Foretold by SLynn
Summary: A woman walks into the crime lab only to tell Greg Sanders about her murder, a murder he's going to solve. Is she just playing games or is it something more?
Spoilers: Through 'Gum Drops'
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: I'm just borrowing and will return them all when I'm done, virtually untouched.
"In my end is my beginning."
T.S. Eliot
Chapter 6: Beginning
It happened again. Fifteen minutes before shift change there was a call about a DB on the strip.
Greg literally groaned at the news, he was that exhausted. From the time he'd left Las Vegas for Los Angeles to attend his grandfather's funeral five days ago until now he'd probably gotten about sixteen hours sleep. Not to mention the fact that he hadn't even stopped by his place yet, just drove straight to the lab last night. He really should have just gone home and taken another day off like Sara had suggested, but it was too late for that now.
Seeing the exhaustion on his face Warrick offered to accompany him, knowing that the two of them would clear the scene faster than if Greg just went solo. As a testament to how tired he really was, Greg didn't even argue, just thanked him as they got ready to go. Normally he'd of jumped at the opportunity to work solo, today he just didn't have it in him.
And traffic was horrendous. Morning traffic always was, but for some reason it just seemed a hundred times worse. There were at least three accidents on the 95, which in turn backed up the 15, and of course that was just about where they needed to be.
Sighing as they finally pulled up to Circus Circus, Greg got out of the SUV, dragging his case along with him.
"I'm glad I wasn't the only one who got suckered into this," Sofia said with a lopsided grin as she made her way over to the two of them.
Warrick grinned back at her before asking for the details.
"Well, I hate to disappoint you but it looks like a suicide," she explained as the three of them headed towards the scene.
Greg followed just behind them, taking in the details while he looked about.
There were several local news stations already present, sending out live reports and a small crowd of onlookers. A few cops were taking down witness's names and information and Greg just caught a woman saying something about thinking it was a stunt. "Like a performance piece," was her exact quote. The man beside her noting that "she didn't make a sound."
"Covered her up because of the cameras," Sofia continued, coming to a stop just outside of the police tape. "No ID on her, my third Jane Doe of the week, but we think we've found her car. It was still running at the top of the garage, right up against the wall. It may have something in it that can tell us who she is."
"You want the car or the body?" Warrick asked him, taking Greg by surprise.
"Car," Greg said firmly.
Warrick nodded and Sofia asked another cop to show him the way. As he was going, he heard her continue on to Warrick like before about how they thought it was a suicide, but…
But whatever it was, Greg didn't catch it all. They'd moved out of earshot and after a quick walk up five flights of steps were at the secondary scene.
The officer told Greg that the only thing they'd done was turn it off and they had only done that after Detective Curtis okayed it.
"So the door was open?" Greg asked, indicating the driver's side.
"Yeah," he nodded, "just like it is now."
Greg thanked him and snapped a few pictures of the car before walking past it to the ledge. Looking down he could see Sofia and Warrick standing over the body. From here it was hard to tell anything about her, other than the fact that she was Caucasian and a brunette. That and, hopefully from this height, she'd died on impact.
Not wasting any more time, Greg turned his attention back to the car.
There was no purse, no wallet, and no ID that he could find anywhere in it. The only thing there seemed to be was Post-it notes. Lots and lots of Post-it notes.
The notes, all standard yellow, were stuck all over both visors, several littered the passenger's seat, a few were stuck to the dash, and one lone Post-it was left on the steering wheel.
Taking a few more pictures, Greg leaned in closer to examine it.
All it said was 'SORRY'.
He frowned; the whole thing was leaving him feeling queasy. Someone had just died and it was his job to be clinical and detached, yet having just come from a funeral it was harder than normal to do. Greg was beginning to think he needed more than just another day off.
Greg shoved those thoughts as far as possible to the back of his mind and set to work. Deciding to be thorough, he bagged all the Post-it's, and as much of the car's content that looked significant, including an access pass to the Rio's employee parking garage. Everything else was trash; gum wrappers, a spare jacket, even an empty bottle of hair dye. People kept odd things in their cars.
Finishing up, he gave instructions for impounding the car and made his way back down to Warrick. David was with him and Greg was a bit shocked to see that not much had been accomplished. The body was still in its original position.
"Greg," Warrick called out, bridging the gap between them with three easy strides. "Did you find anything that could identify the body?"
"No," Greg answered, shaking his head, "not a thing. Although she may have worked at the Rio. Got at an employee parking pass."
Warrick nodded, biting his lip as he did so.
"Still look like a suicide?"
Warrick shrugged causing Greg to question him with his eyes.
"Witnesses all seem to think so," Warrick continued.
"If it helps, she left a note. Several actually."
"Really?" Warrick asked, perking up a bit.
"Yeah, on a Post-it. Short and to the point. 'Sorry'. That was it. Why? What's the problem?"
"Check it out," Warrick said, turning and indicating for Greg to follow.
Greg walked over to the body with Warrick and immediately saw what the problem was. Her hands were tied.
The woman, face down before them and wearing a navy dress, had her hands bound at the wrists with a black scarf.
"Why would she tie her wrists together?" Greg asked out loud to no one in particular.
Warrick shrugged, clearly as confused as he was about it.
"There's that," Warrick went on as he moved around the body and kneeled down near her face, once more motioning for Greg to follow. "And there's this. See that around her hair line, at the ear? It's dye. She must have just dyed it not long before she jumped."
