She strode into the lab like a queen returning to her kingdom. It was hers
again, and the missing piece of the puzzle that had started repairing
itself the night Grissom came back slid into place. She couldn't wait to
do something, anything, even if it was as boring as matching prints or
waiting for the GC/mass-spec to warm up so she could analyze a dirt sample.
Like a dog reentering its territory, she made the rounds through the maze
of halls and labs to check up on everything. There was Greg, Archie,
David. Mandy and the receptionist she didn't remember the name of, there
was Bobby G. She felt better than giddy at finally being home again.
Beaming, Sara walked into the break room, feeling like she was about to start flying. How had she ever needed Oxy when she had this place? "Hey, Warrick!" she said cheerfully, and he turned with a grin.
"Hey, Sara. How you feelin'?" he asked, her euphoria diffusing into him.
"So, so good," she replied. "Never better."
"So the suspension didn't kick your ass too much?" Warrick whispered. "Cath told us you were sick, but. . .there's no way."
"Yeah, I don't get sick," she boasted. "And now my house is too clean to have any germs. . ." Sara's smile shrunk as she got more serious. "But, no, the suspension didn't kick my ass. Whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger, right?"
"So they say. . .We missed you."
"Thanks," she said, her smile returning. "I missed you guys, too. Any progress on the Gregory case?"
Warrick shook his head. "Nothing. Grissom's having a huge problem with it because of the whole crime scene suit thing not leaving us any evidence, so it's gone cold."
"Same with the first two," Sara shrugged. "Hasn't anyone checked up on the owners of the suits?"
"We would've, but Nick and Catherine were out three days last week testifying, and Grissom and I were trying to juggle three new cases, as well as the Gregory case when we had time."
"I can start making phone calls if you two are done with your cases. . ."
"Oh, we're beyond finished. Trick roll, robbery, and a minor assault. Easier than pie."
"You solved a trick roll? How long?"
"Three hours. Hooker stayed in the room next door the entire time we were there."
"Nice," Sara complimented. "I love stupid people."
"Me, too. Makes work so easy. . .You're going to go make phone calls?"
"No, you're not," Grissom interrupted from the door. "Lockwood called, they found another body. . .same footprints, different method. We have to go now."
"Wait, what about Catherine and Nick?" Sara asked. "What'll they do?"
"The judge called them back for clarification, they're not coming in tonight."
"Let's roll," Warrick said, grabbing his jacket.
"Ooh, skeleton!" Sara exclaimed, blowing into the latex gloves to inflate the fingers before putting them on. "Been a while since I've had one of these."
"Careful," Grissom said. "HazMat says there's lye all over the body."
"Lye? Is Ben Weston in the same prison as Barnes?" she smiled. "I'll give Barnes that, he's not terribly original. Two gunshots, a beating, and lye? What's next, making the victim kill himself by jumping in a compactor?"
"Sara." Grissom gave her an eyebrow. The hills surrounding them didn't reach up to the night sky nearly as well as his eyebrows seemed to.
"Sorry, I'm nervous," she justified. "I hate this. First night back and it's Barnes. Give me a break."
Warrick started taking photos while Grissom hunted for trace, calmly desperate for something the killer left behind, but he only found white fibers he was sure matched the samples of the suit they had in the lab. He followed the footprints left by the suit to a gravel road, and sighed. No chance of tire treads, not even a chance to see how heavy the vehicle was. Grissom bagged a sample to bring back to the lab, maybe something wouldn't match what was supposed to be here.
Sara was still scanning the skeleton with her flashlight when he returned, each bone scrutinized for any evidence. "Nothing," she said, when she heard him approach. "But no message either." The brunette straightened and turned to ask, "If this is truly one of ours, why isn't there a message?"
"And what is she supposed to represent?" he asked. "The first two were a married couple, supposed to be us. The third was a little boy, our son. This woman. . ."
"Sure it's a female?" she asked, a small grin beginning to appear on her face.
"Well, yes," he said matter-of-fact. "Look at the pelvis, it's wide, female. The bone structure's fine, not like a man."
"Why don't you take a closer look, Grissom? Because unless I'm wrong, which isn't often, it's a man."
"Sara, you're wrong, it's a female. Bones can't lie." He hated that smug look.
