1

CHRISTMAS IN MIAMI, HORATIO THOUGHT, was almost redundant.

He glanced out the window of the Hummer as he cruised down the Rickenbacker Causeway. On the other side of the guardrail, out in Biscayne Bay, the sailboats had their masts decorated with strings of Christmas lights, and he could see at least one cruise ship with a big inflatable pine tree on its deck. Those sorts of details, he had to admit, only showed up once a year… but conceptually, the city was Christmas all year round. Miami Beach was a great big Santa's workshop for grown-ups, dispensing booze and food and sex and music; sure, the trees were palm instead of evergreen, the lights neon instead of twinkling, the crowds lined up outside clubs instead of inside malls—but everybody still had a list of what they wanted. Bouncers kept track of who was naughty or nice, and nobody complained when their present showed up in a mojito glass or wrapped in a thong instead of paper. Miami even got snow… but it usually arrived in kilo-size packages of tightly bound plastic, stashed in the hold of a Cigarette boat.

And of course, Horatio thought, there was the occasional Grinch.

The crime scene was a convenience store in Liberty City, not one of Miami's better neighborhoods. He parked in front, beside the two black-and-whites, and got out. By the time he ducked under the yellow police tape barring the front door, he had already gloved up; Horatio went through more latex than a sex-trade worker moonlighting as a paramedic.

Calleigh Duquesne was already there, kneeling beside a pool of blood on the floor. Horatio took a quick look around, noted the security camera, the closed till, and a toppled rack of potato chips.

"Hey, H," Calleigh said. She used the camera in her hands to snap a quick couple of pictures. "What brings you out on this cheery holiday night?"

"An attempted robbery, apparently," Horatio replied. "I understand the vic is still alive?"

"And his attacker—problem is, we don't know which is which. A customer found two men, both unconscious, both sprawled out on the floor. It looks like one clocked the other one with this." She held up a large glass bottle of malt liquor; the bottom edge was matted with blood and hair. "Both men were in their thirties, of Middle Eastern or Hispanic descent. One had ID, the other didn't. Ambulance took them to Dade Memorial."

"So how did they both wind up unconscious?"

"Check this out." Calleigh pointed at the floor, where a short red smear jutted from the edge of the pool of blood. "Believe it or not, it looks like the second one slipped in the first one's blood—or maybe vice versa. Cracked his skull on the floor."

"So we have a clumsy criminal or an unlucky clerk," Horatio mused. "And if the security camera is working, we should be able to tell which is which…"

Horatio walked behind the front counter, Calleigh right behind him. There was a small video monitor mounted on the underside of the counter, out of sight of the customers. It cycled between two views: the front of the till and the back door.

"I've got blood spatter on the counter," Calleigh said. She snapped off a few pictures. "Looks like this is where the fight started."

Horatio found the recording unit and fiddled with the controls. "Okay, here we go," he murmured.

The monitor showed them the back of the clerk's head. A tall, dark-skinned man wearing a long black coat entered the frame, holding a magazine in one hand and gesturing wildly with the other. A scarf obscured the lower part of his face.

"Too bad there's no sound," Calleigh said. "Wonder why he's so agitated."

"As near as I can tell, it has something to do with that magazine," Horatio said.

The attacker tossed the magazine away and struck the clerk in the face with his fist. Blood poured from the clerk's nose. The man's hand suddenly shot out and grabbed the clerk by the throat. Using only one arm, he dragged the clerk across the counter and in front of the till.

"Strong," Calleigh said.

"And violent…" The fight was no longer in range of the camera, but they could see the rack of potato chips fall into the frame. There was no movement after that.

"So the blood pool was from the punch in the nose," Calleigh said.

"And presumably right afterward is when our poor besieged clerk grabbed the bottle and got in a lucky shot." Horatio reached down and stopped the recording.

Copyright © 2006 by CBS Broadcasting Inc.