Chapter 3

"Alexx, did you get the second body?" Even though Horatio spoke quietly, his voice seemed to echo in the cool autopsy room.

"I did Horatio. I did a quick exam and got the bullet out of that poor boy. I sent it to Calleigh. I'll do the rest when I finish with Lieutenant-Commander Beeks." She nodded to the second table.

"Speaking of whom?" He walked to the covered form.

"He died of a broken neck and suffocation by water. By that, I mean he didn't die of drowning."

"Say again?"

Pulling the sheet to just below the shoulder level Alexx explained, "Someone broke the fourth and fifth vertebrae in his neck and then dumped him into the canal. He didn't have much water in his lungs because his diaphragm couldn't operate to open or close the lungs. About all he could do was move his arms a little which would cause his torso to open and close slightly, like bellows, and this drew water into his nose and throat and that is where the suffocation comes in. The water didn't go as far as his lungs, just stayed in his throat. Being in the water, probably face down, sealed his fate. Moving his arms even with the C4 injury could have allowed him to live long enough to get him onto respirator which could have saved his life. Because the water was in his throat no air could get to his lungs."

"How do you know someone did it and it wasn't just a freak accident?"

Alexx turned her beautiful cat eyes at the lieutenant. "I don't. Horatio, this is where you and your team come in. Now, like they say in the late night ads, 'but wait, there's more.' Here, help me roll him onto his shoulder please." Together they rolled Beeks until his back was exposed. "I had to use some contrasting ink on the mark. Otherwise it is just a barely discernable dent in the back of his neck." She used an ALS to give more contrast.

Horatio bent his head and twisted it over so he could see the three inch wide by one and a half inch half-moon mark highlighted by the purple light. "There is some kind of patterning to the mark."

"I also found a short black cotton fiber embedded in the skin. I sent that up as well."

"Only the one?"

Alexx put one hand on her hip. "He did probably get rained on last night so we're doing well to have the one.

"I also sent up a sample of the water from his throat. I checked it under my microscope and I'm fairly certain it comes from the same canal water we found him in."

"Anything else?"

"Not yet."

"Call me if you do find anything else."

"You know I will."

Both turned from each other, one to walk to the elevator and the other to commune with her dead bodies to ask what more information they could impart.

Leaving the chill quiet of the morgue, and walking the cool hall to the elevator, Horatio pressed the button for the third floor where the CSI lab was located. On the short ride up, he examined the skin around the nail of his right forefinger. A casual observer would have thought he was deciding what to have for dinner that night. They would have been wrong. His mind was busy mulling over the various possibilities of how Beeks could have ended up with a broken neck in the canal and then wondering who could have shot a twelve year old boy. This last just didn't have any of the earmarks of a common drive-by shooting. Shooters running by in their cars usually shot multiple times to make a point to someone. Unless Ms. Lorento was holding something back or perhaps her daughter wasn't as innocent as she seemed, there was no reason for their house to be a target.

The elevator door opened to the sound of Calleigh's voice calling out, "Two shots."

People closest to the gun room on their walk to another part of the lab put their hands to their ears and tried to hurry past. They were trampled by the sound waves of two sharp reports which cracked against walls.

Noting the look of calm satisfaction on Calleigh's face as she removed the protective ear covers, Horatio asked, "Please tell me a gun was found at the site of Deeshawn's death?"

"Not on site but very close. Eric and Ryan decided to walk to the school to make inquiries about the math club kids who were friends with Deeshawn. As they told it, while Eric thought of dumpster diving on the way, Ryan decided to look at street drains as possible disposal sites for a gun. It turned out that Ryan found the gun in the mouth of a drain just under the lip of a sidewalk. Then they realized the school was closed by then so they just trotted the gun here to me. The two are processing what they found in the boy's room now."

Horatio gave his watch a quick glance. Sure enough, it was nearly six thirty. He hadn't even noticed if the sun had set though it must have. My, how time flies when you're having fun.

"Thank you Calleigh. Why not finish up with the gun for today. I'll talk to you in a few minutes."

"Okay," she chirped. They both knew if he had asked her to stay all night checking out the gun she would have been more than pleased to do so. Guns held an endless fascination for her, not only for what they did but what they could reveal about who had last fired them.

Horatio found Eric and Ryan in the odd positions of working side by side at a lab table. He was well aware that they hadn't quite found their standing with each other so he expected them to be working apart. Ryan wanted to be part of the team and Eric was still in mourning for Speed. With neither willing to talk about the gap they usually found silence and space to be more comfortable.

Taking a moment to watch what was going on before entering the section, Horatio noticed that, when not talking, the two worked really well together. Apparently they were processing fingerprints, one taking the print transferred onto tape and making sure it was flat, the other laying it on the scanner to enter it into the computer to run against other prints in the Automated Fingerprint Identification System, AFIS.

