Disclaimer: No, they STILL aren't mine.
Breaking Stasis
By Tallulah
Chapter 4
"So Dr. Ayers didn't show up on the manifest from the night of the shooting, huh?" Sara climbed into the passenger seat next to Grissom and started paging through her notes.
"No." Grissom backed the SUV out and pulled smoothly into traffic. "That doesn't mean he wasn't in the building though. There's nothing to stop more than one person from entering when the locks are disengaged."
"So you think this guy looks promising?"
"There's nothing inherently probative about two co-workers not liking each other," Grissom replied, thinking briefly of his barely civil relationship with Conrad Ecklie. "Still, I think it's worth looking into."
Sara smiled to herself, knowing just where Grissom's thoughts had turned. There wasn't anyone with the lab, or Las Vegas law enforcement as a whole for that matter, who didn't know about Grissom's blatant contempt for the crime lab director.
"I'll have Archie run the surveillance tapes and look for anyone piggy-backing off of another employee to get in the building."
Grissom nodded, eyes intent on the traffic in front of him. "Pull the log for the keycards too. We'll see if we can't match the log to the tapes and get a positive ID."
"Sure thing." She pulled out her cell phone and carried on a short conversation with Archie's voice mail, making a mental note to have the log on his desk before he came in to start his shift that evening.
A few minutes later Grissom pulled up to the curb in front of the Morris' home. It was all red brick, almost colonial – a rare style for Vegas where glass and concrete prevailed. The house was set a respectable distance from the road, the lawn attractively xeriscaped so as to need little or no watering.
They jogged up the steps and rang the bell. As the sound died within the house, the two criminalists steeled themselves to deal with the bereaved family. This part of the job never got any easer, and not for the first time Grissom wished he possessed more of an ability to deal with the people part of this job.
The door swung open just enough to reveal a casually dressed middle-aged woman who looked as though she hadn't slept in a while. Her voice was low. "Can I help you?"
"Mrs. Morris?"
The woman looked confused for a moment. "Me? Oh, no, Jenna Morris is my daughter." She made no move away from the door. "Can I ask what this is about?"
Grissom held up his id. "I'm Gil Grissom and this is Sara Sidle. We're with the Crime Lab. We'd like to speak to your daughter for a few minutes."
"Now isn't a good time. Could you maybe come back later?" The woman flushed under Grissom's gaze, but held her ground. "I am sure you understand that this is a difficult time for her...for all of us."
"Ma'am, I understand that this is a trying time and I know you want nothing more than to protect your daughter from any further pain, but we are investigating Dr. Morris' murder and in this type of case, time truly is of the essence."
As she stood in the doorway, trying to formulate another refusal, a voice drifted over her shoulder from the depths of the house. "Its okay mom, they can come in."
The woman at the door made an exasperated sound, threw Grissom and Sara a displeased look and stepped back from the door. "Please make this quick," she said sotto voice as they passed her into the foyer. "She isn't in good health."
"We'll keep it as short as we can ma'am." Grissom's voice was soothing and matched hers in volume. "The last thing we want is to make this harder on Mrs. Morris than we have to. We know there's more than one victim in a case like this."
She gave him an appraising look and must have seen something she approved of because she visibly relaxed. "I'm sure you do Mr. Grissom." She turned and beckoned them to follow her. "This way please."
They stopped just inside the living room which, despite the brightness of the day, was shrouded in darkness.
"I'll just get the lights," their escort said and left them at the entryway.
"Thanks mom." The voice came disembodied from the darkened room.
As she turned on the lamps around the perimeter of the room, the woman cast worried glances at the sofa where Jonathan Morris' widow was laboriously pulling herself to her feet. As she turned and faced the CSIs a couple of things clicked into place for Sara. First of all, this was undoubtedly the woman in the pictures on the scientist's desk. Her blonde hair was pulled back into a sloppy ponytail and her face was drawn and pale, but it was definitely her. His wife then, not his daughter. For a moment, Sara felt slightly embarrassed for her immediate and inaccurate assumption. She should have known better. The second thing she noticed: Mrs. Morris was extremely pregnant. Observing the pronounced bulge around the woman's middle, she felt her eyes mist and her chest tighten. It looked as though Dr. Jonathan Morris would be leaving more behind than just his work for the world to remember him by.
"Please stay seated Mrs. Morris," Grissom urged gently. "There's no need to be formal with us."
The young woman threw him a grateful smile and sank carefully back into the cushions. "Thank you. Please call me Jenna." She rested her hands on the gentle swell of her stomach and nodded at her mother hovering in the background. "You've met my mother, Linda Foy." She turned and asked, "would you mind getting me some water, mom?"
