(disclaimers et all in first chapter)

Notes: For Jac. Congratulations, luv:)

Chapter Eight

---------------------

Gil walked stiffly to the trace lab, where David stood proudly at the door.

"The fibre itself is actually very common - just average grade wool. I broke down the dye colour code and isolated the company to Patons Kroy."

Gil perused the information, his eyes scanning the page several times before he gave an appreciative nod to the lab rat. "Good boy, Hodges."

Despite the distraction in his supervisor's voice, David frowned at the condescending tone. "Both the fibres are a match."

Gil sighed, folding the piece of paper and tucking it in his back pocket. "The specifics aren't specific enough."

David smiled smugly. "Patons Kroy is proudly Canadian: bred and sold up North. So whoever owns the garment which the fibres came from, must have an imported source." He raised his eyebrows before turning and heading back to his lair.

Gil sighed and leaned against the wall, the case's information and his scenario with Catherine tumbling about in his mind, creating an unpleasant tension in the base of his skull.

"Mr. Grissom?"

Gil frowned playfully, eyeing the police detective's cheeky grin. "What's with the formalities?"

"Well I figured, if you're too good for medical care, you must be some sort of super hero. Wouldn't want to get on Captain Bugman's bad side, y'know?" He joked, offering his friend a grin.

"Jim, not in the mood."

"Aww, personal stuff getting in the way of work?" Jim chided the CSI, elbowing him in the ribs. "Admit it Gil, you're becoming human."

Gil glared at him before walking towards the parking lot.

"What? Don't you want to come see the bad guy I caught?" Jim raised his hands up, palms facing the ceiling in a question. "C'mon, all I'm looking for is a little validation."

"Alright slugger, let's go." Gil dead panned, before following the police captain.

Gil and Jim stood behind the one-way mirror, observing the young boy sitting in the interrogation room. "Harry Thompson, age twenty-six. Same age as Samantha Hamilton. According to some of Samantha's friends, Harry and her were inseparable. Best of friends since grade-school - some twenty years of friendship."

Gil sighed, easing his mind into the conversation, rather than let it wander to hurtful extremes involving a certain strawberry-blonde.

"The door-man as well as the security camera in the lobby, places Harry here, at the time of the murder." Jim pointed to a small television sitting idly on a cart. He pushed the tape in, and pressed play. "Here's Harry walking in, and heading towards the elevators. And check out what's sticking out of his backpack?"

Gil noted the wooden handle but ignored it for the time being. "He could have been visiting someone else." Gil offered, observing not only the possibilities of guilt, but those of innocence as well.

"Nah, every time the elevator doors open, they are monitored on a control panel in the lobby. The doors opening at the Penthouse sweet is recorded for near time of Samantha Hamilton's death."

Gil pondered. "The other guy...the second body."

"Oh right, I must have not gotten a chance to inform you on the second DB, seeing has how you were in Intensive Care..." He trailed off, looking over his notes but making no attempt to hide the smile.

Gil rolled his eyes, shaking his head in order to deter attention from his grinning face.

"Right, Vince Spinelli, age thirty-two." Jim raised his eyebrows. "Apparently, he is listed as one of the residents of the penthouse. Seems like Vince and Samantha were close..." Jim snapped his little booklet shut, "very close."

Gil nodded and glanced back at the suspect in custody. "His arm's in a sling." He glanced back at the police captain. "Did they find the weapon?"

Jim tapped the side of his head, "always thinking there, buddy." He bent down and picked up a large, clear plastic bag. "It's a little heavy - "

"- it's a sledgehammer." Gil remarked lamely, taking the heavy instrument from the police captain. "Ah, the wooden handle from the backpack."

"DNA's already matched the blood and matter to Spinelli."

"And that would explain his chest caving in, and the splintered skull...and the hole in the ceiling." Gil mused, his eyes once again trained on the young man in the room.

"It must have been coincidental or rotten luck, but his missed swings must have destroyed the second floor's foundation, causing the ceiling to collapse." Jim added.

