A/N: This chapter is a little bit longer. Thanks to all for your continued support of this story, and for the great reviews! I hope you enjoy this next part.
Chapter 3: Reenactment
Nick and Warrick had been roaming around the Miller living room, trying to piece together what had happened. They had already taken some photos, but had not begun collecting physical evidence yet.
Nick started at the leftmost spot on an almost straight line littered with physical findings that led to the fireplace on the right side of the living room. "Here are Grissom's glasses," he said, squatting down and picking them up carefully with gloved fingers. Looking closely, he noticed that the left earpiece was bent inward, and that there were tiny spots of blood on the lenses and frame. "Obviously knocked off his face during the fight."
Warrick came closer and nodded agreement with Nick's findings. He watched as his partner placed the glasses in a small plastic bag. Then he pointed out the next section of clues. "The main part of the fight seems to have been here. There are two blood patterns—these small closely-spaced drops…" He squatted down to get a better look. "…and this large medium-velocity blood spatter here."
"Yeah, that could have come from a blow to the face," Nick added, hunkering down next to Warrick. He took note of what seemed like an awful lot of blood all around them. An involuntary shudder ran through him as he fully realized that at least some of the red stains must have come from their boss. He shared an uneasy glance with Warrick, and his voice came out almost in a whisper as he asked, "Do you think this is all Grissom's blood?"
"Not sure," Warrick replied, his voice equally low. "Why don't you take a sample of both patterns, and let Greg tell us."
Nick got out some cotton swabs and began processing the blood.
"Then we've got this smudge, followed by this large blood stain here," Warrick continued, moving down the line of evidence. "This may have been where Gris was lying after he got knocked out. Did Catherine say what position he was in when she found him?"
The other CSI shook his head. "No, and I couldn't see through the crowd of people in here earlier."
"Me, either," Warrick agreed. "I'm gonna call Catherine." He pulled out his cell phone, unfolded it, extended the antenna, and punched his speed dial. "Cath? Hi, it's Warrick. Nick and I are here at the Miller house. We're checking out the scene and we need to know where you found Grissom and exactly what position he was in." He listened as she tried to remember and describe it in as much detail as possible. "Okay, thanks, Cath. We'll fill you guys in when we get back to the lab."
He turned back to his colleague. "All right. Catherine says Grissom was lying on his back about six or seven feet from the edge of the fireplace, head to the north, feet to the south."
Nick paced off the approximate distance, and ended up next to the largest of the blood stains on the carpet. "So this was where Gris was lying."
"Yeah. He had cuts on the left side of his face. So if he ends up on his back here, the blood flows this way, toward his ear…" Warrick indicated the direction on his own face, dragging his fingers perpendicular to the bridge of his nose. "…and pools on the carpet. Gravity."
"And lacerations on the left side of Grissom's face mean a right-handed attacker." Nick pantomimed holding someone in front of him and administering a swift right cross. "Blood spatter on the rug to the west supports this."
"Well, there are no more visible blood stains," Warrick pointed out.
"So, the fight was probably quick, and contained here in the center." He squatted down and examined the carpet. "Got some hairs," he reported, picking one up carefully in his tweezers. "Gray and curly."
"You think they belong to the boss?" Warrick asked.
"Greg'll let us know," Nick answered as he placed the hairs into a small yellow envelope.
Warrick moved further down the evidence line, frowning in puzzlement. "If the fight was in the middle of the room, then why is Grissom's gun over here…?" He indicated a spot to the east of where Nick was standing. "…and his gloves over there?" He pointed back toward the start of the grouping of clues.
Nick thought for a moment. "His gloves…came off during the fight," he offered. "With all the rolling around and trying to get punches in. And his gun…" He rubbed his jaw, deep in concentration, then gave a little shrug. "If all the action is here in the center, why is Grissom's gun facing east, near the fireplace?"
"It was dropped during the struggle?" Warrick thought out loud.
"Maybe. But, I don't know, doesn't it seem kind of…posed to you?"
