Disclaimers: see Ch. 1; acknowledgments, see Ch. 7. Attention: this chapter includes mention of rape.
Nick grunted with effort. "Hurry it up, willya?" he asked, his voice strained.
"Drop me and die," Sara returned, stretching further. Her fingertips brushed the rag caught on the rock protruding from the cliffside. "An inch more."
Nick braced himself and let Sara slide just a bit further down the near-vertical slope. "We could have waited for proper gear, you know," he commented glumly. His hands were wrapped around her ankles, white-fingered with the strength of his grip. If he lost hold, Sara was in danger of nothing more than a bruising slide, but he had absolutely no desire to face what she would do to him afterwards--and even less to face what Grissom would do to him when he heard. "This is probably violating any number of employee safety rules."
Sara snorted, finally grasping the cloth. "Okay, pull me back up. And stop complaining, Nick, I don't weigh that much." She winced a little, the bumps in the ground making themselves felt through her vest as she slid upward.
"You don't weigh enough," Nick retorted, standing and dusting off his pants. Sara rolled over and sat up, grinning up at him.
"Bag, please."
As he rummaged in his kit, Sara shone her light on the cloth in her hand. Blood stained one edge, and her grin deepened with satisfaction. A body dump in the middle of nowhere in the mountains, and yet they'd happened on a nice piece of evidence. "And in the dark, too."
"Huh?" Nick turned back, bag in hand. "In the dark what?"
"This." Sara took the bag and sealed the rag in it. "We found it."
His grin matched hers. "That we did." He gave her a casual hand up from the ground. "You still mad at Grissom?"
She gave him a spiky look, all surprise and suspicion, and he fended it off with one palm. "Hey, just wondering. You two seem to be getting along a little better these days."
"Yeah, well..." Sara looked down at the bag. "I don't know if anything's changed. But it's hard to stay mad, you know?"
"I get you." Nick opened the SUV's back hatch for her, then played his light across the rough ground once more. "Should we make another pass?"
Sara hesitated, and in that moment her cellphone rang. She pulled it out. "Sidle."
Nick watched as her face sharpened into concentration, and knew she was on the hunt. "Okay, thanks. It'll take us about two hours to get back...okay, see you then."
"Well?" Nick asked mildly as she closed the phone.
"Brass votes no," she returned, smiling again. "They've picked up the suspect in the Stevens murder case, and I need to get back."
"Cool." Nick bounced the keys in his palm. "Let's go."
"She was picked up at school," Brass told Sara in an undertone as they looked through the one-way window. "Claims she was spending the night with a friend."
The teenager in the interrogation room was sullenly ignoring the heavyset woman who sat next to her, though the advocate kept trying to speak to her. Madelyn had long hair, bleached blond, Sara noted, but her investigator's gaze also picked out the fading bruise on her arm, the stiffness of her posture that spoke more of rage than fear, the carefully scruffy clothing that was probably chosen with an eye to making her unnoticeable. Sara swallowed. She was starting to get a bad feeling about this.
Brass, who had taken the case from O'Reilly so the detective could go on vacation, held the door open for Sara, who took a seat across the table and a little ways down from Madelyn. He himself sat directly opposite, and folded his hands on the table. "Madelyn, I'm Captain Brass, and this is Sara Sidle of the Crime Lab. We need to ask you a few questions."
His tone was friendly, but all it gained him was a glare and a shrug. Brass sighed with practiced theatrics, but Sara felt an unusual tension emanating from him, and remembered suddenly Warrick mentioning that Brass had a teenaged daughter. Huh. So he's not uninvolved either.
"We're sorry about your loss," Sara added gently, but Madelyn snorted.
"Good riddance."
Brass' eyes slid to the advocate and back to Madelyn. "Where's your mother?"
A flash of contempt, and a hint of old pain. "Hell, maybe. She left years ago."
