An Evening of Mailbox Baseball
By
A. Rhea King
Chapter 1
In the fading twilight, it was hard to see Mike and Alicia cutting through the south side fence of the Saver Car Rental lot. Behind them, an airplane took off and Mike lifted his whiskey bottle to it, shouting something unintelligible at it. Alicia, laughing, grabbed his arm and pulled him along while he drank the whiskey. The couple hurried to the row of the most expensive cars on the lot: Corvettes, Hummers, Cadillacs, Jaguars, and shiny, Torch Red, 2008 Shelby GT. The car was sleek, like a Thoroughbred, made to move fast and lithe. Mike reached out to touch it and Alicia slapped his hand. She moved closed to him, both smiling lustily at the other. She dug into his pockets, fondling him as she felt around for what she wanted. She pulled her hand out with the encoded key and held it up, pressing the button on it. The car alarm beeped a couple times before it disengaged. Mike slid behind the wheel and passed his whiskey off to Alicia when she climbed into the passenger seat. She drank while he adjusted the seat for himself.
"Hurry up!" she laughed, pounding her feet against the floorboard.
Across the lot, the parking attendant heard the car's engine rev to life, and turned away from the conversation he'd been having with two other parking attendants. He walked out to the center of the lane, looking in the direction of the sound. The Shelby was hidden from view by a row of economy sedans. Headlights flashed through the darkness and suddenly the Shelby barreled around the corner, straight toward him. He leapt to the side, barely in time.
Mike crashed through the arm across the gate, tires squealing as he cranked the wheel. The Shelby fishtailed, almost hitting several other cars.
"Not yet! Not yet!" the passenger scolded the driver. "It won't count until we reach the start line, Mike!"
Mike straightened out the steering wheel and sped off down the road.
Henry Andrews exited the Mandalay Bay Hotel and Casino at a trot. His six-year-old brother, Jason, rode on his shoulder, laughing as he bounced on each exaggerated footstep. Rachel and Harvey Andrews trailed behind, watching their boys with disapproving, stern expressions. The two brothers stopped at the curb and Henry swung his brother off his shoulder, catching him and standing him on the sidewalk next to him. Harvey handed his ticket to the valet and the man trotted off to get his car.
"Swing me, Henry!" Jason said.
"No," Rachel said, grabbing Henry's arm.
"Just one swing, mom, please," Jason begged.
"I said no," she sternly answered.
"Hey, listen to mom, okay, kiddo?"
"His name is Jason," Harvey corrected Henry.
"Dad, it's just--" Henry stopped when Harvey shot him a disapproving glance.
Henry looked back into Jason's pleading eyes.
"We have a long drive still tonight. We don't need him wound up." Rachel explained.
Henry nodded with a tight smile. "Right."
The valet drove a bronze Cadillac up to the curb and parked it. Harvey tipped the valet as he handed over the keys.
"Okay, Jas, time to get going."
"Why won't you come to see Uncle Gary?"
"I can't. I have to work."
"I told you we can help you this month if you went," Rachel told him.
"I know, mom. I did put in the request, but someone else had their request in first. I just haven't been here long enough."
"With your doctorate, you could have found a better job," Harvey scolded him. "You never should have taken something so menial."
"Or at least a job where you were weren't exposed to criminals all the time!" Rachel added. She didn't even try to hide how much she detested Henry working with Las Vegas CSI.
Henry bit his tongue – literally. He had taken the job in Las Vegas to escape the expectations his old co-workers, parents, and even the people in his home town, had set for him. In Las Vegas, there weren't many people that knew anything about him. Although, he sometimes considered telling his co-workers that, next to Grissom, he was probably the smartest person among them. That usually happened on days when Hodges was being more belittling than usual, when the CSI – save Catherine – talked down to him, and Grissom was pushing him for results faster than the out-of-date equipment allowed.
