Summary: Suspicion is thrown on Grissom……..

CSI Manhunter Part 4

Detective Ortega gives a quick rap on the open door of Conrad Ecklie's office.
"Got a minute?" He asks.
"Sure" Ecklie gestures for Ortega to come in. "How can I help you?"

"Who is the primary on the Medici mob hit case?" Ortega asks.
"It's a high profile case with all the hallmarks of organized crime, so I have our most experienced supervisor on it, Grissom. Why?"

"Well I just saw something interesting…."
"Oh?"
"Yes I just saw Grissom receiving a package in an envelope in the parking lot of Marti's Dinner. Marti's is a bit out of the way and they looked like they'd had come to some sort of arrangement. I saw the guy was carrying a concealed weapon. He looked professional."

Ecklie leans back on his chair and plays with his pen between his hands.
"Hummm. And you are thinking...what?" Ecklie finally asks, his own perpetual suspicions and dislike of Grissom were barely being hidden. Ecklie knew Ortega felt the same, that Grissom was just too clever by half.

"Well if I did not know any better I would say it looked awfully like a pay-off….."

Ecklie was thinking 'I knew it. I just knew it! Grissom just had to have flaw. He's bent. '

"You think he is being bribed to throw the evidence against the Medici Brothers Syndicate?" Ecklie summaries.

"Well, the prosecution's case rests entirely on the forensic evidence. And that means on Grissom."

Ecklie considers this. "What do you want to do? Confront Grissom?"

"No…no. But I think I will do a little asking around if that is ok with you, Conrad?"

"Sure. I'm sure there is nothing in it." He says not too convincingly, then adds "Mind you who knows anything about that guy….."

He then continues "I will do a little investigating myself. And it won't be the first time either that I have had to investigate Grissom….." Ecklie is remembering his frustration during the time of the latent finger print case. He had tantalizingly just insufficient fuel from Grissom's team about the omissions in Grissom's supervisory skills to do more than split up the team. He had wanted to do more. No, he was not going to forget that.

Ortega, too, had his own axe to grind. He had not been happy with Grissom's little performance of 'pistols falling off red slate roofs' in the big street shoot out last summer. It had struck him as a contrived piece of theatre. But he had not been able to argue with Grissom's explanation. He now wondered if Grissom's evidence that had exonerated Detective Sophia Curtis in the Bell shooting was because of anything between them... there had been gossip…. Perhaps he and Brass had agreed that Brass could take the fall?

"In all my years in Internal Affairs" Ortega confides "I have found that more often than not it is the quiet ones, the one's you'd never suspect that are the bent ones."

"Well keep me informed". Eckile concludes.

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TBC

Next : the case against Grissom builds... will GSR harm Grissom's spotless record? -----