Unanswered questions

"Hey Sara," Nick glanced up from the papers he was working on. He noticed the grim look on her face. "What's wrong?"

She poured herself a cup of coffee and sat down at the table across from Nick. "Murder and arson case. Young girl, had her whole life ahead of her, and someone took that from her."

"Any viable suspects?"

"One so far, an ex-boy friend who apparently was causing some problems."

Nick could tell Sara was upset. "Where's Grissom?"

"With the body in the coroner's lab," Sara continued staring at her coffee, she had yet to drink any of it.

"Well," Nick pushed himself away from the table and stood up, "I've got to be in court in twenty minutes."

Sara barely noticed as he left the room and Warrick and Catherine entered. "Sara, you have a call, from a, uh, I think he said his name was Brad Henderson, Deputy Brad Henderson, line two," Warrick said as he sat in the chair vacated by Nick.

She nearly collided with Catherine as she raced to the phone on desk. Warrick and Catherine exchanged worried glances as they quickly realized Sara had already become emotionally attached to the case she was working on.

"Sara Sidle, is this Brad?"

"Ms. Sidle," came the response, "I have a name for you, the ex-boy friend. It completely skipped my mind when we talked earlier."

"Yes, yes," replied Sara reaching for a pen and some paper.

"His name is Vince Francis. He's a corrections officer at the jail. Well, actually, he's an ex-corrections officer. He was fired recently."

"Do you know why he was fired?" she questioned.

"Sexual harassment. One of the women he was harassing was Debra. That's all the information I have."

"Thanks Brad, this will help a lot." Sara hung up the phone as Grissom walked in.

"Our possible suspect just became a strong suspect," she smiled as she noticed Grissom. "Seems the ex-boy friend, one Vince Francis, was harassing Debra and was fired because of it."

"Hmmm, a revenge killing," Grissom had a look of deep thought on his face. "I just came from the coroner's lab. The forensics dentist positively identified the body as Debra Farmer. And the cause of death, well, this fits with revenge."

Sara was getting anxious, "Grissom!"

"Thirty-five stab wounds. This was somebody who was in a rage."

"What else did the coroner say?" Warrick leaned forward on the table.

Grissom continued, "Time of death was established as twelve midnight. No sign of smoke in the lungs so she was dead before the fire started. Greg's preliminary lab results confirmed gasoline was present. And it was poured directly on her body, so whoever did it, was trying to hide the stabbing."

"Wow," Warrick let out a deep breath. "Sounds like this guy was extremely upset."

"Upset?" Catherine said shaking her head. "This was a guy out of control. Someone who wanted to control his women, and when he couldn't....."

"He killed her," Sara finished her sentence.

"We don't know that for certain yet," interuppted Grissom.

"What's not to know," Sara was beginning to lose control, "She broke up with him, he harassed her, he got fired for it, blamed her and killed her."

"That only gives us a motive, but did he have the opportunity?" Grissom replied calmly in the way only he could.

"So where do we go from here?" Warrick stood up, knowing that what was next was leg work.

"I want you and Catherine to go to the courthouse, question Debra's fellow workers, find out about her friends, family, where she hung out, you know the drill."

"And you and Sara?" Catherine began to follow Warrick out the door.

"We're going to pay a visit to one Mr. Vince Francis."