… part 2, chapter 2 …

Sara had given him a brief tour of the lab as ordered, although she hadn't said more than ten words to him. Grissom made sure he could find the men's room again, and he could find the morgue, but the rest of the building was a maze of pale cinderblock hallways and cold, monotonous doors.

When Sara finally brought him to the State of Connecticut's version of an analysis room, she handed him the case file for Maria Sanchez without a word. She then sat down at the far end of the table; opened Diana Somers's file and began reviewing what appeared to be lab results, periodically making notes in her small notepad.

Grissom followed her lead, and started in on the Sanchez file. He soon was lost in the hunt for details; examining each scene photo closely with the magnifying glass from his kit. He felt the need to find that particular detail he was sure these bumblers had missed. However, whoever documented the Sanchez scene had been quite thorough and, like before, there was nothing worthwhile in the way of incriminating evidence.

"Not much at the scene is there?" he asked her quietly.

"No," she replied, still staring down at the results in front of her. "I didn't work the first scene, but I worked the Somers one." She paused for a moment, raising her head to meet his eyes. "There was nothing there, Grissom. Nothing."

"I know," he said softly. "I know you wouldn't miss anything."

She smiled a little, and went back to reviewing her results. He watched her for a moment before turning back to his work. He began to focus on comparison evidence – proving that the three cases were indeed caused by the same individual. He started with Miss Sanchez's lab work, noting that there was nothing unusual about the bleach found at the scene. It appeared to be common household bleach, readily available at any supermarket or convenience store.

Grissom sighed to himself. He pulled out his paperwork from the Walker file, studying his lab's trace results. Again, common household bleach. Nothing special there either.

He moved on to bloodwork. Both women had high levels of flunitrazepam in their system. "Rohypnol," he muttered.

"Roofies. Diana had it in her bloodwork too," Sara murmured in reply. "Both Diana and Maria also had traces of alcohol. Yet they had little to no food in their stomachs. Those results aren't conclusive, but they're thinking all they had was some type of wine or champagne."

"Doesn't matter. With this much Rohypnol, they didn't put up much of a fight."

"They didn't put up any fight at all."

Sara's face was strained with anger. But she sighed to herself, and the strain eased. She returned to her paperwork and her notebook, logging something or other that she felt was important. Grissom started in on the body photographs. The Walker woman's death was ruled exsanguination, and the photograph of a deep slice across her jugular pretty much ruled out anything else. Grissom flipped through the Sanchez photos, trying to keep the two separate. His eyes narrowed when he saw the same harsh line across her lean throat.

"Sara, cause of death for the Somers woman was exsanguination, right?"

"Yes Grissom, all three are the same. That is why you're here, isn't it? The same COD, same presentation, the same everything. That's what prompted me to call… this is a serial." She waited a moment before stating bluntly, "A vicious rapist bastard, too."

Grissom pulled out the SART results for Maria Sanchez. Clock results indicated rape, as well as significant bruising and tearing. The Walker woman's results showed a similar scenario. He glanced over at Sara, and she handed him the SART for the Somers woman without Grissom saying a word. Grissom reviewed it briefly, noting only that the bruising and tearing for this woman was less than the others.

"Diana Somers wasn't … as bad as the other two," Grissom stated.

"I know," Sara said quietly

"Any guesses as to why?"

"Time. The results don't present as an object rape." Sara's voice was bitter; she was keeping her emotions in check, but just barely. "He… he raped them… numerous times. And he didn't hold back. He was… rough with them."

"You'd have to wonder how he didn't harm himself in the process," Grissom mused.

Sara was silent for a minute, thinking. "Condoms," she stated simply.

Grissom's face displayed his confusion, and the fact that this conversation was heading into awkward territory.

Sara saw his face, and said simply, "Friction. Use of a condom protects him to some degree. He also could use lubricant for himself, but not her."

"Most lubricants eat through latex condoms."

