DATE: November
2008
TITLE:
Habeas Canis
AUTHOR: losingntrnslatn (LosingInTranslation,
Jennifer)
DISCLAIMER: Don’t own anything associated with the show… I just like
playing with the characters in it from time to time. Dance Monkeys! Dance!
RATING: T for Teen
SPOILERS: Through US Aired Episodes of Season 9
PAIRINGS: None
WORD COUNT: 4546
SUMMARY: Riley works an unusual case with Nick and learns the hard way
that the whole world is going to the dogs.
A/N: This story was spawned after a rather amusing
tail was told to me by a friend. The plot bunny hopped to life and beat me down
until this fic was done. The inspiration was all
hers, as are a few of the characters contained within. This one was also made
possible by the tireless work of GuerillaBeta, who
managed to meet my impatience once again.
REVIEWS: Reviews are the way I know if people are enjoying the work or
not. So, if you leave one, THANKS! And if not, I hope you found at least a
little something to brighten your day, and thanks for taking the time to read.
Habeas Canis
Assignments
were Riley’s favorite part of the shift. It was when she found out what her
night was going to be like. It was also when she knew what everyone else’s
night was going to be like.
Tonight
already promised to be interesting. Grissom had caught her in the locker room
and told her she would be working with Nick for a change. Greg was a lot of fun
to work with, but she was really looking forward to seeing how Nick approached
a case. She had already gotten all the dirt on him from Greg and a couple of
the techs, and Riley was intrigued to learn just how much of it was really
true.
As Grissom
called off the first assignment for Greg and Catherine, she was a little
disappointed. “Catherine, take Greg out with you. We’ve got another suspicious
activity call out on WLVU’s Fraternity Row. There
have been a rash of exploding toilets out there, and I seem to recall Greg has
some experience with these.”
Greg
waggled his eyebrows at Riley and grinned. “At least I didn’t blow up the whole
lab to test that theory.”
Grissom
gave him a slightly disapproving glare just before Catherine piped in with,
“No, just flooded the garage for a couple days, genius.” She grabbed the slip
from Grissom and shot back at Greg. “I’ll be handling any experimentation on
this case, thank you very much.”
Riley was
looking forward to hearing that story later.
“Nick, it
looks like we might have some vandals who’ve crossed the line to animal abuse
out in Seven Hills. There have been several complaints of locks being superglued for a few weeks now. All minor
property crimes, until tonight. A woman came home to find her cat
covered in glue and stuck to her front door. The fire department is still
trying to get the cat loose from the door, and they’ve asked that we
investigate the source. The escalation to animal abuse has everyone concerned
they’ve got another serial killer in the making. But…” Grissom handed him the
slip.
Nick
finished his thought, “It’s probably just some drunk
teenagers with too much time and not enough sense.”
Catherine
snickered when she added, “Sounds right up your alley, Nicky.” Riley saw the
roll of Nick’s eyes as he looked past Catherine’s jibe.
“And you’re
taking Riley out with you tonight. I want you to get her checked out on a
department vehicle and the trip out to Seven Hills is perfect for that.”
Grissom nodded to her with what she almost thought was a wink, and that worried
her. “Make sure you take the long way.”
“You got
it, Boss.” And with that, everyone broke for the night.
The ride
out to Seven Hills could best be described as eventful. Nick had directed her
to take the Strip. Riley was fairly
certain it was the crossroads of hell because after that they navigated a maze
of interconnected highways and meandering side roads until they reached the
tangled spiderweb of residential streets known as
Seven Hills. The one thing Riley Adams knew for certain, she was going to be
using that stupid GPS locator a lot in the near future.
Once they
were comfortably maneuvering through the neighborhood, Riley finally spoke up.
“I have one thing to say about working this case with you, instead of Greg.”
Nick
continued to shuffle through his paperwork as he asked, “And what’s that?”
“I don’t
think we would have survived that drive with all the jokes he would have been making
about our ‘victim.’” Riley managed to hold in most of the smirk threatening to
break through, right up until the moment Nick’s bark of laughter erupted.
“Oh man! I
don’t even want to think of all the wrong things he woulda
made out of a cat covered in glue.” They both were still laughing when they
finally reached the scene.
The fire
department was just removing the door to the house as they arrived. With the
door off the hinges, they could safely cut off a section of the door off in
order to transport the cat to animal control for examination and shaving.
As Nick and
Riley made their way through the crowd of firefighters and neighbors, the jokes
about a naked cat were already circulating. They both knew Greg never would
have survived this case without punning himself to death.
