Two: The Spider and the Fly

"Talk about strange," Dave observed, curiously regarding his thermometer. "Body's at thirty-eight degrees."

"That's not possible," Sara protested.

Death, after all, proved to be a fairly regular, predictable process. Maybe not the dying exactly, as that tended to vary considerably from person to person, but the what happened after death followed certain rules and regularities.

Typically algor mortis, the natural cooling of the body post decease, decreased body temperature an average of one and a half degrees an hour until the body reached ambient temperature.

Cooling below ambient temperature just wasn't something bodies did. Not naturally. It was just one of those results of the basic laws of thermodynamics, hence Sara's objection.

Dave extended the device. "See for yourself."

Sara waved the gesture aside. "But that makes absolutely no sense. It's got to be what - at least fifty degrees out here."

Pulling out her phone, she called up the previous hours', days' and weeks' temperatures.

"That's what I thought," she said. "It hasn't dropped below forty once this month."

"So what are you thinking?" Dave asked. "Killed earlier and stored in a freezer?

"Another body dump?"

"Another?" echoed Sara. "You mean Catherine's case?"

"I mean three call outs in one morning on a closed campus. What's the chance of that?"

"The question is how likely is it that they're unrelated?" It was Sara's turn to ask.

David Phillips shrugged. It was Vegas after all. Stranger things did - and had - happened.

Leaning closer to the body, Sara sniffed once, then again.

Turning to Dave, she asked, "You wearing cologne?"

To which the assistant medical examiner gave her a thoroughly affronted: "I may be sick, but I'm not stupid."

She gave him an apologetic I had to ask shrug by way of reply.

Then Sara considered another possibility. "Sucking cough drops?"

He shook his head.

Sara wrinkled her nose. "You don't smell that?"

"I can't smell anything."

Then as if it just hit her, she said. "Wait - Three call outs all on campus?"

"Yeah. There's the apparent suicide in the Administrative and Justice Building. Right up the street. You could have practically car-pooled. And -"

"Suicide how?" she asked starting to sound concerned.

Phillips, not grasping the reason for Sara's sudden distress, simply replied, "Dispatch said something about a hanging."

"And Catherine's body dump?"

Dave withdrew his phone to consult the details on the call out. "Naked body in a shower curtain over by the tennis courts. Was on my way there right after here."

Sara counted the cases out on her fingers. "A body in a shower curtain, a leaper and a hanged man?"

"That's what I heard."

She gestured to the "leaper's" jacket. "Dave, can you get the zip?"

The slow rasp practically screamed in the still, empty campus.

Sara goggled at the sight.

"Remember that strange sense of déjà vu earlier?" she asked. "I think I know why.

"And I've got a bad feeling about this. A really bad feeling."

Her own phone back in her hand, she dialed and without preamble or greeting launched in with a brusque, "Greg, you cut your guy down yet?"

From inside the lobby of the Administration and Justice Building, Greg Sanders paused in the midst of shooting overalls to properly take the call.

He answered her with an equally cheered and caught off guard, "Hey, Sara, nice to hear your voice, too." Then getting to her question, he said. "No, we only got here half an hour ago. Still waiting on Dave."

"He's here. You got any pics yet?"

"Yeah."

"Send them."

Greg couldn't remember the last time he'd heard Sara Sidle sounding so urgent, nor could he imagine why she was so intent now.

"You do realize you're not boss anymore, right?" he half joked.

"Just do it," Sara insisted. "Besides, I can already tell you hanging's not your cause of death."

She cut off his protest of "There's no way you can know -" with an imperative: "Get a ladder. I'm getting Catherine on the phone."

Before he could further question, let alone disagree, Sara put him on mute to dial.

Again sans the usual niceties, she began, "Catherine, we've got a problem. You open up your body in the shower curtain yet?"

Sara heard Las Vegas' current lab director Catherine Willows scoff, "Not in this environment."

"What do you know?"

"Not much," Catherine replied.

With the body wrapped up so tight being able to identify it as naked and female had been some work.

"Still waiting on the coroner's office before we attempt a closer look."

"You smell her yet?" Sara asked.

"Smell her?"

"Yeah, what does she smell like?"

