"Hey, where you headed?"
Catherine squinted against the hot sunset outside the crime lab.
"Hit and run in the 'berbs, three year old vic."
"Ouch. You taking anyone with you?" Sara asked neutrally.
"Yeah, Warrick; Its evaluation day again. We almost didn't miss you." Catherine replied, Sara grimaced.
"My favorite day of the year. Its right up there with back to school, and mother's day. The road in was hell, camera crews, EMTs and police. I almost stuck around." Sara said flippantly. She'd noticed Catherine's frown at the mother's day comment.
"Figure you're gonna head back out there?"
"If she'd answer her page, she would have stayed." Grissom interrupted. Catherine took it as a cue and waved as she jogged off to her Tahoe.
Sara stared up at Grissom, who stood three steps above her, looking somber.
"Your beeper's not working Sara."
"My beeper's in my bag, I didn't hear it. So what's going on?"
"Rape/Homicide three blocks from your place. You could have saved yourself the trouble of coming all the way out here."
"I still would have had to swipe in and get my gear."
Gris held up her tool box.
"Consider yourself swiped."
"Thanks." Sara replied, chagrinned.
Pulling up to the scene, Sara's stomach tightened slightly when she recognized the street signs and the apartment building. Walking down the hall, the feeling tightened, and when they entered the scene, she swore under her breath.
"Pardon?"
"Sorry its just – this place has the same layout as mine." She said softly.
"Not unusual, high density living, built within the same complex, city planners often only use five to ten blue prints and just mix them up."
"Cookie cutter living." Sara took her sunglasses off and walked passed the street-cop positioned at the tape.
"Hey Carl."
Grissom was watching her. She could feel it. For a moment his eyes weren't on the obvious signs of struggle, and his mind wasn't on the smell of hot copper. Sara thought of every other abuse case she had been on, statistically, she and Grissom seemed to be working those cases together.
What she didn't know, was whether it was because he wanted her insight, or if he wanted to keep an eye on her. Today though, she knew he was testing her.
Walking in the door, Sara immediately put Grissom out of her mind and started registering everything around her. Immediately to the right, the floor to ceiling glass was shattered, and the pool of blood coming from the kitchen around the left corner left little question as to where the body was.
Grissom checked the door behind her.
"No sign of forced entry."
"Who lets a rapist in?"
"Everybody does, when its someone you know."
The victim was on the kitchen floor, lacerations covering her head and hands, and a large triangle of glass sticking out of her chest.
Sara moved back up the bare hallway. A dull smudge on the floor caught her eye and she moved for her kit.
"Grissom?"
"Yes?"
"I got a large shoeprint, heading towards the back. Other than the set of them, the hall's clean. There's no sign of struggle." The gears in her head were already beginning to spin.
Grissom leaned over the partition.
"Go check the bedroom, it's on the-"
"Left, yeah, I got it."
I nside the bedroom, Sara turned the lights off and broke out the chemicals. Besides the ransacked room and the disheveled bed, Sara found semen and a torn shirt, hidden under the bed sheets.
"The rape happened here, but the murder out there." Sara pondered and then went back into the hall.
She covered the floor in luminol but nothing showed up. The hall was void of any evidence, other than the shoe prints.Her killer had cleaned up.
People where shouting in the kitchen and she temporarily forgot the missing link.
"-As I was saying, sir, you need to step out. This officer will escort you back outside." Grissom's authoritative voice commanded.
"I'm a special agent, this is my apartment, that's my wife!" The man shouted back. He took a deep breath in and seemed to calm down. "Alright I understand. I just... I don't know what else to do but bethe officer."
"You'll have to let us take care of that." Carl piped in. Gently, he sheparded the man out.
"Husband?" Sara confirmed.
"One Agent Chris Carpenter. Federal Bureau of Investigations, narcotics unit, Las Vegas field office."
"Delightful. I love working with the Feds." Sara muttered.
"Just think, you almost left me for him." Grissom quipped back with a toss of his head in the agent's direction. Sara did not reply but glared at him and fought the corner's of her lips as they threatened to turn up.
"How much do you want to bet hisDNA is the onlysample we recover from the sheets?"
"Its a bit early for that, and I don't make a habit about making wagers of my cases, but I'd say the odds are highly probable." Grissom photographed the last few shots of the body before the technicians rolled her into the black bag and hoisted her onto a guerney. Sara watched her body leave.
"Thats the last time she'll ever pass through her home." She mused.
"This sin't her home anymore. It stopped being a home the minute she let her murderer in."
"You're right. It's my crime scene." Sara replied sharply. Grissom noted the resolve in her voice and the tension forming along her spine and across her shoulders. Sara carried herself differently lately. It was the way she moved. It had changed over the years, and as he sat on his heels andstudied her, he could see that she was in a constant state of tension, like she was bracing herself against some invisible oncomming train. Her head turned and she caught him staring at her. He didn't look away.
"That's right, its evaluation day. I better behave."
Grissom waited a beat while the officer close to them wandered out of ear shot.
"That's not what caught my attention, Sara." His voice had changed, but his gaze had gone back to the blood pool at his feet and the ghost of a handprint. He took another photo.
"What did?"
"The beautiful remains so in ugly surroundings." She froze. Her eyes stared out ahead. She was thinking.
"Keubler-Ross?" She guessed. It was a shot in the dark.
"No, Chazal." He corrected.
"The artist? Well, Thoreau said 'You cannot perceive beauty but with a serene mind.'" She countered.
Grissom was silent. When he spoke his back was to her and his voice was low.
"I guess I have found peace."
"There is no peace like the peace we make with death." Sara replied. Her voice was soft. She knew very well that she was treading in deep water, yet her words leaped out of her mouth on their own voilition.
"Keubler-Ross?" Grissom queried. It was probably just a trivia game to him, she thought.
"No. Sidle." She replied. His head whipped around and she was rewarded with the look of surprise that grissom wore only for really special occasions. She couldn't stand it any longer and grabbed her tool kit.
"I'll be processing if you need me."
With that Sara stalked off in the direction of the bedroom and left Grissom with his ugly surroundings.