Little Murder on the Strip
Summary: Things aren't what they initially seem to be during a murder investigation during a convention, especially once the team realizes the killer is still in the building. GSR, mini-casefile. Set after "A Bullet Runs Through It."
A/N: Technically, this isn't one of the Christmas-challenge fics I've been clearing off my hard drive. The opening and closing lines come from an ancient Unbound challenge. This was my first idea for it, but I realized it would be way too long for that challenge; I came up with "All Cooped Up" for that instead. But I mentioned the idea to Cincoflex, who found it amusing, so I told her I'd write it up.
A/N II: Again, still no beta. If you see anything amiss, feel free to point it out. I'll fix it later.
Disclaimer: This space left blank intentionally.

"David, this is a scoop-and-run. Get the body out of here, now! I don't want the killer to have a chance to tamper with the evidence. Don't wash the body until I get there. Officer, escort them outside when they're ready to go," Grissom ordered, immediately taking control of the situation.

Brass walked to an isolated corner of the room as he pulled his cell phone out, requesting extra officers and CSI personnel.

"Whoa," Paulie muttered.

Sara grabbed her camera, rapidly snapping shots as David prepared the body. "Pull her hair away from the wound," she said, kneeling to get a better look. She took a close-up before glancing over her shoulder to Grissom. "Whatever hit her had a flat edge, not too thick, I'd say."

"Whoa."

"The rim of a skillet?" Grissom asked.

"Whoa."

Sara shook her head. "Straight, not curved. Maybe the handle?"

"Whoa!"

"None of these handles are long enough. Part of the skillet would have made contact with the victim's head," he said.

"Whoa!"

"Snap out of it, Paulie. This isn't a rodeo," Brass barked, putting his phone away. "Who had access to this room?"

He stood stunned for a minute. "Anyone. It was a vendor display area. Sales weren't supposed to start until after lunch, but people always come in and check things out," he said, reaching to his beaded purse to pull out a folded piece of paper. "Here's the vendor list you wanted. The professor, uh, that's her table she's behind. She restores cast iron and sells it. Or she did. Whoa."

"Think – did you see anyone hanging around her or in here earlier?" Brass asked. "Anything suspicious?"

"I don't know. I was over with the book vendors in room 3, on the other side of the hall. This guy from Delaware was upset with where his table was, getting all pissy with nice, ol' Mrs. Geisinger, like it was her fault or something. I'd been in there at least twenty minutes before Blondie there told me there was a body."

Sofia gave the others a subtle nod of conformation. Paulie hadn't been anywhere near the scene at the time of the murder, but they still had an abundance of suspects.

"There's, there's a killer still here?" Paulie asked in an odd tone.

"Don't worry. The police will keep you safe," Sara told him somewhat kindly.

"Yeah. Like someone is going to hit me on the back of the head. Did you look out there?" he yelled. "Most of those folks is ladies, and a lot of them ain't that strong. And there's a killer in there with them! Do something!"

"Keep it down, Paulie," Sofia said urgently. "We don't want to start a panic, or give the killer any idea what we know."

"The killer is trying to hide," Grissom said, his explanation slow and calm. "He, or she, picked an isolated area to attack without witnesses. They attacked from behind so the victim wouldn't see and couldn't try to defend themselves. Those are the acts of a coward. That person isn't likely to draw attention to themselves with the police watching. They're going to try to pass themselves off as just another convention goer and walk out after talking to the police. We need to make sure that doesn't happen."

"Damn straight," Paulie muttered, paling as Dave and his assistant rushed the body out of the room, the officer trotting beside them. "What, what do ya want me to do? Ain't nobody out there that could hurt me."

"You don't do anything," Brass stated firmly, pointing his finger in warning. "Let us handle this. Sofia was right – the last thing we need is to cause a panic. More people would get hurt in the rush to get out of here, and it would give the killer a perfect cover to escape. You understand me, Paulie? Don't do anything stupid."

"I'm responsible!" he snapped. "This show is my thing. I organized it. Those people – they're here 'cause of me."

"Paulie, it's okay," Sara told him. "You didn't know a killer would show up. We don't even know that the killing had anything to do with the show. It could be a random killing. It could be someone who followed the victim here from Milwaukee so not to draw attention to themselves. Don't be so hard on yourself."

"Easy for you to say, ya know what I mean?" He let his shoulders slump and turned around in defeat, looking very much like an overgrown, pouting child in a floral dress.

"So, where would our killer go?" Brass asked in a low voice.

"There are public bathrooms out there, but not a lot. I doubt the killer would have time to wash up before someone else walked into the bathroom," Sofia said. "What about cast off?"

"Just one blow," Sara said as she shook her head. "But it was bad blow. There might be tissue on the killer. Definitely on the weapon."

"What's the weapon?" Grissom asked to himself, again running his flashlight over the tables of cookware. "Everything in here that's made of cast iron has a circular shape. The tin or copper would deform too easily under that much force."

Brass turned to Paulie. "And you didn't hear anyone grousing about the professor? Someone new, someone you hadn't seen at the shows before?"

"Nothing more than the usual stuff. She comes to all these shows."

"Don't jump the gun, Jim," Grissom said. "She's unpopular. She's dead. It doesn't mean the two facts are related."

