Part Five - Drydock

(High and Low)

Walking through the lab, Sara could barely keep a rein on her impatience, though she had, at least, stopped muttering under her breath about bureaucratic nonsense, red tape and arcane rules. It had got to the stage that people were literally running the other way when they saw her coming, and after pottering around her apartment during hours of the day when she'd normally be in the lab, she'd decided to stop complaining about it and actually do something about it.

The only person she knew with the power to help her was Grissom, so she headed to his office, fully prepared to wheedle, cajole or beg, anything to get her back out into the field. Catherine was working a shooting solo, Warrick and Nick were losing no time in telling her all about their murder, in which the vic literally appeared to have fallen from the sky. All these interesting cases, and where was she? Stuck processing evidence, pushing paper inside the lab.

This hadn't been her first attempt, but she hadn't managed to find Grissom, and he didn't appear to be anywhere around the lab. She'd asked a few people if they'd seen him, had tried his cell, all to no avail, but as luck would have it, this time he was in his office, though standing at his desk, folders underneath his arm. He had all the hallmarks of someone who was on his way out the door, so she knocked on the door frame lightly, expecting him to turn around. When he didn't, she frowned, knocking a little harder on the door, combining it with the words, "You got a minute?"

He turned then, blinking in surprise. "I didn't see you there," he said simply, and she shrugged her shoulders, taking a couple of steps in.

"I stopped by a little while ago," she said. "You weren't here."

"I had an errand to run," he said, his tone clipped, his manner brusque, and it was Sara's turn to register surprise. She knew that people often talked about Grissom's manner and lack of people skills, but she couldn't recall a time when he'd ever addressed her in quite that tone. The memory of a poolside conversation at the Newman residence came to her, and she brushed it aside - she didn't want to think about that now, didn't want to get retrospectively pissed off at him, not when she was here to beg him for a favour.

"OK," she said simply, cutting him off before he could say anything else, holding her hands up in mock surrender. "I was just wondering if I could ask you something."

"As long as it's quick," was all Grissom said, and Sara took a deep breath, realising that this might be harder than she'd thought.

"I'm dry-docked," she told him, cutting straight to the point. "I'm maxed out on overtime, I can't get out into the field and lab work is driving me crazy." Her main problem out in the open, she chanced a whimsical smile. "Can you help me out?"

"No." The word was uttered in that flat, brusque tone, without a hint of a smile on his face. There wasn't a chance that he was joking with her, and she felt herself deflate slightly. It wasn't so much that he was saying no, she'd expected that. It was the way in which he said it, his whole demeanour.

Still though, she gave it another try. "C'mon Gris, those rules are ridiculous…when a case is hot, you have to run with it, you know that as well as I do-"

"Sara." Her name was said in the tone that she knew better than to argue with, the tone that she'd heard of, had heard used, but had never had directed at her before. She wasn't sure if it was the tone itself or the shock of it that still her tongue before she got to point out that the only reason she maxed out on overtime this month was that he called her in on the Todd Branson murder. "Those rules are made for a reason. Not only that, but you max out on overtime more than any other CSI I've met."

"Exactly my point!" Sara's eyes grew wide with surprise, because when had Grissom ever not bent that particular pesky rule for her? "Grissom-"

"Sara." There was that tone again. "The decision stands." He held her gaze for a long moment, then walked out of the office, leaving her standing there, wondering what the hell just happened.

***

It didn't take long for Sara to recover, deciding that if Grissom wouldn't listen to her, then there might be someone else that he would listen to, and it didn't take her long to figure out who it might be. Thus, she abandoned all prospect of talking Grissom around, instead choosing to seek out someone who had charm in abundance, someone who had plenty of practice at getting around Grissom.

She found Catherine in one of the layout rooms, bags of what looked like twigs laid out on the table in front of her. Wondering what in the world that had to do with a shooting, Sara decided that it wasn't that vital that she know, instead coming straight to the point, as she had with Grissom. "Can you help me out?"

Catherine barely looked up from her twigs. "Uh…depends."

While not a ringing endorsement, it was still more encouraging than her entire conversation with Grissom. "I can't get out into the field because I'm maxed out on overtime for the month," she said simply, leaving it to Catherine to fill in the blanks.

