Fic: Sins of the Father (chapter 8) Gil/Nick
Title: Sins of the Father (chapter 8)
Author: Knightmusic
Rating: PG to NC-17 (not this part)
Pairing: Gil/Nick
Summary: An orphaned girl and a murdered son, and Gil and Nick are left to discover the impressions a father leaves on the life of his child.
Author's Note/Warnings: Many, MANY thanks to laurelgardner, yoru_no_tori and zechsy for being betas on this chapter. I couldn't have done it without you. Thanks ladies!
Disclaimer: No one would ever mistake me for Jerry Bruckheimer. I certainly wouldn't.
“You get anything out of Kain’s co-workers?” Grissom asked as Brass entered his office.
Brass made a sour face. “It seems our birds only know one song: Variations on a theme of ‘Polly don’t know nothing,’” he said, taking a seat in front of Grissom’s desk.
“Well, it’s a popular tune,” Grissom said with tired humor. Brass sighed loudly.
“I have checked every database, every record office I know of, and double checked ones we checked earlier. If Kain has family out there, no one knows about it.”
A muscle in Grissom’s check twitched, just slightly. He opened his mouth a bit, stretching his jaw, and it stopped. “Or it’s just that no one bothered to document it.”
“The whole thing could just be a coincidence,” Brass offered. “Stranger things have happened.”
Grissom shrugged. “And strange things will continue to happen,” he said, dismissively. “But I don’t think that’s the case here. Tromba called Kain ‘the son he never had.’ I don’t think that’s entirely figurative.”
Brass gave him a cool, shrewd look. “You don’t think maybe you’re getting ahead of the evidence?” he asked, leaning forward and resting his arms on the desk. His tone was reasonable, and so was the question, but Gil couldn’t help but bridle at it even so.
“Just trust me, Jim,” he said in a low voice.
“I trust you,” Brass said, putting his hands up and leaning back again. “But I also know you. You’re following a lead. I get that. But all you’ve gotten for your trouble is a possible motive and an unconfirmable alibi. Shady, I’ll grant you, but it isn’t evidence. That’s dangerous, Gil. You know that.”
Brass had the grace and decency not to say “Fromansky,” but it hung in the air between them all the same. It wasn’t like that this time, however much it might look it, but Brass had no way of knowing that.
“Sometimes it isn’t about the evidence,” Grissom said. “Sometimes it’s about the people involved.”
Brass almost laughed at that. “Better watch yourself, Gil,” he said. “Someone might hear you say that.”
Grissom frowned and cocked an eyebrow at him. “Forensic psychology is a tool like any other. The danger is in using it more than you should, not in using it at all.” Brass shrugged, and Grissom continued.
“The evidence doesn’t just tell me what happened, it also tells me about the murderer. In this case, it tells me our guy had an agenda. He didn’t want Kain to die right away; he wanted to watch him die. And he wanted him to know who had killed him. This wasn’t just murder; it was a message.” Grissom paused.
“It also tells me that he’s smart. He thought this through; there won’t be any obvious evidence,” he finished.
“So how does that help us?” Brass asked. “What do you know about Tromba that you’re not telling us?”
Grissom almost told him. But in that instant’s hesitation, someone knocked on his door and both he and Brass turned their attention away from the question. It was Greg. He was holding something.
“Normally I like to come bearing the case breaker,” he said, walking over to them. “But this time I think I may have a case destroyer.”
“And what would that be?” Grissom asked. Greg dropped an evidence bag on Grissom’s desk and sat down. Inside the bag was the appointment memo they’d collected from Kain’s house.
“That’s not Kain’s handwriting. Someone else made that appointment for him.”
Grissom picked up the bag, examining the note through the plastic, and then looked up at Greg. “Do we know whose it is?” he asked.
Greg nodded and pulled out another bag with a similar note. “Memo collected from Kain’s office. Signed,” he said, handing it to Grissom. “By Jason Price. The receptionist. It‘d be a good way to set someone up.”
Brass frowned and picked up the memo. “An appointment made by the receptionist? Nothing really unusual about that.”
“If you find it in his office, then no, it’s not,” Greg said. “But when you find it in the victim’s house-”
“Now that’s service,” Brass finished, nodding.