"You want us to smell her?" asked Catherine, no less bewildered.

In truth, Willows hadn't thought to check, at least not closely. From where she knelt, the body reeked of new plastic.

Catherine motioned for her daughter Lindsey, the freshly minted CSI Level One, to do as Sara suggested.

Sara, having taken Sanders off hold the moment before, said into her phone, "That goes for you, too, Greg."

With his iPhone haphazardly tucked between ear and shoulder as he attempted to wrestle a ladder into position beneath the hanged man, Greg sighed, "And I thought Grissom was weird."

When Sara pointedly ignored the barb, he turned to Morgan Brody who was staring at him strangely, well more strangely than usual.

In sotto voce, he explained, "Sara wants us to smell him."

This did little to alter the puzzled expression on her face. Neither did his faux gallant, "Ladies first," as he motioned for her to ascend the ladder ahead of him.

"Thanks. A lot," Morgan quipped.

"Well?" Sara asked, growing impatient on her end.

"It's a sort of sickly sweet smell," Morgan observed.

"Like high school biology," Lindsey agreed.

Stopping at the step just beneath Morgan's, Greg, most definitely currently invading her personal space, leant in to take his own cautious, curious sniff.

"Or Grissom's old office," he supplied.

Again avoiding the jab, Sara asked, "Catherine?"

Catherine bent; sniffed.

"Formaldehyde," she replied knowingly.

Of course Sara would recognize that smell.

Sara agreed. "With a hint of phenol."

"Embalming fluid?" asked Lindsey, while Greg countered with a "How did you -" of his own.

By way of reply, Sara uttered a wholly nonchalant, "Women have a better sense of smell than men."

Somehow managing to forget just how highly out numbered he presently was, Greg scoffed, "Yeah right."

"Psychology Today," said Sara. "I'll make sure to send you a link to the article."

"So," cut in Catherine, trying to keep them all on task, "we aren't looking at a body dump and two suicides."

"We're not even looking at murder," said Sara.

Rising to step away from the "leaper," what proved evident to her abruptly became openly obvious: beneath the victim's jacket and pale pink nightie lay a not so neatly sewn up Y-incision.

"You can't kill a corpse."

After a long silence on all three fronts, Catherine chimed in. "So they're plainly connected. But how?"

"I've got a hunch," answered Sara. "But I need your overalls in order to confirm."

With neither further query nor comment, Catherine hit send on her image files.

As the sight of the naked body fully resolved itself onto the screen of Sara's iPhone, that faint tickle in the back of her head, that itch of familiarity she hadn't been able to quite put her finger on earlier, but knew was there, gave way to chilling realization.

She swore; checked the three scenes again, hoping against hope she had somehow been mistaken.

With a sinking heart, she knew she hadn't.

Sara didn't need her husband's near eidetic memory to register the similarity.

It was familiar, uncannily familiar.

Too familiar.

"They're not just body dumps," she finally said, trying to keep her voice on an even keel. "They're intentionally staged."

Lindsey asked, "A twisted form of Tableau vivant?"

"More like memento mori," said Sara. "'Remember that you must die,'" she translated for the others' benefit.

"But why the show?" questioned Catherine.

Sara shook her head. "I don't have the why, but I have a pretty good idea who."

xxxxxxx

Just after noon, both an official and an unmarked police car pulled up outside of the Starbucks on Paradise Road. Officer Mitchell emerged from the driver's side of the former, while a smartly suit clad Conrad Ecklie exited from the later. Ecklie gave his jacket a nervous tug as he waited for Mitchell to join him.

The two of them nearing the diminutive figure of a young woman sitting alone at one of the outside tables, book in hand, idly sipping a latte, Mitchell murmured, "Barista says she's been here half an hour - forty-five minutes - give or take."

Ecklie nodded. Mitchell's hand hovered over his gun, just in case.

"Hannah West -" Ecklie called.

Slowly, Hannah West turned. She gave the two men an enigmatic smile and an unsurprised and utterly unconcerned, "What can I do for you, Sheriff?"

Ultimately, it was that smile and not the question that unnerved them most.

xxxxxxx

As they headed towards Interrogation, Sara walked Morgan through her evidence, adroitly flipping between the images of the new and previous cases on her iPad.

