8Author's Note: I do not own CSI or any of the characters. No copyright infringement is intended. The following story is for entertainment purposes ONLY. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. And any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
CHAPTER 6: DON'T TREAD ON ME
The next day Grissom put Catherine in charge of his team for the remainder of the investigation. She had them all regroup back at the lab in the break room to further discuss matters. It felt vastly different to her calling a meeting without his leadership. Everyone seated at the table Sara, Greg, Nick, and Warrick looked to Catherine for guidance.
"I guess I'm as ready as I'll ever be. Let's get started." She seats herself, but before she could begin, Hodges walks into the room with an announcement.
"Grissom. I got a hit on…"
Everyone directs their attention towards Hodges, who appears confused. "Where's Grissom?" His confusion is understandable. He wasn't aware of what happened.
Nick looks to Catherine. "Do I tell him, or should you?"
Catherine opens her mouth to speak, but she is interrupted.
"I'm right here," says Grissom. He walks into the room seating himself at the far end of the table.
Everyone appears shocked including Catherine who argues, "Don't take this the wrong way, but should you even be here after what happened?"
"I'm not. I'm just here to observe," insists Grissom.
"What about…" asks Catherine, but he cuts her off. She was going to ask about the doctors orders until he pulls a pill bottle from his jacket pocket. Sara gets up from her seat. She goes over to the water cooler to pour him a cup so he can take his medicine. Catherine fills Hodges in on what happened.
Grissom pops two Topamax in his mouth as prescribed by his doctor. He takes a swig of water, and swallows before saying, "Continue. Wait. Hodges."
Hodges observes that every seat at the table is taken. "I can't. There isn't an available chair."
Grissom replies, "I wasn't implying that you join us. I was hoping you could indulge us all by sharing your findings."
"Oh. Right. Yes. I got a hit on the prints you wanted me to lift from the bottle of antifreeze."
Sara asks Hodges, "Antifreeze? Is that what that yellow bottle was that I gave you?"
"Yes," he replies. "I lifted three separate sets of prints off of it."
"Well… who do they belong to?" inquired Catherine. Hodges hands over the paper to her so she could see for herself. "One set belongs to our victim Matt Whitman. The second set belongs to Miles Gardner."
Nick points out, "Of course Miles prints are going to be on the bottle. It's his truck. If he was low on coolant he'd be the one to refill it."
Sara argues, "Not necessarily. If he got his vehicle serviced someone else could have done it for him."
"GUYS!" scolds Catherine not wanting to let Grissom second guess putting her in charge. "Anyhow, moving on. The third set of prints belong to…" Her eyes scanned the paper in search of the results.
"Larry Waters," answers Warrick.
"How did you know that?" asks Hodges.
Everyone at the table directs their attention to Warrick. "Hey, I know what you're all thinking 'If you knew that the whole time then why are you just now telling all of us', but I only just learned that myself. I got a hunch regarding the receipts. I remembered the confusion over the beer, and whether or not it was stolen or purchased so that got me thinking to go back over the rest of the receipts. From there I looked back through them, and noticed something. So with the help of Archie I reviewed the security tapes from Larry's store."
"Without me. Where was I?" asked Nick who felt a little hurt.
"In Goodsprings with Sanchez," replies Warrick adding, "I noticed on one of the tapes that Miles purchased the antifreeze from Larry's store prior to the night Matt was killed."
Greg admits, "I don't know if I'm following all of this correctly or not."
Grissom clarifies, "This means we know that our victim was poisoned, and we have two potential suspects."
Catherine is confused. "Wait. Matt was poisoned, and not run over?"
"Actually he was both," corrects Grissom. "But doc Robbins said it was the antifreeze that killed him. Now all we have to do is learn who did it and why."
Larry slept as well as one could expect in a temporary holding cell. He awoke with a stiff neck and a pain in his lower back. Swinging his legs off of the side of the ⏤ lets call it a bed, he arose yawning, and stretching. Brass stood just outside of his cell.
"They say only guilty men sleep in jail." Larry sighs at the remark. Brass signals for an officer to release him.
"You're letting me go?" asks Larry
"Not exactly," replies Brass.
Officer Carter lets Larry out, closing the cell door behind him. He takes out a pair of handcuffs, ready to place them on Larry, but Brass stops him. "That won't be necessary. Will it?" he asks looking at Larry.
"No" replies Larry.
"All righty then. This way," says Brass
Part of Larry wanted to peek into Miles's cell to see if he was still in there or not, but officer Carter ushers him away before he has the chance to. Brass leads them past the front desk, and down a hallway. Larry takes in his surroundings. The hallway was considerably wide, enough so, that four people could pass by without rubbing shoulders. He watched as officers escorted a hooker away, and wondered what had to go wrong in a person's life for them to resort to turning tricks. As they continued walking they passed by flyers and posters that hung on the walls of Most Wanted People and Missing Children. The smell of commercial cleaning agents hung heavy in the air, he noted. It isn't until then, that Larry is reminded he's in his stocking feet as he practically slips on the freshly waxed floor.