"First, he may not have cared; used a new one each time. It's not like he was protecting them from anything. Second, he may have used a condom-safe lubricant. Third, he might have used lambskin. I do know there was no trace of nonoxonyl-9 in Miss Walker or Miss Somers. I checked for that. Then again, most chemical trace was compromised by the bleach."

"Was trace run for particles of latex or lambskin?"

"Latex maybe, but probably not lambskin." Sara made a note in her binder, and Grissom knew she'd have a trace run for both later tonight. From what he remembered, there weren't many brands of lambskin condoms available on the market. Not like he'd done any shopping for any type of condoms… god, in years. However, if the lab returned traces of lambskin, they could compare that to the market brands, and maybe who had bought them recently.

Sara went back to ignoring Grissom, as if their conversation had never happened. This was fine by him, for now. He didn't want to know how she was so up to speed on condoms, and how men might make them more enjoyable.

Grissom went back to his photographs. He paused at a photo of the Walker woman's chest. He flipped quickly through the paperwork from the Sanchez file to a similar upper body photograph. He sat back in his chair, comparing the two. On the Walker woman, there was a slight cut which seemed to resemble the letter "J". On the Sanchez woman, the cut resembled a cursive letter "A". Both cuts were shallow, and made peri-mortem.

"Sara, do you have the autopsy photos of the Somers woman?"

Sara looked up at him, and began shuffling through her papers. "No, not yet." She sighed in frustration. "I'm sorry. This isn't like Vegas. Some things take a little longer here. Photographs not taken at the scene seem to be extremely difficult. You need special paperwork to get them processed quickly." She rolled her eyes at his confused expression. "Don't ask me, I don't know. It's like they've never heard of one-hour photo places. Or digital cameras. It's film all the way here."

"It's okay. We'll see both bodies later tonight. I want to check this," he said, and he handed the two photos over to her.

She studied them for a moment. "He's marking them?"

"I'm not sure. The photo on the left is the Walker woman, from Vegas. The one on the right is Sanchez. That certainly looks like an 'A' on her."

"Scarlet letter?" Sara asked with a sneer. "You've got to be kidding me."

"We'll check it out tonight. At least it's something." Grissom smiled softly at her.

"Let me look through the interview documentation. Maybe she was a little 'friendly' with the wrong man. The Walker woman was a dancer, right?"

Grissom leafed through his paperwork. "Yes."

"Exotic?"

"No. But we don't know what she did with her spare time."

"Unlikely that she'd do both. Still, maybe she caught the attention of the wrong guy."

"That same guy who left Vegas, and came here. The only thing common between Vegas and here is the casino. We should look into Mohegan Sun employees that recently moved here from Vegas."

"I'll have Jon look into it," Sara said. "He's pretty good at expediting things."

"That's because he's a tribal member, Sara."

"How'd you come to that conclusion?" she asked him tentatively, like he'd found out some kind of special secret.

"It wasn't hard. He's rather boisterous and proud of what his tribe has accomplished. In a way, he reminds me of Greg."

"Really? He reminds me of Brass."

"Jim?"

"Oh you can't tell me that back in his prime, Brass wasn't just as cocky and full of himself as Jon is. He's still cocky and full of himself now." Sara's voice was tinged with laughter.

"I won't admit to the fact that Jim Brass was an obnoxious prick back in his day. I wasn't there. Although," he said, lowering his voice to a loud whisper, "I might have heard he was a terror." Sara smiled at that.

"You know, we're doing this all wrong," Grissom blurted. "We need to compare these three women side-by-side. We'll get a better feel for what's in common, and we can work it through." He paused before asking her hesitantly, "You agree?"

Sara stiffened for a moment, taking offense that she would ever do something "wrong", but she sighed as she picked up her paperwork and moved next to him. She agreed.

