Title: Him's
Rating: R, though rating won't kick in until later chapters.
Spoilers: Without A Trace: early season one, nothing specific. CSI: 215 Burden Of Proof
Timeline: pretend that Martin joined the team on WoAT a few months before BoP on CSI.
Summary: They both had their past him's that had left them broken. But the past is gone, and the future is what is at stake.
Thank you Lyssanick for helping me out about Vegas' transportation situation.
After getting through the traffic jam that had held them up for over an hour, Martin easily found the school and eased the FBI fleet sedan into a parking space outside the green plastic-coated chain-link fence that went high enough into the sky to keep stray balls within the grounds and to discourage anyone from trying to climb over, either trying to get in or to get out. It was after lunch, a meal that both agents had skipped in favour of spending those precious few minutes getting to the school a little faster in hopes of a lead in what was turning into a dead-end case that would weigh heavy on the minds and hearts of the Missing Persons Unit until the next horrific case came along to take the place of Sylvia Hunter's unexplainable vanishing act. Then Sylvia would just be another thing that the agents would think about in their darker moments when all their failures came back to haunt them in the dark of night.
"Teacher's name is Anytia—A-N-Y-T-I-A—Feller. She's been with the school for eleven years as of last September, and the only complaint in her file is from eight years ago," Martin said, reading off his notepad as they headed for the front gate.
"Complaint? About what?" Samantha asked, intrigued. She could see potential in Miss Anytia Feller, a glimmer of hope in the otherwise grey landscape of the case.
"Nothing that helps us," Martin said sadly. "Apparently she brought in cupcakes for an end of year party and one of the kids went into anaphylactic shock 'cause he was allergic to eggs. The boy was okay, but his parents made a big deal about the teacher not knowing that one of her students had a life threatening allergy. It wasn't school policy to make those kinds of details available to the teachers, for privacy reasons, so Feller couldn't be blamed for the incident. The school put a letter in her file and from then on make it policy for all teachers to have access to their student's medical information."
"We know anything else about Feller?" Samantha asked.
Martin ran his fingers through his hair. "Single, no children. Lives in an apartment in Brooklyn with a chocolate lab named Rufus—registered with Animal Control. Been with the school for eleven years, before that she taught at some grammar school out West. Graduated in the top ten in her class in early-to-mid-childhood education at Georgetown. Grew up all over the place—Army brat. No debt as far as Viv could tell."
"So probably not a suspect," Samantha decided with a nod. "How many students are in her class? How many girls?"
"Uh… twenty-three students, total. Fifteen females. Why does that matter?"
"When you were eight did you hang out with the girls in your class?" Samantha asked.
Martin considered that. "Good point," he replied when he remembered when he was Sylvia's age. Girls were 'icky' and the only females he would be caught dead around were in his family and his father's assistant, Mary-Ellen, who had been to more of his little league games than both of his parents combined.
Samantha flashed him a smile before pulling open the heavy front gate and slipping through, pushing it just hard enough for Martin to make it through behind her before it clanged shut again. They made their way to the principal's office, knowing that anything they did would have to be done through him anyway, and, after flashing their badges to the woman with a weak perm who was tapping away at a keyboard with blindingly pink fingernails, they were buzzed in to see the principal, Ken Wentworth.
"What can I do for the FBI today?" Wentworth asked as if it were an everyday occurrence for federal agents to come into his office with SIG Sauer's holstered at their hips.
"We need to speak to Miss Feller and her students," Samantha said.
"About what?"
"Sylvia Hunter," Martin said.
Wentworth frowned, the name obviously not meaning anything to him. Samantha and Martin filed that away.
"Someone from our office called earlier today. You faxed us copies of Feller's file, along with Sylvia's school record," Samantha supplied.
"Your signature was on the authorization," Martin prompted, perfectly in tune with how Samantha wanted to play this. Samantha smiled inwardly. Despite her original misgivings about him—mostly because of his father and her assumption that Martin had used his family name to get from White Collar to Missing Persons the way he had—Martin was a good agent and she enjoyed working with him.
At least, when he wasn't making her crazy with feelings she couldn't name and wanted to exorcise from her soul and cling to with all her strength at the very same time.
"I sign a lot of things every day," Wentworth said. "I don't read everything through. Pearl tells me what everything is and I sign on the line," he added, nodding toward the outer office where his assistant was back at the keyboard, tapping away with her blinding nails that Samantha was positive were fake.
