XII - FEELINGS
Grissom was in a foul mood. After quickly breaking the team up - assigning each one a different task - he had stalked out of the break room muttering something about finding Brass.
Catherine and Warrick had been told to start analyzing the fibers they had found. Greg was going to work on getting a DNA sample from any eptihelials found on the hair Catherine had retrieved from the venting. Sara had been told to start analyzing the maintenance logs, and Nick had been told to go through the video surveillance from the service and main elevators and get stills of anyone entering the penthouse through either method.
Grissom was going to oversee the efforts of the entire team, and was hunting down Brass to see if he had anything new to report. Grissom also wanted the phone logs pulled from the van der Brucke's cell phones and also calls to and from their penthouse using the phone therein.
Nick winked at Sara as he stood, "If you need me for anything I'll be down in A/V with Archie."
"I won't need you," she retorted, wincing when Nick just chuckled. Warrick and Catherine had already headed to trace, and Greg was pouring himself another cup of coffee before heading back to the lab.
"You could come to A/V and go through the logs there - keep me company," Nick responded. "We should stick together."
Sara cocked an eyebrow at him, "Really?" Her response was cool. Before Nick could respond, Greg interrupted.
"What's going on with you two all of a sudden?" When Sara turned a frosty glare at him, he shrugged, "What? It's a good question. You two are acting strange."
"Nothing's going on," Sara responded.
"Absolutely nothing," Nick agreed, grinning widely and winking at Sara with great exaggeration. "C'mon, Sara. You going to be angry with me for the rest of the day?"
"Looks that way," Sara retorted.
"You know I love you," he responded. Sara sighed and shook her head, suddenly smiling.
"You are such a pest! Fine - I'm not angry. I'll come down to A/V with you," Sara had forgotten Greg was still standing there, listening to her and Nick as they bantered back and forth. "I'll go get the maintenance logs - they're with the rest of the evidence, right?" When Nick nodded, she muttered, "Meet you there."
Nick and Greg both watched her stalk out of the room, before Greg turned to Nick.
"Don't tell me you two are seeing each other?" the young lab tech stated, his expression one of curiosity and shock.
"Alright, I won't tell you that," Nick agreed affably, winking at Greg as he turned to follow Sara out of the break room. "Later, Greggo."
* * * * *
"You want phone logs." Brass greeted Grissom with a statement when he saw his friend stalking down the hallway towards him. Grissom nodded curtly, and Brass grinned. "You're getting predictable, Grissom. I requested they be pulled this morning already. Should be arriving soon. O'Reilly went to get them for me." When Grissom didn't respond, Brass looked at him a little more closely. "You look like shit. This case striking a chord with you?"
That startled Grissom. He turned his intense blue gaze on Brass and muttered, "What?"
Brass just smiled, "Case getting to you?"
Grissom shrugged, "Why would it. It's just a case."
"You tell me," Brass offered conversationally, leaning forward slightly and pitching his voice lower. "I thought the older man / younger woman angle might be bothering you somewhat."
Grissom's eyes blazed angrily, before quickly shuttering. "What are you implying, Brass?"
"I wasn't Chief of Forensics at one point because of my looks, Grissom," Brass smiled at his friend as he tapped a finger against the side of his head, "I do have brains you know. Want to talk about it?"
"Talk about what?" Grissom was still trying to play dumb, but Brass would have none of it.
"You. And Sidle."
Grissom sighed, suddenly defeated, before half-smiling self-deprecatingly at his friend, "Nothing to talk about."
"I bet there is," Brass replied, before nodding at O'Reilly who was quickly approaching them. "These the logs, then?" At O'Reilly's nod, Brass reached out a hand. "Thanks for grabbing these for me. You have your pager? Go home then. You've been here all day. I'll let you know if we need you for anything." Brass turned back to Grissom. "Let's go over these in your office - and talk."
* * * * *
"Blue cotton-poly knit fiber. Several strands taken throughout the shaft. Also white cotton fibers, found at irregular intervals throughout the shaft." Warrick grunted and looked at Catherine. "This is useless until we find something to compare it too."
Catherine sighed in agreement. "Wonder what Greg's got on the hair?" She leaned over Warrick, pressing slightly into his back as she reached around him and grabbed another evidence envelope, smiling at him when he arched his back away from her.
"Cath," he warned, "not in the lab. Don't start something here."
Catherine just grinned at him, but sat up again, running a hand across his back as she did so, "Just practicing."
"Practicing for what?"
"Tight spaces."
Warrick raised an eyebrow. "I don't even want to know where this is heading
"I have a feeling I'll have to go back in the air-exchange venting again. I didn't run for finger prints."