On those days, he was tempted to reveal that he celebrated his sixteenth birthday by graduating from the University of Mississippi, Phi Beta Kappa with a Ph.D. in forensic chemistry. Those days he wanted to rub it in their faces that for five years he had worked in one of the top labs in the country, sorting through evidence brought from terrorist attacks around the world, including evidence from the World Trade Center, and all the time right under his father's thumb. That was usually where their petty annoyances in his life met head on with the real annoyances in his life. They had nothing on his father.
And, in all actuality, he landed his job on a fluke. While he was waiting for a spectrum analysis one day, he was surfing the Internet and ran across the lab tech position for the Las Vegas PD. He decided he would throw in his application and see what happened. Two days later, Catherine called him for his first interview. They talked for two hours about their jobs -- at least the parts they could talk about. She was supervising a day shift with Nick and Warrick, and she interviewed him four more times before finally offering him the job. The funny thing was he didn't remember hesitating. 'I'll take it,' just came out, and suddenly he was in his car, aimed for Nevada, with two very angry parents behind him.
On his first day, he asked her never to tell his co-workers about his education and age. She was surprised, but promised she wouldn't tell anyone unless she had to – which she seemed to think would never happen. Then she moved to graveyards and he kept asking her to move him to graveyards too. She seemed to have a little trouble getting Grissom convinced, but it ended he signed off on it and Henry had been happy ever since.
So even on days his co-workers got under his skin, he never told them who Henry Andrews really was. It was easier to vent his frustration by aiming his car for the desert, pressing his luck with the speed limit, and blaring Evergreen Terrace or some other speed metal band.
"Will you buckle me in, Henry?" Jason asked.
"Jason, you can do it yourself," Rachel told him.
"Oh, mom," Henry gently scolded as he opened the back door. "Some things are funner when your big brother does them, huh, Jason?"
"Yep!"
"Yes," Harvey corrected his youngest son, and then corrected his eldest, "Funner is not a word, Henry. Do not teach him slang."
"Yes!" Jason said and giggled when Henry mimicked their father.
Jason hopped onto the seat and climbed into the child's car seat in the middle of the car. Henry quickly buckled him in and then held his fist up. Jason made a fist and knocked their knuckles together, sprang his hand open and they waggled their fingers against each other's.
"That's my little man. I'll see you if you guys stop by on the way back."
"Okay. Bye Henry."
Henry gave him a fast hug and then got out of the car. He moved toward his mother to give her a hug, but she got in the car. Henry caught the door before she closed it.
"Sorry about supper. We didn't mean to make a scene, mom."
"That's the past, Henry. We'll talk to you soon, son."
Henry closed the door, watching his dad walk around the car. He waved good-bye to his father. Harvey returned it with a firm nod and got in. Henry leaned over, waving to Jason. He waved back, grinning at him. Henry stood, watching them leave. He turned and flagged a taxi.
Jason sung to himself in the back of the car. His parents sat silently in the front, lost in their own thoughts. Harvey pulled onto US 95, heading west.
"Maybe we should have gotten a room at The Mirage. It was nice. Henry was right about that," Rachel said.
"I'd rather just drive to Lake Tahoe. I know where the sheets in those beds have been."
Rachel smiled wistfully. "We could have stayed, Harvey. We haven't seen him in six months and he was off for three days tomorrow."
"It was his choice not to take the time off to go with us."
"He said he put in the request and someone else had their request in first. I--"
"If he'd wanted to spend time with us, he would have made it happen. Henry has to learn how to assert himself. He's never learned that and you haven't helped him with it, either."
Rachel stared at Harvey. Behind them, Jason had stopped singing, watching them. Only he had born witness to the rising tension between the two since Henry had left Ohio.
She looked away with a soft sigh, telling Harvey, "Some day you're going to see he's happier here than he ever was in your laboratory, Harvey. I hope it's not too late when that day comes."
Harvey didn't reply, only set his jaw.
