Updated PartNote: Part One can be read here: http://eltonfred.tripod.com/elton/pmg.html
Title: "Paul Milander's Gun (Part Two)" (1/?)
Author: Elton "Elwhis" Fantabulous
Fandom: CSI
Pairing: Undefined Parameter.
Rating: R (language, sexuality [non-explicit], violence)
Archive: Just let me know where and why and I'll say yes. But please ask permission.
Email address: elwhis@y...Disclaimers: You know what? I just remembered: I do own CSI. Silly me to forget....
Notes: This story can be viewed as either canon or non-canon depending on your perspective...I work during primetime so I haven't seen many new episodes, but I've made every effort to keep it canon. It takes place roughly after or during the fifth season. Thank you to betas Penny, Debbe and Jamie! Also a big thank you to vital encouragement Reggie & Nimue!
Summary: Between a seeming resurrection and a possible copycat, the CSIs have their hands full. When the FBI step in to 'help' and suspend one of their own, it doesn't really help matters much. Grissom's dirty little secret plays out to the worst it could.
Warnings: Mature themes. Written similar play to an episode, so it's nothing worse than you'd see on the show. The one sex scene is not in the story, but is available as a drabble, by a link at the end.
~ ^ ~
Pacing and fretting, Catherine tried in vain to collect her thoughts.
"I...how can...?" Sara started and trailed off, looking forlornly at her pile of case work. "How can they just suspend him?"
Nick shook his head. "Was that tape...real?"
"I don't know," Catherine said quickly, throwing up her arms in frustration and bringing them down hard on the table. "We've got an influx of cases, one, possibly two killers on the loose and they just let go our supervisor." She breathed in, calming herself and taking charge. "Okay, okay, we can do this--I mean, we have to."
"Can they do that?" Nick asked. "I mean, suspend him just like that? Without...enough proof? I don't think they have enough."
"They do want they want," Catherine said with annoyance. "That's their job." She looked through the assignment slips. "Okay...everything from our serial is still in processing, so we'll have to move on to other things for now." She walked over to Nick. "You and Sara, a 407, shots fired. Called in twenty minutes ago. Restaurant off the strip."
"Robbery at a restaurant," Nick remarked. "Something at least a little interesting."
"Sara, you're with Nick...I'll take the 419A, and when Warrick gets here he gets his own--"
"He's late? That's not like him," Sara remarked.
Catherine shook her head. "He requested coming in half an hour later today...some appointment or personal matter." She shook her head, overwhelmed and desperately staving off frustration. "I didn't check closely."
Greg popped in, evidence bags and paper in hand.
"Anyone seen Gris? He's not in his office--"
Catherine sighed. "What do you need to tell him?"
"Well, it's nothing too important...just that his two purple fibers are a match." Greg looked at the distraught faces of his colleagues. "I can wait...is there something wrong?"
"I'm leading the suicide serial case now," Catherine explained. "Grissom was suspended."
"What?" Greg exclaimed. "Suspended? How? I mean, how could...why? When?"
"Ten minutes ago." Catherine took the fibers and the analysis sheets. "So, I'm supervising this shift and taking all his cases."
Greg's face was a mess of questions. "But...what happened? Why?"
"It's confidential," Catherine explained. "Not that that seems to mean anything around here...I'm sure you'll find out soon enough."
Greg looked to the other two. "What happened?"
Nick shook his head. "Buddy, you don't want to know."
"Well, yes I do."
"No," Nick repeated, "you don't."
"I'll need you in the lab tonight," Catherine said, cutting in, "we've got cases backed up and two dead bodies."
Greg nodded. "All right...I guess I'll be in my lab, then," he said, turning, still considerably spaced from the suspension issue.
Nick and Sara stood. "You and me tonight, then," Sara said, shaking her head. "Wow...that couldn't have been Grissom on that tape. Did you hear what he said?"
"Sanders played it for me when he informed me," Catherine said with a bite, "that I'd be in charge of the shift to-night."
"And?"
"And what?" Catherine said. "I'm going to even think about that...."
"Hell of a visual," Sara commented darkly with a shudder.
Nick shook his head. "No. No visual."
"Hey guys, where's Gris?"
They turned, seeing Warrick at the doorway.
