Shadow Play
Chapter 45
"Now, see..." Tipping the can up to his mouth, John Grogan took a hearty swig of the amber fluid it contained before continuing on. "That's the thing about today's criminals that disappoints me the most – they're just so dumb." Completely relaxed on his favorite sun-lounger, he adjusted his sunglasses against the glare of the late afternoon light. "Ninety-nine times out of a hundred you find yourself dealing with morons instead of masterminds and, for the most part, they make the job just too damned easy."
He'd been drinking most of the afternoon; the built-up heat of the tiny rented workshop and the excitement of the day's ballgame all but forcing him to crack open his first can of Budweiser just a little after 2pm but, thanks to both the exertions of the day and his higher than normal tolerance for alcohol, the effects were only just becoming noticeable.
"That armed robber last week couldn't have made it any easier if he'd tried." Seated opposite his friend, Grissom smiled at the memory of the case that had taken up a whole hour of his time. "Apart from the fact that he didn't bother wearing gloves or a disguise when he held up the jewelry store, the blood trail he left behind after he slipped and sliced through his femoral artery with his own knife pretty much made it an open and shut case."
"Well, it's definitely shut for him considering he ended up in the morgue.' John chuckled. Assigned solely to Homicide, he'd had no reason to attend the scene but the two young detectives that had had been regaling the entire department with the tale ever since "Just goes to prove my point now, doesn't it; they're all as stupid as each other."
Raising his own can to his lips, Grissom sipped at the now warm contents as he reflected on the day the two men had shared.
An unexpected spike in the city's crime figures had seen the Hennepin County sheriff declare a crackdown and both PD and the crime lab had been the ones to bear the brunt of the new hard line attitude. Things had been so hectic over the past few weeks that a day of for one of them was a rare occurrence but to both be off was nothing short of a miracle and they'd decided early on to make the most of what could, very well, turn out to be their last free time together. After a morning on the golf course, they'd spent most of the afternoon stripping the rusted coolant system out of the Mustang with the radio cranked high as the Twins trounced the Orioles seven to three and now, tired and content, they were winding up the day with an impromptu barbeque in the Grogan's small backyard.
"So, what is it that you're after, John?" Wine glass in hand, Elaine stepped out through the back door. Throwing together a last-minute salad, she'd spent the past fifteen minutes listening through the open kitchen window to her husband's steadily growing list of complaints concerning the apparently dubious caliber of the current crop of Minnesotan criminals. "Your own personal Moriarty?"
"Moriarty?" Turning at the sound of his wife's voice, the detective couldn't hide the adoration on his face as he quickly pondered the question. "No, but a challenge every now and then might be nice." Upending his can, he downed the last few dregs of beer. "Let's face it, most murders aren't that hard to crack; take a close enough look at the vic's family and friends and you'll usually turn up their killer." Turning round again, he shrugged. "You, at least, have to work a little harder with stranger murders but, even then, there's usually a connection somewhere that'll lead you to a suspect." Running his finger around the top of the can, he sighed deeply. "The problem is that most of Minnesota still seems to have that 'small town' feel to it and you just don't get big city crime in a small town." Shrugging off the sudden case of ennui, John grinned as he reached across and swatted at his young friend's arm. "Not that that'll bother you for much longer, eh? A quick trip down the aisle and then you're off to LA." Dropping his arm down the side of the lounger, he felt around on the ground for his cigarette packet and, finally snagging it, fumbled it open only to discover it was empty. "I got to tell you, Gil, there's a part of me that would kill to come along with you." Pushing up out of the lounger, he held up the empty can in his hand. "You want another one?"
"No, thanks; I'm fine with this." Glancing down at the can he'd been nursing for the past hour, Grissom shook his head. "I've still got to drive home, remember? Amy said she'd be through at her folk's place at around 7:30 so I promised to pick her up on the way."
"Suit yourself." Feigning annoyance, John crumpled the cigarette packet in his fist as he headed back towards the house. "But you're seriously letting the side down, buddy; she's got you walking to heel before she's even got the ring on her finger." Nearing the door, he turned again and, fixing his wife with the most disarming smile he could muster, continued to address his soon to be married friend. "If you're as smart as I think you are, Gil you'll get the upper hand and make sure she knows who's boss sooner rather than later; you've got to keep 'em in their place, you know?"
