Bedtime Stories
by Marita Linde
Part 1
My alarm went off at exactly 7:10 that Monday morning and I reached over to turn it off. I let my hand rest there for a few minutes before groaning and deciding mentally that I should get out of bed and get dressed. Running the fingers of one hand through my hair, I used the other to pry the thin white cotton sheets off of myself and roll to the ground.
My head was foggy from still being half asleep as I rummaged through my drawers looking for something to wear. I finally decided on a pair of jeans and a red shirt. Not too special, not too flashy, but very Sara.
I barely trusted myself to drive that morning. My head was throbbing and fuzzy, and I could barely see straight. I massaged my temples lightly as I crawled into my Mercedes. I felt like I could collapse any minute, but for some strange reason I was happy as hell.
You know those days when you just know everything's going to turn out well? Maybe "well" had a different meaning in the C.S.I. of Las Vegas, but it was certainly there none-the-less. There was a feeling down in the pit of my stomach that today was going to bring revelations. Big ones.
As I drove I saw certain houses coming to life, probably with children who attended school. Lights turned on in a couple of rooms, cars backed out of driveways, street lights turned off as soon as the sun started beating down on the city. You've got to love Las Vegas.
I took my sunglasses off and walked down to meet Grissom and the rest of the team, find out what our assignment was today. Inside I guiltily hoped it was a big case, something that would take everything in me to solve. I was always up to a challenge.
"Sara." Grissom greeted me with no enthusiasm, no smile. Good, I thought. He's in a good mood too.
Catherine winked at me, Nick gave me a toothy grin, and Warrick a soft smile and pat on the shoulder. Life as it was. Another normal day begins.
"We're all on a case downtown. Brass gave me the address and nothing else. What do you say we find out the rest?" Grissom asked, a hint of mystery in his voice. I rolled my eyes, but smiled. As I passed him in the hall I nudged him in the arm.
"How you doing, Gris?" I asked, genuinely interested.
He looked surprised that I had asked. "Fine." He said finally. "You?"
"Great, thanks. I have a feeling it's going to be a good day." He didn't seem to share my enthusiasm.
"Don't get your hopes up." Was all he said, then went to catch up with Catherine.
We arrived at the house on Sunset Road about 8:30 AM that morning. Brass was waiting outside to fill us in on the crime scene. As we walked toward him I got a funny feeling in my stomach and was reminded again of the queasy way I had felt that morning. "I hope I'm not coming down with something." I said to myself.
"Fill us in, my man." Warrick requested.
"Nine year-old girl was found half-dead in her bed this morning. Stab wounds. She's being carted off to the ICU as we speak, in a coma. Here's the gist of it. Her older sister, a fourteen year-old, sleeps on the bunk on top of the girl's. Said she slept through the whole night, didn't wake up once. It wasn't even her that found the body, it was the other sister, a seventeen year-old who sleeps in another bedroom. There's no evidence of forced entry anywhere in the house. So it looks like this was an inside job." He stopped, raised his eyebrows and opened the door of the house. "Have fun."
My mind was in a daze. A nine year-old girl? Stabbed in her own bed? Who would do such a terrible thing? If Brass was right, and it was an inside job, then I didn't even want to meet the family. Probably creepy welfare collectors with shifty eyes and cool expressions. I shivered involuntarily.
We walked up the stairs into the bedroom. A young teenaged girl stood in the middle of the room staring at the bottom bunk, dressed in nothing but pajamas. Her eyes were red with crying. She looked surprised to see us.
"Excuse me Miss, this is our crime scene. We're either going to have to ask you to leave or stand off to the side, OK?" Nick asked. I couldn't take my eyes off the girl. She was pretty. Brown and red hair, messed up and hardly in a pony, it hung around her face. She had green eyes and big red lips. Her expression was that of a confused little child.
"What are you doing?" She asked, the tears welling up in her eyes as she watched Grissom take a blood sample from one of the painted steel bars of the girls' bunk bed.
Catherine leaned over to whisper in my ear. "Maybe you should talk to her a while to calm her down, so we can get some work done?" I nodded.
"Excuse me, Miss? What's your name?" I asked her, leading her to the edge of the room, away from the rest of the team.
"Desiree." She answered. "Desiree Wallace." She looked at me closely. I could hardly stand to see her eyes, cloudy and devastated. "My sister's name is...it's Kortnee. Kortnee Jamison Wallace. She's nine."
