I own nothing but Seasons 1-6 on DVD and 8 of Max Collins' CSI books.
How Ecklie Finds Out.
The baby let out an ear-piercing scream as Gil Grissom picked the baby up into his arms from the dirty, littered lime green carpeting. The baby was dressed only in a diaper and Grissom could not discern if the child was a body or a girl.
"Shhhhhhh..," was his automatic response to the baby's screams, as he placed the child up on his broad shoulder, patting the infant's back in the process. He desperately looked for someone to help him, but the only other person in the room was Conrad Ecklie. Ecklie's bald head shone in the harsh lighting from the uncovered light bulbs in the ceiling. Conrad only shrugged his shoulders as Grissom looked at him, giving a decidedly uncertain look back.
"Gil, I'll go get the uniforms to call Child Services." Conrad walked bristly out of the room.
"Shhhhhhh..baby. Shhhhhh..baby," became his mantra as the baby's screams slowly waned. Grissom looked around for something, anything to quieten the baby, but there was nothing in this room that indicated the baby lived in this apartment. There was no crib, nor toys or bottles anywhere in the room; there wasn't even a diaper bag in sight. The diaper bag was badly needed at this point, because as Gil shifted the baby to his other shoulder, the smell of feces overwhelmed his olfactory senses.
Gil looked at the two dead bodies laying on the horrible carpeting: a man and a woman. The man was faced down with two large bullet wounds in his upper thoracic region, the woman lying supine on the floor with her face completely obliterated. Grissom looked around the perimeter of the bodies for any possible evidence or anything that could identify the victims or the child. He wondered if the child in his arms was the only witness to the murder of these two people. And it slowly dawned on him the two were probably the infant's parents.
Conrad Ecklie entered the room again with a silence that startled Grissom. "I heard the baby wasn't crying anymore, and didn't want it to start wailing again." He whispered.
"We've got to find some diapers for this little guy. He or she is positively rank." Grissom looked over the rims of his glasses, as they had slid down his nose a bit, to look Ecklie in the eye. "Have you ever changed a diaper?"
"No."
"Me neither. But it shouldn't be that hard. The only challenge at this time is finding a diaper. Here," gesturing the baby toward Ecklie, "Hold it while I look around the apartment for a possible diaper bag." Ecklie began slowly backing toward the door that connected the living room and the rest of the apartment.
"Gil, you should hang on to it. It likes you now, since it isn't crying. I'll try and find the bag."
Ecklie immediately left the living room, shutting the connecting door. Grissom began talking to the infant in a regular tone of voice, asking the baby questions as he moved through the room, again looking for evidence. He found a shell casing at the edge of the coffee table which was scattered with 'US' magazines and with other tabloids. Grissom asked the baby what had happened. The room, other than being dirty and unorganized did not appear to be ransacked.
Suddenly the baby shifted unexpectedly in his arms and he felt as though the baby was trying to jump from his arms. He tightened his hold on the child when Ecklie re-entered the room carrying a light blue diaper bag in his right hand.
"I think it's a boy." Gil and Conrad both looked at the child almost in a new light. "Gil, I think we should take him outside, maybe to the Denali to change him. We don't want to contaminate the crime scene with his excrement."
They made it outside to Grissom's Denali and while Ecklie opened to hatched back, Grissom gently lay the baby down on his back. Conrad reached into the diaper bag with his gloved hands, coming out with a diaper and some wipes. Grissom began unclasping the diaper, pulled the baby's legs up into the air and pushed the offending diaper away from him and the baby. Conrad handed Grissom a wet wipe and Grissom quickly cleaned the mess off of the boy.
Ecklie spoke, "You sure you've never done that before? You look like an expert to me."
Grissom laughed slightly under his breath at his remark. "No, I've never changed a dirty diaper before, but it's not unlike cleaning up a dead body prior to an autopsy. Only difference being, this little body moves around, a lot."
Conrad joined Gil in laughter as he handed Gil the new diaper. When Grissom opened the diaper to place it on the baby, a long tin-foiled roll fell out on the floor of the Denali.
"Ahhh, the plot thickens." Conrad reached into the diaper bag for another diaper, shaking it open, finding no extra items inside it, handed it to Grissom. Grissom quickly put the diaper on the child. Gil picked up the baby, held him to his shoulder. "Are there any clothes in the bag, Conrad?"
Ecklie took out a small t-shirt, gave it a shake to see if anything were stashed in it's folds, finding nothing, handed the t-shirt to Gil who one handedly placed the shirt over the boy's head.
Another black Denali pulled up beside them, as Grissom placed his hand over the infant's back, patting the baby.
"Sidle, take care of the baby while Grissom and I process the evidence here and in the apartment. Do you know where the coroner's assistant is? He is very late. We need to establish TOD fast." Conrad was barking orders before Sara even had a chance to close the door of her vehicle.
She smiled at the sight of her lover holding a baby in that manner. "You look like a natural there, Griss."
His eyes drank in the sight of her, told her wordlessly thank you, looked surreptitiously toward Ecklie, told her to tread lightly, without speaking a word.
She walked toward Grissom and the baby taking the baby from him, placing him in the same position Grissom had held him in, on her shoulder with her hand gently patting the baby's back. "Is it a boy or a girl?"
"Boy."
"Does he have a name?"
"Not yet." Grissom pulled the gloves off his hands and quickly pulled another pair out of his pants pocket and put the new pair on without fanfare. "Conrad, you want the tin foiled roll or the crime scene?"