Samantha fought the urge to roll her eyes. Habits like that were what allowed things—and people—to slip through the cracks. There was a reason that, as much as she hated it, she worked her ass off doing paperwork, just like she worked her ass off in the field. "Regardless of your management style, we still need to speak to Anytia Fuller and the students in her class. We can get a court order if necessary, but I really don't want to make it public record that Brucksteen Academy doesn't cooperate with the Bureau when one of its students has disappeared without a trace," Samantha said. As she spoke Martin pulled out his cell phone and started dialling, though Samantha wasn't sure if he was dialling to get the court order she threatened or if he was just trying to make Wentworth believe that he was. Either way, it was an effective manoeuvre, because Wentworth began to sweat at the thought of the bad publicity that the school could get if he didn't start making things easier for them.
"You cannot speak to the students without a representative with them," Wentworth said, stalling.
"We're not trying to pin anything on a bunch of eight and nine year olds, sir, we're just trying to find Sylvia Hunter," Samantha said as calmly as she could.
She almost hoped Martin hit SEND and get them their court order.
Instead of reflecting on how much time she had spent in the elevator going between the lab and the eleventh floor, Sara wondered how involved she would be allowed to get in the case. Everywhere she had worked before she had been able to go with the police, be there when they questioned people, but she wasn't sure what the FBI's policy was regarding CSI's in the field. But, regardless of whether they wanted her with them, Sara had questions that she needed answered before she could complete her interpretation of the evidence she had been given to work with.
Sylvia Hunter had been missing for almost eight hours, and they didn't have any leads. It was almost two in the afternoon, and with the days being as short as they were, Sara knew that it would be dark by five. After dark finding the little girl would become even more difficult.
Assuming she was somewhere that she could be found.
The elevator opened and Sara stepped out onto the eleventh floor. She made a quick note of the white board where a timeline was written out in several different samples of handwriting.
0600 – calls father in Florida. Call lasts 20 mins was written in a gentle cursive.
0740 – enters subway w/ mother was written in thick block letters, all capitals, by a decidedly male hand.
0743 – enters subway car w/ mother was next in the same writing as the previous notation.
0801 – drops mother's hand, is separated in crowded car was written next, in the same writing as the previous two times.
After that the timeline petered off. There were a few identifications listed, probably from Danny's hotline tips, Sara thought, but obviously they were not doing very well. Sara knew it was easier to find adults because adults have ATM cards, credit cards, cell phones, enemies, and numerous other records that help blaze a trail to those who want to be found, as well as those who don't but aren't smart enough to hide completely. But children didn't have any of those things, and the motive behind a kidnapping—if that was what it truly was—was either revenge against the parent or was something more perverse and sexual.
Sara couldn't see Jack in his office, but she did find Danny and an older African American woman standing by the board with the tips from the hotline showing with tiny pushpins with flags flying off the end of them.
"Any word from Sam and Martin?" Danny asked the woman.
"Not since they got out of that traffic jam," the woman replied.
"Damn," Danny said. "How's Reggie? You weren't gone for that long."
"Reggie's fine. Sprained his wrist. He's at home with the TV and some Advil," she replied before looking over at Sara. "Can I help you?"
"Uh, Viv, this is Sara Sidle. Forensics," Danny said. "This is Vivian Johnson," he said to Sara who nodded and extended her hand to the other woman. "You get anything off the mother's things?"
Sara sighed. "Nothing definitive. I've got some questions to ask her, though, if she's still around here somewhere."
"Danny'll take you to her. I'll handle the phone lines," Vivian said with a gentle smile.
"I owe you big," Danny said to Viv as he headed off with Sara.
"I intend on collecting," Vivian called after the Latino agent who chuckled heartily as he put a gentle leading hand on the small of Sara's back.
Normally Sara would have gotten angry, not being the type who appreciated being led by a man, but she got the feeling that it was just a gentlemanly instinct and not a chauvinistic action that had led to Danny pressing his hand to the sensitive nerves at the small of her back.
His warm hand burned her through the thin satin blouse she wore and Sara suppressed a shiver, unwilling to allow herself to feeling anything at all. Danny was just an extremely sexy man who she had happened to meet at a time when she was feeling vulnerable and, to be perfectly honest, horny as hell. It made sense that his touch would bring about feelings that she felt were best left far, far away from the workplace.
"You've dealt with missing persons cases before, right?" Danny asked as they headed through the hallways toward the conference room where Mrs Hunter was situated.