I half-smiled. "I know. Are you two close?"
She ignored my question. "Will she be OK?"
I shook my head. "I'm not really aware of Kortnee's condition.." I stopped when I saw the sad expression on Desiree's face. "But I'm sure she'll be just fine." I finished.
The girl looked at the ground. "Are you two close?" I asked again.
She nodded. "Yeah. I mean, we're five years apart. I feel like I gotta protect her and stuff, you know? She's like my kid sometimes." She exhaled shakily and managed, "I guess I didn't do a very good job of that last night, did I?" before bursting into tears again.
After realizing there wasn't much room for me at the crime scene, I walked downstairs to interview the rest of the family. The file Brass had given me told me Kortnee had a brother, two sisters and a mom and dad. I decided to start with Jonas, the brother. He was eighteen.
"Jonas Wallace, I'm Sara Sidle with the Las Vegas Crime Lab. What can you tell me about what happened last night?" I sauntered over to the young man. He was about six foot and had sandy blonde hair and piercing blue eyes.
"Not much." He answered. Tears also stained his cheeks. "I slept...through the whole night. Didn't hear a thing. Although, the dog did bark around eleven, eleven-thirty. But he barks all the time, just starts up like that."
I nodded. Made a note of it in my mind. "Were you home all last night?"
"No. I got home around eleven from the movies with my girlfriend. Went online till about quarter to twelve, then crawled into bed and didn't wake till about six this morning, when Jessica found Kortnee." He answered, wiping his face with the back of his hand.
I turned around and saw Jessica. Tall, leggy, raven-haired with smooth ivory skin. She was gorgeous, and she looked traumatized. I walked over and introduced myself. She didn't bother to shake my hand.
"Can I ask you some questions, Jessica? Would that be OK?" She nodded slowly and sat herself down on the multi-coloured sofa set against the wall of that room. Her mouth remained tightly shut.
"How did you find Kortnee?" I asked. She didn't answer. Just covered her face with her hands, and I saw her shoulders shake with sobs. I was about to ask her if she wanted to be questioned another time when she sighed.
"I went into Desiree and Kortnee's room that morning to wake Dessy up for work. I opened the door, called out 'Des, time to get up for work!'." She stopped. Her eyes clouded. "She didn't wake up right away so I walked into the room and was going to shake her. That's when I saw Kortnee lying there, in her own blood. Covered in it. I screamed and screamed until Jonas and Bradley came into the room. Then I got Dessy to call 911 while the rest of us woke up mom, dad and Hide."
I nodded. "This might seem like a strange question, but...do you normally have to go into the room to wake up Desiree?"
"No, I've never had to before." She answered. "She must have had a bad night."
"Desiree told me she slept through the whole night."
"Well, it's probably just a coincidence." Jessica said. "I mean, why else wouldn't she wake up right away?"
"Maybe she wasn't asleep. Perhaps she was awake and knew what had happened to Kortnee? Maybe she didn't say anything on purpose." I suggested, then watched Jessica's stunned expression enfold before my eyes.
"Dessy didn't stab Kortnee. She didn't. It's not even a possibility."
"There's no sign of forced entry."
"Well then you're just going to have to look harder, because nobody in this house attacked our youngest sister." She said angrily, then wiped her tears and stood. "I'm not answering any more of your questions. As if I didn't have enough to deal with this morning."
I shrugged and watched her leave the room. Grissom came sauntering down the stairs and stopped at the doorway where I sat. "C'mon Sara, we've got to get to the hospital before they clean the kid up. We don't want to lose any of our evidence."
"And you need me along, because?" I asked, watching as a slight smile crept onto his face.
"I thought you might wanna come..." He waited for me to reply but I said nothing. Then, offering it as his last persuasive remark, "There's no room for you at the crime scene, and Catherine's assigned to the interviewing."
I followed him out the door.
I watched Grissom as he drove. When I first met him I thought that if I stared hard enough at his face, a glorious light would suddenly illuminate our surroundings and every one of his emotions would suddenly be revealed to me. So far, no such luck, but...I was always up to a challenge.
"Did you talk to the family?" Finally he spoke.
"Yeah. I talked to the youngest brother, and both the sisters. They all seem pretty shocked. Desiree, she's the one who shares a room with Kortnee, she seems wracked with guilt."
"How lucky for her." He said. "You are aware she's our number one suspect?"
