DNA LAB

"Adam, tell me you've got good news for me…" Stella patted the young tech on the back as she came into the DNA lab.

"For you Stella, always…" He smiled and raised his eyes from the lens of the microscope through which he was looking and walked over to the other side of the lab where he pulled a file from the stack on his desk "I checked the blood you found at the Danvers home against the blood sample they took from Jessie Bancroft at the hospital…"

"Come on Adam, don't leave me in suspense here"

"The two samples were a perfect match" Adam replied triumphantly

"You should have seen that house Adam, it was spotless. And Missy Danvers doesn't seem like the type to do house work. She has maids - trust me." Stella said thoughtfully.

"What does that tell us?" Adam frowned.

"It tells us that Jessie Bancroft bled in that house sometimes in the last couple of days. There's no way the maids would have missed that spot of blood for long."

"Then I guess our vic and the step mom had a little cat fight…"

Stella nodded and headed out to the hall, throwing Adam a thank you behind her back, and nearly avoided colliding into Lindsey.

"Wow, Lindsey, where's the fire?"

"What? Oh, Sorry Stella. I was just heading to the AV lab for some handwriting analysis"

"I thought you and Danny were working on the Hanna Danvers case" Stella pointed to the note in Lindsey's hand which she recognized as the suicide note that was found in Jessie's hand. "What's with the suicide note?"

"I'll show you" Lindsey gave a small mysterious smile and headed for the AV lab, piquing Stella's curiosity.

"The Hanna Danvers case doesn't have much in it" Lindsey explained while she prepared her little demonstration "The victim was found behind the wheel of the car, there was a bottle of booze next to her and valium found in her system, a suicide note and the testimony of the husband that said she was depressed and suffering from emotional problems. The police ruled it a suicide almost immediately and closed the case."

"But you don't think it's a suicide?"

"Actually, I'm not sure yet" Lindsey hesitated "But look at this…"

She placed the scanned image of the note found in Jessie's hand on the far right screen then pulled a picture of the Hanna Danvers' suicide scene on the far right screen.

"Do you see it?" The smile on Lindsey's face told Stella that there was something she was missing but even after taking another careful look at the two images nothing popped out and she shook her head and frowned.

Lindsey turned back to the consul and zoomed on the image of the suicide scene. On the passenger seat, next to Hanna Danvers' hand and the half empty bottle of alcohol lay the suicide note

"I'm sorry, I can't take it, I had to do this" Stella read out loud "That's the exact same note we found in Jessie's hand!"

"You called me down here Flack?" Mac asked as he approached the young detective's desk in the bullpen "What's wrong?"

"Seems like Mr. Danvers finally decided to grace us with this presence" Flack replied as he got up from his seat and led Mac to one of the interrogation rooms down the hall "And apparently he's not to happy about the little Mrs. Being brought in here for questioning"

Flack opened the door and allowed Mac to see the man in question. He was tall and broad shouldered with graying hair and steely blue eyes, dressed in an expensive Italian suit. To Mac's surprise he was alone, having brought no lawyer along.

"I demand to know what the hell do you people think you're going" he said angrily, rising to his feet and slamming this palms against the desk as soon as both Mac and Flack walked into the room "Dragging my wife in here, asking her questions without me being present…"

"Your wife is an adult the last time we checked Mr. Danvers, we don't need to ask for your permission to question her" Mac stated "She had her lawyer present as per her request. Her legal rights weren't violated at any point."

"I swear to you by the time this is over I'm gonna have your badge…" Danvers hissed

"Why don't you have a seat Mr. Danvers" Flack suggested in a calm tone that had an edge of warning in it "Before you say something you regret"

The man huffed but sat back down, crossing his arms on his chest in a defiant posture.

"Your daughter was found shot in an ally 3 days ago Mr. Danvers, you took your time getting here…" Flack didn't bother trying to hide the note of criticism in his voice.

"Like I already told you over the phone I had business meetings that couldn't be rescheduled. I came here as soon as I could…" Danvers said nonchalantly.

"No you didn't" Mac interjected "Your clothes are fresh and ironed, your hair is wet and you had a recent shave. I can smell the colon you used"

The man looked at Mac in irritation "So what? It was a long flight from Hong Kong, I stopped by my house to take a shower and get a change of clothes…"

"You also came in here and started making a fuss instead of heading to the hospital to check on your daughter" Flack pointed out. When Danvers merely shrugged Flack went on "You know I've been getting constant reports from the hospital and your daughter's friends have been visiting round the clock practically from the moment they found out what happened. Yet you don't seem to be in a rush to go to her side…"

"Her friends?" Danvers almost spat the words "What friends? You mean Michael Hobbs don't you? Let me tell you something, if you're looking for suspects, that's where you should be looking! I bet the little punk didn't tell you he had a juvenile record did he? The boy has been nothing but trouble since they were kids."

He leaned closer and actually smiled at Mac, looking smug "Wish I could say that he's the one who was dragging Jessie down with him but truth be told, that girl had been in some kind of trouble or another since she was a teenager. Would have gotten herself a juvenile record all of her own if I hadn't bailed her out more times than I could count."

"That's a hell of a way to talk about your daughter" Mac said dryly

"Look, I love my daughter, I do. But she's always had a habit of attracting trouble and no matter how many times I tried to help her she just wouldn't listen to me"

Mac nodded and noticed Hawks standing outside the interrogation with a file in his hands. He excused himself and got up to leave the room, Flack following him close behind.

"Model father" Flack muttered as soon as the door was closed behind them. Mac simply nodded and turned to Hawks expectantly.

"I just finished the analysis on the bruise mark on Mrs. Danvers's arm. I went by the hospital and took a cast of Jessie Bancroft's hand" He handed a file with computer generated images to Mac as he spoke "there's no way Jessie's hands caused that bruise. Too small. The hands that caused the bruise on Missy's arm were much larger…"

"Like the hands of an older man…" Mac said thoughtfully, turning back to look at Mr. Danvers through the glass.

"I see where you're going with this Mac but I gotta tell you I don't see Mr. Danvers here letting us take a cast of his hand out of the goodness of his heart" Flack told him "And I don't think we have enough for a warrant"

"Yeah" Mac nodded as an idea came to his mind "But I think I know someone who can fill in a few blanks"