Unsurprisingly, the similarities proved glaring.

"Copycat?" Morgan asked.

Sara shook her head. "Not a chance.

"While some of the details of Stacy Vollmer's case were released to the press, because Kira Dellinger's murder never made it to trial, those never were.

"Only someone with an intimate knowledge of the crime scenes, someone who was there, would know.

"Except this one -"

Sara pulled up the several shots of the hanged man next to one of Marlon West dead in his jail cell.

"She only ever saw a single photograph."

Before Morgan could even begin to ask how Sara could have possibly known this, Sara supplied, "I was the one who showed her."

"Still," Morgan began, "that's an awful lot for a single person to accomplish. What about a boyfriend? Accomplice?"

"Hannah doesn't need an accomplice," Sara rued. "She's a one woman Moriarty all on her own."

"But why the obvious calling card? If she's so smart, why the rookie move?"

"Because it's not a rookie move. She wanted those bodies found. In fact, she went so far as to guarantee they'd be found."

Morgan nodded.

"I get that killers crave attention, get off on the risk. But it's the almost getting caught that's the thrill. Why set yourself up like that?"

Sara was forced to admit: "Your guess is as good as mine."

xxxxxxx

From inside the observation room of one of Las Vegas Metro's interrogation suites, Catherine Willows and Conrad Ecklie kept a close eye on a quiet Hannah West through the glass.

It was not a reassuring sight.

Despite the fact that all the still slight young woman was doing was sitting serenely, hands folded, patiently and equally placidly waiting, there was something knowing in her off hand demeanor, something knowing and untouchable.

And they knew it. And they knew she knew they knew it.

Ecklie, despite or perhaps in spite of how uneasy Hannah was making them both, attempted to plow on with his briefing.

"We picked her up at the Starbucks over on Paradise Road. Several of the baristas say she's a regular. Same time. Same order. Sits in the same place. Always with a book. Always alone."

"She do anything? Ask to call anyone?" Catherine asked.

"Not even her lawyer. Just sits there, not a care in the world."

"Well, she has been here before."

"As we've got nothing concrete to charge her with," said Ecklie, "she's simply a person of interest. For now."

A sharp rap on the door put an end to any further conversation.

The two stepped outside to find Sara and Morgan waiting to enter the interrogation room. Sara had her hand out for the handle when Ecklie stepped forward to block her.

Mien and tone firm, he said, "There's no way you're going anywhere near that girl."

Sara gaped at him. "You called me in, remember?

"Then I'm the one who makes the connections to the earlier cases and you're pulling me off this case?"

"Not this case. Just this interview," he countered.

"On what grounds?"

"You two have a history."

"Isn't that why you called Grissom in to help with Lady Heather's case," supplied Sara, "because they had a history?"

"We both know -" Ecklie began.

Sara never gave him the chance to finish. "I thought we were long past those For the good of the lab speeches of yours, Conrad."

"It's about the good of the people on this team."

"I can handle her," Sara insisted.

"Like the last time or the time before?"

It was a low blow and Catherine, Ecklie and Sara all knew it; one that stunned Sara into momentary silence. Morgan simply stared.

Catherine quickly stepped in.

"I'm going to have to agree with Conrad on this," she said. "Morgan and I are going to handle this one. We need fresh eyes and a fresh face," she persisted before Sara could protest further.

Sara, sensing any additional arguing to be futile, reluctantly conceded, but not without replying with a terse: "Am I allowed to watch at least?"

Ecklie held the door of the observation room open for her. "I'm sure your insights will prove invaluable as always."

Not entirely mollified, Sara stepped inside.

When Conrad Ecklie joined her a few minutes later, he found Sara standing before the one-way mirror, arms crossed firm across her chest and gaze intently fixed on Hannah West.

Before long, Hannah was joined by Catherine and Morgan.

Hannah turned her cool, collected gaze first on one than the other as each took a seat across from the young wunderkind.

"'"Will you walk into my parlor?" said the Spider to the Fly,'" quietly quipped Ecklie, hoping to lighten the mood.

Sara harrumphed. "Thankfully spider webs only work 20% of the time."

