Previous part of Remuneration.

***

Detective Paulson drove to the condominium complex where the victim, now known to be the missing Danbridge child, had been staying with her grandmother. Gil Grissom had arrived only moments before. Paulson could see the forensic scientist step through the front entry doors headed to the home of a grandmother who would very soon be in the full throes of grief. Grissom had requested that he be the one to inform the grandmother. Paulson had no quarrels with that. He did have issues with Grissom, though.

The death of a child was always hard to deal with, and investigating the murder of a minor was no easier. Even the most hardened police officer could find their veil of professionalism slip when it came to children. Paulson supposed it was no different for the crime scene investigators. Although Grissom had not raised his voice, everyone present when he identified the victim could feel his anger and outrage. The clenched fists of the legendary forensic investigator did not go unnoticed by the young detective. True to his reputation, the night shift CSI supervisor was direct and thorough. He had asked about the discovery of the body, the securing of the crime scene, the preliminary findings Nick Stokes had obtained, and what the witnesses in the market had to offer.

It was Paulson and the uniform he had brought with him who had discovered the body. It wasn't hard to spot the garbage bag lying on the ground outside of the dumpsters. It was also Paulson who had done the initial interviews with the supermarket's shift manager and the other employees working during the timeframe in which the body was probably dumped. Carl believed the person who placed the 911 call was the same person who left the corpse at the Albertson's and was, in all likelihood, the perpetrator. No one who worked at the market had seen anything. No one saw a vehicle drive behind the building. No one saw anyone use the payphone in front of the market. See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil, have no hassles.

Paulson had shared everything he knew with Grissom. The CSI supervisor listened patiently and then thanked Carl for his efforts. He then proceeded to piss Carl off by questioning the manager himself, asking the identical questions Carl had asked and getting the same answers. Grissom walked the crime scene as well, looking at the trash bag-clad body from every angle before the coroner's office was allowed to take the body away. He then examined the tire treads and the drag marks. He spoke quietly but with authority. And when the circus began to arrive, he ignored them completely, leaving the task of fording the shark-infested waters of the media to Paulson and other members of the police force.

Grissom gave instructions to Stokes about some crime scene procedures and more instructions to the coroner's assistant about tagging the body for special processing. Both men took the instructions in stride. So, Carl thought, the followers of the Great Grissom were used to his taking control. But Carl wasn't one of Grissom's minions, he was the detective in charge of this investigation - not that Grissom seemed to notice. Paulson intended to stay in charge.

It was well after 1:00 am. All suggestions that she try to get some rest were rebuffed. Mrs. Danbridge had no intention of doing any such thing until she found her granddaughter. A hush fell over the room as soon as the front door opened. The neighbors who had volunteered to stay with Mrs. Danbridge until the police had something to report had already received the first of many calls from the media requesting interviews with the worried grandmother of Las Vegas' most recent missing child.

Mrs. Danbridge stiffened with anticipation as soon as she saw Dr. Grissom enter her living room. His face was unreadable. That could only mean one thing. If there had been any good news, she would be able to see it. The last shred of hope she had to cling to was the fact that there was no news. Her neighbor's strides were measured, steady, purposeful. He must know something. She began to cry. Oh God, she thought, he knows what happened to Shelly.

Gil watched new tears begin to fall down Mrs. Danbridge's face. Each tear seem to tear at his resolve to remain distanced. An investigator could not afford to get emotionally involved. He had preached this canon often enough. The case has no face. Not this case. Not this victim. Not this grieving family. They had faces and names and God dammit all if it wasn't ripping him up on the inside. He crossed the room to sit beside his neighbor.

The CSI and the grandmother looked at each other. She knew that he had bad news and he knew that he had to find a way to tell her. "I'm sorry," Gil managed in a heavy whisper. The words felt hollow.

Placing her head in her hands, Martha Danbridge tried to force out the world. "Oh God ... no." Her voice, filled with pain and disbelief, barely made it past her hands. Her shoulders began to quake as the sobs racked her diminutive frame. She felt strong and sure arms envelop her and collapsed into them, giving herself over to her grief.

Gil Grissom held her with tenderness. Laying his cheek on the top of her hair, he let a single tear fall free from his filled eyes. This should not be happening. This woman should not have to go through another loss again so soon, so tragically. This was not fair. Someone would pay for what had happened to Shelly Danbridge. And that someone was going to have to face him very, very soon.

***

Nick had finished taking the cast of the tire tread. He had also taken another entire sequence of photos of the drag marks under direct light with a demarcation ruler in frame as Grissom had suggested. He then gave special attention to the contents of the four dumpsters behind the market on the remote chance that the perpetrator had thrown away other evidence in one or more of these before departing the scene. He was just finishing up with a search of the last one when he heard Catherine's voice.

"Is this the first or the last one you've searched?" the senior CSI asked.

"Hey, Cath," Nick said as he placed a foot on the lip of the dumpster and jumped down to the pavement in front of her. He brushed his gloved hands down the front of his blue overalls. "That's the last one."

"Anything?"

"Nada," he told her. Nick had called to inform Catherine of the case's progress and of his concerns about Grissom. Nick could never before remember seeing the expression that had crossed his boss's face when he looked at the body. There was something almost … chilling in it. He took the conversation in that direction. "Have you seen Gris?"

Catherine shook her head. "Not yet. I'm headed there now." She looked toward the flood lights at the edge of the pavement. "Do you need help finishing here?"

Following her gaze, Nick shook his head. "I've got to fingerprint the payphones out front is all. After that, I'll get what I have back to the lab. We'll have to wait for the bag and clothes to come back from the morgue before processing those."

She nodded. "Was it bad?"

Both of them knew she was asking about both the condition of the little girl and Grissom's reaction to the identification.

"Kids are always the toughest," Nick said quietly. "I don't think I've ever seen him that angry before."

Catherine looked back at Nick. "Yeah," she sighed. "I'll see you back at the lab when you're through here. Okay?"

Nick knew that the work on this case was only just beginning. The analysis of the evidence collected would be the hard part. Still, he figured he had the lighter duty. After they parted, Nick watched Catherine get into the Tahoe and drive away. She was heading to talk to the grandmother of the murdered child, collect personal items the child owned for comparison purposes, and see Grissom - by far the more difficult aspect of the investigation at the moment.

Detective Carl Paulson spotted the bag of groceries in the hallway outside the Danbridge condominium as soon as he got off the elevator. The plastic bag had the Albertson's logo on it. The officer outside the door to the grandmother's home informed him that the groceries had been left there by Grissom several hours before. No one had thought to do anything with them, opting to simply keep an eye on them until the owner reclaimed them and took them into his own home.