The constant repetition caused Ryan's attention to lag long enough to glance up and see his boss standing by. The movement drew Erik's attention and the taller of the two waved Horatio in.

"We're nearly done here. H. Most of the prints are repeats in different places. None so far have a record."

"Which, being middle schoolers we generally don't expect."

Ryan shrugged. "Well, the aunt did say they were all belonged to the math club, didn't she? I wouldn't expect them to be exactly the B&E type."

"Just be sure to be at the school the first thing in the morning. We need as much information about Deeshawn's school life as we can get. Start with the principal to find out who was friends with Deeshawn."

"And who wasn't," added Eric.

"Would a principal know who wasn't friends with a kid? Most kids usually hide being bullied. Take it from me, I was something of a geek in school and I never let on who bullied me. I was sure they would have really let me have it if I said anything."

Horatio gave Ryan a cool blue eyed appraisal for a couple of seconds. "Perhaps the friends would be able to help out there, don't you think?"

Ryan dropped his eyes as he blushed. "Uh, well, maybe. I mean, my case was my own. I guess every kid that was smaller than the bullies and got better grades has their own story."

Eric stepped over and dropped a hand down on Ryan's shoulder. "Don't worry little buddy, when we get to the school tomorrow, I'll stand up for you."

It only took a moment for Ryan to answer. "Gee, gosh, that makes me feel really good. Can I you as a shield, so they don't shove little me into a locker?"

"Do that and I'll help the bullies."

Both looked to the doorway to see how the boss was observing the guff they were handing each other.

"Does he always disappear like that?"

"Pretty much. What's weird is how quick he appears just as you're about to call to say you found some evidence. So, let's finish up here and pack it in for the day so we can get an early start tomorrow."

"I'm with you there."

Horatio didn't hear these last remarks. He was glad the two were getting along and that was all he cared about. They understood what they were to do so he responded to the quiet ring tone coming from his coat pocket.

"Calleigh, are you done so soon?"

A moment later Calleigh looked up from the microscope that compared two bullets under close magnification. "I have good news and bad. I wanted to compare the bullet from Deeshawn's body with one fired from the gun Ryan found and it's a match. The only problem is there weren't any identifiable prints on the gun."

"None?"

"Smudges but that's all. It's really difficult to get prints from a gun handle. All I could make out was that the hand that held the gun was small."

"Could it be a small adult woman?"

"It doesn't cover the grip like an adult's would. I think there were two hands holding the gun, one to steady it and the other to pull the trigger. A woman might hold a gun like that but there wasn't enough coverage for even that. It's just too fuzzy for me to get a real idea about it."

By the way, has Beeks' family been notified?"

"Alexx contacted the base where he was stationed and they said they would be notifying the family the first thing in the morning. I'll talk to them tomorrow."

Calleigh paused and then asked, "Should I go talk with Ms. Lorento tomorrow? Maybe she or her daughter know more about the bullies than they wanted to talk about today."

Horatio looked up through his eyebrows. "You heard?"

Calleigh smiled sympathetically. "Sometimes people do get carried away in their grief, don't they?"

"That they do. I'm going to start charging the department for cleaning bills."

Calleigh laughed. "They'll change the dress code to cotton t-shirts before they pay for cleaning."

"No doubt. I'd better keep the thought to myself.

"Call me after the interview tomorrow."

"Will do."

Calleigh watched her boss take long strides down the hall to the elevators. She mused over what their lives would have been like had either one taken the next step in the obvious attraction they felt for one another. At first, those six years ago when the lab was little more than a closet and the rest of the police department detectives regarded her only as 'that pretty one they'd like to tap', Horatio had stood up for her with a quiet show of force that seemed to surprise the others. Apparently, when he was part of the police force, he had been regarded as a quiet team player. She had been present the day he removed his tie as a mark of officially being a Crime Scene Investigator, a CSI, head of an elite group. Doing this, he set himself apart from being one of the 'guys' and would brook no disregard or insult to anyone on his team. Not that she needed protection. She had always been able to take care of herself against pushy men. Her father had taught her to never take an insult personally and to always fight back fairly with an eye to coming out on top. She usually did.

They worked side by side, solving crimes by picking up evidence and scientifically linking it first to the murder and then following it back to the murderer. Sometimes it was through old proven means such as fingerprints and sometimes it was through chromatography, sometimes by chemistry and, of course the ever advancing use of DNA identification. Then Tim Speedle came in, and finally Eric Delko. Her relationship with these guys was always friendly and they never seemed interested in her sexually. This was fine by her. She believed in maintaining the best working conditions possible.

Yet, somehow, there was more between her and Horatio. They had never even so much as met for a drink after work unless in the company of the others. The only hint of what was going on was in their conversations such as what had just occurred. The talk was always quiet, always something of the personal thrown in with the everyday business of dealing with a crime, always when they were alone. If anyone else was present, even distantly within earshot, the tone of his voice was slightly higher and were always requests to look at this or do that and wondering if she had gotten around to another thing. In response, her mind whirred with machine precision marking everything into an order of when she could get to them. Watching absent mindedly as the elevator dial swung down to floor one she considered how the odd thing was, she never thought about the difference until moments like these, at the end of the work day when she was about to head for home alone.

