Chapter Text
Sara went into the locker room upon arriving at the lab on Monday night. It had been three weeks since she'd started this job and she felt like she was slowly finding her place here. The crime lab was busy, which helped. The only downside was that she had nothing to distract her on her days off. She'd spent yesterday driving through the city, trying to create a map in her mind of where things were to match the paper and digital maps she'd been looking over.
From her bag, she took out her badge, gun, and collar and looked up as the door opened.
"Hey. Good day off?" Nick asked, moving to his own locker.
"Pretty good," she said, though she'd mostly been lonely and bored. "You?"
"Didn't do anything particularly exciting. Went grocery shopping. Watched a game," he said, shrugging out of his jacket.
Sara nodded. Their job took up most of their lives and sixty to seventy hour work weeks were not uncommon. It was difficult to have a social life around that and that had been about the same when she'd worked in San Francisco. She caught his eyes on her as she fastened her collar around her neck, which was fine because she knew the sight of a sub taking off and putting on their own collar was a bit odd. To her mind, she was collared while she was at work and that was it. Gil wasn't her dom, not in any way that really mattered.
After putting on her badge, attaching her holster to her belt at her right hip, checking that her gun was sitting right, and putting away her bag and her jacket, she was ready for whatever the night brought. They went to the meeting room and found Warrick and Catherine looking at something from one of their cases. Nick went over to them to take a look and Sara settled against the counter, curious about what was going on, but not willing to insert herself into the conversation.
Gil showed up a few minutes later, looking thoughtful with a pair of glasses on. She had noticed that he kept a pair of glasses in his front pocket, but hadn't seen him wearing them until now. "Assignments," he said, looking over the group. "Catherine and Nicky, you're on the dead body in Los Prados, suspicious circ*mstances. Warrick, you're on an abandoned vehicle on southbound I-15, potential missing person. If I'm not mistaken you have a court appearance at nine testifying for chain of custody on the Wilson case?"
"That's right," Warrick said, accepting his assignment slip.
"Sara, you're with me on a homicide in Green Valley," Gil continued.
Sara met his gaze and nodded. She was both pleased and nervous. After three weeks of seeing her work cases with the rest of the team, she was hoping this meant he actually trusted that she was competent enough to work with him. She followed Gil out of the meeting room. "Do we know anything more than just a homicide?" she asked as they walked down the hall.
"Gunshot in a residence. Brass should already be on the scene."
That didn't sound too complicated at first glance. She looked at him and saw that he was lost in thought. She wasn't entirely sure how working with Gil was going to be, it could get weird working with doms sometimes, but she was eager to prove herself as capable to him. Hopefully she could do that tonight.
*****
Gil and Sara pulled on latex gloves, collected their evidence kits and cameras from the trunk, and then paused outside the residence. He watched as Sara looked around. His own glance told him a few things. Front porch lights were bright, making it difficult for an intruder to approach the house directly. The lawn was neatly manicured with no obvious marks on it. The driveway was empty with no tire tracks. The windows were closed and the front of the house looked undisturbed except for the deputy standing guard and the crime scene tape.
Sara turned, looking up and down the street. "Upper class neighborhood. The houses are set far apart. Harder to hear a scream. Or a gunshot."
Gil nodded. They'd have to see who reported the body. The person who called it in was always their first line of questioning. "Ready?"
"After you," she said, looking at him.
"You first." He wanted to see how she approached a crime scene.
Her eyebrows raised slightly, but she led the way up the front walk to the house, showing her badge to the deputy and then pausing in the doorway before she entered. She immediately moved out of the path of where people would naturally walk, still looking at everything as she went.
Gil followed, moving in her footsteps and scanning the scene while watching her. There were no points of disturbance in the entryway, which suggested whoever had been here either had been welcomed or had not been interrupted while entering.
They found the dead body and Brass in the living room, both Gil and Sara stopping in the open doorway to look. "What do you see?" he asked Sara.
"Angled high velocity spatter from the gunshot. Looks like the victim dropped where he landed. Blood pool is undisturbed. No obvious footprints." Sara paused and looked around. "Nothing else seems out of place at first glance. There's a floor vase nearby. A rug laying flat. A lamp on the end table and a half-full wine glass. Something should have been disturbed if there was a struggle."
He nodded when she looked at him. "Suggesting what?"
"Either he knew his attacker or he was too intimidated to fight back. Given his size," she said, motioning to the victim, "I think knowing the attacker is more likely."
Gil took another look at the victim. The victim was about six feet two inches tall, which was a bit above average for a male, but to someone Sara's size he likely seemed more difficult to intimidate. "Do we know anything?" Gil asked Brass.
"Dominic Brewerson. Thirty six years of age. This is his primary residence," Brass said.
"Primary?" Sara asked.
"Has a secondary home for his submissives in Spring Valley," Brass said.
"How many submissives?" Gil asked. This case had just become more complicated.
