It started out as Friendship
Few nights later me Warrick and Sara walk across the club toward the steps to the pit where our crime scene was.
"I hung out here a few times." Warrick said and I gave him a shocked look
"Never been." Sara said
"Your knucklehead boyfriend never took you on the party circuit?" He asked her
"Uh, pass." She said.
"What about you Katie? Ever been here?" Warrick asked me and I shook my head.
"I'm not answering that." I said and he grinned.
"Dont need to, that answered it for me." He said and I gave him a slight push while laughing, "That's cool about Vegas. It's Monday: Rain at the Palms; Tuesday: Eden at studio 54; Wednesday: Raw at the Luxor; Thursday's Baby's..." He said and we pass the guard at the top of the stairs and make our way down the stairs into the pit.
Grissom moves the ALS light away and continues to look around. Sara opens her kit and removes a pair of gloves to put on, Grissom continues to look around the floor of the pit and sees more body fluid
"There's seminal fluid all over the place."
"Is this a dance club or a sex club?" Sara asked and Warrick picks up a discarded underwire bra.
"A little of both. Don't you love this town?" He asks and bags it, I shake my head
"Whatever you say, Superfly." I tell him and he snorts.
"You guys smell that?" Grissom asks us
"Mm-hmm." I said picking up the discarded underwear by marker #10
"Smells like strawberries."
"It's the foam." I tell him and Warrick looks at me and laughs.
"Reminds me of the Mirage. Steve Wynn didn't like the smell of the volcano erupting, so he changed the fuel mixture. Now it smells like a piƱa colada." He says and moves to item #11 and picks up a clear stiletto-heeled shoe.
Brass walks into the pit, "Hey. I got a line on our vic. Trey Buchman, booked a room at The Sphere. E-wing, room 937"
Grissom and Sara head to the hotel and I get a phone call from Cathrine asking me to meet her at Industrial Road, apparently her ex husband Eddie's car went off a bridge with her daughter in the car so I rushed over there.
I arrived and saw Cathrine sitting in the ambulence with Lindsey, I gave her a sympathetic nod and went over to the car being pulled out of the water and started looking around. I see Cathrine approache the car and head for the driver's side, I looked around the inside of the car and see the debris on the car floor and the blood stains on the passenger seat and I open the passenger side door, Cathrine opens the driver's side door and looks around. I see Cathrine pick up a blue vial.
"Drugs." I said
"Knowing Eddie's taste in women, I'd say that's a good bet." She said and I looked at her
"Hey, Catherine? You want to give me that?" I asked her and she looked at me, "You shouldn't be handling evidence. You're not on the case." I tell her, I felt bad saying it but I didnt want to take any chances.
Back at the station lounge, I watch Cathrine who's sitting next to her daughter as me and Detective Vega talk to Lindsey.
"So, it was just the two of you?" I asked her Lindsey turns and nods her head at me. She immediately turns back to look at Cathrine.
"This lady you told us about - the one who was driving, the one with the pink hair - where did you meet her?" Vega asked her but she doesn't look at, she looks at her mother.
"I don't know." Lindsey says but Cathrine interupts
"You remember, Lindsey. Just think about it." Lindsey looks at Cathrine and Det. Vega and I also look at Cathrine then back at each other.
"I fell asleep in the car, and I woke up when we stopped." Lindsey said
"Was this at a house?" Vega asked her.
"No. It was a building." the little girl said
"Was it an apartment building... maybe...or maybe an office building?" I asked her
"I don't know."
"Why did you stop there?" Cathrine asked her and Lindsey looks at her mom.
"Daddy said he had a meeting. He told me to stay in the car and keep the doors locked."
"You mean he left you in the car alone." Cathrine said
"Catherine..." I started to say but Lindsey spoke up
"Mom, mom, it's okay. I said I could take care of myself. I told him I could stay in the car. Just don't be mad at him. He didn't do anything wrong."
"It's okay, Lindsey. Nobody's mad at anybody." I told her and looked at Cathrine then stood up, "Can I talk to you for a second?" I asked her and she gets up and leaves the room in a huff, she closes the door and paces the hallway outside. I sit in the seat vacated by Cathrine, directly in front of Lindsey, "It's okay." I tell her then me and Vega resume questioning Lindsey.
