Natalie's Final Miniature
Disclaimer: CBS owns CSI
A/N Thanks for those reviews and those who are hanging in there for the ride.
Oh dear, poor Heather.
Chapter 9
Sara's injuries were a different proposition altogether, the paramedics did not have enough bandages to cover the entire area and had to get some from other paramedics arriving at the scene, her back initially was treated as you would a burn victim, cover the wounds, but didn't apply the saline, instead they applied some pressure to stem the bleeding, wrapped her wrists, now badly cut from the manacles, and loaded her face first on the backboard and hurriedly transported her along with Heather to Desert Palm hospital, time was of the essence but they had to work swiftly yet slowly to be efficient. Sara's vital signs seemed stable on the ride to the hospital, but she had lost consciousness once more due to the mind numbing pain.
Super Dave came to pick up the body of Natalie Davis and knew Doc Robbins was going to enjoy carving this one up, he took a perverse pleasure in pronouncing, especially as he wanted Jim Brass, Gil Grissom and Catherine Willows in the room to witness it. He said with a smile on his face, very unprofessional, but these guys had had enough grief and needed a smile. He took his reference from a Star Trek episode.
"She's dead Jim."
Three words were all it took to shatter the silence and solemnity surrounding them, and had a small laugh.
"Thanks David, I think we all needed that laugh, now TOD and possible COD?"
"TOD according to liver temp puts death around at least two hours ago, COD gunshot, looks like a 9mm, Doc can tell you more, there's also a mark around her neck, looks like a whip mark."
'Oh god, they've been lying here like this for two hours without any help,' thought a horrified Grissom.
"Ok this could be more serious than we first thought, we don't have a timeline for any of this, we know Heather shot her, and I'd rule it self defence, but the neck marking looks as though Heather had her down first, then shot her, that makes it murder. Catherine you will need to be very thorough on this if Heather is innocent. I don't know how much help Sara can be, find the whip or whips, the gun, everything, also placement of everyone needs to be worked out, I'll send Nick over with some practice dummies once we have shot trajectory."
Grissom had left with the ambulance and Catherine found three whips, all of which had blood on them, the first one having the barbs also had skin and muscle tissue embedded in the barbs and she thought of what it had done to Sara's back, the other two were simply bloodied. The Glock was lying on the floor inches away from the blood pool where Heather had collapsed, so Heather had only fired once she was down, but was Natalie down as well? Catherine called Nick at the lab to bring in some dummies and get the Doc to check for GSR on Natalie's pants and shoes.
"Cath you in here?"
"Yeah Nicky, you got some dummies for me?"
"Yeah tell me where to put them."
"Ok lay one down there, with it's head on that cushion, face down, that is listed as Sara, next lay one here, on it's side facing that wall, list that as Heather, now the other one lay flat on it's back on that blood pool, that's Natalie. Do you have a bullet trajectory from Doc?"
"Yes it was a 45 degree angle," he shone his laser emitter from the Heather dummy through to 45 degrees and failed to land it on the Natalie dummy at all, "well that proves one thing, either Heather was standing or Natalie was."
Nick stood the Natalie dummy up and realigned the laser, clean shot to the chest, bang on target, he then reversed the dummies and got the same result so now they had a problem.
"Doc, you got a result on GSR on Natalie? Negative? Thanks Doc." Catherine closed her phone and turned to Nick, "swab the voids between the dummies for GSR."
Natalie's clothes may have turned up negative for GSR, but the void close to the prone Heather dummy turned out a positive, this only was getting better so how had the whip come into play? For the answer to that she'd have to ask Heather, the other thought was awful though in this job entirely possible. Forcing someone else to do your dirty work had been done before, humiliating Heather like that would have enraged her senses and made her lose her calm demeanor to the killing point. It had happened before, Grissom had stopped it then but only a select few people knew about it. Heather had taken the murderer of her daughter out into the desert where her body was found, tied him to the front of her car and whipped him mercilessly until Grissom showed up and stopped her. Everyone was fortunate that night.
"I think we can wrap this up Nick, it was self defence, without a doubt but I will enquire with Heather and Sara later on about the whip mark on Natalie. Let's get out of here, back to the lab and some coffee then we head to the hospital."
-/-
In the hospital waiting room Grissom was pacing frantically waiting for news from the doctors, Heather was in the OR and Sara had just come out after having her back stitched back together as best they could, but she was still not in good condition.
"Dr Grissom?"
"Yes doctor I'm Gil Grissom."
"As Ms Sidle has you as power of attorney, I'll tell you about her condition, her back looks like hamburger and it hasn't been easy stitching it back together, she'll need skin grafts but that's not the worst part. Something was used to tear the muscle tissue and flesh apart, we won't know the enormity of the damage until she's awake and her back mends enough for her to flex what she has. We have resected the torn muscles but they were nearly ripped right off the bone, plus there was significant blood loss so we are transfusing that as we speak."
"May I see her please? And what about Heather Kessler, she has no family and I'm her closest friend, probably the closest she has to family now."
"Ms Kessler is still in the OR, but it is looking good, the blade looks like it missed the major organs, but once again there is a lot of work still to do on muscle tissue and we still aren't sure that it missed everything, but yes go ahead to room 312 for Ms Sidle."
He poked his head into Sara's room and she was lying face down, bandages covering her entire back, blood dripping into her arm through a tube and she looked pale and uncomfortable. Not surprising really.
"Sara? You awake honey?"
"Grissom? Tell me this was all a bad dream please." She started rambling a bit. "Tell me Heather didn't whip me, tell me Natalie is dead, tell me anything."
'Heather whipped Sara? That didn't sound right at all.'
A/N Well I guess the shoot is ruled good, but what will Grissom and the team think about Heather whipping Sara. More to the point, will Sara explain to Grissom what happened and tell the team? Stay tuned to this wavelength for more epithelials.
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