Silence followed. Jason looked down at the floor at his dropped toy.
"Mommy, I dropped Ralph," Jason said. "Can you please get him for me?"
Rachel unbuckled her seat belt and turned, picking it up. "Hold on to it, Jason. I'm not going to keep picking it up."
Cars swerved behind them and Harvey's eyes flicked to the side mirror, then the rear view. For a moment, nothing further happened. Then cars started moving erratically, trying to avoid something he couldn't yet see.
"Okay," Jason answered.
"Buckle up, Rachel," Harvey told her. His calm voice was a few octaves higher.
"What's wrong?" she asked, looking at him.
She looked out the back window, seeing a car spin off the road and disappear over the steep embankment. She spun around, trying to buckle her seat belt with shaking fingers.
"What's wrong?" Jason asked.
There was no time for Harvey to switch lanes and pull off the road...
Catherine maneuvered the Denali between the police barricades and stopped on the highway shoulder. She and Nick got out, grabbing their kits.
"Fifth one tonight. Whoever is doing this must be going for a record," Nick said.
"Or dealing with some serious road rage."
They started down the steep embankment together. Catherine watched paramedics hurrying up the embankment with a gurney. Judging from the small lump under the blanket, it was a child.
"That's the fifth child that's gone to the hospital because of this idiot."
Nick glanced at the gurney. They made their way down the steep embankment.
"Ohio. Notice how none of them have been Nevada plates? I think this guy might be targeting people from out of state."
"I noticed that too," Nick answered.
Brass turned from the patrolman he was speaking with when he heard their voices.
"Turning into a long night, huh?" Catherine asked.
"If we don't catch this guy I'm quitting."
Catherine and Nick both chuckled.
"What do we have?"
"The driver and passenger are dead, looks like they were grandma and grandpa maybe." he motioned to the ambulance. "One child, he wasn't conscious when the officer arrived on the scene." He held up a bag with a wallet and another with a purse. "I have I.D. on both vics. Do you want me to deliver these to Mandy too?"
"If you don't mind. Tell her if I'm not back in time, have Grissom contact first of kin."
"How many of these do you have waiting so far?" Brass asked her.
"Let's see, the first one had six college students, all deceased. The second was one woman, then a couple, then a van with a high school debate team, that was eight, and a mother and her baby. Twenty-two and counting."
"Why don't you let me handle this one and the next few if there's more?"
"Thank you!" Catherine said with great relief.
Brass started to reply when a patrolman at the top of the embankment called, "Detective Brass!"
"Yeah?"
"We got another one."
To Catherine and Nick he said, "Work faster." To the patrolman he called back, "Coming!"
Nick and Catherine turned to the car.
"I'll take the skids if you want to take the car this time," Nick offered.
"Sure."
Nick headed back up the embankment. Catherine crouched down, starting to process the car.
Grissom reviewed folders of the last few accidents, trying to figure out what the common element was. Catherine sat across from them, reading reports herself.
"We have another four coming still?" Grissom asked.
"Yeah. That makes ten accident scenes, thirty dead, and something tells me we aren't done yet," Catherine answered.
"This person is full of rage."
"Was that a guess or observation?"
Grissom looked up to answer and found Mandy Webster standing in his door, picking at the edge of a file folder. He pulled off his glasses.
"Mandy, how long have you been there?"
She looked up and he was surprised to see she was crying. Catherine turned, staring at her.
"Uhm... Grissom... We gotta problem with one of the next of kin."
"You didn't call them yourself, did you?"
She shook her head. "No."
"Which one is it, Mandy?" Catherine asked.
She opened the folder. "Bronze Cadillac, an older couple and a young boy. The couple's ID were Rachel and Harvey Andrews."
"What about them?" Grissom asked.
She started crying harder as she rushed forward, handing him the open folder, and pointing to the name of the next of kin.
Grissom looked up at Mandy. "Are you sure?"
