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Chapter One. The Mocking.
Sara Sidle couldn't believe what she was seeing! It was exactly the same, every single detail, right down to the exact same bedspread.
"Blood smear on the inside door frame, above the top hinge. I'm gonna take a swab" Nick said as his voice filtered through Sara's shock induced haze.
"No" Sara said, her tone taking on an unmistakable order tone even though Nick had sonority. Sara had just made it clear that she was in charge on this case.
"What?" Nick asked relinquishing his authority.
"I want every one out now." Sara announced ignoring Nick's question. Sara pulled her cell phone from her belt she hit one quickly followed by the send button. The phone speed dialled the programmed number and was just as quickly picked up on the other end.
"Grissom" came the disembody voice though the speaker.
"I have a question, Griss" Sara spoke in to her cell, as she once more started to look around the room in which she stood.
"Sara. Aren't you supposed to be at the 'Three Aces'?"
"I am there. Look Griss, the mock scene that you set up at the seminar, do you always use the same scene? Do you ever change it?"
"No it's always the same, I use it to demonstrate at all my advanced lectures..., Sara what is this all about?"
I'm looking at your mock scene, Griss, only this time it not a mock scene."
"How well do you remember it?"
"Picture perfect!"
"OK"
"Griss I hope you were with somebody yesterday."
"Are you telling me that you consider me a suspect... Sara?"
"You created this crime, you re-enacted it maybe a hundred times. I know you didn't do this Grissom, but look at it like a detective, look at it like Ecklie" Sara said just as David arrived on the scene. She held up her hand to David telling him to wait.
"You should send Cath or Warrick down here to replace me, after you any one who took your advanced seminar is a suspect and that's me." Sara said.
She sure as hell didn't want anyone say that she tampered with evidence, certainly not on this case.
"Sara, I want you to stay on this, other then me you know the most about this case."
"No Griss, the killer knows more then I do. But I'll stay if you think that it is for the best." Sara looked at the Officers standing outside the door, she had ordered them out but their curiosity had kept them close. Nick and David watched one with the same curiosity, though David was a little more confused having herd less then the others. She turned away from them and surveyed the scene again.
"Wait a sec, something's different"
"What?" Grissom asked, wishing to be there himself.
"I don't know give me a minute."
"Talk to me. Let me help" Grissom said in calming a tone that Sara immediately associated with the phone calls they used to share when she was still in San Francisco, those very same words were often said during those calls.
"The smell, its the same. It was the first thing that I noticed when I walked in, vinegar and lemons. Blood smear on the door frame Nick found it quicker then I did first time around."
"Nick's good, he sees a lot quickly, you see even more but slowly you never rush, you don't give up until you see it all. Relax, slow down. Slow is what you're good at. Tell me more" Grissom's tone and manner were becoming hypnotic. The words spoken in whisper were pleasing to hear and under different circumstances may have been arousing.
"Her pose, restraints nothing new. She's a brunette fair skin, true English Rose you know. There it is, next to the bed leg." Sara said the last triumphantly.
"Tell me" Grissom said part order part encouragement.
Doing as she was told without pause Sara walked the few steps to the bed and knelt down, pulling her flash lite from her pocket and keeping it in one hand and the phone in the other she shone her flash lite on to the object by the bed leg.
"It's a pipe, a tobacco pipe, an old one. Nick photograph this." Sara said, as she moved aside so that the other CSI could get in close enough to take the shot.
"Thanks Griss" Sara said.
"You found it, Sara"
"Three pipe problem." Sara said watching Nick perform his appointed task.
"Sherlock Holmes."
"His teasing us, challenging us to solve this with less then three pipes."
"There's no better team."
"I have a crime scene to process, hand you case's off and go home Griss"
"That sounds a lot like an order Sara"
"Am I the primary on this case?"
"Yes"
"Then it is an order. I want your notes and any thing else relevant, they're at you place right?"
"Yeah"
"I'll stop by and pick them up." Sara said as her thoughts strayed to keeping this conversation going, keeping this little bit of the past in the present. This little bit of their friendship that she had stumbled across, but knew she couldn't have.
"See ya later Griss" Sara said and disconnected the call before Grissom had a chance to say his own good bye.
"David, give me a time of death, and tag her special processing. We are going to be under the gun on this one. Ecklie and the Sheriff are gonna watch this, just remember it's Grissom's ass on the line."
Nick said nothing but it was clear by his expression that he understood. Nick Stokes was no more apt to mess this case up then Sara herself.
"She's room temp, no rigor." David announced from the bedside.
"I'm done, Doc Robbins will give you a more conclusive time of death but I'd put it between thirty-six and seventy-two hours ago. Sorry Sara that's the best I can do."
