Chapter 5

Warrick climbed out of the Tahoe, stifling a yawn, though he'd been up for a while. He and Nick had called it an early night last night – this morning – so catch up on sleep. Yvette should be arriving shortly, hopefully with a finished sketch, but Brass hadn't called them yet to let them know if they'd picked up their suspect, Richard Deaver. He moseyed into the building, heading straight for the break room for coffee.

"Morning, Cath," he said, nodding at the older woman sitting at the table with her own steaming mug.

"Morning. How's the case?"

"Not sure yet. We're kind of waiting on some things, but hopefully we'll get somewhere today," Warrick said with a nonchalant shrug.

"The sketch?" He glanced at her quickly, reaching for the coffee pot.

"Yeah. You talked to Nick?"

"And Grissom," Catherine said. "You know, it might be a problem for the DA to convince a jury that sketch is accurate, even if it's a portrait of your suspect." Warrick nodded, taking a seat next to her. "I'm assuming you have some other evidence."

"Yeah, yeah," Warrick said. "Fingerprints got us a warrant to search the guy's house for something made out of flannel, which we found at the scene, and boots."

"Footprints?"

"In the dirt, yeah."

"You know…" Catherine trailed off, thinking for a moment as Warrick raised his brows at her. "You could always do a reference sketch if she's up for it." His eyes narrowed, and he shook his head, not following. "Have her pick out features of someone else we can use as a control?" Warrick's expression changed from confused to inspired, and he nodded slowly. "Maybe one of you guys? Someone she's not actually seen before to prove that her fingers are as accurate as any other witness's eyes."

"If not more accurate," Warrick said, still nodding. Catherine smiled, raising her coffee cup in a silent salute. "I'll talk to Yvette about it when she comes in."

"Yvette Chao? The sculptor?"

"Yeah, I got her name from a professor over at WLVU's anthropology department. You know her?"

"Her work, yeah," Catherine said. "She's amazing."

"Who's amazing?" Both looked up at the door, Grissom standing in the hallway, head turned toward them.

"Our sketch artist-slash-sculptor," Warrick said. "Catherine knows her work, evidently."

"The one you got from the guy over at the university?" Grissom asked, joining them in the break room. Warrick nodded. "How'd that work out?"

"Don't know yet. We got a suspect, just waiting on her to bring the sketch by to see if there's any similarities," Warrick said. "Think it'll go over well?"

"I'm not sure," Grissom said, wearing his pensive face. "I'm not sure if a precedent's been set for this kind of evidence."

"Well, Cath suggested we do a control sketch. Have our vic do one of one of us to see how accurate she is," Warrick said with a shrug. Grissom smiled a little.

"When one sense dies the others learn to compensate," he said quietly, nodding a little. "You could try it. Just remember that it would be considered evidence, whether it helped or hindered your case." Warrick nodded. "But I think it's a good idea." And with that, he disappeared down the hallway.

"I hadn't thought about that," Warrick said quietly.

"Well, you do need to be able to convince a jury, even if the DA buys it," Catherine said, standing. "And I have a dead body awaiting autopsy. Have fun." Warrick nodded at her, watching her leave before heading down the hallway. Nick met him halfway to the fingerprint lab.

"Sketch is here," he said. "Yvette's waiting for us." They both headed in that direction, meeting a grinning Yvette in the main lobby. She held out a manila envelope, pencil smudges on the outside.

"I sprayed it to seal everything," she said. "It's good to go."

"Thanks, Yvette," Warrick said, opening the envelope and removing the sketch. "He look familiar to you?" he asked, holding the sketch out to Nick. Nick's eyes widened as he took the sketch.

"Jesus Christ," he whispered. Yvette only beamed.

"I realize I'm happy about the art of it, but I'm happy to help," she said. "Think you can use that?"

"Definitely," Warrick said, shaking the small woman's hand. "Thanks very much."

"If you need me again, just let me know," she said with a shrug, reaching for a messenger bag on a seat next to her.

"Actually…" Warrick started, glancing at Nick, whose eyes shot over to him. "We might." Yvette nodded, and Warrick suggested they move the conversation into the lab. All three took a seat around the break room table, Nick doctoring his coffee. Yvette, a short, thin Asian woman with flawless skin, large, brown eyes, and a stunning smile, twisted the cap off a bottle of water, and Warrick just looked over the sketch again. "I've asked around," Warrick started explaining, "and no one's really sure how well a blind woman's composite sketch will go over with the DA or a jury." Nick glanced at him, somewhat surprised.

"I understand that," Yvette said quietly. "But it shouldn't be too hard to convince someone that Nika has a special talent for recognition despite her lack of eyesight."