"Easy!" says officer Carter trying to prevent his fall. Brass turns around to see what the hold up is.
"Sorry," replies Larry.
The cop looks down at Larry's feet, and shoots him a look of confusion. He points out, "Hey Brass, this guy isn't wearing any shoes." Carter's radio goes off as he's called in. He spots Sanchez chatting in the hallway and asks him to help out.
"Sure Carter, you go on ahead," says Sanchez who takes Larry by the arm. Once he's seated in the interrogation room, Larry can't peel his eyes off of Sanchez. He's in shock and awe from his appearance; the last time Larry saw him Sanchez didn't have a broken nose.
"Mister Waters? Have you been listening to a thing that I've said?" asks Brass who follows Larry's gaze. He sighs. "Sanchez. Would you mind stepping out?"
"Sure thing."
"Now that we're alone…" begins Brass, but Larry interjects. "What uh, what happened to him?" he asks gesturing to his nose.
"Your pal Miles Gardner took a shovel to his face," replies Brass.
Larry takes offense towards Brass's implication. "I told you before…we aren't associated with one another. I didn't even know Miles or Matt, for that matter, until they walked into my store."
"Which was when exactly?"
Greg and Catherine stand in the observation room watching through the two-way glass as Brass interrogates Larry. Greg points out to her, "I'm new to this so maybe I've got it wrong, but it seems to me like Brass is treating Larry more like an informant than a suspect."
"You're not wrong," she replies. "The only thing Larry is guilty of is attempted assault, but that's only because it was caught on tape. We were able to rule him out as a suspect. His shoe impression didn't match the one Nick lifted off of Miles's cousin's screen door. Although his fingerprints were a perfect match to one of the sets Hodges lifted from the bottle of antifreeze; we were able to determine it happened from Larry stocking the product on his shelves."
"Okay, so why not just let him go?" asked Greg
"Because we're hoping we can use the information that Larry tells us to lead us to the real killer," says Catherine.
She and Greg exit the observation room and leave the precinct. On their way back to the lab she determines who she'll send to retrieve surveillance footage from a traffic camera. Something Larry mentioned to Brass during the interrogation made her want to follow up on a hunch. She passes Nick and Warrick in the hallway so she decides to send them.
"Nick. Warrick. I'm glad that I caught you…" she begins, but Nick cuts her off.
He objects. "Huh-uh. No way."
"No way? You don't even know what I'm going to ask," says Catherine
"He doesn't speak for me," chimes Warrick. "Whatever it is I'll do it."
Nick gets defensive. "If it's to make a fifth trip out to the desert. You can forget it!" His refusal was understandable to her. Nick had been out there the most. The first time was when the team got the call about the hit-and-run. The second time was to collect the security tapes from Larry's store. The third time was to investigate Miles's cousin's place, and the fourth trip he made was to compare shoe impressions. Nick begins to walk away passing Sara as he does so.
Catherine spots her and decides to send her instead. "Fine. I'll send Sara."
Sara looks up. "Where? To do what exactly?"
Knowing Nick is still in ear range of their conversation Catherine says it loud. "You can go with Warrick to the Nevada Department of Transportation. I need someone to retrieve some surveillance footage from a traffic camera."
Nick, having heard what she said, heads back towards them. "I can do that."
Catherine smiles at him. "That's what I like to hear."
Sara continues on her way in search of Hodges. "Hey, will you come with me for a moment? There's something that I have to do, but I don't want to do it alone."
Hodges raises an eyebrow feeling flattered. "Really?"
"Stop it! It's nothing like that! Would you just come with me, please?"
While standing off to the side out of sight, Sara shoves Hodges in the doorway of Grissom's office. She encourages him to get his attention somehow. Grissom sat at his desk staring at a pile of paperwork including evaluation forums he'd completed, but yet to hand in. Despite his door being wide open, Hodges bother's knocking on the doorframe. Grissom motions for him to come it, but quickly realizes Hodges isn't alone as Sara follows behind him. He feels a twinge of panic hoping she's real. All the while Grissom goes back over the list of side effects in his mind printed on the warning label of his pills hoping hallucinations isn't one of them. Both Hodges and Sara are seated in chairs in front of Grissom's desk.
Hodges spots the evaluation forums on the desk, and Grissom quickly covers them up. "Hodges. If this is about you wanting to go out into the field you can forget it." Hodges tries to interject, but Grissom continues. "Besides you're too valuable an asset in the lab. I don't care what Greg told you, or how glamorous you think it is, and I thought I reminded you the last time we discussed this that you get paid less in the field than you do in the lab."