"Four. I have one in custody. She was hysterical. I sent her back to the station with one of my deputies to try and calm her down. She's the one who called it in. Apparently it was her night with him and she found him like this," he explained.
Sara took a few pictures of the room and then moved closer to the body. Gil followed her, doing his own analysis, but mostly watching Sara. He liked to know his team and that meant knowing how they thought and worked. Sara seemed to analyze the scene through her camera, stopping to get different angles that would show how the attack had played out.
A few minutes later she knelt next to the body, staying well out of the pool of blood and began to carefully look the victim over. "The killer was close," she said.
Gil knelt on the opposite side of the body. "One bullet hole, but the killer had to be standing-" he paused, holding his fingers above the wound and estimating the diameter of the stippling. "Not more than three feet away. If we examine his shirt and the wound, we should get a lot of gunshot residue. What do you think about the placement of the gunshot wound?"
Sara leaned back and looked the victim over. "How tall are you?"
"Six foot one," he said, knowing that she was seeing what he was seeing.
She looked at him, raising her hand to use her finger as a gun barrel. "I'm five six. Holding a gun naturally, I wind up just below your mid-chest. Unless our killer was aiming downward for some reason, they should be a little bit shorter than I am."
"Path of the bullet should tell us whether or not they were aiming down," Gil said.
"Which also leads to the question of if the shooter was so close and so much smaller than him, why not try to take the gun from them? Mr. Brewerson is a reasonably well built man," Sara said, looking at the victim again. She bent down to examine his hands.
"People don't always react rationally to having a gun pointed at them. Sometimes they freeze," Gil pointed out.
Sara nodded, finishing her examination. "Nothing on his hands." She got to her feet and looked around again. "Blood spray is in a cone trajectory, which means our bullet should have gone this way."
Gil stood and followed her, scanning for any signs of the bullet or anything else out of place.
"Here," she said, coming to a stop at the back wall. She held her hand level with the small hole in the drywall, which was at her upper chest and Gil's lower chest. "Not aimed down. It would have lost a small amount of height, even at that speed, but not much."
That looked right to him as well. "The tools for cutting into drywall are in my trunk. We'll need that bullet. We should also look at the rest of the house for any points of disturbance. I'll do drywall if you'll check the house."
"On it," she said, moving to grab her evidence kit.
Gil returned to the body and gave it another look over.
"Any ideas?" Brass asked.
"Several, but nothing to substantiate them just yet. We'll need to talk to all of his submissives."
"I figured as much. I'll have them brought in," Brass said. "Anything else?"
"Not at the moment," Gil said. They'd know more when they saw all the evidence.
*****
"I loved him. It's Cindy you want, not me," the sub said as wiped his face from where he'd been crying into his hands.
"Cindy?" Sara asked. "Why's that?"
Jacob was the fourth of Dominic Brewerson's four subs and he was the fourth of their interviews to blame one of the other subs in the household for the murder. None of them had named the same sub. Sara didn't have a problem with doms having multiple submissives, that was pretty common, but she did have a problem with all the backstabbing and petty bickering that subs had over doms; it gave all subs a bad name.
"Cindy was having problems with Dominic. She wanted more of his attention. She said it wasn't fair that he spent so much time with the rest of us," Jacob said, wiping his eyes again and looking at them. "I know she would do this."
"Did Cindy have access to a gun?" Gil asked, his eyebrows raised.
"Not that I know of, but I'm sure she could get one. How hard could it be?" he asked, shaking his head.
Given all of the homicides they saw committed with guns, Sara knew it was not nearly difficult enough to get a gun, either legally or illegally. "Did Cindy, or any of the others, ever talk about wanting to hurt Dominic?" she tried.
"No, never. We'd never stand for it. We wouldn't let anything hurt Dominic; we are loyal to him. I've been his submissive for five years now," Jacob said, looking at them. "I will do anything if it means you find the person who did this to him."
"Would you mind if we swabbed your hands for gunshot residue, printed you, and took a DNA swab?" Gil asked.
"I don't mind at all. I didn't do anything and if that will prove it to you, then I'll do it," Jacob said. "What do I need to do?"
Sara got up and removed two GSR wipes, one swab, and her print kit from her evidence kit. "This will just take a moment. May I have your hands?" She wiped down his hands one at a time but the wipes came back without a chemical reaction, showing that he either hadn't fired a gun recently or he had thoroughly washed his hands. She then took his fingerprints and used the swab to take DNA from his cheek. All four of the submissives had let them do this, each insisting that one of the other four was guilty. "Thank you," she told him, though given that he was approaching six feet tall, she had not expected him to be their killer anyway.
"Is there anything else you think we should know?" Gil asked.
"Cindy wasn't home this evening. Max and I were. Amy went to see Dominic. You should talk with Cindy," Jacob said, nodding.
"We will," Gil promised. "You're free to leave."
Jacob stood and a deputy escorted him from the room.
