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

Another Day, Another Crime

Lindsay Monroe let go of a yawn and rubbed at her eyes as she and Danny Messer arrived outside the apartment block on West 10th where the body of a man had just been discovered. It was barely eight am, the day had just begun and it wouldn't be over for a long time. Danny slid a grin in her direction as they both ducked beneath the yellow crime tape.

'Tired, Montana?'

'Something like that,' Lindsay replied, stifling another yawn.

'You gotta boyfriend I don't know about?'

Lindsay eyed him. 'Like I would tell you.'

'We could do with some new locker room gossip.'

'You're getting none from me.' She wasn't about to enlighten him that her exertions of the night before had nothing to do with men or sex. She should be so lucky. What she had been doing was spending the best part of the night painting the kitchen in her two-bedroom apartment. She stopped beside the dead body on the sidewalk and looked down at the man. There was no blood, no sign of a struggle or violence.

Danny snapped on a pair of latex gloves and dropped to one knee beside the DB. Don Flack got his eye on them and the tall, homicide detective excused himself from the witness he had been talking with - who knew and had seen nothing - to make his way over to the two crime scene investigators.

'As of yet we have no ID on the guy,' he told them.

Lindsay began snapping off pictures as Danny rolled the body carefully left then right. 'None on him?' he asked.

'I haven't checked.' Both Danny and Lindsay paused what they were doing to look at him and Flack felt a little flustered beneath their pointed gazes. 'Do you know how busy I've been since the call came through?' he defended. 'Any time I went near the body some "concerned citizen" would interrupt and start asking questions.'

Danny rubbed a hand over his chin. 'I dunno, maybe I'm confused here, but aren't you as the detective supposed to be the one to ask the questions, Flack?' he teased his friend. Flack's eyes narrowed.

'Cute. Isn't it your job as a CSI to check the body for evidence?'

Lindsay smiled. The two men were old friends but every now and then either one or both couldn't resist the odd jibe. 'Time out, boys,' she said as Danny began turning the victim's pockets inside out.

'I got no wallet, no driver's license, nothing. Possible robbery motive.' The DB's hand caught Danny's attention. He frowned, lifting up the hand, palm facing. 'Here we go. Look at this.'

'Sharp, Messer. The vic has a hand,' Flack said dryly.

Danny just gave a quick good-natured grin. 'Look closer,' he said and both Flack and Lindsay bent over.

'I see nothing,' Flack shook his head.

Lindsay met Danny's eyes over the body. 'He has no fingerprints.'

Danny nodded. 'No ID and no fingerprints.'

'No fingerprints?' Flack said incredulously. He took a closer look at the victim's hand to make sure of it himself.

'Somebody didn't want us finding out who he is,' Lindsay said snapping off pictures of the dead man's hands. Danny looked closer and shrugged.

'Could've been burned off.'

'Hazing prank?' suggested Flack.

'Guy's a little old to be a college grad. The ME'll be able to tell us better.' Danny bagged the dead man's hands. 'Who found him?'

Flack flipped open his notepad. 'Vivian Shade. Just after five-thirty, she was out jogging, called it in as soon as she found him. She's in one of the patrol cars, she's pretty shaken up.' He jabbed a thumb over his shoulder pointing at the apartment building behind. 'I spoke with the doorman, he says he wasn't a tenant here, never seen him before. So he didn't live this side of town.'

Danny pulled out his tweezers and a small evidence bag from his kit. He began pulling a few stray hairs from the jacket of the victim's shoulders and chest and bagged them.

'There's no visible signs of a struggle,' Lindsay said. 'No obvious violence, no blood, nothing. If I didn't know any better, I'd say this guy was just asleep.'

'Possible heart-attack?' Flack said. 'Without any evidence of a struggle we can't presume this was murder.'

'We can't presume it isn't. Somebody must have seen something,' Danny said. 'A guy drops down dead in the middle of the street and nobody sees anything?'

'It was early,' said Flack. 'And you know how New Yorkers like to get involved.'

'Well, I don't care how early it is somebody must know something. Isn't this supposed to be the city that never sleeps?' Lindsay said.

Both Danny and Flack shared a look. 'Country girls,' Danny said with a mock sigh. 'Let's try not to ruin her big city fantasy. We should humor her.'

Flack grinned while Lindsay shot her partner the evils. Danny just winked at her, only managing to annoy her more. Flack's cell phone rang and he fished it out of his pocket. 'Flack. Okay, yeah. I'm on my way.' He shoved the cell back into his pocket. 'Another dead body over in the Heights.'

'You gettin' this, Montana? Crime never ceases in the city that never sleeps,' Danny said with a grin.

Lindsay's eyes narrowed. 'Do you always have to be such a complete - '

'All the time. It's like a curse. You should humor him.' Flack winked at her and then disappeared across the street to where his Denali was parked.

Lindsay smiled after him. Then she turned back to Danny, one eyebrow lifting. 'I'll go talk to our jogger.' She gave him one of her sweet, country girl smiles before going over to the patrol car to talk with Vivian Shade.

Danny just smiled to himself, and then he got back to work.

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COPYRIGHT. © ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. DebraJay. 2006