Re: CSI:NY FanFic Challenge!
Untitled by CSI_in_Training
Disclaimer: I own nothing!
Criteria: Stella/Mac or Danny/Mac Pairing
Raspberry Jam –Fluff or angst
Aug. 28th
“Now this has to be a first,” said Danny Messer, stepping under the crime scene tape. His boss, Mac Taylor was already there, waiting for the younger CSI.
“What’s that?” asked Mac. Danny raised an eyebrow and indicated to the scene around them. A hotel room, clean as anything except the body of a young woman, coated in a red sticky substance that wasn’t blood and a message on the window that read ‘Life’s a Bitch!’
“What is that stuff?” he asked, setting down his kit next to the bed and kneeling down beside it. Mac smiled a knowing smile and stuck his finger in the substance.
“Smell that?” he asked, pointing the red finger in Danny’s direction. The young man didn’t know if his boss was joking or not.
“You serious?” he asked. Mac nodded and Danny took a deep breath.
“Raspberries?” Mac nodded again and turned his back on Danny. Danny remained kneeling beside the bed, lost in thought.
“What exactly do you think they were doing with Raspberry Jam in a hotel room?” Danny asked. Mac turned to face Danny with a camera in one hand.
“I can think of a few ideas,” he answered, smiling mischievously.
“Care to elaborate?” Danny asked, standing up. Mac drew a line down Danny’s jaw line with the jam still on his finger.
“Maybe later,” said Mac, snapping a picture of the Danny and turning back to the body. Danny was catching on. The two had been … ‘involved’ for sometime now. Teasing mostly, never anything serious. Like teenagers who couldn’t decide if they loved each other or not. This was just one of those teases, something that promised to be more, but probably wouldn’t go anywhere, unless one of them made the next move.
“Your place or mine?” asked Danny causing Mac to spin around. Was Danny serious?
“You serious, Danny?”
“Absolutely. How about your place after work. We can go get some dinner and watch a movie and see where the night goes?”
“It’s a date.”
“I’ll bring the jam.” They both laughed as they went back to work.
Mac walked into the lab about two hours later, he passed Stella. She turned around to get his attention and let out a short laugh, Mac turned around.
“What’s so funny, Stella?” he asked. She shook her head.
“I’m sorry, Mac. But you have a red handprint on your butt. Who were you working the scene with? Or is it yours?” Mac looked over his shoulder, trying to see the offending print, but couldn’t. He didn’t answer, just shook his head and walked off; Lindsay joined Stella a second later and caught a glance at the handprint before Mac turned a corner.
“Why does Mac have a handprint on his butt?” she asked. Stella shook her head again, trying to fight back another bout of giggles.
“I don’t know.” The two headed off to the lab, giggling like school girls as they went.
Mac walked into the lab where Danny was processing the hotel sheets. Mac was dangerously close to hitting him, but wouldn’t. Danny looked pretty cute with the jam on his jaw line still there. Mac walked into the lab and stood behind Danny.
“You gonna wash your face, Messer?” asked a familiar voice from the doorway. Detective Flack walked in and Danny jumped backwards, into Mac.
“I’m bein’ ambushed!” he stated and looked at Flack. “I was thinkin’ I start a fashion trend involving raspberry jam. Did you see? Mac’s joinin’ in.” he asked grabbing Mac’s shoulder and spinning him so Flack could see the handprint. The detective laughed.
“You gotta be kiddin’ me. You two are crazy.” Mac shook his head.
“You got anything on those sheets yet, Danny?” he asked. Danny nodded.
“Yeah, under all the jam, I got seamen stains, blood stains and all that fun hotel stuff you find when you run a DNA test on a hotel sheet. They’re all in DNA now. And the Jam, it’s not that important, but it might be.”
“How?” asked Don. Danny pointed at the computer, a grocery list up on screen.
“What’s this?” asked Mac.
“This is a grocery web site, apparently, not a lot of people buy raspberry jam, and there is only one brand in our fair city, Shmuckers, and there is a unique formula for each of the brands, and it’s a match. What’d’ a think?”
“I think it’s good, but it’s not getting us anywhere,” said Mac. Danny nodded and Flack shrugged.
“What are we gonna do about it?” asked Don.
“We’re gonna wait for DNA to come back, and then work from there,” said Mac. Danny nodded and headed off.
“Speakin’ of the DNA, I’m gonna check it out, ‘kay?” He pushed past Don, who was still standing in the doorway, and headed off to DNA.
Several hours later, Danny stood in line at the local grocery store, paying for his ‘supplies’. Included was whipping cream, raspberry jam and a gallon tub of vanilla ice cream.
“That’ll come to seventeen dollars and six cents,” said the girl at the till. She smiled at Danny and he smiled back.
“Thanks,” he said pulling out his wallet and retrieving a twenty.
“You got someone to share all that stuff with?” she asked, flirting slightly. Danny nodded.
“As a matter of fact I do. But thanks for askin’.”
