Heroes and Villains: Chapter six

Nick carefully rotated the hefty lamp as he studied it in the layout room. He was about 99.89 sure that this object was their second murder weapon. The wound on Daniel Hett's skull was more than likely caused by the rounded base of a blunt object and Nick thought this lamp was their winner.

He held his tweezers over the base, noticing that a small, thin fibre had been caught in the lining.

"Well hello", he muttered, unable to stop a satisfied grin from forming on his lips.

"You know… talking to yourself is the first sign of madness", a male voice quipped lightly from the doorway.

Nick barely glanced up as Greg strode into the lab, swinging himself up onto the stool beside him.

"What's up, Greg?" he asked vaguely, concentrating on the fibre with a soft frown.

He saw Greg shrug in the corner of his eye. "You do know your shift ended half-an-hour ago, right, Nick, my man?"

Nick blinked, glancing at the clock over the door. "Guess I lost track of time", he muttered uneasily, sliding the fibre under a glass slide.

Greg sighed, tapping his fingers vaguely on the bench top, staring at some distant point on the opposite wall. The younger CSI looked troubled, and he let out a deep, tired sigh. Nick knew concentration was going to be a feat if Greg didn't get rid of whatever was on his chest first.

"What's on your mind, Greg?" he queried wearily, in his typical Texan drawl.

Greg glanced up, blinking. "Oh, ah, nothing, I guess. I'm just… I don't know. I'm worried about Sara".

Nick sighed, running a hand flatly over the base of his skull. "Yeah. Join the club".

"So you ah, heard about what happened yesterday?" Greg asked slowly.

"I was there, I saw the whole thing".

Greg chewed his lip, lifting an eyebrow tentatively. "So, it's true then. She's… Sara's mom?"

Nick sighed, adjusting the microscope lens. "Yeah", he admitted softly.

They delved into a brief, uneasy silence. Greg seemed about as uncomfortable with the subject as Nick felt, and he didn't even know the full story.

"You working the case now?"

Nick nodded. "I think I may have something", he said, before lowering his eye to the lens. He frowned slightly. "Yeah, definitely."

"Let me see".

Nick straightened, frowning at Greg's slightly forceful tone, but he stepped back and let the younger man do so. He knew his concern for Sara was driving him, and he could certainly empathise with that.

"What does it look like to you?"

Greg looked up, smiling slightly. "It looks like nylon. From a blue sweater."

Nick smirked. "Say Greg… Here's an interesting proposition for you."

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"You know, I don't know how you talk me into this crap".

Nick smirked as he leant against the side of the dumpster, watching Greg as he sifted irritably through the piles of acrid smelling trash.

"Suck it up, Greggo. You wanna help Sara, then this is how you're doing it".

Greg rolled his eyes, rolling up his sleeves as they slipped down again. "And as fun as dumpster-diving is, I was thinking more along the lines of playing the consoling friend, maybe the shoulder to cry on, or, I don't know, nibble on…"

Nick chuckled, shining his flashlight over Greg's shoulder. "You never give up, do you, buddy?"

"Hey, I know my limits, my friend. I'm not allowed to fantasise?"

Nick smirked, leaning over to peer into the dumpster. "Got anything?"

He got a low growl in response. "Sure. I got a banana peel, a few half-eaten hamburgers grossly over their use-by date – man, who would do that? - and oh, a whole bag of used diapers."

Nick winced, struggling to hold in a laugh despite the tenseness of the situation. Trust Greg to be able to make light of anything.

His eyes trailed over the surrounding street, which trailed behind the Jenson/Sutton house, and where he and Greg had located a vast array of community trash. Few houses still had their lights on, and the unnatural silence in the air was eerie. He unconsciously tugged on his LVPD vest, squinting back at Greg impatiently.

"C'mon, man, we haven't got all night".

Greg glanced back up at him from his crouch on the dumpster floor, as he tossed aside another unsecured garbage bag that jiggled treacherously when he lifted it. "Hey, why don't you just —aw, man!"

The contents spilled all over his knees, and he sighed deeply, deciding that this just wasn't his night.