"Ah. And you're confined to the lab, huh?" From Catherine's continued interest in her evidence, it was clear that she didn't consider this a problem, certainly not in the same way that Sara considered it a problem. In fact, Catherine had her own set of suggestions as to what Sara should do, which she lost no time in sharing. "Well, hey, look, it's regular hours. I mean, go have dinner with the boyfriend ... Hank, right?" There was just enough of a pause after the word boyfriend for the word to sink in with Sara before Catherine named him, and from the sassy little glint in her colleague's eye, Sara knew that she was on a fishing expedition. Even though she'd been asked about it more times than she could count, she still had never come out and confirmed to anyone from work that she and Hank were dating, and there was no way she was going to do it now. Seeing that she wasn't going to get a reaction, Catherine continued. "And, and ... go, go to a spa."

Sara told herself that she wasn't going to react to the line about Hank. She wasn't going to do it. But the words came out of her mouth anyway, and the second she said them, she wanted to take them back. "Hank is not my boyfriend." It was a categorical denial, and a complete lie, but Catherine couldn't know that, though the look on her face when she glanced up at Sara pretty much gave the game away. Still, Sara rushed to cover up the lie in the hopes that Catherine would forget all about it, following up with an objection that even she found weak. "And you know, those places are filled with bacteria."

Catherine didn't comment on either refutation, going on the offensive. "Sara, I don't make the rules around here. You've got to talk to Grissom about that."

Except that she already had, and had got nowhere. Under normal circumstances, Sara would balk at letting Catherine know that she'd failed at something, much less let her know that she needed her help. But these were not normal circumstances; there was still a lot of the month left to go, and the thought of being confined to the lab for the duration was enough to make Sara swallow her pride. "Yeah ... he's, um, not really in a talking mood."

She smiled as she said it, somewhat embarrassed, and Catherine looked up at her in what looked like mild surprise. "What makes you think he's going talk to me?" Sara merely shrugged in response, giving her that same smile, because if he was going to talk to anyone in the lab, it was going to be her; besides which, Catherine was able to turn on the charm like no-one else she'd ever met. If Catherine could read her thoughts, she didn't comment on them, instead telling Sara, "Get some rest."

With barely contained impatience, Sara fought the urge to beat Catherine over the head with one of the sticks in front of her. Nick had said the same thing to her, so had Warrick. Even Hank had said it, and she was getting nigh on sick of it. "I'm not tired," she protested, knowing from Catherine's face that she didn't believe her. "Really. I'm not tired."

Knowing that Catherine didn't believe her, she turned, walking out of the room, going back to the DNA lab where she was helping out Greg.

***

Making his way to the DNA lab, Cyrus couldn't keep from hurrying, though he did try. Not very hard though; after all, he'd been waiting for this evidence for what seemed like a long time. He'd been on the hunt for this murder weapon for a long time, and if his luck held, the traces of blood that had been on it would conclusively link it to his suspected killer. He would have crossed his fingers were he the superstitious type, but instead he just settled for throwing a quick prayer up to whomever might be listening as he walked into the lab.

He expected to see Greg Sanders there, the lively spiky-haired lab tech who normally handled such cases, and he was thrown off his stride when he saw a familiar crown of dark hair wielding a pipette, transferring a sample of liquid into a test tube. "Doing your own lab work now Sara?" he asked, taken aback when she looked up at him, not with the smile that he'd been half-expecting, but with a narrow eyed glare.

"Don't you start too," she all but growled at him, and he held up his hands in genuine confusion.

"You want me to go out and come back in?" he suggested, only partly joking, and Sara looked hard at him, as if to ascertain if he was serious. When she realised that he really didn't know what she was talking about, she was instantly contrite, or as contrite as one could be when she still looked pissed off.

"I shouldn't have snapped at you like that…I'm sorry." She laid down the pipette, turning to face him and leaning against the bench. "I've just been hearing a lot of jokes at my expense… gets a little old."

He narrowed his eyes curiously, deciding it was safe to take a couple of steps closer in, ready to run at any moment. "You want to let me in on the secret?" he asked, and she looked to the ceiling, shaking her head.

