Once more with feeling: I only own what you don't know.
Who left this dead body here?
"Son when you grow up, will you be the saviour of the broken
the beaten and the damned?
He said will you defeat them, all the demons and the non-believers, the plans that they have made?
Because one day I will leave you,
a phantom to lead you in the summer,
to join the Black Parade."
-Welcome to the Black Parade, My Chemical Romance
"Good mornin', Mac." Flack greeted as the boss of the crime lab stepped out of the Avalanche he'd parked in front of the luxury high rise in upper Manhattan. He nodded at Lindsay as she slipped out of the passenger seat. "Monroe."
"What are you so cheerful about?" Mac asked as he set the alarm on the Avalanche and stepped up onto the curb, he and Lindsay joining the young homicide detective under the gold and green awning of the Park Terrace condominiums. It had been a long time since Mac had seen a smile like that on Don Flack's face. A huge, boyish grin that showed off those dimples and made those blue eyes sparkle. In fact, Mac didn't think he'd ever seen Flack smile like that.
"I'm not allowed to be cheerful? Look at it out here. The sun is shining, the sky is blue, birds are chirpin'..."
"There's a dead body inside somewhere." Lindsay added rudely.
"Hey, nothing like a little blood and gore to start a day." Flack said. "And don't ruin my mood. Got nothin' pleasant to say, don't say anything at all, a' right?"
"And what may I ask put you in this good mood?" Mac asked.
"I need a reason? Maybe I just feel like being nice today."
Lindsay snorted. "Flack, you and the word nice don't belong in the same sentence. So what happened? Hooked back up with that little rich bitch Devon and get laid?"
"Don't insult me. I didn't hook up with Devon or anyone else. I didn't get laid. So I guess that makes two of us."
Lindsay glared at him.
"Okay, you two... enough." Mac said, trying hard to suppress a smirk. "Do I have to separate you two? Put one in one corner and one in the other? Play nice for a little while, okay? The scene's been secured? None of your guys touched anything?"
Flack looked offended. "How long have I been doin' this for Mac? I know not to let any one mess with your crime scenes. Wanna head up? I was just down here waitin' for you guys after I finished talking to the vic's boyfriend. I gotta say, he's not lookin' too good. He's right on the top of my suspect list so far. Didn't seem too choked up about the fact he walked in and found the woman he loves lying dead in a pool of blood. But you know me. Everyone's a suspect 'til you guys prove other wise. Should we go up?"
"Let's wait for Hawkes and Samantha. They got a five a.m. call out to that gas station hold up over in the Bronx. They were just closing it up when this call came in."
"Closing it?" Flack looked surprised. "How'd that happen so quick?"
"The perp dropped his wallet at the scene." Mac explained. "Angell tracked him down at his house and he still had on the same clothes the witnesses saw him in, the gun stashed half ass under the driver's seat in his car, and, get this, all the money sitting on the kitchen table."
Flack laughed and shook his head. "Wish they could all be that simple. Something tells me this one," he jerked his thumb at the building behind him. "Isn't going to be one of the simple ones."
"No optimism to go with your pleasant mood?" Mac teased.
"You're askin' for miracles there, Mac. So the new girl did pretty good the first time out, huh?"
"I'm not surprised." Mac said. "If you saw her resume and the cases she solved down in Arizona, actives and cold cases, you'd realize why I hired her as quick as I did. Like I told Stella, someone like that doesn't come around to often."
"Ain't that the truth." Flack agreed, but for entirely different reasons.
Mac checked his watch. "Lindsay, you might as well head up. They're running later than I thought. Talk to one of Flack's guys and get all the particulars and start taking over alls. Don't touch anything. Leave the scene and the body undisturbed until the others get here. I want them on the body and trace."
"I can hande taking the pictures and all of that, Mac," Lindsay assured him. "I've done it before."
"I realize that. But I'm the boss and I want you on over alls and the others on the body and on trace. After your done with that, you can help out wherever your needed."
"But there's someone new here now and usually the new person helps out wherever they're needed." Lindsay argued.
"Well the new person in question isn't just here to help out wherever she's needed." Mac informed her. "Now I asked you to go upstairs and start with the over alls. The rest of us will join you in a while."
Flack watched over his shoulder as Lindsay stalked off into the building, mumbling under her breath and not even acknowleging the elderly concierge that held open the door for her. "What's eatin' her?" he asked with a bemused smirk.