"Naturally. She shared a room with the little girl, how could she have not heard anything?" I asked. I wasn't sure whether or not I wanted him to think I was going along with him, I wasn't sure if I wanted him to think I agreed with him.
"Lots of ways. But we're not there yet. We're not there until we get some evidence to prove our theories right." I noticed his eyes never strayed from the windshield.
"I don't think she did it." I guess I made up my mind on that subject.
"Any particular reason, or is it just a gut feeling?" He asked. I didn't answer. "No reason?" I thought it was strange he wanted to know so badly. Might as well humour him.
"Sure. Love." I turned away from him purposely.
"Love?"
"Desiree loves Kortnee too much to kill her. Their whole room was covered with photographs of the two of them together. Kortnee had the bigger bunk. Desiree felt guilty and horribly devastated after Kortnee was stabbed. And she didn't say anything negative towards me while being interviewed." I sighed. "Those are some of the signs of an innocent suspect."
"Love doesn't guide everything." ,was all he replied with. I wanted to say it did, but I had to think about whether or not I really believed that.
"What doesn't it guide?" I asked. "Murder-wise, I mean."
He didn't answer at first. I begged him silently to look at me, even for a split-second. But his eyes remained on the road.
"I'm not sure." He answered. "But people can love someone and still murder them."
"It's not real love, then."
"What do you mean? Do you mean it's not actually love or it's not all that love can be?" He asked. We arrived at the hospital. Grissom parked the Tahoe and turned to look at me. Mental high five. His eyes looked through mine and I knew I would have to answer.
"It's not loving someone with the capacity that you have to love someone. Not if you kill them. Then it's closer to hate." I managed, before my voice began to falter from the strength of his gaze.
"And exactly how large is, say, my capacity to love someone?"
"You'd be surprised." I answered, aware that I had just accused him of never truly loving.
"I have been."
I broke his gaze. Uncomfortable, I opened the side door and exited the Tahoe. "We'd better check that girl over while we still can."
"Never mind the girl, Sara. She isn't exactly going to go anywhere." He said, looking at me again after he shut his door.
"You said yourself they'd clean her up if we took too long."
"How large is your capacity to love someone, Sara?"
"I wouldn't know." I answered simply and walked into the hospital.
by Marita Linde
Part 1
My alarm went off at exactly 7:10 that Monday morning and I reached over to turn it off. I let my hand rest there for a few minutes before groaning and deciding mentally that I should get out of bed and get dressed. Running the fingers of one hand through my hair, I used the other to pry the thin white cotton sheets off of myself and roll to the ground.
My head was foggy from still being half asleep as I rummaged through my drawers looking for something to wear. I finally decided on a pair of jeans and a red shirt. Not too special, not too flashy, but very Sara.
I barely trusted myself to drive that morning. My head was throbbing and fuzzy, and I could barely see straight. I massaged my temples lightly as I crawled into my Mercedes. I felt like I could collapse any minute, but for some strange reason I was happy as hell.
You know those days when you just know everything's going to turn out well? Maybe "well" had a different meaning in the C.S.I. of Las Vegas, but it was certainly there none-the-less. There was a feeling down in the pit of my stomach that today was going to bring revelations. Big ones.
As I drove I saw certain houses coming to life, probably with children who attended school. Lights turned on in a couple of rooms, cars backed out of driveways, street lights turned off as soon as the sun started beating down on the city. You've got to love Las Vegas.
I took my sunglasses off and walked down to meet Grissom and the rest of the team, find out what our assignment was today. Inside I guiltily hoped it was a big case, something that would take everything in me to solve. I was always up to a challenge.
"Sara." Grissom greeted me with no enthusiasm, no smile. Good, I thought. He's in a good mood too.
Catherine winked at me, Nick gave me a toothy grin, and Warrick a soft smile and pat on the shoulder. Life as it was. Another normal day begins.
"We're all on a case downtown. Brass gave me the address and nothing else. What do you say we find out the rest?" Grissom asked, a hint of mystery in his voice. I rolled my eyes, but smiled. As I passed him in the hall I nudged him in the arm.
"How you doing, Gris?" I asked, genuinely interested.
He looked surprised that I had asked. "Fine." He said finally. "You?"
"Great, thanks. I have a feeling it's going to be a good day." He didn't seem to share my enthusiasm.
"Don't get your hopes up." Was all he said, then went to catch up with Catherine.