"Hey buddy," Nick said, scooting past and out the door. "Bye, buddy." Sara trailed behind.
Warrick watched them leave, a little confused. He looked to Catherine. "You seen Gris?"
~ ^ ~
Cameras and kits in hand, Sara and Nick arrived at their 407: shots fired after a very quiet drive.
"You know, when I heard 'restaurant off the strip' I pictured something a little more classy," Nick said. "Who'd rob a cut-rate motel diner?"
Sara shrugged, taking out her camera. "Someone with a low self confidence, I guess." Finding a few dirty footprints, she immediately began with the pictures.
"I'll take the counter," Nick said, "see what I can find there."
"Knock yourself out."
"So, the officer said," Nick said, inspecting the register, "that the cash was taken /and/ the back was broken into."
"That's what he said."
Nick laughed. "What, looking for a safe in this joint? Lucky if this place pulls in enough to make a cash grab worth it."
"Maybe the back was just a get away route." Sara took some more pictures. "I'll check for shoe and tire treads. I found some pieces of glass around--"
"Whoa--hold up." Nick's camera clicked and flashed. "I think we have more than a 407."
Sara got up from her knees and walked over to him. "What is it?"
Nick pointed to a dark corner, behind the counter and near the register. "Blood pool."
~ ^ ~
Warrick, also after a very quiet drive, pulled up to the dark and empty highway. Well, dark and empty save for the squad car's flashing lights and the officer beside it.
"Evening, officer," Warrick greeted simply.
"Hey there." The officer stood from his kneeling position. "Coroner's been paged. Someone driving by called it in... anonymous tip."
Warrick nodded, pulling out his camera. "ID?"
"Didn't check." The officer shrugged. "Thought that was your guy's job."
Warrick put down his camera. "Did you touch the body at all?"
"Nope." The officer walked back to his car. "Not a thing."
Warrick padded the body's jacket pockets after photographing them. "Nothing...no wallet. Looks like a robbery..." he leaned over to the victim's head. "Lack of blood, looks like a body drop," he said to himself, talking it through.
"Coroner's here," the officer said.
Warrick nodded. "There's a small pooling of blood, from what looks to be a deep head wound..." he leaned over further, nearing the ditch and trees not far from the road. "Bleeding out slowly from a head wound?" he asked himself quietly.
"Hi, Warrick."
"David, hey," Warrick said, turning to him. "What do you make of this? There's a deep head wound," he said, pointing to the matting of blood in the hair, "but only a little pool of blood. A wound that deep would have bled out quickly where he died...there shouldn't be any blood here."
"Not from him, anyway."
Warrick swabbed the small blood pool. "And if it is his? How is that possible?"
David shrugged. "That's your job," he said, sticking his thermometer in the body with ease. "He's been dead...three and a half hours."
Warrick made a note. "Thanks." He looked back at the body.
"All yours."
He took out his tweezers, pulling out some odd fibers trapped in the mattting of hair. "What do you think that is?"
David looked closer. "It's blood soaked, sure...but generally things blood soaked are almost black red."
"This is too light," Warrick finished.
"Ketchup?" David postulated.
Warrick swabbed the fiber and tested it. "It's blood all right."
"Well, good luck to you, Warrick," David said. "Looks like you've got a real puzzler...funny they'd suspend Grissom on a night with two DBs, not to mention the robbery and the serials at large."
"Do you find out everything?" Warrick asked.
David shrugged. "Enough."
"I don't think they picked a day to suspend him." Warrick looked up from the body and back to David. "Hey," he started, lowering his voice, "so what do you think of that?"
"Of what?"
"Them suspending Grissom?"
David shrugged again. "Their prerogative."
"And what about why?"
"What about it?"
"Well, what do you think about it?"
"I think it could be a good enough reason, if it turns out that way."
Warrick frowned. "Do you think he did it?"
"Did what?"
Warrick rolled his eyes, and David laughed.
"You know what I think about what happened?" David asked.
"What?"
"I think you don't know what happened."
Warrick frowned. "Everyone seems to know but me," he said with a resigned sigh.
David looked at the officer. "Well, better you find out from me than a rumour," he acquiesced. "But you should really sit down for this one."
~ ^ ~
Meanwhile, Catherine's print powder and camera were busy at work at her 419A--a floater at Lake Mead.
