FIC: "Only the Piano Player; Part One" (1 & 2/??)
Title: “Only the Piano Player” (Part One)
Author: Bernie Laraemie
Characters: Everybody & more
Warnings: Violence, rape, murder (usual CSI pickings); RPF-using real persons as “guest spots” and “cameos”; dismemberment; bitchy characters; may cause high blood pressure
Rating: 5 thumbs up! I mean, rated R.
Archive: Sure, just email to let me know where
Email: bernie_laraemie@yahoo.co.uk
Summary: Catherine is again snubbed when it comes to overseeing a high profile case, and some skeletons make their way out of Grissom’s closet. Speaking of coming out of closets: guest starring Elton John, as himself J
Notes: This story is a rewrite of “Paul Milander’s Gun” (just with a lot less Paul in it, and a lot more conflict and CSI-ing) so if it feels like deja-vù reading it, you probably read that one.
~~ One ~~
“Nice,” Gil said, staring with glee and awe at the partially decomposed, partially consumed corpse of a… person? Probably. In scrubs and rubber gloves, he circled the body, taking in everything he saw.
“You’re not supposed to be in yet,” Robbins said, not exactly surprised. “How did you hear about this? Just came in.”
Gil gave him a pointed look.
“Céline tickets, intuitive sense of all things creepy crawly, got it. They sent it from Hienton, Utah,” Robbins explained, unpacking the pieces that were no longer attached to the body. “Since the only lead they have is the bugs, they sent it to us.”
Gil picked one of the bugs off the body. “Only and bugs do not belong in the same sentence.” He placed the bug, a beetle, in a container and labelled it. “Do we have enough to determine male or female?”
“We should probably be able to get DNA, the bugs haven’t eradicated all traces. Just by looking at the hips, I’d estimate we’re looking at a woman. Hip measurement methods are usually only 70% accurate at best, though.”
“I just like the freedom of having a pronoun besides ‘it’ to use.” Gil pulled a few more specimens from the body. “Where was she found?”
“Ravine,” he answered simply. “According to the report Hienton is a rural area.”
“That would explain this little guy.” Gil held his newest find to the light. “Lots of them have been killed and crushed by the packing and shipping, but it should be enough to get some kind of loose time of death. Hopefully we can get an insight to where she died, if she was moved . . ..” Gil’s voice trailed off as inspected one of the limbs.
“Judging by the tissues, this arm was removed peri-mortem. Could have even been caused by the moving of the body.”
“Yeah,” he agreed absently, staring at nothing in particular.
Robbins studied him curiously. “Something on your mind?”
“What?” Gil looked up. “Oh, just . . .thinking.”
“Not about her, I take it,” he said, indicating the body.
“No,” he said after a minute. “I have a . . .predicament.”
“What kind of predicament?” Robbins started combing the body for anything of use to the investigation.
After a sigh, Gil started lifting beetles and casings again. “The FBI have asked me to work with them on a case. And when they say ask, they don’t mean ask.”
“If it’s just a case, it’s not a permanent position. You should be able to come back.”
“It’s not the leaving that bothers me. It’s which case that’s the problem.”
“Are you going to make me guess?”
Gil exhaled, tapping his fingers against an empty pan. “They’ve reopened the Milander case.”
“Reopened? Why?”
“They have reason to believe he’s still alive.”
“Still alive? You saw his body.”
Gil shrugged. “Apparently, I didn’t.”
“And you don’t want to work that case anymore because . . ..” Robbins shook his head. “Because you don’t want to fail again? Because you don’t think he’s alive?” He smiled. “See, you are making me guess.”
Laughing a little, Gil’s mood returned to serious. “Because . . .well, because I don’t want my involvement mucking up the case in court.”
“And why would it? You were confident about it before.”
“The case had been closed, so the evidence was destroyed. Now they have to remake the case, and find him.” Gil stacked his specimen containers in an order apparent only to himself. “If he’s still alive,” he added.
“So what does your involvement have to do with anything?”
“If he is still alive,” he started, “and he’s tried, he’ll represent himself. He’ll know what to use in court.”
“And what would he use in court?”
Gil looked down. Though his eyes were directed at the corpse, he didn’t pay it any attention.
“Gil?”
“Anything that . . .might have happened.”
“Between you and him?”
“Something like that.”
“You were confident about taking this to court before.”
Gil stopped playing with the containers, focusing on the discussed issue. “We had a slam dunk case. Anything that happened wouldn’t have mattered-we had more than enough to make him. I just don’t think I’d be much help.”
“What did happen, Gil?”
Gil looked back up. “You want to talk about it?”
“You seem to want to. And you’ve never mentioned any of this before.”
“I never had occasion to,” he replied. “I suppose I didn’t want to talk to it.”
“I’d say my door is always open,” Robbins said, swivelling a moment to look at the closed steel door. “But it’s bad policy to leave an autopsy theatre circulating air to the rest of the building.”
Gil smiled wryly. “Thanks.” He scratched his beard, “I was thinking of telling Ecklie.”
“Ecklie? Why Ecklie?”
“He wouldn’t want me working with the feds. It’s not in his best interests,” Gil replied. “If anything does come of . . .anything, he’d be able to handle it better.”
“How do you think he’d-”
Their heart to heart was interrupted by Gil’s timely pager.