"What do you think?" Gil asked after a moment, looking at their pile of collected evidence.
Sara knew she was being tested. She thought for a long moment and then decided she was sure. "None of them."
He nodded ever so slightly. "Then who?"
She followed Gil's gaze to the evidence. She was fairly certain Mr. Brewerson knew his attacker. She was also fairly certain that this was a crime of passion. People didn't go to someone's house and shoot them for no reason and nothing else in the house had been touched. It hadn't been a robbery. She looked back at Gil. "The sub that didn't make the cut. The one he spurned. Maybe he made promises. Had something on the side, saying they could join his harem, but something went wrong."
"Records. He communicated with this mystery sub somehow. We need to find out how. See what you can find about his phone. Log the evidence from these subs, just in case we're wrong," Gil said as he stood.
"Got it." Sara collected the evidence and her kit and decided to log that first, then see what she could find out about the victim's phone records. She was determined to solve this and prove to Gil that she could.
*****
"Your victim is the picture of good health, apart from the fact that he's dead," Al said.
"Apart from the gunshot wound through his lower chest," Gil said, raising his eyebrows.
"Yes, apart from that. No bullet in the body. Missed his lungs and spine, hit the anterior intercostal artery, and went out his back. Victim bled out within five minutes, was probably unconscious or close to it for most of that. Time of death was approximately eight o'clock," Al continued.
That lined up with the sub who called in the body arriving at eight thirty. The call to 911 had been logged at eight thirty three. "No signs of anything else?"
"No defensive wounds. No sexual trauma. No bruising. Not a mark on him. He didn't fight back. Given the size of the stippling around the GSW, I'd say your killer had the gun about three to four feet away."
Either the victim had frozen with fear at being held at gunpoint or he hadn't wanted to hurt the person threatening him for some reason. "Thanks, Al."
"Of course. It's unusual for me to get a body that is in such good condition. The one that Catherine and Nick brought in is not in nearly as good shape," Al said, moving to cover the victim.
"What do you mean?"
"What don't I mean? Evidence of both drug use and alcohol impairment. A fractured fibula on the left side. Scrapes and bruising down both forearms. Two broken knuckles and both of his hands were bloody. And insect bites all over his torso."
"Insect bites?" Gil asked, immediately interested. "Pre or post mortem?"
"Premortem."
"Bed bugs?" he checked.
"If they are, those bed bugs are enormous," Al said. "Remind me not to stay in the hotel he was in."
"Let me know when you have the body out for them. I'll come take a look," Gil said, beyond curious about what had happened to that victim for them to be in such a state.
"I'll let you know," Al promised.
"Thank you," Gil said, leaving the autopsy lab and taking a moment to shed the surgical gown, mask, and gloves. From there he went to evidence processing and found Catherine working over a pair of bloody clothes. "Your victim's or someone else's?" he asked.
Catherine jumped with a small yelp and then placed her hand against her chest. "Gil, you can't sneak up on me like that."
Gil smiled. "I wasn't sneaking. You were focusing."
"You were sneaking. You'd better watch out or we'll put you in one of these collars and put a bell on it."
He shook his head. He was sure some people in the lab would find that very amusing. "What do you have?"
"Right now, a mess," she said, turning back to the clothes.
"Were there any insects in the clothes?" he asked, looking them over.
"Thankfully, no. Plenty of dirt. Some spilled alcohol. And a lot of blood, which I'm trying to find out whether or not it is his or someone else's. Right now we can't even tell if this was foul play or if the guy did this to himself while he was drugged out of his mind. Nick is with Greg getting our tox screening," she said, motioning to her pile of swabs.
"Cause of death?"
"We're hoping Doc Robbins will be able to tell us that. He looked to be in pretty bad shape, but I didn't see anything obviously life threatening when I looked the body over."
"I'd like to be pulled in on a consult when he shows the body to look at the insect bites. If we know what was taking a chunk out of him, we might figure out where he's been," he said, phrasing it that way so she knew he wasn't trying to take over her investigation.
"Sure, you're our bug guy," she said easily. "I'll make sure you get the message."
"Anything else I should know?" Gil checked.
"No, everything is fine here. How is your homicide?" Catherine asked, looking back at him.
"Well, we know who it wasn't," he said, giving her a half smile.
"That's always a good first step." She smiled back.
He nodded and left her to her work, intent on a cup of coffee from the break room and then getting back to work. He checked his watch and was surprised to see that it was already nine in the morning. How had time gone by that quickly?
In the break room, with a cup of coffee, Gil sat down with the morning newspaper, skimmed the headlines, and then flipped to the crossword puzzle. He was on fifteen across 'leaning column' for nine letters when Brass came in the room. "Where is Warrick?"
Gil checked his watch again. "In court, presumably?"
"Not in court. Ecklie just told me Warrick had one of his team cover for him. Ecklie isn't pleased and you're probably going to hear about it from him too," Brass said.
