Don't Be A Bad Boy
Chapter Ten
10 – GATHERING
The five CSIs sat around the breakroom table. Not a sound could be
heard. Nobody would admit it aloud but as much as they spoke of Greg being a pain, they
all felt kin with him. Greg had never questioned their own eccentricities. Not to mention
he was very good at his job which in turn allowed the CSIs to perform their jobs even
better.
"What have we got?" Grissom asked.
"Nothing. Once again." Sara said. She did nothing to hide the
anger from her voice.
"I can't believe this." Warrick was sitting back,
staring blankly at the table.
"We gotta have something." Catherine leaned forward, resting
her chin on her steepled fingers.
"We've gone over the evidence numerous times, there is
nothing there." Nick kept going over and over in his head the last conversation he
had with Greg.
"Nick," Grissom said. "Tell us once again exactly what
Greg said."
Nick sighed and shook his head. "All he said was that some guy
tried to pick him up over coffee. He said he was young looking and uh." Nick's
eyes went blank as he remembered the scene in his head. Suddenly, his head came up, eyes
big. "He said he stuttered! Greg thought he might have just been really nervous. He
stutters!"
"A stutterer," Sara said under her breath, cataloguing it
away.
Grissom wrote it down on a piece of paper. "What else?"
Nick thought a moment. "He didn't tell me what café. Nothing
else."
"Well, that doesn't give us much to go on. There are a lot of
people who stutter." Catherine said.
"But it helps to narrow it down some," Sara said.
Warrick agreed.
Without warning, Nick's fist came crashing down on the table.
"Dammit! If only I hadn't laughed at him. He wouldn't have gone
outside."
"Outside?" Catherine asked.
Nick stood by the table, leaning on his hands, his head hanging down.
"Yeah outside, why?"
"Does Greg smoke?"
"I don't know. I never seen him. Why?"
Catherine had stood up, along with Sara, Grissom and Warrick.
"Maybe there's something outside."
"Shit, yeah!" Nick started to leave.
"Whoa! We can't all go out there. We'll destroy what
evidence there is with all of us out there," Grissom said.
"I'll go," Nick said.
"No."
"What?"
"I said no, Nick."
"Why?" he demanded.
Grissom looked at him. "Because you're too emotional."
"I'll go," Sara said.
Grissom looked at Sara. She was standing with her chin forward, legs
braced apart, one hand on a hip. Her eyes bespoke an intensity that seemed to satisfy
Grissom. "Fine. Warrick, you go with her. Look for tire tracks."
"Got it."
"You find anything?" Warrick asked from his crouched position
on the sidewalk.
"Not yet." Sara was crouched herself and waddling each step
as her eyes scanned the sidewalk. Behind her in her case, was an evidence bag with three
cigarette butts in them that she hoped were Greg's. There were too many footprints
for there to be any hope in getting a clear one. A single fingerprint on the handrail was
dusted and picked up, but who knew whose it was.
"Hey!" Warrick called out.
Sara looked up but Warrick was no where in sight. "Where are
you?"
"In here," Warrick said, sticking his head around the corner.
"I think I've got something."
Sara joined him in the alleyway, flashlight held firmly in hand.
Warrick held up a cloth by tweezers and shone his light on it. Sara leaned forward and
took a tentative sniff. "Chloroform," she announced.
"Yeah," Warrick's voice was as gruff as he felt.
"Shit."
Warrick dropped it into a bag and labeled it.
"Anything else?"
"Not that I could find. Too many tire treads here. Hot spot."
"Damn."
"Let's get these back."
"Right."
Grissom, Catherine and Nick all rose when Sara and Warrick entered the
building. The three had remained inside to preserve what scene there might have been.
"What d'you find?" Nick asked.
"Cigarette butts, some fingerprints from the handrail and a
hankerchief we think was used on Greg. It reeks of chloroform."
Nick sighed.
"Okay," Grissom said. "Get those to Gr – the lab,
and see what comes up. Is Hodges working tonight?"
"Don't know, I'll check," Catherine said.
"Good. Okay, now we wait."
Nick followed behind, his feet dragging.
Hodges took the samples from Sara and started immediately sorting them
in whatever order he preferred to work in.
"Sorry about Sanders," he said.
"Hmm," was all Sara said.
With deft fingers, he cut a piece of material from the hankerchief and
prepared it for the mass spectrometer. That machine would give a definitive answer on what
chemical compounds were on the hankerchief. Within a few minutes, a printer hidden in the
corner of the room began spitting out a paper with graphics on it. Hodges retrieved it,
read it and handed it to Sara.
"Chloroform," he said.
Sara read the chart, her face expressionless, like stone statue.
"Okay, what's next?"
"The butts."
These Hodges used a small scalpel and scraped off a sliver, which he
put into a vial with some clear liquid. This vial was then inserted into a compartment of
a machine, closed and activated. The machine came to life with a whirring sound, lasted a
minute or so and then stopped. Once again, the printer spat out another page, this one
with charts as well. Hodges grabbed it and handed it to Sara.
"Here you go." His manner was short and perfunctory, none of
the theatrics that Greg employed to liven up a rather dull and boring job and shift. For
once, Sara missed his antics. They had always served to put a smile on her face, even if
the smile were one of annoyance.
"Thanks, Hodges."
"Say you're welcome to Grissom for me."
"Sure," Sara said, not meeting his eyes.
Just as she was about to round the corner, his voice came again.
"I'm sorry about Sanders."
Sara stopped and turned around. "Yeah," she said after a
moment.
"We need fingerprints from the hankerchief and those from the
handrail," Sara said to Nick in the evidence room.
"I already got the handrail ones done. AFIS is already looking for
a math. What did you get on the butt?"
"It was Greg's. I didn't even know he smoked."
"Me neither."
Sara passed Nick the hankerchief and he began laying it out and pining
it down to a corkboard. "How long has he worked here with us?" he asked.
Sara took a seat and watched Nick. "For as long as I've been
here. Before that?"
Nick stopped his movements. "I have no idea." His voice was
soft and trembled just slightly. He stared ahead a moment and then resumed his work. He
bent down and eyed the fabric from a level viewpoint, using his eyes at first to catch any
tell tale sign. Then he picked up the board and placed in a glass box with a tray of
heated glue. Replacing the lid, he sat back and folded his arms, his eyes trained on the
clear box, waiting for a miracle.
A few minutes passed in silence as the two CSIs waited. When the small
bell dinged, Nick lifted the cover and retrieved the hankerchief. The heated glue fumes
had brought out any fingerprints and they were able to take a specialized photograph of
them to be loaded into the computer and AFIS could do its job.
"The ones on the handrail ought to be Greg's and these ones
ought to be one who took him," said Nick.
"We hope."
Nick stared at Sara. They both knew what the other was thinking, no
words need be shared to confirm it. The lab felt eerily quiet without his music blaring
away, or his manic dancing as he moved around the sensitive equipment like he rightfully
belonged among them in the lab. Even his corny jokes before coming forth with the
information, which had bugged each and every one of the CSIs at one point or another, was
something gone and missed. It took the seriousness out of the day, even if for a moment.
Now they were stuck with the ultra-serious geeks who took their work way to seriously for
there to be any room for fun at all.
It was odd how one person could affect the lives of those around them
without even trying. Usually no one noticed it, until the person was gone. And then their
absence stuck out like a sore thumb, a constant reminder of what had been. Greg was
the colourful elephant amid all the grey ones.
~*~
Copyright © 2003 Anansay
