Thank you so much for reading and reviewing. I am so pleased at the responses, and to hear that you are enjoying this. I am so glad to know that 'my' CSI world has become as real for some of you as it is for me. Cathy.
Chapter 52
Cecilia looked up to see Catherine Willows hurrying along the hall towards the elevators at the end. There was something in the determined set of the criminalist's jaw, that coupled with her quick movements, raised an alarm. "Excuse me," Cecilia said apolgetically to Helen Chang, before rushing out of the room and after the blonde.
Cecilia caught up with Catherine as the elevator doors slid open, and instinctively the writer ducked inside with the other woman before they closed again. Catherine looked at Cecilia in surprise, and then quickly shifted her blue-eyed gaze and pressed the button for the lobby.
Something has happened, Cecilia knew. Her mouth felt dry. "Catherine what is it?" she asked nervously.
Catherine just shook her head.
"Is it Jim?" Cecilia asked apprehensively, her stomache knotting. "Please, Catherine," she implored.
Catherine bit her bottom lip. "You can't get involved in this," she allowed at length. The elevator had reached the floor and the doors slid open again. Catherine stood half outside with one hand holding the door open. She looked sympathetically at the writer, still within. "Go back up," Catherine insisted. "I'll talk to you soon. I promise."
"What is it? What's going on?" Cecilia wanted to know, the pitch of her voice rising with the emotion of her fear and uncertainty. She could see that Catherine was wearing her gun.
"Look, I'm sorry," Catherine murmured her frustration. "I don't have time for this." The blonde turned and moved quickly down the hall towards the building's lobby.
Cecilia hastened after her. She followed the criminalist out to the darkened lot, and when Catherine went to open the driver's side door, the writer moved past her and leaned against it with her hip.
"I'm sorry," Cecilia offered, her voice thick with atonement for her audacity.
Catherine looked at her in surprise. It was unlike the polite, quiet writer to interject herself physically this way, or to be so insistent after the forensic scientist had essentially ordered her to not get involved. Cecilia had always been so respectful of the boundaries and so deferential to the professionals she was working with.
"I can see how rattled you are," Cecilia observed. "And I know it has something to do with Jim. I have to know." She paused, her dark eyes moist with emotion. "I love him, Catherine."
Catherine was not surprised by the admission. Her resolve softened for a minute. She could imagine how the other woman was feeling, and while her heart went out to her friend, she couldn't allow Cecilia to get involved in anything that would happen from here on out. Catherine was taking enough of a risk doing what she was doing. But she could see that Cecilia was not going to be easily dissuaded.
"Okay, yes, it has to do with Jim. I think he knows who the killer is, and I think he's gone to bring him in." She watched Cecilia's eyes grow wide. "Now please, move, because every second might count."
"I'm going with you!" Cecilia insisted, pulling open the door of the Denali and slipping inside. She slid across to the passenger's seat before Catherine could try to restrain her.
"Cecilia, you can't!" Catherine argued angrily. "This isn't some plotline in a novel, this is the real thing! Get out now!"
"You're wasting time," Cecilia returned with steely resolve.
Oh good Lord! Catherine thought. "I can't babysit you," she said in frustration. "This is police business, and I'm sorry, I know how you feel, but you can only make things worse!"
"I won't get in the way," Cecilia promised. "I'll stay in the car. I just...I just have to be there."
Gritting her teeth, Catherine hopped up into the driver's seat, and started the engine. The writer had left her no choice. She couldn't seek help in ejecting Cecilia, because then whoever it was might want to know where Catherine was going and what she was up to. And besides, there just wasn't time. She had told Archie to alert Grissom in twenty minutes. And as soon as Gil got the print out, the police and the Feds would be on their way.
"Aw, hell," Catherine sighed in defeat, then she backed out of the spot, gave the wheel a sharp turn, and pressed down on the accelerator, roaring out of the lot.
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"Now...I thought the orchestration of Detective Keeth's death was a true work of art," Sturney commented with obvious hubris. "I don't know which I'm prouder of really, his demise or Detective Takei's. You have to admit they were brilliantly planned. Detective Keeth's took a bit more work though. But in the end, it was so satisfying to watch everything come together."
