Internal affairs bureau detective Conner Staple wasn't a bad man. Though several years in IAB had traced his worries deep into his once youthful face, peppered his dark hair with flakes of grey and beaten his charming smile into a vacant glare the weathered detective had once wanted to make a difference. He was one of the very few who joined the internal affairs bureau without coercion, after all, what better way to improve a system than from the inside out? After nearly twenty years of seeing not only what people could do to other people, but what cops, the ones supposed to hold themselves to a higher standard than the public could do to people. IAB detective Stable wasn't sure what it was yet, but there had to be a better way.
He had once been very handsome; you could still see it in his face. The very few laugh lines that had survived from a time before the unsavoury truths had crippled anything otherwise worth finding amusing, they hinted at how much those now dull eyes had once sparkled while telling a joke or flirting with a beautiful woman. Too long ago he had lost that burning pride he'd had in himself and his job, the former distorting a once trim waistline into one solely dictated by grease dipped takeaways and convenience foods.
This case wasn't going to be one that lightened his burden of woes. Flipping open the folder with a calloused hand, he exhaled slowly, not shock but bitter disappointment forcing the breath from his lungs. There were a great many things that could drive one man to kill another, and not even the shine of a police badge warded off that particular burden of human nature. The first thing he had learnt on this job was that it wasn't a question of who, but a question of why that determined the killers from the rest of the population. Still, when such a comendated member of law enforcement had such a grim mountain of evidence piling up against him it felt particularly poignant.
When the best of us fall the loss is felt by all those left standing. It tarred a human face with something meant only for monsters to wear and in doing so smeared everyone within a certain radius with its putrid implications. Human nature was both assisted and limited by its need to categorise and in this case the public's attention would be drawn once again to the book cover, the police badge and forget that the contents of the man behind it were as varied and different from another officer as any member of the public.
The weary detective sighed, placing a steady hand on the solid metal table designed to keep a safe distance between a suspect and the interviewing officer. Finally Detective Stable managed to tear his drained gaze from the autopsy photograph, a somber scene particularly from the point of view of the once promising young detective sitting on the opposite side of the grilling slab. One bullet, just one tiny nine millimetre round directly between the drug dealer's eyes, execution style. Enough to end a life, and more than enough to destroy a career.
"The evidence is not painting a very positive picture, Detective Flack"
The room seemed to still as they locked eyes, the IAB detective's hard and jaded, endless pits of dull coal that had long since extinguished their last hope in the goodness of others, and the outcome of this case. Detective Donald Flack's icy and cold, their once bright blue depths dull with contempt and smouldering with a slow burning anger that appeared to have been stirring long before he had entered the interrogation room, and long before a unarmed dealer had been murdered by a gunshot to the head. With an unpleasant jolt Detective Stable realised he was looking at a mirror image of himself fifteen years ago when he had first lost faith in the system, burned out and furious at a system he had trusted to work, protect people, serve justice and make the world a safer place to live in.
Not receiving an answer other than a piercing glare he continued "Ballistics matched the bullet pulled from the victim to your weapon Detective Flack. The CSI's on the scene found no weapon on or nearby the body, now to me this is shaping up to be pretty cut and dry homicide."
A twitch was the only answer given as the young detective broke eye contact to gaze distractedly around the limited room as if the bare walls and ominously stained floor provided a much more enjoyable view than the middle aged detective's face, which Detective Stable didn't disagree with. Certainly his two ex wives would whole heartedly agree. But there was something deeper to it, from all the background he had got on Detective Flack, not only was his arrest record beaming with potential, everyone he had spoken to described him as someone who could charm the socks off an androphobic.
Looking through the recent cases he'd been working on nothing had particularly jumped out at him as different enough from any other case he had worked on to cause such a change to his behaviour, though sometimes it didn't take as much as people supposed. Sometimes it's a ordinary case, just like any other, and someone is hurt by someone else, just like any other and it's the monotony, the warped definition of normal that finally gets to a person to send them tumbling over that edge of right and wrong. Something could still turn up though, not all the most recent records had been as easy to unseal as others.
"Nothing to say in your defence Detective Flack?" Stable was trundling faster towards the familiar prickling fields of irritation and frustration at his latest assignment. Given his background, a cop, even a poster boy for law and order like Detective Flack falling off the deep end and killing someone was not beyond his scope of belief. However, even in a case like this there still had to be a why, a motive, even if it made no sense to anyone else. One last remnant of the hopeful officer he had once been stayed, even in the cold hopeless mind it now occupied, that impulse to know why an officer of the law would go against everything he had believed in and dwell in the lifestyle of the villain.
"The autopsy and crime scene photos confirmed the victim was kneeling before he was shot in the head." Detective Stable slammed the photographs in front of the seated man, having taken enough of the man's silence and terribly familiar jaded eyes. Multiple pictures spread haphazardly across the plain table, showing various views of a man calculatedly murdered before his time, black bullet hole between closed eyes contrasting painfully against the grey skin of a corpse. "Is that what you did? Did you make the victim get on his knees and beg for his life before you shot him in the head!"
"Don't fucking call him a victim!" Don Flack slammed both palms on the metal table top, the sound resonating around the gloomy bare brick room several times, then resonating through both the men's ears several more. His blue eyes had sharpened, jack-knifes glinting within each cerulean ocean, hands spasming upon the glossy images of the man all evidence pointed towards him having murdered. "He was a scumbag pure and fucking simple, the world is better off without him wandering the streets and all everyone cares about is his rights and his life. What about everyone else's? What about the kids he dealt drugs to, the people he hurt, the lives he's ruined, why is no one fucking worried about them?"
The young detective leant forward on his intentionally uncomfortable chair, arms folded over the ignored pictures of what could end his career and potentially his freedom. His hands worked their way into fists despite a clear effort to control the spilt fury, the muscles in his arms tensing visibly under the smart cloth of his suit in time with the tensing of his jaw. This was a man on his last straw if he had ever seen one, or maybe his last straw had come and gone leaving the executed corpse behind.
"Why?" Detective Stable managed at last, surprising himself by managing for the first time in countless similar cases to feel some loss at what this young man was looking down the barrel of in the future, if you could call it a future. Detective Flack had shown more potential than most he had investigated, the potential to really make a difference and now in one decision he had thrown it all away. How had he gotten from that charming, determined detective he had been told about to someone who would kill an unarmed man? "Why would you throw everything away for some lowlife drug dealer? What on earth was going through your head that you thought it was alright to kill someone, even him?"
"Why" the answer was small, muttered almost like he was speaking to himself. The man's broad shoulders started shaking and for a moment Stable thought he was crying, until he realised. His suspect was laughing, slow suppressed rolls of laughter that never quite reached his eyes, the younger man shook his head as if he'd been told a joke he found immensely funny, his warped expression portraying the fact that the question wouldn't be answered, at least not in a straight forward fashion.
"…why"
Eight months ago:
Heavy footfalls echoed throughout the grimy alley, the sharp noises vibrating against dreary brick, causing both rodent and human occupants alike to duck back into the cloaking darkness of doorways and crevices. It seemed to be a bright idea as moments later what could easily be described as the less nauseous more adequately dressed version of the hulk slammed his way recklessly through the narrow back street. A bare second after, hot on his heels a shorter average built man darted determinately after his herculean prey.