"Checked for vitals," the paramedic explained. "Someone called after seeing her wash up on shore...besides that no one's touched her," he assured her.
"Two piece bathing suit," Catherine said, snapping a picture. "No chance of keeping an ID in that top." She took another shot. "If you can call it a top."
"How long do you think she's been out here?" he asked.
Catherine shrugged. "Long enough. Water's going to make time of death a little harder to pin point...also washed away any evidence of a killer."
"You think she was murdered?"
"Can't say at this point." Catherine looked through the soaked hair with careful gloved fingers. "No apparent trauma to the head...not a diving accident in that case. Bruising around the hands and stomach...."
"Did she drown?"
"Can't tell until an autopsy," Catherine said.
"Coroner's on his way."
"He might be a little bit...he's at another body right now." Catherine took pictures of the bruises. "And I can't turn her over until he gets here," she said with a sigh.
~ ^ ~
"Well, we either have a dead body somewhere or a shooting victim," Nick said from the behind the counter. He held up his tweezers. "Through and through," he said, "looks like a .45." Nick looked down to the blood pool. "Explains the blood."
"So, robber or robbers come in, grab the cash, shoot up the place and take the body or the victim with them?"
"Unless one of the robbers was behind the counter, grabbing the cash when he was shot."
Sara looked out the window to where an officer was consoling a waitress, the only witness. She looked shaky. "She didn't mention anything about shooting anyone."
Nick laughed. "She didn't mention anything. Paramedics says she's in shock...has a scrape on her arm and some bruising to her legs. Swears she doesn't remember anything...can you believe that?"
"You don't forget shooting a gun."
~ ^ ~
Filming a trail of footprints, Warrick watched the coroner's van take off with the body. "Tracks to the drop site," he said to himself, "from the road to the body, ballpark size 11." He put down some more of his yellow number markers. "Same depth as the tracks leading away... meaning the body carried itself here?" Warrick looked at his scene in frustration. "So a body dumps itself here, pools a little from a deep head wound that should have already bled out, and someone pulls up and walks to the guy to watch?" Warrick dropped his camera, letting it fall against his chest. "Damn."
~ ^ ~
With David's help, Catherine turned the body over.
"Homicide," she said, finding two entry wounds in the back of her victim. "Bullets didn't exit...so either a low caliber or far distance."
"I'll get the bullets to you," David said, packing up his equipment. "If they are bullets, of course."
"You thinking a weapon of some other kind? With an entry that smooth?"
David shrugged. "Like I said to Warrick, that's your job."
"How is Warrick doing, by the way?" Catherine asked, looking around the body for more evidence of the killer.
"Had a little mystery going around his body drop..." David helped lift the body on the gurney. "It'll keep him occupied."
"Send my love to Doc Robbins," Catherine said, turning away and walking along the beach, searching.
"Will do."
~ ^ ~
One by one, each of his colleagues filed in his lab, said hello, then made their escape leaving him to mix, match and process.
Oh well, Greg reasoned, at least he could listen to his tunes while doing it. /Dogs Die In Hot Cars/, the top CD in his mix. /Killer/.
He sorted his piles, keeping each of the cases separate. With a possible victim wandering around the streets of Vegas Nick and Sara's case had priority. Greg danced on over to his test tubes, but went back to his stereo, deciding he was in the mood for something heavier... Rammstein. Sweet.
He'd barely turned away to start up on the robbery DNA when someone shut it off. He hated when people did that-- couldn't they just hit pause?
"Hey!" came the somewhat familiar and the somewhat unfamiliar voice from behind. "Keep it down."
Greg spun around, finding Ecklie. "Uh...hi, sir." He looked puzzled, the pentulmate quixiocal scientist. "Aren't you...isn't your shift over?"
"My shifts are when I say they are," Ecklie replied. "And since they offed your super from the shift, I had to come back and sort out the mess. I'm missing my daughter's recital, and the last thing I need is this white noise pouring in through my office."
"Sorry," Greg said sheepishly, sinking into his work and hoping to disappear.
Ecklie started going through Greg's CD collection. "Don't you have anything good? Like the Carpenters or Simon and Garfunkel?"
"Uh..." Greg stammered. "I had a Who CD that Gris gave me...but I left it at home."
