Response to kimonkey07's Bad!fic April Fools Challenge, 2006.
Prompts: Location: LV Public Library; Weapon: a mannequin arm; Evidence: a toupee; Line of dialogue: "Who knew he couldn't tie his shoelaces."
The sun up in the sky outside the Las Vegas Public Library was happy and yellow, like something a kindergartner would draw on a piece of construction paper, only without the smiley face.
Nick Stokes, the recent winner of Hottest CSI Like Ever, took his partner, Sara Sidle's hand as they skipped merrily up the front steps, cases in their free hands swinging back and forth like they were on swings. She smiled prettily at him with her David Letterman smile as they pushed through the big double doors into the library.
"I love the library, don't you, Nicky?" Sara gushed as they entered the front of the building. "You know, after my mom was killed by my father, after years of her being physically abused so she took a knife to him, I used to come to the library all the time to escape the wretched foster homes I was shuttled in and out of."
"I love it too, Sara," he said, his pearly white smile blazing up the building causing many of the library's occupants to shield their eyes from the glare, because it was a library so it was kind of dark in there.
"After I got molested by a last minute babysitter, I used to go to the library to escape from my troubles. Plus it gave my mom time to change my sheets daily since I started wetting the bed pretty much every night. Ahhh, sure brings back fond memories, don't it?"
"Yes, it does, Nick," Sara agreed, nodding her head in agreement. Then a frowny face formed on her face. "Then someone had to go and ruin the library for everyone by committing a murder here. I hope we get the perpetrator so we can make the library safe for women and children and puppies again."
"Uh, Sar, I don't think they allow puppies in here," Nick said doubtfully, scratching his head to show his doubt.
"Why seeing-eye puppies, silly," she said, slapping his shoulder. "For all the blind people who read."
"Oh, yeah! Huh. Boy, you sure are smart, Sara Sidle."
"I know. C'mon. Let's go find our crime scene!"
They skipped into the library and stopped in front of the book counter, where a librarian looking woman sat behind the desk on a chair for her to sit on.
"Nick, this is probably the librarian. You can tell because she looks old and unmarried and she wears glasses. Oh, and I bet she has a lot of cats, too."
"Boy, you sure are smart, Sara Sidle."
"I know. Excuse me, Ma'am. Are you the librarian?"
"Why, yes, I am," the librarian-looking lady who happened to be the librarian said.
Sara nodded knowingly, knowing how smart she was and this proved it.
"We are here to see the Dead Body," Sara said, much too loudly, because Sara wasn't as smart as she and everyone else thought she was.
The librarian-looking lady gave her a stern frowny face and put her finger to her lips. "SHHHHH! There are two bodies, actually, if you were to count them."
Nick raised his perfectly groomed eyebrows into the silken bangs that brushed gently on his strong brow over liquid Hershey eyes that you could fall into. "Two bodies? Hot dog! C'mon, Sara. I'll race ya!"
He grabbed her hand again, spoiling the need for the race since they were attached at the hands they were holding. As they reached the two bodies sprawled on the floor at the bottom of a steep winding staircase made of steep stairs that wound up to the second floor, they laughed together as they each yelled, "I won!" then giggled for a bit since they knew they had reached the stairs together since they were holding hands.
"Wow, there really are two dead bodies here, Nick. See? Look. One there and one there."
"Boy you sure are smart, Sara Sidle."
"I know. Let's see if we can find a clue. I brought a magnifying glass so I'm sure I'll find one before you!"
"Boy, you sure are-"
"Yes, Nicky. I know. Here, I brought one for you, too," she said reaching into her case and pulling out another magnifying glass and handing it to him so he had one too.
"I know since you got buried underground for over a day that you now have PTSD and sometimes don't think, you silly Billy."
Nick bit his lip, suddenly remembering himself back in the box. He began to whimper and paw at his arms. "I'm sorry I disappointed you, Grissom," he whispered in a harsh whisper.
