Thanks to those who reviewed, keep it up!!!!!
Same disclaimers, ect as the first chapter.
Category (I only list here cause I didnt do a very good job the first time): SARC/ GSR
Chapter 2- Theories
Upon returning to the lab, Grissom followed the body to autopsy while Sara
tagged all the evidence they had collected and prepared to join him. While
tagging the bed sheets that were just soaked with blood, Sara flashed back
to seeing the body there, but instead of Amanda Cleavenger dead it was her.
*Dammit, that isn't helping any* she thought to herself, snapping out of it.* I
am going to that autopsy put these thoughts out of my head, and help Grissom
with the case.* Ruminating on the victims appearance wouldn't get her
anywhere, except thrown off the case which is the last thing she wanted, but
the first thing Grissom would do if he needed to and she knew it. Sara
quickly walked to autopsy where Grissom and David where doing the x-rays of
the body to see what internal damage had been done, if any. David had not
initially noticed the resemblance, from years of looking at bodies probably,
but when Sara walked into the room he had to do a double take. Sara noticed
the look on his face grimaced.
"I know, I know, she looks just like me, kind of weird. Can we please get
past this, the important part is finding whoever killed her." Sara was
trying to get the focus back on the victim. Grissom looked at her trying to
gauge her emotional state, usually an easy thing to do with Sara, but this
time her face was tightly controlled, as was her body language.
"So what do we have so far?" She asks, and Grissom notices that she has not
yet actually looked at the victim.
"Amanda Cleavenger, 32, died of blood loss from a cross section of the
jugular; she basically bled out. Didn't take long either, the cut in the
throat goes almost all the way through to the back of the neck; the guy damn
near decapitated her."
"How do we know it was a male?" Sara asks, trying to think more outside the
box and not assume anything.
"I doubt a female would be able to hold her down and do that much damage
without more of a struggle." Grissom answers as Sara nods her head in
acknowledgement.
"Anything else, is that the only injury?" Grissom inquires of David.
"No, we also have bruising around the wrists and some around the midsection,
I will be able to explain that more after I cut into her. That's I all have,
I will page you when the autopsy is complete; she's the number one
priority."
Grissom nods and gives David his thanks. Neither man noticed that Sara had
creeped up on the body looking at the bruising, trying to figure out what
would have caused it.
"The wrist bruising looks like someone held her down, they are shaped like
finger marks; lets try and pull some prints. Maybe her hands above her head
while he attacked her and then moved them to her sides?" Sara speculates,
still not looking at the face. Grissom is watching her carefully for any
sort of reaction; she seems to have her emotions in check. As he is watching
her, Sara moves up to the neck to inspect the site ,looking for any trace
that may give them a clue, when suddenly finding a small fiber of some
description in the wound. Grissom looks at her proudly, takes the fiber from
her, and places it in a bag for further examination. Sara looks up and
smiles at Grissom and he imperceptibly nods at her, indicating she should
continue. Sara looks harder at the wound; finding nothing else and then,
taking a deep breath, finally looks at the victims face. Her reaction takes
both men by surprise, Grissom thought she was under control. As they look
on, she suddenly starts, and steps back; instead of the victim laying on
that cold slab, she sees herself. Without saying a word to either of the
other men in the room, or noticing the stunned looks on their faces, Sara
quickly spins around and leaves the autopsy bay.
"Sara!" Grissom calls after her, but before he can follow is intercepted in
the hall by Warrick and Nick who were coming to look for Grissom to get
their assignments for the evening. Both have confused looks on their faces.
"What's with Sara?" Nicky asks of Grissom.
"She blew by us in the hall; didn't even acknowledge we where there...
nothing." Warrick continues. "It was almost like she was in her own world."
"Oh man, I am not working with her again if she is in one of thoose moods of
hers." Comments Nicky more to himself than anyone. Taking in the expression
on Grissom's face, that was not the right comment.
"No, Nicky you won't we working with Sara. Since we don't have anything else
tonight, you both will be helping us with a murder." Grissom responds
tightly.
