My sincere thanks goes to all of you who kept reading after the last chapter - - I was halfway expecting to be lynched, not praised, and your response really astounded me. Suffice to say, you make all the struggles worthwhile. Oh, and also, I did warn you, remember? grin
Part Three: Ashes, Ashes
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world.
- - W. B. Yeats, "The Second Coming"
- -
Chapter Twenty-six: Full of Sound and Fury (WARRICK)
- -
Warrick dreamed he was trying to tell Grissom about the missing evidence, but Grissom kept dismissing him, wiping away his concerns with a swift cut of the hand. A tale told by an idiot, Warrick - - full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. Warrick pressed him, saying that it was important, and that Grissom should come in and take charge again, because he didn't have a clue how to get things running again. Grissom smiled at him, and said:
[crucified]
Warrick put a hand over his ear and asked Grissom to come closer, he couldn't hear. Grissom stepped a little nearer to him and took both Warrick's hands, spreading them out until Warrick was in the proper position to be searched, his arms straight out from his shoulders.
[oh God I don't believe it]
[crucify]
[wake him up someone should wake him]
No, Warrick said, stop talking like that, I don't understand. That's not your voice.
Grissom said, [the rose]
[what if Grissom I mean not that I think but what if]
[Warrick]
[Warrick wake up oh Greg oh God Warrick]
Grissom moved his hands to Warrick's shoulders and shook him, hard. Warrick pushed him back, but his hands only brushed off the surface of Grissom's shirt, as if the fabric were covered in some slick oil, making his fingertips glide away without touching. Grissom shook his head, his eyes distant, turning from their usual pale blue to a sheer white color, shining and then splitting, giving way to nothing but a mind-numbingly bright light - -
Light.
Florescent bulbs, gleaming. The white light dimmed long enough for him to make out the shapes of figures around him, surrounding him, in fact, their hands outstretched to pull him upright, to show him, to touch him as if he were some kind of anchor or lucky figurine instead of just Warrick Brown. His vision sharpened more - - lab coats, familiar faces. He counted Jacqui and Bobby among them, the rest seemed to be dayshift, vaguely recognizable but still unknown.
Jacqui was the one directly in front of him, the one who had shaken him awake. Her dark eyes were wet, and it took him a second to see the tearstains on her cheeks.
He sat up, the entire right side of his face aching, feeling almost bruised from where he must have fallen asleep at the break room table. "Jacqui - - what?"
Jacqui tried to say something, but her words dissolved into a sob. She screwed her eyes shut, her mouth open, gasping for air, and grabbed at Bobby Dawson, who looked bewildered, as if he had no idea where he was. He touched her arm anyway, his own mouth forming words, but no sound coming out, just meaningless shapes. Warrick couldn't read lips.
"Can anyone tell me what's going on?"
Jacqui brushed tears off her face, and they fell against Warrick's shirt. "It - - it's Greg. We were going out for breakfast - - Bobby . . ."
"Breakfast," Bobby agreed, still looking dazed. "He - - it," he added senselessly. "The edge of the parking lot, on a telephone pole."
"The body," Jacqui said. She still didn't appear to be calm, but her features had turned almost stony. Whatever she had to say, she was going to say it - - going to get it out in the open. "We found Greg's body in the parking lot."
Warrick shook his head, because that was impossible. "Greg went home hours ago. I mean, he still should've left before, but Nick convinced him. He's home."
"He's dead," Bobby said, and Warrick saw several of the background techs nod in agreement. Bobby gave a sudden, hysterical laugh. "He - - somebody strung him up on that thing like he was Jesus or something . . . they nailed his hands . . ."
Jacqui said, softly, "It was a crucifixion, Warrick."
But they were wrong, of course. Greg wasn't dead. Hurt, maybe, and maybe they'd get there just in time to save him, but he wasn't dead. Dead was permanent. No one could fix dead. Crucified or not, Greg wasn't going to come back to life, so he wasn't dead. That would be just - - unacceptable. An offense. Things like death didn't happen to people like Greg.
"The parking lot?"
He was already walking to the doors, and he could feel Jacqui trailing behind him, but she was the only one. Apparently just one sight of - - whatever was out there - - had been enough for most of them. He pushed through the double doors, his hands flat against the glass. Air swished around him, and he reached behind him to grab Jacqui's wrist and pull her to his side.
"Show me where," he said hoarsely.
"East lot," she said. "The one facing the desert. I guess - - I guess that's why no one saw it before this morning. The other lots face the Strip, and someone could've - -"
He didn't listen, just switched her off as he walked towards the east parking lot, and when he started to see the wide shadow of the telephone pole, with an unfamiliar shape attached to it, he broke into a run. His feet slapped against the asphalt, his eyes almost closed so that he couldn't really see what he was running towards until he was there. He stopped so quickly at the edge of the pavement that the smooth soles of his shoes squeaked, even on the grit, and rolled him forwards, his hands outstretched.
