Goggled

Disclaimer: Mine no! CBS, Anthony Zuiker et al Yes! Pity :o(
Spoilers: Strip Strangler and LHB
Dedication: To Jac for picking up the slack once again when Aby was too ill to do so And to Vividlyblue1 for giving me back my inspiration
Author's Note: This is a follow up to Strip Strangler but it's set about two years later.The premise being what if Syd Goggle had a friend who had taught Him everything he knew? This is my Challenge Alphabet fic for the Letter R for Revenge.


Chapter 1

Catherine Willows sighed as she slid behind the wheel of the Chevy Tahoe SUV. She'd dropped her daughter Lindsey off at her sister Nancy's, had supper with her and settled her into bed for the night.

Now ten magnificent hours after she'd left him, she was on her way to pick up the graveyard shift Supervisor Gil Grissom. They'd called and had Warrick Brown sign them both off the clock and had gone to their individual homes straight from the arrest of their latest perp. After spending seventy-two hours, consecutively, on the case they'd both been in much need of sleep.

Just as Catherine put the key in the ignition her cell phone rang, startling her. She checked the number and was surprised to see Grissom's home number. "What's his problem?" she grumbled to herself, "I'm not that late," she hit the button and spoke into the phone, "Yeah, Gil, what is it?"

At first she thought she was hearing nothing but static which was unusual between a landline and a cell especially in this area. "Gil, what's wrong?" she snapped angrily, then she suddenly realised that what she was hearing was a scratchy faint voice. Listening hard she finally made out three words.

"Hurt...help...hurry..."

Starting the car and slamming it into drive she reassured the voice on the other end of the phone, "Hold on, Gil, I'm on my way!"

Jim Brass and Al Robbins met at the front entrance of the Criminalistics building; both men had been there on different cases and were now on their way out.

"Where you off to Doc?" Brass asked trying to sound cheerful and hiding his sense of foreboding. It was unusual to see the man heading out of his autopsy lab.

"I just received the most strange page from Catherine," the coroner answered frowning. Normally he sent David Phillips or one of the other assistant coroners to Criminalistics or out into the field, letting them clamber through who knew what while he remained in the comfort of his lab, after all seniority ought to carry some perks.

"Let me guess," Brass said steering the blue-eyed man toward the unmarked Ford Taurus, "she wants you to meet her at Grissom's townhouse?" he swallowed the chuckle he felt rising at the astonished look on the older man's face.

Then Robbins smiled, understanding what that comment meant, "I take it you're on your way there yourself?" he asked glad that he wouldn't have to drive back to the morgue after all.

When they arrived they found Catherine's Tahoe in the driveway and the front door lying slightly open.

"Catherine!" Brass sang out preceding Robbins into the house, the coroner took in all the different paraphernalia Grissom had collected over the years. He was surprised at the lack of T.V. VCR or DVD, for the younger man's colleagues were always twitting him about watching too much Discovery Channel; he surmised this equipment must be in another room. He passed a casual eye over the CD player and the vast collection of CDs ranging from rock and jazz to classical, Grissom had diverse tastes but Robbins had expected no less.

"In the bedroom, Jim," Catherine shouted back to them, "Is Al with you?" they could hear the anxiety in her voice and there was also the distinct lack of response from Grissom. This worried both men for it was decidedly unusual for the younger man, who had a quip or quote for every occasion, so why was he silent now in his own domain?

Entering the bedroom they got their answer and both men stopped in shock at what they saw. Catherine's forensic equipment was scattered around the room in an orderly if haphazard fashion, she had clearly worked the crime scene already. There was an evidence bag with a baseball bat protruding from it, blood smeared on its head, another three bags contained lengths of rope, yet another held what looked like a rather large vibrator and others held various pieces of evidence none that looked too promising from this angle.

Catherine was talking quietly to a shaken and battered figure lying covered by a bed sheet while she finished collecting samples of blood and ejaculate that stained the one the man lay on.

"Catherine, what the hell is going on?" Robbins exclaimed as Brass assessed the situation coming quickly to a conclusion about what had happened. An empty glass lying on the bedside table, staining near the bottom of it the only evidence of what it once held, and a length of electrical cord apparently snapped from the base of a lamp brought back bad memories of another case he had worked with the graveyard shift.

"Al," Catherine stood still looking down at the cringing figure beside her, the man both men could now see was Gil Grissom.

'Oh God,' thought Brass cringing and closing his eyes at the state of the man, he could not help but guess what had happened but he still prayed Catherine would prove him wrong.

"Gil wants you to go with him to the hospital," she explained looking at the older man for the first time, "he wants you there when they begin to collect the evidence of his internal and external injuries," she saw the coroners bemusement and understood it. Normally that would be the job of a CSI but they had their reasons. "We don't want to prejudice the evidence but we both believe this is connected to an old case that Gil and I worked on and as the victims from that were all deceased you would have been the one to gather the physical evidence from the bodies." Robbins finally understood they wanted his opinion on the site and location of the evidences as well as its content.

