Post by sundancer on Aug 12, 2009 20:44:36 GMT -10
Hey out there! I'm glad that you like my story! And I hope you don't mind to read a longer chapter today. When I wrote it, I noticed that I wasn't able to divide the plot into two chapters without disturbing the story. But...I think it's worth the read... ;D Just let's start with a little insight-view in the brain of an... executioner...
Chapter 08
When he dropped down his sports-bag in his garage, the content made a little sound which reminded him of the necessity to clean his ‘tools’. He opened it, took out the rifle and started to detach the barrel from the shaft of his take-down.
‘It has to function properly. It would be horrible if it would go on strike or would loose its precision at the very needed moment,’ he said to himself.
He took a small cloth, wrapped it around a cleaning-stick and applied some oil. Carefully – pushing it from the firing chamber into the direction of the muzzle – he started to clean it.
‘How many guys get shot, just because they forget about cleaning their weapon..?!’
After he had finished the cleaning of the inside, he swept with the oily cloth over the surface of the barrel once and then put it and shaft together again. Then he locked everything in a safe.
‘Let’s wait and see what the next days will bring.’ And with a satisfied smile he left the garage for his apartment.
The very next morning, Horatio looked into the tired faces of a completely bleary team. The night before he had called in Eric as soon as he saw how superficial one of the members of the nightshift started to search for fabrics and fingerprints. Eric, for himself, had phoned Ryan to give him a hand. Finally Calleigh had called in Natalia to help her to analyze the direction the shot had come from. In the early morning of the new day it was made clear that the dayshift had taken over the case of the nightshift completely.
The coffee-machine was bubbling and hissing in its last breaths and sounded more like doing its last service in its lifetime than like delivering the needed caffeine-injection for the team. Natalia arranged five mugs and finally filled in the hot fluid.
Due to several bad experiences in recent times, Horatio asked: “Who’d prepared this coffee?”
Ryan just grabbed his mug and answered tired: “It’s me. And I gonna drink everything if there’s only caffeine in it.”
Eric only nodded agreement, but added at lot of milk to the black, hot fluid to cover the strong taste of too much coffee-powder.
Calleigh had no problems with this strong drink at all and Horatio was remembered of her iron stomach, when she took the first sips without pulling a face.
Horatio decided to let the coffee cool down a bit and started the meeting: “I’m sorry of having disturbed you in your spare-time, but as you might have already seen, the two entire cases belong together.”
“You haven’t disturbed me in my spare-time, Horatio,” the moody answer of Eric came back. “Well, as long as sleeping deep and sound doesn’t belong to spare-time…”
The caffeine seemed to do its effects on Ryan, because he was able to deliver his facts to the team.
“The nightshift gave us all info very generously, because they LOVE cases, which don’t belong to their responsibility anymore.” Another sip of coffee. “They didn’t find any further traces, but handed over all info about the old case of bank-robbery. As soon as all the people who had been involved in it have woken up, I’ll call them for an interrogation.”
“How many?” Horatio asked.
“Two angry husbands of the dead women. The former associates are still in jail,” Ryan answered.
“I’ve already checked them, H,” Eric added. “They won’t frame Bull for anything. They’re too afraid of the revenge of other cons.” The milk did not seem to have the wanted effect, because Eric pulled a face after every single sip of coffee.
“O.K., just call me, when the two husbands arrive,” Horatio ordered Ryan and Eric, who nodded agreement at once.
Then Horatio turned around to Calleigh and Natalia. He noticed how Natalia was warming her hands with the mug, but did not dare to drink the coffee until now. When she realized the amused glance of her boss, she took a sip, raised an eye-brow and just took another one at once.
“What about the position the sniper took this time?” Horatio asked. “To my opinion it was a very difficult shot. Depending on the scope it must have been like shooting in a very dark tunnel with only few spot-lights in this area down on the street.”
Calleigh nodded at once. “Well, it was very difficult, but not impossible. Everything he needed was a good illumination of his target. And he needed some information about his victim. This was definitely no kill-shot by chance, but very well planned.”
Natalia added: “We’d been able to track back the way of the bullet and have found the building the sniper used this time.” She made a pause to sort her thoughts. “We’ve found gunshot residues and some soil on the top of the roof, which told us that he entered the building through the Eastern entrance-door, because there’s still this huge construction site.”
“And?” Horatio waited for some more evidence.
Calleigh’s tired smile vanished a bit, when she answered: “Nothing besides that, Horatio. No DNA-samples, no reference to his method of hiding… And he must have had luck, because this apartment-building has a doorman in the entrance-hall. He hadn’t seen anything suspicious.”
