A/N: I'm grateful to everyone who continues to read and review this story. Special thanks to those of you who have reviewed more than once. That's above and beyond the call of duty! Enjoy!
Chapter 4: Plenty of Evidence, No Suspect
Greg Sanders emerged from behind his large microscope to face the attentive audience of the graveyard CSIs plus Brass. He shuffled the pile of papers in his hand and got ready for his group presentation. He loved formally presenting his results to the CSIs, although sometimes they didn't allow him the opportunity. "All right," he began. "I have all the results here. Nick, Warrick…" He turned to them. "All the blood samples you brought me belong to Grissom. The hair samples are Grissom's as well. The blood on the glasses and blackjack—Grissom's."
"I'm sensing a pattern here," Nick commented dejectedly.
"Is there anything helpful on what we brought you?" Warrick asked.
"Not really," Greg admitted. "Sorry, guys. According to Jacqui, there were no prints on the blackjack and no prints on the gun other than Grissom's. I'm thinking the guy wore gloves." He hesitated, and then looked in Catherine's direction. "And now onto you, Catherine." He took a breath, and the others thought they knew what was probably coming. "No usable DNA under Grissom's fingernails. All the swabs you gave me contained only blood and skin belonging to Grissom, too. But…" He paused theatrically. "…there was something. I found a black thread on one of the swabs from Grissom's knuckles. It matches the wool knit of the small pieces of string found on our original victim, Kimberly Miller."
Catherine's mouth quirked into half a grin. "So that ties Grissom's attacker to our murder. What do you think—he was wearing a ski mask?"
"Very possible," Greg replied, "unless the threads were from his gloves."
It wasn't much, but it was enough to keep everyone focused on the case, and slightly optimistic.
"Did you get to the swab I gave you yet?" Sara asked.
"Ah, Sara's swab," Greg said. "The grand finale. I put a rush on it as soon as you got here and gave it to me. Yes, I got a DNA profile from the blood you gave me, Sara, and, drum roll please…it does not match Grissom's DNA."
"The attacker's?" Sara wondered hopefully.
"That's what I think. So I ran it through CODIS, and…no hits. Sorry, it's an unknown. What I'm going to need is a sample to compare it to."
"Well as soon as we have something, we'll let you know," Sara told him, disappointment filling her tone. "Thanks, Greg."
"No problem. Just come back when you have someone in custody, and we'll nail him."
"I wish it was that easy, Greggo," Nick said quietly. "I hate to say it, but right now we have no viable suspects."
"All right, everyone," Brass said, "let's get back to work. Let's check out the other evidence we have, even though it's not much."
They slowly filed out, heading for the small box of evidence awaiting them across the hall.
* * * * * * *
The team stood and sat around the lighted table in the spacious layout room. Spread out in front of them was the meager evidence from both Kimberly Miller's murder scene and Grissom's attack. They were all staring at the items on the tabletop, some of them zoning out, lost in their own thoughts, and some of them examining photos or trace evidence with magnifying glasses.
Even Greg had joined them, trying to be of any help he could, while, at the same time, trying not to get in the way. At this moment, he decided to chance it and lean over Sara's shoulder while she examined one-to-one pictures of the bruising on Grissom's neck. "So what do you think?" he asked her. "Can you tell if the guy wore knit gloves or some other kind?"
"It's difficult to tell," Sara began. "As hard as this guy was squeezing Grissom's neck, if he had been wearing knit gloves a repeating pattern may have been left, indicating the individual lines of threads."
Greg grabbed a magnifier and examined another one of the photos—this one showing a different angle of Grissom's neck. "I don't see any pattern," he announced.
"Me, neither," Sara agreed.
"Does that mean he was wearing leather gloves?"
"Not necessarily. They could have been fleece or another material—even latex like ours." She paused, squinting at the photo in front of her. "But I think we can definitely say that the wool threads you found did not come from this guy's gloves."
