Title- Heaven Coming Down

Author- pepsicolagurl

Rating- R (or M) for language, violence, situations, and the whole shebang

Disclaimer- See Chapter One. It has all the details that you need to not sue me.

Author's Notes- Yay, I'm back! Not writing the story that I should, but at least I found that I could write again after this long break. Here's hoping that it lasts!

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Heaven Coming Down
Part One
Chapter Three

Calleigh Duquense jumped when a coffee cup appeared in front of her face. A smile quickly took over her face as she recognized the well manicured nails on the hand that was holding the cup. "Thanks, Pauline. What's the occasion?"

"A murder. Or a fight," she answered, a quick grin coming to her tired face. "How've you been lately?" she asked, handing over the coffee cup and then sipping from her own.

"You know me. I'm as happy as could be when I get to spend the day firing guns and comparing striations. There's just something about the smell of gun powder and…what?"

Pauline laughed slightly, shaking her head so that her brilliant blonde hair fell in her face. "You're a sick, sick woman, Cal. I can understand getting off on the smell of a man's cologne or the feel of a man's hand on your skin…but you get off on holding and firing guns. You can be as poetic about the weight and feel of a Magnum as I can be about a hot, torrid affair with the wrong type of guy."

"Please, you know that I'm just teasing you," Calleigh proclaimed, nudging her friend with her shoulder. "I like a good man just as much as you do, but I'm talking about work, not my love life. And speaking of love lives, what would you know about hot, torrid affairs? The word around here is that you haven't got any in a long time."

The prosecutor rolled her eyes, fingers picking at the cardboard sleeve around her cup of coffee. "Let me guess, Speedle says that I'm sexually frustrated and that's why I attack him all the time."

Calleigh laughed, the sound of which rang down the hallways of the lab. "Honey, Tim Speedle would never say a thing like that about you. Eric Delko on the other hand…well, you know how the first thing on his mind is always sex. I think he's just frustrated with you. All the times he's hit on you, and you aren't giving the ladies man a thing. Not even a little crumb. So you're either having a hot, torrid affair with someone that I don't know of, or you're just not getting any at all."

"Did you just accuse me of being a frigid bitch?" Pauline asked incredulously, laughing when Calleigh nodded her head with a playful smile touching her lips. "Well, whatever may be going on in my sex life at the moment, it's not the business of anyone, even you, Cal. Sorry, but a girl has to keep a few things secret, even from her close friends."

The blonde criminalist waved a hand. "I'll get enough wine into you on of these nights that you'll put out." They both watched as a lab tech walked past them with a peculiar look on his face. "Oops, now we're lesbian lovers. Anyway, was this a social visit or did you come down here for a reason?"

"Other than to give you coffee? Yeah, I have a reason, and as usual, it has to do with my frustration over Speedle. Don't ask, honey, because I'm not giving you any answers until I have some of my own. Do you know where he'd hiding out?"

"Trace. When he isn't out in the field or in the morgue, he's in the trace lab, like always. I have him running a few things for my case while he's working on the evidence from your case. I'm sorry about that, Pauline. I just can't believe that the judge would throw out all of that evidence because Speed had to eyeball a print. It doesn't make sense to me."

With a shake of her head, the smile died off of Pauline's face. "It seems like no one can believe it, the defense attorney included. He called and apologized for gloating yesterday when it happened. Even he can't see how that could happen. Sure, Speedle should have told me about how he processed the print, rather than let the defense attorney drag it out of him…huh, that's strange," she said softly, her eyes going off to the side as she thought about what she had just said. "It seems I have a few meetings today. I need to talk to Thom about that. I'll talk to you later."

"Sure", Calleigh said, watching as her friend walked off with a determined step.

Pauline took the familiar path to the trace evidence lab, and walked in, not bothering to look around and see if someone else was in the room. "I have to admit, Speedle, I never thought that you'd stoop this low," she started, before digging in her briefcase for something.

Speedle sighed and raised his eyes to look at the woman, almost yelping in surprise when a plain white envelope hit him square in the chest and fell to the examination table. "Watch it! What if I had evidence there?"

"I'm not that stupid," she shot back, her grip tightening on her coffee cup. "Did you think that your little note was funny? Because I sure as hell didn't think it was."

"What the hell are you talking about?" he asked, disregarding the fact that he still had his latex gloves on as he opened the envelope and slid out the folded piece of paper. Opening it, he looked at the printed message and almost scoffed. "Please. Why would I send this to you? If you think that I did this, then you have more problems than I originally thought."

She matched his smirk with one of her own. "It seems like something that you would do, just to piss me off. And I don't appreciate it."

Someone cleared their throat from behind her, and she spun around quickly, looking at the lanky redhead. "Lieutenant. I'm sorry, I didn't know that you were there. But if you don't mind, I really need to talk with Speedle. Alone."

Horatio smiled from his position in the corner. "I would be more than happy to do that, Pauline…if you tell me what this is all about. I have to admit, you've become quite the disruption around here." He walked past her gracefully and went to stand behind Speedle, looking over his shoulder at the note. "Did you think that this was something that you should have brought to my attention?" he asked softly, a moment after he scanned the letter.

"What in the world are you talking about?" Pauline asked, exasperated, as she grabbed a nearby stool and sat down primly, crossing her legs and tugging down on her skirt. "It's someone's sick idea of a joke," she added, glaring at Speedle the entire time.

"Like the scratches on your car, and that message that was spray painted behind your parking space? It doesn't seem like much yet, but you have to realize that this is all adding up to something."

