Chapter 8 'Grissom.' People on the other side of the world could probably hear Warrick at this point in time.

'Warrick, what's wrong?' asked Grissom. Where is Cath? Oh, wait I sent her over to Greg with the chloroform.

'The desk won't tell me if they have a recorded version of the phone conversation between Sara and that foul.'

'What do you mean they won't tell you. Do they have a copy or not?'

'They won't even tell me that without a warrant.'

'This is ridiculous.'

'Ok, Warrick take this over to Greg for me, I'll call Brass and then I'm going to have a chat to Conrad Ecklie.' Warrick was still so angry, he had only heard the bit about Brass and Ecklie.

'What exactly did you want to me take over to Greg?'

'This slide. It's some of the chloroform you collected from Sara's flat.'

'What about it?'

'Well Catherine's already taken over a sample to see how strong it is and all of that stuff.'

'Then why are you bothering with a second batch.'

'Look at the slide under the microscope.' Warrick bent down and looked through the microscope. Then he saw what he couldn't have seen with his naked eye at Sara's apartment.

'It looks like rubber or latex. But it has indentation marks like..'

'Skin.'

'You think?'

'I'm not sure, it could be.'

'If it is it might give us DNA.'

'If we're very lucky. But let's not get ahead of ourselves. Any clue at this point is good.'

'Yeah, I'll take this over to Greg.' Warrick left the room hopeful. Grissom picked up his mobile phone. He desperately wanted to know what Greg would find, but the results wouldn't be back for a while and he needed to get that warrant from Brass.

'Brass, is that you?'

'Yeah, I'm still having trouble getting the protection for Sara.'

'That's not what I'm calling about. I need a warrant.'



'Come on Greg, I need results, not chit-chat.'

'What case is this for anyway?'

'Just one of those fish.'

'Ah, the ones that got away.'

'Um, yep.' At that moment Warrick came through the door. He was almost running.

'Wow, what's the rush guys. You do know that I have more evidence from other cases to process.'

'This is more important Greg.' Warrick wasn't in the mood for this.

'Hey the only reason I'm doing Cath's chloroform now is because she bought me a coffee last week.'

'Hey, don't think that by doing this you're going to get out of paying me back.'

'Damn.' Warrick gently pulled Catherine outside the door and explained what Grissom had found.

'Hey Catherine, your chloroform is ready to go.'

'Greg, if you process Warrick's sample before the rest of this stuff you can forget about having to pay me back for the coffee.' Greg would do anything for a free coffee.

'Ok, I'm persuaded. It'll be ready in about an hour.'

'Do it in less than 45 minutes and I'll buy you another coffee.'

'And dessert?'

'Fine.' They left Greg to his too loud music and hurried movements. It's amazing how fast someone can move when there's a free coffee and dessert as the reward.



'Where is Grissom?' Catherine asked when they were away from Greg. Warrick gave her the shortened version. 'So he's probably off to find Conrad now?' 'Yeah, but why?' 'Conrad Ecklie must have been the one who changed the rules about access to telephone transcripts.' 'Oh, so why didn't Grissom know about it?' 'Don't know.' 'Hey Catherine, what do your results from Greg say?' 'Hell, I almost forgot. Ok, let's see. That's weird.' 'What?' 'Well you know how the chloroform a low-level criminal uses is different to black market chloroform and Mafia-level chloroform is different to the chloroform criminalistics labs use.' 'Yeah, I mean it's all chloroform but with a test like the one Greg ran, it should tell us the difference right?' 'Yeah, and it does.' 'Then, what's the problem?' 'This is exactly the same type of chloroform that the Las Vegas Criminalistics lab uses.' 'That's us.' 'Yeah.' 'You mean someone who works here could be behind this?' 'I don't know. I mean if it was someone here, they would be on camera getting it and they would have to fill in the log book.' 'But, if they were delivering it.' 'Exactly, how hard would it be to change the delivery inventory list, and grab a couple of bottles of the stuff.'

'So we check all our inventory lists for the past couple of months for any discrepancies.'

'Ok, I'll call Grissom and tell him what we're doing on the way.'



'Conrad!'

'Hello Gil.'

'What the hell is this warrant thing about?'

'Oh yeah, I heard about that. Why would Warrick want a copy of a phone record anyway. Wouldn't have anything to do with his gambling problem that you choose to ignore, would it.'

'No, it has nothing to do with that, and Warrick is recovering. Why the hell wasn't I notified about this.'

'Well it was at one of our meetings, you know the ones you're supposed to attend.'

'Would it have taken that much time to let me know.'

'Hey, since I've already agreed to take one of your cases, my time is a precious commodity.'

'The only reason you agreed to take that case for me was because I know about your little fling with the Sheriffs niece.'

'That's only a suspicion Grissom, you can't prove it.'

'Civilizations have been brought down on less than a suspicion.'

'Was that a threat?'

'What do you think it was?'

'Get out of my face Gil.'

'Make me.'