"They may not lie, but they can be altered," Sara explained. "You taught me that. And I've been down here with the body longer than you have. The pelvis, Mr. It-has-to-be-female, is broken, moved. It only looks female from up there because whoever doused it in lye glued the bones to look that way. And the bone structure? It's fine alright, because someone stripped off a few layers. Your female is all man."
Grissom squinted at the bones, pointing his flashlight at the pelvis with disbelief. "I've never seen anyone do that before. . ."
"First time for everything." Sara shrugged. "I think the killer covered him in lye, then washed him, albeit not well, and stripped the bones. Oh, I called Teri Miller when I found the bone thing. She might be able to tell us if there's something still scratched under the stuff that's been taken off. I'm hoping she's got some kind of ESDA machine for bones."
"Did you have to call her?" Grissom had a whiny look on his face to match his tone. "Why can't Doc Robbins try?"
He was so cute when he was whiny. . .and irritating. "Grissom, just because she deserted you at a restaurant a million years ago doesn't mean she can't help us."
"I'm not worried about working with her, I'm worried about our budget," he lied. "If we have to pay to fly her in from. . .where is she now? Canada?" Sara nodded. "If we have to fly her in from Canada, and pay for her hotel room and her ticket back, we can't get new equipment until July. And not this July, July in two years."
"She said she'd pay her own way. . ." This did nothing to get rid of the distressed look on his face, which confirmed her beliefs. "I'm not going to have a reason to be jealous, am I?"
"No! Of course not!" He looked offended that she had to ask. "No, she's part of my past, you are my right now and my future."
Oh, what a nice, cliched thing to say, she thought as she felt herself melting. "So, what's the deal? She's paying to come out here to help us, she means-nothing?-nothing to you, she's been very helpful in the past, so what's the deal?"
Grissom looked more and more dismayed as his excuses melted away like tissue under lye. "I don't know," he said finally. "I just. . ."
"Are still upset she ditched you." Sara grinned. "It's okay, Grissom, but it was a long time ago. You have to get over it."
"Fine," he sighed, sounding like he was being forced to take medicine. "We'll let her help. But for the record, I don't like it."
"Teri!" Sara called, the blond turned from her inspection of the lobby clock and walked to her. "Thanks for coming."
"No problem," Teri said, looking around. "Where's the boss?"
Sara shrugged. "He'll show up, he always does. Want to take a look at the body?"
The anthropologist soon found herself in the morgue, looking over the remains, as an enthusiastic criminalist hovered behind her. "This is pretty unique," she told Sara. "The stripping reminds me of how animals clean bones, it's so thorough. . .The lye helped that, of course."
"What's the weapon?" Teri winced, wondering if the brunette hadn't had one cup of coffee too many.
"Difficult to say, a knife maybe." She leaned closer with a magnifier. "Whoever did it has a lot of skill, though. There aren't any jagged marks on here at all. Very smooth."
"Sandpaper!" Sara exclaimed, the Eureka! in her tone. "Would a sanding machine do that kind of damage?"
"It's certainly possible.You'd have to run some tests."
"Oh, Grissom's never going to believe this!"
"I'm never going to believe what?"
Sara whirled around happily to face him. "Sandpaper," she repeated, a huge smile on her face. "The bones. . .I think they might have been sanded down."
Grissom looked surprised. "Never would've thought of that. Hi, Teri."
"Gil," the blond greeted. "Like I told Sara, you're going to have to run some tests, but the sanding sounds plausible. And she's right, it's a man."
"I'm going to go buy some beef bones and see if Detail will let us borrow their sander," Sara said. "I wasn't going say I told you so, but. . .I told you so."
"You're going to buy beef bones?" he asked incredulously.
"Well, yeah," she said.
"You?"
"Me," she confirmed. "It's okay. We can give them to Scope when I'm done."
"You sure you'll be okay? Because if I get a call from the butcher. . ."
Teri watched the exchange with confusion. Why was he having issues with Sara buying bones, and who or what was Scope? "Why won't Sara be okay with buying bones?" she asked.
"I'm a vegetarian," Sara explained. "And Gris here's afraid I'm going to lose my lunch in the store. But it's not like a cow bone's that different from a human bone covered in muscle."
