CHAPTER TWO (WE'RE NOT IN KANSAS ANYMORE, TOTO)
"Keep drinking that." Brass instructed in his most 'pseudo-medical' fashion. "The EMT says it has electrolytes." He eased back into the seat for a more comfortable drive back into Vegas.
"It is very good." She seemed well pleased with the bottle of gator aid. A little too pleased, if anyone had asked Brass. He gave her a nondescript lift of an eyebrow for the fact.
"You can come back to the station and see if you can identify some mug shots." He had long since decided.
"Mud shots." She mumbled, then shook her head negatively, cradling her gator aid bottle protectively to her stomach. "I am fatigued. I do not wish to identify mud shots. It sounds unsanitary."
"Well, yeah, but it's fresh in your mind and all." He glanced over at the pretty enough profile, then felt a tinge of guilt for he could see what Grissom had been saying. She did look a little bit on the 'fatigued' side, at that. "Mug..shots. It's mug shots..not.." he let it go.
The woman offered him a sincere pout, her forehead crinkled into a definite frown.
"..Maybe we can put it off until tomorrow morning." Brass shrugged mentally. It wasn't like the world would end for Alphonso Sneed. It already had, after all. Grissom had already identified the murder victim from prints taken at the scene.
Alphonso Sneed, a member of a small but troublesome theft ring floating around town of late. No major problem, but a pain in the ass all the same. Brass would not have figured Al Sneed would end up well ventilated, though. Maybe a stretch in the Big House, certainly...but, the guy wasn't important enough for what had transpired.
The sun was sitting. The lights of Las Vegas beckoned him 'home'. The day was coming to an end. Brass looked at his beloved city through stylishly shaded glasses, his mind active but ready to go into 'relax' mode. The night shift would be taking over for a while.
"It's been a long day." He half-ass smiled. "Time flies when you're having fun, doesn't it."
His humor was totally lost on his passenger. He shrugged the fact off, checking her out yet again.
She was petite. He would have guessed, around five, five..size eight. She wore black slacks which seemed far too hot for this time of year, but they hugged her ass quite nicely. He normally did not notice such things, but hey..a nice ass was one of his weaknesses. And despite popular opinion, he was of the male species. And he was not dead yet..not like Alphonso Sneed, at least.
The azure blue top clung lovingly to small but perfectly formed breasts. Another oddity. Long sleeves in summer. The peculiar pendant around her neck, the one with the geometric shape dangling from it's center. The writing inscribed could be Klingon for all he knew. It didn't look like any language he had ever seen but who knew with the younger crowd today.
Hell, it could be the name of the latest rave band. "So..no place to stay, hum?" He had mulled the problem over in his head for some few minutes now. "I could hold you as a material witness which would mean a night in the slammer. Not exactly Club Med."
"Does that constitute incarceration? What crime have I committed?" She was incensed. "That is beyond ridiculous!"
"Then where can you stay? You don't even know if you have anyone here with you and if you do, why haven't they come forth?"
Her facial expression told him much.
"Look, I just can't have my only witness to a murder wondering the streets." He held the wheel confidently as he drove, unaware he exuded the quality. "If we plaster your face on the Six O'Clock News and you are recognized, that wouldn't be good either. If you have a solution, I'm all ears."
"Of course it would be good. I would be recognized and my people would...recognize me! How can that not be good??"
"Because the murderer would very likely 'recognize' the fact, he failed to kill you..DUH."
That seemed to give her pause for thought.
"He..would harm me?"
"I would take odds on it!"
She said nothing, so he continued. "Grissom says you're not in any of their data bases. Nada..zilch! Who are you, lady? Where do you fit in this equation?"
"You..understand mathematical equations? Are you fluent in such things?" She seemed hopeful.
Brass' attention was caught by his phone as it chimed his ring tone. He had always liked the music of 2001, Space Odyssey. "Jim Brass." He answered absently. He listened attentively, his concentration on the road before him as he moved into the outskirts of Vegas and heavier traffic.
"Ok, thanks, Doc. See you in about twenty, traffic willing."
He threw his phone into the recessed tray of his dash. "There is an abnormality with the CT scan they took on your brain. They want to do an MRI." He glanced at the woman in question. The large brown eyes blinked back at him. He kinda liked the way she looked at him so..trustingly, maybe. He wasn't sure of the adjective. His daughter used to look at him that way when he read her bedtime stories long...long ago.
"It's nothing, I'm sure..you shouldn't be worried." He smiled at her. "You know doctors. But there was something about a high lead count too..so, that should be addressed." He relayed some of what had been discussed. "They want to give you treatment. Your living quarters have been supplied for the night."
She continued to look at him, this time, with a definite hint of 'doubt' behind those 'bambi' eyes.
"It's a good thing..trust me." He smiled again to prove as much. He radioed the precinct, ordering an officer on 'watch' duty. "Just a precaution..for you protection..just in case." That's what he told her. He could have added, 'and to prevent you from flying the coop.' But he refrained.