Gil frowned. "I'll find out what happened," he promised.
Brass nodded once, which was enough to say that he trusted Gil to manage his own team.
Sara came into the room. "There you are. I just checked your office. Guess what I have."
"Phone records?" he asked, hoping that she had phone records since that was what he'd sent her to get.
"Better. Secret cellphone. Found it in a hidden drawer in his office desk. There's only one name and number in the call records," she said, holding up a bagged cellphone. "Tracy Farber. He's been calling her once a week for eight months. Last call was two days ago."
"He ended things," Brass said.
"That would be my guess," Sara said.
"We have an address?" Gil asked.
"Right here," she said, pulling a piece of paper out of her pocket.
"I'll have her brought in for questioning," Brass said, accepting the piece of paper from Sara. He left the room.
Sara hesitated for a moment, watching Gil.
Gil watched back, trying to read her. She seemed nervous. "Coffee?" he suggested.
"Yeah, thanks. I think it's going to be one of those nights. Or I suppose it's morning, now," she said, moving to the coffee pot.
"You were on the day shift in San Francisco. How is the changeover? Jet-lagged?" he asked.
"Not bad. I sleep weird hours anyway," she confided, sitting down at the table. "What are you working on?"
"Fifteen across 'leaning column' for nine letters," he said, showing her the paper.
She smiled. "No idea. I do sudoku, not crosswords. It's fairer; it's testing your skill, not your outside knowledge."
"All knowledge is outside knowledge," he told her, going back to work on his crossword.
He finished the crossword and his coffee, solving the clue with 'oped piece' through the vertical clues. His phone buzzed, letting him know that Brass had their suspect. "I'll meet you at the interrogation room," he told Sara.
"See you there," she said, getting up, cleaning up her coffee mug, and leaving the room.
Gil used his phone to navigate to Warrick in his contacts and then pressed the call button. He waited while it rang. After five rings it went to Warrick's voicemail. Gil hung up without leaving a message. His name on Warrick's missed calls would be enough. He stood, washed his coffee mug, set it in the drying rack, and then left to go to the interrogation.
He found Brass and Sara waiting outside the interrogation room.
"Just a heads up, she's pregnant, and she's not very interested in talking," Brass said quietly.
Gil nodded, though he now had a bad feeling about where this case was going. They went into the room and Gil took a seat across from the woman, Sara sitting down next to him. The woman had her head bowed and she was visibly pregnant. She was not wearing a collar. "We just have a few questions we would like you to answer, if that's alright?" he said, pitching his tone towards gentle.
"I really don't have anything to say," she said, not looking up.
"Did you know a man named Dominic Brewerson?" he asked.
"Yes."
"How did you know him?" he prompted.
The woman shook her head.
Sara leaned forward. "Hey, I know how it is with doms, alright?"
The woman finally looked up, looking directly at Sara.
"They make promises that they don't keep. They tell these little lies that you're not supposed to find out about, but then brush you off when you ask about them. They string you along, one piece at a time. I know," Sara said, holding the woman's gaze. "Dominic was like that?"
"Yes. He promised…" She broke down into tears.
Gil dug into his pocket and pushed his handkerchief across the table, taking a side glance at Sara while he did so.
Sara was focused on the suspect. "What did he promise you?" she asked when the tears had slowed.
"A place in his household. He talked me into having my birth control implant taken out. He wanted a baby and the subs that he had didn't want to become pregnant. Dominic promised that he would take care of us," she said, wiping at her face.
"What happened when you told him you were pregnant?" Sara asked.
"He was really positive about it at first. He said he needed more time to introduce his other subs to the idea. I kept pushing for when, and he kept telling me that he would tell me when it was time. I'm twenty two weeks pregnant. I told him it was time, that I needed him, and he told me that I didn't get to make those decisions. He accused me of cheating on him, saying that it was another dom's baby, and he sent me away. I didn't…I didn't mean to kill him. I didn't mean to pull the trigger. I had the gun because I wanted him to take me seriously, and then he came towards me, he was angry, and I pulled the trigger." She was sobbing again.
Gil ran his hand over his mouth. He hated when cases worked out this way. He waited until she had calmed down some again. "Are you aware that you could have compelled a DNA test when your baby is born? He would have been obligated to support the child once it was proven that it was his."
"That's not the point. The point is that he talked me into this and then sent me away like I meant nothing. If he had just done as he promised, none of this would have happened," she said, her eyes full of fury as she looked at Gil.
"Do you still have the gun?" Sara asked.
"In the glovebox in my car. I couldn't bring myself to touch it. I didn't mean to kill him. Now my baby won't have a father or a mother," she said, wiping her face and then setting down the handkerchief. "I didn't mean to. I just reacted. I was scared."
"Matthews, could you take Miss Farber into custody please," Brass said.
They waited until she had been taken from the room before they looked at each other. Gil took a long look at Sara, wondering about what she'd said to the other submissive. Either Sara was a good actress or she'd meant what she'd said.