"Let's play it out," Warrick suggested. He faced the other CSI. "Okay, you're Gris and I'm the suspect. We're struggling and you draw your gun."
Nick pulled an imaginary gun from his holster, using his right index finger and thumb to represent the barrel and hammer. Warrick grabbed his wrists as they fought for the "gun."
"Now if you lose your grip on the gun," Warrick pointed out, "it ends up way over there behind us. Not on the opposite side near the fireplace."
"Right," Nick agreed. He glanced around. "But what if we're on the ground struggling for the gun?" He got down on his back, carefully avoiding the blood evidence scattered about.
The men pretended to fight again, but soon realized that the gun would still most likely fly off to Nick's right—the opposite direction they were looking for. "Okay," Nick suggested, "so that doesn't work. But…" He sat up and switched positions. "…what if Grissom was on top when they fought for the gun?" He again imagined a gun in his right hand, and he and Warrick struggled for possession of the invisible weapon. This time it made sense that the gun would land off to Nick's right, near the fireplace.
The two CSIs got up and dusted themselves off. They had found a plausible scenario to explain the placement of Grissom's gun. "Maybe," Warrick commented. "But how do we know that the attacker didn't have possession of the gun when it was dropped?"
"We don't," his colleague admitted. "I'll take it to the lab and check for prints."
"He could have worn gloves."
"Yeah, but if our bad guy got a hold of the gun, why didn't he use it? Grissom didn't have any bullet wounds."
Warrick shook his head. "Who knows? Maybe he didn't want to kill Gris. Or…maybe he used the gun for something else. Like to give Gris that shot across the face."
Nick picked up the gun and examined it under a lighted magnifier. "No evidence of blood on here, but I'll have Greg check it out." He dropped Grissom's weapon into a fresh bag.
Getting a sudden thought, Warrick looked toward the front door. "Why don't you finish up in here, and I'll go check outside?"
"Sure," Nick agreed.
After several minutes, Warrick returned. "Look what I got," he announced enthusiastically.
Nick glanced up and saw the dark, slender instrument in his partner's gloved hand.
"Found it right in the garbage can, on top of the trash bags."
"Cool," Nick commented. "You think our suspect used that to nail Grissom and Jenkins?"
"Oh, yeah. Visible signs of blood and tissue."
"Bag it and we'll see if he left us prints, too." Nick returned to the blood smudge he had been studying when Warrick walked in. It was mixed in with the blood patterns they had categorized earlier, but it was fainter and larger than the other spots, and oddly-shaped. "What do you make of this, War?" he inquired.
Warrick came over and looked with him. "Partial shoe print?"
The mark resembled a small triangle with one side extending diagonally past the others. "Could be a boot with a pointed toe…or a woman's shoe." He put a scale marker down around the blood print and snapped a picture.
"I doubt our perp was a female," Warrick said. "Kimberly Miller was strangled—that's a man's crime. If it was the murderer returning to the scene, then we're looking for a guy. And the way he worked over Gris and Officer Jenkins? That took a lot of physical strength. It was a man all right."
Nick nodded in agreement. "Now that we've done all our collecting, let's review what the room tells us." They began at the doorway and walked through the events as they knew them. "Okay," Nick began, "Gris comes in through the door and starts looking around. He sees something and goes to check it out." They stepped to the apparent beginning of the evidence line. "I bagged a pair of tweezers I found here, so he must have been examining some small piece of evidence."
"Did you find what he was looking at?" Warrick asked.
"No. It must have gotten lost in the struggle."
"All right," Warrick said, picking up where Nick had left off. "So Grissom is here, examining something, and our perp comes up behind him after taking care of Jenkins outside."
"Right. Grissom turns, and the guy nails him with the blackjack, like this…" Nick swung his arm hard from right to left. "Pow! Cast off from the weapon leaves our closely-spaced blood pattern over here to the left."
Warrick took up the narrative again, "So, Grissom goes down, and then there's a struggle—rolling around, exchanging blows…" He threw a couple of shadow-boxing punches.