"Thanks David, remember special processing." Sara reminded him
"I know we will get it right Sara." David said.
Sara watched, as the brunette's body was loaded in to a body bag and on to the gurney.
She then watched Nick move around the scene with a detachment that surprised her; she made comparisons between how she had worked the mock scene and how Nick now worked its true-life counterpart.
Nick was with out a doubt a brilliant CSI, Grissom had made them all in to the best investigators that they could be, even with out him even being present the thought of disappointing their mentor drove them to be better.
For all the heart ach that Gil Grissom had caused her, she would never leave while he still had more to teach.
Sara left Nick to finish processing the scene and went about doing the same herself, snapping off a photo now and again when she found some thing. She found only two hairs that she didn't expect to be there and a multitude of prints that would be hell for Mandy to sperate.
While doing this she thought back on just how hard it was to get into Grissom's advance class. Her Philosophy Professor who had met Grissom on a flight to New Hampshire and had talked with him about it had asked if he could summit a students name for consideration, she of course was the student, and even though she had no interest in forensics at the time, her academic record and the high opinion of her Professor had bumped her to the top of a very long list. Of the twenty students in the weeklong course more then three quarters were accepted after multiple applications, and she was the only one not working in or studying in the Field of Forensics.
Which in retrospect hadn't served to make her very popular with any of the other students. Sara Sidle was by education, not by nature, a solitary person, so she found little pain in her fellow student's intolerance.
She had been taught by past experience that once her peers realised how different she was she would by cast away from their company, and left once more alone. In keeping with this theory, under which she still to this day lived, she told her peers as little about herself as she could get away with and acted exactly as she thought they expected her to.
"Sara, I think we are done" Nick said, bringing Sara back to the present
"Yeah me too, but there is no way in hell that I'm releasing this scene." Sara said and stared to gather up her things. "Once we get Grissom's notes I want to set the mock scene up in the garage."
"They're going to take us off this Sara" Nick said as though pointing out something that hadn't occurred to her yet.
"We just have to keep working until they do, and afterward if we can"
"Lets go back to the lab" Nick said. There was somthing odd about Sara since she had ended her call with Grissom. The energy that she had lost soon after coming to Las Vegas was back. Once the two CSI's were done packing up their kits and gathering to together the brown paper bags and yellow bindles they left the Deputy to secure the scene.
Sara Sidle couldn't believe what she was seeing! It was exactly the same, every single detail, right down to the exact same bedspread.
"Blood smear on the inside door frame, above the top hinge. I'm gonna take a swab" Nick said as his voice filtered through Sara's shock induced haze.
"No" Sara said, her tone taking on an unmistakable order tone even though Nick had sonority. Sara had just made it clear that she was in charge on this case.
"What?" Nick asked relinquishing his authority.
"I want every one out now." Sara announced ignoring Nick's question. Sara pulled her cell phone from her belt she hit one quickly followed by the send button. The phone speed dialled the programmed number and was just as quickly picked up on the other end.
"Grissom" came the disembody voice though the speaker.
"I have a question, Griss" Sara spoke in to her cell, as she once more started to look around the room in which she stood.
"Sara. Aren't you supposed to be at the 'Three Aces'?"
"I am there. Look Griss, the mock scene that you set up at the seminar, do you always use the same scene? Do you ever change it?"
"No it's always the same, I use it to demonstrate at all my advanced lectures..., Sara what is this all about?"
I'm looking at your mock scene, Griss, only this time it not a mock scene."
"How well do you remember it?"
"Picture perfect!"
"OK"
"Griss I hope you were with somebody yesterday."
"Are you telling me that you consider me a suspect... Sara?"
"You created this crime, you re-enacted it maybe a hundred times. I know you didn't do this Grissom, but look at it like a detective, look at it like Ecklie" Sara said just as David arrived on the scene. She held up her hand to David telling him to wait.
"You should send Cath or Warrick down here to replace me, after you any one who took your advanced seminar is a suspect and that's me." Sara said.
She sure as hell didn't want anyone say that she tampered with evidence, certainly not on this case.
"Sara, I want you to stay on this, other then me you know the most about this case."
"No Griss, the killer knows more then I do. But I'll stay if you think that it is for the best." Sara looked at the Officers standing outside the door, she had ordered them out but their curiosity had kept them close. Nick and David watched one with the same curiosity, though David was a little more confused having herd less then the others. She turned away from them and surveyed the scene again.
"Wait a sec, something's different"
"What?" Grissom asked, wishing to be there himself.
"I don't know give me a minute."
"Talk to me. Let me help" Grissom said in calming a tone that Sara immediately associated with the phone calls they used to share when she was still in San Francisco, those very same words were often said during those calls.
