CSI:New York : Who Are You? (Don Flack/OFC fanfic)

Reconstruction for Dummies

All the variables had been checked, weight and height of the victim, the height of the bed and the length of the master bedroom and stairwell in the Tam's house. Now all they had to do was test out Susan Tam's theory that after finding her husband had committed suicide, she had pushed his body down the stairs to cover it up.

Olivia carried the white forensics dummy up the stairs, its featureless face fixed on the ceiling. Reaching the top she stood the dummy on its feet and turned, one hand on hip, to watch as Danny struggled up the stairs with the two sports holdalls which contained the weights.

'Messer, quit being such a guy and bring them up one at a time,' she told him, shaking his head.

'So you can get your jollies and tell the entire department what a wimp I am?' He shook his head as he grunted. 'Don't think so. I'm still sore after blackball-gate.'

Olivia sighed and hoisted the dummy and made her way across the hall into the Tam's bedroom. The room was the entire size of Olivia's apartment. The king-size four-poster bed swallowed up most of the floor space, a completely ostentatious piece of furniture with yards and yards of white organza serving as a canopy above it, and the carpet was at least five inches thick and made of the purest one hundred percent wool and of course, it was white.

Danny was still grunting out in the hallway. Olivia laid the dummy on the bed and then opened up her field-kit. She took out the relevant paperwork that she and Danny had been working on and was thumbing through the variables when he came through the door all but dragging the two bags behind him.

'Manage there?' she said not looking up from the paper, a hint of a grin on her face.

Danny drew in a deep breath and let it go as he dropped the weights. Pressing his hands to the small of his back, he arched back slightly, rolling his shoulders. He heard the crack in his neck and grunted. 'I don't get paid enough for this. You're carrying them out.'

'Fine.' She lifted her head from the paperwork. 'Let's get them strapped on.'

'Let's do this.' Danny opened up the bags and one-by-one took out the weights. They attached the Velcro strapping to each one before fastening the weights to the dummy's body at the correct weight of Jason Tam, two-eighty. 'Okay,' Danny slapped his hands together and gave them a rub, 'bed height?'

Olivia flicked to the relevant page. 'Ah, thirty-six inches,' she read off the sheet.

'Vic slept on the side of the bed furthest from the door...so that's what?'

She checked again. 'Twenty-six feet. From the bedroom door to the stairwell, that's another...seventy-two. And it's not a straight line, either.'

'Giving us a grand total of one hundred and one feet. What did the merry widow weigh?'

'One forty,' Olivia told him. 'She must really be into the Zumba.'

Danny grinned. 'Go for it,' he nodded at the dummy.

'Why me?'

'Do I look like I weigh one forty?'

'Do I?'

He shook his head. 'Not going there. Guessing a woman's weight always gets a guy into trouble.'

She rolled her eyes and handed him the wad of papers in her hand. 'Feet first you think?'

Danny thought about it. 'Probably the easiest way for a woman. Can't imagine the widow Tam having the upper body strength to hook him under the arms.' He shrugged. 'Fireman's lift out also.'

'Feet first then.' Olivia grabbed the dummy's feet and began dragging it off the bed, its head hitting the floor with a loud thwack.

Danny grimaced. 'Could explain the contusion he had.'