"Um, Nick. Grissom isn't here, so save the attention getting theatrics for later, okay?"
"Oh, okay. Guess we should get started then, huh, Sara?"
"Yes. Oh, Look! A clue!" she said as she found a clue.
"Oh, rats! You always find the first clue, Sara. Just once I want to be the one to find the first clue!" Nick whined.
"Oh, Nicky. You know they only keep you on the team because you're eye candy. It's not like there's a real brain up there under that mop of soft brown hair that I want to run my fingers through. You cry really prettily, too, so there's that. And you fill out a pair of slacks nicely, and those blue auto detail jumpsuits? Whew!" she said fanning herself mightily.
"You know, they're right," he whispered conspiratorially. "I don't wear anything under those jumpsuits."
And Nick, who was smarter than everyone else thought he was, took advantage of Sara's suddenly spacing out and wiping at her mouth to grab up the first clue.
"Look, Sara. A toupee. I found the first clue!"
"Did not! I saw it first!" Sara said, stamping her feet prettily.
"Yeah, well, finders keepers losers boohooers, Sara." He continued to sing, "I found the first cloo-oo," as he turned the dead squirrel in his hand.
Sara huffed, huffily, and turned to the first of the bodies on the floor. He was completely bald and had what looked like gluey stuff on his scalp. He also had a third arm.
Sara scanned his form with her sharp investigators eyes. "Hm. Nothing apparently out of the ordinary with this one."
Nick prodded his body with a Clarks TrekFlex Size 10 Men's black boot clad foot. "My guy's dead," he said.
"Good observation, Nicky," Sara said patronizingly as she patted his shoulder like a teacher would a developmentally disabled ten year old who had just discovered he had a belly button. "I'd better write that down for you so your poor addled brain doesn't forget it."
Nick smiled shyly. "Thanks, Sara. I can help."
He waited while she clicked her pen and waited, that same pen hovering over her notebook as she waited for him. "My…" He waited while she wrote it down. "Guy…" He waited again. "Is… got this?"
"Yes, Nicky."
"Okay. Where was I?"
"You were on 'My guy is…'"
"Oh." He chewed on his lip pensively, pushing his small pink tongue out with a smile like that same developmentally disabled ten year old had just discovered snowflakes. And they tasted like water.
"Nicky?"
"Do you like my hair, Sara?"
"Not really, Nicky."
"Oh. Okay… my guy is…" He gave the body another shove with his foot. "Dead?"
"That's right, Nicky. Very good. Your guy is dead. Mine is too."
Nick wrinkled his face up at her, his face now that of a developmentally disabled ten year old who had discovered he had a pee-pee but was told he couldn't play with it anymore. "You always have to get what I get."
"Stop pouting, Nick. It makes your face get all wrinkly and once your looks go, what use will you be anymore?"
Nick straightened his face out quickly and puffed out his chest, flexing his arms in his tight navy blue t-shirt, the fabric straining against his pecs, the outline of rock hard abs outlined.
"Much better, Nicky. So, I know what happened."
"You do? Boy, you sure are smart, Sara Sidle."
"I know. See, they both died of Acanthocheilonemiasis."
Nick blinked several times at her, a hand rising to play at his downy soft baby kitten hair. "Okay. But you hafta write that one down. How did you figure it out?"
"Oh, I read medical encyclopedias for fun. When I'm not working triple overtime, driving drunk, chewing on cough drops to hide the fact that I've been drinking, not that anyone will notice except for Brass and that part of the story line will quickly be dropped any way, and mooning after Grissom."
"Are you sure?"
"Well, it might be Acrodermatitis Enteropathica. I've only gotten partway through the A's, but I think that's far enough, don't you?"
"Most definitely. Is one of the symptoms of that disease growing a third arm and getting glue on your head?"
Sara smiled her Madonna smile at him. "I don't know. I only know the names of the diseases. It goes faster that way."
