Author's Note: This chapter underwent serious renovation when I was on the plane to Houston today. It was previously called "If I Was Clever Enough, This Would Have A Title." Also, as I am in Houston, posting may be... interrupted. No fears, as usual, I never post unless I have a severe intent to finish. And now, I'm gonna watch a movie with my friend. Also, I know a lot of you don't like Mindy-- believe me, that was intentional. ;o)
Chapter Four: Troubling Evidence
Mindy leaned over Archie's shoulder in the AV lab.
"Go back!" she said.
Archie rolled his eyes. "Mindy, I've gone back fifty times already."
"You can kinda make out his face," she explained. "The frame right before he hits Batman."
Nick walked swiftly into the room. "What'd I miss?" he asked.
"Are you on this case now too or are you just worried about your lover?" Mindy asked.
Nick glared at her. "It'll be a pleasure to work with you too, Mindy."
"We're just going over the security footage outside of the pizzeria," Archie explained. "Lucky for us, that place has had trouble with panhandling and there's already a no loitering sign. The pizzeria owner was getting pissed because they were chasing away customers, so he put up this camera to get their faces on tape to report them."
"So what do we have?" Nick asked.
"Well, Mindy here thinks she sees a face," Archie replied.
Nick frowned as he froze the frame. The fender was just coming into contact with Greg's torso and the three of them squinted at the screen before Archie shook his head.
"Nah," he said. "The sun's reflecting off of the glass right on his face. See?" He zoomed in on the face of the driver and blew it up, cleaning up the pixels.
"But you can still see half of his face," Mindy pointed out. "Check it out, he's wearing sunglasses."
She was right. The left half of the man's face was visible, showing a square jaw and a five o'clock shadow as well as a nice pair of sunglasses.
"Those look expensive," Nick said.
"You think he stole them?" Mindy suggested.
But Nick was slowly shaking his head. "I think we're in the middle of a conspiracy…" He leaned over Archie and hit the print key, receiving a dirty look from the AV tech.
"You know, the polite thing to do is ask," Archie said snidely.
"This is faster," Nick replied as he went over to the printer.
"So how is our boy?" Mindy asked, her eyes wide with something that Nick couldn't quite place.
A small smile crept across his features. "You're worried about him, aren't you?"
She looked stunned. "Worried? Hell no. The little bugger has been nothing but trouble for me ever since he disappeared. I was just wondering if he was dead yet or not."
But Nick wouldn't be dissuaded as his smile turned into an outright grin. "Whatever you say," he said. "He's doing fine. In a lot of pain and he can't really talk. Oh, he said he remembered something about his disappearance. But he was too exhausted to talk about it."
"Really?" Mindy seemed intrigued. "I should probably swing by there and get a statement."
"I'll take you over after we figure out who hit him," Nick said. "It's probably the same guy who left him to die in the middle of the desert."
"Probably," Mindy agreed. "But what are you going to do? You can't plaster half a face around and ask if folks have seen it."
"No…" Nick said. "But we can get an artist's rendering of it based on the half we have. I'll get on that."
Wendy knocked on the door than stopped. "Oh. Someone told me Warrick was in here."
"Nope, just us," Nick said. "What do you need?"
Wendy looked at the file in her hand, then up at Nick with curious eyes. "You're working Greg's case?" Nick nodded. "Well… Warrick has been looking into the death of one of the women at the MGM Grand, a… Sylvia Kent. Well, her blood was all over Greg when you found him."
Mindy and Nick exchanged looks. "What's that mean for Batman?" she asked. "He didn't kill her, did he?"
"Greg?" Nick laughed. "Wouldn't hurt a fly. But that is strange…"
"And it further links him to the MGM case," Mindy said. "Nick, he's a suspect."
But Nick adamantly shook his head. "He can't be a suspect, he was—"
"Missing for three days, when the bomb went off!" Mindy interrupted. "Maybe after you left him at the bar, and his car broke down, he met a nice girl, she took him to the MGM Grand, something happened, he needed to cover it up—"
"So he blows up a hotel lobby to get rid of the crime scene and fakes his own kidnapping?" Nick said skeptically. "I appreciate the theory, Mindy, but you don't know Greg like I do."
"Maybe you don't know Greg as well as you think…" Mindy suggested. Nick glared at her and she sighed. "Look, I don't mean to pick on your favorite love slave, but I'm the only one who's being unbiased here. If he were anyone else, being covered in a victim's blood is grounds for being a suspect in a murder. I'm right, and you know it, and it kills you because it means your little Greg could be capable of killing someone."
"Maybe he was framed," Nick suggested. "Did you ever think of that, Miss Unbiased Investigator?"
