CSI: Kansas City

Tilly Davis pulled into her driveway and pressed the button on the garage door opener clipped to the sun visor. She eased into the garage, feeling lonely looking at the large space where her husband’s truck was usually parked when she got home from work. Her son was on spring break from middle school and her husband had taken him on a fishing trip. Just the boys. The upside was she could indulge in simple pleasures. She was planning on taking a bubble bath while eating Häagen-Dazs chocolate ice cream, and then curling up with a Fabio novel.

She closed the garage door and entered the house. She flipped on the lights and tossed her purse onto a chair. Then she heard it. Someone was moving in the bedroom. She quickly flicked off the lights. She listened carefully. No doubt about it, someone was definitely in her house. She felt around in her coat pocket for her cell phone. It was not there. She remembered having put it in her purse, which she had just thrown on the chair. The kitchen phone. She crept through the dining room and into the kitchen. She dialed 911.

“Hang up da phone, bitch!”

Tilly froze. The man grabbed her from behind and ripped the phone from her hand. He slammed it on the receiver just as a muffled voice was saying, “Nine-one-one emergency, how may I--”

“Please don’t kill me,” Tilly said.

“Gib me yo’ ring,” the robber said.

“OK. Anything you want. Just don’t hurt me.”

The robber tore the gold and diamond ring off Tilly’s finger, then took off running. He crashed through the front door, and Tilly breathed a sigh of relief. She lost the ring she had been wearing for nearly 15 years--the ring that her husband dutifully spent two-month’s salary on, even when she said she’d be happy with two-week’s salary. But at least she was alive, and he hadn’t raped her. She went into the bedroom to see what else was missing. Her eyes went first to the oak dresser, where she kept her jewelry box. It was gone. She expected that much. The drawers were also open and clothes were strewn on the floor.

She thought she should call the police again. If TV shows like "CSI: Miami" had taught her anything, it was that the police need a caller to stay on the line for 60 to 90 seconds to trace the call. She stepped over to the bed-side phone. As she lifted the receiver, she noticed a shadow. She spun around. The robber was back. He was ghost-white with a shaved head. He had boils on his crown and a peach-fuzz mustache. He had bleary, half-shut eyes and broken yellow teeth. He was decked out in XXL G-Unit apparel. In one hand he held a 64-ounce Styrofoam cup from QuikTrip, in his other hand he was holding a sideways 9 mm.

Tilly dropped the phone and dove over the bed. A bullet rang out and demolished a pillow. Tilly rolled over the side of the bed. The robber leaped around the bed and shot Tilly twice as she cowered on the floor. Her blood soaked the wooly carpet.

#

Mark Rossi, of the Kansas City Police Department’s CSI unit, strode confidently into the house. He carried his paunch nicely in his blue dress shirt, unbuttoned casually at the neck. He had neatly combed blond hair, baby blue eyes, and soft cheeks. He was known as a no-nonsense professional, but his deliberate demeanor seemed more like an act. In fact, he had actually been president of drama club in high school.

“What've we got?” Rossi asked.

“Homicide,” Conner answered. “She made the mistake of coming home while her house was being robbed.”

“Common mistake,” Rossi commented. “Were there any witnesses?”

“Only one,” Conner smirked. “But she’s in no condition to talk.”

“Any physical evidence?” Rossi inquired.

Conner answered matter-of-factly: “We’re dusting for fingerprints, but the killer was pretty clever. He wiped down the entire house before he escaped. But there are plenty of semen samples to go on. The whole house is practically dripping in the gooey white substance, like a Japanese bukkake video.”

“Any positive identification?” Rossi wondered.

“We’re still working on it,” Conner answered regretfully.

Rossi carefully scanned the crime scene. A small line on the carpet caught his eye. He crouched down. It was a pubic hair.

“Tweezers,” he demanded.

Casie Bouvier, Rossi’s sexy assistant, handed him a pair of tweezers. He pulled the short, crinkly hair out of the carpet.

“Analyze that pube,” Rossi commanded Casie.

“Sure thing, Mark,” Casie said suggestively, as if there was something more between them.

Casie put the pubic hair into the DNA scanner. It quickly returned a match.

“We have a match,” Casie informed Rossi. “It belongs to one Adam Dexter. Thirty-two, white male, seventh-grade social studies teacher. Blood type O-positive.”

“You armed?” Rossi demanded to know suggestively, as if confirming that there was something between Casie and him.

“You know it,” Casie confirmed.

“Let’s bring this mother down!” Rossi cocked his gun and he and Casie rushed out the door.

#

Adam Dexter was reclining in his sofa. He lived alone in a cozy little house. He had a girlfriend who he saw on the weekends, but on the weeknights he took it easy. Teaching was harder than most people would think. The teaching part wasn’t so hard. He liked his students and being in class. It was more the other bullshit teachers had to put up with. Like boring-ass meetings of marginal relevance, day-long conferences that discussed educational theory with no practical teaching methods, monster parents who think their kids are little gods and are entitled to preferential treatment, people constantly saying, “You’re so smart, why did you go into teaching?”

On weeknights Mr. Dexter would go home, change into a T-shirt and cotton shorts, make a simple dinner of hot dogs or macaroni and cheese, and drink a beer while watching Comedy Central. Or some nights when he was feeling especially worn out, he would stop by QuikTrip on the way home for something quick, like he had tonight.

After staying a little later than usual grading tests, he had stopped by QuikTrip to fill up the old Honda and use the urinals. He purchased some nachos and then went home. He didn’t notice that he lost a pubic hair as he used the urinal. Little did he know that pube would end up on the bottom another customer’s shoe who would use that urinal an hour later. He couldn’t have known that same customer would then go break into the Davis residence, leaving the pubic hair behind as he tread on the carpet. Or that CSI investigator Mark Rossi would find that pube and link Mr. Dexter to the crime.

“CSI! OPEN UP!” Mr. Dexter heard from outside the front door. He shot up, not noticing the plastic nacho tray dropping to the floor.

The door crashed open, Rossi and Casie barged in, followed by a small army of cops.

“DROP THE GUN!” Rossi screamed, pointing his firearm at Mr. Dexter, his hand trembling from adrenaline.

“It’s not a gun, it’s a TV remo--”

Mr. Dexter was cut off permanently by the barrage of bullets that battered into his chest.

“Haul this corpse off to prison,” Rossi commanded authoritatively. “Case closed!” he declared.