Disclaimer: I don't own anything. And I have nothing witty to say.
Author's Notes: Okay, I planned on this being the last chapter, but the story didn't like that idea, so there's going to be one more after this. Blame Nick and his stupid in-law getting murdered. Yes, I plan on doing another story, for reasons you will see in the chapter following this, although if there's no interest, I may start a new idea working through my head.
I didn't plan on singling any one reviewer out, but Emmithar was my inspiration for writing tonight (when I just planned on making cookies for dinner and watching TV until I fell asleep) and I wanted to thank her for the bribe that actually got me off of my butt. I have to admit, she'd probably do a better job with this story than I am! Just to let you know, girl, I actually wrote Greg throwing the part about Nick in the conversation, but as my mind worked on a sequel, I decided some things are better left unsaid for the moment. Congrats on your promotion, sorry things have been tough, but they all work out in the end. Sounds like you've got a good career waiting for you.
As for the question on where I work and what I do...I work for the Parish Sheriff's office. Since I'm still in school (double majoring for my second and third BS), I've been mostly training and getting hands on experience and getting an overview of the different positions in the sheriff's office. I've done beat patrol work, I've worked as a guard at the jail, booking, very minor narc work, just about anything you can do, I've either done or shadowed. I'll be graduating in the summer, and I've taken a job at the ME's office, learning about autopsies deciding if I want to go into that (even more schooling) or something more lab oriented. I've been working in the Acadiana crime lab off and on for awhile now, doing grunt work like research and experiments (which isn't as fun as it sounds), so this is an exciting change. Of course, I've only seen 7 dead bodies, ever, so I may change my mind. But for an 8,000 per year raise, who's to argue?
I've rambled enough, I tend to do that when I've worked from 3 AM to 9 PM... Please leave a note on your way out!
Jenny
Ten:
"All I'm saying is that she's completely asleep, and I don't think she's going to be going waking up any time soon. If we go downstairs, fool around a bit in the living room, she probably wouldn't even know the difference." Warrick whispered in Catherine's ear as she tucked the covers around Lindsey, who was curled up in a ball on Catherine's bed, asleep only 10 minutes after her initial plea to camp out in her mother's room.
Catherine swatted his hand away, shaking her head vehemently, "What if she does wake up and walks in on us? Can't you wait until tomorrow?"
"I suppose I could." Warrick said, the disappointment clear in his voice, although he did his best to hide it. "Shouldn't you have taken her to the doctor or something?"
Catherine slipped into her nightgown, rolling her eyes and whispering back, "I'll probably take her in the morning, if she's not feeling better. It's probably just an ear infection, nothing to seriously worry over."
"I can still stay the night, though, right?" Warrick asked, the prospect of leaving Catherine and going back to his home alone causing a wave of sadness. "Even if we aren't touching and we sleep in separate rooms?"
Catherine rolled her eyes, "Don't be silly, you can sleep with us. As long as sleeping is the only thing you're doing."
Warrick and Catherine climbed into bed, Warrick shutting off the lamp with a soft click and wrapping his arms around Catherine. Minutes later, they were both sound asleep.
Nick strummed his fingers against the table of the interrogation room, a frown on his face. His brother-in-law was dead, thousands of miles from the home he shared with Nick's sister, Karen, in Kilgore, Texas. According to Brass, not only had Karen and Travis flown in to Vegas 3 weeks prior, which Nick had no knowledge of, Karen had flown home, without her husband, 4 days after arriving.
To make matters worse, Nick's parents had flown in the day before Karen left, also coming as a surprise to the CSI, and had flown back with her. This could only mean two possibilities, as far as Nick was concerned. One, Karen and Travis got in a fight, she left him, and he turned up dead after she had left. This scenario had only several major flaws...first, why didn't anyone tell him they were coming to Vegas? On top of that, why hadn't anyone told him Travis was missing? Why had he not known anything about any of this? The second scenario was far more far-fetched, considering how gentle and sensitive his sister was, but more likely by the evident lack of communication. They came to Vegas, they fought, she killed him and called their parents to help cover it up.