"I'm sorry about that too." Brass was projecting calm sympathy, and Sara knew that it was in part genuine. The older man had a soft heart under his flippant surface; but it would not keep him from justice, no matter how bitter it might turn out to be. "We need to know where you were on the evening of your stepfather's death."
The girl shrugged again. "Out." At Brass' raised brows, she added "Hanging with friends."
"Hanging where exactly?"
Madelyn rolled her eyes. "No place. Around." The advocate leaned forward and said something in a low voice, and the teenager grimaced impatiently. "At school for a while for the game. Then we went looking for a little fun."
"And will your friends be able to corroborate your story?" Brass cocked his head a little.
"Sure. Ask 'em."
Sara slid a pad of paper and a pen across the table. "Names, please."
Madelyn shot her a look that was more puzzlement than annoyance, and scribbled down a few lines before pushing the pad back. Sara took it.
"Madelyn, we found evidence of you near your stepfather's body," Sara said, keeping her voice even. "When was the last time you saw him?"
The sound the girl made might have originally been a laugh. "He was sitting in front of the TV when I left. Drunk like always."
"Did he have any enemies? Anyone who might want to harm him?" Brass asked.
Another shrug. "I guess. Maybe some of the neighbors. He was a mean drunk." One small hand, nails painted a garish blue, went up to rub unconsciously against her opposite shoulder, and Sara winced, guessing at hidden bruises.
The girl's gaze swung back to her. "Wait a sec. What 'evidence'?"
"Hairs, covered in blood," Sara returned promptly. "They match hairs we found in your bedroom."
This time the sound was definitely a laugh, and not a pleasant one. "Sure you did. On his bed, right?" Sara nodded, nausea twisting in her stomach, and Madelyn's face screwed up into a look of petulant fury. "That's because he'd rape me there when I couldn't get away from him!"
Her sudden shout rang out in the harsh room. The advocate put a hand on Madelyn's arm, only to have it violently shrugged off. "Don't touch me," the girl hissed, and turned her glare on the two across the table. "Nobody ever listened to me. I had bruises, I had scratches, but they kept sending me back. Nobody would listen. And now he's dead, and you all are asking me questions. How stupid is that?!"
Sara's throat closed in pain, and Brass' eyes narrowed against his own emotion. The elemental rage in the girl's voice left little room for disbelief. Madelyn jerked down the collar of her t-shirt, revealing a fading bite mark on her shoulder. "That's what he did to me. I am so glad he's dead!"
"You okay?" Brass asked as they watched the advocate lead Madelyn away down the corridor.
"Yeah, sure," Sara answered automatically. She folded her arms tightly over her chest.
Brass sighed heavily. "I hate to say it, but that's motive," he said, his voice sad. "I'll check out her alibi, see what her friends say."
Sara nodded, still watching the thin figure. "All the evidence we have so far is circumstantial," she reminded him. "The sleeping pills were over-the-counter, and we don't have a murder weapon."
"And if what she says is true, then any DNA evidence at the scene isn't probative," Brass agreed. Sara cocked a brow.
"Given the state of the apartment, it wouldn't have been very strong anyway," she pointed out. "Any good lawyer could make hash of it."
Brass rubbed his hands over his face, which didn't erase the weary lines. "You'd better get moving if you're going to handle the rape kit."
She'd done it many times before, and while it never failed to outrage her, this one bit a little deeper. Madelyn was back to being sullen and uncommunicative, but she cooperated with Sara's directions, removing her shirt for photographs, her underwear for swabs. Sara swallowed back her own fury and coolly took photos of the bite mark, the yellowed fingerprint bruises on Madelyn's biceps, the other evidence of brutality. The investigative part of her mind was running through scenarios, theories, alternatives; they had only Madelyn's word so far that her assaulter was in fact her stepfather, though Greg might be able to turn something up on the bloodied bedsheets. They had no evidence tying Madelyn directly to the murder, but neither had the CSIs found any evidence of another person in the apartment, and police inquiries had located no one else in Bill Stevens' life angry enough to want to kill him.