"Makes sense," Nick said, agreeing that it made sense. "So what do we do now?"
"We take pictures, Silly Billy." She took her camera out and aimed it at Nick.
Nick flinched away, his ropy veined forearm flailing up to cover his face. "No! No cameras! Why does everyone want to capture me on film?" He began moaning and rocking on the heels of his Clarks TrekFlex Size 10 Men's black boots. "Green T, Green T!"
"Um, Nick. Nigel's not here. Twenty-five years to life. It's over. And besides, Nigel only shows up in fan fiction to torture you again. Of course, only a few have really done him justice; the rest just like to use him to whump you into broken-boned comas. I just wanted a few pictures of you for Kristen's Monday LJ postings. She's running low. Kristen wants more arm!porn, and Kim keeps asking to see your calves. Think you could roll your pants up for her?"
Nick dropped his arm, soft Nestlé's brown eyes still filled with tears like a developmentally disabled ten year old looking for his Woobie.
"Perfect!" Sara cried.
He sniffed, then turned and flexed a baseball-biceped arm for Kristen, then bent to roll up the legs of his tight well-worn blue jeans. When they reached his knees he turned around at Sara's direction and she finished up the roll taking copious pictures of Nick's firm well-defined calves.
Sara had put in a new roll and was actively clicking pictures of Nick, bending, squatting, using the magnifying glass, although Sara had to switch it around in his hand as he kept poking his eye with the handle, and every once in a while she'd yell, "Ants!" or "Plexiglas!" or "Babysitter!" just to get Nick's lips to quiver and his Cadbury eyes to fill with tears.
"Ahem!" It was the librarian-looking lady. "Just what exactly are you two doing?"
"Our jobs, Ma'am. We're with the Las Vegas Crime Lab, the second best lab in the country, but that's only because Warrick got Holly Gribbs killed because he was too busy feeding his gambling addiction, and Catherine blew up the lab with Greg in it, and Nick once told a friend of his about an active case, and I got busted for DWI, and Catherine once sucked face with a murder suspect, and I tend to get too emotionally involved in cases involving raped women, and Nick gets too emotionally involved in every case where there is a victim, and Grissom is aloof and emotionally barren, but that actually never really affects our cases, I just thought I'd throw that in there. Brass shot one of his own fellow cops and his daughter is a crack whore. Oh, and Nicky slept with a prostitute and was accused of being her murderer. I forget anything, Nicky?"
"Nope. That about says it. You got Warrick's gambling problem in there, right? Sorry, short attention span. Say, did you mention about Catherine handling her own husband's rape arrest?"
The librarian-looking lady quickly interrupted. "Well, this is a library, not America's Next Top Model. Could you please wrap this up?"
"No problem, Ma'am. We have already determined that these men died of…Aniridia Cerebellar Ataxia."
"You foolish girl, that's not what happened. That man there clobbered that man there with a mannequin's arm. They were obviously working together in the window of the Hugo Boss store in the Fashion Show Mall, dressing the mannequins, when they started to fight. They chased each other into the library, the one man beating his friend with the arm, then falling down the stairs. Why, everyone here heard the one man shouting about the other man taking his toupee. Now the only question is why the man fell down the stairs. Who knew he couldn't tie his shoelaces? Find that man, and you have your murderer."
"Wow, you sure are smart, librarian-looking lady," Nick said.
"I watch a lot of forensics programs with my cats," she said. "Lord knows there are a ton of them on TV."
"See, Nick? I told you she'd have cats!"
"Gee, you sure are smart, Sara Sidle."
"I know. C'mon, Nicky. Let's go."
"You know what, Sar? I think I love you," he said with a SNICKER. "Let's go get married."
"Okay. Race you to the place where the guys dressed in silver suits who look like aliens marry people!"
The two joined hands and skipped out of the building, the shouts of the lady who looked like a librarian following them out into the bright Vegas sunlight. "What about the bodies?"