“No problem.”
“Can I ask you something? Would you know how popular Raspberry Jam is?”
“Um…I work here full time, and you’re the second person who’s bought it all week. Can I ask you why you want to know?” Danny pulled out his badge and she nodded.
“I see, well, there was a guy in here about two days ago, bought about six or seven jars of the stuff.”
“Can you describe the guy at all?”
“Just your average white guy, I didn’t ring him up, Tammy did, but her lane is just down from mine, and she was talking about it at break.”
“Is Tammy here now?”
“Yeah, I’ll page her for you.”
“That’d be great.” The girl picked up her phone and pressed a button.
“Tammy to till six please, Tammy till six.” She hit the receiver button and placed the phone back. A minute later a girl walked up, she had black hair that went down to her hips, pulled back in a pony tail. She wore the same uniform that the first girl wore, black pants and a dark green shirt.
“Hey, Jamie, what’s up?” asked the girl, Danny assumed she was Tammy.
“Hey, Tammy. This guy would like to talk to you. But if you could move out of the line, I still have customers.”
“I’m on break Jamie, this isn’t fair.”
“He’s a cop, you can take an extra break later.”
“Oh, alright.” Tammy followed Danny to a bench at the end of the till.
“Tammy right?” asked Danny. She nodded.
“Look, if someone complained, I didn’t do anything wrong, I just ring stuff up and give them the receipt.”
“It’s nothing like that. I’m Detective Danny Messer, with the New York Crime Lab, we’re investigating a case and a lead got me here. You served a guy who bought an unreasonable amount of Raspberry Jam?”
“Yeah, about two days ago. The guy bought, I think seven or eight jars of the stuff. The only reason I remember is it’s the only thing he bought, and it was a pretty big amount of jam. Got mad because I had to ring each jar in separately. The doors pick up the bar codes if they’re not scanned, but he didn’t seem to get it.”
“Can you describe the guy?”
“Sorry, all I can tell you was he’s your average white guy. A little tall maybe, but that’s all I remember. I serve a lot of people every day.”
“Would you know him if you saw him again? Or did he pay with a credit card?”
“Um…I think he paid cash, but I would definitely know him if I saw him. You got a card? I’ll call you if I see him.” She smiled that same flirtatious smile that Jamie had.
“Yeah, sure, here you go.” Danny handed her the card, “if you think of anything, call me.”
“Sure, and if I don’t think of anything?”
“Then don’t call, I’m taken.” The girl’s smile fell as she watched Danny walk off with his purchases.
Danny arrived at Mac’s house twenty minutes later with a half melted thing of ice cream and whipped cream that definitely needed time in the fridge. The only thing that had stood up to the time was the jam. Danny wanted to know what Mac had been thinking at the hotel. Mac met him at the door, in his undershirt and black slacks. Danny was dressed down in blue jeans and a grey tee shirt. He handed Mac the bag.
“That needs to go in the freezer, the ice cream’s meltin’.”
“You brought ice cream?” asked Mac.
“And whipped cream and,” he held up the glass jar he’d retrieved from the bag, “jam. And information from our local grocery store.”
“Sounds like a good combination. We’ll get work out of the way and then we can…hang out.”
“Sounds like a plan. Alright, girl at the grocery store, Tammy, says a guy was in two days ago, bought about seven things of raspberry jam and paid cash. She said is she saw him again she’d call me.”
“You pickin’ up girls on your shopping trip?”
“Just the price you pay for looks like mine.”
“Glad to see you washed your face, or you wouldn’t have looks to kill.”
“Oh, come on, you thought it was sexy.”
“We’ll see about that.” Mac turned and headed to the kitchen, Danny checked, and saw that Mac had changed his pants since discovering the hand print.
“Looks like we’ll have to wait for DNA to come back before we can really go anywhere. Since the hotel was under the victim’s name and the guy went up later. Security cameras might help, Chad’s runnin’ them now.”
“Good, tomorrow we’ll have something to go on, and you’ll have pictures for your girlfriend,” said Mac from the kitchen. Danny snuck up behind him and put his hands on Mac’s shoulders.
“Who needs a girlfriend when I got you?”
“Good question.”
“Better question,” he said, placing the jam in Mac’s hands, “what do you think we should do with this?” Mac smiled and took the jam, leading Danny off towards the bedroom.
The next day at the lab, Danny headed down to A/V and Mac headed to DNA. Results were showing up. Chad had blown up a few frames of the security cameras with possible suspects for Danny.
“How ‘bout it? Any of these guys seem like the type?” asked the tech.
“Any of them have a grocery bag?” asked Danny.
“What makes you think he’d carry a grocery bag?”
“Call it a hunch, but I think he’d need a bag to get that much jam into a room with out lookin’ totally conspicuous.”
“Ah, good idea. I’ve got three guys with grocery bags, and before you ask, they’re all from the same store.”
“Print those ones off for me, would ya?”
“One step ahead of you, Danny. They’re on the back table.”