"I'll get the gun, fire a test round, and test the striations and see if they match the bullet from the house," she said. "I'll also have them print her and test her hands for gunshot residue, though it's been more than twelve hours and the residue will probably be gone by now."
Gil nodded. "Thank you."
Sara looked at him for a moment and then left the room.
Gil sighed and got to his feet, glancing at Brass.
Brass shook his head. "I don't think she can get self defense on this one. She brought the gun into his house."
"I know." She'd be lucky if the DA didn't try for premeditated murder, given that she'd brought the gun with her.
"Makes you wonder sometimes," Brass said before leaving the room.
Gil went back to his own office, pulled the door closed, and then took out his cellphone. He called Warrick again.
"Brown," Warrick said, answering on the third ring.
"I wanted to check in with you. I heard that you had someone cover for you at court and then you didn't answer your phone," Gil said.
"Sorry about that. It was a family emergency. My grandma fell and twisted her ankle. I had to take her to the doctor," Warrick said.
Gil's frown deepened. He knew what it sounded like when someone he knew well lied to him. "I hope she feels better. Where does your case stand?"
"Driver of the car is MIA. Car was abandoned roadside. No footprints. No trace. No disturbance. But no one has reported them missing yet either. Next up is tracking down anyone who might have known the victim," Warrick said.
"Alright. Keep me informed."
"Will do," Warrick said, and then hung up.
Gil sighed and sat down behind his desk. A moment later his cellphone buzzed. "Grissom," he answered.
"Well, the bad news is that our victim ODed, but if you want to see these insect bites anyway, you should get down here," Catherine said.
"On my way." He would look, just to satisfy his professional curiosity, and then he was done for the day while he tried to figure out what to do about Warrick.
*****
"Heard you got your suspect?" Greg asked when Sara entered the subs' locker room the next evening.
"She confessed," Sara said, setting down her bag on the bench. "Wasn't actually a difficult solve once we knew what to look for."
"Always easier when they actually admit what they did, though I don't know why anyone would do that. She should have gotten a lawyer," he said, pulling a lab coat over his shirt.
"Yes, she should have." She rather wished the sub had gotten a lawyer. Between her confession, bringing the gun into the house, and the evidence, it was pretty much a guarantee that she'd be found guilty and could be looking at spending the rest of her life in prison. Sara couldn't even imagine being in prison. It sounded horrible to her. The only reason people should be in prison - and generally the only reason people were sent to prison - was when it was believed that they were a danger to other people if they remained free. She didn't see that Tracy Farber was a danger to anyone now.
"Why didn't she?" Greg asked. "Most people don't seem to want a lawyer. I would."
"That's because you know how the system works. People don't realize how easily they can incriminate themselves or what a lawyer can do to help them. Any time someone is questioned by the police, they should invoke the fifth and sixth amendments and then refuse to speak until they've had a chance to consult with a lawyer. Same with letting us examine them, or their homes, or their cars. They should refuse unless we have a warrant, but most of them don't," she said, fastening her collar around her neck.
"Makes it easier for us, at least," he said.
"It does." And usually Sara was glad when criminals incriminated themselves, but not this time. While she didn't approve of anyone being murdered, she couldn't help but empathize with Tracy Farber.
Nick came into the locker room, shrugging out of his jacket. "You solved your case with Gil?" he asked.
"Yeah, the suspect confessed," Sara said. "How about your dead body?"
"ODed. He'd clearly been in a fight, but the combination of depressants in his system were what killed him," Nick said. "We're ruling it accidental."
She nodded. That happened sometimes. She checked that her holster was sitting correctly and then left the locker room and went towards the meeting room. Sometimes the best way to move on from a case was to take another case.
"Sara, may I speak with you for a minute?" Gil asked as he approached.
"Sure." She followed him into his office and looked back when he closed the door behind them. She wondered if this was some sort of evaluation of her performance yesterday. "I confirmed the murder weapon already. Striations matched. Her fingerprints were still on the gun."
"Good. We always check. False confessions are not unheard of," Gil said, taking a seat at his desk.
Sara nodded. She'd had that happen in a few cases she'd worked in San Francisco.
"Sara, I need to ask you for a favor." He was watching her with a thoughtful expression.
She felt all of her muscles go tense. "What kind of a favor?" she asked, trying to keep her wariness out of her tone. She wasn't sure she succeeded.
"I can't ask Catherine or Nick; they're too close to this. I need to know where Warrick was today at nine in the morning. He missed a court appearance," Gil explained.
Sara wasn't sure she liked being asked to spy on her teammates any better than she would have liked Gil asking her for sexual favors. "I take it you have a place in mind?"
"Most likely The Monaco, on the casino floor. If not there, he'd have been at The Orleans. Ask for him by name; they know him there. I want hard evidence, not just someone's word that he was there."
