CONSTANT

By The Madhatter

Chatper 2: T. Edwin

Disclaimer: Still don't own them. Sorry.

A/N: Thanks a bunch for the reviews again! You guys rock! I'm glad some people find my stories worth it. :P This is probably going to be the second to the last part. I'm not that great with the technical jargon, so please excuse it if I got something wrong. Enjoy! Oh, and reviews would help immensely. ;)

+++

Catherine Willows hung her black jacket up in her locker, deciding that it was too expensive to get dirty. She quickly checked her makeup and hair in the locker-sized mirror, before slamming her locker shut. Looking up, she found a pair of dazzling blue eyes staring back at her.

"Hey, you," she greeted the stranger. "What're you doing here? I wasn't expecting to see you until next shift."

He shrugged. "Working."

She couldn't help but roll her eyes. "Grissom, you're supposed to resting. You just had surgery, for God's sake! I know it's supposed to be a short procedure, but I thought you had to be kept overnight."

"I couldn't miss work."

She sighed, defeated. "Walk with me." They started down the hall toward the break room. "I hope you don't plan on going out in the field tonight."

"I have to. How else am I going to do my job?"

"And how did you convince your doctor to let you do this?"

He shrugged again. "We made a deal. He said I could work tonight as long as I go in for a checkup tomorrow morning to see how everything is functioning."

Catherine shook her head. "So, you're fine now?" she asked, pouring a cup of coffee for the both of them. "You can hear just fine?"

He nodded. "I'm a bit dizzy, but that's a temporary side effect. The doctor said it should go away within a few days or so."

She smiled. "I'm glad to hear it."

He gave her a small smile. "Me too."

"So, what's up tonight, Gris?" Warrick Brown asked, grabbing a seat at the table, followed by Nick Stokes and Sara Sidle.

Pulling out two slips of paper, Grissom said, "There's a double homicide at the Tangiers and a dead body in a little shop out in Henderson."

"Robbery?"

"Could be. No assumptions yet, remember? Catherine, Warrick - you guys work the body in Henderson. Nick, Sara - you're with me at the Tangiers."

Each member of the graveyard shift moved out of the room swiftly and to their destinations. Before Catherine left, she gave Grissom one last smile of encouragement, before heading off to her crime scene.

She and Warrick made it to Henderson in under 15 minutes, which was a record considering it took almost twice as long to get there going by the speed limit. When they arrived there, Sergeant O'Riley greeted them.

"Howdy, folks."

"Hey, Sarge," Catherine and Warrick greeted back. "What've we got?"

"Dead body in there. Looks like a single shot to the back, real messy."

Catherine raised an eyebrow. "Messy? Single shot to the chest?"

Warrick shrugged. "Let's go check it out."

The two CSIs found entered the little liquor store carefully. Various food products and drinks were spilled all over the floor, along with ice. Right in the middle of the third aisle, a dead body of a man, who looked like in his mid-sixties, lay there, eagle-spread, face down. Catherine bent down and searched the pockets for any identification.

"Thomas Edwin, 66," she recited from the drivers license.

"Man, this looks like one nasty struggle. Poor guy probably didn't have a chance," Warrick said, taking pictures of the scene.

"I don't know. Something doesn't feel right. Did you find a shell casing?"

"Looking for one."

"Good." Catherine surveyed the scene once more. "Is it me, or does it look like there's more blood here than there should be?"

"Hmm," Warrick muttered, looking around. "Yeah. I see some blood spatter around here. It's spread across the left side of the aisle. Looks like someone knocked the guy on the right side of the head."

"I think you may be right. Come over here." Catherine pointed to the back of the victim's head. "See that? Looks like something blunt maybe. But he definitely got hit in the back of the head. Doc might have more to say though. Did you find the casing?"

"Still looking."

Catherine stood up, through with the body and took a few more pictures of it. Then, she examined the blood spatter, to try and figure out how it all came down. When nothing came out of it, she resorted to fingerprinting. As she wrapped up her fingerprints, O'Riley came over.

"The manager wants to know how much longer he's gonna stay closed."

"Okay, I'll talk to him." She stood up and followed the sergeant outside, but before she exited, she noted the video camera in the corner. "Good evening, Mr."

"Zipper. John Zipper."

"Mr. Zipper, I'm afraid I can't tell you how long you're going to be closed. It depends how fast we can solve this case. You may have to stay closed for quite awhile. I'm sorry."

Zipper's mouth hung open. "But what about business? I need the money! I have a wife and three children to take care of! I can't stay closed forever!"

"I understand that, Mr. Zipper. I promise we're working as fast as humanly possible. Solving crimes, unfortunately, isn't a fast business. It takes time." Zipper was about to argue, but Catherine held up a hand, effectively silencing the man. "It won't take forever, I can promise you that. We need to keep this place closed to preserve the evidence."

"Fine, fine. Do you have an estimate at least?"

"No, I'm afraid not. It could be a couple days to a few weeks or months. It all depends. Now, why don't you go home to your family and be with them. You've been through a terrible ordeal."

