11- "Profiling Sidle"


Taña's smile slowly crept to her lips. "Beg your pardon?"

"No, no, not like that," He said quickly, shutting the door behind him.

She smiled again. He stood there awkwardly for a moment, then said, cautiously and quietly, "I need advice... er... professional advice."

Her smile disappeared as she looked behind Grissom, "Oh my God, did you see that?"

Grissom spun around and said, "What?"

Taña shook her head, "That was weird, I could have sworn I just saw a flying pig. Anyhow, yes Gil, Gil Grissom, how can I help you today?"

"I need psychological help."

Beat.

"Tell me something I don't know," She smirked, turning back to the computer with a squeak from the chair. Grissom stood there, staring her down with a "give me a break" stare, and she spun back around and said, in a fake way, "Oh, you mean about someone. Who?"

Grissom paused, "A friend."

"Whoa, whoa there, Bug-Boy, I don't do normal people. I do psychos. Murderers live on impulses, makes them easy to predict, but normal people live with all these repressed feelings and are all bottled up inside... but... who?"

"A friend."

"Sara Sidle?"

"How did you..."

"Uh, hello Grissom, I'm a profiler. Anyhow, yes, I will help you and try my best."

Grissom nodded, then cleared his throat and said, "Is she... this might sound stupid, but is she at risk by any harm from..."

"Herself?" Taña asked, reading Grissom's mind as he gaped at her. She ignored him, and continued on with the air of someone talking about the weather, "Well there is only one way I can profile a person."

"How?"

"Work backwards."

"From where?"

"The murder."

"But Sara has-"

"Imagination Grissom. Let me draw upon past experiences and my training.

"If Sara were to kill someone, I would classify it as a Necessity Killing, even though he or she knows it is wrong, he or she would still do it because they believe they have to. She would kill in a personal way, asphyxiation, perhaps poison.

"The victimology would be very important. She would know the victim, be close to said victim, be very close emotionally. She would pose the body. Not a full body pose, but she would cover the face.

"She would kill out of a self-professed necessity; either consequence or personal emotional struggle. She would be messy, only because of a subconscious desire to be caught."

She looked at Grissom with a dark stare.

"As for danger to herself... from the Sara I have met and heard stories about... she would never..."

Grissom was still transfixed by the FBI agent in front of him who had morphed from a likable woman to a dark shadow of a person.

"The one thing that scares me, though, is... well... there are a few kinds of killers. There are impulse killers, then there are hesitation killers, and killers with a self-perceived purpose, too... the ones that do it and are shocked later, the others who doubt up until the very moment if they can do it, the ones who know and do it with not a single doubt in their mind. She would have no hesitation to kill her ex-lover. No doubts."

She paused, realizing she had gone too far as Grissom jumped in surprise.

"She would kill me?"

Taña said nothing.

"You... you can tell that?"

"This isn't a job, this is a lifestyle. There is a thin line between a killer and a profiler. A very thin line. Profiling is..."

"A blessed curse." Grissom finished, drifting off as Taña nodded.

Grissom began to walk out when he spun around and said, "If it is such a lifestyle, then... do you profile everyone you meet?"

"Blessed curse." She repeated.

"Then... who would I kill?"

"You're not like anyone I have ever met... people fall into such terribly predictable patterns... so much predictability, yet you never fail to surprise me. There are few people who can do that to me."

"Who else?"

"One other..." She turned to the door, but Grissom said, "Wait, you never told me who I would kill."

She smiled, back to her normal self, "Er... no comment. Prefer not to disclose said information..."

Grissom stared at her.

"Wow, you got the 'profiler stare', very scary. When you are a profiler, you usually have not a lot to work with. The job gets harder the more information you know. From what I've seen, Grissom, I would say... yourself."

She left Grissom to his thoughts.


"I believe that sex is one of the most beautiful, natural, wholesome things that money can buy."

-Tom Clancy