Grissom was early for his meeting with Brass at the Farrow's house at 2493 Halloway Drive in Vegas. Situated in the residential area and far away from the Strip, Halloway Drive provided peace and privacy to those who sought it. Indeed, it was a nicer neighborhood than most in Vegas and didn't have the cookie-cutter housing units that usually characterize Sin City. The park was almost a block away and even the schools were a close walk for the younger students. All except the crimes against the O'Keefes, the area was quiet and tranquil and the police were requested to patrol the area regularly.
Brass even thought it quieter that nobody stirred in the neighborhood. Not a soul in this ghost section of Vegas even turned their curtains aside to see two men at the Farrow's house. There weren't too many lights on, either.
"Am I along for the trip or do you really have something up your sleeve this time, Jim?" Grissom asked Brass.
Brass, whose attentions were at the serene neighborhood (even the O'Keefes appeared not to be home, although Maggie and her family were released yesterday from the hospital – their lights were on indicating this – and Brass knew that she was to come back to the lab in two nights), took a few seconds to answer Grissom's usual question. "Oh, there is something in here that might lead us to some of the why of this investigation."
"Why, what?" Grissom was truly curious and even raised his eyebrow with curiosity.
Ever the smartass sometimes, Brass thought.
"Why don't we get inside and find out what else we can find from this friendly neighbor who cooperated with us last week?" Brass suggested a little harshly as he herded Grissom to the front door. He was, after all, giddy inside that he knew something that Grissom didn't. Not to mention, Brass was also was excited about the face he could make when he could confront the elderly neighbors about something he learned from Warrick and Greg.
Before Brass could knock on the door, he was greeted, with Grissom right behind him, by the elderly woman. We must have made a commotion outside. Damn, these neighborhoods are irritating sometimes.
In her late sixties or early seventies already, Jamie Farrow, who lived alone with her husband, opened the door silently, almost as if she was afraid that she'll wake somebody up. Timidly, she said (with a good memory, Brass noted, which was going to be good for the investigation), "Detective Brass, Mr. Grissom, it's a surprise to see you again. What honor do I have of this visit?" The woman quickly ushered the two men into her house, closing the door behind her.
A large house outside didn't compare to the glamorous decoration internal of the house. The living room, the first room that the C.S.I. and detective were pushed into, was large, spacious and connected to a small dining room and then a kitchen to the right. Stairs graved their eyes to the front. The walls themselves were decorated with pictures of old and even some recent shots of some of the younger family. To the left, however, was where Brass wanted to settle and ask the elderly woman, who was wringing her hands nervously, about her past with a certain child and about the file that was tucked under his arm.
The couch looked comforting and even the stiff-appearing love seat gave out an invitation to the already-tired detective. The bay window next to both seating arrangements let in the last sunshine of Vegas. Indeed, the late November days were giving into the cold, although Brass could hardly call temperatures in the high forties cold.
"Why don't we sit down and talk then?" Jamie Farrow did indeed motion the two to the couch in the living room. Both guests ended up being quiet about their visit and exchanged glances as they remained still. How did the woman know that they wanted to talk and invited them to?
She might have been expecting this too, Brass mused as he guided Grissom, who remained motionless about his surroundings and was studying the place for clues. Brass pushed the C.S.I. to the living room as their hostess took the love seat.
"Now," Jamie started after all three were seated properly, "what is it that you two lovely men want to talk about?" With silence as a reply, the older woman became impatient. "Come now, out with it. I know that I said everything that I knew about the O'Keefes. Is there anything that I had missed? Is there anything else that has come up in your investigation?"
Brass answered, for he was the one who knew the sole purpose of this visit. Grissom was just here for the fun of it and listening to some evidence that he didn't know and Brass did.
The detective wanted to start out gently, as he knew the women to go into fits when something awful happened, much like in the week previously. "Mrs. Farrow, in the course of our enlarging investigation, we have come up with a name of the murderer to the O'Keefe parents twelve years ago. We also have reason to believe that he killed the Holidays as well. Our investigators do have evidence of this and it points to his direction. However, we also have some reason to believe that the same person, who has done all these murders, has kidnapped Miss O'Keefe next door and is using her family as bait."