Greg nodded. "So he was wearing a ski mask."
"Yeah. That's why we didn't find any errant hairs from this guy—his head was completely covered."
Nick's voice came suddenly from across the table, "Hey, guys? What do you make of this?"
Catherine and Warrick were the closest, so they moved over behind him. On the table was a photo of Grissom's right hand, and next to it, an enlarged shot of just the odd-shaped bruise.
Warrick studied the images for a second. "Is that a heel print?" he asked, shocked.
"I think so."
Catherine could see it now, too. She hadn't realized what object the bruise resembled when she had taken the photos in the ICU. "So, the guy stomped on Grissom's hand?"
"Not just stomped," Warrick pointed out. "He dug that heel in hard. Held it there. He had to to cause such deep bruising and to break the bones. He purposely crushed Gris's hand."
"That says rage to me," Catherine began. "This guy was violent enough to strangle Grissom and deliberately fracture his hand, but he stopped short of killing him. Why?"
"Strangulation is an up close and personal crime," Nick said. "This guy didn't know Grissom, didn't have a personal connection with him, so killing him wouldn't have been…satisfying. Not like killing Kimberly Miller was. That meant something to this guy. He was mad at Grissom, furious even. Maybe cause Grissom fought back or maybe just because Grissom was there, in his way. So he roughed him up pretty good—took out some of that anger on Gris, but he didn't have that need to kill him."
Nick shared a glance with both Catherine and Warrick, but Catherine was the one who spoke first. "This guy is dangerous," she said softly. "Dangerous and confident, because he thinks we don't have anything on him. He thinks he got the only incriminating evidence at the scene. That's a scary combination."
Brass, Greg, and Sara had overheard the conversation at the opposite end of the table. They were all silent, absorbing Catherine's last comment.
Nick finally broke the silence, "Well, I'll take this heel print and scan it into the computer. Our database only covers treads—and this heel is smooth—so I don't think we'll get any hits. But it's worth a try."
"You could always use it for comparison," Greg chimed in.
"Yeah, if we had some suspects," Warrick said, noticeably annoyed.
"What's going on with that, Jim?" Catherine asked. "By this time we usually have a revolving door in the interrogation room—boyfriends, coworkers, family members. Doesn't Kimberly Miller have any of those?"
"Not really," Brass explained. "Remember, she just moved here a month ago. She works in telemarketing and keeps to herself. The one coworker, who noticed she was missing from work, went to her house and found the body. She called the police and we've already spoken to her."
"Well, since we usually interview people who knew each victim," Catherine added, trying to keep her tone light, "we can't forget about all of Grissom's girlfriends."
Brass smirked at her attempt at humor. It was appreciated by everyone in the room, but, unfortunately, it did very little to ease the serious mood that hung over them all.
"What, Kimberly Miller has no family?" Nick asked, referring back to Brass's original comment.
"An aunt. In Toledo. That's it."
"There was no evidence of forced entry, right? So she must have known her attacker. There must be someone we're missing," Sara reminded them.
"We'll keep looking into her background," Brass told them, "but right now there's no one else." The beeper on his belt went off as he finished his sentence. He picked it up and read the tiny screen. "That's the hospital about Grissom's clothes. I'll go find out if they found them." He stepped out of the room to return the call.
Sara put down the magnifier she had been using. "I guess we're done with this stuff, and I still feel like we've gotten nowhere."
Catherine tried to cheer her up. "That's not exactly true, Sara. All this stuff will be great for comparison just as soon as we get a suspect in."
Brass popped his head back in the doorway. "They found his clothes. I sent a couple of officers over to pick them up."
"Thanks, Brass," Catherine told him. She turned to her other colleagues. "Maybe we'll get lucky, and Grissom's clothes will give us the clue we're looking for."
