In Vegas and In Trouble

"What do we have?" Grissom asked as he and Brass walked towards the apartment building. He was already taking in the details of the surrounding area. The apartment complex was nice, as far as such things go. Moderate. Seemingly normal. About three stories to each building, clean looking area, other than the yards of police tap strung about and the different officials moving around.

"Bottom floor," Brass said as he lead the way. "Single homicide, male, unidentified, about forty years of age, give or take." Brass led him to one of the doors and pushed it open for him. More officials, taking pictures and tagging evidence. The apartment was seemingly fairly simplistic. There seemed to be a main sitting room, with an attached sitting room and kitchen. A quick glance down the hallway showed three different doors. Laundry, bathroom and bedroom.

There was no body in sight, and Brass was leading him back to the bedroom.

"Who's apartment?" Grissom asked.

"Harry Potter, age 23. Called it in," Brass explained as they stepped into the room. There the body was, laying across the floor haphazardly. Trauma to the head evident by the damaged tissue of the scalp. Male, with thinning hair. Other than that, there was little to be discerned from the body.

Grissom squatted down next to the body and narrowed his eyes. "What is he wearing?"

"That's what we've been wondering," Brass answered. "Looks like a dress."

Grissom leaned over the body carefully and tried to get a better look at it. "Not a dress. Robe, I believe. Look at the way it buttons up, and how it's loose over the clothes underneath."

"An unidentified stranger enters another man's bedroom in the middle of the night, covered in a floor length black robe. I'd say that that looks pretty good for the self-defense case."

"Self-defense?" Grissom wondered out loud.

"Got the kid out there giving his statement. Claims he woke up to the guy coming into his room, and bashed him on the head with that," Brass said, pointing to an object laying beside the body. Grissom shifted over to look at it. A candelabra, antique by the look of it, and very heavy. Brass most likely, and one that was used if the wax on its base was anything to go by. Grissom picked it up carefully and turned it about. There was very little blood on it. For that matter, there was very little blood anywhere. The wound didn't seem to have bled much at all.

"Unusual," Grissom said. "Live bodies tended to bleed profusely from the head. Do you see any kind of splatter? Only dead bodies bleed so little after such damage." Grissom turned around to face Brass, holding up the candelabra. "Mr. Potter, in the bedroom, with the candlestick?"

Sara showed up a few minutes later, kit in hand and eager to get to work. Grissom quickly explain what he knew, and set her to work bagging evidence and looking for things like forced entry, struggle and a possible other murder weapon. He'd have to wait until he had the body properly examined to make it official, but he could tell on his own that there was something not right about this apparent self-defense case.

He moved out of the apartment and to where Brass had his first witness, Mr. Harry Potter himself.

Harry Potter had the general appearance of any other twenty-something. Messy untrimmed hair, worn out t-shirt that looked several sizes too large, and flannel pajama pants in red and yellow. As Grissom came walking over he could see the young man rubbing at one eye wearily, before slipping large black glasses back on.

"Mr. Potter?" Grissom inquired politely as he stepped over.

The officer sitting with the young man glanced up at Grissom, before moving a discrete distance away. Mr. Potter looked up as well and blinked at him owlishly.

"Are you from the ministry?" The boy asked with a heavy British accent and sounding as tired as he looked.

Grissom was already checking the boy over as a piece of evidence. No blood on his clothing, which matched the surprising lack in the crime scene. No obvious signs of having been in a struggle either. An interesting scar on the boy's forehead, but obviously nothing recent and most likely irrelevant. There wasn't even any blood on the boy's fuzzy green slippers. No sign that he'd even stepped foot in the crime scene.

It took Grissom only a moment to cataloged all of this, before he actually looked the young man in the eye and answered his question. "Gil Grissom, Las Vegas Crime Lab."

"Oh." The boy deflated, slouching down. "I was hoping they'd finally sent someone over."

"They?" Grissom asked, setting down his kit on the hood of the car the boy was sitting on.

"The ministry," Mr. Potter muttered, as he tried to look like he was staring at the side walk. Grissom could see the boy's eyes flicking nervously over at him, however, as he opened his kit.

"What ministry?"

The boy bit his lip, doing a terrible job at hiding his nervousness and answered "Britain's" in a very hesitant manner.

"Are you a British citizen?" Grissom asked, wondering if Brass had already questioned the young man on the issue.

"I got a VISA," The boy told him. He made a vague gesture towards the apartment.

"May I see you hands?" Grissom asked as politely as he could.

