Still Waters Run Deep

Chapter 4

Gil Grissom stared around the conference table at the assembled CSIs. It had been nearly a week since the first dug up body had been found. Nearly a week since both swing and grave had started working a dual case. Nearly a week since he's had to abide by the suspension of one of the best CSIs he's ever worked with. Nearly a week, and since the first two bodies had been found, three others had followed, and no new evidence. Grissom had no idea where to go from here. Without new evidence, there were no more leads. All they knew about their suspect was that it was a woman, most likely of African descent, and suffered from sickle cell disease. She was a smoker, and drove a Dodge Ram. Maybe.

Sitting next to him on his right was Warrick. The tall man was leaning back in his chair, hands laced behind his head, staring at the ceiling. For the past week it had been Warrick's job to try to track down every owner of a 2003 Dodge Ram quad cab and ask for a DNA sample to try to match it with the one they got off the cigarette butt. Of course, Greg had pointed out that there had been close to a million registered in the county. Actual count, Warrick had discovered, was more like 300,000, but still, that's a lot of cars and owners, most of whom were not compliant. He had started out with the registered owners who were women and black, but no matches had come back from those who had offered their DNA, which had only been about thirty or so. Without a warrant, there was nothing Warrick could do to get samples from the uncooperative people, and so the man was fast approaching an impasse in his part of the investigation. He was frustrated beyond all hell.

On the other side of Warrick was Greg. Grissom had assigned him the collection of any evidence from new bodies discovered that could match their current case. So far, the only evidence Greg had been able to pull from the three new bodies were matching cigarette butts with matching DNA profiles and partial fingerprints, and matching Dodge Ram tire tracks. Nothing new. He could see in Greg's eyes that the newest CSI was starting to doubt his own abilities in evidence collection. With three new cases, there should be at least one or two new pieces of evidence, and Greg was feeling upset and concerned that he hadn't found any, lending credence to his belief that he wasn't a good enough investigator, that he was a failure in Grissom's eyes.

Directly across from Grissom was Sofia, who's job it had been to follow up on the cigarette butts. She'd identified the type of cigarette as a Marlborough Lite, which, to their disappointment, was one of the most popular brands of cigarettes. If it had been something unusual or exotic, they might have had a chance of tracking down the smoker, but, as Sofia learned, about 85 of the female smokers in Las Vegas smoked Marlborough Lites. She could go nowhere with the fingerprints, since they did not match anyone in AFIS or IAFIS. She'd even called in markers from other states to go through their state-wide databases, only to come up empty. Their suspect, it seemed, did not have a prior record.

After Sofia was Nick. Nick had been looking into any possible connections between the five victims. He'd found a few, but none that connected them all, or that was of any real significance. It seemed that Officer Calder had once dated the fourth victim, Cynthia Hazem, back in college, but was unable to find out if they had each known the other was in Vegas at any point. Cynthia Hazem had been found three days earlier on the football field of McKinley High School. She'd been living in Henderson for the past eleven years, after her husband had been transferred from Harrah's Hotel and Casino in Reno to Harrah's in Las Vegas. Her husband, Ned Hazem, was the hotel manager. Nick had learned, in speaking with Mr. Hazem, that Cynthia didn't have much of a social life, and that she had never mentioned Francis Calder. Officer Calder's widow had said the same about the name Cynthia Hazem, or her maiden name, Cynthia Cotes.

Catherine, sitting next to Nick, had been searching through the medical school at the University of Nevada. Their best bet, according to Doc Robbins, was that the person committing these crimes had knowledge of medical procedures, and that these stolen body parts were being sold. Of course, they were diseased body parts, and a month to three after death, so chances were they weren't being sold on the black market. But, as Sofia had pointed out, the diseased organs could be being sold for medical research, and a medical student had the knowledge to remove them, and the need for money.

Lastly, Grissom had been looking into the possibility that it was a doctor herself who was digging up the bodies and removing the organs. So far it had been two hearts, two livers, and one kidney. He'd also been going through hospital records, looking for another connection between the five victims. The only connection so far…they'd all died at Desert Palm. In his investigation, Grissom had learned that close to three hundred people had access to the dead patient files and the morgue, but no one seemed to have had contact with all five dead bodies. Discouraged, he'd asked Brass and Vartann to help by interviewing all three hundred people, trying to ferret someone out. It had been four days, and so far, they hadn't come up with anyone.