"Cool, what's the 411 on the victim?" Warrick asks trying to relieve some of
the tension that Grissom is throwing into Nick's direction.
Pointing toward the autopsy bay, Grissom tells them to take a look, talk to
David, and then report to the conference room in 20 minutes to discuss their
next action.
Shrugging at each other Nicky replies in the affirmative as he and Warrick
enter autopsy. "What is going on around here?" Nick inquires aloud as they
approach David. Looking up, David asks if they are here for tonight's
murder.
"Yep, what do we have?" Asks Warrick as David directs them to the corpse.
"Uh, has Grissom told you anything about the case yet?" He asks a bit
nervously.
"Nope, not yet, just to talk to you and report back to him. Why?" Nick asks.
"Well, fellas, be prepared for a shocker." David replies as he removes the
sheet from the victim and waits for their reactions; he is not disappointed.
Nick just stares at the body while Warrick immediately looks up at anything
but.
"Man, that's just creepy, if hadn't just seen her in the hall, I would swear
it was her." Nicky says as he and Warrick exchange disturbed looks.
"Guess that explains both Sara and Grissoms behavior;, I'm surprised that
Grissom would even let Sara stay on the case knowing how emotional she can
get," replies Warrick as they leave and head to the conference room after
getting the same speech from the coroner that Grissom and Sara just had.
"Knowing Sara, do you really think she would let Grissom remove her?"
"No, probably not." Warrick sighs, disturbed that Sara will most likely
remain on the case.
After leaving Warrick and Nick to get their information from the coroner,
Grissom goes in search of Sara, first looking in the locker room, then the
break room, her office, and he finally finds her 10 minutes later outside
looking at the night sky.
'Hey, there you are." He didn't want to ask how she was; he knew what the
answer would be anyway.
'Yep, here I am; just needed some air. No problem." Sara responds while
fidgeting and rubbing her palms together, not even looking at Grissom;
afraid he will read her expression too easily. He always was good at that,
though she didn't exactly make it hard for him. Sara wore her emotions out
on her sleeve for everyone to see and while sometimes it got her in trouble
like in the Kaye Shelton case, usually she managed to keep them mostly in
check. For some reason around Grissom she had a habit of letting go of any
control and exposing herself. Maybe it was her comfort level with him; maybe
it was her way of trying to get him to open up to her more. He was so
private, never letting anyone in, she can't figure out why she was so drawn
to him, why she wanted more than she had with him. She knew that even if
Grissom had any inclinations toward her, and that was a big if, he would
never act on it and therefore neither would she.
Grissom simply took that as an answer for now. "Good, we have a meeting with
the rest of the team in 5 minutes in the conference room, don't be late."
Grissom gave her a smile with the last part of that statement so she knew he
was there if she needed him.
"Ok, see you there, I just want another few minutes out here." As he turns
to leave, she lightly touches his arm "Thanks, Grissom."
"Sure, 5 minutes." He touches her hand and walks slowly into the building,
turning to look at her one more time to be sure she really was ok. Satisfied
that she was for now, he headed to his office to get ready. What Grissom
didn't realize was how much this really was bothering her and she didn't
even know why herself. Resigned, Sara turns into the building and heads to a
meeting she really doesn't want to attend.
She was the last to arrive and walked quietly into the room , sitting down
next to Catherine who just passed her a worried look. Catherine had been
filled in by Grissom before everyone elses' arrival.
"Ok here's what we have so far," Grissom started, all business and
dispensing of any actual discussion, "Amanda Cleavenger, 32, bled to death
in her bedroom from a cut throat, Sara and I found a significant amount of
blood at the scene and brought back a knife as evidence. Since we are slow
tonight, this is the only pressing matter now and we'll all work it. Nick,
go with Brass and get information from friends and relatives; see if there
was anyone who was bothering the victim lately or even in the past. Warrick
and Catherine, please process the sheets; try and get as much as you can.
Hopefully our suspect left something, Also, we have bruising around the
wrists of the victim; see if you can get latents off that. Sara, you're with
me; we'll test the knife confiscated from the kitchen, the window, and the
fiber found in the wound." As he finished, Grissom closed the folder and
sent everyone on their assignments.