Using his pen, Paulson inspected the contents of the bag and found what he was looking for - a receipt. Using his handkerchief, Paulson picked up the receipt and noted the time and date stamp. It was dated the evening before at 11:01 pm. Two minutes before the call was made to 911 dispatch. The store address matched the location they had both just been at. Grissom was at the same market at virtually the same time the call had been placed. Funny he hadn't mentioned that. And not funny ha ha.

Placing the receipt into an envelope and dropping it into his pocket, Paulson turned to the officer at the door again. "Officer …" Carl looked at the uniform's name tag, "Pampling?"

"Yes, sir," Pampling responded to the detective.

Paulson nodded. "I'm the detective in charge of this case, and I need you to do me a favor."

Grissom had stayed with Martha Danbridge until she had calmed down enough to listen to him more rationally. Shelly's parents had been called by Detective Paulson and told the horrifying news. They would be taking the next flight to Vegas from Ohio. There wasn't anything Mrs. Danbridge could do at this time. The crime lab would be sending someone to collect Shelly's hairbrush, toothbrush, and a few items of clothing so that samples for comparison could be obtained. A full statement had been given to the police. What Mrs. Danbridge needed to do now was rest. The day was going to be long and trying. She had to be a mother to her son and daughter-in-law when they arrived. After some reassurances that one of her other neighbors would stay with her, Mrs. Danbridge had finally gone in to her bedroom to lie down.

An officer approached Grissom while he was speaking with Carl Paulson. Gil had left his groceries in the hallway and the press would be arriving very soon. The officer asked Grissom if he wouldn't mind taking them into his house. When Paulson had asked if they could continue their conversation about the case while Grissom did this, it never occurred to Gil to say no. Carl didn't mind using his newness to the Homicide detail as an excuse to ask the CSI supervisor questions. Those questions would get him access to Grissom's home and a cursory look around the residence.

Picking up the bag from the hallway, Gil unlocked his front door and walked through, holding it open once inside to allow the young detective to enter behind him. Paulson walked into Grissom's living room while Gil headed into the kitchen to put the groceries away.

Glancing around the living room, Paulson found a small bundle of wildflowers bound with a rubber band lying on a side table. A closer look revealed that there were blonde hairs trapped by the rubber band and mixed in with the stems of the flowers. The detective looked up and watched Grissom putting his groceries away.

"You like flowers, Mr. Grissom?" Paulson asked the CSI.

Turning, Gil looked at the detective. He was sure the younger man had spoken but he hadn't clearly heard what was said. "I'm sorry?"

Evasive, Paulson thought. He repeated his question. "You like flowers?"

Gil realized Paulson had found the flowers Shelly had given him the last time he had seen her alive. Instantly a lump formed in his throat again. "They were a gift," he said simply, desiring to leave it at that.

"From Shelly Danbridge?" Paulson inquired, not taking the hint in Grissom's tone.

Grissom gave the detective a hard look. "Yes."

Putting his hands in his pockets and nodding, Paulson made a show of examining the flowers again. "These look like they were picked pretty recently," he mused aloud.

Now Grissom was moving toward the detective. He hadn't remembered the flowers were there until Paulson mentioned them. Gil wasn't certain but he could swear that there was an undertone of accusation in the detective's voice.

When Grissom didn't comment, Paulson realized he had hit very close to the mark. He had one more question for the criminalist. "Do you sometimes use large plastic trash bags to collect evidence, Mr. Grissom?"

***

Sleep wouldn't come to him. The event was too recent. He chose the dark instead of turning on a light. With a bottle of Jim Beam in his hand and the lights of Vegas blinking outside his window, he stood staring as the minutes ticked past.

The image of the dead girl floated in front of him. He could feel himself get excited as he remembered his encounter with her. His groin ached with his desire. It could take days or weeks to find another child who made him feel this way.

The burn of the whiskey as he drank did nothing to cool the fire of his desire to experience the rush of taking a young girl again. He would have to do something to feed that fire. He would have to do something soon.

Warrick looked at the fiber taken from the back of the recliner under the comparison microscope. The dye in the fiber was faded to varying degrees along the fiber's length, but he was reasonably sure he would be able to identify the original color. With the furniture manufacturer's mark and the recliner mechanism, Sara had been able to narrow the type of recliner to the Burnham Company. She had also discovered that the reclining mechanism in the chair had been discontinued four years before. Their only hope of trying to trace the chair was in identifying the original color of the fabric and comparing that information with the known fabrics shipped by the manufacturer to the Las Vegas area.

Of course, all of that assumed the chair was sold by a local retailer. The chair could be one of the thousands transported to Vegas by the many families that moved into the region each year. Sometimes, working in the crime lab of the fastest growing metropolitan area in the nation bit the big one.

Gil stood dumbfounded, staring at the detective. He was certain he had heard him correctly this time. This guy actually believed that Gil could be responsible for the horrific death of Shelly Danbridge. The thought sickened the CSI in ways he hadn't thought possible for a long, long time.

"You didn't just say what I think you said," Gil said, still not sure exactly how to respond to the barely cloaked accusation.

Carl Paulson looked squarely in the face of the forensic scientist. "Can you account for your whereabouts since the disappearance of the victim?"

Gil cocked his head to one side, still trying to wrap his brain around what he was hearing. "You believe I'm your perpetrator?"

Paulson gave a slight shrug. "What I think is that you were at the market when the 911 call was made. That you've had recent contact with the victim as evidenced by the flowers here on your table, and if you can't account for all of your time since the girl went missing then I think we have a problem on our hands."

The CSI was nonplussed. "How do you know when I was at the market?"

"The receipt in your bag of groceries," the detective informed him calmly.

Gil thought about that a moment. He nodded as he began to understand. Of course, the patrolman who asked Gil to bring his groceries into the house had done so at the request of the detective. Since the bag was in the hallway it was considered to be in plain sight and the detective only had to look for the receipt. Circumstantially, Gil looked guilty as hell. He had been at home for at least two hours after Shelly had gone missing. He had been at the same market the body was dumped at about the same time the phone call to 911 was made. He had proof, right in the center of his own living room, that he and Shelly had had casual contact very recently. He had means and opportunity. Motive wasn't even at question for the detective. It didn't have to be.

"You're wasting your time, detective," Gil told Paulson.

"But it's my time to waste," the younger man said deliberately. "Isn't it?"

A knock on Grissom's front door caught both men's attention. Before Gil could begin to move toward it, the front door opened and Catherine poked her head in. "Grissom?"

"Catherine," Gil replied almost curtly.

Moving around the door and into the entryway, Catherine allowed the door to swing shut behind her. The tension in the air of Gil's living room was so thick she could cut it with a knife.

