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First Date or Second Thoughts
Chapter Three – High Interest
Catherine took a closer
look at the blood that coated the living room floor. Bending down, she saw a
tiny hair adhering to it. She reached into her case, and withdrew a pair of
sterile tweezers and an envelope.
‘Got a hair,’ she
called to Sara, who was processing a different area of the room. She brought
the hair closer to her face so she could get a better look. ‘Damn it. Doesn’t
look like there’s a skin tag.’
Sara was going through
a ledger on the victim’s desk in the corner of the living room. In it were the
detailed accounts of at least 100 people who owed Vinny money; and would have
continued to do so for a long time, given the rate of interest, had the loan
shark not been murdered.
‘Well, it looks as
though we may have a suspects list here,’ she said, looking up from her
reading. ‘Everyone in this book, in fact. The interest this guy was charging
was phenomenal.’
‘Any big debts?’
Catherine asked, walking over to her.
‘Depends on the
definition. A thousand dollars might be peanuts to one family and all the money
in the world to another. But some accounts are being charged a much higher rate
of interest than others. I’ll take this back to the lab, go through the names.
Maybe we’ll get something.’
Two hours later, Sara
finally hit pay-dirt. A nice, fat print on the rim of the downstairs toilet.
And a trace of vomit that she figured was no more than a few days old. Lifting
the print and taking a sample of the vomit, she went to tell Catherine, who was
finishing up in the kitchen. As Sara walked in, she was opening a dish washer
that looked like it had seen better days.
‘Looks like murder may
have been too much for our perp,’ Sara let her know. ‘I found traces of vomit in
the toilet along with…’ she held up the print.
‘A print. Hey ho, our
luck it is a-changing,’ she said, crouching down to look inside the machine.
She gave a low whistle. ‘And a-changing, and a-changing…’
‘What?’
Inside the dish washer
was a knife, caked in blood.
‘He left the murder
weapon behind?’ Sara said, incredulous.
Catherine picked it up
carefully with gloved hands. ‘And forgot to turn the washer on. Hadn’t done
this before? Or just plain dumb?’
‘Judging by the vomit,
I’ll go with inexperienced,’ Sara replied, opening a plastic evidence bag for
Catherine to drop the knife into. ‘If this guy was sloppy enough to leave the
murder weapon behind, maybe he left his print behind on it too.’
‘Mmm hmm,’ Catherine
replied. She took a last look around the kitchen to make sure they hadn’t
missed anything. The trash and all the other rooms had already been checked.
Between them they had collected possible DNA, a print and the murder weapon. If
the crime scene had any other secrets, it wasn’t yielding them right now. They
were done here for the time being.
Catherine watched as
Sara placed the evidence bags in her kit and closed it. A look of concern
crossed her face. She was sure that it was way too soon for Sara to be back at
work after everything she’d been through. ‘So, how are you doing?’
‘Huh?’ Sara asked,
turning around to look at her colleague. ‘What do you mean?’ Surely Catherine
hadn’t noticed the tension between herself and Grissom already?
‘Sara, it’s been barely
three days since you were framed for murder, kidnapped and held at gun point,’
Catherine said, exasperated. ‘And yet, here you are, back at work, when you
should be at home recovering from a head injury. So, how are you doing with all
that?’
‘Oh,’ Sara replied,
relieved. ‘That.’
She paused to think
about it. Sure, for the first 24 hours, all she could think about was what had
happened; how her friend had turned out to be a killer and how she herself
could have been killed. But, honestly, it had barely crossed her mind today in
the face of more recent developments. How
pathetic is that? Sara chided herself.
She glanced back at
Catherine, only to realise that the strawberry blonde crime scene analyst was
analysing her. Sara hitched on a faint ‘don’t worry about me’ smile. ‘I’m okay,
Catherine.’ A grunt of disbelief. ‘Really
Cath. Best thing for me is work. No point sitting at home, moping.’
She had turned to leave
the room when Catherine’s voice stopped her dead. ‘And how’s Grissom doing?’
‘How the hell should I
know?’
Her response was a
reflex, with not a shred of rationale. She closed her eyes in disbelief. ‘Did I really just say that?’ she
thought. Slowly Sara turned to check Catherine’s face, to see if she had found
anything odd about her momentary outburst. Evidently, she had.
‘Sara, I was just
wondering if you’d talked to him about… about the shooting?’ she asked in a
shocked voice. Apparently, Sara wasn’t doing okay after all.
‘Oh, I… no he hasn’t
mentioned it to me, and I didn’t want to… push him,’ Sara replied, stunned at
her own insensitivity. She hadn’t asked him if he was okay. She had blocked
more or less everything about the events of that night from her mind. Then a
thought crossed her mind and before she could censor herself, she was out with
it. ‘Besides, you’re the one he talks to. Not me.’
Catherine didn’t know
how to reply to that. Sara seemed so angry and so… sad. A feeling in her gut
said it wasn’t all about what had happened with Jill. Sara seemed to be mad at
Grissom. Sara turned on her heel and left the kitchen. Catherine picked up her
own kit and followed her out to the car.
‘Hey, Sara,’ Catherine
hailed her. Sara didn’t stop, but slid into the driver’s seat and started the engine.
Catherine shook her head and climbed into the passenger’s seat after depositing
her field case in the trunk.
Sara looked straight
ahead as she drove off. ‘This is going to
be like getting blood out of a stone,’ Catherine thought. But that didn’t
mean she wasn’t going to try.
‘Want to talk about
it?’
‘Talk about what?’