"And how does leaning into me help you practice for crawling around a shaft?"
Catherine grinned at him. "You just answered your own question."
* * * * *
"These logs indicate no one's done any sort of maintenance work in the venting for the penthouse for 6 weeks!" Sara muttered crossly. "How long have the van der Brucke's been staying there?"
Nick, watching the video surveillance with Archie, shrugged, "I think they've only been there for a week or so, but not positive. Grissom would know. Who was the last person to do maintenance?"
"Looks like a T. Price. I guess we'll have to bring him in." She looked up from the log, "You having any luck?"
"Not so far. Haven't seen Marta. The maid - a couple of times. Van der Brucke and Audra. A couple of men with van der Brucke I assume are business acquaintances. Archie's pulling stills for us. I suppose we'll have to get the names of all of the ones we don't recognize."
Sara sighed, "You working backwards?"
"Starting from where you left off last night," Nick confirmed. "So, we've gone back about three days - both elevators."
"And we have two weeks of tape," Sara replied. "This is going to take forever."
Sitting beside Nick, Archie grinned. "Welcome to my world. It's not that bad - it's not like you have to watch in real time or anything. I've the tapes set-up to go backwards and hi-light every tenth frame - both tapes running concurrent - split screen, advanced speed. Shows us what we need to see without having to watch the whole thing. We'll average two hours of tape every 30 minutes - or four hours, counting both tapes."
"Where were you last night when I had to watch these in real-time?" Sara muttered. "I could have used you, Archie."
Archie just grinned, "You can use me any night you want to, Sara."
Nick started laughing, shooting an amused grin at Sara. "Maybe you don't need me after all."
* * * * *
"This is interesting," Greg mumbled to himself, scanning the first two completed DNA reports, before turning to look at the hairs he had painstakingly sorted from the various evidence bags Catherine had collected.
He had three distinct types of hair -blond, brunette and dyed a deep auburn. The blond hairs were two - three inches long, and had provided a fine set of epithelials. Catherine had found them on some screw within the venting. The brown hair was longer, five - six inches, and had been found on a separate vent screw from the first hairs, along with the auburn hairs. The auburn hairs were of similar length to the brunette, and from the way they had been tangled together, Greg assumed they had been underneath the brown hairs - in other words, yanked out first.
Curious about the length of the hairs, he had gathered the epithelials from them first - the DNA tests on both the brunette and auburn hairs relatively straight forward. As he had expected, both tests had indicated the hairs had come from a woman. What he hadn't expected was that the DNA would confirm that the hairs belonged to the same woman.
Grinning as he quickly catalogued the hairs, he picked up the report and sauntered into the hallway in search of Grissom.
* * * * *
"So - you think we should talk to Mr. van der Brucke again?" Brass waited patiently for Grissom to reply. The two men had painstakingly combed through the cell phone records, and had managed to identify many of the umbers from those van der Brucke had already provided. Of particular interest to Brass had been several quick calls to Audra van der Brucke's phone in the 48 hours immediately prior to the burglary and her murder.
Each call had lasted less than 30 seconds, and - as far as the phone records indicated - had been made from a prepaid cell package that was virtually untraceable. Brass had looked at Grissom askance when they realized the number of calls exceeded 15 and had smiled grimly.
"Maybe the young Mrs. Van der Brucke had something to hide after all," he had muttered.
Grissom had looked at Brass and shaken his head. "I don't buy it. There's something not right."
"You think she was being set-up to look like she was setting something up herself?" Brass' question was skeptical, and Grissom had merely shrugged.
"This is all too - pat. Every phone number can be accounted for except this one - which only ever called in to Audra's cell? And only in the last two days? It doesn't make sense. We're dealing with a professional cat burglar here, if the ease with which the actual entry and exit from the building was planned is any indication. Why would a professional leave such obvious clues? It's like a big red herring is being thrown in our face."
"So, what do you suggest?"
"I don't know, Brass. Let's wait and see what - if anything - the rest of the team can tell me. Right now, I'm at a loss."
Brass looked at his friend intently, "Do you find it so hard to believe that this could just be a scam gone wrong? That Audra van der Brucke was having an affair, as her friend Marta hinted? After all, she did lie to her husband about her dinner plans with Marta. If she wasn't meeting her friend, who was she meeting?"
Grissom shook his head, "You talked to Willem van der Brucke. Did you get the feeling from him that something was wrong with his marriage?"
"Since when do you work on your feelings, Gil?" Brass rebutted. "Maybe he didn't know."
"Wouldn't you think he'd suspect if there was a problem?"
