Feint of Heart
Grissom and Sara aren't the only ones back in Vegas.
Hannah West returns.
And this time it's personal.
Takes place post episodes 1601/2 "Immortality,"
circa late November 2015.
xxxxxxx
To second chances best not squandered...
And happy beginnings -
For who can resist a happy beginning?
And to VC and JH who stayed despite it all.
Your friendship is a debt I can never repay.
And to Miss G: Everyday -
And always -
xxxxxxx
"Words can never be enough.
Only love can settle such an enormous debt,"
Alan Bradley
Love is not the end; only the beginning...
xxxxxxx
One: Zebras
"Sharon, it's not like I didn't want to go out shopping with you today," wheedled Marcus Walters, the tall, lanky, as yet dark-haired, late fifty something - when he chose to admit it - former construction foreman and current campus safety officer, into his cell.
While this statement wasn't precisely true - Walters would rather sit through a second root canal than have to brave Black Friday shoppers - he didn't need a second blowout with his wife of nearly twenty years in as many days.
"But we both know I had to work," he protested.
"I need this job. We need this job."
Which was true. The Vegas economy may have improved over the past few years for many, but with his twenty-six weeks of unemployment benefits now a long distant memory, for Walters, a job was a job, seasonal or otherwise. Besides, it was easy work; easy money.
Mostly, he just tooled around campus making sure all the buildings were locked up tight and there was nothing suspicious going on.
As his rounds typically centered on the campus's academic units, the average graveyard shift proved fairly uneventful: late leaving workers needing to be escorted to their cars, the occasional dead battery jumped or lock jimmied, that sort of thing.
And while Black Friday madness with all its attendant crowds, chaos, and calamities may have raged elsewhere in Vegas, the absence of staff and students off enjoying the long Thanksgiving weekend left the WLVU campus no more populated than a ghost town.
Marcus hadn't even bothered to complain when dorm coverage had been temporarily added to his duties. Big deal. All he had to do was check the exterior doors. He didn't even need to turn off his car to do that.
At the curb, he left the Ford idling, driver door open.
Less than two more hours, he though as he jostled the dormitory's locked doors.
Less than two more hours and he could finally go home and finally sleep. If he could somehow find a way to placate his wife.
He was still trying to work out a way to do just that when several things happened all at once: two Las Vegas Police cruisers wailed as they streaked past, drowning out his car radio's loud, nearly wholly unintelligible squawk and he realized, much to his chagrin, that busy talking with his wife, he had been ignoring the persistent beeping of his call waiting for the better part of five minutes.
More intent on checking up on whatever was suddenly going on than where he was going, Walters nearly took a tumble as he raced towards his waiting car. Swearing, he hurriedly righted himself and was about to continue on his way when he caught sight of what had nearly tripped him up.
His eyes went wide and sans excuse nor any further explanation, he murmured, "Honey, I gotta go," into his phone.
xxxxxxx
Las Vegas at seven in the morning would usually find Sara Sidle wide awake and theoretically nearing the end of yet another graveyard shift, not sound asleep and nearly snoring as she was that Friday.
But with a three-week shark study in San Francisco behind her and at least two, if not three, weeks of court ahead, diurnal hours, however normally unaccustomed, were proving far more de rigueur these days.
Not that she wasn't enjoying her quiet mornings at home. Quite the contrary.
Of course that had more to do with the man currently curled up close beside her than the new hours.
It took her a second insistent ring of her phone to realize that was what had roused her, phone calls having been blissfully rare the last few months, those of the startle you out of sleep variety even more so.
Bleary-eyed, Sara reached for her cell and without bothering to check the caller ID, answered with a whispered bark of "Sidle."
She was promptly greeted by the even more hassled than usual tones of Vegas' current sheriff, Conrad Ecklie.
Not bothering with either acknowledgement or apology, he launched in: "Remember how you said you owed me one -"
"Two actually -" Sara corrected, recalling that she had indeed said as much to him.
It was the least she could do, she reasoned after Ecklie had been so uncharacteristically understanding when it had come to her last rather impromptu departure.
Still, she sighed, "Didn't take you long to collect."
As the alarm clock on her side of the bed announced it was only just past seven and this being a good hour, if not two, before Ecklie usually hit the office, Sara reckoned this definitely wasn't a social call.
Which meant only one thing:
"You're short -"
It wasn't a question.