"That there's a sick freak out there that's trying to annoy me! There's nothing wrong, Horatio, other than the fact that your criminalist think that something like this is funny. And don't give me that innocent look, Detective Speedle. This is right up your alley."

Speedle smirked, still holding onto the piece of paper as he regarded her carefully. "Aw, does the big bad prosecutor have a stalker?" Her only response was to hold up her middle finger and wave it in his direction. "I didn't send this to you, Miss McIntosh. I may not like you, I even despise you, but even I wouldn't kick a woman when she's down."

A single, perfectly plucked eyebrow rose slowly. "Really. Could have fooled me." She turned to look at the redhead. "Horatio, trust me. If something were going on, I would tell you. But this is just another coincidence in a long line of them. They don't add up. Someone's mad about me over something, sure. I probably put a loved one in jail, or couldn't put someone in jail, and they're taking it out of me. Which is understandable. But this…if Speedle didn't send it, then whoever did was just trying to get me to react to it."

"Which they did very well," Horatio pointed out. "This isn't something that you can take lightly."

"And it's not something that should be taken seriously. My God, you people overreact over nothing." She stood up and checked her watch, shaking her head. "I have to go meet with the judge in chambers. He wants to know if we have anything significant to report. Have a good day, gentlemen," she added before storming out.

They both stood there for a moment, gaping after her. Speedle was the one to break the silence, as he carefully laid the letter on the table in front of him, shaking his head with his ever-present smirk appearing again. "Talk about overreacting," he muttered, before turning to go back to his evidence. He stopped the moment he felt the light touch on his shoulder.

"She may have been overreacting, but this is something that we should look into, Speed." Horatio met his eyes. "This isn't the first letter that she's received, and along with her car being scratched, and the 'bitch' that was written behind her car, I think that there could be something going on. She's too used to things like this happening to take it seriously anymore."

He shook his head. "How do you know if there have been other letters? She wouldn't tell you if there were."

"No, but she would tell Calleigh, and I do have a few friends in the district attorney's building. I know for a fact that this isn't the first one set in this tone." He turned to leave. "Look into it for me, Speedle. Very quietly. Look at her recent cases, the judges that sat on them, whatever it is, you have to find it."

"You're asking me to look for a needle in a haystack," he protested.

"Then find me that needle."

---

"This is ridiculous," Pauline muttered, taking another look at the slim gold watch that encircled her wrist. "He was supposed to be here twenty minutes ago. I have things to do today. I can't sit around waiting for the judge."

The defense attorney rolled his eyes as he leaned back in his chair, looking towards the empty desk where the judge should have been sitting. "Even I'm beginning to get fed up," he told her, turning to look at him. "You know, you could just share what you know with me right now, and we could go from there. We don't need a judge to mediate for us."

"Technically, we do," she shot back, crossing her arms. "He cleared his docket for this case, and this case alone, because he knew it was going to be so complicated and long, so I don't see what could be keeping him, unless he's stuck at some business lunch."

"Probably throwing back a few brandies at the nineteenth hole." Thom grinned at her, finally turning to look at her. "So tell me, Pauline, is your criminalist beating himself up over the fact that I had to pull the information from him?"

Now she was the one rolling her eyes. "I wish. No, he's as arrogant and stubborn as ever. You ever worked a case that Speedle was involved in?"

"Once or twice, far back as I can remember. He's a little stiff. Not really into the process of being questioned, I imagine."

"Take him away from his precious microscope, and it's the end of the world. Want my advice, Thom? Don't work any cases that he's involved in. He's a damned good criminalist, I'll give him that, but if I had my choice, I'd rather put a rookie investigator on the stand rather than him. He's just no good at this sort of thing. I cringe anytime I see his name on the paperwork." Pauline laughed suddenly. "Truth is, I'd much rather have Horatio Caine on the stand than anyone."

Thom smiled. "Ah, yes. The infallible Horatio Caine. Haven't had the pleasure of working with him, yet. I hear he's a bit of a hothead, though."

"Only when the time calls for it. He's also the most calm, cool, collected guy that you'll ever meet. He at least knows what he's doing when you question him."

The conversation died off, and they sat again in silence, save for Pauline tapping her high heel on the ground impatiently. Another five minutes clicked by before she finally pulled her cell phone out of her pocket and looked through the directory, finding the judge's home number. She let it ring until his voice mail picked up, then hung up the phone with a huff.

"That's it, I'm not waiting around anymore," she muttered to herself, standing up and walking over to the judge's desk. She found a pad of paper and a pen, scribbling down a note and leaving it in the center of the desk, where he would be sure to find it. "I'm sorry, Thom, but I've got to go. I asked the judge to call us and reschedule at his convenience," she said as she looked at her watch before scribbling down the time. "Damn it!" she cried suddenly.

"What now?" the defense attorney asked as he stood up, collecting his briefcase and the legal pad that had been sitting on his knee.

She shook her head with a sigh. "Oh, nothing. I just noticed that I lost a diamond off my watch, that's all. I swear, this thing is worth more trouble than it should be. It was damned expensive, too." With a frown on her face, she stepped around the desk and got her things as well, walking to the door with him. "Well, no matter what happens, we still on for drinks tomorrow night?"

"Of course. I wouldn't let a little thing like this come between our friendship," he teased, holding the door open for her.

"I'm sorry," she said sweetly. "I didn't realize that there was any sort of friendship between us."