I guess that was gentle enough, Brass thought immediately afterward, but was wrong. The elderly woman was distant, soundless. She got up from her seat, taking herself to the bay window to the end of the room, and stared out of the window, troubled. Grissom was just about to say something to Jamie Farrow when she spoke.
"You know," she said, "I have always had a liking to the small girl, Maggie, next door. Even fifteen years after the family moved here, I still look out here and think about the family that Michael had and how excited he could, and would, get over this small girl when she came home from that school of hers. He always said, everywhere they went and anywhere they were living at, she would come back in a fury and tell him what she learned. His world seemed – was, more like – broken without her with her brothers together. Her presence was enough to get him to smile more often."
Grissom and Brass heard a sigh from Mrs. Farrow. "Julie was equally protective of the child and she was thrilled to learn everything from and about Maggie. She loved to watch her only daughter climb that tree of theirs, pet the dog and even garden in the summer sunshine. The music from her bedroom even seeped into here and –" Her voice, cracked at the end, was full of longing and it was almost as if she was looking to the window of the past. The elderly woman started to cry.
It was noiseless after Jamie's speech except for her crying. Brass wanted to comfort the woman and try to steer back to the topic he wanted to bring up, but it was the socially-unconscious Grissom who picked up on what the woman was saying and to what Brass was aiming to talk about. "Mrs. Farrow, do you have any children of your own?" he asked, without meaning any offense.
Mrs. Farrow had stopped crying then, her tears leaving a thin wet trail on her face. The question may have startled her – she looked like she had been cornered finally and Brass saw it – but it was practical and it made her come to her senses.
"No, but Harold and I wanted them so much," she replied. "My brothers all had children, as did Harold's brother and sister, and they all would always being them over and show them off, how they've grown and even coming over with their grandchildren and once, a great-grandchild. Every time I saw them, and even looking at Maggie as I watched her for the two or so years her parents were here, I longed for them. I wanted them in my old age, too."
"Did you adapt any?" Grissom asked carefully.
Dammit, he's getting to my point! Brass thought with some humor in the statement. Did I miss something?
"Yes, we did," Mrs. Farrow answered, returning at once to the love seat as she said it. Her tears threatened to return, but she kept them in check. "About…let's see, fifteen, sixteen years ago, Harold and I thought that we needed some noise in the house. It had been an adult house for far too long. For the over forty years we've been married, there has not been a single peep from a child of our own, even an adapted one. We were very lonely and still felt ashamed that we were not given a child of our own. Of course, we had our family over and Julie walked over for an evening of bridge. Sometimes Julie brought Maggie and, when Robert was born, him. But it wasn't the same."
She sighed, pausing before continuing. It gave an authentic feel to her story, but the C.S.I. and detective knew that she was telling the truth already, just through body gestures. They listened more as she went on, leaning in to listen to her soft voice.
"The circumstances were good and it was the perfect time for us," Mrs. Farrow explained. "It seemed like a good idea. I wasn't working at the time, so Harold thought it was appropriate that I watch the child while he went to work. We had enough money to support a child and thought we were mature enough to raise one. In turn, we went searching for a child that needed us and needed a home and a family's love."
Then, it was Brass's turn to ask a question, pulling out the file on Jason Napolitano. He asked, without missing a beat, "Did this child happen to be this one?" He took the file and threw it on the table between the couch and the love seat, listening to the satisfying slap it made and looking at the shock on Jamie Farrow's face.
Mrs. Farrow, seeing the name of the file tab, picked up the file and opened it, read some of it before, shamefully, putting it down. She gulped and was about to cry again when she talked, but took to whispering, "Yes, that was the child. Teenager, but he was the child Harold and I wanted to adapt. We knew from the start that he was troubled, but I thought some structure would help him. The Department of Children and Families told us that he was a very difficult child and as a teenager, he became more reckless. They thought that he was involved in some rape cases."
The elderly woman swallowed audibly, thinking, pausing, and then continuing. "Harold thought, despite the rumors, that he could teach the child some morals that he was taught as a child. He wanted to take him fishing and do other normal things that people that age did. Even Harold thought that every day, with a little work, this could bring us the joy that we were missing in our lives. Alas, it wasn't.