"It's rather heavy." Gil noted with a childlike air, as he tossed the sledgehammer from one hand to the other. "Repeated swings could lead to exhaustion," his mind's eye conjured up the image of Vince leaning against the door, the two bloody hand-prints being left in his wake.

"Not to mention injury." Jim pointed to the Harry's sling-encased arm. The police captain tried hard to hide the Puckish glint that sparkled in his eyes, but he knew it did not go unnoticed by the ever-observant Graveshift supervisor. "Shall we?" He motioned towards the door.

"Yes." Gil paused, giving him a small smile. "Let's."

"Uh, shouldn't we wait for Catherine...I did page her and -"

"- I don't think Catherine will be joining us. Let's just get this over with." He followed Jim into the room and sat down in front of the red-headed young man. "Mr. Thompson." Gil nodded a greeting, sizing him up automatically.

Harry cleared his throat and glanced around the room. "I - I'm not supposed to talk until my lawyer gets here..."

Jim nodded and glanced up, as his lawyer stepped into the room, as if on cue. "So talk." Moments passed and Jim observed the young man, picking up on his nervous habits. "We found blood, Harry."

"I uh...it was probably when I closed the door behind me after I checked up on Sam -"

Gil nodded, taking down a few notes. "So you admit to seeing her body...do you also admit to seeing the dead body of Vincent Spinelli?"

Harry eyed his lawyer before looking back at Gil. "Um, no sir."

"What happened, Harry?" Gil took over; both he and Jim realizing that Harry trusted the CSI more than the detective.

While Harry's lawyer whispered several directions and warnings to Harry, Jim took the opportunity to lean in and whisper something to Gil. "Why am I always the bad cop?"

"My client is willing to speak, but only if he is granted immunity." Harry's lawyer spoke.

Jim raised his eyebrow at the large woman before knitting them together in an incomprehensive stare. "From what? If mister Goody-Good didn't do anything, then what would he need immunity from?"

Harry sighed, and glanced up at Gil. "Sam had called me up, just to hang. I was on my way there, and I get a text message saying that she never wanted to see me again."

"So why did you go? To talk her out of it?" Gil asked, taking in every word, every movement that the boy made.

"No...because it wasn't Sam." He answered in protest. "Sam never signs her messages 'Samantha', especially not to me. We've been best-friends since the age of six...we don't talk like that. It's always SamHam. A..." He paused, letting out an embarrassed laugh, "pet name that I came up with. She hates it when people call her that, except for me." He paused, his eyes getting glassy. "So I uh, I went over and talked the doorman into letting me in. He said Vince gave him orders not to let me see Sam." He lowered his eyes to the table in a scowl. "As if he had any right..."

"What happened then?" Gil pressed on, trying desperately not to form parallels between Harry's relationship with Samantha, and his with Catherine.

"I went up, opened the door and I found her lying on the ground, blood everywhere -" He interrupted himself, scrubbing a hand over his eyes. "I think he pushed her off -"

"- who?" Jim interrupted.

"Vince! Who else! He just wanted her for the sex and publicity. He never really loved her!"

"So is that why you went there with a sledgehammer?" Gil coaxed softly, having already put the pieces together.

"...I had to save her from him." He finally admitted, dropping his head to his chest. "He was destroying her...I had to save her. So I went there - I went there just to scare him. Get him to leave, y'know?"

"So you put on the green ski mask..."

He glanced up, slightly surprised. "Yeah, that my grandma knitted for me. Whenever I go visit her in Quebec, I go snowboarding at Mount Sutton..."

"When I got there, Sam was already dead, and he was on the second floor, looking down on her. He pushed her off! I went to check her pulse...there was so much blood..."

"But Vince Spinelli was killed by massive trauma to the chest are and skull with a blunt object, i.e. your sledgehammer." Jim challenged the young man.

"My client acted in self-defence. After killing Samantha Hamilton, Vincent Spinelli then turned to my client, approaching him with aggression. He used whatever means to stay alive." His lawyer retorted with a matter-of-fact air that irked Jim deeply.

