Sara's impassioned declaration filled the tiny lab. Catherine let the sound – and the emotion – fade slightly before saying, "Well, we've done the photos. The blood evidence alone won't hold up in court. Not as a motive for murder." She refrained from commenting on the savage nature of the crime. That was a matter for a defense attorney to explain. "Have the boys brought in the rest of the evidence yet?"
Her acceptance of the situation seemed to calm Sara. "Grissom said they were on the way in." Checking her watch, she shot Catherine a sheepish grin. "That was about three hours ago."
"And all I brought you were some soggy fries. I should have gotten you a sandwich, too. I bet you left that lunch I made in the Tahoe." Catherine didn't even need to see the wave of pink rise up Sara's cheeks to know the answer. "Come on. I've got some change in my purse. My treat at the vending machine."
Sara looked mutinous.
Donning her best Mom Look, Catherine murmured, "Eat or I'll ask Nick to help me go through the evidence."
It worked like a charm. Scowling fiercely, Sara stalked out of the lab – and down the hall toward the break room.
"So…" Catherine trotted to catch up. "Where do you want to start? It was a huge house, and Grissom can go overboard with collecting things. Master bedroom? Kitchen?" An image of Brenda's face as she'd scribbled over her drawing directed Catherine in another direction. "Or…Brenda's room? If Mr. Collins was…abusing her," Catherine forced the word out, "the evidence would have been there. Maybe something to do with the buffalo."
"It's the best place to look." Sara stared moodily through the glass front of the vending machine. After a long pause, she pointed to a granola bar. "Will that do, Mom?"
That earned her a smack on the shoulder as Catherine reached into her purse. "For now. Once we get the evidence settled in your office, I'll call Nance and see if she can run some food by on her way to work."
"You don't like pizza?" Sara took the change Catherine offered and fed it into the machine. "I thought it was a staple of all crime labs and cop shops."
"We eat more than enough pizza at home. It's Linds' favorite food – after McDonald's." Leaving Sara for a minute, Catherine strode to the coffee maker. No one had made a fresh pot. Two inches of black liquid clung to the glass. Catherine debated for a second before picking up the pot and pouring the sludge into a paper cup. She'd ignore the burning stomach in favor of the caffeine boost.
When she turned around, Sara was already tossing the wrapper of her 'dinner' in the trash. "I'm good for a few hours now." Smiling slightly, Sara said, "Thanks, Cath. I get a little…tunnel visioned on the job sometimes."
Catherine suspected it was far more often than sometimes. She didn't say that, though. "You're welcome. Now come on. We have boxes to haul around and the tattered remains of a family to sift through." The lightness in her voice didn't disguise the grim reality of the words. This was one part of the job she didn't enjoy.
***
Even in her wildest imagination, Catherine wouldn't have come close to guessing the amount of evidence seized from the Collins home. Nick and Warrick had either hired a U-Haul or they'd made multiple trips. Thanks to Sara's decision to concentrate on a single room, however, there were only fifteen boxes crammed into the small lab.
Four hours later, that fifteen seemed insurmountable.
"These people had too much stuff." Catherine removed another blood-flecked item from a box and peered at it.
Sara laughed. "You sound like George Carlin. Come on, Cath. I want to hear the rest." She held up an evidence bag and examined the necklace inside.
With a tired sigh, Catherine tossed all the evidence on the table in front of her back in the box. "Sorry. I can't. My brain can't think past opening the next box." She glanced across the room. Only six left in the untouched pile. The rest, having yielded nothing they could use, sat in another stack.
"Yeah." Sara put the bag down and stretched. "I can't believe we haven't found anything yet. Books, clothes, stuffed animals. Grissom's crazy. What does any of this have to do with the murders?"
"Not to mention the abuse." Catherine lugged her box to the finished pile and grabbed another. "If you get tunnel vision, Gil suffers from…" Her sluggish mind wouldn't generate the right word. "…the opposite problem," she finished lamely. "He thinks everything is relevant." Using a box cutter, Catherine slit the tape holding the lid.
Seconds later, the sound of more cutting filled the room as Sara repeated the gesture on her own box. "I bet the DA never tells you that you didn't look deep enough."
Busy digging slippery evidence bags out onto the table, Catherine didn't reply immediately. Finally, when half of the box lay spread in front of her, she said, "Oh, you'd be surprised. Gil's one hell of a scientist. Unfortunately, his Clueless Scientist routine doesn't impress a lot of people." She paused. "Well, if you consider lawyers people."
Catherine picked through the new evidence as Sara started talking. "You mean…" The words faded.
Hand shaking, Catherine reached for one particular evidence bag. It was small. Smaller than almost any other bag from the box. Its import, though, was massive.
"Sara." Catherine's voice stuck in her throat as her hand closed around the medallion collected at the scene. "Sara!" she managed to repeat with more force. "Look!"
***
The urgency in Catherine's words pulled Sara's head up. "Son of a bitch." Bile burned Sara's stomach and throat. As she stared at the blood-crusted pendant, adorned with a large, raised buffalo, a new image filled the room.
