Well, this one took me a bit longer, been busy at work. Been busy buying a house. Been busy planning my incipient wedding.
Been writing a few other fics too.
All mistakes in this final draft are mine – god alone knows where my beta has gone, probably fell into a black hole or something. Either that or she ran out of coffee and imploded.
I quite like this chapter, filled as it is with stunning repartee and wondrous character development……and speaking of development, two or three chapters to go. The next chapter will be "THE COFFEE DATE", very exciting.
For the perverts amongst you, Rilie and Greg will not be having sex in this fic, Melindotty is reading this fic and she's too young to know what sex is [and I am now in sooooo much trouble].
As always, I hope you enjoy this chapter and that you signify your enjoyment with vast amounts of reviews and/ or abuse…..[If you hate the chapter please abuse me, it gets the review numbers up J]
No trophy, no flowers, no flashbulbs,
no wine,
He's haunted by something he cannot define.
Bowel-shaking earthquakes of doubt and remorse,
Assail him, impale him with monster-truck force.
In his mind, he's still driving, still making the grade.
She's hoping in time that her memories will fade.
Cause he's racing and pacing and plotting the course,
He's fighting and biting and riding on his horse.
The sun has gone down and the moon has come up,
And long ago somebody left with the cup.
But he's striving and driving and hugging the turns.
And thinking of someone for whom he still burns.
November 26
Today I made a Black Forest cake out of five pounds of cherries and a live
beaver, challenging the very definition of the word "cake." I was
very
pleased. Malraux said he admired it greatly, but could not stay for
dessert. Still, I feel that this may be my most profound achievement yet,
and have resolved to enter it in the Betty Crocker Bake-Off.
The Jean-Paul Sartre Cookbook – Author Unknown.
The man who appeared at the desk of the on-duty serjeant appeared to be part of the interminable mass of homogeneity that appeared in and around the police station every day. There were two distinguishing exceptions: the first was that the man was neither in handcuffs, nor accompanied by a loud-mouth lawyer in a sharkskin suit, which when you consider it is really two things. The third exception of the two was that the man was a priest, and as such was accorded the level of respect generally reserved members of the clergy by all and sundry, that is, virtually none, although the generously-endowed, snaggle-toothed hooker's derisory 'Make way for the alcoholic paedophile' was probably taking things a bit far.
While perhaps a tad wounded, the priest showed little discomfort at the pejorative raining down upon him, although those closest to him would have heard a murmured 'yea though I walk through the valley of death, I shall fear no ignorance.' - ('Forgive them father, they're a bunch of cretins' – while closer to what he was thinking was probably a tad presumptuous).
The Desk-Serjeant had watched the approach of the priest with a degree of amusement, amusement in the sense that he enjoyed watching any ostensibly law-abiding person navigating the human flotsam and jetsam of the squad room without the benefit of obvious weaponry.
"Good morning Father, what can I do for you?"
"Good morning Serjeant, I was wondering if I could speak to a detective."
"With reference to what Father, we're a little busy for pastoral guidance at the moment."
The priest gave the serjeant a grimly amused look; "I'll deal with your immortal soul later if you're really interested. Last night I had a visitor, a rather troubled visitor."
"That's not so unusual Father, it's your job to deal with wayward sheep and the like is it not."
"True enough, but there are only so many of my wayward sheep who have a fondness for Shakespeare – if you take my meaning."
The gently teasing demeanour of the policeman was immediately by a professional gravitas. "Seriously now Father, this isn't something to joke about."
"Do I look like I'm joking?" Truth be told, the priest looked as serious as the Pope at a swingers party, but that didn't dissuade the policeman from displaying a well-honed suspicion, used as he was to numerous psychiatric patients and wannabes claiming to be everything from Jesus Christ to Osama bin Laden. While it was true that the priest didn't appear to be exuding any noticeable nervous tics or otherwise identifiable signs of being off his head, the serjeant hadn't earnt his stripes for being stupid.
"Very well then Father, if you'll wait there," he indicated a chair next to a large, leather-clad gentleman with 'Mum' tattooed on his forehead, I'll call for a detective to have a word with you."
Shrugging non-committally, the priest took a seat and tried to ignore the behemoth next to him, who smelt even worse than he looked.