"I didn't suspect with my marriage," Brass responded dryly, "but that's just me. Are you sure you're not letting your personal feelings cloud the issue?"
Grissom looked coldly at Brass, "What personal feelings would those be."
Brass shrugged, "As I indicated earlier, I'm wondering how you're working around the older man / younger woman angle. Because of Sidle."
"And I told you you were off base."
"Actually, you didn't," Brass smirked. "You told me there was nothing to talk about. Not the same thing at all. Listen, my friend - I've been where you're at, and I recognize the signs. So just because you want to believe that a May/December relationship can actually work, don't allow that little fantasy to cloud your judgment where the van der Brucke's are concerned."
Grissom sighed, "That's not what I'm doing."
"If you say so," Brass shrugged, smiling at his friend in commiseration, "but from where I'm sitting - that's what it looks like your doing."
Grissom was saved from further response by the knock on his office door. "Come in." His voice was sharper than he had expected, and he winced slightly at the harsh tone. Greg stuck his head through the open doorway tentatively.
"Hey, Griss. Still feeling lousy, huh?"
"What do you want, Greg?"
Clearing his throat, Greg stepped into the office further. "I've got the DNA results back from two of the three hair samples Catherine and Warrick provided me. The other one is in the hopper as we speak." He shifted uncomfortably when Grissom merely cocked an eyebrow at him without replying. In the chair opposite Grissom's desk, Brass tried not to look too amused at the young man's nervousness.
"Well - are you going to tell me, or are we playing 20 questions here?"
Greg gulped, "Yes. Right - well. I decided to run the DNA from the brown and auburn hairs first, because the hairs were quite long. I thought the length indicated the owners' might be female. Ah-" he shuffled and cleared his throat, "I was partially correct. Both DNA samples came back female. The interesting thing is - they're from the same person."
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Author's Note: Hope this continues to intrigue! As always feedback is greatly appreciated. For those of you who have emailed me to comment on Nick's apparent deception being OOC, I respectfully disagree. After all, he's not lying to anyone - he's not saying he and Sara are dating. Is it his fault if Grissom assumes they are because they're friends? He may be a little deceptive in that he won't disabuse Grissom of the notion - but he's doing it because he thinks it may help. At least, that's my take on it. Personally, I love Scheming!Nick.
Grissom was in a foul mood. After quickly breaking the team up - assigning each one a different task - he had stalked out of the break room muttering something about finding Brass.
Catherine and Warrick had been told to start analyzing the fibers they had found. Greg was going to work on getting a DNA sample from any eptihelials found on the hair Catherine had retrieved from the venting. Sara had been told to start analyzing the maintenance logs, and Nick had been told to go through the video surveillance from the service and main elevators and get stills of anyone entering the penthouse through either method.
Grissom was going to oversee the efforts of the entire team, and was hunting down Brass to see if he had anything new to report. Grissom also wanted the phone logs pulled from the van der Brucke's cell phones and also calls to and from their penthouse using the phone therein.
Nick winked at Sara as he stood, "If you need me for anything I'll be down in A/V with Archie."
"I won't need you," she retorted, wincing when Nick just chuckled. Warrick and Catherine had already headed to trace, and Greg was pouring himself another cup of coffee before heading back to the lab.
"You could come to A/V and go through the logs there - keep me company," Nick responded. "We should stick together."
Sara cocked an eyebrow at him, "Really?" Her response was cool. Before Nick could respond, Greg interrupted.
"What's going on with you two all of a sudden?" When Sara turned a frosty glare at him, he shrugged, "What? It's a good question. You two are acting strange."
"Nothing's going on," Sara responded.
"Absolutely nothing," Nick agreed, grinning widely and winking at Sara with great exaggeration. "C'mon, Sara. You going to be angry with me for the rest of the day?"
"Looks that way," Sara retorted.
"You know I love you," he responded. Sara sighed and shook her head, suddenly smiling.
"You are such a pest! Fine - I'm not angry. I'll come down to A/V with you," Sara had forgotten Greg was still standing there, listening to her and Nick as they bantered back and forth. "I'll go get the maintenance logs - they're with the rest of the evidence, right?" When Nick nodded, she muttered, "Meet you there."
Nick and Greg both watched her stalk out of the room, before Greg turned to Nick.
"Don't tell me you two are seeing each other?" the young lab tech stated, his expression one of curiosity and shock.
"Alright, I won't tell you that," Nick agreed affably, winking at Greg as he turned to follow Sara out of the break room. "Later, Greggo."