It took them a half hour to sort through the many photos and arrange them side-by-side. They had spent the last fifteen minutes standing inches from each other, examining the table before them. Grissom marveled at how Sara had moved closer to him without even realizing it. She had just fallen into their normal routine of working together. He was thrilled, but anticipating a backlash once she realized how close they were. Still, perhaps whatever she was dreading about working with him was fading away. Perhaps she had missed him as much as he missed her. God, she smells exactly the same. That light, sweet scent… Jesus.

"This is interesting," Sara said, lifting two photos of the women's hands. Grissom snapped out of his Sara-induced trance and focused on the pictures. "Walker and Sanchez have the same type of ligature marks on their wrists."

"Were they bound at the scene?" he asked.

"I don't think so," Sara said, routing through the papers off to the side. "Somers wasn't. But we're missing a lot with that."

Grissom walked over to the far side of the table and flipped through the scene documentation. "Nothing noted in the Walker case. Not with Sanchez, either."

Sara looked at him intently. "They were tied. And then released. Post mortem?" She studied the pictures again. "These aren't typical either. What do you think?" she said as he walked towards her, taking the photos as she handed them to him.

Grissom adjusted his glasses and stared at the photos. That didn't help. Old eyes. He reached for his magnifying glass, and studied each photo carefully under the thick lens.

"This isn't rope, or those plastic tie wraps. Or leather. This is something different. Something thinner, dull. And there is something different with the way they were bound. See the rough marks under the pad of the thumbs?" He handed one of the photos back to Sara.

Sara studied it again, the photo resting lightly in her palm. "You're right. This isn't typical. Did we swab for trace for this with the Walker woman?"

"Doubtful. I remember we did minimal trace because of the bleach." He frowned at this, frustrated that they had missed something. He paused stiffly as he remembered Sofia, and their conversation about this exact thing. Sofia felt it wasn't necessary for the expensive test, as they had nothing for comparison. His frown deepened. He had agreed. Perhaps that wasn't his best decision.

"Why? I would have seen this…ran it…" Sara murmured, trying to remember. She was frustrated. "What did I do, forget?"

"You didn't forget, Sara. Sofia did the trace. She was the primary, and she felt it wasn't probative. At the time, I agreed."

"Oh," she said. Grissom watched her face fall, as she remembered why Sofia had done the trace, and she had not. He had kept her on the sidelines with this case. The memory shattered their fragile camaraderie. Sara stepped away from him and reverted back to her professional, unfeeling demeanor from earlier in the evening. Grissom mentally groaned. Well, that ends that.

"Well then. I suppose we'll see what we'll find in the morgue." Sara's tone was much more subdued as she looked up at the small clock on the wall. "Tom will be in soon. We'll swab them then." She looked down at the table. "We should straighten this up. Other teams use this room too."

"Sounds like a plan. We wouldn't want to hog all the premium table space." Grissom smiled at her, trying to restore something, anything, from their mood earlier, but Sara wasn't having any of it. She was back in her walls-up mode, picking up their neatly piled paperwork, ignoring him. Grissom helped her in silence, and soon they had cleared the small table and filed everything away.

Sara wasn't about to sit around and chat with him while they waited for the assistant coroner. "I'm going to check in with Mike to tell him what we've found and see if we can expedite our stuff in trace tonight. And I'll see if I can work something with those photos." She paused when she reached the door. "You'll be okay by yourself, right?"

"I'm fine, Sara."

After she left, Grissom sighed heavily and rested his forehead against his palm. All his grandiose thoughts of sweeping Sara away from this and back home seemed to be drifting further and further away. There was too much negative history between them. And the possibility of any romantic encounters with her seemed impossible. Maybe he should just finish the case and go home. He frowned immediately at the thought of returning to the lab and catching hell from everyone else when there was no Sara with him. What about the tux? And the dinner? Ugh. This was not part of his plan, and his pride was beginning to sting. She was supposed to care for him, and maybe she did, but she wasn't falling into his arms, begging for rescue. If anything it was the exact opposite. Like I expected anything different?