"I'll start on the knife." Sara tells him as she walks by.
"Fine, I am going to talk to the coroner again."
Almost an hour later, after being forced by Ecklie to complete paperwork he
had been avoiding, Grissom walks into the autopsy bay as his pager goes off,
requesting him there.
"Hey, what do you have?"
"Damn, Grissom, that was fast, I only paged you two seconds ago."
"I was already here. What do you have?"
"Not much more. The bruises on her midsection are probably from someone
sitting on her to hold her down; she was struggling something awful and
managed to bruise her spleen. Sorry I don't have more for you."
"Me too, thanks. Catherine and Warrick will be down soon to try and get
prints off those wrist bruises." David just nods in acknowledgement.
As Grissom walks into the lab, Sara is comparing the knife to pictures of
the wound tract trying to determine if the killer used one of the victims'
own knives. Softly humming as she works, she is so into the comparison that
she doesn't even notice Grissom enter. He watches her silently for a moment,
just observing her doing her job, admiring her. Lately his feelings for Sara
have wandered into forbidden territory. He is her supervisor; nothing can
come of it, even though he knew that Sara had not so professional feelings
for him as well. They were colleagues, and he had best to remember that, but
at the same time she was special to him.
"What do you have?" He asks as he moves over and stands a bit too close to
her.
"Damn, Grissom." Sara says as she almost jumps off the stool "You scared me;
don't do that. Well. looks like we have a weapon; the ridges on the knife
matches the wound perfectly. It's an expensive knife set sold in specialty
stores only. Might be something to check into as a contact point for victim
and suspect."
"Very good." Grissom says as he smiles at her. He can tell she was becoming
more herself working the crime. He gives her a rundown of what the coroner
said.
"Hmmm, he was sitting on her as he slit her throat maybe, but that would
make an awful mess on him; someone would have noticed a guy running around
soaked in blood." Grissom could almost see the thoughts going through her
head trying to work the problem.
"Well, lets see if we can figure out what that fiber is." He suggests.
"Ok" She looks around quickly and finds the evidence pouch Grissom place it
in earlier. "Here we go" placing it under the microscope, looking. "Hard to
tell with the blood, but looks like clothing fiber, maybe cotton."
As Sara gets up, Grissom leans over to take a look and concurs with her
assessment. "That wont be much help until we can get something to compare
to, the victim's pajamas were satin. Anything from the window?"
"Nope, whoever it was used latex gloves; there was a small piece caught in
the screen."
"Damn, lets hope someone else got something useful."
******
Nick looked at Brass with a frustrated expression. "Nothing, friends,
coworkers, family. No one remembers Amanda being threatened, stalked, even
bothered. She was well liked, even her subordinates said she was the best
boss they had ever worked for. This looks like a random job, dammit!"
Brass just nods in agreement with Nick as they get back into the car and
head to the lab.
*******
Catherine notices Warrick looking at her like he wants to say something.
They had finished the sheets and Greg was working on the DNA analysis and
had moved onto the body, seeing if they could lift anything from the wrists.
"Spit it out." Catherine tells him.
"Nothing, don't worry about it." Warrick responds, ashamed he had been
caught.
"Come on, Warrick, if its important say it."
"Its odd isn't it? The coincidence that the body looks just like Sara."
Catherine looks up at him and considers what he is not saying outright.
"You think its more than just coincidence don't you? That somehow this has
to do with Sara and not the victim?" Catherine states rather incredulously
at him.
"Just a thought to consider; what are the odds that on our shift, we would
get a murder of someone who is a doppelganger of one of our own? I realize
that there's no guarantee that Sara would work it, but she would for sure
find out."
Catherine takes this into consideration, "Maybe you should mention that to
Grissom, I don't think he or Sara have thought of that possibility yet. Its
viable, but not likely."
Nodding, Warrick goes back to the body. "We aren't getting anything from the
bruising; they used latex gloves. That's a dead end, hope the other guys
have something to start from besides my theory."
tbc.............