“Anything about this guy?” Horatio could not believe that they were not able to find more traces.
“A former police-officer. Honorable demission round about five years ago,” Natalia answered.
“Alexx is still examining the corpse, but I don’t think we should expect any surprises…” Horatio finished the overview of the case.
In the silence which followed, everybody of the team tried to sort out the facts which probably could lead to further investigations. After a few minutes Horatio gave new orders:
“Calleigh, you once told me, that you have some ‘sources’ to get more information about the take-down-rifle. I guess it’s now about time to dig deeper here.”
Calleigh’s smile brightened like the sunrise on a brand-new day. “I’ll do my best, handsome.” She put the empty mug onto the sink and left the room for her lab.
Horatio’s smile was an answer to the glance he had got by Calleigh, when she had left the room. And it remained on his face, even when he ordered Natalia to check the data-bases of all of Fosters’ associates who might have had the possibility of hiring a killer. She was supported by Ryan, who had to check another data-base with possible contract-killers.
“Uhm, well, you know that we’re entering fed-waters by scanning these data-bases, Horatio?” Ryan asked carefully. Besides having the inner revision at once heels, the feds were the most hated guys at the MDPD.
“If you gonna have problems with your access, just call me.” Horatio ignored the warning Ryan did also implicate with his question.
“Never tease a fed.” Eric spoke out, what Ryan did not dare to do and ignored Horatio’s hard glance he got in return. “Shall I join you at the interrogation?” Eric asked instead.
Horatio nodded and finally took a careful sip from his coffee. It tasted not that bad, it was not that hot anymore and finally he put the empty mug on the sink as well. The whole time through, he had only one painful thought and he formulated it very carefully to his brother-in-law as soon as Natalia and Ryan had also left the room.
“Eric. Both victims went over a punishment, both got out of reach of justice. What do we do if… if this is no contract-killer?”
“What do you mean?” Eric was able to follow the idea, but it sounded quite impossible to him.
“What do we do if we’ve got to search for somebody doing self-justice?” Horatio tried to put it into better words.
“Then there has to be a link between both cases. Between the sniper on one hand and Foster and O’Neill on the other,” Eric raised objection.
Horatio nodded slowly, turned his face to the window where outside the city of Miami started to wake up. His look rested on the scenery the hard light of the morning-sun was going to shine on when he said: “Just check this before we gonna start the interrogations, Eric.”
TBC
Contract-killer or not? Self-justice or not? And don't forget about the gang-background... Happy guessing... ;D ;D
Chapter 08
When he dropped down his sports-bag in his garage, the content made a little sound which reminded him of the necessity to clean his ‘tools’. He opened it, took out the rifle and started to detach the barrel from the shaft of his take-down.
‘It has to function properly. It would be horrible if it would go on strike or would loose its precision at the very needed moment,’ he said to himself.
He took a small cloth, wrapped it around a cleaning-stick and applied some oil. Carefully – pushing it from the firing chamber into the direction of the muzzle – he started to clean it.
‘How many guys get shot, just because they forget about cleaning their weapon..?!’
After he had finished the cleaning of the inside, he swept with the oily cloth over the surface of the barrel once and then put it and shaft together again. Then he locked everything in a safe.
‘Let’s wait and see what the next days will bring.’ And with a satisfied smile he left the garage for his apartment.
***
The very next morning, Horatio looked into the tired faces of a completely bleary team. The night before he had called in Eric as soon as he saw how superficial one of the members of the nightshift started to search for fabrics and fingerprints. Eric, for himself, had phoned Ryan to give him a hand. Finally Calleigh had called in Natalia to help her to analyze the direction the shot had come from. In the early morning of the new day it was made clear that the dayshift had taken over the case of the nightshift completely.
The coffee-machine was bubbling and hissing in its last breaths and sounded more like doing its last service in its lifetime than like delivering the needed caffeine-injection for the team. Natalia arranged five mugs and finally filled in the hot fluid.
Due to several bad experiences in recent times, Horatio asked: “Who’d prepared this coffee?”
Ryan just grabbed his mug and answered tired: “It’s me. And I gonna drink everything if there’s only caffeine in it.”
Eric only nodded agreement, but added at lot of milk to the black, hot fluid to cover the strong taste of too much coffee-powder.
Calleigh had no problems with this strong drink at all and Horatio was remembered of her iron stomach, when she took the first sips without pulling a face.
Horatio decided to let the coffee cool down a bit and started the meeting: “I’m sorry of having disturbed you in your spare-time, but as you might have already seen, the two entire cases belong together.”