* * * * * * *
They had tape-lifted a bunch of fibers and hairs from Grissom's clothes, and were examining them under the high-powered comparative microscope. Grissom's dark ensemble—black pants, shoes, short-sleeve button-down shirt, and gray suede jacket—had finally been dropped off at the lab. Warrick, Sara, and Greg decided to do the collecting and processing of the trace evidence themselves.
Warrick was comparing the fibers on Grissom's jacket to fibers from the living room carpet at the victim's house and finding a visual match. Sara checked the hairs, including two with skin tags attached, which appeared to be more of Grissom's, but Greg would have to make certain with a DNA profile. Greg himself was currently collecting samples from the dried blood on Grissom's shirt. Since the material was black, it was hard to find the blood drops, but the UV light he was viewing through an amber filter caused the remnants of body fluid to fluoresce, making Greg's search much easier.
Checking for DNA from the blood scrapings, Greg waited impatiently while the centrifuge and computer did their work. When the report finally came out of the printer, it matched the unknown profile Greg had identified earlier. "Yes!" he cried, attracting the others' attention. "This is definitely the attacker's blood!"
"Good work, Greg," Sara said, smiling. "Did you find anything else?"
"Negative. The only other blood on the shirt belongs to our esteemed leader."
"Well, keep looking."
"For what?"
"I don't know—anything else that'll lead to our killer." She returned to studying Grissom's jacket, flipping it over so that the back faced her. As the light illuminated the folds of suede from certain angles, Sara thought she noticed something. She looked more closely and saw a mark embedded in the soft material. It appeared to be a shoe print—clear and complete. "Guys," she said, trying unsuccessfully to hide her excitement. "Come and take a look at this."
The two men came over to get a peek. "Is that a…" Greg began.
"Oh yeah," Warrick replied. "Nice shoe print, Sara. Let's get some photos." He grabbed the camera from the side counter and started aiming and clicking. The print looked just like what he expected from his and Nick's investigation of the crime scene. It was obviously the bottom of a pointed-toe boot.
"It's a clear image, but that still doesn't help us," Sara said. "I don't think cowboy boots are in the database. They generally have no distinctive treads, just smooth, leather soles."
"I know, but it's still a beauty," Warrick pointed out. "We can get a shoe size from it—that's something new and different."
"That's true," Sara answered. She went back to examining Grissom's jacket, focusing on the sleeves now. She discovered a small, dark string and picked it up in her tweezers. "Got a wool thread," she announced. "Same as the others—from a black ski mask."
"Now all we need is the dude who was wearing that ski mask," Warrick said.
The others silently agreed.
* * * * * * *
Catherine struggled with helping Grissom through his front door and juggling two bags of groceries. She had volunteered to pick him up from the hospital when the call came into the lab telling them he was being released. She had gone to his townhouse earlier to get him some fresh clothes, and now, on the way back there with him, she had stopped to pick up some foods that the doctor said he could have—mostly soft, mushy stuff that he normally wouldn't eat. Until Grissom's throat was completely healed, he would have to stick to the restricted diet that his doctor had prescribed.
Catherine dropped the bags in the kitchen and helped Grissom into his bedroom. His injured ribs forced him to walk slowly and somewhat stooped over, so he leaned on Catherine as they made their way to his room. She lowered him gently to the bed. "Thanks," he rasped. He had grown tired of communicating by writing and had begun speaking again before the doctors had actually suggested it. Although his voice went in and out and had a tendency to squeak like someone with a serious case of laryngitis, he was able to make himself heard and understood.
Catherine assisted him with his jacket. "Why don't you try a shower?" she suggested, looking him over. "The doctor said you could get everything wet, right?"
"Yeah, and the cast is waterproof." He raised his right hand to show her.
"Do you need help with…anything?" she asked, grinning.
"I think I can manage," he answered, with half a grin of his own.
"Okay. I'll be right out there if you need me."
He nodded and leaned over carefully to take off his shoes, as Catherine walked out, closing the door behind her.
