"Mia, talk to me."
It was noon, the day after Greg's disappearance. Greg, being one of the more popular CSIs around the headquarters, was receiving some special attention, it seemed. All of nightshift had turned up early, and they were working like they'd never worked before.
Presently, Catherine had burst into Mia's section of the lab, where she was working as hard as the rest of them.
"Okay," said Mia. "I've been working non-stop since six this morning, haven't had a single coffee, and my eyes are getting real sore from looking down the microscope."
"I mean what have you found out? Anything?" Catherine's patience was starting to run thin.
"Look, it's not my fault Greg's gone," Mia snapped back. "Give me a break, will you?"
"I'm sorry," said Catherine, massaging her forehead. "I'm really stressed out right now."
"Everyone's stressed out right now," replied Mia.
"Okay, so what have you got?" repeated Catherine.
"The two bullets you recovered are a match to the casings you found," said Mia. "Just to make sure, I compared them to bullets from Nick's gun when he was in here earlier. Perfect match."
"So that was Greg's gun that fired those shots," said Catherine.
"Probably," said Mia. "Whether or not it was Greg who pulled the trigger...I'm going to need some more evidence."
"Well, this guy's signature is to attack with a knife," said Catherine. "And signatures don't usually change, so...thanks, Mia."
And she left, musing on the information.
Catherine was confident that Greg had fired at his attacker in self-defense. She was also confident that one of the bullets had struck home.
She was going to go back to the scene. Some of the blood was not Greg's, and she was going to find out whose.
---
Grissom strode up to Hodges' desk and put his hands down on it. The lab tech, with dark shadows clouding his bloodshot eyes, looked up.
"You don't look so good," said Grissom.
"Neither would you, if you'd been in here for six hours straight," answered Hodges bitterly. "Do you know how stuffy this room gets?"
"Take a break," said Grissom. "Have a coffee. But first, tell me what you know and I don't."
"I identified the leaf that Catherine found at the crime scene," said Hodges. "It's chewing tobacco."
"Have you isolated the brand?"
"You're kidding, right? But that's not the only thing. You remember that strange pulp Nick found in the receiver of Tony Sherman's phone?"
"Yeah?"
"That's also chewing tobacco. As far as I can tell, it's the same kind."
An idea hit Grissom. If the tobacco in the phone had been reduced to pulp, it was already chewed. And if it was already chewed...
"Tell me you swabbed it for DNA before you processed it," said Grissom.
"Give me some credit, Grissom," replied Hodges. "I did, actually, and there was no shortage of DNA there. Did you know that saliva is a more potent DNA source than blood?"
"Give me some credit, Hodges," retorted Grissom. "Did you get a hit on CODIS?"
"I ran it through, but nothing came up," said Hodges. "This guy's a first time offender."
"Or he's just never been caught."
---
Catherine examined the blood in the alleyway intensely. The stuff was everywhere: on the ground, on the walls, on the dumpster...it would be impossible to isolate Greg's blood from the attackers.
Impossible, that is, to anyone but Catherine Willows.
There was a streak shooting straight upwards from the ground. It was very thin, suggesting a stab wound, not a slash. Plus, if he had been slashed, there would have been some extra droplets cast off. So Greg had been pinned down and stabbed in a vessel. Considering the spot where Greg's head had been (there was a small pool there, indicating a head injury), the spot that had been stabbed must have been right next to the wall, and near the shoulder. Greg had been stabbed in the upper arm. She swabbed this.
There was a scattered spray of blood droplets on the wall a few inches closer to the mouth of the alley. This led Catherine to believe there was a second wound. This one was probably a slash wound. Perhaps to the chest? This she swabbed as well.
Then she came to the third. This one was much worse in terms of blood quantity. It was a large, dry pool near the base of the dumpster. Using the point where Greg's head had rested, she determined that this had come from a wound just under Greg's right clavicle. It was a stab wound (owing, once more, to the lack of excess spatter) that had not pierced any vessels, but gone deep enough to tap a spring of blood. Once again, out came the old swab.
Now there was but one spot left. It was a spray of droplets – maybe 'blast' would be a more appropriate term – relatively high up on the wall: just a bit higher up than Catherine's eye level. It started wide, and gradually tapered to a blunt point. The wide end was a very fine, clustered spray of blood droplets, but as it neared the other end, the droplets became larger and more scattered.
To top that off, there was a tiny collection of black particles near the wide end. Catherine photographed it, and knew instantly what it was. GSR.
This spray was caused by a gunshot.
And that meant that they now had their attacker's DNA. Catherine swabbed it and hurried back to the lab.
---
"Once again, no hits," said Hodges, after scanning Catherine's blood sample. He took a sip from his freshly poured mug of coffee and turned around to face her.
"What?" said Catherine, staring at him incredulously. "You don't mean to tell me this guy's never done anything wrong in his life?"
"Or he's never been caught, to get in Grissom's frame of mind," answered Hodges.