Warrick turned his attention back to Greg and registered the shock in his eyes.
"You okay?"
Greg didn't answer, just continued to stare into the woman's lifeless eyes.
"Greg?"
Standing quickly, Greg moved back several paces before turning away altogether and running a hand quickly through his hair.
"Greg?" Warrick asked again, joining him at his side.
"That's Ashley Baker," he said, pointing needlessly to the woman on the ground before turning away once again. "That's Ashley."
There had been no way that Warrick, after seeing Greg's reaction, was about to let him step anywhere near the autopsy room on this case. Actually, he hadn't wanted him any where near the case, but had no other choice. There was no one else available and they had to clear this quick.
It probably was a suicide; Warrick, Greg and Sofia had pretty much agreed on that. But it was still suspicious. And suspicious was never good.
So while Warrick accompanied the body to Doc Robbins' place, Sofia and Greg tracked down Ashley Baker's address through the DMV and went to her apartment.
The entire ride over Greg had been silent. He knew it was shock, shock and fatigue, that was making this whole experience feel dreamlike. It just didn't feel like it was really happening. But it was. Undoubtedly it was.
"Are you okay?" Sofia asked as she stopped the car in front of the tiny two-story complex on the East side of town.
"Let's just get this over with," Greg said instead of answering.
Having called ahead, the apartment manager was waiting for them at the foot of the steps.
"Shame about that girl," he muttered as he walked up with them to her door. "She was always a bit odd, but paid her rent on time. Never had a complaint against her in the three years she's been here. She really jumped?"
"We're still looking into it," Sofia replied.
"Saw it on the news this morning, but it never thought it would be someone I knew."
Sofia nodded and waited to be let inside. Greg found it was easier to just stay silent.
"Just lock it before you go," the manager said as he held the door open. "Should I do something? Call her family or someone to come get her things?"
"No, we'll take care of that," Sofia confirmed. "Thank you."
The man nodded once more before leaving them alone in the smallest apartment Greg had ever seen. It was also the sparsest. There was barely any furniture and no pictures on any of the walls. Just a brown loveseat that looked secondhand and a few stools at the breakfast counter that must double as a table.
"Where should we start?" Greg asked. This was all new to him. Never mind that he knew Ashley and it felt as if he was invading her privacy, but he'd never investigated an alleged suicide before.
"Well," Sofia said letting out a sigh, "it doesn't look like if there was any foul play it took place here. Place is clean, but looks lived in."
Greg nodded, knowing what she meant. It was clean, but not to the point where it looked as if something was being covered up. He'd seen that before. Illusion rooms he called them, because they gave the illusion that things were alright. This was different. He could easily picture Ashley leaving it this way. Living this way.
Well…
"Let's check the bedroom," Sofia suggested after Greg snapped a few pictures just for the record. "She may have a date book, computer, something that might tell us if anything was wrong in her life."
Greg nodded, looking down and once more feeling uneasy. Of course there was something wrong in her life. She'd been doing everything she could to try and tell him. He just hadn't understood.
Sofia gasped as she entered the room instantly bringing Greg back round to reality.
"What?" he called out loudly, just a few steps behind her but not asking more. Coming around the corner he saw what it was for himself.
The bedroom, although messy, was obviously not a crime scene. At least, it wasn't the type of crime scene they'd been looking for.
The bed was unmade, the dresser was cluttered with knickknacks and frames, the closet door was open with clothes strewn about and the desk, the desk was like a shrine.
Pictures, newspaper articles, Post-it notes, internet print-outs and even a stray cable bill were pinned to a massive bulletin board just beside a still-running computer. And every bit of it, every scrap, had to do with Greg.
"This…" Greg started to say, but couldn't finish. He didn't know how.
Sofia silently shook her head in agreement, or in disbelief. It was hard to tell which.
Finally, snapping out of it, Greg began to take pictures of it all. Sofia seemed to come back to herself as well as she began to look over the contents of the board.
"When did you get published?" she unknowingly asked out loud.
"Five years ago," Greg said taking a quick peek at the paper she'd indicated, the one pinned just behind a rather large photo taken from the Daily News of him at a particularly high profile scene. He remembered it quite clearly because Nick and Warrick had given him such a hard time about it, jokingly of course. It was the first and only time he'd ever had his picture in the paper.
"How did she get all this?" Sofia questioned, still sounding shocked.
"I'd rather know why she did it than how," Greg answered, taking a few more pictures of the leftover Post-its and the Sharpie she'd used to write with.
"Did you know?" she asked, still unable to take her eyes off the massive amount of information Ashley had amassed.
"About this?" Greg returned. "How could I? How does anyone know that something like this…"
Again he trailed off, this time feeling stupid.
Sara had known. She'd told him herself that Ashley was trouble. With this much evidence staring him in the face, it was hard to disagree with that now.
But he'd believed her.
He'd believed Ashley and this is what he got in return, a violation of his privacy. There wasn't a single bit of information she hadn't found out. His life was on that board. Everything from a print out about the lab explosion to an invitation to his ten year high school reunion. There was even a clipping about Papa Olaf's funeral.
Man, he was a fool.
But what could she have been after?
Greg had no money to speak of. He had no real influence. If this had been a con, what was she trying to gain?
It just didn't add up.
None of this added up.