“Speaking of Ecklie, there’s a dead body in Caesar’s,” he said, his look a little confused.
“You’re on call?”
Gil shook his head. “No, I’m not . . .it’s from Ecklie, though. Maybe there’s more bugs,” he finished with a smile.
Robbins shook his head. “Have fun.”
“Will do.”
Entering the nothing short of palatial VIP entrance, Gil looked around. Ecklie found him first.
“Gil,” he called. “I need you to supervise this case.” He walked briskly, straight to the elevator. “Catherine isn’t here yet, but I need you on this case-I can’t stress that enough.”
“What’s wrong with Catherine?” Gil checked his watch. “Her shift isn’t over yet.”
“High profile case.”
“Catherine is more than qualified to work a case, high profile or otherwise.”
“I want you on this one, Gil.” Ecklie glanced over at the floor numbers.
Gil did too, and noted the height of the floor. “I don’t think I’ve ever been higher than the twentieth floor.” He, meanwhile, used the time to put white booties over his shoes
“Penthouse suite. This is one of the few elevators that goes that high.”
“Is anyone else here yet?”
“Just a few uniforms. We’re to keep this out of the press, away from the public and-”
“Keep the sheriff informed?”
“That’s it.”
“Have you assigned anyone else to this case, Conrad?”
“I want everyone available on this case. No one talks to anyone.”
Gil nodded, stepping out as the elevator finally stopped. “Which way?”
Ecklie pointed, and they both started down the richly coloured hall. Sure enough, two uniformed officers stood by a closed door next to what seemed to be a PR agent from the hotel-at least, that was most likely, with all the complaining she was doing.
“Right here,” he said.
“Why isn’t anyone allowed in the room?” said the smartly dressed woman. “What’s going on?”
“I’m sorry, this is an open investigation. We can’t tell you anything at this time. But we do need to let our investigator inside.”
With a stubborn expression, she inserted a key card to open the door.
“What else can you tell me?” Gil asked before stepping inside, half to Ecklie, half to everyone else.
“A maintenance man came to see about the smell,” Ecklie replied. “He called 911.”
Gil nodded, entering the room and shutting the door just in time to miss the tirade from the hotel employee. The lights were off, and he kept them that way. He shook his head, wishing Ecklie had at least let him ask that the scene had been completely cleared. As far as he could tell, it was, and the coroner had definitely not been by.
The room, which was larger than his townhouse, was permeated with the putrid smell of a decomposing body. A chill went through him, as he acknowledged he was alone and, to a degree, locked in. He felt like an Edgar Allen Poe novel. Matching the Poe theme, the room had an old fashioned décor, with sconces and varnished wood mouldings.
The maze of rooms eventually yielded the body-sprawled out on the bed of a second bedroom. Unlike the other rooms, this one seemed untouched-the bed was spotless save for the corpse atop it. He circled the victim, taking in the scene. A woman, blonde and dressed in white, lay turned slightly to her left, otherwise on her back.
“The coroner’s on his way.”
Ecklie’s voice made Gil jump. “Watch your steps,” he said, pointing an accusing flashlight at Ecklie’s feet. “Maintenance man found her. What else do we know?”
“Guests across the way were complaining about the smell. Might have never known, save for the slightly open balcony door.”
“And all the secrecy . . ..”
“We have to take cautions on every case that word doesn’t spread.”
Gil pointed his flashlight sceptically at Ecklie. “You page me when I’m not on call, take the case from Catherine, we’re in a penthouse suite, you wouldn’t even tell the employee or uniforms anything besides that the hall needs to be taped off, and this is just a regular case?”
Ecklie sighed. “This is Elton John’s hotel room.”
Gil’s flashlight turned back to the victim. “Saturday night’s all right for murder.”
~~ Two ~~
“Wow. This is a hotel room?”
“It’s a penthouse suite, Greg.” Gil walked over to him. “A home away from home.”
“If your home is a castle.”
“The body was dressed,” Gil said, bringing the topic back to the deceased. “And that dress seems too big for her.”
“Was the scene tampered with?”
“Brass interviewed the employee that found her. He swears he didn’t touch her. While he might be lying, a maintainance man has little reason to dress a corpse. He called 911, who sent the police.”
“Sorry I’m late,” came a voice, following the slight creeking of the door. A second later the voice entered the room, revealing it to be David. “Traffic, as usual.” He bustled straight to work.
“She looks posed,” Gil said. “I’ll need her turned over to tell.”
“Liver temp puts time of death at twelve hours ago.” David withdrew the thermometre. “Bruising around the neck,” he noted.
“Strangulation,” Gil added. “From the position of the body, it’s likely she was raped.”
“How can you tell?” Greg asked, standing behind.
“Her legs are rotated outward, the telling is in the knees.” He pointed his flashlight to the victim’s legs in turn. “It suggests her attacker was kneeling between her legs. It that case, it’s possible he raped her, then killed her.”
“All yours,” David said, backing away and starting his report.
“Strangulation is personal,” Greg said, following Gil back toward the body.
“Entertainment, necessity, rage-crime of passion,” he continued. “The bruising on her neck suggests the weapon was smooth.” Gil darted the beam of his flashlight around the room. “A bedsheet, maybe?”