The emotional part of her mind was mourning for this damaged young woman, devastated by her absent mother and the abuse from the man who was supposed to be her guardian. Whether Stevens had sexually assaulted Madelyn or not, he had beaten her, and the system that Sara worked for had failed her repeatedly. It was times like these that made Sara wonder why she bothered at all.
Eventually, Sara finished. As Madelyn pulled her shirt back on, Sara stripped off her gloves and spoke. "What happened to you...it wasn't your fault."
The sullenness lifted for an instant, revealing a startled look, but then Madelyn frowned contemptuously. "What do you know about it?"
Sara's mouth quirked. "I know." She didn't reach out, but met Madelyn's gaze squarely. "Trust me, I know."
The girl's chin quivered, and she turned away, hunching her shoulders. "Don't be nice," she muttered. "It's too late for nice."
"No, it's not," Sara said gently. "Madelyn, I know you've heard it before, but there are people who can help. If you want help...I can make sure they do."
One small hand groped for the tissue box on the table, and Sara moved it within reach, listening to the sniffle, watching Madelyn wrestle back the tears. "Go away," the young woman said eventually.
"Nobody listened." This time, Sara did, even though it pained her. She put her card on the table. "Call me if you change your mind."
No answer followed her out of the room.
Greg took one look her face when she turned in the swabs, and put on formality as a garment, not even venturing a smile as he accepted delivery of the evidence. He promised to examine the bedsheet, and Sara left him behind, dropping off her camera with Archie to be downloaded. Warrick met her in the corridor outside Audio/Visual.
"Hey, girl." His gentle greeting almost undid her, and she gave him a tremulous smile.
"Hey, Warrick."
He shook his head, brow wrinkling, and took her into his arms for a warm hug. "How're you holding up?"
She put her arms around his waist, holding in the tears, and luxuriated for just a moment in his caring. "I'm okay." His snort of disbelief made her smile weakly. "Really."
"Brass filled me in on the case," he said, and she lifted her head to look at him. "Tough one, huh?"
She grimaced and let out a breath. "Yeah." Releasing him, she glanced down at her watch. "I have to report to Grissom."
"He's not in," Warrick said. "Cath said he got a call and left in a hurry. Tell you what--" he looked at his own watch. "There's only ten minutes left in the shift. Let's you and me blow this joint and go get some breakfast."
His gaze was warm and kind, and she knew he would put no new burdens on her. "You got it."
Grissom was used to silence, the quiet of his home broken by music only when he wished it. But lately he'd been finding the quiet a little oppressive.
He sat at his table, staring at his laptop without really seeing it, his cheek propped on one fist. His usual afternoon routine included a second cup of coffee to sip while checking his e-mail, a leisurely process that eased him towards the worknight. But the list was shorter than usual, and he ran the cursor idly up and down the handful of message headers, half-looking for something that wasn't there. Finally he indulged himself, opening a folder on his hard drive and scanning the contents. A long list of files, tidily labeled with date and name. Many dates, but just one name.
He clicked on one more or less at random; it was two years old, but the moment he began reading he remembered the contents, the cheerful tone, the humorous story of a gallery triumph. Robin had embraced e-mail with enthusiasm, finding it a new and easy way to communicate, and while she hadn't written every day by any means, she and her son had frequent exchanges--sometimes long and rambling, sometimes quick notes, but always there. It had eased Grissom's guilt, to a degree, at being so far from her--though, he had to admit, she would have been furious with him if he'd given up the job he loved to be nearer to her.
But there were no more messages, just as the TTY machine on his counter would no longer be required.
Anger swelled in him, sudden and surprising, and he shut down his laptop with brusque movements, trying not to be upset. Trying not to be angry because she had left him. It didn't really work, but soon the surge of passion subsided back into grief, and Grissom stood to dump out his coffee and get ready for work. At least there he was distracted.
See Chapter 9