Chapter XX
Open Minds
She couldn't stand it. She couldn't stand watching Sara talk to Sofia like that. Like they were friends who hadn't seen each other in a while, not like a Lieutenant of the LVPD and a Prisoner of the State of Nevada. Not like enemies, not like she and Sara had been. Even when she had been caught up in the evidence, she had been careful, defensive; treating Catherine like an enemy; like the CSI who had worked to put her away. Of course, that was exactly what Catherine had done to her.
The coffee machine - one that had to be almost as old as Lindsey - had spit out something resembling coffee but the cream had been non existent and there was no sweetener to be found so she had to drink the stale, bitter brew untainted. They were in all the way now, past the point of no return. The papers had reported on it; the Sheriff, Mayor and Governor had all chimed in their opinions and CNN had already called her for her statement. What was she supposed to say? 'I think I helped frame her?'
Catherine floated around in her own head, trying to rearrange the facts, to see whatever it had been that she had missed five years before. She watched the trustees, the inmates who were neither dangerous nor under suspicion for any current wrong doings, mop the floors.
"You better not be screwing with Sara's head." Catherine twisted around, ready to scream for the guards. The woman looking at her, though, mop in hand, didn't look like she was about to claw her eyes out though. "What's it to you?" The woman leaned the mop against the wall and crossed her unbound arms. "You don't recognize me, do you? Well, we only crossed paths a couple of times, you know my Dad." The faint accent finally broke through. She only knew one person from New Jersey. "Ellie? Ellie Bra-" The woman shook her head, "Easy on the last name there." Catherine crossed her own arms, "Still above recognizing your father, still hate him?" The girl, well Ellie, was around thirty now, so she was no longer a girl, shook her head. "No. Look, that's not the point, but as he played a big part in putting a lot of these women away, his name isn't exactly popular around here." She sighed, "I'm not half as strong as Sara is; I couldn't take all the attacks." The younger woman's eyes went distant for a moment, as if remembering something. "I just want to know if you're for real."
She had never known Ellie Brass to look out for anyone other than Ellie Brass. Warrick had mentioned something about another girl, but the last time she had crossed paths Ellie she had been trying to pilfer her father's pension while he was teetering on the razor thin line between life and death.
"What are you doing here?" The woman, who had obviously not lost all of the attitude that had disappointed her father time and time again, rolled her eyes. "Well I came for the four star meals and stayed on for the Off Broadway shows." Ellie chucked to herself and pushed a strand of hair out of her face, "I'm serving eighteen months for my third DUI. I'm on my last three, but this isn't about me." Catherine looked at the woman before her. She didn't see track marks on her pale arms and her eyes seemed clear and steady.
"Well?" Ellie waited.
She couldn't believe she was doing this, explaining herself to Ellie Brass of all people. What was more amazing was that she was glad for a somewhat kind ear. "It's for real." Ellie's chin shot up and for a moment, Catherine saw a little bit of her father in her, "What are her chances?"
What were Sara's chances? "I don't know yet, but we're working on it." That seemed to satisfy the other woman. "Just so you know, she's taken more than one hit in your name." Catherine's eyebrow shot up, "Excuse me?" Ellie picked her mop back up, "Like the woman who jumped her yesterday, Sheena Marks. Sound familiar?" It did, Catherine had worked the Marks case. The woman had ran over her college professor for the failing grade the Art History Professor had given her. "She had a beef to settle with CSI and Sara Sidle is the closest thing to you she could find. If I hadn't-" Ellie turned away, "I've got to get back to work." She pushed the mop bucket along and began to swish the water along the walkway, "You know that old saying, it takes one to know one? I'm guilty, most people here are, and Sara can look into every one of our eyes and not see herself in them."
She pushed the mop along, and turned the corner, leaving Catherine there. She pondered the woman's words, and thoughts. Prison had made Ellie Brass wise, or perhaps some of the people the retired Captain's daughter had met in prison made her so. It didn't matter, who would take the word of a con anyway? Still, the sentiments stuck with her. So did her question, what were Sara's chances?
Fawn munched on a handful of popcorn, the only thing she had eaten all night, and looked over the papers she had in her hand. "This private detective was pretty thorough. I mean, did anyone think to look at Sara's on board GPS?" On the couch, Greg looked up from his DN, "We didn't even know her car had GPS on it." He shrugged, "Her Denali had it, but she took her personal car." Fawn leafed through the file's pages. "Her personal car was a Mazda 6, in black, pretty swanky car for a CSI. She must have put in some major over time for it." Greg put down his DN and chuckled, "If you look up workaholic in the dictionary, Sara's picture is right there. She maxed out on overtime so many times it was crazy. One time she and I had maxed out together. We'd been working a crazy couple of cases, the disappearing jogger and then the Nazi case and when we pulled this high profile wedding murder."
Fawn's head snapped up. "Go back, what did you just say?" The man frowned, "The Nazi Case, it was one of the worst-"
Annoyed, Fawn waved her hand to silence him. "No, before that." He sipped his coffee, "The Disappearing Jogger? We found her, dead twenty four hours later." Fawn wasn't even listening anymore, she was flipping through the Detective's notes. "Jogger, jogger, I know I saw something about a jogger. HA! Jogger!" Greg stood and she lowered the folder to point it out. "The suspect mentioned, in several accounts, a jogger. She, apparently, almost hit her when she backed up to leave the Town House." Greg shrugged, "It was a residential area, some people jog at night." Fawn nodded, "Female joggers dressed in dark clothes with, and I quote, 'Long dark hair.'" The petite CSI paced the room and bit her lip, "Back then only a limited amount of the hair samples were actually tested, right?" As DNA was his area of expertise, Greg nodded, "Yes, but all of the hair was phenotypically the same, dark and straight, Sara's hair." Fawn's smile grew wider, "Yes, but Sara Sidle's hair was cosmetically straitened. In its natural form, her hair would have curl or wave to it, wouldn't it?"
Warrick, Nick, and Gillian (when she wasn't working her own case) went back through the crime scene photos and the collected fingerprints. There had been several smudges on the knife's handle. Not unidentified smudged fingerprints or smudged partials, just smudges. "No ridge detail, not even a warped loop line." Warrick shrugged, "If there was someone else handling the knife, they were wearing gloves." Nick nodded, "We still have the knife?" Warrick nodded and located the still-bagged kitchen knife. "Signed and sealed by Catherine herself." Nick grinned, "We couldn't test it for latex trace back in the day." Warrick followed the Texan's train of thought, "But they didn't have Automatic Recognition and Trace Specific Technology back then." They high-fived and Warrick couldn't help but grin, "God Bless Archie and that Nerdy Brain of his."
They headed to the trace lab, ready to talk to the tech, Robin Hennessey, and within fifteen minutes, the knife's handle was being evaluated on a microscopic level. Any stray compounds that didn't belong on the steel handle would be immediately located, isolated and identified. When Robin presented them with the results, positive for latex and an alcohol based cleansing agent of some kind, Robin said it was probably safe to assume it was some kind of hand sanitizer, the two men grinned. It wasn't much, but they were slowly building evidence behind Sara's story.
Author's Note: Good news, bad news time. The good news is that the story is moving along quite well. I've got several very good chapters ready to be beta-read and posted. This is where the bad news comes in, said chapters are stored on my computer...that sort of crashed and is going to be in the shop for an undetermined period of time. So what I'm really trying to say is: It's not you, it's me and I think we need to take a break.