But Does It Pay Well?
"So, what made you decide to get into Criminology anyway?" Nick Stokes asked as he sat down for a quick break. The Las Vegas CSI unit worked anything but regular hours; start, finish and break times if they existed at all were somewhat fluid depending on what case was being worked. Coupled with that was the fact that the woman sitting in the break room was on an exchange program for only a week and it added up to not much time to get to know a new co-worker.
Rosette de Marco didn't ponder the question for long. "I'd always been a kind of science geek growing up anyway, but I wasn't sure what I was going to do when I started college. I took a lot of general education classes that I had to get out of the way regardless and kept my options open. I even thought I might end up as an accountant at one point."
"You? An accountant? Where's the excitement in that?"
"Pretty much none" Rosette admitted, smiling. "But there is something satisfying about having your ledger balance at the end of the year closing."
"I can't even get my bank account statement balanced; I just toss it in the pile and move on."
"Amateur. But it wasn't the challenge I was looking for, so I moved on. Then one semester I took an Intro to Criminology class from Professor Miller; I found the class really interesting, and after I got an 'A' I decided I wanted to do something in that field as a career."
"You got an 'A' from Miller? Professor Sandra 'The Straight A Killer' Miller?" A look of pure astonishment filled his face.
"Yeah. You've taken a class from her?"
"No, never did. But I've heard stories from others. How did you manage to do it?" Nick prodded.
"I didn't hear about any reputation beforehand, and when we sat down on the first day's lecture and she started the class off with 'Crime Pays', I thought it was going to be easy. It wasn't until a few weeks in that I found out otherwise. By then it was too late to drop the course, so I stuck it out and figured I'd get the best grade out of it that I could. It was a great class, but she sure had an exceptionally high standard to get the top grade in what was supposed to be an introductory class."
"So you went through the semester and breezed the class, right?" Nick suggested, trying to score points with the compliment.
"Hardly. By the last week I had a solid 'B', and that didn't come easily either. But I was still a lot better off than most of the class, based on the preliminary grades posted on the roster." Rosette almost started sweating at the thought of the work.
"Then you must have aced the final."
"Nope, that grade included the final. What it didn't include was the optional end of term paper that we turned in on the last day."
"What did you write about?"
"I didn't" Rosette said sheepishly. "It was down to the night before; all we had to do was show up the next day and turn in our papers. To get an 'A' I would have had to turn in a 30 page paper, complete with all the proper references and formatting. What I actually had was nothing, so I was contemplating settling for the 'B' when I got an idea."
She took a deep breath and continued. "I put together 35 or 36 blank sheets of paper, then bound them into a report folder. I then ripped out the sheets, leaving only a stub of paper along the left margin. I titled the paper 'Academic Theft: A Graphic Example' on the cover and when the next day came I put the folder on the desk with the rest that were turned in. I made sure mine wasn't on the top or bottom, and I tried to remain calm as I did it. Two weeks later I got my grades, and there was the 'A' for my Crim class."
"I think I'm impressed; at least I'm surprised" Nick said after few moments. "How do you feel about that?"
"I felt really nervous when I did it, and then while I was waiting for the grade I starting wondering if it was really the right thing to try. I mean, I never actually said that I'd written anything and that someone stole it. I guess I ended up feeling that it was a sort of exemplar of just what the title said, and that as such it represented all sorts of theft of ideas and work in the educational system."
"So you rationalized your behavior after the fact."
"Yeah" she said as she took a drink from her cup "I guess I did. But I'll never know whether she thought it was stolen and gave me the grade out of sympathy or saw what it represented and gave credit based on that."
"Neither" said Gil Grissom as he entered the room. "Do you see her as the type to give a grade out of sympathy?"
"No, not really. You're still here?"
"He's always here; haven't you heard he doesn't even sleep?" Nick joked.
"Exactly. She actually gave you the grade to recognize the creativeness of doing something no one had thought of before. Or at least no one had the spunk to try it. Next time I see her I'll tell her you didn't even think of it until the night before" Grissom added.
"You know her?" Nick asked.
"Sure. I've consulted with her professionally on a few matters before. And for the record, that folder was yellow wasn't it?"
"Yeah, that's the one that I used" Rosette almost stammered as the memory of the folder flashed in her head. "How did you guess?"
"I didn't have to guess," Grissom said as he turned to leave "she has it displayed on a wall inside her house."
He was out of the room before either could close their hanging jaws to ask anything else.
The End
A/N: A few of the minor details have been changed, but I know for a fact that this worked at least once. Let's just say I know from personal experience, without going into any of the boring details.