"Oh, of course." Linda hurried out of the room.
Jenna turned sad eyes back to the investigators. "Please have a seat." She indicated a couple of chairs across the room which Grissom hastened to pull closer. "You'll have to forgive my mother. She's just trying to be protective."
"Nothing to forgive," Sara said warmly. "She's just doing her best to take care of you." She gave the woman a reassuring smile.
"Yes, she is." Jenna gave a deep sigh. "She's been staying with us for a couple of weeks to help out now that the doctor has me on bed rest." She patted her swollen abdomen. "I still have five weeks to go. Mom's been a God-send helping with Leah and now…this." Her eyes clouded.
"Leah?" Sara asked, hoping to give the distraught woman something to focus on. Sure enough her gaze softened a bit. She pointed at a framed picture sitting on the end table. Sara picked it up. It was a family portrait; Jenna and Jonathan were cuddled close together with the little girl that Sara also recognized from the office photo nestled in between them. In the photo, Jenna's gaze rested on the smiling blue-eyed girl and the doctor had eyes only for Jenna. "That was taken on Leah's second birthday last year. We spent the day at the zoo." She gave a small laugh. "I didn't even know I was pregnant yet. I thought it was all of the junk food I helped Leah eat that was making me so sick."
Sara examined the photo carefully. The age difference between Dr. Morris and his wife was clear. The silver of his hair was picked up by the sun's rays as were the wrinkles around his eyes as he smiled down on his young wife. Jenna's hair was a golden blonde and her face as smooth and fine as porcelain. What was also clear was how little a difference it made to them. They looked happy. Sara looked up and caught Grissom staring intently at the picture from over her shoulder. He had a perplexed look on his face and started slightly when he noticed Sara's eyes on him.
"She's lovely." Grissom's voice was soft as he turned his attention back to the woman on the couch.
Sara sat the photo back on the table and noticed another one next to it. "Was this your graduation?" she asked, indicating the framed picture.
"Yeah," Jenna replied, indicating that Sara could pick it up if she wanted to. "That was, oh, five years ago I guess." Linda returned just then and placed the glass of water at her daughter's elbow, touching her briefly on the head, in the way that mother's do, before leaving again.
"How long have you been married?" Sara looked at the couple in this photograph with some interest. Here, Jenna wore her cap and gown and was clearly receiving an advanced degree of some kind. A huge grin graced her face, but she wasn't smiling at the camera. Instead she was looking up at the man next to her and he was looking right back at her – Jonathan Morris.
"Since two weeks after that picture was taken." Her smile was wistful. "I had wanted to finish my doctorate before the wedding. And I did…but only just."
"How did you two know each other?" Grissom asked.
"Oh, they didn't tell you at the lab?" She gave the same sad, half smile. "I'm surprised. It's usually one of their favorite pieces of gossip. I was Jonathan's RA – his research assistant. We worked together at NorGen."
"That's where you met?"
Jenna nodded. "I was assigned to him while I was a Master's candidate. I did my dissertation with the lab and was offered a full-time position after I got my M.A. NorGen actually footed the bill for my doctoral studies."
"So, you're actually Dr. and Dr. Morris then?" Sara asked.
Jenna smiled. "Well, yes, technically, but I'm fine with Mrs. Morris. I quit the lab when Leah was born so it's kind of a moot point anyway. The other women in my 'Mommy and Me' class couldn't possibly care less if I'm a doctor or not."
"And the lab was okay with that?" Grissom asked curiously. "With you having a relationship with your superior?" Sara gave him a puzzled look.
"Were they okay with us dating?" She looked thoughtful. "Honestly, I never thought about it. It was eight years ago and people weren't as conscious about stuff like that as they are now." She gave them a wry look. "The challenge for me was getting Jonathan to go out with me, not getting the rest of the lab to approve of it. I didn't care about that."
"You did get him to go out with you eventually though," Sara commented gently.
"Yeah." Her voice was sad. "Took me long enough. I was only twenty-two and Jonathan felt he was much too old for me. There's seventeen years difference between us," she explained and then looked stricken. "Or, I guess there were." Her eyes swam with tears and she turned away to dab at them with a tissue.
"How did you finally do it then?" Sara asked when Jenna appeared more composed.
Hazel eyes met Sara's evenly. "I kissed him." Her face tightened as she fought off another wave of tears. "It was horribly, terribly unprofessional of me and it's a good thing sexual harassment wasn't as prevalent then as it is now or I would never have done it, but it worked. He was going on about how I needed to be with someone who was more my contemporary and who could treat me better than he would and I was so frustrated with him. He just couldn't see how much I wanted him and so I finally just went for broke and shut him up the only way I could think of."