At six feet two inches in height the shorter man certainly wouldn't be considered so against the majority of the human population, but against his six feet eight inch powerhouse quarry he looked like a toothpick in a nice suit. Conventional business shoes hammered their way over the litter scattered concrete, wear from previous such maltreatment made invisible to the human eye only through the stealthy application of an abundance of black boot polish. Legs pumped like pistons beneath freshly pressed dark slacks, his tie, picked out carefully that morning to match his light blue eyes fluttered sideways under the arm of his similarly carefully deliberated pinstriped suit jacket. Much to his annoyance the blue striped shirt he had spent a good ten minutes painstakingly ironing was already rebelling against the impromptu chase in the form of deepening wrinkles.
"Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck" Detective Don Flack muttered with each gasp of breath as he fought to keep up with the hulking suspect. The armed suspect, he reminded himself with a grimace, not that the mammoth needed a gun, at his height and at the very least 300 pounds weight, most of it being muscle he could easily classify as a deadly weapon himself.
"NYPD Mr Hart! Stop or I will shoot!" The tank of a man slipped with absurd fluidity for his size into a nearby branch of the haphazardly connected backstreets. Flack swore again at the endless winding maze and wondered why on earth they'd had to confront their suspect, one Owen Hart in one of the very few sections of Staten Island not yet renovated and suburbanised.
Not taking a moment to acknowledge the dedication, or for that matter stupidity he was showing, the incensed detective took pursuit again wondering not for the first time where the heck his partner for the shift, an occasionally annoying crime scene investigator by the name of Danny Messer had got to. The two detectives had approached the suspect together after skin and blood samples had been found under the nails of a female murder victim in a case they had been working on, a common occurrence particularly after a victim had been beaten to death. Needless to say, a search through CODIS, or combined DNA index system had kicked out 'Owen Hart' with a delightful resume of assault charges by his name.
Unfortunately, Owen Hart did not seem be as charmed with the idea of being the main suspect in a murder case as the detectives had been to have someone to question. An unfortunate disparity of opinions to be sure, and one that had lead to their current situation. Soon after they had entered the labyrinth between the mass of old buildings, Detective Messer had signalled something vaguely about cutting him off and darted nimbly down a side path. Considering the countless twists and turns taken since then, Danny was probably wandering around behind some godforsaken shack lost as a lamb drifted too far from its mother.
Detective Flack fought the urge to swear again, acceding to the requirement to conserve his oxygen as the advert for steroids charged his way around yet another corner, this time barely managing to stop himself colliding with the ten feet tall wall running along the right of this new direction. Flack followed dutifully, smacking a palm mid turn to the brick sloppily covered in thick white paint, a canvas that many a graffiti artist had apparently appreciated. With the suspect for now once again in his line of sight, he was just considering raising his weapon once more when out of nowhere the murder suspect he had been chasing for an exhaustive multitude of breathless heartbeats dropped mid run to the ground and lay there still.
Flack stalled, light blue eyes darting around bewildered at the scene in front of him as he struggled to regain his breath. Mr Hart hadn't fainted to the floor of his own free will. On top of the facedown man's body crouched none other than Danny Messer. The smaller detective perched with one foot on the back of the herculean's bulky shoulder and the other on the back of his sweat soaked white sleeveless t-shirt, reminding Flack absurdly of a picture of David versus Goliath.
"Stay down!" Danny yelled unnecessarily into the three hundred pound man's ear. All he got in return was a groggy pain filled groan. Owen Hart was more out of it than Don's uncle Mike after the annual family New Years Eve bash. The taller detective wondered for a moment whether Mr Hart would feel better if he broke to him his good fortune of not having Flack's sisters around to take advantage of this vulnerable time by making him 'pretty'. Then he inwardly shuddered at the mental picture of six foot eight beefy Owen Hart in his grandmother's bright red lipstick and purple eye shadow.
"When were you going to let me in on this little plan of yours?" Flack asked between rapid breathes, wishing his heartbeat would slow down to some semblance of normal as he reached down to help Danny put the semiconscious man in some cuffs. He considered the top of the ten foot wall and the fallen suspect not needing to be a detective to figure out where his partner had suddenly materialised from and what had led Owen Hart to take an unscheduled naptime.
"Now?" Danny Messer offered with that infectious Cheshire cat grin of his, looking infuriatingly composed and fresh.
Flack glowered darkly down at him, running a damp palm through his short black hair while standing uncomfortable in a once crisp, now soaked, rumpled and sullied suit. Danny's trademark mischievous grin didn't let up an inch, keeping eye contact with his twinkling blue eyes a shade or two greyer than Flack's own. His face was smaller than his taller companion, the jaw much less angler giving him a less stern appearance, that and his decreased height making him appear more harmless and considerably less like a cop than his dark haired friend.
Donald Flack had no doubts that his smaller colleague put these facts to his advantage at times, such as providing a less intimidating face for a suspect to confide in or as he was doing now, dissipating another's aggravation. Sadly knowledge did not mean overcoming and he felt the irritation recede in the wake of the pure sparkling brightness of that impish smile. His only consolidation was the fact that he had never met Danny as a child. He had seen pictures, shoved eagerly under his nose when tagging along on a visit to his mothers much to his friend's embarrassment, Danny had been bright blonde then, the colour darkening into its current dirty blonde as he'd aged. He'd also been small for his age, creating a small blonde kid with big blue eyes further magnified by glasses too large for his face that had all the necessary tools to wrap the world around his little finger. Forcing himself to look away from the almost inhumanly happy grin, Flack entertained the possibility that not much had really changed.
"Alright you're off the hook. It was a good call" Flack finally conceded, grudgingly helping heave Danny's dazed victim to his feet, a job easier said than done.
If possible Danny's grin widened at the admission, helping prop his human landing pad up before moving off to collect the man's weapon that had skidded further down the alley upon impact. The forensically talented detective carefully dropped the revolver into a transparent plastic bag pulled like a magic trick from the back pocket of his blue jeans. As of yet it was unrelated to their murder case, fists and feet appearing to have been enough to end the life of the young woman but if there's one thing he had learnt from his time as a crime scene investigator it was to cover all his bases.
"Alright Spiderman" Flack called over his shoulder "Lets get our friend jumbo here outta this maze so I can go change my shirt."
Chuckling, Danny stretched, drawing himself up to his full five feet nine inches in height, then headed to help his friend march the still befuddled suspect to the nearest street.
"So what made you so damn sure he'd head that way?" Flack queried on the elevator ride up to the lab, the base of operations for crime scene investigation. They'd gotten many a strange look back at the precinct, especially at Danny, doing his best along with Flack to guide a by then very conscious and thoroughly pissed off Owen Hart.
The behemoth suspect looked formidable enough next to Flack, but he made the smaller man look like a child. Mr Hart had eleven inches on him, nearly an entire foot and weighed more than twice that of the blond CSI. Road rash like wounds on the man's face and arms caused by skidding across concrete after Danny's weight had hit him mid-stride only added to the menacing image.
Despite the disproportion, Danny had taken it in his stride, using the man's burly arms handcuffed behind his back to steer him in the right direction while Flack kept one hand on the back of the suspect's sweat stained white t-shirt, employing his weight to keep the giant moving forward. The taller detective had openly sniggered at the expressions he'd received after telling those who asked that it had actually been Danny, not himself that had taken down the suspect. Danny of course had milked it for all he could, recounting the tale of strolling across the top of the wall merrily until he'd heard the approaching footfall, then settling poised to leap on top of his target as he'd run by.