Greg looked to the spot on the floor. Sure enough, a twisted length of bed linens snaked along the carpet. “That bed is made. The sheet could be from another bed.”
Gil smiled in Greg’s general direction. “Sounds like a good theory to start testing.”
“I’m on it.” Greg left, zipping off to the other bedrooms, nearly bumping into Sara on the way.
“Catherine said I could find you in here,” she said.
“Catherine?” Gil looked puzzled. “She’s here?”
“She’s working this case too,” Sara replied.
“Of course, but she’s supposed to be in here, working this case.”
Sara walked further in the room. “She’s currently too busy arguing with Ecklie about who should get this case.”
Gil rolled his eyes, and returned to combing the body.
“Elton John, then?”
“What?”
“Is he our first suspect?”
“Because this is his room?” Gil shrugged. “All I know is she was strangled, and possibly by this sheet on the floor.”
“I’ll process it,” she said, seeing that Gil was too focused on the victim to respond.
“Reverse discrimination?” asked the doorway.
Gil looked up, and found that it was not the doorway, but Nick standing in it, who had posed that odd question. “How do you mean?”
“We found an actor who offed a woman that turned out to be a guy,” he continued. “Maybe Rocket Man offed a guy that turned out to be a woman.”
Gil smirked shortly, but otherwise scanned the victim’s flesh. “Nick, I need you to help Greg process the other rooms. Warrick, I need you to pull any survelliance of possible escape routes, with emphasis on tapes of who entered this room. But first,” he interjected before the two left, “could you go look see if the balcony door is open?”
“Why?”
“Please?” asked Gil endearingly.
“Sure thing, boss,” Nick said, leaving for the balcony.
“There’s something on her skin,” Gil said, swabbing it gently. “Clear oil of some kind. Transfer, maybe.” The sound did reach Sara’s ears, but the drifting tone suggested it had no intended target. “There’s little patches of it on her arm,” he said, the flashlight beam trailing the body. “Her legs, some on her neck. More than just a transfer, but it’s in little patches all over her.”
“I’ve got fingerprints.”
Gil turned to look, seeing Sara dust the door handle.
“It’s a partial, but it looks like there’s enough.”
“Okay, I’m here, what do you want me to do?” Catherine asked, barging in, more than a little miffed that the case had been handed over.
“There’s a lot of room to cover in the suite. Greg started on the other bedrooms and Nick is helping him, so if you could process the living room?” he asked, missing a few beats on the start.
“All right,” she said, turning and leaving.
“She doesn’t seem happy.”
Gil shrugged. “Ecklie insisted I take this case. If he hadn’t, I wouldn’t have taken it.”
Greg entered shortly. “I found these in hall.” He held up a collection of clear bags, each containing clothing. “If she was dressed after she was killed, these could be our victim’s clothes.” He looked at them. “They don’t look torn-suggesting she undressed willingly, or that her clothes were removed post-mortem. Did she know her attacker, you think?”
“There’s a lot of questions on this case, Greg.” Sara finished her tape lift from the bedside table.
“I’ve only got one,” Gil interjected. “If this is Elton John’s hotel room, where is Elton John?”
“The YMCA?” Greg supplied helpfully.
“The Hair Club for Men?”
“I’d say the buffet,” Brass said, who’d been standing just outside the doorway and choose then for his entry. “But either way, I’ve got someone outside you might want to talk to.”
“What is your name?” Gil asked again.
“Ant,” the smaller, fidgety man replied. “Antoine Bules Christiansen. My parents wanted my initials to be ABC.”
“And you are related to Elton John how?”
“I’m his personal assistant. A real personal assistant,” he corrected, “not the kind of ‘personal assistant’ he had following him around in the earlier days.” Finger quotes accompanied the speech, and he looked at his feet, drawing circles in the carpet with his toes. “I actually do work for him, you know. Go there, get that, see-”
“Where is Elton now?”
Ant drew a heavy sigh and shrugged on exhale. “He’s always out and about on the weeks when Céline is playing. He likes her and all, but that’s his time. He might not even be in the country,” he concluded.
“Who would know where he is?”
“His manager, maybe. But he’d only know if there was a gig or a dinner or some kind of show or appointment. There hasn’t been recently, so he’s probably in France or Winsdor or maybe even Mississauga, visiting David’s parents. He could be half way to-”
“When was the last time you saw him?”
Ant shrugged, giving a harmless eyelash flutter. “I can’t remember.”
“You’re his assistant. He calls you for things, you remind him of what he has to do and you haven’t seen him in so long you can’t remember when that was?” Gil questioned, sceptically.
Another shy little shrug. “Might have seen him recently. But he didn’t do anything. I mean, I don’t know what’s going on, but when there’s cops I know Elton didn’t do nothing. If you found drugs or something, they’re not his. He doesn’t do that anymore.”
“When was it you saw him?”
“Yesterday.”
“Where was he?”
Ant’s eyes darted around the hall, eventually settling back on Gil. “At the hospital,” he admitted.
“The hospital?”
“David’s been hurt,” he explained. “The doctors said he’s in some kind of light coma or something. He should be okay, but Elton’s been in and out of there all the time since they took him-”
“Who is David?”
“Elton’s baby cakes,” Ant responded.