"I maxed out on overtime for the month," she told him. "I'm confined to the lab. Hence, helping out Greg."

"And she's doing quite well too," Greg pointed out, hustling past them, a folder of results in his hand. "Might make a real lab tech out of her yet."

Sara made a sound that was halfway between a chuckle and a growl, and Cyrus might have reacted more to it were he not trying to nab the rapidly moving Greg. "Sanders, you got those results for me?"

"Somewhere in the pile," Greg told him, barely breaking stride. "But if I don't get these to Ecklie like, five minutes ago, you'll be finding my DNA under his fingernails… Sara, help the Detective, will you? Meredith Lambert."

"Sure." Sara wasn't looking at Greg when she replied, but Cyrus was, and he was pretty sure that for all Greg's haste, he paused slightly on the way out, his gaze flickering from Sara to Cyrus and back again, a devilish smile on his face. As quickly as Cyrus noted it though, it was gone, and so was Greg, and he told himself that he was being paranoid, that he'd been hanging around with Stokes too long, turning back to Sara, who, good as her word, had moved over to another bench, looking through a pile of papers there. "I swear," she muttered to herself. "I don't know how he finds a thing…"

"So you're not allowed out in the field?" Cyrus asked, following her over, receiving a half-glare for his concern.

"No," she said viciously. "Regular hours until the start of next month."

She sounded as if she'd been sentenced to bread and water, and Cyrus couldn't help laughing. "You say that like it's a bad thing."

"It is." There was no trace of good humour in her voice, and Cyrus stopped laughing quickly. "Lab work's ok…" Even he could tell that that was a lie. "But it's not the same, you know?"

"Don't let Greg hear you say that," Cyrus told her, trying to lighten her mood, receiving a snicker as reward for his efforts. "Seriously though," Cyrus continued. "You're the first person I've heard complain about not being able to work overtime."

She gave him a long-suffering sigh in response. "Catherine told me to go to the spa," she told him. "You know how much bacteria is in those places?"

He didn't, nor did he want to. "So do something else. Go see friends, see a movie, go to the carnival…"

He'd meant it as a joke, but she looked up at his words, laying down her papers. "The carnival?" she repeated thoughtfully. "Man, I haven't been to a carnival in years… outside of a case a couple of years ago… one used to come every year when I was a kid, my parents would always take us…"

"Yeah?" He'd never heard Sara talk about her childhood before, in fact, knew very little about her personal life at all, and he couldn't deny his interest.

"Yeah…I used to love all the rides…but especially the Ferris wheel… it'd go up and you'd be able to see all the way over the bay…" Her voice trailed off, lost in memories. "I haven't thought about that in years," she admitted.

"There you go," he told her. "There's a plan for you."

"Maybe," she said, going back to her papers again, all professionalism again, and she didn't look up again until she came to one particular folder. "Here's your name," she said, flipping open the folder, eyes screwing up in concentration as she read the page. "According to this, the blood is a definite match to Meredith Lambert." She looked up at him after she said the name, and he felt the biggest smile starting to spread across his face. "I take it that's good?"

"That's very good," he told her. Off her curious look, he explained. "Meredith Lambert was found dead two weeks ago at her residence. No-one was home, allegedly, nothing was taken, place was smashed up though. Husband had no alibi, but we had no evidence on him."

"Until now?"

"Until now," he confirmed. "That knife was found in a park where they used to go jogging on a regular basis…wrapped in a piece of newspaper dated the day of the murder." He grimaced slightly as a thought occurred to him. "Now we just have to tie the knife to the husband."

Sara's nose wrinkled in thought. "Nothing on prints?"

"Knife and paper both clean," Cyrus reported. "Unfortunately. And we checked the kitchen, the garage, everywhere. No knives missing, no receipts from buying knives… not that it looked especially new…see for yourself." Opening the folder in his hand, he took out a photograph of the knife, handing it over to her. When she took it from him, she frowned, holding it up, observing it from several different angles. She did that for so long that he had to ask, "What, you see something?"

Her next question surprised him. "Husband wasn't a diver by any chance?"

Cyrus's eyebrows raised. "He was. Is that important?"

"With this knife? I'd say so."

