A/N - My first attempt at a chapter story and a case file. Please read and let me know how I am doing!
Disclaimer: I don't own 'em - just having a good time.
Chapter 1 - Welcome to South Carolina
Gil Grissom and Catherine Willows had just crossed over the state line from Georgia into South Carolina. Traffic on I-85 was quick to say the least. The pick up truck they were following exited at Exit Two. Catherine was not impressed by the hilly terrain or the deciduous trees lining the empty two-lane highway.
"God, you can't see more than a quarter mile in front of you. Is there nothing flat about this place?" she fussed from the passenger seat. She punched buttons on the rental's radio, finally finding a station she could stomach. She and Gil usually didn't listen to the radio when they rode together; their music styles were too dissimilar. This time they had alternated each thirty minutes. It had made the almost two hour drive from Atlanta a little more bearable.
"Do I need to stop and get you a candy bar?" Grissom asked in a pressed lip smile. He knew how she could get when she wasn't getting her way and her blood sugar was too low. They had worked together enough in the years past for him to know more about her than he ever would have wanted. "And I think this area is very beautiful. You've just been in the desert too long."
"Yeah, well, Atlanta was one thing. Hooterville here is another," she replied testily, pointedly looking at a small, sad singlewide trailer on the side of the highway. "And what are we doing here again? Why are we ditching the last few days of seminars that LVPD is paying for? I mean, we could have at least ditched them to stay in Atlanta and go out," she said, knowing that getting Gil to ditch seminars for going out would have been harder than getting her to ditch seminars for, well, Hooterville. He gave her a pursed lipped, disapproving look that she knew very well.
"We are in Cherastowee County, not Hooterville. And I told you, I was impressed with the deputy that asked my advice," he said, adding, "I am pretty sure the antdescribed is a Bullet Ant." He was excited.
"And you're thrilled over this, why?" Catherine asked, a bit sarcastically. Gil and his bugs were something she accepted, but didn't entirely understand.
"Bullet ants are native to South and Central America. Carnivorous, poisonous, and hard to raise in captivity. There are a few colonies in zoos around the US, but none in the Southeast. If that is what this specimen turns out to be, it might make a simple case of allergic reaction into something more."
Catherine thought his tone was positively giddy. She shook her head and grinned at her friend and colleague. Her grin died as Grissom followed the pickup into a Days Inn. It was not exactly like the Radisson she had left in Atlanta.
The deputy who got out of the pickup truck and walked over to their rented Taurus had been a surprise to Catherine. When Grissom had announced his intention of coming up to South Carolina, he had mentioned Deputy Mel Lawrence. Catherine had immediately thought of some tall, rawboned farm hand, with a reddish coloring and sandy blond hair. When she had met Deputy Lawrence at the hotel, she had been very surprised. It turned out that it was Deputy Melissa Lawrence.
Mel was a short woman. Catherine thought she might be 5'4", and put her weight at about 150 lbs, though it was a muscular 150 lbs. She reminded Catherine a bit of Serena Williams, the tennis player. She had a muscular frame, but a lot of t&a to boot. As a dancer, Catherine had gotten used to sizing up the other girls, and while Mel was nothing like the gals at the strip club, Catherine sized her up as well.
Deputy Lawrence moved quietly, but not gracefully. Her powerful arms and legs were at odds with the curvy figure that appeared somehow caged by the navy slacks and button up oxford shirt she was weary. Her hair was cropped short and dyed a shocking blond. At first she thought Mel was a lesbian, given the hair and gruff manner, but there was something in the way she had looked at Griss that caught Catherine off guard. It seemed that Catherine wasn't the only one sizing people up.
"I know this isn't quite what you are probably used to, but it's the nicest we've got in town. The nicest hotel in the area is about 20 minutes away, but it's at the college, and there's a concert tonight. Pretty booked," Deputy Mel said apologetically. "There's a Wal-Mart and shopping down this road about half a mile. Lot's of drive-thru windows, a Mexican restaurant and pretty good Italian place, if you are needing anything to eat.
"I figured I would come by and pick you up tomorrow morning. I am not supposed to be back on shift until 3:00 pm tomorrow afternoon, so that will give us some time to let you see the specimen I was telling you about." She shifted a little nervously. "I really hope I haven't wasted your time by bringing you up here," she said, looking especially at Catherine.
Catherine couldn't get over the thick accent. She had been around Nicky, with his Texan accent coming through particularly thick at emotional times, but that was nothing compared to this. She thought about her comments to Gil earlier on Hooterville, because this girl's dialect came straight out of central casting for "hillbilly".
"I don't thick you're wasting our time Deputy. I am particularly excited to see the specimen myself," Gil said. Catherine had to try hard not to roll her eyes at him.
"Good. I appreciate it. I will come by and pick y'all up at 0800 tomorrow morning. We can go over to the department and check it out," she said. Though the girl hadn't smiled, Catherine could tell that she was relieved that the two of them had not gone off screaming at the sight of the Days Inn.
"Breakfast is on me," the deputy said out of her truck window as she cranked the vehicle and drove off.
"Do you think she's going to make us eat some kind of pork belly or something in the morning?" Catherine asked Gil, smirking. "0800 hours. I am going to kill you," she added. It was Gil's turn to smirk.
"You could have stayed and listened to that same presentation on splatter as Charlie from Dallas gave last time," he said, knowing that Catherine knew as much or more about blood splatter.
"Yeah, well, last time you went off to some hick town without me, I ended up doing all of your paperwork. And as I recall, you were almost shot, so you'll be thanking me later," she said. She had been referring to the time Gil had gone to Jackpot, Nevada in search of a body to go with a dismembered head that had been sent to him by the locals.
"Let me just go ahead and thank you now," he said, knowing that there had been a couple of times when Catherine had saved his butt. He was glad she had decided to come here with him. He was not a man with many friends, but somehow he and Catherine had become friends over the years, and good friends at that. Her being swing shift supervisor had put some unexpected tension in their relationship.
"Should I wake you in the morning?" he asked, as they each opened the doors to their hotel rooms.
"Yeah, well, you could try," she laughed, and they split up for the evening.