Sara speaks up. "That's not what this is about. He's just here to prove a point." Grissom got the just of what Sara was attempting to do. Hodges is present to prove that Grissom isn't hallucinating nor is he the only one who can see her.
Hodges attempts to get up. "I feel like I've done that. So I'm just gonna…"
"Stay seated," says Grissom.
"Yes sir," replies Hodges as he quickly re-seats himself.
Sara continues. "The doctor told me that I was the center of your hallucinations." Grissom leans back in his seat hanging on to her every word. "I'm here to tell you that I'm real, and I heard you ⏤ what you said. Both times. I understand now why you didn't have the audacity to tell me."
"I did, argues Grissom. "I just didn't know it wasn't really you. The truth is, I was seeing you everywhere. In my Denali. In my office. In the coroner's office. I even saw you in my room at the hospital."
"That was me," says Sara.
"Forgive me if I don't trust my eyes," replies Grissom.
"If you don't trust what you see, then trust what you feel," says Sara. She emerges from her seat approaching Grissom behind his desk. He watches as she makes her way over to him, and grabs either side of his face while kissing him passionately. Hodges clears his throat, shifting uncomfortably in his chair, and feels awkward towards still being present.
"So, you do love me?" asks Sara breaking the kiss.
"I…" Grissom searches his mind for the right words. "I care very deeply about you, yes."
As they walk up to the entrance of the Nevada Department of Transportation, and head through the double doors Warrick asks Nick to remind them why they're there. "We're following up on a hunch Catherine had from Larry's interrogation."
"That's reassuring," says Warrick taking off his sunglasses.
Both men approach the counter presenting their ID badges to the employee working the front desk, and state their business.
"Hi. I'm Nick Stokes."
"And I'm Warrick Brown."
"We're CSI's from the crime lab," says Nick adding, "We're here to retrieve surveillance footage from the traffic camera of the intersection. Specifically Nevada State Route 161 leading out to Goodsprings Valley. We believe the gentlemen in the footage is a prime suspect of a hit-and-run we're currently investigating."
The guy at the front desk was so engrossed in his work that he didn't even bother looking up from what he was doing, until the words 'hit-and-run' registered in his mind. The guy stopped what he was doing immediately.
"Yeah. I heard about that. What a tragic act of stupidity."
Nick and Warrick exchanged looks of confusion. Warrick requests, "We're gonna need to see the tape and or tapes."
"Sure, you boys got a warrant?"
Nick whipped out the warrant that Brass signed off on before they headed out there, and presented it to him. The guy behind the desk took a quick glance at it before signaling for them to follow him. He lead them to where they keep all of their surveillance videos.
"Take your pick," he said as he laughed heartily while walking away leaving them to do their job. Neither got the joke until they saw what he meant. There were stacks of unorganized tapes everywhere.
"Aw, man!" said Nick. "Surely not all of these are footage of that one intersection."
"Hey, man look on the bright side," says Warrick.
"Is there one?" asks Nick who began looking through the tapes.
"Yeah, at least they're labeled," replies Warrick picking one up to show him.
After spending more time than anticipated simply collecting tapes ⏤ 50 to be exact ⏤ Nick and Warrick decide to just bring them all back to the lab.
"If anyone can figure out a way to determine what's what in these tapes it's Archie," says Nick while grabbing one of the many boxes they'd take back with them.
Back at the lab he and Warrick struggle to keep their eyes peeled while reviewing the tapes with Archie.
"I give up. My eyes burn," said Warrick slumping in his seat after looking at what felt like hours of endless footage. They watched as vehicle after vehicle drove through the intersection. Some had local license plates, some were from out of town, but none of them were Miles's pickup.
"What kind of vehicle does this guy drive again?" asked Archie.
Nick lets out a sigh before replying, "A red, 2004 Toyota Tundra with Texas plates. Number VFG 8194." He leans his head on his hand to support his head from falling asleep on the table. "How do you do it?" asks Nick to Archie.
"It's my job," replied Archie. "How do you do what you do?" he asks in return. Archie rejoices having spotted Miles's pickup in one of the videos. He also puts together a time stamp using cab and bus schedules to pinpoint the time the photo was taken.
Brass brought Miles back in for a second round of interrogation. They were able to collect enough evidence to prove he did it, but knew that he was innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. He got his paperwork in order, glancing at it once more before handing it off to Sanchez. Catherine sat in on the interrogation, too. Meanwhile, Grissom watched from behind the two-way glass in the observation room.
"Miles," began Brass. "Out of curiosity … what type of vehicle do you drive?"
"I drive a pick-up truck," replied Miles.
