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A/N: Thanks again to Mersey and Anita (and anyone else actually reading this ;)) I solemnly swear that I will update my BSB stuff soon. This story's just seeming to write itself and my other ones are makin' me work hard to try and get chapters out...*sighs* lol. Soon though!

Chapter Six: Lab

“So you’re off the case?” Warrick asked, frowning as he studied the evidence in his hands. The kitten mewed and squirmed until he set it back on the counter, giving it a little pat as an afterthought. Aside from its odd presence at the crime scene and the fact that it had been registered to Nick, he doubted they’d learn much more from the cat. They’d found no stray hairs, or foreign fibers stuck in its fur. One of the newer lab techs--Greg had conveniently had a large backlog of blood samples “needing immediate attention”--had analyzed the last of the evidence that the cat could provide after it had used its litter box. Their efforts had turned up that the kitten’s latest meal had been Purina Kitten Chow. It wasn’t exactly a breakthrough in the case. They were still waiting to hear back from Homeward Bound to find out if the person who had registered the kitten had by chance paid by check or credit card. Warrick had his doubts that the culprit would be that careless, but they had to follow every potential lead.

Nick sighed. “If Catherine’s out because of the presence of a drawing from her daughter, I think the same thing applies to the presence of…my cat.” He reached out and tapped the table to get Icarus’ attention. The kitten whipped around, playfully leaping at the drumming fingers. Nick looked doubtfully at the kitten. “What am I supposed to do with a cat?” he mused. His expression lightened as he watched Icarus back up then pounce at his fingers again. It grew serious again as he looked back at Warrick. “Autopsy turn up anything?”

Warrick sighed and gave Nick a warning look. “You’re off the case, remember?” He relented, though, when Nick went back to looking at the kitten. “All right. I know you had nothing to do with this…but I didn’t tell you.”

“Let’s start with Rebecca Warren,” Dr. Al Robbins, the coroner, motioned Warrick over to the first body. He began running through the preliminary findings, and nothing he said surprised Warrick. Cause of death, Carbon Monoxide. That was pretty common for victims of a fire. Usually it wasn’t the flames that got them, but the smoke.

“So, she died of smoke inhalation,” Warrick concluded.

Dr. Robbins smiled. “Not so fast.”

Warrick raised his eyebrows and looked back at the coroner, who motioned him to come closer and examine the incision that the doctor had made into the young woman’s airway. He looked, but saw nothing particularly surprising. The blood was a bright cherry red rather than its usual color, but that, too wasn’t unexpected. “What am I looking at?”

“The high level of CO2 is consistent with smoke inhalation, but that’s only part of what we should find.”

Warrick frowned and looked closer. It dawned on him a moment later. Where there’s smoke, there fire, yes, but there’s also soot. If she had died from smoke inhalation, the airway should be lined with ashes. “So, she died before the fire.”

Dr. Robbins nodded. “Yes. The fire unfortunately makes it difficult for us to use her body temperature as an indication of time of death, but the lack of ash along the pathway indicates that she was not alive when the fire started. The fire also makes it unreliable for us to determine time of death from rigor mortis. Heated conditions cause faster loss of adenosine triphosphate from muscles. If we knew the exact temperature of the room during the fire, we might be able to estimate, but as we don’t know the temperature, we cannot.

“Likewise, we cannot use lividity to determine the time of death. However, I was able to narrow it down a little bit. See here?” He pointed to where the body was slightly discolored on her shoulder, hip, arm, and leg. “The stagnation in blood in the vessels causes the discoloration here, showing that she was lying on her side when she died, or was placed on her side within half an hour of death. However, as you see here,” he rolled the body onto it’s side and indicated that the skin was even more discolored on her back and buttocks, “blood goes where gravity takes it. Some time in the first six hours or so of death, she was moved and placed on her back. After six to eight hours, lividity becomes fixed. Blood vessels break down and the blood settles, permanently staining the tissues. Before that, the lividity can be shifted. Judging from the fact that we can see the faint stains in the tissues along her side, I would guestimate that the body was moved at least two or three hours after death, but obviously before six hours had passed.”

Warrick took this all in. “She was last seen leaving work around 9:00 pm. The fire started around 2:00 am. She was probably moved before the fire started.”

“Which means that she probably died shortly after she got home. Time of death was some time between 9:30 and 11:00 pm, probably closer to 9:30.”

Nick listened to Warrick describe the autopsy result on Rebecca Warren. “Carbon monoxide poisoning, and then arson to cover it up,” he summed it up. “So…was there maybe a gas leak, you suppose? That doesn’t answer why the bodies were moved…or what started the fire.”

Warrick nodded. “That’s not all.”

Nick looked over at him and settled back, waiting for him to continue.

