Chapter IV

Back in the morgue, Sara set about carefully extracting the molds from Ingrid Polt's wounds. It was a slow and delicate task and Sara worked at it patiently. She'd been trying to master the process for years, after having once overheard Grissom telling Warrick that casting was an art. She'd spent years trying to prove that she was as good at it, if not better. Looking back on it, she felt foolish now almost like she should have been Annie Oakley, in Annie Get Your Gun, singing to Frank Butler, "Anything you can do, I can do better." Only, Warrick wasn't the love interest. No he was just the competition for the attention of the love interest. She let a sad smile brush over her face.

The first cast pulled out smoothly and she held it in her palm. She turned it over, examining closely, and then, smiled. Sometimes doing things for the wrong reasons, or in her case, only partly for the wrong reasons as she genuinely wanted to improve at her job, still result in a positive outcome. The mold looked good. She now knew what the weapon looked like, about five and a half inches in length, a quarter inch thick and just under an inch and a half in width, narrowing and curving slightly at the end. The other molds were not as distinct or faultless, but that was to be expected. The blade didn't penetrate all of the way in the other wounds. The one cast was distinct enough. If Greg's search for the weapon around the scene came up empty, this would help them to identify what they were looking for. She pulled out her phone to check in with Greg.

Greg's search for a knife had, up to that point, come up empty. Sara's initial instinct was to run with the mold of the knife, checking the mold against numerous knives that fit the measurements, but she had yet to process the victim's boyfriend. Placing the mold aside for later, she rewashed the corpse, removing the flakes of plaster in and around the wounds, and then covered her victim with a clean sheet. Her mold was logged in with the other evidence, and then she was on her way to the police station, feeling as though she was being pulled in all directions at once. There were so many places she needed to be, and not all of those were in Vegas.

Striding through the halls of the police station, Sara nodded at various officers' heads, passing Brass's office with a wave. She entered one interrogation room and stopped, stepping in to see Drew Bray now dressed in red coveralls. Holding out a large bag, she opened it so that Vartann could drop the young man's shirt in. Another bag came out for his pants, and a final one for his shoes.

She was silent as she worked swabbing the blood from his hands and cheeks and forehead. Vartann had already begun interviewing him, beginning when he watched the young man strip from his cloths. An interrogation would come later, when more evidence was processed and they knew more about what they were dealing with. She pushed his sleeves up and examined his arms. Her gloved hand picked at the blood in his hair. Drew Bray stood silent, letting her process him.

Stepping back, she studied him again. His head hung low. "I'm going to have to call her parents," he whispered.

Sara nodded. "Where are they?"

"Switzerland. Ingrid's Swiss."

She took a moment before speaking. "Drew, what was your relationship with Ingrid like?"

There was a pause. Drew Bray's shoulders fell. His eyes lit a little. "Wonderful."

"No problems, then?"

He shook his head. "No, I mean, not between us. We're at a point where we…were trying to figure some things out, but we were going to get married. We're here to get married." He looked at her, staring at her. She wasn't sure if he was staring at her or through her or past her, but she felt like he wasn't seeing her. He heaved forward, his head jerking, a strangled sob rising up out of him. His shoulders shook and Sara could only stare at him.

"I'm sorry," he spoke, his words exiting like a weep. "I'm sorry, I can't…"

"It's okay," Sara interjected. "I just need to take your prints, okay?"

He nodded. Sara held out the fingerprint scanner, and guided each finger over it. She dropped his hand and pulled Vartann aside. "You can try to talk to him again, but I don't think we're going to get anything comprehensible out of him in this condition."

"It may be the best time to try, before he composes himself."

"If he did this and it's an act, then I'll bet he's already composed."

She followed Vartann's eyes as he looked over at the young man. "He's either very bereaved or a very good actor."

She studied him. "My guess, right now, would be very bereaved."

"You still have to find his jacket," Vartann reminded her.

She sighed. "I know." Until she did, she would process the evidence. Vartann could talk to the young man if he wanted. At the moment, she didn't want to be a part of it. Later, later when she knew more. Later, when she could detach herself a little better, and focus more on what the evidence was saying than on Drew Bray's emotional state. She turned back to Vartann, just as her pager buzzed. She sighed. "You can question him. I'm going to take this stuff to the lab, and then join Doc Robbins for the autopsy. My body is ready. I'll let you know when we have more."

Vartann nodded. "Okay."

Sara took one more look back at the victim's boyfriend before heading back down the hall with evidence in hand. Twenty minutes later, after dropping off the evidence collected at the police station and taking a short bathroom break, she stepped back into the cold morgue, a gown covering her clothing.

The room was empty, bar from the corpse lying on the autopsy table in the middle of the room. Sara moved towards the body, letting her eyes wander over the once beautiful figure, wondering how that beauty could be marred by such violence. "What happened to you?" she whispered.

