The formatting for these chapters keeps going screwy on me, and I apologize for any problems. If there's something wrong with the bold/italic functions, just tell me in your review, and I'll fix it right away. This should work out okay - - but then again, the last chapter should have, too. Very strange.
Catherine's turn.
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Chapter Three: Lightning in Montana (CATHERINE)
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She applied a fresh coat of lipstick in the restroom and told herself that this was still her job.
Everyone asked Catherine about her stripping with either an edge of humor or an edge of apology. She used to tell people that she wasn't ashamed of it, because it was what needed to be done, and things had worked out okay, but her own defensive tone had always ruined the argument. Because yes, it was the best money she could have made then, and yes, things had worked out okay, but in her heart, she knew that if Gil hadn't pulled her out of a trigonometry class and offered her a job, she would have been waste by now, just another coke addict with a body that was good once. Because without some jigsaw puzzle to hold her interest, things would have spiraled out of control.
Yeah. They had a way of doing that.
Her hand shook, and she hated it, because she was better than that, dammit, she had earned the right to be better than this, and she wasn't going to cry in one of the LVPD restrooms because the person who had saved her life, given her a career, and become her friend was sitting in a cool, cement-blocked room, waiting for her to get in there and question him.
Catherine told herself that tears didn't solve any problems and that Gil would be embarrassed if he were in there with her. Excessive displays of emotion weren't really in his repertoire of likes. It only made staying calm more difficult.
With Nick, and Kristy Hopkins, it had been different. She had been on the opposite side of the glass, and Nick had never actually been questioned on the topic, just relentlessly pursued. Covallo had let the night shift control Grissom's case, despite personal attachment, because, to him, it was barely a case. It was a blot on the lab's reputation, and if it had been anyone but Grissom, jobs would have already been lost, but even Covallo knew it was ridiculous to say that Grissom had actually been guilty. CSI was just doing casual questioning, collecting latent evidence. If possible, they would arrange a settlement.
Catherine already hated Elizabeth Zimmer, and she hadn't even met her.
It should have been a minor case to her, because, like Covallo had oh-so-kindly pointed out to her when they were on the phone, it was just a damaged reputation. She had wanted to snottily reply that it was Grissom's reputation that she was worried about, not the lab's, but she hadn't been able to summon up the right, prissy degree of energy, and she had been afraid that a hoarse scream would have come out of her mouth, instead.
Damaged reputation, blot, whatever. It wasn't minor to her - - or to Grissom - - and she could already feel that it wasn't going to go down easily. It wasn't going to blow over. Once, when she lived in Montana, she had been caught in a bad thunderstorm. She had been driving and reciting everything she knew about how the rubber in her car wheels would keep her safe, but she had still been scared. The rain had been steel gray and pounding against her windshield, and she'd had to pull over to the shoulder and wait it out while blue-violet shots of lightening had tumbled through the air and crashed into power lines. She had watched snapping cords spit streams of sparks, and had gripped her steering wheel tightly, closing her eyes until it was over.
But she was a grown-up now, a big girl, and she couldn't just close her eyes and wait for this storm to die down. And this was something far more serious than a series of snapped power lines.
So - - line of lipstick drawn across her mouth. It was her color. It made her look more professional, since she'd already bitten the other coat away. The soft cosmetic filled up the ragged tooth-marks on her lips.
Catherine pulled out of the restroom and forced herself to walk the way she usually did. Shoulders straight and eyes clear. There was no sign of tears returning. The LVPD officers who didn't know her gave her appreciative glances as she passed, and the ones who did looked away, because they knew why she was there.
The interrogation room was small, and painted gray. Grissom waited in it. He was wearing the same clothes he had been wearing at work - - chinos and a black shirt with most of the starch worn out of it. His eyes were blank, and she realized that he looked tired, almost frayed. Brass sat across from him, looking only marginally better-kept. His brown suit had sweat-stains on it. For an interrogation, neither one of them was doing much talking.