"This lady was at the building?" Vega asked her
"This lady with the pink hair - was she your father's girlfriend?" I asked her
"Maybe. Well, he was mad at her. And then they, they were running back to the car. Daddy was holding his stomach." She said I see her look out at Cathrine who is looks sadly into the room and their eys meet, I see Cathrine holding her phone away from her ear and I knew what it was, Eddie was dead.
I was in the lab and Leah was telling me what was in the blue vial, "Got a vial full of blue boogers."
"GHB with food coloring. That's a date rape drug." I said
"Not anymore. You mix it with the right stimulant, like meth, you got a great party drink." She said
"Everyone's a chemist. Thanks." I said and see Cathrine in the room and she watches as I walk on by.
Im in the garage later on examaning the car and notice the blood stain on the front passenger seat. I check under the floor mat, the I lift the arm rest to check inside the compartment. Finding nothing unusual, I close it and resume looking at the car ceiling. I see a piece of folded paper tucked in the overhead visor and opened it. It appears to be a color proof for a CD cover for Candeece. I check the CD slot and pull out a Demo CD from Sahara Sound.
Me and Vega head to the studio and talk to the owner.
"Yeah, I can put you in touch with her Manager, Eddie Willows. Guy owes me a call. Make that five calls. If you talk to him, tell him he's got, like, eight hours of studio fees due. The penalties are running, okay?" He tells us
"We've already seen him. He's in the morgue." I tell him
"Oh, that makes sense why he wasn't here last night. High-strung singer, no manager, that's always trouble." He says
"She started ragging on me. I didn't need the hot air, so I came back in." The sound engineer said, "That's a cut, Enrique. Let's take it from the bridge." He said to the band in the other room
"Eddie was just in it for the quick score. Cut a demo, sell a contract, get a ride on the charts and you just ride that wave." The owner said
"This girl was different." the sound guy told him
"Yeah, he was banging her."
"Yeah, but he had something for her, knowing how much potential she had. I never seen Eddie so dedicated. Nothing was going to stop him from making her a star." The engineer said
"Except maybe a .22 round in his gut." Vega pointed out
"Stop, stop, stop. That's a cut, Enrique." The sound guy said to the band
"Whoa. It sounds good from where I'm standing- what's up?" The owner said to him
"The problem isn't the vocals, man, it's the extra bass line I keep getting from the village people outside with that damn jackhammer." The sound guy told him and Vega looks at me.
"All right, let's pick it up from the second chorus." Sound guy says to the band
"Aren't recording studios supposed to be soundproof?" I asked
"Lady, if the guy standing next to you is Clive Davis, instead of a cop, it would be." The owner told me
"After Candeece left, did you guys keep recording?" I asked him ignoring the comment
"Um, yeah, a few more hours. We were redoing a drum track." He told me and I looked at Vega.
"We're going to need to take a look at those tapes." He told them
Later on me and Vega interview Candeece
"Eddie's my manager. It's no big secret. We were supposed to be working last night, and the jerk blew me off." She said
"So you never saw him last night?" Vega asked her
"No."
"What happened to your wrist?" I asked her sensing the lie
'Oh, uh ... I got, uh ... um ... because, uh ..."
"According to Desert Palms Emergency Room, you came in last night with a fracture of the ulna. It's a common injury in car accidents - air bag specific." I told her, "Air bags are packed with cornstarch or talc. It helps them deploy. It also wreaks havoc on the eyes."
"We know you saw Eddie last night. We know that you were driving his car." Vega said
"It all happened so fast, you know? One minute I was, I was just outside getting some air and thinking, you know? And then... the next, my manager is stumbling towards me, bleeding." She said telling us another lie about how Eddie told her he was shot and her comforting Lindsey saying they were going to bring him to the hospital
"Sounds pretty heroic." I said
"Not really. When you're intimate with somebody, you can't imagine life without them. We were partners. I loved him. I thought I was going to die." She said
"There were two other people in the car." I pointed out
"That's what I meant, you know? I thought we were all going to die." She said
"Search and Rescue found Eddie's body 100 yards downstream." Vega told her.
"See, that's where it gets a little less heroic-we found Lindsey alone in a sinking car." I told her and I was starting to get anry.
