"What?"
It was a simple word, despite how it stuttered through a suddenly parched throat. There was a long-familiar stare from many months, this time from a stranger. An equally uncomfortable silence fell on the room, the heaviness an old friend. To call this a tailspin would be the understatement of the year, but then this was only the first month on the calendar.
Nick could see a sort of dumb dawning on his supervisor's face, although the doctor in front of him had managed to hide his similar deer-in-headlights expression.
"I see," the doc stated.
Nick could feel an underlying of pity and it created an instant vacuum, swallowing all the shock and surprise, and stuffing into an overcrowded space in the pit of his stomach.
There was a hated tremor in his voice. "Nigel was transferred here. When?"
"Before the holidays, in late October. I oversaw his care at the State of Nevada Mercury Center and brought him with a few of my other patients."
"This is a private hospital for convicted felons with money. Nigel doesn't have any family." Nick said listlessly.
"Yes, but as his primary physician, if I felt some of the programs here would be beneficial, I was allowed to transfer him when I was offered a position here. Not all the inmates are here because of wealth. The research at this--"
The physician's explanation was interrupted by Nick's hand in the air, cutting him off. "Yeah, yeah. I've heard all about it." Nick looked up with a half-hearted apologetic expression for his rudeness.
Nick replayed the past few minutes of conversation in his head and looked from the physician towards Grissom, who merely reflected his trademark neutral expression. "Why did you think that you two had met before?" he asked, pointing his fingers back and forth between both men.
Grissom didn't bat an eyelash. "Name sounded familiar."
If it had been his supervisor's decision, Nick was sure it would have ended right there, just like everything else. A year ago, that's all it would have taken.
"That true?"
Dr. Bale wasn't exactly comfortable with this tension. Eyes drifted back and forth, obviously knowing there was some invisible line somewhere, and clueless as to where to walk.
"Well, most of my correspondence with Mr. Grissom was via e-mail," he said as he looked at the older man. "One phone call, but that was a few years ago. We never met."
Grissom grimaced slightly. "Sorry to have to have to do so under such circumstances."
Hearing Nigel Crane's name wasn't enough to make him violently ill, or rattle the cage of trapped old memories. It didn't even let loose the tendrils of paranoia and or fear that'd been long forgotten, shoved aside and stomped out. No, the name triggered nothing… but the almost casual conversation of the other two occupants in the room... Nick could hear the splinters breaking under the pressure of the most guarded restraint.
Nick looked at the doctor. "You tried to crawl inside Nigel's mind. Take him apart like a clock to see what made him tick?" Nick's voice was throaty; his eyes pits of ashen coal.
Grissom moved... finally. The man didn't respond to words, but he always sort of jumped when confronted by raw personal emotions, quick like a fireman confronting a blaze. "Nick, I was the primary on the Jane Galloway case. It was routine for me to handle all aspects concerning Crane's incarceration, including the psych evaluations." Grissom hesitated, lowering his voice. "You were the one who asked me to process your house solo, to oversee everything."
"Yeah, I did," he replied, voice thick.
"We made sure you didn't even have to testify. The case was airtight, so you could ..."
"So I could move on," Nick finished for him.
Grissom's next suggestion was softer. "Why don't you go back to the lab? We've got a split shift because of these interviews. You can help Sara with those tox screens. I can process the cells belonging to each suspect. They're not big; I can do them all myself."
Dr. Bale shuffled his feet, looking pensive. "I meet with Nigel later on today; you two could sit in and ask your questions then," the man suggested.
Grissom looked at the physician indicating with his eyes the need for privacy. The other man recognized it and excused himself and exited the room.
"Nick, I allowed some leeway when you suggested this additional interview. To gain insight into Brighten, however slim the relevancy might be on the case. Now, however, I think we should stick to the physical evidence."
"Grissom," Nick protested, the inflexion breaking slightly.
The supervisor wouldn't give an inch, his mind made up. "What was with your questions about neurological disease?"
If the younger criminalist had not felt like he was standing on a fault line, riddled with tremors, he might have pursued the argument. "Nothing. I mean..." Nick sighed. "Joey Brighten and our sex offender showed signals of a neurological problem; nothing conclusive, but the little facial tics were overt the other night."
Grissom seemed caught off guard. "I didn't notice."
Nick shook his head. "Observed a slightly less obvious twitch in Patterson."