The young man gave him a perplexed look, until Grissom gestured with his flashlight. The boy seemed to get the hint, and pulled his hands out and held them up calmly for Grissom to see.

"And how long have you been in the States, Mr. Potter?" Grissom asked as he examined the boy's hands. Again, no signs of struggle or of blood.

The young man shrugged. "A little under a year. I'm taking some time off."

There something vague and evasive about the way the boy said it that caught Grissom's attention. "Time off from what?"

The boy shrugged and glanced to the left for a moment, before looking Grissom in the eye again. "From school, you know."

"What school?" Grissom pressed.

The boy shifted slightly. "Well, not school really," he said, his story already starting to stretch. Grissom raised an eye brow questioningly, and the boy flushed. "I'm supposed to start training soon. For, ah, British law enforcement."

"Did you use anything recently to clean your hands, Mr. Potter?"

Grissom was watching the boy carefully, and that's why he saw the way the young man's eyes narrow and the way his nose scrunched up distastefully. "Hell yes," he said. "I - I wasn't going to let that - let the blood sit on my hands, you know?"

Grissom continued to stare at him. Oh, yes, something was being hid here. This young man was clearly hiding something, and it was Grissom's job to find out what.

Grissom turned around slightly, and looked around the parking lot for Brass. There he was, talking with one of the officers. Brass happened to look up when Grissom needed him to, and Grissom waved him over.

"Did you know the man you killed in your bedroom, Mr. Potter?" Grissom asked once Brass had come over.

Again, that disgusted looking face, and Brass raised one eyebrow too. "You failed to say so in your statement if you did," Brass pointed out. Obviously, the young man hadn't been questioned nearly well enough.

"You didn't ask," the young man muttered, not looking either of them in the eye now.

Grissom glanced at Brass. "And his name would be?" Brass asked coldly.

"Peter Pettigrew."

"Pettigrew," Brass repeated, taking out a notebook to write the name down.

"And how did you know the deceased?" Grissom asked.

The boy winced. "He knew my parents."

"Knew?"

Mr. Potter looked up at him then, his green eyes suddenly very cold looking as he narrowed them down to thin slits. "They're dead. Pettigrew was responsible for it. He's wanted in Britain."

Both of Grissom's eyes brows shot up at that one. "The man you believe responsible for your parents' death is lying dead in your bedroom, and you didn't find this relevant enough to mention?" He nearly growled.

The young man hesitated. "I was waiting for the ministry."

"Coming from London's going to take them awhile," Brass replied. "You were just going to wait to bring this up until then?"

"Oh." The boy relaxed slightly and waved one hand. "They should be here any minute really. I'm kind of surprised they aren't here already. Figures the one time I want them to show up, they never do."

Grissom glanced over at Brass. Oh, yes, they were certainly not letting this man out of their sight until they had this whole thing sorted out. It was not looking good for one Harry Potter.

"Mr. Potter," Grissom said, turning back to his suspect. "Would you please tell me exactly how you killed the victim?"

"Hey! He's not a victim!" The boy snarled, suddenly very excited over something up until then he had shown very little alarm over. He even went as far as to stand up, which sent Grissom taking a step back, and Brass moving in to put himself, and his holstered gun between the two of them.

"Now just calm down there, son, and take a seat," Brass told him firmly.

The young man seemed to gain control of himself very quickly, and slowly sat back down on the hood of the car. "He's not," he repeated, but this time softly.

"Cause of death?" Grissom prompted him.

"Oh, yeah. I bashed him on the head with my candlestick."

"Kind of an odd thing to have conveniently next to your bed," Brass pointed out.

The kid shrugged. "I'm used to reading by candle light. I read a lot in bed."

Grissom stared at the boy for a moment before shaking his head. "The body disagrees."

The young man shrugged, but he was back to biting his lip. "Yeah, so? What do you want me to tell you?"

"How about the truth?" Brass said.

"I've told you everything I can."

Grissom smiled grimly at the young man. They'd gotten everything out him they were going to for the moment. "Don't worry," he told him. "The evidence will tell us."

The boy glanced up at him, looking slightly worried again. "Um, you aren't going to take the body, are you?"

Grissom again found himself staring at this young man in shock. Brass found his voice first and growled "What do you want, to keep it as a trophy?"

The young man shook his head, his scruffy black hair flopping about. "No, but the ministry has to see it. I mean that. They have to. Pettigrew got away with it for too long."

Grissom shook his head. "If they want to look at the body, they can do so at the Las Vegas crime lab," he said before moving away and back toward the apartment.