Grissom's cell rang just as he and Catherine pulled into the MGM Grand's lot. He pulled it out and flipped it open.
"Grissom." He recoiled slightly as a high-pitched shrieking apparently skimmed past the other end of the line.
"Grissom, it's Sara," he heard as he put the phone back by his ear, "Greg and I found out something weird with those shards from Charlie's head wounds."
"Good weird or bad weird?" he asked impatiently. "Weird" was not a scientific assessment he liked to hear, and we was starting to become concerned by all the noise on the line. LVPD cellular phones generally offered better reception than this.
"I'd say more like 'we don't know what the hell just happened' weird. I'll give you what we do know, though. When I analyzed the sample, it came up dextrose, corn syrup, maltodextrin, and traces of malic acid, calcium stearate, confectioner's wax…"
"Candy," Grissom concluded.
"Jawbreaker," Sara replied, "Probably the big kind that it takes a few days to get through, judging from the head wound."
"Well, there's nothing particularly weird about a killer using a handy weapon."
"Yeah… but that's when the mass spectrometer started going apeshit. It's been spitting fireworks since we finished ten minutes ago."
"What do you mean fireworks? It's sparking? It's in flames? Sara, you need to be more specific here—"
"I mean it's spitting fireworks!" Sara shouted, "Purple starbursts, little whizzy whirly things, fountains of silver sparks—shit!" Another shrieking missile careened past. When Sara next spoke, she sounded like she was under a desk. "Greg, four other lab techs, and three cops haven't been able to put it out yet. It's like the Fourth of July all over again in here!"
"Are you okay?" Grissom asked with growing concern, "You ought to get out of there if it's getting dangerous."
"No, I'm okay for the time being." He heard a shuffling noise over the line, and supposed that Greg was taking shelter next to Sara. "Hang on, there's another part of this you should hear from the horse's mouth." She handed the phone off.
"Hi Griss!" Greg Sanders sounded more excited than afraid, which was impressive considering he'd already been in one lab explosion during his career.
"Greg, exactly what's going on over there?"
"Exactly what I thought might happen—the mass spectrometer found an element in the sample that confused the hell out of it."
"What element, Greg? Neither of you are making any sense." Grissom was nearing the end of what many considered to be almost Buddhic patience.
He could tell the young senior tech was grinning. "It's the same element I found in the samples of Wonka chocolate last night, but there's apparently a lot more of it in the jawbreaker. Or, I should say, the Gobstopper."
"Greg," Grissom said quietly, "I do not need to have had a long shift less than an hour in."
"It's what makes Wonka candy the way it is, Grissom. The chocolate and all the rest of it."
Grissom listened long enough to hear the next word from Greg's mouth, after which he snapped the phone shut and shoved it back into his pocket.
"What is it?" Catherine asked, noticing the dark cloud that had descended over her supervisor's brow.
"Greg has picked a hell of a time to play games with me," he growled, "I would have thought that he would at least be…" He shook his head. "Never mind. Let's take a look at Bucket's suite." He headed into the Grand's opulent lobby, a feat of architecture and decoration that made most hotels look like broom closets. "Honestly," he murmured under his breath, "Magic indeed."
Warrick and Nick dove for cover behind various shelves and displays in the face of a bizarre bombardment of taffy balls, licorice, and jawbreakers hurled at blinding speeds from the cover of shadows. Nick already had a knot on his temple where he'd received a glancing blow from what turned out to be a sort of candy buckshot, and Warrick had taffy caught in his hair.
"Where's it coming from?" Nick shouted.
"Hell if I know," Warrick shouted back, "Looks like up th—holy shit…" Nick looked just in time to see Warrick dive after something that had just darted around the end of a shelf. "Gotcha! Ow! Hey! Knock it off, would ya?"
Nick got up in a half crouch to investigate, and saw that Warrick was holding onto what appeared to be a tiny person, even smaller than the people Nick knew preferred to be called "little people" – perhaps two feet tall, if one was exceptionally generous, and fighting furiously in Warrick's grasp like a leprechaun that has just been caught for its gold. He – for the prisoner certainly looked male – had a dark complexion, perhaps indicating Hindi descent (if one ignored the prodigious lack of height), and a head of black hair that stood in a strange sort of squiggle from the crown of his head. The name tag sewn onto his miniature coveralls identified him as "Oliver".