"You can't handle hamburger!" Grissom exclaimed. "What's the difference?"
"Um, bones are bones, not covered in maggots, for starters," Sara began. "And humans aren't, generally speaking, ground up when I see them, unlike, say, a hamburger." She gave him a smile and a wink. "Besides, that one time when I wouldn't clean up your experiment.. .that wasn't really about the meat."
"I knew that," he sniped. "The Leave of Absence form was plenty clear."
"If it was plenty clear, why didn't you get why I was leaving? And why didn't you sign it?"
"I was in denial, okay? Besides, you told me to throw it away!"
"Pop quiz, Grissom: What's your heart rate?" Sara teased. "Because if it's over 70, you could always take a walk."
He glared at her. "Sare, go buy the bones. Go."
"Trying to get rid of me?"
"If you don't go right now. . ." he warned, she grinned impishly at him and took off. Grissom sighed, shaking his head as he turned back to Teri. "The things I put up with. . ."
"Who's Scope?" Teri asked.
"She's our dog."
Oh. " 'Our' as in you and Sara?" He nodded. "I never pegged you as a dog person," she said, turning back to the bones.
"I'm not really. But Sara.has a way to make you enthusiastic about almost anything. Except tofu. She can't convince me how it's good for you." He shrugged. "People change."
I'll say. "How long have the two of you."
"Awhile. Married almost three years."
"You married her!" she squeaked, nearly falling face first into the body.
He chuckled. "Yeah, that's what everyone else said."
Holy crap. . .she forced herself to breath. "I wouldn't have pegged you as a. . .husband," Teri choked. This was Gil Grissom, the man who couldn't be bothered to turn off his phone on a date just in case there was a murder. She couldn't even imagine being married to him.
"Me, neither. But it was Sara. . ." He shrugged. "How could I not?"
How could he not? How could he? Sara, from what she had seen, was exactly like him, only more eager about. . .everything. Well, Teri thought, I guess it would work. She picked up a rib, scanning it closely.
There was a small fish etched into the bone, dead center. "What the hell?"
Grissom looked at the bone she had just handed him. "That's a new way of saying it," he commented.
"Saying what?"
"This is the fish," Grissom explained, gesturing at the image. She looked at him like he was speaking gibberish. "Sara didn't tell you, did she?" he asked, seeing the confusion on her face.
The blond shook her head, said, "Why don't you explain it to me while I check the rest of these ribs?"
Beaming, Sara walked into the break room, feeling like she was about to start flying. How had she ever needed Oxy when she had this place? "Hey, Warrick!" she said cheerfully, and he turned with a grin.
"Hey, Sara. How you feelin'?" he asked, her euphoria diffusing into him.
"So, so good," she replied. "Never better."
"So the suspension didn't kick your ass too much?" Warrick whispered. "Cath told us you were sick, but. . .there's no way."
"Yeah, I don't get sick," she boasted. "And now my house is too clean to have any germs. . ." Sara's smile shrunk as she got more serious. "But, no, the suspension didn't kick my ass. Whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger, right?"
"So they say. . .We missed you."
"Thanks," she said, her smile returning. "I missed you guys, too. Any progress on the Gregory case?"
Warrick shook his head. "Nothing. Grissom's having a huge problem with it because of the whole crime scene suit thing not leaving us any evidence, so it's gone cold."
"Same with the first two," Sara shrugged. "Hasn't anyone checked up on the owners of the suits?"
"We would've, but Nick and Catherine were out three days last week testifying, and Grissom and I were trying to juggle three new cases, as well as the Gregory case when we had time."
"I can start making phone calls if you two are done with your cases. . ."
"Oh, we're beyond finished. Trick roll, robbery, and a minor assault. Easier than pie."
"You solved a trick roll? How long?"
"Three hours. Hooker stayed in the room next door the entire time we were there."
"Nice," Sara complimented. "I love stupid people."
"Me, too. Makes work so easy. . .You're going to go make phone calls?"
"No, you're not," Grissom interrupted from the door. "Lockwood called, they found another body. . .same footprints, different method. We have to go now."
"Wait, what about Catherine and Nick?" Sara asked. "What'll they do?"
"The judge called them back for clarification, they're not coming in tonight."
"Let's roll," Warrick said, grabbing his jacket.