Nick nodded and continued, "At some time during the fight, Grissom's gloves slip off and he pulls his gun…"
"Or the perp does…"
Nick silently concurred. "They fight over the gun, and somehow it ends up discarded next to the fireplace."
"Our boy finishes off Grissom, getting in a few more shots and choking him…"
"…leaving visible hand prints on Grissom's throat."
"Then he grabs whatever he came for and walks out, leaving us that partial print and tossing the blackjack in the trash."
"But what did he come for?" Nick pondered.
Warrick gave a cursory glance around the room. "You got me. Nothing looks out of place or like it's missing."
Nick frowned in thought. "Did Sara take casing pictures of this room?"
"I doubt it. Point of disturbance was the master bedroom, upstairs. No reason to take photos down here."
"Well, there's one person, besides the suspect, who might know what he took out of here," Nick reasoned.
"Grissom?"
"Grissom. Maybe he saw something before he blacked out."
"We should go drop all this stuff by the lab, and then see how he's doing."
"Yeah, maybe Grissom can fill in the blanks for us, if he's up to it."
"Let's go find out," Warrick suggested as they left the house loaded down with their evidence bags and swabs ready for processing.
* * * * * * *
He turns and feels the hard blow burn into his cheek. He falls back and struggles with the attacker. The strong hands clamp around his throat. He can't breathe, his lungs fight for air. Finally, the fingers loosen and he looks up at the man in black. Everything turns fuzzy, but he feels warm drops of wetness land on his neck and chest. He watches in slow motion as the blood hits him and splatters. Then the suffocating darkness overcomes him, and he falls into it, feeling fear course through him…
Grissom's eyes snapped open, and he sat halfway up on the hospital bed, his heart beating wildly. He felt a firm, but gentle hand on his chest, pushing him back down onto the pillow. As the person next to him came into focus, he tried to say, "Sara…" He heard her name in his head, but all that came out was a scratchy hiss.
"Don't try to talk," she told him. "I'll go get the doctor."
She rushed off, leaving him there to gain his bearings and to get his rapid breathing under control. A quick glance at himself told him he was in the hospital. He tried to look around, but his neck was stiff and sore, and he was unable to turn it more than an inch in any direction. He felt other assorted pains throughout his body and the pinch of an IV in his arm. Raising his left hand to his throat, he tried to swallow. Grimacing, he managed to get saliva past what felt like a large lump in his throat, but the resulting sharp, burning agony made him not want to do it again any time soon, even though his mouth and lips were terribly parched.
Trying to think about something besides the horrible pain in his throat, Grissom suddenly remembered the hazy, dream-like memory that had woken him. He had to communicate the crucial information to Sara, so as she returned to the room with the doctor, he attempted to signal for a piece of paper. First he raised his right hand, but realized that it was encased in a hard cast made of some kind of foam. The stiff shell extended several inches past his wrist, and surrounded each of his fingers, effectively immobilizing them. So he quickly lifted his other hand and moved it through the air like he was writing.
"What is it, Grissom?"
He wanted to just shout it out, but his vocal chords wouldn't cooperate. He repeated his pantomime.
"A pen and paper?" she asked, getting it.
He nodded energetically.
He took the offered implements eagerly, but slowed down as he struggled to write legibly with his left hand.
"How are you feeling today, Mr. Grissom?" the young doctor asked, a rather stupid thing to do since Gil was unable to answer him verbally.
Grissom ignored him, and focused on completing his message.
"Mr. Grissom?" the doctor repeatedly cluelessly.
Gil spared half a second to wave him off and throw him a quick, but intense glare. Then he turned right back to the pad.
Sara jumped in to help her occupied supervisor, "Give him a minute, would you, doc?"
"I'll be back in a little while," the doctor said, getting the picture.
Grissom finished what he was scribbling and showed it to Sara.
He wouldn't win any awards for his left-handed penmanship, but Sara was able to make it out. She read it out loud, "Suspect got his blood on me. DNA?"
