*******************************************
Warrick stepped carefully over the crime scene tape, his impressive height from long legs made this much easier than attempting to crouch low and duck under it. He saw Catherine on the north side of Mirabella's and walked gingerly over all the glass and chairs until he was standing next to her. She was kneeling over Teri's body, studying what appeared to be the exit wound at the front of her throat.
"Find anything of interest, Catherine?" She glanced up at him, exhaling audibly and dropping her shoulders with a feeling of senselessness.
"It appears she has only one gunshot wound, I would say she was shot from behind, the bullet exiting her throat. I was able to dig a bullet fragment out of the wood floor nearby. I wasn't able to find any shells right around here, though, so I have no idea what caliber it is. I'm trying to figure out which way she was facing, north or south, it looks like the impact of the shooting moved her some after she was shot."
"The bullet fragments around the other bodies were shot from a nine millimeter. There are casings and fragments all over the place, it's going to be one hell of a job cataloguing all this stuff. It looks like the shooter emptied the nine millimeter. I guess we'll have to wait until ballistics examines your bullet fragment before we find out whether it's a nine, too."
"You're right; it's hard to really judge anything here until we get all this evidence back to the lab."
"Brass says we have two witnesses who say they got a good look at the shooter. I'm going to go talk to them then I'll come back in and help you with the rest of the collection."
"O.k., I'm going to call Nick and Sara, ask them to come down, too." Catherine put a small, plastic bag that contained the bullet fragment into a larger evidence envelope.
Warrick had the appearance that he was going to say something else to her, but instead walked back out of the restaurant and over to one of the squad cars where a short woman was shaking visibly and talking excitedly to Detective Brass.
"Hi, I'm Warrick Brown, one of the investigators on this crime scene. You told Captain Brass that you saw the shooter?"
"Yes, he was a well-dressed man with short, dark brown hair. He just came in and just started shooting everyone all of a sudden. He was crazy, he must have been crazy to do this, right?" She was speaking very quickly from jarred nerves. "Then everyone went frantic, ducking for cover and running around. It was just insane!"
Warrick jotted down the rest of the man's description from the woman and confirmed those details with the second witness. A young, dark-haired man of average height, wearing a suit, walked into the restaurant through the front entrance, pulled a gun out of his jacket and started firing. When the gun was spent, he bolted out of the place back through the front door.
He walked back into Mirabella's, took a camera from Catherine and started taking some final pictures of the body positions and any evidence around them, primarily bullet fragments. Catherine let him know that she had already phoned Nick and Sara and they were on their way; thank God for that, their help would cut down the evidence processing time a great deal.
Just as Warrick was beginning to place number placards over each spot where a bullet was found, Nick and Sara arrived through the door. They both watched with obvious respect as a paramedic rolled a covered body out to the ambulance that was waiting. When he had gone, they made their way over to where Warrick was stationed.
"Was that her?" Sara asked, quietly. "That's really awful."
"Yeah," Warrick answered, with a small sigh. "Griss is really hung up about this one. Just goes to show, you never know when it's your time. I mean, here she is enjoying this nice dinner and in a few moments, her life is over. Really makes you think, huh?"
Nick and Sara nodded in silent agreement. "So, what do you need us to do?" Sara continued.
"Well, I took pictures of most of the scene and now I'm placing the cards at all the places on the south side that I've found bullets and shells, and believe me, there's a lot of them. If you could just take some more photographs and start putting them in bags with notations on where they were found, that would be great."
"Will do," Nick answered, with his usual complacent grin.
"O.k., I'll let you guys finish up here and I'll head to the crime lab to see what Al comes up with during the autopsy. See you guys in awhile." Warrick took off his rubber gloves, placed them in a plastic evidence bag, and handed it to Sara. She placed it with the rest of the clues that had been collected thus far and watched Warrick leave as Nick headed over to Catherine.
Sara then stood for a few moments, unable to take her eyes away from a medium-sized plastic bag that held what seemed to be a napkin with blood spatters. She wondered if perhaps it was Teri's blood that had stained it. She hadn't known the woman that well, but she had heard that Grissom had shown a romantic interest in her at one point, and as guilty as it made her feel, she felt a little jealous about his relationship with Teri. No, that was ridiculous; she shouldn't feel that way, this poor woman just lost her life and Sara had no right to feel the way she did. Thinking about all the emotions Grissom must be going through, stopped her seemingly selfish thoughts for the moment and she knew that because he was so reluctant to express himself openly, it was going to be very difficult for him in the next few days. However awkward she could be sometimes in dealing with other people, she tried to think about how she might be able to help Grissom through this. She moved away from the bag and went to work on the scene.