It wasn't until about seven that night that Jim Brass finally got his 'lunch'.
He sat across the table from Gil Grissom and Nick Stokes, more relaxed with a good meal under his belt and a bud light in his hand.
"So you think she's lying." Nick sipped his ice tea absently, the puzzle of the woman's identity having grabbed his curiosity.
"Something isn't clicking." Brass' cop instinct told him that much. "Maybe you could talk to her, get a feel?" He asked his friend and co-worker.
Grissom nodded thoughtfully. "I wanted to speak to her, yes."
"Alphonso Sneed has ties to organized crime but nothing to shake a stick at." Nick pointed out the obvious. "There doesn't seem to be a definitive motive floating around this crime. The guy had thirty-nine bucks in his wallet, he wasn't a big-time player. Didn't seem to offend anyone all that much. He's even kept a clean wrap sheet these past six months."
"Our's is not to reason why." Brass stated.
"Yes it is." Grissom was confused by the statement which amused Brass all the more.
"If your friend can pick out our assailant in the mug shots tomorrow, maybe this case might get out of the starting blocks." Nick held out hope, as the young are apt to do. He checked the ticket stub, mentally tallying his part of the bill, extracting his wallet.
"So, Al was already dead when 'my friend' stumbled into the station, huh?" Brass had been given the time line of the crime as CSI now understood it to have taken place.
"According to her account..she was out cold when he died." Grissom never relied on a person's 'account', Brass knew.
"Doc Robbins called it around four this morning." Nick said. "She must have been 'out' longer than she thought."
"Either that or she's lying through her pretty white teeth." Brass kept all options open as well as his friend.
"You don't believe that." His 'friend' was not shy about stating his hypothesis. "Do you, though."
"I don't like to 'pre-judge." Brass quipped. "Is this one mine?" He indicated the 'tab' in the middle of the table.
"Nah." Nick tossed his money down. "With the economy the way it is and you poor, underpaid cops earning what you do? We gotta help our brothers out in rough times."
"Then kick in a couple more dollars..I'm a big tipper." Brass teased in his own fashion.
Episode: Las Vegas Police Department, Homicide Division, Second Floor Offices
"Have the doctors spoken to you Miss..eh.." Gil Grissom halted his intended statement. "How should I address you? Do you have a preference?"
Brass had made the introductions. Grissom was seated across the table from the woman, in the depressingly small interrogation room. The man, himself, had preferred to stand by the one lone window which looked out over the parking garage of the station below him.
"Weena." He answered automatically, a little surprised he had done so. And when Grissom questioned him with a look, he explained. "You remember the 'Time Machine'? The Morlocks..the Eloi? She reminds me of 'Weena'."
The woman looked at him most peculiarly but remained passively quiet.
Grissom had smiled at the latter. "It oddly suits you. Would you mind? Until we discover your true identity? It's a lovely name and she is a lovely young woman."
"No one has asked of me?" She was crest-fallen.
"You are not a wanted person..that is a good thing." Grissom smiled to lessen the fact that he had 'run' her statistics..well, Brass had. "These things take time."
"I believe this gentleman is, however." She turned the computer screen that they could see the image on the page she perused.
Jim Brass stepped to get a closer look. "Vincent Gibalti." It came as no great shock to Gil Grissom as he consulted with the other man. "Vinny the Nose." Brass shook his head woefully.
"Are you certain this is who you saw?" Brass had his doubts. "Vincent Gibalti never does his own dirty work..never."
The woman glanced at the image once more.
"This man whacked our 'dead guy?'" Brass wanted matters clear in his mind.
"He did not 'whack' him, no." 'Weena' corrected. "He 'shot' him, remember..with 'that'." She once again pointed out Brass' weapon. "No further violence was done that I witnessed, however. No other implement was used to harm the 'dead guy'."
Grissom seemed impressed with the accuracy of her statement.
"I cannot, in all good conscience, state differently."
"Yeah, whatever." Brass looked at her questioningly but let it go. "But, this is the guy you saw..he actually pulled the trigger on 'this'." The man spread his hand over his holster. "Not one of his little friends?"
"They were all males of larger stature."
Grissom held his smile for she seemed so sincere.
"Vinnie killed the dead guy!" Brass snapped, not having meant to do so.
"The projectile that entered the 'dead guy's' body came from 'that' which was held by this male here." She pointed to the computer image. "I can only assume, it is what ended the life of said... 'Dead Guy'. I am no expert in that field of endeavor, of course."
Brass exchanged looks with Grissom that bespoke volumes. "Do you know how long I've waited to get something on that..S.O.B.?"
The man had remembered a woman was present, altering his intended vulgarity.
Grissom had more important matters to discuss, apparently. "Have the doctors explained anything about your head injury, Weena?" He asked.