"Ooh, skeleton!" Sara exclaimed, blowing into the latex gloves to inflate the fingers before putting them on. "Been a while since I've had one of these."
"Careful," Grissom said. "HazMat says there's lye all over the body."
"Lye? Is Ben Weston in the same prison as Barnes?" she smiled. "I'll give Barnes that, he's not terribly original. Two gunshots, a beating, and lye? What's next, making the victim kill himself by jumping in a compactor?"
"Sara." Grissom gave her an eyebrow. The hills surrounding them didn't reach up to the night sky nearly as well as his eyebrows seemed to.
"Sorry, I'm nervous," she justified. "I hate this. First night back and it's Barnes. Give me a break."
Warrick started taking photos while Grissom hunted for trace, calmly desperate for something the killer left behind, but he only found white fibers he was sure matched the samples of the suit they had in the lab. He followed the footprints left by the suit to a gravel road, and sighed. No chance of tire treads, not even a chance to see how heavy the vehicle was. Grissom bagged a sample to bring back to the lab, maybe something wouldn't match what was supposed to be here.
Sara was still scanning the skeleton with her flashlight when he returned, each bone scrutinized for any evidence. "Nothing," she said, when she heard him approach. "But no message either." The brunette straightened and turned to ask, "If this is truly one of ours, why isn't there a message?"
"And what is she supposed to represent?" he asked. "The first two were a married couple, supposed to be us. The third was a little boy, our son. This woman. . ."
"Sure it's a female?" she asked, a small grin beginning to appear on her face.
"Well, yes," he said matter-of-fact. "Look at the pelvis, it's wide, female. The bone structure's fine, not like a man."
"Why don't you take a closer look, Grissom? Because unless I'm wrong, which isn't often, it's a man."
"Sara, you're wrong, it's a female. Bones can't lie." He hated that smug look.
"They may not lie, but they can be altered," Sara explained. "You taught me that. And I've been down here with the body longer than you have. The pelvis, Mr. It-has-to-be-female, is broken, moved. It only looks female from up there because whoever doused it in lye glued the bones to look that way. And the bone structure? It's fine alright, because someone stripped off a few layers. Your female is all man."
Grissom squinted at the bones, pointing his flashlight at the pelvis with disbelief. "I've never seen anyone do that before. . ."
"First time for everything." Sara shrugged. "I think the killer covered him in lye, then washed him, albeit not well, and stripped the bones. Oh, I called Teri Miller when I found the bone thing. She might be able to tell us if there's something still scratched under the stuff that's been taken off. I'm hoping she's got some kind of ESDA machine for bones."
"Did you have to call her?" Grissom had a whiny look on his face to match his tone. "Why can't Doc Robbins try?"
He was so cute when he was whiny. . .and irritating. "Grissom, just because she deserted you at a restaurant a million years ago doesn't mean she can't help us."
"I'm not worried about working with her, I'm worried about our budget," he lied. "If we have to pay to fly her in from. . .where is she now? Canada?" Sara nodded. "If we have to fly her in from Canada, and pay for her hotel room and her ticket back, we can't get new equipment until July. And not this July, July in two years."
"She said she'd pay her own way. . ." This did nothing to get rid of the distressed look on his face, which confirmed her beliefs. "I'm not going to have a reason to be jealous, am I?"
"No! Of course not!" He looked offended that she had to ask. "No, she's part of my past, you are my right now and my future."
Oh, what a nice, cliched thing to say, she thought as she felt herself melting. "So, what's the deal? She's paying to come out here to help us, she means-nothing?-nothing to you, she's been very helpful in the past, so what's the deal?"
Grissom looked more and more dismayed as his excuses melted away like tissue under lye. "I don't know," he said finally. "I just. . ."
"Are still upset she ditched you." Sara grinned. "It's okay, Grissom, but it was a long time ago. You have to get over it."
"Fine," he sighed, sounding like he was being forced to take medicine. "We'll let her help. But for the record, I don't like it."
"Teri!" Sara called, the blond turned from her inspection of the lobby clock and walked to her. "Thanks for coming."
"No problem," Teri said, looking around. "Where's the boss?"
Sara shrugged. "He'll show up, he always does. Want to take a look at the body?"
