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!
Special Thank You: Duchess of Hell and Saryn for the wonderful reviews
Author Note: I made this bomb stuff up completely with warning labels and loose Third Grade Chemistry – Please don't try it at home. I doubt it will even work. I also borrowed the phrase 'Psychic woo-woo' from my dear friend Nora Roberts. I thought it was funny.
Chapter Eight
It was crunch time. Media was getting fanatic, every nation news station in America had the cameras pointed at he CSI exit/entrance. When Sara and Nick tried to go out to IHOP for breakfast they were tailed by so many news vans and reporters that Sara almost decked a journalist for asking the same question six times in a row. It was time for a brainstorming session.
FBI Special Agent Brad Culpepper, ATF Agent James Hawkins, the CSI gang, Doc Robbins, and Brass were all lined up in the CSI situations room to piece together what they had of the puzzle.
"OK people" Grissom started off, "Let's begin with a timeline. 5:47 P.M. as yet unidentified Jane Doe # 13 arrives in the Wells Fargo. Security video show that she remained inside the building for approximately forty five seconds before detonating an explosive device strapped to her midsection, killing John Doe # 26 almost instantaneously. Blood and, um, other debris goes flying. Police reach the scene at approximately 5:56 P.M. and CSI at 6:02. Crime scene is now sealed."
"Working on I.D for the victim and the perp," Warrick now took center stage. "Female aged about thirty to thirty five, Hispanic or Latino, five two, hundred and fifteen pounds, give or take, lower class, and as yet we've got three hits off AFIS for her profile. We're going to bring some people in to ID the body after we're done here. The next one is Male, Asian, probably Chinese, twenty-something, mid to upper class. We got that from his medical treatments, apparently he had his appendix and tonsils removed. Doc tells me this was a high quality procedure, quality equals money. One hit off AFIS, family's waiting to ID."
"We believe he was incidental. Blood spatter indicates he was not the bomber and this is consistent with the physical evidence. The female was the one with the bomb, strapped to her midsection," Sara stood and removed a wrapped lump form her kit. "This is a rough estimate of what it was composed of and the likely arrangement of components."
She set, gently as not to jar the contents a weight-lifting belt, with three aerosol cans of WD-40, strapped to the front, stripped of the spray tops and plugged with a drop of candle wax. They were enclosed in a clear plastic Ziploc bag, sealed with Duct tape, and the bag was filled with a clear liquid. There was a strongly 'pine fresh' scent to it. A nine volt battery floated in the mix.
"You have got to be kidding me!" Culpepper leaned back in his chair laughing; "Duct tape, WD-40, and Pine Sol!" he slammed a hand down on the counter "Don't quit your day job, Sidle."
"Actually from a strictly chemical perspective she's dead on," Jim quietly supported Sara, "What she didn't add was this" he lifted up a small syringe of a light blue liquid. "Poke this in and seal the hole, and ten minutes later the chemicals will eat through the wax plug on the tip of the cans, and set of an exponential gaseous expansion. The cans will burst and create a massive fireball as they go, once they hit the juices in the battery."
"It's crude, but the supplies are ridiculously easy to get and I got the instructions off the internet. All I had to do was put it together, and a Kindergartener could follow the directions." Sara sat back down, "Compact, powerful, and easy to manufacture. No shrapnel, although it wouldn't have affected the outcome if she'd stuck a handful of nails in the bag, or a couple of bullets. The fireball pretty much destroys the evidence. All we got were unidentifiable metal fragments from the cans and the chemical residue. Anyone with a grudge and a decent supply of cleaning equipment could pop this sucker out. It's totally untraceable."
"Great," muttered Nick, "How the hell are we going to track this fu-person" he quickly corrected himself, mid-swear.
"Therein lay the rub." Catherine grinned, "However it just so happens that the DNA sample telepathically obtained by our own Sara, from the manager, matches identically with the saliva from our bomber." She twinkled her eyes at Grissom.
"Telepathically?" Brad scoffed, "what the hell's that supposed to mean?" Subtlety went straight over his head.
"It's a long story," Grissom cut off Catherine, who was cheerfully about to explain "Brass?"
"I done my homework." Brass held up a thick manila envelope, "the list of all the people in and around Vegas that might have a grudge with our friend."
"Holy crapola!" Warrick exclaimed.
"Amen," said Catherine, "Not a very popular guy was he?"
"Nope," Brass remarked, "apparently he had some very high profile and high risk investments, in some, uh, other-than-legal activities."
"Well seems as though it didn't make him any friends." Nick observed.
"Apparently not, I got my boys working on it now, we'll see if anything drops out of the mix."
"My turn," Robbins said quietly, not standing, but still commanding attention "obviously the bodies are in less than ideal condition for a post mortem. Warrick pretty much covered what I got as far as identification, however, I believe I'd mentioned this to most of you: the female had some sort of restraints applied to her wrists and ankles. On completion of my analysis, I also observed some substantial hemotoma on the face and arms. Skin analysis proved that the facial hemotoma was covered in makeup; evidently the marks came before the bombing. Based on the ligature marks and the hemotoma, I would conclude that our female was, at some recent point, physically assaulted and restrained. There's not much left of her pelvic area, so I can't rule out a sexual assault, but someone definitely had a grudge with our Jane Doe."