Grissom hesitated. "Nothing in the files says that either man suffers from any neurological disorders. Something so significant would be detected by the various tests that are run on each prisoner. Some forms of dopamine can cause similar problems with people under anti-psychotic medications."
Nick shook his head. "I find it odd that three out of our four suspects are suffering from motor disorders."
Grissom's eyes brightened as the wheels in his heard turned. "Those tox screens need to be top priority. Look for false positives, signs of masking drugs, things that a prelim would skip. Run urine tests as well."
Grissom moved towards the table to gather his files. When he headed towards the door, Nick didn't move out of his path. Sensing things were not finished the supervisor waited for the other man to speak.
"I still think we should interview Nigel. He could provide us with information regarding Joey's behavior, or things the other man might have mentioned. No one else is going to be able to tell us what happened in that room."
"A possible missing video camera and its contents rivals any witness testimony. It's unbiased and records everything."
Grissom's simple dismissal of his idea added another layer of conflict within his churning insides. Nick shook his head. "I don't agree."
"It'll be noted, Nick. But under no circumstances are we interviewing Nigel Crane. For one, there's a conflict of interest. There's absolutely no basis for that avenue of the case."
"That wasn't your attitude before you found out who the cellmate was," Nick retorted.
Grissom got that gleam in his eye whenever he was about to chew someone's ass. "I granted you a bit of leeway when there was still a possibility it would add value to the case. You've been distracted during this investigation. You need to regain some focus. Even if I found some valid reason to interview Crane, I'd have to pull you off the case."
"He's a possible witness, not a suspect," Nick corrected him.
Grissom held up his hand, ending any further argument. "That's my final decision. Now go back to the lab, work on those tests and go home. Grab eight hours of sleep and then report to work at the beginning of Grave's schedule."
Nick stood motionless for a few seconds, a thousand thoughts roaring through his mind. Instead of pushing harder he turned around and left the interview room. He sought out a guard to escort him out, and like the night before returned to the Lab alone.
Nick looked for a quiet room in the lab to hole up for a few hours, a place not currently occupied with other criminalists. He had dumped a plethora of test requests, earning an evil glare from the techs. When he started to get insistent about the priority and even argued about the number, David Hodges of all people suggested he find somewhere to wait. The sheer amount would undoubtedly clog up the pipeline and machines for hours. Hodges wasn't known for his charity work, considering the man was working a double himself.
In order to preserve ruffled feathers he volunteered to help with some of the analyses, when one of the techs had argued the value of using up so many resources in such a damned narrow window of time. Nick didn't think his request was ridiculous, though he was dealing with day shift workers.
He spent the next few hours going through some of Dr. Kincaid's notes on the four suspects. Brass had dropped off a box after he served them with the needed warrant. Nick scribbled down notes, creating a timetable that corresponded with each patient's history. He also started a spreadsheet on one of the laptops to keep up with the slow trickle of lab results.
It felt good to be busy; it kept his mind from drifting, thinking too much about the last few hours. His head felt like it was about to explode, undoubtedly from being crammed with too many things left on a 'to do later' list. Nick glanced at his watch, his irritability seeping into his clenched fingers. Nick threw the pen down, the metal instrument already left a sore impression in the flesh of his fingers.
"You chewed up any more techs?"
Nick didn't hide his scowl at Sara's voice.
"You're never going to gain anything if you keep up with that winning personality," she teased.
Nick rubbed at his tense neck, but eyed her stack of folders. "What are you doing here so early?"
She smirked. "While you and Grissom work split shifts, I came in now, so there wasn't any dead time in between."
Nick took it all in stride. "You got something new on our house of quacks?"
Sara raised an eyebrow. "Yeah. Want to play show and tell?"
Nick's eyes twinkled with a familiar swagger, even if it didn't accompany his usual smile.
Sara dropped her stack. "You first."
"All right" he drawled purposely. "All four suspects had high levels of dopamine in their blood."
Sara took the offered slip. "Dopamine isn't uncommon, Nick. All four patients are on some form of anti-psychotic drug. I ran a test verifying the levels of their daily meds, first thing. I got four matches, and nothing odd about them."
"Yeah, but your tests only searched for those specific drugs, to make sure they matched the prescriptions and dose. The overall dopamine levels are double of what they should be," Nick indicated towards when he turned his laptop screen over to her.