A question mark was apparent on Gil’s face. “Excuse me?”
“His boyfriend, his partner, his husband, his spouse, his significant-”
“Okay, I get it.” Gil looked to Greg, making sure the notes were being taken. “When was the last time you were in his room?”
“His suite? Oh, not for three days now, since David was hurt.”
“He was hurt? What happened?”
“I came in, with his order of Cheesie Bread, and there he was, on the floor. I panicked, you know, just for a minute, but then I found my head and called emergency. The paramedics came, and we all took David to the hospital. Haven’t been back since.”
“And Elton wasn’t here at the time?”
“Last time I saw him in his suite was about four or five days ago.”
“Is that unusual?”
Ant shrugged, a little more confident than last time. “His pace changes all the time. Sometimes I’m sleeping on the floor mat they call me so often, other times he feels like being independent and I don’t hear from him save for a hello or if I can get in touch with someone he doesn’t want to talk to for whatever reason. I mean, he’s usually good keeping in touch with people, but sometimes it just comes to talking to someone you don’t feel like-”
“Where is his manager?”
“L.A., probably,” Ant recalled, taking out a notepad and scribbling on it. “You can reach him there, but he and Elton aren’t exactly friends.”
“Is there an animousity between them?”
“A what-a?”
“Do they not get along?”
“I guess. They’re not friends, they just work together. That kind of thing.”
“So the only place you’ve seen Elton in the last few days is the hospital?”
The nervous shrug was back. “Mostly,” he conceded.
“Mostly? Where else have you seen him?”
Quietly, he admitted, “I met him once or twice at the Tast-E-Freeze on Catalina.”
“So you don’t know where he’s been the last while?”
“No,” he said after a pause.
“We need to know the license plate of the car he’s been driving. Or any car that might be driving him around.”
Ant rolled his eyes, biting his lips in turn, and scribbled more on a new page. “It’s an ivory-coloured SUV jeep wannabe thing. I don’t know the make, but that’s the license plate.”
“Thank you.”
A few hours later yielded a hit from the APB put out on the vehicle. Pooling resources, including time, Gil rode with Brass.
“You know, this vehicle isn’t registered to Elton John. So, either he stole it, borrowed it or registered it under a different name, for whatever reason,” Brass stated.
“Who is it registered to?”
At a convenient red light, Brass checked the report. “A . . .Bernie Taupin. California DMV.”
“Bernie Taupin?” Gil said with a detectable amount of glee.
“Yeah, why, that mean something?”
“That’s Elton John’s lyricist. He could have borrowed the car.”
“Why? He couldn’t afford one of his own?”
“Maybe he liked the colour.”
Having parked the car, Gil and Brass left the SUV, finding themselves in a motel parking lot.
“This is the place,” Brass said. “Now where’s the car?”
“Right there,” Gil said, pointing. “It’s ivory and,” he walked closer. “Right license plate.” He looked under the car, checking the number. “214,” he said aloud. He scanned the nearby door numbers. “That’s it right there.” He marched up the steps purposefully, Brass following close behind.
“How do we know this isn’t a red herring, tossed by that shady assistant?”
“We don’t. But right now it’s the only lead we have to find this guy.”
“Maybe we shouldn’t find him,” Brass said.
“Why?” Gil said, turning back to him.
“Arresting Elton John isn’t going to be good for my career.”
Gil shrugged, and trudged onward. “We’ve got sufficient evidence to take him in-eyewitnesses place him with the victim entering his room, suspicious circumstances as to his wherebaouts, and he’s a flight risk. It’s enough to hold him.” Shortly, they reached the room whose small brass placard announced it to be 214. Gil knocked.
The door swung open. “You’re back early-who are you?” The tone went from joyous to huffy.
“Las Vegas Police,” Brass said, holding up his badge. “You’re Elton John?”
That was met with a sneer. Smaller in person, he was dressed in what appeared to be dark blue satin pyjamas. “Do I look like Elton John?”
“Yes, actually,” Gil chimed in with a smile, “you do.”
Elton John frowned. “Well, what do you want?” Before they could answer, he added, “And how did you find me?”
“Mr. John,” Brass began again. “Would you step outside please?”
“What? Why?”
With the sigh that comes before the career ender, Brass began again. “We’re here to arrest you.”
“What?” Elton’s eyes nearly popped out of his head. “Is this about David? He’s fine, I mean, he’s unconscious, but he’s much better. Shouldn’t you have come sooner? And I didn’t even do anything-even the doctors said he hit his head on that godawful table. What is this about?”
“A body was discovered in your hotel room. Hotel employees put you in the room at the time of the murder. We’re pulling surveillence tapes now, and you can see them when you come to the station.”
“What? Body? Murder?” Elton laughed. “You’re kidding, right? This is funny. Did Bernie put you up to this?”
“I’m not laughing,” Gil replied, with his near trademark phrase.
“This is criminally serious, Mr. John.” Brass stepped away from the door, giving Elton room to exit. “Either you do this quietly, not attracting attention, or we can do this the loud way. Either way, you’re under arrest.”
Elton’s still wide eyes darted between the detective and the criminalist. “You’ll keep this quiet? I didn’t do anything.” He made a cheeky grin. “Well, nothing criminal. Okay, nothing illegal,” he amended with a wink.