"I tried to get Eddie out. He was unconscious, and that...that kid kept screaming..and... the current was really strong and we got swept downstream. What was I supposed to do?" She asked
"Get to a phone, call the cops, call an ambulance, anything, actually...other than what you did." I told her trying to hold back jumping oer the table and grabbing her.
"I am just one person. Eddie is my priority, not that...that stupid, screaming little brat." Before I could even speak up Cathrine bursts into the room
"You even think about my daughter again, I'll kill you. I will kill you." Cathrine says to her and I get up trying to get her out of the room.
"Catherine."
"I will hunt you down and put...I will put you in the ground!" Cathrine yelled
"Catherine?" I said and grabbed her by the shoulders and dragged her out of the room.
"What the hell are you doing? Do you know where you're at right now?" I asked her
"I've been here a lot longer than you..." She said
"And you should know better." I told her cutting her off
"And I wouldn't have to be here if you were doing your job properly." She spat at me
"There is a difference between me doing my job and you wanting to do it for me. You don't want to get the job done. What you want, right now, is revenge." I told her
"You're going to tell me what I want, huh?"
"Go home, Catherine. Be with your daughter. She's the one that needs you." I tell her and walked away leaving Cathrine in the hallway.
In the AV lab Archie is cleaning up the studio recording, "Well, modern recording's all digital. Each track's recorded in a separate data file. By looking at the file modification times, we can approximate which tracks were recorded near the time of the shooting." He says
"Catherine left Eddie at 5:30 P.M. Lindsey's first call was logged in at 10:55." I told him
"Let's see, well...only two tracks were laid down during that time interval."
"Let's look at the drum track." I tell him and he puts the drum track on the monitor and speaker.
"There's the kit drum."
"So any irregularity in the pattern could be from an outside source." I said
"Yeah. Right here. A sudden change in amplitude." Archie said
"Can you isolate it?" I asked
"Yeah." Archie replays the portion of the sound track he highlighted. Inside the drum track, there's a distant bang.
"Sounds like gunfire." I pointed out
"I'll play it again." Archie replays the portion again. It definitely sounds like gunfire, "Let me take out the drums." He separates the sounds and plays it again, the first sound is gunfire. After that, there's a second, faint-whirring sound.
"What is that?" I asked him
"Feels like an engine. V-twin, maybe. Must have been somebody else there. You think we got a witness?"
"Or a suspect." I say and VEga enters the room
"Hey ... I was able to pull the phone records for Candeece. She made six calls that night. The first five went to Eddie." He said
"But not the last one. You got an address?" I asked
I take a sample of something blue stuck to the drain in the sink at Kiner's house, outside kiner is being questioned by Vega and I walk out of the garage.
"So you do remember the call." Vega asked him
"I like your Harley." I tell him and headed to the back of the SUV where I process the sample on a SENSIR machine.
"Look, Kiner, you're on parole; you got no rights looking at two strikes. I'm not trying to pull a fast ball on you, but it's not the first time you've talked to Candeece." Vega told him.
"So maybe me and Candy are friends." He says
"Were friends. You guys used to talk once a day. Then she stopped calling you, until last night." Vega said
"Mr. Kiner, do you own this house?" I asked him
"My father left it to me." He answered
"Your father have a drug problem? We found GHB in your garage. "Georgia home boy." I said
"Tell us what happened with Eddie." Vega said
"Candy needed "help." He says and gives us th play by play on what happened with him, Candeece and Eddie, "I got on my hog. I got the hell out of there. What do you expect me to do? Go back to the joint for her?" He asked and I exchanged looks with Vega.
"Cuff him." Vega said.
After that we interview Candeece again.
"Kiner is a drug dealer." She said
"Your drug dealer." I told her
"No. Not anymore. Eddie got me off all that stuff." She said
"You called Kiner. He came here." Vega told her
"I tried to call Eddie. He had his phone off. He was with his pain-in-the-ass daughter and that psycho ex-wife of his. I was just alone in front of a microphone with my whole career riding on a demo." She said and I bit my tongue,"I thought Eddie wasn't coming. I guess he was just late." She said
Cathrin enters the lab as I'm there wrapping up the paperwork, evidence in packages around me, "So you're calling it?"
When I heard her voice I looked up and turned around, "I got two liars and no murder weapon...and no choice. I'm going to nail the singer on child endangerment and fleeing the scene, and the dealer goes up on possession for sale."
