I do not own Hawaii Five-0 or any characters. No copyright infringement intended.
Notes: a bit of a necessary fact-finding lull. Not much resolved per se ... but some good news along the way.
Chapter Ten: No Kau a Kau ~ For Eternity
"It's a match?" Chin was breathing quite literally over the neck of Katie Turner, a CSU forensic scientist, who was comparing a partial strand of human hair with what he'd just brought in from Topher Reid's home. The single strand was not of the best quality but it had been plucked out from inside the toy bear's zippered heart and Chin was sweating profusely as he stumbled unwittingly into the lab's initial findings.
"Well, sort of." Katie was intent on her work and muttering into her equipment. Her tone indicated some promise, though she was much too distracted to elaborate further. "Not exactly."
The man behind her shoulder craved something she couldn't provide with certainty and his anxiety was preying on her mind. The tiny fragment in the stuffed toy was of poor quality, small and certainly not enough to necessarily compare to the ample amount he'd just bagged in their suspect's bathroom. Katie wrinkled her nose thoughtfully as she peered into her optical bridge.
"Sort of?" Chin groaned quietly and took a diligent step back when the scientist stopped talking altogether. They had more now and it could be enough; certainly whatever she was seeing would be more than a few broken pieces of expensive camera equipment found under a dumpster. Chin just wasn't sure he could wait long enough for the woman to properly gather her thoughts in order to voice her findings.
"But put it all together," Chin whispered under his breath. "It all points to one place and one person." He wiped his sweaty palms across his jeans because he'd received two surprise gifts upon walking into the crime scene unit's offices that evening. Now, he wanted a third as he pinned all his hopes on the canny eyes of Katie Turner. His first happy surprise was the fiber in the stuffed toy and the second was a final identification of the damaged fragments of photography-related equipment discovered under the beach's dumpster. The broken portions of lens cap and lens had been narrowed down to an exclusive Leica brand manufactured by a German optical optics company.
Exclusive, expensive and preferred by professional photographers. A fine piece of classic equipment which was entirely up Topher Reid's fanatical alley.
Behind Katie's back, Chin silently pleaded with the expensive comparison microscope to give him more. This larger microscope actually consisted of two compound light microscopes connected by an optical bridge. The expensive equipment allowed her the simultaneous viewing of questioned hairs and known hairs. She had patiently explained how her evaluation process worked. Typically, a glass microscope slide was carefully prepared with known or referenced hairs on the stage of one microscope. She could literally compare the microscopic characteristics of the known and questioned hairs in one optical viewing field.
She had her work cut out for her as she first compared the small fiber discovered in the toy bear to each of the new samples Chin had submitted. Then she compared the hair samples between comb and brush to each other which had been bagged and tagged separately.
He understood that the tiny strand in the bear would be problematic to compare; but he couldn't put a stop to his frenetic movements. His uncontrollable sighs were overly loud and he fought to control himself as Katie frowned while peering into the optical bridge. Chin's brow furrowed questioningly since she was now switching out glass slides again. His mouth opened and closed with a snap before he could inquire as to why. His impatience grew as thirty minutes elapsed much too quickly for his worried sensitivities. He inwardly winced when the young woman fidgeted on her feet, sighed to herself, and paused only to input a series of private notes into her computer.
"I can't be absolutely certain because there isn't enough hair from the stuffed animal," Katie finally turned to face him. She frowned sympathetically when she saw the grave look in his eyes. However, she wasn't done yet and couldn't help herself from providing the rest of her repertoire with a bit of lightness. "But my assumption without a full DNA analysis is that it does have definite similarities to what you brought us in evidence bag number two. The bag from the comb which holds male Asian hair. It's not conclusive, but it's similar in those few characteristics which I'm able to compare."
Topher Reid. Chin sighed in frustration about the samples he'd brought in until Katie held up her hand to forestall his entire loss of hope.