Ecklie was tempted to ask Grissom? by way of her source, but the interrogation was already underway.

Hannah was the first to break the silence. Turning to Morgan she grinned, "You're new."

"Well, I'm old," Catherine replied.

"Yes, I remember. Ms. -" Hannah paused, making a show out of trying to recall her name. "Willows, I believe."

Hannah returned her gaze to Morgan who was beginning to appear unnerved by all the intent attention.

Deciding formal introductions were in order, Catherine said, "And this is C.S.I. Brody. How about we forgo the rest of the usual pleasantries?"

Hannah shrugged herwhatever.

Having regained some of her composure, Morgan began to flip through the file in front of her, reading aloud as she went.

"So, Hannah West. Graduated from high school at twelve. College at fourteen. Post Doc at sixteen. I.Q. off the charts.

"Makes you wonder what you could have accomplished for good."

Hannah refused to rise to the bait. "Am I being accused of something?" she questioned calmly.

Catherine smiled. "We're just talking."

Hannah considered this. "If we're just talking, does that mean I get to ask a question?"

Morgan deferred to Catherine who shrugged. "Why not?"

"If you're in here," began Hannah, "that means she's behind the glass, doesn't it?"

"She who?" Catherine asked.

"Sara."

Both Catherine and Morgan had to work to conceal their surprise.

"I think I'd rather talk to her," said Hannah.

It was Catherine's turn for bad cop. "That's not going to happen."

"What? She's busy?" Hannah smirked.

From the other side of the glass, Ecklie murmured, "Cocky little -"

"You have no idea," cut in Sara.

Back in the interrogation room, Hannah leant back. "I've got all day. I doubt you do."

"My schedule's pretty open," countered Catherine. She turned to Morgan. "You?"

Morgan nodded. "I'm good."

"Besides," Catherine offered. "You don't get to pick your criminalist. Departmental policy."

As yet unfazed, Hannah angled in. "I have the feeling you might make an exception in this case."

"And why is that?" Catherine was growing tired of playing games.

"Because -" Hannah replied, her eyes never once leaving the mirror as she reached into her pocket.

Before Catherine could call for assistance, Hannah had placed its contents on the table.

"I have this -" she said.

Her smug, percipient smile remained firmly in place as she withdrew her hand to reveal a simple gold wedding band.

"Get her out of here," barked Catherine. "Now!"

xxxxxxx

In the observation room, Ecklie turned to Sara, his voice tight with concern. "Tell me there's no way that's what I think it is?"

Sara held up her own left hand, all the while not taking her own eyes from the table on the other side of the mirror.

"We got remarried last week," she replied hollowly.

"And he's not back in California or in Paris or someplace else on that boat of his?" The sheriff was starting to sound distinctly distressed now.

When it soon became apparent that Sara wasn't going to or even be able to reply, Greg, who had slipped in unnoticed at the very end of the interview, piped up from behind them: "They've both been back in Vegas since Monday."

While Sara made no indication that she had registered his presence, Ecklie turned to Greg. "Get him on the phone."

Greg looked from the sheriff to Sara, as if to indicate he would if he could, only he couldn't, it having been quite some time since he'd last had Gil Grissom's cell number in his contact list.

Realizing this, Ecklie rested a gentle hand on her arm.

"Sara -"

Sara simply stared.

"Your phone -"

Without removing her gaze from the glass, Sara mechanically retrieved her own cell, thumbed it open.

"Keep her line free. Just in case," Ecklie insisted as Greg took it.

Greg clicked and scrolled several times, then copied over the number to his own phone before returning Sara's to her as yet still open palm. He dialed.

It rang.

And rang.

And rang.

Not that Sara seemed to notice, suddenly deaf and utterly oblivious to anything as she currently was, anything other than watching Morgan retrieve the ring with the tip of a pen and carefully place it into an evidence bag. Catherine was already absent, presumably to check that Hannah was placed in appropriate custody.

"No answer," reported Greg. "Just voicemail."

"Keep trying," Ecklie ordered. "We'll have Archie initiate a trace on his cell. Screw the AG waiver. We can look stupid and apologize later if we have to."

