Author note: Okay it took me some time to get the next chapters, I probably should explain why: I started writing this story when I was on holiday last summer, I started writing with pen and paper and I really want to continue that, so I first write the story on paper and then type it out. I can type pretty quick, but writing takes a bit longer. Anyway here's the next chapter, I hope you like it. Oh and one more thing, all opinions in the story are fictional.
The letters
"Okay, we have quite a lot of cases. Greg is going to stay here to process the cars from the car crash. The rest of you, please keep taps on the cases from Friday. Nick you have a shooting in a restaurant, Warrick go with him. After that there is another shooting at the edge of the dessert. Catherine and Sara, sorry decomp, three bodies were discovered in the basement of an abandoned house. After that pleas join me, I've got an insect-infested body in a parc in Summerlin." Grissom gave the assignment slips to Nick, Warrick, Sara and Catherin. "leena, Klara and Tom are going to be here tonight. Leena is working on our case from last shift. Keep a look out for Klara and Tom."
"Couldn't find a sitter, Griss?"
"No idea where to look, besides Klara and Tom don't understand English well enough to leave them with a solely English speaking sitter. Okay, everybody let's go."
For several hours the lab bustled with activity. Greg was tinkering away with the cars, Hodges was working the trace evidence on the case of the cats, interrupted by the occasional scratching of the scars resulting from the battle with the cats. Jacky was trying to get through the mountains of fingerprints and paw prints in record time. And so everybody was working in their own labs, which were stuffed with little trinkets and photographs to personalize them. In the most stuffed office of them all, Leena was translating the letters, for as long as the rightful owner of said office was in the field. Leena also had to look after Klara and Toma and that interfered with her job sometimes. Tom and Klara would see their parents at the end of shift. Doc. Robbins would do autopsy and then make sure the bodies were presentable for the children. Leena and Grissom would join the children. But for now Tom and Klara were asleep and Leena was making some headway with the letters. Sara had stopped by a couple of hours ago to log in evidence and had left again to help Grissom on his case.
"Leena? Can we have something to drink?" Tom asked as he and Klara awoke. Leena looked up from her work and agreed. Together they went to the break room where they found Greg. "Hey there. How are you?" Greg greeted them.
"We are getting a drink." Proclaimed Klara proudly in English.
"Wow, you're English is perfect." Klara's face lit up from the compliment. Greg turned his attention to Leena: "Grissom was looking for you."
"Thanks. I'll go to his office, can you sit with the children?"
"Sure."
"No need. Sara and I are going to take them to dr. Robbins. After that I'll come to see you, Leena." Grissom responded from his place in the doorway.
"I'll be in your office. I need to finish something anyway…Wait, I think I should come also in case you have to explain something to Klara and Tom."
"Right." Grissom said at Leena's quick thinking. To him it was another example on how used he had gotten to the children. He had thought that or rather forgotten that they would need a native Dutch speaker. Heaving a small sigh he motioned for Leena, Tom and Klara to follow him.
After an emotional and difficult hour, Grissom and Leena found themselves in Grissom's office. They had left Sara to take care of the children, after first consoling them with the three of them present. Tom and Klara had calmed down enough to leave them with Sara. The trip to the lab and the shock of seeing their parents had exhausted Klara and Tom so much that Sara had wondered about getting them home. But first the children needed something to drink so Sara, Tom and Klara were in the break room. This left Grissom and Leena free to return to the letters. "Like I said earlier I need some more time. I haven't gotten to all the letters yet. Have you tracked down the brother?"
"No Brass, the detective who helps us, is trying to locate him."
"The thing that makes this a bit more complicated is the fact that we are only seeing one side of an extensive correspondence."
"Still if these are the letters that the brother has written there might be some clues."
"You are right, but I wanted to point that out before I tell you what I found within the letters."
"Okay, dully noted." Grissom indicate to Leena to continue. Leena moved to Grissom's chair behind his desk to grab some notes.
"Well I firstlaid the letters out in order; starting with the first letter that was written working my way up to the most recent. I have already read them all, but I haven't translated them all yet. Looking at the overall picture I found that the letters were first neutral of tone, rapidly becoming angry and then becoming much more relaxed and almost laid back."