"How?" Cyrus didn't understand, and he wasn't shy about saying so. "I mean, it's an all purpose knife, anyone could have used it…"

"And I bet anyone did," Sara said. "See how the handle's all beat up? But that's not why it's important." She was walking past him to the door when she stopped. "Who's the CSI on the case?"

"McCafferty. Day shift."

She narrowed her eyes. "Cheating on the graveyard shift? Detective, I'm hurt."

"Right," he said flatly, but his lips twitched. "You're gonna share what you know anyway though."

She tilted her head, as if she was considering it. "You talked me into it," she said, motioning him to follow her. "McCafferty's not gonna mind me snooping; she's pretty cool. Come on."

She led him to the layout room, finding the evidence box, finding the knife easily and signing it out. "Initial there," she said, handing him a pen, pointing to her name. He did so, looking at her in silent question. "This way we can say that you couldn't find someone on days and asked me to help out."

He blinked. "You said McCafferty wouldn't mind."

"She won't. But when you're dealing with one of Ecklie's people, you cover yourself."

She was gone again, and he found himself once more following in her wake, feeling all kinds of new respect for Nick and anyone else who had to try to keep up with Sara when she was running with a case. "He's really that bad?" he asked, having heard all about Conrad Ecklie, none of it very pleasant, and Sara literally shuddered when she replied.

"Worse," she said simply. She didn't say another word until she got to the print lab, nodding at the woman sitting there. "Mind if I rob your station Jackie?"

Jackie just looked at her. "It's all yours," she said, as if she was surprised that Sara had even asked. "I was about due for a break." She nodded at Cyrus as she left, but Cyrus barely noticed, so intent was he on Sara. She was moving with the speed of someone who knew exactly what she was doing gathering all the equipment she needed and laying it on the table beside the knife. Snapping on a pair of gloves, she took the knife from the bag, holding it up in demonstration.

"This is an all-purpose knife, you're right about that," she told him. "But a lot of divers use them…they come in handy when you're in the depths of the deep and you're not sure what might be coming at you. Or if you want to take samples of what's growing down there."

To say that Sara knew about this was a surprise to say the least. "You're a diver?" he asked, and she laughed, shaking her head.

"Not me. My older brother used to, and his buddies. Diving, surfing, jet skis, anything to do with water. However, while he loved the sports, cleaning up after himself was never his strong suit. He used to pay me to do it…and I used to let him." She was fiddling with the knife, her features a mask of concentration. "Which is how I know that this happens…" With a triumphant smile, she popped the blade out of the knife, the handle popping open into two equal halves. "I saw from the pictures that they only dusted the outside, right?" Cyrus nodded his assent and Sara moved towards what looked like a large glass box. "McCafferty's from Vermont," she told him. "Not a lot of diving knives sold there."

"You think you can get a print off that?" Cyrus asked, stepping closer to her to better see what she was doing, and she shrugged as she reached for a small foil container, putting a few drops of liquid into it.

"It's worth a shot," she told him. "I know that my prints would have been all over the inside of Mike's knife." She paused then, holding the knife up. "Though I might do you one better." She angled the knife, pointing out a stain at the base of the handle.

"Is that blood?" Cyrus couldn't figure out how it would have got there, inside the blade, but once again, Sara had an answer for him.

"Could be…I've nicked myself on these things plenty…the blood runs down, gets in between the grooves." Reaching for a bindle, she took a swab of it. "It could be animal blood…but then again, you might get lucky." She labelled the bindle, then returned to the glass box. Placing the small dish into it, she put the knife handle and blade onto the shelf within, closing the lid and flicking a switch. Instantly, fumes began to pour into the box, and as Cyrus looked, patterns began to form on the plastic. He didn't need to see the triumphant grin forming on her face to know that she'd hit pay dirt.

"You've got a print?" he asked, just to be sure, and she leaned closer to get a better look.

"A good one too," she announced. She was already reaching for her tape lift. "I'll scan it in, run it through the databases…hope for the best."

She flashed him a gap-toothed grin, and he couldn't help his reply. "Guess lab work's not so boring after all huh?"

She narrowed her eyes at him, but seconds later, she was smiling too.