Author's note: soooo sorry for the overdue post; I've had craziness ensuing around here. On the plus side, I raised $550.00 for a fundraiser! yeay!
Thanks again for all the helpful reviews, I do apreciate everything anyone has to say.
Okay on with the chapter. Oh, on emore thing...if it feels cut off at the bottom, its cause i divided this scene into two. I hate long chapters.
Shutting her front door behind her, Sara was overwhelmed with a feeling of déjà vu. Beside her kitchen cupboards, Sara saw the body, and the broken mirror behind the door. Her own walls were purple, and the Carpenter's had chosen a blue. She had a coat rack behind her door. The Carpenter's had a full-length mirror. She shook it off and made sure her own door was locked before changing into her sweats and her Harvard tee shirt. Plunking down in front of the computer, she tried not to look at the clock.
It wasn't until five AM, that she heard the knock at her door. Solid and precise, exactly three knocks.
She quickly tossed the coffee down the drain and threw an afghan around her pj'ed shoulders.
She opened her door and found Grissom standing in the hall.
"I need your house."
"You mean my help?" she shot back.
"The two aren't mutually exclusive of one another."
Sara thought about slamming the door on him right then and there, but the thought of Helen Carpenter made her hesitate. Grissom stepped in gingerly when she didn't object.
"I didn't wake you did I?"
"No" she admitted.
"Why not? It'salmost fiveAM?"
"Why are you here Grissom?" She demanded quietly absently glancing at her own clock on the wall.
"Officially, I am pursuing this investigation out of my own curiosity, the Federal Bureau has extended me the professional courtesy. The Internal Affairs office is handling the case of one of their top narcotics agents. One I might add who has an impeccable background."
"Chris Carpenter?"
"Well, I was referring to the death of Agent Helen Carpenter. There aren't any signs of the investigation pursuing her husband." He sounded apologetic, and it was not lost on Sara.
"It's an indictable offense, it's not like he ran over his wife's cat. They can't just ignore him as a potential suspect." Sara shook her head in disbelief.
"Sara, pedantic banter aside, we aren't in charge of this investigation anymore. We have a few hours to find compelling evidence."
"Then what?"
"Without it, he leaves for Cancun, while the IA Dept. reviews our field notes, and any headway we had made on the case."
"He's a murderer, he's not an idiot. Agent Carpenter's not just going to fly back into the waiting arms of the FBI. He leaves that airport in four hours, and he's gone. Do not ask me to just let him go like that." Sara was getting impassioned again, and she choked on her words as they spilled from her lips. Grissom caught her eye and looked at her with patient empathy. His attention caught hers and her look changed to resolve.
"What are we supposed to do? What can we do? Besides sit here and gripe about how badly Helen got the short end of the system?"
"Not much. We're pretty limited."
"You drove all they way over here to tell me that?"
"I said we're pretty limited, we are not, however totally without resources. Think outside the box."
"We don't have the jurisdiction or the authority to detain him…" Sara trailed off.
"But?" Grissom prompted, as Sara thought. He came in and dropped his briefcase beside the counter and hung his coat up.
"But… We can still conduct an investigation independently with the data we already have. If we can come up with reasonable doubt, we can at least persuade the department to detain him, pending their own investigation."
"Exactly. We know he's lying, we just need to prove it."
"Concentrate on what cannot lie, or something like that eh?"
"Something like that."
They were quiet for a moment, the day's events seeping from the silence.
Sara cleared her throat.
"I um, I was thinking about it, and there are two different crime scenes: She was obviously assaulted in the bedroom. Now, he says it was consentually rough, and we don't have the results of the SAE kit, or the clock exam so there's no way to know if she resisted or participated."
"We can't focus on the assault. You gotta let it go."
Sara glared at him briefly and realized he was right, again, and shifted her focus away from the bedroom and towards the entryway where the glass was broken.
"I originally thought the glass mirror broke when the door was thrown open, the handle shattering the glass, but Greg put the pieces back together and the fracture point was further in than the door handle and it was above it, at head height." Grissom narrated
"How did she get from the front hall to the kitchen? Without leaving an evidence trail?"
"One thing at a time. Was she chasing after him or was he casing after her down the-"
"Where are the footprints?"
"One thing at a time!" Grissom's voice rose a bit but he shut up quickly when she scowled at him. He remembered he was in her house on her own time. Casting her a meek expression, he gestured to the coat rack hanging on the wall.
"Does that come off?"
"Yes. Why?" She asked cautiously.
"I'd liketo do a velocity experiment. I don't want you to hit your head though."
Guardedly, she stepped up and took the coat rack off of its brackets.