"Alright. I'll see what I can do," she said, immediately understanding the problem, even though she still didn't like what she was being asked to do. "Anything else?"
"That's everything," he said, picking up a small stack of assignment slips from his desk.
She followed him into the meeting room where the rest of the team had gathered.
"Warrick and Nick, you're on a homicide in Enterprise," Gil began, holding out an assignment slip. Warrick stepped forward and grabbed it.
Sara took a moment to look at Warrick. If Gil hadn't asked her to look into Warrick, she'd have had no idea something was wrong. People were more difficult to read than they seemed. They always were.
"Sara, shots were fired at a grocery store in North Vegas, one injury was reported," he continued, passing a slip her way.
"Catherine, you're with me on a dead body in Paradise," Gil said, looking all of them over.
Sara looked over her assignment slip, figuring she was going to need to look at a map before she left because she needed to look up where the casinos were that Gil had asked her to check and the grocery store.
"You're alright on your own?" Nick checked quietly as people moved to leave.
"Yeah, fine. I must have passed Gil's test," she said.
"There's never just one test," Nick said with a small smile as he met her eyes.
Sara was getting that feeling too. She went to the map on the wall and plotted out her path. The casinos were closer and her stop there should be brief if what Gil suspected was true. She walked out to her car, taking a moment to pull her own map out of the glove box in case she managed to get lost, and headed out into the city.
Twenty minutes later she pulled into the parking garage of The Monaco. Inside she found the casino floor busy and took a moment to take everything in. There were more people than she had expected. It amazed her that tourists traveled all the way to Vegas just to spend their evenings in front of a slot machine or wrapped up in a card game where they were practically guaranteed to lose money.
After a good look around she spotted someone in a security uniform and made her way over to them. "Sara Sidle, Las Vegas Crime Lab. I need to ask you a few questions," she said, showing her badge.
"Let me get you the head of security," the young man said, reaching for his radio.
Sara nodded, suspecting they'd all been told not to talk with the police without permission. It was a good policy.
Five minutes later a woman approached, her head held high and her stride confident. "How may we assist you?"
"I need to know if a man named Warrick Brown was here this morning, around nine o'clock," Sara said, holding up her badge.
The woman's eyebrows raised ever so slightly. "I wouldn't know specifically, but we can look at the tapes at his usual tables. Warrick's not in trouble, is he?"
"No, no trouble," Sara said, though she suspected that Warrick was about to be in a lot of trouble with Gil. "Just part of a routine investigation."
She nodded and led Sara back through the casino to the security room. There were over three dozen monitors here and six security guards watching the feeds.
"Looking for people cheating?" Sara asked.
"Cheating, harassment, the start of a fight. We try to keep everything running smoothly. You said nine o'clock?"
"Anywhere between eight thirty and nine thirty will do," she said.
The woman went to one of the security guards, a young sub in a collar, and set her hand on his shoulder. "Pull up the blackjack tables from this morning," she directed.
The sub worked over his keyboard for a moment and Sara moved closer to watch. The view on the screen they were in front of changed to an overhead view of three blackjack tables. There was a timestamp in the bottom corner. The footage played at triple speed while they watched.
"There he is," the woman said as Warrick came into view and sat down at one of the tables.
Sara checked the time stamp. Ten minutes before nine. "Warrick is well known here?"
"He comes in a few times a week for blackjack. He's good, but he knows not to win too much," she said.
She had heard of gambling addictions before, but she didn't know much about them. Still, Warrick must be in deep if he was missing court to gamble. Gil needed to know. "Can I get this on a tape to take with me?"
"Sure. Print it," the woman told the sub.
Ten minutes later Sara was walking away with a videotape in hand. She'd put this aside for now and go see what happened at the shooting at the grocery store. Hopefully she'd have better luck there.
******
Gil looked up at the knock on his doorframe. "How was the shooting?" he asked upon finding Sara standing in the entryway.
Sara rolled her eyes and came into his office. "Two people got into a fight about a 'lucky' slot machine. One of them felt so strongly he pulled out his handgun and shot the other person. Why are there even slot machines in the grocery stores? Aren't the casinos enough?"
Gil shrugged. "Human nature and capitalism. How is the victim?"
"Fine. They should be released from the hospital tomorrow. I have a statement from them, a statement from the grocery store employee who saw it happen, the bullet, the gun, and fingerprints from the shooter. The shooter is in custody," she listed. She looked down and then placed a video cassette tape on his desk. "From The Monaco."
"Thank you," he said, though just the fact that she'd had evidence to bring back said plenty.
She looked at him for a long moment and he looked back. "Anything else for the day?" she checked.
"No. That's everything."
Sara nodded and left his office.
Gil considered the tape for a long moment before he stood and picked it up. If this had just stayed within his team, maybe he could have dealt with it differently, but both Brass and Ecklie were involved. He left his office and went down to the tech lab, thankfully finding it empty. He turned on the AV equipment, popped the tape in and stood as he watched Warrick approach the blackjack table and stay for longer than the tape ran.