“Step out of the room, please.”
~~~ to be continued ~~~
Author: Bernie Laraemie
Characters: Everybody & more
Warnings: Violence, rape, murder (usual CSI pickings); RPF-using real persons as “guest spots” and “cameos”; dismemberment; bitchy characters; may cause high blood pressure
Rating: 5 thumbs up! I mean, rated R.
Archive: Sure, just email to let me know where
Email: bernie_laraemie@yahoo.co.uk
Summary: Catherine is again snubbed when it comes to overseeing a high profile case, and some skeletons make their way out of Grissom’s closet. Speaking of coming out of closets: guest starring Elton John, as himself J
Notes: This story is a rewrite of “Paul Milander’s Gun” (just with a lot less Paul in it, and a lot more conflict and CSI-ing) so if it feels like deja-vù reading it, you probably read that one.
~~ One ~~
“Nice,” Gil said, staring with glee and awe at the partially decomposed, partially consumed corpse of a… person? Probably. In scrubs and rubber gloves, he circled the body, taking in everything he saw.
“You’re not supposed to be in yet,” Robbins said, not exactly surprised. “How did you hear about this? Just came in.”
Gil gave him a pointed look.
“Céline tickets, intuitive sense of all things creepy crawly, got it. They sent it from Hienton, Utah,” Robbins explained, unpacking the pieces that were no longer attached to the body. “Since the only lead they have is the bugs, they sent it to us.”
Gil picked one of the bugs off the body. “Only and bugs do not belong in the same sentence.” He placed the bug, a beetle, in a container and labelled it. “Do we have enough to determine male or female?”
“We should probably be able to get DNA, the bugs haven’t eradicated all traces. Just by looking at the hips, I’d estimate we’re looking at a woman. Hip measurement methods are usually only 70% accurate at best, though.”
“I just like the freedom of having a pronoun besides ‘it’ to use.” Gil pulled a few more specimens from the body. “Where was she found?”
“Ravine,” he answered simply. “According to the report Hienton is a rural area.”
“That would explain this little guy.” Gil held his newest find to the light. “Lots of them have been killed and crushed by the packing and shipping, but it should be enough to get some kind of loose time of death. Hopefully we can get an insight to where she died, if she was moved . . ..” Gil’s voice trailed off as inspected one of the limbs.
“Judging by the tissues, this arm was removed peri-mortem. Could have even been caused by the moving of the body.”
“Yeah,” he agreed absently, staring at nothing in particular.
Robbins studied him curiously. “Something on your mind?”
“What?” Gil looked up. “Oh, just . . .thinking.”
“Not about her, I take it,” he said, indicating the body.
“No,” he said after a minute. “I have a . . .predicament.”
“What kind of predicament?” Robbins started combing the body for anything of use to the investigation.
After a sigh, Gil started lifting beetles and casings again. “The FBI have asked me to work with them on a case. And when they say ask, they don’t mean ask.”
“If it’s just a case, it’s not a permanent position. You should be able to come back.”
“It’s not the leaving that bothers me. It’s which case that’s the problem.”
“Are you going to make me guess?”
Gil exhaled, tapping his fingers against an empty pan. “They’ve reopened the Milander case.”
“Reopened? Why?”
“They have reason to believe he’s still alive.”
“Still alive? You saw his body.”
Gil shrugged. “Apparently, I didn’t.”
“And you don’t want to work that case anymore because . . ..” Robbins shook his head. “Because you don’t want to fail again? Because you don’t think he’s alive?” He smiled. “See, you are making me guess.”
Laughing a little, Gil’s mood returned to serious. “Because . . .well, because I don’t want my involvement mucking up the case in court.”
“And why would it? You were confident about it before.”
“The case had been closed, so the evidence was destroyed. Now they have to remake the case, and find him.” Gil stacked his specimen containers in an order apparent only to himself. “If he’s still alive,” he added.
“So what does your involvement have to do with anything?”
“If he is still alive,” he started, “and he’s tried, he’ll represent himself. He’ll know what to use in court.”
“And what would he use in court?”
Gil looked down. Though his eyes were directed at the corpse, he didn’t pay it any attention.
“Gil?”
“Anything that . . .might have happened.”
“Between you and him?”
“Something like that.”
“You were confident about taking this to court before.”
Gil stopped playing with the containers, focusing on the discussed issue. “We had a slam dunk case. Anything that happened wouldn’t have mattered-we had more than enough to make him. I just don’t think I’d be much help.”
“What did happen, Gil?”
Gil looked back up. “You want to talk about it?”
“You seem to want to. And you’ve never mentioned any of this before.”
“I never had occasion to,” he replied. “I suppose I didn’t want to talk to it.”
“I’d say my door is always open,” Robbins said, swivelling a moment to look at the closed steel door. “But it’s bad policy to leave an autopsy theatre circulating air to the rest of the building.”
Gil smiled wryly. “Thanks.” He scratched his beard, “I was thinking of telling Ecklie.”
“Ecklie? Why Ecklie?”
“He wouldn’t want me working with the feds. It’s not in his best interests,” Gil replied. “If anything does come of . . .anything, he’d be able to handle it better.”
“How do you think he’d-”
Their heart to heart was interrupted by Gil’s timely pager.