"What a great bedtime story for my little girl." Cathrine says
'Cath, I did my best." I tell her, she doesn't say anything, just leaves.
I get home after turning everything in and see Nick is already there, I walk in the front door and NIck comes out of the hallway giving me a smile.
"Hey, you okay?" He asked me walking over, I shook my head and he pulled into a hug, I let go when he did and started crying, "Hey, it's okay." He said rubbing his hand on my back.
"I just...to think about Lindsey having to go through that, watching her dad suffer right in front of her, then find out he's dead, and Cathrine...I couldnt give her the justice she needs." I said and he hugged me tighter.
"I know baby, I know, I love you for trying and Cathrine does too, she's just going through a loss right now." He tells me and I looked up at him, he wipes away the tears flling down my cheeks.
"I know, but if anything like that ever happened to you, I would work like hell to find out what happened." I told him and he kissed my forehead.
"Same here" he told me and we went and sat on the couch snuggling up to each other.
A few weeks later after Grissom is in court for a case we have to reexamine the evidence and Ecklie, who is now in charge of the department, informs Grissom that he is splitting up the graveyard shift. So now Nick and Warrick report to Cathrine and me, Sara, Greg and Sofia, the former dayshift supervisor, now report to Grissom. We get called into a case where we all get to work together, the death of casino mogul Bruce Eiger.
Me and Greg arrive at the scene and the garage door opens revealing Grissom standing there.
"Question. You come home, see your husband lying in the driveway. What do you do?" He asks us
Greg shrugs, "Is that a trick question?"
"Stop, jump out, run over to him." I said
"Or take the time to pull into the garage and park and lock your car?" He sayd and I turn and look at Greg who shrugs at me.
As Sara, Greg and Grissom are in the garage I walk up to the second story and see Nick there who is examining the second story balcony.
"Hey. Whatever happened, it happened right here." He said and Warrick walks up to him to look at the planter.
"Planter could've been broken during the struggle or been used as leverage." he said
"Well, if he was pushed, they'd have to be strong enough to get that big boy over the railing." I said
"Well, I didn't see any trace on Bruce's hands. I don't think those are his prints." Warrick said looking at the handprints on the concrete railing.
"Well, maybe the killer hung out enjoying the fruits of his labor." Nick said.
Catherine, Nick, Warrick and I walk back into the house through the hallway.
"Well, I don't see any signs of struggle in this hallway." Warrick said
"No." Nick said
"The only clue is no clue." Cathrine said and we walk into the room at the end of the hallway which turned out to be a study.
"The inner sanctum." I said
"If these walls could talk, huh?" Nick says and I see a glass on the desk
"I wish they would." Warrick said
"Yeah, no doubt." Nick replied
I walk over to the glass and sniff it, "Scotch ... and milk." I said and we look around the study.
"Maybe the guy had stomach trouble, you know, ulcers." Nick said
"Well, you get as good as you give." Warrick says and picks up the cigar in the ashtray and smells it, "Who smokes half a cuban?"
Nick finds a couple of handprints on the wooden floor, "Well, whoever was outside might've been in here, too. I've got some greasy handprints, look very similar to the ones on the railing."
"What are they doing on the floor?" Cathrine asked
"I'll take a sample." Nick said
Later on me and Nick arrive back at the mansion to meet up with Warrick, Cathrine and Grissom, we get to the top of the second landing and see a hidden passageway.
"You first." Nick said to me and I smirked at him.
"Are you only saying that so you can look at my ass on the way on?" I asked him and he walked up to me.
"Well yes, but I cant help it, I always look at it." He said and I shook my head, got down and crawled through with Nick behind me. As we got through I stood up and was shocked at what I saw, a nursery.
Nick crawls in through the passageway, "Whoa. Who's your mommy?"
"The true inner sanctum." I said and Catherine snaps photos of the adult-sized pacifiers while Nick finds the pink nursing gown and holds it up.
"Hey, maybe we're looking for the hand that rocks the cradle." Nick said
"I think that Bruce just wanted the same thing as every other guy." I said
"Nurturing?" Grissom asked
"Easy access." I said and saw Nick smile.