"Especially if we have her do another sketch of someone she's not seen before, but we can positively identify. Tape the session and submit it all as evidence," Warrick said, watching the light go on over Nick's head.

"Yeah… yeah, that would work," Nick said, tapping the table with an index finger. "Videotape her picking everything out, and set up a camera in your studio, Yvette, to show them that it's not fixed in any way – that you're just going off the models the vic picks out." Yvette's eyes narrowed at Nick's use of the term 'the vic', but she didn't say anything. She took a breath and leaned forward, clasping her hands together as she licked her lips.

"There's quite a bit of creative license that goes into this," she said slowly. "I'm sure it could be argued that I, as the artist, somehow influence the outcome of the sketch, especially if it's someone I've seen as well."

"So we won't tell you which one of use she's profiling," Warrick said. "We'll give her a few seconds to do her thing, in another room, on tape, of course, showing that you're not there, and then take her in to work with you so neither of you knows for sure which one of us it is." Yvette nodded slowly.

"That could work," she said. "When do we do this?" Nick and Warrick glanced at each other.

"You talked to Grissom about this?" Nick asked.

"It was Catherine's idea, and Grissom put his nickel in the pot, but the whole separate room thing I just came up with," Warrick said with a shrug. "We can run it past him."

"Let's do that," Nick said, nodding. "You talk to Grissom, I'll give Casey a call."

xxx

Nika sat in a chair in an interrogation room, her hands wrapped around a cup of tea. She wore a pair of loose-fitting jeans, probably two sizes bigger than skin-tight, and a brown and army green tee shirt, brown Birkenstocks on her feet. Her black hair spilled over her shoulders, the layers in the front falling from their place tucked behind her ears. As usual, she wore no makeup on her flawless, creamy skin, and no jewelry except for a thin, silver chain around her neck. The door opened, and she jumped a little, turning toward the sound.

"Nika?" Warrick asked. "Are you ready?" She nodded, chewing on her lower lip as she stood. "How long would you say you had to see your attacker the other night?" Warrick asked quietly. She blinked quickly a few times, shaking her head a little.

"I don't know, maybe thirty seconds?" she stammered, brows furrowed.

"Okay, we'll give you thirty seconds with your subject," he said, standing behind her and taking her hands in each of his. "And then we'll go ahead and start the sketch."

"But there was a day between the actual—"

"We don't have to replicate it exactly," Warrick said quietly, breath on the side of her neck raising goosebumps on her skin. She trembled slightly – he wasn't sure why – but she nodded.

"Okay." She turned one of her hands in his, squeezing twice. "I can do this." Warrick nodded to the subject, standing less than a foot away from Nika, nearly toe to toe, and lifted her hands, placing her palms on the subject's cheeks. Her fingers immediately went to work, Warrick following them with intrigue as they gracefully traced the slopes of his coworkers' features, starting at the forehead and moving to the base of the neck and back up again. Warrick glanced at his watch, and she pulled her hands away with five seconds left, nodding.

Warrick hadn't given her any clue as to who this person was – no names, no gender, nothing. Her subject moved away, and Warrick led her down the hall to where Yvette waited, Nick ready to start the video. Nika took a seat at the table, Nick started the camera, and Grissom watched with interest as the process started again, anxious to see the sketch of the mystery person Warrick had chosen when Yvette finished it tomorrow. His pocket chirped, and he noticed Warrick and Nick both look at their phones as well. The three met in the hall, none saying a word as they headed to the interrogation rooms.

xxx

Yvette smiled at Nika as the woman concentrated, a pair of lips in one hand, her other pouring over the details slowly. Nika started to put the model down, but stopped, running her fingers over it again.

"No, that's not it," she sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose.

"You want to take a break? Get your mind off it for a while?" Yvette asked, putting the model lips back in the collection of rejects.

"I'm not sure if that would be a good idea," Nika said, taking the next model Yvette placed in her fingers. "With taping and all. I don't know if that would mess anything up."

"We can ask Warrick and Nick when they get back." Nika nodded, her brows furrowing as she traced the model lips.

"That's it," she said. "Wait… yeah, that's it."

"Good," Yvette said. "Back to the noses."

"Aww… I hate picking noses," Nika whined, a good-natured smile touching her lips. "They're harder than the others." Yvette laughed, a light, lilting sound, sliding the tray of noses toward Nika. "You know," Nika continued, "I went to your show over at the museum in Caesar's Palace last year." She could practically feel Yvette's grin radiating off the sculptor from across the table. "I loved that one of the nude ballet dancer. The one that was kind of abstract?"

"Oh, that was my favorite," Yvette gasped, still grinning from ear to ear. "I got so many offers on that piece, and I just couldn't sell it."