She shook her head minutely.
"I had a friend of mine look at your MRI. I hope that was alright? He concurred with my findings."
"What 'findings'?" Brass had not known about this most recent 'finding'
"Would you mind if I took a closer look at your forehead, Weena?" Grissom could be most charming when he wished.
"It does not hurt as much as it did." She seemed willing enough.
"What's up?" Brass watched as the other man examined the area with an intent scrutiny.
"Here." Grissom brushed the soft hair back from her scalp. "What does this look like to you?" He showed Brass the still swollen, red mark.
"..It doesn't look like she 'fell' and hit a rock." Even Brass could see that much. "It would be jagged and torn, wouldn't it?"
'Weena' searched first one man's features then the other's as they conferred.
"It's rounded, puckered. These star-shaped edges.." Grissom had confirmed his theory. "That's a bullet hole."
Brass' mouth fell slightly agape. "What??"
"I think someone..very likely, Vincent Gibalti..shot her in the head." He leaned back from the woman. "That would explain the scar tissue on the MRI, her memory lapse and this wound." He looked down at the woman's questioning gaze. "What it does not explain.."
"Is why you're still breathing." Brass finished the thought for everyone present.
"The MRI showed the path of the bullet." Grissom had studied it meticulously. "Her body must be attempting to expel the foreign object. It seems to be absorbing the lead somehow. Just as it seems to be healing itself."
"That is impossible..isn't it?" Brass was pretty sure, at least. "If you're shot in the head, the bullet does one of two things. It stays in your brain or it doesn't. It exits. I'm no expert here, but.."
"I state facts as they are, not as we think they should be." Grissom 'stated'. "Given the evidence at present..that is the only plausible conclusion."
"Except that it's soooo not possible." Jim Brass reminded. "And more than a little spooky!"
"It is not possible for a normal person, no." Grissom conceded.
She frowned hard up at the man. "I am 'normal'."
"Are you?" Grissom wondered. "I have three of the country's leading physicians telling me the 'impossible' just occurred, Weena. Would you know how this could happen?"
"I am no physician. But I witnessed the effect of a projectile entering a brain. The outcome was quite different than the one you envision, was it not?"
"I'm working on it." Grissom smiled down at the woman. "Be patient please. We will solve this conundrum, I promise. It's what I do best."
"I do not wish to be a ...conundrum. I wish to do what is right and then..leave this place."
"Well, you're doing just that." Brass felt on more familiar ground. "I'll get the ball rolling. You'll be the guest of the state for a while. We will protect you and then you can testify to what you saw. Is that agreeable?"
"How long will this process take?"
"We'll rush it along."
Grissom did not like the evasion. "It takes months, sometimes, Weena. But, the Captain is very good at his job. No one will harm you, not with him around and in the end, you will have done a very good thing in helping the police put away a very dangerous man."
"That is the 'right thing' to do in this situation?" She seemed to earnestly wish to know.
"Yes..a difficult thing, but the 'right thing'..yes."
She seemed to instinctively trust Grissom. "The 'right thing' is often most difficult to accomplish..but, it must be attempted."
"That is a very noble outlook for one so young." Grissom seemed impressed with such determination.
"I was not always so..inclined." The woman appeared embarrassed over the statement. "I will comply."
Brass was pleasantly surprised. It was only later when he spoke to Grissom that doubts began to sit in on the entire matter.
"The prosecution will have a field day with her 'amnesia' claim. They will attack her character, you know that. She seems..fragile. Are you certain she can take that type of scrutiny?" Grissom put the matter in perspective on a legal basis, at least. "Will she stand up under siege I wonder."
"We'll know more before the actual trial date..right?" Brass was hopeful. "Maybe her memory will come back, who knows. My job, at this moment in time, is to make sure she gets to the witness stand in one piece."
"I'm just saying there are a lot of holes in her story..a lot of blanks that need to be filled."
"What the hell was that bullet in the head thing? You know something I don't, Grissom? If you have a theory, pass it around. I don't want to be left hanging out in the wind here."
"When I have something concrete, you'll be the first to know. Promise. Until then..that's all it is..speculation and that? I keep to myself until evidence says something differently."
"Maybe the DA will tank this investigation until we get more shit on Vinny. That will give us some time to investigate our little Eloi."
"That would put your witness in danger, wouldn't it? Your department can't spare full time protection if the case is only 'pending'."
"I'll keep an eye on her. It will take a fucking big Morlock to get through me." Brass wasn't above using metaphors. "Especially if it means putting Vinny the Nose away for life."
"And how do you intend to do that? If she's a free agent, she can pretty well go where she wants and it appears all she wants right at present is..to get away from this situation."
"One thing at a time, Sherlock..cut me some slack. I'll work on it.."
"I'm here if you need me." Grissom rolled up the window of his vehicle, pulling out of the police parking area.