The CSI Effect

It was Adrienne last day in Quantico and she had enjoyed the week so much more than she could ever have anticipated. Teaching the trainee FBI agents had been such invigorating and hugely satisfying. It seemed that she had found a new passion in life and now had the opportunity to make it her career. The night before Ben had offered her a full time position at the Academy and it was a seriously tempting offer. Of course she had asked him to give her some time to think it over, it would after all mean turning her life upside down and relocating to the opposite side of the country.

She was still mulling it over as she packed up her belongings when there was a knock on the door. She opened it to find Ben standing in the hallway.

"Just came to say my goodbyes"

She opened the door wider to let him in.

"Have you made arrangements for getting to the airport?"

"Yes, the taxi will be here at four"

The look on his face informed her that he was already well aware of her plans. He was forever subtle, his communications silent but always well pronounced.

"Don't worry, I'll arrange for a car to take you. I guess it means that you have a few hours to spare".

He never guessed about anything in his life.

"I guess that it does". She replied, a smile on her face, just waiting for what he was about to add next.

"Then I hope that it won't trouble you too much to look over one last case for us? Its rather a puzzling one that really could benefit from your expertise".

"I'd be happy to take a look, even without the flattery".

_______

Back in Berkeley Mike had also picked up a rather interesting case.

"You're telling me that there is no cause of death?" He ludicrously asked Dr Langdon as he stood in the morgue, standing over the body of a young woman who had been found dead in her apartment the night before.

"No, I'm just telling you that I have no idea what it is. My best guess would be acute poisoning based on the slight oedema of the lungs and brain, the enlargement of the spleen and the ischemic changes in the kidney. But so far, every tox screen has come back clean, if she was poisoned there is no evidence of it, which means I can't fill in a cause of death, which means I also can't determine the manner of death. I can't rule this a homicide, I'm sorry. Damn, I wish Adrienne was here".

Mike nodded in agreement.

"Well, I can keep the investigation open as a suspicious death, nineteen year olds don't just drop dead".

Mike headed to what he was just going to go ahead and call the crime scene, calling his trusted friend on his way there. When he arrived Billie Joe was standing, chatting away to the officer whose long and tedious job it was to ensure the integrity of the scene. They entered into the rather modest apartment and began hunting for anything that could shed some light as to how the victim died.

"Dr Langdon reckons that she was poisoned so look for anything that she could have overdosed on, anything that someone could have used to poison her".

They searched the apartment high and low but turned up nothing that would explain the mysterious death.

"What the hell happened to her?" Mike wondered out loud to no one in particular.

He just could not understand how someone could die and there be no explanation for it. Usually cause of death was the easy part; a gun shot wound, a blow to the head, it was figuring out who the perpetrator behind it that caused the most difficulty. But how could they even begin to discover the responsible party when they didn't even know how the deceased came to be just that, or even if there was a guilty party. Truth was they were completely in the dark with this case and as yet there was no light in the distance.