A/N: More chapters coming up! This one is kind of a filler. Nick fans, hang in there; our boy will be back next chapter!
As always, thanks to Maekala for catching my typos and such.
Chapter Fifteen
Thursday, Late Night
Catherine went straight to the crime lab after one of the nurses finally insisted that she leave almost thirty minutes after the official end of visiting hours. She was early for her shift, but she knew there would be work waiting, and she wanted an update on the case.
The case. Those simple words made everything seem so impersonal – just another set of evidence to process, another puzzle to unravel. Yeah, right. Cases didn't get much more personal than this, and solving this puzzle held critical importance for two men she highly regarded. She found little solace in her temporary elevation to night-shift supervisor while Grissom recovered from his injuries; the call from the lab director confirming that change had included the warning that all evidence related to the case was to be reviewed and signed off by Conrad Ecklie -- the smarmy, ass-kissing bastard. Not for the first time, Catherine was grateful for the years she had spent as an exotic dancer. She was quite capable of smiling and never missing a beat even while she wanted nothing more than to hurl her most recent meal directly onto his neatly polished shoes.
She settled in behind Grissom's desk to review the results of the evidence the lab techs had processed throughout the day, trying to fill in the gaps before Warrick and Sara arrived and demanded an update. She wasn't entirely surprised when both her teammates also showed up early, too, allowing her barely enough time to glance at the reports.
Warrick was looking a little less stressed than he had the last time she'd seen him, but Sara glowered when she took a seat at the layout table they'd chosen in favor of Grissom's crowded office for their meeting.
She gave them both a brief account of her visit with Grissom, and passed along the message that he expected them all to do their jobs and try not to antagonize IA any more than necessary. As usual, he was determined to let the evidence speak for itself, confident that Garza would accept, soon enough, that Stevens had been acting without help from either of the CSIs.
"I hope Nick's able to keep it together when they get in his face," Warrick said worriedly. "If he's still as woozy when Garza interviews him as he was tonight…"
Catherine made a face. "Yeah, and it would be just like Garza to ignore the rule that says you can't take a statement from someone who's under the influence of drugs that might impair their judgment," she said sourly. "But unfortunately, we don't have any control over that. Now, let's see what we have in the way of evidence…"
She flipped open the folder in front of her and began scanning the various lab reports. "It's clear Stevens was the only one to handle the money recently; Sara found only his prints on the bags. And we know Stevens had disarmed our guys. Greg got the DNA back on the tissue from under Stevens' nails, and it's definitely Grissom's. I saw the defensive marks on his hands, too. Then there's the GSR."
"Greg found small traces of GSR on Grissom's sleeves," Sara put in, illustrating her statement by lifting her own hands off the table where'd they been tightly clenched. "But only on the undersides, and in a distinct linear path. It's the kind of pattern you'd see if they were grappling for the gun when it went off. Stevens got most of the spray, but Grissom was in close enough proximity to catch some of it, too." Her eyes suddenly widened. "Oh, my god," she murmured. "Is that how Nick got shot? A stray round when Grissom tried to get the gun away from Stevens?"
Catherine shook her head. "No," she assured her. "Grissom gave me the Reader's Digest version of what happened. Nick was already down when he tried to disarm Stevens."
Sara's features relaxed fractionally, and Catherine knew what she'd been thinking. Even Gil Grissom's detachment would have faltered if he'd been directly responsible for one of his people being injured. She'd already seen a crack in that detachment when he realized that he'd failed to recognize the severity of Nick's shoulder injury.
"The rest of the physical evidence," Catherine went on, returning her attention to the file, "is pretty sketchy, and doesn't really prove anything one way or the other. Warrick, do we have anything on the other body?"
"A little," Warrick replied. "We got a positive ID -- Jerry Gannon. Got a rap sheet for some small-time stuff. In fact, he'd only been out of the joint three months when the SunWays heist went down. He did have previous ties to Mahler, so they tried to locate him for questioning after the robbery. Here's where it gets interesting," he added. "Stevens put it in the case report that Gannon left town about the time of the robbery – based on word from a confidential informant." He cast a quick glance at the two women seated near him. "Pretty good way to cover his tracks if he'd already ID'd Gannon, got him to spill where the money was hidden, and capped him so he didn't have to share."
Catherine shrugged. "Circumstantial," she said neutrally. "The tell is that while Grissom and Nick were checking the inside of the mine, Stevens arrived and went straight to the shack where the money was hidden and started loading it up in his own car. Gannon was shot, wasn't he?"
Warrick nodded. "Two bullets to the chest. One went through, hit the rocks behind him. It's too deformed to do anything but match the weight. Doc said the other pierced his heart andlodged in his spine. It's damaged, but Bobby D. thinks he can get enough detail off it to tell whether or not it came from Stevens' gun."
"Any chance we can match it to the bullet that hit Nick?" Catherine asked hopefully.
"Didn't find it," Warrick replied grimly. "Nick's wound was a through-and-through. I found the edge of the blood pool where he first went down – most of it got buried, though – but without knowing where Stevens was when he fired, it's hard to know where to even start looking. We'd have to go back and comb the walls and the ground inch-by-inch to find the bullet. There's still no guarantee we'd get anything – not if it's lost in that pile of rocks."
Catherine hadn't really expected anything else. She closed the file, laying both hands flat on top, and regarded her diminished team. "Okay. It looks like we've done everything we can right now for the guys. I'll try to get clearance for us to go back and look for that lost bullet, but it's…" She broke off abruptly and looked up at the doorway where Conrad Ecklie had come to a halt. She managed a neutral smile. "Conrad. You're here late."
"Needs of the times," Ecklie replied. He stepped forward and handed Catherine a small collection of papers. "New cases called in within the last half hour," he explained unnecessarily as Catherine quickly scanned the printouts. "And I need to speak with you."
Catherine quickly divvied up the calls requiring immediate response and waited for her teammates to leave on their new assignments. When they were gone, she lifted a hand to Ecklie in a "take a seat" gesture. She tried to read his expression, but saw nothing except a hint of fatigue.
"Is that the case file?" he asked, pointing at the brown folder against which her forefinger tapped a terse rhythm.
"Yes." She slowly pushed it across the table to him, meeting his questioning gaze with a faint challenge. "I understand you've been given authority to review all the evidence. Knock yourself out. You won't find anything to suggest our guys did anything wrong."
Ecklie accepted the file and studied the same information Catherine had read just a few minutes earlier. "I hope that's true," he said. After a moment, he looked up. "Look, Catherine, I know this whole IA thing has everyone in the lab pretty worked up. And it probably won't surprise you that opinion comes down heavily in support of Grissom and Stokes."
"Doesn't surprise me at all," Catherine agreed. She leaned slightly forward, her hands pressed flat to the table to keep from balling them into fists. "They're both good men, Conrad – honest men."
"And if that's true, the investigation will bear it out, and when it's over they'll go on with their lives. But a crime was committed, Catherine, and it involved at least one cop. IA has to investigate. It's procedure."
Catherine stood abruptly. "Screw procedure," she said sharply. "You know as well as I do, Conrad, that once IA gets its sights on anyone – beat cop, detective, CSI, anyone – nothing ever goes back to normal. That cloud of suspicion follows them everywhere for the rest of their lives. If they so much as drop a gum wrapper in the parking lot, it ends up as a footnote in their file, because IA never closes a file once it's open."
To be continued…