"And if you're a smart as I think you are, you'll ignore everything he just said; it'll only end up getting you into trouble." With a censorious glare at her husband's rapidly disappearing back, Elaine settled herself comfortably in the chair beside Grissom's. "Not long now, huh? What is it; a fortnight until the big day?"
"Two week and two days." He told with a nod. "Amy and her mom were spending today making sure they've got everything covered; they're determined to make sure that things go exactly to plan."
"They won't, they never do." She graced him with a knowing grin. "It doesn't matter how much planning you do, something will always go wrong." Reaching across, she placed an affectionate hand on his arm. "So, nerves kicking in yet?"
"About the wedding?" Grissom shook his head. "No, not really, if anything, it just feels kind of surreal."
Elaine frowned at the admission. She had more than her fair share of misgivings about the upcoming nuptials; for the sake of their relationship with Grissom, she and John had gone out of their way to try and befriend the young woman but each and every attempt had been rebuffed and the more time they'd spent with her the more convinced they'd both become that she was not the right girl for their friend. The pregnancy had shocked them but nowhere near as much as Grissom's absolute determination to marry the mother of his child but if he was having second thoughts now was definitely the time to do something about them.
"Are you sure you're doing the right thing?" Raising her glass to her lips, she took a small sip of Riesling and let the question register. "I mean, times have changed, Gil; you don't have to marry a woman just because she's pregnant."
"I know that." Coming from almost anyone else, the query would have sparked offence but he knew she was asking it for the right reasons and he hurried to set her mind at rest. "But, in this case, I want to; I really do." He sighed deeply. "I lost my dad when I was nine, Elaine and if I learned anything from that it's how important it is for a child to know its father; I certainly can't promise her that I'll live forever but I intend doing everything I can to make sure that I'm there for every single milestone in my daughter's life and marrying her mother is the logical way to accomplish that."
"Even though you don't love her?" Setting her glass down, Elaine locked eyes with his. "That kind of relationship never works, Gil and you know it."
"I do love Amy though." Steadily holding her gaze, Grissom smiled. "Maybe not in the convention sense but who's to say that that won't come? She's carrying my daughter, Elaine; how could I not love her for that?"
Eyes narrowing, Elaine's lips quirked up in amusement. "Still determined that it's a girl, huh?"
"I know it is." Unable to stop himself, Grissom grinned proudly. "I talk to her at night when Amy's asleep; I place my hand over the top of her and tell her everything she needs to know; about me, about her mother - I can't wait to start teaching her all about the world she's coming into."
"Well..." Reaching for her glass again, Elaine relaxed against the back of her chair. "I'm not entirely convinced that you know what you're getting yourself into marrying that girl but..." She met his grin with one of her own. "I have absolutely no doubt that you're going to make a wonderful father." She chuckled. "I just hope you're not too disappointed if it turns out to be a boy."
"Hey..." With a fresh can of Bud in one hand and a lit cigarette between the fingers of the other, John stumbled slightly as he made his way back into the yard. "I've worked out what it is we need." Waving grandly in Grissom's direction, he grinned, clearly pleased with himself. "We need either a cop or a CSI to go dark side on us." Nodding determinedly, he lowered himself down onto the lounger. "Cause, let's face it, we're probably the only ones that could do the damned thing properly anyway." Shoving the cigarette between his lips, he used both hands to open the can as he continued talking. "I was actually thinking I could do it myself." Looking up from his task, he winked conspiratorially at his friend. "They'll probably be kicking me out of the department in ten or twelve years time; I'm going to need a hobby of some kind."
"And that's your great retirement plan, is it?" With a melodramatic roll of her eyes, Elaine sighed. "You want to cap off forty years in law enforcement by switching sides."
"Why not?" Looking across at her, John smiled ingenuously. "It could be fun."
"And you could be drunk." Elaine knew what he was doing; he'd spent almost every day of their marriage trying to wind her up over one thing or another but tonight she wasn't in the mood and, pushing to her feet, she gestured towards the small gas barbeque she'd had him pull out of the garage earlier. "I'm going to get the steaks on; if we leave it much longer, we'll be sending Gil's home with him in a take-out bag."
"I shouldn't really bait her like that, should I?" Smile softening, John watched his wife move across to the grill before turning back and raising his can. "Still, it might be fun to see if I could pull it off."
"What?" Surprised by the almost wistful quality of the comment, Grissom frowned. "Murdering someone?"