********************************************
Al Robbins turned on the microphone hanging above him and took a moment to shake his head in disbelief and sadness as he viewed the young woman's body lying on the cold, metal slab and covered with a white sheet. Such a loss to the forensic world and the rest of the world; Teri Miller was such a special person. He had known her a little longer than the rest of the staff, they had worked together sporadically on different reconstruction cases and he felt even worse knowing that she was so young and had such a bright future ahead of her with such artistic ability and kindness. Who could have done such a terrible thing to such a wonderful person?
Robbins pulled back the sheet gently, only enough to expose the wound at her throat; he still wanted to afford her some dignity in death. He knew he would have to examine her more thoroughly later on during the autopsy, but he would just work on the area that was necessary at the time. He used a magnifying glass to get a closer look at the opening and began speaking into the air. He was surprised by how monotone and empty his voice sounded to his own ears.
"Subject, Teri Miller, apparent age, mid-thirties. Pronounced dead at 10:29 p.m.; cause of death appears to be a bullet wound through the throat, entered from the back of the neck, exited out the front about 2 cm below the Adam's Apple. From the circumference of the exit wound, the assailant had to have shot the gun from about five to six feet away." Robbins started to turn her body over carefully in order to view the entrance path and was so engrossed in his work that he didn't hear the opening of the morgue door and the soft footsteps into the macabre room that followed.
"Is that her?" a soft and melancholy voice asked from behind him.
Robbins looked over his shoulder quickly, shocked at the interruption, but upon finding out who had entered, he was very glad that his own body was obscuring the one lying on the table.
"Gil, you shouldn't be in here," he announced, covering Teri's face quickly with the rest of the sheet and hurried across the room to Grissom while noticing the complete despondency in his friend's face.
Gil raised his eyes slowly to meet the coroner's and it pained Robbins to see such sorrow. He placed his hand on Gil's shoulder, trying to appear as the concerned, fatherly type that he was. "This is very hard, I know."
"I have to see her, Al. I need some time with her."
"Gil, I don't think that would be the best idea right now. Please, you should go, you don't want to remember her like this."
Grissom swallowed audibly, obviously trying to hold back a mountain of emotion, and for the first time, Robbins was seeing another side of his long time colleague, and he squeezed his shoulder. "You don't want to remember her laying in this place, my friend. Keep the fond memories that you have of her, Gil. I promise to have my report to you as soon as it's finished."
Grissom was staring across the room at the covered figure and Robbins thought for a brief moment that perhaps he hadn't heard him, but then he nodded slowly. Robbins helped lead him back to the door, patting his arm compassionately.
"I wish there was something I could say to help you through this, Gil. Her death is such an overwhelming loss." Grissom just stared blankly and shook his head.
"Thanks, Al, you're right, I need to go. Just so you're aware, I gave this case over to Catherine, so she's the one who needs the report, but I'd appreciate it if you could give me a copy."
"Of course." Robbins opened the door, helped Grissom out, and went back to the terrible task of studying the wound on Teri's neck. His job was always more difficult when the victim was an innocent child or someone he had known.
******************************************************
Grissom stood in front of the morgue door for a good number of minutes before he realized he should get back to work and went into his office. Sitting down at his desk, he began shuffling through papers, not really seeing the papers, just jumbled black words and scattered punctuation on an ocean of white. His eyes moved around his office and fell sadly upon his tarantula cage, which was still the home of his orange-kneed spider. He closed his eyes and watched how Teri took the spider from him and held it ever so gently; one of the few women he had ever seen who didn't squeal aloud from squeamishness. She had the same respect for animals that he did, even insects and arachnids; she had just let his friend crawl slowly along her hand.
"She's gone," he spoke to the tarantula, as if he could understand the magnitude of those two words. Teri Miller was really gone.
He removed his glasses and rubbed his eyes for what seemed to be eons, then poked around in his desk drawer for the small container that held his migraine medication. He took two pills dry and turned down his lamplight, attempting to rest awhile and head off his migraine before it got any worse. He tried to think about nothing, just letting his mind float in blank air with thoughts of absolute neutrality, but her face always interrupted his efforts.
