To Dearest who thought Kait was manipulative in part 1: She was, but think about it. Nick's hesitation about telling Grissom is making her have to be dishonest with her father who she is trying to build a relationship with. She needs some way to get Nick to agree. I'm sorry that you don't really like religious characters, but you should be happy to know, it is barely mentioned but does define her actions most of the time
To anyone wondering when Kait and Nick will tell Grissom: Stay tuned. It'll be sometime soon. The dinner is Friday night and at this point, it's about...Wednesday evening at the beginning of this part.
Also, I started this while I was in a bad mood (I thought I failed an exam) and finished it when I was in a good mood (I got a 82%). The beginning is sort of angsty (with some Kait-thoughts to make it less tissue-worthy), but later it gets lighter. Okay, my ramble is done.
Telling Dad and Moving On: Part 6
By LissaMarie
September 15-24, 2002
"Hello, my name is Kait Grissom. I'm with the Criminalistics Bureau. This is Jim Brass. Thank you for coming in so soon. I'm sorry if I kept you waiting," Kait said taking a seat across from a handsome couple just a couple of years older than herself. With all her training, she still had no idea how she should continue.
Mr. Manning looked up at her introduction. "I'm Ryan, and this is my wife, Susanna. Did you find Annette?"
The hopefulness in his voice and the anxiousness in his wife's eyes made Kait's stomach turned. She thought about the standard procedure for an interview in her head quickly realizing that they were skipping right over the beginning--the warm-up period--and getting right into the main segment. Instead of establishing rapport, they were going right to acquiring the desired information. She really hated when things didn't go as they were supposed to.
"Yes, we did. Mr. Manning, Mrs. Manning, we found the body of a girl matching your daughter's description outside of town, in the desert. We ran her fingerprints and matched them to the ones taken by Annette's school for the Student Safety Program. I'm very sorry, but your daughter was killed." Kait cringed as she heard herself. Even with their sobs, she continued. "Her body was found buried. I'd say that she had been there about a week. She was dead a few days before that. I was the doctor that examined her. I can try to answer any question you may have."
"She's been gone for 2 months and you're telling us that she died less than 2 WEEKS ago? What happened to her in the time she was missing?" Susanna questioned with tears running down her cheeks. A few strands of hair that had strayed from her ponytail were sticking to her face with her tears.
"Her body was badly beaten. She had signs of severe malnutrition and also of...sexual abuse." The sobs got louder with the last two words, and Kait had to swallow a lump that suddenly formed in her throat before going on. "We need your help if we're going to find the man who did this."
"Anything," Mrs. Manning agreed her tone desperate. She and her husband's hands were clenched together so tightly that their knuckles were white.
"Did anything unusual happen in the days before Annette's disappearance? Did she come in contact with any knew people that may have...rubbed you the wrong way--gave you a bad vibe, that sort of thing?" Kait grimaced internally as she realized a few mistakes she made in her statements. On top of feeling bad about pushing the couple, she had personalized the victim by using her first name and used unscientific terms like vibe. She didn't want to envision the lecture she was going to get from her father for that. Maybe if she handled the rest of the interview well, he'd forget...
"I can't think of anything unusual," Susanna mumbled looking toward her husband who shook his head sadly.
"How did she...die?" Mr. Manning questioned, his voice catching on the last word.
Kait slipped into her "Doctor Mode"--as Nick called her clinically detached moments while talking about her findings during autopsies--and told them. "Blunt force trauma to the head. A heavy object was struck against the back of her head breaking her skull. Death was quick. She felt little or no pain." From the blow to the head, anyway.
Susanna took a deep breath to collect herself and asked the question that had to be asked. "Can we see her? I can't believe this is true without seeing her."
Kait nodded feeling tears prickle at her eyes. She reached across the table and grasped Susanna Manning's hand in her own. "We will find who did this. There is always something that a criminal leaves behind that leads us to him. We're going to make sure this man pays for what he did."
Susanna tightened her hold around Kait's fingers and let more tears roll down her cheeks. "Thank you."
Kait pulled her hand away slowly and turned to Brass. "Will you arrange for Mr. and Mrs. Manning to see their daughter? Doc Robbins should be down in his office. I have to go over a few pieces of evidence in the lab. We can all talk more later." And I also really have to get away from here. Breathe, Kait.
"I will. Sir, Ma'am, if you'll follow me?" Brass led Ryan and Susanna Manning out of the interrogation room.
Kait sat still for a moment before turning to face her father. "I screwed up, I know. There's nothing I can do about it now."
"I was going to say that you did rather well given the circumstances," Gil commented sitting down next to her.
Kait turned to his with a small smile. "Is that coming from my boss or my dad? Because I don't think I've ever heard my boss compliment anyone working under him." She nudged him with her shoulder to let him know she was joking.
Grissom returned her smile, realizing the she was probably right. "I want you all to do things to impress yourselves--Not me. How could you do that if I'm constantly patting you on the backs?"
"Ha! Excuses, excuses, excuses," Kait summarized. The smile that had been playing on her lips through their short conversation disappeared as her facade also vanished. "How do you do it? How do you look at a child who will never get a chance to grow up and then look at their parents and not cry?"