"I'm positive." Mandy answered. "I even made the receptionist wake up someone in H.R. to pull his emergency contact info. Those are his parents, Grissom... Henry's their son."
Catherine paled slightly. "Our lab tech Henry?" Catherine asked, rising to her feet.
Mandy nodded.
Catherine turned to Grissom. "I gave him the paint transfer chips from their accident scene."
Grissom rushed out of his office tailed by Catherine and Mandy.
The Squirrel Nut Zippers played on Henry's CD player across the room. He opened a bag with red paint scrapings and using tweezers, prepared a slide.
"Henry," Grissom said.
He glanced up, smiling, and then turned back to his work. "I've got four samples in the spectrograph now--"
"Henry," Grissom said again.
"...But so far they're all coming to the same car. The color is Torch Red, which really doesn't narrow this down much, I know, but--"
"Henry, I need you to--"
Henry picked up the slide, putting it under the microscope. "I know, I'm behind on your B&E, but Catherine said that--"
"Henry, put that evidence down," Grissom snapped.
Henry stopped, looking at him. "Did I do something wrong?"
Grissom moved slowly up the table toward him. "I need you to step away from the evidence, Henry."
Henry glanced at Mandy and Catherine stepping into the room. Mandy was still crying with her hand over her mouth. He slid off his stool, stepping away.
"Did I do something wrong, Mandy?"
She shook her head.
"You haven't done anything wrong, Henry," Grissom told him. "Tell me what your parent's names are?"
"My parent's names? Why?"
"Just tell me, Henry."
"Rachel and Harvey. Why?"
"And your brother. What's his name?"
"How did you know I have a brother?"
"His name, Henry."
"Jason. Why? What's going on?"
Grissom cleared his throat. "Are your parents visiting you right now? Are they in Las Vegas tonight?"
"They were here. We had dinner and they left for Lake Tahoe. Why are you asking me about them? Did they get pulled over or something?"
Grissom stopped moving. "Henry, your parent's car was one of the cars that were run off the road on US 95 tonight. Your parents are dead, and your brother is in the hospital."
Henry stared at him for a long minute, and then his head began to slowly wag.
"You're lying. This is a joke. This is a sick, sick joke!"
Grissom shook his head. "I'm not joking, Henry."
"No. No! They're fine. I'll prove it." Henry pulled out his cell phone and dialed a number. He tapped the loudspeaker so Grissom could hear it ringing.
Across the hall, Nick had boxes of evidence collected from the accident scenes. He looked up when a cell phone in one started ringing. He stood, sorting through the boxes until he found it. Nick pulled out the bagged phone, looking at the face of the device. The text on the screen read: Henry.
Nick slowly looked across the hall, right into Henry's eyes. Henry rushed past Grissom, pushed Mandy and Catherine out of his way, and ran into the room. He reached out to grab the bag away. Nick instinctively yanked the bag away.
"THAT ISN'T YOURS!" Henry bellowed.
Nick had only known the man for a few months, but he'd never heard Henry raise his voice to anyone. It was a surprise to hear him now.
"What's going on, Grissom?" Nick asked, keeping the bag out of Henry's reach. "Henry, back off. Back off, man!"
Henry made a grab for the bag. His fingers hooked in a corner, tearing the bag. He caught the falling cell phone, turning it over as it stopped ringing. Blood had dried across the face with a fingerprint in the middle.
"Give Nick the phone," Grissom said.
"What's going on?" Nick asked again.
Grissom ignored the question. "Henry, give Nick the phone. We have to process it. You know that. You can't keep it and you can't handle it."
Henry didn't respond.
"Henry, your brother is in the hospital right now. He needs you. Give Nick the phone back and we'll go over there now."
A tear slid down Henry's face. Nick reached out and pulled the phone from Henry's hand.
"Come on, Henry," Grissom gently coaxed. As he left the lab with his lab tech, he told Nick, "Find all the evidence from a Cadillac STS. Process it first."
