A/N: I still own nothing. Thanks to all who read and reviewed
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"Garcia" Reid yelled, running through the stationhouse.
"Yeah, yeah Reid right here" she said coming from the break room, coffee cup in hand.
"I need you to look something up for me on the computer. Edna Hammond thought a friend of hers had died of unnatural causes and asked her granddaughter Tracy to come down and help her look into it." Reid said without stopping to take a breath. "We need to find out who this friend was and what happened to her. Her name was Thelma; we don't have a last name. There can't have been too many older women named Thelma that died around that time in a small town, can there."
"On it babe, now leave me alone and let me work, you'll know the moment I do." Garcia said sitting down at the computer, her fingers flying over the keyboard.
Reid left the room reluctantly because he knew Garcia would work faster without his presence and went in search of Gideon to fill him in on what he had learned from Morgan. Gideon nodded as Reid laid out what he planned to do. "Good, sounds like you have the situation in hand. Carry on."
Reid also went to inform Morris and the others where their investigation was headed. Morris looked stunned at the news that one of his townspeople may have died at the hands of another and he was unaware of it. Kyle had a look of empathy on his face as he understood all too well what Morris was feeling.
"Reid! Garcia's voice yelled from the conference room and the group went running towards Garcia's voice. "Okay, I found a Thelma Fletcher aged seventy-nine, deceased a couple of months before Edna Hammond. She was a resident of the Bluegrass Valley Nursing Home. Cause of death listed as heart failure."
"Okay," Reid murmured, pacing back and forth in the conference room, "Thelma dies of heart failure but Edna is suspicious and calls her granddaughter Tracy to help her look into it. Then Edna herself suddenly dies of a heart attack and her granddaughter is hit by a car and her body is dumped in the woods. It almost appears that someone did not want anyone looking into Thelma's death. Well I think we'll carry on where Edna and Tracy left off. I think we need to visit the Bluegrass Valley Nursing Home."
Before visiting the nursing home, Reid had something to discuss with Morris and he knew that he wasn't going to like it. Morris was sitting in the conference room with Kyle, Jake, Greg, Roy and Colleen. God Colleen looks gorgeous today. She had traded in her deputy's uniform for a denim dress that molded to her body and ended just above the knee and a pair of black boots that showed off her shapely legs. Her hair was in a funky up do. He knew he couldn't look at her and be able to concentrate on the matter at hand.
He thought if he mentioned his next move in front of the group, he might get some support from the others and Morris would not be so opposed. "If Edna didn't die of a heart attack or died of an induced one, I think we need to find out if her concerns about Thelma Fletcher were warranted. That means we need to have Thelma's body exhumed and autopsied."
Morris looked at him with disbelief but by now realized if he argued, this young man would just go over his head to some big shot. He obviously had the power. "I'll go talk to Judge Cosgrove," he said.
Reid left the room followed closely by Colleen. They hadn't had a chance to speak since he'd said good night to her last evening, not that they had done a lot of talking then either.
"Reid, wait up," she said almost running to keep up with him.
"Sorry Colleen, I wanted to get out of the room before Morris thought better of it and changed his mind."
"I realize that. I just um… well I haven't got to talk to you at all today, so I thought I would just say hi."
He looked around the hallway, seeing no one he grabbed her by the hand and pulled her after him into the empty break room. He looked around again, then pulled her into an embrace and gave her a gentle kiss and said, "Hi."
The afternoon seemed to go by slowly as the group waited for the autopsy results of Edna Hammond. Reid and Gideon gave another lecture on crime scene procedure making good use of their time. Eventually, nearing the end of the afternoon, the call came from Quantico. The pathologist said Edna Hammond died of a massive myocardial infarction brought on by an excessive dose of potassium chloride delivered intravenously. The pathologist was ruling the death a homicide. He would email his findings to Garcia's computer. Reid thanked the pathologist and turned to the group.
"It's official, heart attack induced by potassium chloride given IV. Edna Hammond and Tracy Wilcox were murdered. Was it because they were looking into the death of Thelma Fletcher? We need to find out."
Morris got in touch with Judge Cosgrove who issued an exhumation order for Thelma Fletcher and for an unbelievable second time that day Morris was getting a crew to dig up a body. This body too would be sent to Quantico for autopsy. Agent Reid, it appeared, had more faith in the people in Quantico than in local or state officials.
"Garcia, could you get me all the information you can on the Bluegrass Valley Nursing Home?"
Garcia's fingers went to work on the keyboard and a few minutes later she looked at the monitor and recited, "Bluegrass Valley Nursing Home, established in 1979, owned and operated by Lifelink Enterprises, fifty beds, offers the spectrum of health care needs from people needing mechanical ventilation to just having a place to stash granny out of the way. Present administrator is Dr. Karen Price."
"Okay, we'll wait for the result of the autopsy on Thelma Fletcher. We should have that later this evening so we'll visit the nursing home first thing in the morning."
Colleen was standing in the conference room waiting for her father and Roy to go back to Brookdale. Reid came into the room and was again overwhelmed by how beautiful she was. "I was wondering if you would like to go to a movie when we get back to Brookdale."
"I'd love that," she said, "What's playing?"
"I couldn't care less," he said with a smile.