We arrived at the house on Sunset Road about 8:30 AM that morning. Brass was waiting outside to fill us in on the crime scene. As we walked toward him I got a funny feeling in my stomach and was reminded again of the queasy way I had felt that morning. "I hope I'm not coming down with something." I said to myself.
"Fill us in, my man." Warrick requested.
"Nine year-old girl was found half-dead in her bed this morning. Stab wounds. She's being carted off to the ICU as we speak, in a coma. Here's the gist of it. Her older sister, a fourteen year-old, sleeps on the bunk on top of the girl's. Said she slept through the whole night, didn't wake up once. It wasn't even her that found the body, it was the other sister, a seventeen year-old who sleeps in another bedroom. There's no evidence of forced entry anywhere in the house. So it looks like this was an inside job." He stopped, raised his eyebrows and opened the door of the house. "Have fun."
My mind was in a daze. A nine year-old girl? Stabbed in her own bed? Who would do such a terrible thing? If Brass was right, and it was an inside job, then I didn't even want to meet the family. Probably creepy welfare collectors with shifty eyes and cool expressions. I shivered involuntarily.
We walked up the stairs into the bedroom. A young teenaged girl stood in the middle of the room staring at the bottom bunk, dressed in nothing but pajamas. Her eyes were red with crying. She looked surprised to see us.
"Excuse me Miss, this is our crime scene. We're either going to have to ask you to leave or stand off to the side, OK?" Nick asked. I couldn't take my eyes off the girl. She was pretty. Brown and red hair, messed up and hardly in a pony, it hung around her face. She had green eyes and big red lips. Her expression was that of a confused little child.
"What are you doing?" She asked, the tears welling up in her eyes as she watched Grissom take a blood sample from one of the painted steel bars of the girls' bunk bed.
Catherine leaned over to whisper in my ear. "Maybe you should talk to her a while to calm her down, so we can get some work done?" I nodded.
"Excuse me, Miss? What's your name?" I asked her, leading her to the edge of the room, away from the rest of the team.
"Desiree." She answered. "Desiree Wallace." She looked at me closely. I could hardly stand to see her eyes, cloudy and devastated. "My sister's name is...it's Kortnee. Kortnee Jamison Wallace. She's nine."
I half-smiled. "I know. Are you two close?"
She ignored my question. "Will she be OK?"
I shook my head. "I'm not really aware of Kortnee's condition.." I stopped when I saw the sad expression on Desiree's face. "But I'm sure she'll be just fine." I finished.
The girl looked at the ground. "Are you two close?" I asked again.
She nodded. "Yeah. I mean, we're five years apart. I feel like I gotta protect her and stuff, you know? She's like my kid sometimes." She exhaled shakily and managed, "I guess I didn't do a very good job of that last night, did I?" before bursting into tears again.
After realizing there wasn't much room for me at the crime scene, I walked downstairs to interview the rest of the family. The file Brass had given me told me Kortnee had a brother, two sisters and a mom and dad. I decided to start with Jonas, the brother. He was eighteen.
"Jonas Wallace, I'm Sara Sidle with the Las Vegas Crime Lab. What can you tell me about what happened last night?" I sauntered over to the young man. He was about six foot and had sandy blonde hair and piercing blue eyes.
"Not much." He answered. Tears also stained his cheeks. "I slept...through the whole night. Didn't hear a thing. Although, the dog did bark around eleven, eleven-thirty. But he barks all the time, just starts up like that."
I nodded. Made a note of it in my mind. "Were you home all last night?"
"No. I got home around eleven from the movies with my girlfriend. Went online till about quarter to twelve, then crawled into bed and didn't wake till about six this morning, when Jessica found Kortnee." He answered, wiping his face with the back of his hand.
I turned around and saw Jessica. Tall, leggy, raven-haired with smooth ivory skin. She was gorgeous, and she looked traumatized. I walked over and introduced myself. She didn't bother to shake my hand.
"Can I ask you some questions, Jessica? Would that be OK?" She nodded slowly and sat herself down on the multi-coloured sofa set against the wall of that room. Her mouth remained tightly shut.
"How did you find Kortnee?" I asked. She didn't answer. Just covered her face with her hands, and I saw her shoulders shake with sobs. I was about to ask her if she wanted to be questioned another time when she sighed.
