Chapter 6

Interrogation Room
August 29, 2007, 6 PM

"You want to tell me why you lied?" Brass asked Sloane.

"I didn't lie."

"All right. How about giving me a more believable version of the truth, then?"

"I told you. I found Mark in Angie's bedroom. Her bedroom. You get it? People take advantage of people like Angie. I saw her screaming and his hands on her shoulders and I went…crazy. Okay? After, I picked up his dead body and buried it at the radio tower."

"Why bury Angie's cassette player?"

"I thought it was safer there than throwing it out and having it turn up in some landfill or something."

"Mr. Sloane. There was no way a letter opener killed Mark Menoit," Grissom said.

"Well, tell that to the dead body because that's the way it happened." He said and then sat back.

"All right. Let's go on to murder #2. Or, I should say, murder #1. Tommy Fiangella. We found his remains in your backyard. Buried much deeper, I might add."

"I was a lot younger then," Sloane smirked.

"I suppose you killed him, too."

"I did. For the same reason. With Mark, I definitely jumped the gun, but I walked in on Angie and Tommy having sex. She was 16. He was on top of her and I stabbed him to death, too."

"Letter opener?"

"Butcher knife. I had my suspicions about the noises coming from her room. I went downstairs and grabbed a knife before confirming them."

"And you let two people wonder, for over 20 years, what happened to their son?"

"Wondering is hope. Knowing is forever."

"I don't do haiku. You want to translate that for me?" Brass asked.

"It means I would rather wonder where the hell my daughter was wandering around, rather than knowing she was so depressed that she took a header from the top of one of my hotels, all right? And I was not going to let anyone, or anything, hurt Angie in the same way my daughter was hurt. Ever. Case closed. Lock me up."

"And then what happens to Angie?"

"Lucille will take care of her and I've made arrangements for her to train a younger person to share the role, and eventually assume the role, when Lucille is too old to handle it."

"When did you do this?"

"The other day. Before I turned myself in."

Grissom looked straight at the mirror. He knew Sara was on the other side of the wall, behind the glass, watching their every move.

She got his message. "I'm on it," she said aloud, and took off down the hall.

Grissom's Office,
6:15 PM

Sara was working feverishly on the computer when Greg popped into the office, full of energy and carrying a folder.

"DNA results, my girl…uh, Grissom's girl…hot off the press!"

"Stop that. Now, give me the highlights. I'm finding something interesting here."

"Okay. You can show me yours after I show you mine. So, those epithelials I found? They were from three contributors. The epithelials from one person, a female, was found basically on the forearms and shoulders of the vic. Then there was a male contributor. Epithelials under his arms, on the pants by his ankles…shares point 25 alleles with female number 1."

"Grandpa material."

"Yes. Now things get really interesting. Contributor number 3 is female, too. Her epis are all over the body. Like she kind of hugged him from behind or something. And she has point 25 alleles in common with female number one, and no alleles in common with the male."

"She's a grandparent?"

"Yup."

"And Mrs. Sloane died years before."

"Yup."

"That's…very interesting, Greg. Did we get the results of the DNA testing from the people in the Sloane household?"

"Yes. But you haven't shown me yours yet…"

"Greg…"

"Spoiled sport. Fine, Angie is female #1—she only had contact with Mark's upper arms and shoulders, consistent with the transcript of her questioning. Gramps Sloane, who seemed to be dragging the body and getting his epithelials all over the joint is the lone male, and….drum roll please…Angie's granny , with her epis all over the vic is…"

Greg broke off and did a very bad rendition of a very old BB King song.

The guy was such a ham.

Sloane mansion
8 PM

Grissom, Catherine and Sara sat around the makeshift "interrogation" table in Sloane's dining room. Brass was there, as well as a couple of uniformed officers. Lucille Sullivan was seated on one of the side seats.

"Where's Angie?" Grissom asked.

"She's upstairs in one of the guest rooms. Thank you for letting her keep her recorder. It means a lot to her."

"Well, it's not sentimental, on our part. It wasn't involved in the crime, and we have enough proof of its purchase and delivery. It wasn't needed as evidence."

Lucille nodded.

