A/N: I don't own any of the CSI: Miami characters and I am not making any money from writing this.
Please forgive any minor spelling or grammar mistakes, English is not my native language.
I apologize for late update, I was really busy. I am going to try to update more frequently.
I know that you want to know what happened, but as promised, this chapter takes place twenty four hours before events described in chapter one.
~24 HOURS EARLIER~
The Place where murder took place was pretty, two store suburban house with white fasade and a nice yard. Victim was laying on the kitchen floor in his house, dead, with a gunshot wound to the middle of his chest. He was wearing white T-shirt, blue socks, blue slippers and grey underwear. There was little to no blood around the gunshot wound, but he was obviously bleeding from his right shoulder. Bloody kitchen knife was laying on the floor close to the body. Opened egg carton was on the kitchen table, together with the opened package of sausages. Casserole full of water and a frying pan were on the stove.
Natalia sighed and photographed the body from four different angles, using a forensic camera that was hanging around her neck. Her forensics briefcase was laying opened on the floor, and she was wearing white latex gloves over her hands and white plastic shoe covers over her shoe bottoms. Soon after she finished photographing the body, dr. Loman walked toward the body and took a closer look at it.
"Victim is Mac Travis, thirty two years old", Natalia explained. "Neighbours say that this was his house and that he was living here alone and that he worked as a waiter in local bar. They heard a gunshot at about seven am and called the police. Patrole officer came here to check things out. Doors were wide open so he walked in and found the body. Mac was already dead. Neoghbours saw red Ford driving away, but they didn't remember the licence plates and they can't provide a description of the driver."
"He was killed about an hour ago", dr. Loman concluded. "There is little to no blood around it, so it is probably a small calibar weapon."
"And still, he was bleeding from his shoulder", Horatio noted.
Carefully, dr. Loman rolled the body over and took a look on the victim's back.
"There is no exit wound, so the bullet is probably still in the body", he concluded. "But, it appeares that he was stabbed in the shoulder shortly before he was shoot."
"Probably with this knife", Natalia suggested, glancing at the knife on the floor. She opened her forensics briefcase and took a forensic tag and a forensic ruler, then put of it on the floor next to the knife before photographing it. "Maybe we will find killer's fingerprints on it", she said, storing the knife in an evidence bag.
"Hopefully", Horatio said, nodding his head.
"I also found a cigaret butt in the yard, maybe I can extract a DNA from it."
After she finished tagging and storing the evidence, Natalie stood up and took a closer look at the groceries and the cellphone on the kitchen table.
"It looks like somebody interrupted him while he was making a breakfast", she said before photographing those groceries and the cellphone multiple times. Then she did the same with the idoms on the stove. After taking a closer look at the bowl, she noticed that it is full of water. On the bottom were two sausages and a shell casing. She photograph the she'll casing closely, walked over toward her briefcase and picked up a tweezer, an evidence bag and a small plastic container from it . She put the container down on the stove and used a tweezer to take a shell casing out of the casserole, then put it in an evidence bag and sealed it. After putting the bag and the tweezer down on the stove, she picked up a plastic container and used it to take a sample of water from the casserole.
Afterwards, she searched a victim's bedroom. First thing she did was to look for traces of bodily fluids on the bed sheets using an UV light. She noticed traces of vaginal fluid, so she swabbed it with a cotton swab and stored that swab. She also powdered the bed frame for fingerprints. She found over twenty usable fingerprints and few partial palm prints, so she lifted them with a fingerprint lifting tape and stored them. She also selected an elimination fiber samples from the bed sheets and the pillows.
#
Walter and Ryan were in victim's living room, also wearing white latex gloves over their hands and white plastic shoe covers over their shoe bottoms, holding their forensics briefcases in their hands.
"This window is broken", Walter said, inspecting one of the windows in the living room, near the couch, "but there is no broken glass inside the house, which means that window was broken from inside." He noticed a blue fiber stuck between two glass fragmemts still on the frame, so he put his forensics briefcase down on the floor, opened it, took a forensic tag out of it and hold it next to the fiber, then photographed it. He then put the tag down on the floor, picked up a tweezer from his forensics briefcase and used it to pick up a fiber before storing it in an evidence bag, also taken from his briefcase.
"That makes no sense", Ryan commented, "why would a killer break the window from inside?"
"Maybe victim accidently broke it some time prior to his death and planned to repair it, but somebody killed him before he was able to do it", Walter suggested, then close his briefcase, picked it up, walked toward the coffee table and started inspecting it, putting his forensics briefcase on the couch near by.
"Other than the broken window, this place looks like a pretty standard living room", Walter noted, looking at the coffee table. "Nothing suspicious about it."