What would it be like to be in that elevator, next to Horatio, wanting to hold his hand, not doing it because of the security cameras? No doubt they would drive home separately because of varying work schedules. But then, once behind closed doors, what would it be like? Quiet? Getting dinner together, commenting on some news item from the television they turned on without thought? Passionately grabbing at each other, letting dinner wait until their bodies were satisfied?

Realizing the elevator was returning, Calleigh made sure everything in the room was in order, turned off the light over her table and went to the locker room to retrieve her purse. She hurried, almost hoping to that Horatio had forgotten something and had returned. Looking up to the elevated office and finding it dark, she saw that the first of the night crew was heading to the locker rooms, turning on lights and getting ready for their shift. Not sure if she was relieved or let down, Calleigh put on her brave face, smiled at greetings and stepped into the elevator after it emptied out more night shift 'lab rats'.

# # #

Horatio stopped his car and spent several minutes in the circle in front of the forward slanted lab building. He could just barely see the light from the section of the lab where he had just left Calleigh. He could imagine her finishing up, carefully removing her white lab coat and calmly turning to look over the area once more before turning out the light. There, the light went out and next she went to the locker room.

What, he wondered, did she think about at the end of the day? What she would cook for dinner? Was she going to meet with friends? He hoped she was. He couldn't imagine her being alone.

This particular train of thought had started on the ride in the elevator. How did she know about the incident with Ms. Lorento in the kitchen? Frank wasn't one to pass on such a silly observation, was he? But then, Calleigh had a way of talking to people, getting information without seeming to be questioning. No doubt she learned this at her father's knee. Even in the current depths of his alcoholism, Mr. Duquesne showed sparks of the finer legal mind he'd once had. Calleigh combined this training with her own brains and beauty in such a winning way, people just gushed information to get her approval.

He had never been immune to her charm; he just had a different way of showing it. He put his TR-4 into gear and drove off asking himself why he had never moved on the urge to ask her out. Okay, yes, he was the head of the department and fraternization wasn't condoned even between equals much less upper and lower levels. Yeah, except that in his department, he did not consider himself as the head. The only difference between himself and his team was that he had years more experience in almost every field and he had a butt load of paperwork to do every day. He decided who did what but was always open to their ideas about how to do something better and places to look or people to talk to. So, again, why hadn't he tried to see if he and Calleigh could be interested in each other?

The answer was a darkness. It was always the same deep black memory, that stopped him from acting like an ordinary man with needs and desires. Then, coming through that dark, a bloody stain seeped through and finally when the shadows receded, the picture of his wife, stabbed many times was clear. It had been twenty years and he still mourned. Maybe if the bastard who had slaughtered her was caught, he would feel closure, feel like he could move on, live again, seek happiness. Until then, he could not.

When in New York as the youngest detective on the force, newly married, newly widowed, he had seen the devastation the killer had continued to wreak. The only witness to any of the crimes had been a child. She had seen her parents being butchered through the wooden louvers of the closet door where the killer had locked her. Somehow though, Jennifer Wilson couldn't remember his face, couldn't remember anything about him. Horatio had developed a selfish interest in her, keeping track of where she lived, contacting her once in a while to ask how she was doing, sending birthday cards. When she reached majority at eighteen, she insisted on moving out on her own. Rather than discourage her, he convinced her that living in Miami was much more fun than New York. That was when Jennifer found out the price for his interest was constantly having nightly watchdog at her house, one in plain clothes (himself) or uniform, paid for out of Horatio's private funds.

Unfortunately, it was all he could do in this case. The killer remained at large (or perhaps in prison for some unrelated crime) and unknown and there were no clues. His purpose in life was to protect that little girl and until she was safe from any threats, he couldn't get past that.

# # #

Calleigh sat in her car for some time without realizing it. The garage was dark and quiet, a good place for thinking and analyzing. In this case, her thoughts were analyzing why Horatio was interested in her and had never done anything about it. Not that her Southern Belle training would allow her to make the first step, but for sure, she could find a way to force him to. First, however, she had to know what stopped him. His past was dark and he sidestepped every question no matter how delicately she put it. She had even tried asking his current associates who had worked with him longest and they wouldn't or couldn't answer. Legally, she couldn't look at his private records either.

Okay, then, what to do that would encourage him to be more than a great man to work with and for? He wasn't tempted by her good looks, her blond hair, great smile and beautiful eyes. She knew what she had and how to use them all not only for personal advantage but on the job and none seemed to work on him. Suddenly she blinked her eyes, accepting that she had a puzzle that she had no solution for yet. The first thing a police officer learns is that every puzzle can be worked out; some take longer than others. She started her car and drove home.