"Better?"
"Infinitely. Now imagine the plate glass. I don't think he slammed her head against the mirror. I think it was an accident. I'll stand here on your left, and you run past me."
"You're going to grab me, aren't you?" Sara asked, catching on to the concept.
"We never got a chance to pursue the handprint on her left arm. I think this is where it fits in."
Sara let out a sigh of consent and stepped back a few passes.
"Okay. I'm Helen Carpenter. I've just had a fight with my husband, things got rough, I'm running for the door."
Sara broke into a jog towards the door; bracing for what she knew was coming. Grissom reached out and grabbed her upper arm and tugged firmly in the opposite direction she was running. Sure enough, Sara pivoted on the floor and smacked into the wall.
"Sorry." He apologized, rubbing her arm where five red marks were appearing.
"Don't be, that was awesome." Sara paused appreciatively. "I love physics!" She flashed a grin at him and stepped back from the wall.
"So she smashed her forehead against the mirror."
"Knocking her out."
"Did he panic? What motivated him to stab her?" He mused
"Weapon of opportunity?" She interjected.
"I don't know that it matters at this point."
"So what did he do between the time she died and the time he called 911?" She asked.
"He picked up an alibi."
"Takeout diner. That's right."
"Now we need to figure out how she got from the front hall to the kitchen."
"Something's been bothering me." Sara mused. "There's nothing in the hallway. No blood, no glass, its an evidence vacuum. Other than the footprints."
Grissom was silent for a while. He stared down Sara's hallway and envisioned the scene unfolding. Sara's taste in furniture was infinitely better, but it was a decent enough reconstruction. He was focused on the floor.
"Sara, did you know that these apartments have a specially designed floor? There's a layer of sponge under the hardwood that softens the impact and helps soundproof between floors."
"Huh."
"I have with me, the photographs you took of the hallway. Note how distinguished and pronounced the impressions are?"
"It's five AM, Grissom cut to it."
"A man is walking along the beach with God and at his death looks back in the sand. He sees that at the hardest moments of his life, there is only one set of footprints. When he asked God about this, God replied:"
"I carried you." Sara finished, looking down the hall. "How can we prove it?"
"This is why I needed your help."
Sara grinned smugly. He continued.
"The floors at the lab are concrete, and I cannot easily compare the shoe impressions, but I believe that the prints are so clear because he was carrying her body. In order to prove it, I need to make a comparison on a similar floor."
Grissom strode slowly down her hallway and stopped at the end. Sara made a mental note that her bedroom door was open, and her bed wasn't made.
"Okay you can come back now." She commanded uncomfortably.
She was busy lifting the latent footprints using the kit Grissom had left by the door. She didn't hear him enter the living room; only when he reappeared by her side did she look up. She stood expectantly when she saw the look on his face.
"You're looking into foster care?" He said incredulously.
"That's my business Grissom." She warned.
"You left your monitor on. Evidence in plain site." He admonished in return.
She was silently briefly while she thought. She was planning on telling him. Sooner or later.
"Yes. I am. The thought crossed my mind a few months ago and I've been pursuing it since."
"How?" He sounded like there was more in the question but he just trailed off.
"Not now, Grissom, please."
He looked at her softly and for a moment, Sara thought he was going to push the issue further. Instead he reached out a hand and took the prints she had lifted. Fleetingly, his thumb grazed the top of her right hand, and Sara looked at him in confusion, but said nothing. She relinquished the prints to her superior.
"These aren't defined enough." Grissom said.
"Do you want me to do it again, because-"
"No, this is a good thing. These match the impressions Greg and I did at the lab, meaning that the flooring has nothing to do with defining the clarity of the tread."
"Now what? I don't exactly have a 130 lb. weight lying around." She stopped and laughed. "I don't think you can lift my loveseat."
Grissom opened his arms out.
"Would you mind?"
Sara hesitated.
"You can't lift me, Grissom."
"Have a little faith. I have a theory."
"…And I have an invested interest in not letting you pick me up." Sara shot back before she thought twice about it. Stuff like that sounds so much better inmy head.
He waved his hands slightly and encouraged her once more. Sara let out a deep breath and moved awkwardly into his open arms.
His grip under her knees slipped and her left leg fell from his outstretched grip. Instinctively, she wrapped it around his waist. He tensed briefly, and she held her breath, the silence of the dead of night screaming volumes before he dropped her unceremoniously.
"That didn't work." Grissom said diplomatically. Sara smiled meekly.
"Try again." Sara commanded, resolute. He had already picked her up once, they might as well get something useful out of her humility. The things I do for science…