Sure, Nick didn't want to be involved either way, but why hadn't Karen called him for help in the first place? It wasn't like she didn't know where to find him, and she knew he would always bail her out of trouble, illegal or not, he had always protected her in the past.
Something about this was suspicious, and for the life of him, he wished he could be involved on the case. It was killing him not to know anything, to be treated like any other person suspected for murder, or in his case, aiding in murder. They knew he couldn't have done it, the body was just under three weeks old, and at that time, he had been working a week long case with Grissom. They had spent less than 10 hours outside of the lab the entire week, and Brass knew Grissom was a solid enough alibi.
He just wished they'd let him go, he wanted to contact his parents and see what the hell was going on. He fought another wave of fear and sadness as he thought of Karen, now a widow, possibly a murderer. He couldn't picture her with her hands cuffed behind her back, wearing a bright orange jumpsuit, just another number in the system. He needed to talk to his parents, he needed to know what they knew, to try to figure a way out of this mess.
He looked up as Brass entered the room, dropping a file onto the table and sitting down in the chair across from Nick, "I know you really want to know what happened to your brother-in-law, and I know you guys as well as I would my family. I know that as soon as you walk out of this door, you're going to head straight home, if you even wait that long, to call your sister and see what she knows. I can't let you do that."
"What!" Nick exclaimed, slamming his fist down on the table, "I have to know that she didn't kill him, Brass! I have to know what the hell is going on!"
Brass held up his hand, "We're treating this as we would any other case. Look at the evidence I've shared with you, who does that lead you to suspect?"
"Karen." Nick said, his voice flat, "But she wouldn't hurt a fly, much less kill someone! She loves Travis, that's the only reason she stayed with him after that scumbag assaulted her, she couldn't kill anybody, Brass!"
"I know it's hard for you to picture your sister as a suspect," Brass said, rubbing his temples as he felt a headache begin to form, "Believe me, I know how difficult it is to see someone you love being suspected for a crime, especially one you feel they could never do. We're sending Greg and Sara to Kilgore and Dallas to talk with your parents and sister. All three are suspects, and the Sheriff doesn't feel like the situation calls for a subpoena to Las Vegas for questioning. While they are there, they will be working with the PD to reopen the abuse charges brought on by your sister earlier this year. After Sara and Greg speak to your family, you can call them and talk for a week if you'd like."
"But until then I've got to keep my mouth shut." Nick said bitterly, followed by a string of curse words he rarely uttered, "They can't have anything to hide, it's not like they're a flight risk, my parents are law enforcement officials, for crying out loud!"
Brass slid a paper in front of Nick, "I want you to sign this, saying you will not contact them until you get a call from Grissom or I telling you it is safe to do so. If you break this contract, and believe me, I'll know if you do, it's grounds for termination and charges for obstruction of justice."
Grabbing the pen, Nick angrily scribbled his signature on the page, flinging it back at Brass. Not only was his family suspects for murder, his Sara was going to visit them with Greg. He hadn't seen his family in years, he missed them like crazy, and now Sara and Greg would get to see them before he could. How could this situation get any worse?
Sara threw a pair of slacks into her suitcase, scanning her list for any items she might have missed. In her doorway stood Greg, his eyes tired, but a bright smile plastered on his face, "Think of it as our first romantic getaway."
"Put a sock in it, Greg." Sara warned, zipping her suitcase and pulling it from her bed to the floor, "It's not a romantic getaway, it's work. You know, this isn't the way I expected to meet Nick's parents?"
Greg raised an eyebrow, "Oh, was it going to be on the night you two announced your engagement?"
"What?" Sara asked, spinning around to look at him, "Our engagement? Are you on drugs? Have you been drinking again?"
Greg crossed his arms over his chest, "Don't tell me you're not interested in Nick." Now that his hangover was gone and he was back in the swing of work, his sarcasm had come back full force. No longer was he afraid of running her off, they were stuck together, and he was going to let his feelings about Nick show. If she answered him, even if it made her angry, he'd at least know where she stood on the 'Nick issue'.