"What do you mean by 'laid back'?"
"It is a bit difficult to explain, I'll get back to that. Now: information from the letters." Leena shuffled some papers around, finally locating her notes. "The brother had moved to America quite some time ago. He wrote how much he liked America and couldn't wait for his brother and family to com to America. Something he often repeated was that his brother would understand his point of view better when he lived in America."
"Which point of view? On what?"
"I think on abortion and euthanasia."
"Why those subjects?"
"Because those are the mean topics in the next letters. This is were they become angry of tone. Apparently their mother became ill. After a long sick bed, she dies. Barely a month after that their father gets ill. Cancer, like with their mother. The father requested that his doctors stopped treatment and euthanize him."
"Did they euthanize him?"
"You sound surprised, Grissom. In the Netherlands there are laws and regulations that allow euthanasia, under strict guidelines. The father was in fact euthanized. The American brother didn't agree. He opposed it, but was too late, according to him. He was angry that nobody asked his opinion, but that claim was unfounded. The letters bare witness to al long and heated discussion on this topic, long before the father had died."
"So the American brother was not happy with what was going on in the Netherlands?"
"No, by the way his name is Daan Gerritsma. I doubt whether he ever visited his relatives in this hour of need. Nowhere in the letters did he refer to an upcoming trip to the Netherlands."
"Not even to attend the funeral of his mother and father?"
"Not that I can gather from these letters." Leena said, ruffling through the letters. Grissom took one and looked it over, lost in thought. Any trace on the letters would have been found and the documents labs had also found nothing. Still something was nagging Grissom, he didn't know what but it was most likely something that was staring him in the face, but Grissom couldn't put his finger on it. Noticing the narrow and often irregular handwriting, Grissom thought that it must have been extremely difficult to decipher the letters: "How much time did it take to decipher these letters? I can hardly make anything out of the writing." Leena looked up from the letter that she was holding and looked right into Grissom's eyes, turning her eyes away, she felt a bit exposed, she said: "Luckily my gathers handwriting is almost as undecipherable as these letters, so it didn't take long. And you can't make anything our of it because it is mainly written in Dutch. Those words are foreign to you, the manner in which the letters are arranged are total gibberish to you. Can I take some of these letters home, so I can work on them there, we can't keep dragging the children to the lab. That will wear them out." Before Grissom could react, someone knocked on the door. Both Leena and Grissom tuned and saw Nick standing in the doorway. Grissom turned back to Leena and said: "You are right. Can you find the letters you still need to translat? We can copy them, but the original hace to remain here. I'm going to see what Nick has to say." With that Grissom laid down the letter he was holding and rose from his seat to follow Nick. Leena started to search for the letters that needed to be copied and replaced the others in the evidence bags.
"Since when can others use your office to work in?" Nick asked with a laugh in his face. Grissom scowled: "Since never, but she needed some peace and quiet. Besides Tom really likes my arachnid."
"Tom likes your tarantula? Okay. Well in the meantime I have solved the break in in the university." Nick and Grissom started to walk, Nick was leading them to Archie's sanctuary: the AV lab. "The actual break in was a fraternity prank. They came forward during the day. The university is going to deal with them on their own." Nick explained, while opening the door to the AV lab. Archie looked up and greeted the two men. "Hey Nick, Grissom."
"Hay Archie. Do you want to tell Grissom the story with the computers?"
"Yes, sure, pull up a seat." Archie waited for Grissom and Nick to sit down. "So, I finally found the computer from which the virus was sent. It was a very good, intelligent virus, something only really good programmers and hackers can make. The funny thing was that the program was saved on the same computer in the personal files of a student. It was saved under the filename: finalassignment. The virus was launched two weeks ago, and it really was a masterpiece. Virtually unstoppable, undetectable, unless you know what you're looking for. I found how you can counter it, but that takes some high tech stuff and a computer genius. The person who put this on the computer network is a computer genius. And with this virus got an A ."
"What do you mean, he gets an A?" Grissom asked.
"Well as soon as Nick and I told the university who put the virus in the network, one professor stepped up and asked to see the virus. He did and then said, I quote: 'so that's where the last one is. Well he deserves an A '"
"Are you telling me that this was an assignment for a grade?" Grissom couldn't believe what he was hearing, this was most likely a first.
