CSI: Miami

"A Link to the Evidence"

The midday Florida heat hit Lieutenant Horatio Cain like a blast furnace as he stepped out of the Hummer. The crime scene was out on A1A in Surfside, in one of those little pink stucco beachfront motels. A short way down the beach, some "classic rock" radio station was conducting some kind of beach party. He could hear Jefferson Airplane blasting out of the amplifiers. A few people from the party had drifted up the beach, drawn by the police cars and the yellow tape, but the uniformed officers were keeping them at a distance.

Frank Tripp was walking across the parking lot toward him. "What've we got?"

Frank gestured over his shoulder to a first floor room with an open door. "The maid found the victim when she came to clean the room. He registered under the name 'Dolph Gannon,' paid in cash for one night. We've asked around, nobody saw anything."

Horatio started toward the open door. Frank held an arm out, gesturing him to wait. "It's pretty bad in there."

It was.

The victim was an older man, with a beard. His body was sprawled across the bed sideways. His clothes, the bedspread, and the carpet near the bed were reddish-black with blood. There were spatters of blood all over the walls and draperies. Alexx Woods was bent over him, searching carefully, taking digital photos. Calliegh Duquesne was processing the rest of the room.

Alexx looked up from her work. "I've never seen anything like this," she said. "There have to be thirty or forty knife wounds, all at the same angle, chopping into him from upper left to lower right." She gestured in the air with her left hand.

"So our killer was … left-handed?"

"Seems so."

"Horatio?" Calleigh said. She was standing over the desk.

"What have you got?"

"Notepad next to the phone." She held it up. "There's nothing written on the top sheet, but it's got an impression of something someone wrote on the sheet above it. I ran a pencil over it; there's a name, Zelda, and a phone number."

"Do we know if it has anything to do with our victim?"

"There's blood spatters all over the desk, but none on the notepad itself. Whoever killed him must have taken the top sheet before leaving."

"Good catch."

"Horatio!" It was Frank, calling from outside. Horatio went out. After the relative dim of the motel room, the sunlight was overpowering, and he put his sunglasses on. The classic rock station was playing The Who now. "It's across the street there." Frank was pointing to an office park building, and Horatio could see Ryan Wolfe standing by some lilacs planted along the sidewalk.

Horatio waited for a break in traffic and sprinted across the street. "You're not gonna believe this, Aitch!" Wolfe said as he got closer. "Take a look!" Wolfe pointed at an object in the bushes.

Horatio squatted down and took off his sunglasses to get a better look. There was a sword lying on the ground, a straight-bladed sword like something from the middle ages. The blade was covered in dried blood.

"Mister Wolfe," Horatio said, as he straightened up, "we have a man hacked to death with an archaic murder weapon, and no witnesses. This is going to require"—he put his glasses back on—"a cutting-edge investigation."

As if agreeing with him, Roger Daltrey's voice echoed off the buildings. "Yeaaaaagggghhhh!"