Nick looked at the phone, then Catherine and Mandy. They were watching Grissom leave with Henry.
"Who was in that car, Catherine?"
"Henry's parents and brother."
Nick looked back down at the phone. He sorted through the boxes and bags, pulling out everything that had come from that accident scene.
A child screaming and crying could be heard when Grissom and Henry came into the ER admissions. Grissom walked up to the front counter.
"A little boy came in about an hour ago. He was from a hit and run on US 95."
The nurse looked down at her computer. She looked up and stood.
"Sir, you can't go back there!"
Grissom turned as Henry went through the doors into the ER room. He turned back to the nurse.
"The boy, ma'am. His name is Jason Andrews. That's his brother. I need everything you have on him." Grissom pointed to the CSI on his vest. "Everything."
She looked at him, then the door, and then sat back down.
Henry watched his brother. The child stared blankly at him, silent tears running down his cherub face.
"Where's Ralph?" Jason whispered.
Henry looked down. He didn't know that answer, but he guessed someone at the lab was probably processing it.
"Ralph is with a friend. He got hurt too."
"He can't get hurt."
Henry smiled, smoothing his bangs back. "You're a pretty smart kid, know that?"
"Mister Andrews," someone said.
He turned, staring at Doctor Baker standing three feet from the bed. Henry walked over to her.
"We got the x-rays back," Doctor Baker told him. "He has a broken leg and two broken ribs. We're going to have to do surgery to set the ribs, and we'll set the leg while he's under."
"Under?"
"Anesthesia. Do you know if he has any problems with anesthesia?"
Henry shook his head. "I don't know..." Henry made a face to keep his tears held back.
Doctor Baker nodded. "He's young. Most of them don't have any problems. We need to get him in now though so I need you to sign the release form."
Henry stared at the form on the clipboard she held. He reached out and took it, scrawling his signature along the bottom.
"How long will this take?" Henry asked.
"The surgery will be about an hour. He'll be in recovery for two hours."
"I want to stay here until he's asleep, then I need to go to work for a little while. Will you call me when he's moved to a room?"
"I can do that."
Henry returned to the bedside, taking Jason's hand.
"Hey buddy. The doctor is going to come give you some medicine and you're going to take a little nap. Then she's going to fix what hurts."
"Are you going to stay with me?"
"I can't while he's fixing you, but I promise I'll be here when you wake up from your nap, okay?"
Jason started crying harder. "I want you to stay with me."
"I can't, Jason. I'm not a doctor."
"But you have a degree. Don't doctors have degrees?"
Henry smiled. "Mine is in chemistry, not medicine. I promise, Jason, on my life, I will be here when you wake up."
"You won't get hurt while I'm taking a nap?"
Henry shook his head.
A man walked up carrying a plastic box with bottles, syringes and supplies in it.
"Hi. I'm Cameron, the anesthesiologist. So, Jason, I heard we're going to let you take a nap."
Jason nodded.
"Sounds like a good plan to me." Cameron prepared a needle and then picked up Jason's I.V. line and injected. "This will be a little cold."
Jason cringed, squeezing Henry's hand. Cameron capped the syringe and dropped in the sharps box on the wall. He wrapped two fingers around Jason's wrist and looked at his watch.
"Okay, Jason, I'm going to start counting backward from one hundred. Just listen to my voice while I count.
"Promise you'll be here?" Jason asked Henry. Already the drug was starting to make him slur his sowrds.
"Swear it, buddy."
Cameron began counting and Jason was out before he got to ninety-three.
"We're going to have to move him now," Cameron told Henry. "There's a waiting room outside the children's wing on four if you want to wait up there. We'll let you know when we have in his room."
Henry stood, moving out of the way as the doctor and nurses came in to take Jason. He watched them leave feeling lost again. He headed for the exit.
