I do not own Hawaii Five-0 or any characters. No copyright infringement intended.
Notes: squeezing it in ... unplanned five minutes before leaving for the day.
H5O* H5O* H5O* H5O* H5O*
Chapter Eleven
A thick, volatile silence fogged the car for the remaining forty-five minute drive to the somewhat remote crime scene near the North Shore. Once they got out of the car at the not so lovely establishment of Vernon Fields, Danny rolled around to the back of the Camaro for the gear in his trunk. Wordlessly, he tossed a kevlar vest to Steve and grabbed an extra roll of yellow tape. Danny intended to replace what he needed to disturb upon entering the building.
Hiding under the partial shade of the raised trunk, Danny closed his eyes to gather his thoughts and emotions. His concept of burying himself in the banalities of work was one thing; actually doing it, was quite another because he cared too much. He couldn't help still being upset as he backed himself into a corner with his overly sensitive obstinacy. Chin had been mildly amused in the beginning; now he was growing impatient with the entire scenario.
Danny smiled briefly because Kono would always be more vocal and utterly in his face. She'd thrown her hands up in the air in her frustration as she loudly proclaimed her disgust for the ongoing antics. For the hundredth time, he wondered if he was burning out from the stresses of his job versus those imposed upon him by his off-beat SEAL partner and his sometimes off-the-wall methods.
"Herding cats." He groused quietly to himself. Danny wiped the sweat from his face and felt more trickling down his back under this vest. The coming afternoon was going to be blistering hot as the sun beat down on his back.
"You okay?" He looked up sharply to come face to face with Steve who had virtually snuck up on him. It was his turn for Steve to judge him from head to toe and he didn't approve of the sweat rolling down Danny's face or what was beginning to darken the neck of his shirt. "You look sick all of a sudden."
"I'm fine." The heat not only sapped his energy, it took much of the ongoing argument out of him too. While short, his reply lacked the earlier disagreeable tone. "It's hot. Let's get this over with."
"Maybe you should take the damned tie off." Knowing his suggestion would be ignored and the overly grumpy sigh proved it, Steve looked at the two story dilapidated building as he willingly put his own vest on. It was a renovated retail space with six small dismal apartments sporting a rundown paint job, cracked windows and broken wooden steps leading to the front entry. The Vernon Fields sign was chipped and weather-worn down to it's squeaky iron eye-bolts.
It stood starkly in the hot sunshine with only a few sparse scrubby trees and little lawn. There were no other cars except for a hulking ruin of an old pickup truck near the rear corner of the cracked, deeply pitted and worn parking lot.
"This place is a dump." He muttered under his breath but loud enough for Danny to hear him.
"It is." Danny agreed before finding some more solace in spouting some added facts out about the complex. "Three units are occupied and three are not. The bodies were found by the landlord. He got a call from one of his tenants who noticed the odor coming from the rear, first floor vacant apartment."
Steve followed Danny as he entered the short first floor hallway, strode directly through to the rear and cut through the yellow tape for the last door on the left. His running commentary was professional and all business as he filled Steve in on the original visual of the crime scene. "You can see the door wasn't forced; someone had a key. The tenant who notified the landlord actually thought it was a dead animal because for what this place looks like, they've never had trouble here."
The one bedroom apartment was small but bright with a big bay window allowing the full afternoon sun in without obstruction. However, the blood stained floor reeked from death, age, old food and mildew. Beer cans, pizza boxes and a general amount of rubbish was strewn across the floor in the main room which included a tiny galley kitchen. Water dripped noisily in the old sink where even more beer and soda cans had been tossed. Where he might have expected graffiti and holes punched into the white painted walls, there was none. The disarray was largely specific to the center of the floor.
Steve saw exactly what Danny had seen as he looked at the mess. The CSU outline and schematic for blood stains and for where the bodies had been placed demonstrated an odd, side by side, near perfect alignment.
