Chapter 2: Tapped Out on the Grave Shift

Residence of Catherine Willows
Green Valley
3:30 AM

Catherine Willows startled awake rather randomly just at the clock struck exactly 3:30 AM. Dressed in just a dark gray sports bra and a pair of matching athletic shorts, the veteran crime scene investigator and recently appointed Director of the Las Vegas Police Department's Crime Lab got out of bed and grabbed her imitation silk flower-print robe off the floor.

Putting the robe on, she crossed to her adjoining bathroom and turned the light on before taking a beat to just stare at herself in the large vanity mirror. She had just spent the last 24 hours pulling an extended double shift, but it had seemed to her to have been an ever longer time than that.

Catherine splashed some cold water on her face and meticulously ran a comb through her reddish blonde hair before her cell phone suddenly rang for what seemed like the thousandth time in the last day or so. Having deliberately set up her phone, CSI ID credentials, a small memo book, pen, and a packet of cinnamon-flavored Tic-Tacs on the corner of the bathroom vanity, she quickly picked up her phone and answered.

"Director Willows", she groggily said into the phone.

"Hey Catherine", Greg Sanders replied from his end of the phone, "It's Greg. Listen, I apologize for waking you up this early after the shift we just pulled, but do you think you can come back me up at a scene? Our shift is tapped out. Everybody's on a case."

Catherine groaned with exasperation before replying. "I'm the Director of the lab now, Greg" Catherine said, "As much as I love getting down there in the trenches with you guys, field work isn't entirely my main forte these days."

She could hear Greg chuckle a bit on his side of the line. "Believe me", Greg said, "The fact that one of your first official acts was to make me the Night Shift Supervisor was kind of telling."

Catherine sighed before flipping open her memo book. "Fine", she replied, "What's going on?"

"Detective Aikers called me from the ER at Desert Palm Hospital about fifteen minutes ago", Greg began explaining, "The paramedics brought in a twenty-five-year-old white male unconscious and unresponsive from the Park Pines Motel on East Fremont."

"Mm-hmm", Catherine interjected, "I remember the place."

"Well," Greg continued, "The ER staff did all they could to work on him, but they couldn't bring him back. The attending physician called LVPD after some of the guy's initial lab work came back. His blood tested positive for dangerously high levels of arsenic, so the case has been kicked up to Homicide."

"Arsenic?" Catherine inquired, "That's rather old school. Okay. Do you want to meet you at the motel, then?"

"Just waiting on you, Madam Director" Greg cheekily replied.

Catherine scoffed. "See you in a bit, Supervisor Sanders" she just as cleverly replied before hanging up the phone.

Park Pines Motel
East Fremont Street
20 Minutes Later

Now clad in her black CSI vest with a plain white cotton t-shirt underneath, blue jeans, and a pair of white sneakers covered by a pair of sterile shoe-covering booties, Catherine stepped out of her gray 2015 GMC Yukon in the parking lot of the Park Pines Motel. Her hair was now up in a neat ponytail and she held her metal CSI kit in her right hand as she walked over to where Night Shift Supervisor Greg Sanders was standing with Detective Andy Aikers. Police cars were everywhere, and it seemed as if every guest, resident, and staff member of the motel had come out from their respective places to check out what was going on.

Detective Andy Aikers was a nicely dressed white man of medium height whose dark hair was styled in an orderly and fashionable buzzcut. He was dressed in a charcoal business suit with a dark blue tie and charcoal slip-on shoes. Aikers had been a patrol officer with the Las Vegas Police for about 12 years, during which time he had developed close friendships with members of the CSI team. He had received a promotion to the rank of Detective just 6 weeks earlier and was now assigned to the Night Shift at LVPD's Homicide Unit.

Likewise, Greg Sanders had started his career with CSI as an equally knowledgeable, beloved, and all-around indispensable lab technician before becoming a full-time crime scene investigator. Now that he was the supervisor of CSI's Night Shift team, he had traded his normally spikey dyed blonde hair for a more professional, shorter, and slicked back look. He was dressed in a navy-blue CSI windbreaker that had "FORENSICS" written on the back in large white bolded uppercase letters as well as a light gray button-down polo shirt, neat khaki cargo pants, and brown hiking boots covered by the sterile booties.

"Good morning, guys" Catherine greeted.

"Hey Cath", Greg replied, "Thanks again for coming. I know it's been a long night for us all. The DNA lab got a few database hits in reference to some of our cold cases, so I've got Morgan and Dawn doing some case file follow-ups on those. Plus, Bobbi Flannery's working a residential burglary call out in North Vegas."

Catherine nodded in acknowledgment. "And knowing how thorough she is with her scene documentation", she said, "She's probably going to be a while." She then nodded to Detective Aikers. "Hey Andy", she continued, "The suit and Detective's badge look good on you."

Aikers smiled. "Thanks", he responded, "The Director's title looks good on you. Congrats again on that, Catherine."

"I appreciate that" Catherine said, "So what's going on here this morning?"

Aikers flipped open his memo book and referred to it as he began explaining. "A nine-one-one call came in just after two-thirty reporting a male who had evidently collapsed here in the front parking lot", he said, "EMS arrived a few minutes later and brought the gentleman to Desert Palm ER. They worked on him for about half an hour to no avail. The attending ER physician pronounced him dead at Three-Oh-Four AM."

"Greg said on the phone that you got the call because they found arsenic in the guy's blood", Catherine said, "Is that right?"

