Disclaimer: I don't own it, I don't pretend to own it, and I don't mean to offend anyone's sensibilities.
Thank You: Stelmarta for being there! Mom because I love her!
Chapter Five
Special Agent Jim Hawkins walked into exam room four to meet with Grissom and the chief medical examiner.
He almost immediately walked right back out and put his head between his knees. Now, he considered himself to be, if not jaded, then at least hardened to that which humans could inflict on themselves and on others. Nothing, nothing in his considerable experience in Federal Law Enforcement had prepared him for the sight in examination room four.
A moment later a man, swathed in surgical greens, joined him outside the room.
"Here" he handed him an old fashioned dust mask, smeared on two sides with Vicks Vapo-Rub "This will cut down on the smell."
"Jim Hawkins" he put the mask on over his mouth and nose.
"Gil Grissom" above his surgical mask his eyes were a piercing, bright blue.
"Wow," Jim breathed in and out rapidly, inhaling the suffocating essence of menthol with each breath, "I have been an ATF agent for twelve years and I have never seen anything like that before, never."
"When I was twenty-two I became the youngest coroner in the history of Los Angeles County. I thought then that I'd seen all that there was to see inflicted on a human body. I know now that isn't the case." He paused, "Are you ready to go back in or do you want to throw up?"
"I think I can make it."
"There's a trash can right inside the door of you change your mind."
"Yeah, I got you." He took another breath of menthol-laden air and followed Grissom into the examination room. What lay on the slab was a human jigsaw puzzle. There were multitudes of little plastic Ziploc baggies and one very fragmented corpse. The temperature in the lab had to be near forty degrees, because Jim could see his breath puffing out slightly from behind the mask.
"David Robbins, chief medical examiner Las Vegas County Sheriff's department."
"Jim Hawkins, ATF"
"You mind giving us that hand?" his eyes were browner, softer than Gil Grissom's, but no less sharp. He motioned with one blood covered surgical glove, "I think it's on the table over there."
Bile rose behind Jim's throat, but he gamely went over to the evidence table, which was essentially one very large, open-faced, refrigerator. Sure enough there was one, semi-intact hand in a plastic bag on the top.
"Good, bring it over here and well see if we can get some prints off of it." Grissom grabbed his Red Creeper powder and got out a sheet of fingerprint paper. "Has AFIS spit out any missing person's reports that correspond to our bomber?"
"Do we know which one was the bomber?"
"The female Caucasian, she had third degree powder burns and charring all along the abdominal area. The male, Asian, possible Chinese, was killed by bone fragmentation from the female's abdominal area. As a preliminary assessment I'd agree with Sara, the bomb was strapped around the lower abdominal and pelvic areas." Doc Robbins continued to piece together the person on the slab without pause, "I'm also getting some indications of pre-partum injuries in the female. Take that hand for instance." Jim looked closer at the bag he held between thumb and forefinger, "There are ligature marks on the wrist and forearm area. She was restrained, unwillingly, with some type of wire or other metallic type object prior to death."
"She was someone's prisoner?"
"Perhaps, it seems very likely from the evidence, that" Robbins limped over to the evidence table, "she may not have been a willing participant in the bombing."
"So that means we're looking for someone else who did the bombing?"
"No," Grissom motioned for Jim to open the bag and remove the hand "She most definitely exploded in the lobby. There was no one else there. What we need to know now is why she chose to explode herself in the bank lobby; instead of…say jumping off a highway overpass or putting a gun in her mouth and blowing the brains out the back of her head." He took her hand and carefully pressed the fingers on the paper. "Here, take this to Nick over in the lab. Run it through AFIS and the missing person's database. Our female was about five two, hundred and twenty, say, pounds, with brown hair, grayish-blue eyes, white, and lower class to low middle class."
"How do you figure that?"
"Teeth," he said shortly, "Wealthy people get their teeth straightened, cavities filled, wisdom teeth removed. Our bomber had an abscess, three unfilled cavities, and a diastema right," he motioned to his mouth, between the first two teeth "here. She was poor, no dental insurance."
"Oh, Ok." Jim grabbed the paper and left, grateful to remove the mask, with its overpowering reek of menthol. Somehow, even through the menthol mask, he could still smell the stench of death.
Nick Stokes was a handsome SOB with a strong chin and a thing for sweet tea with crushed mint and a splash of Tennessee bourbon for spice. When Jim brought him the fingerprint paper he leaped put of his chair and almost knocked over the glass in his haste to get it done.
"You're Jim right? I'm Nick." He introduced himself without ever raising his eyes off of the paper. "Wow! You stink. Were you with Grissom and the Doc?"
"Yeah," Jim sighed and pulled up a chair "not a pleasant sight, or smell for that matter."
"You're telling me." He scanned the notes about the female and her Asian partner in death. "Hmm, Sara will get a kick out of being right on this one."
"So Grissom said," Jim collapsed, exhausted, into a chair while Nick started typing up the AFIS reports "She always this dead on?"
"That's a bad pun, man. But yeah, Sara's usually on the money."
"Hey, are you talkin' 'bout me?"
"Mmm hmm" Nick turned his head and grinned, "You were right, again."
"Let's see. White female, yadda, yadda, yadda, um…ligature marks?" she looked up sharply, "She was restrained?"