As they
neared the front of the crowd, Nick nodded to an older gentleman watching
everything with great interest. “O’Reilly, what the heck are you doing out
here? They didn’t call you back from retirement, did they?”
“Not hardly, Stokes. I live down the street. Lady of the
house is friends with my wife, so I called in a favor to get you guys to look
into this mess.” Riley watched as the two men shook hands and looked each other
over.
“You’re lookin’ good, man. You sure you’re not buckin’
to come back to the force?” Nick patted the man’s arm in jest.
“You look
like you’ve picked up some of what I lost, Stokes.” Riley watched as Nick took
in a deep breath and sucked in his midsection a little with the comment. “But
you’re still too damn pretty for police work, kid.” They all laughed at the
exchange, and that was when the two men remembered Riley was there. “Speaking
of too pretty…”
Nick
suddenly thought of his manners and introduced her to the older man. “CSI Riley
Adams, meet retired detective sergeant Ray O’Reilly. Ray was one of our best
guys, back in the day.”
Riley took
the hand that was offered to her. “Honor to meet you, sir.”
Ray shook
his head and chuffed, “They just keep getting younger and younger, I guess.”
“Yeah.”
Nick agreed with him a little too quickly for her tastes, but she was willing
to let it slide. “So, what do you know about what’s going on around here, Ray?”
“Started
out with the trash can lids being duct taped shut. Then some wiseacre started filling up
keyholes with superglue. That’s when people started calling it in.” Ray looked
around at the people assembled on his neighbor’s front lawn. “Stupid pranks,
most of ‘em are willing to overlook, but when it
starts cutting into their pockets, they get ticked. But
this?”
“Yeah, it’s
one thing to glue some locks, but something else entirely when they go after an
innocent.” Nick was writing everything down in his notes as he spoke to the
man.
“Well, I
don’t know if I’d call Caine an innocent. Damn cat picks
fights with every dog on the block.” Riley could see the disgust in the man’s
face as he explained his position. “But even he doesn’t deserve to be doused
with industrial glue.”
Riley was
intrigued by his comment when she asked, “Industrial glue?”
“Yeah, some kind of liquid cement, according to the fire chief. Said it looked like the same stuff
he uses on his boat.” Ray seemed disgusted with that fact, but Riley was
already busy scanning the other houses.
“Well, hey…
Thanks, O’Reilly. We’ll look into this and I’ll let you know if we find
anything, okay?” Her attention was drawn back to the two men as they shook
hands once more and Nick guided her toward the fire chief in front of them.
“Was he
always that gruff?”
Nick
chuckled and said, “Nah… He used to be even worse. Retirement’s been good for
his disposition.”
“Hey,
Chief… What’s the verdict on the feline?” Nick greeted the man with enough
familiarity to let Riley know that apparently Nick Stokes knew everyone in the
Vegas emergency system.
“Gonna have to shave it to get it loose from the door. So,
we’re gonna take a Sawzall
to that corner of the door so they can get it in the animal control vehicle.”
Nick cringed at the thought of a Sawzall operating
that close to a cat. “Yeah, I know, but I got my best guy making the cut and
he’s doing a straight line off the corner to minimize the time it will take.
Thankfully it’s not a metal core door, just wood.”
“Well,
that’s something, at least.”
“And you
guys can take the door with you in your truck when we’re done, if you want.”
Riley had heard the stories about all the things Nick had been forced to cut up
and bring back to the lab over the years. And she assumed the pained smile on
Nick’s face meant the chief also knew and was giving him the business about it.
“Thanks,
Chief.” He flipped through his notes and then asked, “So, you got any leads for
me, or just jokes?”
“According
the old lady in the house, there’re some teenagers down the block she thinks
did it. I guess her precious little orange tabby is something of a bruiser and
the kids didn’t take too kindly to it scratching up their beagle and they
threatened to go after the cat.” Riley could tell the man was disgusted at
having to attend to such a menial case. “Look, Stokes… If it wasn’t for O’Reilly
rattling some cages up at PD, this wouldn’t rate more than an animal control
inspection. So, make your little case report and leave my guys to finish up
this circus in peace, okay?”
“Whatever you say, Chief. Just make sure your guys send their paperwork into our
office and we’ll be square, alright?” Nick let the guy off and motioned for
Riley to follow him over to the side.
“Sorry
about that, Riley. The Chief is still ticked off about the whole undersheriff
thing. I guess they were friends some time back, and he’s not happy about how
all of it was handled. And so things are a little tense with any case he’s
involved in right now.” He shook his head with the explanation. “I should have
warned you about him on the way over.”
