Chapter 7

Back at the lab, Grissom directed Nick and Greg to the garage, where they were to unload the mattresses they'd collected and begin processing them. Grissom had already checked in and distributed the rest of the evidence they had collected.

The cargo van had been backed into the garage, making it slightly easier to unload the mattresses, most of which were queen sized, and difficult enough in the best of circumstances for two grown men to handle. These were far from the best of circumstances, seeing how they were in the back of the cargo van, itself several feet off the concrete floor, and wrapped in thick plastic sheeting, which made for less than ideal hand grabs.

Much cursing – which was directed at the mattresses, not each other – later, they finally had all six mattresses stacked on the garage floor, two set aside from the rest to begin processing. They were both queen sized mattresses, both stained, the inner coils broken down in places, poking through the fabric quilting in others, whatever color they had once been was impossible to determine, as they were both extremely faded. One had been collected from the room where the boy's body had been found. The other had been in the living room.

With all of the biologicals the mattresses were surely covered in, as well as the possibility of creepy crawlies, both men had donned dark blue department issued coveralls over their clothing, and they were both wearing leather gloves, instead of latex gloves.

On a nearby workbench sat everything they would need to gather evidence from the mattresses: two compact alternative light sources, a plastic container full of swabs, several pairs of tweezers, another plastic container of evidence envelopes, and a third container of tape lifts.

"You want me to process that one?" Greg asked, indicating the mattress in front of Nick with a nod of his head. It was the one from the room the boy's body had been found in. He didn't want to seem over protective of Nick, as Nick wouldn't appreciate that, but he wanted to give him the option. Of course, they really had no idea if the child had been assaulted on any of the mattresses in that house. If he was, then it wasn't necessarily the mattress from the room he'd been found in.

Leaning over the mattress to cut the plastic open with the pair of scissors he held in his hand, Nick shook his head, "No, it's okay." He shot a small smile towards Greg. It was a look full of trust and admiration, and Greg decided it was because he wasn't trying to impose his own will on the larger man, take his choices away. "I'll let you know if I can't handle it," Nick said, as he handed Greg the scissors and began to push the plastic to the sides of the mattress, so it was out of his way.

Once Greg had his own mattress unwrapped, he grabbed one of the ALS units and shown it over the mattress he was processing. Letting out a small whistle, Greg said, "Ugh! These mattresses are nasty! There are semen stains on top of semen stains."

Almost no section of mattress was left untouched by the biological stains. There were old, dully glowing stains, and new brightly glowing stains, and stains glowing every spectrum in between.

Nick tried to hide the revulsion from his face, but Greg knew the other man too well for him to be able to completely disguise it, as he swept his own ALS unit over the mattress from the body room. Sitting back on his heels, Nick sighed, "Well, there's no point in gathering samples of all the stains, as some of them are obviously quite old. We'll collect samples from the most brightly glowing stains, as they're the most recent ones."

Still holding his ALS in one hand, Greg reached into the pocket of his coveralls with the other and pulled out a black Sharpie marker. He would use that to trace around the stains, then photograph them, and swab them. As he traced stains, he also collected several hairs, and some insects.

Holding up a specimen jar containing one of the insects he'd collected, Greg said, "I think this mattress has crabs. Yuck! Makes me itchy, just thinking about them."

Nick chuckled under his breath, holding up something he'd just picked up in a pair of tweezers. "Looks like this one's got them, too."

Bending back to his task, Greg thought he heard Nick humming a song. "What's that you're humming, Nicky?"

Glancing over at Greg with a heated look, Nick said, "It's Brad Paisley's I'd Like to Check You for Ticks."

Rolling his eyes and groaning, before biting into his inner cheek again, Greg said, "Me and my big mouth! I should have kept it shut! Hamburger, Nick, hamburger!"

Nick gave him an innocent smile, before turning back to his work.

Humming tunelessly to himself, Greg went back to work, allowing himself to become absorbed by what he was doing. Some time later, he thought he was nearly done with the mattress he was working on, when a thought occurred to him, causing him to blurt out in frustration, "Ah, shit!"

"What is it, what's wrong?" Nick asked, alarm evident on his face and in his voice, as he apparently thought Greg had somehow hurt himself.

"Just had an unpleasant thought," Greg said, wrinkling his nose.

"Don't burn out any brain cells, Einstein," Nick teased him good-naturedly.

Leveling a look at Nick that screamed, "Just you wait!" Greg allowed all traces of emotion to leave his face, as he dead-panned, "We have to process both sides of these mattresses."

Nick took several shuffled steps back, before sinking down to the floor on his butt with a shocked expression on his face. "Damn! You're right. I didn't even think of that! How long have we been at this, on just these two mattresses?"

Looking up at the clock on the wall above the door, Greg felt his heart sink, "We've been at this for three hours. That's six hours per mattress!"

Picking himself up from the floor, Nick resolutely went back to work, carefully flipping over the mattress he'd been working on and starting in on the back. "We're going to finish these two mattresses up, then we're going to turn in everything we've collected from them. Then we're going to go find Grissom, find out if there's anything else he needs us to do, before we go home for about twelve hours. We're already pulling a double, and I for one could use at least eight hours of sleep, as well as a good meal."

"When's the last time you had a home cooked meal, Nicky?" Greg asked, feeling his fatigue recede in a renewed surge of manic energy.

"Probably the last time Cath invited all of us to her place for dinner a few months back. I can cook, I just find it difficult for only myself."