Several minutes passed before a fresh-faced, elegantly, and indeed somewhat fastidiously, tailored young woman emerged from the area behind the reception desk; she scanned the reception area briefly before her eyes came to rest on the priest, a moments uncertainty was replaced by the surety that it was indeed this priest she had been summoned to talk to – and not one of the three men whom had already claimed to be Jesus that particular morning. In approaching the priest, her manner gave clear indication as to her feelings about being in the reception area, such was the relation between the care with which she stepped and her determination not to touch anyone or thing and the numerous photo opportunities granted to politicians visiting an AIDS ward or a leper colony.
She halted within range of his personal space, close, but no closer than absolutely necessary, which considering the grotesque leer the behemoth was giving her was unsurprising, and completely justified. "Father….?" She inquired.
"Yes."
"If you'll come this way please" she gestured to the area behind reception, "We'll be able to talk with a little more privacy."
Nodding his assent, the Priest followed in her wake.
The walled off area behind reception was a stark contrast to the reception area itself, whilst the reception area could have doubled as a landfill in an emergency, the area behind bespoke an almost fanatic devotion to sterility – and not just in terms of cleanliness. The young woman, indicated to the Priest that he should seat himself at the desk indicated, a desk he noted that was laid out with a precision more autistic than organised.
Taking a seat, the woman addressed herself to her subject "Now, Father…..", obviously prompting him for a name.
"Richter, Father Nathaniel Richter, from Saint Debacles, and might I inquire as to who you might be?" The only response he received was an infinitesimal flick of an index finger in the direction of a nameplate, which identified a Detective Helene O'Troy.
"Now Father, the Desk Serjeant informed me that you have some information for us."
"Yes, that's correct, last night, while holding confession, I was visited by, someone, shall we say, whom has turned their face from the Lord."
"I daresay that would describe a good many of us Father, but that's neither here nor there, can you be a bit more specific?"
The Priest assumed a strained expression knowing that he was treading a fine line between his sacred oaths and the charge he had been given. "He said he has killed, and then he quoted something, a verse from a play; The Merchant of Venice."
That one phrase immediately captured the detective's attention, attuned as every police officer in the city was to anything even remotely 'bard-like'. "So you think you were visited by the Shakespeare Killer, Father? What makes you so sure, it could easily have been a prank."
"It wasn't. Call it professional knowledge detective. There's a rather large difference between someone confessing that they haven't been to mass since Moses was a boy and, someone politely informing you that they've killed. If hear enough confessions you learn the difference."
"It could have been someone who merely thought they were the Shakespeare Killer, someone delusional, delusional enough to speak with the conviction of the truth."
"Certainly, there is that possibility."
"So what can you tell me about this person?"
"Nothing."
"So you've come down here to inform us that you think you were paid a visit by the most wanted person in the city and yet you can't tell me anything about them."
Father Richter grimaced; the other shoe was about to fall. "It's not so much I can't detective, as I won't."
"You…..won't?"
"The sanctity of the confessional I'm afraid, I can't say anything about my visitor…..."
"Other than the fact that you're here telling me that you were visited," she interjected sarcastically.
"No, I'm here because he asked me to pass on a warning; that the killings are going to escalate."
"OK then, how did he sound?"
"Sorry, can't tell you?"
"Can't or won't?"
"Well…..the later. That might identify him."
"But don't you want this person, and I use that term advisedly, caught?"
"Yes, of course."
"Then tell me about them."
"No."
"How about I charge you with obstruction, Father."
"If that is what you feel you must do detective, then charge me, but then I would have to ask you as to what precisely I am obstructing. I am freely telling you what I can, yet surely you must recognise that the sanctity of the confessional is protected as securely as doctor-patient privilege."
It is perhaps a valid observation that the best way to understand human nature is to observe opposites in action and at this point in time the cool, unruffled exterior of the Father Richter was a distinct and vivid counterpoint to the increasingly agitated Detective whom it appeared was in danger of imploding. Through gritted teeth, the detective made another effort.
"Alright Father, can you tell me how your visitor sounded."
"Sad. In fact you might say regretful."
"Actually, I meant could you describe their voice for me."