"We just happened to be near my childhood stomping ground" Danny grinned at him, rocking on his heels as the elevator moved up another floor. "Most of the alleyways eventually end up at that connecting stretch running alongside the wall. The entire right hand side is businesses and their clever enough to block off the back lanes so's they don't get burgled."
"And if he'd gone left?" Flack asked raising a single thick eyebrow.
"If he'd gone left" Danny stated, pausing to step out onto the floor of the crime lab. "Then you and me would be having a different conversation"
Flack frowned, about to press the matter further when a familiar vision of beauty rounded the corner of the winding corridor. Crime scene investigator Stella Bonasera, though 42, she could easily pass for someone in her late 30's and look stunning doing so. As always professional in a smart red blouse and black sensible trousers, showing off the police badge clipped to her belt with confidence. Her slightly long face was balanced perfectly by the billowing curly brown hair framing it. Expertly applied makeup accented her high cheekbones and firm smile that quirked with amusement as she approached the pair.
"Thinking of leaving us to pursue a professional career in heavy weight wrestling?" She quipped approaching Danny, her moss green eyes sparkling at him from beneath long dark lashes.
"And deal with all that drama? No thanks" The blond CSI answered, not missing a beat. "Plus, those outfits? Not my kinda thing."
"There's also the fact that he's over one hundred pounds below the cut off point" Flack emphasised the vastness of the number with his hands, placing a palm conspiratory on Stella's shoulder as the two in unspoken agreement walked off, leaving Danny standing by the elevators.
"Stop exaggerating Flack, it ain't that much" Danny argued, jogging a few steps to catch up with the pair.
"So how'd our little Danny pull it off then?" Stella ignored the blond detective, leaning closer to Flack effectively blocking Danny out of the conversation. "He trip him up, throw something at him…?"
"Get this" Flack replied pretending not to notice the disgruntled muttering of 'little?' coming from Stella's side. "He falls on the guys head – from on top of a wall. Knocks the poor sap clean out, boom."
"Hey now. There was no falling, period" Danny corrected, cutting ahead of them while moving backwards so they were forced to look at him.
"I jumped. Juuummmpppeeeddd" he sounded it out while glaring directly into Flack's blue eyes as if the taller detective were particularly dim. "There's a big difference. Although if you wanna stick to chasing suspects for miles an' getting nowhere that's your business. I don't have to loan out my services." He shrugged, raising his palms as he continued to shamble backwards in front of them.
"Danno" Flack chuckled breaking the jest. "If you ever feel the need to turn yourself into a flying projectile, I'm all for it. Anything that cuts down on legwork is a plus in my book, just a little heads up next time so I'm not left wondering what the heck just happened?"
"A'rite" Danny consented, backing up into a nearby layout room, his vaguely sulking expression instantly dissolved into a smirk.
Flack carried on, wanting to brief the head investigator of the crime lab, one Mac Taylor on the case before he left. He didn't envy his friend's job of combing through all the evidence collected from Mr Hart. The case was closing up, and although they hadn't managed to persuade a confession out of the suspect, he bet easy money that the photographs they'd taken of the man's bruised fists and imprints of his boots would match their victim's wounds perfectly. With the evidence collected already they had enough for a conviction, but hopefully what Danny found would add icing to the cake. Then there was just the mountain of paperwork involved to trawl through and they could pass it over to the district attorney to prosecute. 'Piece of cake' he mused inwardly knowing all too well that in a couple of hours the monotony of paperwork would have him contemplating lighting his desk on fire, files and all.
Five hours later and all was right with the world. Danny had called him to crow excitedly about confirming what they had both suspected, and even more. It had turned out to the benefit of the case that Owen Hart hadn't been too big on the whole spick and span where his boots were concerned, leaving blood evidence in the creases. It would take a little longer than they would have liked to get it back from DNA to confirm a match to their victim, but as the evidence already processed stood, they had more than enough to try, convict and throw away the key.
Flack sighed; the type of exhalation one can only make with just the right mix of frustration, relief and pure bone achingly painful exhaustion. He ran a limp hand over his expressive face as he stepped for the countless time that day off of the well worn elevator and onto the floor of the ground lab. Horrible flashbacks of paperwork dangled mockingly in front of him every time he closed his eyes; repetitive explanations and long drawn out answers danced jeeringly in black ink. Most of it was finished and his desk was somehow scorch free, which was certainly a bonus. Although he wasn't quite sure what kind of impression he had made on the new cop a couple of desks over by staring so fervently at the lighter he had spotted tucked in the man's shirt pocket.
At least he thought while marching purposely down the winding corridor, it hadn't been in the man's trouser pocket, that would have really gotten him some odd looks. Shaking the disturbing musing from his mind he rounded the corner, rapping lightly on the glass doors before poking his head into the room. Blue eyes as exhausted as his own looked up from the familiar rite of piled papers, the usually buzzing with energy Danny Messer looked like he'd gone ten rounds with another herculean suspect since Flack had seen the blonde last. Paperwork would do that to a man.
Flack brought a cupped palm to his mouth in the universal male gesture for drinks, the dark eyebrows raised almost inhumanly high to mark the mimed communication as a question.
The blonde criminalist considered for a moment, dragging a hand through a by now spiky and thoroughly messed up cropped head of hair. "Gimme five minutes" Danny stated finally, finishing up the sheet he was working on, blue eyes beginning to twinkle again as a slow tired smile spread across his face. Both of them had finished their shifts over an hour ago but the reminder that any paperwork not documented today would only add to a growing pile the next was a powerful persuader. Either that or they were both just workaholics.
"I'll go see if any of your adoring fans wanna spring for a pint or two" Flack remarked with a smirk, backing out of the room.
A dry chuckle followed him as he moved off in search of more lab rats. The detective's smart black shoes marching purposely along the thinly carpeted corridor as he glanced curiously through the various glass partitions that made up this section of the crime lab. In terms of the age of the building, the see through sections of the evidence examination rooms were a recent adaptation. Certainly very chic, but downright odd if you knew the rest of the building as well as he did.
The CSI building was kind of the Frankenstein version of real estate. Various improvements like the glass paned offices, state of the art equipment had been added like every other city funded building. Slowly and laboriously, getting funding for even upgrades sorely needed was like pulling teeth. The result being a few approved modern projects against the still very obvious ancient structure of the building. Flack was sure he wasn't the only one amused by the fact that he could walk through a corridor lined with rusty pipes and exposed brickwork into a DNA lab so filled with spotless, shining technology he felt the immediate reflex to shield his eyes from the brightness.
"Yo, Adam!" Flack called, finally seeing someone he knew.
Flustered, the previously absorbed man slouched in front of the computer monitor jumped almost completely out of his chair. With panicked blue eyes, much brighter than Danny's or Flacks own, he quickly spun around on the seat's revolving axis to assess the disturbance. Blood quickly rushed back to his blanched cheeks upon recognising the slightly older man, the resulting blush adding to his round boyish face, making him look even more like a child despite the closely trimmed beard lightly lining his jaw line.
"You alright there Ross?" The detective asked with a tilt of the head as he left the open doorway, entering further into the room. Adam Ross, a lab tech who when standing stood at a full height of 5'8", peeked up at him from underneath a complete head of wavy brown hair, unsuccessfully combed back from his eyes to attempt a neat appearance. Jumpy was a good adjective to describe the man, whose whole body seemed to permanently vibrate with nervous energy.