"Okay, I think we need to change our strategy," Grissom informed the other CSIs. "The cigarette is getting us nowhere, so Sofia, I want you to go through all the medical records I obtained from Desert Palm. Go over them and see if I missed something. Talk to anyone you find suspicious. Coordinate with Brass and Vartann. Nick, I want you to help Warrick. Right now, our best shot is finding someone with sickle cell disease who drives a Dodge Ram. Greg, you help Catherine interview people over at the medical school. You're also on call with me for any new cases that come in. I'm going to be in the morgue going over the bodies with Doc Robbins again."

"This case is really turning into a Burke and Hare. All these dead bodies with organs missing, presumably for medical research…" Catherine pointed out.

"No," Greg said, shaking his head. "Not Burke and Hare. Those guys actually killed people to sell to doctors for medical research. Our victims, they were all dead and buried already. Someone dug them up, so that makes our suspect more like DaVinci or Michelangelo, who used to dig up dead bodies and study them."

"Very good, Greg," Grissom praised, raising an eyebrow. "Where'd you learn the distinction between the two?"

"Uh, Sara," Greg replied, looking down at the table. "She, uh, explained the history of grave robbing to me, and, uh, explained how it's different from body snatching."

"You've discussed this case with Sara?" Grissom prodded, trying to gauge the exact state of Sara and Greg's relationship.

"Yeah, I may have mentioned the case to her over breakfast or something," Greg admitted. "We really have talked only a little about work. Mostly we talk about things we did when we were younger. Turns out our Sara was a bit of a rebel when she was younger."

"Goody toe shoes science nerd Sara?" Nick asked incredulously. "I don't believe that. You're pullin' our legs."

"Nah uh. Sara had this very close friend, Ben Sattler, in high school. Where Sara was a nerd, Ben was…well, he struggled with school, had been left back a few times. Anyway, he asked Sara to help him cheat on a Math test once. He even went as far as to steal the test and ask Sara to fill in the answers for him. Instead, Sara offered to tutor him, and they tried, and Ben was slowly getting it, but not fast enough for a test in two days. So, Sara goes to their Math teacher to try to get him an extension, right? Well, the teacher came right out and told Sara she was wasting her time trying to help Ben, that the kid was worthless and a loser and wouldn't amount to anything. So, what do you think Sara did?" Greg asked, stopping there for dramatic effect.

"She worked with him all night and he passed?" Catherine guessed, figuring that was how Sara would deal with the situation.

"Nope," Greg replied smugly. "She gave him all the answers to the test and he got an A."

"I can't believe that! Sara cheated! Ms. by the books Sara!" Nick exclaimed.

"But, if this guy usually failed, didn't they get caught?" Warrick asked.

"Sure did," Greg replied. "But Ben, apparently, has a photographic memory. To prove that they didn't cheat, he had to answer one of the test questions in front of the disciplinary committee. And he did, from memory. From then on, Sara tutored Ben and he passed his Math class."

"Ahem," Grissom politely broke in, "As much as hearing about Sara's past excites us all, we have a job to do here." He glared at the other CSIs around the table. "Why don't we table this discussion until tomorrow night when Sara is back and can give us the true, unembellished version of the story."

"You're right, Gris. Sorry," Greg replied, chastised. "Cath and I'll head over to the medical school right away." As he walked out behind Catherine he turned around and said, "And it wasn't embellished."

Three hours into their investigation, and Catherine and Greg had gotten nowhere. They were holed up in a small room off the main campus building an UNLV medical school, going through the human resources' records. Nothing suspicious had jumped out at them, and any number of people could be involved in this grave robbing. Catherine looked up as Greg gave a frustrated growl and threw a manila folder full of lab courses across the room to scatter under the window.

"This isn't getting us anywhere!" he cried out. "Why can't we just get the medical records of each person at this school and find the ones with sickle cell?"

"Because we don't have enough for a warrant for that much invasion of privacy," Catherine calmly explained to him. She reached over and placed a hand on his shaking arm. "I know this is tedious and it doesn't look like we've gotten any information, but if we put what we have together with what the others get, we may have something."

"But we haven't got anything," Greg practically whined.