Brass could tell he was going to be difficult. He got up from his seat approaching Miles. "Listen, I know how long you waited before. I could just as easily have an officer stick you back in that cell, and swap you out for another person who I guarantee won't waste my time like what you're doing now." He angrily slams both hands down on the table in front of Miles causing him to jump in his seat. "We can do this one of two ways, the easy way or the hard way, which is it going to be?"
Miles uncrossed his arms and sat up a little straighter in his seat before replying, "I drive a 2004 Toyota Tundra. Why? Do you know what happened to my truck?"
"Oh, drop the act!" comments Catherine
"As a matter of fact we do," replied Brass. "Tell me, how much alcohol must a man consume for him to kill his best friend? Rather, how stupid must he be to drink antifreeze?"
"I don't know what the hell you're talking about," says Miles.
"Let me tell you a little story," replies Brass. "Once upon a time there were two guys from Texas. One of them was named Matt Whitman, and the other was named Miles Gardner. They both decide to take a trip to a magical place called Sin City. Little did one of the guys know that the other would die tragically. You and your buddy Matt have a night of drinking, enjoying yourselves with a six pack. Somehow, you end up all the way out in the desert. How do I know this … because you ran a red light at the Nevada State Route 161 intersection that leads out there." Brass paused to see if Miles would react to what he said so far.
Catherine continued. "The surveillance tape pulled from a traffic camera proves it." She slides the photo across the table in front of Miles so he can see for himself. It shows him driving with Matt in the passenger seat.
"All right, I'll confess," said Miles. "We hadn't been to Vegas before y'know, but we didn't want to do nothing illegal. You always hear how people end up with prostitutes, or lose millions from hitting the jack pot, or…"
Brass interrupts, "Or dead."
Miles looks away from him. "Yeah. But I didn't kill Matt!"
"That's what they all say," says Brass.
"No honest," pleads Miles.
"We have evidence that proves otherwise," replies Catherine. "Your shoe print matches the impression on your cousin's screen door, and we lifted your fingerprints off of a bottle of antifreeze that you purchased at Larry's Liquor and General Store prior to the night of your friend's death."
"My shoe prints on the door because I was horsing around," explains Miles.
"Really?" asks Brass.
"Yeah. Matt thought it would be funny to lock me out," says Miles.
Catherine asks, "So, you kick down the screen door until he lets you back in, and then you killed him?" She slides the photos of the shoe print comparison impressions for Miles to look at.
"No! Matt and I thought we could avoid all of that if we just did what we normally do when we were at our home town," replies Miles.
Brass inquires, "Which is … what exactly?"
"Driving in the middle of an open space like a field, but in this case a desert because everyone knows Vegas is a bunch of hot, flat, dry nothing," answers Miles.
"As a oppose to Arlen, Texas," retorts Catherine.
Brass shoots Catherine a look to knock it off.
Miles continues. "Back home Matt and I'd get a couple of six packs and some chicks and have a good time. Only being out here we couldn't tell the real women from the hookers so we passed on the chicks, and just got a bunch of booze."
Brass says, "Let me ask you something. Why offer to split your winnings with a convenience store owner you barely know?"
Miles replies, "The guys a small businessman. We thought he could use a break."
Brass asks, "You didn't give Larry Waters $1K as incentive to kill Matt?"
Miles replies, "No. As for the antifreeze. My truck was just low on coolant."
Catherine asks, "So despite your fingerprints being on the bottle, you expect us to believe you didn't force feed antifreeze to your friend?"
"No," replies Miles. "We drove out to an open spot in the desert. It got late. It got dark, and Matt drank the last of the beer. We were both pretty drunk, and I would have stopped him, but it was too late. He chugged it, man, the whole thing. Not that there was much left."
"There was enough to kill him," replied Brass as Catherine slide the autopsy photos of his dead friend across the table.
Catherine explained, "The amount of antifreeze Matt ingested caused dizziness, headache, slurred speech, nausea and vomiting, unconsciousness."
"I thought it was 'cause of the alcohol," pleaded Miles.
Brass asked, "What about after he stopped breathing. Why run him over?"
Miles explained, "He passed out in front of the truck. I passed out in the truck. When I woke up ⏤ I didn't mean to drive over him. I hauled ass."
"By running over your friend?" asked Brass.
"I backed up. I got out of the truck, and saw him laying there. I left the keys in the ignition, and fled. I didn't want to go to jail!" argued Miles.
"Well, you are anyway," said Brass motioning for Sanchez to arrest Miles.
Catherine exited the interrogation room and joined Grissom. She asks him, "What do you make of all of this?"
Grissom turns to look at her before replying, "Don't tread on me."
Author's Note: I am aware that this chapter is significantly shorter than the rest. I am also "sorry" to those of you who may feel this ending is anticlimactic. "Thank you" for reading!
