A Bloody Knight

By ILoveTea

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Disclaimer: I don't own CSI: NY and Jane Austen

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Chapter 3.

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Danny looked up from the microscope. "So, Will Darcy has motives."

They were back at the CSI Lab examining the evidence they had collected at the crime scene.

Lindsay replied. "But he did pay for the wedding. If you're going to kill a man, why would you spend money on him?"

Danny shrugged his shoulders. "Maybe he didn't plan to kill him, you know, not premeditated. It just happened."

"He has an alibi around time of death. He was at a board meeting at his office a few blocks away. His secretary and Board of Directors confirmed his whereabouts."

"What about his wife? Elizabeth Darcy? Maybe she didn't want her sister to fall for a jerk like Wickham, and decided that desperate situations called for desperate measures," Danny rambled.

Lindsay shook her head. "No, I don't think so. Cassie Abbot said Elizabeth Darcy was the one who persuaded her husband to let them have the wedding at his hotel. She may not like her sister's choice for a husband, but she loves her sister. She wouldn't do this to Lydia Bennet."

Stella entered the room. "Tell me something new."

"We're going to have a boy," Danny blurted out.

Lindsay smacked him hard on his arm.

"Hey, that hurts," he said, rubbing his arm.

She glared at him.

"We've talked about this, remember?" he said to her, feigning innocence.

"Yeah, but..." Lindsay said, but was cut short. Stella hugged her.

"Congrats. Do you already have a name for him?"

"No," Lindsay and Danny said, looking at each other. "But we're considering a few options."

"It's all up to you. But I do have some suggestions." Stella's lips turned into a wide grin. She turned her head toward the evidence. "Enough playing around. Now tell me what we have here."

Danny's expression turned sour. "I found prints on the statues, including the bloody one, but they were from the hotel employees. They were the ones who moved the statues from the ballroom upstairs the day before. Apparently, the marble knights didn't fit in with the wedding decoration."

Stella queried. "What about the door? Did you find anything?"

"The door itself was full of prints. But on the door knob, I only found Anne Elliot's prints." Danny showed her the fingerprint, and the reference sample Anne had given to Lindsay. "But she claimed she opened the door and found the victim. The killer might have wiped it clean before he left so we only found Elliot's print." He took a picture of the crime scene floor and pointed it out. "There's a smear of blood here, near the pool of blood. Maybe our killer stepped on it before he left. I didn't find any usable prints on the emergency exit door, but I did find a faint smear of blood on the stairs. Unfortunately, the tracks stopped at the 28th floor. I think the killer stepped out to the corridor. The janitor must have cleaned his tracks.

Stella sighed. "So, now we only have to find the person who wore a bloody shoe at the hotel last night."

Lindsay held something between her tweezers. "Maybe we can narrow it down. Danny found this near one of the boxes in the room. It looks like a diamond, but it isn't. This is fake. There's a trace of red substance at the surfaces and edges. I think it's blood. I've sent a sample to trace to make sure. If we can find someone who lost a stone from his or her jewelry, we'll find the killer."

Stella opened a folder she had been carrying. "I have the victim's toxin report. High alcohol level. Sid had said it's easy even for a woman to push a man George Wickham's size."

"So, the killer could have been a woman. Still, we need more details," Danny said.

"Adam is already processing the hotel's security camera. Hopefully we'll find something," Stella told the others.

Lindsay entered the audio visual room in search of Adam.

"I have something," Adam said.

Lindsay's face lit up. "What is it?"

He played a tape from the hotel's security camera. "This is from the elevator two hours before the body was found, the last time George Wickham was seen alive. See that? He entered alone, getting off on the thirtieth floor."

Adam showed her another tape. "Five minutes later a woman entered another elevator from the lobby. See that? She's fixing her hair. She got off on the thirtieth floor, then she was captured on camera forty minutes later entering the elevator from the 28th floor, going straight to the lobby."

"There are only conference rooms on the thirtieth floor," Lindsay said. "The hotel manager said none of them were used that day and all of them were locked, except the one which had been used for storage for the wedding. We can assume the mysterious lady was there to meet George Wickham?"

Adam agreed. "Yes, it is possible."

"There were blood smears on the stairs from the thirtieth all the way to the 28th floor. This woman can be our suspect," Lindsay added. She pondered for a moment, then asked. "What about the tapes from the night of Lydia Bennet's bachelorette party? Do you have them, too? It was two days ago, in a restaurant at the same hotel. I think it's called G's, on the second floor."

Adam rummaged through the stack of tapes on the table. He found what he had been looking for. "What time was the bachelorette party? Nine? Okay, here we go; the view to the entrance of G's."

They watched the tape for a while until Lindsay pointed to the screen. "There! That's her! I know it's only her back, but I'm sure it's her. Just look at how she moved her hand to fix her hair."

"I'm not sure," Adam doubted.

"I know. Let's see when she exited the restaurant. Can you find her?"

He further played the tape, then paused the video. "Look, this is the best picture of her. She's partially hidden by other people. The cameras in the elevator and lobby don't help much."

"Adam, can you get a clear shot of her in the elevator at the day of the murder? I'm going to ask Miss Bennet. Maybe she knows that woman," Lindsay said.

He worked on the tape. Five minutes later, he handed a picture of the mysterious woman to her.

Thanking him, Lindsay walked out of the room.

To be continued…

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A/N: Afrozenheart412, thank you for your reviews. Dear readers, let me know what you think about this one. If you don't know what to say, just copy one of the templates below and paste it on the review window.

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A/N: I thank my beta, AJeff, for her great works.