Ecklie put down the stack. "Right, well, just keep it down." He turned to leave.
"Uh, sir," Greg started, "I wanted to ask...."
"Yeah?"
"Uh...when's Grissom coming back? I mean, he couldn't have done anything that bad, come on--"
"That bad?" Ecklie replied, incredulous. "That bad? He compromised an investigation; he withheld information and let a killer go free, and that's not that bad?"
Greg looked even more puzzled. "That doesn't sound like Gris," he replied.
"Well it is. He might never come back. It might not be my decision...it wasn't in the first place."
"Who suspended him, then?" Greg answered himself before Ecklie could. "Sanders and Drake," he said, starting his appliances a-whirring with some expert button pushing. "You don't think they'll never let him come back? I mean... what was so bad? He's the best...the best entomologist here," he said at the last second.
"You don't have to cover, Greg. His team looks up to him, mine looks up to me. You're supposed to think he's the best."
"So...what did he do? No one's talking about it."
"No one's told you yet?" Ecklie asked, astonished. That's all people were talking about, after all.
Greg shook his head. "I've been couped up in here, preparing for my shift and now starting up all the swabs."
Ecklie rolled his eyes. "If you listen to the scuttlebutt, you'll hear the 'harbouring a fugitive' version. But, honestly, it's a little less than that." Ecklie made a sour frown. "Not that it's any better."
"So what did he do?" Greg asked with exasperation.
"He...he slept with Paul Milander," Ecklie explained.
Greg made a 'processing the information' face. "Really," was all he said.
"You're not surprised?" Ecklie asked, more than a little accusatory.
Greg shrugged. "I...I guess. I don't know."
"Did you know anything before?"
Shaking his head with fury, Greg stepped back a bit, feeling nervousness start to choke him. "No. No I didn't...I just meant that...that Gris is...odd, you know?" Greg shrugged, trying to get rid of his butterflies. "I just...it's...I don't know."
Ecklie frowned again, uncertain this time. "All right. Keep up the good work and keep the down the volume," he said, leaving.
"Right-o."
~ ^ ~
Warrick was the first to answer Greg's pages.
"What have you got for me, Greggo?"
"Your blood pool is definitely your vic's," Greg answered, passing off the sheet.
"How can that be? His head wound would have bled out long before he was dumped at the scene."
Greg shrugged. "Maybe he was killed in a car and dumped there...what makes you think he was dumped at all?"
"There was only a small pooling of blood near the wound... if it had been the murder scene there'd have been a lot more blood."
"And I was able to get DNA from your vic's fingernail scrapings," Greg explained, "but no hit off CODIS yet..if there isn't you'll need to get me something to compare it to."
Warrick nodded, "Thanks, Greggo man."
"No probs...hey, what's up with Ecklie?"
"What do you mean, what's up with Ecklie?"
Greg shrugged, shuddering a little. "He gives me the creeps."
Laughing a little, Warrick replied, "I think you're just overly used to Gris."
"Yeah," Greg agreed. "Maybe that's it. You don't think they'll keep him away forever, do you?"
Warrick's previously thoughtful expression turned into one of hidden disappointment and sorrow. "I don't know, man. I...it's really sketchy. I mean, I hope not."
"I heard he slept with--"
"Yeah, we've all heard what happened," Warrick said, cutting him off. "Not that anyone wanted to hear about it," he added.
"Do they have any proof?"
Warrick's tone was distant. "Only his voice on a tape recorder admitting it, according to David, anyway."
"They got him to confess? I wouldn't trust that," Greg suggested. "You know those FBI, and their sneaky interrogation techniques, they could have--"
"David said that they bugged his office."
"David's not always right," Greg replied. "And what, was he talking to himself about it? In his office?"
"Look, Greg," Warrick said, anger seeping into his tone but kept to a mininum. "You're asking the wrong guy, and if I were you I wouldn't talk about it. No one wants to hear it."
Greg nodded, watching Warrick leave.
~ ^ ~
Catherine, after having checked the progress of her team, sat in her office checking through reports and photos. Progress had been made on each case through the shift, sure, but no cases could have that lovely word 'solved' put atop them. There was still half an hour left...and thankfully only one other major case had been called in... another robbery, which had been taken care of rather quickly.
