Title: Goodbye, Mr. Grissom - Chapter 7
Disclaimer: These guys don't belong to me.
Spoiler(s): Reference to the end of Nesting Dolls.
Late afternoon in the Crime Lab…….
Catherine let her eyes slip shut. She'd been up over twenty-four hours and was starting to feel it. In the good old day, when it was just she and Gil, they had each been good for at least thirty-six before fatigue became a serious problem. Age was catching up to them, and now, twenty-four was tough. They could hide it from the younger CSI's, in the guise of instruction, but not from each other. Still, she was in no mood to relinquish control even though it occurred to her that she probably should.
She found herself reliving the conversation with Al Robbins. She recalled how the pad of her thumb had searched for the little scar just below the knuckle of Gil's left forefinger. It wasn't there. It should have been, but wasn't. She searched the other hand just to be absolutely certain. She ripped the sheet off the body searching for the scar on his right knee.
"This isn't Gil."
"Catherine, his fingerprints matched the employee card."
"I don't care! Al, do an autopsy, find your own reason this isn't Gil. I know it isn't him. He had two scars, which aren't on this body. One, on his left forefinger – I dropped a bombshell, while he was preparing breakfast for us, he dropped the knife he was using and cut his finger, badly. The other one was on his right knee where he ran into a jagged edge of a car bumper. We were at the park when Lindsey was a toddler and she was chasing a ball. She would have run out into the street, right into the path of an oncoming car. I know those scars almost as well as I do my own." She gave Robbins a pleading look. "Please? Do it for me?"
"All right, Catherine. I'll perform an autopsy." He replied with a resigned sigh.
"Thank you." She gave Robbins a brief hug before requesting. "One other thing, I need the clothes and personal effects that were with this body."
"In for a penny, in for a pound." Robbins responded before calling. "David?"
David brought Catherine a box containing the clothing from the body and a sealed envelope from the safe in which valuables were stored. Catherine took both back to the lab. Trying to get a handle on her chaotic emotions, she chose to treat it like a case. Taking solace in comfortable routine, she methodically labeled and bagged each item before examining any of it.
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"Catherine?" Bobby interrupted her thoughts.
"Yes." Her eyes snapped open.
"I've analyzed the shot."
"And?"
"I'd say, a sawed-off double barrel. It's double ought buckshot, most likely from a 12 gauge. I experimented a little with some of our own arsenal. From the size and shape of the wound, I think it is probably a Remington 332, over and under."
"What aren't you telling me?"
"The gun was designed for maximum destructive power, at close range."
"So………….what?"
"The shooter was probably within a couple of feet of the victim. If we find the weapon, I believe the choke on both barrels will be tight to maximize the density of the shot. From the number of shot, I'm pretty sure the shells were three and a half-inch."
"The biggest you can get. In other words, the most bang for the buck."
"Well, at least, the most destruction. I think, the guy in the morgue, didn't look like Grissom, right in the face, but the body build was similar."
"Switch the prints and who would know or notice." Catherine surmised.
"Except you." Bobby pointed out.
"This is, just…….blowing my mind. I mean, there was gun shot residue on the jacket and shirt so the guy had it on when he was shot. They take Gil's jacket, put his cell phone and wallet in the pockets but don't bother to exchange anything else. Then, one guy puts it on so the other one can kill him? I can't imagine anybody willingly doing that."
"People do strange things. Maybe the guy was already dying."
"No, Al didn't find anything to support that. The man had emphysema and the beginnings of cirrhosis but both could have been successfully treated with the cessation of tobacco use and alcohol consumption. Personally, I'd have to suck on an oxygen bottle a long time or have a liver the size of a watermelon before I willingly let someone blow my head off."
"I've gotta go." She muttered when she noticed Tomas gesturing to her from the hall.
"What did you find?"
"You won't like it." He warned but after receiving her blazing glare, suggested. "Let's go to your office."
"Okay, what?" Catherine demanded when they were safely in her office.
"The good news is AFIS is restored. The bad news is the alterations to the database occurred from Conrad Ecklie's laptop, around five o'clock yesterday afternoon."
'WHAT?"
