"Hospital personally only, sorry." the orderly held up his had.
Brass shoved his badge up to the man's face.
"I think I have clearance. I need to see the Conte girl." Brass tried to sound forceful, but it was hard to intimidate a 6'3" man that looked like he had played pro football recently.
"Look, I'm just doing my job. You're gonna have to see Dr. Grey if you want to get past me." the orderly said jerking a thumb at the nurses station.
A women in a white lab coat turned at the sound of her name and walked over to Brass.
"Jim, you should have told me you were assigned to this case." she said kissing his cheek and hugging him at the same time.
"Abigail, I gotta see the kid." He said as they pulled apart.
"She's out , some intern in the ER sedated her. He's going to be sorry when he hits my rotation. I need to speak to her as badly as you do."
"How long til we can talk to her" Brass asked .
"A few more hours, but she's under observation and the minute she wake up, she's all yours provided I am present." Abigail answered.
"You got a professional interest in this case?"
"She's been my patient for 3 years. What happened to her and why aren't James and Susan here?" She wondered
"The parents are dead" he said.
"How did she .. Oh my god… Jim… this poor kid." Abigail sat down in a chair.
"I think there's more to it than meets the eye."
"Can we question the girl?" Gil Grissom asked as he approached Abigail and Brass.
"Three times the charm, Mr. Grissom" Abigail said. Grissom looked at her and faltered before saying anything. She realized he was trying to place her.
"The airport, court, am I really that forgettable, Mr. Grissom" anger was creeping into her voice.
"It's been a long night, Dr. Grey. I apologize for being rude." He said.
"Do you know each other" Brass asked.
"Yes, I seemed to have offended Dr. Grey three times in the last 72 hours" Grissom offered.
"Just three times, in 72 whole hours" Brass laughed. " Gil, You're having an off week"
"Jim, I'll be in my office if you need anything. When Katie comes to I will page you." She turned and walked toward the elevator.
"Jim? Is there something I don't know?" Gil said raising an eyebrow.
"Why?"
"Well, that shade of lipstick on your cheek doesn't flatter your skin tone"
"Oh" Brass wiped the lip print away. "Yeah, Abigail tried to help my daughter when she was a kid." The look in Jim's eyes pained Gil and he steered to conversation back to the case.
"I don't think there was and intruder in that house. The glass from the window in the garage was in the shrubs… outside, not on the floor of the garage." Grissom told Jim as they walked to a coffee pot at the nurses station. Gil knew he would not be leaving this shift on time and poured himself and Jim a cup.
"The scene was staged and not by a professional, I'm sure ballistics will match the bullet in the mother to the rifle , but the gun that killed the father was a hand gun and it hasn't been found. Bloody foot prints were found only in the upstairs hallway. Small footprints. The perp had to stand in the mothers blood to get bloody feet. This is going to be a bad one, Jim"
"Has the press shown up?" Jim inquired.
"Matter of time and we need to be ready. Something went horrible went on inside that house… before tonight, if my hunch is correct." Gil sighed and looked wearier than Jim had ever seen.
"Maybe Abigail knows something that could shed some light on the family" Jim stood , headed in the direction the doctor had departed.
"How well do you know Dr. Grey, Jim?" Gil asked
" Professional basis.. mainly, She's been an expert witness in a lot of our cases dealing with children. Pretty wrapped up in her patients, she came to the funeral, I think she was almost as heart broken as I was…. " His voice trailed off. One of Brass's deputies walked toward him.
"Detective, do you want us to wait here or outside the hospital?" the man asked.
"Oh, right. Gil can you talk to Abigail? We gotta to get ready for the press. I want to be ready when the vultures arrive." with this Brass and the officers departed.
Grissom showed the orderly his badge and asked where he might find Dr. Grey. The orderly delivered him to her office one floor up. He started to knock, when the door opened and Dr. Grey walked into him. They both dropped their files to the floor.
"Shit" She muttered. "That's four. What's your record for being aggravating?"
"At least a dozen" he said as he knelt to pick up the files. She had already started for the files and they bumped heads.
"Shit" she said again "You might break your record tonight. What are these?" She straightened and looked at photographs.
She had picked up crime scene photos from Gil's files. Color photos of the Conte's murder scene. Dr. Grey backed into her office staring at the photos. Gil followed her and closed the door.
"James and Susan. You think Katie had something to do with this." She said after settling herself on the sofa.
"What makes you say that?" He wondered, still standing.
"I've been treating her for three years she's an angry young woman."
"Can you tell me about her?"
"No" She stated. Gil recognized her tone of voice. It was the same tone he had used when discussing Lady Heather with Sara. Was she daring him to say more?
"Any thing you can tell me will help us find our who did this to the Conte's, but at this point in the investigation I can't rule out any possibility." He hoped he sounded benign.
"Can't your evidence just tell you the entire story? I've read your forensics reports, very complete. They are written in a way that suggests all the answers are found in cold hard evidence. People aren't evidence to me, their real. Katie and her family are not just photographs to me. I know these people. You only know the corpses" She handed Gil the photo's as she spoke.
"People are unreliable, the evidence never forgets, never has a motive and it never lies." He looked down at her on the couch. She looked as exhausted as he felt. He took the chair across from her. She sighed and laughed a little
"I don't see any humor in our conversation" Gil said
"It's not the conversation. You are in my usual spot when I see patients and I am on the patient couch. " she offered
"Does that mean something?"
"In both our lines of work everything means something. Don't you agree?" she looked at him
Gil realized that she was looking at him very critically. He didn't know if he wanted to have a conversation with this woman that didn't involve the case at hand. She obliviously held him in some type of contempt.
"You don't like me do you Dr. Grey?" He asked and leaned back in her chair.
"I don't know you well enough to form a personal opinion of you….yet."
"Yet?"
"I have a feeling we will have to deal with each other a great deal, since you believe Katie killed her parents."
"I don't form judgments on beliefs I interpret the facts, Dr. Grey. The feelings are better left to the professionals" He was getting tired, not of the conversation, but physically tired.
"But you , Mr. Grissom, are a professional." she said as she surprised a yawn. The large orderly appeared at the Door.
"Doc, the girls awake and asking for you." the man said.
Abigail stood and walked to the door. She motioned for Gil to follow her. They walked to the observation room Katie was being held.
Abigail indicated to Grissom to stay behind the two way window. She explained that it would be better for her to be alone with Katie.
"Dr. Grey anything I observe will not be of use to the police since Katie is not under arrest . My presence here will violate doctor/patient privilege." he said not under standing why she was allowing him an observation point.
"Then before we proceed … have Jim come up here and charge my patient with something. I know this girl and I think the things we have to discussed and are about to discuss will be useful to you. I do not intended to hide the truth" she told him. "All I want is the truth".
"We want the same thing, doctor." Gil said surprised at her cooperation. He dialed Brass's phone and asked him to come to the observation room immediately.
As they waited for Jim, Grissom finally looked at Abigail Grey. She stood at the window watching a 17 year old girl that he suspected of murdering her parents. Her gaze was strange. It did not hold the pity or empathy he had expected. The gaze was a mixture of horror and disgust. He realized that the doctor had not given him all of the photos that had fallen from his file. She still held one photo and in that photo was a close up of the bodies of this girl's parents and the bloody foot prints on the mother's body.