His usual balance didn't save him - - he fell face forward, half his body landing on the asphalt and his upper torso dropping into the hot sand. His face burned, and he breathed in dirt, tasting the crisp sand between his teeth. It crunched there as he stood and turned, waves of dust falling from the front of his shirt and onto the pavement in a glittery wave.
It was Greg. And he was dead.
Not just dead, but Jacqui was right - - crucified. Warrick didn't even recognize him at first, despite all those years of working together, and those occasional nights of playing pool in yellow-lit halls that smelled like beer and sweat. He was eye-level with Greg's feet, and for a second, it was all he could see - - just worn sneakers with rubber caps and unraveling shoelaces. Then his eyes traveled down, over worn denims and one of those hideous shirts - - vertical stripes of lime and violet. The shirt had been abused by gravity - - falling down towards Greg's chin, revealing his bare and bloodied stomach. Warrick counted three broken ribs before he could see the rest of Greg's face.
He said something, but he wasn't sure what. A prayer, a curse? Or maybe just a noise, a wordless whisper that just slid out as Warrick fell for the second time - - dropping down to his knees, putting Greg's face into better view.
Catherine's bruise was still there, he could see, but it was obscured by other, fresher bruises and a sticky maroon layer of blood. It was almost enough to make his face unidentifiable, but the blood couldn't hide his features or the open, staring hazel eyes, looking somewhat accusingly at Warrick. Not peaceful at all. Warrick had never really seen a dead body that looked peaceful. Greg's sandy hair was starched with blood, and lying in matted tangles against the ground. A night wind had sent sand over him, mixing in with the blood like glitter. Shimmer and shine.
A white rose was threaded through the gap between the plywood and the telephone pole.
Behind him, he heard the desperate coughing sounds of Jacqui throwing up. He felt his own stomach shift, and he wished that he would throw up or cry or something, anything - - but his eyes stayed dry and the initial wave of nausea passed. He had too many years of training, had seen too many decompositions for a recent death to make him queasy, however messy it was, and he'd spent too long trying to be Grissom to cry: his emotions were like strangers in his head. They moved through him, sobbing, or just standing motionless in shock, and he watched them, and felt for them, but he wasn't them.
He envied them, though.
He said to Jacqui, "Get Dr. Robbins."
"He - - he's home," she said faintly. "The dayshift coroner - -"
"I don't care about the dayshift coroner." He was aware that he was almost shouting, his voice unnaturally shrill. "Get Dr. Robbins. I don't care if you have to wake him up. I don't care if you have to go to his house and drag him here - - get him. Now."
"Yes, sir," Jacqui said, and she took off towards the lab.
Warrick didn't know how long he waited there beside Greg's body. He was still on his knees, but he had fallen back to rest his weight against his heels. He tried to trace the strange whistling noise he could hear, and eventually realized that it was his own breath, high-pitched and painful, sliding between his clenched teeth. The voices he'd heard - - not Grissom. They had come from outside his dreams, just permeating through. Crucified.
And then, hauntingly, the one that kept recurring to his memory:
[what if Grissom I mean not that I think but what if]
The way it was presented - - so similar to Catherine's slip of tongue - - just beginning with a simple question, and then the speaker had realized what they were saying, and hastily added that they didn't really think that, of course, not really. They didn't really believe that the man that had been their boss for the last five years was capable of not just killing one of their own but killing him like this - - stringing him up cruciform with his head turned towards the ground . . . not really, but still - - what if?
Warrick guessed that they had made the connection that was just waiting to be made: that Grissom had heard, somehow, about the missing evidence and blamed Greg for it. That Grissom had done this to Greg because he had heard.
But that's impossible, what if or no what if, because they don't know that Grissom never heard about the missing evidence. It hasn't been in any of the press releases and I warned everyone about the consequences of telling him. Consequences, he thought sickly, staring at Greg. He reached out, watching his hand tremble in the air, and almost brushed his fingers over Greg's bloody face, but he yanked his whole arm back with such force that his body raked over his heels and he tumbled back until he was just sitting on the asphalt.
He couldn't touch Greg. Not until Robbins got there.
So he talked instead, first unsteadily and then with growing strength in his voice. "I don't know how this happened, Greg. We'll find out, though. I promise. If we don't find out anything else over the years - - if your case is the only we ever get - - we'll figure out who did this to you. We'll find them, and we'll - -" He stopped himself from satisfying the heat in his mind - - he couldn't say kill them, even though he wanted to, so badly. "We'll get them. And - - and you were right."
He wanted to say, "I trusted you," but it was too late for that, too painfully late, so he fell silent.