“Speaking of Ecklie, there’s a dead body in Caesar’s,” he said, his look a little confused.
“You’re on call?”
Gil shook his head. “No, I’m not . . .it’s from Ecklie, though. Maybe there’s more bugs,” he finished with a smile.
Robbins shook his head. “Have fun.”
“Will do.”
Entering the nothing short of palatial VIP entrance, Gil looked around. Ecklie found him first.
“Gil,” he called. “I need you to supervise this case.” He walked briskly, straight to the elevator. “Catherine isn’t here yet, but I need you on this case-I can’t stress that enough.”
“What’s wrong with Catherine?” Gil checked his watch. “Her shift isn’t over yet.”
“High profile case.”
“Catherine is more than qualified to work a case, high profile or otherwise.”
“I want you on this one, Gil.” Ecklie glanced over at the floor numbers.
Gil did too, and noted the height of the floor. “I don’t think I’ve ever been higher than the twentieth floor.” He, meanwhile, used the time to put white booties over his shoes
“Penthouse suite. This is one of the few elevators that goes that high.”
“Is anyone else here yet?”
“Just a few uniforms. We’re to keep this out of the press, away from the public and-”
“Keep the sheriff informed?”
“That’s it.”
“Have you assigned anyone else to this case, Conrad?”
“I want everyone available on this case. No one talks to anyone.”
Gil nodded, stepping out as the elevator finally stopped. “Which way?”
Ecklie pointed, and they both started down the richly coloured hall. Sure enough, two uniformed officers stood by a closed door next to what seemed to be a PR agent from the hotel-at least, that was most likely, with all the complaining she was doing.
“Right here,” he said.
“Why isn’t anyone allowed in the room?” said the smartly dressed woman. “What’s going on?”
“I’m sorry, this is an open investigation. We can’t tell you anything at this time. But we do need to let our investigator inside.”
With a stubborn expression, she inserted a key card to open the door.
“What else can you tell me?” Gil asked before stepping inside, half to Ecklie, half to everyone else.
“A maintenance man came to see about the smell,” Ecklie replied. “He called 911.”
Gil nodded, entering the room and shutting the door just in time to miss the tirade from the hotel employee. The lights were off, and he kept them that way. He shook his head, wishing Ecklie had at least let him ask that the scene had been completely cleared. As far as he could tell, it was, and the coroner had definitely not been by.
The room, which was larger than his townhouse, was permeated with the putrid smell of a decomposing body. A chill went through him, as he acknowledged he was alone and, to a degree, locked in. He felt like an Edgar Allen Poe novel. Matching the Poe theme, the room had an old fashioned décor, with sconces and varnished wood mouldings.
The maze of rooms eventually yielded the body-sprawled out on the bed of a second bedroom. Unlike the other rooms, this one seemed untouched-the bed was spotless save for the corpse atop it. He circled the victim, taking in the scene. A woman, blonde and dressed in white, lay turned slightly to her left, otherwise on her back.
“The coroner’s on his way.”
Ecklie’s voice made Gil jump. “Watch your steps,” he said, pointing an accusing flashlight at Ecklie’s feet. “Maintenance man found her. What else do we know?”
“Guests across the way were complaining about the smell. Might have never known, save for the slightly open balcony door.”
“And all the secrecy . . ..”
“We have to take cautions on every case that word doesn’t spread.”
Gil pointed his flashlight sceptically at Ecklie. “You page me when I’m not on call, take the case from Catherine, we’re in a penthouse suite, you wouldn’t even tell the employee or uniforms anything besides that the hall needs to be taped off, and this is just a regular case?”
Ecklie sighed. “This is Elton John’s hotel room.”
Gil’s flashlight turned back to the victim. “Saturday night’s all right for murder.”
~~ Two ~~
“Wow. This is a hotel room?”
“It’s a penthouse suite, Greg.” Gil walked over to him. “A home away from home.”
“If your home is a castle.”
“The body was dressed,” Gil said, bringing the topic back to the deceased. “And that dress seems too big for her.”
“Was the scene tampered with?”
“Brass interviewed the employee that found her. He swears he didn’t touch her. While he might be lying, a maintainance man has little reason to dress a corpse. He called 911, who sent the police.”
“Sorry I’m late,” came a voice, following the slight creeking of the door. A second later the voice entered the room, revealing it to be David. “Traffic, as usual.” He bustled straight to work.
“She looks posed,” Gil said. “I’ll need her turned over to tell.”
“Liver temp puts time of death at twelve hours ago.” David withdrew the thermometre. “Bruising around the neck,” he noted.
“Strangulation,” Gil added. “From the position of the body, it’s likely she was raped.”
“How can you tell?” Greg asked, standing behind.
“Her legs are rotated outward, the telling is in the knees.” He pointed his flashlight to the victim’s legs in turn. “It suggests her attacker was kneeling between her legs. It that case, it’s possible he raped her, then killed her.”
“All yours,” David said, backing away and starting his report.
“Strangulation is personal,” Greg said, following Gil back toward the body.
“Entertainment, necessity, rage-crime of passion,” he continued. “The bruising on her neck suggests the weapon was smooth.” Gil darted the beam of his flashlight around the room. “A bedsheet, maybe?”