"Which means there was something else in their bloodstream." Sara's eyes were wide. "Wow, our prelim missed something."
Nick didn't hide his sarcastic pitch. "That's why I've been hovering around tox for so long."
Sara gave him a dirty look. "All right, anything else."
"Oh, yeah. Dr. Kincaid just recently took over our suspects' cases just a couple weeks ago. In fact, he petitioned to be their primary physician, as well as another list that was waiting Dr. Rhode's approval." Nick cocked his head. "I also can't find any of the paperwork for the reason. In Kincaid's personal notes, there's more than one mention of a formal complaint that he wrote on Dr. Rhode's ethics, but that's missing as well."
"Could be in the next batch of boxes?" Sara suggested.
"Nope. We'd have to seek Dr. Rhode's files; our warrant was for Kincaid's cases and patient information."
Sara didn't hide her enthusiasm. "I'll be sure to put in a call to Brass, to begin work on that." Grabbing a stool, she began explaining her own findings. "I worked on the body some more. I matched the last unidentified wound pattern on Kincaid's right hand."
Brown eyes looked at her expectantly. "Bite mark. All we need to do is match teeth impressions to find who inflicted that."
Nick looked less than thrilled at that possible test. Sara didn't blame him.
"The hairs Grissom found on the body belonged to Robert Patterson and Leon Stoyanov."
Nick folded his arms. "Not surprising; more and more things point to the brunt of the attack by those two."
Sara moved on to another set of notes. "I dug into Kincaid's normal files, since I was still waiting for his patient ones, which you've already combed through. He'd been at the center for five years and the only new project was a study with Dr. Rhodes and Stanfield on a revolutionary new anti-psychotic drug."
"Yeah?" Nick looked intrigued.
Sara flipped through her notebook. "If given a green light, which by all indications is almost a definite, all three men were about to gain one of the largest grants from the Vertex Pharmaceutical firm, as well as a potential million dollar deal if the drug was approved by the FDA."
"What? They discover a cure for the common cold?" Nick snorted.
"No. But one of the main problems with anti-psychotic drugs is side effects and the fact that there are so many of them for every single disorder. Phenothiazines are the main class of drug used with patients who suffer from psychosis. They block dopamine receptors; in a way shutting down emotional responses," Sara explained.
"Yeah. The drug than can reduce the intensity of schizophrenic delusions and hallucinations." Nick looked thoughtful. "Also creates the hordes of mindless zombies; no way to be deluded when you're not even on the same plane as everyone else."
Sara shot him an expression of her own regarding his dry humor. "When it comes to effectively decreasing agitation and hostility, then there are not many choices. New generations of drugs are supposed to cut down on the toxicity and bad side effects. Once you strip away paranoia, then you can treat people with psychotherapy."
Nick didn't look at her, his doubt clearly obvious. "Some things are biological, others are environmentally created. Testing a drug like this makes sense on Ivan and Patterson, our stuttering killer, but Joey sufferers from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and our sexual offender, Tanner..." Nick shrugged. "Those guys don't fit the bill for that type of drug
therapy."
Sara wasn't totally swayed by his logic. "Only so much science can do to cure insanity, Nick. Some things that can't be cured can only be debated and theorized by thinkers like Freud and Maslow."
Nick drifted off, those words echoing over and over in his head. Suddenly his distractions were waning from rawer issues. He must have zoned out, because he felt a hand on his shoulder, and Sara's worried eyes. He blinked at her, eyebrows knitted, perplexed.
"I called out your name...you didn't answer me."
Nick laughed it off, but his smile didn't seem to wipe away the concerned expression. "Sorry."
Sara looked back at his laptop and then the time. "Maybe you ought to go home. The lab will be backed up a with your zillion long list of possible chemicals to look for; not like we have one machine that can spit them all out at once. Grissom might have found something in the cells of our four patients."
"I doubt any of our esteemed suspects kept notes on what was going inside their brains. Since Dr's. Jeckle and Hyde can't figure that out." Nick piled a few of his notes to take home with him.
Sara wasn't going to let him off the hook. "Obviously you guys didn't get very far in the interviews; it's not like one of them can tell us what happened. I agree there was something pretty fishy going on, but if the doctors are acting like everything is hunky dory, there isn't anyone reliable to paint us a different picture."
"We need to find out why Dr. Kincaid was conducting his black ops meeting." Nick scribbled down something on a piece of paper. "Here's my password; feel free to input any more tox results. I've got to get going."