"The smell, its the same. It was the first thing that I noticed when I walked in, vinegar and lemons. Blood smear on the door frame Nick found it quicker then I did first time around."
"Nick's good, he sees a lot quickly, you see even more but slowly you never rush, you don't give up until you see it all. Relax, slow down. Slow is what you're good at. Tell me more" Grissom's tone and manner were becoming hypnotic. The words spoken in whisper were pleasing to hear and under different circumstances may have been arousing.
"Her pose, restraints nothing new. She's a brunette fair skin, true English Rose you know. There it is, next to the bed leg." Sara said the last triumphantly.
"Tell me" Grissom said part order part encouragement.
Doing as she was told without pause Sara walked the few steps to the bed and knelt down, pulling her flash lite from her pocket and keeping it in one hand and the phone in the other she shone her flash lite on to the object by the bed leg.
"It's a pipe, a tobacco pipe, an old one. Nick photograph this." Sara said, as she moved aside so that the other CSI could get in close enough to take the shot.
"Thanks Griss" Sara said.
"You found it, Sara"
"Three pipe problem." Sara said watching Nick perform his appointed task.
"Sherlock Holmes."
"His teasing us, challenging us to solve this with less then three pipes."
"There's no better team."
"I have a crime scene to process, hand you case's off and go home Griss"
"That sounds a lot like an order Sara"
"Am I the primary on this case?"
"Yes"
"Then it is an order. I want your notes and any thing else relevant, they're at you place right?"
"Yeah"
"I'll stop by and pick them up." Sara said as her thoughts strayed to keeping this conversation going, keeping this little bit of the past in the present. This little bit of their friendship that she had stumbled across, but knew she couldn't have.
"See ya later Griss" Sara said and disconnected the call before Grissom had a chance to say his own good bye.
"David, give me a time of death, and tag her special processing. We are going to be under the gun on this one. Ecklie and the Sheriff are gonna watch this, just remember it's Grissom's ass on the line."
Nick said nothing but it was clear by his expression that he understood. Nick Stokes was no more apt to mess this case up then Sara herself.
"She's room temp, no rigor." David announced from the bedside.
"I'm done, Doc Robbins will give you a more conclusive time of death but I'd put it between thirty-six and seventy-two hours ago. Sorry Sara that's the best I can do."
"Thanks David, remember special processing." Sara reminded him
"I know we will get it right Sara." David said.
Sara watched, as the brunette's body was loaded in to a body bag and on to the gurney.
She then watched Nick move around the scene with a detachment that surprised her; she made comparisons between how she had worked the mock scene and how Nick now worked its true-life counterpart.
Nick was with out a doubt a brilliant CSI, Grissom had made them all in to the best investigators that they could be, even with out him even being present the thought of disappointing their mentor drove them to be better.
For all the heart ach that Gil Grissom had caused her, she would never leave while he still had more to teach.
Sara left Nick to finish processing the scene and went about doing the same herself, snapping off a photo now and again when she found some thing. She found only two hairs that she didn't expect to be there and a multitude of prints that would be hell for Mandy to sperate.
While doing this she thought back on just how hard it was to get into Grissom's advance class. Her Philosophy Professor who had met Grissom on a flight to New Hampshire and had talked with him about it had asked if he could summit a students name for consideration, she of course was the student, and even though she had no interest in forensics at the time, her academic record and the high opinion of her Professor had bumped her to the top of a very long list. Of the twenty students in the weeklong course more then three quarters were accepted after multiple applications, and she was the only one not working in or studying in the Field of Forensics.
Which in retrospect hadn't served to make her very popular with any of the other students. Sara Sidle was by education, not by nature, a solitary person, so she found little pain in her fellow student's intolerance.
She had been taught by past experience that once her peers realised how different she was she would by cast away from their company, and left once more alone. In keeping with this theory, under which she still to this day lived, she told her peers as little about herself as she could get away with and acted exactly as she thought they expected her to.
"Sara, I think we are done" Nick said, bringing Sara back to the present
"Yeah me too, but there is no way in hell that I'm releasing this scene." Sara said and stared to gather up her things. "Once we get Grissom's notes I want to set the mock scene up in the garage."
"They're going to take us off this Sara" Nick said as though pointing out something that hadn't occurred to her yet.
"We just have to keep working until they do, and afterward if we can"
"Lets go back to the lab" Nick said. There was somthing odd about Sara since she had ended her call with Grissom. The energy that she had lost soon after coming to Las Vegas was back. Once the two CSI's were done packing up their kits and gathering to together the brown paper bags and yellow bindles they left the Deputy to secure the scene.