He had never told her how he had felt about her and that is what seemed to haunt him the most. Their clumsy attempt at dating had left him sitting at an empty table, feeling torn between the passion that he had for his job and trying to find the time to bring this exceptional woman into his life. The ridiculous idea that he actually had what might be called a "life", caused him to chuckle out loud, scornfully. He had his insects and he had his work; that is not an accurate definition of a "life".
It had been a few months since he had even seen Teri, they did not communicate much after the dinner fiasco. It was terrible that they had both felt this interest and attraction to each other, but his work did not permit him the time he needed to make a relationship work; Teri had known this and so did he, painfully, but he still should have made more of an effort to get together with her, to try to work things out.
Paths never taken and roads never traveled; thinking of these things was futile after this tragedy, he needed to stop asking himself, "What if.?" He was saddened to think that Teri never even had a chance to get married or have children. It angered him, the injustice that there was nothing left behind on this earth that was evidence that this wonderful woman had once been here. Well, that wasn't entirely true; through her artistic talent and skillful knowledge, she had given unknown skulls a face and helped give suffering families closure on the fates of their loved ones. He couldn't discount the fact that, without her, those people might not have ever found out what happened to their missing family member, and not knowing was sometimes worse than just finding out the inevitable.
In the few weeks before Teri's death, he had realized that his feelings for her were beginning to wane; absence can do that, it can either make the heart grow fonder or help someone lose their interest in a person. Grissom was suffering some undeserved guilt about that now that she was dead and it caused him to wonder who would come forward to claim her body? Did she have a lover or a family member to contact about this terrible event? Oh, he had forgotten that she was having dinner at the time of her death and a charming woman like Teri would not have been eating alone. He pondered who she might have shared this last meal with when he realized these thoughts were causing him to grow more and more depressed; he really needed to stop reflecting upon all that had occurred tonight and, either get some rest or get some work done. He rubbed his eyes for a few more minutes and decided to take a walk to get some coffee. He was going to need a lot of caffeine to keep himself awake after such a disquieting night.
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Warrick stepped carefully over the crime scene tape, his impressive height from long legs made this much easier than attempting to crouch low and duck under it. He saw Catherine on the north side of Mirabella's and walked gingerly over all the glass and chairs until he was standing next to her. She was kneeling over Teri's body, studying what appeared to be the exit wound at the front of her throat.
"Find anything of interest, Catherine?" She glanced up at him, exhaling audibly and dropping her shoulders with a feeling of senselessness.
"It appears she has only one gunshot wound, I would say she was shot from behind, the bullet exiting her throat. I was able to dig a bullet fragment out of the wood floor nearby. I wasn't able to find any shells right around here, though, so I have no idea what caliber it is. I'm trying to figure out which way she was facing, north or south, it looks like the impact of the shooting moved her some after she was shot."
"The bullet fragments around the other bodies were shot from a nine millimeter. There are casings and fragments all over the place, it's going to be one hell of a job cataloguing all this stuff. It looks like the shooter emptied the nine millimeter. I guess we'll have to wait until ballistics examines your bullet fragment before we find out whether it's a nine, too."
"You're right; it's hard to really judge anything here until we get all this evidence back to the lab."
"Brass says we have two witnesses who say they got a good look at the shooter. I'm going to go talk to them then I'll come back in and help you with the rest of the collection."
"O.k., I'm going to call Nick and Sara, ask them to come down, too." Catherine put a small, plastic bag that contained the bullet fragment into a larger evidence envelope.
Warrick had the appearance that he was going to say something else to her, but instead walked back out of the restaurant and over to one of the squad cars where a short woman was shaking visibly and talking excitedly to Detective Brass.
"Hi, I'm Warrick Brown, one of the investigators on this crime scene. You told Captain Brass that you saw the shooter?"
"Yes, he was a well-dressed man with short, dark brown hair. He just came in and just started shooting everyone all of a sudden. He was crazy, he must have been crazy to do this, right?" She was speaking very quickly from jarred nerves. "Then everyone went frantic, ducking for cover and running around. It was just insane!"
