SailorStar9: After getting Chapter 36 out, this is Chapter 37 of this fic. (Sighs) Guys and girls, is it too hard for you to leave a review, instead of just putting this fic up on your favorited list and story alerts?
Disclaimers: I own nothing, except for the plot bunny which, unfortunately, is still alive and kicking.
Chapter 37: Double Cross
"Somebody went to a lot of trouble to get her up there." Brass remarked, as he and Grissom looked up at the dead body hanging from the rafter.
"Why? I wonder." Grissom mused. "Somebody had a grudge against the church or somebody in the church."
"Or maybe they were just mad at God." Brass suggested.
"Well, Jesus died for our sins." Grissom pointed out. "What sin did she die for?"
"Time of death was sometime between 2:00 and 4:00." Adeline reported, cleaning her liver thermometer. "She had a nasty head wound. She was actively bleeding, so she had to have been alive when she was tied to the cross. There's a good chance she died of suffocation."
"Like Jesus." Grissom noted, looking up from his clipboard.
"Jesus had a footrest." Adeline pointed out. "He was able to lift himself up and take short breaths. But this young lady was hanging. Her pectoral muscles probably became paralyzed and the intercostal muscles were unable to function. She was able to breathe out, but not breathe in. In time, carbon dioxide built up in her lungs and bloodstream. The edema builds up in the chest cavity and her heart went into fibrillation."
In the autopsy lab, Sara was gathering trace from the victim's body, putting the envelope on the tray once she finished marking it.
On the other side of the table, Adeline was gathering scrapings from under the victim's fingernails. Setting the marked envelope side, she picked up the magnifying glass and looks at the victim's feet. "Sara…" she called, finding a thorn in the victim's feet and snapped a photo of it.
Sara walked over as Adeline removed the thorn and she looked at it through the magnifying glass.
Just then, Grissom entered the lab and pulled his gloves on as Adeline removed another thorn from the victim's feet.
"Was there bougainvillea at the crime scene?" Sara asked.
"Two shrubs at the entrance of the church." Grissom related. "A row of four on the wall of the community center. Three bushes behind the rectory adjacent to the statue of St. Jude."
"Did you anticipate that question in order to impress me with your powers of observation?" Sara turned and smiled at him.
"Memory's a gift." Grissom remarked. "Just ask Adeline here."
"Don't drag me into this, Grissom." Adeline rolled her eyes as Sara went back to examining the victim's feet.
"Mmm." Sara mused as Grissom looked at the body. "From whom?"
"Who do you think?" Grissom asked.
"Well, I wouldn't necessarily call myself an atheist, but I am not sold on the notion of a higher power." Sara admitted. "However, I used to love the stories of the saints."
"This job certainly challenges your faith." Grissom noted, spotting a bruise mark around the victim's neck and put his glasses on.
"Yes, it does, but I have science." Sara reminded.
"I believe we need a little of both." Grissom stated, taking his glasses off.
"Sometimes I think we made up God just to have someone to blame for our mistakes." Sara mused.
"It's just a theory." Sara called out to the exiting Grissom.
"Something I said?" Sara asked, still examining the body.
"No, dear." Grissom assured.
"I didn't offend you, did I?" Sara was worried. "Did I say something offensive to you as a Catholic?"
"I'm not really a Catholic anymore, you know." Grissom pointed out. "I suppose I practice a kind of secular Catholicism that involves ritualizing certain aspects of everyday life and imbuing them with a spiritual intensity they might not otherwise possess, but I don't want to put too fine a point on it." Opening the box he brought with him, he removed the rosary beads.
"And the rosary beads are a part of that." Sara blinked.
"This belonged to my mother." Grissom explained, holding the beads up against the bruising around Jane Doe's neck. "Take a look at this pattern." Sara leaned in to look, before picking up the camera and snapping photos of the beads and bruising. "Five series of ten beads, each representing the 'five mysteries' separated by five 'our father' beads." Grissom explained.
"Who would strangle someone with a rosary?" Sara wondered.
"Probably the same person who would crucify someone in a church." Grissom remarked.
In the A/V Lab, Grissom was watching Archie load the pictures from the camera's memory chip into the computer.
"Print that out." Grissom instructed, both men scanning through the photo slides when Grissom spotted the particular picture of the bruising around the victim's throat.
"Yeah." Archie nodded.
Putting his glasses on, Grissom retrieved the printout from the printer. Beside him, on the table laid the bagged silver rosary beads belonging to Father Frank Berlin. Grissom removed the beads from the bag and placed them over the bruises in the photo.
"Hey." Sara walked in carrying an evidence bag. "Got another rosary for your collection."
"Where'd you get this?" Grissom looked at the evidence bag.
"Catherine found it in Charlotte's condo." Sara replied. "There is some evidence that the fight started there."
Grissom removed the beads and compared them to Father Frank Berlin's rosary beads.
"Charlotte's bag and cell phone were there, as if she left in a hurry." Sara added. "Are those Father Frank's?"
"Yeah." Grissom nodded.
"Is it me or does these two look alike?" Archie blinked.
"Er, Sprite." Archie blinked as Adeline led him up the long stairway to the Shrine on Tokyotown. "Not that I'm complaining, but why are we here?"
"Is it wrong for me to revisit my roots?" Adeline asked. "Here we are." She stopped at the Shrine's entrance. "Granted it isn't as impressive as the ones back in Japan, but this is good enough."
SailorStar9: Now that's done, read and review.