Jim realized that as much as he hated hearing the killer gloat about murdering the three detectives, there was a part of him that listened with fascination. A part that wanted to know how Sturney had done it. The side of him that liked solving puzzles, that had that drive to examine each piece before putting it in its place and completing the picture. It was that part of him that made him good at his job, the detective knew.
"Unlike Detective Takei's, Detective Keeth's home security left a little something to be desired. It was pathetically easy to get inside his apartment. I had a good look around. The man was a bit of a slob, I must say. Didn't make his bed. Left the toothpaste tube lying on the sink with the cap off. There were a few unwashed dishes in the sink. And the place stank of tobacco smoke.
"There was an extra key hanging in the kitchen. Even though it was simple enough to break in, I thought the key might facilitate things at a later point. But I couldn't just take the key, I didn't want to raise any suspicions. So I made it look like someone had broken in and absconded with a few of the detective's worthless belongings."
Gladys had seen Sturney that day, there was no doubt about it now. And things had happened just as Brass had imagined they had.
"I saw the sleeping pills, but I didn't fully formulate an idea until I watched him haul that chair out to the curb one day." Dean grinned at the memory. "The one that had the big burn hole in it. It was obvious what had happened, the imbecile had fallen asleep with a lit cigarette. I had noticed that he was a drinker, kept beer and whiskey in the house. I had to go back twice more, until a night when there were only a few more shots of the whiskey left. Just enough to mix the sleeping pills with, and for him to get the full disabling effect of the combination."
Sturney had managed to drug Elliott Keeth, in the manner that Brass had suspected. But why hadn't there been any traces of the sleep aid in the bottle's contents?
"I went back later and he was passed out on the sofa. I lit one of his cigarettes for him, then set it between his fingers and shoved his hand down into the cushions. It didn't take long for the fire to get going, he had one of those cheap, older couches made of highly flammable materials. I was worried at first that it might all be over too fast, that Keeth wouldn't wake up and understand how I had bested him, now that the time to pay for his past mistakes was at hand.
"But he did rouse. I could see his nostrils flaring...the man had unusually big nostrils, had you ever noticed that?...as the smoke started to curl around him. When he opened his eyes, I smiled at him. He knew the seriousness of the situation then. At that point, he was powerless to move. Only his brain...such as it was...was working.
"He looked stunned, like he couldn't believe it was really happening. Like it was just a bad dream and he would wake up any moment. And then I saw the understanding dawn. He knew. He knew I'd beaten him, and that he was about to die." Sturney nodded his head with satisfaction.
Brass wondered what it had been like for his friend in those final moments. He hoped that the combination of the sleeping pills and the alcohol had put Elliott Keeth out before the excrutiating pain that would have ensued.
"His big body shook, you know," the killer continued his narration. "With anger, at first. And then with fear." That beautiful, precious fear that Sturney had drawn into his lungs and which held for him the same life-giving properties as oxygen. "There were tears in his eyes. They ran down his dark cheeks. I think that if he had had his power of speech...he might have begged for his life." Dean smiled at the thought, it brought him comfort.
Brass felt his own body quake with anger at the horrible indignations his colleagues had suffered at Sturney's hands. The look the detective gave the killer was pure acrimony, but Sturney was too wrapped up in his recollections to notice.
"I stayed as long as I thought I could," Sturney said. "I knew that the smoke would alert someone soon enough, and that I had to be gone before then. But I did get to smell the searing of the flesh of his hand." The killer paused and breathed deeply, as though mentally recreating the triumphant experience. "Have you ever smelled burnt human flesh before, Jim? Of course," he answered himself, "you must have at some point in your career. There's nothing like it in the world, is there? You can never wash the memory of that stink out of your nasal passages."