Greg looked to the spot on the floor. Sure enough, a twisted length of bed linens snaked along the carpet. “That bed is made. The sheet could be from another bed.”
Gil smiled in Greg’s general direction. “Sounds like a good theory to start testing.”
“I’m on it.” Greg left, zipping off to the other bedrooms, nearly bumping into Sara on the way.
“Catherine said I could find you in here,” she said.
“Catherine?” Gil looked puzzled. “She’s here?”
“She’s working this case too,” Sara replied.
“Of course, but she’s supposed to be in here, working this case.”
Sara walked further in the room. “She’s currently too busy arguing with Ecklie about who should get this case.”
Gil rolled his eyes, and returned to combing the body.
“Elton John, then?”
“What?”
“Is he our first suspect?”
“Because this is his room?” Gil shrugged. “All I know is she was strangled, and possibly by this sheet on the floor.”
“I’ll process it,” she said, seeing that Gil was too focused on the victim to respond.
“Reverse discrimination?” asked the doorway.
Gil looked up, and found that it was not the doorway, but Nick standing in it, who had posed that odd question. “How do you mean?”
“We found an actor who offed a woman that turned out to be a guy,” he continued. “Maybe Rocket Man offed a guy that turned out to be a woman.”
Gil smirked shortly, but otherwise scanned the victim’s flesh. “Nick, I need you to help Greg process the other rooms. Warrick, I need you to pull any survelliance of possible escape routes, with emphasis on tapes of who entered this room. But first,” he interjected before the two left, “could you go look see if the balcony door is open?”
“Why?”
“Please?” asked Gil endearingly.
“Sure thing, boss,” Nick said, leaving for the balcony.
“There’s something on her skin,” Gil said, swabbing it gently. “Clear oil of some kind. Transfer, maybe.” The sound did reach Sara’s ears, but the drifting tone suggested it had no intended target. “There’s little patches of it on her arm,” he said, the flashlight beam trailing the body. “Her legs, some on her neck. More than just a transfer, but it’s in little patches all over her.”
“I’ve got fingerprints.”
Gil turned to look, seeing Sara dust the door handle.
“It’s a partial, but it looks like there’s enough.”
“Okay, I’m here, what do you want me to do?” Catherine asked, barging in, more than a little miffed that the case had been handed over.
“There’s a lot of room to cover in the suite. Greg started on the other bedrooms and Nick is helping him, so if you could process the living room?” he asked, missing a few beats on the start.
“All right,” she said, turning and leaving.
“She doesn’t seem happy.”
Gil shrugged. “Ecklie insisted I take this case. If he hadn’t, I wouldn’t have taken it.”
Greg entered shortly. “I found these in hall.” He held up a collection of clear bags, each containing clothing. “If she was dressed after she was killed, these could be our victim’s clothes.” He looked at them. “They don’t look torn-suggesting she undressed willingly, or that her clothes were removed post-mortem. Did she know her attacker, you think?”
“There’s a lot of questions on this case, Greg.” Sara finished her tape lift from the bedside table.
“I’ve only got one,” Gil interjected. “If this is Elton John’s hotel room, where is Elton John?”
“The YMCA?” Greg supplied helpfully.
“The Hair Club for Men?”
“I’d say the buffet,” Brass said, who’d been standing just outside the doorway and choose then for his entry. “But either way, I’ve got someone outside you might want to talk to.”
“What is your name?” Gil asked again.
“Ant,” the smaller, fidgety man replied. “Antoine Bules Christiansen. My parents wanted my initials to be ABC.”
“And you are related to Elton John how?”
“I’m his personal assistant. A real personal assistant,” he corrected, “not the kind of ‘personal assistant’ he had following him around in the earlier days.” Finger quotes accompanied the speech, and he looked at his feet, drawing circles in the carpet with his toes. “I actually do work for him, you know. Go there, get that, see-”
“Where is Elton now?”
Ant drew a heavy sigh and shrugged on exhale. “He’s always out and about on the weeks when Céline is playing. He likes her and all, but that’s his time. He might not even be in the country,” he concluded.
“Who would know where he is?”
“His manager, maybe. But he’d only know if there was a gig or a dinner or some kind of show or appointment. There hasn’t been recently, so he’s probably in France or Winsdor or maybe even Mississauga, visiting David’s parents. He could be half way to-”
“When was the last time you saw him?”
Ant shrugged, giving a harmless eyelash flutter. “I can’t remember.”
“You’re his assistant. He calls you for things, you remind him of what he has to do and you haven’t seen him in so long you can’t remember when that was?” Gil questioned, sceptically.
Another shy little shrug. “Might have seen him recently. But he didn’t do anything. I mean, I don’t know what’s going on, but when there’s cops I know Elton didn’t do nothing. If you found drugs or something, they’re not his. He doesn’t do that anymore.”
“When was it you saw him?”
“Yesterday.”
“Where was he?”
Ant’s eyes darted around the hall, eventually settling back on Gil. “At the hospital,” he admitted.
“The hospital?”
“David’s been hurt,” he explained. “The doctors said he’s in some kind of light coma or something. He should be okay, but Elton’s been in and out of there all the time since they took him-”
“Who is David?”
“Elton’s baby cakes,” Ant responded.
A question mark was apparent on Gil’s face. “Excuse me?”
