Work Text:
Deceiving Appearances
by Heather Exhume
Grissom carefully aimed and shot various angles of the body on the ground. He was Caucasian mid-thirties and heavily beaten. This was inequitably murder. All it really came down to was evidence, the evidence here was still inconclusive, but Grissom was already starting to theorize possibilities. Grissom paused for a moment of introspection to wonder about how a person could spend their life figuring out how people kill people. It was not the first time he had thought about things like this, but he had a job to do so he pushed his questions about life down and focused on the evidence.
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“So tell me what we know.”
Dr. Robbins looked up at Grissom, “he was defiantly beaten to death. There were multiply contusions and lacerations, but what really did him in was the 3, 5 ribs. They broke and punctured the stomach causing internal bleeding and eventually he died of blood loss. He also had anal intercourse before he was killed.” Grissom looked up with a question in his eye, Robbins answered, “it might have been rape, but I found past signs of anal penetration, plus there wasn’t much damage, he could have just liked it rough. I sent his fingerprints up to id, hopefully they’ll be able to find a match.”
“Thanks Al.”
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“Grissom, hey, Grissom.”
“What is it Holly?”
“We got a fingerprint match in the database. The guy was Joel Nickoal. He was a chemical engineer at Phito Chemicals. He was a top level guy, had his fingerprints used as a form of id, that’s how we were able to find him.”
“Well let’s go.” Grissom jerked his thumb in the direction of his Tahoe.
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“How well did you know Joel?”
The tall, balding middle-aged man shuffled nervously, staring at his feet, “not that well. Joel mostly kept to himself. He called in sick a lot, and kept mostly to himself.”
“Can you tell us anything about him?”
“He was gay, his boyfriend came around once or twice.”
“Okay thank you.”
Grissom interviewed everyone, but all he seemed to get was that he kept to himself. And that he was out sick a lot. Nobody even knew more about his boyfriend except that he had one, descriptions had ranged from tall and thin to “sorta short and tubby”. He turned to Holly, “anything?”
“Well,” Holly looked grim, “I managed to convince the clerk to release his old address, since his current one didn’t net us much.” Grissom raised an eyebrow. “I asked Warrick to call me with any news. Turns out the news was nothing, but maybe this old address will give us something.” A bright grin stretched across Holly’s face.
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Grissom rang to doorbell to a rather nice townhouse. He didn’t act surprised when a middle-aged Caucasian man answered the door. “Excuse me sir, do you know a Joel Nickoal?”
The man tilted his head and a clump of brown hair fell onto his forehead and in front of his eyes, blocking them from Grissom’s view. “Joel, yeah what about him, did he do something’s wrong?”
“No, no, I’m sorry but Joel was killed earlier this night.” The man standing there in his bathrobe looked stricken.
“Killed? Who would want to kill Joel?”
“That’s what we’d like to find out.”
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Holly, Warrick and Grissom sat around in the lounge eating and talking about the case. “did the boyfriend give us anything to go with?”
Grissom shook his head negative, “no, although he did tell us that he had sex with Joel within the last 48 hours. They had broken up but Joel came by looking to re-live old times, but Joel left in a big hurry, upset after they had finished.”
Warrick swallowed his bite of sandwich, “So, you get back together with your old boyfriend, but you realize that it was a mistake, taking into account where we found him, perhaps we should go bar combing?”
“That, Warrick is a very good suggestion.”
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Grissom showed a picture of Joel to the bartender, this was the 9th bar they had visited and the number of guys eying him was starting to become disconcerting. “Yeah, Joel I know him. Used to be a regular in here three or so years ago, then his skanky ass boyfriend forbid him to come.”
“Skanky?”
“Yeah, I’ve seen him out on the corner of 5th and 9th picking up whores.”
Light dawned in Grissom’s eyes, “you’ve been very helpful.”