"What happened?" Sara asked, interested despite herself.
She was rewarded with a genuine smile from the tired woman on the sofa. "He kissed me back."
At that moment, a tinny cry reached their ears and after a moment of disorientation, Sara traced the sound back to a baby monitor, half buried in the cushions of the sofa. Linda Foy scurried into the room. "Do you…"
"Bring her here, please." Jenna sat up a little further on the sofa and pushed the blankets she had been wrapped in off to the side. She gave the CSIs an apologetic look. "Sorry about that. She didn't sleep well last night. She doesn't know what's going on, but she knows something isn't right."
Sara and Grissom both murmured something reassuring as Linda reentered the room with the very unhappy little girl on her hip. Leah's blonde hair stuck out in spikes and her little face was an angry red either from sleeping or crying. Even now she looked as though she wasn't sure which of the two she wanted to be doing. She fretted and pushed away from her Grandmother as she caught sight of Jenna, leaning towards her mother with no regard for gravity. She was giving off a kind of hiccupping whimper that ceased immediately as her mother took her in her arms and settled her into what little lap she had left with cooed words and caresses. Sara noted that she brushed her hand across her daughter's brow in much the same way her own mother had just a few minutes previously and her heart clenched again.
"There now, baby. That's better isn't it?" Jenna snuggled the girl close. Leah stuck her thumb in her mouth and sucked viciously.
"I'll get her a juice," Linda offered and headed out of the room.
"We're taking up far too much of your time," Grissom began, but Jenna stopped him with a wave. "No, it's okay. Ask me whatever questions you need to. I want to do anything I can to help you find out who did this to my husband." She was all seriousness. "I'll have the rest of my life to mourn him. Now, I want to do everything I can to make sure that whoever did this gets punished."
"Do you know of anyone who could possibly have wanted to harm him?" Sara asked.
"No, not a soul. Jonathan didn't get along with everyone he worked with all the time, but most of the things that came up at work were work related. He occasionally argued with Dr. Norfield about budgetary concerns and there were a couple of lab techs that got fired a few years ago because they mishandled some lab equipment and ruined several weeks worth of data, but Jonathan was only peripherally involved in that."
Sara made a mental note to check on the firings though her instinct told her it was unrelated. She quashed the voice in her head that reminded her that just a few short hours ago she had assumed this woman was Dr. Morris' daughter.
"Can you tell us anything about Dr. Ayers?" Grissom asked.
Jenna frowned in thought. "Simon? Not especially. He and Jonathan were co-workers for years before I ever even came aboard. I know they had different priorities for the lab, but that's to be expected. You can't run a lab where no one cares about the finances and you can't run a lab where no one cares about the science. Between the two or them, their lab's bases were covered. NorGen is very successful, but it is a surprisingly cut-throat business they're in. There are so many different labs across the world working on the same type of research that at any moment another organization five thousand miles away might beat you to the punch and solidify the determining predictors for something your lab has spent six months on and then you're out. It is pretty fast-paced and very expensive. Jonathan's job was the fast-pace. Simon's job was the expensive."
"Did he talk about work much at home?"
"Of course. "That's what happens when science geeks get together, we talk about science. Jonathan was very passionate about his work. He was excited about the advancements the lab was making and felt that the work they were doing was going to revolutionize preventative medicine." She toyed with a piece of frayed yarn, eyes downcast. "Jonathan's father died of Alzheimer's in his late fifties." She looked up at them with a somber expression. "Early on-set. The latest series of experiments were a kind of…" She searched for the word, "legacy, to his father." She lapsed into silence for a moment and then said quietly, "and well all thought his father died too young."
"Did he ever mention anything unusual about any of the experiments he had been working on recently?" Sara inquired.
"Not unusual per se, no. I know he seemed puzzled, but he was certainly pleased by the results they were getting with the latest runs, but aside from that…"
"Puzzled?"
She elaborated, "Well the results were much…neater, I guess than what he had expected to see." She hesitated. "I'm not sure how else to describe it. They were getting good results, but they were almost too good, you know? You don't normally see that kind of consistency with these experiments. It's normal to have failures early on as you start to hone in on a pattern. That's why these cycles can run for years without any appreciable results."
"If it sounds too good to be true…" Sara began.
"It probably is." Grissom finished for her. They shared a look.
"Right," Jenna replied, "He was thrilled of course, but cautious. They took the early results to the grant review board, and of course they were just amazed at the progress NorGen was making, but when that was over, Jonathan decided to review the latest cycles himself to see if they were missing anything that might be tainting the data."
