"Well... I think we found Brandon's grandmother," Nick said.
Brass had disappeared outside to chatter with the other officers, on the pretense of standing guard over the scene. Sara was knelt down by the foot of the stairs that the body was laying across. Nick watched her dig around in her pocket for a sealed packet of swabs. She was back to being angry, if her deliberately looking anywhere but at him was any indicator.
She didn't have a problem with answering him, though. "Yeah. Do you want to be the one to tell him?"
He shrugged, and his eyes fell. "I don't think so, but if I don't..."
She turned her head enough to show the very edges of her eyes to him. "He might stop playing nice?"
He kicked a large chunk of plaster away from his foot. "Yep. And we can't afford that..."
She grinned, just before averting her gaze entirely from him again. "We can't afford to be kicking the debris around the crime scene, either."
He clenched his fingertips around his hips. "My latest bad choice in leadership?" he growled bitterly.
"I don't know about that." Her tone softened so much that he finally looked up. She'd been looking... but she spun around completely on one heel as soon as he returned it. "But don't worry: your secret's safe with me."
He couldn't help smiling just a little as they resumed their examination of the new crime scene. But there were business questions lingering in his mind that prevented him from focusing on the anomaly of her frequently-changing mood swings. And one of them came to the surface, almost as quickly as had the plaster-punting impulse.
"Do we know anything about how this place is connected to our victim? Or potential killers?"
"I don't," answered Sara. "But I messaged Morgan about it while you were bringing the kits in, and talking business with Brass."
Nick waited, and shifted some of the rocks by the hallway door. But she didn't say anything else, so he un-clicked the lock on his kit's front handle, and began to dig around inside it. It was really a mess...
"Hey, Sara?" he asked after a moment.
"Yeah?" she answered him, warily.
There were, of course, a million things he would have preferred to say. Questions and theories coming to mind for all different kinds of topics. So many thoughts, ringing in his head... So many memories... refusing to go away. And it began to feel like an old feeling. Not age wise, but time wise. Like he had felt as a kid, sitting on the back of his aunt and uncle's boat in the early morning, wrapped up in a blanket, staring out at the water. The sun was up in this memory, and he was the first one awake that day. It melded into other memories... More recent. Post his move to Las Vegas. And even, in so many cases, post the ever-present mystery that had always been meeting Sara...
And some, he noted, prior to his beard. Which his fingers were in when she gave in, and looked over at him in puzzlement from his sudden, slow silence. So, he shook his head, and dropped that hand from face to kit. "You don't happen to have any... Oh! Here it is... Never mind."
And when his fingers closed on his improvised target, he rotated his head to say "thank you"... but was stopped in the act by the sight of someone's knees.
"Guys!"
He jumped a little, and lost balance on his heels. There was a slight thud as he fell back, and caught himself on his hands. Sara looked around, and Morgan came down to her knees by him.
"Morgan... could you stop doing that?" he asked. "I was looking for blood..."
"Sorry," she offered. "But I got Sara's message, and so I came out here with what I found. A couple of other things, actually..."
He brushed his hands off on each other. "Yeah? Like what?"
She brandished a sheet of printed paper from her pocket, unfolding as it came. "Results from the paint chips around the victim's body. They were a blue-green-ish color. None of the rooms at the first crime scene had that."
Nick took the paper and scrolled over it quickly, but his eyes stopped on the bottom row, where a composition of the substance's chemicals was listed. "A lead paint?" he said. "There are lead paints somewhere in Las Vegas? Who still uses lead paints?"
"Probably no one," Sara replied.
But her voice sounded echoed, and distant. Nick and Morgan looked around.
"Sara?" he called.
"Up here. Check this out."
He edged around Morgan, and followed the sound of her words up the stairs. The upstairs hallway, for some reason, looked considerably more modern than the downstairs did... They found Sara in the third room from the top of the stairs. It was mid-renovation, it kind of looked like, and there were no lights in it, aside from the one Sara was shining. In the paint, there was a big silhouette.
Sara looked over at him. "Can you say 'fight'?"