"I went into Desiree and Kortnee's room that morning to wake Dessy up for work. I opened the door, called out 'Des, time to get up for work!'." She stopped. Her eyes clouded. "She didn't wake up right away so I walked into the room and was going to shake her. That's when I saw Kortnee lying there, in her own blood. Covered in it. I screamed and screamed until Jonas and Bradley came into the room. Then I got Dessy to call 911 while the rest of us woke up mom, dad and Hide."
I nodded. "This might seem like a strange question, but...do you normally have to go into the room to wake up Desiree?"
"No, I've never had to before." She answered. "She must have had a bad night."
"Desiree told me she slept through the whole night."
"Well, it's probably just a coincidence." Jessica said. "I mean, why else wouldn't she wake up right away?"
"Maybe she wasn't asleep. Perhaps she was awake and knew what had happened to Kortnee? Maybe she didn't say anything on purpose." I suggested, then watched Jessica's stunned expression enfold before my eyes.
"Dessy didn't stab Kortnee. She didn't. It's not even a possibility."
"There's no sign of forced entry."
"Well then you're just going to have to look harder, because nobody in this house attacked our youngest sister." She said angrily, then wiped her tears and stood. "I'm not answering any more of your questions. As if I didn't have enough to deal with this morning."
I shrugged and watched her leave the room. Grissom came sauntering down the stairs and stopped at the doorway where I sat. "C'mon Sara, we've got to get to the hospital before they clean the kid up. We don't want to lose any of our evidence."
"And you need me along, because?" I asked, watching as a slight smile crept onto his face.
"I thought you might wanna come..." He waited for me to reply but I said nothing. Then, offering it as his last persuasive remark, "There's no room for you at the crime scene, and Catherine's assigned to the interviewing."
I followed him out the door.
I watched Grissom as he drove. When I first met him I thought that if I stared hard enough at his face, a glorious light would suddenly illuminate our surroundings and every one of his emotions would suddenly be revealed to me. So far, no such luck, but...I was always up to a challenge.
"Did you talk to the family?" Finally he spoke.
"Yeah. I talked to the youngest brother, and both the sisters. They all seem pretty shocked. Desiree, she's the one who shares a room with Kortnee, she seems wracked with guilt."
"How lucky for her." He said. "You are aware she's our number one suspect?"
"Naturally. She shared a room with the little girl, how could she have not heard anything?" I asked. I wasn't sure whether or not I wanted him to think I was going along with him, I wasn't sure if I wanted him to think I agreed with him.
"Lots of ways. But we're not there yet. We're not there until we get some evidence to prove our theories right." I noticed his eyes never strayed from the windshield.
"I don't think she did it." I guess I made up my mind on that subject.
"Any particular reason, or is it just a gut feeling?" He asked. I didn't answer. "No reason?" I thought it was strange he wanted to know so badly. Might as well humour him.
"Sure. Love." I turned away from him purposely.
"Love?"
"Desiree loves Kortnee too much to kill her. Their whole room was covered with photographs of the two of them together. Kortnee had the bigger bunk. Desiree felt guilty and horribly devastated after Kortnee was stabbed. And she didn't say anything negative towards me while being interviewed." I sighed. "Those are some of the signs of an innocent suspect."
"Love doesn't guide everything." ,was all he replied with. I wanted to say it did, but I had to think about whether or not I really believed that.
"What doesn't it guide?" I asked. "Murder-wise, I mean."
He didn't answer at first. I begged him silently to look at me, even for a split-second. But his eyes remained on the road.
"I'm not sure." He answered. "But people can love someone and still murder them."
"It's not real love, then."
"What do you mean? Do you mean it's not actually love or it's not all that love can be?" He asked. We arrived at the hospital. Grissom parked the Tahoe and turned to look at me. Mental high five. His eyes looked through mine and I knew I would have to answer.
"It's not loving someone with the capacity that you have to love someone. Not if you kill them. Then it's closer to hate." I managed, before my voice began to falter from the strength of his gaze.
"And exactly how large is, say, my capacity to love someone?"
"You'd be surprised." I answered, aware that I had just accused him of never truly loving.
"I have been."
I broke his gaze. Uncomfortable, I opened the side door and exited the Tahoe. "We'd better check that girl over while we still can."
"Never mind the girl, Sara. She isn't exactly going to go anywhere." He said, looking at me again after he shut his door.
"You said yourself they'd clean her up if we took too long."
"How large is your capacity to love someone, Sara?"
"I wouldn't know." I answered simply and walked into the hospital.