"Are you Detective Paulson?" she asked the younger man.

"I am," Paulson affirmed.

Catherine pointed her thumb back over her shoulder. "The officer next door told me I could find you two in here." She looked from Grissom to the detective and back at her friend again. "Want to tell me what's going on?"

Gil looked back at Detective Paulson. "We have a new problem."

"At least," Paulson told them both, "in that we agree."

Arriving at the crime lab, Nick deposited all the evidence bags he had carried in with him on a table. He would log in all the evidence immediately and then begin to prioritize each item for analysis. He wanted to be well through this process when Grissom or Catherine returned. He had a game plan already mapped out for the case. He would begin by getting someone to help dry out the plaster mold of the tire treads and then get the search going with the computer database. The prints he lifted from the payphones would go to Jacqui in the Fingerprint Lab right away. He would then use the photos he had taken at the crime scene to create a map of the dump site. As soon as the coroner released the victim's clothing and the garbage bag, he could log these items into evidence as well and begin to analyze anything he found on them.

He hoped the trash bag would reveal fingerprints. Nick was certain there would be fibers and hairs on the little girl's clothes. Hopefully, these tiny pieces of evidence would begin to lead him in the direction of the killer. If Grissom was right, and he usually was, a sexual predator like the person responsible for Shelly Danbridge's senseless death wouldn't stop with just one victim. He would most likely attempt to do this again, if he hadn't already done it before. They were working against the clock. And for this particular perpetrator they had no earthly idea what time it was or when the alarm would go off again.

***

Jim Brass made the call to Sheriff Brian Mobley just after 3 am. The Sheriff had been awakened by the news of a murdered child found not two miles from Gil Grissom's home and within hours of the child's disappearance. Nothing did more damage to the political aspirations of the Clark County Sheriff than the publicity nightmare of a child abduction and murder, except perhaps the suspicion of guilt in that murder of one of his most influential employees. Once the Sheriff heard that Grissom might be a suspect, he wanted to know just what the hell was going on.

So did Brass. He pulled into the parking lot of Grissom's condominium complex and got out of his car to head for the back of the CSI supervisor's department-assigned SUV, which was now open and being searched by two uniforms and Paulson. Catherine Willows was on hand as well. By the look on Catherine's face, the shit had already hit the fan … big time.

Al Robbins logged the body of the little girl in himself. After getting a call from the Sheriff, he wasn't going to take any chances that there might be a screw-up, no matter how inadvertent. He knew two things to be unequivocally true. The Sheriff was far more concerned about his political career than he was in the truth, and Gil Grissom simply was not capable of committing such a heinous act.

This autopsy moved to the top of his priority 'To Do' list and would stay there until the case was settled. He sent word to Catherine that the autopsy on the victim she and Sara had sent in would be on hold for the time being. Somehow, Robbins didn't think they'd mind.

The only thing that moved faster than the speed of light in the known universe was a piece of gossip along the LVMPD's unofficial information pathways. It probably wasn't seconds after the Sheriff had gotten the call from Brass that everyone in the department knew that Gil Grissom had somehow become a suspect in the abduction and murder of a little girl.

Sara and Warrick were stunned by the grapevine prattle. The buzz became bad news as soon as they received Catherine's call telling them that the We-Store-It homicide would be theirs to work without her.

The storage unit victim had been stripped and placed on a gurney awaiting autopsy and all the clothing that had been on the body had been bagged and was now sitting on top of the Evidence Room illuminated table. Warrick had covered the table with clean white paper. Sara sat across from him. She wasn't paying any attention to the evidence bags in the center of the lighted surface. Neither, for that matter, was Warrick.

"I don't believe it," Sara said, arms crossed in front of her.

Warrick sat on his stool and seemed to stare at nothing. "It's bullshit, that's what it is."

"Who the hell is this guy, anyway?" Sara wanted to know.

"Some rookie in Homicide," he told her. "Rumor has it his shield is still in the original Cracker Jack wrapper."

"This is just so bogus," she insisted.

"You got that right."

Conrad Ecklie, the day shift supervisor of the Las Vegas Crime Lab, got the call from Sheriff Mobley and immediately got up and showered. He'd have to be very careful with this case. The odds that Grissom had anything to do with the abduction and murder of a child were remote - but not impossible.

That made his position in the investigation pivotal. Conrad could think of nothing else as he dressed and prepared to head into his office. What was the best way to handle the investigation without the appearance of bias? It was common knowledge in the department that no love was lost between he and Grissom. The fact that the Sheriff called on him to deal with the situation was telling. Mobley trusted Conrad. Recently, Grissom had made some points with the Sheriff by pulling off some very high profile cases, but Conrad had always considered his shift, his team, the A-team when it came to dealing with the most sensitive cases the crime lab faced.

Kissing his sleeping wife on the cheek and picking his keys up off the bureau, Ecklie headed out of his house and to his car. He continued to debate the best way to handle this case.

Perhaps it would be wise to keep Stokes. The night shift CSI had done most of the field work and was well into the particulars of the investigation by now. The more Conrad thought about that idea the better he liked it. Yes, Stokes would stay on as lead investigator under Conrad's supervision. Willows would get the boot immediately. With one of the night shift's own still on the case, no matter what the investigation uncovered, Conrad couldn't be accused of tainting the findings. Of course, it didn't hurt that Stokes was well known as the weakest member of Grissom's team.

Neon blinked at him through the windows of his condo just as they had several hours before, only now the pulsing lights reminded him more of the flashes of high explosives on a battlefield than the beacons of humanity. He felt embattled. He supposed he was.

Sheriff Mobley's call had been a courtesy. An official investigation would have to be conducted. Gil would have to remember to thank the good Sheriff the next time he saw him.

Surprisingly, he didn't find himself bitter. He was disappointed, however. What a waste.

Somewhere, out there in the night, was a killer. Gil knew that. He also knew that he would find that killer, sooner or later. His only hope now was that he found the bastard before another child like Shelly died at his hands.

***

"This is the biggest load of crap I've ever heard," Catherine asserted, loudly. Her tone, if not her exact words, carried beyond the closed doors of the Conference Room at CSI and into the corridor outside. She glared at both of the men who stood in front of her. Conrad Ecklie and Sheriff Mobley seemed to flinch a little at the anger in her voice. She wasn't going to let the department burn Grissom in effigy because a rookie Homicide detective had a burr up his butt. "Gil Grissom is no more capable of committing this crime than my daughter is."

"I don't disagree with you, Catherine," Sheriff Mobley replied, trying to stay as calm and collected as he could. He wouldn't serve himself well if he got into a shouting match with the fiery night shift CSI. He had to find a way to diffuse her temper, if such a thing were possible. "You know as well as I do that the department has to be very careful about this kind of internal investigation."

