"He's not here, I don't see him anywhere." Sam barked frustratedly as Captain Brass had them visually sweep the gathered staff one more time.
"No, he's definitely not among these staff. Are any of them missing? Anyone who was rostered on this afternoon but not here now maybe? Do they keep photos of their staff on file or anything, maybe we could identify him from there?" Jo concurred with her wife, offering suggestions to show that the police still had their full co-operation.
"I'll ask them. You two stay put." Both women nodded, not having the energy or the inclination to wander off and incriminate themselves.
"I'm calling Grissom, we need everyone on this case. I don't care if he has to drag the dayshift in to help, we need bodies." Catherine muttered, thinking of the implications of two British tourists dying on their first night in Vegas.
"I think more bodies are the last thing we need Catherine!" Sara dead-panned, hoping to ease the tension slightly, hating seeing the strawberry blonde CSI so fraught. She knew this case had just gone from being routine to being a potential political time-bomb, but their job was simply to collect the evidence to the best of their ability, regardless of the circumstances or implications of what they might find. The body of their first victim was on the way to the morgue already and Catherine had joined Sara in the hotel room. Both women stood back inspecting the second body, crammed into far too small a space to have been manageable without some serious muscular assistance. Catherine turned to her colleague about to whip back a snide barb but paused as she watched small frown lines crease the tall brunette's brow.
"What are you thinking? Murder/suicide? Wife number one offs wife number two and hides her in the wardrobe then can't live with what she's done so jumps out of the window?" Catherine queried, sounding out possible scenarios.
"I'm not sure a woman would be capable of this, not if she cared about the victim." Sara's voice was soft, as though her consciousness was elsewhere, seeing something Catherine couldn't. "This is brutal, bones have to have been broken to fit her in here."
"I'm not sure I entirely agree. The pillowcase over her head suggests the killer was unable to face her, he or she needed to depersonalise her to do this to her. That smacks of someone who knew her. And if she is one of our English guests, that pretty much narrows the field to her wife given the length of time she'd been in Vegas." Catherine suggested, taking in the rest of the room which was covered in a fine layer of fingerprint dust and other evidence collecting substances from Sara's kit.
"Not if it was put over her head to suffocate her. We don't know cause of death yet, let's wait on the post-mortem results before we try and come to any conclusions. As Grissom always says, we have to follow the evidence." Sara retorted angling her flashlight into the dark recesses of the confined space the second body had been crammed into. "Do you think one person could have done this alone? I mean she's not a tiny woman, she gotta weigh, what, a hundred forty pounds? Dead weight, that's gonna take some shifting." Sara shone the torch beam onto the underside of woman's arm, bent at a highly unnatural angle beneath her legs. "There's signs of lividity, and not where you'd expect it from the position she's in. She'd been dead a while before she was stuffed in here." Sara sighed heavily, wondering what could possess a person to brutalise another living being so badly. A confident rap on the door broke any further musing the women had planned. Catherine brushed past Sara, casually letting her hand make contact with the taller woman's behind as she went, subconsciously craving the brief touch even as her conscious mind refused to accept it was deliberate.
"Brass, I was looking for you, we've got another body." Catherine tilted her head in Sara's direction as the sombre brunette stepped aside to let the Captain see her find.
"Well we need to find ID's for them both and quickly. I've just had an interesting chat with our two blushing brides from Britain, they're both very much alive and in love downstairs offering up information on their whereabouts this evening. Apparently, this wasn't their room, some desk clerk told them it had been double booked and moved them a few doors down but mysteriously there are no records for that and he has vanished without trace. I've got them pulling every available CCTV tape of the building for the afternoon from an hour before these two checked in. Greg's just arrived downstairs, want me to set him on them?" The older man filled in the two women who silently absorbed the information.
"Yeah sure, get him a description of the desk clerk and send him back to the lab with the tapes. I want photos of whoever this guy is; if he's not here and there's no record of him, he's worth a look." Catherine replied, hearing Sara take a breath as though about to speak and turning to face her as Brass left.
"Two girls, one guy…," Sara's voice rose toward the end of her statement, her raised eyebrow making her implication clear.
"Every red-blooded male's fantasy." Catherine supplied rolling her eyes.
"What I don't get though is why use this room when there was a free one down the hall? There had to be for him to put the guests who were due to stay in here somewhere else. Why go to that trouble and risk being remembered?"
"You said it looked like she'd been dead a while, maybe he had to improvise. Wouldn't have done to let the newlyweds check into the room and find two DB's." The older CSI suggested. "Have you processed the bathroom yet?"
"Not yet, I was kinda distracted by this." Sara indicated the body with a tilt of her head, stooping to retrieve her kit case and making a move towards the bathroom.