Zipper nodded. "Okay, I'll do that."

"Wait, before you go, Mr. Zipper, I need to take the security tapes from this evening."

"Oh sure. I'll get them for you." He went into the back room and returned with a few tapes in a bag. "Here you go. I hope you catch the bastard that killed Thomas."

"Wait, you knew Mr. Edwin?" Catherine asked as she accepted the bag of tapes.

"Sure. He was a regular customer here. I didn't know him, ya know, personally. We just chatted a bit every time he came by. We didn't talk about anything personal, though, mainly sports and stuff. Why?"

"Thank you. If we showed you the tape, could you identify most of the people on there?"

Zipper thought about it for a moment, then shrugged. "Probably. My store isn't that big, so not very many people know about it."

"Did you see what happened tonight?"

"No, unfortunately. I was in the back, checking something for a customer."

"So, no one was at the checkout stand?"

"Nope, afraid not." Catherine's eyebrows rose. "Look, I know it sounds stupid, but it was only gonna be for a second! A customer wanted to see if we had more Miller's Light in stock, so I went to the back to check."

"Calm down, Mr. Zipper. No one's blaming you. So, how did you know Thomas was shot? Did you hear the shot?"

"Yeah. That's when I ran out to see what was happening, but by the time I got there, the killer was gone."

"Thank you, Mr. Zipper. We might call you back in for identification on those tapes."

"Okay. Is there anything else I can do while I'm here?"

"No, but thanks for offering."

After Warrick found the bullet casing he bagged it and went over to Catherine to see what was going on. She quickly filled him in and suggested they head back to the lab.

They gave the bullet casing to Bobby Dawson, the ballistics expert, telling him to page them once he gets the results. Then they stopped over to Greg Sanders, the DNA expert, to drop some samples they collected at the scene. When they logged in all the evidence and gave it to the proper people, Warrick sought out Archie to help analyze the tapes, while Catherine went down to the autopsy room to see if Doc Robbins had anything. But before that, she made her way to the break room to grab some coffee. On her way there, she ran in to Grissom, who seemed deep in thought.

"Sorry, Grissom."

"Oh, hi."

"You okay? Is it one of your dizzy spells again?"

"Yeah, but I'll survive."

"Grissom, you really should be resting." He gave her a look that said he'd rather die than do that. "Fine. Take a break then. Go grab some coffee or something. Or even sit down in your office and wait till the spell passes. You'll work yourself to death." She shoved her cup of coffee into his hand. "Drink this. It'll help."

He smiled a bit. "Thanks." Then walked off.

Catherine stared at him as he walked off. "You better be alive by the end of shift!" she called to him. He raised the cup like he was making a toast as his response. She shook her head. Sometimes he could be so unpredictable.

She quickly made her way down to the autopsy room and met Doc Robbins. "Hey, Doc. Got anything for me?"

"Just about. Come over here. Cause of death was a single shot to the back. But look at this," he turned the head to the left to show a large gash on the back of the head. "Blunt force trauma. Something knocked him out first and then was shot. My guess would be a butt of a gun of some sorts."

"Great. Thanks. Is that all?"

"For now. If there's anything else, I'll let you know."

"Thanks, Doc."

Just as Catherine left the autopsy room, O'Riley bounded up to her, waving a manila folder. "Is that Edwin's file?"

He nodded. "You bet."

"Great," she said, taking it from him. "Let's go see if Warrick's got anything for us." Catherine flipped through the file, becoming more and more agitated. "What the hell is this, O'Riley? Are you sure this is our guy?"

"Yeah. I wasn't so sure myself, so I ran it three times. He's the only Thomas Edwin in Las Vegas, and that's his record."

"No tickets or warrants or arrests, good. He has no living relatives, which makes some sense considering his age. He's retired. And from the looks of his address, not very many people knew him either. He lived out in the boonies."

"Yep. The guy has nothing."

"Warrick's not gonna like this."

"I'm not gonna like what?" Warrick asked, walking up to her. "I'm glad I found you. Archie found something."

"Great. I hope it's more than what his file gave us."

"What does it say?"

"Nothing."

"Nothing?"

"Nada. Zip. Zilch. Nothing. He has absolutely nothing. No tickets, no relatives, no job, and he lives in no man's land."

"Well, that doesn't matter anymore. Wait till you see what we found."

They stepped into the A/V lab and watched the tape. At approximately 7:47 pm, Thomas Edwin walked into John Zipper's store. At around 7:56 pm, Zipper entered the back room to. One minute later, he came out, headed straight for the freezer. He grabbed a bag of ice and whacked Edwin with it from behind, causing the bag to explode. Edwin crashed into the shelf in front of him, but quickly recovered and grabbed the first thing he could - a cereal box - and chucked it at Zipper. Zipper ducked and dove into the next aisle. He snuck up behind Edwin and bashed him over the right side of his head with something, causing the blood to splatter to the left. Then, he shot the gun into Edwin's back.

"So, there ya go. The whole scene caught on tape."

"Nice job, Warrick and Archie. Now, let's go nail that son of a bitch."