A/N: Late post but it's still Tuesday here.

Chapter 10 — Highly Unlikely Scenario

Chin summarized what Stainten and Innis had told him so far.

"Did you know the victim?" Steve asked.

Innis nodded. "Mr. Pham was facilities manager," he pointed out. "We've done work for him before. We were talking to him a couple of hours ago, before the first quake. He didn't like this shade of green that we were painting the cafeteria." He gestured to the splatters on his clothes. "He wanted something more 'sea foam.' A little more blue."

"That must have been annoying," Danny commented.

Dugan shrugged. "Not really. We had to put a second coat on anyway. This moss green would do as an undercoat, so it wouldn't take us any more time and the hospital was paying for the paint."

Innis took up the story. "But we didn't have any sea foam, so we called Joe to bring some. We were taking the leftover moss green down to the trucks when the aftershock hit."

"And then we came out and there were bricks all over and this guy lying there dead," Joe said with a shudder.

"I saw them come out with their paint buckets," Riley volunteered, confirming their story.

Steve nodded thanks to the painters, then went to Max Bergman who was studying the body. "What do you think, Max?"

"At first appearance, the injuries appear consistent with an accident," the round-faced, Asian doctor announced. "I will know more after I perform the autopsy, of course."

"Of course," Danny agreed. With his gloved hands, he picked up a brick, actually three bricks still mortared together in a pyramidal shape. Blood coated one corner. "Cause of death?" he asked.

It was a rhetorical question, but everyone nodded anyway.

Steve went back to the painters. "Anything else you can tell us?"

"Just that Pham was kind of cranky when he came to inspect our work," Dugan said. "He'd been arguing with someone. A tall guy. I don't know his name but he wears doctor's whites even though I think he's in admin."

"Sounds like Dr. Kaylor," Kono said from where she was collecting a sample of brick dust from the victim's shoe.

"That sounds right," Dugan agreed.

"Any idea what they were arguing about?" Danny asked.

Dugan just shrugged. "I couldn't hear what they were saying, just the raised voices, you know?"

"Can I go now, please?" Stainten asked plaintively. "I never even saw the guy until he was dead." Again, he looked nervously up at the patio, as if the rest of the wall might tumble down. Which it might if there was another aftershock, Danny thought, edging away from the drop zone himself.

Kono had taken down the contact information for Stainten, Innis and Dugan. Steve decided he had no cause to keep them. Riley confirmed they'd come out after he'd found the body.

"OK, you can go, as soon as we load the body," he told Stainten, because the medical examiner's van and Ab's ambulance were blocking the exit. "If you think of anything else, let us know," Steve said, handing out a business card to each man.

While they'd been talking, Chin had been taking photos from all angles. He was finished with the body, so Max and his assistants loaded the corpse and drove off. Riley pulled the ambulance aside to let Stainten leave and the painters went back upstairs to finish their work.

Steve and Danny went to talk to Kaylor.

"We heard you were arguing with the dead man earlier today," Danny said boldly, the moment they barged into Kaylor's office. The administrator and Mr. Watanabe were in a heated discussion.

The doctor looked at Danny oddly. "Roland was killed by the earthquake, wasn't he? We doctors are accused of playing God, but that doesn't extend to causing earthquakes."

"At the moment, Pham's death does appear to be an accident," McGarrett admitted. "But we need to cover all the bases in a mysterious death. What were you two arguing about?"

"The same thing Tom and I are arguing about now — you," Kaylor said.

"Me?" Steve said, raising his eyebrows.

"Well, Five-0," Watanabe amended. "Trevor thinks your investigation is a waste of time."

This time Danny raised his eyebrows. "Two people dead is a waste of time?"

"It's a waste of time to investigate here," Kaylor said. "Nothing has been stolen from us."

"Since we don't know how the drugs are stolen, we're asking all medical facilities to check their supplies," Steve said with barely concealed impatience.

"And since now you have dead administrator, you can expect us to waste more of your time," Danny added sharply.

Kaylor threw up his hands. "Whatever they want," he instructed Watanabe.

"Inventory and surveillance video from today," Steve said.

"We'll get started on the inventory," Watanabe promised. "And I'll tell Kaitlyn to forward the video to your office. It's all digital."

"Thank you. Pleasure doing business with you," Danny said, not sarcastically at all.

The Five-0 foursome grabbed a late lunch and were just finishing when two calls came in at almost the same time.

Danny took the one from his daughter who had just gotten home from school and wanted to check on her father. While she chattered about their earthquake-disrupted day at school, Steve got a call from Max, asking him to come to the Medical Examiner's Office.

Steve looked at Danny who was fully involved reassuring Grace.

"We'll take it, brah," Chin offered, as he and Kono rose. "Give Danny a few minutes."

"OK, Max," Steve said. "Chin and Kono are on the way."

Max began talking as soon as they walked in the door. In his excitement, his terminology was even more technical than usual.

"So, was Pham killed by falling bricks?" Kono asked.

"On a cursory examination that would appear to be true, but I do not believe this is an act of God," Max said.

Though he suspected the answer, Chin was willing to play straight man for the medical examiner. "Then what is it?"

"Murder," Max answered, to no one's surprise.

"Why do you think that?" Chin asked.

Max lit up an X-ray. "You can see here two distinct impressions in the victim's skull. They are identical and they match the impression of the bloodied brick that Charlie Fong sent over."

"So he was hit twice by the same brick," Chin interpreted.

"Indeed. A highly unlikely scenario for an accident," Max said.

TBC

A/N: And now, after all this running around, we have a case.