Arg, again I'm SO sorry for the lack of updates lately. Other than school, I have a new job and things are crazier than ever before. Please message me with more details if you want them. But, I hope I am forgiven for this faux pas! Please tell me I am. Reviews?
Showered, changed and finished with her report from the night before (the deadline long overdue and Ecklie yelling at her about it), Maggie met up with Claudia Kearns – Ursula's former sister-in-law and one of the guardians of her young twins – down at the Strip. They both agreed to meet there during their last phone call, undercover almost, to talk about the funeral quietly (without media detection), but to be heard over the noise from anywhere on the Strip was almost impossible, hence their decision.
Meeting at the Hard Rock Café as planned, Maggie passed the eighty-four foot guitar statue and looked for a woman with paperwork. Claudia Kearns had also mentioned over the phone that she would be doing that while eating, but did not mention what she looked like or if she was bringing Ursula's twin children or not. Maggie assumed that she wasn't, since paperwork would not really be done if two children barely out of toddlerhood would be running around.
In her field gear in order to be recognized (and her shift just a few hours away, a few tortuous hours before she had to deal with her co-workers and be bored), Maggie searched table after table, even asked a waiter if he had seen or heard of somebody named Claudia Kearns and if she had the twins with her or not. After a few minutes of trying to jog his memory (Being a C.S.I. is always a plus!), he remembered somebody like that (without children with her) and pointed to the other side of the serving area. There, a woman sat there, snacking on French fries and sipping on some soda and writing furiously next to a stack of papers.
Maggie smiled and walked over, sitting down across from the woman. Then, clearing her throat, she managed to reach out her hand, in an attempt to shake the latter's, saying, "Maggie O'Keefe. I presume you're Claudia Kearns."
The woman looked up, startled and nervous. Her dark doe eyes shone, her red hair frizzing in every place as she stopped writing, taking Maggie's hand gently, coldly. "Yes, yes, I am. It's nice to meet you and finally meet the person behind the newspapers and the negative media reports."
"Excuse me? What do you mean?" Maggie almost dropped her hand abruptly, but managed to let go of the shake cordially enough.
"I've heard about you a few years back, in 2003 or so, even afterward," Claudia simply replied, pushing her new-written paperwork aside. "I heard about your parents' murders originally, when I was in middle school, and wasn't too surprised when I heard, years later, that you helped to bring the killer to justice, via a more…sinister method, I should say. I admire you, Maggie O'Keefe. You're a brave woman to have taken up a lot to sacrifice emotion and personal feelings to bring a killer to his final judgment."
The C.S.I. almost squirmed in her seat with the unusual remarks, finally nervously waving away the waiter when asked for food, and tried sitting still, listening to Claudia continue nonetheless.
"Ms. O'Keefe, I'm just amazed that you and I are talking right now and that I'm telling you this now. I only regret that my former sister-in-law was up to her knees in trouble again and got you and your co-workers working on a case to nowhere almost…except discovering another case of revenge and total destruction, so I've heard from your Assistant Director." Claudia paused. "I understand that you were also kidnapped by the best friend of Quentin Tanner. When hearing that Ursula had supposedly been abducted by the same man, didn't you feel like this was just another senseless scare, another road that led to another crime full of evidence?"
Maggie was speechless.
"What? Nobody asked you these questions, I take it?" Claudia took another sip of her soda, shivering in the air conditioning above her head. "Nobody took your side half the time, played the 'Oh, I pity you!' card, like Nick Stokes or Gil Grissom? Well, you should know that there are people out there who were against you being called dangerous by everybody…a menace to society…because there are more people out there, worse than you."
"Like your former sister-in-law?" Maggie finally found her tongue and when she did, she didn't feel her words sounded so welcoming and friendly, but snappish and dragon-like, acid dripping her words.
Claudia stared at her. "Ursula had enchanted my brother while the two were in college and she persuaded him to elope when they were both twenty-two. Years later, they have the twins and my brother found her abusing them, smothering them under pillows and then trying to drown them in the bathtub. Don't try telling me that she wasn't worse than you, Ms. O'Keefe, because she was. Ursula Tanner Kearns was nothing but trouble as soon as she was brought home."
