Lead Me Into Temptation, Please? {Closed to First}

[Alfred F Jones]

Nick and Greg were kept waiting for several minutes while they waited for a nurse to tell them they could interview their victim. Nick glanced at the coffee machine slightly longingly, but he knew damn well it would taste like brown water and what he really wanted was some of the coffee they kept at home – ah well, he would last until they got there. “The weird thing is,” he mused to Greg, keeping his voice low. “If it didn’t go down like she said, then why not take the money? Why leave it there?” Although that would have made things even more suspicious he thought, because they would have found the money on her at the hospital if not before, regardless of whether or not anyone knew it was there in the first place. He was tempted to believe that she knew about the money or that she had at least been looking for it, given how messed up the drawers were – but then, would she have left it where it was? That didn’t make any sense and it wasn’t as if it had been hidden away.

Finally, the nurse came through and led them to the room where the vic was. There was no real injury to her, the nurse explained on the way, a couple of fading bruises on her wrists but nothing else from the attack (at least until the rape kit came back) but they were reluctant to just let her go because of the potential post-trauma and the consequences of it. Nick nodded as they approached the room, thanked the nurse and let her show them into the room. Their vic was relatively young, probably attractive when she wasn’t pale and tear-streaked, lying in bed with a hospital gown on and the blankets pulled right the way up to her chin. Her hands tugged at it as they walked in and then she shot them a rather tentative smile when they introduced themselves. Already Nick found it rather hard to think of her as anything but an innocent victim in the whole mess, but that would not stop him from considering and investigating all the angles.

The woman told them, pausing and considering her answers with a tightly controlled voice, that she had been working late and apparently alone when her boss had returned, cornered her behind the desk and started coming on way too strong with no intention of stopping. Nick took mental notes, knowing that his fiancé was doing the same. “What was he doing when you took the letter opener?” he asked, “how was he standing?” She gave him an oddly secretive look. “He was uh, trying to y’know. Kiss my neck.” She pulled her face into a grimace and then went on. “I pushed him forward and got hold of the letter opener off the desk, he kinda pushed me back and started on my neck again and that was when… when I…” Nick nodded, thanking her for the information but not sold on the story. Although what she had described meant that the letter opener would have gone in at an angle, it wasn’t consistent with what the evidence showed them either.

[Alfred F Jones]

They made their way back to the crime scene when they had finished interviewing their victim. Looking to Nick when they were inside and finally left alone so that they could do their work, Greg asked, "Did something she said not sit right with you?" The other's agreement made him feel better because he occasionally thought that he was just naturally far too cynical when it came to people because of what he had witnessed previously in their line of work. They rounded up their use of the crime scene by making notes on how the crime could potentially have gone down, what sort of things seemed out of place in the room, and also anomolas things that they weren't sure they'd might need later. They also took multiple pictures because although the clean-up crew were probably not going to be in until tomorrow some point they might need to check something on the scene and chances were they would find themselves stuck because everything had been tidied up-- it had happened before.

A call from Doc Robbins told them that their body had been processed and was ready for them when they were. Reporting this to Nick (since he had been the one to answer the phone as Nick was taking some last notes) he then told the Doc they'd be right in as soon as they could once they had finished. Placing everything back where it had to be they then left the room, carefully disposing of their rubber gloves only when they were safely outside. It was a mutual agreement that they may as well check out the body because the hospital had promised that they would call them with the results of the rape kit as soon as they came in. Although Greg didn't doubt that somewhere along the line somewhere along the line something between the vic and the dead vic had gone wrong, something told him it wasn't the sex. Soon they were pulling back into the station and they made their way down to the morgue, donning protective gowns as expected.

The doc estimated time of death as three hours prior, something that didn't quite fit in with what they had been told. "But... the girl had reported that he seemed to have died right away," Greg said, "And she didn't call in for an hour..." a mental image went through him that he didn't really want and he fought the urge to hurl his lunch. The Doc nodded in acknowledgement of his words but didn't seem to have anything to say in response. Then, he added in, "It wasn't just the stab wound that killed him. Evan at that angle and depth it'd be incredibly painful, but not something that would kill you immediately. Matter of fact, the wound is only an inch or two into his outer muscle layer, didn't even penetrate inside of him." Puzzled, and curious, Greg nodded when Nick asked the Doc what he had been intending to follow up with: how did he die? The Doc exhaled and took a breath before saying, "It seems as though someone had been poisoning him--" he handed them the toxicology paper, "This just came back. I think he had a heart-attack."