"Same here," Greg replied. "You like chicken fajitas?" Nick nodded, so Greg went on, "Then that's what we're having for whatever meal it is when we finally get out of here. They're my specialty, and I've been craving them. You're going to love them, too."

Nick gave Greg an indulgent smile, as the younger man began to ramble on.

Catching the smile from the corner of his eye, Greg twisted to look at Nick, "What?"

Allowing his smile to widen, Nick said, "I love your voice, Greg. When you ramble on like that, it just means I get to hear more of it."

Stunned, Greg paused in his work to just stare at Nick for a moment, causing Nick to laugh at him.

"I do believe I managed to leave the infamous Greg Sanders – blabbermouth extraordinaire – speechless!"

"You - you like my voice?" Greg squeaked, when he finally found his voice again.

"It's one of the first things about you that attracted me," Nick said quietly, a wistful look crossing his features, before he turned back to the mattress in front of him again. "Come on, let's get these two mattresses done, so we can get out of here."

A little over three hours later, they had finished up with the two mattresses, wrapped them back up in their thick plastic shrouds, and stored them with the other four mattresses in the large evidence locker maintained in the garage for oversized evidence.

As they headed deeper into the lab, they ran into Grissom heading their way.

"Oh, good. You two done with those mattresses?"

They looked at each other with a snort of laughter, causing Grissom to blink at them in impatience.

"I don't think there was a joke in that," he said a bit sternly.

Glancing at Greg again, Nick spoke up, "Sorry, Gris. We brought six mattresses back to the lab with us. Each mattress has to be processed front and back. It took us six hours to process the two we got done." To make sure Grissom realized that was six hours per mattress, Nick said, "That wasn't three hours per mattress, that was six hours per mattress. We each processed one."

Nodding his understanding, Grissom said, "Okay, that actually makes sense. Suppose you need a break from them for a while, then."

Nick and Greg exchanged another knowing look, before turning to face their boss again.

Grissom held out a ten card to Greg, "These are the prints from the first body. Day shift never got around to scanning them into the system and running them." Turning towards Nick, Grissom said, "Doc Robbins just called a few minutes ago, he's got the preliminary done on both boys. Let's go print the second boy and see what he's got for us."

Greg walked as far as the print lab with the other two men. Tapping the ten card against the fingertips of his left hand, he stared after them, concern written plainly on his face, until they had disappeared around the corner at the end of the hallway. He hoped Nick would still be in the mood for those fajitas, but it wouldn't surprise him if Nick lost his appetite, after having to see those two little boys laid out on shiny stainless steel in the morgue.

Putting Nick out of his mind for the time being, Greg strode into the print lab, and settled down at the computer. Within minutes, he had scanned the boy's prints and had the computer searching every database a small child's fingerprints might be found in. With any luck, the school the boy attended would have taken his prints as part of the Safe Schools Program. The program ensured that there was a recent school picture and fingerprints on file for every child registered for kindergarten through highschool in Nevada. There was a push to include taking a DNA sample, as well, but there were still opponents that said it was an invasion of privacy.

While he waited, Greg sat back in the rolling desk chair, and propped his feet up on the table that held the computer. His eyelids began to get heavy, and soon they had drifted shut, his chin dropping to rest on his chest.

A firm stomach pressed against the back of his head, and a strong set of hands kneading his shoulders brought Greg awake some time later. Looking up, he met Nick's exhaustion and pain filled eyes.

"How long have I been asleep?" Greg groggily asked, finally straightening. He looked at the computer, his already souring mood becoming more bitter as the flashing "No match found" box caught his attention.

"I don't know, but it's nearly noon, if that's of any help. Grissom and I just finished up with Doc Robbins." Greg watched Nick swallow forcefully, as though trying to keep his stomach contents down. Not that there would be much to come up, since it had been so long since their breakfast platters at McDonald's.

"Do I want to know?" Greg asked gently. He pulled another chair over for Nick to sit in.

Sinking gratefully into the offered chair, Nick sighed, "Doc's pretty sure they were both strangled. Petechial hemorrhaging and postmortem bruising around the neck in the four plus one configuration supports it. He's going to run a tox panel to be sure, but he said it looks pretty cut and dry." Nick rubbed at the sides of his throat, as if he could feel those fingers around his own throat. Tears shimmered in his eyes, and he choked out, "Doc said there were signs of... re-repeated p-penetrations." Now the tears were falling freely, as he cried out, "Those poor little boys!"

Pushing the print lab door closed, so Nick's sobs would be muffled, and less noticeable to passers by, Greg slid his chair next to Nick's and pulled the older man into his arms.

"Let it out, Nicky. Just let it out!" Greg crooned in Nick's ear, wrapping his arms tightly around Nick.

A few minutes later, sobs under control, Nick pulled back. "I already told Grissom we're taking the next twelve hours off. Let's go home. I-I've got to get away from this case, at least for a while."

Several minutes later, sitting in Nick's SUV, as they pulled out of the crime lab parking garage, Greg said, "You still up for those fajitas?"

Giving Greg a weak smile, Nick said, "I'd like that."

Reaching into his pocket, Greg pulled out his keys and took one off the ring. "Here's a spare key to my apartment. I imagine you want to run home, check mail and messages, grab some more clean clothes. I've got to run to the store and pick up some groceries. This way, if I'm still at the store, you can let yourself in." Greg pressed the key into Nick's hand, squeezing it briefly between their hands.