“I missed that,” Grissom said, mostly to himself, he’d barely heard anything Greg or Brass had said. His mind was back in the office at their first visit. He’d asked Jason Price where Caleb Kain might have gone after leaving work the day of his murder. There had been a hesitation before Price’s answer, like he had changed his mind about what he was going to say in the instant before he spoke.
“I was distracted,” he said. “He lied and I didn‘t find out why.”
“Well, I’ll get Pinocchio in here, and you can ask him,” Brass said, standing up.
* * *
“Of course it’s my handwriting. I take messages for Mr. Kain. It’s my job,” Jason Price said in an affronted tone that perfectly matched his posture. He slouched in the chair across from Grissom and Greg, arms crossed and a sullen, contemptuous expression on his face.
“Is it part of your job to make house calls?” Grissom asked. “We found this in Mr. Kain’s home.”
“So he took it home with him. I don’t even know where the man lives. We’re weren’t exactly buddies.”
“When did you take the message?” Greg asked.
Jason cocked his head back and squinted one eye. “Two days ago, I think? Call came while Mr. Kain was at lunch, so I set up the appointment and took the message.”
Brass circled around behind Jason and picked up the memo. He sat on the table and made a show of reading the note. “The thing I don’t get,” he said, dropping it in front of Price. “Is that there’s no location specified here. If you were my receptionist, I’d be a little cheesed about that. Sloppy way to do your job, isn’t it?”
“I never take down the location,” Price returned, unfazed. “It’s not necessary.”
“Oh?” Brass said, standing up. “You got a trick for passing on that information? Some kind of mind-meld?”
Price snorted and rolled his eyes but kept his mouth shut. Brass shrugged.
“Okay, I get it. Not part of your job description.” He paced around the room slowly, tossing off ideas without looking at Price. Grissom watched him as each one of Brass’s increasingly outlandish theories produced a scoff, a snort, or sometimes a soft laugh.
“You wouldn’t be so unoriginal as to hold your meetings in the same place all the time,” Brass said, nonchalantly, and Price stayed perfectly still; as calm as stone.
It was as glaring a tell as any Grissom had seen. Price knew where the meeting had been. Brass kept talking.
“Maybe you just make him guess. I mean, you’re blackmailing him anyway, may as well jerk him around during company time as well.”
“What?” Price said.
“Mr. Price, do you ever make appointments for Mr. Tromba?” Grissom said. Everyone in the room snapped their heads around in surprise at the non sequitur.
“What? Yeah,” Price said, clearly not understanding why he was being asked this question.
“And do you take down the location for him?”
Price went still again. The question had required Grissom to tip his hand, but it didn’t matter. Any answer Price gave would tell him what he needed to know, even silence. Which was good, because that’s what he got.
“We’re going to need a DNA sample from you,” Grissom said and nodded to Greg. Price glared but didn’t resist. He stood up once Greg had finished.
“I had nothing to do with Mr. Kain’s death,” he said, heading for the door. “And if you don’t believe me, you can ask my lawyer.” He left.
* * *
Grissom was sitting in the conference room, the accumulated evidence laid out before him, when Greg found him.
“Bad news,” he said. “Price’s DNA is not a match.”
“Hmm,” Grissom said without looking up. He barely moved when Brass entered, seconds later.
“I checked the phone records,” he said. “Price took a call two days ago at 12:37 PM. Lasted four minutes. Long enough to make an appointment.”
“Did you find out where the call came from?” Greg asked.
“Phone booth about half a mile away,” Brass answered.
Grissom snorted; a dry sound filled with dark humor. “Well that narrows it down to anyone,” he said.
“Yeah,” Brass said. “Tromba could have made it, if he was out of the building at the time.”
“Our whole case is built on ‘could haves,’” Grissom said. “He could have known about the embezzlement, which means he could have had motive, he could have made the appointment and he could have known where the meeting was supposed to take place.”
“And issuing judges don’t like conjecture,” Brass said. “If this guy did it, he’s slicker than a greased weasel.” Grissom sighed. He looked down at the items on the table: a knife with no prints, DNA with no match, and financial records with no connection to Tromba.
“We have nothing,” he said, looking up at Brass and Greg.
“There’s gotta be something we missed,” Greg said, frowning and picking up the file with pictures of the crime scene. “I mean, we know the guy’s good for it, there has to be a way to prove it, right?”