"Sure we do," Catherine informed him. "We have a list of everyone on this campus, all students and teachers, as well as support staff. Including everyone's race and ethnicity. Then all we have to do is pick out the African American females and run them against the list of Dodge Ram owners that Warrick and Nick are putting together…"

"And see if any names come up in common. I see your point," Greg conceded, much calmer now. He took a deep breath, stretched his arms above his head, then got up and retrieved the files he'd thrown at the window in anger. Kneeling down, he began to put them back into some semblance of order, all the while whistling the theme song to MacGyver.

Catherine looked over at Greg in amusement. She never would have pictured Greg as a MacGyver fan. The X-files, definitely, but not MacGyver. "Uh, Greg?" she questioned. He looked up at her and she continued, "MacGyver?"

Greg grinned sheepishly and shrugged his shoulders. "Sorry, it's stuck in my head. I was watching a marathon of MacGyver with Sara this morning over breakfast." He returned his focus back to what he was doing before, but this time sans whistling.

Catherine waited for Greg to finish picking up the papers and return to the table before she brought up the topic of Sara again. She new that Greg, though he outwardly appeared to be okay with what had happened between Sara and herself, that deep down he was still angry with her, still blamed her for Sara's suspension. Greg's loyalty had, at one time, been toward Catherine, and now Catherine wondered when it had shifted to Sara. It must have been a gradual shift, since she hadn't seen it happening. But there was no doubt in her mind that Greg was on Sara's side in her conflict with Catherine, that Greg would stand up for Sara, and fight for her. She knew that the young CSI had a crush on Sara, had had one for years, probably since Sara had arrived in Las Vegas and joined their rag-tag team. But she would have thought that Greg would have given up on the brunette by now, with all the times she'd shot him down over date offers. With Sara's deep infatuation with Grissom. But, then again, Catherine thought to herself, Sara hadn't seemed to give up on Grissom either, so what made her think that Greg would give up on Sara?

She was having a hard time wrapping her mind around the fact that every male on their team was loyal to Sara. Greg, for obvious reasons. Grissom had basically told Ecklie that Sara was here to stay and that nothing could make him fire her, and he'd stand in the way of anyone who tried. Brass was overly protective of her, especially since the case with the dead nurse, her chopped up boyfriend, and the jilted ex-lover doctor who they knew committed the crime, but couldn't prove. Even Warrick seemed to have no complaints with Sara. Of course, they had gotten off to a rocky start, Sara coming and investigating Warrick's behavior, and for the first few months they engaged in a slightly antagonistic relationship. But something changed and now, pre team split, the two of them had the highest solve rate as a team than all others at CSI. They worked very well together, and though they may disagree on some facts in their cases, they never seemed to be anything they couldn't overcome. And then there was Nick. Those two, Nick and Sara, had been friends from the get-go. From the first day that Sara was here, they had been embroiled in a friendly race to be at the top. Half-flirting, half friendly banter, they made each other laugh and seemed to recognize something in the other that cemented their iron-clad friendship, something that connected them with each other and no one else. In the almost five years they'd known Sara, she had never seen her fight with Nick. Have a disagreement here or there, yes, but actually fight? Never. Not even when they were both going head to head for the promotion last year, which Nick won, much to the surprise of the entire lab. Unfortunately, the budget was cut and there was no promotion in the end. But still, Nick had won, and Sara had not held it against him, nor had she seemed jealous of him in any way. And when Catherine had congratulated Nick on receiving the promotion, he had just shaken his head and told her that it really wasn't his, but Sara's.

"She's the one who deserves it, not me. Her record is better, her intuition is better, her training skills are better…Grissom's just being a selfish bastard," Nick has said to her.

"Well, he must see something that you don't, because he gave the promotion to you," Catherine pointed out, squeezing his shoulder in comfort.

"Yeah, a way to push her down again and keep her at arms length," Nick commented dryly. "Either he doesn't realize he's succeeded, or he doesn't care. She's over him." Nick then slammed his locker shut and turned to face Catherine for the first time. "I gotta go. Warrick, Sara, and I are meeting for breakfast and I'm late. See ya tonight, Cath."

With that, Nick had left the locker room, leaving a stunned Catherine in his wake. And slightly jealous, as she had not been invited out for breakfast with them.

"I know this is hard for you, Greg," Catherine admitted softly, pretending to read the file in front of her. "You're doing a good job at it."

"What?" Greg asked, looking up at her. "What's hard?"

