A hand squeezed Sara's waist. "What've you got?"
She jumped and let out a small scream. Without turning around, she said, "Geez, Grissom, could you sneak a little quieter next time? I don't think I've quite managed to have a heart attack yet."
Grissom smiled. "Sorry, Sidle, but you do it to me all the time. Now, back to the question at hand – did you get anything new on the rape case?"
"Well, Greg's taking his sweet time running the analysis on the linen fibers, so I've been calling around to pet stores and seeing who sells chinchillas. Also, I asked O'Reilly to bring in the victim so I can get some definites about what evidence has a right to be there and what doesn't." She turned to find Grissom only an inch away from her. "So I'm going to stay late. I need this woman's interview, and O'Reilly's not exactly Mr. Sensitivity, so I'm it."
Grissom nodded his approval of the plan. "Do you want me to stay?"
"Nah, I'll be ok. Go on and head home and I'll hitch a ride with one of the detectives or something." She kissed him lightly, then made shooing motions with her hands. "Go, go, I want to get this lab cleaned up before I do the interview and you're distracting me!"
Grissom refrained from commenting on the best way to distract her, and instead headed for the car. Her car, to be more specific, though he was beginning to think of both cars as "their" cars, not his or hers. Sharing things in a relationship was not something Grissom had had much experience with in his adult life, but he found it comforting to drive in Sara's car.
Sara re-packaged each piece of evidence carefully. By the time the last fiber was back in its envelope, she was out of patience. Stomping toward Greg's makeshift lab, she leaned against the doorjamb and stared daggers at his back, clearing her throat loudly.
"Oh! Hey Sara, what's up."
"My impatience level. Have you got those fibers analyzed for me? I'm about to start taking apart this lab to keep myself busy."
"Chill!" Greg said with a laugh. "They're just finishing up now." He pointed toward the mass spectrograph and, sure enough, it emitted a friendly beep and spat a page out of the printer.
"Ok, my impatient investigator, here we go. You've got wood-based tannins, ferrous oxide – better known as oxidized iron – and reduced carbon. Probably soot or charcoal. Does that help at all?" He held out the page as though it were a peace offering.
"Yeah, it does. You know," she joked, "if there weren't at least fifteen reasons why I'm not going to, I'd kiss you!"
Greg turned his cheek to her and tapped it with one finger. "Come on, you know you want to."
Sara laughed. "Fine, fine." She kissed his cheek lightly, then swatted him in the head. "Now don't work that into your dirty little thoughts, Greggo."
"Would I?" Greg asked innocently.
Sara sat down half an hour later in the observation room that abutted the interview room O'Reilly and Susan Akers were currently occupying. "We need to get some background information on your life so that we can include or exclude physical evidence we're finding," O'Reilly was telling the pale woman across the table.
"Yeah . . . ok," she said, though it was obvious that she didn't want to speak about the crime any more than she had to.
"One of our crime scene investigators is here to speak with you about that, ok? Her name's Sara, and she doesn't usually bite." O'Reilly chortled as though he were immensely funny. Susan Akers just nodded slowly.
A few seconds later, Sara pushed open the door. "Thanks, O'Reilly. I'll let you know when we're done." She herded the pudgy policeman out the door, then sat down in his seat. "Hi Susan. I'm Sara, like Detective O'Reilly told you, and I need to ask you some questions about your lifestyle and what materials you come in contact with on a regular basis. We can stop any time you want if this gets to be too much; just let me know and we can take a break or you can go home if you need to. Ok with you?"
The victim had raised her head and was examining Sara's face. "You were one of the people there that night. You had two young guys with you."
Sara nodded. "You have good eyes. The guys with me were Nick and Warrick. They're assisting on this case too, but we decided that you might be more comfortable with me. Now," she said gently, "I have a couple easy questions for you. First off, do you have any pets?"
Susan nodded. "I have a dog – a Great Dane. Ask me how much I wish I had had him with me that night . . ."
"What's his name? Can you describe him for me?"
"Well . . . his name is Ben, as in Gentle Ben – he's really a big teddy bear except when he thinks I'm being threatened, so I figured that would be a good . . . I'm sorry, I'm rambling, aren't I?"
"It's ok. Take your time, you can say anything you want. You never know what might help us."
Susan took a breath. "Ok. Um, he's a blue Dane. That means his fur is kind of a blue-gray color. He stays in the house 99 percent of the time, and I take him to the dog park for exercise, so a lot of people in my neighborhood don't even know I have a big dog." She stopped. "That's . . . that's all I can think of right now."
"Is he your only pet?" Sara prodded gently. Susan nodded and Sara continued, "That's fine, Susan. How about your job? Tell me where you work, what you do, any unusual materials you may handle."
"I'm a paralegal. Law clerk, you know. I handle a lot of paperwork, research . . . the grunt work that requires a slightly-more-than-average training level, basically."
"So you're generally behind a desk all day?"
"Yeah. I don't really handle anything unusual. Maybe some musty old law books, but 'old' when you're a lawyer is generally thirty to fifty years, so they're maybe not that old in reality. I, uh, sometimes I brought Ben, but my boss didn't like it. He told me the dog was scaring clients and that he had to stay home. So that's why Ben wasn't with me."
Sara nodded. "Great Danes are beautiful dogs. If it were me – and this is off the record, you know – if it were me, I'd just go to another firm that would let me bring him along."
Susan nodded. "Yeah, I just might. Especially after . . . that . . . I feel like I'm in danger every time I go somewhere without him."
Not knowing the best response to that – she was a physicist, after all, not a psychologist – Sara nodded sympathetically and moved on. "What kind of carpeting do you have in your home, Susan?"
The woman looked surprised at the sudden change of topic, but thought for a moment. "Garden variety, I guess. It's kind of beige-ish. And then upstairs I have the same brand in light blue that matches Ben's fur. I did it like that on purpose, it's funny to see him try to blend his huge body into the carpet."
That accounted for both colors of carpet fiber they'd found, at least for now. "Could you bring me samples of both types of carpeting tomorrow, Susan? Just pull a few threads out of each and put them in separate plastic bags."
Susan agreed readily, though she looked a little confused at why Sara would want her carpeting. Sara checked her notes. Only one more question on the fibers. "What about your car carpeting, or the carpeting of any cars you ride in a lot?"
"Gray," was the immediate answer. "I hate dark upholstery, so I always get gray seats and carpet. Other cars, hmm. Sometimes I catch a ride into the city with my friend Sam. Samantha, not Samuel," she clarified. "Her car has red carpet. Burgundy, I'd say, actually."
"Would there have been any reason for your bare back to recently come in contact with your car's carpeting or Samantha's?"
"No." Susan shook her head definitively. "I always wear actual shirts, not tank tops, so there wouldn't be any reason for my back to touch any of the car upholstery, especially the carpeting on the floor."
"Ok," Sara said. "That's all the information I need from you right now. Thank you for coming; I know how hard it must be to talk about this. But I'll tell you, Susan, you've got guts. I've never gotten a note demanding that I capture the criminal along with the evidence from a victim. Keep that attitude and you're well on your way to healing." She reached out and squeezed Susan's hand reassuringly, then left the room.
Once she was clear of the victim's view, she leaned against a wall and shot her fist up in the air. "Yes! Whoever you are, you are so getting nailed. I'm gonna get you and you're never going to do this again."
