A/N: Another awesome beta by JellybeanChiChi, who also wrote some of the chapter too. What will be found at the hotel, and will it help or hinder Grissom's case? As always, thanks also for your reviews/comments. They really do mean a lot
Chapter 31
Only a handful of the 40 rooms at the Happy Lodge Motel in Desert View Point were occupied. The small, dated inn was not far from Spring Mountain Youth Camp and Angel Peak, and about an hour's drive from Enterprise.
According to the manager, Room 19 was occupied by two men registered under the name Roy and Walt Disney. They rented the room for two weeks, cash up front, and wished to have privacy away from other renters.
When police arrived, warrant in hand, they went to the front desk and gave the manager a choice: open the room with the master key or have the door broken down.
The decision was an easy one.
"Mr. Disney," the manager called as he knocked on the door of No. 19. "We've had some complaints about a gas leak. Please open the door."
"Busy. You can check later," said a muffled voice from inside.
Detective Matty Foster motioned for the manager to open the door and get out of way. Once the door swung open, Foster's voice boomed. "Las Vegas PD! Hands up where we can see them!"
Inside was a shirtless male holding a bottle of bleach in one hand and a brush in the other. He did what he was told and was shoved against the wall by police officers.
Foster took a cursory glance at the small room with two queen beds. There seemed to be signs of a struggle, as evidenced by an overturned lamp, a broken chair…
And a dead body on one of the beds.
He stepped out of the room to find Karson Hess and Nick Stokes waiting to enter. "All clear?" Nick asked.
"Sorry guys. Gotta call the coroner first."
The two CSIs looked at each other. While neither had any compassion for Rory Dunbar, they hoped for Grissom's sake, he wasn't the dead body. A dead man could tell no tales and Rory Dunbar had a lot of questions to answer.
They peeked into the room. The view made Nick want to slam his hand into a wall. "God damn it!"
Dunbar's body laid on top of the bed, a large blood pool coagulating from a stab wound in the thigh.
The police took Ellis Crossan, a guard who had worked at Southern Nevada Correctional, into custody from the hotel room. Working the scene, Nick and Hess found a switch-blade knife that they printed and swabbed for DNA.
Prints on the handle came back to Crossan, whose prints were in the system thanks to his prison detail, and the blood was positive match to Rory Dunbar. The CSIs surmised that a fight broke out between the two men and Dunbar was on the receiving end of the knife blade. The coroner estimated the deep stab wound to the femoral artery had Dunbar bleed out in 20 minutes. He hadn't been dead for long when police found them. Two hours, possibly three.
With damning evidence of Dunbar's death and the lives of missing guards and prisoners from the bus transfer in question, detectives had a lot of questions to ask Crossan. The problem was he was completely silent, save one word.
"Lawyer."
Karson and Nick had gone to PD and stood outside the two-way mirror of the interrogation room where Foster had Crossan. Hearing him lawyer up, the two knew their time would be better spent in the lab.
Since they were still awaiting the warrant for Fromansky's bank records, they put aside his evidence to focus on what they found in the motel room. They did find a stun gun that tested positive for Grissom's DNA on the end of the device that supposedly Dunbar jabbed into Grissom's body. A partial print on the taser also matched Dunbar.
While that evidence confirmed what Grissom had said about his abuse, another piece of evidence peaked Karson's interest. Taped to the back of a set of drawers in Room 19 of the Happy Lodge Inn Karson found an SD media card. He wondered if this was the missing video from the camcorder he found in the warehouse.
The two headed to the A/V lab to view what was on the card. Nick had already suspected that Rory had recorded his torture of Grissom. He wondered if his hunch was correct. Nick took a deep breath, trying to prepare himself for what he might see on the tape, before pressing "play."
The screen flickered briefly, before it focused on Grissom's battered form. Nick swallowed reflexively, his Adam's apple bobbing erratically, as he tried to keep the bile from rising. Karson had been right; the photos of Grissom at the warehouse didn't give justice to what Gil Grissom had gone through.