"Jason did prove to be a troublesome child to deal with from the start. He loved to taunt those around him, snickered at what we tried to steer him away from and even ran away, sometimes for days at a time." Mrs. Farrow's voice sounded bitterer with each passing word. "He kept going back to that horrid place he lived in when he was a child. I knew that he was raised by his aunt and uncle in there and eventually, they died. They left him alone. He had no other relatives, but those drugged people!
"In turn, Jason turned to things we urged him not to do. He often took girls there, a dark, drafty place it was, and we'd worry. Harold and I knew what he was doing and tried stopping it before it would escalate. We would play it safe, after trying to track him down ourselves, and would have Michael and his team chase him down every time. Oh, Jason would come back. He would be screaming about how we didn't love him and appreciate his feelings. It hurt our feelings hearing it, of course. Harold and I felt helpless. We didn't know what to do or how to handle Jason, so we would send him to his room and hope for the best. Sadly, the boy would just escape through his bedroom window upstairs and start all over again.
"About a month after he arrived here, Jason was caught with Harold's car, driving without a license and drunk. We didn't know how he got any alcohol – Harold and I don't drink at all – and we were worried that he would have killed someone. Michael caught him in time when he heard about a teenager driving erratically, before he did any damage. But that was enough to have the Department of Children and Families take him from our custody. There wasn't anything we or Michael could do.
"Sad as I was that Jason left, I was not quite relieved and was ashamed with myself for what we have tried to do. I didn't solve a problem, but created a larger one, and made it worse for all of us. This wasn't the missing link in our lives, but the simple longing of an old woman and her husband."
Mrs. Farrow stopped and locked her eyes into Brass', the person who started her confession. "Is there anything else, Detective?" she asked timidly. "Do you have any other questions?"
"Were there any incidents where he tried to break into the O'Keefes' place and bother the daughter?" Grissom asked for Brass.
"Yes, come to think of it," was the answer. "Maggie was the apple of his eye during the month that he was here. Many times, I'd find Jason in the garden next door, waiting for her, teasing the dog and once, trying to climb a ladder to get into her room. It was facing our house and was within easy access."
Mrs. Farrow smiled for a second. "Julie often had her gun in his face when he got close. She didn't like him one bit and tried to persuade me to return the child to the Department, but I always defended him. I said that we could try to change him. But Julie had enough of Michael chasing the child or having to protect her only daughter from a lunatic. She was right, though: he was a sex fiend. I couldn't believe that he became a magician and an object of lust to many women. And he was a married man, too."
"I think that'll be all for now, Mrs. Farrow," Brass said, amazed at what he uncovered (more than he expected). "Thank you for your cooperation. This does help in the investigation much more than you think."
"You're welcome," the tearful elderly woman said. "Have a nice evening, gentlemen."
Motioning that they should leave, Mrs. Farrow led both men out the door immediately after her confession. She almost slammed it behind him as they walked out (She's remembering that this is a quiet neighborhood, I guess, thought Brass), angry that they even brought the name of Jason Napolitano into her home.
Grissom, hands in his pockets, headed back to the Tahoe, but Brass caught him by the scuff of his neck before he could get away. Mocking his playful anger and curious about how Grissom knew something that he wasn't supposed to, Brass jokingly dragged Grissom back to his car, where he asked, "How did you know about this?"
Grissom, who released himself from Brass's grip, swept his shoulder and said simply, "It was simple logic. Jamie Farrow, in your notes, stated that she was living alone with her husband and had no children. Jason Napolitano was a child without any supervision or parents. How else could have a teenager of that much knowledge of the O'Keefes have any access to Maggie or even could have any knowledge of the family without meeting them? Michael O'Keefe caught him breaking the law many times, but was sympathetic to Jason's cause. This is why Jason had no record before his 1999 arrest for assaulting an officer of the law: Officer O'Keefe could have let him off the hook. He knew Jason well enough, or so he thought, to give him more chances than one."
'Oh," was all the stunned Brass could say. So, to Grissom, it's the puzzle piece that he fit in himself. Damn, I thought I had him this time.
Before Brass could leave for his car, however, Grissom left. He said behind him, unlocking his own car, "Warrick also gave me a copy of the Napolitano file."
Grissom then got into his car and drove off, leaving the stunned and confused Brass behind.