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

Remuneration, Part 12
by Cheers

Sleep wouldn't come to him. The event was too recent. He chose the dark instead of turning on a light. With a bottle of Jim Beam in his hand and the lights of Vegas blinking outside his window, he stood staring as the minutes ticked past.

The image of the dead girl floated in front of him. He could feel himself get excited as he remembered his encounter with her. His groin ached with his desire. It could take days or weeks to find another child who made him feel this way.

The burn of the whiskey as he drank did nothing to cool the fire of his desire to experience the rush of taking a young girl again. He would have to do something to feed that fire. He would have to do something soon.


Warrick looked at the fiber taken from the back of the recliner under the comparison microscope. The dye in the fiber was faded to varying degrees along the fiber's length, but he was reasonably sure he would be able to identify the original color. With the furniture manufacturer's mark and the recliner mechanism, Sara had been able to narrow the type of recliner to the Burnham Company. She had also discovered that the reclining mechanism in the chair had been discontinued four years before. Their only hope of trying to trace the chair was in identifying the original color of the fabric and comparing that information with the known fabrics shipped by the manufacturer to the Las Vegas area.

Of course, all of that assumed the chair was sold by a local retailer. The chair could be one of the thousands transported to Vegas by the many families that moved into the region each year. Sometimes, working in the crime lab of the fastest growing metropolitan area in the nation bit the big one.


Gil stood dumbfounded, staring at the detective. He was certain he had heard him correctly this time. This guy actually believed that Gil could be responsible for the horrific death of Shelly Danbridge. The thought sickened the CSI in ways he hadn't thought possible for a long, long time.

"You didn't just say what I think you said," Gil said, still not sure exactly how to respond to the barely cloaked accusation.

Carl Paulson looked squarely in the face of the forensic scientist. "Can you account for your whereabouts since the disappearance of the victim?"

Gil cocked his head to one side, still trying to wrap his brain around what he was hearing. "You believe I'm your perpetrator?"

Paulson gave a slight shrug. "What I think is that you were at the market when the 911 call was made. That you've had recent contact with the victim as evidenced by the flowers here on your table, and if you can't account for all of your time since the girl went missing then I think we have a problem on our hands."

The CSI was nonplussed. "How do you know when I was at the market?"

"The receipt in your bag of groceries," the detective informed him calmly.

Gil thought about that a moment. He nodded as he began to understand. Of course, the patrolman who asked Gil to bring his groceries into the house had done so at the request of the detective. Since the bag was in the hallway it was considered to be in plain sight and the detective only had to look for the receipt. Circumstantially, Gil looked guilty as hell. He had been at home for at least two hours after Shelly had gone missing. He had been at the same market the body was dumped at about the same time the phone call to 911 was made. He had proof, right in the center of his own living room, that he and Shelly had had casual contact very recently. He had means and opportunity. Motive wasn't even at question for the detective. It didn't have to be.

"You're wasting your time, detective," Gil told Paulson.

"But it's my time to waste," the younger man said deliberately. "Isn't it?"

A knock on Grissom's front door caught both men's attention. Before Gil could begin to move toward it, the front door opened and Catherine poked her head in. "Grissom?"

"Catherine," Gil replied almost curtly.

Moving around the door and into the entryway, Catherine allowed the door to swing shut behind her. The tension in the air of Gil's living room was so thick she could cut it with a knife.

"Are you Detective Paulson?" she asked the younger man.

"I am," Paulson affirmed.

Catherine pointed her thumb back over her shoulder. "The officer next door told me I could find you two in here." She looked from Grissom to the detective and back at her friend again. "Want to tell me what's going on?"

Gil looked back at Detective Paulson. "We have a new problem."

"At least," Paulson told them both, "in that we agree."


Arriving at the crime lab, Nick deposited all the evidence bags he had carried in with him on a table. He would log in all the evidence immediately and then begin to prioritize each item for analysis. He wanted to be well through this process when Grissom or Catherine returned. He had a game plan already mapped out for the case. He would begin by getting someone to help dry out the plaster mold of the tire treads and then get the search going with the computer database. The prints he lifted from the payphones would go to Jacqui in the Fingerprint Lab right away. He would then use the photos he had taken at the crime scene to create a map of the dump site. As soon as the coroner released the victim's clothing and the garbage bag, he could log these items into evidence as well and begin to analyze anything he found on them.

He hoped the trash bag would reveal fingerprints. Nick was certain there would be fibers and hairs on the little girl's clothes. Hopefully, these tiny pieces of evidence would begin to lead him in the direction of the killer. If Grissom was right, and he usually was, a sexual predator like the person responsible for Shelly Danbridge's senseless death wouldn't stop with just one victim. He would most likely attempt to do this again, if he hadn't already done it before. They were working against the clock. And for this particular perpetrator they had no earthly idea what time it was or when the alarm would go off again.