As planned, Catherine went to Grissom's as soon as she could get there once her shift ended. She pulled up to the condo and parked right beside his old Ford truck. After what seemed like several minutes of knocking and waiting, Catherine was greeted by a very haggard looking Grissom. "Hey," he said softly, "I'm glad you came." He stepped aside and motioned for her to come in.
"I guess your housekeeper is off today," joked Catherine, looking at the floor carpeted with old newspapers and photographs, the only threads of connection Grissom had to that tumultuous time. "And your personal beauty consultant is on vacation as well. You look terrible," she remarked hoping to lighten his mental load a bit. Grissom flashed a sheepish grin then grew more solemn. "Any new information on the case?" he asked.
"Nothing else except that the parents came in and made a positive id on the body. It turns out the kid's mother is not hearing impaired and is willing to help in any way she can. She ended up translating for her husband through questions we had for them. The daughter went to the Las Vegas Charter School for the Deaf on Oakley Avenue," she paused. "Isn't that where Anna went?"
"Yeah, it was the same school. Perhaps you should check out the place and see what you can find out there," he answered.
"Is it possible you could go along? I could use some help in sign language and since you have experience with the folks there, we might have an easier go of it."
The look on Grissom's face told Catherine she'd have some convincing to do. Finally, however, he relented and said, "Only on a consultant basis. As you know, this is terribly hard on me. It's like reliving the nightmare all over again. And to think that I could do nothing while the CSI team picked through every shred of evidence. For some reason they couldn't come up with enough to get the guy. It was that point those many years ago that it all really clicked for me that we are the only voice of the victim. Here I was a forensic pathologist myself and when something happens to my own daughter, she had no voice, no way to be heard because the evidence was inconclusive. I decided that I would do everything in my power to see that no one else had to go through what we went through."
"I'm sorry that this is repeating itself, Gil, but this may be the one opportunity you have for closure, even though it seems everything in your world is upside down," she paused, took a little breath and asked, "are you going to contact Corinne?"
"I don't have anything to say to her at this point. I'm dealing in hunches and in a secondary position yet again. Besides, I'm sure she doesn't want a reminder of this any more than I do. The whole situation was partially responsible for the divorce. I went into ultra-workaholic mode and she couldn't bear that so she left. Now she's happily married to her dentist."
"Gil, I just thought you might want to say something to her. I'd want to know if it were me. I'll leave it alone until we get more evidence to link the crimes, but after that, you know you're going to have to call her."
"Fair enough," he assented, "when we get enough evidence, I'll call her."
"Well, I've gotta run, Lindsey's at my sister's house and they were expecting me over an hour ago. I'll call you this afternoon about going to the deaf school."
"Sure," he said then added, "Cath, thanks again for coming. It means a lot to me to be able to share this with someone." Then he reached for her and embraced her in the doorway.