Eye on Crime - Chapter 3
By Celtic Lady

Frank and Calleigh casually walked up to the front door of Green McCallister's house and knocked. The camera crew stood nearby filming as he answered the door bewildered at what was going on.

"Mr. McCallister?" Calleigh asked.

"Yes."

"We're with the Miami-Dade Crime Lab. May we come in?" she smiled.

He motioned for everyone to come inside. "What's this all about?"

"Mr. McCallister, we're investigating the disappearance of your neighbor, Arnold Miller." Calleigh explained. "Can you tell us the last time you saw him?"

"Last week sometime," he answered cautiously.

Frank quickly jumped in, "I heard you and him have some kind of beef. You want to tell us about that?"

McCallister was a little defensive when he replied. "We got that all cleared up -we came to an agreement."

"That agreement involve murder?" Frank drilled.

"Murder! No way!" McCallister's demeanor quickly turned from defensive to scared in a matter of seconds, "I didn't kill anyone . . . I swear!"

Not satisfied with his answer, Frank asked, "Well, what were you arguing about?"

Eager to explain himself, McCallister continued, "I'm putting in a concrete slab for my shed to sit on. So I moved my shed over the property line a little to have room to work. Arnold thought it was a permanent move and got mad but once I showed him what I was doing and that it would only be there 2 . . . 3 weeks top, he was alright with it."

Upon hearing concrete slab, Calleigh raised an eyebrow. "Can you show us the slab?"

"Sure, it's out back." He motioned for them to follow him out the back door where he showed them the location.

Within the hour, Calleigh had ground penetrating radar going over the area of concrete. Frank walked over to Calleigh who was supervising the operation. "Anything?"

"No, but we're not done yet." Calleigh was being very cautious as the film crew caught everything on tape. She didn't want to give out too much information.

"Well, I checked with Miller's credit cards and there haven't been any charges made. You'd think that if he just ran off, we'd be able to find him that way."

"Yeah, but think about it." Calleigh gave a big flirtatious smile to Frank. "If you ran off with a gorgeous blonde, would you leave your house unlocked and your vehicle behind?" She gave him a little wink as she said blonde.

Frank chuckled, "only if I won the lottery."

--OO--

It was 6:30 p.m. before Horatio could leave work and find Jade's apartment. After knocking on the door, he could hear Madison's voice yelling, "Door!" She sounded much better and much louder which he took to be a good sign. Seconds later Jade opened the door.

"Hi Horatio. Come on in." Jade motioned him inside as she continued, "I put together some things for her that you might need -- Children's Tylenol, Pepto-Bismol, nightlight--."

Interrupting, Madison ran out of the bedroom and pleaded, "can I take Teddy." She clutched the little teddy bear closer.

"Yes, you can take teddy. But I want him back when you're done!" Jade shook her finger lovingly at Madison to make her point. "C'mon, Horatio is waiting."

Madison ran back into the bedroom for one last thing and came walking out wearing her white fuzzy bunny slippers with pink ears.

Jade took one look and turned to Horatio. "Don't ask."

He smiled.

While Horatio waited for Madison to get ready, he casually looked around Jade's apartment. Although it was a small apartment, it had been completely remodeled in a traditional style with crown molding, ceiling medallions, custom kitchen cabinets, hardwood floors, and all sorts of decorative woodwork. He had never seen an apartment fixed up so well - it looked like a little Victorian cottage. Horatio wondered if Susie's apartment looked as good and if so, how could she afford the rent.

"This is a really nice apartment." Jade could tell he was impressed. "It looks like the landlord really went all out in fixing it up."

"Thanks." Jade handed the bag of medicine to Horatio and continued, "I'm slowly getting this building remodeled. It'll look really great when I get it all done." She looked around and admired her work.

"You did this?" he asked surprised.

"Yeah, I buy old houses and remodel them for resale. This is how I make most of my money -- I do all the work myself."

"So you're going to sell it when your finished." Horatio was starting to understand. Susie and Madison were probably temporary tenants.

"No, maybe not this building. I get a good income from the renters."

Horatio made a mental note to ask Susie what her rent was. He was sure she couldn't afford to live there.

After securing Madison in the car seat, Horatio said goodbye and drove away with Madison waving wildly to Jade.

Later that night, Horatio was sleeping soundly when a small shadowy figure approached the side of his bed. After watching him take several deep breaths, Madison climbed into the king size bed and snuggled up beside him with her teddy bear clutched tightly to her chest. Horatio automatically put his arm around the child without waking up and before long, Madison was sound asleep.