"Yeah, right!" Catherine shot back. You have to be careful not to lose votes come next election, she thought darkly, barely maintaining the control needed to keep from saying so out loud.

Mobley took a breath and let it out slowly. "Look, Catherine. When Nick Stokes was under investigation both Ecklie and I gave you the time you needed to find the evidence to clear him. Why don't you give us the same courtesy?"

Catherine gave him a mirthless half laugh. "You want me to believe that Conrad is really interested in proving Grissom's innocence?"

"Of course he is. We all are. No one wants to see an employee of this department go down for a crime like this. " Mobley assured her. "We're leaving Nick on the case. He'll be primary. Ecklie will be there to supervise, to assure everyone that no favoritism is involved."

That stopped Catherine's objection for the moment. She thought about what she had just been told. If they were leaving Nick on the case, then perhaps there really was some hope that Gil wouldn't simply be railroaded. She still didn't like the idea that she would have to be hands-off on this one, but at least with Nick, someone who knew the truth from the start would be involved. "And you'll leave Nick alone, let him do the job."

Mobley nodded. "Absolutely."

Conrad Ecklie simply stayed where he was, reclined against the end of a table, staring at his shoes.

This time it was Catherine's turn to take a deep breath. This was as good as the current situation was likely to get. However, she had another battle to fight. "I still need Gil to work on another case."

That brought Conrad to life. "No," Ecklie replied immediately.

"The storage unit case is dead in the water without him," she replied. "What little we have amounts to bupkus."

"You know it's standard procedure to place anyone under investigation on administrative leave," the Sheriff asserted. "That doesn't leave us much choice."

Catherine ran her fingers through her hair out of sheer frustration and a need to do something with her hands that didn't involve punching one of the men in front of her in the mouth. "What the hell are we supposed to do with all the entomological evidence we have? Can you do the analysis, Conrad? Can anyone else in this town?"

Both men knew the answer to that question was no. Grissom was one of a dozen or so forensic entomology experts in the country. Ecklie had said it himself, Grissom's work with the LVMPD elevated the reputation of everyone at the crime lab by association. Grissom was well respected nationally and internationally.

"The rules are the rules, Catherine," Conrad told her. "It's out of my hands."

"What about you, Sheriff," Catherine challenged. She didn't even attempt to keep the bitterness out of her voice. "Is placing Grissom on restricted duty out of your hands? Are you that afraid that his work on this case will constitute a threat to the city?"

Brian Mobley shoved his hands in his pockets and looked down at the floor, thinking. No one with half a brain would argue that Grissom posed a threat. Suspect or not, the threads of evidence that linked him circumstantially to the murdered girl were tenuous. He had been backed into a very uncomfortable corner by an eager young Homicide detective and Conrad Ecklie, a man with his own ax to grind where Grissom was concerned. Gil Grissom had served the city of Las Vegas for nearly twenty years. Though he and Grissom had had their differences, Brian had to admit that Grissom never failed to put the job ahead of his own personal agenda. No one who knew Grissom would argue the fact, either.

"All right," the Sheriff said, coming to a decision. "I'll place Grissom on restricted duty and assign a uniform to keep tabs on him until the investigation is completed. If he's cleared, no harm no foul. If he's not …." Mobley left the rest unsaid.

"He will be," Catherine said firmly. "You can bet the next election on that." With that, she turned and headed out of the room.

"You're very welcome," Mobley said to her retreating back.

Catherine heard him but just kept on going. She was too angry to give the Sheriff the satisfaction of gratitude. She was right about needing Gil's help with the case and dead right about his innocence. Besides, Grissom wasn't the only one who could commit professional suicide.

It was 5:23 am in the morgue. The naked body of the eight-year-old girl lay covered by a folded sheet under the lights of the autopsy bay. Doc Robbins was giving Nick the information he had requested. "I've sent the fibers and foreign hairs I collected to Trace. I put a rush on it but I won't get the results of the SART kit back until later today. I don't need the results to tell you that she's been sexually assaulted."

"Poor little thing," the CSI murmured sympathetically. Nick, in a blue lab coat and with gloved hands, folded his arms protectively over his chest. No matter how often he had seen the brutality of one person against another, it was always difficult when it came to little kids. A part of him hoped it always would be. Once you became hardened to things like this, you lose the sense of your own humanity.

"How'd she die?" Nick asked the coroner.

"She was pretty badly beaten but that's not what killed her." Robbins' pointed to the little girl's neck and mouth. "I found bruising around her throat and some inside her lips. It's as if someone cupped a hand tightly over her mouth. She was suffocated and strangled. The official cause is asphyxia. It's a toss up as to which action killed her, though. Most likely, a little bit of both."

Nick swallowed and nodded. "Anything else?"

Doc Robbins looked at the young victim again and then back at Nick. "Only that the perpetrator, whoever he was, used a condom or a foreign object during the assault. I didn't find any semen."

"He couldn't have been impotent?" Nick wanted to know.

The coroner shrugged. "That, I can't tell you. What I can say is that her vaginal canal was severely lacerated. The attack was prolonged and violent for someone so sexually immature. Whoever did this wasn't trying to be gentle."

The chill in the room seemed to seep into Nick's bones. He hugged himself as if to keep warm. Again he nodded. "Thanks, Doc."

Leaving the autopsy bay, Nick could feel the tightness in his jaw. This guy was a vicious bastard and Nick would love nothing more than to beat the living daylights out of him the moment he was found.

***

The sun was coming up. Sunlight began to flood through the high windows of the interrogation room. A neglected cup of coffee sat growing cold on the table in front of Gil Grissom. It wasn't Greg's Hawaiian Blue, so Gil didn't feel too bad about the waste. He sat back in his chair with one elbow on the table, and absentmindedly rubbed the tip of his right ring finger with the thumb of the same hand. The gesture was unconscious. Catherine could remember seeing him do it thousands of times. She watched him through the one-way glass. It was the first time she could ever remember rooting for the person on the suspect's side of the table. In the interrogation room, Detective Paulson hadn't missed the gesture either.

"Are you nervous, Mr. Grissom?"

Gil pursed his lips slightly as if considering the question and then shook his head. "No." His answer was direct, simple and brief, just like every answer he had given during this current session of questioning. He didn't ask the detective why Paulson would think he was nervous. Under no circumstances was Gil going to relinquish control of this interview.

If Paulson had expected more, he didn't get it. Grissom was a tough customer, no doubt about that. He had been cooperative, answering every question without hesitation. Grissom did not, however, offer any additional information nor did he embellish his replies. The interview was getting Paulson nowhere fast. He decided to try a different route with the suspect.