He half-heartedly brushed the bulk of it off his jeans, sifting through objects slowly.

"So what do you think the deal is?" he asked Nick, in an attempt to fill the silence if anything else. Greg Sanders didn't do well with silence.

Nick shifted, eyeing him questioningly. "The deal with what?"

"Grissom. He doesn't look like he's handling this very well".

"Yeah, somehow that doesn't really surprise me".

Greg glanced back over his shoulder, frowning slightly. "Mr. Emotionally Stunted? C'mon, the guy's barely sleeping and he shows up at the office hours before shift. That doesn't seem strange to you?"

Nick shrugged listlessly. "Greg, I can't say I'll ever get Grissom, but this is Sara we're talking about. She always manages to affect him somehow".

Greg lifted an eyebrow, curious despite himself. "You don't think they ever—"

Nick shined his light pointedly in Greg's face. "Man, don't even go there, because I have no idea."

Greg blinked furiously, scowling at Nick. He turned back to the muddle of garbage in front of him, waiting for the jumble of lights to clear from his eyes. Stifling another deep sigh, he lifted aside another foul-smelling carton.

He stopped when a dark, soft shape caught his eye.

Please don't be a rat…

He gingerly closed his gloved fingers around the object, and his brief inkling of fear was immediately replaced by a triumphant shout.

"I got a sweater!"

Nick craned over the edge of the dumpster, ignoring the putrid smell as he shined his flashlight closer. A dark stain covered the front of the garment. He smiled grimly.

"I got blood."

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"Jenson's brother is holding up their alibi, no surprise", Brass grunted as he strode into the lab break room, where Grissom was currently refilling on his fourth mug of coffee.

Grissom grimaced as he sipped the hot liquid, inwardly wondering where Greg had hidden his stash of Blue Hawaiian.

"Well, they were smart enough to wipe the poker clean", Grissom supplied, leaning against the counter. "There were no prints. And there was no probative trace evidence on the bodies. They died in that home, so we have to discount all of the fibres that lead there".

Brass made a sound of discontent. "Brilliant."

"I'd put a little more joy into that statement if I were you," Greg announced as he sauntered jovially into the room.

Brass lifted an eyebrow and wrinkled his nose at Greg distastefully. "Where have you been, Sanders, you smell like a trashcan".

Greg shot him a withering look, just as Nick strode into the room, carrying an evidence bag in his hand.

Grissom pushed away from the counter, studying the pair with newfound interest. "What have you got?"

Nick tapped the bag pointedly. "We have evidence that ties Louise Sutton to the crime", he explained, with somewhat less animation than Greg. "We found a sweater in the trash behind her house. There were hairs on it that confirm it was hers. Fibres from it were also in the lamp used as a murder weapon on Daniel Hett. And there's blood on the front that matches his DNA".

Grissom blinked, surprised by this sudden definitive evidence. Greg stood by, looking guardedly pleased, and Nick folded his arms, grimly satisfied.

"Good work, guys. This is… really good".

Brass nodded, flipping his cell phone out of his jacket. "I'll call an officer to escort Ms. Sutton down to the police station".

His disappeared out into the hall, carefully maintaining a stoic professionalism, but they could tell he was also secretly relieved.

Grissom frowned, staring intently down at the bag folded in Nick's grasp.

"What is it?" Nick questioned perceptively, nearly calling him boss before he mentally corrected the blunder.

Grissom sighed, looking tired and cautious. "This doesn't necessarily mean she killed them", he said warily. "She found the bodies. The blood could have gotten there that way."

Nick frowned, and he glanced at Greg with quiet disbelief. "Grissom… this is the best lead we've got so far. She had her hands on the murder weapon. That's a smoking gun".

Grissom tilted an eyebrow. "Will the DA see it that way?"

"She's a convicted murderer. It won't be hard to convince a jury she's guilty."

Grissom's features twisted into an indiscernible expression. "And if she isn't?"

Nick blinked, staring at Grissom slowly. To be fair the guy probably hadn't had any sleep for days, and wasn't functioning at his best, but he really didn't want to have to be the one to state the obvious here.