Mac sighed.
"Or should I say whose not eatin' her."
Mac fought back the urge to laugh at that. "Flack," he said. "that's crude. Even for you."
"She's been in one mood since yesterday. Gettin' dethroned from the new girl novelty status is just burnin' her ass something fierce."
"Especially when the new girl isn't one to be pushed around." Mac said "I heard about the little incident in the lunch room yesterday."
Flack shrugged. "It was no big deal. She got a little smart with her mouth and she got knocked down a peg. Didn't come to blows or anything like that. Although, if it had have, I don't think country girl woulda fared too well against a Brooklyn girl. So? What's up with you, Mac? You're lookin' rough today. Not sleepin' again? Thought that was behind ya since we nailed Drew Bedford for the 3:33 thing."
"I haven't been sleeping well in a couple weeks. Ever since Stella and I moved in together. She has a ... what's the nicest way to put this... this doesn't go any farther between you and Flack."
"Hey, I was the one you first told that there was a you and a Stella remember? Never told a soul."
"I cant sleep with that woman, Flack. I mean, I can... it's just that... its damn near impossible. She snores like a goddamn freight train."
Flack laughed. "Never pictured Stella Bonasara a snorer. Gotta get yourself some ear plugs, Mac. Or sleep on the couch."
"Maybe even both. You don't understand, Flack. She could wake the dead. Its brutal. And on top of everything else, I got an e-mail from Sinclair yesterday morning, giving me the go ahead to hire a second CSI."
"What's up with that? Finanical windfall or what? Guess they have more money than they thought to work with."
"They're reasoning is too much over time and not quick enough closures. Not to mention the already booming crime rate is sky rocketing lately. We're over worked and understaffed. We've been that way for years. They're just starting to realize I can only do so much with the scraps they've been throwing me. I've got a couple interviews today. Too be honest, only one of them stands out."
"Who's that?"
"This young lady Carmen Devine. Originally from Portland. Graduated from the academy the year after Danny. She even used him as one of her references on her resume. They went to college together. Not that she needed the references. Her resume and career jacket speak for themselves."
"What's going on with all these ladies, Mac?" Flack asked."Think it could be true? Think they really are smarter than us?"
"We are smarter than you," Sam said as she caught the tail end of the conversation as her and Hawkes came around the corner of the building, carrying their kits. "The whole damn lot of you actually."
"No one asked you." Flack said but he was smiling.
She smiled back. A small discreet one that neither Mac or Hawkes could interpret the wrong way.
"Heard about your guys gas station case." Flack said. "Very nice. Open and shut. Not bad for your first time."
"She was great." Hawkes praised. "We would have been here sooner, but we had a little incident on the way."
"An incident?" Mac asked. "What kind of incident."
"I couldn't get the truck to start." Hawkes replied.
"That's not the whole story." Sam chided him. "Tell them what happened, Sheldon.Tell them why the truck wouldn't start."
He sighed heavily and hung his head a little, scraping the toe of his shoe across the concrete sidewalk. "Engine wouldn't turn over because I had the gear in neutral instead of park."
Both Flack and Mac laughed.
"And it took him ten minutes before he realized it." Sam added. "I got to the garage and he was practically having a road rage incident and we weren't even on the road yet. I asked him what was wrong and he went into this huge thing about the engine being blown and all these other crazy idea. I looked over and there he had the gears all screwed up. And when I gently pointed out the mistake, he nearly throttled me."
"Something tells me you're not gentle about too much." Flack said.
"Well,' she admitted. "I can be a little rough. But only if someone wants me to be."
The tops of Flack's ears turned bright red and he cleared his throat noisily. "I think we should go upstairs now." he suggested.
"Good idea." Mac said, more than a little amused by the little exchange and a little curious as to why Flack got so flustered.
The concierge had gone to fetch a cab for a tenant. Flack reached for the handle on the door and pushed. Nothing happened. The door didn't open. He tried again. Still nothing.
Sam cleared her throat.
Flack looked at her.
She pointed to the word written above the handle. PULL.
"You bitch." he said with a shake of his head and a huge grin and he yanked the door open, holding it for her. "Get your ass inside." he snapped.
She laughed as she headed inside. "And you have the nerve to ask if women are smarter."
"Tamara Adams." Flack said, reading from his log book.
