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

Remuneration, Part 19
by Cheers

By four in the afternoon, both Sara and Warrick had reported back to work. The news coverage of the Danbridge case had seemed nonstop. They had both decided that working on their own case would help distract them from what concerned them the most - how their boss was holding up. Now it was well after six in the evening and they were taking a break from playing phone tag with area businesses.

"I've got calls out to local merchants who sold the same model of recliner our vic was found in," Sara told Warrick over cups of coffee in the Conference Room. Both CSIs were avoiding the Break Room and the inevitable questions they would get from other curious lab employees. "I'm following up on the replies I've gotten already. As far as I can tell, hundreds of these chairs were sold in the Las Vegas area over a three year period. There is no way we're going to be able to track this particular recliner."

She looked at her partner. "How 'bout you?"

Warrick shook his head. "I've called over twenty cleaners in Las Vegas so far. No luck."

"You want some help with the rest?" Sara offered.

"That'd help," he told her, looking up from the contents of his coffee cup. "Thanks."

The television in the corner of the room blinked at them with the volume turned down. The partners looked up and watched again as the image of their friend and colleague was shown struggling to move from his car to his home. Gil Grissom's image was accompanied by a graphically generated tag that sat at the bottom of the television picture. The tag read, "Murder Suspect?"


Carl Paulson entered the bullpen at the homicide division of the LVMPD Tropicana area police headquarters and headed for his desk. The usual hubbub of the office seemed to fade in a wave ahead of him as he moved along the rows of office furniture. Ray O'Riley looked up from a report he was working on and fixed Carlson with a firm, unfriendly gaze. Paulson had called into question the innocence of one of the staple personalities in the department. He was beginning to realize just how big a can of worms he had opened by placing Grissom on the official suspect list for the Danbridge murder. Right now, Grissom was the only person on the suspect list. No one, especially those who worked closely with him, was happy about that.

Reaching his desk after deciding to ignore the hushed whispers and stares from other officers, Paulson came face to face with a small token of retribution, Las Vegas PD style. His desk was covered in trash bags - dozens of them. Each one had a message either written on it or on a tag that was attached to it. The messages all said, more or less, the same thing and with varying degrees of colorful language. Basically the message was, "Why don't you try to find the real killer and leave an innocent man alone."

What seemed to escape everyone else in the department, except for perhaps the Sheriff and the day shift CSI supervisor, was that it wasn't at all clear that Gil Grissom was innocent. Carl wondered why others couldn't see that. And, up to now, there wasn't a better lead in the case to run with. The case against Grissom, though circumstantial, wasn't insignificant. Just like every other case they dealt with, the outcome of this one would have to wait for the analysis of more of the evidence.

Paulson still had a lot to do on the case. He had more neighbors to question, more background checking to do on Grissom, and the parents of Shelly Danbridge to talk to. Their plane was going to land in just under an hour at McCarran International. Paulson wanted to be there when it did.


Jacqui's search for fingerprints on the trash bag Shelly Danbridge had been found in came up empty. The killer had apparently used gloves. That left Nick with the bag itself to analyze.

After calling the customer support line number he found on the trash bag box, Nick had eventually been put in contact with a quality control expert employed by the trash bag manufacturer. The information he gleaned from that contact had been invaluable. There was no way that he was going to let Hodges handle this analysis. Nick wanted to make sure the job was done rapidly and with skill. He took his idea to Greg Sanders, the resident night shift DNA lab technician and chemistry guru.

"Sure," Greg responded after listening to Nick's proposition. "We can do that. It'll take some time, though."

"How long?" Nick wanted to know.

Greg thought about that for a brief moment. "XRF analysis doesn't take that long, perhaps 30 minutes per sample total time, including set up. But there isn't a comparison database for this."

"We don't need one," Nick told the tech. "All we need is a direct comparison between the two samples. If we can establish commonality or lack of commonality…."

Greg nodded his understanding and picked up the thought. "Then we can determine if the bag used to dump the body is a true match to the ones found in Grissom's car."

"That's it," Nick said and turned to head out of the DNA lab.

"But what if they match?" Greg asked the retreating CSI.

Nick stopped and looked back at Sanders with a 'you can't be serious' glare. "They won't," he said flatly and left Greg to the analysis. The information Greg's analysis would yield would also help identify potential samples from the actual killer if they found any. Nick wasn't going to waste time worrying about the impossibility of Grissom's guilt. He had other fish to fry.


It had seemed a good idea to go home and catch some rest before returning to the office. Conrad Ecklie had decided to try to spend some of his time at the office late each evening since Stokes was most likely going to do the lion's share of the analysis of the evidence during the night shift. Conrad had gone home for several hours to catch up on the sleep he had lost early that morning after the Sheriff had called. What he found when he returned to his office really pissed him off.

His desk was covered with dozens of individual as well as boxes of trash bags. They all had evidence tags attached with messages written on them. Much of what had been written wasn't fit for general consumption. Some were more subtle and simply read, "I did it." or "I'm Spartacus."

Conrad was not amused.