“His boyfriend, his partner, his husband, his spouse, his significant-”
“Okay, I get it.” Gil looked to Greg, making sure the notes were being taken. “When was the last time you were in his room?”
“His suite? Oh, not for three days now, since David was hurt.”
“He was hurt? What happened?”
“I came in, with his order of Cheesie Bread, and there he was, on the floor. I panicked, you know, just for a minute, but then I found my head and called emergency. The paramedics came, and we all took David to the hospital. Haven’t been back since.”
“And Elton wasn’t here at the time?”
“Last time I saw him in his suite was about four or five days ago.”
“Is that unusual?”
Ant shrugged, a little more confident than last time. “His pace changes all the time. Sometimes I’m sleeping on the floor mat they call me so often, other times he feels like being independent and I don’t hear from him save for a hello or if I can get in touch with someone he doesn’t want to talk to for whatever reason. I mean, he’s usually good keeping in touch with people, but sometimes it just comes to talking to someone you don’t feel like-”
“Where is his manager?”
“L.A., probably,” Ant recalled, taking out a notepad and scribbling on it. “You can reach him there, but he and Elton aren’t exactly friends.”
“Is there an animousity between them?”
“A what-a?”
“Do they not get along?”
“I guess. They’re not friends, they just work together. That kind of thing.”
“So the only place you’ve seen Elton in the last few days is the hospital?”
The nervous shrug was back. “Mostly,” he conceded.
“Mostly? Where else have you seen him?”
Quietly, he admitted, “I met him once or twice at the Tast-E-Freeze on Catalina.”
“So you don’t know where he’s been the last while?”
“No,” he said after a pause.
“We need to know the license plate of the car he’s been driving. Or any car that might be driving him around.”
Ant rolled his eyes, biting his lips in turn, and scribbled more on a new page. “It’s an ivory-coloured SUV jeep wannabe thing. I don’t know the make, but that’s the license plate.”
“Thank you.”
A few hours later yielded a hit from the APB put out on the vehicle. Pooling resources, including time, Gil rode with Brass.
“You know, this vehicle isn’t registered to Elton John. So, either he stole it, borrowed it or registered it under a different name, for whatever reason,” Brass stated.
“Who is it registered to?”
At a convenient red light, Brass checked the report. “A . . .Bernie Taupin. California DMV.”
“Bernie Taupin?” Gil said with a detectable amount of glee.
“Yeah, why, that mean something?”
“That’s Elton John’s lyricist. He could have borrowed the car.”
“Why? He couldn’t afford one of his own?”
“Maybe he liked the colour.”
Having parked the car, Gil and Brass left the SUV, finding themselves in a motel parking lot.
“This is the place,” Brass said. “Now where’s the car?”
“Right there,” Gil said, pointing. “It’s ivory and,” he walked closer. “Right license plate.” He looked under the car, checking the number. “214,” he said aloud. He scanned the nearby door numbers. “That’s it right there.” He marched up the steps purposefully, Brass following close behind.
“How do we know this isn’t a red herring, tossed by that shady assistant?”
“We don’t. But right now it’s the only lead we have to find this guy.”
“Maybe we shouldn’t find him,” Brass said.
“Why?” Gil said, turning back to him.
“Arresting Elton John isn’t going to be good for my career.”
Gil shrugged, and trudged onward. “We’ve got sufficient evidence to take him in-eyewitnesses place him with the victim entering his room, suspicious circumstances as to his wherebaouts, and he’s a flight risk. It’s enough to hold him.” Shortly, they reached the room whose small brass placard announced it to be 214. Gil knocked.
The door swung open. “You’re back early-who are you?” The tone went from joyous to huffy.
“Las Vegas Police,” Brass said, holding up his badge. “You’re Elton John?”
That was met with a sneer. Smaller in person, he was dressed in what appeared to be dark blue satin pyjamas. “Do I look like Elton John?”
“Yes, actually,” Gil chimed in with a smile, “you do.”
Elton John frowned. “Well, what do you want?” Before they could answer, he added, “And how did you find me?”
“Mr. John,” Brass began again. “Would you step outside please?”
“What? Why?”
With the sigh that comes before the career ender, Brass began again. “We’re here to arrest you.”
“What?” Elton’s eyes nearly popped out of his head. “Is this about David? He’s fine, I mean, he’s unconscious, but he’s much better. Shouldn’t you have come sooner? And I didn’t even do anything-even the doctors said he hit his head on that godawful table. What is this about?”
“A body was discovered in your hotel room. Hotel employees put you in the room at the time of the murder. We’re pulling surveillence tapes now, and you can see them when you come to the station.”
“What? Body? Murder?” Elton laughed. “You’re kidding, right? This is funny. Did Bernie put you up to this?”
“I’m not laughing,” Gil replied, with his near trademark phrase.
“This is criminally serious, Mr. John.” Brass stepped away from the door, giving Elton room to exit. “Either you do this quietly, not attracting attention, or we can do this the loud way. Either way, you’re under arrest.”
Elton’s still wide eyes darted between the detective and the criminalist. “You’ll keep this quiet? I didn’t do anything.” He made a cheeky grin. “Well, nothing criminal. Okay, nothing illegal,” he amended with a wink.
“Step out of the room, please.”
~~~ to be continued ~~~