"Not just someone." John confided. "I was thinking more along the lines of multiple someones." Swinging his legs off the lounger, he perched on the edge as he laid out his plan. "If I was going to do it then I'd want to do it properly and they say that the hardest ones to catch are the serials." Dropping his cigarette, he ground it out on the grass. "I figure the best thing to do is take a lesson from the past, back when killers knew how not to get caught."
"But they only got away with it back then because they didn't have the equipment and resources that we've got today." Grissom told him. "But I thought the challenge you wanted was all to do with catching a killer, John not actually becoming one."
"It was but don't you think this would be more interesting?" Leaning forward, the detective smiled drunkenly. "Imagine it, Gil; I could be out looking for victims while you were out looking for me." The smile widened. "We could turn the whole damned city into a giant hunting ground; it'd be a regular battlefield."
"I told you he was drunk." Stepping back from the grill, Elaine dropped her hand on Grissom's shoulder and used him for balance as she leaned across to grab her glass.
"You're right." Grissom chuckled. "He is."
"Yep." Unable to deny it, John just nodded. "Drunk and fantasizing but..." He held up a finger. "If I ever did become a serial killer, you are definitely the one I would want chasing me down." Reaching over, he clapped Grissom on the arm. "What do you say, buddy? You on one side and me on the other; we could really show them how it ought to be done."
"I'm sure we could." With the light beginning to fade and the first faint aromas of barbequing meat wafting through the yard, Grissom realized for the first time just how much the friends he'd made here had come to mean to him and he wondered, not for the first time, if he was actually doing the right thing by leaving Minnesota. "Okay, you're on; the minute you kick off your crime spree, I'll be on your tail.
"You wish!" John scoffed, his face breaking into a satisfied smirk. "Ten to one says I've got a trail of bodies behind me before you even work out who I am." Beer clasped firmly in his hand, he held it out in front of him and waited for Grissom to do the same before tapping the two cans together. "Happy hunting, Gil."
The whirr of an electric motor snapped him back to the present and Grissom stared out through the rain-spotted windscreen as Galetti identified them both to the two young agents on roadblock duty.
The street up ahead looked pretty much as he'd expected it to; from the white utility tent erected between numbers 1611 and 1613 to the small group of coverall-clad workmen that were currently conferring around the nearest storm drain, it all looked perfectly normal. Lights seemed to be on in almost every residence and, as requested in the hand-delivered flyers, as many vehicles as possible had been parked on their owner's properties as opposed to being left on the street. There were still a few cars parked here and there along the road but, for the most part, Mountainside Drive was clear.
Satisfied that everything was as it should be, one of the agents pulled the barricade blocking the entrance to the side as his partner radioed their arrival to a contact up ahead and, as Grissom watched, one of the workers disengaged himself from the group and began strolling, nonchalantly, along the middle of the road.
It was only when he was sure that he was out of sight of the Grogan house that Frank Harris broke stride and began to run.
Shucking the seatbelts off their shoulders, both Grissom and Galetti had their doors open and were standing at the front of the Bureau-issued Impala as the now out of breath agent came to halt before them. Ignoring his superior, Harris instantly turned all his attention to Grissom.
"You manage to get through to them yet?"
"No, both phones have been turned off. I've left messages for them both but-" As if on cue, his cell phone rang and Grissom quickly snatched it from his pocket. Staring at the small screen, he recognized neither the calling number nor its area code and, without so much as a second though, jabbed his finger at the reject key and snapped the handset shut.
"Are you positive that it's her though?" Not bothering to hide the skepticism in his voice, Harris jerked his thumb back over his shoulder towards the suspect's house. "I mean, I was all over that place the other day and she never even blinked an eyelid."
"Yes she did." Grissom told him remembering Elaine's preoccupation as the house had been inspected. "I just read it wrong. There were only three of us in that yard when John said what he did; I'm here, he's dead so that only leaves Elaine."
"But is her husband really dead?" It was one of the first thoughts to cross Galetti's mind as he'd listened with growing dread to Grissom's rapid-fire exposition in the layout room but this was the first time he'd dared voice it. "I mean, it wouldn't be the first time someone's faked their own death."