Catherine gave an almost imperceptible signal to Sara.

"Ms. Sullivan, we've run across a few things that we hope you can help us clear up."

"Of course. Anything I can do to help poor Mr. Sloane."

"We were a little confused when Mr. Sloane, who seems very in control of every aspect of his life, made arrangements with you to care for Angie, even before he knew he was going to be arrested. You have been employed by him since Angie was a baby, but it still seemed as if he'd be the type of person who would want to care of her himself, if it was at all possible.

So, we decided to do a little more research. I looked up Angie's—Sylvia's—birth certificate. There is a father listed. A James Sullivan. Any relation?"

Lucille's eyes went wide and her pink cheeks flushed a dark red.

"Ms. Sullivan?" Sara prompted.

"He was my son."

"So, Angie is…"

"My granddaughter."

"Does she know?"

"No," Lucille shook her head vigorously. "There was no need to tell her such a thing. Besides, it would only lead to questions about her father."

"Dead-beat dad?"

"He would have been, if he had lived. He went to Viet Nam shortly before Sylvia was born. His remains were returned to me. But he wanted nothing to do with the child. He had plenty to do with Miss Gloria. I raised her from the time she was a young girl. Her mother died of cancer when she was just 10 years old. I moved in with my son and husband to take care of the family. My husband died, then my son became a teenager and just went crazy. One big walking hormone. I was so embarrassed over what he did to Miss Gloria. Mr. Sloane, he took it in stride. He tried everything to make sure Gloria would not be embarrassed. Told her he'd send her to Paris until the baby was born. She could make up a husband who had died overseas. Anything. But, by that time, Gloria was really abusing the drugs. And she really didn't want the baby any more than my Jimmy.

Poor Sylvia—Angie. She had troubles right from the start. So tiny. She wasn't expected to live and Gloria was sitting in the corner, praying. Every day, she'd be in that baby nursery in the corner, praying and praying. And I just knew it wasn't for her baby to live."

"Tell me what happened when Gloria killed herself," Grissom prompted.

"Not much to tell. Security called immediately. Even before the police showed up. Mr. Sloane ran over there and really took it hard. He had a hard time with her moodiness. He blamed himself for not getting her help beforehand."

"Just like with Angie?"

"You don't understand. He knew something wasn't quite right with both girls. His biggest fear was that they'd try and take them away from him. Lock them up in some mental institution. He couldn't have that."

"So, he took on the responsibility of raising the girl?"

"No, he always had the responsibility of raising her. When Sylvia—Angie—was released from the hospital, Gloria left for three months. We didn't hear anything from her. Joined a commune or some such nonsense. Every once in a while, she'd come back home and play with her child as if she were some kind of doll. She'd stay for a few days and then leave. Mr. Sloane and I raised the girl."

Catherine leaned forward. "Will you tell us the truth about Tommy?"

"Yes."

They sat back as she took a sip of water from the Waterford glass before her.

"I sleep heavily. Both of us do. Mr. Sloane works very hard in the hotel industry, I worked very hard at home. My room is right down the hall from Angie's and Mr. Sloane's is upstairs. I had a friend come into town one night and went out with her. We drank a lot of coffee with our desserts, and I couldn't sleep when I got home. I tried reading and watching tv, and then finally thought I'd put that energy to use. I went to go to Angie's bathroom to pick up her dirty clothes to wash, when I heard some noises from her room. I know those noises. I…just couldn't do this again. This couldn't happen. No more babies having babies. I went downstairs and grabbed the biggest knife I could find. I just wanted to scare the hell out of whoever was there with her.

I went to the room and just walked in. Angie was on all fours and he was taking her from behind, like a dog. His hand was in her hair, pulling her back, and he was calling her a dirty bitch and other, even more foul things. I…she's my granddaughter. 16. She was 16 and this filthy thing was doing these things to her and calling her these names and she was moaning like she was in some ecstasy. I just…didn't even think. He was dead in seconds."

Catherine closed her eyes for a moment. "And then what happened."

"Then my brain started working again. Angie was screaming. Mr. Sloane came running. He heard her from all the way upstairs. I threw a sheet at her and told her to cover up. We all just sat there for a while, trying to think of something to do."

