SCSI (Sonic Crime Scene Investigation)

Chapter 2

A/N-In this story Tikal is going to be Knuckles' sister.

Disclaimer in first chapter.

Italics are flashbacks.

Amy carefully scraped the remaining blood off of Knuckles' glove that Sonic had brought back from the crime scene. She carefully dropped the dried flakes of blood into individual vials and labeled each of the small glass containers with a fine point sharpie. She then put the glove into a fresh evidence bag. She got up from her chair and was about to take the bag over to Tails to be examined for any fibers that might be on it when she almost ran into Sonic, who was just walking into the lab.

"Oh sorry about that Ames." Sonic apologized.

"No, it's ok, I was just on my way to drop this glove off to Tails." Amy explained, holding up the brown evidence bag, while at the same time trying to fight her urge to blush.

"So any matches to the blood samples so far?" Sonic asked curiously, taking a step back to give themselves a little breathing room.

"Well," Amy began, walking over to her computer which was rapidly flashing mugshots of criminals, and sat down in the chair that was placed in front of the computer. "There was some blood splatter on the floor that didn't match the victim's, that is the blood that is now going through the system, I'm just starting to ID the blood on the gloves... and all the rest of the blood at the scene belonged to the vic." Amy reported, handing Sonic a file with all the information she had just told him. Sonic smiled as he took the file from the pink hedgehog.

"So, what you're telling me is that all the blood at the scene was Knuckles'; except for the blood on the glove and a small splatter on the floor?" Sonic clarified.

"That's right." Amy cheerfully responded. It was nice having an intelligent conversation with a guy for once.

"Huh..." Sonic took a quick peek in the file. "Here, why don't ya give me the glove and I'll hand it off to Tails? I gotta go meet up with him at the morgue in a minute anyway." Sonic offered. Amy smiled as she handed Sonic the evidence bag.

"Thanks a lot Sonic." Amy said gratefully as she turned her attention toward her flashing computer as Sonic walked out of the tox lab.

Sonic heaved open the heavy metal doors of the morgue and saw a large crocodile and Tails, who where both standing over a steel table with an object resting on it, covered with a white sheet, discussing the murder they had both been working on as of yesterday.

Once Vector and Tails heard Sonic walking in they both looked up at him with blank expressions. Sonic walked up to the two and looked solemnly down at the bulge under the sheet.

"Cause of death?" Sonic inquired as he sucked in a large breath to prepare him for the no-chance-of-being-good news. Which he then regretted doing because the morgue was not the best smelling place in the world. Vector shot him a quick look before carefully lifting up the sheet to revel Knuckles' head.

"Blunt force trauma to the head." Vector stated as he pointed a plastic gloved hand at the gash on the echidna's forehead. He walked around the steel table to a counter and picked up a stack of photos that Blaze and Sonic had taken of the crime scene yesterday.

"After going over the pictures I can safely say he smashed his head on the edge of the sink." Vector finished as he handed Tails, who had not yet seen them, the pictures of the bloody sink.

"The force of the sink smashing against his forehead cracked his skull open, leading to internal bleeding inside the brain. He died within minutes."

"Any suffering?" Tails never failed to ask the dreaded question.

"Only slightly, but he blacked out just before his heart stopped."

Sonic winced a bit.

Tails scanned through the photos with intelligent aqua marine eyes and then glanced over at Sonic who was intently starring at the deceased echidna lying on the table. He looked like he was about to be sick. Tails didn't understand this; Sonic had never been like this, he'd worked on hundreds of cases and he's never shown so much emotion. But then the little kitsune remembered their conversation at dinner last night. He gave Sonic another quick look, and this time Sonic looked as if he was in a trance.

"But why do you have to go Knuckles?" a small, blue hedgehog asked in a childish voice to a red echidna, who was slightly larger than him.

"I dunno, my mom wants to take us to this island or something. She said something about me having to guard... I don't really know." the little echidna addressed as Knuckles trailed off.

"Bu-" Sonic was about to protest one of his best friend's leaving when an ever younger, peach-colored echidna walked up to Knuckles and tugged on his arm,

"C'mon Knuckles mom says we 'gotta go now!"

"Ok Tikal." Knuckles sighed. Tikal looked at Knuckles and then at Sonic longingly.