As acting supervisor she had more paper work to do than usual, but at least she could sit and unwind before returning home to her slippers and cushy bed. Ecklie had gone home hours ago--a relief, she had to admit, and no labs had blown up or angry DAs had come breathing down their necks in fury. The shift from Hell was turning out to be not all that bad.
"Cath," called Brass from the doorway unexpectedly, making her jump.
"Oh, you...it's you. Hi...it's quiet around here."
"Bit of bad news," he reported.
"Ugh..." Catherine frowned. "Don't tell me...another robbery or body dump?"
"Much better," Brass said, looking at his scribbled notes. "420...at first reported as a 405, until the officer noted a body in a bath tub, complete with open windows and a mini-recorder," he said with a forceful sigh.
"No, no, no," Catherine said, shaking her head. "That's a joke. We're laughing, right?"
"Nope."
Moaning, Catherine stood. "So much for going home."
~ ^ ~
As Catherine inspected the floor of the musty bathroom Sara dusted for prints as the body had just been removed.
"Purple fiber," Catherine remarked, pulling a piece what was probably chenille wool from the bottom of the tub and putting it in a little bag. "More planted evidence?"
"Purple fibers," Sara repeated, "Interesting choice. There wasn't anything found like that at the first murder."
"Maybe that was a trail run," Catherine remarked, humourless. "Oh, God," she complained, leaning against a wall carefully. "I need a bed, a Valium, four consecutive days off and a hug," she said.
Sara stood, putting down her brush and walked over to deliver the requested hug. "Sorry I can't do the rest."
"Engh," Catherine shrugged, getting back up to inspect the rest of the floor. "That's okay."
"Prints on the taps again...they look like Milander's father's." Sara lifted them. "You know it's wrong when you can identify a print without even tracing it."
"I could draw those prints in my sleep," Catherine agreed, "and I'm a horrible artist."
"Hold up," Sara said, leaning over the tub and taking a photo of the ledge beside it. She picked up a little green object, holding it up for Catherine. "Check it out."
Catherine looked up. "Army men," she said. "I used to play with those when I was a kid."
"You did?" Sara asked, smiling.
"Sure...happens when you have a brother."
"Were his covered with blood?" Sara turned it around, showing smears of blood on the other side.
Catherine got up and inspected them. "Well, not that much anyway. He stuck enough of them up his nose, though."
"Vic had a kid, right?"
"Yeah...away with his mother. Parents were divorced."
"Do you think these are plants or just lying around?"
Catherine took the little army man. "The blood smear has little...brush strokes, it looks like. Like it was painted on."
"There's two more here," Sara said, picking them up. "Blood on them too."
Catherine bagged them. "One can be a concidence. Three..." she labeled the bag accordingly. "Three isn't."
"Found something else," Sara said, photographing and then picking up for inspection. "Baseball card." Sara flipped it over. "With...a paper clip, and a hair."
"Hair?"
"Definitely planted. Dark blonde. A match to the hair from the first tub?"
"Never know."
Sara dusted the card for prints, finding one. "Looks like a kid," she said. "The vic's son?"
"Maybe...maybe not. Between the hair and the paper clip... who knows."
"Odd thing to plant, really."
Catherine was about to pull her hair out. "Why, why, why," she said. "Why are there people who kill just to plant evidence for fun? At least kill someone because you have a good reason," she commented in frustration.
"Four people dead just because of their birthdates," Sara said in disquiet.
"Sickening, really."
"Yeah...yeah, it just really hit me. What a stupid reason to kill. Taking a life...for what?"
"Protecting your kids, yourself, hell, at least passionate anger might make it understandable."
Sara just shook her head at the scene.
Catherine walked to the window, looking in on Warrick and Nick's progress outside the house. "I don't care what he did," she said to herself but loud enough for Sara to hear. "We've got two 419s we've gotten no where on, a robbery with a missing victim and now this. I don't care what he did," Catherine repeated. "Grissom better be on next shift because I'll add a few more to the homicide tally if he isn't."
~ ^ ~
With heavy feet and boundless determination, Grissom stepped through the hallways that had never before seemed so cold, foreign and hostile. Even when no one was around to stare accusingly or make a rude remark the walls themselves seemed to shrink in and suffocate him.