“No worries.”
Riley noticed a distraught woman standing near them and gestured to her. “Maybe
we should start with the lady of the house?”
Nick looked
in her direction and nodded his head. “Good idea. Why don’t you try her out and
I’ll take notes?”
“Yeah?” After
everything Greg had told her about Nick, Riley was really surprised he was
willing to trust her so quickly with such an important aspect of the case.
“Yeah, sure.” He shrugged off her reluctance and said, “You wouldn’t be here if you
couldn’t do the job. So, get to it.”
She tried
to hold in the smile which fought to make it to the surface with his
compliment. It would not serve her well to be grinning like an idiot at the
worried pet owner as she questioned her.
Quickly
checking the case sheet, Riley refreshed her memory with the woman’s name and
approached her. “Mrs. Ocean?”
“Yes… Who
are you?” The anxious woman continued to wring her hands around the picture
frame clutched to her chest.
“Ah, I’m
Riley Adams and this is Nick Stokes. We’re with the Crime Lab.”
The woman’s
eyes lit up and she squeaked out, “Oh thank goodness! You’re going to arrest
those horrible boys who did this to my poor Caine,
aren’t you?” She franticly pushed the picture frame in Riley’s face and she was
immediately met with the image of a large orange tabby cat covered in spots
where the fur was obviously torn out from fighting, and the strangest set of
raccoon like dark circles around its eyes. The whole thing was creeping Riley
out, but she struggled to keep her professionalism in tact as she took the
photo from the woman.
“Well, thank you, Ma’am, but could you tell us
what makes you think these boys you’re talking about did this?” Riley was
trying desperately not to start laughing, because the woman honestly saw this
as a capital crime, instead of the barely more than a nuisance call it was.
“They
threatened to tie him up next time they saw him. And they are always knocking
over my garbage cans with their scooters. They are just a bunch of menaces!”
The woman was working herself up into a real tizzy when Nick stepped in.
“Ma’am,
we’re gonna do our best to figure out what happened
here tonight. But we need to know if you have anything concrete that makes you
think those boys are involved. This is serious business, and we don’t want the
finger pointed anywhere if it isn’t warranted.”
“Oh, well,
I guess that would be bad, wouldn’t it?”
“Yes, Ma’am.” Riley caught the hint of a wink on Nick’s face when he turned to her,
making it that much harder for her to keep a straight face as she answered the
woman.
“They
aren’t nice boys, and they have done mean things in the past, but nothing to
the animals, really. They do have a very yippy little beagle dog in their yard,
and they seem to treat him well, even if he is just a smelly dog.” Riley was
beginning to see where the cat got its bad attitude from.
“We’re gonna check out all of our leads, but I just want you know
that we’ll have to get some hard evidence before we can arrest somebody.” Riley
was very impressed with the way Nick was able to calm the woman down, all the
while letting her know she was over-reacting with fantastic subtlety.
After they
finished with the pet owner, they both wanted to move away from the firefighter
with the Sawzall, so they looked for the animal
control officer standing off to the side.
“Hey, Jesse. How’s it lookin’?” The small Asian woman
looked more like a lab tech than an animal wrangler, but Riley also knew looks
could be deceiving. After all, she looked more like a college freshman than a
trained criminalist.
“The cat’s
a little freaked, and is not going to
be happy about the shaving, but I think it’ll be fine. Skittish for a while,
though.” She smiled at Nick and then gestured at Riley. “Who’s your friend?”
“Oh! Sorry.
Jesse Menken, this is Riley Adams. The new CSI.” Riley
reached out for her hand with a smile.
“Nice to meet you, Riley. I’m one of only four animal control officers in
Nick was
quick to add, “And she’s the only one who works nights.”
“But I
don’t do weekends or windows.” They all laughed at her joke. “And before you
ask, this is the first time I’ve been called out to this neighborhood since
your doppelganger case a while back.”
“The
Tinsley Case, right. I thought this part of the neighborhood looked familiar.”
Nick nodded as he noted her response.
“Right,
like it’s not all the same, anyway.” Just then the Sawzall
finished slicing through the door to the cheers of the crowd. “That sounds like
my queue. Anything else, come down the kennel. I’ve got a very unhappy kitty to
deal with right now.”
“Catch ya later, Jesse!” Nick called out to her as she walked
away. He turned back to Riley and said, “Well, now that the victim is leaving
the scene…ya wanna start
interviewing the neighbors?”