She pressed the control button on the bed to raise him up into more of a sitting position, and moved the wheeled tray in front of him so it would be easier for him to "talk" to her on the pad. "Where did the guy's blood land? Do you remember?" she asked.
He touched the base of his neck near the collar of his hospital gown.
Sara frowned. "They cleaned you up pretty well, but there might still be a trace of suspect blood on you."
Grissom looked confused. He wrote down his question, "Blood collected at the scene?"
"No, we didn't collect any evidence off you at the scene."
He stared at her with puzzled eyes.
"Look, we know it wasn't protocol, but when Catherine found you, you were unconscious and bleeding. She was worried about you. We were all worried about you, and collecting trace evidence wasn't the first thing on our minds."
He continued to look at her, without saying a word, but she knew just what he was thinking. Grissom would hate to hear it from any of his team, but he was a very easy man to read. His expressive face, especially his ever-changing blue eyes, spoke volumes.
Right now, his eyebrows were furrowed and his lips were pursed, and Sara could tell exactly how he felt. She sensed anger and frustration simmering on the surface, but underneath that, where it counted, fighting with his more irate emotions, she knew that he understood the situation and didn't really blame the CSIs. She decided to tease him about it—just a little, "Come on, Grissom, think about it. What if you had been in Catherine's place? What if it had been her lying there? Or Nick? Could you have just stopped everything, told the paramedics to wait, and started collecting hair and fiber evidence from their unconscious bodies? Would you have said, 'Wait a second,' and then taken swabs of blood samples while the paramedics put off taking care of them?"
He sighed—with his whole body, like he always did—and graced her with a weak half-smile. Then he reached for the pad, and jotted something down, "You're right. I'm glad Catherine found me and took care of things."
Sara read it and smiled. Then she told him, "Catherine was in the ICU with you last night, collecting evidence. Even though it was after the fact, maybe she found something. I'll call her." She thought for a moment, and then added, "If the guy's blood hit where you showed me, I bet some of it got on your shirt. I know Brass was trying to find your clothes—they got misplaced somewhere in the ER. I'll check with him, too, and see where they are on that."
She could see frustration creeping back onto his face. "I know, I know," she said. "Murphy's law. Normally, the ER docs just throw the patients' personal effects into plastic bags which travel with them from room to room. But, somehow your stuff got lost."
He gave a little shake of his head, and leaned back against the pillow.
"Look, Grissom, I know we'll find something," she soothed. "You're the one who always says, 'there's always a clue.' And I know we'll find one."
He looked slightly more convinced, but, suddenly, also very, very tired. Sara took in his battered face, noticeably pale where it wasn't covered with mottled-purple bruising, and the deep, dark marks on his neck, which stood out shockingly against his pallid skin. Although he was improving, he still looked pretty wrecked to her. His vulnerable appearance made Sara feel very protective of him. She wanted to reach out and comfort him, and do anything she could to make him feel better. Noticing his terribly chapped lips, she asked, "Are you thirsty?"
He gave a little nod.
"Okay, why don't you just lie there and relax. I'll go check in with Brass and Catherine, and then I'll track down your doctor and see if you can have some water or something."
He thanked her with a small, tired smile.
"Be right back," she promised, leaving the room.
Grissom closed his suddenly heavy eyelids and tried to rest. But in the blackness that greeted him, all he could see, in endless repetition, was a tall, dark figure looming over him; all he could feel was fear and worry and a nagging sense that something very important was missing, lost somewhere in the recesses of his mind…
* * * * * * *
Sara returned to Grissom's room about ten minutes later. He had been dozing lightly, but woke up when he heard her come in. "Hey," Sara greeted, sitting down next to him. She put a Styrofoam cup with a plastic spoon sticking out of it on the tray-table. Seeing his quizzical look, she explained, "Ice chips. The doctor said that's all you can have for now." She put some on the tip of the spoon and lifted it to his lips. He opened up and she slid the ice in. He let the ice melt in his mouth a little, and then he attempted to swallow. The frozen liquid numbed and soothed his throat as it slid down.