“Thank you. I’ll get back to you when I know somethin’? ‘Kay?”
“I’ll be waitin’.”
Danny met up with Mac in the halls.
“You got anything, Danny?”
“Yeah, a few good suspects? You?”
“DNA came back with nothing, so when you find a good suspect, let’s make sure to get his DNA.”
“I’m gonna head down to the grocery store and run the pictures past Miss Tammy. I’ll see you later, ‘kay?”
“Yeah, see ya.” Mac was heading to his office, when Danny shouted back to him.
“By the way, Mac? Yesterday was great, we should do it again sometime.” Mac looked over his shoulder to see Danny smiling and Stella and Lindsay looking confused. He shook his head and kept on walking.
When Danny got to the grocery store, he headed straight to the till where Tammy was working.
“Hello again, Detective. What can I do for you today?”
“I need you to look at a few pictures, and see if any of them are the guy with the jam.”
“Sure, I can try.”
“You said you’d recognize him if you saw him again?”
“Yeah, but that was three days ago he was in, I’ve served a lot of people since then.”
“Well, just try.”
“I’m going on break after this customer, can it wait until then?”
“Of course.” Danny stepped back while Tammy rung up the guy’s purchase. When she was done, she turned off the light on her till and turned to face Danny. The sat down on the bench again and he handed her the pictures.
“Um… I’m not totally sure, like I said, it was three days ago.”
“Give it your best shot, that’ll be good enough.”
“Alright, I think it was this guy, he looks familiar.” She handed one of the pictures back to Danny and he nodded.
“Thank you very much, you’ve been a great help.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, you’ve just narrowed down our suspects to one.”
“Well, I guess that’s a good thing.”
“That’s a very good thing. I’ll see you around, next time I’m shoppin’.”
“Sure. See ya.” Danny was headed back to the lab when his cell phone rang.
“Messer,” he said, answering the phone.
“Danny, it’s Mac, how’d the grocery store go?”
“Good. Tammy picked one of the guys. You wanna meet me down at the hotel, we can run the picture past the clerk?”
“Sounds good. I’ll see you there.” The two met at the hotel half hour later and headed up to the clerk.
“Sir, I’m Mac Taylor, this is Danny Messer, we’re from the Crime Lab, we were wondering if you could answer a few questions for us.”
“Of course,” said the guy, he was probably about twenty or so years old.
“What’s your name, kid?” asked Mac.
“Jason,” he answered. Danny held up the photo.
“You recognize this guy?”
“Um… yeah, he was in a few days ago, had a bag of groceries, and headed to the elevator. I thought that was weird, considering I think he works here.”
“Really?” asked Mac.
“Yeah, he works the front desk in the mornings. Um…Riley Something.”
“You don’t know his last name?” asked Danny, not surprised.
“No, I think his last name is Something, that’s what people tell me at least.”
“You’re kidding,” said Mac. Jason shook his head.
“Well, is Mr. Something working today?” asked Danny.
“Nope, hasn’t been in for a couple days.”
“Do you know how we can reach him?” asked Mac.
“I’ll get the manager, she would have his number.” Jason picked up the phone and dialled a number. A moment later he spoke again. “There are some detectives here who need to talk to Riley. Yeah, do you have his number? Okay, thanks.” Jason wrote the number down and handed it to Danny.
“Hope this helps,” he said. Danny nodded.
“I’m sure it will,” said Mac.
They phoned Riley, who’s last name was actually Something, and requested a meeting with the hotel employee. He agreed to come down to the station and talk to them. Danny requested his DNA, Riley refused, Danny produced the court order they’d got on their way back to the lab. Danny headed off to DNA with the swab while Mac grilled Mr. Something about his relationship with the victim. Six hours later, Danny walked back into the interrogation room with a file in one hand.
“You’re done. The DNA came back, your seamen on those sheets, you’re face on the camera, and you’ve been identified by Jason and the girl at the grocery store.”
“For what?” asked Riley. Riley stood about six four, a hundred seventy pounds, shaggy brown hair and a strong face.
“Murder,” said Mac. Riley looked shocked, until he saw the crime scene photos that Danny handed him.
“Oh, her,” was all he said. Mac read him his rights, and Danny cuffed him, they both lead him to a cell. As the two detectives headed off to their respective offices, Danny smiled.
“We got the bad guy,” he said. Mac nodded, smiling as well.
“That we did. And we learn a lot doing it.”
“About a lot of things, Jam, Relationships, Hotel Rooms…”
“I still have the ice cream you bought at my place if you want to come finish it off with me,” suggested Mac.
“Gladly, but first I gotta fill Chad and Flack in on the case and put to rest and of Stella and Lindsay’s fears that there’s an internal affair going on.”
“But there is,” said Mac. Danny smiled that crooked half smile of his and took off his glasses.
“Not that they need to know about. See you at eight.”
“See you at eight,” repeated Mac, and the two parted ways, smiling.