Catherine let out a
long sigh. ‘Something’s obviously bothering you. And since you seem to have
temporarily forgotten that you were kidnapped, my keen sense of observation is
telling me it’s something other than the hell Jill put you through. Like, I
don’t know, maybe Grissom.’
Sara didn’t answer for
a moment. Talking to Cath about this would be like pouring oil on the fire.
Grissom would resent her talking about his personal life and Sara didn’t need
any more complications arising between them. She decided to hedge her bets.
‘I feel bad, I guess,’
Sara told her. She wasn’t lying, she rationalised; she was merely disguising
one truth with another. ‘I didn’t ask Grissom about the shooting. He didn’t
mention it. I didn’t mention it. But I should have. He had to shoot her because
of me. It was the first time he discharged his weapon in the field. It must be
hard for him.’
Catherine gave her the
once over with her eyes. Sara was holding back something. She was sure of it.
But she couldn’t quite put her finger on what it was. She decided to play
along. For now.
‘You probably have a
better chance of getting him to talk about this than most.’ Catherine told her.
Sara gave her a quick look of disbelief. ‘It’s a shared experience, Sara. You
can relate to it in a way that me, Warrick, Nicky, never could. You were there.’
Met with nothing but
silence, Catherine continued. ‘You know, contrary to popular belief, he doesn’t
really tell me much of anything either. Most of the time I have to drag it out
of him. Like pulling teeth,’ she added pointedly.
‘Mmm hmm,’ Sara
responded, her eyes on the road.
‘But I do know he’s
crazy about you.’
That took Sara
completely off guard. Her eyes flew towards Catherine in shock and she forgot
how to steer for a moment. Regaining control, she attempted to pretend that the
words had no effect, but she wasn’t that good an actress. So she gave into
temptation and asked.
‘He said that?’
‘Not in so many words,’
Catherine replied, a smug grin playing on her lips. Jackpot. ‘But we had a conversation a few days ago. He made his
feelings pretty clear; if not in word, then definitely in deed.’
Sara processed
this. He was crazy about her? Then her
rational mind kicked into overdrive. She already knew he had feelings for her.
She had overheard as much during his interview with Dr. Lurie. He had more or
less admitted it to her the day before. But none of it made a blind bit of
difference…
‘It’s never been about
his feelings,’ Sara finally told her companion. ‘It’s about his choices.’
Catherine heard the
deep sorrow and resignation in her voice. Grissom’s
gonna lose her if he’s not careful, she thought. Sensing that Sara could be
pushed no further on the subject, she decided to leave it alone for the time
being. They spent the rest of the drive back to the lab in a troubled silence.
---
Greg knocked lightly on
Grissom’s door frame, causing him to look up, startled.
‘Sorry, boss,’ Greg said,
‘didn’t mean to interrupt.’
‘You’re not
interrupting, Greg,’ Grissom told him, hitching on his best professionally
stern gaze. ‘I was just thinking.’
He had been thinking,
but not about work. He had been going over and over the previous morning’s
events and his encounter with Sara this evening. What had changed? Why was he
so reluctant to let her get close? He had finally come to terms with what he
wanted and now he was messing everything up. He shook the thoughts out of his
head. He still had work to do.
‘So, Doc Robbins asked
me to bring you the tox report,’ Greg was saying. ‘Hot off the press,’ he
added, handing it to Grissom.
Grissom took the
proffered report and studied it. Their victim was on a lot of different drugs
at the time of his death, but one stood out.
‘Our guy was on all
kinds of mood elevators. Seems kind of strange that he’d have such a high dose
of Valium in his system too,’ Greg offered his two cents.
Grissom nodded in
agreement. ‘That may well be how the killer subdued him.’
Greg looked faintly
proud at having just been agreed with by Grissom. ‘So, need any help on this
one?’ he asked, hopeful.
‘Yeah, Greg. Can you
run the drug angle?’ Grissom asked. ‘Get a list of everyone in
Greg’s hopeful look
fell somewhat. ‘Grissom, that’s going to be a huge list.’
‘Cross reference it
with all of McMann’s clients. See if you can develop anyone as a suspect.’
Greg nodded and left
the office, muttering sarcastically under his breath, ‘Yeah, cuz hardly anyone
on a loan shark’s books is gonna be on Valium…’
---
Catherine and Sara made
their way into the building and down to the hall towards the DNA and
fingerprints lab. Sara hadn’t said anything since her last comment about
Grissom’s choices and Catherine was really worried about her. She didn’t know
how much more pain this girl could take.
Sara was silently
kicking herself for saying too much. It was one of her biggest faults.
Over-talking. She hoped that Catherine wouldn’t say anything to Grissom, but
was afraid to tell her that in case it set Catherine off again. She couldn’t
stand being quizzed right now. She just wanted to bury herself behind a
microscope for the rest of the shift and hide from the rest of the world.
Rounding the corner,
she spotted the last person she expected to see. Elaine Alcott. Hank’s bereaved
girlfriend.
Elaine saw Sara almost
at the same time as Sara saw her. She shakily got to her feet. Her eyes were
swollen and red. Catherine gave Sara a nervous side-ways glance before going
over to greet Elaine.
‘Hi, Elaine,’ Catherine
said gently. ‘Is everything alright?’
Elaine never took her
eyes off Sara, but answered Catherine in a strained voice. ‘They’re releasing Hank’s
body today. We can finally have the funeral.’ She sidestepped Catherine and
moved towards Sara. ‘Ms Sidle? Do you remember me?’
‘Yes, uh... You were
injured in the diner incident,’ Sara replied in a wary voice. ‘Two years ago.’
‘Yes, and you were
sleeping with my boyfriend.’
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