*****************************************
"Since when have you been interested in beauty?" Sara
"Since I met you." Grissom
Same disclaimers, ect as the first chapter.
Category (I only list here cause I didnt do a very good job the first time): SARC/ GSR
Chapter 2- Theories
Upon returning to the lab, Grissom followed the body to autopsy while Sara
tagged all the evidence they had collected and prepared to join him. While
tagging the bed sheets that were just soaked with blood, Sara flashed back
to seeing the body there, but instead of Amanda Cleavenger dead it was her.
*Dammit, that isn't helping any* she thought to herself, snapping out of it.* I
am going to that autopsy put these thoughts out of my head, and help Grissom
with the case.* Ruminating on the victims appearance wouldn't get her
anywhere, except thrown off the case which is the last thing she wanted, but
the first thing Grissom would do if he needed to and she knew it. Sara
quickly walked to autopsy where Grissom and David where doing the x-rays of
the body to see what internal damage had been done, if any. David had not
initially noticed the resemblance, from years of looking at bodies probably,
but when Sara walked into the room he had to do a double take. Sara noticed
the look on his face grimaced.
"I know, I know, she looks just like me, kind of weird. Can we please get
past this, the important part is finding whoever killed her." Sara was
trying to get the focus back on the victim. Grissom looked at her trying to
gauge her emotional state, usually an easy thing to do with Sara, but this
time her face was tightly controlled, as was her body language.
"So what do we have so far?" She asks, and Grissom notices that she has not
yet actually looked at the victim.
"Amanda Cleavenger, 32, died of blood loss from a cross section of the
jugular; she basically bled out. Didn't take long either, the cut in the
throat goes almost all the way through to the back of the neck; the guy damn
near decapitated her."
"How do we know it was a male?" Sara asks, trying to think more outside the
box and not assume anything.
"I doubt a female would be able to hold her down and do that much damage
without more of a struggle." Grissom answers as Sara nods her head in
acknowledgement.
"Anything else, is that the only injury?" Grissom inquires of David.
"No, we also have bruising around the wrists and some around the midsection,
I will be able to explain that more after I cut into her. That's I all have,
I will page you when the autopsy is complete; she's the number one
priority."
Grissom nods and gives David his thanks. Neither man noticed that Sara had
creeped up on the body looking at the bruising, trying to figure out what
would have caused it.
"The wrist bruising looks like someone held her down, they are shaped like
finger marks; lets try and pull some prints. Maybe her hands above her head
while he attacked her and then moved them to her sides?" Sara speculates,
still not looking at the face. Grissom is watching her carefully for any
sort of reaction; she seems to have her emotions in check. As he is watching
her, Sara moves up to the neck to inspect the site ,looking for any trace
that may give them a clue, when suddenly finding a small fiber of some
description in the wound. Grissom looks at her proudly, takes the fiber from
her, and places it in a bag for further examination. Sara looks up and
smiles at Grissom and he imperceptibly nods at her, indicating she should
continue. Sara looks harder at the wound; finding nothing else and then,
taking a deep breath, finally looks at the victims face. Her reaction takes
both men by surprise, Grissom thought she was under control. As they look
on, she suddenly starts, and steps back; instead of the victim laying on
that cold slab, she sees herself. Without saying a word to either of the
other men in the room, or noticing the stunned looks on their faces, Sara
quickly spins around and leaves the autopsy bay.
"Sara!" Grissom calls after her, but before he can follow is intercepted in
the hall by Warrick and Nick who were coming to look for Grissom to get
their assignments for the evening. Both have confused looks on their faces.
"What's with Sara?" Nicky asks of Grissom.
"She blew by us in the hall; didn't even acknowledge we where there...
nothing." Warrick continues. "It was almost like she was in her own world."
"Oh man, I am not working with her again if she is in one of thoose moods of
hers." Comments Nicky more to himself than anyone. Taking in the expression
on Grissom's face, that was not the right comment.
"No, Nicky you won't we working with Sara. Since we don't have anything else
tonight, you both will be helping us with a murder." Grissom responds
tightly.
"Cool, what's the 411 on the victim?" Warrick asks trying to relieve some of
the tension that Grissom is throwing into Nick's direction.