It was plain to see that he was a broken man in intense physical and emotional pain. His face was swollen and bruised, his nose clearly broken. Nick noticed that he favoured his left side, although from the way he moved his arms and shoulders they equally caused him a great deal of pain. Fresh blood still trickled from his mouth and nose, suggesting that he'd recently suffered a further beating before being displayed in front of the camera. His hands visibly shook.
As Rory's voice sounded from behind the camera ordered Grissom to state his full name and age, the haunted bloodshot eyes that started back at Nick would stay with him for months.
His rage building, Nick forced himself to watch until the end. It was self-evident that Grissom's confession had been under great duress. Consumed with fury, Nick rose abruptly to his feet, and headed out the door.
"Nick," Karson called after him. When Nick didn't stop or turn around, Karson went after him. He jogged to catch up and grabbed the CSI by the arm. "Nick, where are you going?"
"Back to PD."
"Why?"
"To body slam that bastard prison guard against a wall."
"I get it. You need a breather," Karson said. "You've been working this for 15 hours straight, Stokes. It might be good to leave."
"I am going to leave and I am going to PD and I am going slam that guy into a wall until the fucking bastard tells me how much payment he got to watch a man, shackled, beaten and humiliated!" Nick said pulling his arm out of Karson's grasp. "Now get the fuck off of me!"
But Karson grabbed the man again, despite seeing Nick ball his fist. Speaking close to Nick, Karson spoke quietly but with stern authority. "Nick you leave for PD and I will take you off this case, period. If you want to help Grissom, this is not the way to go about it, do you understand?"
"Yeah, you really think so?" Nick answered in an equally low voice, but one laced with rage. "Cause we've been working evidence by the book and every time we get closer, a critical player in this fucking charade is dead. Maybe shaking the shit out of Ellis or torturing him the way he watched Grissom get tortured is the only way to get that son of a bitch to talk."
Karson nodded sagely, and when he spoke his voice was calm. "I'm sorry you had to see what was on that tape Nick. And I can't begin to imagine what you're feeling right now. I don't know Grissom as well as you do, but I know you think a lot of him," Karson stated, watching the younger man carefully. "This case is frustrating enough without you going off on a suspect. You're tired and you need to go home."
"Damn right I'm tired!" Nick shot back, angrily cutting off the supervisor. "I'm tired of going round in circles! I'm tired of the evidence only leading us to Grissom's guilt! And I hate the fact that I gave up on him too quickly. That I was stupid enough to believe that he could do something like this!"
Karson placed a supportive hand on Nick's shoulder. "You know, because of your history with Grissom I wonder if I was your supervisor if I would have assigned you his case. But you looked at the evidence objectively, Nick, and right now I think you're the best person to help him."
"I've done a shitty job so far."
"We're not done yet," Karson said. "Go home, Nick. Try and get some rest, and we can tackle this again with fresh eyes in the morning."
With a grateful nod, Nick quickly left and Karson retreated to his office. About 45 minutes later, he received a text from Nick that read, "I'm home. Thanks and sorry."
Some 15 minutes after that, Karson's thoughts were interrupted by a knock on the door. "Detective Bowden."
"Can I come in?"
"Sure. Sit down," Karson said. "Is it impossibly optimistic that you're here to tell me you got Ellis Crossan to talk?"
"Absolutely," Bowden said. "Actually I had come here to look at that evidence you found. The SD card."
"You viewed it?"
"Just got back from the A/V lab," Bowden said. "I definitely have some questions for Grissom. I'm going to the house tomorrow morning first thing."
"The man has just been discharged from hospital," Karson said. "You think he's in a good enough state to answer questions?"
"Not my job to worry about that," Bowden said. "I've got dead bodies one after the other tied into what happened to him, and now we have this added dimension of a confession he gave on that tape."
"He looked distressed," Karson said gauging Bowden's response.
"He looked like a lot of things," Bowden said as he stood.
"I'd like to tag along for the interview."
Bowden paused for a moment. He knew his partner would not like that, but Bowden was too tired to start a pissing match with a CSI. "He's a murder suspect, and I'm not giving him any special considerations."
"I don't think anyone is giving Grissom special considerations. We're all trying to get to the truth, right detective?"
The detective nodded. "Meet me there at 8. I'm guessing you have the address."
After the detective left the office, Karson made a phone call.