Disclaimer: not mine.
Spoilers: Season seven
After a quick shower to get rid of the dust from the mine, Greg hurried to get the autopsy on time. He just made one stop on the way to the morgue.
Greg stopped just outside the trace lab. "Hey Hodges, I've got something for you."
The lab rat looked at him suspiciously. "What is it?"
"Dirt." Greg smiled at him. "I need to find out where it came from." Hodges just rolled his eyes.
"Just what I've always wanted." He said.
"Don't say I never gave you anything." Greg hurried to the morgue. "I'm late for an autopsy."
Horatio and Doc Robbins were waiting for him. The mummy was lying on the slab in front of them.
Greg stepped forward for a better look. Because of the poor light back in the cave, he hadn't been able to see her clearly.
The mummy itself was a very well preserved young women. Greg thought that she would have been beautiful when she was still alive, expect for the frozen scream on her face.
Doc Robbins finally spoke. "The mummy is consistent with the description of Ashley Burns, and the dental records confirmed."
"Looks like she died violently." Greg remarked.
Robbins nodded. "COD is blunt force trauma to the head. She was very well preserved, thanks to the high temperature and the salt content of the soil."
"Nick and I found a baseball bat at he scene. Could that have done the damage?"
The doctor nodded again. "When I examined the body, I also found evidence that she was in a long term abusive relationship."
"Her family suspected as much." Lt. Caine chimed in. "Did you run a sexual assault kit?"
"Yes. There were signs of rape, but after all this time, I don't know if DNA will be able to find anything."
"Anything else we should know about?" Greg asked.
"She was pregnant." Doc Robbins said. "About three months."
Greg and Horatio looked at each other. "We need to find out who the father is."
Robbins had one more thing to add. "I also found dog hairs all over her."
Sanders nodded. "She owned a Shetland Sheepdog. We're still looking for it."
The two of them left morgue with more questions then answers. Greg was a little disturbed by what they found. He needed to catch this monster before he struck again.
He ducked into the DNA lab to find Natalia and Wendy talking about something. "Did you find anything?"
Wendy nodded. "DNA from the sex assault kit is viable, but it may take awhile to process. Do you have something to compare it to?"
"Not yet, but keep me posted." Greg replied.
Natalia looked over at him. "Can I talk to you for a second?" Wendy found something interesting to look at on the other side of the lab.
"What's up?"
"I never thanked you for what you did before."
Greg shrugged. " I was happy to help. I'm just glad that you're okay, and doing a lot better now." He smiled at her.
Natalia leaned closer to him. "Thanks to you."
Nick walked about ten seconds later, causing both of them to jump as if they'd been caught doing they shouldn't.
"Greg?"
Sanders looked up, annoyed by his friend's timing. "Did you get anything from the bat?"
"Blood sample's been sent to DNA, but I doubt that we'll get a hit in CODIS." He shook his head, "The last person to touch it doesn't have a record."
"So you got some prints."
Nick nodded. "But we still need a suspect to compare them."
Horatio walked into the room. "And you've got the same problem I did."
"Not enough to bring in the boyfriend." Natalia said.
Greg shook his head. "Not enough to hold him. I still think that he and Brass need to have a little chat."
"New evidence in an old case," Nick agreed. "There's no reason that we can't just talk."
After yet another cup of coffee, Greg Sanders was standing in an interrogation room with Brass and Jack Ripley, watching him carefully, and taking note of the dirt on the suspect's shoes. Nick and Lt. Caine were watching from behind the one-way glass.
"So, we found your girlfriend." Brass said. "Funny that you never reported her missing."
Jack squirmed in his seat. "This is harassment. You people questioned me months ago, and didn't come up anything." He crossed his arms defiantly.
"That was before she turned up dead." Brass countered. "When was the last time you saw her."
"I'm not talking to you without a lawyer."
Greg glared at him from across the table. "I don't need you to talk me. Ashley will tell us everything we need to know." To Brass, he said "Shoes are a plain view item, right?"
Jim nodded. "Yeah."
Sanders turned back the suspect. "I need to see the bottom of your shoes."
"All right, but I don't know what you thing you're going to find." He put his feet up on the table.
Greg took a sample from the bottom of it, hoping that Hodges could get a match from it. He then asked for fingerprints and DNA.
"Not without a warrant." Jack responded. He got up from his seat. "It's been fun, but if you had enough to hold me I'd be under arrest all ready. Good bye."
Jim watched. "Don't go to far, pal."
Then, he and Greg both followed him out. A familiar man stopped them.
"What hell do you think you're doing Sanders? You have no evidence to suggest that Jack Ripley was even involved."
Nick and Horatio joined them. Nick glared at under sheriff McKean. "This wouldn't have anything to do with the campaign contribution that his father's mining company gave you?" he challenged.
McKean glared at him. "You had no right to question him. The media is all over this. I don't need you people harassing…"
Greg turned to Nick. "This is my case. I can handle this." Then he focused his attention to the angry politician. "He was one of the last people to see Ashley alive, and we are trying to find out if there's any new evidence around."
Jeff McKean was not impressed. "Is this about what I said to you when…"
Furious, Sanders cut him off. "This isn't me or you, or even who's paying for your re-election. This about finding out who raped and murdered her!" He pulled out an autopsy photo of Ashley Burns and shoved it toward Jeff, hoping that pictures would be for effective then words.
McKean back away. "I'll be taking to your supervisor, Sanders."
The others just stared at Greg, having never seen him act like that before. Horatio looked at him. "What was that all about?"
Greg sighed. "It's kind of long story." He walked off, to get some more caffeine and calm down before Grissom called him. He fully expected to be pulled off the case.
Brass followed him. "Where the hell did that come from?" He had heard Greg raise his voice less then a half dozen times in the years they'd worked together, and never without good reason.
"I don't know." Exasperated, Greg shrugged. "Grissom's gonna be pissed."
Jim smiled at him. "I think he'd be more pissed if you backed off. All you did was your job."
"Try telling that to McKean."
"Just between you and me, that asshole deserved it." Brass shrugged. He was impressed that Greg had stood up for himself.
Greg looked at him. "We've still got a lot of work to do." He went to the trace lab to give Hodges the soil sample from Jack's shoes and to check on the progress of the other samples. It was the best chance for finding a primary crime scene.
A/N: Thanks for the reviews! Please tell me what you think. I hope to have another chapter up later tonight. I've got a good idea of where this is going, and the next chapter will have quite a bang. By the way, this will be more of a Nick/Greg friendship fic, but you can read more into it if you want.