"I ask because you seem to fidget quite a bit," Paulson nodded at Grissom's right hand as he spoke.

Gil looked at his right hand but never stopped the movement of his fingers. A barely perceptible shrug was all the reply he offered the younger man.

Paulson, who was seated opposite Grissom and had been taking notes on a legal pad, dropped his pen and folded his hands on top of the tablet. "Are you going to answer?"

Waiting a beat, Gil informed the detective, "You haven't asked another question."

Carl sighed audibly despite himself. Grissom was getting on his nerves. "Okay," he said sitting back in his chair, "here's a question. Shelly Danbridge gave you flowers, didn't she?"

Gil's reply was instant. "Yes."

"When?" Carl asked immediately.

"About 10:30 am yesterday."

"You know the time that precisely?"

Grissom nodded.

"How?" Paulson pressed.

"That's when I got home from work," Gil said.

"Were you inside the building when she gave them to you?"

"No."

"Where were you?"

"Outside."

Despite the grave nature of the situation on the other side of the glass, Catherine found herself smiling. Grissom had been party to more interrogations that Paulson was likely to participate in over the next ten years of service, assuming he remained on the force that long.

"The kid has no idea how outclassed he is," Jim Brass said as he stepped up beside Catherine in the observation room. "At this rate they'll be in there all day."

"He shouldn't be in there at all!" Catherine countered.

"Hey," Brass said, a bit defensively. "You're preaching to the choir here."

Realizing that she had been too harsh with him, Catherine gave him an apologetic smile. "I know. I'm sorry."

Looking back through the glass at the scene in the interrogation room, Catherine asked, "Can you get him out of there any faster?" obviously referring to Grissom. "I'm gonna need him tonight if we're to make any progress on the We-Store-It homicide."

Brass nodded. "I'll see what I can do." With that, he left the observation room, and in a few moments Catherine watched as he entered the interrogation room.

With two more direct questions, Paulson had ascertained that Grissom had encountered Shelly Danbridge in the parking lot of the condominium complex and that Grissom had just stepped out of his vehicle. "Did she approach you or did you approach her?" was the question Carl was asking when Brass entered the room.

"She approached me," Gil answered.

Without interrupting, Brass sat down next to the young detective. Paulson gave his boss an inquiring glance. Brass simply nodded and gestured that he continue.

Grissom looked at Jim and gave him an acknowledging nod. "Good morning," he said to the new arrival.

"Morning," Brass replied, a half-hidden smile on his face.

Carl cleared his throat to retrieve the attention of his suspect. "Mr. Grissom," he began again, "did Shelly say anything when she approached you?"

"Yes," Gil responded immediately.

Carl waited for Grissom to continue. When he didn't, as had been the case for the past hour and a half, Paulson looked at his captain.

Brass raised his eyebrows and gave his detective a 'What do you expect me to do?' look. Gil didn't miss the expression.

Turning back to Grissom, Carl asked the next obvious question. "What did she say?"

"Here," Gil replied flatly.

Carl's brows furrowed. "That's all?"

"Yes."

"She just said 'Here.'?"

"Yes."

Paulson paused. They were going to be here for a very long time. Grissom was a son of a bitch, but a smart one. Opening his mouth to ask his next question, he was interrupted by Brass before he got the first word out.

"Mind if I give it a try?" Jim asked the young detective. Of course, he knew what the answer would be.

Carl closed his mouth and blew out some air. His frustration was reaching an all-time high which wasn't going to win him any brownie points with his commanding officer. Perhaps letting Brass swallow some of Grissom's act would help his captain to understand what he was up against. "Sure," he said, gesturing toward Grissom in a 'have at it' motion.

Grissom met Brass's gaze and waited. Brass was having a hard time containing his grin. "Dr. Grissom, can you give me a detailed account of exactly what transpired from the time you arrived home from work yesterday morning and exited your vehicle until you entered the front door of your condo?"

"Sure," Gil replied, and then proceeded to recite his memory of the entire encounter with Shelly Danbridge, including a description of the flowers she had given him and the words of the conversation as exactly as he could recall them.

Carl Paulson sat staring at his suspect for several moments as Grissom talked about the encounter. Brass interrupted once to suggest that Paulson take notes. A little embarrassed that he had not been doing so from the beginning, Carl picked up the pen and began to write as soon as Grissom began to speak again.

***

Aware that the evidence was not about to examine itself, Warrick and Sara had set about looking over the clothes the victim in their case had been wearing. They felt a bit helpless when it came to Grissom. They both knew exactly what Grissom would have told them if he'd had a chance to speak with his team. Do the job. That's what they did.

Warrick had managed to identify the fabric pattern and color specific to the recliner the victim was found in. The pattern was called Golden Heartland, and was comprised of what the manufacturer called wheat yellow, real copper, deep brown, and burnt gold colored fibers. Sara had tracked down the retailers of this particular style of recliner in Las Vegas and had a list of seven stores still in business that had received shipments from the manufacturer's distribution center. The two CSIs would have to wait for business hours later in the day before they could find out how many of the recliners had actually been sold in Las Vegas and to whom.

At first glance, the clothing the victim had been wearing when found didn't seem to be leading them anywhere nearly as helpful. The clothes consisted of a size 15x34 blue oxford shirt from Lands' End, a Paul Dione navy suit, sized 38 regular, a JCPenney white t-shirt, size medium, Fruit of the Loom briefs, also size medium, a pair of navy dress socks, and a pair of black Nunn Bush wing-tip dress shoes, size 11-D.

The victim's wardrobe seemed to be filled with standard off-the-rack fare, indistinctive and untraceable. It wasn't until Warrick turned the suit jacket inside out and used the UV light to inspect the lining along the rear hem seam that he found what looked like numbers inked onto the fabric.

"Hey, Sara," he called to his partner.

Sara looked up from her inspection of the soles of the victim's shoes. "What have you got?"

"Take a look at this and tell me what you think," Warrick said, rolling the stool he was sitting on to the side so that Sara could step up and look at the markings he had found.

Grabbing the magnifying glass Warrick offered her, Sara bent down and looked at the indicated spot. "6-7-6-9," she recited, reading the numbers aloud. "The first number is offset from the rest. A laundry mark?" Sara offered looking up.

"Bingo," Warrick said.

In another room of the lab, Nick had been hard at work trying to help Grissom. Carl Paulson had arrived at the crime lab earlier that morning with an evidence bag containing a box of trash bags seized from Grissom's Tahoe. Nick had done a preliminary inspection of the garbage bag in which Shelly Danbridge had been found. After determining the size, shape, and brand of the bag, Nick had collected all the trace evidence he could find on the bag and labeled that evidence for further analysis. He had then sent the bag to Jacqui in the Fingerprint Lab to see if she could lift anything usable off of it.