"Good-bye Sonic." Tikal said as she gave the cobalt hedgie a hug and then walked back to the moving van, which was looming in the driveway like a storm cloud or a vulture waiting for its next meal to die.

"Well, Sonic I gotta get going before Mom gets really ticked off at me." Knuckles then handed sonic a very worn baseball mit with the name 'Knuckles' scrawled on it with childish writing. "Take good care of it. Bye, Sonic." Knuckles then ran into the moving van, its door being held open by an impatient Tikal. Sonic watched the van pull out of the driveway, tears welling up in his little green eyes, as he watched his best friend vanish.

"Now whoever made this mark on the back of his neck had enough power to thrust him forward and smash his head on the sink," Vector's analysis pulled Sonic from his painful flashback.

"So have you pulled any DNA or fibers from the body yet?" Tails inquired. as he handed off the file to Sonic, who took it from the fox without looking at it.

"No, not really. Only some fibers from the back of the neck where he was gripped. But I already ran those through the system and they came out to be Ring Rusher gloves; millions of people have that brand of glove, so it would just waste our time and resources tracking that." Vector replied as he sighed.

Sonic took another look at Knuckles, cold and dead on the table. He then dropped the file on the counter and left the morgue with out saying a word.

After a stressful exit of the morgue, Sonic was heading back to his office to go over some more evidence when he caught sight of Blaze and Shadow talking at the end of the hall. Shadow was showing Blaze an evidence folder and seemed to be explaining something. Sonic then thought he saw Blaze give Shadow an interesting look. Sonic lifted an eyebrow.

"Something about those two..." No sooner after that thought Blaze left down the next hall and Shadow came walking over to the ever- curious Sonic.

"Hey looks like Blaze has a thing for you." Sonic gave one of his trademark grins and Shadow, one of his trademark scowls. But Sonic could just barley see a microscopic blush starting to form on Shadow's face. The dark hedgehog cleared his throat and changed the subject.

"Now I have compiled a list of all possible suspects. Some I suspect more than others. I'm on my way to ask Knuckles' sister a few questions, you want to join?"

"Sure why not? I was about to get pretty bored anyway, Shadsie."

Interrogation Room

"...I mean, yes, he could be a bit of a grouch sometimes, but that night he was just raging mad. I... I didn't know why though." Tikal sat struggling to keep her tears at bay at the table that was in the interrogation room. Sonic pushed a box of Kleenex towards the emotionally unstable echidna with a look of sympathy. Shadow was sitting next to Sonic, taking down notes on a small paper pad. They had been questioning her for an hour now and all they've gotten so far was useless answers and tears.

"So do you think your brother would try to start any fights?" Shadow questioned.

"If... if someone agitated him enough." Tikal reached for a Kleenex.

"Ok, and... did you see anything out of the ordinary that night, besides his unexplained anger?"

"No... nothing except his mood." Tikal looked up from her tissue and up at the two males sitting across from her. Her already watery eyes started to gush tears. "Please, you have to find out who did this...please."

"You think she had anything to do with this?" shadow asked Sonic in a lowered voice as he tilted his head toward the glass window at Tikal who was still seated, crying into her damp gloves.

"No, I looked straight into her eyes, she's just a victim. Plus Tikal would never even consider doing a thing like this."

"You know her?" Shadow turned his blood red eyes on Sonic.

"Yeah, we were, well, I guess you could have called us friends." Sonic gazed into the one-way glass in to the interrogation room.

"Well then why didn't she remember you?"

"She was too young, I suppose. Or it's that she's just too sad right now."

Shadow drew in a deep, exasperated sigh as he flipped open a file he had in his hands and removed a sheet of paper and then handed it to his blue co-worker.

"Well this is a list of everyone that attended the school reunion, including all staff members that were on duty that night." Sonic took the list and his emerald eyes scanned over it.

"I got word from that silver guy that this individual used to be unmercifully teased by Knuckles." Shadow informed as he handed Sonic a mugshot of a chameleon.

"Ah, the bullies chew toy."

"His name is Espio. He's being brung into custody right now, and then I'm going to go and ask him a few questions. You coming?" Shadow explained.

"Eh, sure why not. And hey, if you're lucky maybe Blaze will want to come too!"