Knitting his brow, Steve frowned even more before walking to the lone back bedroom which was utterly undisturbed. He glanced into the one bathroom on his way which was strangely clean enough for its ancient fixtures and broken tile.
He then looked again at the chaos in the main room.
"It's been staged."
"Thank you." It was the first time Danny's voice held even a tinge of pleasure and Steve smiled appreciatively at the simple reply.
"Max believes that both died from a drug overdose and at first appearances, it looks like the two broke in here to have a private party which deteriorated into some kind of weird gun play. But the residual cocktail drugs in their system was fatal and their death was virtually simultaneous based on the decomposition ... the quality of the blood is what Max calls "off". Regardless, what's the likelihood of a mutual OD happening?"
The two men were in their mid-twenties and not yet identified. Max was working on it diligently and resorting now to dental records.
"Are you telling me that they were shot after they were already dead?" Steve asked in shock and Danny nodded with an off-hand shrug.
"Yes. Each had a .45 in their right hand. Ballistics agrees they were shot at close range but there was no residue on their hands. Max sort of agrees that at least one of them was dead before being shot."
"So the guns were staged, too." Steve chuffed an amazed sound. Someone had worked diligently to make the murders appear to be anything but that.
The first floor apartments had access to a rear emergency exit that opened to a yard which was bordered by a heavy stand of trees. Almost with glee, Danny demonstrated that the exit at the end of the hallway wasn't locked and that no alarms would sound when he pushed it open.
The yard had once been a pretty oasis. Now, it was a disheveled mess much like the rest of the property. A small ditch with a few rocks had evidently been a lovely koi pond with a small grotto. An overgrown path led under an old trellis covered with wild and thorny vines. Next to that sat a rickety picnic table which was splintered and beginning to dry rot in the hot sun.
Without commenting, Danny led Steve past it all. A main highway could be heard on the other side though and Danny purposefully took Steve across the short grassy yard and into deep shade. At a startling short fifty feet, the dirt path led to a dirt parking area where they could see daily traffic rushing by.
"Far but not too far." Steve agreed with the theory. Two or more people could have easily parked off the highway and carried each body to the small complex. The lock on the rear emergency exit was broken and the building virtually deserted. It was an optimal location to dump the bodies and make an easy getaway.
"Who and why though?" Steve wondered as he walked the small piece of macadam and then bent down to eye the distant shape of the two-story apartment building. Someone would have had to known about the near vacant building and the rough access to it from the highway. They would have had to know it was a near perfect hiding spot to leave two bodies. Pulling out a pair of gloves, he bent down to bag the remnants of an old cigar, followed by a lip-stick stained cigarette.
"Right now, it could be anyone. But I've opened an inquiry against the landlord and I have a list of current and past tenants." As he listened, Steve had to smile again since Danny was all over his own theory even though actual proof was greatly lacking.
"How many?"
"Fourteen and two are perking to the top already." It was a long list, but certainly finite enough to determine conclusions.
Steve made an impressed face. "What's our next step then?" For what seemed to be one of their first congenial conversations of that morning, Steve saw the hesitation on the word 'our' and chose to ignore it.
"Michael Jameson, the landlord's son is at the top of my short list. He lived in that very apartment for four years and his father kicked him out for not sticking to their rent agreement. There's no love lost between the two from what I've been told."
There was no preamble as Danny began to walk back down the path towards the apartment building and Steve grumbled about the rapid change of direction. He stopped and almost trod on Danny's heels when his friend came to an unexpected halt.
"What?"
"Blood." Danny was pulling his own pair of gloves now along with a small plastic bag to clip the three rusty-stained light green leaves that were level with their hips. "I didn't see this before."
Carefully, he shoved the leaves into the plastic and sealed it for the crime scene unit. "We need to get all of this to forensics." Then he was on his way and once again, Steve was forced to virtually trot in Danny's footsteps as his partner purposefully walked away.