"No. Please detective, try to understand, I am not doing this to deliberately spite you. The vows of my Holy Office state that the sanctity of the confessional is total. By even coming here I am treading an extremely thin line but for the fact that my visitor told me to be their voice, which I interpreted to mean pass on the warning they had given me. I can not and will not attempt to identify them for you, neither will you be allowed to send an evidentiary team to the church."
"But….."
"I'm sorry detective. I understand, truly I do. When I leave here, I am going to see my Bishop and try to explain to him why I have seen you first. Understand this detective, we are all God's children, even monsters like the man you're after and as such he is entitled to the love and protection of the mother church as much as you are," the Priest sighed, "Perhaps even more so. At any rate, I can't actually prove that the man you seek is the same man who came to visit, what I can tell you is that he scared me, and detective, you should be scared too."
Father Richter rose from his seat opposite the detective, gave her a small, sad smile and left. The detective, for her part, neither moved nor spoke, instead she simply stared at the place where the priest had been sitting moments before and tried to figure out precisely where her day had gone so wrong.
Across town, and several hours later, Gil Grissom was still stuck behind his desk. While it was true that the night shift finished at 7AM, it was coming up on performance appraisal time and as a consequence he was buried in truly stupendous amounts of paperwork His sense of relief was almost palpable when Jim Brass stuck his head around the door.
"Got a minute?"
"Several. In fact, many; take them, they're yours."
"Really, you're too generous. You know, you've been spending far too much time with Lady Heather lately, if you get any more sardonic you'll end up sipping black coffee in Paris."
Grissom gestured meaningfully at the paper in front of him, "That certainly holds some measure of attraction at this point in time. Anyway, what can I do for you?"
"Couple of things. The kid that survived?" Grissom's nod indicated that knew the kid to whom Brass was referring. "Well, the doctors' have decreed that he's OK to speak to the police, so expect some sort of information soon. Assuming of course we can get his father, who is showing all the signs of being more paranoid than the doctors, to be OK with it."
"You're surprised by this?" Grissom murmured.
"By what?"
"That a man who's had his wife, now deceased, and his son nailed to a wall by a maniac, feels somewhat anxious about having his son questioned by the police; to slip into lingua-Greg for a second, 'hello, traumatised much?'"
Brass looked slightly abashed, his wrinkled face taking on the character of a bemused raisin as he considered what Grissom had said. "Well, there is that I guess, I kind of forgot about the empathy thing in the haze of having a live witness to question."
"Jim, the child is four years old."
"Small words and simple sentences have never failed me yet how else do you think I explained things to Mobley?"
Grissom manfully swallowed a malicious smirk, "And what other gem of information do you bring to my sadly overburdened desk."
"Enough with the melodrama Gil, I'm just a poor, lowly-paid detective, it is not within my demesne to deal with the vicissitudes thrown at me by one such as yourself….."
Grissom signalled his surrender and the detective continued in a more serious vein. "It would seem that our favourite murderer has recently paid God a visit."
"You mean he's dead."
"No. He went to confession" deadpanned Brass.
"You're joking."
"Does a face like this look like it's joking?"
"Well that's true" Grissom conceded. "Anyway, back to the matter at hand, what has the priest told us?"
"Nothing. He's claiming something called 'The sanctity of the confessional'."
"That's priest speak for doctor-patient privilege. Can we examine the confessional?"
"According to the diocese, and I quote, 'Not in this lifetime'."
"So it wasn't a priest you spoke to then?"
"No, actually it was an old friend of yours, Jeremiah Doom."
"Oh joy, oh celebration."
"My thoughts entirely."
"Do we have any 'useful' information."
"Other than our friend with the knives and the nail gun telling our tight-lipped friend with the collar that he was stepping up a gear: no."
Grissom sighed; in light of this latest information performance appraisals were looking pretty damn attractive.
*******
Even as dusk neared, and the omnipresent fear of his work filled people's hearts and minds, the park was full. Overweight joggers gamely propelled their bulk in ever-decreasing circles, harried mothers, bearing more than a passing resemblance to a frenzied octopus, attempted to attract their assorted offspring to them in much the same way a planet attempts to captivate rogue satellites and middle-aged men, who should have known better, sought to re-capture their youth in a bizarre and strangely sad eulogy to what was once football.