His lips turned themselves up. "Fight..." he whispered.
On the other side of him, but a few steps ahead, Morgan rubbed her elbow. "It's kind of chilly in here."
"Yeah... So why would somebody's clothes be lying in the middle of the floor?" inquired Sara. "Look by your feet, Morgan."
Nick looked down where Sara's light shone. There was what looked like a full outfit lying in the center of the floor. Morgan jumped back.
"Whoa," she said, more reciting an expected reaction than actually reacting out of the emotions that usually caused it. "Evidence..."
"Something like that," stated Sara. "Who wants to collect?"
"I don't know," whined Morgan. "They're men's clothes. You do it, Nick."
"I second that," added Sara.
Nick looked over at her, half-expecting to find the remains of another vindictive shot on her face. But she was smiling up at him like she had once done when they were investigating the death of a college frat member. He took a deep breath, and nodded.
"Yeah. Fair enough. Morgan, you go check into the blood situation I was lookin' at. And Sara...?"
In a second, she had tried to hide it. He could tell... An expectation of something unwanted flashed across her face like a goldfish racing around an aquarium. Her eyelids fell a little. A few of her laugh lines faded out.
"Will you be my light?" he amended.
And then, in a blink, her laugh lines resurfaced. "Roger, roger," she returned.
Suddenly, there was a tug at his hand. He looked down, and Morgan had inched the spray bottle he had still been holding out of his grip.
"I'll just, uhm... take that. Thanks."
She backed out from the dark room into the much brighter hallway beyond. And that left Nick and Sara alone.
"Well, anyway..." he muttered. "Let's see if we can get some pictures."
"Yes, sir."
Getting a good angle on the clothes for a usable photo in court was a trial. They could only do so much readjusting before the defense would accuse them of interfering with the natural state of the evidence. They had to use a self-directed source of light, or else the scene's integrity would be compromised. And for some reason – perhaps the fact that the paint smell was much less unpleasant than the decomposing body smell – Nick was not entirely comfortable with breaking the rules. So he tried to capture a good photo with what they had, and hoped at least something would come off well when they printed them back at the lab. If not, he had done his best.
Sara seemed to agree. "We're screwed either way with this one, Nick."
"I know, but you know I hate a challenge." Then he pressed his lips together in false thought. "Mostly..."
It was enough to elicit a little bit of a chuckle. And as they descended the stairs to get bags to put the clothes in, she grabbed onto his arm again. "Really? Then why are you still in this line of work?"
He chuckled. "Because it isn't really a challenge, in the same way as something like that was. I have good help, and the tools needed to take on a whodunit. But when there's no tools, well... that's just plain aggravating."
"I think a lot of these cases can be aggravating. But for me, what would life be without a little aggravation, too..."
"So, how did they turn out?"
She rounded the corner to the photography lab with a Nutri-Grain bar in one hand, and a clipboard in the other. Nick was leaning against the counter with his hand on his head, and a finger on the printer's cancel button.
"Not bad, actually. Thanks to a certain someone's flashlight skills."
She raised her eyebrows stoically. "Riveting abilities, that's me."
He did not seem amused. Or, at least... he frowned at the counter underneath his elbow. "You should give yourself some credit, Sara. Every once in a while, it would be a good practice to adapt."
She shook her head, and rattled the snack bar. "Mm hmm," she offered, placatingly.
He smiled at that. Why, she did not know.
"Where are we at on the evidence I brought back from the house?"
"Morgan and Hodges are on it. I think Pip's with them, too."
"Good," he managed to get out, through husk and tiredness.
For a moment, she was on the verge of asking about that. But there seemed to have been too much personal interaction for a professional situation. Or rather, she wanted to think that; she knew he wouldn't fess up about whatever was on his mind, anyway... So she dropped it, for the moment, and read off of her clipboard.
"Brass wanted me to tell you, he's on his way to pick up Clara Jaffel. They'll be back for interrogation soon. But Brandon's still hanging around."
Nick straightened up. "We'd better go and talk to him, then. That's our best bet until they finish up with the evidence from the house."
