This story is based on characters created by Anthony E. Zuiker for the television series CSI: Crime Scene Investigation.

Ghost (Part 7/26)

by Cheers

Monday Morning 02:24 AM

Grissom's house was a conglomeration of insect zoo, laboratory, library, and living space. Tables covered with projects midway through completion contended with bookshelves for wall space. A terrarium housed his racing stock, hissing roaches from Madagascar. Bookshelves were filled to overflowing, and there were small piles of texts on the floor in corners and next to chairs. The walls housed a multitude of framed insects of various varieties, several beautiful art prints Catherine couldn't identify, and only a few of the many awards he must have received through the years. His house was like his office, clean but cluttered.

Catherine had made her way through the kitchen. Nothing was unusual there. Gil had two plates, a saucepan, two glasses, seven assorted eating and cooking utensils, and a single coffee cup all carefully rinsed and placed in the dishwasher. Both sinks were empty and clean. The counters were clean and neat. A single dishtowel was draped over the edge of the counter next to his refrigerator. The latter was filled with a surprisingly healthy assortment of foodstuffs in varying degrees of preparedness: precut salad, steaks, fresh vegetables, fruit juice, milk, a few bottles of beer. Also sharing the refrigerator space were a number of petrie dishes, bottles of various chemicals, collection jars filled with God and Grissom only knew what, and what she could only assume were multiple experiments in varying stages of progression.

The guest bathroom was spotless. Catherine guessed that it was used so rarely that only Sara's pass for prints would determine whether or not a living soul had stepped into the room for weeks.

She had moved on to the living room. When she turned on his television it was tuned to ESPN. "Well that figures," she muttered. The volume was a bit loud so she quickly turned the TV back off. The media unit was ordered with stereo and other electronic components, albums, DVDs, videos and CDs categorized by genre, a little heavier on the classical side then anything else but filled with quite an expansive variety of artistic expression. Calling Gil's collection eclectic was probably an understatement.

Turning from the entertainment center, she saw the cluttered coffee table. This housed a lamp, several days' worth of the Las Vegas Sun newspaper, a coffee cup, a half-empty bottle of water and three books. The first of these was the present they had given him two months ago for his birthday – The New York Times Sunday Crossword Omnibus, Vol. 5. The book held 200 Sunday New York Times crossword puzzles, and thumbing quickly through the book Catherine found that he had completed more than half of them already. The inscription read, "Happy Birthday, Boss. Enjoy!" They had each signed it. The idea for this gift was Warrick's, and it was apparently a big hit. It was the first collective birthday gift that they had given him. Catherine still remembered the look of utter surprise on his face when they presented him with the wrapped gift that evening. Gil had not been expecting anyone at the office to remember much less mark his birthday.

A melancholy smile crossed her lips. "You're still not certain about this family you've acquired, are you?" she said as she set the crossword book down.

The second book was an osteology text, Identification of Pathological Disorders in Human Skeletal Remains. He had the second chapter entitled 'Types and Uses of Anthropometric Devices' bookmarked with a small notebook upon which he had been making notes. Nothing like light reading on your time off, she thought.

The last book was opened and turned face down on the edge of the table. It was a very beautiful copy of Hamlet opened to Act 1, Scene 5. She picked up on the same page where he had left off:

Ghost

I am thy father's spirit,

Doom'd for a certain term to walk the night,

And for the day confined to fast in fires,

Till the foul crimes done in my days of nature

Are burnt and purged away.

Catherine stopped reading and sat down on the couch with the open book in her gloved hands. "A real renaissance man," she said softly. "Where are you, Gil? What happened to you?"

"He went down the fire stairs."

Catherine jumped a little and her head shot up. Warrick stood in front of her with a look of grim concern on his face.

Monday Morning 02:33 AM

"He's a hunk. What can I tell you?" the waitress who had served the guys last Friday told Brass. "He has this whole Kirk Douglas thing going with his chin, you know? And he had really pretty eyes. I just thought," she shrugged, "why not? I mean, nothing ventured, right?"

