Glad to see that everyone thinks Flowers is evil, and yes, somewhat charming. Flowers gets to make the commentary on the story, pretty much - - he hangs out in the background and says what everyone else is just thinking . . .
Grissom chapter!
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Chapter Sixteen: Still Life (GRISSOM)
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The call came at twelve minutes to midnight.
He rose to answer it, half-hoping that it would be Nick's report from Boston, or maybe, just for an interesting riff, another one of Greg's conspiracy theories, surfacing from nowhere. But it was more likely another sympathy call, and Grissom answered with an unswerving sense of caution, tucking the phone between his chin and his ear.
"Grissom," he said.
The voice was soft and masculine; a whisper. "She's dead."
In the space of half a second, so was the line. It dropped away into silence, without even the hushed sound of breath. It was untraceable - - the call itself had probably taken no more than two seconds in its entirety. And though Grissom knew the voice was gone, knew the caller had disconnected, he found himself saying, "Who? Who's dead?"
He dropped the phone back to the receiver and stood in the dark. He knew this. He knew what it meant. He could run through a list of female friends, family members, and acquaintances and still only come up with one answer, damning in its certainty:
Lizzie Zimmer.
He could think about Sara, and could imagine Sara dead, although the thought revolted him, but he knew, somehow, that she wasn't. And Catherine - - it wasn't Catherine, either. Not his mother. He didn't know anyone likely to grieve so desperately that they would call like that and be unable to say anything more. Even mourning, Nick, Warrick, and Greg would be analytical enough. They were born that way; trained that way.
It wasn't a consolation. It was a warning.
She's dead. They'll be coming for me soon, because who more likely to kill Lizzie Zimmer than the man she was accusing of rape? Then the man whose career could be ruined by such an accusation? What other suspects could they possibly have?
He was being ridiculous. He was jumping at shadows. He'd let Greg's conspiracy theories eat away into his head - -
But, then again, wasn't there even something just a little bit true in Greg's paranoia? And hadn't he worried just a little himself when he saw how pale the young man was at dinner, after the rounding warmth of the moment wore off? He was glad to be able to send Greg home - - when Greg had suddenly looked so wan, so young, so
(fragile)
ill. He'd looked ill. And there had been a grain of truth in his suspicions, probably. Ecklie was likely enjoying Grissom's downfall, and Greg picked up on it, because Greg was remarkably perceptive.
But grain of truth or not, paranoia was infectious, and surely, surely it was only rubbing off on him. Maybe the caller hadn't even said that someone was dead. Maybe there had just been a breath into the silence, or some kind of phonetic coincidence.
And you can tell yourself that, but you know what you heard. And you know who is dead.
He sat down, hard. He felt for the porcelain of the lamp and moved his hand under the globe to turn the switch, and the room sputtered into a bright, yellowy light. He could see his hands shaking on his knees, doing bizarre tap-dances, with the fingers rising and pushing against his slacks and collapsing down, weak-muscled, as if slain. He stilled them into fists and tried to steady the rest of himself that way, one muscle at a time. A series of relaxations, all falling into place like dominos.
Except none of it was working. He had gotten his hands to stop moving, and now they lay like clumps of wood at the ends of his wrists, but the rest of him was jittery. Not physically, but his mind was shaking worse than his hands had been - - jumping from one conclusion to another like they were stones in the middle of some vast, confusing stream, and bouncing back from Boston to Vegas, from Lizzie to Sara, from the teaching assistant to Nick. From the pancakes to the Last Supper. From Greg to - -
No, he wouldn't think that. That was one allegory he wasn't going to accept. He was going to deny that the bet he could, and claim to his dying day that he had never, ever, ever connected Greg Sanders to Judas, not even in his thoughts.
"Then Judas, the one who would betray him, said, 'Surely not I, Rabbi?'" Grissom said under his breath, almost in a whisper, and then shook his head to clear it. "Except Greg's not Judas, and I'm not Jesus, dammit."
In that light, it seemed vain of him to think like that. Almost blasphemous, sure, because by comparing Greg to Judas he compared himself to Jesus, and that was one comparison that Grissom, even in his state of lapsed Catholicism, was unwilling to make.
And Lizzie Zimmer was dead. Pretty Lizzie Zimmer, with her skin like china and her widened eyes. After Greg left the diner, Sara had said that she thought Lizzie had been raped, had been bruised, had been broken. Had been soured against men and the concept of sex, and Grissom would be (would have been) another conquest. Another man who could never hurt her, because she had Taken Care of Him.
But someone hurt her now. Someone hurt her tonight, and I swear it wasn't me. I swear I haven't left this house all night.