"I will take the possible drugs and you can have the crime scene since we are well into your shift now." Conrad opened his kit, pulling out his digital camera and some numbered markers. He placed a #1 marker beside the tin foiled roll and began snapping pictures.
In the meantime, Grissom headed back into the apartment. As he reached the doorway, David , Albert Robbin's assistant coroner, drove up, parked next to Sara's truck. Grissom could read David lips as he spoke to Sara.
//You look like a natural mother there, Sara.//
Sara laughed for a moment, Grissom could tell by the way her body slightly shivered. He could not see her response, but David quickly said//You would make a great mother, Sara.// Grissom experience a wave of almost regret when he lip read that statement. He and Sara had tried to conceive a baby, but had so far been unsuccessful.
Sara shrugged her shoulders and David looked up at Grissom waiting at the door for him. //I've got to go, Grissom is waiting for me.//
Sara turned toward Grissom and smiled a quiet smile that told him, "I really want one of these with you." Grissom nodded slightly and closed his eyes in the affirmative. There really wasn't a need for words between the two of them. They knew and understood each other very well.
Conrad Ecklie chose that moment to begin talking to Sara. "Sidle, when Child Services gets here, I am turning whatever evidence over to you to continue to process, you'll need to help Grissom with the crime scene. There are two bodies inside the house and we need to find out who the victims are and the identity of the little fellow you are holding. I believe the woman inside is the boy's mother and as quickly as we can ID her then possibly we'll ID the man and therefore this child."
Conrad removed his gloves, quickly donned a new pair, and opened the tin foiled roll. Sara looked over his shoulder at the white substance which might be cocaine that was enclosed in the tin foil. Ecklie quickly took more photos of the substance before sticking his right little finger into the white matter. He brought his finger to his nose and gave a slight stiff. He laughed for a moment, before looking at Sara.
She was intrigued by his actions. "What is it, Ecklie? Cocaine?"
Conrad shook his head and put his finger to Sara's nose. She pressed her body backwards, trying to avoid his gesture. The baby at that moment decided to wiggle and Sara almost dropped the infant.
"No, Sidle. It's baby powder." Sara smiled at him.
Ecklie began rummaging through his kit for a brown paper bag. He quickly picked up the dirty diaper Grissom had abandoned earlier by the edge, trying desperately not to get the baby poop on his gloves, placed the diaper in the evidence bag. He then reached for a bindle and poured the baby powder into the small envelope, got a plastic bag and put the tin foil into it. Then placed his used gloves into another container. He then labeled all of the evidence bags then promptly told Sara: "That's all my evidence. I'm headed back to the lab."
CSICSICSICSICSICSICSICSICSIGSRGSRGSRGSR
After Grissom and Sara had taken finger prints on the victims and ran them through CODIS, they found the man's name was Mack Foster, who had previously worked at one of Sam Braun's casinos as a blackjack dealer. The woman's name was Jennifer McKay, who was a licensed practical nurse. Upon doing a search for the two names on the internet, both were listed as parents of a Justin Foster McKay, an infant born three weeks earlier at Desert Palm Hospital.
Sara contacted the Hospital and found that Jennifer was also employed there. She spoke to the woman's supervisor and was told that indeed Mack was the father of the child, but he had a nasty ex-girl friend who resented Jennifer. The nurse supervisor even supplied Sara with the woman's name: Kristy Keyes. And even though the couple did not live together, they had planned to move in together as soon as the two were married and Jennifer and Mack were scheduled to be married that coming weekend.
Grissom contacted the police lieutenant in charge of the case and found the woman had a restraining order against her and she was also the registered owner of a .38. Albert Robbins had pulled two .38 bullets from the body of Mack Foster. The lieutenant soon had the suspect, Kristy Keyes in custody.
Grissom, Sara and Conrad Ecklie watched the interview through the one way mirrored glass. The woman confessed to killing both victims, because the man had chosen the other woman over her. The three of them made their way back to Grissom's office.
Conrad was the first to speak. "The scorned woman, isn't there some quote for that, Gil?"
"Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned. Nor hell a fury like a woman scorned." William Congrieve in "The Mourning Bride". Grissom spoke from rote memory.
"How do you remember all that stuff, Gil?" Ecklie spoke the words almost reverently.
"I'm just special, I guess, Conrad."
Grissom opened the door to his office, allowing Sara to enter first. His hand grazed her low back as he ushered her into the room. Ecklie watched the gesture but did not comment on it as he strode into the room. He moved to the couch and made as if to sit, when he noted something that was slightly out of place in the office. At the end of the couch, he saw a pair of boots which did not belong to Gil Grissom. The boots were made for a woman and were placed haphazardedly, one on it's side and the other leaning precariously up against the edge of the couch.
He was about to ask about the boots when he noticed something else on the couch. It appeared to be lacey and black. Grissom had taken the seat behind his desk and Sara had unceremoniously plopped into the chair in front of his desk. Neither was looking at Ecklie as he pulled the bra out of the crack between the cushion and the frame. Conrad looked between the two veteran CSI's, he had seen Grissom's hand on Sidle's back and now, he held Sidle's bra in his hand. He quickly stuffed the bra back down into the crack of the couch. He sat down on the couch, looked toward Sara and noted her feet were clad only in socks.
He cleared his throat before speaking to the two of them. "Ahhh, Grissom, who's boots are these anyway?"