The anthropologist soon found herself in the morgue, looking over the remains, as an enthusiastic criminalist hovered behind her. "This is pretty unique," she told Sara. "The stripping reminds me of how animals clean bones, it's so thorough. . .The lye helped that, of course."
"What's the weapon?" Teri winced, wondering if the brunette hadn't had one cup of coffee too many.
"Difficult to say, a knife maybe." She leaned closer with a magnifier. "Whoever did it has a lot of skill, though. There aren't any jagged marks on here at all. Very smooth."
"Sandpaper!" Sara exclaimed, the Eureka! in her tone. "Would a sanding machine do that kind of damage?"
"It's certainly possible.You'd have to run some tests."
"Oh, Grissom's never going to believe this!"
"I'm never going to believe what?"
Sara whirled around happily to face him. "Sandpaper," she repeated, a huge smile on her face. "The bones. . .I think they might have been sanded down."
Grissom looked surprised. "Never would've thought of that. Hi, Teri."
"Gil," the blond greeted. "Like I told Sara, you're going to have to run some tests, but the sanding sounds plausible. And she's right, it's a man."
"I'm going to go buy some beef bones and see if Detail will let us borrow their sander," Sara said. "I wasn't going say I told you so, but. . .I told you so."
"You're going to buy beef bones?" he asked incredulously.
"Well, yeah," she said.
"You?"
"Me," she confirmed. "It's okay. We can give them to Scope when I'm done."
"You sure you'll be okay? Because if I get a call from the butcher. . ."
Teri watched the exchange with confusion. Why was he having issues with Sara buying bones, and who or what was Scope? "Why won't Sara be okay with buying bones?" she asked.
"I'm a vegetarian," Sara explained. "And Gris here's afraid I'm going to lose my lunch in the store. But it's not like a cow bone's that different from a human bone covered in muscle."
"You can't handle hamburger!" Grissom exclaimed. "What's the difference?"
"Um, bones are bones, not covered in maggots, for starters," Sara began. "And humans aren't, generally speaking, ground up when I see them, unlike, say, a hamburger." She gave him a smile and a wink. "Besides, that one time when I wouldn't clean up your experiment.. .that wasn't really about the meat."
"I knew that," he sniped. "The Leave of Absence form was plenty clear."
"If it was plenty clear, why didn't you get why I was leaving? And why didn't you sign it?"
"I was in denial, okay? Besides, you told me to throw it away!"
"Pop quiz, Grissom: What's your heart rate?" Sara teased. "Because if it's over 70, you could always take a walk."
He glared at her. "Sare, go buy the bones. Go."
"Trying to get rid of me?"
"If you don't go right now. . ." he warned, she grinned impishly at him and took off. Grissom sighed, shaking his head as he turned back to Teri. "The things I put up with. . ."
"Who's Scope?" Teri asked.
"She's our dog."
Oh. " 'Our' as in you and Sara?" He nodded. "I never pegged you as a dog person," she said, turning back to the bones.
"I'm not really. But Sara.has a way to make you enthusiastic about almost anything. Except tofu. She can't convince me how it's good for you." He shrugged. "People change."
I'll say. "How long have the two of you."
"Awhile. Married almost three years."
"You married her!" she squeaked, nearly falling face first into the body.
He chuckled. "Yeah, that's what everyone else said."
Holy crap. . .she forced herself to breath. "I wouldn't have pegged you as a. . .husband," Teri choked. This was Gil Grissom, the man who couldn't be bothered to turn off his phone on a date just in case there was a murder. She couldn't even imagine being married to him.
"Me, neither. But it was Sara. . ." He shrugged. "How could I not?"
How could he not? How could he? Sara, from what she had seen, was exactly like him, only more eager about. . .everything. Well, Teri thought, I guess it would work. She picked up a rib, scanning it closely.
There was a small fish etched into the bone, dead center. "What the hell?"
Grissom looked at the bone she had just handed him. "That's a new way of saying it," he commented.
"Saying what?"
"This is the fish," Grissom explained, gesturing at the image. She looked at him like he was speaking gibberish. "Sara didn't tell you, did she?" he asked, seeing the confusion on her face.
The blond shook her head, said, "Why don't you explain it to me while I check the rest of these ribs?"