Sara could tell that the ice chips were helping. "More?" she asked.
When he nodded, she gave him another spoonful. He swallowed again, his throat feeling much better as the cold water coated it on the way down. Sara let him have one more mouthful of the ice, and then said, "That's it for now. The doctor said just a little at a time."
He reached for the pen and notebook on the tray. "Thanks," he wrote, his handwriting getting a bit better with practice. "What did Cath and Brass have to say?"
"Catherine said she took some swabs from your face, but the results haven't come back from Greg yet. He has a lot to process—Nick and Warrick brought him a bunch of stuff, too. As far as Brass goes—he said they haven't located your clothes yet, but they're still looking."
He exhaled impatiently.
Sara went on, "Catherine did suggest that I check for any blood she may have missed on your neck. She didn't really look in that area. The swabs she took were from your knuckles and face." She got a lighted magnifier out of her field kit. "So is it okay if I look? I'll be careful, but it still might hurt."
He nodded, and braced himself. She leaned forward, and started gently prodding the base of his neck. She used very light pressure when she made contact anywhere near the reddish-purple bruises, but she still felt him flinch and draw back from the pain her touch caused. "Sorry," she said guiltily.
She didn't see anything until she pulled the top of his hospital gown down past his collarbone. She moved closer still, and saw a tiny, dry, maroon-colored speck. "Hey, Gris," she told him. "I think we have something here."
She reached for a sterile swab from her kit and doused it with hydrogen peroxide. Then she rubbed it over the fleck on his skin. Dropping some phenolphthalein onto the cotton tip of the swab, she watched it turn pink—the sign that blood was indeed present. "We've got blood," she announced happily. She covered the swab and placed it in a narrow box to transport it to the lab.
Once she finished, Grissom leaned forward to write a comment to her. "Could be mine," he inscribed on the paper.
"Greg will let us know," she replied.
Just then, Nick and Warrick came in, followed by the young doctor returning with a nurse. "Hey, Gris," Nick said, walking over. "How are you doing?" He patted Grissom's arm.
"He can't really talk," Sara explained to her coworkers. "He's supposed to rest his throat."
Hearing that, the guys didn't ask Grissom any more questions. But Warrick commented, "You don't look too bad, Gris. And I'm sure the other guy looks worse."
Grissom smiled, but then the doctor interrupted before anyone could say anything else, "I'm sorry, but you'll all have to leave the room for a few minutes. Nurse Jeffries and I have to examine Mr. Grissom. You can come back in when we're through. Thanks for your cooperation."
The CSIs were reluctant, but they obeyed the doctor's orders. "We'll be right back, Grissom," Sara promised him.
After a few minutes, Dr. Wright and the nurse emerged from the room. They found the three criminalists standing there, waiting.
"How is he doing?" Nick asked.
"Mr. Grissom is doing very well," Dr. Wright told them. "The swelling in his throat has gone down further, and he has refused more pain medication, so it seems that he's feeling better. I think we'll be able to release him from the hospital tomorrow."
"Really? So soon?" Sara wondered.
"I think so," the doctor repeated. "Of course, Mr. Grissom still has a way to go until he's back to one hundred percent. He'll need to rest and take it easy for a few weeks. He'll be sore for a while, but I don't see any reason to keep him here much longer."
"Hey, all right," Warrick said. "I bet Gris'll be glad to hear that."
"Yeah," Sara agreed. "Can we go back in and see him?"
"Sure," the doctor told them. "He can have some more of those ice chips, and later we'll try him on some other liquids and soft foods. But no solid foods yet, and nothing hot."
Warrick, Sara, and Nick made a note of the doctor's instructions, and then went back into the room. "The doc says you're doing great," Warrick began. "You'll be out of here real soon."
Sara picked the Styrofoam cup up off the tray. Seeing that half the ice had melted, she offered, "I'll go get you some more of these."
Grissom grabbed the pen. "Did you guys check out the scene?" he wrote, angling the notebook so that they could read it.