"And that's when you decided to bury him in the back yard?"

"Yes. No one knew he was there. Well, according to Angie, but I believed her. Angie never lies. On the one hand, he knew Angie was an easy target for sex, because she didn't completely understand, but those kids in school were scared of her. She had been acting very strangely…so, I don't think he would have mentioned his conquest to them because they would think he was odd, sleeping with the 'crazy kid.' We buried him in the backyard. Deep in the yard. And never said a word to anyone. No one ever even came here to question us."

"And then what happened?"

"Nothing. We went on like this for years. Angie got older and older and we just continued to take care of her. "

"Did Mr. Sloane or Angie kill Mark Menoit?" Catherine asked, already knowing the answer.

"No. I did. I was in the downstairs bathroom. As I was coming out, I saw Angie and Mark go upstairs. I knew she wanted to return a package. She asked me a day or so before if it would be okay to show him her room and she did that, from time to time, when she wanted to make friends. It never worried me because her definition of friendship was not anyone else's. It was just coming to see her room, knowing a bit of what she liked and that was it. I went into the kitchen to make lunch and then I heard her screams. I just…did it again. Grabbed the knife and ran. The truth is almost exactly the way Mr. Sloane described it. Angie later told me what happened. He came in, knocked over her table and broke her recorder. She always thought that Tommy's soul—or maybe even Tommy, himself, lived in that stupid thing. It had stopped playing that song she likes so much and she started screaming and attacking him with it. I came in and just saw him standing with his back to me and his hands on her, while she was struggling. I stabbed him. Right in the middle of his back."

"With what?"

"The same butcher knife I used all those years ago."

"Where is it?"

"In the butcher block. I had cleaned it in the dishwasher. I don't know. Maybe you already took it into evidence."

"Ms. Sullivan," Grissom started, "I don't understand why you buried Angie's original recorder out by the body?"

She smiled. "Mr. Grissom, picture two old, stupid people who are in deep trouble, again. This time, the police might come and question us since they could probably find out which was the last house he delivered a package to. We needed to get him off the grounds.

Mr. Sloane drove the truck somewhere into the desert. When he got back, we dragged Mark's body down to the car, after dark. We found what we thought was a nice deserted place. Who goes to that old radio tower, anyway? And we started to dig. And dig. It was so hard. In the middle, we took a breather and sat in the car for a few minutes until we heard digging ourselves. We were so scared. We looked to the gravesite and saw Angie digging. We ran over and asked her how she got there. She hid in the trunk of the car. She knew exactly how to open it when we got there, snuck out and into the woods while we were digging and then—probably—made her own little spot for 'Tommy's remains.' Neither of us knew about the original recorder being gone until you told us. But we knew she was there. We just thought she was helping us dig. She was even wearing gloves. When she isn't listening to that goddamn recorder, she watches way too much television. All those freaking crime shows."

Lucille started to laugh. The hollow sound filled the room, leaving nothing behind but an empty, lonely feeling.

County Jail
August 30, 5:20 AM

Maxwell Sloane was standing at the desk, retrieving his things.

"I'm going to try and get her out, you know. Temporary insanity."

"Times two? And a 20 year old cover up? That's not temporary, my friend. I'd suggest, Mr. Sloane, that you worry about keeping yourself out of jail."

"Can we go into your office for a moment? And ask Mr Grissom to come along."

Brass' Office
6 AM

"I don't care if I go to jail. Not for myself. I do care for Angie. Lucille has been booked and I will pay anything to get her out on bail so we can both find a suitable caretaker for Angie. But, I don't really regret a thing. Lucille just did what I would have done, if I had been there first. So, I protected her. And I protected Angie.

I told you Gloria left a poem to Angie before she jumped? Well, here it is," He pulled out a very old piece of paper from his wallet. It had been folded 8 times to make a small square that fit into one of the compartments meant to hold a photograph:

Dear Sylvia:

Think of me… and the woman you were named after. She wrote these words. I lived them.

Forgive me.