"Are you really hesitating because this isn't enough… or is this because of Sara?"

The graveshift supervisor's expression remained carefully cool, but Nick thought he saw a flicker of annoyance behind his sharp blue eyes and he reminded himself that it probably wasn't the best idea to get on the bad side of a sleep-deprived workaholic who happened to be his superior. Even if he was right.

"This is about the evidence, Nick", Grissom said in a low, carefully even tone of voice. "And we can't afford to make any mistakes with it".

Greg shifted uncomfortably in the corner, and his focus rapidly flickered from the two of them to something over their shoulders. He swallowed nervously, and both Grissom and Nick somehow came out of their tense standoff long enough to notice the shift in his composure.

Nick glanced towards the door, feeling an apprehensive sinking in his gut, to see Sara standing by, surveying them all levelly.

Nick inwardly winced, noting the cold stare she directed at the room.

"Uh, hey… Sara."

She had her hair pulled neatly back, and looked much more composed than the last time he saw her. She folded her arms over her chest and he couldn't tell what she was thinking. "You found something", she guessed evenly, features not belying her outward calm.

Nick hesitated, glancing at Grissom slowly. Grissom was frowning heavily, and the younger CSI didn't know who he was more annoyed at, Nick, for questioning him, or Sara, for walking in when she did.

"Yes, we did".

She nodded, meeting Grissom's gaze unwaveringly. "You're going to bring her in".

He cleared his throat, looking decidedly caught. "Yes".

She nodded again, and without another word, turned abruptly and strode back out of the room.

Greg blew out an unsteady breath, and Nick winced, glancing down at the evidence bag with a newfound fascination in an attempt to avoid the anger he was sure to see in Grissom's eyes.

He prided himself on being the most empathetic member of their extended team, and he had made two insensitive blunders in the space of a few days. He sighed deeply, glancing up reluctantly at Grissom.

The entomologist was barely looking at him, and was focused intensely on the path the departed brunette had taken not moments before.

Before Nick could speak up, Brass returned, pocketing his cell phone quickly.

"We have a problem", the detective announced briskly. "I sent an officer to their suite at the Palms. Louise Sutton and Clark Jenson are missing".

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Sara steered off North Trop Boulevard onto the turnoff that led towards her apartment building, clenching her fingers unconsciously on the steering wheel. She focused on the red brakelights of the car in front of her, unwilling to consider what she had just heard.

Considering she had been limited to lab work after Grissom took her off the Hett case, she shouldn't feel guilty for leaving early, but she still did.

She just couldn't stay there, knowing that they were interrogating her mother, than there might just be enough evidence to prove that she had murdered again.

I shouldn't be this surprised, she thought, shivering involuntarily. Why am I so surprised?

She shook her head, feeling a few loose strands escape from her ponytail, and she continued along, forcing her thoughts to focus doggedly on the road ahead in the fifteen minutes it took to reach her apartment.

As she parked in her assigned spot, her cellphone rang, and she slid it out of her pocket, glancing down at the lit monitor slowly. Gil Grissom. She let it ring a moment longer, before firmly turning it off and climbing out of the car.

Whatever he had to say could wait. She was in no mood to listen to him right now, when all she wanted to do was curl up in her apartment and pretend that the outside world didn't exist for a while. She was good at doing that.

She strode up to the second floor, sifting around in her handbag for her keys. Her neighbours were generally small families and elderly retirees, and she felt guilty for traipsing in at such an hour, so she tried to silence the jingle as best she could when she retrieved them.

She lowered them to the door, swiping the hair out of her eyes… and stopped. The doorknob turned in her hand. It was already open.

Sara frowned deeply, hesitantly lowering her keys to her side. Did I forget to lock the door? She wondered uneasily. Was I that distracted?

Even in the most harrying of situations, she thought forgetting such a menial task was unlikely, and she tensed as she strode inside, well aware that she had left her gun in her locker.

A lamp illuminated the purple walls of her living room, casting the room in a dull, muted light, and Sara stiffened noticeably. Sitting serenely on the sofa was the person she had least expected to see there.

"Hello Sara", Laura said softly.

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