The yellow crime scene tape was stretched from the corner of the small house, it wrapped around the struggling-to-grow magnolia tree and then wrapped west to the garbage can. The lights of the police cars cut through the darkness of the night. It was late night or early morning, depending on your view. The neighbors gathered in hushed groups up and down the block. Lupo was leaning against one of the cars, in the backseat sat a frazzled semi-blonde, fluffy woman with nice feet, clutching a Panera coffee cup. The blue light cut across his wooly skullcap and some say the woman in the car swooned, ever so slightly, probably because she realized she forgot to add him to her Top Ten Men list.

Grissom emerged from the front door of the house at 1012 and ducked under the crime scene tape. I know he is retired and camping with Sarah in Central America but this is a special case and he was called in especially. He approached Lupo, holding out a small Wal-mart sandwich baggie, because we don’t do Ziploc in our house.

Lupo looks up at the baggie and spies the thin, blood-covered shards of green and black plastic and asks, “What is that?” Grissom smiled, after all he has seen it all before and he pulls out his tweezers from his pocket-protectored pocket. He carefully tweezes a shard out for Lupo to inspect and informs him he pulled these shards from the poor victim's skull.

Lupo shudders and thinks to himself, the old guy never knew what hit him. The coroner’s van pulls up and a gurney is rolled into the house. The neighbors are visibly shaken and some retreat to the safety of their homes. They think to themselves, "Something like this never happens around here (two streets over maybe, but not here)."

Lupo and Grissom reenter the house. They admire the new hardwood floors someone painstakingly lovingly installed. They were impressed with the new kitchen cabinets and slate flooring, the sparkling granite countertops were top-of-the-line they noted. Lupo spied the Jacuzzi tub and was wishing he could take a nice, manly bubble bath. They walk down the hallway to the master bedroom. “A heinous crime of passion occurred here,” Lupo states matter-of-factly. Grissom nods and adds with a grin, “It looks like the vic just ran out of time.”

Somewhere in the background The Who's Who Are You begins to play. Lupo and Grissom exchange a knowing glance.

Grissom bends down and picks up the pieces of a smashed alarm clock and places it inside a brown paper bag; where it will later be processed for trace and fingerprints. Even though they had the wife’s confession, they still had to follow procedure.

Lupo looks over to the victim, mouth opened, forever frozen in mid-snore, leg raised up in mid-toot, a faint mark on his forehead that looked like numbers, 6:00. Lupo flips out his notebook and says; “The vic's wife stated her husband never turned his alarm clock off, with her new schedule at work she could sleep in an extra hour but he wouldn't reset his clock.” Grissom nods. All this bloodshed over an extra hour of sleep, he thought as he couldn’t wait to get back to the clock-less jungle and to his Sarah.

The technicians came in and loaded the body up and manuevered it out the front door. What few neighbors remained gasped in horror. News vans had rolled into the quiet street and helicopters with bright spot lights hummed overhead.

Later on the evening news they interviewed the neighbors about the horrific crime. This is what they had to say:

“I can’t believe it, she was such a nice lady, always baked us cookies for Christmas.”