Grissom groaned in frustration and annoyance at himself and the whole damn situation. He'd gotten himself into a load of shit this time, hadn't he?

oooooooooooooooo

Sara returned with Dr. Nave about ten minutes later.

Dr. Nave spoke in his annoyingly calm and authoritative tone. "So, Sara tells me you've found some interesting details concerning the… abuse and the use of restraints. Excellent. And I've signed off on the documentation necessary to expedite the photography. You won't have to worry about that anymore." He turned and smiled softly at Sara, the last statement clearly meant for her and not him. "Our nightshift coroner has decided to grace us with his presence, so if you're ready, we can head off to the morgue."

Grissom nodded, and the trio made their way to the morgue. Grissom found himself studying the cold steel room; comparing it to the one in Vegas and his old morgue in LA. This one was smaller, but it appeared to be on par with Vegas. The slabs were older; as were the drawers, but there was a new video recording setup as well as two newer sets of autopsy implements. Grissom wondered if these were contributions from the Mohegan tribe.

Yet another younger man stood by the far wall, leaning against the side of an opened and clearly occupied body drawer. This must be Tom. Grissom scowled slightly. Was anyone in this building over 45 besides him and Nave?

"Hey, Mike. Hey, Sara… what brings you to my humble abode?" Tom smiled and stepped towards them, a flirtatious grin on his round face. The grin faded when Tom noticed Grissom. "Ah," he said in a false somber tone, "you've brought company. Hello, Company. Tom Berman, Southeastern Connecticut Assistant Coroner." Tom stuck out his hand, and Grissom found himself forced to shake the pudgy and sweaty appendage.

"Dr. Gil Grissom, Las Vegas Crime Lab," Grissom said with authority. "Former chief medical examiner to the Los Angeles Police Department." He was hoping this information would put the younger man in his place.

"Oh! A former corpse carver like myself. It's a pleasure." Tom pumped Grissom's arm vigorously. "I'll bet you've seen all kinds of gory goodness. Any decent mutilations? How many things have you boiled down? I haven't done a head yet, but my boss has. He's on days. Around here, all the interesting stuff happens during the day. Well, except for maybe recently. Hey, after break you can come by and we can share corpse stories. That'd be great. I'll bet at your age, you've seen lots of stuff." Grissom held back an eye-roll. Lucky him, he'd made a new friend.

"So, I'll bet you're here to look at Beauty Number One and Beauty Number Two, right? I've got Number One out over here. Number Two is in the back."

Grissom reluctantly followed the waddling Tom back to the young woman's body, so he didn't quite hear what Dr. Nave muttered to Sara. All he caught was a parting, "… need anything, let me know. And remember what I said, hmm?" It appeared Dr. Nave wasn't staying around to examine the bodies. Gee, what a shame. Sara joined them, standing next to Tom on one side of the drawer, leaving Grissom alone on the other.

"We'll need to swab her and Diana's wrists for trace, Tom," Sara stated. "And we'll need you to take some upper body close-ups tonight. Send them out to get developed one-hour, okay? And if you've still got them, the general autopsy photos on Diana, those can go one-hour too. I got it approved through Mike."

"No problem, m'dear," Tom replied.

"Well," Sara said, "there's the 'A'. Sure looks like one, doesn't it?"

Grissom bent over and studied the cut. "It's clean, made by something sharp, like a scalpel or razor blade. Peri-mortem."

"I thought the same thing," Tom blurted. "Scalpel or razor blade made that. Although I thought it was an 'O'."

"For now," Sara frowned, "we just know it's a cut that may resemble a letter. Get lots of good photos, okay Tom?"

Sara then turned to Grissom, a patient look on her face. She apparently was waiting for him to do something. He tilted his head at her in return. What do you want?

"Wrists? Swab?" she said with a hint of sarcasm.

"Be my guest," he returned sweetly.

