V. "Grissom, when was the last time you did anything fun?" Catherine Willows asks me one evening. It was during the first year I met her as we worked side-by-side in Vegas's Criminalist's Bureau. But of course it wasn't the last time she would pose this question.
I looked up from eating my breakfast/dinner, a mix of cranberries and salad, and stared. It amazed me at the time how comfortable Catherine was with prying into people's lives. I suppose it was partially because she considered us close enough for such blunt conversation but I was only mildly flattered. For the most part, I didn't like being harassed.
"What do you mean by that?" I replied softly, a tone delude of any annoyance despite the prick of offense riding on the horizon. I could trace where this question was leading, another stab at my demeanor. And yet I let myself be pulled into it. She was sitting on the opposite side of the table, flitting through a magazine. Her blue eyes lifted from the pages as she leaned against her hand. Every gesture was calculated, precise. I knew very little about Catherine back then, only enough to gauge her personality as the antithesis of my own: engaging, charismatic, and slightly obnoxious.
Slick pink lips revealed artificially white teeth. "You know what I mean, Grissom. When was the last time you went out to a bar? Hung out with some friends?" I finished munching on my salad, slowly chewing on her words. "I am not one for alcohol."
"And what about friends?"
"I have a few."
Catherine was an impatient young woman. She's changed over the years, mind you, but in some respect our conversations have often ended in the same pattern. She sighed exasperatedly and rolled her eyes, muttering a 'never mind'. I continued eating my salad.
In the beginning, it had simply been me and Catherine. There were others, of course, but we formed an unlikely alliance in those early years. She would handle matters of people and image: collecting evidence from unwilling suspects, making friends out of public enemies. And in the shadows I would work my magic, connecting puzzle pieces while she unraveled the clues. There was nothing really romantic about this bond. Catherine was an attractive woman, she still is, but our friendship was platonic. Always.
As time passed, as our lab went from a #14 ranking to a respectable #2, our graveyard shift family extended, was molded and then remolded. The circle of people I cared about, I mean truly cared about, expanded. First Warrick and Nick, then Sara and even Greg began to grow on me.
It's the present moment now and the heat weighs down on me as I walk under a moonless Las Vegas sky. I steal a moment to savor a weak breeze, but the heavy nylon vest and black undershirt don't mix with this brief reprieve and so it goes hardly felt. The members of my team are walking ahead, I see their figures fade into inky blackness, reappearing with the glow of the flashlight. Four figures illuminated, eventually become five when Greg finally gets his flashlight to work.
I arrive shortly behind them, carrying the photography equipment. Police officers in land-rovers are slowly trickling in, people are setting up a temporary lighting system. A flash and we have power, in an instant I see her face.
It's Charlotte. My muscles tighten in a momentary parlysis, the shock of seeing such a familiar face. One completely unchanged by time. Her brown eyes forming a vacant stare, brown hair spread against the dry earth. Small lips moving in a labored effort to tell me what has happened to her after all these years. . .
Suddenly there is a hand on my shoulder and instinctively I recoil, only it's a very subtle gesture and only Catherine notices. "Grissom? Are you alright?"
The others fix their gazes on me and I am surprised to see their worry. I shake off any lingering feelings and nod, quietly pulling out the forensic lab's camera. After a slight pause, everyone accepts the transpired moment with their own private conclusions, and gets back to work.
When I look at the corpse again, this time behind the lens of the camera, she changes. It's not Charlotte, in fact, the person before me looks nothing like her. Her nose is too wide and she looks older, maybe in her thirties. I don't know why my mind jumped, why it showed me Charlotte in this Jane Doe's place but I do not easily forget this event and it haunts me well after my shift has ended.
I can't make sense of it. Perhaps it was some kind of pent up trauma, or maybe I simply have been working too hard lately. But in the end, it still troubles me. When I finally get home, I go to my closet where I keep a small wooden box. Inside I take out a picture, it was old and weathered by the image still remained distinct. It was of me and Charlotte, taken on a school trip to the beach.
To be honest, I had not really thought of her lately. And maybe my reaction at the crime scene was really her as a ghost, reminding me not to forget. But how could I? I can't forget. Just like I couldn't forget my father's death, which was even longer ago. In fact, as I begin to consider it--there isn't a single death I haven't forgotten. All of them stay with me, holding out in the deep recesses of my memory. For you see, death is my life's motif.
I deal with the Grim Reaper every day as a career.
And afterwards we drink tea.