He ejected the tape and then left the tech lab, going in search of Warrick. He poked his head into the chemistry lab. "Everything alright here?" he checked.
Greg looked up. "Just finishing up for the night, unless you need a rush job."
"No, go home. Get some rest," Gil said. It wasn't often he could send his team home directly at the end of their shifts, though he was hoping to be able to do that more often now that they had five people in the field instead of four.
He found Nick and Warrick in the evidence processing lab. "How's your case?" he asked.
"You're not going to believe this," Nick said as he looked up. "Arsenic poisoning."
"Long term exposure or short term large dose?" he checked, feeling his eyebrows raise.
"All in one go. Victim had a seizure and then died," Warrick said. "We're trying to figure out where he got the dose from."
That explained why the counter looked like it held the contents of someone's kitchen. "Any suspects?"
"He lived alone, and there were no romantic involvements that we've found so far. We're going to try his business when people will be there today, see if he was involved in any drama or feuds or anything," Nick said. "Doc Robbins said his symptoms might not have started until twelve to twenty four hours after the initial ingestion. He could have been poisoned at work."
"Arsenic is a very old fashioned method of indirect murder. Arsenic has no odor or taste and it takes only an eighth of a teaspoon for a fatal dose. One thing you should consider is where the killer might have obtained arsenic. That's not something that most people are going to know how to get," Gil pointed out, though he was curious about that himself. Arsenic was not something that drug dealers were going to be carrying. Mostly, these days, arsenic was used industrially as an alloying agent. "Warrick, may I speak with you for a moment?"
Warrick looked over at him and their eyes met.
Gil held his gaze and waited, knowing what Warrick would read there. They'd worked together for over three years and Gil liked to think that he knew all of his team well, though he still needed more time to get to know Sara.
"Sure," Warrick said as he stood.
Nick had turned and was looking between them.
Gil nodded to him to convey that everything was fine and left the lab with Warrick following him. He led the way into his office, motioning to the chair in front of his desk and pulled the door shut behind him. He went to sit behind his desk, set the cassette tape down, and looked at Warrick. "Where were you yesterday at nine in the morning?"
Warrick managed to hold his gaze for a moment before he looked down. "I think you already know."
"I'd still like you to tell me," he said, thankful that Warrick was at least smart enough not to lie to him twice.
"The Monaco. The blackjack tables. I just…"
Gil waited. He'd known Warrick's difficulty with gambling had been growing worse, but this was the first time that he'd seen it interfere with Warrick's work. He ignored Warrick and Nick making stupid bets with each other, because it didn't affect how they approached cases and all of them needed a little bit of grounding when dealing with murder and violence every day, but Gil had to draw the line when it came to actually interfering in their duties.
Warrick shook his head, apparently unable to put his reasoning into words.
"You know that this made it to Brass? And to Ecklie?" he checked.
His head bowed further. "I'm sorry."
"I'm sorry doesn't cut it. Twelve with the strap and you're on a three day suspension. Use the time to sort this sh*t out, because this can't happen here. People rely on us. People rely on you," Gil said as he stood. He disliked this part of his job, but he would much rather discipline his own team in private rather than having it become a matter of public discipline. If dealing with this here and now prevented it from reaching the rest of the department, then he was doing his job.
He retrieved the strap from where it was hanging on the wall and waited while Warrick positioned himself and lowered his pants.
Gil silently counted the twelve strikes with the strap, aiming to be impactful without being cruel. Warrick jolted at each stroke but didn't make any sound other than an inhalation of breath. When Gil finished, he stepped closer to Warrick, resting his hand on Warrick's back while Warrick caught his breath.
After a moment to compose himself, Warrick stood and resettled his pants. "I will fix this."
"Actions, Warrick, not words," Gil said, meeting his eyes.
"I will," Warrick said. "I will prove it to you."
"Good," Gil said, hoping that this would be the end of it and that Warrick would take whatever steps necessary. He didn't know how else to deal with this problem.
"We done?" Warrick checked.
Gil nodded and watched as Warrick strode away. He sighed, hung up the strap, and then went to join where Nick was working so that Nick was not left trying to investigate a lethal poisoning on his own.
*****
Nick parked his truck in the back parking lot of the Sub/Sub Club. It was a small club in West Las Vegas that catered toward locals rather than tourists. In fact, it catered to a very small and specific section of locals - submissives who were interested in other submissives. Nick had never seen more than thirty people inside the club at any given time and just about all of the people in the community knew each other. Pretty much all of them were doing the exact same thing Nick was doing - meeting other subs privately and never speaking about it in their day-to-day lives.
In this regard he knew he was lucky to be living in a big cosmopolitan city. If he'd still been in Austin, he never would have found a place like this. Then again, if he'd still been in Texas and living near his family, he never would have dared to come to a place like this. His mom was ever despairing of him settling down with a good dom, while his dad simply said that all things would come with time and faith. Nick's faith that he'd find a good dom had run out a long time ago.