She shot him a dark look, but seemed to acquiesce as she reached into her pocket and withdrew gloves and two capped swabs. After snapping the gloves on, she gently lifted Maria Sanchez's left wrist and brushed the cotton tip against the deepest imprints of the ligature marks. Sara walked around the drawer and around Grissom to do the same with the right.

"Some bruising here," she murmured. "But not on the left…" She straightened, and stared down at the body, thinking while snapping the swab cover shut.

"Could be that he grabbed her and yanked," Grissom said.

"Tom, would you get close-ups of her wrists as well?" Sara smiled charmingly at Tom, and the large man smiled brightly in return.

"Your wish is my command, madame."

It seemed a second coroner had succumbed to Sara's charms, Grissom thought as he pictured the taller and thinner David in his mind, smiling with the same lovelorn expression.

Sara faced Grissom, all business again. "Something is off here. If she was held down, there would be bruising on both wrists, not one."

"Let's examine Miss Somers. Maybe she has more to say than Miss Sanchez."

Sara smirked at Grissom as a confused Tom led them back into another room, where a shorter, heavier woman was lying on the steel table.

"Well, Dr. Grissom, here she is, but she isn't saying much."

Grissom winked at Sara, and she fought smiling in return. She knew his game, but Grissom couldn't help himself. Poor Tom was so clueless.

"Ah, but Mr. Berman, she's saying many things."

Tom was utterly baffled. His expression was priceless.

"See," Grissom said as he snapped on a glove from his kit. "Here, in her hair, we can see that she was bathed in bleach post mortem. Along her hairline, the blonde color is lighter than along the ends. This would be because the bleach was not washed out completely, and settled there. If you'd look at Miss Sanchez, she has the same issue, although it isn't as prevalent. Her hair is darker, of course."

He then pointed to the woman's chest. "Also, she carries a letter resembling an 'A', or an 'O', like you mentioned. We'll need detailed photos of that, of course. And again, you can see this was done peri-mortem, and with a sharp implement – most likely the same one used on Miss Sanchez." He then snapped on the other glove, purely for dramatic effect. Sara couldn't quite stop from rolling her eyes at him, and he smirked at her in return.

"Clearly," Grissom stated, tracing his finger along the deep slash across the woman's throat, "this woman is saying she died of exsanguination like her friend."

Grissom paused for a moment, and turned to Sara. "We'll need to compare the photos of this with the others. We should be able to prove the same implement was used for these two, and maybe the third." Sara nodded. She would remember. Grissom focused his attention back to the young coroner as he walked around the metal slab to lift the woman's left wrist. He took out his own capped swab, and spoke quietly while collecting the sample.

"Here she's saying that her wrists were bound in a similar manner to Miss Sanchez. She's screaming to us that what happened to her, happened to Miss Sanchez as well." He turned to Sara briefly. "We'll have to take these to trace, of course, but I'm willing to bet that if there are any residual particles from whatever bound them, they will be the same for both women."

Grissom walked around to the right side of the woman's body, and withdrew another swab for the woman's right wrist. "And again, this woman speaks to us, saying that she too has bruising on her right, but not her left."

"Really?" Sara said, walking over to stand beside Grissom as he nodded.

"See for yourself," he said, turning the dead woman's wrist gently.

"What is this?" Her eyes were intense, demanding he answer the question.

"I don't know," he said quietly. "It looks exactly like he held her down. But why only the one side?"

Sara sighed, clearly thinking. Grissom turned to Tom. "I think we're done here."

"Take as many photos as you can, Tom," Sara said. "And have Jim or some other intern rush them over to get them developed as quickly as possible. We need them."

"Not a problem. Thanks for the interesting lesson on communing with the dead, Dr. Grissom."

Grissom smiled politely at Tom, and focused on Sara. "You look like you need to run this. Where should we go?"

"Follow me," she said with a sniff. "I'll show you the one place we missed on our first tour. My office."

Grissom paused. She has an office?

…continued next chapter ->