Gil cocked his head to the side. "Do you want to know what I think happened, Harry?" He paused a second, pursing his lips. "I think you did go into Samantha's apartment with the intention of scaring Vince away. You didn't receive any text messages, we checked your phone records. You went in, knowing that Samantha would be out shopping with her friends. You went in, knowing that Vincent Spinelli would be alone. There was a big party the night before, so Mr. Spinelli would most undoubtedly be asleep. What you didn't know was that Samantha was on her way home. You opened her door with the key you have - best friends always have the key to each other's houses - and you climbed up the stairs to the bed, on the second floor. Slipping the sledgehammer out of your bag, you struck him on the chest, while he slept. He fell to the floor, you hit him again. You missed a couple of times and it weakened the already shaky structure. You hear a scream and turn around, seeing Samantha Hamilton - your best friend - standing behind you. You drop the sledgehammer and go to assault her, though nothing to violent. You just want to shake her up." Gil took a deep breath, his mind working over-time while working his theory. "So when she recovers, she'd need you again."

"That's a lie...I would never hurt her."

"Maybe not, but when given no other choice?" Gil left the question hanging. "She pulled off your ski-mask, didn't she?" He observed Harry's reactions, knowing he was on the right trail. "We found fibres embedded underneath her fingernails, Harry. She discovered your identity, and you panicked. You pushed her, and she fell off the edge of the second story ledge, head first. You checked her vitals, but..."

Harry dropped his head to the table, his body trembling. "There was so much blood!" He exclaimed. "I just wanted to protect her...and there was just so much blood."

"Shoulder sore, heart broken, mind reeling...you ran out, leaving the mess behind." Gil finished. "And that brings you here..."

Jim shook his head, nodding at the police officer behind him. He watched him walk up and hand-cuff the young man as the lawyer stepped outside the room.

"Jim?" Gil called out, still watching the Harry weep openly, hands behind his back, head resting on the table. "Can I get a minute with Mr. Thompson? ...alone?"

Jim nodded and walked out of the room, leaving Gil and Harry in a tense yet comforting silence.

"She's your friend...you're best friend. You've seen her tears of mirth and those of sorrow. You've seen her reach her dreams, and almost lose her to the abyss of her failures - but you've always been there, offering a hand to pull her out. It's comfortable, you know? Almost a routine, something you couldn't imagine not having in your life. And everything is to your liking...but then you start thinking - and this is where things go downhill. You lust, then you love and the next thing you know, you're in love. The woman who you've spent the last twenty years with, who you've shared your life with...you now see her differently. And you begin to wonder, how different would things be if that line was crossed? But fear hits you when you realize that you don't know how she feels. Does she think about you at night? During the day? Does the vision of your face make her smile? Would she deny you the pleasure of a private utopia? These questions cause your fingers to curl with stress, and you feel like tearing your hair out. So what do you do? You repress. You repress and watch her flings, dates and loves. You sit back and comfort her heartaches, and seethe when her relationships are a success; outwardly wishing her luck, inwardly picturing his body on a slab, in the morgue. And the cycle starts again, as you dwell on moments past, hints that could have lead to something more had realization made its presence known. But all you can do is watch: watch her talk to someone else, befriend someone else...go home with someone else...make love to someone else. And you keep telling yourself that it should be you, it should be you...until one day you snap." He paused, emotion also hitting him hard, especially at the parallels that had formed between the two. Would he one day find himself in this position, on the other side of the table? He shook his head, knowing truth's answer lay in his heart. "But this love...if it was truly, truly love...you'd want her to be happy. You wouldn't kill her, you'd try to keep her living as long as possible. Because love is making sure that person is living life...even if it's not with you."

Harry stood up, head still bowed with emotion as he walked up to the door. Kicking it, he signaled the guard to escort him away, casting one last look at the Graveshift supervisor.

Gil sighed, and leaned back in his chair, feeling a wetness gather at the corner of his eyes. He sat there, in a stilled silence, pondering his words and his current situation.

Catherine placed a hand against the cool glass that separate the small room from the interrogation room. She had watched him, heard his admission in secrecy. Her eyes had long since relinquished control to the warm tears that glided down her cheeks, and her heart ached with each emotion that he provoked. As she watched him exit the room, she dropped her head to her chest, feeling love's toll on her heart.

–TBC–