They had met through Danny, the blonde crime scene investigator taking the lab tech under his wing after he'd worked with him on countless cases. Though there were literally dozens of lab techs buzzing around on their shift alone, it was common knowledge among the CSI's that Adam was the favourite. Whether it was because his qualifications made him the jack of all trades within the lab, able to carry out almost every task with equal or more commonly superior adeptness than any other tech, or whether it stemmed from his obvious vulnerability and childish, slight puppy fat looks was uncertain.
Though, he could see what had drawn Danny to the young lab tech. They both had enough energy to make you dizzy just watching them and they both had roughly similar events in their lives that had caused such an outpouring of activity. Danny had grown up in a rough neighbourhood, a child navigating through a world of violence. To survive he had to be smart, and smart meant always on your toes, able to avoid blows, land them when he could and hightail it out of any situation at any time in case things went south, constantly vigilant. When excited, the energy manifested itself in amusing head bobs and rolling back on the balls of his feet, but when faced with a dangerous situation its true purpose was made clear. Too many times Flack had seen his friend pace uncontrollably in front of a loaded gun or intimidating thug, pushing weight from foot to foot when caught in a bad situation, an internal boxers dance that had likely saved his life and gotten him out of many a sticky predicament.
Adam's situation was simpler than that; he hadn't been given a way out. Though they hadn't pressed for details they knew enough trusted titbits coaxed from years of friendship to piece together that the man's father had been abusive. Though Danny's time on the streets was tough, he'd been able to develop tactics to escape and a place, his home to escape to. Adam's home was his war zone, giving him no escape. As a result Adam's energy buzzed constantly beneath the surface, tense muscles reacting to the least startling stimuli as if forever waiting for a blow to fall.
Flack hadn't been too impressed with the forever nervous man when Danny had started bringing him along to their hangouts. Disliking to admit it now, he'd had Adam pegged as a pity friend, too shy, glued to books and geek activates to get along comfortably with them. It had taken a long time, but the tech had eventually loosened up enough in their presence to get a better indicator of his personality and interests, which surprisingly had been closer to his own than he had thought. Both the darker haired men shared a keen obsession of roller hockey, while Danny had only a mild interest. Often times they would get carried away discussing the stats of various hockey players, before they noticed the blonde's eyes had long since glazed over and changed the topic to something more accessible.
To his credit, Adam nodded his head fervently in response to the question, despite visibly still recovering from the interruption. "Yea-yeah, fine. Just you know, focused on the screen" the brunette flattened his palms to his legs in an effort to stop them shaking.
"Did you need something?" he asked with a nervous grin, clearly keen on changing the subject.
Flack played along, knowing that it only made the tech all the more nervous to bring it up. "You got an idea of where everyone is?" he asked, lowering himself into a nearby chair.
The room was identical to almost every other lab room he had passed in overall structure, but the contents made it unique. Three monitors stood as one on top of the carefully shaped desk, two more computer desks exactly the same sitting unmanned facing the opposite corner of the see through 'wall' marking the edges of the audio visual room. Colourful sound waves danced their merry way across larger monitors dwarfing the small desks below for hard working techs to analyse different audio content. This was definitely one of the more high tech additions.
"Stella's out on a scene" the tech's blue eyes softened as he mentioned the half greek wild haired woman, she had along with Danny in their very different ways forged the strongest emotional connections with the young lab worker, earning his complete and total trust. "I think Mac's in his office, Danny's doing paperwork, and Lindsay and Hawkes got sent home already."
"That doesn't look much like work" Flack mused, staring pointedly at the computer screen Adam had been so fixed on, dark eyebrows raised and small smirk present.
"I'm off the clock" the brunette stammered nervously, "and its kind of work, in a way, in a very far off way, but still kind of-"
"Hey, I'm not here to bust yer chops buddy. Me an' Danny are finishing up for the night, wondering if you wanted to tag along. Get some drinks, a pizza, maybe catch the game. Come on, it'll be fun."
Finally Adam nodded his agreement, persuaded as many had been before him by the detective's charming smile. In the same moment the noise of familiar footsteps reached their ears and the pair looked up to watch as Danny Messer navigated the glass maze to reach the doorway of the transparent room they occupied. The reassuringly familiar charismatic smile in place as the once again bright eyed blonde locked gazes with both his friends.
"We goin'? Or you got your heart set on workaholic of the year award?" Danny asked, somehow managing to pull a straight face, though his eyes twinkled with mirth.
The bar was traditional looking without falling into the trap of being ill kempt. From the old wooden bars of days gone past, too many establishments had gotten desperate or greedy, wanting something new to pull in the customers. This ranged in design from half naked women dancing in oversized bird cages, to chic new bars made so completely out of modern materials like glass or metal that you were afraid to touch anything in case you left smudges on the pristine surfaces. Other bars had gone the opposite direction, abandoning the old style furniture to dust and wood worm in order to save a buck, not many of those lasted that long, unless they catered to the less concerned, less savoury crowd.
This bar however, a medium sized building close enough to the crime lab to be a favourite among the team, had gotten the balance just right. It had remained true to its roots, while still appealing to the modern crowd. Well preserved light mahogany lined the marble surface of the bar, tinted green by a row of overhead lights. Stepping away from the bar however transformed the atmosphere completely, into one illuminated by daylight like light above the pool tables, dart boards and various sized round tables, catering to those who just wanted a normal relaxed atmosphere to hang out with friends. A further few tables were tucked away in the opposite, more obscure end of the building for those who had something against being noticed.
Three males gathered around one of the several pool tables certainly didn't seem to have a problem with being noticed. The taller two, one by barely an inch and the other by several jeered teasingly as the smaller lined up a shot. The verbal prods were more at each other than the baby-faced man, as if sensing a certain sensitivity about the man and not willing to put his feelings on the line to test its limit.
"Comon Adam" Danny encouraged, leaning his weight forward against his pool cue "Couple more points an' Flack'll never be able to catch up."
CSI Danny Messer turned an endearing grin to the aforementioned black haired detective who was currently darkly boring a hole into the side of his head. Cautiously the blond raised both palms in a submissive gesture "Hey, you gotta back the winning team, right?"
"Right…" Flack drew out the word with narrowed eyes "an' the fact that your currently beating him has nothin' to do with it, right?"
The shorter man grinned his Cheshire cat smile, seemingly put into a permanent state of good mood after his recent bust. "You really think so little of me that I'd put my own good fortune above a friend's success, I'm hurt Flack" Danny stated, attempting with moderate success to dissolve the grin into one of pouting mock hurt. His blue eyes appearing suddenly bigger as he slumped his usually confidently held shoulders, creating an illusion of a pathetically small frame that shaved inches off his perceived height.
"First of all Mess, that little puppy dog routine don't work on me, I'm not a loony with a mothering complex. Second of all" he stated as his shorter friend kept up his act, jutting out his bottom lip like a petulant child "quit it before I hurt you".
Danny dropped the act, folding forward on his cue with laughter as Flack shook a fist in front of his face to accent his threat. He knew as most of their circle of friends did that the only reason the taller detective reacted so strongly against such manipulative routines was because it did work on him. A loony with a mothering complex he may not be, but unfortunately a hero complex could work in the same way. Flack headed like bee to honey for vulnerability, it was just instinct for him to want to save the damsel in distress, physical or metaphorical, to try and solve everyone's problems and protect any signs of weakness in others.