It was tricky doing everything with one hand, but Grissom managed. He turned on the shower, keeping the water pressure low and the temperature only lukewarm. He wasn't looking forward to the sharp streams of water hitting his battered body, so he moved in gingerly. He went through the motions clumsily, but quickly. As he was attempting to shampoo his hair left-handed, he felt sticky blood residue and tried to wash it out the best he could. When his ribs began to ache more fiercely, he rinsed off all the soap, cut the water, and carefully stepped out.
A few minutes later, there was a knocking on his bedroom door. "Are you decent?" Catherine asked through the closed barrier.
"Come on in," he told her.
She opened the door, balancing the large tray she was carrying in her other hand. She put it down carefully on the far side of the bed. Clad in his bathrobe, Grissom was currently occupying the near side, propped up comfortably on the pillows.
"I brought you some selections from your 'approved' menu," she told him. "Applesauce, pudding, and yogurt. And I have some ice water and your pain medication if you need it." She moved the glass and the small, amber prescription bottle onto the end table closest to him. She looked around the neatly-appointed room and gathered up a few more things she thought would be of interest to him, placing them on the bed next to him. Then she ticked off a list of what she had collected, "The remote, so you can watch the Discovery Channel, a couple of books and the latest forensic journals to keep you occupied, and your spare reading glasses. This way you don't have to move around too much." She smiled down at him. "Do you think you'll need anything else?"
He shook his head.
"Okay. Then I'll be out in the living room for a while, until I have to go pick up Lindsey."
He grabbed her arm as she turned to go, and she faced him again. "Thanks, Cath," he said, his voice coming out in a harsh whisper.
"You're welcome. Try to get some rest." She reached out and affectionately tousled his hair. "I'll be right outside."
He nodded his head and gave her a quick grin as she left the room.
* * * * * * *
Grissom woke up abruptly, gasping, his breath caught in his throat. He wasn't sure whether he had cried out loud or only in the throes of the nightmarish thrashing in his mind. He looked around, his heart pounding in his ears, and sat up slowly, wiping cold streams of sweat from his face.
Feeling an uncharacteristic need for human contact and reassurance, he almost called out for Catherine, but he stopped himself. Then, as he suddenly recalled the vivid dream—not a dream, it was memory, he told himself, a clear vision of what had happened to him in the Miller house—he wanted to call out to Catherine for another reason. He needed to share with her the new information he had about the case, the possible clues he had finally remembered.
He yelled Catherine's name, loud enough to be heard through the half-closed door, but not loud enough to scare or worry her, he hoped. There was no answer or sound from the living room.
He recalled all of it now—the struggle with his attacker, the black ski mask and leather gloves he wore, the way the dark man had disarmed him by stepping on his hand, and, most importantly, the fact that the intruder had taken something out of the house, something that had been on the fireplace mantle. Grissom thought back hard, but he couldn't visualize what the man had taken. Now that he recollected the details, he realized that he had never actually seen what the attacker had lifted. He had been face-down on the carpet and groggy when the man had first attempted to grab the item, and then he had been unconscious. But at least now they knew where the piece of evidence had come from. Maybe that would be enough to figure out what was missing and why.
"Cath!" he called again and still got no reply. She must have left already, he thought. So he gathered himself enough to get off the bed, and then began the painful process of dressing. He knew he could just phone over to the police station, but it was the middle of the day and none of his night crew would be there. If he called their cells he would most likely wake them up. They had already pulled a double shift and needed to catch some sleep. So Grissom decided to go down to the lab in person and talk to whoever was there. He just hoped it wouldn't be Conrad Ecklie, the daytime supervisor. Grissom didn't think he could stomach Ecklie right now. It was bad enough trying to deal with him when Grissom wasn't carrying key pieces of evidence on his body, but now it would be nearly impossible. Shrugging stiffly into his jacket, Grissom picked up the phone to call himself a cab.
* * * * * * *