Chapter 3 - One month later...
Disclaimer- Not only do I not own CSI, I don't own Iron Maiden either. How poor am I? Maybe if I really did own Bill Gates' credit card number...hey, I can dream, right?
Note- The events in this chapter take place during Nesting Dolls. Spoilers and dialogue are present, so this may not make sense if you haven't seen it yet.
"Catherine, I heard Ecklie suspended Sara. What can we do?"
"Nothing."
"Sara's always been there for anyone who needs her. She's always had my back. So what if she flew off the handle a little?"
"Greg, she crossed the line with a suspect; she was inappropriate with me and with Ecklie; she needs the time off."
And that was the end of the conversation. Catherine strode off, being careful not to look back. If she looked back, she knew she might see Greg's face.
Actually, it wasn't too bad, considering. A little paler than normal, teeth ever-so-slightly bared, hair not on end for once, except on the back of his neck. If one looked there one might be reminded of a dog with its hackles raised. No, it was his eyes that were the big nightmare feature. When he heard about the split of the night shift, they had sparked with anger. Now, however, they blazed, promising dire and vicious retribution upon a certain Assistant Director.
Ecklie and Grissom had hated each other for a long time, and it was obvious that the night shift split had been an attempt to hurt Gil through his colleagues when Sophia had stopped him from getting fired. But from that to suspending Sara...
Did he know? That was absurd, he couldn't possibly...then again, Grissom's first lesson to his spiky-haired protégé had always been Assume nothing. That meant accepting the impossible as a potential truth, and acting accordingly. Sadly, in this case that also meant dumping on a fellow colleague.
Ex-colleague, Greg reminded himself sternly. He wasn't a lab-rat anymore. He was a CSI. He had to do what was necessary; he'd learned that when Atwater had seen him. But it didn't mean he had to like it. Greg entered the AV lab...
"You want me to do what?" Archie almost yelled, believing that he must have heard wrong.
Greg unscrewed his face from the world-class wince he had pulled at Archie's outburst and cautiously repeated himself: "I need you to go over the security tapes of the crime lab for the past few days, marking the sections where either Sara or Ecklie are present, and putting them onto a blank tape."
Archie tried to calm down and go to his 'happy place', but the sun had gone in, the sheep were over on the next hill, and the babbling brook had fallen silent, so he settled for yelling at Greg some more.
"Okay, first of all, do you have any IDEA how much trouble I could get into if Ecklie found out I was doing this? Forget suspension, I could get fired, I...I could get arrested for cryin' out loud!"
"I understand that, Arch..."
"And second of all, there's the time factor. Even if I fast-forwarded through the whole thing it would take roughly 16 hours. What you're asking could take twice that. I do actually have a life to think about here..."
"I wouldn't ask if it wasn't import..."
"Third and finally, what's the point? You're...you're not expecting to catch Sara and Ecklie...at the same time...are you?"
Greg had a sudden (unfortunately vivid) picture of Sara and Ecklie sharing a hot dog. And a hot tub. And a hot shower. Resisting the urge to file a restraining order against his own imagination, he shuddered noticeably and continued.
"Arch, the information on these tapes could mean the difference between Sara getting fired and Sara getting promoted."
Archie's head shot up like a bottle rocket. The expression on his face was almost frighteningly intense. "Serious?"
"As a heart attack."
For a brief moment young Archibald Johnson was torn between doubt of Greg's last two statements and an almost painfully eager hope that they were both true. He had heard about what had happened to Sara (recently) and was no happier about it than any of her other friends. A brief vision of Sara swooping down on him and raining kisses on his face was visited upon him, and he almost caved. But Archie was, among other things, an opportunist, and he saw that Greg wanted this information badly enough to give a little more for it.
"I'm sorry Greg. I don't care if Bill Gates' credit card number is on this tape, you cannot expect me to go this high over Ecklie's head without something in return."
Greg made his finishing play by throwing a small rectangular object on the table. Archie casually glanced at it, and his eyes bugged big enough to fall from his face.
It was an envelope containing two tickets to the Iron Maiden Los Angeles-New Jersey tour. Every concert in every state was covered.
"Make this tape for me and the tickets are yours."
"Would you prefer Beta, VHS or a transfer to DVD?"