After seeing off Lady Heather, Breeze went to the break room and passed out on a chair. She crossed her arms on the table and rest her head on them and groaned into her forearm. She imagined herself on her parents' farm in Oregon, wide open spaces and nobody around for miles. No cell phones or murder suspects for miles.
"I wanna go home," she whined.
"I know how you feel," Sasha said, rubbing his forehead. He tipped his head back and closed his eyes. He propped his feet up onto the chair beside him.
"Yeah? Do you feel like there's a mac truck bursting through your forehead like an alien out of a tangelo?"
"…No…"
"Thought so."
Marlena found her team ten minutes later, passed out in the breakroom like kindergarteners at naptime. The air conditioner buzzed delightfully and she could see why they chose to crash in here. All she could think about was what Grissom would say.
"You guys," she reprimanded, shaking her head. "What is this? Sleepytime Station?"
"Might as well be," replied Sasha. "Would you mind pulling out the milk and cookies while we're napping, Miss Reagan?"
"I want chocolate milk," Breeze raised her hand weakly and then dropped it at her side as if it was made of lead.
"Do you see anyone else napping?" Marlena spread her arms, the palms of her hands up.
Breeze opened one eye. "I do."
"Who?"
She pointed. "Sasha is."
"Breeze…"
"Marlena, I haven't slept in two days," Breeze complained uncharacteristically. "I've been on permanent sugar rush and I'm starting to come down. My cats feel neglected. Plus, do you know how pissed off my dogs are that I'm not in bed every night?"
"I would be pissed too," Sasha said, "if the only one sleeping with me is my dog."
Breeze attempted to smack him, but missed miserably and her hand landed with a thwack on the table.
Marlena kept her cool, "Don't make me pour Red Bull down your throat."
Sasha opened his eyes. "I'm up. I'm up."
Marlena grinned to herself. It was an empty threat of course, but she knew how much Sasha hated Red Bull and the solitary thought of it being force-fed to him was enough to get him moving.
"What's up, Master and Commander?" Sasha put his feet down.
Breeze picked up her head so eagerly that Marlena expected her to have a tail to wag like a puppy expectant of a treat.
"You guys aren't going to like this," Marlena groaned as she sank into another chair to Breeze's right.
"What?"
Marlena took a deep breath and explained everything, from the pregnancy test to inscriptions in the Shakespeare books to the Dodger Stadium pictures, from the powder in the skirt to the Aquilas and the love/hate letters. She even included what Sara had said about Sean's drug usage. Breeze and Sasha listened, shocked and soundless.
When she was done. Marlena felt weak. Sasha's jaw dropped.
"You're right," Breeze shook her head. "I don't like this."
"The killer was right under our nose the whole time," Sasha said in a flat voice.
"Well now, we don't know what the white stuff is yet," Marlena said.
"Lemme tell ya something, Marlena," Sasha said irately. "It ain't gonna be powdered sugar." He mumbled a few choice words in Russian under his breath, something he only did when he was really, really steamed.
"I just ran them down to Greg," Marlena disclosed. "He's working on it right now, said he'd find me as soon as he knew."
"Damn straight."
"I just have one more thing I want to do before we pinpoint Sara as the murderer. Just to confirm. Come on. This could make or break the case."
"I don't know why I didn't see this before," Marlena said excitedly. "Okay. On the left is the Aquila print I lifted from Grissom's home. On the right is the Aquila print Sasha took from Sean Gentileschi way back when the little coke-snorter was here for interrogation. What do you see?"
The two CSI's sat back and stared at the comparison on the SmartBoard Marlena had put in front of them. She had pulled the prints from the database. Breeze got it first. She stood and began making marks with the red pointer.
"The one on the left is faded. Also, there is more pressure put on the middle of the print," she explained. "You can sort of see the outline of a much smaller foot, one that doesn't belong in a men's size ten shoe." She made an outline in red. She was right. Though the print started at the heel pretty normal, the foot got more narrow and ended too soon before it got to the toe.