"And did he find anything?"
"Not that I know of. At least, he didn't tell me that he did and normally he would've shared something like that."
"Is there any chance he might have brought some work home with him, something related to the experiments he had been running recently?" Sara asked
"I don't think so, but it's possible. He rarely brought anything home with him from the lab, even with something as high profile as the Alzheimer's predictors. Aside from the obvious noise that comes with having a two year old in the house, he felt that it was unfair to Leah for him to be home, but inaccessible to her." She smoothed a hand over the toddler's mussed curls. The little girl had quieted and was nearly gone, sleepy eyes at half mast, still half-heartedly sucking her thumb. "She is such a daddy's girl."
Grissom stood and Sara followed suit. "Mrs. Morris, we have taken up far too much of your time today. If you wouldn't mind letting us take a look at your husband's office and work papers, we can be out of your way."
"Of course, Mr. Grissom. You're welcome to anything you find that might be of use." She craned her head over her shoulder, trying not to disturb the child in her lap. "Mom, would you mind showing them Jonathan's office?"
Linda, who had been hovering worriedly in the background through most of the interview, nodded. "Certainly." She gestured towards a different hallway than the one they had entered through. Sara and Grissom exchanged glances. He gave her a brief nod and she turned and followed their host out of the room.
He turned back to the woman on the sofa and could tell she was getting tired. The deep smudges under her eyes were pronounced and there were lines on her face that he was sure hadn't been there the day before. Tragedy is exhausting. "I appreciate you taking the time to meet with us Mrs. Morris. I know this can't have been easy for you."
"I'll do anything I can, Mr. Grissom. Thank you for doing what you can to find out who did this to my husband."
"You'll get our best effort."
"I have no doubt." She sighed and laid her cheek gently on the top of the slumbering child's head, taking solace in the small, living, breathing testament to her husband's life as another grew beneath her heart.
"You know, it's funny," she said quietly several minutes later. "One of the reasons Jonathan resisted getting involved with me in the first place was because of the age difference. He was actually worried about dying before me and leaving me alone." Her quiet laugh was sardonic. "If he only knew."
She looked up at Grissom. "If he had known what was going to happen, how it was going to turn out…do you think he would have made the same choice?"
"I don't know," he replied sincerely.
"I'm angry of course." She went on, talking more to herself now than she was to him. "I'm furious that it turned out this way, but I'm still glad 'we' happened. If all we had were those five years together, well, that's five more years of happiness than a lot of people ever get…You know?"
"No," Grissom replied, utterly serious. "I don't know." He looked up as Sara reentered the room, tracking her with his eyes as she crossed the room. "But, I wish I did."
Jenna followed his gaze and then met his eyes. "You could, you know," she told him softly. "It's only too late," absently she spun the gold band on her finger around with the pad of her thumb, "when it's too late."
-------------------------------
"Did you get anything from the office?" Grissom asked after they had taken their leave of the grieving family and were on their way back to the lab.
"Hmm?" Sara was gazing out the window into the fading Nevada sun, mind a million miles away.
"Office. Evidence. Probative?" Grissom tried.
"What?" She turned away from the window. "Oh, sorry, no I was just thinking… I took his laptop and some files that he had stored there, but for the most part it looks like he really did keep his work and home life separate. Most of the paperwork I found was bills and taxes and stuff. Not much related to the lab at all. I'm still going to have our guys take a look at the computer and see if there are any files or emails that might shed some light. So far I'm just not seeing anything that would make someone want to kill this guy."
"A lot of people don't need much motivation."
"True," Sara agreed, "but this still seems to have been very specific. It doesn't look like random violence. Someone made it a point to find this guy alone at his work, after hours. Really makes me think we're looking at someone else who works at the lab." She shrugged. "I'll go through all the stuff I collected at the house, but like I said, I didn't really see anything out of the ordinary. Apparently what happens at the lab, stays at the lab."
"Interesting that a guy that was so into his work would have so little evidence of it in his home," Grissom mused thoughtfully.
"Maybe he just had higher priorities than his job," Sara replied, eyes back on the landscape.
Not at all sure how to reply, Grissom merely kept his attention on the road and let the conversation lapse into silence for the remainder of the ride.
A million different thoughts were whirling around inside the supervisor's brain as he drove. He wanted so much to dwell on the things he had learned about the relationship between Jenna and Jonathan Morris, but in all good conscious he couldn't allow himself to focus on the aspects of the case that he took a personal interest in. It was more important right now that he concentrate on the points that were salient to their investigation. He began making a mental checklist of avenues that would require further inspection. Through it all though he found that he was uncomfortably hyper-aware of the woman at his side.