"He could have been," Mindy admitted. "But Occam's Razor—"
"Do you have something against Greg or something?" Nick interrupted angrily. "The kid was abducted, drugged, left to die in a desert, shot at and hit with a van all in the span of three days! What kind of issue do you have to have with a guy to—"
"Nick, I don't have anything against Greg Sanders, I'm just trying to remain impartial here!" Mindy snapped. "Shot at and hit with a van, yes, OK, those were bad, but as for being abducted, well, maybe he was just laying low for a few days in the desert, took some Rophynol to take the edge off— people do that, you know, roofies are taken more often for recreation than anything else— and then when he thought he'd disappeared for long enough, he drove out in the middle of the desert and decided to call you up and—"
"Shut up!" Nick screamed. "You don't know what you're talking about."
She narrowed her eyes at him. "I know exactly what I'm talking about," she hissed. "It was originally Warrick and I on this case, remember? Then you and Sara picked it up, and then she and Warrick both switched to the MGM bombing case, but who's been with it from the beginning? Me, OK, not you. I know all of the details of his abduction and it looks staged, Nick!"
"He fainted of heat stroke!" Nick was flabbergasted. "He was bruised up like a battered spouse for Christ's sake!"
"All easily explained by the drugs in his system," Mindy said. "Look, I'm sorry that I've upset you but horses, not zebras, Nick—"
There was a crash as Nick hit a nearby table with his fist and the contents spilled onto the floor. It shut Mindy up instantly and she made a tiny yelp as she jumped at the sound.
"Nick!"
Grissom was in the doorway, looking livid, but he quickly calmed down as he looked from Mindy to Nick again. He licked his lips. "Calm down," he said. "She's right."
Nick turned his silent fury to his supervisor. He tried to control his quaking voice. "Grissom… Greg would never kill somebody. And even if he did, he wouldn't cover it up with some scheme like that! He's just not smart enough to do that."
"Don't make fun of Batman," Mindy pouted quietly. "That's my job."
Nick shot her a look, then turned back to Grissom waiting for an answer.
Grissom chose his words carefully. "I don't think he intentionally deceived us, Nick," he said quietly. "But it's possible that he may have killed someone in the past few days and just not remember it. Or you could be right. He might not have killed anyone at all. But he was probably there when she died. Her blood had to have gotten on him somehow."
Nick was breathing heavily and scowling. He knew Grissom was right, but he was still furious with Mindy for suggesting that Greg was devious enough to concoct such an elaborate lie. "Fine," he said. "But what are we going to do, interrogate him? He's doped up on morphine, believe me, I saw him, he's so out of it he doesn't know up from down."
"We'll wait for him to get a little better," Grissom replied calmly. "In the meantime, we pursue other leads. Did the security footage give you anything?"
"Mindy found a face," Archie chirped, making Mindy grin proudly.
"Half a face," Nick amended enviously. "I was just about to get a forensics artist to sketch the other half for me and then try and then get it out to the media to see if anyone can ID him." Nick handed Grissom the print out.
The blood in Grissom's veins ran cold. He looked up at Nick with a curious expression before turning on his heal without a word and striding out of the room, leaving a baffled Nick, Archie, Wendy and Mindy behind.
He couldn't explain it… yet. But he knew that face. He had just spoken to the man who wore it. He pushed the door to the interrogation room open to see his suspect and Brass look up at him. Grissom reached into the file he held and pulled out one of the crime scene photos taken of Greg after he'd been hit by the van. He then pushed the blown up photograph of the driver's face next to the photo of Greg.
"Mr. Spade," he said coolly. "Would you care to explain why you so callously decided to hit a CSI with your car?"
Alex Spade calmly looked at the photographs, then up at Grissom and shrugged. "I don't recall hitting anyone," he replied. "That clearly isn't me. The image is indistinct, and I don't even own a black van."
"Mr. Spade," Grissom replied, "I can make out the mole on your right cheek in this photograph."
The lawyer reached over and examined the image for himself before shaking his head. "No, I'm sorry, that dot could be anything," he replied. "You can't make an accurate match to my client with this shoddy evidence. Besides, I thought we were here to discuss the bombing at the MGM Grand?"
"If we're just discussing it, then why are you here?" Brass asked directly to the lawyer.
"To protect my client's interests," the lawyer returned nastily. "He's a very important businessman, and to be accused of a crime as outrageous as this is simply erroneous slander. Are we done here?"
Grissom slammed his fists on the pictures, the first sign of emotion he had shown ever since the whole thing had begun. "No we are not done here," he said sternly, his voice betraying only a sliver of the loathing he was feeling for this greaseball. "I want to know what it is that you have against Greg Sanders!"
"Gil…" Brass said in a warning tone.
"I don't even know who that is!" Alex said, sounding exasperated.
