Chapter X

It was aggravating to have surveillance footage of a suspect fleeing and still not know what the suspect looked like. She tried to put it from her mind as she picked up her phone and rang Vartann. Narrating all that she had seen on the surveillance footage, Sara gave Vartann the best description of the suspect she could, going over the probable height, build, hair color, clothing and the Lakers cap. Vartann, in turn, let her know he'd get the information out. They would have to rely on the public, something she hated doing, but, given the lack of evidence leading them to any specific person, they were running out of options. Hopefully someone would have noticed their suspect in the area and be able to offer a better description.

Her pager buzzed as she ended her call with Vartann. Glancing at it, she turned towards the trace lab. Entering the lab, she frowned when Hodges only looked up at her, not wearing his trademark smug expression, nor launching into an overly elaborate explanation of what he'd found. Two thoughts entered Sara's mind, the first being that Hodges was still in mourning over Wendy's move, the second being that Hodges had not found anything to further the case.

"Fibers on your victim are satin. They match her wrap."

"That's it?"

"There was also pavement dust on her dress."

Sara sighed. "What about the trace I lifted from the sweatshirt, or the victim's purse?"

"Trace on the victim's purse all matched contents that could be found in a garbage or dumpster, glucose, fructose, sodium, other food sources, dirt. Trace on the sweatshirt was the same, food sources, glucose, fructose, sodium, dirt. There were a couple hairs lifted, DNA sent back to me. They are from the genus Rattus norvegicus."

"Brown rats."

"Yes."

Sara shook her head. Likely the hair came from the garbage, though it could come from another source if their suspect was living in a substandard environment. He'd discarded the sweatshirt a little too readily for her to believe that was the case, though she kept the possibility open. The rat hair likely still would have come from sitting in the garbage bin. Besides, there were only a couple of hairs, so the sweatshirt would have only been in brief contact. If it came from living in a substandard environment, it didn't narrow down an area. That there were only a few hairs could also mean that the rat was merely healthy. The concentration of those hairs would increase if the rat had sores or had mites. Sara took the print out from Hodges. "Anything else?"

He shook his head.

She let out another sigh. "Well, thanks."

Filing away the print out with the rest of the reports, Sara moved towards DNA. She hadn't been paged yet, but surely the new tech had to have something. She stepped inside the lab. "Hey, where are you on my DNA?"

"Your DNA?"

She frowned. "From my case."

"I'm not finished yet."

She closed her eyes briefly. He had to have something by now. "Do you have anything? Any matches?"

The new DNA tech sighed and handed her a print out. "All of the blood swabbed at the crime scene is a match to your victim. Blood taken from footwear and from the jacket were a match. The blood on the sweatshirt you found also matches the victim."

"Great." At least their theory about the suspect's flight path received some confirmation. "What else?"

"The semen in your victim is a match to the other DNA sample you took, a Drew Bray."

"Her boyfriend."

"The DNA you scraped from under her fingernails is her own."

Sara nodded. She had scraped few epithelials, and hadn't expected to find DNA from any other source. Ingrid Polt had been put on the defensive immediately and hadn't scratched her attacker. "What about the hairs on the sweatshirt? I know you kicked a few to trace, but what about the others? Did you find any that were human?"

"Yes, but I couldn't get any DNA off of them. DNA from the saliva sample on the sweatshirt didn't have a match, but it is XY. The sample is running through CODIS now."

Sara sighed. "Okay. Let me know as soon as you get anything?

"Alright."

Taking her results, she moved away, debating what to do next. Archie was looking over her surveillance footage again, but she doubted increasing pixels would do anything to help identify someone who never showed his face. They had a print, but no one to match it to. Without a hit in CODIS, they would have nothing to help them identify a suspect.

Sighing, Sara glanced at her watch. It was nearing the end of shift. Day shift would be in shortly. She and Vartann could check in with the detective and CSI that had handled the first mugging soon. Making her way to the break room, where day shift would surely meet, Sara decided on a quick break.

She plotted herself down in a chair and began to reread the contents of her file again, and again became frustrated with the lack of leads from the evidence. Needing to distract herself for a few moments, her hand reached over for the remote and she turned the television on. She found a news station and placed the remote down.

The broadcast, at that time, was focusing on other stories, so Sara watched the print move across the bottom of the screen, her eyes scanning for information on the recent explosion in Bern. By now, information on the explosion had become a bit of an obsession. She wasn't sure why, but somehow the news seemed inexplicably linked to her inability to communicate with her husband, as though the bombing had really been in Paris and she still hadn't managed to speak to him, to discover if he was alright…if he was safe.

As the news scrolled across the bottom of the screen, Sara read of the latest breaks in finding out the perpetrators. The materials used had been traced back to a person, though the name of that person had not yet been released. The man, now in custody, did not have any known connection to the University or to the café where the explosion had occurred. She turned the T.V. off and turned back to her file.

Vartann called her to tell her he was speaking to the detective from the mugging two weeks prior. The day shift CSI had been called, and was meeting them at PD. Sara packed up her things and moved to her Denali, climbing in and heading over to the Police Department.

She met Vartann, the other detective, and Jeremy Haigh, the lead CSI on the mugging, in Vartann's office. Taking a seat next to Vartann, Sara went over the evidence they had, conferring with the CSI and detective from the other case. As she spoke, informing them of what they had and didn't have, her pager buzzed. It was the new DNA tech. CODIS had come up empty. They were no closer to finding their suspect. She sighed, passing on the information.

Jeremy Haigh reviewed the print found at his scene, and spoke of how the suspect's flight took him through the Las Vegas Convention Center's parking lot. Sara looked to Vartann, her eyes meeting his, seeming to come to the same conclusion; flight through the parking lot would bring the suspect to the access to the monorail station. No further in their investigation, though with slightly better understanding, the two day shift investigators left, leaving Sara alone with Vartann in his office. She sunk down in the chair. "Without someone to match all our evidence, we have nothing."

Vartann nodded.

Sara sighed. "He's escalated, you know. First it was just a mugging. Now he's killed someone. It might not have been his intention when he went to mug Ingrid Polt, but it happened and it's something he can't take back."

"Maybe it'll scare him off mugging again."

"You know that isn't going to happen. It's just going to get easier for him to kill again. He's crossed a line he can't return from. He's now a murderer. He's already killed. Criminals usually escalate. They rarely stop. He was a mugger, somebody who terrorized his victims. He gets off on the terror. Now he's realized a new level of terror. He's used his weapon, and he's just going to continue on until we catch him."

"Sara," Vartann sighed in only a way Grissom ever had while saying her name, a sigh of wanting to warn but not wanting to hurt. He paused and ran his hand through his hair. "We don't have anything."

"I know."

"Until we get something…"

"I know."

"I hate to put this to bed for now, just like you,"

"I know that, I do."

Vartann nodded. "I guess we should let the boyfriend know."

Sara nodded. "Yeah," she spoke quietly. They would have to answer questions. Drew Bray would want to know why. What could she tell him? There was no why. The crime was not out of love or hate or revenge. She wasn't a target carefully chosen, nor was she chosen out of anger. She was a victim of circumstance, wrong place, wrong time, as cliché as it sounded. The crime was completely senseless. The young woman, with a life ahead of her, did not have to die. Drew Bray would want answers, and there weren't any she could give him. She still had to talk to him though. She let out a breath. "Where is he?"

"Still at the Sahara. He was staying there until we could finish our investigation."

Sara nodded again. Vartann stood up, and scratched at the back of his neck. "Do you want to ride over there together? I could drive."

"Yeah," she spoke quietly. "Thanks."