"Slow down." Steve muttered irritably as a result of Danny's suddenly assertive attitude. He bit his tongue though as he re-entered through the broken rear exit door and followed Danny back into the actual crime scene. Leaning against the kitchen counter, Danny crossed his arms and offered more details by rote.
"Michael Jameson is thirty-six years old and is the only child of Vernon Fields' esteemed landlord, Eric Jameson. He's currently employed as a longshoreman. He has a five-page long rap sheet that began with petty theft in his teens and most currently he was questioned and then released in connection with a death on the docks roughly 16-months ago. He was released when his alibi evidently turned out to be valid."
That event, amongst others, plus the fact he hadn't paid his father as promised for his greatly discounted monthly rent had been the last straw. The living arrangement had included that his son also pitch in and care for the property doing odd jobs and basic landscaping. Those things had also been greatly lax and his father had him forcibly evicted.
"Jameson was convicted of breaking and entering with assault two years ago; he served his time and did his community service. The dockside murder is a serious step up for him. But it's still unresolved and these two ... while we don't yet know who they are yet .. I have a feeling that we're going to find an interesting relationship."
Agreeing, Steve nodded in approval. Despite the broken atmosphere, he enjoyed seeing his partner in his element and what he'd accomplished so far was testament to his skills. Though Danny was annoyed with him, he was excited about this Vernon Fields case and the hypothesis he was developing and beginning to share. Steve's grin was unconscious as he half-listened to what Danny was saying. "I got 87 homicide cases under my belt looking like this."
"Steve?" Danny was staring at him with a peculiar expression.
"Yeah, makes sense." Steve agreed quickly. The young man sounded as if he could be a very likely suspect. "Who's your second?"
"Jameson's old man, himself. The landlord of this lovely, garden establishment." Danny held his arms out wide for emphasis. He had begun with the obvious by investigating Michael Jameson. For kicks, he'd thrown the man's father into the system and was shocked by what he had learned. Danny's tone changed completely as he enthusiastically explained those new findings.
The elder Jameson had never been a stellar citizen himself and had been arrested numerous times for disorderly conduct, as well as two proven cases of arson in his teens. The worst though were the allegations of child abuse against his own young son who had been remanded to CPS by the age of ten. Danny meant it when he said no love was lost between the two men. The oddity of learning the once-abused son had actually lived in one of his father's apartments was an undefined mystery. It wasn't something he could quite figure out.
Now nearing 70 years old, the elder Jameson owned the shabby Vernon Fields property and appeared to have settled in his old age to be a somewhat decent landlord. However, Duke Lukela had not been impressed with the answers to his standard questions as the man seemed more annoyed than helpful. Far from doddering, the man refused to return Danny's calls for a follow-up interview which Danny found extremely strange considering two dead people were found on the man's private property. According to Duke, the elder Jameson was a difficult personality at best.
Steve moved aside as Danny walked past him to close the door and reset the yellow police tape since the CSU had plans to return. Looking for another opening and hoping for a continuation of their ongoing and much less intensive conversation, Steve stated the obvious. "I guess we meet with both men next?'
"Yup, whichever I can get in touch with first. A visit down to the docks is on the agenda ... soon. The old man has been an ongoing problem." Danny sighed before checking the time and reminding Steve of the afternoon appointment with the Governor. "We gotta go or we're going to be late."
"Hey." In the semi-dark hallway, Steve grabbed his arm before he could turn to walk out of the building. He could feel the heat through the dress shirt and wondered how on earth his partner could be putting up with the added oppression and near strangulation of the damnable tie. Steve was beginning to focus on that ridiculous article of clothing as his sore point. "Danny .. we have to clear the air."
Pulling out of reach, Danny backed away a few feet before hesitating. He was definitely thawing as he sighed and feebly tossed one hand between them before insisting on maintaining his original opinions.
"It's fine, Steve." He walked away leaving Steve standing by the yellow tape and the closed door to the crime scene. "The air's fine. We gotta go."
~ to be continued ~