"He's the CSI you've been trying to murder," Grissom replied, his voice more calm. "First by overdose, second by sniper, and third by vehicular manslaughter. What's the matter, Mr. Spade? Your assassins didn't come through for you so you figured you'd run over the kid yourself?"
"This is harassment!" the lawyer exclaimed. He turned to Brass. "He can't come in here and—"
"I'll do what I damn well please," Grissom interrupted. "And your client seems to have the same attitude. He thinks that just because he comes from a wealthy family and has a lot of money up his sleeves that he can get away with murdering fifty people and then personally come after one of my guys on some ludicrous vendetta that I can't even begin to comprehend."
"My client reported a suspect to you," the lawyer replied icily. "The guest who threw chalk all over his room. His brother even corroborated the story, how come you're not harassing that asshole?"
"Hey…" Alex said pensively for a moment. "Wait a minute, can I see those pictures again?"
Grissom held on tightly to them but Brass took them out of his hands, giving Grissom a worried look as he slid them across the table to Alex Spade.
The door to the room opened and Mindy popped her head in. "Uh… Gilly? That's not our guy."
As Grissom stared at her, Brass cocked an eyebrow at him. "Mindy, now isn't a good time."
"Really?" she said. "Because I thought it was a perfect time. You know, before you made an even bigger ass of yourself fin front of one of Las Vegas's most powerful families."
He couldn't believe her audacity. "Can we talk about this outside, please?"
She shrugged. "Sure thing, Gil." She closed the door.
Brass pursed his lips to contain his amusement. "Gilly?"
Grissom didn't dignify the quiet question with a response. Instead, he walked towards the door and saw Mindy waiting for him behind the glass.
"That was completely uncalled for," he said firmly.
"Please, Gil, you're not my supervisor," she replied. She showed him the image. "That mole was a stuck pixel. Really, our driver doesn't got one."
Grissom stared at the image for a long time before looking up at Mindy. Great. The one time he lost his nerve, and it hadn't even been with the right suspect. He handed Mindy back the image and swallowed his pride. It got stuck in his throat momentarily, but he swallowed again and it dropped like a stone into the pit of his stomach, making him feel less than healthy.
"Thank you, Mindy," he said sincerely, before turning around and walking back into the interrogation room.
He sat down next to Brass and across from Alex Spade's lawyer, who was looking at him expectantly. He addressed Alex directly. "Mr. Spade, I am sorry for my harsh words. If you have any more evidence pertaining to the bombing, please let us know and we'll do what we can."
The lawyer seemed livid, but Alex was forgiving as he fixed Grissom with an understanding gaze. "It's OK, Mr. Grissom," he replied. "I'm sure you're under a lot of pressure with this case, and now that one of your men has been hit by a van… It's only reasonable."
"Thank you for understanding," Grissom said politely.
"But…" Alex said, looking back at the photos. "And I'm just telling you what I know here…"
"What is it, Mr. Spade?" Brass encouraged him.
Alex looked nervous. "Well, I don't mean to be pointing fingers or anything, and it could be a coincidence. It's hard to tell with all the bruising the kid's got, but… But he looks like the guy who trashed our suite a few weeks ago. The one I told you about."
Grissom took a deep breath through his nose as he studied Alex intently, searching for the lies that he knew took haven in the corners of his eyes. And yet, they hid well from him. The man was nervous, it was true, but that could be explained away by the fact that he was accusing a CSI of a grave crime to his colleagues. What did Alex expect of him? Did Alex Spade really think that Grissom and Brass would blindly believe his already shaky testimony? Catherine was right. Grissom had never seen Alex with any women, but he could tell just by the man's demeanor that he was slippery and dark inside. It wasn't blood that ran through his veins. It was black tar.
Alex looked at Brass. "Am I free to go now?"
Brass glanced at Grissom, then at Alex and nodded. Alex and his lawyer rose to their feet. The lawyer looked highly unsatisfied.
"We'll be in touch," he said, and it was more of a threat than an offer to help.
As they left, Brass turned to Grissom. "What's gotten into you?" he asked. "I thought you were the pillar of calm."
"Did you hear what he said about Greg?" Grissom asked.
"You flipped out and calmed down again way before the accusation against Greg tumbled out," Brass replied evenly. "And we all know that was bullshit anyway."
Grissom sighed and rubbed his eyes. "It's been a long week, Jim."
Brass nodded. "You've had plenty of long weeks in the past. It's more than that."
"It's just… we don't have a single viable suspect."
"Technically, we have Greg," Brass said at an attempt at humor.