The doors swung open and the noise startled her. She jumped back from the table.

Doc Robbins laughed behind her. "It's only the living, Sara."

She flushed slightly. "I know. Anything you can tell me yet, Doc?" she asked, changing the subject.

Doc Robbins moved past her. "I did a quick exam on your victim. She had sex recently, consensual. I found semen in the vaginal track, along with minor reddening and abrasions. I sent out a sample to DNA. I also sent a blood panel out to tox. Henry has it."

Sara nodded, her eyes darting to the file under Doc Robbins's arm. Doc Robbins noticed her glance and pulled the file out from beneath his arm. "I have the X-rays on your vic. Take a look at these chest X-rays," he spoke, fastening up the images to the lit screen on one wall. "She sustained quite the blow to the chest. Fractures to the sixth and seventh ribs, very recent."

Sara walked over to the images and stood beside Doc Robbins to study them. She tilted her head up, carefully examining the images, her eyes lingering on the two small lines etched into the bone where the fractures occurred. "Some of the bruising could come from the blow then. Those wounds didn't penetrate like we thought they would. Initial attack, maybe? Killer surprises her with a blow to the ribs, and then pulls his knife on her?"

"You're the CSI."

"Hmm," Sara continued, still studying the images. Her eyes moved over the screen. "What's this?" she asked, nodding to the forth rib. "It looks like the bone was nicked."

Doc Robbins leaned in. "Yes. I noticed that as well." He stood beside her, carefully going over the X-ray. Nothing else stood out. From the side of her eye, Sara noticed Doc Robbins nod towards the body. "Shall we?"

Sara smirked, following Doc Robbins over to the autopsy table. She took a stool and sat, watching as Doc Robbins made his Y incision. Slowly, Doc Robbins peeled away the skin, revealing everything beneath. Sara thought about what Grissom had once said. "This is all that we are when we die." She shivered slightly, and not for the first time, disagreed. We are all that we leave behind, she thought, and it's more than just a body.

"Punctured lung," Doc Robbins spoke, snapping Sara out of her dark reverie. He pulled out the lung, holding it in his hands, and showed it to her. "Could be from either the weapon, or the broken rib."

Sara carefully fingered the puncture, her touch featherlike. In her pocket, her phone began to vibrate. Damn, she thought, hating the timing of it. She wondered if the call was from Grissom, or if it were Greg or Vartann with an update on the case. She shifted slightly, waiting for the vibrating to end, and then refocused on Doc Robbins.

He placed the lung off to the side, and then carefully pulled out the other organs, holding them in his hands to examine them. Sara watched as his eyes moved over first the heart, then the spleen and finally the stomach.

The contents of the stomach were emptied into a dish and the victim's last meal was before her. Flakes of meat mixed with tiny pieces of vegetables. She could make out bits of carrots, and what looked to be zucchini in with small noodles. Doc Robbins held up the dish to his nose. "A little vino, perhaps?"

Sara shook her head, laughing slightly. "I know you're good, but bonus points if you can tell me the variety."

Doc Robbins just looked at her. "You can confirm the wine with tox." He placed the stomach contents aside and continued to root around inside Ingrid Polt's cavity.

Some time later, the organs were placed back inside the cavity. Doc Robbins flipped the skin back over. "COD was exsanguination. The wounds bled out at a fairly moderate rate, no real surprise there. What I did find surprising is that apart from the lung, only the spleen was punctured. All of the vital organs remained in tact, so as I said, the bleeding out was not quick. The puncture in the lung, I believe, may have come from the rib fracture and not the knife, though either scenario is equally possible. At any rate, the puncture is small, though she would have had great difficulty breathing when she died."

Sara nodded, her face solemn. It wasn't a speedy death and she felt horrible for the young woman, the final moments of her life spent bleeding out on the sidewalk, her breathing painful and irregular.

She stood up. "Thanks Doc." Turning, she strode to the doors of the morgue, pushing them open and escaping into the hall. She tore off her gown and gloves, throwing them into a hamper just outside the door. Pacing slightly, she pulled her phone from her pocket and checked her missed call. It had been from Grissom. She checked the time and sighed, 7:13. It was a quarter after four in Paris. He was probably just leaving the University and on his way home. She checked her voicemail.

"Hi, Sara. I'm just leaving the University here. I thought I'd try calling you, hoping that you were wrapping up for the morning." His voice paused. She could hear a sigh. "I won't be home for awhile. There is a bit of an impromptu, informal faculty meeting over dinner, here, so I guess…Try to call me if you get this right away, otherwise, I'll call you when I get in." There was another pause as his voice trailed off. "Sara, I," another short pause, his voice quiet, "I love you."

Closing the phone, she shut her eyes and sighed. She wondered if she could catch him before his dinner. She was about to open her phone again when it vibrated in her hand. Looking at the screen, she opened it. "Hey, Greggo."