"She could have been a convenient victim, alone in an isolated room?" Brass suggested.

"Or the killer wanted to steal something in here," Sofia added, "and she was in the way."

"We don't have enough evidence yet," Grissom said, examining the area where the body had been.

"What about the victim? What was she a professor of and what was her talk going to be about?" Sara asked as she collected blood and tissue samples from the floor.

Paulie scratched the back of his head as he tried to concentrate. "She was an, uh, artho, apolo … uh, studies people?"

"Anthropologist?" Sara suggested.

"That's it!"

"And she was going to talk about whether Rose wrote the books or not?" Brass asked.

"No, actually she was gonna talk about gate marks," he said, staring as the others gave him blank looks. He finally pointed to the table. "Cast iron. When they poured the iron, there were extra bits from the opening of the mold. They'd knock that extra bit off after the cast iron cooled, and it left a slit or gash on the metal. Those are gate marks. That's how you know if a piece is really old and valuable."

"Is cast iron valuable enough to kill over?" Grissom asked, standing up from his examination. "There's a piece missing here."

Sara joined him, looking at the partially-emptied boxes on the floor. "These pans were packed in protective foam. There's a piece of foam that doesn't have a piece of iron that matches it."

Paulie gave them a shrug. "It's popular hobby, but it's a hunka metal. It lasts forever if you take care of it. Almost none of it is rare. A thirteen-inch Griswold skillet sold for about eight grand not long ago, but that's a hot company and they only made a few skillets that size. It didn't sell well, people thought it was bad luck with the thirteen and stuff. Most of it doesn't go for anywhere near that price."

"This wasn't a skillet," Sara said, turning to him with an inquisitive expression. "The void in the foam is roughly rectangular, longer than it is wide, with three circular indentations on top?"

"Are they about the size of a pancake?"

"Yeah," Sara said in surprise. "I'd say exactly so."

"It's a pancake griddle. Those three circles are on hinges. You'd pour the batter into them, and when the first side was done, you'd flip it over onto the flat rectangular thingy to finish cooking."

"How much would something like that be worth to a collector?" Grissom asked.

"Not a lot, really. Maybe a hundred bucks if it was in really great shape. It's kinda stupid way to cook pancakes. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to flip a pancake, ya know what I mean?" he asked with a good-natured grunt. "Even I can do it."

"So, did the killer take the weapon with them, or were they a big fan of pancakes?" Sara asked.

"At least it's not a cereal killer," Brass deadpanned. "Hey, give me a break! I didn't say anything about the irony of getting killed while surrounded by her own cast iron."

"You just did," Sara said, holding her hands as if she was taking the griddle out of its protective foam. "The vic's wound could have been made by the flat edge of this griddle."

"Well, it's probably ruined if they did," Paulie said. "Cast iron is durable, but it's brittle. They coulda broken a hinge doing that. It'd be worthless. Welding cast iron is a real bitch to do, pardon my language, ladies. It wouldn't be worth the effort to fix something like that."

"Either the killer didn't care about the value, or they didn't know cast iron is brittle," Grissom said, pausing a moment. "Or they panicked and used the first thing they found."

"The killer attacked the victim from behind. She probably didn't know anyone was there," Brass said.

"Or she didn't care," Sofia said. "Maybe she knew who it was."

"We have no way to know that yet, but we do know the killer took the griddle with them," Sara said. "We've looked in all the boxes. It's not with the other items on the tables. They had no way of knowing Sofia was going to walk in here within minutes, so they didn't know they had to get rid of it immediately. Instead, they risked taking a piece of cast iron covered in blood into a crowd. They must have wanted it for some reason."

"All the fire exits have alarms and the basement door is locked. At least that's what they told me when we started to set up. I didn't try any of them, though," Paulie offered, his expression brightening as a thought came to him. "There's a cooking demonstration over by the Conestoga wagon. Somebody coulda ditched a griddle over there. It would look like it belonged to the display, right?"

"Paulie, you actually can think straight if you put your mind to it," Brass said, smiling when the bigger man grinned bashfully.

"We need to find the killer," Grissom stated simply. "Sara, turn around. You're the same height as the professor. Her wound was here and angled like this," he said, pointing to the back of her head and pantomiming a blow, trying to line it up to match the victim's injuries.

"Crouch down. Okay, reach up with your arms," Sofia said. "There."

"Well, the killer is about your height, Sofia," Brass said.

"Just because I'm the prime suspect doesn't mean I'm the prime suspect," she teased him. "But you still get to grill me."

"Oh, be still my heart. As sexy as that sounds, I'd rather do something productive," he said.

"Well, I can't do anything," she pointed out. "I found the body. That makes me a suspect, so no way I can get involved."

"You can keep a watch on the crowd," Sara said as she packed up her kit. "If you see anyone acting suspiciously, or trying to sneak out, let Brass or one of the officers know. Extra eyes are always a good thing to have."

Grissom surveyed the room before turning to the others. "When the guys get here, have them finish processing this room. The longer we wait, the more chance the killer has to dispose of the evidence. We need to see if anyone out there has blood on their hands."

"Or on their pancakes," Sara added as she picked up her case.

TBC