Warrick jotted down the rest of the man's description from the woman and confirmed those details with the second witness. A young, dark-haired man of average height, wearing a suit, walked into the restaurant through the front entrance, pulled a gun out of his jacket and started firing. When the gun was spent, he bolted out of the place back through the front door.
He walked back into Mirabella's, took a camera from Catherine and started taking some final pictures of the body positions and any evidence around them, primarily bullet fragments. Catherine let him know that she had already phoned Nick and Sara and they were on their way; thank God for that, their help would cut down the evidence processing time a great deal.
Just as Warrick was beginning to place number placards over each spot where a bullet was found, Nick and Sara arrived through the door. They both watched with obvious respect as a paramedic rolled a covered body out to the ambulance that was waiting. When he had gone, they made their way over to where Warrick was stationed.
"Was that her?" Sara asked, quietly. "That's really awful."
"Yeah," Warrick answered, with a small sigh. "Griss is really hung up about this one. Just goes to show, you never know when it's your time. I mean, here she is enjoying this nice dinner and in a few moments, her life is over. Really makes you think, huh?"
Nick and Sara nodded in silent agreement. "So, what do you need us to do?" Sara continued.
"Well, I took pictures of most of the scene and now I'm placing the cards at all the places on the south side that I've found bullets and shells, and believe me, there's a lot of them. If you could just take some more photographs and start putting them in bags with notations on where they were found, that would be great."
"Will do," Nick answered, with his usual complacent grin.
"O.k., I'll let you guys finish up here and I'll head to the crime lab to see what Al comes up with during the autopsy. See you guys in awhile." Warrick took off his rubber gloves, placed them in a plastic evidence bag, and handed it to Sara. She placed it with the rest of the clues that had been collected thus far and watched Warrick leave as Nick headed over to Catherine.
Sara then stood for a few moments, unable to take her eyes away from a medium-sized plastic bag that held what seemed to be a napkin with blood spatters. She wondered if perhaps it was Teri's blood that had stained it. She hadn't known the woman that well, but she had heard that Grissom had shown a romantic interest in her at one point, and as guilty as it made her feel, she felt a little jealous about his relationship with Teri. No, that was ridiculous; she shouldn't feel that way, this poor woman just lost her life and Sara had no right to feel the way she did. Thinking about all the emotions Grissom must be going through, stopped her seemingly selfish thoughts for the moment and she knew that because he was so reluctant to express himself openly, it was going to be very difficult for him in the next few days. However awkward she could be sometimes in dealing with other people, she tried to think about how she might be able to help Grissom through this. She moved away from the bag and went to work on the scene.
********************************************
Al Robbins turned on the microphone hanging above him and took a moment to shake his head in disbelief and sadness as he viewed the young woman's body lying on the cold, metal slab and covered with a white sheet. Such a loss to the forensic world and the rest of the world; Teri Miller was such a special person. He had known her a little longer than the rest of the staff, they had worked together sporadically on different reconstruction cases and he felt even worse knowing that she was so young and had such a bright future ahead of her with such artistic ability and kindness. Who could have done such a terrible thing to such a wonderful person?
Robbins pulled back the sheet gently, only enough to expose the wound at her throat; he still wanted to afford her some dignity in death. He knew he would have to examine her more thoroughly later on during the autopsy, but he would just work on the area that was necessary at the time. He used a magnifying glass to get a closer look at the opening and began speaking into the air. He was surprised by how monotone and empty his voice sounded to his own ears.
"Subject, Teri Miller, apparent age, mid-thirties. Pronounced dead at 10:29 p.m.; cause of death appears to be a bullet wound through the throat, entered from the back of the neck, exited out the front about 2 cm below the Adam's Apple. From the circumference of the exit wound, the assailant had to have shot the gun from about five to six feet away." Robbins started to turn her body over carefully in order to view the entrance path and was so engrossed in his work that he didn't hear the opening of the morgue door and the soft footsteps into the macabre room that followed.
"Is that her?" a soft and melancholy voice asked from behind him.
Robbins looked over his shoulder quickly, shocked at the interruption, but upon finding out who had entered, he was very glad that his own body was obscuring the one lying on the table.
"Gil, you shouldn't be in here," he announced, covering Teri's face quickly with the rest of the sheet and hurried across the room to Grissom while noticing the complete despondency in his friend's face.
