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Disclaimer: I do not own any part of CSI or its characters. That honor goes to the good folks over at CBS.
Title: The Rocking Horse: Part 1
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With Warrick at the wheel, and Catherine in the passenger seat, the two CSIs arrived at the Rocking Horse in record time—even for Warrick's driving. "Do you think you could have gone any faster…?" Catherine asked him with a smile, smoothing out her hair. "Because… I think that my grandmother could have gone faster…" she teased him. "But coffee in one hand, wheel in the other, music blaring—nice driving, Warrick. Seriously!"
Warrick grinned, shrugging. "It's a gift," he simply said, as they got out of the vehicle, toting their kits with them.
Catherine laughed, as they walked into the bar. Directly inside of the door and to the right, she observed Detective Vance questioning someone—the manager, she thought?—with his pen in one hand, and his notebook in the other.
"I don't know," she overheard. "I was running the mechanical bull competition—the same competition that we have every other Thursday night—and I got a phone call. I went to my office," the man said, "Picked up the phone, and there was no one there. I went back to the bull competition, and heard a crash from behind the bar. I looked up, and saw someone laying face down on the bar," he added.
Vance nodded, writing the information down. Looking up, he noticed Catherine and Warrick out of the corner of his eye, who then nodded a greeting to the detective. "Excuse me for a moment Sir," the detective said, clearing his throat and walking over to the two CSIs. "Catherine, Warrick," he said to them.
"Larry," Catherine said in reply. Lawrence Vance was not one of Catherine's favorite detectives. He was quick to judge, quick-tempered, and always in a rush to leave the scene of the crime. Catherine hated to work with the man, although she knew that she would have to make-do. "What's going on here?" she asked.
"Well, you're never going to believe this one," he said with a little laugh. "Notice anything… unusual?"
Both Warrick and Catherine surveyed the scene, taking in the milling customers, the art—or graffiti—on the walls, the empty beer bottles laying around, the nut shells on the ground, the hay strewn about, and the mechanical bull in the far back right hand corner. "Wait a minute, man," Warrick said, as he took a step closer to the mechanical bull. Scratching his head, he squinted in confusion.
"What, Rick?" Catherine asked, following his gaze. "Is that bull missing its—"
"Where's its head?" Warrick asked, finishing his colleague's sentence.
Vance just grinned at the two CSIs, trying to hold back his laughter. "You got it. The manager, a Mr. Jeffrey Rahl, was conducting the competition. He went to his office to take a phone call, came back to the competition, went to the bar to make sure that a customer was okay—turns out the customer was just very drunk,—and returned to the bull tournament only to find half of the bull missing."
"You've got to be kidding me," Catherine said with a sigh. Of all the cases to draw, I had had to get this one, she thought to herself.
"Manager wants the bull back," Vance continued, "And he is not happy."
"Fine. Has anyone left the Rocking Horse yet?" Catherine asked the detective.
"No, we were waiting on you two."
"Okay. Warrick, dust for prints. I'll comb the area for any other trace that might be left behind." With another sigh, Catherine and Warrick got to work.
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TO BE CONTINUED