Catherine sighed. He wasn't going to just let this go, make this easy for her. So, deciding to take the noble road, she continued, "Working with me, when you're so angry with me over what happened to Sara."

"I'm not angry with you," Greg stated, confused.

"But Grissom said that you were," Catherine informed Greg. "That's why he wouldn't lend you out to me to finish that case."

"Since when had Grissom been right about our emotional states and feelings?" Greg asked humorously. When Catherine looked at him disbelievingly, Greg dropped the humorous tone and continued, "I was disappointed that you wouldn't even listen to me and help me get to the bottom of what was wrong with Sara, but I wasn't angry."

"I didn't think anything was wrong with her, other than her ego being upset that I was keeping her in check," Catherine voiced.

Greg shook his head. "She hides it well, almost as well as Gris, but Sara's probably the rawest nerve you'll ever meet. She puts out this tough exterior that nothing bothers her, that she's invincible to emotional pain, but she'd not. She's actually easily hurt, and I think what bothered her the most about that situation was that you didn't ask her what was wrong, like a friend would. She considers you to be a friend. Yeah, she's always seemed closer to me, Nick, and Warrick, but sometimes you just need a female friend, and that was what she needed right then. When you didn't push her to talk about it, she figured that you didn't care, didn't see her as a friend, and so, she lashed out because he was angry with herself for believing that you two were friends."

"I like to think that we are friends," Catherine said slowly. "But she's so closed off most times, I'm not sure what to say. I don't understand her at all."

Greg nodded. "I know. It took me almost five years to get to this point in understanding her. With Sara, it's all about trust. If you show her that she can trust you, really trust you, I bet she tells you why she went postal on you and Ecklie. Sara wants to trust people and she want to be friends. She just doesn't know how; she never learned how as a child."

"But isn't that something you learn from your parents and from friends growing up?" Catherine asked, confused.

Greg shrugged. "Her parents weren't exactly…well…hers didn't. And because of that she really didn't have any friends growing up."

Catherine nodded in understanding. "There's a really sad story there, isn't there?" When Greg refused to answer, Catherine knew for sure. "Okay, that's something she'll have to tell in me when she's ready; I won't push you to break confidence. I hear what you're saying Greg, and when Sara returns to work, I'll try much harder to let her know that we're friends and that she can trust me."

After their small heart to heart, Greg and Catherine returned to the task at hand, which was rifling through everyone associated with the medical school and sorting them into male/female categories, as well as race and ethnicity categories. When two more hours had passed, and Greg read off the final name, he and Catherine let out a collective groan, put the room back into order, and left the medical school with their list, eager to see if any of the 126 African American females matched up to the list Nick and Warrick were compiling.

Nick, Warrick, Catherine, and Greg slowly scanned through the tower of files in front of them on the layout table. The four CSIs were cross referencing the medical school files that Catherine and Greg had obtained with the DMV records Nick and Warrick had. So far nothing had clicked, no link, or even possible link. They barely noticed as Judy came in with a plate of take-out sandwiches from the 24-hour deli down the street, courtesy of the sheriff.

Absently chewing on a corner of a ham and swiss with mayo, Nick checked the open file in front of him twice, just to be sure, then started to snap his fingers to get the others' attention. "I may have something, here," he informed them once they all had turned their gaze to him. "This professor, Doctor James Mendelsen, he drives a 2003 Dodge Ram quad cab…with double wheels on back."

"What exactly does he teach?" Catherine asked, ecstatic that they now may have a lead.

"Says here his courses include Introduction to Patient Relations, whatever that is, Immunology, Congenital Disorders and Diseases…"

"Hold up there, man," Warrick interrupted. "Congenital Disorders and Diseases...Didn't the first body found die of a heart attack?"

"Yeah," Catherine confirmed, picking up a copy of his file. "Without the heart, Doc Robbins couldn't confirm, but the medical records for Officer Calder say as much." She looked over at Warrick. "What are you thinking?"

"Well, even though anyone can have a heart attack, the risk factors can be genetic, such as a propensity for high cholesterol and obesity. The second victim had her kidney removed. According to her medical records, she suffered from PKD, polycystic kidney disease. That's genetic. Our third victim had her liver removed, and she suffered from Alpha-1 Antitrypsin Deficiency…"

"I see the pattern," Catherine agreed. "The other two vics?"

"Hemochromatosis, another inherited liver disease, and valvular stenosis, an inherited heart condition," Greg replied, fishing through files.