They stood above a semi nude female body in the living room area of the massive, ornate apartment with its marble floors and cove ceilings and gigantic gold and crystal chandelier that hung from the middle of the ceiling in the foyer. A white baby grand piano sat on top of a Persian rug in front of french doors that led out onto a balcony that boasted a stunning view of the Manhattan skyline. It all would have been lovely to see if their attention wasn't on the dead body sprawled in a pool of blood.
"Twenty eight. An ad exec with Wallace and Brown in mid-town. Boyfriend said he saw her alive and well at ten last night, and when he came home from night shift working in the research lab at Columbia, found her here like this. He's the one that called it in."
"Where is he now?" Mac asked, as Sam and Hawkes crouched down along side the body and opened their kits.
"Buddy of his showed up about half an hour ago. You think the gas station gas was wierd, get this. They had a tee off tie in Hoboken for ten they couldn't miss. Now how's that for love and concern. Girlfriend's lying here in a pool of blood half naked and he's out shooting a round. I tell ya Mac, I nearly knocked him out."
"Does he seem on the up and up?" Mac asked.
Flack shrugged. "Seems shady if you ask me. Now I got a few of my guys going door to door on this floor and to the neighbour below and the neighbour above. Apparently, an anonymous call went in to the super shortly after midnight. Something about a ruckus goin' on up here. Only when the super got here, silence. So he left."
"Possible skin under the finger nails," Samantha said, holding one of the dead woman's hands in her own and peering closely at it. "Bruising to the knuckles and cuts to the insides of the forearms. Defensive wounds."
"Definitely a sex assault." Hawkes sighed. He pulled out the thermometer he had inserted into the body. "Liver temp is 80.5. The cooling rate is 1.5 every hour. So we're looking at TOD approximately ten hours ago. Rigor and levidity confirm it."
Mac checked his watch. "Nine o'clock now. She's been dead since eleven."
"Which does not match up with the super comin' up here at midnight." Flack said. "He told me that the caller told him he heard a man and a woman fighting and stuff being thrown around the place. And look at this place. There's nothing out of the ordinary. All the expensive stuff is still here. That rules out home invasion and robbery. Not to mention the door wasn't broken in meanin' our vic new whoever did this enough to let them in here."
"And no one heard anything else?" Mac asked.
"My guys are still talking to the neighbours as we speak." Flack replied. "But so far, no one heard anything and they certainly didn't see anything. What else is new?"
"What about the boyfriend? His story check out?"
"I got a call in to his boss. Waitin' to hear back."
"All right... for now, keep on those canvasses. I also want you to talk to the super again and get all the security tapes for every possible entrance into this building. This is supposed to be a highly secure building. Let's just see how much so it is. You find anything else out, let me know."
"I always do." Flack said and left.
"Check this out Sheldon," Samantha said, as she carefully moved the dead woman's head to the side. "Look at this puncture wound. Its a slender, cylindrical shape. Its the only wound on her other than the defense wounds. Could it be deep enough to cause all this blood?"
"Let me see." Hawkes said and grabbed his flash light and took a closer look. "Quite possible our COD here. The wound appears deep enough to have hit the carotid artery. It supplies blood flow to the brain. Once that flow was cut off, she more than likely suffered a stroke and then bled out." he checked the eyes. "Petichal hemorrhaging. She definitely had a stroke. Sid will have to run a scan to see if it was severe enough to cause death or if she simply bled out."
"There's something wierd in the wound..." Sam leaned in the closer. "You see that? It looks like..." she reached back to her kit and grabbed a pair of tweezers and used them to pluck a small shard of burgundy plastic from the wound. "Its plastic." she said, and deposited into an evidence envelope. "And there's something in the cavity. Something blue."
Hawkes grabbed a swab from his kit and handed it to her.
She slipped it into the wound and swabbed the area.
"Looks like ink." Hawkes commented. "Trace will be able to tell us more about that and the plastic."
Sam sat back on her heels and wiped sweat off her brow with her forearm. She scanned the pool of blood with her eyes. Something just didn't seem right. How could there be that much blood but not trail whatsoever. Whoever did this could not have avoided getting blood on them. It would be impossible. She squinted her eyes and leaned low to the ground so that her stomach was mere inches off the floor.
"What do you see?" Hawkes asked as he finished bagging the victim's hands and prepared to get Mac to call the MEs office.