He went inside the club, listening for a moment as the low music provided a cover for people to have private conversations at the tables scattered around the room. He nodded to Joseph, their security guard, who nodded back to him, and then went further inside. There were maybe fifteen people in the room, some sitting as couples, some sitting in small groups, and a few people were alone. Almost no one was dressed for clubbing; he mostly saw casual day-wear and business attire. Nick was simply wearing a pair of loose fitting jeans and a t-shirt. They didn't need to display themselves here as they would if they were going to a club with doms.
Spotting Miriam tending the bar, Nick made his way over and sat down.
"Nick, good to see you," she said, giving him a smile.
"You too, Miriam. How are you and William?" he asked. Miriam and William were the proprietors of the club, and the only subs together that Nick had met who weren't hiding who they were or the fact that they were together. They had collared and married each other in private, in a not exactly legal ceremony two years ago, though they'd been together for the better part of a decade.
"We're doing well. Staying busy," she said, passing him a beer. "You've been here a lot the past month. Something going on?"
The answer to that question was that he was trying to get his mind away from his attraction to Sara. So far it wasn't working very well. He was fine on his days off, but as soon as he saw her when they went back to work his body and mind went back to the same place again. "Just sorting something out. Need to take my mind off things," he told Miriam.
"Let's see what we can do then," Miriam said, scanning the room. "Amber is sitting by herself. She probably wouldn't send you away."
Nick glanced over and then shook his head. Amber was a brunette woman about the same age and build as Sara. That just wasn't going to work. "Not this time."
"Alright," she said, raising her eyebrows at Nick. "We have a newcomer and he's a little nervous. I'm sure he wouldn't mind a friendly face."
Nick followed her gaze over to a man who was sitting alone at the back of the club. The man was dressed in skin tight clothes, like he should be clubbing with doms. Clearly he didn't know the culture yet. He would do. "What's he drinking?"
"Here," Miriam said, pouring another beer and pushing it across the bar to him. "Be gentle with him."
"You know me. I always am," Nick said as he stood.
"I do know you. Be gentle with yourself as well," she told him, looking up to meet his eyes.
Nick nodded, took his drink and the drink for the other sub, and made his way across the room. "This seat taken?" he asked.
"Please do," the man said, watching as Nick pushed a drink over to him.
"I'm Nick."
"Peter. I don't…I don't really know what I'm doing here."
Nick smiled at him. "It's okay. No one knows what they're doing here at first. Everyone in this room has been where you're at right now."
"You've been coming here long?" Peter asked.
"Two years or so." He could still remember his first time and how nervous and ashamed he'd been. He'd probably looked about as Peter did right now. "It goes by quicker than you think."
Peter nodded, his gaze moving over Nick. "Can I ask…?"
"What?" he asked, unable to guess what Peter's question might be.
"You're collared. You have a dom?"
Nick smiled. "Apprenticeship collar. My boss has collared his entire team, even the switches." He wore his collar pretty much everywhere, partially for the protection it afforded him - doms were much less willing to harass a collared sub - and partially because it just felt right.
Peter smiled back. "Must be awkward when someone on your team wants to get into a relationship. Most doms aren't fond of sharing."
"No, they're not, but we make it work. Gil is only responsible for us while we're at our job," Nick said, though he also knew that if he had trouble somewhere else, Gil would be there in a heartbeat. That was true for the entire team, regardless of their orientation. Gil took his responsibilities very seriously.
"What sort of work do you do where your boss is willing to collar your whole team?" Peter asked, seeming to relax a little now that they were just talking.
"Law enforcement. I'm a CSI," he explained. "Crime scene investigator," he added at Peter's blank look.
"I've seen that on tv, where the unit chief collars their team. There's that FBI show, and the one about the Navy investigators," he said, his eyes lighting up.
Nick laughed. "There's a few collared teams in the Vegas PD, but not every team lead and unit chief wants that sort of responsibility over their team. I'm afraid our work is a little less dramatic than what they show on tv. I spend most of my time analyzing crime scenes and evidence."
"Do you have to carry a gun?" Peter asked.
"Yes, but I've never used it in the field. Things are pretty low key on my team. We have the detectives and the deputies if things get out of hand with a suspect."
"I suppose that's a good thing."
Nick nodded. He'd rather not be forced to point his gun at someone if he had any say in it. "What do you do?"
"Oh, boring. I'm an administrative assistant for a bank manager," Peter said, shaking his head.
"I'm sure you hear all sorts of fun gossip though," Nick said, trying to draw him out.
"That I do. You would not believe what goes on behind the scenes in a bank."
"Yeah? Like what?" he asked, settling in for the evening. At the very least, this was a good distraction, even if it wasn't entirely keeping his mind off Sara.