Pointing toward the autopsy bay, Grissom tells them to take a look, talk to
David, and then report to the conference room in 20 minutes to discuss their
next action.
Shrugging at each other Nicky replies in the affirmative as he and Warrick
enter autopsy. "What is going on around here?" Nick inquires aloud as they
approach David. Looking up, David asks if they are here for tonight's
murder.
"Yep, what do we have?" Asks Warrick as David directs them to the corpse.
"Uh, has Grissom told you anything about the case yet?" He asks a bit
nervously.
"Nope, not yet, just to talk to you and report back to him. Why?" Nick asks.
"Well, fellas, be prepared for a shocker." David replies as he removes the
sheet from the victim and waits for their reactions; he is not disappointed.
Nick just stares at the body while Warrick immediately looks up at anything
but.
"Man, that's just creepy, if hadn't just seen her in the hall, I would swear
it was her." Nicky says as he and Warrick exchange disturbed looks.
"Guess that explains both Sara and Grissoms behavior;, I'm surprised that
Grissom would even let Sara stay on the case knowing how emotional she can
get," replies Warrick as they leave and head to the conference room after
getting the same speech from the coroner that Grissom and Sara just had.
"Knowing Sara, do you really think she would let Grissom remove her?"
"No, probably not." Warrick sighs, disturbed that Sara will most likely
remain on the case.
After leaving Warrick and Nick to get their information from the coroner,
Grissom goes in search of Sara, first looking in the locker room, then the
break room, her office, and he finally finds her 10 minutes later outside
looking at the night sky.
'Hey, there you are." He didn't want to ask how she was; he knew what the
answer would be anyway.
'Yep, here I am; just needed some air. No problem." Sara responds while
fidgeting and rubbing her palms together, not even looking at Grissom;
afraid he will read her expression too easily. He always was good at that,
though she didn't exactly make it hard for him. Sara wore her emotions out
on her sleeve for everyone to see and while sometimes it got her in trouble
like in the Kaye Shelton case, usually she managed to keep them mostly in
check. For some reason around Grissom she had a habit of letting go of any
control and exposing herself. Maybe it was her comfort level with him; maybe
it was her way of trying to get him to open up to her more. He was so
private, never letting anyone in, she can't figure out why she was so drawn
to him, why she wanted more than she had with him. She knew that even if
Grissom had any inclinations toward her, and that was a big if, he would
never act on it and therefore neither would she.
Grissom simply took that as an answer for now. "Good, we have a meeting with
the rest of the team in 5 minutes in the conference room, don't be late."
Grissom gave her a smile with the last part of that statement so she knew he
was there if she needed him.
"Ok, see you there, I just want another few minutes out here." As he turns
to leave, she lightly touches his arm "Thanks, Grissom."
"Sure, 5 minutes." He touches her hand and walks slowly into the building,
turning to look at her one more time to be sure she really was ok. Satisfied
that she was for now, he headed to his office to get ready. What Grissom
didn't realize was how much this really was bothering her and she didn't
even know why herself. Resigned, Sara turns into the building and heads to a
meeting she really doesn't want to attend.
She was the last to arrive and walked quietly into the room , sitting down
next to Catherine who just passed her a worried look. Catherine had been
filled in by Grissom before everyone elses' arrival.
"Ok here's what we have so far," Grissom started, all business and
dispensing of any actual discussion, "Amanda Cleavenger, 32, bled to death
in her bedroom from a cut throat, Sara and I found a significant amount of
blood at the scene and brought back a knife as evidence. Since we are slow
tonight, this is the only pressing matter now and we'll all work it. Nick,
go with Brass and get information from friends and relatives; see if there
was anyone who was bothering the victim lately or even in the past. Warrick
and Catherine, please process the sheets; try and get as much as you can.
Hopefully our suspect left something, Also, we have bruising around the
wrists of the victim; see if you can get latents off that. Sara, you're with
me; we'll test the knife confiscated from the kitchen, the window, and the
fiber found in the wound." As he finished, Grissom closed the folder and
sent everyone on their assignments.