His first line of duty was to go talk to Ecklie, who was waiting for him, but he stopped by his office first and dropped off his things. Ecklie. Great. Brass had called him back--a relief and a burden--and told him he wouldn't be supervising. He'd be on probation. He said he'd didn't care. At least he'd be working, after all. And that's when he was informed he'd have to report to Ecklie and hear an earful of that wrath.
Not so relieving, that.
Biting the proverbial bullet, Grissom started off for Ecklie's office, pushing away the walls and the pressure.
At least he was working.
~ ^ ~ ^ ~
Grissom pushed the ajar door open slightly, perhaps hoping it wouldn't open at all. But it did, and he walked inside, announcing himself with a small cough that sounded much to timid for his liking.
Ecklie looked up. "I was wondering when you'd come by."
Grissom checked his watch. "I'm early," he said in defense of himself.
"Have a seat," Ecklie offered.
Grissom shook his head. "I'll stand."
"I want you to know that you're not back here because we think you should be, but because we need you here." Ecklie stood, walking over to the wall and picked up the white cardboard boxes that held stored evidence. He placed the stack of three on his desk. "You'll be working these," Ecklie said, handing Grissom three assignment sheets.
"All three," Grissom replied, deadpan in astonishment. "Three cases." He got the distinct feeling he was being punished.
"I've got Warrick on a 420 called in an hour ago and everyone else is at your boyfriend's latest hit."
Grissom swallowed, saliva along with his building ire. "You don't need three people there," he replied.
"Four," Ecklie replied. "Sophie's with them." He gave Grissom a pointed look. "Are you telling me how many people I should have at a scene?"
Grissom didn't reply, glancing at his assignments. Picking up where others left off. Always the worst cases. The most likely to go cold; the least likely to have co-operation. Two dead bodies and a robbery with a possible homicide. Great.
"Sit down."
"I'm fine--"
"I need to have a talk with you," Ecklie replied, standing by his window holding a clip board, "so sit down."
Begrudgingly, he did.
"Before I can let you back on the shift, I need your version of the events."
He wasn't giving into this that easily. "What events?" he asked sweetly.
"The events that might get you fired."
Grissom flinched. "Is this my hearing?"
"No," Ecklie said, "this is the first in many interviews that will definitely lead to a hearing. I don't want to know what happened any more than you want to tell it, but I have to." Ecklie pointed to his clipboard. "This is Sanders' decision. Not mine."
"And why can't he grill me about it? Too busy second guessing your team?"
"He's not here; he's in Virginia. So, like I said, start talking and get it over with. Few details, basic ideas and I want to know what you were on." Ecklie sat on his desk. "I mean, I saw pictures of the guy."
Grissom shook his head. "I was at home, listening to--"
"When?"
"I don't know...about three years ago, maybe less or so. I didn't mark it on my calendar--November. It was November," Grissom said, looking away.
"Continue."
"It's all foggy; I don't know why. I was sitting at home and Milander knocked on my door. I can't remember if he pushed his way in...maybe I was stunned and let him in. I can't remember."
"Did you try to tell anyone?"
Grissom shook his head. "No...I think I wanted to, but I didn't."
"And then what?"
He shook his head again, his breathing becoming irregular as he lowered his head. "I remember he had a gun," he reiterated, "he pulled it on me, told me to go into my room..." Grissom shuddered. "I remember him choking me... I remember the gun...I can't recall...." he trailed off, putting his face in his hands.
Ecklie lowered the clipboard, halfway through scribbling something down. There was a guilty expression on his face. "He...raped you?"
Grissom nodded looking at the floor.
He set the clipboard in his lap. "That's not what you said on Sanders' tape," he said quietly.
Grissom shrugged. "I told Brass because I was feeling guilty," he explained, a forced tone to his voice. "I can't remember what I did, or why, or if it even happened at all," he finished with a hopeless gesture.
Ecklie finished his scribbles, soundlessly putting down his clipboard. "That's enough," he said under his breath. "I'll pass my recommendations on to Sanders...good luck with your cases."
Grissom nodded, picking up the boxes, and left without another word.
~ ^ ~ ^ ~
Grissom dropped the boxes off and headed to the autopsy theatre. If he couldn't have the rush of a fresh case he'd stimulate himself by going in blind. He put the assignment slips in his pocket, reading nothing beyond the code.