"Hey," Nick said, looking around, "The attack's stopped."
Indeed, it was again quiet in the candy store, until with a loud CRACK! Oliver slammed his forehead against Warrick's nose, squirming away while he was thus distracted. Nick followed Oliver's path across the floor, trying to see where he was going, but then noticed movement in many of the wall shelves. One by one, more of Oliver's people were materializing from the shadows – perhaps twenty in all. Nick slowly straightened up, speechless with bewilderment, for the little creatures all looked absolutely alike, though Nick hoped insanely that they all went by different names. They stared at him and Warrick so intently that Nick started feeling like he was in a Hitchcock movie.
"Warrick, you okay?" he asked.
"Yeah, I think so… I don't think it's broken, but damn that little guy had a hard forehead!" Warrick dabbed at his bleeding nose.
"Could you do me a really big favor right now?" Nick asked, holding out his to the small tribe, "Don't… make… any… sudden… moves." He raised his voice slightly. "We're with the Las Vegas Police Department. We're investigating a murder." He stepped slowly out from behind the shelves and indicated the badge on his belt. "We're with the police. We're investigating a murder."
Warrick straightened up to see who Nick was talking to. "What the hell? Who are all them?"
"I think they live here," Nick said cautiously. He tried to pick out the one he knew to be Oliver and found he couldn't.
"Think they can help?" Warrick asked uncertainly. His nose had nearly stopped bleeding already.
Then the little creatures did absolutely the last thing either CSI would have expected them to do.
They began to sing.
A horrible crime was committed here—
Our dear friend Charlie is dead, we fear!
Can you help us solve it fast?
The killer was somebody from his past!
She came in the door to see our friend
She wouldn't take no for an answer – then
He tried to remove her – she screamed and fought!
How little she has changed, we thought!
She told him, "All my riches, Charlie,
Simply don't mean anything!"
She told him, "All my riches, Charlie,
Are nothing to what your love could bring!"
("Who was this lady, Gwen Stefani?" Warrick murmured to Nick.)
Now we're nearly overcome with fright
Willy told us all to stay out of sight
But with Charlie gone what do we do?
We make the candy, we can't sell it too!
Such a tragic, tragic end
Was met by our second-dearest friend
(After Willy, but that is quite
Another tale for another night)—
We will help if we are able
To catch his killer and turn the tables
On a rotten child with a rotten soul
As black as a burned-out piece of coal
But first we hope you don't think us silly
If we ask that you please notify Willy?
There was dead silence in the darkened store after the strange choir finished singing.
"Oh, Grissom's gonna love this," Nick remarked dryly, "The only witnesses to the attack are Munchkins."
There was a tug at his pant leg. He glanced down into the upturned face of one of the little creatures – possibly Oliver. Maybe-Oliver beckoned him closer, and with a mental shrug, Nick hunkered so that he was as close to level with the creature as his Texan build would allow. This was not Oliver, he noticed – the little name tag read "Nigel". Nigel stared at him, apparently expecting something.
"We'll help," Nick said, "That's what we do, after all. Uh, listen, we're going to need to take a formal statement from you and the rest of the… you," he finished lamely.
"Oompa-Loompas," said Nigel, in a shockingly baritone voice that momentarily made Nick suspect that someone was playing a prank involving James Earl Jones.
"What?"
"We are Oompa-Loompas," Nigel clarified patiently, as though to a dense child.
"O-kayyy…" Nick said, straightening up and turning to Warrick. "All right… how we gonna do this anyway?"
"I'm still trying to figure out how to put this on my report," Warrick replied. To Nick's relief he looked every bit as confused as Nick felt. "You go tell Brass we've got witnesses. I'll… Loompa-sit."
"No, I think you should go explain this to him."
"Before or after I explain how I got taffy in my hair?"
"After. Just… just tell him the facts as we know them."
"Gee. Thanks a lot. You owe me big when we get back." Warrick headed out.
Nick sat cross-legged on the floor and looked at Nigel, who was still looking steadily as Nick.
"So," Nick said, "Seen any good movies lately?"