"Why don't you go down and see if David's back yet to transport the body and get DNA samples from our British guests – we still need to rule them out of being in this room given that it is still registered in their names? I'll take care of the bathroom." Sara looked as though she was about to object, her eyes turning stormy, a sure sign of her displeasure. "I'm not trying to take over Sara, I just think you could use a break, you're already into your second straight shift without a rest. And as hard as you might find it to believe, I do give a damn about your welfare." The tall brunette's mouth opened and closed a few times as she wracked her mind for some sort of response but finding none forthcoming she turned on her heel and left the room. As she descended in the elevator, her mind raced through her recent interactions with Catherine Willows. It was no secret that they did not get on, Catherine had always made it clear that she thought Sara to be a threat to her position in the team and Sara had objected to being judged before being given a chance to prove herself; when backed into a corner, Sara instinctively came out fighting. Some of the bust-ups she and Catherine had had were legendary among the lab staff, but recently things had changed almost imperceptibly. Catherine was beginning to offer tentative praise to Sara, starting to share small smiles with her and Sara could have sworn that she had begun to instigate casual physical contact. Of course, Sara's suspicious nature conceded that all this might just be a ruse to get her to let her guard down around the charismatic blonde, a way of wheedling her way in to find more ammunition to launch Sara's way in their next argument but a large part of Sara really hoped that Catherine had finally begun to see past her insecurity to the possibilities a mutual friendship could offer them both.
Stepping out of the elevator, Sara scanned the busy reception area for Brass or David, seeing neither but her vision grinding to a halt on two women so at ease with one another it was hard to tell where one ended and the other began. Figuring them to be the British honeymooners, she approached, fumbling in her pocket for her ID badge.
Jo watched the lithe brunette approaching them, observing the scrutiny their closeness was drawing from the serious looking woman and nestling slightly closer to Sam. The woman was attractive and whether she was aware of it or not seemed to be admiring Sam visually. A flicker of jealousy sparked in Jo's heart even though she knew it to be irrational. Sam felt the miniscule tightening in her wife's muscles and let out an exhausted breath.
"It's ok Jo, let's just see what they want and then we can get a room somewhere for tonight." Sam murmured, thinking that Jo's actions were the result of frustration at being questioned by a seemingly endless stream of officers. Sam did have to admit to herself though that the scenery had vastly improved with the approach of the striking young brunette, far preferable to the Captain who had previously grilled them.
"Are you Samantha Nixon-Masters and Joanne Masters-Nixon?" Receiving weary nods in response. Sara continued, "Sara Sidle, Las Vegas Crime Lab. Would you be amenable to providing me with a DNA sample to rule you both out as suspects in the deaths of these two women?"
"We already told that other officer we never got to that room. The desk clerk said it was double booked, put us in room 1327 instead." Sam growled, fatigue shortening her temper even as she realised it was in her best interests to cooperate. Despite her previous comment to Jo, she was wary of handing over a sample of DNA for fear of being falsely implicated. Miscarriages of justice were not unheard of in any country and it was always easier to pin the blame on foreigners than it was to accept that your own kinsmen were capable of heinous activities.
"I'm a Crime Scene Investigator, I just need to rule out what evidence was in the room before those two women died. I can get a warrant for your DNA but you both look like you could use some sleep so…" Sara left the question hanging.
"Sam, sweetheart, let's just do it. We know we've nothing to hide, they won't find any of us in that room so where's the harm? Come on, we both know the drill. Let them get on with their jobs." Sara admired the gentle way the busty brunette coaxed her partner into complying, suddenly feeling a well of loneliness opening up inside of her as she realised she could only ever dream of sharing something as special as these two women shared. She watched the blonde woman silently acquiesce. Placing her kit bag on the floor at her feet, she retrieved two swabs, inviting both women to open their mouths so that she could take a sample of cells from the inside of their cheeks. She labelled the samples carefully, checking that she had the correct name attributed to each and stowed them with the rest of the evidence she had collected in her bag.
"I hope the rest of your honeymoon is less eventful. How long are you in town for?" Sam assumed that this was a way of getting round to telling them they weren't allowed to leave until they had been cleared but answered the question with strained politeness.
"Thank you. We're here for two weeks." Jo squeezed Sam to her, dropping a tender kiss into her hair as she sensed her wife's discomfort.
"Will you need us to come to the police station to make formal statements or anything?" Jo asked, wanting to know how much the incident would eat into their time, having made plans to surprise Sam with a trip to the Grand Canyon, knowing the petite blonde had a real desire to see it.
"I think Captain Brass might want to keep in contact with you for a few days, we might need you to take a look at some CCTV footage orparticipate in an lineup if we find this desk clerk." Brass had filled Sara and Catherine in on the women's background in law enforcement which led Sara to be slightly less cagey than she ordinarily would have been. The fact was that she felt for these two, who had taken such a brave step in proclaiming their love for one another only to have their quality time marred by an act of mindless violence. She had little doubt that the women were uninvolved in the crime and were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.
"Is there really no chance of us being allowed back into the hotel tonight?" Jo asked, conscious of her own flagging energy as much as she was of Sam's who had begun to lean more heavily on her, the fight draining from her with each passing second.
"I don't see why you shouldn't be allowed into the hotel, your room is far enough away from the crime scene. Let me have a word with Captain Brass." Sara offered, slightly unsettled by her own uncharacteristic enthusiasm to assist the two strangers. Frowning to herself, she wandered off in search of the police officer watching David's retreating form enter the hotel with the necessary equipment to retrieve the second body. The slight brunette shivered despite the still, warm night air, a strange feeling of being watched sending shards of caution echoing through her body, every muscle suddenly alert and poised.