"Good to see you," greeted Robbins. "I knew they wouldn't keep you away long."
"Warrick's body drop?"
"Your body drop now, from what I'm told." Robbins picked up a scapel. Pointing with it, he continued. "Blunt force trauma to the head. From what it looks like on the outside, that's what killed him."
Grissom leaned over the wound. "It wasn't a bullet."
"Warrick recovered some blood soaked fibers from the wound. They're being processed to see what they are."
Nodding, Grissom stood back up, scanning over the body. "Bruising to the wrists, cuts on the hands. Defensive injuries."
"He didn't go down without a fight." Robbins started the V incision. "Bruising on his legs too," he said without looking.
Grissom scanned down to the legs. "Odd configuration." Tentatively he touched the snowflake like patterns. "He was kicked or hit with something with a narrow point. Rounded," he reasoned, "Otherwise that force would have broken the skin."
"There was hair found in his clothes," Robbins said. "Warrick sent it to DNA."
Grissom didn't respond. "Shoe."
"Shoe?"
He nodded. "A shoe with a rounded point." He stood up and walked back to where Robbins continued with the autopsy. "If the hair is his own, it could have been pulled, while the killer kicked him." Grissom processed the information. "Hair pulling, rounded pointy shoe...female killer," he postulated. "Only one set of prints," he recalled. "But high heeled shoes may have been missed."
"Planning a road trip?" Robbins asked in jest in an absent tone.
Grissom sighed heavily. "I have to visit my robbery scene first. See what I can get on that."
"You're on these two cases and the floater?" he asked, not looking up from his delicate slicing and dicing.
"Ecklie's idea of being resourceful," Grissom said sourly. "He's got everyone at the copycat murders...there's no point."
"There isn't?"
"He's planting evidence all over the scene. Impossible to tell between the killer and the games." Grissom shook his head. "And meanwhile there are other scenes growing cold and stale."
~ ^ ~ ^ ~
Ducking out of the autopsy and feeling rushed in that non invigorating way, Grissom headed for the robbery.
He found exactly what he had in pictures, good to know that nothing had been moved. Contamination threats got worse with time.
The blood pool was exactly where they said it'd be; and there was no victim where one ought to be. Grissom frowned. A body with out blood; blood with out a body. He took out his cell.
"Greg?"
"Welcome home, my liege," Greg answered. "What can I do ya for?"
Grissom frowned more deeply. Apparently Ecklie wasn't the only one who noticed he wasn't supervising anymore. "Greg, run a test on the blood pool DNA from the robbery and the pooling at Warrick's body drop."
"Sure...it'll be a little bit, though. I'm processing stuff from the copycat scene...but I'll keep it in the dock."
"Thanks, Greg."
~ ^ ~ ^ ~
Warrick, hastled away from his homicide, arrived at the scene. They already had four overly competent CSIs there...he never should have told them he found a wife standing over a dead cheating husband with a gun. Apparently open and shut cases didn't need to be documented anymore.
"Nick," Warrick greeted, putting his kit down. "Hey, find anything?"
Nick looked up from his bent over position on the lawn. "Man, we've been going along the fence with ALS, Luminol, magnifying glasses and combs. The killer wasn't even out here."
"So, found nothing, then?"
"Sara did find a dirt bike." Nick went back to searching. "If our killer was twelve that would mean something."
"Where's Catherine?" Warrick asked. "I've got to find out what I'm supposed to be doing here. Not that you need my help."
"Tell me about. Having one person here is overkill," he muttered. "Catherine's upstairs, probably in the bedroom."
"Thanks, buddy."
"Anytime, bro."
~ ^ ~ ^ ~
Greg handed analysis sheets to Catherine. "Your army men came back no match, nothing on CODIS, not your vic's and not his son. Well, not his biological son, anyway. Male, but that's about all I can tell you. Now, the hair we got a hit on."
"Match to the hair in the second victim's tub?"
"Nope," Greg said, handing over yet another sheet. "Court clerk from California. And that's where it gets interesting." Greg smiled, smugly continuing. "Shelley Mason, from Modesto."
Catherine looked up. "Shelley Mason? Milander's wife?"