"Are you guys keeping score?" Adam asked after pocketing another two billiard balls, seeming much more relaxed now he was outside the work setting.
"Feeling ignored Adam?" Flack queried with a startlingly straight face, holding up the scrap of paper he'd been discreetly scribbling their scores on "I'm sure the corner shop down the street sells some pompoms if you need us to cheer you on?"
"No, no, that's fine" Adam chuckled, looking sideways at the still manically grinning Danny. "How much has he had to drink?"
"Not enough to make him tipsy" Flack frowned, joining the brunette in analysing their friend much like he'd seen the CSI's analyse a particularly peculiar sample under a microscope. "What's up with you chuckles? You take down a suspect and your suddenly a chipmunk on speed for the day?" he joked, it wasn't unusual for him to be excited or hyper, even to annoying lengths, though they usually only saw this amount of grinning rarely, only after a very good day. Apparently tackling a six foot eight inch tall, three hundred pound man qualified.
"What, I'm not allowed to be happy now?" Danny half heartedly pretended to grouse, snatching the score sheet away from Flack to scan through. "Wow Adam, you really had a roll with that one, these are some major scores."
"Yeah" Flack agreed as Danny stepped forward to line his cue up on the table, the youngest member's turn finally over "You might even say he's honing in on you" he mentioned casually as Adam snickered beside him.
The statement served rather effectively to distract the CSI, the difficult shot he had lined up missing by bare millimetres. A glance at the paper he had placed on the side of the billiard table proved it to be correct; Adam was catching up to his own score, and fast. Danny frowned as Flack moved past him to take his turn at the pool table, the taller man being the one this time to serve his friend a charming smile that managed to the blond at least to be just as annoying as his own grins were sometimes perceived, even without the clearly visible layer of mischief.
Danny felt a hand clap against his back and turned to lock eyes with the boyish faced lab tech. Trust showed strongly through the smile, only showing bare traces of nerves probably more caused by the surrounding crowd than his two friends. It was the kind of trust seen solely in animals and small children, seemingly blind to any possibility that his friend might choose a path against his own interests, damaging his body or mind in the process. Until you noticed the hesitancy that reappeared whenever any of his friends would show a new behaviour he wasn't sure how to react to, or the fear in his eyes whenever they lost their temper, even if it wasn't directed at him. It emphasised that the trust was blind because that was the only way he could trust them, by already considering and mentally denying any chance that they might intentionally hurt him, psychologically or otherwise. It also emphasised the fact that this blind trust was deceivingly fragile, were any of them to turn against him, exposing themselves as the monsters that lurked in his nightmares the damage would be so extreme it might never be repaired.
"Don't worry" Adam reassured him, his eyes shining with a jokiness that showed off his true personality, only seen by those who knew him well. "I'll try not to beat you too bad."
It was lucky that Danny wasn't a sore loser, as Adam didn't keep his word. Flack allowed himself his own smile as he watched the two bantering, the blond slipping an arm over his younger friend's shoulders as he pushed him for a rematch the next time they had time free, while simultaneously gently teasing the man's brilliant performance. Adam, now fully relaxed as they waited on the chilling pavement for his cab gave back almost as good as he got, his far more isolated and polite childhood than his two friends having dulled his tongue considerably but with Danny's careful tuition and encouragement he was learning.
Messer was a bad influence Flack mused as Adam said something that he was sure the usually polite man would have never uttered before they had met, Danny responding with a smile and a quick quip. The younger man's low tolerance for temperature being the current target; originally from Phoenix, Arizona, even the fairly warm early March nights were enough to set off shivers in Adam. Perhaps another motive as to why the blonde's arm hadn't left the lab tech's shoulders.
It never ceased to amaze the detective how calm people could be, how they could wander around as if they had not a care in the world on the very streets, sometimes the very spots their team had scraped up dead bodies from. How little girls could walk hand in hand, dressed up beyond their years, eager young faces and fake ID in hand to have a fun night on the town, not noticing the predatory eyes that followed their vulnerable frames. Or how tourists could ignore seemingly obvious warning signs and still wander happily into the bad neighbourhoods or ask for help from shadowy figures. It helped to have days like this, days where he could forget the death and ruined lives he would be picking up tomorrow and the morbid wondering of who it would be this time, which poor soul alive today would not be the next.
To him it seemed obvious that there would be that inevitability of death, particularly on dark nights such as these. Traffic slowed to a distant hum from the larger roads, with the occasional taxi or car driving by on the medium off branch road by which they waited, the cities version of chirping of crickets in the dull of night. There was something both disturbing and beautiful in the silence, illuminated by gaudy lights of various convenience stores and drinking venues, the bleeping, flashing lights of hurrying motorists and the slivering glint of the moon peering every now and then from behind rolling clouds to shine softly on the reflecting tarmac. To an out of Towner, pure vulgar eye and ear bleeding hell, but to a native New Yorker, as blissful as a mother's lullaby.
A waving hand in front of his nose startled him from his admiration of the subtle dangerous beauty of the night.
"I called a cab for you as well" Danny stated, patiently looking up at him with Adam still by his side.
Flack blinked a couple of times before he realised what his friend's pointed look was trying to say, "I'm drunk" he realised slowly, his swimming head agreeing with his diagnosis as he attempted to push his weight off from the wall he'd been leaning against. At least it answered the question as to why he'd practically been writing poetry about traffic lights a minute ago.
"You just can't handle your beer is all" Danny criticised, rocking back and forth jauntily on his heels. "Call of duties not till the afternoon so you should be good and sober for knocking on doors an' catching bad guys."
"Hey Messer" Flack retorted moving forward, tipsy or not to catch the blond by the scruff of his jacket, lightly shaking him from side to side like a mother canine with a disobedient pup. "I handle my beer just fine, not even a Russian bar dweller could compete with your iron liver."
Danny remained unfazed, smiling ever so innocently up at the detective despite the steel grip. "Adam" he said, turning to his watching friend "back me up on this one will ya? Flacks a light weight, right?" the blonde raised his eyebrows, ignoring the responding further physical abuse from the taller detective.
"I'm with Flack on this one Danny" Adam shook his head, short brown curls still moving after he had stopped. "The amount you put away you should be out of your mind, but you look even more sober than when you walked into the bar. It's not normal."
"Traitor" Danny mumbled, freeing himself from Flack's grip. "What can I say? Us Messer's were practically bottle fed the hard stuff from birth, it's in our blood."
"Literally" Flack added placing a hand on the blonde's shoulder, partly as a friendly gesture, partly to help steady the occasionally tilting ground. "You're not driving, right?"
"Naw, walking to the subway" Danny grinned, it was his usual route to and from work as an easy couple of stops took him practically to his front door. Having never really felt the impact of alcohol in the same way as friends, at least the ones not from his home neighbourhood, he was never really that sure how much he could be over the legal limit. Growing up, alcohol and drugs were frequent hideaways of youth living life in a war zone of gangs, the alcohol he had participated in, encouraged by his robust father who saw beer as an indicator of manhood. He wouldn't be surprised if he could feel and function perfectly fine yet still be over the limit enough to warrant a DUI and quite possibly the end to his career.