On the edge of the park he sat, surrounded by a multitude of accusatory pigeons who vied testily with each other for whatever morsel he had to give. Surrounded, as he was, solely by his avian brethren spoke eloquently to him of his lack of human contact and the void of his loneliness filled him; yet he could only watch wistfully as an attractive woman passed by him, failing to notice the appreciative glance she gave him.
"Kill her." The other pigeons had formed a circle about a large, white-breasted bird, who addressed himself directly to the man on the park bench. Its eyes glowed redly in agitation and it clacked its beak aggressively. "You exist at our pleasure, you will obey."
The man's shuttered visage twisted in self-loathing and regret, "I cannot do this any more, my soul cries out against it."
"You have no soul. Fool! We took your soul, it, like your pitiful physical shell are ours. Did you really think we would not notice as you crawled, yellow-bellied to the house of the apostate? Do you really think that that pathetic excuse for a god, that mortal monument to self-pity and guilt could save you from your appointed task? We chose not to punish you for that indiscretion, but we knew, we knew and we are angry; have no doubt, there will be an accounting."
A smaller pigeon steeped forward, its white plumage a sharp contract to the emerald green of its eyes. Where the first bird bespoke wrath this animal evinced tranquillity. "My brother is angry, you would do well to heed him. Do not think we do not understand your fear and your hesitation, for we do. However, it is not our place to care just as it is not your place to question you must do what is right, what is ordained."
"But why, lady? Surely there is another way?"
"If there was another way would we not have told you? What reason have we to lead you astray we are you after all. Never forget, man creates their own gods….. and their own monsters."
The man's reluctance was obvious as was his distaste. "But what of my life? What of me, am I no more than just a tool?"
The angry hiss of a thousand birds was silenced by the voice of a third. "We are all tools, we all serve, even ones such as us. Heed us, do as we command for you know that in the end it is easier for all." The voice paused, when it spoke again its tone was wry, "Let me amend that last comment, it is easier for us insofar as we don't want to have to kill you and find another servant; and following our word is easier for you in that we assume you'd rather not be dead; not of course that we care, you are little better than a slave."
Thoroughly cowed, he knelt. "What must I do?"
"There are many whom we would have meet our justice, but we command the first as tribute, as penance. Her voice is heard throughout and silence shall be her gift. Listen carefully slave, the first you shall harvest is the one known as Babylon."
**************
Being back on shift was a relief after the emotional tribulations of the last few days; admittedly Greg had the impending coffee meeting with Rilie tomorrow but that incipient doom was safely subsumed by a mountain of work and an ongoing mantra decipherable to the casual observer as 'Not thinking about it'. Brass had noted that Greg better not let Grissom catch him not thinking and Greg had responded that Grissom had to deal with Nick on a regular basis so he couldn't see the problem. The battered detective dead-panned something about how Greg shouldn't confuse mindless enthusiasm with not thinking and the lab tech, raising his hands in good humour, returned to his acid-filled beakers.
Since he'd been back, Greg had found that he'd developed a certain antipathy to the Texan. It wasn't work related, for despite his bantering with Brass, Greg respected Nick's work; however, he was of the opinion that the same professional courtesy wasn't returned. Perhaps that was the crux of the matter, Nick had a real stick up his arse about hierarchy and Greg's return as an ostensible consultant offended his ordering of the universe. Yet where Greg previously would have taken the slights and acid glances without comment, he now found himself prepared to tell Nick where he could stick his opinions; albeit in a tactful, professional manner.
The one person that Greg had found himself gravitating towards since his return was, somewhat surprisingly, Brass. Despite presenting a countenance gruffer than a bear with stolen porridge and a visage more weathered than tree bark, the older man was not only a steadying presence but a strangely comforting one, his age and experience silently conveying to Greg, that when he had seen what Brass had seen then he could say that his life was tough; it put romantic entanglements and sadistic composition lecturers into a more realistic perspective.