"Yes, the other viruses were tracked relatively fast and easy, but they couldn't find the last virus. They had assumed that the assignment hadn't been done, which the professor had thought strange, since the student in question loved the subject and was very good at it, the virus bore witness to that. In the end the student is going to be offered a job in the network security. So the B&E into the computer network was an assignment from the university. No charges, but a job offer." Archie closed his narrative.
"Very good Archie and Nick." Grissom congratulated the happy lab rat and CSI. "Thanks Grissom." Nick accepted the compliment, but Grissom was lost in thought and hadn't heard Nick. He suddenly stood from his chair and muttered to himself: "That's it!" He hurried out of the AV lab and walked to his office, but saw the person he was looking for in the break room, so he chanced his direction.
Grissom saw Leena and Sara standing, while the children were once more immersed in books. Bursting through the doors Grissom blurted his question: "Why did he write letters in stead of mailing or phoning?" Leena looked at him, incredulously: "What are you? Psychic?! Sara just asked me the same question just seconds ago. I was about to answer." Grissom looked to sara, who casually raised her shoulders. "Well they do say that we are on the same wavelength." Grissom replied with a glint in his eye.
"Okay, okay, well I dint find any reference within the letters that could give us a reason as to why they wrote the letters. Maybe one wasn't really good with computers, didn't own one. Maybe it was a tradition between the two men. Your guess is as good as mine." Leena said, while she sat down on a chair and took a sip of her tea. "I have the letters that needed copying. Sara copied them, she just returned. So I am ready to take the children home."
"I am going to call a cab for you. Sara and I both need to finish something here." Grissom took out his cell phone and started dialling, while he was waiting fot the other line to be picked up, he asked Sara to give Leena the key to the house. Sara gabbed her purse and took out her keychain and gave it to Leena. Grissom had finished the conversation and turned towards the two women: "The cab is going to be here in 15 to 20 minutes. Are you all set, Leena?"
"Yes."
"Did you tell Sara what you have found?"
"Yes, she did. The letters do give the American uncle a motive, but it is a bit flimsy."
"How so Sara?" Grissom was always curious as to what Sara was thinking.
"Well what I gathered from the information leena has given the brother was angry, but calmed down, believing that his brother would come around and understand his point of view."
"So he wasn't angry with what happened anymore?" Grissom pressed.
"The tone of the letters does imply that, but the fact that the letters don't convey anger anymore doesn't mean that the anger is gone. It is just…a good attorney would blow a motive based on these letters to smithereens. We need more and we need to verify the things that are written in the letters. Because we don't know what happened in the Netherlands. And why were the topics in the letters or discussion euthanasia and abortion? For as far as we know this family has only dealt with euthanasia, why did the American brother include abortion?" Sara had processed all the information Leena had given them and connected that with the evidence they already had. Grissom could still find himself being astonished at the speed and manner of the working of Sara's mind. But his musings were interrupted by Leena's voice: "I'll translate these last letters, see what they say and maybe I can find the doctor who treated the parents or grandparents. We could then call him or her to verify the things that the letters tell us."
"That is a good idea." Grissom was cut short by Judy: "I'm sorry sir, but there is a cab outside, the driver said that you called for one, is that true?"
"Yes Judy, thank you. Leena and the children are going home. Could you take them to the cab?"
"Sure." Patiently Judy waited for the children to grab their stuff and put it in the bags. She then showed them out, leaving Grissom and Sara in the break room. "You have a fascinating mind, Sara." Grissom moved in front of Sara.
"So people tell me. Most men are intimidated by that." Sara looked Grissom in the eye.
"I'm not most men and I'm not intimidated by your mind. I find it fascinating and beautiful."
"Why thank you. Why did I need to stay here? Catherine has already left, I have to wait for trace, which isn't coming through this shift. And it's almost the end of this shift. So why do I need to stay?"
"I could use some help with the entomological timeline. That way I wont have to stay the entire day. Interested?" Grissom grabbed Sara's hand and started pulling her to his office.
"To see you play with bugs? Always." Sara turned and followed Grissom to his office, where they remained the next few hours to establish the time of death of the bug infested body they had seen this shift.
Author note: Please review.