Nodding, Flack looked up as a taxi cab sailed down the road, another same for same yellow vehicle appearing fast behind it, approaching steadily from a distance. Apparently the New York taxi driver was keen to earn a new fare which was good fortune for them.
"Don't forget, roller hockey Saturday morning" Danny called out after the pair, after the three had said their quick goodbyes. It was an unnecessary reminder seeing as they would see each other at work before then but Flack had learnt over the years that it was a pet peeve of the smaller man to have people forget after making plans. The dark haired detective had only truly forgotten once, years ago after mistakenly taking a kip on the couch after an extraordinary long day, but although his friend immediately accepted his apology, he'd also fallen quite readily into the practice of checking, occasionally enough to wonder if it were some kind of nervous tick than a truly functional question.
"Something else you can beat him at" Flack stage whispered to Adam, purposely loud enough for the blond to hear.
"Not if I have 'im on my team!" Danny countered, approaching the pair where they stood by the waiting cab, the second vehicle pulling up behind it.
"Not a chance" the taller detective said firmly, "if we have to split across two teams again, he's on my side, you had him last time see."
"Guys, guys" Adam pushed himself between the squaring off detectives, holding both arms out to maintain distance between the two. "Really, this is all very touching, but there's plenty of me to go around."
The lab tech primped his casual jacket over band t-shirt attire, doing a good job of acting like he was preening under the attention, causing both men to laugh out loud. Flack slapped the brunette on the shoulder as he climbed into the nearest taxi, winding down the window to lock eyes with his blonde friend once more.
"Saturday" Flack repeated consolingly.
"Saturday" Danny nodded curtly, before patting Adam on the back as the man ducked into the nearby back seat of the second cab. "I'll see you tomorrow ya goofs."
And on that note their boy's night out ended, all retreating sluggishly with nice warm beds in mind and the wonderful escape of sleep.
Flack bolted upright from beneath the soft duvet he'd taken refuge under, remaining that way, rather like the stereotypical portrayal of a zombie in a morgue, until gravity slowly pulled the sheet from over his weary eyes. For too many minutes his mind wondered what on earth the annoying beeping sound vibrating within his ears was, but even before his mind twigged, his body was far ahead. Fingers already searching through the now piled blanket for the illusive pager.
He glared indignantly at the message on the small machine that had been hiding in the midst of the rumpled bed sheets as if it had just said something very offensive about his mother.
"See now, here's where we're not communicating well" he told the inanimate object firmly "Your supposed to send me on a call when I'm actually on call, and certainly not after a night out involving alcohol. I don't want to hurt your feelings, but after kicking back a couple after a long shift, bloody corpses and drunken idiots, not at the top of my to do list, or anywhere on the list to be perfectly honest."
The small black box shone mutely up at him indicating the number he had to call for details of the assignment. Usually and sensibly given the increasing modern age headquarters just contacted him straight on his new iphone, a machine he loved with all his heart since he bought it, but corporate sensibility didn't outweigh human behaviour, and his shiny mobile must have been dumped with his jacket in his living room.
Disappointingly the pager won the staring competition and Flack sighed, growling complaints under his breath as he swung his feet over the bed to look for some suitable clothes.
"A cab?" Stella Bonasera asked with a single elegant raised eyebrow beneath her many brown curls.
"Blame Messer and his bottomless pit of a stomach" Detective Flack replied irritated as the yellow vehicle sped away behind him.
To a born and bred New Yorker, there was nothing particularly fascinating about this section of the city. Residential houses covered the block, neither the cramped crime ridden apartments of the lower class nor the giant land hogging expanses of the upper classes. With clean red brick and respectable cloned lines of three or four bedroom houses, and larger apartment buildings further down the street this area was thoroughly middle class, lower middle class if one were to get technical.
"Its not often you beat me to the crime scene" the black haired detective realised suddenly as they fell in step together towards the yellow crime scene tape hanging dismally in the dim light of the morning, tied to the pavement edge around a lamp post and a mailbox. To the experienced detective it was clear they were just being thorough, encompassing the true crime scene, within the access path between two identical three bedroom houses. Killers always seemed to feel the need to hide their crime as such, whether through guilt or self preservation he couldn't say.
"I dragged Lindsay out of bed to help me with my missing persons case, we were just finishing up a block over when the call came in" Stella explained, sparing him a grateful smile as he held up the bright yellow tape for her to duck under, ever the gentleman, before following himself a second later. "Why? Are you worried I might make you look bad?"
Flack twitched a smile, pausing to clear his throat with a theatrical flair. "So Detective" he asked changing the subject "what have we got?"
The irony of their reversed roles, Detective Flack usually being the first on scene and so the first to fill in the others of the details of the crime wasn't lost on her. She waved off the impulse to joke with her friend, needing to focus on the seriousness of the situation at hand. The dead deserved her professionalism, so when she spoke again her voice retained only a mild twinge of her previous humour.
"You're not going to like this" she stated with raised brows as they walked in step down the narrow alley towards the dead body.
He frowned back at her, blue eyes twinkling with uncertainty as he tried to work out what on earth he would dislike so much about a cold dead corpse to make it unusual enough to mention. The cold night air stank of petrol, the sharp aroma of poorly sealed plastic rubbish bags littering the narrow walkway between buildings and the too familiar metallic twang of blood that stung on his tongue as he attempted to put form to the semi formed question. Decomposing carcasses always put a dampener on his day, but to his finely tuned detectives nose this kill seemed fresh. Judging from the surroundings and amount of swing-set filled yards he had passed during his taxi ride, during the daytime this neighbourhood would be swarming with curious children, making it likely that the body had been laying in the walkway hours rather than days.
Either that, or there were some tight mouthed traumatised tykes about to have very bad nightmares.
Flack was distracted from pondering what else it could be by the much too sunny smile of CSI Lindsay Monroe. Crouched on the edge of the alley, in front of a small gathering of dented metal bins that could have appeared abandoned there for years were it not for the crisp new black bin bags arranged in and around the slime gathering containers, her small torch remained fixed on a small pile of what the detective considered dirt, but his science orientated friends would no doubt have a more technical name for. Distracted from her evidenciary Easter egg hunt no doubt he hypothesised by his charming self, she attempted unsuccessfully to school a grin.
"Brace yourself Flack" she remarked as way of greeting, the corner of her lightly tinted lips twitching slightly upwards. If that didn't give her mood away, her eyes were talking enough for the rest of her. Deep brown orbs shone with mirth, before the crouched woman turned too quickly back to the evidence, likely in a attempt to keep her features straight. The detective would have liked to investigate, but Stella took the moment to place a hand on the taller man's elbow, effectively steering him forward around the mound of bins.
"Since when does bracing myself become an issue?" Don frowned down at the five foot eight inch tall Greek beauty by his side but was met with silence. "What's going on Stell?"
They left the southern crime scene investigator behind to play with her dirt, leaving Flack to wonder at the strange reaction. It was true that the two of them had struck up a rather odd relationship. The detective's tendency to take on a brotherly role with his friends providing an opportune target for the petite brunette to flex her practically based humour on. It turned out the unassuming woman had been a real childhood terror back home in Montana, something none of them had expected when they first laid eyes on her two years previously when she had joined their team.
The side affect of being the most easygoing, laidback and least easily offended target was the discovery that the six feet two inch detective and the five feet three inch CSI actually had a surprisingly similar sense of humour. As would be the case in a friendship based largely on jokes and the occasional laughingly concocted practical scheme however this did mean that sometimes just meeting each other's eyes was enough to set the other off sniggering in memory. Even occasionally in such a sombre environment, so how much humour was actually supposed to be behind that statement could be a mystery.