"Ex-wife." Greg looked to one of his monitors and called up a screen. "According to this, she filed for divorce two months after he 'committed sucide'," he said with finger quotes.
"So Milander plants her hair--"
"Or the copycat--"
"Someone planted her hair with a baseball card?"
"I think your print was processed," Greg looked at another monitor. "They should be done."
"I'm gone...page me if you find anything else."
"Will do."
~ ^ ~ ^ ~
Back at the autopsy theatre, Grissom stood beside the waiting body of Norman Byrant and the equally as waiting David.
"Your floater was shot with these," Robbins said, handing Grissom two bullets. "First one killed her. Entered the back, clipped an artery. She was dead in seconds."
Grissom walked over to the body. "If ballistics can't get a match, I'll have to put that case aside," he said with obvious remorse. He shook his head, looking at the bullets. "I can't chase three rabbits."
"You could if you wanted to come up with nothing and run yourself haggard," Robbins said, returning to Byrant and David. "You could always try and get Catherine to--"
Grissom's pager went off.
He lifted it to his line of sight, and rolled his eyes. "This is insane!" he exclaimed. "419 in a hotel room. Been there awhile...they need a 'bug check'." Grissom frowned. "Whatever that's supposed to mean." He hurried out, none the least thrilled.
"Can they legally do that to him?" David asked, rather rhetorically.
"Probably not," Robbins replied. "But as long as he gets to work, he'll probably put up with just about anything." Robbins looked at the entry wound on Mr. Bryant. "Now this is odd," he said, pushing the wound delicately with a finger.
"The wound is different."
Robbins nodded. "Here's our bullet hole," he traced in the air, "and here's something else...another shot, to the side?"
"There was only one exit wound."
"Which means," Robbins picked up his tweezers and fished into the angled track. He baited a winner, and pulled out the bullet.
"There were no bullets recovered in any of the other cases."
"Our copycat is getting sloppy," he commented, putting the bullet aside carefully.
"How do you know it's a copycat? Milander's still alive."
"Gil says that it's a copycat. I trust his judgment." Robbins picked up his scalpel and set to work. "Shame what they're doing to him."
"They're trying to prove it wasn't rape." David moved away, to give him room. "After everything Grissom's said I don't see how it couldn't be. I mean, between who it was and the breaking--"
He was cut off by the sound of Robbins laughing lightly.
"What? You said you know Grissom. You said you trust him. Don't you think it was rape?"
Robbins shook his head. "No. I know it wasn't."
"But you said you trust him and you know--"
"I trust him not to tell something like that to the FBI." Robbins put down his scalpel, pulling back the skin. "And I know him well enough to know what's he's not telling."
"Are you saying he's lying?"
Robbins shook his head. "No."
David looked very puzzled.
Robbins laughed again, reaching into the exposed innards of the late Mr. Byrant. "He knows what to say, to make people think what he wants without telling a lie. He's too smart to need to."
"I don't get it." David leaned in, over the body on the slab. "He said he...said he screwed him. Is that what you mean? He could have just been feeling guilty."
"I'll bet he was. But that wasn't his only slip."
"Okay?"
"According to what I've heard more than a few people say, Gil said Milander strangled him."
"Yeah, it was on Sanders' tape." David smiled wryly. "They probably have copies in the break room. So? He said he strangled him."
Robbins looked up, giving a thoughtful look. "He never said he didn't like it."
~ ^ ~ ^ ~
Catherine headed to the print lab, hopeful for her baseball card. "Find anything?" she asked.
The lab tech stood, putting her sandwich down hurriedly. "Yeah, I did," she said, trying to swallow all of her food at once.
"Don't choke...come on, be careful."
The lab tech nodded, heading over to her computer screen. "Your taps print came back Paul Millander, Sr., and the tub prints came back Paul--"
"Okay, how about people /not/ named Paul? Then I'm interested."
She nodded, pointing to a monitor with a flickering print display. "Your baseball card came back Craig Mason."
"Craig Mason?" Catherine looked closer. "Milander plants a baseball card with his son's--his /adopted/ son's print with a hair from his ex-wife?" She looked at the sheet, searching for an answer. "What does it mean?"
And the screen continued to flicker, monotonous, yielding nothing more.
~ ^ ~
~ ^ ~