"However, Lieutenant, there's no match at all to evidence bag number one which was from the brush. And those strands of hair are not male; they are without a doubt from an Asian female." Katie paused, a devious twinkle in her eye as the Five-0 officer leaned slightly towards her in askance. The officer had been sure both bagged samples would be the same. But his intuition to take separate fibers from brush versus comb had served him well.
"What? No match?" Chin's heart nearly stopped in his throat, high enough to gag him completely. No match was good in this case. Not finding a match was causing his brain to stutter at the true implications. He saw the gleam in her eye and dared to smile as her excitement flowed over to him. "Asian female?"
"Yes," she grinned now. "Female. You've brought me two entirely different samples of human hair." He was going to ask how she could possibly know that difference when she voluntarily began to describe her methods and reasoning.
"How do I know, right? Well, I can tell you from my evaluation the racial differences with certainty; and I can do that because Asian characteristics are different from Caucasian and so on. I know the hair from the brush is subsequently female because the length is significantly longer and its been chemically treated," Katie explained succinctly, her pleased smile at being able to help brightened her expression. "Most typically we find that its female hair which is treated due to hair colorings or having it straightened."
"Kono lightens her hair," Chin made the connection with lightning speed, the smile now firmly in place. As far as he was concerned, he had enough to act upon and knew that Steve would agree. The smile fell from his eyes though as Steve came to mind and he realized that he hadn't heard from the hospital. While it had taken Katie over thirty minutes to run her evaluations, a much longer amount of time had passed in reality when considering travel time, preparation, and other minor delays.
"I need to go," Chin sobered immediately as he pulled his cell phone free from his shirt pocket. Pausing long enough to shake her hand and acting as if he wanted to throw his arms around her instead, his next rushed comment was completely genuine. "I can't thank you enough."
"I'll write up my results to formalize them for your team. We'll also submit these samples for a full DNA analysis now. But it's going to take a few days to get that part back," Katie warned him. However, she was talking to his back as he jogged from the lab with his cell phone clutched in his hand.
H5O* H5O* H5O* H5O* H5O*
Steve hadn't moved from where he stood rooted in what had been Danny's examination room. He was stunned beyond words and still arguing with himself about being so indecisive but Doctor Fratelli had just advised him that Danny was strongly suspected of having a brain bleed. The explanation was nothing short of incomprehensible and his unconscious partner had been swept away into the bowels of the hospital for a CT scan which would provide that conclusive proof. Once confirmed and reconfirmed again, he'd be rushed immediately into surgery to repair the life-threatening damage.
"Damn it, Daniel," Steve muttered to himself as he rocked in place, loathe to move. Hating to leave, yet knowing he had to ... and soon. "I don't believe this," he said softly, shaking his head disbelievingly as he gazed at the door hoping it had all been a big mistake. Everything he'd described to Fratelli had only escalated the small Italian's worrisome mood. The headaches, use of common analgesics to combat the pain of those, plus form his various scrapes and bruises had acted as blood thinners to exacerbate the internal bleeding.
"Commander, his headaches have not been post concussive as you all assumed," Fratelli had been visibly upset the more Steve had reported. The beginnings of slurred speech, loss of balance and the severity of his nausea were all terrible indicators. He'd argued Steve's pointed defiant reasons with a startling precision; in fact, he'd negated each one as related to the aftermath of a concussion. "They're indicative of a much larger problem."
In the end, the CT scan would be conclusive, but where Steve had not, Fratelli had already accepted his own new diagnosis based on those descriptions of symptoms and Danny's much too low blood pressure readings. Danny's recent physical exertion, refusal of rest and the stress endured at Reid's house had only upped the dangerous outcome. It made no matter to Steve that Fratelli admitted the initial error in judgement related to the agreement amongst himself, Lennon and Ramirez to forego a CT scan upon Danny's first visit to the hospital. Such a preliminary scan could have provided the first stop-gap; yet their decision had been to omit the test. At the time, that choice had been sound based upon Danny's lack of symptoms and their patient's own argument, but now Fratelli was in a snit and regretting what proved to be a very poor move.