Dr. Robbins moved over to the slab where Mr. Black’s body awaited them. “This one is a little different.”

“How so?” Warrick asked.

“CO2 levels were normal, no soot in the airway.”

Warrick whistled. “So, what was the cause of death?”

“Undetermined, pending further testing.”

“Any theories?”

“I do have one, and you’re not going to like it.”

“When do I ever like it?”

“Point taken. Okay. We’ve got a man in his late forties. Family man. Athletic, works out daily, jogs every morning according to neighbors. Both parents and three of his grandparents are still alive and have no notable health problems on either side of the family history. Until recently, this man was quite healthy. According to his medical records, though, he recently went to the doctor complaining of frequent nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea.”

“The flu?”

“That’s what the initial diagnosis was. The doctor suggested bed rest and drinking plenty of fluids.”

“Okay.”

“However, two weeks pass, and Mr. Black is back at the doctor. Same symptoms.”

“Did they do any blood tests?”

“No. Mr. Black refused the lab tests that the doctor wanted to run. He said he simply wanted the doctor to prescribe him something to help with the nausea, and something to help him sleep at night.”

“Why did he refuse the lab tests?” Warrick asked suspiciously. “Drugs?”

Dr. Robbins smiled. “That’s what I suspected. So I took a look at the liver tissues.”

“Steroids.”

“That’s what I was looking for, but the result for steroids came back negative.”

“Damn…so what then?”

“I suspect that he was being poisoned. There was extensive damage to the liver, and the kidneys. My suspicion is that the tests we’re waiting on will find that Mr. Black has been slowly poisoned over a period of time, and then perhaps tonight given a final fatal dose. If my guess is right, we’re looking at arsenic. I’ve sent a sample of hair to the lab to test to find out if there was arsenic present, and at what levels.”

“Arsenic poisoning over a couple months; that would mean that the person poisoning him likely lived right there in the same apartment.”

“Marshall Black, you think?” Nick asked, cutting into Warrick’s description of the autopsy. “He hasn’t been found yet.”

“Could be. But then why kill the other people in the building?”

Nick nodded. “Or maybe our psychic has been orchestrating this for a while. We’ll have to check and see if he maybe had a copy of the neighbor’s key…you know in case the kids lock themselves out or something.”

“I’ll check on that.”

“What about the others? Did any of them die from the fire?”

“Mrs. Masters, died of smoke inhalation.”

“Well, at least that’s one of them.”

“It also appeared that she was taking sleeping pills of some sort, which likely prevented her from waking up in time to save herself. We still need to determine if that was prescribed, if she took it herself, or if someone else may have administered it. Lindy Black cause of death was insulin overdose. John Jr. tested positive for morphine, Doc is doing some further tests to determine if maybe it was heroin.” Nick looked progressively sicker as the list continued. “Mr. Masters died of a stroke; Doc has not yet determined the cause of the stroke. Mrs. Black died of asphyxiation of unknown origin. She did not have any marks to indicate strangulation, normal CO2 levels. There are no bruises or anything to indicate that she struggled.”

“Do I even want to know about Mr. Vaugn?”

“Asphyxiation. Though if that hadn’t done the trick, I’m betting that he would have died from hypothermia.” At Nick’s surprised expression, Warrick explained. “I haven’t been back to the scene, but I called Grissom to check it out and he confirmed. Mr. Vaugn died in his freezer, and was probably kept there for…days, maybe even weeks. Doc found some ice crystals still in him, the heat from the fire hadn’t quite finished thawing him out. Enough so that you couldn’t tell from the outside, but some of the internal organs were still frozen on the inside.”

“Damn.”

“That’s what I said.”

“Someone sure went through an awful lot of trouble to kill these people. Why not just do it all in one shot? Like with the fire. That could have taken them all out. The bars on the windows probably would have stopped them from being able to get out if the entrances were blocked.”

“And why bother moving around the bodies? Except for Mr. Vaugn, they all could have seemed like natural or at least accidental deaths. Well, if they hadn’t all happened in such a short period of time. Moving the bodies to the wrong apartments is a clear tip-off that there was nothing natural about the deaths.”

Nick frowned. “It’s kind of like…my sisters.” He laughed as Warrick shot him a doubtful look. “No, not that they would kill someone. I’m just thinking about when we were growin’ up. They had this big ol’ dollhouse that Daddy built for them.” Warrick’s eyebrows furrowed, but he continued to listen. “Between the five of them, they had maybe thirty dolls, right? Each of them had their own little made up doll families.” Warrick nodded, still not sure where Nick was going with this. “They’d play for hours on end with these dolls, but then they’d get bored, or one of my other sisters would come along and want to play, too.”

Warrick understood. “So they’d change around the dolls.”

“Exactly.”