"Hey," Catherine said. And there was nothing else she could say, suddenly, all of that preparation for nothing, because she was suppressing a scream again. "Gil. I'm sorry."
Grissom didn't say anything, just nodded at her, but Brass was already turning. "Catherine - - you're the lead investigator on this case. It's not good for you to say things like that."
"Right. Yeah." No sympathy for the suspect. She remembered. She eased into the cold plastic chair next to Brass. "Did you know Elizabeth Charlotte Zimmer?"
"She was a student at one of my seminars. I remember her because she was a friend of Sara's."
It hurt her to hear how emotionless he sounded. He was trying so damn hard to pretend that this didn't matter, when it did, and they both knew it. But she had to pretend just as hard, because it was a play with an audience of lawyers and clauses, and they were just actors, fumbling through their lines the best they could. Shakespeare, this was not.
"Did you ever talk to her outside of the seminar?"
"No, I did not."
"She claims that she invited you to dinner, and, following, you asked her back to your hotel room."
"No. We never ate together and I certainly didn't ask her back to my room. I barely remember her at all. She was a good student, but very quiet."
"Well, she's not being quiet now." She could feel her teeth move to her lower lip and she pulled her mouth tautly closed again. No need for another restroom break because she couldn't keep it together. "Gil, can you remember anything extra at all? About Harvard? About Elizabeth?"
Grissom's voice rose in volume. "She was pre-med. I ate breakfast in a coffee shop near the campus. That was where I met Sara. I was paid. Someone left a striped scarf in the assembly room one day and I took it home after no one claimed it. It was blue and silver. Are these the kinds of things you want to know, Catherine?"
"Gil."
He wiped at his brow, and she could see beads of sweat come away on his hand. He collapsed back in the seat, looking somehow older than he had when he had straightened. "I'm sorry. God. I'm sorry, Catherine. I didn't mean to do that." His gaze was steely as it connected with her. "But I didn't do this. I haven't thought of Lizzie Zimmer in years. Whatever happened to her, or didn't happen to her, I had nothing to do with it."
"Lizzie," Brass said. "Why do you call her that?"
"Because that was how she signed everything," Grissom said angrily, his voice barely contained. "I told you that I met her, and that was how she introduced herself. That was what Sara called her. It was her nickname, Jim, not an endearment."
"Just a question, Gil."
She noticed that Grissom didn't apologize to Brass. That gave her some dull feeling of satisfaction.
"Listen, this isn't a formal investigation, just a cautionary one. Most importantly, it isn't a criminal investigation. We don't have the right to interrogate you when we don't have any actual evidence. This is more of Director Covallo's way of evaluating whether or not - -"
"I can keep my job?"
"- - you should be temporarily suspended."
"I didn't do this, Catherine."
She wanted to tell him that she believed him, but, as Brass had pointed out, that was crossing a line in the interrogation room. Outside of it, she could tell him the truth. For now, she just nodded. "He wants you suspended, but with full pay. Not as a punishment, just as something to calm down the press while these proceedings carry out. In all honesty, CSI is going to try to get a settlement for you."
"We can do that?"
"Covallo can, if he wants to, and he does. We can't try for it immediately, though."
Grissom seemed noticeably relieved. Almost to the point of offering to buy Covallo a beer after all of this had blown over - - and there was that phrase again, and still, why didn't she believe that it wasn't going to blow over? Even Grissom believed it now, and this was Grissom's issue, not hers, and if he thought that it was going to calm down soon, she should just follow suit . . . but she didn't. She was still stuck in Montana, out in the lightening, and the only thing that was going to blow over was a couple of cables, not the whole storm. Not nearly.
"Anything else?"
"I don't think there's anything else we can ask," Brass said. "This is a lawyer's job, not ours. We don't have any evidence of a crime."
Grissom said, quietly, "Nick's working on that."
