This story is based on characters created by Anthony E. Zuiker for the television series CSI: Crime Scene Investigation.
Ghost (Part 6/26)
by Cheers
Monday Morning 01:30 AM
The door to Grissom's house stood open. Warrick, Sara, and Nick entered, each carrying their field kits. They found two uniforms, Jim Brass, and Catherine standing in a tight group in the center of the living room. All three arriving CSIs saw the blood on the floor carefully segregated by a demarcating yellow evidence flag. The smudge on the doorframe did not escape them either.
"Damn," Nick said softly.
Catherine saw them enter. "Hey," she said rather heavily.
Warrick had stopped in the doorway and was staring at a familiar green and brown leather briefcase lying on the floor three feet away from the blood. The briefcase's contents were partially spilled, including a cellphone and pager. A set of keys lay a foot beyond this near the base of the first of nearly a dozen bookcases housed within the confines of Grissom's home. He took a slow deep breath. "Damn, Gris."
"What do we know?" This was Sara. Her face was a hard, determined mask. All she wanted to do was get started. The sooner they did that the sooner they would figure out what the hell happened to Grissom.
Jim Brass moved to join Catherine and the other CSIs. He held up a brown case folder. Right this minute he needed to be the veteran detective, not the friend of the victim. "We are now investigating a four eighteen, four twenty-five," he told the CSIs in an all business manner. "Missing person: one Gil Grissom, missing since 2330 hours last Friday night, last seen at Sports Deluxe, Hard Rock Hotel and Casino sports bar on Paradise Road."
"What about the blood?" Nick asked. "Did you check …"
"Clinics," Brass interrupted, "hospital emergency rooms, Grissom's primary physician's office, 911 calls. No hits. His car is parked in his parking space outside."
The ominous note of the last piece of information brought an uneasy quiet with it.
After the shock of this information had set in, Catherine added, "I called Grissom's mother. She hasn't heard from him since Friday either. She doesn't know where he could be any more than we do."
Sara nodded and looked back toward the blood on the floor. "Then this must be the crime scene."
"Yeah," Catherine said grimly.
"Let's do it then," Nick said, his jaw set.
"I got prints," Sara offered, reaching into her jacket pocket and producing a jar of red print powder.
Warrick slowly nodded his approval. "Red Creeper."
"Serious crime," Nick started.
"Deserves serious print powder," Sara finished.
"Okay, do it," Catherine told her. Sara moved off immediately.
Catherine looked up at Warrick. "Take the corridor, elevator, and stairs. Find out how he left here."
"You got it." Warrick headed back out the door.
"I'll take the bedroom," Nick told Catherine. Although Catherine had been the closest of any of them to the boss, some things were best dealt with by another guy. By the look on Catherine's face, Nick knew his intuition was right on the money.
"Thanks, Nick," Catherine said, a note of relief in her voice. "I'll finish out here."
Nick gave her a reassuring smile and headed toward the back of the house.
Brass finished giving the uniforms their marching orders to check the dumpsters, alley ways, parking lots, and shops for several blocks in every direction. They exited with photocopied images of Grissom in hand, leaving Jim and Catherine alone in the living room. "More uniforms are on the way," he told her. "The Sheriff has been informed and he's authorized a search of Gil's past case files for potentials. We've got the APB out. I'm headed back to the sports bar to interview the staff who worked last Friday. We're covering all the bases."
He looked at her with his best poker face. Catherine knew as well as Jim did that the first thirty-six hours after a disappearance were crucial to a missing person's case. They were at least fifty hours out now. The implication was too horrid to put into words.
"We may be starting too late," Catherine told the detective. She ran her hand through her hair distractedly. "I know."
Monday Morning 01:56 AM
Mandy made steady progress with the prints from the 407. Sara's hunch had been correct. The prints on the camera matched the manager's and the clerk's. The freshest of these were the clerk's. Amazing how stupid people could be, Mandy mused. The almost total absence of prints from the cash register told them that the robbery suspect had wiped the register, which should have been completely covered with prints, but they had not thought to wipe the rear of the camera or the damaged cables.
There would be plenty of probable cause to bring the clerk in for further questioning, but Mandy knew that this would wait until days. She had already marked the case for transfer to Erik Watson on the dayshift per Sara's request. There was another case that trumped this one, and Mandy was trying to clear her backlog as quickly as possible.
When the prints from Grissom's house came in she would dedicate all her energies to processing them. The news of their Supervisor's disappearance had frightened everyone. The lab, though still busily going about the job of processing evidence, remained hushed. The usual hubbub of co-worker joviality was conspicuously absent. No one wanted to say what they all feared – that Grissom might be dead.
And Grissom was the steadiest and smartest person any of them had ever known. He was feared by some but respected by everyone. If you did your work well he respected you, and respect from someone like Grissom was the highest form of praise. Everyone working in the crime lab, whether they were willing to admit it or not, wanted the respect of Gil Grissom more than just about anyone else alive. He was just the kind of investigator and scientist that other people wanted to emulate.
Her throat tightened a little and Mandy realized she had stopped looking at the print on the table in front of her. She roused herself out of her reverie and threw her energies back into the work. She had to finish if she was going to be a part of finding her boss, and that particular job was one that everyone in the lab wanted to be involved with.
Monday Morning 02:02 AM
Greg stepped into Grissom's office like he was entering a shrine. The last time he had met with his boss here he had stormed in ready to accuse Grissom of biological terrorism. Now his ire then seemed silly.
It was as if Grissom represented the person Greg might become one day. Greg knew he was smart and he knew he was young. Grissom had been young once, too. Rumor had it, Grissom played poker in college to fund a body farm. Greg had sneaked a peak at Grissom's CV and knew that by the time Grissom was Greg's age he had completed his first graduate degree and had become the youngest coroner in Los Angeles County history. In his career, Grissom had published thirty-seven times in academic or forensics journals and had eight textbook chapters to his credit.
But what Greg wanted to do more than anything else was to be the investigator Grissom was. It wasn't just the brains, it was the instinct and deductive abilities that Grissom possessed that made him so different, and Greg wanted to learn that. He had come to think of Grissom as the master. Maybe that was weird, but that was just the way it was for him.
Greg looked around the office and found what he had come for. Moving toward the glass home of Grissom's orange-kneed tarantula, Greg set a box of crickets down on a corner of the desk. He had run out to get them after the conversation in the break room, when he had learned that Grissom was really missing.
"Hey there, buddy," Greg addressed the spider. "Are you hungry? I brought something for you."
He placed the crickets in with the tarantula and closed the lid. "There ya go, buddy. Bon appetit."
Greg watched the tarantula for a few minutes before turning to go. Retrieving the box from the desk again, he spotted Grissom's coffee mug. He stared at it for a moment. The saliva was over two days old but would still provide a decent sample.
He found a box of gloves on a shelf and donned a pair. Picking up the cricket box and the mug, Greg headed back to the DNA lab. He would begin his work on Grissom's case right now.