This story is based on characters created by Anthony E. Zuiker for the television series CSI: Crime Scene Investigation.
Ghost (Part 20/26)
by Cheers
Monday Afternoon 02:30 PM
He must be having auditory hallucinations, a sure sign the dehydration was becoming severe. Early delirium. Damn. Gil could not explain it any other way to himself. He was hearing voices. And not just any voices either. He would swear he had heard Catherine, Sara, Nick, and Warrick. He even thought he had heard Ray O'Riley and another man who he thought could have been Jim Brass. He heard cars also – the crunch of tires on gravel.
Hope had built in him and his heart had pounded in his chest the first time he thought he heard them. Gil had stopped believing anyone would reach him in time. As the day had wore on he could feel that his body was losing the battle. Then the sounds reached him, or he thought they did. He had wanted to shout but his voice had long since gone, his tongue a sore swollen mass in a dry mouth. He had tried to use the sling but lacked sufficient strength.
The sounds of familiar voices taunted him in his fatigue, coming and going in snatches over the past few hours. Then, just a few minutes ago Gil had heard the sound of vehicles again. Now all was quiet.
Cruel hope faded as he finally realized that he probably hadn't really heard anything. Dehydration was now causing his mind to play tricks on him. This was the final battle he would wage. The loss of a rational mind, even above ultimate death, frightened him. A line from Hamlet leapt to his tired mind.
Poor Ophelia,
Divided from herself and her fair judgment
Lying on his side, trying to conserve as much energy as he could, Gil found himself fighting to stay lucid. If death was coming, let it find him aware.
Monday Afternoon 02:51 PM
Local Las Vegas Channel 3 news didn't mention the story during the noon newscast. He had watched the whole thing on the television above the bar at Shooters. The teaser for the evening news that ran just now mentioned 'a missing law enforcement employee' – missing, not dead.
Paul frowned. With any luck, the cops might never find Grissom. He had come a long way to do this guy. He wanted the bastard dead but wanted his death to be slow. In retrospect, perhaps a simple bullet to the chest would have been better.
Yes, he thought, to the chest, not the head. Paul wanted Grissom to know he was dying. As it was, Grissom must know he was a dead man - or he was already dead. Paul figured that was good enough. Time in the joint had taught him patience if nothing else. It had certainly given him time enough to think about the whole thing.
Sandy had been raised in Jean, Nevada. He was Paul's last cellmate before Paul got out. Sandy was the one who told Paul about the abandoned mineshafts that dotted the desert out here by the score. Though not an aqueduct access shaft, a mineshaft was close. The abandoned pit was easy enough to find once that old plant was located. Someone just had to know where to look. Sandy's description of the area had been perfect even after ten years of being in the joint.
It was nearly three o'clock now and there was no more mention of the missing law enforcement employee on TV. He was a bit tired after spending much of last night and this morning at the craps table. Luck had not deserted Paul since he had left his dump in Fresno and headed to Vegas. With several hundred extra dollars cash in his pockets, he decided to take a nap. He'd watch the evening newscast in his hotel room and then head downtown.
Tossing a tip onto the bar and downing the last of his beer, Paul rose to go back to his room at the casino across the street.
The walk had taken only a few minutes, and he was soon entering the spacious main casino floor. Musical notes played by myriad slot machines and the steady buzz of excitement, anger, and laughter told Paul that the locals who loved to hang out here were having a good time despite the fact that it was Monday.
Of course, he thought, when you're in the joint, Monday is just like every other day. He made the turn away from the casino and into the hallway leading to the hotel elevators. The security guard at a small podium in front of the elevators asked to see his hotel door key card. Damned Bin Laden and those bastard hijackers had created such a furor that the security conscious public made it harder to get just about anything done. The world outside prison was a much different place than it had been when he was sent up.
Boarding the elevator, one thing struck him as funny. Elevator music was still as bad as it had ever been. The short ride ended as the doors slid open on the fourth floor. Paul headed down the hallway toward his room. He didn't recognize the short guy in the gray suit that rounded the corner and was moving along the hallway just a few steps behind him. Probably a local business man getting his dick tickled after lunch.
He stopped at the door to his hotel room to put his key card into the lock. He didn't get the door open before the guy spoke to him.
"Paul Stankowski?"
His gun was tucked into the back of his jeans were he always carried it and was well hidden by his jacket. He reached toward it as he turned to face the man. Only a cop would know who the hell he was.
The business man did turn out to be a cop, and he was a tricky bastard to boot. The cop's piece was already in his hands and was leveled at Paul's face. "Don't!" the suit told him.
Looking at the cop's face, Paul knew it was possible for this guy to blow him away. You can always tell who has the balls for killing and who doesn't. It was all in the eyes. This cop could pull the trigger without a second thought.
Within seconds cops had materialized out of every nook and cranny in that hallway and Paul was surrounded. He had paused with his hand halfway to the goal and was trying to decide what his odds of getting a single shot off were.
"Don't make me tell you twice," the cop in the suit told him. His face darkened and Paul knew that he was pushing the wrong buttons with this guy.
Paul lowered his hand back to his side and asked an obvious question. "How do you know who I am?"
The cop's eyes narrowed as he said, "It's my job to know the scum who come to my town."
Scum. Paul guessed he had always been thought of as scum by cops. He had learned to hate them all when he was young, and his opinion of them hadn't improved. As the cops behind him took hold of his arms, he felt one of them find his gun and yank it out of its hiding place. An ex-con with an unregistered gun was an ex-con in jail. Shit.
"What the fuck do you want with me?" he shot back to the suit.
Jim Brass put his gun back in the holster on this belt and looked back at Stankowski. "You're going to do me a favor, Paul."
"Like hell I am," Paul practically snarled.
"Oh, you are," Brass told him coldly, with no attempt to hide the anger in his eyes. "You're going to tell me where Gil Grissom is."
Monday Afternoon 03:12 PM
After a brief discussion about the merits of splitting up, the team had decided to do just that. Currently, Nick and Warrick were on their way to the second perlite processing center on Nick's list. This one was just forty-two miles from Goodsprings. Sara and Catherine took the samples collected in Goodsprings back with them to the lab. They hitched a ride with O'Riley and would arrive back in Vegas in another fifteen minutes, traffic allowing.
Sara had spent the drive time looking over the case file she had received from California. She had called the office and found out that the coroner's notes from the Campbell case had been received. Sara hoped there was something in the notes to suggest what Stankowski might have done with Grissom. Assuming, she thought, that Stankowski hadn't just killed Grissom as soon as he had gotten him out of town.
O'Riley had informed them that the search of the area around where the Toyota had been found off Blue Diamond Road had turned up nothing. There was no sign that Grissom or his body had been dumped within ten miles of the site. What Blue Diamond Road had offered to whoever dumped the car was easy access to transportation back into Vegas. There were two gas stations and a casino within five miles of the dump site. A bit of a hike but not too bad. Plus, with increasing traffic along that stretch of Highway 160 from Nye County, the guy could easily have caught a ride into town.
She sighed and turned her attention to the increasing signs of civilization passing her rear seat window as they neared Las Vegas. Up in the front seat, Catherine's cellphone was ringing.
"Willows," Catherine spoke into her phone.
She listened for several seconds with only an "All right." and a "You got it." Sara hoped something good was happening somewhere. Her heart was telling her that they were very short on time. Grissom needed a real break and very soon. They all did.
When Catherine hung up, she turned in her seat so she could look at both Sara and O'Riley. She came right to it. "That was Brass," she told them. "They've found Paul Stankowski."