Aikers nodded. "According to that same doctor", he explained, "His blood work detected approximately One-Hundred-and-Sixty milligrams of arsenic."

"According to Toxicology", Greg added, "The fatal dosage range of arsenic for a healthy human is anywhere between Seventy and One-Hundred-and-Eighty milligrams, which is why LVPD got the call."

Catherine nodded. "Suspicious circumstances", she replied, "I get it. So, who is our unfortunate young man?"

Aikers flipped his memo book to the next page. "Hanson Aaron Lewick", he said, "Twenty-five. Date of birth February Third, Nineteen-Ninety, home address is on Gabriel Drive. I went through his personal effects at the hospital and found a UNLV student ID. Apparently, he's a student in their Culinary Arts program. The ER doctor noted a nightclub wristband on his left wrist from the Full Moon Nightclub at the Eclipse."

"Okay", Catherine replied, "So our Mister Lewick goes for a night of clubbing. He meets a girl and decides to come back here for a hook-up. Was he registered as a guest?"

Aikers shook his head. "No", he said, "The night manager told me that the only new guests who checked in tonight were a trucker from Carson City and a businessman from San Francisco. Room Four was listed on the registry ledger as unoccupied for tonight. I did, however, take a look at their surveillance footage and spotted our victim stumbling out of Room Four right at Two-Thirty. He stumbled out toward the parking lot and out of camera view."

"But that does match up with the statement that the responding officer got from the maintenance guy who made the nine-one-one call", Greg interjected, "He said that he was doing some ceiling repairs in the room across the way and saw our vic stumble out and fall face down as he left."

Catherine looked to her right and saw a female uniformed officer standing guard outside of Room #4, which was taped off with yellow crime scene tape. "Alright", she said, "Andy, why don't you roll by the victim's house and see if you can find his next of kin. Greg, let's go process this room."

Both the CSI and the detective nodded affirmatively in response. "Got it", Aikers replied, "I've already got that surveillance footage and Mister Lewick's personal effects on their way to CSI for you."

"Cool", Greg said as he picked up his CSI kit, "Thanks, Detective. We'll check in with you later."

Catherine and Greg then made their way over to Room #4, at which point the officer let them in once she verified their identification. The room was truly a very dated two-bed double room, its walls covered in dust-beaten 60's or 70's-era daisy wallpaper. While the second bed appeared to be otherwise undisturbed, the first bed was just the opposite.

The orange bedspread and its small beige quilt had been completely pulled from the bed, leaving only its top and bottom sheets to covered the very well-used mattress, and the impressions in the bed suggested to the CSIs that at least two guests were present.

Catherine donned a pair of protective amber glasses and put a pair of blue nitrile exam gloves on her hands before producing a hose-like ultraviolet alternate light source device from her kit. She shined the light on the center of the bed, revealing some almost silverish gray transparent body fluid stains. "I've got evidence of some serious coital action over here", she said, "Semen and vaginal contributions." She moved the light over to the opposite side of the bed closest to where she was standing, at which point the light picked up yet another fluid stain in at the midpoint of the top sheet adjacent to the foot of the bed.

"Wait", Catherine continued, "If there were only two people getting it on, this doesn't track. I've got what looks like a third vaginal contributor over here."

With that, Greg shined his flashlight over to the first of the room's two small nightstands and visually took note of two highball glasses sitting next to each other with small amounts of brown liquid and melting ice cubes in each. He took a brief whiff of each glass. "They smell like cheap whiskey and cola", he said. He then shined his flashlight across the bed to the second bed and other nightstand, where he soon discovered a third highball glass sitting atop it.

The meticulous CSI then carefully moved his way past Catherine and toward the other side of the second bed. He then carefully examined the third glass before looking to his boss and shaking his head. "Just water", Greg continued, "Okay. So, three sets of sex stains mean three lovers were getting freaky in here. I guess someone wanted to make their penultimate porno movie come true. If the poor guy wasn't on his way to the coroner, I'd say 'good for him'."

Catherine chuckled as she removed her amber glasses and put her ALS unit back in her kit. "I guess you can make Greg a supervisor", she said, "But he'll always be that goofy lab tech on the inside, huh?"

Greg himself chuckled in retort and he carefully put each of the highball glasses into their own individual evidence bag. "Thank you for that, Cath" he sweetly replied. It was then that he suddenly got an inquisitive look on his face as he picked up the last of the three glasses. "Hmmm", he said, "There seems to be something floating around at the bottom of this one. That's odd."

Just then, Catherine's phone chimed with an incoming text message. She quickly removed her gloves and checked it, grimacing with discontent as she saw what it said. "Sorry Greg", she said, "I've gotta go. Henry wants to see me in DNA and he says it's urgent. Can you finish up here?"

Greg confidently nodded. "No problem", he said, "I'll check back in with you as soon as I log all this stuff in at the lab."

"Okay", Catherine said, "Sorry to bail on you, but thanks."

Catherine carefully placed her CSI kit in the back of her Yukon before making her way over to the driver's side and getting behind the wheel. She then took a moment to let out a deep exhale, realizing how fatigued she still was. As she went to put on her seatbelt, she looked out her windshield caught sight of a young woman dressed in a blue and white housekeeper's uniform talking with one of the uniformed officers in the parking lot. As the two of them briefly locked eyes for a moment, Catherine got that feeling of recognition in her gut, but she couldn't remember the young lady's name right at that moment. She knew her from somewhere, and she was compounded by that feeling of dread when you know that the past is about to come biting.