Walter Simmons pulled up outside the shabby halfway house in Biscayne Boulevard that Juan Fuentes currently called 'home'. A run-down, three story house with a chain metal fence surrounding the burnt and patchy grass of the front lawn, it looked as mean and unwelcoming as Fuentes did. Spying Frank exiting his vehicle he did likewise and walked across the street to meet the balding man.
Frank lifted his suit jacket and reached for his service weapon, signalling for the two uniformed officers to do likewise. "Keep your eyes open, Simmons. The clientele here are hardly cop-friendly."
Walter smiled genially but said nothing, at six feet six and over 300 pounds he was more than sure of his ability to take care of himself and his fellow officers if needs be. He stood behind Frank, evidence kit in one hand and gun in the other as the Texan thumped on the door.
"MDPD, open up please."
Listening closely Walter could hear the sound of faint footsteps making their way closer to the door. Slowly the battered and weather-beaten wooden door opened, and stood behind it was a diminutive elderly lady. Standing no more than five feet tall, the wrinkled and grey-haired woman peered at the men standing on her front porch.
"What can I do you gentlemen for?" she asked as she squinted through her half-moon spectacles, wiping her hands on a dishcloth hanging from her apron.
Clearing his throat, "I'm Detective Tripp, MDPD. This is my colleague Walter Simmons; we've come to search the room of Juan Fuentes."
She narrowed her gaze at Frank, "Do you have a warrant, Detective Tripp?" Casting her eyes over the other men she returned her attention to him, "I run a home for ex-cons, this isn't my first rodeo, you know."
"Well…Mrs…." Frank paused, waiting for the elderly lady to provide her name.
"Ms Deakins," she replied, haughtily.
"Well, Ms Deakins, we have Fuentes in our custody as we speak and he's not going to be returning home anytime soon. Now I can go back and get a warrant from a judge but if I do that it won't just be for Juan's room, it'll be for every room in this building. I'm sure you've got a lot of residents that wouldn't take kindly to our snooping through their personal possessions." Frank let the threat hang in the air as he stood with his hands on his hips waiting for her response.
"I heard that you came knocking earlier and dragged Mr Fuentes from his room, if I hadn't been out doing the grocery shopping I would have stopped you from even setting foot on my property." She gave Frank another withering glare, making her dislike of the burly detective strikingly obvious.
"Funny thing that, Ms Deakins, when I checked the land registry records it said that this place belongs to the state and not to you. Now, if you'd like me to arrest you for obstruction of justice I'm sure my two esteemed colleagues will be happy to oblige," Frank suggested as he motioned to the uniformed officers, "Why don't you go back to the kitchen and finish baking those cookies for your boys. There's a good dear now."
Ms Deakins sniffed in disgust before throwing the door open and stomping back to the pantry. Walter couldn't resist the urge to let out a long breath.
"What?" Frank spat, clearly still annoyed by his head to head with the elderly woman.
"Man, that was cold. You sure you should be talking to old ladies like that, didn't your mama teach you to treat your elders with respect?"
Walter's tone was teasing but Frank failed to see the funny side, "This old lady is harbouring known criminals under the guise of them being rehabilitated and put back into society. Fuentes built a bomb that killed two officers and right now he's our only link to the Malucci's. Those asswipes have Horatio and we have no idea where they might be, right now I haven't got time to play nice with a crotchety old lady." Frank ran a hand over his balding skull, "C'mon, let's toss his room and see what we come up with."
Eric made his way down to the morgue with Andy following closely behind, "What have you got, Tom?" he asked as he made his way over to the metal slab in the middle of the room. He was suddenly assaulted by an image of Horatio lying in the exact same spot, his body broken and beaten and all because they hadn't been smart enough to find him in time.
"Ah, Mr Delko," Tom responded brightly as he straightened up from the corpse he was working on and nudged his glasses higher up his nose. "So nice to see that you've brought a friend." To anyone that didn't know the medical examiner it would have been easy to mistake his comment for sarcasm. The doctor, although brilliant at his job, lacked a certain finesse when it came to social pleasantries, his lack of tact causing friction with members of the CSI team on more than one occasion. Eric had known Tom Loman long enough to let his comments pass and if he was honest he thought it added to the man's charm a little.
"Tom, this is Andy Sipowicz," he said as he gestured toward the burly man standing next to him. "He's an old colleague of Horatio's from back in New York; he's helping us with the case."
Tom shrugged his shoulders and returned to bending over the body on his table, intent sewing up the 'Y' incision he had made. "Any word on the Lieutenant?" he asked absent-mindedly.
"Not yet."
Tom glanced up at his visitors briefly, "Pity."
Eric sensed the anger building in the man standing next to him and grabbed Andy's arm before he could launch himself at the clinical and detached medical examiner. "Leave it," he commanded firmly.
The older man scowled at him but did as he was told, hiking his pants up before crossing his arms over his chest and huffing loudly, for all intents and purposes, sulking like a small child.
Eric walked closer to the table, "Anything you can tell us about the dead bodies we found at the house?"
Placing the tools of his trade down Tom looked up into Eric's face, "My initial assessment proved to be correct. All of the victims suffered a single gunshot wound to the forehead, I've only managed to process the one body so far but cursory examination of all four officers shows that the bullets are still inside the skull somewhere in three of them, but I did find that the fourth was a through and through, it might be an idea to go back to the scene and see if you can find it."
Eric felt his own hackles rising at Tom's insinuation that he and the team hadn't done their job properly. He bit back on a retort when he realised that the other man was probably right, they had been so consumed on the evidence from inside the house that they had failed to do more than a cursory inspection of the driveway, assuming that all four bullets would still be in the deceased officers. Eric kicked himself mentally for his sloppiness; this was not what Horatio had taught him. The stakes were too high now, what if a mistake like that cost his brother-in-law his life? It was important that he and the rest of the team kept their concentration and more importantly kept their cool, following the evidence would be the only way to find Horatio.
Tom handed a small dish to Eric; the clear plastic receptacle housed a bullet that had been pulled from the officer currently on the medical examiner's table. He was relieved to see that casing appeared to be in one piece and it gave him hope that Calleigh might be able to match it or at least give them an idea of the sort of gun they were looking for.
"I've called in reinforcements, Eric," Tom began as he pulled off the bloodied latex gloves he had been wearing. "Miss Smith from the weekend shift is coming in to help process the bodies, I thought it would be prudent seeing as time seems to be of the essence in this case." The medical examiner didn't give him time to reply before walking off to retrieve something from the corner of the room, seemingly bringing about an end to their conversation.