Gloria (your mother)…

Mad Girl's Love Song

"I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;
I lift my lids and all is born again.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

The stars go waltzing out in blue and red,
And arbitrary blackness gallops in:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed
And sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

God topples from the sky, hell's fires fade:
Exit seraphim and Satan's men:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I should have loved a thunderbird instead;
At least when spring comes they roar back again.
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)"

"Except for the fact that she's not as morbid as my daughter, history has repeated itself with Angie. And, apparently, I didn't do any better protecting a child this time around" Sloane said, then stood up and left the room.

Angie's Room, Sloane Mansion
January 23, 2008, 8 PM

Lovers appear in your room each night
and they whirl you across the floor.
But they always seem to fade away
when your daddy taps on your door.
Angie girl, are you all right?
Tell the radio good-night.
All alone once more, Angie Baby.

Angie Baby, you're a special lady
living in a world of make-believe.
Well, maybe.
Well, maybe.

"Angela, please turn that radio down a bit."

"Can't. Tommy likes being loud."

Good God. Laurene shook her head, set a tray of food on the desk and left the room. If she wasn't getting paid so bloody much, she'd never stay in this creepy house. Give up her life for this crazy woman before her. Shit.

Angie turned the radio up and loosened the string on her peasant blouse. She gyrated across the floor, smiling at a lover who was not really there.

Or, was he?

Break Room, CSI Headquarters,
January 24, 12:10 AM

Sara, we have a DB down in Henderson. You're with me."

No snickers could be heard in the room. While at work, everyone tended to forget Grissom and Sara were even in a relationship. They really had compartmentalizing their lives down to a science.

Occasionally, in a social situation, the staff marveled at the difference.

And every once in a while, they did find themselves socializing outside of work.

The times…they had changed.

February 1, 2008

Self-proclaimed Uncle Greg loved his 'nephew,' Bruno, at first sight, and on one bright and sunny day, he took the dog to his place so Bruno's 'parents' could have an extended weekend on the East Coast.

"Bruno, old boy," he said, as they walked away from the townhouse. "Those people in there are nuts. It's like, what… 20 degrees in Boston? Maybe less. What the hell do they need to go there for?"

Bruno looked at him, slobbered a little and Greg would later swear, but no one took him seriously, that the dog shrugged.

And, less than 12 hours later, Grissom and Sara stood on the beach at Cape Cod. Freezing their asses off. Breathing in air so cold, it actually hurt their lungs.

And exchanging words and rings to no one but each other and the heavens above…

And a preacher and two witnesses they rounded up on the beach.

Sometimes, you just felt like making a commitment that went beyond what was in your head and your heart.

Amidst laughter, gray, windy skies, and looks that could melt an iceberg, Grissom and Sara made the marriage of two married souls "official."

The End

Credits: "Angie, Baby" was written by Alan O'Day and recorded by Helen Reddy. It was the number one song in December of 1974. I was a young teenager then and found it appealingly creepy. Still do.

"Mad Girl's Love Song" was written by Sylvia Plath: my writing prompt.

A/N: I wanted to write a casefile for Grissom and Sara. Badly (I'm not officially into torture…but…) I had the Angie, Baby idea in my head in a very, very vague sort of way. It was actually when I got the prompt that I thought I could maybe combine the two. I then thought…oh, I'll take the easy way out and just drop the most fabulous little tidbit I found out about Sylvia Plath--which was her dad was a bug man! Yes, old Otto wrote a book on bees. I thought I'd have Grissom mention that. And, another fun fact: Otto was at least 20 years older than Sylvia's mother (another 70s song, if you're keeping count—although that one was just dreadful, IMO).

But, I read the poem I quoted at the end, and knew getting that prompt was kismet. Destiny! Whooohoo for destiny. (I'm too old to whoohoo, by the way). But, really, all the pieces began to fall in place.

There is always a chance, when you post a longer story that is not being posted as a serial or WIP, that no one will ever read it and I'm taking a gamble here. But, I post as a reader, as much as a writer. I like to read completed stories and am too impatient and non-trusting to go the WIP route as a reader, so…I'm just assuming some of you guys are impatient grouchy folk like me!

Hope you enjoyed this massive thing.

That will teach the organizers of these ficathons to ever use the words, "or more," after setting a minimum word limit.