The buffalo swayed in front of her eyes – one minute coming perilously close to her face, the other smacking into her father's bare chest. He grunted in time with the buffalo's motion…
"Nick logged this as part of Mr. Collins' personal belongings. It seems he was wearing it when he was murdered." Catherine's voice disrupted the horrific scene in Sara's mind. "I think we have our evidence."
"Yeah," Sara choked out. They had it. They had exactly what Sara had feared. "We have to talk to Tina." If Brass got to her first… Sara began tossing evidence back in the boxes, only years of training ensuring that she got the bags in the right box. "Sign that out, Cath. I want Tina to see it."
Catherine was helping with the cleanup. "You know we have to call Jim, right?"
Sara didn't want to call Brass. Tina needed an advocate, and Brass would focus only on getting Tina to confess. "I know," she muttered. She didn't say anything else as they completed their second cleanup of the morning.
Her assurance must not have been convincing. Catherine stepped away from the lab table and opened her cell phone.
A protest hovered on Sara's lips; she didn't utter a word, however. They had to do this by the book, no matter what her instincts were screaming. And that meant letting Brass lead the interrogation with Tina.
"Hey, Jim," Catherine said into the phone.
Tuning out the rest of the conversation, Sara stacked boxes onto a rolling cart and shoved the heavy load out into the hallway.
***
An hour later, Sara watched Tina glare defiantly at them across the table in a tiny interrogation room. "Look, I didn't kill them! Why would I do that? They were my parents."
Brass' face was expressionless, and Catherine looked on the verge of playing the Mom Card. The latter might have worked if Tina's background had been different. Sara leaned forward slowly. This required a different tactic. "We know why you did it, Tina. So do you – you just told us."
Sara could feel three pairs of eyes staring at her.
The only pair that mattered was Tina's. Confusion, fear, anger… The cocktail of emotions in those eyes tore at Sara. "I didn't tell you anything," Tina protested.
"Yes, you did," Sara answered. Keeping her voice quiet and conversational, she continued. "You claim you didn't kill them – your parents. I noticed something, though. You never said you loved them. Why didn't you say they were your parents and you loved them?"
It was a direct hit. Tina jerked back and went so pale Sara thought she might pass out.
That's when a knock on the door shattered the scene. Brass' emotions were clear now from the scowl he wore. Pushing away from the table, he muttered, "Excuse me," and stalked to the door.
Sara couldn't hear the low-voiced conversation that followed, and she didn't care. She was shaking slightly. She'd been so close to getting Tina to talk. So damned close. The moment had passed. Tina had dropped her eyes to the table and her shoulders were hunched in a classic defensive posture. The interruption was giving her time to find an explanation for her earlier slip.
"Well, that was interesting." Brass was actually smiling when he returned to his seat. "Tina, Ms. Sidle's observation…it's an interesting one. And I don't really need you to explain it anymore. Do you want to know why?"
Not surprisingly, Tina uttered a terse, "No."
"That's too bad. I'm a good story teller." Brass didn't let her refusal break his stride. Opening up a large envelope he'd brought back from the door, he took out a set of photographs.
Sara caught only a glimpse of one. It wasn't from the crime scene photos she and Catherine had examined.
One by one, Brass lined the prints up on the table. "I'll skip the story this time, Tina. I'll just get straight to the point. These were taken at the hospital by Ms. Willows. They're of your sister." He pointed to the first photo. "Do you see this dark patch here? That's a bruise. So is this." His hand moved to another spot on the same print. "And this, this, and this."
Methodically working his way down the row, Brass pointed out each and every bruise. After the first, though, Sara stopped watching the show. She dragged her eyes away from the evidence and forced herself to observe Tina.
All the teen's bravado had disappeared. Tears streaked her cheeks and one hand pressed over her mouth.
"Tina." Catherine picked up when Brass finished. "We aren't here to hurt you or Brenda. The evidence tells us that your father sexually abused Brenda. We also know…that he was in her room the night of the murder."
Tina's hand dropped back to the table, and she reached mechanically for the photo right in front of her. "How do you know?"
"Blood drops. They fall a certain way depending on the motion of the victim." Catherine's professional mask slipped. "Honey, something terrible happened in that house – and not just on the night of the murder. Please tell us what happened."
When the answer came, Sara felt the impact all the way to her soul. "That was the night he…my father," Tina spit out, "was going to touch her."
No one moved or spoke for a long minute. Finally, pushing through the horror, Sara asked, "Why kill your mother? And your brothers?"
Tina seemed to break at the new question. A sob tore from her throat and she covered her face with her hands. "Because they should have protected me."
Brass picked up on the change in pronoun. Looking grim, he reached across the table, almost (but not quite) touching Tina. "You?"
"My father…it started when I was young. I learned to deal. But when he went for my daughter…" Tina took a deep breath. "I couldn't let him do that to her, too."