"Right," Marlena said. "I examined the bottom of the shoe I found in Sara's closet. The bottom was worn to almost nothing, almost no tread. The eagle was nearly gone, which is the emblem found on the sole of an Aquila boot. Here it looks a little blotted. Now," Marlena went to the computer, moved Sean's print away and replaced it with a print she had taken from one of Sara's sneakers, "this is what the shoeprint of one of Sara's well-fitting women's size six shoes." Marlena took the blue pointer and drew two lines: one from the toe of Sara's sneaker to the toe of the footprint Breeze had outlined on the Aquila, and one to and from the heels. "See how they match up?"
Sasha stood and came to get a closer look. "Yeah."
"Okay," Marlena went back to the computer, back to Sean's print. "This was from Sean wearing his Aquila boot. See how new the print looks? You can clearly see the eagle outlined on the sole and the treads on the heel and toe. And there's an equal amount of pressure from tip to tip, making the eagle more visible. This one, the one from Grissom's apartment, has little pressure applied, especially around the edges. The most pressure is near the center, where Sara's foot would be, since she's wearing a shoe way too big for her feet. The footprint matches up with Sara's regular print…kids, how many more signs do we need?" Marlena was out of breath. "This is it. This proves Sara was in Grissom's apartment. She tried to frame Sean using his shoes."
Breeze and Sasha gave each other nervous looks.
"Marlena," Sasha spoke up. "Are you sure you want to do this? I mean, Sara's a big name around here."
"So was Grissom."
"It seems so…hokey. So tabloid-worthy," he continued. "You name Sara, you put two careers on the line: yours and hers."
"Make that four," Breeze said. "We helped in the investigation too, Sasha. Let's not put all the blame on Marlena."
Sasha pursed his lips, knowing she was right. "I don't want to do this. Let's call it a cold case."
"Sasha! We can't do that!" Breeze exclaimed. "I'd rather name Sara than call it a cold case."
"If we call it a cold case, nobody gets hurt."
"Except Grissom. He deserves justice too. He suffered the most."
"He's not suffering anymore, Breeze. He's dead."
"No shit! Sasha, you can't call a cold case unless you don't have enough evidence on any suspect."
"I know that. But what if the powder Marlena found is cocaine, not strychnine?" Sasha said. "Then it's gonna have to be called a cold case. The only person we found with strychnine was Solange and it didn't even belong to her, it was her sister's, a sister who doesn't even know Grissom. Solange gave it to Lady Heather who has no motive to kill whatsoever."
"Do you know how many people are expecting us to solve this, flat out?"
"Oh yeah, so many people," Sasha rolled his eyes. "Maybe they'll write a book about it."
"Someone already is," Marlena said. "We're writing our own. We wrote the beginning and the middle. Now it's time for us to write the end."
"It's not going to be easy, getting Sara to confess like this. Or even getting her to talk about Grissom," Breeze said. "You saw how she acted at the memorial service. She ran out crying," she added for Sasha's benefit.
"So I heard," he said.
"We're going to have to wait until Sara returns to work," Marlena said, "which will be tomorrow. Meanwhile, let's gather our evidence so we can present it in a reasonable manner."
"On it," Breeze said, volunteering her services.
"Sasha, I want you to help me confront Sara."
Sasha's eyes bugged out, "No freakin' way."
"Sasha!"
"I'm sorry, I just—"
"Too freakin' bad," five-foot-five Marlena seized six-foot-nine Sasha by the arm and pulled him up out of his chair, not an easy feat for her. "Breeze? Get going please?"
"Sure, no problem," Breeze said, stifling a laugh.
"And you—" Marlena hissed at Sasha. She pulled him down to her level and was about to say something nasty when her beeper went off. She looked down and saw Greg's name, followed by the word urgent. "And you are so lucky."