And, boy, was that a shitty time for it to occur to her that she hadn't seen Nick since the end of the shift. He hadn't come back to the lab, and, unlike Sara, hadn't made an excuse to her about it.
"Where is he?"
Grissom smiled. "On a flight to Boston, I think."
"Gil - - you don't want to stir this up." She was surprised by the begging sound in her voice. "If word gets out to the press that you sent a CSI to poke around near Harvard, Covallo's going to be furious. And it won't do anything for you. What do you think he's going to find, anyway?"
"I told him to stay quiet but to check the hospitals. Anything else is under his own discretion."
"Do you really think the hospitals aren't going to publish this?"
"I trust Nick," he said calmly. "No, I don't think that he'll cause any trouble in Boston. He might even uncover something useful. I'm not sure what, but he might. And the press won't find out, and Covallo won't find out. This stays with us. I don't want anyone else told. The last thing we need right now are dayshift rumors."
"The last thing we need right now is you getting into more trouble," she said, and regretted it when he looked at her steadily. She covered with, "I'm serious, Gil. I don't want this to be happening."
"May I go, Jim?" He wasn't looking at her. She'd screwed this up. Fantastic.
"Sure." She saw Brass grab Grissom's arm as he headed by. "Gil. Stay in touch. Don't drop off the face of the earth and don't, under any circumstances, fly to Boston."
Grissom's smile was cramped and looked uncomfortable. "I understand, Jim. Thank you."A butterfly flapped its wings in Japan, and there was a hurricane in America. As she sank her head into her arms, Catherine wondered what caused lightning in Montana and breakdowns in Las Vegas. If she could find the right butterfly to blame, she wanted a pair of tweezers to shred its wings and a match to burn it with. Grissom was her friend and her boss, and he had just looked at her like she was accusing him. And she wasn't sure if he was wrong.
"I hate this," she said miserably.
"You aren't the only one." Brass. Who would have figured he'd stick around after Grissom had gone off? Of course, he was her boss once, too. Her friend? Probably.
"I couldn't even say that I believed him."
"I couldn't either, Catherine." Brass sighed. "Let him go for now. He's set on self-destruct, and I even know what his problem is. He needs to talk about it, but you, me, the team . . . we're all the people he has to talk to, and he can't talk to us, because we're investigating him."
"Probably the closest he got was Nick." She slammed her hand against the table and felt a bitter lurch of satisfaction at the pain. "I wish he'd sent me to Boston. I want to get out of here right now, Jim. I don't feel good about this."
Lightning in Montana and butterflies in Japan.
Lightning in Grissom's eyes and butterflies in her stomach.
That was part of the reason why she had come to Las Vegas in the first place. She had been hoping to get away from the weather - - settle down someplace where she could count on the temperature and be surprised when it rained at all. She hadn't expected to find a thunderstorm waiting in Las Vegas, just curled up under the floorboards of the lab, stirred into the sky by Lizzie Zimmer's arrival.
When this was over, she wanted a vacation in Alaska.
"Sara paged me ten minutes ago, looking for you."
Change of subject. Back away from the emotion. Of course.
Catherine checked her own pager and saw no blinking light. Dead battery. "Did she say where she was? I could get Warrick, the two of us could meet her there."
"She's in the lab, so I think she and Warrick have already teamed up," Brass said dryly. "I'd hurry. It sounded important."
It was always important. Catherine needed insulation, not news. Rubber tires, not emergency pages. All she really wanted right then was home and a shower, just close her eyes and forget about Montana, Grissom, and all kinds of thunderstorms under the spray of hot water that wasn't rain.
But this was about Grissom.
She stood and pushed the chair under the table with her foot; almost a kick. "Are you coming?"
"I'll stick around here - - see if I can't squash some tongues before they start wagging."
"Good luck."
She wanted to pull her life over to the side of the road this time, too, and wait it out. Probably impossible, but she felt like trying, anyway.