"Years of practice," he replied deadly.
The tears that Kait had been trying to keep at bay started down her face. "Will you promise me that you'll never allow me to get that way?"
Gil reached over and wrapped his arms around her in an awkward hug. "I'll try my best."
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
"Estoy aburrida," Kait sighed as she and Nick were going through the sand and other evidence collected at the burial site. They'd yet to find anything in the 5 hours that they'd been at it that would help them find the killer. Off Nick's look, she clarified. "I'm bored."
How many cups of coffee have you had?" Nick chuckled at her response of two hands displaying six fingers. He changed the subject. "Okay, you speak Italian and Spanish. What other languages do you know?" He asked as he sifted through the dust and dirt from the desert.
"American Sign language and Signed Exact English, a little German, and even less French," Kait mumbled. She still hated talking about herself with the people she worked with--especially Nick. She slid back in her stool and rubbed her eyes. "Why are we doing this? We aren't going to find anything that will help us get this guy."
"I've got something," Nick announced as if he hadn't heard her.
"How did I know that would happen?" she muttered looking over his shoulder at the strand of fiber her was holding in a pair of tweezers. "Looks like hair, maybe?"
"That would be my guess." Nick bagged the fiber to send to Greg.
"A little short to be female. Possibly our killer?" Kait suggested making sure she added the "possibly" at the beginning of her statement.
"It could be. Now will you please explain to me why you drank six cups of coffee in a span of three hours? I didn't think that you really liked it all that much." Nick smiled at her after sealing the evidence bag.
Kait grinned. Being around Nick always made her feel...brighter, somehow. "I never drank the stuff before I came here. Now I admit it...I'm addicted to it. I tried to fight it, but I'm not strong enough. Besides, I have a lot on my mind."
"This case?"
"Yeah, but something else too. Maybe you can help?" Nick nodded. "Do you think my dad and Catherine are sleeping together?"
If Nick had been drinking the coffee they had been speaking of, it would have been all over Kait. To say her question caught him off guard would be calling Mt. Everest a big hill. "What made you think of that?" His response came out kind of screechy.
Kait rolled her eyes at his reaction. "Have you ever walked into a room where they were alone and felt like you were interrupting something? A week ago, he called my apartment about an hour before shift from her house."
"I don't know, but if they are, they're consenting adults. That, and I really don't want to think about it. It's almost as bad as thinking about your parents having sex," Nick told her putting his hands up.
The expression on Kait's face would be enough to make even Grissom laugh out loud. "How the hell do you think I feel?! He is my parent."
"What's up, you two?" Warrick asked as her entered the lab.
They both turned around to face him. It was Nick who replied. "Kait's hyper and thinks that Gris and Cath are...having a relationship that is...more than just professional." He made his statement as politically correct as he possibly could.
"Grissom and Catherine?" Sara asked as she entered behind Warrick. She raised her eyebrows toward Kait who groaned.
"Please, please, for the love of all that is Holy, can we drop this? I think I'm going to get sick," Kait said dramatically covering her face with her arm. "I'm sorry I brought it up."
"Poor Kait," Warrick mock sympathized. He chuckled when she took off her gloves and threw them at him.
"That's it. I'm going down to my office to actually get work done. I have to finish my report on the Manning autopsy anyway, and there are a few more things I have to go over," Kait stood up and walked toward the door. "Enjoy you sand. Good luck finding anything else, Nicky."
Sara and Warrick looked at one another before grabbing gloves to help Nick examine the pails of sand, dust, and hopefully, evidence that would lead them to the man who committed the cold blooded murders of over a dozen children over a span of two decades.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Grissom sat in his office silently staring at the framed photograph in his hands. It was a picture of a five year old Kait taken at an aquarium in Los Angeles. She was trying her best to sound out the words on the plaque against the glass of the tank. The two of them had been working on her reading for a few weeks using various Dr. Seuss books. Each had their own copy of each book, so they could read together even over the phone. They didn't spend much time together, and they knew one another's voices better than their faces.
And Grissom knew that their was a chance he might wake up one morning and never hear her voice again. He thought about it often. He thought about never hearing her gentle prodding on Sunday mornings when she tried to get him to go to Church with her. The reflection of never hearing her giggle in the quiet, shy way that was so typical of her ever since she was a little girl. He could wake up one morning and be completely deaf, successfully cutting the strongest connection he and his only child shared.
Gil cautiously put the picture back in its place in his desk drawer, and he went to leave his office. He wandered toward Greg's lab knowing that he'd find some kind of racket there to prove that the Otosclerosis hadn't progressed quite that far as of yet.
TO BE CONTINUED...
Sorry that it took me so long to get this part out. I have been so busy. I tried to make it longer than usual, but I think it is about the same length of every other part. I wanted to get this part out before everyone lost interest.
Also, here's an invite to join a Yahoo! Group of mine, Nick & Sara Shippers (Yes, I am ordinarily a N/S fic reader. I have no idea where this fic came from really). To join:
Send an email to CSI_Nick-Sara_Shippers@yahoogroups.com
OR
Go to http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CSI_Nick-Sara_Shippers/