Sin City

confessed!' Gary looked around at the adults clustered in the foyer. 'You heard him, you all heard him! I heard him.'

Grissom's eyes weren't on Gary, but on Lori, as he said, 'Mr. Pierce lied, son…. He lied to protect his daughter.'

'My father killed my mother,' Lori insisted, desperation edging her voice, her face, her gestures, animated. 'Gary and me, we heard him confess-just like you did!'

Grissom walked up several stairs to face Lori, where she was caught between the two groups of grown-ups. 'We heard him confess,' Grissom acknowledged, 'but we also heard him lie.'

Lori's voice was filled with typically teenaged contempt. 'How do you know?'

'We know because the evidence is at odds with what your father 'confessed'-your mother's murder couldn't have happened the way he said, Lori. And the fingerprints on the gun and the box of bullets are going to be ID'ed as yours.'

'I didn't kill Mom,' Lori said. 'I loved her! Daddy hated her-that's why he killed her!'

Brass came down and took her gently by the arm and Grissom got out of the way, as the girl was read her rights and handcuffed.

The detective was about to escort the girl from the castle when Gary Blair said, to no one in particular, 'I…I need to go home.'

Lori swung her face toward the boy and gave him a withering look. 'You suck,' she said.

Brass walked the girl out, and Grissom answered the boy's question: 'You're coming with us, Gary. You're a material witness.'

Back at HQ, Brass chose to interview Gary Blair first. Grissom was in the interrogation room with them, the rest of the team watching through the two-way glass. The boy's parents had been called, and were on their way.

Brass and the Blair kid sat on opposite sides of the table. Tears rolled down the young man's cheeks and he was trembling.

'Do you want to wait till your parents get here, Gary, before we talk?'

'No…I'd…I'd rather talk without them here.'

'Well, they're coming.'

'You better ask your questions, then, 'cause once they're here, I'm zipping it.'

'Okay, Gary. What happened that day?'

'Wh…what day?'

'What day do you think?'

The kid swallowed snot and tears, and tried to get his crying under control before answering. Finally, staring at the table, he said in a small, very young voice, 'Her mom, Mrs. Pierce…her mom caught us in bed together, in Lori's room. She wasn't even supposed to come home until hours later, 'cause she had church…but her meeting was cancelled and she came home early and she caught us…doing it.' He shuddered at the thought. 'We'd been doin' some, you know, lines, too, and Mrs. Pierce, she found the coke on the desk. Boy, did she come unglued! I just shut up and tried to stay out of it, but they had this huge screaming match, Mrs. Pierce threatening to go to my mom and see that Lori and me were split up. Mrs. Pierce told Lori she was sending her to a special school, somewhere out of state, to repent and get tight with Jesus. Crazy stuff like that-but mostly, Mrs. Pierce was saying over and over that Lori and me could never see each other again.'

Grissom asked, 'Where was the gun, Gary? Somewhere in the garage?'

'No-in Lori's backpack.'

Brass frowned. 'Why there?'

He shrugged. 'She'd started buying coke from this guy who was her father's connection, too.'

'Did Mr. Pierce know about this?'

'No! Hell, no! But Lori met this guy at the house a couple times, when he came to do business with Mr. Pierce.'

'The gun, Gary.'

'I'm getting to that. Lori was afraid of this guy.'

Frowning, Grissom said, 'Lil Moe?'

'Yeah-Lori said he was hitting on her and she didn't want him to. She said that the next time he, you know, sexually harassed her, she was going to put a stop to it, and threaten him with the gun.'

Frowning in thought, Grissom asked, 'Where did this gun come from?'

Brass picked up on that. 'Was it her father's gun, Gary?'

'Yes…she got it out of a drawer somewhere, and her dad didn't even miss it.'

Brass took a deep breath, let it out, and said, 'So, Gary-what happened after Mrs. Pierce went ballistic?'

'Mrs. Pierce said she was going to drive straight over to my parents' house, and tell 'em what was going on.'

'Your parents have no idea that you're sexually active? That you've used drugs?'

He shook his head.

Brass said, 'Mrs. Pierce threatened to go your parents. What then?'

'Lori followed her to the garage, arguing all the way, but more…trying to reason with her now, and begging her and stuff. She got in the car with her mom, to try and talk her out of it. And they drove off, still yelling at each other.'

'Did you know Lori had taken the gun with her?'

'No. It was in the kitchen, on the counter-the backpack?'

'What did you do then, Gary?'

He shrugged. 'I just got my stuff and went home, praying that Mrs. Pierce didn't show up to blow my world apart. And then when Lori and her mom didn't show up, I figured Lori and her mom had worked it out-that she talked her mom out of telling my folks. Later that night, Lori called to say her mom had taken off somewhere. You know, needed time to think and stuff, after the shock of what she found out about Lori and me.'

'You didn't know Mrs. Pierce was dead?'

'Oh, no. Lori told me that you people thought her mom was dead, but I didn't really know till I heard her father confess. I thought he was telling the truth…. Are you sure he wasn't?'

The interview continued a while, but nothing new was revealed; and then the Blairs were there, and Brass and Grissom left them alone with their son, after telling the young man to be frank with his folks.

'You tell them, Gary,' Brass said, 'or I will.'

The interrogation with Lori Pierce did not go well, at first. Again Grissom accompanied Brass, while the rest of the CSIs looked on through two-way glass. The girl refused to budge off her father's story.

Watching the interrogation, Catherine said to Sara, 'She's a smart kid. Knows if she keeps her mouth shut, her old man will take the rap.'

'That's cold,' Nick said.

Sara said, 'So is killing your mother.'

Grissom hadn't asked any questions yet; protocol gave that honor to Brass, but the detective was not getting anywhere, and was clearly frustrated, giving Grissom a wide-eyed look that granted the CSI supervisor permission to take a shot.

'Lori,' Grissom said, 'I'm a criminalist.'

Lori Pierce looked up, her face haggard, years added to her features with each passing hour. She summoned some contempt for the adult: 'And I care why?'

'Do you know what a criminalist is? What he does?'

The girl stared straight ahead, avoiding Grissom's casual but penetrating gaze.

'I work with evidence,' he said. 'Like finding your fingerprints on that gun.'

Lori didn't seem to be paying any attention to this.

'Do you know what the evidence in this case is telling me?'

The girl gave him a patronizing look. 'Don't talk to me like I'm twelve.'

'The evidence tells me both you and your father are lying.'