"Yeah," Warrick answered. "We think we know what happened, but a few things aren't clear. We don't know what originally caught your attention in the center of the room. We aren't sure what happened when you drew your gun, and the main thing is we don't know what the guy returned to the scene for. Did you see him take anything out of there, Gris?"
He responded on the paper, "No. Sorry. It's still a little fuzzy."
"That's okay," Nick said. "We gave all our samples to Greg to work on. Maybe he'll find something for us."
"Anything unusual?" their supervisor wrote.
"Not really," Nick replied. "Some hairs, which we think are yours, a couple different blood patterns, your glasses, flashlight, and tweezers."
"Oh, we found the guy's weapon," Warrick added. "One of those slim blackjacks."
Grissom raised a hand to his still-tender left cheek. So that's what the guy hit me with… "Any prints?" he jotted.
"No, sorry, boss. We couldn't find even a partial," Nick admitted. Then he brightened a bit. "But we did find what looked like part of a shoe print. It's very small, but it could be helpful."
"Yeah, if we find someone wearing pointed-toe boots with blood on the sole, we can make a comparison."
Sara returned to the room as Grissom was writing a comment on the pad. "Sounds like you don't have much," the three others read. They glanced at his exhausted, solemn face, and felt like they had failed him.
Grissom knew they had worked hard, but he was disappointed that they hadn't found more solid evidence. He knew they all wanted this guy caught, but maybe their emotions were clouding their judgment. Maybe his were, too. Grissom couldn't hide his annoyance at the fact that this suspect had walked right back into their crime scene to steal incriminating evidence, and had left hardly a trace of himself behind.
There's always a clue, he reminded himself silently, but the words, a famous mantra of his, echoed hollowly in his ears. They were missing something, he knew. He was missing something—forgetting some crucial piece of information about his attack. He tried thinking back to last night's events, but it just made his head hurt. He was tired, he realized. So tired… He needed some rest. Maybe it would come to him then. The simultaneous sound of three beepers going off knocked Grissom out of his reverie; all the CSIs checked the small pagers on their belts.
"Greg," Nick reported.
"Greg," Warrick repeated.
"Catherine," Sara said, as they all exchanged a look.
"Greg must be done with the lab work," Nick explained. "We'd better go see what he has."
Catherine must have an update, too," Sara added. "And I need to get this new sample to the lab."
"We'll let you know what the results are, boss," Warrick promised, as he and Nick headed for the door.
Grissom nodded, while Sara said, "You two go on ahead. I'll be right there." She turned back to her supervisor. "Will you be okay by yourself?" she asked, concern filling her voice.
He nodded again, giving her a little grin.
"Are you sure?"
"I'm sure," he wrote in the notebook. "It's okay. Go. Do your job."
"All right." She looked at him pointedly. "Now you suck on some more of these ice chips, and then try to get some rest. Got it?"
"Got it," he scribbled quickly, as she lowered the back of his bed down so he could sleep comfortably.
He closed his eyes, but she didn't leave right away. She stood there, watching him for several minutes. She was filled with an urge to touch him comfortingly, to let him know she was there and that she cared, but she hesitated. She had already gotten in trouble once—in court, of all places—for touching Grissom in a "romantic gesture." She hadn't thought anyone had seen, then, but she really hadn't cared. She remembered that case well.
Grissom had been so frustrated and upset, blaming himself for not finding the body they all knew was hidden somewhere in Bob Evans's walls. He had closed his eyes, seeming so sad and alone, and Sara had reached out and caressed his cheek. He had opened his eyes so suddenly, and had looked so shocked, that she had pretended she had just been wiping plaster dust from his face. In fact, he had had chalk on his cheek, but that wasn't the only reason she had touched him there.
And now, in his quiet hospital room, she felt the need to comfort him again. This time she knew no one could see, but that didn't even factor into her decision. She reached out and gently ran her fingers down the uninjured side of his face. He didn't stir, and she thought he was probably already asleep, so with one last look at him, she walked out the door to join the rest of the team at CSI headquarters.
* * * * * * *