* * * * *
"You want phone logs." Brass greeted Grissom with a statement when he saw his friend stalking down the hallway towards him. Grissom nodded curtly, and Brass grinned. "You're getting predictable, Grissom. I requested they be pulled this morning already. Should be arriving soon. O'Reilly went to get them for me." When Grissom didn't respond, Brass looked at him a little more closely. "You look like shit. This case striking a chord with you?"
That startled Grissom. He turned his intense blue gaze on Brass and muttered, "What?"
Brass just smiled, "Case getting to you?"
Grissom shrugged, "Why would it. It's just a case."
"You tell me," Brass offered conversationally, leaning forward slightly and pitching his voice lower. "I thought the older man / younger woman angle might be bothering you somewhat."
Grissom's eyes blazed angrily, before quickly shuttering. "What are you implying, Brass?"
"I wasn't Chief of Forensics at one point because of my looks, Grissom," Brass smiled at his friend as he tapped a finger against the side of his head, "I do have brains you know. Want to talk about it?"
"Talk about what?" Grissom was still trying to play dumb, but Brass would have none of it.
"You. And Sidle."
Grissom sighed, suddenly defeated, before half-smiling self-deprecatingly at his friend, "Nothing to talk about."
"I bet there is," Brass replied, before nodding at O'Reilly who was quickly approaching them. "These the logs, then?" At O'Reilly's nod, Brass reached out a hand. "Thanks for grabbing these for me. You have your pager? Go home then. You've been here all day. I'll let you know if we need you for anything." Brass turned back to Grissom. "Let's go over these in your office - and talk."
* * * * *
"Blue cotton-poly knit fiber. Several strands taken throughout the shaft. Also white cotton fibers, found at irregular intervals throughout the shaft." Warrick grunted and looked at Catherine. "This is useless until we find something to compare it too."
Catherine sighed in agreement. "Wonder what Greg's got on the hair?" She leaned over Warrick, pressing slightly into his back as she reached around him and grabbed another evidence envelope, smiling at him when he arched his back away from her.
"Cath," he warned, "not in the lab. Don't start something here."
Catherine just grinned at him, but sat up again, running a hand across his back as she did so, "Just practicing."
"Practicing for what?"
"Tight spaces."
Warrick raised an eyebrow. "I don't even want to know where this is heading
"I have a feeling I'll have to go back in the air-exchange venting again. I didn't run for finger prints."
"And how does leaning into me help you practice for crawling around a shaft?"
Catherine grinned at him. "You just answered your own question."
* * * * *
"These logs indicate no one's done any sort of maintenance work in the venting for the penthouse for 6 weeks!" Sara muttered crossly. "How long have the van der Brucke's been staying there?"
Nick, watching the video surveillance with Archie, shrugged, "I think they've only been there for a week or so, but not positive. Grissom would know. Who was the last person to do maintenance?"
"Looks like a T. Price. I guess we'll have to bring him in." She looked up from the log, "You having any luck?"
"Not so far. Haven't seen Marta. The maid - a couple of times. Van der Brucke and Audra. A couple of men with van der Brucke I assume are business acquaintances. Archie's pulling stills for us. I suppose we'll have to get the names of all of the ones we don't recognize."
Sara sighed, "You working backwards?"
"Starting from where you left off last night," Nick confirmed. "So, we've gone back about three days - both elevators."
"And we have two weeks of tape," Sara replied. "This is going to take forever."
Sitting beside Nick, Archie grinned. "Welcome to my world. It's not that bad - it's not like you have to watch in real time or anything. I've the tapes set-up to go backwards and hi-light every tenth frame - both tapes running concurrent - split screen, advanced speed. Shows us what we need to see without having to watch the whole thing. We'll average two hours of tape every 30 minutes - or four hours, counting both tapes."
"Where were you last night when I had to watch these in real-time?" Sara muttered. "I could have used you, Archie."
Archie just grinned, "You can use me any night you want to, Sara."
Nick started laughing, shooting an amused grin at Sara. "Maybe you don't need me after all."
* * * * *
"This is interesting," Greg mumbled to himself, scanning the first two completed DNA reports, before turning to look at the hairs he had painstakingly sorted from the various evidence bags Catherine had collected.
He had three distinct types of hair -blond, brunette and dyed a deep auburn. The blond hairs were two - three inches long, and had provided a fine set of epithelials. Catherine had found them on some screw within the venting. The brown hair was longer, five - six inches, and had been found on a separate vent screw from the first hairs, along with the auburn hairs. The auburn hairs were of similar length to the brunette, and from the way they had been tangled together, Greg assumed they had been underneath the brown hairs - in other words, yanked out first.