They got back to the lab in good time, just beating the evening rush of commuters as they headed home from work. Vegas was definitely a 24-hour town, but even it had a rush hour to contend with – made all the worse by the flocks of tourists who ventured out around the same time as the commuters to take advantage of the early-bird dinner specials available at most any restaurant near the strip.
"Do you want to grab some dinner?" Grissom asked as they crossed the parking lot, laden with the items taken from the Morris home. "We could order in while we go over all of this stuff." He wasn't sure what prompted him to ask. They rarely took a traditional meal break on the night shift simply because it wasn't a traditional kind of job. Odds were largely against any of the team knowing where they were going to be when lunch time rolled around – lunch time being defined loosely as the meal eaten halfway thorough the day – so it was much more likely that the CSIs would catch as catch can during the shift and plan for something more substantial at the end of the work day when they would often get together and go out for a meal.
If Sara thought the question was out of the ordinary, she didn't show it. "Sure. Sounds good. I need to drop this stuff off in evidence and get a copy of the keycard log onto Archie's desk before he comes in so he can start matching it to the surveillance tapes. How about I take care of that and you…order a pizza?"
Grissom nodded. "Pizza's good. Vegetarian from Papa Gino's?"
"Why?" Sara asked, with an amused expression on her face. "You thinking of going veggie?"
Grissom looked confused. "Going veggie?"
Sara resisted the urge to roll her eyes. "Vegetarian? No longer eating meat?"
"Oh. Oh, no. I mean, I still eat meat. I just thought you might not like to have it on the pizza…" He trailed off.
Sara took pity on him and laughed. "It's okay Griss. I'm certainly not going to eat any of it, but I don't mind if you do. Get half and half. Let your carnivore flag fly. I'll meet you in the break room in fifteen." She started to walk away and then hesitated and turned back, her eyes not quite meeting his as she spoke, "uh, thanks for thinking of something like that though. I uh, really appreciate that you remembered." She met his gaze for a second and flashed a quick smile, giving him the briefest glimpse of the small gap between her front teeth and then she was gone down the hall.
Grissom felt absurdly pleased by her acknowledgment and fought to keep a smile from lingering on his face as he walked to his office to call in their dinner order. It was unheard of for Sara and him to share a meal together without benefit of at least some of the others from the team and in the last twenty-four hours they had done it twice. He tried not to analyze his motives too carefully, afraid that if he did he would find the selfish desire to simply spend time with her at their core.
He was treated to several minutes of elevator quality muzak while he waited for someone at Papa Gino's to pick up the phone. He placed the order – getting a half veggie, half pepperoni pie and then settling in the break room to go over his notes while he waited for Sara to come back from evidence. A few minutes later she slid into the chair across from him, a sheaf of papers in hand. She flashed him a quick smile and bent to her work. They worked in companionable silence until the pizza arrived and then set everything aside to discuss the case as they ate.
"Did Brass have any luck tracking down the elusive Dr. Ayers?" Sara asked as she helped herself to a still steaming slice.
"We've got his address. Brass called and stopped by, but wherever our missing doctor is, it isn't at home. Human resources at NorGen verified that he was in Reno for a conference, but that he should be back in the office tomorrow. We'll drop by then."
Sara nodded through a mouthful of cheese. They had both come in early and could justifiably leave after putting in a standard shift, but neither of them bothered pretending that they weren't going to work straight through to the next shift. Evidence gathering was slow going and the longer it took, the less likely it was that this case would ever be resolved. Though neither of them mentioned it, both were mindful of the little girl and the unborn baby who would do their growing up without a father. For them, if for no one else, they needed to find out who had done this.
"Where do we stand on our hair from the crime scene?"
"Still waiting on Hodges for that one," Sara replied. "He swears he'll have it for me tonight. I had him run it directly against Deena Michael's sample since she fit the visual. If it was hers then we should know it by the beginning of shift. He was just waiting for DNA replication to be sufficient to determine a match."
"Okay, fine. Let me know when you hear back. Archie has the surveillance videos?"
Sara nodded. "I gave him a copy of the manifest too. Hopefully he'll be able to match the keycards swipes with the video footage."
"Good. While you go through the files from the Morris' home, I'm going to have Warrick look into the lab techs that were fired from the lab a couple of years ago."
Sara raised an eyebrow. "And you will be…"
"Here. Going through Dr. Morris' files." He cocked his head to the side and smiled. "With you."
A/N: Once again, a million thank-yous to Foxtoast and Rhee - my inimitable betas