"I told you, you wouldn't like it."
"Great! This is just great! How much can you find out without access to the laptop?"
"Almost as much as with it."
"I can authorize any work you need to do on the lab network, but Conrad's laptop……….I don't even know where it is. Find out what you can and if you really think we need to search it, then we'll do it. After all, it's lab property just like any other computer here." She leaned forward on her elbows and started rubbing her forehead.
"You seem a little hesitant to pursue him."
"Well, for one thing, I don't want to call him back from out of town. He'll try to take over the investigation and he's terrible in the field. But mostly, I really can't see Conrad doing something like this, especially now. He's the Assistant Director of the lab and while I think he'd hang Gil out to dry in a New York minute if he had sufficient cause, I really can't see him risking his career like this just to get at Gil."
"Ecklie is newly appointed and Grissom is his only competition."
"Not exactly, Gil didn't want that job. It was offered to him first and he turned it down, flat out. I told him I thought it was a mistake. Look, even Conrad, arrogant as he is, realizes how important Gil is to this lab. So, while he might needle him a little here and there……..he'll back down when push comes to shove."
"Ah, somehow I think you've already witnessed that scene, haven't you?" Tomas spent most of his time cloistered in his 'lab' with computers and various high tech gadgets for company. A little office gossip concerning the internal power plays of his favorite client appealed to him. If the money had been better when Grissom offered him a job a couple of years ago, he would have jumped on it. The work he did for the Vegas Crime Lab was far more interesting than most of the stuff he did, but his free lance work paid very well and he had a taste for expensive toys.
"Yeah. God, that was twenty-four hours straight from Hell. I really wondered if Gil knew what he was doing. As it turns out, Conrad blustered, made some threats but basically backed down. In retrospect, I think he just wanted to see if he could make Gil knuckle under."
"What was he trying to make Grissom do?'
"Fire Sara."
"Oh." Tomas had a look of genuine amazement of his face as he tried to picture that scene. He wanted to ask what Sara had done but Warrick Brown appeared in the doorway. "I'll try to pinpoint those alterations." He told her as he got up to leave.
"Tomas, how's it hangin', Man. You get AFIS restored?" Warrick greeted.
"Yep, things are good but they'll be better when you guys find the Man."
"You got that right!" Warrick smiled and moved to the side to let Tomas out.
"Hey." He greeted Catherine.
"Hey, yourself."
"So, What's next?"
"Jacqui is working the prints. We've already got a couple of suspects. I called Brass to get him started and Nick and Greg have gone to search Timothy Afton's residence."
"Who's he?"
"The dead guy they left in place of Gil."
"Does he look much like Grissom?"
"See for yourself." Catherine handed him the mug shots taken of Timothy Afton when he had been incarcerated for robbing a grocery store.
"Well, I can see why they shot him in the face. He looks remarkably like Grissom in the profile shot. But, that big ole reddish purple birthmark on the left side of his nose and cheek…..."
"That and his green eyes. Anyway, that profile shot is why Jacqui compared his prints to the body in the morgue. He got out of prison 13 months ago. What did you and Sara find?"
"Not much. Personally, I think it was a set up from the get go."
"Why?"
"The robbers went in the front and held the store up. They left out the back but one of'em stopped long enough to spray paint the video camera lens covering the back alley." He speared her with a meaningful look.
"So, they didn't bother with the other cameras and nobody noticed that one because they're too busy calling the cops and recovering from being robbed. But, if they were targeting Gil, how could they know he would walk out there alone?"
"Look at this map. Drive-by happened here; six blocks further, Sophia and Sara's domestic disturbance turned db. It's on a direct path to the convenience store."
"So, you're thinking someone knew our schedules and what order we would be called out?"
"Yeah. We get a messy one early so we call you. Sara and Sophia are called in early, leaving an unqualified Greg. Following protocol, he calls Grissom, who's on call. If Grissom had been off, he would've called a floater from Dayshift."
"What if, Greg or Brass had been out there with him?"
"I think they would be as dead as the stiff in the morgue."
"This is starting to scare me."
"Yep, it's starting to smell like a vendetta."
TBC