The box of bags taken from Grissom's SUV contained the same brand as the one used to dump the victim in, but there was a chance that they weren't the same size or shape. Nick set about measuring a bag from the box taken from the vehicle so he could compare it with the findings he had from one found at the crime scene. What he found would go a long way toward implicating or exonerating his boss.

Conrad Ecklie sat in his office and read through the initial reports associated with the Danbridge case. As far as Ecklie could determine, there was a two hour gap of time that provided Grissom with ample opportunity to abduct the victim. Grissom's report of his whereabouts for the past twelve hours seemed damning. According to the estimated time of death provided by the coroner, the time frame of a possible scenario associated with the senior CSI fit the known facts perfectly.

Shelly Danbridge had been murdered less than four hours prior to discovery by Detective Paulson and Officer Mickelson. She could have been killed at any point after Grissom left the crime scene at the We-Store-It. A man Grissom's size could easily have subdued the girl, assaulted her, placed her somewhere secluded, gone to the crime scene at the storage unit, retrieved the victim after signing out at the crime scene, killed her, and then dumped the body behind the Albertson's on Ash.

Brass reported that Grissom had called using his cell phone. The number recall on Brass's own cell phone confirmed that fact. Although Grissom claimed to be at home when he received the page from the detective, Grissom could have been anywhere within the Las Vegas Valley when he called Captain Brass. Only nineteen minutes had elapsed from the time Brass received the call from Grissom until the CSI reported his arrival at the storage unit facility to dispatch. If Grissom had stowed the victim somewhere, it hadn't been far from the corner of N. Eastern and Hincle.

Conrad knew that trace evidence recovered from the victim's body and clothing would help them pinpoint where that secluded spot might be. When they found it, they would most likely find the place where the victim had been murdered.

The circumstantial nature of the timeline and the lack of any real hard evidence worked in Grissom's favor. Conrad was willing to wait for more evidence to implicate Grissom before pushing for more official action against the night shift supervisor. He didn't have to wait long.

Nick knocked on the door of Ecklie's office and waited to hear "Come." before entering. The day shift supervisor put down the reports he had been reading and looked at Nick expectantly.

"I have the preliminary results you asked for," Nick told Ecklie. With a sick feeling in his gut, he handed the CSI day shift supervisor the reports of his analyses.

***

By 7:00 am, Catherine had been joined in the observation room by Warrick and Sara. They had been watching Grissom answer the allegations that he might be a murderer. The goings-on in the interrogation room was making Sara angry. What the hell kind of loyalty was this? Grissom worked his ass off for the citizens of Las Vegas and this police department only to be hauled in on the barest of circumstantial evidence and questioned like a career criminal? This whole situation was just too bizarre for words.

"Doesn't the night shift have important evidence in cases under their own purview to process?"

The three night shift CSIs looked to the doorway to find Conrad Ecklie and Nick Stokes standing just outside the observation room. It was Ecklie who had spoken.

Warrick took a small step toward the day shift supervisor. "Night shift's over. We're on our own time here," he told Ecklie, "and that's not just our boss in there."

There was a dangerous undercurrent in Warrick's tone. Ignoring it, Ecklie leaned in toward Warrick. "Well I guess that's the reason the Sheriff felt it necessary to place me in charge of this case."

This time it was Sara who stepped forward. Pointing her finger at the center of Ecklie's chest, she hissed through stiff lips, "No, you're on this case because you can't stand the id…."

"Sara!" "Sara …."

Both Nick and Catherine interrupted her. Nick stepped around Ecklie to intercede and took a firm hold of Sara's shoulders, turning her away from Ecklie and back into the observation room. Sara was about to make a monumental mistake by telling Ecklie exactly what they all thought of him. Although it might have made all of them feel better, it would do nothing to help Grissom and it would very likely damage her career.

"Confrontations aren't going to help Grissom," Catherine told the rest of the night shift team. She didn't do much to hide the distain in her voice, though. "He's just trying to do his job, aren't you Conrad?"

Conrad stood with hands on hips and determination in his face. "That's right. Look, the best chance Grissom has of beating this rap …"

"Beating the rap?" Warrick interrupted, disbelief and anger on his face.

"Warrick," Catherine said gently.

Ecklie paused to give Warrick a warning glance. "Of beating the rap," he picked up again, "is if the evidence in the case clears him. The more time we spend standing around arguing about who's running this investigation and why, the longer he stays a suspect."

"Then I guess you better get to it," Catherine said with a mirthless smile.

Giving them all a hard look for another long moment, Ecklie tried to convey how serious he was about his position. Grissom's underlings were more like cult members than employees. "Nick," he said firmly, calling the junior CSI.

"Yeah," Nick acknowledged. He gave Sara a gentle squeeze to her shoulder before heading back out into the hall to follow Ecklie, who was already moving away.

"Bring it home, Nicky," Warrick told his friend as he left.

Nick looked back at them and nodded. If it was within his power to bring the truth home for Gris, he sure the hell would.

Gil Grissom continued to sit with an almost placid expression on his face as Carl Paulson and Jim Brass continued to question him. Brass had joined the questioning as a captain in the Homicide division, not as Gil's friend. The younger detective had been getting a very valuable lesson in interrogation techniques from the veteran cop. Grissom would have been entertained by the situation if it hadn't been for the serious nature of his current circumstances. With every moment they wasted sitting there, questioning an innocent man, the real killer was at liberty to find another child to victimize. The sexual predator responsible for killing Shelly Danbridge wasn't going to stop at just one victim. He wasn't going to stop until he was made to stop.

That truth didn't do a whole lot to help Grissom at this moment in time. His innocence was in question. When you're innocent, you keep your mouth shut and let the evidence do the talking. Right now, the evidence was pointing a cursory finger at Gil.

"How long were you at the We-Store-It?" Carl Paulson wanted to know.

Gil sighed. The detective had to know that he had signed in and out of the crime scene and that the log was on file with the police department. Before Grissom could answer the question, the door to the interrogation room opened to admit Conrad Ecklie and Nick Stokes. Grissom glanced first at Nick, giving him what he hoped was a reassuring look. Nodding to both men he said, "Good morning, Conrad. Nick."

"Sir," Nick responded, taking up a position just inside the door against the wall. When Gil looked at him, Nick nodded slightly toward the mirror on the opposite wall of the interrogation room, letting Grissom know that a least one member of his night shift team was in the observation room watching.

Conrad moved to stand behind Brass and Paulson. He didn't acknowledge Grissom's greeting. Instead, he produced some paperwork from the inside pocket of his sport coat and handed them to Brass.