"It was beautiful," Nika said. "I've been to several shows, actually, and your work is my favorite so far."

"Well, thank you," Yvette said, blushing a little. "I'm glad you like it." Neither noticed Warrick standing in the doorway. Nika lifted her hands and rapidly traced the collection of noses lined up in the tray, removing several and placing them in a pile to her right.

"I always liked art," she said quietly, continuing her initial nose selection. "I always wanted to do pottery when I was a kid, but my mom was just convinced I'd make a huge mess." Yvette smiled, her eyes finally flicking to Warrick as he entered the room quietly, shaking his head with a small smile. Nika pushed the tray away and started on her collection one at a time, the first quickly discarded. "I used to dig in the back yard and fill flower pots with dirt and water, make little mud dishes and let them dry in the sun." She shrugged, turning her head slightly as Warrick neared her. "They'd crumble the next day when I tried to pick them up." She smiled a little. "Hi, Warrick."

"Hey," he said, stifling a laugh. "You caught me."

"Sneak," she snickered, shaking her head. He touched her shoulder gently as he passed, taking his chair beside her. "I'm picking noses again," she announced, turning one toward him before moving it to the reject collection. She pursed her lips together. "Okay, Yvette," she said, picking up another model for inspection. "I'm pretty sure our faceless friend here was male. Needed a shave, but wasn't scruffy. More like a long day, double shift, maybe. Five o'clock shadow." Yvette nodded, picking up a pencil and scratching on a notepad Warrick had dug up for her. "I did notice he didn't have a cleft in his chin at all. Not even a little one."

"Good," Yvette said. "I can work with that."

"And his face was long, not round. Not really oval, but not really heart-shaped. A combination of both, maybe." Nika sighed, discarding another nose. Three were left. Warrick's eyes shifted between Nika's face and her fingers, both seeming to concentrate equally as hard. Her fingers, long and slender, lingered over this nose, tracing it several times before she placed it flat on the table, so that the nose faced her as though it belonged to the table. "This is it," she said, nodding slowly. Yvette added the nose to the pile of features Nika had chosen.

"Anything else you can think of?" Yvette asked, jotting down the numbers written in permanent marker on the back of the chosen features before placing them in a small box and gathering the others to replace in their respective trays.

"He had scars on his cheeks, like small acne scars or something," Nika said. "Not a lot of them." She touched her own face, indicating where she remembered the marks. Yvette quickly sketched the locations and flipped a page. "And thick eyebrows. Mad scientist sort, but not bushy, really." Warrick smiled. "Um… I think that's it."

"Okay, I think we're good," Yvette said, stacking the trays and placing her notepad on top. "I'll get back to my studio and start on this. I should have it done tomorrow morning. Drop it by in the afternoon?"

"That'd be great," Warrick said. Yvette nodded, patted Nika on the shoulder, and left, the trays of clay models under an arm. "You okay?" he asked Nika, standing to shut the camera off. Nick had already set up one at Yvette's studio and showed her how to operate it.

"Nervous," she said with a facial shrug. "That I'll be wrong."

"Don't worry about it," Warrick said. "I'm sure it'll be fine." She nodded, brushing her hair out of her eyes. Warrick cleared his throat, drawing her attention. "We, uh, have a suspect."

"Yeah?" she sounded hopeful, her face lighting up as she turned to face him.

"Does the name Richard Deaver sound familiar?" Her brows furled, and she shook her head. Warrick nodded, leaning forward on his elbows. "Think you're up for a lineup?"

"Now?" she asked, a little startled.

"Yeah."

"I don't know," she said, rubbing her fingers. "How long did I spend with Yvette?"

"About four hours." She sighed.

"I need to take my mind off faces for a while. This latest one is stuck in my head," she said quietly. "I have to get away from it for a while."

"Okay, that's fine," he said, leaning back in his chair.

"How sure are you that this is the right guy?" she asked after a long silence.

"Pretty sure," Warrick said. "Found his fingerprints there." Nika blinked a few times, her brows furrowed. "We've got a warrant for his clothes and shoes. Nick's going over them now." She nodded, still silent. "Look, you don't have to do this today. We can arrange it for tomorrow."

"No, it's –"

"That'll give us some time to get the rest of the evidence processed and give us more to work with when we question him," Warrick continued.

"Warrick, I just need a break," she said firmly. He nodded, taking her hand and pulling her to her feet.

"Yeah, okay," Warrick said. "You hungry?"

"A little," she said, shrugging.

"There's a deli across the street." Nika nodded, but she seemed to only be half-listening. Warrick didn't press, instead leading her out into the sun.