“Sounds
like the highlight of the evening.” Riley’s forced smile gave Nick a chance to
chuckle again.
They spent
the next few hours talking to everyone in the neighborhood. And almost every
person came around to the same thing; those boys down the block. If nothing
else, there was obviously enough suspicion to call for a visit to the home.
As dawn
broke, Nick decided to call it in to PD, and have a detective meet the boys and
their parents for a little conversation. And if they were really lucky, the
detective might be able to bring them a warrant to look around as well.
When
Detective Vartan finally showed up, he actually did manage
to find a judge willing to write them some paper for the search. With the
parents and two of the boys seated in the living room, Vartan
questioned them, at length, about the things they had been hearing around the
neighborhood while Riley and Nick took a look around the place.
By the time
they made it to the garage, they had managed to collect seven different samples
of adhesives from the house. Apparently glue was the glue that held the Graner family together; the father was a plant foreman at
an adhesive manufacturing company. And industrial adhesives were their stock
and trade.
Looking
around the open garage, Nick was busy collecting another bottle of glue when
something caught Riley’s eye from across the street. In the driveway opposite
the Graner’s was another open garage, and inside was
what looked like a do-it-yourself sailboat. She could see that a large fan was
blowing out of the garage and, as she took a few steps out into the Graner’s driveway, she was able to make out the
hand-painted name on the back of the boat; Mopsitta
Tanta.
The name
seemed vaguely familiar, but she was unable to recall why. However, what really
struck her was what appeared to be a paint can sitting
on the floor of the garage underneath the boat. And then she remembered what
O’Reilly had said; “Yeah, some kind of
liquid cement, according to the fire chief. Said it looked like the same stuff
he uses on his boat.”
Nick
started to speak to her from the garage, but she stayed focused on that boat
and that paint can. “I think I’ve found every other glue known to mankind, but
no liquid cement. How about you? Riley?”
She was
finally pulled out of her stare when he called her name. “Huh?”
“Something
caught your eye?” He walked up beside her and looked across the street as well.
“I was ah,
just thinking… Didn’t O’Reilly say something about liquid cement for a boat?”
Instantly
picking up on her train of thought, Nick nodded his head and called one of the
uniforms over to the garage entrance. “Larson, keep this area secured. We need
to go check out something across the street.”
“Will do, Stokes.” The officer called in his position to the lead officer and
they removed their gloves as they walked to the back of the Tahoe.
Dropping
his gloves into the marked evidence bags, Nick calmly explained what they were
about to do. “Look, we have to handle this carefully, because we’ve got one of
two scenarios, here. It’s either that we’ve got the source of the glue and the
boys just swiped it, or…we’ve got new suspects.”
Riley
deposited her gloves in the other bag when she said, “And either way it goes,
our search warrant isn’t going to help us.”
“You got
it.” Nick handed Riley her portable kit and stuffed some fresh gloves into his
pockets. “So, let me do the talking and hopefully we don’t screw this up,
okay?”
As they
walked across the street, it became perfectly clear that something had gone on
in the neighbor’s garage. There was a large spill of liquid adhesive beneath
the boat, and the fan Riley had seen before was working hard to dry it quickly,
and remove the fumes from the garage.
When they
started up the drive, Riley could hear a woman’s voice coming from behind the
fence on the side of the house. The closer they got, they more they could hear.
“How in the
heck did you get it all over your ears,
Nick
gestured for Riley to walk toward the fence and he moved to knock on the gate.
“Connor,
will you please just sit still? Mommy can only handle one bad boy at a time.”
As Nick
knocked on the gate he discovered that it wasn’t latched when it swung open,
revealing two
Nick’s face
immediately morphed into a sour expression at the smell, but Riley was more
concerned over the reaction of the owner. “Excuse us, Ma’am. We’re with the
Crime Lab.”
“Unless you
call making a mess out of my garage and ruining my morning a crime, I think
these boys are gonna be punished enough.” The woman’s
broad smile greeted them as she stood up from her crouch.
She was
about to hold her hand out to them, but quickly remembered that they were both
covered in peanut butter. “Sorry about that. The boys got into some glue in the
garage and I’m trying to not have to shave the poor things to get it out of
their fur.” She looked down and noticed that they were both busy licking the
peanut butter off of one another. “But this is starting to look like more
trouble than it’s worth.”
As she
tried to wipe the stuff off of her hands, Nick finally seemed to come back
around to the scene before them. “Ah, I’m Nick Stokes and this is my partner
Riley Adams. We’re actually investigating a call from one of your neighbors and
we noticed your boat.”