"More than once," Sara nodded. She was getting annoyed with the fact that everyone was questioning her ability to do the job. "It's not something I enjoy. Give me a murder investigation over a missing person any day. I don't know how you do this every day."
"Sometimes I don't either," Danny admitted before pushing open the door to the conference room. "Mrs Hunter, I'm Special Agent Danny Taylor, this is CSI Sara Sidle. We have a few questions that'll help put some evidence into context."
Elisa sniffed pitifully. "Will it help bring Sylvia back?" she asked.
"It might," Danny said as Sara sat down across from Elisa.
"Ask away, then."
Sara opened the file she had been clutching tightly since leaving the lab and pulled out a stack of pictures. "Unfortunately there wasn't anything on the subway that could help us find your daughter, which is why your belongings were taken earlier. I went over them and I've got some questions that I hope you can help me with." She selected a picture off the top of the pile. It showed Elisa's keys. "Can you tell me what each of these keys unlocks?"
"My apartment's main door, my apartment's door, my office, those two are for my car, this one is for my parent's house in Connecticut, and this one is for my ex-husband's house in Florida," Elisa said, pointing at the picture as she spoke.
Sara nodded and made a note of that. "And what about this? In your day planner you have a note to call lawyer. What about?"
"My, uh, divorce isn't final yet. Freddie and I… we still have been putting it off, but we decided that it was worse for Sylvia, thinking that we might get back together…" Elisa said. She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. "I made a note to myself to call my lawyer to have him draw up the papers to make it official." She looked up at Danny. "Has someone called Freddie?"
"Yes, I spoke to him earlier," Danny said. "He is catching a flight up here in a few hours."
"Good."
Shuffling through the photos, trying to find the one that fit with her next question.
They had been given an empty classroom to conduct their interviews in. Martin, who was decidedly better with children than Samantha, folded himself into a tiny chair meant for children under the age of six and waited for the first student from Miss Feller's class to come to him. Samantha had opted to conduct her interview of Miss Fuller in the coat room in hopes of cutting down the distraction level and keep the children out of earshot of the more sensitive questions that, though she hated to verbalize them, she knew she would have to ask to get a full picture of the situation.
Anytia Fuller was short, barely five-foot-two in the hard-soled heels that she wore, and she had hair the colour of red autumn leaves that fell in loose waves past her shoulders. Her clothing was stylish and all black, and she wore a string of brightly coloured beads that wound around her neck several times at varying lengths. Her eyes were hazel and her face was devoid of make-up as far as Samantha could tell.
"I'm Special Agent Samantha Spade with the FBI's Missing Persons Unit," Samantha said, extending her hand to the nervous woman. Anytia shook Sam's hand tentatively before taking a seat in one of the two adult-sized chairs that Samantha had dragged into the coat room from the teacher's desk.
"Do you have any idea where Sylvia might be?" Anytia asked.
"That's why we're here. The rest of the unit is pursuing other avenues, but it is standard procedure to talk to the school when a child goes missing."
"I know. Children spend more time with their teachers and classmates than they do with their parents' everyday, and parents aren't always privy to everything in their child's life," Anytia nodded. Samantha looked at her questioningly. "Unfortunately this isn't the first time a student in my class has gone missing. That's why I left the West Coast, to be perfectly honest."
"That's not in your file," Samantha said, though she hadn't gotten he chance to look at it herself. However, she trusted that, if there was something like that in Anytia Fuller's file, Martin would have felt it was important enough to share with her.
Anytia rubbed her hand over her face tiredly. It was clear that this was taking a toll on her. "There's nothing in my file because I had nothing to do with Damien's disappearance. His father was a prosecutor and Damien was an easy target… according to the FBI. They found his body two weeks after he didn't show up for after-school-care. I… I couldn't stay there anymore…" she trailed off, shaking her head. "I just felt so guilty… it was my day to walk the day-care kids to the community centre but my friend was flying in so I traded off with another teacher so I could pick my friend up at the airport. The other teacher forgot… and Damien died," Anytia said, tears springing to her eyes as she recounted what was obviously a painful memory for her. She looked at Samantha pleadingly. "Please don't let that happen to Sylvia."
"We're doing everything we can to prevent that," Samantha said. She never outright promised that she would find the person she was sent to look for. It hurt too much if she had to break that promise later. "Now… what can you tell me about Sylvia Hunter?"
Comments anyone?