Nick was headed for the morgue when he passed the trace lab and glanced in. He stopped and turned, staring at Henry. Nick walked back to the lab door.
"Henry."
Henry looked up from the microscope.
"Whatcha doing?"
"What's it look like I'm doing?"
"Processing evidence. On which case?"
"Grissom's B&E."
"Aren't you supposed to be at the hospital?"
"Jason's in surgery for a few hours. I needed something to do."
Nick walked up and he quickly moved the slide he had out. He was trying not to look suspicious, which made the action all the more suspicious. Nick stopped.
"Didn't you get the night off?"
Henry turned to him. "There was a stuffed dog in my parent's car. It's made out of patches of cloth. Do you have it?"
"I've got it. I can't release anything until I've finished processing it. Maybe not even then if it has evidence on it."
Henry nodded, looking away. "It was our favorite one."
"It was yours?"
Henry nodded.
"I'll see if I can figure something out."
Henry nodded. "Well, back to work."
Nick nodded and walked away, but he couldn't resist one backward look. Henry wasn't supposed to be there, but he didn't have the authority to send him home. He came around a corner, running into Catherine.
"Hey, can you pick up the paint chips and run those?" Catherine asked. "I just realized Henry started them but in all the commotion no one was reassigned them."
"I think Henry might be working on them."
"What?"
"He's in his lab working on something that he didn't want me to see. He hid it as soon as I came in. I was just on my way to tell Grissom."
"I'll take care of it."
"Well Grissom--"
"He's on a call with the Under Sherriff, Ecklie and the Mayor. Now isn't the best time to bring this to him."
Nick followed her.
"What is with you and Henry? This isn't the first time you've covered for him when he's done something wrong."
She looked up at him. "I guess it was some other Nicholas Stokes I covered for, frequently, in his first year."
Nick smiled. "Guess I forgot about those days."
They came around the corner and Nick hung back, letting Catherine deal with the situation.
"Hey, Catherine," Henry said when she entered.
She didn't reply. She grabbed his coat off the coat rack, walked up to him and switched off the microscope light, and then held out his coat.
"I want you out of this lab now. You're going to let Nick drive you back to the hospital. When I have news, I'll call you."
Henry didn't move. He glanced at Nick when he stopped just inside the door. Nick saw pain and anger in the young man's face, and it made him look away.
"You've broken protocol once by accident. The second time intentionally. I need you to understand that and leave."
"I can't just leave this. I can't--"
"Henry, we were processing evidence before you were hired, remember? We were solving cases, catching bad guys, while you were still in college. We'll catch this person, Henry. We'll find out who killed your parents, and we'll put him away. But you cannot help us, not this time."
Henry looked at the microscope. Catherine leaned close, laying her hand on his shoulder. He looked into her eyes.
"Do you want this guy to get away with killing your parents and hurting your brother?"
"No!"
"If you touch any more evidence, everything you touch will get dismissed. He may walk on that simple, minor, seemingly unimportant technicality. Is that what you want?"
Weaker he answered, "No."
"Then put on your coat, go with Nick to his truck, go to the hospital, and wait with your little brother. He needs you more than we do."
Henry looked away as tears started to fall.
"I've been here, Henry. I know how hard this is."
Henry brushed her hand off as he stood. He took off his lab coat, holding it in his hands.
"What?" she asked.
He handed it to her and took his coat. Henry walked toward Nick, who turned and walked beside him. Catherine looked at the lab coat she held, running her finger over 'Andrews' embroidered on it. She turned, looking at his notes. In the short time he'd been there, she could see he'd gotten far. She looked up, seeing Greg walk past.
"Greg."
He turned and came back. "Yeah?"
"Are you working on something right now?"
"Naw. Still waiting for the last four cars to get here."
She walked up to him, lowering her voice. She pointed at the table.
"That's Henry's work. Make it your own."
"Consider it mine," Greg whispered.
Catherine hung Henry's lab coat on the coat rack and left.