"A blood trial." she replied. "Someone tried to clean it up. I thought I smelled bleach when I walked in. I just thought it was a neighbour doing some cleaning."
Hawkes grabbed the spray bottle of luminol from his kit, a pair of amber eye glasses and his ALS light.
Sam slipped on her amber glasses.
"Shall we follow the yellow brick road?" Hawkes asked.
She smiled. "We shall."
The blood trail, while diluted by water and bleach, led out of the apartment and diagonally across the marble floor to the garbage room. They found more blood on the handle to the door and the one on the chute hatch itself. And one very nice partial print.
And now Mac, Samantha, Hawkes, Flack and Lindsay gathered in the hallway outside the garbage room.
"Our killer dumped something down the chute. Where does this lead to?" Mac asked.
"Dumpster in the first level of the underground parking lot the super says." Flack replied. "Someone needs to do a little dumpster diving."
"Hope you brought boots and a jump suit." Lindsay said to Sam in a sugary sweet tone that suggested she was anything but.
"I hope you did." Mac corrected her. "'Cause your the one heading down there."
"Me?" Lindsay exclaimed. "Why me? I did enough dumpster dives when I was new! For the last two years I've been the one doing them!"
"And your doing this one." Mac informed her.
"Dumpster dives are always for the new person, Mac." she argued. "And she's the new person."
"Mac I don't mind doing it," Sam said. "Really. No big deal."
"See!" Lindsay exclaimed. "She's even offering."
"And I'm telling her no and telling you to do what I tell you." Mac fought back. "I want Samantha and Sheldon in the apartment processing and I want you in the basement in that dumpster."
"I think maybe we should go." Flack suggested to Sam and Hawkes.
"Definately." Hawkes agreed and the three of them headed slowly back to the apartment. They wanted to hear the rest but didn't want it to be obvious they were listening.
"Mac, its always the new person's job to do the dumpster dives!" Lindsay argued.
"That isn't in any job description I know of. And this new person is way too valuable to have her shifting through garbage! Now you either get down to that dumpster and do what I say or you go back to the lab and sit in my office and wait for me to get back to write you up for insubordination! I am the boss here. Not you!"
"Mac's goin' all Marine." Flack said to Hawkes and Sam from where he stood in the doorway of the apartment. They had already gone back in to work.
"Does he do that often?" Sam asked worriedly.
"Only if ya deserve it." Flack said. He had to step up of Mac's way before the former Marine bowled him over as he stormed into the apartment.
"This is fucking bull shit." Lindsay grumbled to Flack.
"I'm not the boss, Monroe. Don't complain to me."
"Who the fuck does that girl think she is? Walking into the lab like she owns the place? And who the hell does every one think she is?"
"Apparently she's an amazing CSI." Flack said.
"If you ask me, she's a stuck up, self righteous little bitch that needs her ass kicked."
"Monroe..." Flack tried to remain calm. "I really don't want to hear this."
"Danny fawning all over her like she's all that. Shes not even that pretty."
"I don't know," Flack said, shaking his head and looking back into the apartment where Hawkes, Sam and Mac were beginning to process. "I think she's hot." he told Lindsay.
"You think anything that walks with a wiggle is hot, Flack." Lindsay snorted and stalked down the hall.
"Not true!" he called after her. "You ain't even on my top ten."
"Fuck you, Flack!!" she yelled.
He grinned and went back into the apartment.
"What was that all about?" Sam asked, as she searched the kitchen for the bleach and cleaning products that may have been used, dusting for prints and using her ALS light to search for trace as she went.
"Difference of opinion." Flack replied.
"She's pretty pissed." Sam commented.
"Being pissed and moody is second nature to her. You get used to it.Trust me. Wait until she throws one of her pity parties. Happens at least once a month. Always a good time had by all."
Sam sighed. "I don't think she likes me very much."
Flack shrugged. "No loss. There's lots of people who like you. Some more than others."
She felt herself blush.
"Do you care that she doesn't like you?" Flack asked.
She considered it. Then a huge smile covered her face. "I don't give a rat's ass." she replied.
"Good. Now get to work and stop flirting with me."
She laughed. "You wish, Flack!" she called after him as he left the kitchen.
"Yes..." he responded. "I do."
She shook her head and sighed and went back to work. It was going to be a long day.
Thanks to all my fans!
Aphina: Carmen's on the way! Look out crime lab! LOL!
Lily moonlight: More team on the way. I promise.