"What do we have here?" Brass asked, taking a look at two reports. He took a minute and read through both quickly. His expression flattened to unreadable.

Without saying anything, Brass passed the reports to Carl Paulson. Paulson glanced at them briefly and then turned both reports around on the table and pushed them forward for Grissom to see.

Both reports listed the dimensions in centimeters and the known brand of an inspected trash bag. One of the bags had come from a box found in Grissom's Tahoe. The other had recently held the dead body of Shelly Danbridge. The size and brand of both bags matched. Both reports were signed by the CSI who had done the comparison, Nick Stokes.

Looking up from the reports, Grissom made a point of not glancing at Nick. The results of the comparison had been made carefully and, Gil was sure, accurately. The last thing he wanted to do was make Nick feel guilty for doing his job. Gil waited for one of the three men directly in front of him to say something.

"Well?" Carl Paulson finally asked.

Grissom didn't say anything. There hadn't been a true question asked.

Paulson looked over at Brass and Ecklie. It was Ecklie who spoke next. "How do you explain these reports, Gil?"

"Coincidence," Grissom replied, ignoring the inappropriate use of his given name.

"Coincidence?" Paulson asked, frustrated with Grissom's cool demeanor. "These reports state that the garbage bag used to dump the victim's body is an exact match to the bags found in the back of your SUV."

In the observation room, Sara, Warrick, and Catherine exchanged looks.

"What does that prove?" Sara asked.

"Just what Grissom said it did," Catherine replied. "Coincidence."

"Yeah. But I bet Ecklie's not likely to accept that explanation," Warrick said.

"Bastard," Sara muttered.

Grissom looked at the young detective with something that resembled sympathy. "No," he informed Paulson, "they don't."

"They don't?" Paulson responded angrily, taking back the reports and looking at them again. He glanced back at Grissom. "Then what do these reports tell you?" Carl challenged.

Gil took a deep breath before replying. "The reports say that both trash bags have the same dimensions and manufacturer."

"That's what I said," Paulson told the CSI.

"No," Grissom corrected him. "What you said was that the bags matched exactly. That's not what the reports reveal."

A small smile began to spread across Catherine's face as she watched. "Smart, Grissom."

"Smart?" Sara asked, turning to look at Catherine.

"He's telling Nicky what to do next," Catherine said.

Warrick began to nod his understanding.

Sara was catching on as well, "Right."

Jim Brass fought to hide a grin. Gil Grissom was one smart cookie.

Conrad Ecklie wasn't happy with the way the tables had been turned on the young detective. He decided to jump back in. "But they are consistent," Ecklie told Grissom.

Looking up at Ecklie, Grissom allowed himself the barest hint of a grin. "That's what I've always liked about you, Conrad," Gil told the other CSI supervisor. "You understand the principal truth."

Before he could think better of it, Conrad asked, "Oh yeah, and what's that?"

More for the benefit of the members of his team who could hear him than for Ecklie, Gil didn't hesitate. "The evidence never lies."

***

Ecklie wasn't just angry when he entered his office after leaving the interrogation room. He was furious. The Sheriff would let Grissom come back to the lab on restricted duty, Paulson made an ass of himself, and Brass seemed to enjoy the whole thing. Damn Grissom anyway. That man was made of Teflon. It remained to be seen if Grissom could worm his way out of this jam. A little girl was dead and the citizens of Las Vegas wouldn't rest until they had a villain. If Conrad had his way, he'd hand them Gil Grissom on a platter.

The proper place to start was at the beginning. Grissom had taught him that. Finding the beginning was another thing altogether. Grissom had given Nick an important clue in the interrogation room. Now he had to make use of that information. Nick wasted no time. As soon as he left the interrogation room, he found the manufacturer's customer support 800 number on the box of trash bags taken from Grissom's Tahoe and called it. He would start with the only information he had and work from there.

It was late that morning when he was able to leave interrogation. If Gil thought that he was headed home for some peace and quiet before going back to the snake pit that CSI headquarters had become, he was mistaken. He had been followed home by an LVMPD squad car. He might has well have had a cop on his car's hood with a bullhorn announcing his arrival. What greeted him at his condominium complex was the unfriendly, unwelcome, and all too familiar Las Vegas news media circus. They had discovered the identity of the victim and, most probably, the fact that he was now a viable suspect in the brutal murder.

Since his department-issued SUV had been impounded for search in the investigation, Grissom had driven to headquarters for his interrogation in his own private vehicle, a 1995 model BMW 530i. Grissom drove around to the back of the complex, hoping to escape the throng. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Pulling into his parking space and tugging on the door handle, what felt like a flood descended upon Gil. Reporters shouting questions, microphones shoved to within centimeters of his mouth, the pop and blinding effects of flashbulbs going off in his face, and the inevitable visual chaos of many bodies all trying to occupy the same physical space, that immediately around him, pressed in on him.

This was perhaps the only time when Grissom would have welcomed the waning of sound that his hearing loss brought from time to time. In some perverted twist of fate, God saw fit to keep Gil's hearing acuity high as he attempted to wade through the melee and reach the comparative safety of his own living room.

"Mr. Grissom! Did you kill Shelly Danbridge?"
"Dr. Grissom! Why did you do it?"
"What kind of monster are you, Mr. Grissom?"
"Did you use your knowledge as a CSI to commit this crime, Mr. Grissom?"
"Dr. Grissom! Do you have any knowledge about this murder?"
"Mr. Grissom!" "Dr. Grissom!" "Mr. Grissom, sir?"

Pushing against the oncoming tide, Gil kept his mouth shut. He was a strong man, and when he chose to use his muscular build to his advantage others usually gave way. They did now. Slowly, the reporters, their microphones, cameras, and questions where forced to the side long enough for him to reach the back entrance to his building. Just as he was reaching for the handle to try and pull the door open, it opened from the inside to reveal two uniformed police officers. These men stepped to either side of Grissom and created an escape route through the door and into the back stairwell.

One of the officers remained outside to bar access to the door while the other moved back inside with Grissom. Gil waited inside for the officer to pull the door shut again.

"Thanks for the assist, officer," Grissom told him.

"Yeah, sorry about that," the uniform replied. "We should have been a little faster getting out there. Are you okay?"

Gil gave his body a quick once over and nodded. "I seem to be all in one piece."

"Good."

Turning his attention back to the officer, Gil wondered if this was the promised shadow the Sheriff had told him to expect. "And you are?" he asked.

"Oh, sorry," the police officer said and extended his hand. "Officer Barron. Doug Barron."

"Gil Grissom," the CSI said, shaking the other man's hand and then releasing it.

