Altoids and What?
The silence in the room was almost deafening. Greg didn't think it was possible for the room to be so quiet with two people working in it. Not even Sara was this quiet when working with someone. It was almost a shame to interrupt the eerie tranquility of the room, but he didn't want to be on the receiving end of either one of the occupants' wrath if he didn't. He knocked on the doorframe trying to attract their attention. When that didn't work, he spoke up.
"Hey guys. Got those results you wanted."
"God, Greg! You could've made some sort of noise to let us know you were there," Catherine said, trying to calm her heart rate. Grissom looked up from his microscope at Catherine's exclamation.
Ignoring the fact that he hadn't heard anything until Catherine's voice penetrated the fog in his hearing, he asked, "What have you got, Greg."
"Your mysterious white powder is a curiously strong mint known as..."
"Altoids," Grissom and Catherine finished for him. Greg looked at the pair.
"How- Never mind, I'm not even going to ask. But what you probably didn't know was that it was the wintergreen flavor and it had some cocaine mixed with it."
"Interesting." Grissom paused for a moment considering the new information. That mixture was a rare one, in fact he could only think of one case where it came up. "Catherine, are you thinking what I'm thinking?"
"Yeah. I'll see if he's been released, yet." Catherine left the room, her mind racing a mile a minute. It was too much of a coincidence. Grissom studied the readout Greg handed him and abruptly left the room.
"Thanks a lot, Greg. Good work, Greg," Greg said to the now vacant room. He didn't expect it often, but every once in a while it would be nice to be acknowledged.
"Who are you talking to, Greg?" Nick asked walking by.
"No one."
"Oh. Have you seen Grissom?"
"Yeah. He left not more than a minute ago. I think he was headed to his office."
Soft strains of Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata filled his office. He didn't often play music while he was working, but from time to time, he needed the recharging effects that were provided by the classical composers. This case was bringing up too many coincidences. It had all the markings of a straightforward, everyday murder investigation. But the altoids-cocaine mix changed the entire case.
Catherine and he had seen this in a case years ago. It was shortly after they had warmed up to each other. A series of murders that were masked over by apparent drug overdoses. Catherine had been the first one to notice a pattern in the deaths.
"Hey Gil," Catherine stood in the door waiting for a response. Grissom still had his back turned toward her and didn't look like he was going to respond anytime soon. She entered the office and closed the door. Grissom spun around quickly at the sound of his door closing to face the person he didn't want to face.
"Catherine, I..."
"When were you going to tell me?"
This was the reason he didn't want to work with her. All it took was a little time before she pieced everything together. "I don't know."
"Gil, we never hid anything from each other before."
"Yes, we have."
"Not like this."
"This is different. This affects me, personally."
"So did my habit. Gil, everything that happens isn't isolated. Before Lindsey and this job, I was a dancer and had a coke habit. Then I met you, a complete stranger, and Jimmy; things started to change for me. I was almost clean when I got involved here. I fell off the wagon and it affected my work. You saw it."
"Did I?"
"Yes."
"What do you want me to say?"
"It's not about what I want."
"I don't know how."
"Tell me the truth."