Catherine chose a booth near a window and sat down. Grissom followed. It was easy to see why this place was called In-N-Out. Once you got in, you were ready to get out. Fortunately, it was kind of slow at this time so they could spend a little more time just talking. A middle-aged, heavy-set woman with bleached hair took their orders and quickly disappeared.
"So, how are you holding up, Gil?" asked Catherine, reaching to touch his hand.
"Moving into numbness mode now as my analytical, rational side is fighting to regain control."
"Do you have any leads, any ideas in your mind about any of this yet?" she wanted to know.
"At this point we have several options on suspects, and none I'm all that excited about. We have Laura, Wilcewicz, this Jaxon Willard kid, and…" Catherine broke in, "What about Hudson Whitlock?"
" I was getting to that, " he answered "I just hate to think of it. We'd been such close friends while Anna attended school there, partly because of our interest in science. He would be over to our house often and we'd stay up for hours talking about experiment design and the best way to do it. Anna loved for him to visit because she didn't see her grandpas that much. Corinne's folks lived in Northern California, and my father had passed away, so she considered him a surrogate grandpa. She loved that he was deaf too."
"Do I remember correctly that you mother was also deaf?" asked Catherine.
"Yes, she'd become deaf as a young girl but post-lingually, so, she could speak quite well, but learned sign language when she was moved from her school to the deaf school in Fremont. Back in those days there weren't nearly the programs they have now for the deaf. The school functioned as more of an 'asylum' of sorts. Now there are all sorts of options for deaf children and their parents."
"That seems pretty rare doesn't it?" asked Catherine "Deafness in the grandparent and in the granddaughter…" Grissom broke in, "Let's not forget I had surgery in the not so distant past in an effort to restore my hearing being lost by hereditary deafness. The pathologies are different, true enough, but it does happen. Remember, lightning does strike twice."
"What happened with Anna? Was she born deaf?" inquired Catherine.
"Actually, no, she was born with normal hearing but had had so many ear infections that by 18 months old, she had lost a good percentage of hearing in both ears, so much that she was what they called severely deaf. Fortunately, I'd already known sign language, so we started that in earnest once we had the diagnosis. Corinne had actually taught her a few signs that helped her better understand what Anna wanted because she had read a book about signing with your hearing baby things like more, finished, and please. Corinne really seemed to enjoy being able to understand what Anna wanted. It was a double benefit when my mother came to visit us as well.
At any rate, we started searching for schools that would accommodate Anna's needs and found LVCSD to be just that place. They had classes starting for 3 year olds because children who are hearing impaired at the age of language acquisition have a more difficult time of learning what they can't hear, so the philosophy is give them language as early as you can, sign language being the natural progression."
The waitress returned with two cheeseburgers, fries, and two diet colas. "Could I trouble you for some extra mayonnaise?" Grissom asked her. "Sure thing, honey, be right back"
"Well let's see if we can't get this evidence sorted out, shall we?" asked Catherine, opening her mouth, attempting to wrap it around the extremely tall burger. "First of all, I want to thank you for listening, Catherine, just letting me air it all out. I've held it in for so long and stewed over it for years. I know that the loss of my daughter in such a violent way has been one thing that has been the fire in me to do whatever I could to be the voice for the victim, especially where children are involved. It's one area where I have the most trouble being able to remain rational and objective, so I'm glad you're on the case. I know you'll give it its due scrutiny."