"I know who you are, sir," Barron said a little nervously. "The Sheriff assigned me … ah … to …."

Gil nodded. "I know." He looked the young officer in the eye. "Thanks again for the help out there." With that, Gil turned and headed up the stairs to his home. He wasn't surprised to hear the officer right behind him. As Gil exited the stairwell into the hallway of the third floor of his building, he found another officer standing outside Mrs. Danbridge's front door. He supposed this was to protect the Danbridges from intrusion by the media as well. It also effectively prevented Gil from making any further contact with his neighbor. His efforts to try and comfort Martha Danbridge or help with the investigation in any official capacity had come to an end.

Moving down the hall to his own front door, Gil didn't miss the slight nod both the uniformed officers gave one another. They each had their own jobs and they would do them. This was one time that Gil didn't envy the officers of the LVMPD. Babysitting an innocent man, whether they knew him to be innocent or not, had to be low on the list of reasons to join the police force.

Inside his home, Gil found another form of chaos. The search of his living quarters that he had agreed to had been conducted. Cabinets were open, papers and books were strewn across tables and chairs. Someone had gone through the clothing and other personal items in his bedroom. The sheets from his bed had been removed and taken. There was fingerprint powder on the surfaces of the sinks, faucets, and countertops of both bathrooms and in the kitchen. Then he noticed something else.

The flowers that Shelly had given him were gone.

Standing in the center of his home, Gil Grissom took a deep breath and closed his eyes. He was nearly overcome. Not because he was an innocent man who was suspected of a terrible crime. Not because his life had been upended. Not because he could lose his job, something that had become the most important defining aspect of his life. Not because of any of that, but because what had brought all this about was the tragic loss of a bright and joyous young life.

Shelly Danbridge was dead.

***

By four in the afternoon, both Sara and Warrick had reported back to work. The news coverage of the Danbridge case had seemed nonstop. They had both decided that working on their own case would help distract them from what concerned them the most - how their boss was holding up. Now it was well after six in the evening and they were taking a break from playing phone tag with area businesses.

"I've got calls out to local merchants who sold the same model of recliner our vic was found in," Sara told Warrick over cups of coffee in the Conference Room. Both CSIs were avoiding the Break Room and the inevitable questions they would get from other curious lab employees. "I'm following up on the replies I've gotten already. As far as I can tell, hundreds of these chairs were sold in the Las Vegas area over a three year period. There is no way we're going to be able to track this particular recliner."

She looked at her partner. "How 'bout you?"

Warrick shook his head. "I've called over twenty cleaners in Las Vegas so far. No luck."

"You want some help with the rest?" Sara offered.

"That'd help," he told her, looking up from the contents of his coffee cup. "Thanks."

The television in the corner of the room blinked at them with the volume turned down. The partners looked up and watched again as the image of their friend and colleague was shown struggling to move from his car to his home. Gil Grissom's image was accompanied by a graphically generated tag that sat at the bottom of the television picture. The tag read, "Murder Suspect?"

Carl Paulson entered the bullpen at the homicide division of the LVMPD Tropicana area police headquarters and headed for his desk. The usual hubbub of the office seemed to fade in a wave ahead of him as he moved along the rows of office furniture. Ray O'Riley looked up from a report he was working on and fixed Carlson with a firm, unfriendly gaze. Paulson had called into question the innocence of one of the staple personalities in the department. He was beginning to realize just how big a can of worms he had opened by placing Grissom on the official suspect list for the Danbridge murder. Right now, Grissom was the only person on the suspect list. No one, especially those who worked closely with him, was happy about that.

Reaching his desk after deciding to ignore the hushed whispers and stares from other officers, Paulson came face to face with a small token of retribution, Las Vegas PD style. His desk was covered in trash bags - dozens of them. Each one had a message either written on it or on a tag that was attached to it. The messages all said, more or less, the same thing and with varying degrees of colorful language. Basically the message was, "Why don't you try to find the real killer and leave an innocent man alone."

What seemed to escape everyone else in the department, except for perhaps the Sheriff and the day shift CSI supervisor, was that it wasn't at all clear that Gil Grissom was innocent. Carl wondered why others couldn't see that. And, up to now, there wasn't a better lead in the case to run with. The case against Grissom, though circumstantial, wasn't insignificant. Just like every other case they dealt with, the outcome of this one would have to wait for the analysis of more of the evidence.

Paulson still had a lot to do on the case. He had more neighbors to question, more background checking to do on Grissom, and the parents of Shelly Danbridge to talk to. Their plane was going to land in just under an hour at McCarran International. Paulson wanted to be there when it did.

Jacqui's search for fingerprints on the trash bag Shelly Danbridge had been found in came up empty. The killer had apparently used gloves. That left Nick with the bag itself to analyze.

After calling the customer support line number he found on the trash bag box, Nick had eventually been put in contact with a quality control expert employed by the trash bag manufacturer. The information he gleaned from that contact had been invaluable. There was no way that he was going to let Hodges handle this analysis. Nick wanted to make sure the job was done rapidly and with skill. He took his idea to Greg Sanders, the resident night shift DNA lab technician and chemistry guru.

"Sure," Greg responded after listening to Nick's proposition. "We can do that. It'll take some time, though."

"How long?" Nick wanted to know.

Greg thought about that for a brief moment. "XRF analysis doesn't take that long, perhaps 30 minutes per sample total time, including set up. But there isn't a comparison database for this."

"We don't need one," Nick told the tech. "All we need is a direct comparison between the two samples. If we can establish commonality or lack of commonality…."

Greg nodded his understanding and picked up the thought. "Then we can determine if the bag used to dump the body is a true match to the ones found in Grissom's car."

"That's it," Nick said and turned to head out of the DNA lab.

"But what if they match?" Greg asked the retreating CSI.

Nick stopped and looked back at Sanders with a 'you can't be serious' glare. "They won't," he said flatly and left Greg to the analysis. The information Greg's analysis would yield would also help identify potential samples from the actual killer if they found any. Nick wasn't going to waste time worrying about the impossibility of Grissom's guilt. He had other fish to fry.

It had seemed a good idea to go home and catch some rest before returning to the office. Conrad Ecklie had decided to try to spend some of his time at the office late each evening since Stokes was most likely going to do the lion's share of the analysis of the evidence during the night shift. Conrad had gone home for several hours to catch up on the sleep he had lost early that morning after the Sheriff had called. What he found when he returned to his office really pissed him off.

His desk was covered with dozens of individual as well as boxes of trash bags. They all had evidence tags attached with messages written on them. Much of what had been written wasn't fit for general consumption. Some were more subtle and simply read, "I did it." or "I'm Spartacus."

Conrad was not amused.

***

Next part of Remuneration.