Doc Robbins was another whom Greg was coming to know better. In his previous incarnation in the lab, the young technician had found little reason to move outside the confines of his lab, not only in terms of it made it less likely Grissom would yell at him, but it was where the coffee was, and despite the fact that it was well hidden he wanted to leave nothing to chance having discovered overenthusiastic and less morally punctilious colleague launching their own expeditions during his visits to the gentleman's facilities. Now, with greater confidence and Grissom's blessing, Greg was apt to wander and more often than not he wound up in the morgue talking to the Doctor about things forensic and otherwise. Doc Robbins was different from Captain Brass insofar as he had managed to retain a positive view of life and hadn't descended into the world-weary cynicism that characterised many of his colleague's views; Greg wasn't sure why this was so but tentatively concluded that the long and successful marriage the Doctor enjoyed as well as the good relations he had with his children provided him with a light at the end of the tunnel. Greg had learned early on not to mention Brass' family to him insofar as relations with his ex-wife were hardly of the Norman Rockwell school of happy families, and his daughter resembled an oncoming train more than any other luminescence.
This night, however, Greg was alone. Brass had gone to investigate a failed murder-suicide muttering something about doing the world a favour and killing the idiot himself as he left. The CSIs were out and about on various cases and weren't expected back for several hours - unless of course something miraculous happened, like the second coming or every criminal in the city spontaneously surrendering themselves. As for the Doc, well tonight he'd taken off to attend his oldest daughter's graduation. Like her dad, she'd studied medicine, unlike her father, however, she'd majored in paediatrics, her decision essentially made for her after making the mistake of visiting him in the morgue one evening when he was trying to untangle six bodies that had been pulled out of a trunk found floating in the local lake, and which resembled nothing more than human consommé.
Having finished the work he could and having not found a way to soup-up the mass spectrometer, Greg found himself at a loose and contemplative end. An hour and two coffees later, Greg was completely wired, and somewhat winded, having beaten Archie and David in a chair race around the building. Settling back into his chair in the lab his eyes came to rest on Grissom's file for the Shakespeare Killer, which was waiting for the Mass-spec analysis that Greg was currently running. Since Greg had returned to the lab he had made a conscious effort not to look at the case files associated with the work he was doing, it wasn't that he didn't care, or indeed that he had no interest, but that he acknowledged a lingering resentment that his past enthusiasm and suggestions had resulted in reprimands instead of praise, nevertheless, he found himself slowly leafing through the pages of the file trying to make sense of the depravity held within.
What most disturbed the young man was the dispassion with which he regarded the captured images before him, the depicted suffering and torture, the sublimation of human dignity to a gross manifestation of the macabre. Greg couldn't bring himself to understand why someone would act in such a manner, he had no personal experience that would relate as being in the lab presented only the fragmentary glimpse of a wider picture, for his, in the purest sense, was a science without context, only data. A younger Greg would have been concerned that the actions of the killer did not horrify him, but for this version of the man the parade of desecrated bodies was merely another example of how civilisation was slowly and inevitably going off the rails. Truth be told, what most disturbed Greg, was that he wasn't disturbed at all and that the images merely raised his curiosity; obviously too much time spent listening to Mueller threatening to disembowel the composition class.
The young man smirked inwardly as the idea of Mueller stalking the city of Las Vegas
engendered an interesting mental picture, one Dali would have been proud of.. Somewhat sadly, he dismissed the image; for while identifying Mueller as the Shakespeare killer would have solved the case - and necessitated the hiring of a new composition teacher - it wasn't really practical.
Moving past the pictures, Greg read through the case notes and finding nothing of interest began to examine the lines of investigation followed in the years previous.
It was standard fare.
Recently released criminals had made up a large part of the initial investigation but as their non-eviscerated parole officers were able to prove, none of them had developed a personality, or even a career change, that would necessitate a sudden shift into the homicidally maniacal. Similarly, recently escaped criminals had also proven to be a negative line of inquiry and the particularly desperate detective who'd raided the local
Juvenile detention centre had stretched the patience of the Parole and Corrections Services to the limit. Even gangs on PCP had been ruled out.
Psychiatric patients had also come in for intense scrutiny with particular attention paid to the more rabidly inclined. Again, nothing; with the only release at the appropriate time being the eighty year old who thought he was Napoleon's butler and who was probably more a danger to himself than the world at large. Outpatient lists had also been closely scrutinised and as far as social and police services had been able to determine there was no-one in the community-at-large who constituted a danger – unless, Greg thought, someone had stopped taking their medication. Yet even if someone had stopped their medication it would have been noted and that hypothesis couldn't explain the periods of inactivity, those years when nothing had happened, when no-one had died. Then Greg remembered that Ecklie had rambled on about pills before he went into his coma and he began to wonder…..