Nick hurried out of the room, zigzagging through the hallways to the locker room. Looking around, he pulled out a business card and dialed a number. He spoke to a secretary and quickly changed sides, keeping the cell close to his ear.
Hearing the voice on the other end, Nick checked his surroundings one more time and lowered his voice. "Yes, Dr. Bale. I'd like to meet with you before your session with Nigel if that was all right." Nick licked his lips, the pounding in his heart making it harder to hear the voice on the other end. "Good, and yes. If we could, I'd like to interview him for my case."
The African American doctor met Nick in his office where he took a seat in a swivel chair. The man was busy re-arranging heaps of files onto the floor, so his guest could see him from the overly messy and disorganized desk.
"There, now we can talk face to face, instead of over mounds of scattered paperwork," the doctor chuckled.
His good humor had little effect on the anxious CSI who hadn't kept very still. Nick couldn't seem to keep from fiddling with his hands, so he folded them under his elbows to keep them in place. The physician didn't give him the small sad face; he instead sensed directness would be the best course of action.
"Nigel Crane has been under my care for three years. I took over his case about four months after his sentence to the Mercury Center. His previous physician was a state care provider whose caseload was over two hundred patients." Dr. Bale paused to see if the young man had been following.
Nick sucked in both lips to gnaw and gave a broken smile. "Is he able to talk to me? Can I ask him questions about Joey?"
Dr. Bale laughed. "Yes, Mr. Stokes. Nigel, on the surface, functions fine from day to day. He reads, watches TV, eats, just like the rest of us. He even cleans the floors on the fourth level of the hospital. He doesn't socialize very much as he lacks interpersonal skills which are common with his personality type."
Nick looked away. "Of course."
The doctor played with a lone file in the center of his chaotic desk. "Mr. Stokes. How much do you know about Nigel Crane? About his diagnosis, treatment and his obsession with you several years ago."
Nick sat forward, his unease washed away with a more bland expression. "Doctor, I'm not here to learn about my case, or delve into Nigel's mind. I'm here to try to find out what happened to one of your co-workers and four patients."
Dr. Bale's warmth dissipated slightly, replaced by frustration. "I dedicate my life to trying to cure mental illness, Mr. Stokes. Just like you serve this city by tracking down evidence. Can we not try to help each other on this matter? Will you not reconsider my request from three years ago?"
Nick's shifted in his seat and look up strangely, and clearly confused. "What request?"
This time it was the doctor who appeared baffled. "I requested your assistance on two separate occasions concerning a Victim's Impact session with Mr. Crane as part of his therapy."
Nick laughed, its hollowness missed by the stranger. "What?" It was the second time that day he'd been relegated to that stupid word.
Dr. Bale's perplexity did not abate. "Confronting a stalker with his victim's plight. The most effective study in treating the delusions is to confront the perpetrator with their behavior and its impact on the victim. Since most stalkers don't view their actions as inappropriate or don't recognize the harm. Then they can begin to differentiate between the actual reality and the fantasy they created."
Nick simply shook his head, still slightly stunned.
The kindly physician defined the reasons for his request, not identifying the root of the criminalist's silence. "I felt it would aid in your recovery to confront your attacker as well as dispute Nigel's interpretation of events. You denied both my requests."
Nick managed to find his sense of speech. "I never talked to you before, or saw any request for such a meeting."
Dr. Bale matched the same quizzical attitude of his visitor. "But Mr. Grissom assured me in his e-mails you were not interested in the impact session. That you wanted to get past the events."
Nick froze, turning away so he didn't share with the doctor his pinched expression, dark eyes that closed, his chest hitching slightly from a shocked breath. Hurt, mortification, and anger twisted his guts, causing the need for a huge lungful of air to calm his now raging mind. He stood up, and walked over to a wall, any wall.
He needed something blank, like the slate he sought so many times. Instead he felt deep frustration as he balled up his fist to slam it into the brick. As he brought the folly towards the unyielding object, his hand froze and fingers slid down the cold, painted mortar instead. The burn in his chest faded quickly to cold and all-encompassing numbness. He rested his forehead on the lifeless surface, banged his skull softly to get a grip and then wrestled with the rest of his emotions to drag his body back to the chair.
He stared at the physician, his words curt. "I'm all ears."
tbc...