"Yeah, I guess." Brass shook his head in wonder. The waitress was Sandra Hutchinson. She had moved to Vegas from Sedalia, Missouri two years ago. The manager confirmed that she had worked in the Sports Bar for well over a year and was a dependable employee. Her background check came up clean except for the odd traffic ticket.

"Listen," he continued, "did you hook up with Kirk Douglas after you got off work that night?"

This time it was Sandra who shook her head. "He left before my shift was over. I never got his phone number. He was cute, but he wasn't really interested. A girl can tell." She shrugged again. "Maybe he wasn't in play."

"Married to his job," Brass said under his breath.

"Too bad," Sandra replied with a wistful grin.

Monday Morning 03:01 AM

"Man, I'm telling you. Gris must be a monk," Nick told the group now reassembled in Grissom's living room. "There's no indication that anyone else has been in his bedroom."

Nick saw the looks the three other CSIs gave him and instantly regretted his remark. The joke had been in poor taste. "Sorry."

His contrition made Catherine feel for him. This was bound to be hard on all of them. She touched his shoulder. "That's all right, Nick," she said gently. "He probably is."

Nick smiled weakly.

"I got a full handprint off the outside of the front door," Sara informed them, moving on. "I also lifted prints from the hallway and stairwell and from the doorjamb," she continued. "The usual places inside the house. It'll take a while to go through it all."

"Yeah, and I sampled all the blood here, in the hallway outside his front door, and in the stairwell. The trail ends just outside the building," Warrick informed them. "He had to have gotten into a vehicle of some kind in the alley out back. He could be anywhere."

"Then we'll look everywhere," Nick insisted. "We'll find him."

Catherine nodded. "Let's run it. None of the neighbors report hearing anything out of the ordinary. There are no signs of gunfire. We know he didn't seek medical attention, and there's a trail of blood leading out of the building. So … what happened?"

Warrick spoke up first. "The absence of blood anywhere else in the house makes me think he was tackled at the door."

They all moved to the entryway.

Sara followed Warrick's lead. "Person or persons unknown come up on Grissom as he's opening the door."

"And someone's injured right here," Nick added, stepping around the blood spots on the floor in the entry way.

"Then the struggle moves back out the door?" Warrick surmised.

Sara nodded pointing to the doorway. "Someone is pushed into the doorjamb leaving a blood smear here."

"They struggled," Nick continued, "forcing the aggressor to reach up to catch his balance." He reached up and placed his hand next to the print mark on the door.

"The struggle continued out into the hall," Warrick went on, moving toward the blood mark on the wall opposite Grissom's front door. "And then down the stairs." He pointed down the hall.

"He was trying to get away?" Nick asked.

"Or being taken away," Sara countered.

"No drag marks, though," Warrick interjected. "He was on his feet when he left."

"Any footprints? Shoe prints?" Catherine asked.

"A few from the landings," Warrick told her. "The stairs are those industrial metal ridged jobs. No way to lift a clean impression from them. Whatever shoes Gris was wearing, he took with him, so there's no way to compare his shoe prints with the ones I collected."

"Grissom is bowlegged," Sara offered thoughtfully.

"What?" Warrick replied, eyebrows furrowing.

"That's right," Nick was nodding. "He is. His stride would be unique. Most of the pressure would be on the ball and outside edge of his foot."

Warrick thought about that for a second. "It would, wouldn't it."

"We can check the wear pattern on his other shoes," Nick offered.

"Okay," Catherine said, drawing their attention. "Let's get what we have so far back to the lab. Sara, take a look at the handprint first. Warrick, get the blood to Greg and work on those shoe impressions. Bag his shoes. Take the comb and toothbrush Nick got from Grissom's bathroom with you, too. Greg can use them for DNA comparison. Nick and I will finish here. We've got Grissom's computer and personal papers to go through."

Sara didn't like the sound of that. "He'd freak if he knew what we are doing here."

They all knew that she was right. Grissom was an intensely private individual. It was uncomfortable to think about poking around in his personal stuff, but if they were going to try to reconstruct possible scenarios, they needed to know what was happening in the rest of Grissom's life - not just what little they could see at work.

"Not if we find him dead," Nick said.