"I'll start on the knife." Sara tells him as she walks by.
"Fine, I am going to talk to the coroner again."
Almost an hour later, after being forced by Ecklie to complete paperwork he
had been avoiding, Grissom walks into the autopsy bay as his pager goes off,
requesting him there.
"Hey, what do you have?"
"Damn, Grissom, that was fast, I only paged you two seconds ago."
"I was already here. What do you have?"
"Not much more. The bruises on her midsection are probably from someone
sitting on her to hold her down; she was struggling something awful and
managed to bruise her spleen. Sorry I don't have more for you."
"Me too, thanks. Catherine and Warrick will be down soon to try and get
prints off those wrist bruises." David just nods in acknowledgement.
As Grissom walks into the lab, Sara is comparing the knife to pictures of
the wound tract trying to determine if the killer used one of the victims'
own knives. Softly humming as she works, she is so into the comparison that
she doesn't even notice Grissom enter. He watches her silently for a moment,
just observing her doing her job, admiring her. Lately his feelings for Sara
have wandered into forbidden territory. He is her supervisor; nothing can
come of it, even though he knew that Sara had not so professional feelings
for him as well. They were colleagues, and he had best to remember that, but
at the same time she was special to him.
"What do you have?" He asks as he moves over and stands a bit too close to
her.
"Damn, Grissom." Sara says as she almost jumps off the stool "You scared me;
don't do that. Well. looks like we have a weapon; the ridges on the knife
matches the wound perfectly. It's an expensive knife set sold in specialty
stores only. Might be something to check into as a contact point for victim
and suspect."
"Very good." Grissom says as he smiles at her. He can tell she was becoming
more herself working the crime. He gives her a rundown of what the coroner
said.
"Hmmm, he was sitting on her as he slit her throat maybe, but that would
make an awful mess on him; someone would have noticed a guy running around
soaked in blood." Grissom could almost see the thoughts going through her
head trying to work the problem.
"Well, lets see if we can figure out what that fiber is." He suggests.
"Ok" She looks around quickly and finds the evidence pouch Grissom place it
in earlier. "Here we go" placing it under the microscope, looking. "Hard to
tell with the blood, but looks like clothing fiber, maybe cotton."
As Sara gets up, Grissom leans over to take a look and concurs with her
assessment. "That wont be much help until we can get something to compare
to, the victim's pajamas were satin. Anything from the window?"
"Nope, whoever it was used latex gloves; there was a small piece caught in
the screen."
"Damn, lets hope someone else got something useful."
******
Nick looked at Brass with a frustrated expression. "Nothing, friends,
coworkers, family. No one remembers Amanda being threatened, stalked, even
bothered. She was well liked, even her subordinates said she was the best
boss they had ever worked for. This looks like a random job, dammit!"
Brass just nods in agreement with Nick as they get back into the car and
head to the lab.
*******
Catherine notices Warrick looking at her like he wants to say something.
They had finished the sheets and Greg was working on the DNA analysis and
had moved onto the body, seeing if they could lift anything from the wrists.
"Spit it out." Catherine tells him.
"Nothing, don't worry about it." Warrick responds, ashamed he had been
caught.
"Come on, Warrick, if its important say it."
"Its odd isn't it? The coincidence that the body looks just like Sara."
Catherine looks up at him and considers what he is not saying outright.
"You think its more than just coincidence don't you? That somehow this has
to do with Sara and not the victim?" Catherine states rather incredulously
at him.
"Just a thought to consider; what are the odds that on our shift, we would
get a murder of someone who is a doppelganger of one of our own? I realize
that there's no guarantee that Sara would work it, but she would for sure
find out."
Catherine takes this into consideration, "Maybe you should mention that to
Grissom, I don't think he or Sara have thought of that possibility yet. Its
viable, but not likely."
Nodding, Warrick goes back to the body. "We aren't getting anything from the
bruising; they used latex gloves. That's a dead end, hope the other guys
have something to start from besides my theory."
tbc.............
*****************************************
"Since when have you been interested in beauty?" Sara
"Since I met you." Grissom