"I'm thinking someone in his class wanted some extra credit," Nick concluded.

"Or the good doctor did it himself," a voice spoke up from the doorway. The four seated CSIs looked in that direction and found Sofia leaning against the doorjam. "Guess who treated three of our five victims, and consulted on the other two?"

"Doctor James Mendelsen," Nick replied smiling. "I think we have a suspect."

"But one thing just doesn't add up," Greg cut in, sorry to have to burst their happy little bubble.

"The sickle cell angle?" Warrick asked. When Greg nodded, Warrick continued, "I know, I know. Doc Mendelsen can't be the only suspect. He's not an African American woman with sickle cell disease. That has to come into play somewhere."

"Like I said," Nick reiterated, "Extra credit."

"What's say we give Grissom and Brass a call and pay a visit to the doctor as he's teaching his class on Congenital Diseases and Disorders?" Catherine suggested sweetly.

Thanks to the good work of his CSIs, Grissom was now sitting across from Doctor John Mendelsen, chief suspect in their grave robbing case. Brass sat next to him, staring intently at the doctor who was looking everywhere but at the police detective. Grissom knew that in the adjoining room, Catherine and Detective Vartann were interviewing their other chief suspect, a twenty three year old woman named Anita Hanson. An African American woman in Mendelsen's CDD class. The only African American woman in that class.

"So, you wanna tell us why you're Dodge Ram was at the scene of all five of our bodies?" Brass asked pleasantly, folding his hands over each other on the interrogation table.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Doctor Mendelsen stated. "What bodies?"

"The ones you and your student Anita Hanson dug up and stole internal organs from," Brass replied calmly.

"I still don't know what you're talking about," the doctor replied, just as calmly as the detective. "Ms. Hanson is a student in my class, a rather good student, I might add. There is no way she would be involved in grave robbing and stealing organs. Nor would I, for that matter."

Before the interrogation could continue, a policeman entered the room and motioned for Brass and Grissom to come with him. Sighing, the two men followed the cop out into the observation room, where Catherine and Vartann were waiting.

"What's going on, Catherine!" Grissom demanded angrily. "You're taking away our chance to…"

"It's over, Grissom," Catherine interrupted, not at all bothered by his anger. "The girl copped to it. She and the doc did it together. She was sleeping with him for a better grade and he used that to coerce her into helping him dig up these bodies and steal their organs so he could use the DNA in his research to further his grant money."

"You got that out of her that quickly?" Brass asked, suspiciously.

Catherine shrugged self-deprecatingly. "All I said to her was 'We know' and she burst out into tears and told us the whole sordid story."

"That must be the fastest confession we've ever gotten," Brass said smiling. "If you can do that with a female suspect, I gotta see what you can do to a male suspect."

Catherine just smiled. "Easy come, easy go."

"So she just opened up and confessed to the whole thing right there?" Sara asked Greg as they made their way to the break room to receive their assignments that night. Greg had called Sara after pulling a double earlier that day and helping to solve the grave robbing case, begging off getting together so he could get some much needed sleep. Sara had been understanding and said they'd meet up at work that night where she wanted to hear all the details of the case. Which he had now provided, complete with sound effects.

Greg couldn't stop smiling. He was so glad to have Sara back at work. He couldn't wait for their next assignment, hoping they'd be paired together. Over the past week, though he had liked working with the others, especially having Nick, Warrick, and Catherine back, he had deeply missed his best friend and mentor. He was never more excited and happy at work as when he walked into the locker room and saw her putting her belongings in her locker. He'd run over to her then and given her a huge hug, actually lifting her bodily off the floor. She'd smacked his arm and ordered him to put her down, which he had done, but had still kept a hold of her hand, even as they had walked down the hall to the break room, giving her all the gory details on the case she'd missed. And though he'd seen her nearly every day while she'd been suspended, nothing compared to working with her where she was at her best and in her element. And, if he was honest with himself, the enjoyed the looks the other guys around the lab gave him when they saw how much time he got to spend with Sara, how close he got to be to her. Jealous, the other lab rats and CSIs were jealous of him because he was spending all his time with a beautiful, sexy woman.

As they entered the break room they noticed that Grissom and Sofia were already there, involved in what looked to be an important discussion. "What's going on?" Greg asked.

"We have a missing person," Grissom replied without preamble.

tbc.