"Can you conclude what the restraints were comprised of?" Grissom asked.
"Yes and no," Robbins replied easily, "They were metallic in origin, bracketing the wrists at approximately…well, here" he removed a photo from the file folder in front of him. "This is what remains of her wrist." He passed it to Grissom.
Grissom looked at it and was on the point of saying something and passing it back to Robbins when he stopped and handed the photo to Sara. Surprised, she arched an eyebrow at him, but accepted the glossy 8x10.
"Handcuffs," she said almost instantaneously, just glancing at the picture "cheap ones, novelty store stuff." She made eye contact with Grissom and for a moment the two of them shared an intense gaze, communicating something that went completely over the heads of the gathered assembly.
"All right," Culpepper said exasperated, "I can handle cleaning product bombs, I'll ignore the psychic woo-woo crap, but if the Las Vegas county medical examiner says he can't identify the ligature, what the hell expertise do you have that gives you the right to just arbitrarily say 'handcuff'?"
Sara glared at Grissom, evidently angry that he forced the issue. "I know what I'm talking about Agent Culpepper."
"Yeah right, you're showboating, trying to solve this of the seat of your pants." he said challengingly.
Sara responded by snapping off her wrist watch and holding her hand up, elbow braced on the table. On the pale strip of skin, protected from the sun by the wide watchband, were several fine white lines. She shoved the glossy photo at Culpepper. "They were handcuffs. Believe me. I know."
"What, you into a little S & M Miss Sidle?" the FBI agent leered.
"Ten years ago my boyfriend chained me to a pipe in the utility room of my apartment and beat the shit out of me. He was so high on coke that they found him OD'd right there when someone heard my screams." She growled, "I know handcuff marks."
Culpepper slammed back from the table. "I thought you people were strange, but man does this take the cake." He got up and jerked the door open. "Call me when you quit the Penn and Teller routine and have some real information to give. We're out of here." He motioned to Hawkins, who shrugged apologetically and left with his nominal commander.
"I'm outta here, you don't need me for this." Brass muttered, he and Robbins left, giving Sara sympathetic looks before things heated up. Sara strapped he watch back on, rubbing her wrist as though it hurt.
"What the hell's going on?" Warrick asked "Sara…Griss?"
Grissom gave Sara a look that said 'well?' as clearly as if he'd used words. "It's your place to ..."
"No way, Grissom. You stared it. It's your problem. Not mine." Sara stood up, incensed, and started stuffing her things back into her kit. "You knew when I came here I wasn't going to have this happen. Not here. Not ever." She latched the kit shut, with shaking hands, and rapidly filling eyes, "Damnit Griss…" she let her voice trail out and sat back heavily into the blue plastic chair and buried her face in her hands, shoulders shaking and sobbing softly.
Catherine moved to stroke her shoulders with a sympathetic mother's hand, but Sara slapped it away with a strength that had Catherine wincing and rubbing the spot she'd struck gingerly. Nick leapt up, and bodily pulled her chair away from the table and wrapped up around Sara. She accepted his embrace for a moment, until she stopped shaking; then breathing slowly and evenly she shook him off too.
"I am going home." Sara said slowly and clearly. She very clearly addressed Grissom. "I've got enough vacation locked up, now don't I? Consider me on leave."
"Sara…"
"No Griss, I'm not joking. I thought the last time I resigned was enough warning. I won't take this from you. If you gave my feelings half of the same consideration you give your damn tarantulas we wouldn't even be in this mess. I'm not changing my mind again. I'm sorry." She shoved her kit in his direction, "Take it, and this," she pulled a small police issue revolver out of a holster in her right boot, "and this." she pulled her wallet out of the back pocket of her jeans and folded it so that a badge was facing up.
"Damnit Sara stop" Grissom grabbed her shoulder, "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to…"
"What?" she growled, "Force the issue? Well you did." She wrenched her arms out of his grasp and stepped into him, "You know if it wasn't for you, I would still be in Frisco. If it wasn't for you I'd still be with Deng Xao and Lee Wong and the rest of the gang. But no, Grissom had to be there when the crap hit the fan, and Grissom just had to need me when I was out of a job. Well screw you Grissom, I've had enough of this. I want out." She threw her cell phone on the table and left, slamming the door behind her.
"What the hell?" Nick examined the badge, "She's a cop?"
"She is not 'a cop'" Grissom said, controlling himself rigidly "She was a Lieutenant in the San Francisco Police Department CSI. She transferred to Las Vegas Police when I offered her the position on CSI."
"And neither of you told us? About anything?" Catherine exclaimed "Gil, what the hell is wrong with you?"
"She wants to keep her pension." Grissom said evenly, "and in order to be a CSI in Frisco you have to be a registered officer of the peace. Ten years on the force is a long time, even if she was in a lab and not on patrol."
"That's not what I meant" Catherine snarled.
"Damn," Nick leaned back in his chair, "What the hell did you just do?"
"It was my fault," Grissom swallowed, "I shouldn't have given her that photo, but I wasn't sure and I knew she'd know."
"So what do we do now?" Warrick asked.
"We," Grissom said emphatically, "have a case to work. I trust that none of you have forgotten about it. Besides," he gathered her belongings, "she's not the only one with extensive vacation on the books."