Grissom opens a drawer and finds the enema bottles, "Well...this could explain the repeated insertions." He says and Catherine snaps photos of the adult-sized bassinet.
I pushed aside the clothes in the closet and find a security panel, "I think this was originally used as a panic room. Eiger's got a massive security system here, motion and site sensitive. No video, though." I said
"Well, I guess we won't get to see who swaddled him." Cathrine said and Nick opens the toy chest and looks inside.
"Well ... there is a hard drive. I'll get it back to the lab." Warrick said and I nodded at him.
Nick closes the toy chest and picks up the adult-sized pacifier, "I just don't get it, man."
"What, you never had a transitional object when you were a kid? A stuffed animal or a blanket?" Grissom said and I looked at Nick
"No. I mean, I had a wooby, but who didn't?" He said and Catherine's eyes widen as I hold back a laugh.
"Oh, is that that blue thing that's in your locker?" Warrick asked him
Nick chuckles, "Don't even." he looks over at me and I shake my head smirking
"Seventy percent of children have something. Helps them with separation anxiety." Grissom said and looked at me, when I was a kid I only had one safety net, him. Grissom opens the trash bin, "Maybe Bruce Eiger never got over his."
"I got a question. Where would you buy something like this? I mean, this crib and this rocking horse isn't exactly, uh, regulation size." Warrick asked and Grissom picks up the white trash bag and looks at the emblem on the outside.
"Forever Baby. For the child in all of us." Grissom reads off the bag.
Catherine opens the refrigerator and sees the bottles of milk on the shelf. She picks up one, "Do you think they do takeout?"
Me, Grissom and Nick head over to the adult baby store, and we walk over to the counter.
"Howdy." The clerk says to us
"Well, howdy. I was wondering, do you carry adult diapers?" Grissom asked her
"Oh, we sure do." She says and looks at Grissom, "What are you, about a 34, 36?" she asks and Nick and I both look at each other and smile
"Well, they're not for me." Grissom tells her
"Oh." She looks at Nick, "Well, aren't you lucky to have such a nice daddy?" I snorted and Nick's smile fades fast. Grissom turns and looks at Nick with a huge smirk on his face. Nick glances at Grissom, then me then at the cashier and smiles.
"I'm going to have a look around." He says clearing his throat and steps away from the counter, I join him and we start looking around. I still have a smile on my face and he looks at me, "Dont even start" he warns and I nudge him walking away.
Back at the lab me and Nick are examining the toy chest from the vic's nursery.
"This is the same toy box they sell at Forever Baby, except the one in the store was twice as big on the inside." Nick tells me
"Well, he did like his secret spaces." I said to him.
"Yep." He said and we unscrewed the screws from the box, "All right." he said and we removed the side paneling, "Whoa." Hidden inside the toy box are files, we put the paneling aside and remove the rest of the wood, "Bingo." Nick said and we look at the labels on the file folders, "Sy Magli ... Sam Braun ... Rory Atwater?"
"Sheriff Rory Atwater?" I asked
"Looks like it. Along with some gaming commissioners, judges, pro athletes." Nick says chuckling,
I pick up a photo of a baby and looks at it, "No name. Just a date, 12-20-01." I said and Nick looks at another photo.
"Well, apparently, Sy liked the spectrum-" Nick said
As the case finished I told Nick I was going to spend some time over at Grissom's and have dinner with him. Grissom was in his kitchen cooking and I was sitting at the counter across from him with my wine glass.
"You know...I dont think I ever thanked you." I said to him and he looked at me.
"Thanked me for what?" He asked
"For always being there for me, not just after my parents died but before that when my dad was..." I stopped, I was always going to be haunted by my past, "I regret every day that I put you through hell when you took me in."
"You acted out of grief, anger, teenage rebelion. I never blamed you for that Katie." He said.
"I know that, but after what happened at that party I wanted to go back and do things differently, yeah I was able to graduate, went to college, and turned my life around, but looking back at who I was and how I treated you. Thats gonna stay with me forever." I said and Grissom put down the knife he was using and walked over to me.
"Don't ever apologize for hat you did in the past, you learned from it, grew from it and it made you the strong woman you are now and that all that matters to me." He said and I stood up and embraced him in a hug.
"I love you uncle" I said to him and he returned my hug.
"I love you too Katie." he said and went back to cooking dinner.