Nor was Sara all that surprised. Despite Catherine Willows having taken up Sara's recently vacated directorship, with Nick Stokes and D.B. Russell relocated and Julie Finn gone, even with Catherine's daughter Lindsey now on board, the lab was likely to be perpetually short staffed these days.
With this new status quo technically at least partially her fault, Sara, in a fit of utter contentment filled euphoria, had offered - volunteered actually - to help cover any staffing shortages the lab might have while she was in town for the next few weeks with the Freeman rape trial.
Lying there with Gil Grissom still snuggled skin on skin close beside her, she was currently seriously regretting her magnanimity.
As if echoing her as yet unspoken sentiments, Hank, from his perch at the foot of the bed, raised his head and let out a disgruntled whine.
However much the now very much awake Sara might share the boxer's sentiments, she tried to keep it from her, "Conrad, can you give me a second?"
Since it had been well past one in the morning when she and Grissom had finally surrendered to sleep, Sara thought it best to let him slumber on a little longer.
Her concern proved a little too little too late.
While she had managed to ease herself from Grissom's protective grasp and make it halfway out of bed, there still came from behind her the more somnolent than curious call of "Honey?"
Sara, palming her phone's receiver, hurriedly replied, "It's just the lab. Go back to sleep, Gil."
This not being all that uncommon an experience, albeit not so much as of late, Gil Grissom merely mumbled and migrated more over into the warmth of her side of the bed; Sara only shook her head and smiled.
Reluctant as she might be, she slipped naked from the sheets. Shivering at the abrupt loss of the warmth of both bed and body, Sara snagged Grissom's distractedly discarded Oxford of the night before from the floor and hastily shrugged it over her shoulders before padding off into the bathroom.
The door finally closed firmly behind her, she returned to her call.
"Sorry about that. So?"
"Third 419 this morning," answered Ecklie without preamble.
That was unusual, even for Vegas.
"Greg and Morgan pulled a hanging," he added after a beat. "Catherine and Lindsey were already out on a body dump -"
"Leaving me with?" Sara asked.
"A second suicide. Jumper. WLVU campus."
"'Tis the season for it," came Sara's not so merry reply.
"You did say you'd come in," Ecklie reminded her.
True.
As she withdrew the neatly folded spare change of clothes from the center cabinet (as ever kept there for just such an eventuality - it never hurt to be prepared), Sara did the math in her head:
Shower. Dress. Coffee, yes, but no time to stop for breakfast, but that was okay.
Campus no more than fifteen minutes away and there certainly wouldn't be traffic to contend with, not today.
"Give me half an hour. I'm on my way."
xxxxxxx
In the midst of hurriedly towel drying her hair, Sara mused that being ousted out of bed when the sun was just starting to creep into the sky was definitely not what she had planned for the day.
With the Deputy District Attorney on the Freeman case occupied with her own holiday plans and Sara having finished, with Grissom's help, a thorough and exhaustive review of the evidence the day before, Sara hadn't really made any actual plans for Black Friday apart from staying as far away from the madness as humanly possible. An easy enough thing to do as Sara still loathed shopping on principle.
Albeit the sudden glint of gold reflected in the mirror did serve to remind her that she did have that dinner with Betty Grissom to get through that night.
After only a week, Sara was still getting used to the reassuring weight of a wedding ring on her hand again, but it proved a pleasant and comforting thing to have to become reaccustomed to. Dinner with Betty, not so much.
Particularly as recently wedded husband and wife would be springing their good news upon Sara's once again mother-in-law (the couple having mutually regarded their remarriage as the sort of news best sprung in person, or so each was assiduously maintaining. For however much Grissom might deny ever being intimidated by his mother, the elder Mrs. Grissom did have that effect on people. Some things didn't change).
Then tomorrow at breakfast, the two of them would tell the team.
Family was family after all.
Even Jim Brass was planning to stop by after his usual security gig at The Eclipse.
It would be good to have the gang back together again and for the sharing of good news rather than yet another problematic case.
Well, it would be mostly good news.
Sara would have to tell them all about her mother, too, before the defense outed her to the rest of the world. She certainly wasn't looking forward to that prospect, but Grissom would be with her, there in court and at breakfast. As for the team, she hoped, perhaps naively she knew, that wedding bells might trump the possession of a schizophrenic homicidal parent in the news department.