"Yes, I don't think we are going to find anything useful here", Ryan agreed, looking around." As he started walking away, he noticed something shiny on the bottom of a fruit bowl on the coffee table, so he carefully took all the fruit out of it, putting it on the coffee table. He discovered a key on the bottom, so he opened his briefcase, takes a forensic tag out of it, put it on the bottom of a bowl, next to a key, and photographed it.
Ryan noticed lots of scuff marks on the floor, around the bookcase. He photographed that part of a floor, then turned to Walter.
"Walter, help me move this bookcase, will you?"
Walter widened his eyes in surprise, but said nothing and walked over to Ryan, and two of them moved the bookcase together, revealing the secret door. Ryan took out his gun and pressed the door knob, then groaned in frustration.
"Locked", he exclaimed.
"Wait...", Walter said and walked over to the coffee table, then picked up a key from the bowl, walked toward the secret door again and tried to put the key in the lock.
"It fits", he exclaimed. Then he unlocked the door and put the key on an armchair near by. He and Ryan pulled out their guns, and then Ryan pressed the doorknob and opened the door.
First thing they felt was a strong scent of chemicals. Nobody was in the room, but inside there was a table, covered with chemicals, and a chair in front of it. Ryan and Walter put their guns back in the holsters and looked around, stunned.
"This looks like...", Walter commented.
"Meth lab", Ryan confirmed. "Our victim was a drug dealer."
Walter photographed the table before walking closer toward it. He noticed a notebook on the table, and he photographed it before picking it up and opening it.
"This looks like his list of clients", he commented, "but only initials and prices are written, not full names, adresses or the phone numbers."
"We can only hope that his phone records and e-mails will provide us more informations about his those people", Ryan commented.
#
Horatio went to talk with Mac's younger brother, twenty two years old Richard. Richard worked in a grocery store, and they talked in the very corner of the store, away from the possible eavesdroppers. Robert was tall and thin, with pale skin, short brown hair and brown eyes.
"I... I didn't hear from Mac in over a week", said Richard, looking down at the floor, trying not to cry. He raised his head and looked Horatio in the eyes. "How... how did he die."
"He was murdered."
Richard widened his eyes. "Murdered?", he asked, shivrers evident in his voice. "Are you sure?"
"Yes, we are. Do you know did he have any enemies?"
"I-I don't think so. He was the nicest person I ever met."
Horatio took a deep breath before continuing. "Richard, we have reasons to believe that Mac was engaged in certain criminal activities. Drug related crimes, to be exact."
Richard's face fell, and he felt his throat turning dry. "I...", he whispered. "I refuse to believe in that. It's probably a mistake or something."
Horatio gave him a warm, compassionate look. "Where were you today at about seven am?"
"Here. I started working at six am, like every other day."
"OK", Horatio said, putting the latex gloves over his hands before taking a plastic container with a gauze inside from right pocket of his coat. "I just need to perform one simple test and you are free to go."
"Sure, whatever you need."
"Show me your hands, please."
Richard did so, and Horatio opened the container and took a gauze out of it. He used the gauze to swab both sides of Richard's palms, then put it back in the container before taking a small bottle of parafrine from left pocket of his coat and dripping some on the gauze. Then, he out the bottle back in left pocket of his coat, closed the container, and waited.
Nothing happened. GSR test was negative.
"Is everything alright?", Richard asked, concern evident on his face.
"Yes", Horatio said, nodding his head, "everything is alright."
#
Calleigh walked in the morgue, wearing her lab coat and latex gloves. Dr. Loman was standing near the autopsy table, also wearing lab coat and latex gloves. Mac Travis's body was laying on the table, and an autopsy was obviously over.
"Hi, Calleigh", dr. Loman said before picking up an evidence bag with a bullet inside from the table near by and handling it to her.
"Thank you", Calleigh smiled.
"You're welcome", he replied before glancing at the body again. "Cause of death was a gunshot wound to a chest", he explained. "I sent a sample of his blood to Natalia, as an elimination DNA sample, and I also sent his fingerprints to Ryan. Toxycology tests are still running. Stabbing wound was nasty, but not fatal. I made a cast and also colected samples of skin under his fingernails, then gave both cast and skin samples to Natalia. And, there is also this", he said before raising victim's left hand. Calleigh moved few steps closer toward the table in order to get a better look at it.
"Uhm... what am I looking at?", she asked after few seconds, unable to notice anything important on that part of a victim's body.
"Our victim had hairs on both sides of his hands. I noticed that some of the hairs on his wrist area are pulled backward, like somebody pressed something against that part of his hand", dr. Loman explained. "I think that happened because killer checked his pulse. However, it is difficult to lift fingerprints from human skin, especially human skin covered with hairs."
"Difficult, but not impossible", Calleigh said whole putting the evidenxe bag with a bullet inside in right pocket of his coat, then looked around before continuing. "Handle me this SLR camera, please."
A/N: Song playing in background of a scene where Natalia is inspecting the victim's room is "Perfect Day" by "The Constellations".