For Disclaimer see Default Chapter
Chapter Eight – Caveat Search"Hey, Grissom! I got soaked to the skin. Need for change here. You should do the same. We really do not need a flu, do we?" Sara lifted her baseball cap which was heavy with water. Raindrops kept dropping from her hair and run over the face. "You looking cute with that curly hair of yours, Gris". She smiled.
"Yeah, thanks. You look cute too." He gave her a little smile realizing that this had been his first attempt to answer her in a flirtative way for a long, long time. "Let's return to the office first, change clothing and then continue investigating the bodies at the vet's place."
Back at the Sheriff's Grissom ordered Sara to go ahead changing and ended up sneezing several times. "Bless you" it shouted from the back. Grissom took a seat and rested his feet on the Sheriff's desk. He put his glasses down, closed his eyes and laid back relaxed listening to the rain.
I have seen her changing clothes before in the locker room. Similar situation, no need to get nervous, he mused. Though, there was this weird new feeling he had difficulties to identify, something very much apart from a professional point of view. Something new that accelerated his heart rate. I am still not sure what to do about this. Grissom sighed.
He flinched by a sudden gentle touch from behind, fingers resting on his tense shoulders, beginning a massage. A slight scent of…her. "Sara," he whispered, "Please. Don't. Do. That." He was not very convincing though. Gris turned around and took her hands to stop her from doing him… Harm. Is this was you think she would do to you? Grissom said to himself. Harm you? His deep blue eyes were meeting hers, melting in each other. He got confused by the open expression in her face. Usually he managed to stare her down, got her to turn away from him. But not this time. She was an open book for him. He was not sure what he was reading in her eyes but he saw softness, understanding, passion and…love? What will she be going to see in my eyes? He wondered.If he dared to hold the glance any longer he would loose himself. Grissom emerged from his seat but still kept holding her hands. Very close now, too close. Before he could have completely lost it, his inner alarm bell went off furiously. In kind of a panic he averted his eyes, loosened the grip, cleared his throat.
"My turn, huh?" he managed to say in a rasp voice. Sara realized that probably for the first time ever she somehow looked behind the wall Grissom had built up to lock out all varieties of emotional interference. "Yeah, Gris. You're leaking…out." She smiled.
When he finally returned in dry clothing he was all business again, emotionally settled down and back on the case. "Here we go."
The deputies who helped Dale Sterling with the bodies had already left when Grissom and Sara entered the vet station. Each body were lying on a separate table which were usually occupied by domestic pets, mostly dogs and cats, surrounded by their concerned owners.
"Doc, thank you for bringing them in. You might wanna put on some dry clothes too." Sara felt pity for the poor guy, who left sniffing and sneezing.
Sara and Grissom put their latex gloves on and started pick pocketing the victims. "Sara, remember. Just look, not investigate. We need an authorized coroner, so we will have to bag the vics and bring them all the way back to Vegas."
"Gris, you can't be serious. I am not going to drive back with two dead bodies in the trunk."
"You won't. I can do that and you may ask the Sheriff if he can give you a lift."
"Oh great. No wait, I know better. I'm going to ask Solder if he gives me a ride." She replied slyly to his proposal.
"At your service, honey!" It came shouting from the door. Phil shook himself like a big dog, spreading rain drops all over the place. He grabbed a towel offered by the vet who just returned to attend the body search and came up close to Sara. "What can I do for you?" he asked in a seducing tone.
Sterling harrumphed in an attempt to catch their attention. "Look Grissom, after the head case, I got into it. I mean the coroner thing. Uh, I, uh, in the meantime I took some courses, you know. I was a medic before I became a vet, that worked for me. Got my coroner's certification a couple of weeks ago. I know how to cut and now I am authorized." He gave them a shy smile. "Could need the practice though."
Sara burst into laughter. "Hey, I have never seen a guy so keen and enthusiastic about opening a body. You also going to stay, Phil?"
"Naw, don't make me. I'm not a forensic and I prefer to keep my stomach contents were they are. I'm good with rocks though, remember? Hey, Grissom. I've collected several geological material from uphill. Let me have your evidence from the place of discovery and I can continue investigating the cause of the landslide and establish a time line for you."
Grissom nodded and handed him over several bagged and sealed envelopes. "This is all we have", he said. "everything else has been washed away."
"I think I can make something out of it. See ya guys later."
"Alright. Both dead men had wallets with them. It's our lucky day! Driver's licences inside, well that's an easy one." Sara read the names. "One Clark Vincent, 39 and the shooting vic is named Drake Merchant, 35 both registered in Ely. Also containing gaming cards, not valid though due to off season, a couple of small bills and a photo of a woman posed. Oh, oh. Same woman here, what do you think, Grissom? Do we have motive? I'm going to take the fingerprints and fax them back to the lab. Perhaps we get a hit on CODIS."
"Make it so." Grissom nodded. "And hand the photo of the woman to Sheriff Brooks. Perhaps he can get her identification."
In the meantime Grissom and Sterling concentrated on the shooting victim, removed his clothing and cleaned up the face to examine the gun shot wound.
"Entry wound on left temple with gun shot residue, that's execution style. Small calibre. Bullet left the head on the right temple." Sterling remarked. Carefully he opened the victim's chest. "Help me out here, will you?" he asked Grissom. "Fractures and contusions caused post mortem, no signs of inner bleeding. He must have been dead before he got caught by the landslide." the vet stated very professionally. He started examining the stomach contents and found something white. "He must have swallowed it before he died. Nearly no signs of digestion. Perhaps it's good for something." Grissom used his tweezers to pick up what he thought was a piece of crumpled paper. He raised an eyebrow. "Congratulation, Sterling. You did good."
"Let's continue with the second guy." Grissom encouraged the doctor. "Sara. Please take a closer look at this." Grissom said and handed her the paper ball.
They quietly worked on the examination of the second body. "Broken neck. Blunt force trauma. Probably occurred during the landslide. Hm. He got to swallow a lot of mud, soil in his lungs, nose, everywhere. Also a lot of broken bones and bruises with bleeding. He had lived for a while before he suffocated. Must have suffered quite a bit. It might just have taken minutes but for him it must have felt like forever."
Grissom and Sterling finished with the bodies and covered them with some white bed sheets. Just in case some of the usual customers of the vet would show up.
Sara returned. "I've managed to enfold the paper ball. It's a letter probably from the girl on the photo. Some is illegible, ink dissolved by saliva and stomach acid. But it says something about a Shirley who is going to end a relationship with Clark. It doesn't tell why though, but I guess if we could ask Drake here, he would know the answer. Motive would be jealousy. Clark shoots Drake, got bad luck and went down with his victim."
"But how did Clark convince Drake to meet him up here?" Grissom wondered. "Nothing easier than that." Sara smiled. "Just received fax message from the lab. Both guys convicted for poaching. Several times caught in the act of big game hunting off season. They used to hunt together. Probably they usually shared. This rule seem not to apply for the woman though."
Then Solder returned breathless. "Grissom, I just finished examining the probes I've collected from the uphill and the slide itself and compared it to the soil you have found with the bodies.
This type of landslide is called debris flow and is made up of a mixture of water-saturated rock debris and soil maybe with a consistency similar to wet cement. Debris flows move rapidly down slope under the influence of gravity. That would be the explanation to this natural event. Loose rock or mineral material would be dislodged from bedrock by mechanical means and transported from its place of origin. It's called detritus. So what you expect so see is that mineral remains on the bodies would be the identical with uphill probes. They are not consistent. It doesn't match to the flow of the debris. Whatever happened between the guys, it did not happen uphill."