"Brain surgery?" Steve couldn't wrap his head around what was coming next. Fratelli had made a disagreeable face at Steve's choice of words, amending them more than slightly in his physicians' mind. Still, Steve wasn't precisely consoled at being corrected.
"Not exactly. We're going to remove a flap of cranial bone and evacuate the bleed," Fratelli tried to explain. He tried to make it sound better, but failed as the Commander's face bleached to an indescribable shade of white. "We'll screw that bone back into place ... Commander?"
"Screws?" Steve had just about lost it at that point. He'd forgotten to breathe and then had swallowed as hard as Danny had in his truck to combat his own surge of nausea at the sheer thought of what Fratelli described. Now, he was standing alone in an empty exam room.
"Shit!" He gasped out loud, jolting in reaction at the surprising shock which trilled almost painfully down to his fingertips when his cell phone vibrated in his pocket. That at least got him moving enough to yank it out of his pocket, see that it was Chin, and answer on the third set of pre-set vibrations.
"Hey," Steve was still dumbstruck and in that one roughly voiced utterance of sound communicated enough for Chin to know something was incredibly wrong.
"How bad?" The blunt question didn't help Steve regain his tongue as fast as he would have preferred, but he eventually got himself more under control.
"Bad enough," Steve replied with a frank honesty. He was staring blindly at the exam room door wondering where Danny was in the large hospital. Fratelli owned anything that happened next, but Steve suddenly wanted to contact Doctor Ramirez. He though the older man would want to know, yet selfishly, Steve wanted him to be there, too. He needed another friendly set of hands on the ground in the medical facility; someone on their side who could gain access - and information - more than he could.
"Steve?" Chin's voice brought him back to center. Steve's thoughts had wandered in that instant and he mentally berated himself for the lapse. "What's going on with Danny? What happened?"
"They're running him though a CT scan, but it looks like he needs surgery to control a slow bleed from the head injury," Steve finally supplied more details. Vacillating wildly, he almost laughed in disbelief at what he was forced to say. "Danny needs brain surgery, Chin. Though Fratelli says I'm exaggerating a bit and removing a bone flap isn't all that bad. Unless you consider the screws he'll use to put Danny's skull back together after he's done."
He was babbling and the only thing that made him start was a sheer lack of air in his lungs. Steve's voice ended on an odd explosive cough where he gathered himself together one final time. "I'm ... uh ... I'm calling Ramirez to let him know. Then ... Danny's ex once we know more I guess."
"What!?" The burst of stunned air echoed harshly through the connection and Steve could just imagine the look on Chin's face. He had nothing else he could say as his thoughts fell to Danny's ex-wife and then on to his daughter, Grace. He didn't know what he was going to do if Fratelli was wrong and his friend didn't recover as the doctor had tried to assure him.
"Danny's going to want us to keep moving, Chin," Steve wearily commented. Once more torn, his own statement at least got him prompted him to act because Danny most certainly would be chastising him for lingering in an empty room. "What does the lab have? Anything we can act on with certainty? I need some good news." The resulting pause was long and Steve waited just as Chin had waited for him. Wheels were turning and information was being unhappily digested. There was a pained inhale followed by a disbelieving rush of air through the line before Chin was finally able to reply.
"The lab came through, Steve. Meet me at the office?" Chin's voice was calmer than he must have felt. Again, something which Steve could appreciate first-hand. "They've confirmed female hair on the evidence I bagged from the brush in Reid's bathroom. It's Kono's hair ... I know it is. We have intent, proof she was there - that she is there - and we need to get back there tonight. Let's do this ... I want Kono home and I want that bastard brought in."
"Done. I'll call Ramirez on the way," Steve replied firmly as Chin's startling revelations got his feet to move even faster through the hospital's long hallway towards the exit. He aimed his emotional thoughts once more in the direction of his ailing partner just before he broke into a run across the parking lot. He had compartmentalized his worries about Danny and was focused solely on getting Reid and retrieving Kono by the time he placed his hand on the door to his truck. By then his call with Chin was ending with a singular sense of mission. "I'll be there and geared up in ten."
~ to be continued ~