Gil raised his eyes slowly to meet the coroner's and it pained Robbins to see such sorrow. He placed his hand on Gil's shoulder, trying to appear as the concerned, fatherly type that he was. "This is very hard, I know."
"I have to see her, Al. I need some time with her."
"Gil, I don't think that would be the best idea right now. Please, you should go, you don't want to remember her like this."
Grissom swallowed audibly, obviously trying to hold back a mountain of emotion, and for the first time, Robbins was seeing another side of his long time colleague, and he squeezed his shoulder. "You don't want to remember her laying in this place, my friend. Keep the fond memories that you have of her, Gil. I promise to have my report to you as soon as it's finished."
Grissom was staring across the room at the covered figure and Robbins thought for a brief moment that perhaps he hadn't heard him, but then he nodded slowly. Robbins helped lead him back to the door, patting his arm compassionately.
"I wish there was something I could say to help you through this, Gil. Her death is such an overwhelming loss." Grissom just stared blankly and shook his head.
"Thanks, Al, you're right, I need to go. Just so you're aware, I gave this case over to Catherine, so she's the one who needs the report, but I'd appreciate it if you could give me a copy."
"Of course." Robbins opened the door, helped Grissom out, and went back to the terrible task of studying the wound on Teri's neck. His job was always more difficult when the victim was an innocent child or someone he had known.
******************************************************
Grissom stood in front of the morgue door for a good number of minutes before he realized he should get back to work and went into his office. Sitting down at his desk, he began shuffling through papers, not really seeing the papers, just jumbled black words and scattered punctuation on an ocean of white. His eyes moved around his office and fell sadly upon his tarantula cage, which was still the home of his orange-kneed spider. He closed his eyes and watched how Teri took the spider from him and held it ever so gently; one of the few women he had ever seen who didn't squeal aloud from squeamishness. She had the same respect for animals that he did, even insects and arachnids; she had just let his friend crawl slowly along her hand.
"She's gone," he spoke to the tarantula, as if he could understand the magnitude of those two words. Teri Miller was really gone.
He removed his glasses and rubbed his eyes for what seemed to be eons, then poked around in his desk drawer for the small container that held his migraine medication. He took two pills dry and turned down his lamplight, attempting to rest awhile and head off his migraine before it got any worse. He tried to think about nothing, just letting his mind float in blank air with thoughts of absolute neutrality, but her face always interrupted his efforts.
He had never told her how he had felt about her and that is what seemed to haunt him the most. Their clumsy attempt at dating had left him sitting at an empty table, feeling torn between the passion that he had for his job and trying to find the time to bring this exceptional woman into his life. The ridiculous idea that he actually had what might be called a "life", caused him to chuckle out loud, scornfully. He had his insects and he had his work; that is not an accurate definition of a "life".
It had been a few months since he had even seen Teri, they did not communicate much after the dinner fiasco. It was terrible that they had both felt this interest and attraction to each other, but his work did not permit him the time he needed to make a relationship work; Teri had known this and so did he, painfully, but he still should have made more of an effort to get together with her, to try to work things out.
Paths never taken and roads never traveled; thinking of these things was futile after this tragedy, he needed to stop asking himself, "What if.?" He was saddened to think that Teri never even had a chance to get married or have children. It angered him, the injustice that there was nothing left behind on this earth that was evidence that this wonderful woman had once been here. Well, that wasn't entirely true; through her artistic talent and skillful knowledge, she had given unknown skulls a face and helped give suffering families closure on the fates of their loved ones. He couldn't discount the fact that, without her, those people might not have ever found out what happened to their missing family member, and not knowing was sometimes worse than just finding out the inevitable.
In the few weeks before Teri's death, he had realized that his feelings for her were beginning to wane; absence can do that, it can either make the heart grow fonder or help someone lose their interest in a person. Grissom was suffering some undeserved guilt about that now that she was dead and it caused him to wonder who would come forward to claim her body? Did she have a lover or a family member to contact about this terrible event? Oh, he had forgotten that she was having dinner at the time of her death and a charming woman like Teri would not have been eating alone. He pondered who she might have shared this last meal with when he realized these thoughts were causing him to grow more and more depressed; he really needed to stop reflecting upon all that had occurred tonight and, either get some rest or get some work done. He rubbed his eyes for a few more minutes and decided to take a walk to get some coffee. He was going to need a lot of caffeine to keep himself awake after such a disquieting night.
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