As for this morning, instead of lingering in bed with her husband and their dog, both of whom by now had probably completely commandeered her side of the bed, Sara found herself, like she had countless times in her nearly fourteen plus years of living and working in Vegas, rapidly dressed, her kit already stowed in her trunk and her on the way to yet another crime scene.
Only this crime - this case - would prove anything but ordinary.
xxxxxxx
Twelve minutes later, Sara pulled up next to the waiting Las Vegas black and white and clambered from her Prius.
As Officer Mitch Mitchell held up the ever-ubiquitous yellow crime scene tape enclosing the scene, Sara greeted him with a knowing shake of the head.
"I see I'm not the only one stuck solo. Details?"
"Leaper," Mitchell replied. He gestured to the other car on the curb where a shaky Marcus Walter sat door open, head in his hands, still in shock. "Security guard found her."
"You check the building?"
"Locked. Kids' been out since Wednesday. No janitorial services either due to the holiday. Security does rounds, but nobody goes in or out."
"So no ready roof access," concluded Sara.
Mitchell concurred. "Nope."
Sara set down her case to scan the building behind him.
"Maybe it's just me, but I don't see any open windows either."
"Not in this weather."
Contrary to popular belief, Las Vegas did get cold. Or at least the locals frequently regarded fifty-degree highs and forty degree lows as such.
Popping the latches to her case, Sara unearthed her camera and began swiftly shooting locator shots before turning her full attention to the body.
"He move her at all?" she asked, indicating with a tilt of the head the still stunned security guard.
"Just to make sure she was dead."
Before touching anything herself, Sara checked, "Coroner's office been by yet?"
Before Mitchell could reply, labored coughing emerged from behind them.
Assistant Medical Examiner David Phillips, atypically well-wrapped in scarf, hat and gloves and looking and sounding utterly miserable, hurriedly gasped an apologetic, "Sorry I'm late."
After a double take at the unexpected sight of Sara Sidle standing there, he gave her pleased, albeit surprised, grin and a far cheerier "Hey, stranger, long time no see," before quickly returning to the business of snapping on his own latex gloves.
While it was in fact stating the obvious, Sara observed, "You're not looking so super, Dave."
"Not feeling so super. Joshua came home from playgroup with a cold on Tuesday."
"And he decided to share the fun with daddy. That was sweet of him," said Sara with a soft commiserating smile of her own.
"Was home sick when the calls started coming in. You were nearest."
"I'm honored." Sara's smile widened. "Remind me to send Amy Betty's chicken soup recipe. Grissom swears by it."
Dave laughed. "I didn't think you were into old wives' tales."
"I'm not," rejoined Sara. "Turns out the science behind the whole thing is actually pretty sound..."
At the sudden way her voice began to trail off towards the end of her reply, Dave turned to her. Sara appeared strangely bemused, which wasn't a look Philips had seen her wear all that often.
"Something wrong?" he asked.
Sara seemed to consider this - the sprawled body - her surroundings - before saying, "Why do I have the feeling we've been here before?"
"Here on campus?" asked Dave. "Between the alcohol, drugs, suicides and accidents, I'd say we're out here at least a few times a year."
Sara shook her head. "No. I mean out here, like this.
"Like you've been here, done that, seen that before."
Déjà vu, promnesia, paramnesia, whatever one wanted to call it, the feeling was definitely disconcerting.
"You know what I mean?" she asked.
Having no answer to this, Dave indicated the body. "Can you help me roll her?"
The leaper finally face up, Sara resumed her photographing, while Dave patted the pockets for ID; finding none.
Thinking aloud, Sara said, "It's wrong. All of it. The location. The clothes. The hair. The piercings. They all scream college student. But -"
Sara brushed back the dark streaked reddish-blonde locks.
"How many college students do you know with crows feet?"
"More people are going back to school these days."
"And the dye -" Sara rubbed several strands of hair between her gloved fingers before bringing them up to her nose. "It's fresh. Almost tacky.
"Besides," Sara motioned to the dark, still zipped to the throat windbreaker. "When was the last time you saw someone put on a jacket and not much else before killing themselves?"
"Never."
Setting down her camera, the better to take in the whole scene at once, Sara continued. "There's no blood. With a fall from any height that would kill you there should be blood.
"No sign of impact or visible trauma either. No sign of anything. Witness just assumed from the body placement that she jumped.
"Zebras."
"Zebras?" echoed Dave, his turn to be perplexed.
Sara nodded. "You know how they say 'When you hear hooves, think horses, not zebras'?
"This horse definitely has stripes."