Walking up to the edge of the bed Albert Robbins looked down at the battered figure lying there, noting the ligature marks on his wrists, ankles and extensively on his neck. He had a feeling he knew which case they were referring to but he said nothing. His initial reaction was to ask Grissom if he was sure that he wanted him there, but the mess of the man's neck made him stall his questions. Although he was sure Grissom could probably talk if forced to it was going to be painful for him to do so for the next few days.

"Okay, Gil," he reassured the bereft man before him, he reached out a hand in compassion but stopped as he saw Grissom recoil from it. The man was badly frightened.

"There was an object rape as well, Al," Catherine said the calm in her voice belying the tears that filled her blue eyes, "we think there might be a piece lodged in the anal wall near the prostate. You'll need that for comparison." She stopped, looking embarrassedly at the older man as if feeling guilty for trying to tell him his job.

Robbins lowered his head, trying to hide the tears forming in his own eyes. He was used to seeing what people did to one another and he thought it could no longer affect him, but he dealt with the aftermath, with the corpses. Gone were the days when the coroner was the only one to deal with the victims' families, now with the myriad number of police officers and even the Criminalists he rarely needed to encounter the grieving relatives unless he had a specific reason to do so and he was deeply thankful for that.

But this... this was very different. The victim was very much alive and was even a very well respected colleague. 'Stop kidding yourself, Robbins,' he thought savagely, 'be honest for once,' Gil Grissom had become a good friend over the last few years.

"I'll do the best I can," he assured both Criminalists.

Catherine nodded her thanks and as the paramedics arrived she turned to Brass, "I need you to secure the crime scene and the evidence, I'm going to lock it in the Tahoe for now,"

During her conversation with Robbins, Brass had been taking in the scene around him. He noted the fingerprint powder; the luminol and the various other chemicals that were in the crime scene investigators field kit, which tried to give them an edge in finding some evidence of the perpetrator. He knew that Catherine would want to go with her best friend to the hospital, he was not slow or naive and was more than aware of what was going on between them.

As the paramedics wheeled Grissom out of the room to the waiting ambulance Catherine started to follow but Jim Brass' voice pulled her up short. He had noticed what looked like a piece of paper sticking up between the mattress and the frame. Catherine stormed angrily back into the room but her anger dissipated quickly when she saw what he was pointing at. Donning a new set of latex gloves and using a set of tweezers she retrieved the piece of paper. Written on it were three words 'YOU'VE BEEN GOGGLED.'

"Well," Brass sighed, "that sort of puts the lid on it doesn't it?" he said stating the obvious.

Catherine wasn't so sure, "But why now and why Gil?" her agitation mounting again, "I killed Syd Goggle not him."

Brass shook his head he had no answers. Syd Booth Goggle had been killed two years ago, shot by Catherine Willows who had arrived on the scene to see him attacking Gil Grissom. The evidence the graveyard team had gathered and processed proved that he was the serial rapist/murderer that Special Agent Rick Culpepper had named the Strip Strangler. Investigations at the time had failed to turn up any friends or family of the deceased who would be willing to claim his body so the county had been forced to finance his burial, which no one had attended, so who was out to avenge him now?

From what they had discovered here it was someone who had an intimate knowledge of Goggle's M.O. from coming in the window to forcing the victim to drink a solution of Sodium Amatol and from the ejaculate on the bed to the object rape. Just what was going on? Unfortunately for the criminalist it looked as though the perp had also followed Goggle's habit of completely cleaning the crime scene when he was finished to ensure he left nothing of himself behind, at least Catherine thought it was a male, she didn't see a female having the strength to subdue Grissom.

"I'm going to the hospital, Jim," Catherine told him as she headed for the door, "can you drop me there in my car and drive the evidence to Greg?" she asked, "tell him to store it correctly but not to touch it till I get there."

Jim Brass began to protest and then changed his mind, this was Gil and Cath after all, he knew they both thought they were being circumspect in their new relationship but their friends knew them a bit better than either of them realised.

"All right," he capitulated then added, "but as soon as Al's collected all the evidence and you know that Gil's resting comfortably you get your sorry ass back to Criminalistics. Getting this guy is as important as making sure Gil gets through this."

Catherine nodded appreciating the leeway he was giving her. She'd only just managed to get her act together after losing Eddie and she hadn't been in love with him anymore, she was damned sure she wasn't going to lose Gil too.

"Thanks, Jim," she said gratefully, "that should give me just enough time to figure out what the hell I'm going to tell the others." He could well understand that, they hadn't even managed to get a statement out of Gil but that would have to wait until after the surgery.