Still the doubt wasn't enough to alleviate a sense of foreboding that had descended upon Stella's first warning.
However he suddenly reminded himself, he had been in this business since fresh out of high school and in that roughly a dozen years of service had seen more sad stories, horrific corpses and just plain wrong than most on the police force. Not to sing his own praises, but there were times when he wondered whether there was anything anymore that could shock him. Live in this line of work in this dark city for long enough and you start to become hardened to the sickness of the world.
"Good god in heaven" Flack jerked to a stop as they finally circumvented enough rubbish to gain a view of the body. He felt distinctly nauseous as wide blue eyes took the bloody corpse with all the horror and revulsion of a small child mixing up a favourite Disney movie with his older brother's porn stash. Faintly he could feel Stella patting him on the back in what he supposed was a reassuring manner.
This was definitely enough to shock him.
"That's just plain wrong" the dark haired detective grimaced down at the corpse in a manner not even a bloated decomposing floater corpse had drawn from him.
A young male in his mid twenties, bleach blond hair haphazard but still bearing the marks of considerable effort to comb it tightly back from his once tanned now greying face. The victim, hidden from the mouth of the alley by the metal bins, one of which his upper body leaned against at an angle, sharing the weight of shoulders and head between the rusty container and the red brick wall. Glassy eyes stared upwards in wide horror, their colour clouded by the thick film that formed shortly after death, but experience had Flack pegging them as a light brown.
The rest of his body was sprawled ungracefully on the stone paved floor, one leg over the other as if he had been trying to work his way back to his feet before he died. From how the man was dressed he had definitely had a better night planned, one most likely that involved one or more of the clubs a few blocks down the street and didn't end in him being dead. A navy blue dress shirt crumbled under a brown leather jacket in disarray, part of a well toned abdomen peeking through where buttons had been unfastened. Black shoes shone in similar reflectiveness to the drenched ground on which the body lay, or the similarly coated trash bins.
Cause of death was obvious, gruesome and enough to beckon that peculiar freaked out tingling feeling that could only be described in terms of being covered from head to toe in crawling phantom spiders and needing in a fit of nausea to shake, scratch and tear them off in any way possible. Thick red blood lay dried where it had pooled on the floor of the concrete alley, staining the front of once white exposed boxer shorts like a macabre but effective version of clothes dye. Dark slacks slumped slightly above the corpses thighs, making Flack consider even in his shocked mindset whether when they'd been lowered the victim had in his mind a good time, or the killer had.
One thing was certain, seen partially but clearly enough through the lowered hem of the discoloured underwear, something very important was missing. Something Mister party going blondie had he by some miracle lived would have most definitely missed.
"Found it!" Came a triumphant cry from the other side of the pile of metal containers and rubbish.
Any hanging questions of 'what' were soon answered as Lindsay Monroe rushed towards them as fast as her evidence conscious feet and five foot three inch figure could carry her. All trace of her usual humour had vanished into professionalism with an added mixture of almost childlike pride at her discovery. The scientist however shone through most of all in the slight frown her face held as she held up the clear plastic baggie for both of them to see, mentally joining the dots along with the rest of them.
"One disembodied penis" she announced solemnly, failing to notice how every male in earshot automatically dropped a couple of shades in colour and twitched their hands protectively towards their groins.
"I think maybe rats tried to take it away" the light brunette continued her face a picture of contemplation "see its got teeth marks on it right here."
Flack suddenly felt distinctly nauseous.
"I think maybe it's best if we examine this bit of evidence down at the lab" Stella stepped forward diplomatically, placing a palm on the younger woman's shoulder in an effort to steer her and the evidence away. "Why don't you tag it and place it in the coroners van in case he needs it for the post".
The shorter investigator looked up at her colleague bewildered for a moment before her brown eyes drifted to Flack, and something finally seemed to click. It was not that she was overly dense in any way, when it concerned solving crimes she was incredibly bright, but when it came to feelings Lindsay didn't fit the female stereotype in the slightest. Whether it had something to do with growing up in the country with a close knit group of friends whose favourite idea of sport was to design home made weapons; slingshots, booby traps and the like to traumatise the declared enemy, the local boys, or perhaps when shortly before due to leave for college an unprompted bloody attack left her childhood friends dead and her the only one left standing was uncertain. Either way, it meant as well as not having the most adept shoulder to cry on it could take her a little longer than others to twig what exactly was upsetting someone.
"Sorry Flack" Lindsay tried, her nervous smile twitching with concern "I forgot you were a guy there for a minute."
The six foot two inch man's dark expression only seemed to fall more into gloom at the convoluted excuses as he stared unblinkingly down at his collegue. In return her brown eyes widened.
"Wait" she stalled, realising her mistake "I didn't mean. I mean, I meant. I'll just go put this in the van."
Stella resisted a slight snigger as she watched the young woman pick her way carefully through the crime scene, this time carefully hiding the offending object from sight. She turned back to her rather shell shocked friend, using a slight touch on his elbow to spin them both around towards the corpse, the centre piece of this rather appalling play. The greek raised both eyebrows, tilting her head slightly towards the younger detective to ask the question she already knew the answer to. Already he was pulling himself together, processing the facts and no doubt debating in his mind the most comical way to describe Lindsay's little stumble to the rest of the guys over a cold beer.
"Are you sure you can handle this one Flack?"
"Stella Bonasera, I am a professional" he replied in a monotone voice that didn't sound at all convincing. Though his blue eyes were still slightly dullened and his skin a shade paler than it should be, his professionalism showed clearly through how his eyes were already raking the scene for clues. By the time the coroner had gathered his kit a bare few minutes later and reached them and the body, Detective Flack was as good as new. Cool and professional, it was hard to think of any hardship the man could face that he couldn't brush off, like water down a duck's back, like blood dripping from a polished knife.
Months of spring were traditionally associated with new life; wobbling newly born deer, yelping blind coyote pups. In New York these upbeat wonders of nature were elusive, mere whispered myths of 'I heard from someone who heard from someone who heard from their drycleaner that witnessed one once along the Hudson river'. Upon entering the morgue, seeing the long wall spanning the dudgeon like room taken almost completely up by specially made metal drawers for dead bodies of humans to be stored in, the myth seemed even farther from reality.
Sunlight spread coolly throughout the giant stone room, kissing the large pillars that held up the long ago modified sub basement. Footsteps of passing body haulers and other resident staff echoed from wall to wall despite more modern fixtures, such as the glass divided subsections at one end of the long room, partly fitted to dullen the ambience and partially to allow family members privacy when identifying bodies. Despite the museum like sound effects and the timeworn feel of the aging stone the set up of the autopsy facilities was surprisingly efficient.
Several large metal autopsy tables were bolted to the easy to wash down floor, lined up along the long room, an equal distance between each one like ready soldiers waiting silently for orders. Their master, a peculiar coroner by the name of Sid Hammerback, stood with appropriate authority over a table near the middle of the morgue. With a beak-like nose, shallow set grey eyes and bony structure he looked like he had been born to do this type of work, not something that could be said about just anyone. Greying hair and a wiry frame put him in his late fifties with a look of such complete concentration as he stared down at the latest resident to grace the metal slab that to all but those who knew him well he appeared stern. Though perhaps, being a father himself some amount of sternness was felt at the idea of such a young man being the one this time to have gone under his knife.