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Grissom’s cool aplomb was starting to slip surrounded by the pretty boy prostitutes. He had come to the self realization of being bisexual long ago, but these were people that made their life’s work to seduce people. He didn’t want to flash his badge early, which would cause them to clam up tighter then Ecklie’s ass. Warrick pulled out a twenty, “I’m looking for information. Anyone ever ‘hang out’ with Bob Whittle.”
A slight southern drawl floated out from amongst the crowd. “Why, ya the boys in blue?”
“Actually, yes.” The crowd backed away, not too far, but no one was meeting their eyes anymore and the offers stopped coming.
The southerner held his hands up indicating a ceasefire, “whoa there cowboy, we’re all friends here, hanging out.”
Grissom waved his explanations away, “we’re not here to bust you, like the man said we’re looking for information.”
The southerner sidled up to Grissom, flirtingly, “well I think you came to right place cowboy.” Without breaking eye contact with Grissom he leaned past him and snatched the twenty out of Warrick’s hand.
“So what do you little blue boys want to know?”
“Well…” Grissom left the statement open hoping to get a name.
The prostitute obliged him and in a sexy purr said, “Nicky,”
“Nicky, we where wondering what you know about Bob Whittle.”
Nicky’s face hardened slightly. “Man’s no fun that’s for sure. I mean a little S&M never hurt anyone,” Nicky smirked at Grissom, toyed with the edge of his shirt, “well not much, but him he,” his face hardened even more. “He’s not a nice man.”
Warrick glared at the man draping himself all over his friend. “Yeah and you are?” He muttered.
Nicky looked knowingly at Warrick, “I might not be the best person out there sughar,” he winked rapaciously, “but I’m not as depraved as him. Man’s seriously into pain, other’s not his. Man gave me some serious hurtin’. Put me in the hospital for a day and half.”
“Why didn’t you report it?”
Nicky snorted inelegantly, “like you guys would ever take something that happened to me seriously. So what’d Bobbie Boy do? Finally beat some spine into Joel?”
“What do you know about that?”
Nicky shrugged, “just that I’ve seen him a few times. Once saw Bob drag Joel out of a bar by his hair.”
Grissom disengaged Nick from his body
“Thank you, you’ve been very helpful.”
“Don’t thank me, Cowboy. I just told ya ‘cause I want him off the streets and rotting in prison.”
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Grissom had a hard time shaking Nicky from his thoughts but he managed. Going from Nicky’s information they took an x-ray of Joel and found old fractures. From there they were able to get a search warrant and placed enough blood in the apartment to place it as the crime scene, or at least a crime scene. They also found pictures of Joel tied to a bed naked, there were bruises and whip marks all over his back. It hurt Grissom to think that Nicky had gone through that. Deciding that there was no way to get Nicky out of his head unless he actually saw him so Grissom decided to drive by Nick’s corner and check on him. It mad him even more worried when Nick wasn’t there. It became a daily ritual to drive by and check on him, but he was never there. He had finally decided that after this shift he was going to stop and ask the people on the corner about him, when he saw him. “Nicky?”
“Yeah hey there.”
“You look so different.”
“Yeah it’s amazing how exchanging leather pants for jeans and a mesh shirt for a button up can change a person’s appearance.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I’m a cop.”
Grissom blinked in shock, “what?”
“I work undercover. I had been working as Nicky the Hooker for over three months to try and infiltrate a child prostitution ring. Just bagged the head honchos.”
“Oh so all that stuff?” Grissom’s eyes blanked out for a moment, “you’re a really good actor.”
“Yeah I am, but that’s not why I’m here. I thought you might be interested in going on a date.”
Grissom felt shock coursing through him, “you want to go on a date with me?”
“Yeah, so what do you say, I’ll pick you up after shift?”
Unsure of what else to say, Grissom just said yes.
Nick was walking down the hallway when it occurred to Grissom that he didn’t know what they were doing. “Nick where are we going?”
Nick called over his shoulder, “It’s a surprise Cowboy, it’s a surprise.”
The End
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