"I'm not, I never have been. He's a friend, Greg, a friend. Just like Grissom, just like Warrick, just like--" Sara stopped, turning back to her suitcase and placing a lock on it, "Never mind. I'm not interested in him that way, we're just friends. Sure, we may flirt, but not in a serious way."
"You were going to say just like me, weren't you?" Greg asked, his face showing the hurt he felt. "I thought we were going to try to be more, I know I wasn't that wasted when we talked about it."
Sara shook her head, her eyes wide, and took a step towards him, causing him to step backwards, "No, Greg, not at all! I was going to say Catherine, but it didn't really fit the situation, so I stopped. You're more than just any old friend, Greg."
"Okay." Greg replied, his hurt face betraying the coolness of his voice, "Are you ready to go? Our flight leaves in 2 hours, and it's always a fight at the airport."
Giving Greg a tight hug and a quick peck on the cheek, which seemed to brighten his mood a bit, she carried her suitcase into the living room, making sure everything was turned off. "I'd hate to come back in three days to find my apartment burned down because I left something on." she explained at Greg's curious look.
"Paranoid freak." Greg replied, slinging her bag over his shoulder and leading her out of the apartment. He decided to let the 'Nick issue' drop, things were going to be tense enough, investigating the family of one of their best friends, they didn't need personal tension between the two of them as well. If she said they were just friends, they had to be just friends. Besides, if they weren't, he wasn't sure he wanted to know anyway.
They arrived in Texas late that afternoon, the sun still beaming down on the dry land, the humidity making the heat feel a dozen times worse than it already was. Sure, it was hot in Vegas, but not the same as it was in Texas. Sara's first thought was 'Can you actually smother to death, just standing outside?', quickly followed by 'No wonder Nicky had looked into going to school in Indiana'.
They had been met at the airport by the Dallas PD, who was going to escort them to Dallas PD to speak with Mr. and Mrs. Stokes, then to the Kilgore PD, which would escort them to the Leblanc household. It was a fairly routine situation for cross-jurisdictions, at least, that's what Brass had told Sara and Greg, and as soon as they spoke with the Stokes and with Karen, got their DNA to compare with the trash bag they had found Travis in, and did a little poking through Karen's house (with the assistance of a search warrant that had already been issued), they'd be back on their way to Vegas, hopefully having something to close the case with.
Normally, these situations didn't warrant a CSI, much less two, traveling halfway across the country, but since one of their own CSIs were involved, a few unspoken rules had been changed. Brass, for one, hadn't wanted some random Dallas police officer to handle questioning with only a fax of details to go off of, he wanted someone who had been to the crime scene, who had seen the body, who had processed the little evidence they had gathered so far to ensure the right person was captured. Well, that, and the crime lab working over Kilgore, where Karen Leblanc resided, had over 500 cases on backlog, and no one was in the mood to wait that long. Sure, the Vegas crime lab was a little backlogged, but nothing like this one, from what they had been told.
"Mr. and Mrs. Stokes, I'm Greg Sanders and this is my partner, Sara Sidle. We're-" Greg said as soon as they entered the interrogation room in the Dallas PD.
Nick's father spoke up, his voice tired, yet calm, "We know who you are. You work with our son. Has something happened to Nick?
It was clear on his face that he knew this had nothing to do with his son. He glanced at his wife, who was now looking slightly panicked, although she hid it well.
Sara opened her file, pulling out a picture of the remains of their son-in-law, "We found the remains of Travis Leblanc in a plastic trash bag, dumped in Lake Mead. We have reason to believe the two of you were in the Las Vegas area at the time of Travis's murder."
"Oh my..." Mrs. Stokes said, covering her mouth with her hand and dropping her head to shield her eyes, presumably crying, although the two CSI's knew better. The more people you interview, the more you are able to tell acting and true shock, "Poor Travis...it's a shame to see something so awful happened to him. But, Ms. Sidle, I can assure you we had nothing to do with this. We were in town visiting Nick, it's hard to have our son so far away from him, and we were only able to stay a few days. We had no idea that Travis was anywhere but home."