Barely having placed the needle back on the metal tray at his side, just finished stitching up the boy's Y incision, the experienced coroner wasn't surprised to hear the resonations of familiar footsteps sounding throughout the stone cavern. If there were any word one to describe detectives it was persistent, and Stella Bonasera and Don Flack were certainly no exceptions to the rule.
He looked up, peering over black rimmed glasses at the serious seeming pair, before pulling gently at each side of the spectacles, causing the unusual eyewear to break in half along the nose piece, then slotting the two pieces absentmindly back together around his neck, to hang like an odd necklace. The coroner's undivided attention now on the younger pair, he raised a single greying eyebrow at their punctualness, usually the procedure for this kind of thing was that he paged them when he was done and they came down to hear his findings.
"Eager, are we?"
After several hours interviewing the occupants of the house that had discovered the body, as well as several neighbours who had flocked like moths to the bright lights of the crime scene and following up other dead end leads Detective Flack looked a tad more dishevelled than he had when turning up to the call in the early hours of the morning. Stella however looked terrible, like she felt every single hour of the double swift she had worked her way firmly into, not that either of the men dared to tell her that in so blunt a way. Lindsay, the five foot three inch petite woman that she was, was frightening enough with her right hook any man would kill for and a rugby tackle that could and had taken down men three times her own size, but Stella was really the woman of the team you never wanted to be on the bad side of. With a single glare, the older woman could make you feel more fear than any physical violence, though those stupid enough to test her had found out the hard way how adept she was at that as well.
"Come on Sid" Stella said good naturedly, "I'm nearing the end of a double shift here, so I just want to get something done before I have to call it a day."
Don chose this moment to stare with open horror at his partner, disbelieving that she could consider the past seven hours of canvassing, collecting and processing evidence as getting nothing done. Then again, having worked in this field for so long she was known for setting high expectations for herself, which of course she never failed to meet.
"I'll tell you this one, your guy here didn't have a very pleasant death. Died of exsanguination from his only bleeding wound." Sid unnecessarily pulled back the thin sheet covering the victim's waist, illustrating his words with the unpleasant visual of the raw looking wound. "Not the nicest way to go, personally I much prefer the idea of drifting off peacefully in my sleep, or perhaps carbon monoxide poisoning, I've been doing some reading and in high concentrations it's actually very painless, some might even say-"
"Whoa, whoa, doc" Stella held her arms towards him in a universal 'stop' gesture to halt the ramblings that those who knew the coroner well were used to. "Are you saying he has no other wounds, no defensive marks of any kind?"
"Yes, I thought that odd too" the grey haired man confirmed, moving to stand nearer the middle of the table "but what I found even more odd was this", Sid raised one of the victim's hands for them to get a better look at.
"Blood on his hands, probably in an effort to stop the bleeding but no defensive marks at all. I've also scraped under his finger nails but in my professional opinion I don't think you'll get anything. It doesn't appear like he fought back at all."
"So the guy knew his attacker" Stella pondered, joining the dots.
"Had to have more than known them to have his drawers around his knees" Flack jumped in with a quirk of the mouth, though he kept his eyes firmly averted from the still exposed wound.
"A date gone terribly wrong?" The greek woman questioned with a raised slender eyebrow.
"Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned" Sid quoted rather poetically while to Don's great relief replacing the cloth back over the corpse's private parts, or at least what was left.
"Did you get anything else from the body?" Stella asked, despite her tiredness, thirst for needed information ever clear in her green eyes.
"Well, I did get some fibres that were all over our vic's body that I sent up to trace. Stomach contents are on their way to tox, but I can tell you right now just from the smell your boy was drinking a lot before he died." The coroner moved back up to the prone man's face, pulling out a swap as he went.
"There's also this" Sid stated, demonstratedily wiping the pale lips of the corpse with a level of unfazed only gained through many years of experience, the swap came back a dark shade of pink. "Not your man's colour, it's definitely transfer, though it's smudged so I can't get a clear lip print from it. I've sent samples to trace, hopefully they can tell you more."
"Thanks Sid" Stella said wholeheartedly before grabbing the bags of the victim's clothes to take to trace. All three exchanged friendly nods and smiles before the two detectives went on their way, marching straight for the elevator that would take them up to the crime scene department.
"So when are you going to let Lindsay in on the fact that your over what happened this morning?" The greek brunette began as they made it through the roves of technicians and the doors to the lift finally shut behind them.
"Your never over being traumatised Stell" Don stated lightly, his face perfectly straight, but his eyes betraying it as the joke it was.
"You've got her wandering around thinking that she's hurt you, and you know how confused she gets in these kind of situations. And you putting that vacant look on your face whenever she's around isn't helping matters" she berated him firmly, shaking her head as he broke into a grin.
"I'll let her in on it eventually" the dark haired detective defended himself, "I just wanna get something out of it first, maybe string her along a little while, get a beer out of it maybe."
Stella frowned, arms of her smart blouse crossing over each other as she locked eyes with him, firm green to dancing blue. "Danny's been a bad influence on you" she finally decided.
"Hey now, I can be morally corrupt on my own thank you very much" once said he seemed to think this through, frowning at the ceiling in deep contemplation. "Actually scratch that, I blame Messer too."
"Speaking of, where is our friendly neighbourhood anvil?" She frowned at her watch as they stepped off the elevator onto the floor of the crime lab "I thought his shift was supposed to start at nine but I haven't seen him at all yet this morning"
Already Flack was pulling his beloved iphone from a jacket pocket as they walked a few steps up the hallway, casting cursory glances through the see through walls of the offices nearby. It was rare that Danny Messer was late, although there had been the occasional circumstance that the blond couldn't control, such as problems with the underground train system that he relied heavily on to travel to and from work. And once a number of months ago, a grief stricken mother had stolen the CSI's gun in an attempt to track down and kill the man responsible for her son's death, causing Danny to be late while he searched for her. Hopefully today the reason wouldn't be so dramatic, that is if the blond hadn't snuck into work within the twenty minutes since Stella had previously left the lab for the morgue.
"I'll call and check" Don shrugged, slowing to a stop in the hallway, "If you see him hiding somewhere around here, give me a holler, ok?"
"Will do" Stella replied with a smile, still glancing in the glass offices and layout rooms either side of the hallway as she made her way to find Lindsay to catch her up on the case and see if the petite country girl had gotten anywhere with the items Sid had already sent up for processing.
"Danno" the detective started with a smirk as the phone was picked up after the third ring, that background noise definitely didn't belong in the lab, cars passed close by enough to resonate through the small machine into his earpiece. "Your slacking pal, you were due in almost an hour ago. By some small miracle I don't think Mac has noticed yet, but you better hop to it if you want to forgo the 'I'm very disappointed in you' look."
A pause – nothing but occasional traffic noises and the sounds of someone breathing on the other end of the phone.
"Danny?" Flack tried again, momentarily pulling the phone from the side of his head to check the number, not that he could have gotten it wrong having selected it from his directory. Wearing the familiar goofy grin, the picture of his friend smiled cheekily out at him from the phone with the man's name emblazoned across the icon's jacket, marking it as the correct choice.
"Danny, are you there?"
Nothing but shallow breathing answered him back.