“Bored of your family, you trade it in for another.”

“Welcome to the dollhouse.”

“Damn.”

“Marshall Black, you think?”

“I think we need to find him, soon.”

“Hey, Nick?” Catherine called as she stopped in the doorway, interrupting their discussion.

“Yeah?”

“We’ve got a break-in to check out downtown. Let’s roll.”

Nick got up to follow her, but remembered something on his way out. “Warrick. You’ll want to check out Rebecca Warren’s nightshirt. There’s supposedly some sort of warning on it.”

“A warning? Like what?”

“Don’t know. It may be nothing. It’s just one of the things Mr. Pearson said.”

“Got it. I’ll get Greg to check it out before I go back to the scene.”

“We still on for the game?”

“Four o’clock kickoff, right?”

“Yeah. I’ll pick up some stuff for the grill. I think Cath and Lindsey are going to be there. Invite the others and we’ll make a party out of it.”

Warrick scooped up the white kitten, who mewed indignantly but allowed himself to be carried back to the cage that had become his temporary home without much fuss. Once Icarus was safely in his cage, Warrick headed back to the evidence room to get the nightshirt.

“What are we looking for?” Greg asked. “It’s been checked for blood and stuff already,” he reminded Warrick as he took the garment.

“I have no idea. Nick said that Mr. Pearson told him there was some sort of warning on it.”

“There was one warning,” Greg responded immediately. At Warrick’s raised eyebrow he grinned. “Do not tumble dry.” He sobered up at Warrick’s unamused expression. “Okay. I’ll check it out, just set it over there,” he waved to one of the few empty spots on his worktable.

With all the other work on his docket, it wasn’t until near the end of his shift that Greg finally got around to examining Rebecca Warren’s night shirt. All the usual tests had been done already, and he had no idea what he was looking for, but he pulled the garment from the evidence bag and began going over it, looking for anything unusual.

It was a Tampa Bay Buccaneers jersey, number 81. Nothing written on it, no noticeable tears or excessive grime. Looked pretty new--this was probably the first time she’d worn it, or else it had been very recently (and thoroughly) washed. Greg turned off the overhead lights and examined it under the alternative light source, examining every inch of the fabric, turning it inside out and examining it again. Nothing stood out. He turned the main light back on and examined it one more time.

“Okay, so…who is Buccaneer 81?” he asked himself aloud, hoping that it might show some insight. Doing a quick search on the web, he came up with wide receiver Tim Brown. A little background search on him, though, did not turn up anything substantial. Other than the coincidence of sharing Warrick’s last name, there was nothing really to note.

“Warning, my butt,” he muttered. “‘Do not tumble dry’ is the only…” He blinked and looked back at the sewn in tag again. He hadn’t really looked at the tag other than a glance. He pulled the tag up again and read it over. It seemed normal enough. He flipped it over and read the back. Still nothing out of the ordinary.

“What am I missing?” he asked the shirt as if it could speak back to him. He let go of the tag and it flopped back into place.

Wait.

It was just the clothing line’s logo, but it could double as a warning of sorts. Hands Off! Clothing Co. “Cute warning there, mister psychic. Please tell me that I didn’t just waste 20 minutes looking for that.”

“Looking for what?” Nick asked as he sauntered into the lab, ready to go home after successfully wrapping up the robbery case he and Catherine had worked that night.

“Your psychic’s warning.”

“Not my psychic, man,” Nick denied. “But what’d you find?”

Greg shrugged and indicated the tag. At Nick’s looked doubtful, Greg only shrugged and explained everything he’d learned, which was next to nothing. It did garner a raised eyebrow at the name similarity to Warrick, but that wasn’t much to go on. “Nothing else I can find, so I guess that’s it. Hands off, warning Warrick to stay off the case, you suppose?” He looked thoughtful for a moment before picking up the shirt again. “Though, there is one more place I didn’t check…” He pulled at the tag again, this time carefully turning it inside out. At first glance, there was nothing unusual, only the threads from the embroidered tag information crossing back and forth. But some of the threads were broken…and seemed to have been pulled or loosened perhaps.

Grabbing a pair of tweezers, Greg carefully started shifting the threads.

And there.

Written where few would ever even think to look.

Greg dropped the tweezers and grabbed his phone, punching in Warrick’s number as fast as he could.

At the same moment, Nick’s phone started to ring.

Nick answered his phone, trying to stay calm. Greg’s call would be in time, he had to believe that. “Stokes,” he answered, hoping it would be one of the others calling him from the site.

“C’mon Warrick, pick up, man,” Greg muttered into his phone.

“Tsk, tsk, tsk, Nick. I really thought you were smarter than this. It took…almost 32 hours for you to find my note?”