He didn't jump when Robbins put a hand on his shoulder. "I'm sorry, Warrick. I came as soon as I could," the doctor said.
Warrick turned his head and stood. Robbins did look a little rumpled, as if Jacqui had had to roll him out of bed and toss him in a car after all. Robbins's eyes settled on Greg, and his mouth became a thin line, pressing out the wrinkles that had accumulated at the corners over the years from his frequent smiles. He closed his eyes, and when he opened them again, Warrick could see the older man's grief stamped there, indelible and sickly.
"I didn't want to believe this," Robbins said finally.
"Yeah," Warrick said, glancing back at the body. "Me neither. I - - I'm sorry to have you dragged in like this, but I wanted our people on this - - "
"Don't apologize." Robbins knelt by the telephone pole, his knees popping audibly. "I'd have handed in my resignation the next day if you hadn't had me called in." He pulled one of the meat thermometers out of his black bag, and, after a slight hesitation, put his hand on Greg's stomach and pushed the slim metal monitor inside, straight through the battered skin.
Robbins waited until the numbers stopped climbing, and removed the thermometer. He handed Warrick a small tape-recorder.
"Hold this," he said, "and press record. I want to get some of this on the record before I take him in for an autopsy."
Warrick did as he was told, and listened to Robbins narrate.
"Victim temperature indicates that his death took place approximately three to five hours ago, factoring in the heat off the desert. Victim has bruising along the face and torso - - a shattered cheekbone, approximately three broken ribs. Other bruising. No definitive defensive wounds on his palms that I can see, but they're scratched, probably from breaking a fall. Bruising around his wrists indicates that he was held down or restrained in some way - - I'll see if we can measure the grip size back in the lab."
Robbins paused, took a long breath, and continued.
"Victim - - the victim has been crucified. Nails through the center of each hand, connecting him to a strip of plywood - - and his feet bound to the telephone pole. Victim is upside-down, for some indeterminate reason." He nodded at Warrick, who clicked the recorder off.
"I didn't know Greg well, but I did know him," Robbins said quietly. "He used to come by to see autopsies - - said he was trying to be certified as a CSI. He always seemed like a genuinely nice young man." Robbins shook his head. "I'll get to work on him right away."
He used Warrick's cell-phone to call for assistants so he could move Greg into the morgue, and Warrick dialed up personnel's dispatch center.
"How many I help you?" the polite voice asked.
"This is Warrick Brown, night-shift CSI acting-supervisor, and you can help me by calling in the rest of my team. Everyone, not just the criminalists. I want ballistics, fingerprinting, trace - - anyone that works the graveyard shift, I want them here, immediately."
The polite voice metamorphosed, growing simultaneously worried and belligerent.
"Sir, that's just not possible - - it's against protocol - -"
"I don't give a shit about protocol." His hand was so tight around the phone that he thought it might just break between his fingers. "Get them here, and call up Gil Grissom. Tell him to come in immediately. We're - - we're going to need him for questioning."
"I'm sorry, but I can't do that, sir."
Warrick slammed the phone shut, disconnecting her, and called them up himself, one after another, breaking them with the news over the phone, listening to hesitations and abrupt sobs, dodging questions and giving a few reluctant answers. The message was simple: Greg was dead. He didn't care if they were tired or not. They were coming in to work the case. He didn't know if Greg's murder was connected to Lizzie Zimmer's death or not. They shouldn't talk to the press.
He called the last tech before he started calling the more familiar members of his team - - just because he couldn't bear right then to hear the shock in their voices, the desperation. He searched through his phone's memory for David Hodges's number, and, finding it, dialed. The phone rang twice before Hodges answered, sounding groggy.
"Hodges. Warrick Brown. I need you to come in to the lab immediately."
There was a strange, panicky tone in Hodges's voice - - "What? Why?"
Warrick forced the words out through his mouth, hating to say them, hating that this hadn't gotten any easier over the series of phone calls. "Greg Sanders is dead. We need all hands on deck, and I need you to check for trace on a white rose we found at the scene, not to mention some other - - items," he finished lamely, thinking of the plywood but unable to say it.
"Sanders isn't dead," Hodges said, as if suggesting that Greg might just be on vacation. "He can't be dead. That's not true."
"I did the identification myself."
"He's not dead," Hodges insisted with that same wavering hysteria. "That's impossible. Sanders isn't dead. That - -" There was a shift in his tone, and Warrick could almost hear Hodges's thoughts whirring through the connection. "The - - I heard about the missing evidence, is this because - - did . . . is this because of the evidence? Because it went missing?"
"I don't know." Warrick pressed his hand to his forehead. "Can you come in?"
"Sure. Of course. I'll be there in under an hour." Hodges hung up quickly, and Warrick closed his own phone before opening it up once again, and dialed Catherine's number.