Body of Evidence

you, Grissom, I brought that up personally to this office, two weeks ago!'

Mobley, almost shouting, said, 'And you claim you gave this to me, personally?'

'Yes! I…' Ecklie's mouth went slack. 'Actually…no. No, come to think of it…no. I didn't.'

'Did you or didn't you give the report to the sheriff?' Grissom demanded.

Pitiful now, Ecklie said, 'I gave it to him…but I didn't give it to him.'

No wonder,Sara thought, Grissom always seemed on the verge of tearing his hair out, when Ecklie's name came up….

'Care to explain that?' Grissom asked, outwardly calm; but one of the hands in his lap had, Sara noted, involuntarily balled into a vein-throbbing fist.

Taking a deep breath, Ecklie alternated his gaze from Grissom to Mobley and back again. 'I was bringing it to the sheriff, when I ran into Ed Anthony in the hallway.'

Grissom sat up; Mobley's face fell.

Ecklie was saying, 'We got to talking, some political chit chat or other, and Ed volunteered to deliver the report to the sheriff for me…. You were in some kind of meeting, Brian.'

Mobley sighed and fell into his chair, hanging his head.

'And you handed that little toady a confidential report,' Grissom said. It wasn't really a question….

'He…he was already coming this way,' Ecklie said, with an elaborate open-handed defensive gesture. 'Told me the sheriff was busy in a meeting, and…anyway, it's not like that was the only case we had on our plates…'

'Just the biggest case in Vegas so far this century,' Mobley said softly.

Ecklie swallowed and continued: '…and besides, the report was going straight from here to the FBI. After all, at that point it was just a kidnapping.'

Sara couldn't believe anyone could, with a straight face, say 'just a kidnapping'; but she knew better than to get into this.

Mobley's fist banged off his desk.

Sara jumped a little and Ecklie flinched; Grissom had no reaction.

The sheriff's face had turned a delicate shade of pink, definitely on its way to the full-blown red-faced rage for which the sheriff was famous.

Mobley used the intercom to tell his secretary: 'Mrs. Mathis, get Ed Anthony back up here, now!'

Within minutes-long, strained minutes, during which Sara, Grissom, Ecklie (seated now) and Mobley waited silently, the sheriff's rage palpable-a timid knock came to the door.

'Come in!' the sheriff bellowed.

It was not the most inviting invitation Sara had ever heard….

The door squeaked open and Ed Anthony's hairchallenged head poked through the narrow opening; the political adviser's eyes were bright, or was that just…fear?

'Wanted to see me, Brian?'

'Get your ass in here, Ed.'

Swallowing, the aide shut the door gently and padded over, standing beside Sara, his hands fig-leafed before him. 'Problem, Sheriff?'

Mobley picked up the manila folder, shaking it nastily. 'Did Conrad Ecklie give you this report, to pass on to me?'

Anthony nodded meekly. 'Why? Is that a problem?'

'Well, you didn't pass it on to me, did you?'

'No…I didn't.'

'Do you know what's in this report?'

The political hack looked everywhere but at the sheriff. 'Yes. I, uh…gave it a read.'

He might have been talking about the latest Stephen King novel.

Grissom turned Anthony's way and said, pleasantly, 'And then you decided to hold it back until the election- so you could use it to smear Mayor Harrison?'

Anthony said nothing.

'That,' Mobley said tightly, 'is tantamount to withholding evidence.'

'No! No, I was protecting you, Brian.'

'Protecting! You're about to screw my career over!'

'Not at all.' Anthony patted the air, placatingly. 'I was attempting to help you. Information of that sensitive a nature needs to be released carefully, at an opportune time. Correctly used, that's the ammunition we need to-'

'We?' Mobley interrupted, on his feet again, hands flat on the desk. 'There is no 'we,' Ed. You're fired.'

'Brian, I understand that you're concerned. And we both know you have a temper. I'm going to advise you count to ten and-'

'You're not going to advise me about shit, from here on out!'

'Brian…'

'Get out! Get out!'

And now Anthony was almost running to the door.

But Mobley froze him: 'And don't even think about leaving town, because if I can find a way to bring charges against you for this, I will.'

At the door, with a little space between them now, Anthony suddenly summoned some anger of his own. 'For what, Brian? For trying to get your hot-headed ass elected mayor?'

Sara was not quite able to process that mixed image.

'No,' someone said, calmly.

Grissom.

His voice was quiet, the serenity of it causing the other two men to stop shouting and gape at him: 'For aiding and abetting. For possibly turning Candace Lewis's kidnapping into a murder.'

Anthony gestured to himself, his eyes enormous, almost as enormous as the fear in his voice. 'I…I… I didn't kill her!'

Grissom's tone remained placid. 'You withheld key information from our top law enforcement officer…the sheriff, here…information that might have saved her.'

'You can't know that.'

'You're right, I can't, I don't-and now? None of us ever will.'

Finally Grissom stood, turning toward the former aide. His voice was so unthreatening that it went beyond any threat: 'But I will tell you this, Mr. Anthony. Without your interference, that young woman might still be alive…. A fact that will not reflect well on your candidate-Sheriff Mobley.'

'Out, Ed,' Mobley said, sounding fatigued. 'Just go.'

Face white with alarm, features slack with defeat, Anthony slipped out.

Turning his attention to Ecklie, Mobley said, 'You know better than this, Conrad.'

Ecklie nodded; the normally egotistical supervisor now seemed humble. 'What can I say? I was careless. I screwed up.'

'Yeah, you did.'

'Brian, I appreciate this…you being so understanding.'

'You're welcome, Conrad-three days' suspension. No pay.'

Swallowing hard, Ecklie accepted his punishment in silence.

'Go home, Conrad. And if you breathe a word to the media, I'll fire your ass, too.'

Nodding, Ecklie left the office, his eyes never landing anywhere near Grissom and Sara.

With just the three of them in the room, the silence seemed deafening. Finally, Mobley was the one to shatter it. 'I know,' Mobley said, 'I don't have to tell the two of you what to do.'

Still on his feet, Grissom nodded, picked up the report and headed toward the door, Sara following him. They were almost there when Mobley's voice stopped them.

'Am I in the clear as a suspect yet?'

Turning back, Grissom said, 'Not yet.'