"Wait a minute, you've already talked to Grissom?"
"Mm-hmm."
"But I only just recovered this blood. Don't tell me he did it already."
"No, he didn't. I should correct myself. When I said 'no hits', I meant no hits on CODIS. The blood is, however, an absolutely perfect match to saliva recovered from the tobacco in Tony Sherman's phone."
"Tobacco? Sherman's phone?"
"Ask Grissom, he'll fill you in."
"No, Hodges, I'm asking you. And you're going to tell me, because I don't want to waste time trying to find Grissom while Greg's still missing. So what happened?"
"Well, Nick recovered some chewed up tobacco from the phone at Tony Sherman's house. The tobacco is the same as the leaf you found near the scene of Greg's attack. So I swabbed the DNA on the chewed sample and got nothing. Except of course that it's from the same person that attacked Greg."
"So the attacker has been to Sherman's house and used his phone, which means that it's the same person that called Sara."
"Most probably."
"I need to talk to Brass."
And thus Catherine turned on her heel and left the lab's most bitter technician to his own devices.
"You're welcome," he called after her.
---
"Hey, Brass," said Catherine, walking into the Captain's office.
"Catherine," he said, upon turning to see her. "What's up?"
"I need a warrant," she said.
"What for?"
"DNA. Manfred Kirby and Dustin Orwell. My money's on Kirby, but Orwell's not to be ignored either. He's the owner of the bloody knife found near Archie, and also the owner of the only prints on it."
"And the blood on the knife was definitely Archie's?"
"Yeah, DNA never lies."
"What about Sherman?"
"We had him in custody when Greg wasn't attacked. It wasn't him."
"Right, I'll call up the DA and get it arranged. But what about that Gaston Moreau guy?"
"Nothing places him at Sherman's house. Far as we know, Sherman was just some patron to him."
"I couldn't get a warrant without more evidence. Alright, I'll get it done."
---
Grissom sat across the table from Manfred Kirby, whom they had managed to track down again, even after releasing him. The latter looked at Grissom, his arms crossed and an insolent smirk upon his square face. He shook his head slightly.
"What?" asked Grissom.
"Nothin'," said Manfred. "I bet you were the biggest nerd in high school."
"What makes you say that?"
"You sitting there with your glasses and your neat suit, acting like you're smarter than everyone."
"Well, out of everyone in this room, I might call myself the smartest, yes."
Manfred leaned forward.
"You know, as soon as I get the hell outta here, you better watch your ass. I'm not happy about sitting in a jail cell all night."
"You seem to be under the impression that you're intimidating me, Mr Kirby. You'd be wrong. You may possess great physical strength and a volatile temper, but you also have a certain slowness of wit which makes me incapable of fearing you."
A spark of anger flashed in Manfred's eyes.
"Let me ask you this," said Grissom. "If muscle and brawn are all that's needed to win a fight, how did the English, vastly outnumbered, defeat the French at Agincourt? How did Wellington beat Napoleon at Waterloo?"
"I don't need to be a nerd like you to beat you to a pulp."
"Did you ever actually achieve more than a high school mentality when you graduated?"
"Dropped out in tenth grade. High school's pointless anyway."
"That would explain a lot." Manfred was about to retort, but decided not to bother.
"Why the hell are we here, anyway?"
"I'm going to need a sample of your DNA," said Grissom, getting to the point. He took a swab from his kit and held it up. "Open wide."
"I ain't giving you nothing. Can't make me." As he spoke, Brass entered the room, carrying an official-looking piece of paper.
"Wrong again, I'm afraid," said Grissom.
"This is a warrant," said Brass. "That's spelled with two 'R's. It's a special piece of paper we get from the government, telling us that we can have however much spit we need from you."
"Open wide," said Grissom, leaning forward with swab in hand.
---
"Hello, Mr Orwell," said Catherine stiffly, walking into the interrogation room where Dustin Orwell had been brought. "How's it going?"
"Well, I just got arrested and taken away from work in front of my boss, so how do you think?"
"If your tone's any indication, I'd say you're feeling like hell."
"No wonder you became a cop. So what do you want?"
"Actually, I want your DNA," said Catherine, producing a swab of her own.
"What for?"
"To compare it to a blood sample we found at the scene of a kidnapping...and possible murder."
Catherine's throat lumped as she said the last three words, but managed to maintain her tough reserve.
"I don't really want to."
"I'm not interested in whether you want to. I want you to. And you're going to do what I want, because I have a warrant."
She slid the paper over to him. He conceded defeat before even reading it, and opened his mouth. Catherine swabbed his left cheek before putting the swab back in a plastic tube and stowing it in her pocket.
"Thank you. Now, while we're testing your DNA, this kind officer will escort you to your cell."
---
"What do you mean?"
Catherine was standing over Mia, an incredulous look upon her face.
"I mean what I said," said Mia. "The blood sample does not match Kirby or Orwell."
Catherine massaged her temple. She had been so sure...
"I'm sorry," said Mia.