a few keypunches the people on the screen moved slowly backward, although Fred lying down on the floor wasn't actually on tape, in rewind, he was suddenly up and moving around.
"What are we looking for?" Archie asked, checking over his shoulder.
"Someone giving the vic a cookie." Sara answered him.
"A cookie?" Archie thought he'd heard her wrong. She nodded with a slight smile on her face.
"There," Warrick said suddenly "Archie, stop the tape."
The video had rewound to the point where Fred was not only alive, but sitting in an overstuffed armchair, to the left of the screen. The camera was focused mainly on Col Mustard, as he delivered what was supposed to be his inner thoughts, Mrs. White stood off in the background, playing her maid role by dusting a lamp, obviously listening.
"There," Warrick stepped up and pointed as a hand offering a plate to Fred. It was just the fingers and part of a palm. The rest of the hand; and arm, were cut off by the edge of the camera.
"Who is that?" Brass asked leaning in closer and tilting his head as if he'd be able to see what the camera didn't capture..
"Are any of the suspects that pale?" Greg asked, noting the hand holding the plate.
"Enhance that Arch," Nick asked.
Archie clicked a few keys and a lattice of red squares popped up on the screen, Archie deftly moved them over to cover the plate and hand, and with another two keystrokes, the image filled the screen.
"That's not skin," Grissom said smiling wryly and turned to look at Brass.