Sara's eyes narrowed, and she glanced at Greg, who cleared his throat, "We spoke to Nick, and he said he had no idea that you were in Las Vegas, he had not made contact with you or your husband that entire week. Phone records indicate he is telling the truth. Care to revise your last statement?"
"What she meant to say is that we went to Las Vegas with the intention of surprising Nick, but we were unable to get in touch with him once we arrived. We stayed at Caesar's and enjoyed the tourist's spots for a few days and headed home once we were unable to reach Nick." Mr. Stokes supplied, a thin line of sweat breaking out over his forehead, "He's hard to contact, our boy, working so hard and keeping so busy."
Sara bit her lip, knowing that they were hiding something, and trying to figure out the best way to get the answers she wanted. "Sir, why would you travel all the way to Las Vegas without warning your son of your visit? How often do you speak with Nick? With your other children?"
"We normally speak to our Nicholas every Sunday evening, before he goes to work, we have a weekly routine with all of our children who have moved away from home. Nicky and Karen are always Sunday evenings, Melanie and Jessica are Saturday evenings, and the others usually phone in daily, since it isn't long distance for them to call home." Mrs. Stokes said confidently, watching as Greg nodded slightly to Sara, pointing out the phone records for Karen, Nick, and the Stokes'.
Greg looked from Mr. Stokes, to Mrs. Stokes, and back, before asking, "If this is a routine that you've established and maintained with your children, why have you not answered his phone calls for the last 3 Sundays?"
"We haven't been home." Mr. Stokes said quickly, "What exactly do you think we did? All you can prove is that we were in Las Vegas at the same time Travis was murdered. So were 3 million other people. We are through here. Honey, let's go home." He said, pulling the chair out for his wife to stand.
Sara flung a picture to the side of the table where Mr. Stokes stood, his face red with fury, "We need a DNA sample to match some hair and blood we found inside of the trash bag from the scene. Do we need a court order?"
"Yes, you do." He said cooly, leading his wife out of the room, throwing a card at Greg, "If you need to contact us any further, please go through my lawyer."
Greg stared at Sara, his hands on his hips, "Sara, you know that it's one of Nick's female blood relatives, according to the DNA results. Why did you let them go?"
"Because it could be Mrs. Stokes, Karen, or any one of the sisters. We need something solid, and it won't take long for a court order to go through. You talk with the detective, and I'll get the evidence we need to show Karen ready to go." Sara replied, rolling her eyes, "Stop acting like a spoiled little boy, Greg. I know what I'm doing. They're not a flight risk, but if they know we're on to them, which we are, they're liable to become one. "
Greg leaned towards her, his lips against her ear, "You're so sexy with you're annoyed, did you know that?"
"If you think annoyed is sexy, wait until you get me pissed off." Sara snapped, "We're working, Greg, remember? Hands off, minds clean until we get to the hotel."
Detective League, who was working the case on the Dallas end, cleared his throat as he entered the room, "There's a bad storm moving in, we're going to call it quits for tonight and head to Kilgore in the morning. I've got an officer waiting outside who will take you to your hotel room. Is there anything else you need?" He flashed them a smile, friendly, yet professional, "I'm working on your court order for DNA, I was listening in the viewing room. Should have it by morning, if all works out like I planned. We don't fool around up here, no sir, we don't like loose ends."
"Thank you." Greg replied, returning the kind smile, "We appreciate all of the help you've given us." As the detective walked out of the room, he leaned over to Sara and whispered, "Looks like we're going to be at the hotel a lot sooner than you anticipated, honey."
Glancing around to see if anyone was watching, Sara forcefully smacked Greg against the back of his head, "Pervert."
"You know you want me."
"I also want a million dollars, but you don't see me rolling in the big bucks, do you?"
Greg smiled, jabbing her playfully with his elbow, "In my dreams, you're rolling around naked on them."
"Oh, Greg." Sara sighed, rolling her eyes. This was going to be a long night.
Still taking bribes, I like what I've been given...