Curious about the length of the hairs, he had gathered the epithelials from them first - the DNA tests on both the brunette and auburn hairs relatively straight forward. As he had expected, both tests had indicated the hairs had come from a woman. What he hadn't expected was that the DNA would confirm that the hairs belonged to the same woman.
Grinning as he quickly catalogued the hairs, he picked up the report and sauntered into the hallway in search of Grissom.
* * * * *
"So - you think we should talk to Mr. van der Brucke again?" Brass waited patiently for Grissom to reply. The two men had painstakingly combed through the cell phone records, and had managed to identify many of the umbers from those van der Brucke had already provided. Of particular interest to Brass had been several quick calls to Audra van der Brucke's phone in the 48 hours immediately prior to the burglary and her murder.
Each call had lasted less than 30 seconds, and - as far as the phone records indicated - had been made from a prepaid cell package that was virtually untraceable. Brass had looked at Grissom askance when they realized the number of calls exceeded 15 and had smiled grimly.
"Maybe the young Mrs. Van der Brucke had something to hide after all," he had muttered.
Grissom had looked at Brass and shaken his head. "I don't buy it. There's something not right."
"You think she was being set-up to look like she was setting something up herself?" Brass' question was skeptical, and Grissom had merely shrugged.
"This is all too - pat. Every phone number can be accounted for except this one - which only ever called in to Audra's cell? And only in the last two days? It doesn't make sense. We're dealing with a professional cat burglar here, if the ease with which the actual entry and exit from the building was planned is any indication. Why would a professional leave such obvious clues? It's like a big red herring is being thrown in our face."
"So, what do you suggest?"
"I don't know, Brass. Let's wait and see what - if anything - the rest of the team can tell me. Right now, I'm at a loss."
Brass looked at his friend intently, "Do you find it so hard to believe that this could just be a scam gone wrong? That Audra van der Brucke was having an affair, as her friend Marta hinted? After all, she did lie to her husband about her dinner plans with Marta. If she wasn't meeting her friend, who was she meeting?"
Grissom shook his head, "You talked to Willem van der Brucke. Did you get the feeling from him that something was wrong with his marriage?"
"Since when do you work on your feelings, Gil?" Brass rebutted. "Maybe he didn't know."
"Wouldn't you think he'd suspect if there was a problem?"
"I didn't suspect with my marriage," Brass responded dryly, "but that's just me. Are you sure you're not letting your personal feelings cloud the issue?"
Grissom looked coldly at Brass, "What personal feelings would those be."
Brass shrugged, "As I indicated earlier, I'm wondering how you're working around the older man / younger woman angle. Because of Sidle."
"And I told you you were off base."
"Actually, you didn't," Brass smirked. "You told me there was nothing to talk about. Not the same thing at all. Listen, my friend - I've been where you're at, and I recognize the signs. So just because you want to believe that a May/December relationship can actually work, don't allow that little fantasy to cloud your judgment where the van der Brucke's are concerned."
Grissom sighed, "That's not what I'm doing."
"If you say so," Brass shrugged, smiling at his friend in commiseration, "but from where I'm sitting - that's what it looks like your doing."
Grissom was saved from further response by the knock on his office door. "Come in." His voice was sharper than he had expected, and he winced slightly at the harsh tone. Greg stuck his head through the open doorway tentatively.
"Hey, Griss. Still feeling lousy, huh?"
"What do you want, Greg?"
Clearing his throat, Greg stepped into the office further. "I've got the DNA results back from two of the three hair samples Catherine and Warrick provided me. The other one is in the hopper as we speak." He shifted uncomfortably when Grissom merely cocked an eyebrow at him without replying. In the chair opposite Grissom's desk, Brass tried not to look too amused at the young man's nervousness.
"Well - are you going to tell me, or are we playing 20 questions here?"
Greg gulped, "Yes. Right - well. I decided to run the DNA from the brown and auburn hairs first, because the hairs were quite long. I thought the length indicated the owners' might be female. Ah-" he shuffled and cleared his throat, "I was partially correct. Both DNA samples came back female. The interesting thing is - they're from the same person."
______________________
Author's Note: Hope this continues to intrigue! As always feedback is greatly appreciated. For those of you who have emailed me to comment on Nick's apparent deception being OOC, I respectfully disagree. After all, he's not lying to anyone - he's not saying he and Sara are dating. Is it his fault if Grissom assumes they are because they're friends? He may be a little deceptive in that he won't disabuse Grissom of the notion - but he's doing it because he thinks it may help. At least, that's my take on it. Personally, I love Scheming!Nick.