Greg nodded and set about to redial. Ecklie turned and was about to leave to hit up the lab's resident AV tech when Morgan entered, red-taped evidence bag in hand.

Both stopped dead in their tracks at the openly horrified look that came over Sara's face.

Part of her refused any thought that it could be - it just couldn't be - while another part of her didn't want anything to do with that bag and its contents.

Suddenly, Sara couldn't fight that horribly sick sensation that had started clawing at her insides the minute Hannah had removed her hand. She knew she was going to be sick. There was no containing it.

But not here. Not now.

Sans explanation, sans a single word, she dashed from the room and down the hall, trying to walk, not run, her way to the nearest restroom.

Greg hurried after her. Ecklie snagged his arm.

"Let her go."

The three of them watched her attempt to wend her way through the busy hall as Sara struggled to text on her phone one handed.

Even if Grissom ignored his cell due to preoccupation, which he was, Sara knew, frequently wont to do, she knew, too, that there was no way he would ignore a 911 page.

That is unless he didn't have his cell on him - or had turned it off. But while he had been somewhat absentminded about keeping it on in Paris, he knew better than to be equally laissez-faire about carrying it in Vegas.

While Sara attempted to text, Greg kept dialing. Ecklie turned to Morgan and snagging the evidence bag from her, instructed, "I want you, Greg and Lindsey over at their place.

"Take a couple of uniforms with you. Health and welfare check, whatever. Just don't take any chances."

Morgan nodded. Greg followed.

Ecklie stared down at the simple gold band for a long moment before going after Sara himself.

xxxxxxx

In the Women's Room, Sara leaned heavily against the washbasin, shoulders slumped and head hung low, willing her rebellious stomach, her thudding heart and breathless lungs back into normality again.

Failing at this, she let out a long hard exhale before splashing ice cold water onto her face.

As she lifted her still dripping head from the sink, she found a wad of paper towels already extended to her. Wordlessly, she took them.

Conrad Ecklie next handed her a small plastic cup.

"Drink it."

In a rare bout of acquiescence, Sara actually did as she was told.

Finding the tepid tap water bitter in her mouth after the vomit, she couldn't help but make a face.

"Don't have anything stronger?" she asked.

"Not at the office."

Pity.

Taking the time to continue to try to gather herself, Sara obediently sipped.

After a minute and in part to cover her own embarrassment, she asked, "Your constituents know you like to frequent women's bathrooms?"

Ecklie shrugged. "Sheriff's prerogative."

He gave her the chance to muster a bit more of her bearings before asking what he had come to ask.

"Sara, I'm sorry but I have to -"

Sara waived the apology away.

She took another deep breath, then the proffered bag. She turned the ring in her hands, the better to read the engraving along the inside:

Love always to my one and only

Only three people in the world knew the sentiment Sara had chosen to have inscribed on her husband's wedding band in honor of their second marriage: him, herself and the San Franciscan engraver.

They were personal, private, meant only for his eyes, those words, as what he'd had engraved on her band had been for her.

That it was public - that Hannah possessed this intimate thing - sent a shiver down Sara's spine.

Ultimately, she nodded in reply to Ecklie's question. "It's his."

Then even more quietly she added, "It means she's serious."

Sara reached for her phone.

In all her hurry and distress, she'd never managed to hit send on her 911 text to her husband.

"We've already tried," Ecklie told her. "No answer. Greg, Morgan and Lindsey are on their way to your place now."

They stood there silent in the restroom for a long while, neither knowing what to say next until Ecklie's phone let out a lusty peal, startling them both back to life again.

"I'm putting you on speaker," Ecklie answered. "Sara's here. What did you find, Greg?"

Greg's tinny voice echoed. "No one's home."

"You sure?" asked Ecklie.

"We're inside. Door was open."

"Unlocked?" Sara said surprised.

"No. Ajar."

Both Ecklie and Sara exchanged worried looks.

This was not good.

"I'll see if I can get the phone company to put a rush on that trace for his phone," offered Ecklie, if only for there to be something immediate he could do.

"That's not going to be necessary," said Greg.

"Why is that?"

Greg's reply reverberated in the tiled space:

"Because I'm looking right at it."