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A myriad of questions raced through Cecilia's head as the Denali sped through the night. But she found it impossible to give voice to any of them. The writer would glance over at the strawberry blonde from time to time. Catherine had both hands gripped tightly on the steering wheel, her sapphire eyes fixed on the road ahead as she weaved in and out of traffic. Her mouth was set in a silent, grim line.
When Catherine took an exit, barely slowing the SUV so that for a moment it rocked on its left side wheels, Cecilia caught the sign as they flashed past. They were headed towards the airport. She thought about the last time she had been at McCarran, picking Jim up from his trip to Los Angeles. She could still see his smile, when he had picked her out from the crowd. The warmth and the genuine pleasure that was reflected in his dark eyes.
Her heart had thrilled to watch him moving determinedly through the throng towards her, with his unique, rolling gait. Cecilia had realized then that she was in love with James Brass.
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"Where is Catherine Willows?" Fontaine asked sharply.
Conrad Ecklie turned at the FBI agent's words. "Willows? I don't know, I haven't seen her for a while. Why don't you page her?" he suggested, his manner less than helpful. Ecklie was furious that even after Brian Mobley had put him in charge of the CSI end of the investigation, Special Agent Fontaine had insisted on personally working with Catherine.
"I did and she's not answering," the agent replied coldly. "One of my agents thought he saw her rushing out of here not long ago." Fontaine had thought he had gotten through to the criminalist. That she had agreed to work with him. To trust him. Clearly he had misjudged her.
Ecklie's heart skipped a beat. Being in charge of things meant that Willows was his headache now. Normally, the CSI was one of the best. Someone who was level-headed and responsible and who went by the book. He'd often considered approaching her about joining his team on dayshift. He didn't think Grissom would let her go though. Half the time the blonde did the entomologist's job for him, Conrad knew.
But this whole situation was different than anything they had ever encountered before. Ecklie knew the criminalist was close to Jim Brass. He hoped that that wouldn't affect the level of her professionalism. Even as the thought formulated, Ecklie knew with an unerring sense of self-preservation that somehow the crap was about to hit the fan, and that in all likelihood, he was about to get showered with it.
"I'll try her cell," Ecklie said, smiling ingratiatingly now, realizing that this was not a time to make enemies, especially of Fontaine's career stature. "Maybe her pager battery is dead. I'm sure she's here somewhere."
Fontaine waited, and when it became apparent that Catherine Willows was not answering her cell phone either, he turned on heel and strode determinedly away.
Once he was alone back in the conference room, Fontaine contacted the surveillance team. "Has Brass gone anywhere?" The reply was negative. "I want you to get up to his apartment now. If he doesn't answer the door, I want you to go in anyways, understand? Proceed with caution though. Once you either make visual contact with Brass, or are inside the apartment and have it secured, I want you to call me back." The agent expressed his understanding.
Every nerve ending in Fontaine's body sang. Something was up. And he had a really bad feeling that whatever it was...it wasn't good.
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"And then," Sturney said in that same low voice, seeming to caress the words, "and then there was one."
The way the killer had progressed with the count down, the way the man's voice changed as he did so, was creepy to Brass. It made the hairs at the back of his neck stand on end, and the blood run sluggishly through his veins. He found himself wanting to inject some levity in a situation that seemed as though it might crush him with the horrific weight of the knowledge of all of those premature deaths.
"So you saved the best for last," Jim mentioned casually, resting his head against the back of the chair.
"Sit up!" the killer snapped. "You'll get blood on my furniture!"
Sturney was incensed and had redirected his anger. How could the detective be making jokes? Hadn't the man heard a word he had said? Didn't he know the power of the person he was dealing with? Didn't the poor, stupid son-of-a-bitch understand that Dean was going to kill him?
As he had talked, Sturney had waited and waited for that moment. The moment when the cool detachment would leave the detective's eyes, and then the terror would take it's place. He didn't understand what was taking so long, Brass's reactions to everything so far had been foreign to Sturney.
Jim was struck by the ludicrousness of what was important to the killer right now, but he complied by leaning forward again, resting his elbows on his knees.