“My husband’s pet project. Don’t know if it’ll ever sail, but it keeps him out of
trouble.” The black lab came in to nuzzle against her leg once he realized they
had company. “This is
Riley
watched as Nick crouched down to more closely examine the two dogs. “Can you
tell us what happened with the glue in your garage?”
“Oh, they
probably got spooked again and ran into the garage last night. My husband and I
both work nights at the Tangiers. He’s a chef and I run the counting room. So,
we set it up for the boys to be able to go in and out on their own when we
aren’t home.” She walked over to point out the doggie door in the side of the
garage. “We keep their kennels in the garage, so we can do this year round.
Mike rigged the A/C to pump in there when we throw the switch.”
Cindy
opened the regular door and walked inside the garage. “I guess Mike was working
on the boat yesterday and forgot to close up the glue again, so when they went
tearing through the garage they must’ve knocked it over.”
Riley began
to clue in to what was happening when she asked, “You said something about them
getting spooked again…what did you mean by that?”
“Oh…” Cindy
bent over and laughed a little, her eyes nearly disappearing in the huge smile
she gave them. “Well, they may be big boys, but they are still afraid of pretty
much anything that moves, especially at night. And that’s when their arch
nemesis comes out to torment them.”
Nick’s face
showed Riley that he knew exactly what was going on. “Arch nemesis?”
“Yeah,
Nick nodded
his head as the yellow dog came into the garage and stared up at him with very
sad eyes. He knelt down and took a better look at the dog’s muzzle. Just
underneath the large swath of dried adhesive he could see the distinctive, fine
red line of a cat scratch and a little tuft of orange fur stuck to the
underside of Connor’s jaw.
He looked
up at Riley and she only nodded to show that she was following his suspicions.
“Can I ask you about your neighbors across the street…the Graners?”
Cindy shrugged
at the question and answered matter of factly, “I
know most of the neighbors have some trouble with the boys, but they just don’t
have enough to keep them busy. Mike puts them to work helping him with the
boat. Heck, they’re the ones that got him this glue. Their Dad works for some
glue factory, I guess. And they told him this stuff would work better than what he was using before.”
She laughed
again and Riley was finding it hard not to join her. The woman was amazingly
friendly and seemed to genuinely enjoy life. “Actually, they’re the ones that
helped Mike come up with the name for the boat.”
Nick read
the painted name aloud, “Mopsitta Tanta… That’s not
Spanish, is it?”
“Nope.
One of the boys is a paleontology buff and I guess that’s the name for some
brand new prehistoric parrot they discovered in the
“Well,
those boys better find a new person to make fun of, because I think you just
saved them from a whole lotta trouble.” Nick looked
up at the confused woman and asked, “Do you mind if I take a quick picture of
your dog’s injury, so I can get those boys back on the right track and take
care of a menacing cat all at the same time?”
“Huh?”
“I think
your dogs either chased or were chased by Mrs. Ocean’s glue covered cat when
Connor here got this scratch on his face.” He turned the dog so that she could
see the scratch.
“Well, I’ll
be. Yeah, go ahead and take your picture.”
Nick took
the camera from Riley, patted the dog’s side and then got up. “I think with
that and everything you’ve told us, the Graner’s are
going to very glad the parrot lady still liked them after their little joke.
You’ve just saved them from being arrested for animal cruelty and vandalism.”
The woman
looked completely flabbergasted by Nick’s admission. “Yeah, thanks to you,
looks like the only thing that’s gonna happen to them
is some compensation for all those locks they’ve been supergluing
in the neighborhood.”
“Are you
sure it’s them?” Cindy quickly came to their defense, showing Riley that the
boys must not be all bad.
“We’re pretty
sure, Ma’am. Judging by their attitude and the sheer volume of superglue and
duct tape we got from the house, it would be really hard to get past it.” Riley
held out her hand to the woman. “Thank you, for your time. And
good luck getting that glue off.”
As they
walked down the driveway Nick pulled out his phone and called detective Vartan. “Hey, Tony… Lean on the boys to own up to the supergluing, but they didn’t do the cat… No man, I’m
serious… Well, let’s just call it canine karma.”
Riley
laughed at his little joke and the impish expression on his face. When he hung
up the phone, she just could not resist the temptation. “Gives a whole new
meaning to ‘dogma,’ huh?”
Nick only
groaned and shook his head. “Man, you’ve already worked for Grissom too long.”