“Who is this?” Nick asked, trying to figure out if he’d heard this voice somewhere before. He knew about the note; it had to be the Walnut Street killer. But how had he known that they just found the note? He had to be watching! Nick spun around, looking for anyone that was out of place. Nobody. Except Greg, who was looking at him with an odd expression on his face.

“This is Warrick,” the other CSI answered Greg’s call.

“Warrick. Get out of the building. Get everyone out. Now,” Greg blurted out, watching as Nick went out into the hallway, looking first one direction than the other as if searching for somebody.

“What?” Warrick blinked trying to understand what the lab tech was trying to tell him. “Greg? What’s up, man?”

“The warning. We found the ‘warning’. Get everyone out of the building. I think maybe there’s a bomb there and it’s going to explode.”

“What?”

“Just get out of the building!”

“Nick, Nick, Nick. After all the time and effort I put into setting this up for you, and you’re not even trying?” Nick’s caller chided him.

“Not trying what? Tell me who you are,” Nick demanded.

“Not in the game, Nick. Not in the game.”

“This isn’t a game. You…” Nick restrained himself from blurting out the things he wanted to call this man. Fucking lunatic.

“Manners, Nick,” the man scolded.

“Who are you? What do you want?”

“It’s not what I want. It’s what you’ve always wanted.”

Nick shook his head. “I have never wanted anyone to get murdered.”

“Murder?” the man sounded genuinely surprised. “That’s not what this is about, Nick.”

“Then what is it about?”

“The perfect crime scene, Nick. You love solving puzzles, but they’re always too easy! You want a real challenge!”

Nick barely restrained himself from yelling at this man. “I’m off the case. My cat places me at the scene. I can’t work the case; I might ‘contaminate evidence’. I lost. So game over.”

The guy actually laughed. “Oh, Nick, that’s just…pathetic. Even a small brain like yours can do better than that!”

“What do you want from me?”

“I want you to do your fucking job,” the man hissed. “I went to all the trouble of setting this up and you’re going to play.”

“I told you I can’t work this case. I tell you what, though. You give me your number and I’ll have the lead on the case give you a call.”

The man laughed again. “Don’t patronize me. You’re going to play, or everybody loses. And not a word to anyone about me, Nick. That would be cheating. So don’t go running to the bug man. And don’t bother trying to trace this call. You won’t find me that way.”

“I told you, I can’t ‘play’ your game. I’m off the case.”

“Then I’ll just have to set up another one. Just for you.”

“No. Wait!”

“You wouldn’t play the original game, so it’s new game time. Think of it like…a chess game. Rules are this: Not a word to anyone else about me. You know nothing about the Walnut Street case. Let them figure that one out. You try and help them in any way, I kill them. And I will know if you try and tell them anything, Nick. I know every move you make.” There had to be cameras or something, Nick decided, looking up toward the ceiling. Nothing visible, but they could make cameras the size of a pin. “You with me so far?”

Nick nodded, testing to see if the man could really see him.

“You have to speak over the phone, Nick,” the man condescended.

Nick wasn’t sure if that really confirmed that the man saw him, or if the man was just saying that because he hadn’t answered. He scowled. “I’m with you.”

The man let out a hearty chuckle. “I knew you would warm up to this. Next, I set up a new scene for you. You solve it, you find me. You don’t solve it, I set up another one.”

“No, wait! How will I know which…which scene is yours?”

“Oh, Nick. I told you this is like a chess game. Since you’re not as smart as I thought you were, I’ll even give you an advantage. You only have to take out the King.” Nick clenched his jaw, barely containing his fury with this incredibly arrogant man and the whole situation. “But me…I have all sorts of pawns to take out before I get to you. If you look at the puzzle I’ve already given you, you’ll know my next move.”

Realization started to dawn on Nick. “No. Wait--"

“It’s my turn. I’ll be in touch. Remember, tell nobody about me.”

Nick started to protest again, but the line went dead. Nick turned and hurried back to where he hoped Greg was still on the phone with Warrick.

“Alright, we’re all out of the building,” Warrick assured Greg. “Now what is this all about?”

“The warning the psychic gave Nick. We found it written on the tag. ‘Return to S.o.C. Bang! You’re dead.’” Greg described the short message on the tag. “S.o.C. must be Scene of Crime, right? And bang, like an explosion. We’ll want to have the bomb squad get down there and go over the place before anyone goes back in.”

“Uh…yeah. Bang is more like a gunshot than--" Nick reached to grab the phone from Greg, hoping to warn the others to get out of there. By the time he had but the phone up to his ear, though, all he could hear on the other end was chaos.

“Warrick? What’s…can anyone hear me? Warrick?” he called into the phone, bile rising to his throat. He was too late. If his guess was right, his mysterious caller had just made his first move.