Title: Goodbye, Mr. Grissom - Chapter 10
Disclaimer: These guys don't belong to me.
Catherine Willows woke up with a start. Just enough light filtered in from the window where the sun was beginning to rise, for her to recognize she was in the break room. Glancing around, she spotted Warrick's lanky form sprawled across two chairs. Sara Sidle was curled in a ball in another chair with a jacket draped over her and Nick Stokes was face down at the table. She didn't have the heart to wake them so she slipped out and headed for the locker room for a quick shower.
"Just the Lady I was coming to see!" Jim Brass called as Catherine came out of the locker room and jumped. "Sorry, didn't mean to scare you."
"It's okay. What've you got?"
"Search warrants for the domiciles of Kyle Davenport and Darryl Henson. Where's the rest of the guys?"
"They're all asleep in the break room. Who is Kyle Davenport?"
"Daryl Henson claims he's the Mastermind behind all this. I pulled his jacket, Grissom sent him up about eleven years ago for Involuntary Manslaughter. He got out six months ago."
"Who'd he kill?"
"Chorus Girl named Alice Reynolds."
"I remember looking over that one. He thought she was dead and dumped her body over the side of his boat into Lake Mead. Problem was, she wasn't dead yet. He was a lawyer of some sort."
"An up-and-coming junior partner at the corporate law firm of Wright and Sellers. You know, 'the advisors to the casinos'. The conviction ruined him professionally. He's been doing legwork for a small firm in Henderson since he got out. We've got a warrant out for him."
"Rise and Shine, Sleepyheads!" Brass shouted as they entered the break room. A chorus of groans answered.
"Sara! Good Morning!" Brass greeted with a huge grin when Sara sat up, hair tousled and eyes half-open.
"You are way too cheerful for this early in the morning." She grumbled. "There oughta be a law against that."
"You'll feel better after some coffee. Now, come on kids, we've got work to do!"
"Why don't you guys get showers while the coffee is brewing and I'll see what I can do about some breakfast." Catherine intervened.
"Cath, I gotta get back to the station. We have Henson looking at photos of former lab employees." Brass said as the grumbling younger CSI's headed down the hall.
"There's a lab employee involved?"
"Former lab employee. Henson claims he was paid by a couple of guys to replace Grissom's employee card and one of them had worked here for awhile. I guess, it didn't occur to him that everybody has a photo ID…………"
"I can't believe somebody we worked with could have been a part of this."
"I'll let you know what I find out."
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"Okay, I got an order of hot cakes and scrambled eggs for Sara. One of the bacon, egg and cheese McGriddles and some hashbrowns are mine. The rest, you guys can divvy up."
"Oooo, fruit Parfaits with Granola!" Sara exclaimed.
"Yeah, I got a couple extra in case you didn't want the hot cakes and eggs."
"Okay, Sara, how about you locate Greg and take Davenport's place? Nick and Warrick, you get Henson." Catherine said, after wiping her mouth a final time. "I'm gonna see what other records I can pull on them. Maybe I can find something to help narrow the search area."
"What kind of search is being conducted?" Sara asked.
"Henson said he was blindfolded but seemed to think they were within an hour of the city so they're concentrating on that. They dumped Grissom in a remote area and he couldn't see any lights. Brass had three helicopters in the air, using heat-seeking cameras, while it was dark. And, Atwater authorized using the cadets for a ground search starting this morning." Warrick replied as he and Nick gathered their stuff.
"Good Lord." Nick muttered.
"Tomas was certain a CD was inserted into Ecklie's laptop and executed by the sheer speed of the commands." Warrick informed Nick as they left. "I'm betting we find it at Henson's. He's way too stupid to have thrown it away."
"You think you'll find anything useful?" Sara asked Catherine.
"People never realize how much of their life is in the public record. I don't think Davenport would dump Gil in a public area……….too easy for someone to stumble across him. I think one of those three guys has access to private property and that's where he is."
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At Darryl Henson's abode………………
"Bingo!" Warrick called out.
"You found something in this crap hole?" Nick disgustedly asked, from where he was sifting through an overflowing trashcan. It was barely discernable beneath the pile of discarded fast food containers.
"Yep, a CD with instructions in the jacket, no less. It says go to 'start' at the lower left corner of the screen and hit the 'run' tab……….."
"You have got to be kidding me!"
"Nope, Henson is a grade-A moron and we have handwritten instructions in how to 'execute' a program from the CD ROM, class 101."
"I guess the end of the instructions didn't include 'burn this CD and the instructions after the programming is complete.'"
"Ooo, and I have all sorts of fingerprints. How very helpful!" Warrick exclaimed as he held the disc up to the light. "I'm gonna call Tomas as soon as I lift them."
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In Kyle Davenport's apartment…………..
"There's something seriously wrong with this guy." Greg muttered to Sara as they stood on the threshold of Kyle Davenport's meticulously organized apartment.
"What makes you say that?"
"It's so clean - too clean for a single guy."
"Really?"
"Even Grissom isn't this anal………..although Hodges comes close."
"You've been to Hodges' place?"
"Yep, and believe me it was scary! He has a thing for Joan Collins. Has this huge poster of her on one wall."
"The 'Dynasty' Joan Collins."
"Don't tell me you watched that show."
"Well, yeah, it was 'the show' to watch when I was in junior high school."
"Uh, let's get started before I find out any more disturbing information."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"I thought you were way cooler than that."
"Fine, you start with the kitchen." She muttered while wondering what was wrong with having watched 'Dynasty' on TV.
"Greg?" Sara called out after a moment.
"Yeah?"
"You've been to Grissom's?"
"Yeah, I had breakfast with him and Catherine, one morning."
"Why?"
"It was after I expressed my undying interest in being a CSI instead of a lab rat."
"Really?"
"Yeah."
"Grissom and Catherine?"
"Yeah." Sara digested this information and wondered why everyone but her had received their own personal invitation to Grissom's townhouse for breakfast, except her, and why Catherine always seemed to be part of the picture.
"I've gotta a laptop." Sara informed, a few minutes later.
"I've got a couple of banana peels." Greg replied, peering at the detritus from the trashcan. "I'm surprised they're not wrapped in aluminum foil and stapled up in a brown paper bag."
"Well, that would certainly make things easier." Sara responded, totally missing the reference to Saturday Night Live and Phil Hartman's Anal Retentive Chef.
"How would that make it easier?"
"We could get a better timeline on when he was last here. We could get some fresh bananas and let them age to see how much time elapsed since they were peeled. Having them wrapped would prevent oxidation and give us a better estimate." Sara enthused.
"Oh, really?"
"Of course, make sure to photograph them from every angle. Does he have any other bananas?"
"Yes."
"Good, we can use those to estimate how ripe the ones he peeled were at the time he used them."
"I hope we find Grissom before we have time to carry out this experiment." Greg muttered certain he now knew exactly why she worked so much overtime.
"I'm gonna call Tomas Nunez, see if he can work this laptop, Okay?"
"Sure, whatever. I'll just bag these bananas."
TBC