Grissom was not amused as he glared at Brass. He continued as if Brass hadn't spoken. "Alex Spade was perfect, for everything. He had motive against his brother for the bomb, we had him on film hitting Greg with his car…"
"But we still don't know how Greg is linked to the bombing, if the two incidents are linked at all," Brass pointed out. "Unless you want to believe his crazy story…"
Grissom wouldn't even give this possibility credit. "Jim, three attempts on his life were made in one day. If he's not on a hit list for something, than he's incredibly unlucky. The officers are still posted at his door?"
"Have been since the day he was admitted," Brass replied.
"I just want to solve this," Grissom muttered. "The sooner we figure this out, the sooner I can stop worrying about someone trying to kill Greg for something he doesn't even remember…"
He had his team working like dogs after that interview. He had all the evidence run double time. He had this sinking feeling that if he could only solve who bombed the MGM Grand he could figure out who was trying to kill Greg.
Hopefully, Greg would be able to help them out a bit with maybe something he might have remembered. But as it was, Greg was still recovering and unintelligible when awake, and therefore useless to Grissom and the investigation. The doctors said Greg could come around any time between a week and a month from now. It all depended on how fast he healed. The faster he healed, the less pain he would be in, and the less medication would be needed to keep him comfortable.
When Nick wasn't at the lab, he was at Desert Palms, and when he wasn't at Desert Palms, then Sara took his place. On occasion, Warrick would accompany one of them to check up on how Greg was doing. And every time Catherine got a break, instead of eating, she'd make her own way to the hospital. When the first weekend arrived, she left Lindsey with her sister and spent both Saturday and Sunday with Greg.
Grissom had no time for such luxuries. He could not waste a single moment concentrating on anything other than the case. He lived, ate and slept at the lab, pouring over the blue prints to the MGM Grand until he knew them by heart, looking over suspect files and alibis with Brass, and analyzing the components used in the bomb that had destroyed one of Las Vegas's finest hotels.
The bomb had been triggered remotely, but where the signal originated they couldn't say. It had been constructed so that most of it was destroyed instantly in the heat and by the sheer concussive force of the explosion. But what they had recovered hadn't helped them to identify who had constructed it.
As days slowly turned into weeks and Grissom was not anywhere closer than he was when he had started, Mindy finally stumbled across him asleep over the stacks of paperwork on his desk. However, instead of politely waking him, she walked in and leaned in close to the sleeping Grissom, like a child ready to taunt a slumbering bear. With one index finger carefully extended, she poked him quickly in the shoulder before jumping back, fearing his fury.
He did not move.
It was at this point in time that Mindy decided to use a more direct approach. She once again leaned over his desk so she was face to face with the man before saying, absurdly loudly, "Wake the hell up!"
Grissom was instantly awake as he pushed back in his chair and nearly fell over. He glowered at her furiously through narrowed eyes, which had heavy black bags weighing underneath them. "Is there something I can help you with, Mindy, or do you just enjoy tormenting me?"
"A little bit of both," she said, sounding annoyingly chipper. "First of all, I refuse to watch that surveillance tape one more time. We're not getting anything clearer than what we already have, OK? The artist's rendering is as good as we're going to get. Second of all, how is Greg doing?"
Grissom gave her a tired smile. "No real change, I'm afraid."
Mindy's face fell. "So he's not conscious," she said. "He hasn't said anything."
"Nothing coherent," Grissom answered. "Last I heard, he was rambling on to Nick about Buddy Holly and the Brady Bunch and something about wallabies…"
Mindy cocked an eyebrow. "Right…" she said slowly, but then sped up again. "Anyway, third of all, I got a hold of the security tapes from a few weeks ago when Alex Spade claims his room was trashed? Well… You'll never believe the face we have on camera."
Grissom removed his glasses, only half-listening to the irksome redhead as he rubbed his temples, trying to dispel the oncoming headache he knew was hovering like a storm cloud over the horizon. "Right now, I'll believe anything," he said. "Who's on it?"
Mindy tossed stills from the footage onto Grissom's desk. Grissom looked at the pictures without his glasses momentarily, then blinked as his brow furrowed in bafflement. He immediately reached for his glasses and put them on again, holding the pictures closer.
He looked up at Mindy, looking baffled. "Why didn't we see these before?"
"The organization of the security tapes at the MGM Grand is horrendous," Mindy replied. "Jack Spade just fired his head of security because of it. It took them this long to find the tapes."
Grissom blinked at the photos and slowly shook his head. "No, this… this can't be right. You can't make out his face, and he's wearing… clothes he doesn't normally wear…"
"But you see it, too, right?" Mindy pressed, her green eyes wide. "You see what I see? I'm not going crazy?"
Slowly, Grissom shook his head as he stared up at Mindy, utter perplexity scribbled across his features. "That guy looks one hell of a lot like Greg."