"So it seems. Your medical examiner thinks the injuries were pre-bomb in nature. I'm thinking abused girlfriend or wife, wants to get even, finds some explosives, and pays her hubby a visit at work." Jim leaned back in his chair, "Or it could have been a botched robbery attempt and she was just a random hostage. Has anyone checked the vault lately? Maybe someone 'borrowed' a stack of bills during the confusion."
"Y'know what that's a good idea. Brass is bringing some witnesses in tomorrow. I'm gonna talk with the manager. We'll see if everything checks out." Nick slapped Jim on the back, "Nice work"
"There's still the weapon angle. That explosive was pretty powerful. I haven't got the lab results back, but I doubt it was something that you could just pick up. We might be able to trace it back to a single seller." Sara leaned back against the table and picked up Nick's glass of tea. "Gagggh. Ugh, gross, what the hell did you put in this? It makes my teeth hurt just thinking about it."
"Sugar, tea, mint, and ice, what else goes in sweet tea?"
She sniffed the glass; she could barely catch the faint scent of the Bourbon, knowing that Nick could get in some deep do-do if he was caught with alcohol on duty she brushed it off in front of the ATF agent. "Icky, that's some nasty stuff. Remind me to never drink out of your glass again."
Jim got up out of his chair, rubbing his eyes, "Well, you might be used to working through the night but I'm bushed. See you in the morning."
"Yeah, bye" She waited until he was gone and set the glass down with a sharp click "Bourbon? On duty- Nick? You know better than that."
"It's not much." She raised her eyebrows warningly, "I know, it's not allowed, but I got a real nasty one off of the day shift. Two kids sexually abused, one of them kills himself and helps to kill his brother too. They drank antifreeze because their Dad locked them in the garage."
"Oh God" Sara sat back in her seat. Blindly she reached for the tea glass and swallowed a gulp, quickly "What the hell is wrong with the world, Nick?"
"Got me" He shared the glass with her, taking a sip and forcing it down, "but you see why I'm having a little bit of a nightcap tonight?"
"You could have at least waited until the shift was over." She shuddered "Why do we do this, Nick? Does it make any good to scrape someone's guts off of other people just to tell them the obvious?"
"It's gotta be good for something, because right now I don't know if I should just go home and crawl back under the blankets or go over to the lockup and beat the crap out of the man." The last bit came out in an exasperated tone, almost chuckling. He shook his head and tilted up the sweet tea, lightly laced with bourbon.
"I'll flip you for it" she winked, "Besides, I like your bed."
Nick almost choked on the mouthful of tea he inhaled when she said that. Sending a disbelieving glance her way he found Sara ginning like a madwoman, her eyes alight and sparking. She was teasing him. It was an expression of hers he was all too familiar with. Well it took two to tango.
"I like you in my bed too."
He meant the words to come out humorously, but somehow they got tangled up with emotion in the run from his brain to his mouth. Her glimmer of humor died away, replaced by something a good deal more intense.
"You're serious aren't you?"
Her voice was softer, more emphatic. Shifting uncomfortably in his chair, Nick couldn't quite meet her eyes. Unlike her normal, open face her eyes were now inscrutable, completely unreadable, nothing more than dark brown pools. This was not how he envisioned a conversation of this magnitude happening.
"I uh, well, yeah. I guess I am." Something about her impenetrable gaze really unnerved him, "I like being around you Sara. I liked taking care of you last night, when you were all burned out." He forced himself to face her, look at her squarely "I don't mean to push, t-t-that's the furthest thing in my mind, but well yeah, I do like the thought of you in my bed."
"Nick the Don Juan of Dallas is stuttering in front of a woman." She smiled, privately, just for the two of them. "Perish the thought."
"Hey," he said defensively, "you started it. I was more than willing to let this go naturally."
"Go where? Your apartment? Mine?" She sat back; sober as a priest, "I won't go to bed with you. I won't be another notch or your bedpost."
"Now I never said that," he was getting angry, how dare she think that he would be so careless with her, "Y'know, contrary to popular belief, I don't just jump from woman to woman like some damn Casanova. I'm not that…"
"Conceited? Arrogant? Uh, vain?"
"No," he said slowly, not liking the way this was going, "Careless."
Another spark flew between them; this time it was understanding. Thoughtfully she took back the tea and finished off the last mouthful. Sara was about to say something when she was interrupted from behind.
"Hey guys, what are you two up to?"
Without missing a beat Sara folded the manila envelope containing the profiles of the victims and handed them to Warrick "Jane and John Doe, on the anniversary of their thirty sixth hour in united in death."
"Ugh, do you have to be so morbid?"
"It's a morbid case."
"Amen," Warrick skimmed the profiles, "Nothing new here, looks like your hunch was right on the money. It was Jane Doe that exploded; Mr. Doe was just passing by, poor guy." He looked up and tossed back the folder, "Catherine's got Greg working on the blood analysis; you wanna come with me to give him a little 'encouragement'?"
"Sure, I got some fragments Griss and Doc Robbins pulled out of the bodies. No time like the present."
"I got the prints and profiles running through AFIS, I'll check back with you if we get any hits." Nick rubbed his hand over his stubbly hair, more than a little distracted by how easily Sara slipped from a personal conversation with him to a professional one with Warrick with no sign of discomfort.
"Great," Warrick said, "c'mon Sara, let's go play 20 questions with Greg."
She got up out of the chair next to him, sliding the empty glass onto the tabletop beside the computer. In the split second while Warrick's back was to them she brushed a hand over his shoulder and squeezed it. He got the message; they'd deal with this later.