And it simply wasn't that credible an alibi. He wasn't even sure that he believed his own story. It would be so easy, after all, to slip into Vegas, where night was superficial because of all the neon and information came so cheaply. It would have been easy to find Lizzie's hotel and stand at the door and knock. So easy to be let in. So easy to do what he'd been accused of, and why should anyone believe him? What credibility did he have?
Do you believe them? - - No. Never.
You don't have to be here just because of her. No one cares what she's saying, you know. It doesn't make a difference. Everyone knows that there's no way you did something like that.
Not that I ever thought you did it.
Sara, Greg, and Nick. A triplicate alliance who believed that he was trustworthy. But Warrick was silent, and hadn't he seen just a little bit of doubt in Catherine's eyes? Doubt that she hadn't wanted to show? Just a hint; a glimmer of some suspicion.
Because what do they really know about me? What do I really tell them? Catherine knows me better than anyone, and she was the one who suspected. And then I have Sara and Nick believing that I would never do something like that, and Greg, who knows next to nothing about what I think or what I believe, is so damned convinced that I'm innocent that it hurts. But not Catherine. Not Warrick. Not my best friend and my favorite CSI. Not the ones I've let inside the most. No, they know better than to trust me completely.
On his side were the three people had had neglected the most. The three people he had thrown to the side. Sara, standing in his doorway, asking him to dinner only to have him turn her down - - but Sara still trusted him. Nick, who always looked like he knew when Grissom was thinking that he wasn't good enough - - Nick believed him. And Greg - - how many times had he scolded Greg for something small, like music, or elaborate results? But they believed him. They were loyal to him.
And then Catherine and Warrick - -
He had taken Catherine's side so many times. Saved her job. Pulled her neck out of the ring. Compromised investigations and not mentioned things in his files because he didn't want to hurt her. All the things he hadn't done for the others, and Catherine looked at him with the darkest suspicions, not believing all the way to the bottom that he was innocent.
Warrick. He'd let Warrick keep his job when he would have fired anyone else, trusted Warrick to lead when protocol requested him to leave someone else in charge, and always believed that Warrick would stay cool in the face of the odds. He had chosen Warrick as his successor, dammit, and Warrick had said nothing to him. Warrick went on the news and diffused matters, but he and Warrick hadn't even spoken since Lizzie Zimmer's accusation.
Everyone who had been given reason to doubt him believed him, and everyone who had been rewarded turned against him.
Oh, not noticeably. Not in ways that anyone else would see, but subtly.
"And now she's dead," Grissom said. "What are they going to think now?"
He didn't want it, didn't need it. Didn't care to see Sara back away from him, Nick's faith crumble, and Greg's trust vanish. He didn't want to see their faces when they found the body. The looks in their eyes. The doubt. The condemnation.
This is it, this is the end. I could have maybe lived with the rape charge hanging over my head, but not this. Even if I'm not arrested, I'll be quietly asked to leave. The crime lab doesn't need someone accused of killing the girl he also maybe raped. It's too much of a scandal. It's too much. They'll ask me to leave, and I will.
But for now, he had nothing left to lose. Lizzie had taken everything from him.
His job had been his life, and someone had stolen it away in the space of two days. With almost comical ease, everything he'd worked for was gone. Was ended. Two days. At the beginning of the week, he'd had nothing to dread. He'd had no premonitions, no slipping loyalties, no doubts.
He'd been a little lonely, but he'd been him. He'd been sure of where he stood.
Now he was sure of nothing. The fulcrum of his life had moved. Hell, it had been removed. There was nothing left to hold onto, and - -
A thunking noise - - fist against wood. A knock.
Who? he thought, almost by instinct. Who's dead?
He stood and clicked the lights on so no one would see him standing alone in the dark. He drew the shades back before turning the lock and opening the door.
The lamp over his door cast a wavering, shuttering white light over Sara. Her lips were parted in an awkward smile, and her teeth gleamed. She said nothing, and didn't really move to come in, though he stood far apart from the door, holding it open.
My God, Grissom thought in faint devotion, she's utterly beautiful.
It wasn't just the wine-colored slacks and the cream blouse that looked as if it would be heavenly soft to the touch, it was her smile, the dark vibrancy in her eyes, and even in her color: the warm flush high on her cheekbones. Sara was more than beautiful, Sara was alive. Sara was Life.
But not my life, he thought. I made sure of that. I did everything I could to turn her away, and, again, here she is. She's standing on my porch, smiling at me. I made work my life instead of her, and now I have nothing left.
What had he done to deserve this? To deserve her?
He opened the door even wider, and stepped into the shadows, so Sara alone was in the light.
I have nothing else left.
His voice didn't even tremble as he said, "Why don't you come inside?"