"She was actually nothing but kindness unto me and everybody around her, even when talking about her daughters, until I learned of her deceit," Maggie replied bitterly, "but until the end, she was always faithful to me and even said how sorry she was. I'm very sorry, Ms. Kearns, but I see nothing of the 'enchantress' in Ursula. She helped me through some tough times and even kept me from killing myself when I gave up myself. I have severe depression and –"
"Does it matter now? I don't need you to explain anything to me because I know it all. Now, back to Ursula. This woman made me in charge of her property somehow, as if she had anything left, and I agreed to meet up with you to discuss the funeral because you were her only true friend that was led by her lies."
"But –"
"Don't interrupt me again, Ms. O'Keefe, because I have little time. Now, her funeral is to be in Montana so that we can all see her gone…so Las Vegas can skip another C.S.I. funeral and the media cannot have another story and bother Mr. Ecklie. All I was told, in the will that was recovered from her safe box, was that I was to give you this."
Claudia turned next to her and dug her hands into something, a purse most likely. Then, satisfied that she had what she wanted, Claudia looked back to Maggie and gave her an old cassette tape labeled, "Just in Case: Maggie O'Keefe".
"We don't know when the tape arrived in the safe box, but from what the bank told us, Ursula had been sneaking in and out of Montana and most likely seeing her daughters, which would clarify some things," Claudia explained. "Now, I probably should leave you. You have a tape to listen to and I have a plane to catch later. Ursula's body is coming back with me in the morning, so I need to go to that medical examiner of yours to get it ready for the ride."
"Sure…" Maggie looked over the tape carefully – dust wiped clean from it – and was about to say something back to Claudia, but she was gone, paperwork and all. All that remained was an almost-empty tray of French fries and an empty glass of soda, the coldness gone from it.
~00~
So, I'm sitting here in my office – mine for the time being, since Ursula and her things are now gone, as if she had never been here – and thinking once more. I have no cases tonight, no paperwork to catch up on, no Ecklie and Grissom to talk to me. Las Vegas is as quiet as the countryside, an occasional police car whizzing by. Nobody has bothered me, nobody has come by to express their condolences to me. I think everybody knows, after knowing me for some time now, that I like to be left alone in my grief, especially Nick. I saw him in the lobby earlier, but he only greeted me and ran off someplace, saying something about Quentin Tanner being caught again and in maximum security.
I've never been a huge writer, scribbling here and there, but tonight, I need some company in the form of empty paper, endless ink. I need something that I could write down, as if I was relieving my mind of something, and throw into the fireplace back at my parents' old place. I need some closure – as if I had enough, as if I haven't found all the pieces to the puzzle yet – and need to burn the rest of it to ash. From ashes to ashes, dust to dust, they said. I need to start anew once more.
Breathe in and out…in and out…there, I think I feel a little better. Not by much, though, and this is bothering me more that I am still alive and bored with what I have: an endless abyss of nothing but work and staying with one or both of my brothers. No, it's not my parents' murder, because I've been over that for a while now, although I will miss them from time to time and somehow wish they were here…although Mom will correct my parenting skills every step of the way and it'll annoy me endlessly…but that every step I take, people will see me as the killer of Jason Napolitano and the person who helped to put his friends in jail. Granted, Karen and her children were innocent of all matters, but this cost me my ex-boyfriend (scum that he is), a good friend and my trust of the world.
For, yes, who and what can Maggie O'Keefe trust anymore? Who next will take advantage of her, her kindness and her plights?
Worse yet is this tape. Ursula taped herself about a year ago, telling everything about the case we solved – everything we know now – and all I could do is give it to Ecklie, Grissom and Brass when it was finished, telling them to put it in the evidence box and put away. It'll be used against her siblings when their trial comes, when their time of judgment comes, as Claudia would have said, I think. Ursula would have wanted it to happen. I know that of her.
At the end, I heard her apology. Ursula said how sorry she was, saying that I had changed her as time rolled. Really? I changed her from criminal to human being? How could I have changed a criminal, a person who pushed her way into my life on purpose? How could I have made her help me against Eric, get her to support me when I needed it at all times? How could I have made her giggle with me, telling me to go back to Nick, the first of many to tell me so?
No, I am angry. I am angry at her. But, it'll take time to heal. It'll take time to realize how much she still means to me, still is in my mind. Warrick was the first and the next in line was Ursula. It'll end. And hopefully, this will be the last of the Las Vegas saw of C.S.I. deaths.
Rest in peace, Ursula. I hope you find it more there than here.