"'We'?" she repeated. "Are you sure you need my help with this one?"
But at once, she regretted that. "If you wanted to go and process evidence, you're more than welcome," he started to say.
"Well... That's... not what I meant. I just mean, if you think he won't respond badly to my being there..."
"That's not what you meant, either," he called her bluff.
She bit her lower lip. "No, I suppose it isn't. What I meant was, if you wanted a break, I'll go back to evidence."
"A break from what?"
She could not think. Fortunately for her in that moment, her mouth didn't move as fast as her mind. But she didn't have to land anywhere, because the best of his supervisory talents poked through.
"Let's go for it," he decided aloud. "You can be my character witness. You know, if anyone accuses me of getting too personal with the suspect..."
He passed her on his way out the door with footsteps that seemed shorter than he normally took. By the door, he stopped to add one more thing.
"I mean, you know, if you still got my back..."
"Always," she replied automatically.
But he was already on the move down the hall. And as she turned to follow him, she wasn't sure if he had heard that or not.
"We think we may have found your grandmother, Brandon."
The boyish-looking young man across the table from Nick regarded him with an expression of suspicion. Sara watched as her co-worker's practiced fingers deftly dealt out a few of their less graphic photos for their suspect to see. Their suspect who, she could not help but notice, looked even a little more terrible...
He pressed a finger to the edge of one of the photos, and there was a tear following a well-worn, red path on its way down his cheek, clearly before he had had time to take it all in. "Yes," he breathed, when it had sunken in on his face. "That's my grandma..."
Beside her, she felt a stiffness form. It radiated off of Nick, who was gripping his knee under the table till his knuckles were white. She stared at them like she might be able to relax them, without actually touching them in their present company.
"What happened?" was Brandon's next question.
"We don't know," Nick said. "But we found her in the old Grandiose Plastics building, about three blocks away from her house. We couldn't find any information besides its name, but that's where she was."
Brandon nodded like this information made perfect sense to him. "Of course... That was my mom's family's business, once."
Sara traced the edge of the table with her eyes, a crease forming between her brows like an idea had formed into her mind. "Brandon..." she tried. "You said that your parents died when you were seven. But that business closed in 1996. What happened?"
"It closed in 2000," he corrected. "My parents had both run businesses. My mother's was just more profitable than the home care. Everyone wanted to buy plastic products, you know? Too few people in this city care about what their home looks like."
"I hear ya," Nick said. "You should see some of the places we investigate..."
Sara's foot struck his leg underneath the table. In the window, she could see his eye flinch.
"Do you know why your grandmother would have been there?" she asked. "If it closed in 2000, that was still almost fifteen years ago. Seems a little odd, don't you think? And how would she have gotten in?"
Nick did not seem approving of this line of questioning. But he didn't interrupt, either. Because of his earlier talk of character integrity, or some other logic she couldn't have the faintest idea about...
Brandon, however, made an I-don't-know gesture with his torso, and leaned on the table with his forehead behind both hands. "I couldn't tell you. She really loved my mother. She said she was so happy when my father married her, after a few bad relationships. Maybe she just wanted to go and remember her. It's not like I haven't..."
Even Nick couldn't miss the possibilities of the implication behind this. "You've been there?"
"Oh, yeah," sighed Brandon. "I've gone there a few times."
Sara shifted uncomfortably in her seat. Just because Nick could see a potential problem with that didn't mean he would jump on it. But should she ask for a DNA sample? She wasn't on borderline buddy terms like Nick was with their suspect...
"Then that means we might find some of you there," she decided to try anyway. "We need a DNA sample."
Brandon arched his neck. "What?" And then let his forehead bang down on the table, where he left it in the discouraged state he seemed to be perpetually in.
"It's a preventative measure, Brandon," Nick promised. "If we can't eliminate you from the other sets of DNA... or even fingerprint evidence that we might find there, it's going to be harder and take longer to find out who killed your grandma and your uncle. And I'm not saying I think you did it, but court jurors might not be so understanding if we can't prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that you weren't involved."