"And then waited four years to carry out their plan?" Unable to help himself, Grissom scoffed at the absurdity of the question. "John's dead, Galetti; I saw him at the hospital myself." Pausing for a moment, he drew in a deep steadying breath; the sense of shocked wonder that had enveloped him back at the lab had faded during the drive across town to be replaced by a mixture of equal parts anger and fear - two emotions that weren't going to do any of them, but particularly Sara and Catherine, any good at this particular moment in time. Letting the breath out again, he felt himself calm and tightened his resolve to keep his emotions under control. "Besides..." Both shoulders hitched up in a small shrug. "John was half drunk and joking around when he said that; he never would have actually done it."
"But his wife would?" Harris frowned.
"Obviously." Frustrated and impatient, Grissom absently rubbed at his temple as his gaze locked on the driveway of 1613. "Look, it has to be her; it can't be anybody else. "
"Well, just in case, I left a message asking Dr. Robbins to pull the death certificate anyway." As Grissom turned, Galetti shrugged apologetically. "It's not that I don't believe you it's just that we have to be one hundred percent sure." Glancing at his watch, he checked the time. "We should be hearing from him any minute now." He switched his attention to his second-in-command. "So, what are we doing about the neighbors?"
"We're moving them out as quickly and as quietly as we can." Turning, Harris pointed back along the road. "The houses opposite are easy enough, we're just herding those people out through the back but the ones on either side of the suspect's house are a little more difficult; we have to be careful that we don't tip her off."
Galetti nodded. "And our guys are in place?"
"They've positioned themselves as close as possible but it's not as close as I'd like; the way she's got those damned sensor lights set up, one false step and we'll light up the entire area. I was actually thinking about creating a blackout; if we can cut power to the street for a minute or two we should be able to get an entry team in pretty close to the house." He spun towards Grissom. "Which reminds me; what do you suggest we do about your friend parked in the driveway?"
Grissom frowned at the question. "Jim hasn't noticed that something's going on yet?"
"Doesn't look that way." Harris told him. "From what I can see he's just sitting there watching the house."
"Well, the minute he finds out that he's just a few short feet away from his daughter's killer that's going to change real fast." Grissom sighed audibly. "We're going to have to come up with some kind of plausible excuse to get him out of there."
"I suggest we think of one quickly then because I'm not sure-" Galetti broke off as his phone rang and, holding it up, he smiled approvingly at the displayed number. "Dr. Robbins; thanks for getting back to me." He fell silent for a moment as he listened to the coroner speak and then nodded as he glanced in Grissom's direction. "Sure, he's right beside me; hang on and I'll put you on speaker." Holding the handset out, he pressed a key. "How's that?"
"Perfect." Although a little tinny sounding, Al Robbins' voice came across loud and clear. "You there, Gil?"
"Yeah, Al." Grissom looked from one agent to the other as he stepped a little closer to the phone. "I'm here."
"I checked your friend's death certificate like Agent Galetti asked me to and I think there's something you ought to know."
"Grogan's definitely dead?" Harris butted in impatiently.
"He certainly is." Robbins confirmed. "He was declared dead on arrival in the ER at Desert Palm at 1:47pm on April 3rd, 2003. They called it as a cardiac arrest but because he had no known history of heart problems and he was alone at the time of his collapse, the case was referred to the coroner's office so we actually have a file on him here." The sound of rustling paper came across the line as he flicked through it to find the autopsy report. "Howard Taylor was the dayshift coroner at the time and he confirmed that COD was a massive coronary due to arteriosclerosis; according to the report, Grogan's arteries were so occluded that he was really nothing more than a walking time bomb."
"I knew all of that, Al." Voice flat, Grissom sighed. "I was with Elaine when Taylor went over the results of the autopsy with her."
"Yes, Howard mentioned that in his notes but when he met with the two of you that day he didn't actually have all of the results in."
"What do you mean?" Galetti frowned. "What was he missing?"
"Well, as I'm sure you know, routine blood samples are taken during every autopsy but, unless we're talking about a crime victim, the results on those samples can sometimes take a while to come back and that's what happened here." He took a deep breath and, hearing it, Grissom automatically tensed as he waited for whatever it was that Robbins was about to say. "And according to those results, John Grogan was HIV positive when he died."
TBC
A/N: The good news is that almost half of the next chapter is already done and the rest of it exists in note form so it shouldn't take me all that long to finish it off and get it ready for posting. The bad news is that I have another project in the works that's going to keep me occupied for the next couple of weeks at least so I'm not exactly sure when I'm going to be able to get around to it. I will try to keep the delay to a minimum though and, considering my posting record with this story, you might not even know I'm gone at all but I wanted to warn you all just in case.