“You haven’t disturbed me in my spare-time, Horatio,” the moody answer of Eric came back. “Well, as long as sleeping deep and sound doesn’t belong to spare-time…”
The caffeine seemed to do its effects on Ryan, because he was able to deliver his facts to the team.
“The nightshift gave us all info very generously, because they LOVE cases, which don’t belong to their responsibility anymore.” Another sip of coffee. “They didn’t find any further traces, but handed over all info about the old case of bank-robbery. As soon as all the people who had been involved in it have woken up, I’ll call them for an interrogation.”
“How many?” Horatio asked.
“Two angry husbands of the dead women. The former associates are still in jail,” Ryan answered.
“I’ve already checked them, H,” Eric added. “They won’t frame Bull for anything. They’re too afraid of the revenge of other cons.” The milk did not seem to have the wanted effect, because Eric pulled a face after every single sip of coffee.
“O.K., just call me, when the two husbands arrive,” Horatio ordered Ryan and Eric, who nodded agreement at once.
Then Horatio turned around to Calleigh and Natalia. He noticed how Natalia was warming her hands with the mug, but did not dare to drink the coffee until now. When she realized the amused glance of her boss, she took a sip, raised an eye-brow and just took another one at once.
“What about the position the sniper took this time?” Horatio asked. “To my opinion it was a very difficult shot. Depending on the scope it must have been like shooting in a very dark tunnel with only few spot-lights in this area down on the street.”
Calleigh nodded at once. “Well, it was very difficult, but not impossible. Everything he needed was a good illumination of his target. And he needed some information about his victim. This was definitely no kill-shot by chance, but very well planned.”
Natalia added: “We’d been able to track back the way of the bullet and have found the building the sniper used this time.” She made a pause to sort her thoughts. “We’ve found gunshot residues and some soil on the top of the roof, which told us that he entered the building through the Eastern entrance-door, because there’s still this huge construction site.”
“And?” Horatio waited for some more evidence.
Calleigh’s tired smile vanished a bit, when she answered: “Nothing besides that, Horatio. No DNA-samples, no reference to his method of hiding… And he must have had luck, because this apartment-building has a doorman in the entrance-hall. He hadn’t seen anything suspicious.”
“Anything about this guy?” Horatio could not believe that they were not able to find more traces.
“A former police-officer. Honorable demission round about five years ago,” Natalia answered.
“Alexx is still examining the corpse, but I don’t think we should expect any surprises…” Horatio finished the overview of the case.
In the silence which followed, everybody of the team tried to sort out the facts which probably could lead to further investigations. After a few minutes Horatio gave new orders:
“Calleigh, you once told me, that you have some ‘sources’ to get more information about the take-down-rifle. I guess it’s now about time to dig deeper here.”
Calleigh’s smile brightened like the sunrise on a brand-new day. “I’ll do my best, handsome.” She put the empty mug onto the sink and left the room for her lab.
Horatio’s smile was an answer to the glance he had got by Calleigh, when she had left the room. And it remained on his face, even when he ordered Natalia to check the data-bases of all of Fosters’ associates who might have had the possibility of hiring a killer. She was supported by Ryan, who had to check another data-base with possible contract-killers.
“Uhm, well, you know that we’re entering fed-waters by scanning these data-bases, Horatio?” Ryan asked carefully. Besides having the inner revision at once heels, the feds were the most hated guys at the MDPD.
“If you gonna have problems with your access, just call me.” Horatio ignored the warning Ryan did also implicate with his question.
“Never tease a fed.” Eric spoke out, what Ryan did not dare to do and ignored Horatio’s hard glance he got in return. “Shall I join you at the interrogation?” Eric asked instead.
Horatio nodded and finally took a careful sip from his coffee. It tasted not that bad, it was not that hot anymore and finally he put the empty mug on the sink as well. The whole time through, he had only one painful thought and he formulated it very carefully to his brother-in-law as soon as Natalia and Ryan had also left the room.
“Eric. Both victims went over a punishment, both got out of reach of justice. What do we do if… if this is no contract-killer?”
“What do you mean?” Eric was able to follow the idea, but it sounded quite impossible to him.
“What do we do if we’ve got to search for somebody doing self-justice?” Horatio tried to put it into better words.
“Then there has to be a link between both cases. Between the sniper on one hand and Foster and O’Neill on the other,” Eric raised objection.
Horatio nodded slowly, turned his face to the window where outside the city of Miami started to wake up. His look rested on the scenery the hard light of the morning-sun was going to shine on when he said: “Just check this before we gonna start the interrogations, Eric.”
TBC
Contract-killer or not? Self-justice or not? And don't forget about the gang-background... Happy guessing... ;D ;D