Suddenly, Brandon appeared to be scared. "I'm going to look like I'm involved, anyway. You are going to find me there, no matter what!" His tone rose. "How are you going to prove I didn't kill them if my fingerprints are on something that somebody else might have used–"
"Brandon, it's okay," cut in Sara. "It's okay. We can combine it with other things that we find. If you didn't do it, we'll know that well before this goes to court."
He sighed, and rubbed his hand over the top of his head.
"Can we have some DNA and fingerprints, Brandon?" she pressed after a moment of silence.
Brandon's eyes leaked again, and he looked up at the clock. "Can we at least wait until tomorrow to do the fingerprints?" he said. "I've been here all day. God... I just wanted to visit my grandmother on my day off..." He sniffled, and brushed his eyes off for what felt to Sara like the millionth time. "I'll give you the DNA, and be back here in the morning for the rest of it. Befor-before work."
Sara dug her fingernails into her palms. That would be Nick's call. She turned to him for a decision.
He pressed his lips together, thoughtfully. "...I suppose we can do that, man. But you'll have to tell us where you work, in case we can't get them from you in the morning."
Sara's heart sank a little. She had kind of hoped for more of a push...
Brandon, however, sighed. "I work at the Galaxy Tech warehouse. I'm on level 3, in the tablet support department."
It was a good thing Nick was scribbling that down. Sara was still reeling too much to really retain anything...
"Okay, then," said Nick. "Sara, can you hand me a swab? Brandon, open your mouth for a second."
As the sun sank to the very edge of the horizon, the interrogation ended. Brandon was off on his way home, and Sara watched him go with crossed arms and a sigh of resolution. Behind her, Nick was zipping the evidence bag with his DNA in it up. She looked up at the clock. Russell would be there soon... and Greg, and the others.
Nick didn't seem bothered, though. "Let's go and get this through the system," he said, almost sounding cheery.
She followed him down the hall with her vision out the window. It was around that time of the day yesterday that she had almost died. And then again, a short while after that. She clenched her hands around her forearms and gritted her teeth. Even without the extra long, draggy quality of yesterday, the day she'd had since had not been a particularly good one. She couldn't help glaring at the back of Nick's shoulder as they made their way to the DNA lab; she usually enjoyed it when he covered shifts. And after his comforting presence last night, his kicking her off the crime scene, playing evasive with his issues away from work, and now letting a suspect go without extracting as much evidence as possible had officially rendered his performance over that day "shitty", in her mind. At least, as a friend.
When they reached the lab, though, it was driven from her mind almost immediately. Morgan and Hodges were both going through their evidence boxes frantically, faces all red... Pip was standing back awkwardly, looking between them like he was worried they might explode.
"What's the rush?" questioned Nick.
Morgan looked up from the long curtain of her hair, and for the first time since they'd arrived that day, appeared more worried and shook up than enthusiastic and eager. "Nick... We're missing something."
Contrary to his triumphant demeanor from acquiring Brandon's DNA, Nick's shoulders slumped, and his attitude rolled over from one gear to the next in a flash. "What?!"
Sara jumped back, and could hear the sounds of other feet landing on the floor. She turned, and saw that their rookie had just returned. There was an index card in his hand, and a fading smile on his face.
"We're missing some evidence," Morgan repeated, in a worried, breathy whisper.
Nick's hands came up to cover his face. His left foot bounced up and down. His eyes darted immediately to the clock.
"Our official supervisor is going to be here in about an hour... And we're missing some evidence? On my shift? With an IA inquiry still waiting to land? Do I have that right?"
Morgan's head fell a little, and Hodges squeezed the box he was holding.
"Yes," Morgan said.
Sara inhaled a large gulp of air, and exchanged glances of concern with their deflated-looking trainee. Nick ran two fingers over both eyes, and looked down at his watch impulsively. Then he turned back to Sara, both ignoring the sudden, overdone look of distress that came across Hodges' face.
"Will you help me with this?"
And she only had one answer: "Yes."