So far, there had not been a chance for the detective to make a play for the gun; no relaxing of Sturney's vigilance. And Brass was aware that he had about run out of time. And then there was one. That was him, he was the last one left. His death would fulfill whatever quota the killer had set for himself.
Brass was resigned to his fate. He felt an overwhelming sorrow and a grief at everything that would be lost. He knew the effect his murder would have on his friends and colleagues. He thought that even Nancy and Ellie might mourn him on some level.
It was always so hard for those left behind. The ones who had to cope with the aftermath of a tragedy. The ones who had to pick up the broken pieces of their lives and go on. Who had to learn to smile and laugh again without being bowed by a terrible guilt that told them it was inappropriate to take any pleasure from life with someone they cared about recently buried and never able to feel happiness...or anything else...again.
Even though it was entirely his fault for being in this predicament now, Brass knew that it would be human nature for his co-workers to blame themselves, to question everything they had done, to wonder what they could have done differently to have changed the outcome. Lord knew Jim had been there enough times himself.
For him, the pain was almost over. Death would probably come swiftly. And then there would be that merciful nothingness. He wouldn't feel anything again. No regrets. No self-recrimination. No loneliness. No grief of his own. He was actually the lucky one, he knew.
But that didn't mean that until the end came, he wouldn't feel this incredible sorrow for the loss of what his life was, and what it might have been. It was true, Jim accepted, he hadn't made the best use of the privilege of his life over the years. But still, he had done some good. Professionally he had made a positive difference at times. Personally, he had forged a few friendships and brought an occasional smile.
Jim did regret that he hadn't been able to put things right with Ellie. He was grateful now for his foresight in writing the letter. He hoped that somewhere in his rambling words she would gain an understanding. And that she would be able to feel his unconditional love and pride.
The detective was aware that he'd grown cynical lately. That he had come to expect the worst from people, and to see the darker side of life before the good. But still, there had been times when he was able to look at the sunrise...few and far between granted, but he had retained the ability...and appreciate the awe inspiring beauty. Times when the sound of a child's laughter could cause his lips to curve not with sarcasm, but with joy. Brass hadn't become totally jaded, even though for a long time now, it had always seemed that in his world, dark clouds eternally covered the sun.
There had been hope for him though. Cecilia had shown him that. She had turned everything upside down. Jim's entire outlook had been redefined from the moment she had walked into his life. From that very first morning, at the scene of Denny Martens' death, when she had shown up with Conrad Ecklie, she had begun to make a difference in his life. Even when Brass had been brusque, resentful and unwelcoming. A gruff, middle-aged career cop who barely acknowledged her and who hadn't even had the good manners to shake her hand when they were first introduced.
Her empathy and respectful consideration, staying back, deferring to his discomfort when he had wanted a private moment with the dayshift supervisor...even though Ecklie had been inclined to include her, and even though Jim had behaved like an ass...had begun even then to work soft fingers through chinks in armour the detective had thought impenetrable.
Her inner beauty, quiet dignity, and gentle soul had slowly worked its magic on him. The time Jim had spent with Cecilia, he treasured. He wished poignantly that he had been able to tell her that. To let her know that she had changed his life. To explain to her how incredibly special she was. And how very, very much he loved her. But perhaps it was just as well. Because Jim couldn't bear to have cemented a future with her, only to have to leave her to face it alone.
With Cecilia, Brass thought now with bittersweet surety, accepting now the enormity of his loss, he would have been able to see the beauty in the sunrise not on rare occasion...but each and every day.
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"Sir, Captain Brass isn't here." The young agent had dreaded dialing his superior and having to inform him that somehow they had lost track of the detective. He couldn't fathom how it had happened. All that mattered though was that it had. He wondered miserably if he'd ever be able to work in law enforcement again. He and his partner probably wouldn't even be able to get jobs as crossing guards after this.
"Damn!" Fontaine felt the throbbing in his temples as his blood pressure shot up far beyond its usual nintey over sixty. There was no point in asking how or why. No point in trying to assign blame. What mattered now was...where did Fontaine go from here? And where were Catherine Willows and Jim Brass?