you know what time it is?" said the shriek. It was the apartment manager who shared a wall with Verona's apartment.
"I imagine it's around 1:00 in the morning," said Verona in a tired voice.
"On a Thursday! A Thursday! You come waltzing through here, at 1:00 in the morning making all that noise," she cried. Her voice was shrill, a sound that makes dogs wimper in pain. "At one in the morning!"
Verona held the crumpled tresspassing violation in her hand and said, "I was held up by a state trooper on my way home. He wrote me a ticket." She jiggled her key in the lock. It always seemed to stick when the apartment manager was around.
"Up to no good! Disturbing peace and up to no good!" the woman yelled at Verona as she slipped into her apartment. She was shaken, but tired enough to let it go. She half-heratedly considered a shower or a hot meal before she went to bed, but exhaustion began to make her body feel heavy. As she kicked off her shoes, Verona had one thing in the back of her mind: there was definitely another ritual going on in the forest earlier that night. She lay back on her couch, still smelling of the damp earth and pine, and she closed her eyes. The last thing she saw before falling asleep was the crumpled citation: the police officer's badge number, her license plate number, the word tresspassing, and... a weird smudge from the policeman's fingers. A brown smudge? More of a red. Used to see smudges like that all the time on paper in my lab. My CSI lab. Just like a blood smudge. Gotta do a lumiol test. See if it's blood.
----------------
Verona was in her comfortable chair in her CSI lab getting ready to read field evidence reports and dig in to a new case. The one that someone had probably bought without accurately disclosing the awesomeness of the chair and why it cost so much. It reclined, had a cupholder, and a seat warmer inside it. 'Government funds at work,' she always said to visitors with a wry smile. This case was going to be good too. Zero suspects and just about zero evidence except for one tiny shred of fiber with droplets of blood found at the scene. Only enough for one DNA test, but it's rare to have to retest. Sometimes you get a hit in CODIS right away, and sometimes you have to depend on the idiot police officers actually do detective work. Either way, the results from the DNA and the forensic evidence of the fibers will be the most important element in the case. Just as she was pulling out her favorite set of tweezers to prepare the test, an alarm started to sound. Verona frowned and looked around. Was a fire alarm pulled? Had someone broken the window of the chemical supply closet again? Verona's body jolted into consciousness, breath rushing through her lungs as she realized what the sound was. Her alarm clock was going off and she was going to be late to work if
"I imagine it's around 1:00 in the morning," said Verona in a tired voice.
"On a Thursday! A Thursday! You come waltzing through here, at 1:00 in the morning making all that noise," she cried. Her voice was shrill, a sound that makes dogs wimper in pain. "At one in the morning!"
Verona held the crumpled tresspassing violation in her hand and said, "I was held up by a state trooper on my way home. He wrote me a ticket." She jiggled her key in the lock. It always seemed to stick when the apartment manager was around.
"Up to no good! Disturbing peace and up to no good!" the woman yelled at Verona as she slipped into her apartment. She was shaken, but tired enough to let it go. She half-heratedly considered a shower or a hot meal before she went to bed, but exhaustion began to make her body feel heavy. As she kicked off her shoes, Verona had one thing in the back of her mind: there was definitely another ritual going on in the forest earlier that night. She lay back on her couch, still smelling of the damp earth and pine, and she closed her eyes. The last thing she saw before falling asleep was the crumpled citation: the police officer's badge number, her license plate number, the word tresspassing, and... a weird smudge from the policeman's fingers. A brown smudge? More of a red. Used to see smudges like that all the time on paper in my lab. My CSI lab. Just like a blood smudge. Gotta do a lumiol test. See if it's blood.
----------------
Verona was in her comfortable chair in her CSI lab getting ready to read field evidence reports and dig in to a new case. The one that someone had probably bought without accurately disclosing the awesomeness of the chair and why it cost so much. It reclined, had a cupholder, and a seat warmer inside it. 'Government funds at work,' she always said to visitors with a wry smile. This case was going to be good too. Zero suspects and just about zero evidence except for one tiny shred of fiber with droplets of blood found at the scene. Only enough for one DNA test, but it's rare to have to retest. Sometimes you get a hit in CODIS right away, and sometimes you have to depend on the idiot police officers actually do detective work. Either way, the results from the DNA and the forensic evidence of the fibers will be the most important element in the case. Just as she was pulling out her favorite set of tweezers to prepare the test, an alarm started to sound. Verona frowned and looked around. Was a fire alarm pulled? Had someone broken the window of the chemical supply closet again? Verona's body jolted into consciousness, breath rushing through her lungs as she realized what the sound was. Her alarm clock was going off and she was going to be late to work if