“We’re not going to find it there,” Grissom said, leaning back in his chair. “He’s much too smart and was far too careful. He covered his tracks.” He raised an eyebrow. “Almost.”
“The spit?” Greg asked. Grissom nodded. “How does that help? I mean, I know where you’re going. A guy that knows this much about forensics deliberately leaves a sample of his DNA?”
“Why?” Grissom asked.
“Well, he knew his DNA wasn’t on file. Tromba was in and out of the system before DNA profiles were standard,” Brass said. “Guess he thought he’d rub our faces in it.”
Grissom nodded. “Pride,” he said. “You know what they say about it.”
Greg looked at him. “It goeth before a fall?” he offered. Grissom smiled.
“Exactly. That’s his weak point. We need a way to exploit it.” And he had one. He’d been considering it from the moment Tromba walked into this case, but he’d resolved to wait until all other evidence failed them. It could mean checkmate in one move, but to get there, they’d have to sacrifice a powerful piece: him.
“Greg,” he said, resigning himself to what he was about to do, “I’m taking myself off this case.”
Greg’s mouth fell open. Even Brass looked stunned. “What?” Greg asked.
“I’ll ask Sara to give you a hand if you need it, but you’re the lead.” He stood up to leave. “Now, if you’ll accompany me to the DNA lab,” he said and turned an enigmatic half grin towards Greg before exiting the conference room. Greg and Brass looked at each other.
“It’s Grissom,” Brass said and shrugged. They followed him out, not saying anything as they entered the DNA lab. Mia looked up, registered the confused expressions on the faces of Greg and Brass and before she turned her own towards Grissom.
“Now, Greg,” Grissom said, finding the formality of the situation a comfortable tool. “I’d like to volunteer to give a DNA sample. I think you may find it useful in your investigation.”
It wasn’t really possible for Greg to look more confused than he already did, but he made a spectacular effort to do so. Gil almost laughed.
“Okay,” Greg said, lacking any real conviction. It wasn’t as though Gil hadn’t given him stranger instructions before. He would follow them, even if he made it clear that he thought his boss had a screw loose while doing so. He located a swab and handed it to Grissom, who put up his hands and shook his head.
“You do it,” he said. “I’m off the case, remember?” Behind him, he heard what he thought was the sound of Brass chuckling softly. And there was basis for it. Technically, it would be perfectly acceptable for him to do it himself - it wasn’t at all unheard of, in fact -- but if he was going to be hands off, then he was hands off. He wasn’t going to let there be any room to claim that the evidence had been compromised.
“Okay,” Greg said again, sounding less sure of himself. “Open up?”
Gil did. He had to admit that being on this end of a buccal swab was more than a little odd.
“I’ll be in my office,” he said once Greg had finished.
On his way back, he looked around for Sara, but she wasn’t anywhere to be found. He pulled out his cell phone to call her, hoping that tonight would find her in a cooperative mood. He explained the situation to her, and she readily agreed to back Greg up if necessary. In fact, she sounded almost eager. Gil thought he’d detected something of a soft spot in her for their newest CSI.
Back in his office, he opened the top drawer of his desk and pulled out an envelope. He’d brought it in yesterday, hoping that the contents wouldn’t be needed, but knowing even then that there would be little chance of that.
When Greg finally re-entered Grissom’s office, his confusion had been replaced with comprehension. Grissom smiled at that, ever so slightly.
“Do you need something, Greg?” he asked in a falsely innocent voice. Greg came the rest of the way into Grissom’s office, but didn’t sit down.
“I guess I don’t need to tell you what the results of the test were, do I?” he asked. Grissom made a considering face.
“I wasn’t one hundred percent certain,” he said. “But I can tell by looking at you.”
“I’ll bet,” he said, with a little of his normal humor. “I guess you’re definitely staying off the case now.” Grissom nodded, albeit a little reluctantly. “You could have said something earlier.”
“It wouldn’t have changed anything.”
“Yeah, but it’s not nice to wrong foot your team like that,” Greg admonished lightly. He waited for a response that didn’t come before shrugging it off.
“So who did you recognize first?” he asked.
“I was only child,” he said, opening the envelope and taking out the folded paper inside. “But I do know who my father is. And I can prove it.” He handed the copy of his birth certificate to Greg.