Chapter Five
Not Coming
The smell of smoke still hung heavily in the air as several lab techs mulled about inside the Trace lab, helping recover evidence, logging the damaged things, scrubbing the recoverable furniture and disposing of the unrecoverable items.
Liz sighed, leaning against the doorframe as people moved in and out. Grissom stood next to her, hands in his pockets and Jason had been swept off to an interrogation room. Brass and Nick were busy interviewing him at the moment, and Greg was assisting with clean up.
"So Grissom…" Liz began, trying to break up the silence between them.
"Yes?" His face was grim as he peered for a split second at everything that was being brought out of the room.
"How much is Sara's bail anyway?"
He sighed, shifting his weight to his right leg. "Somewhere around…$7000," he mumbled.
Liz's jaw dropped and for a moment, she was prepared to answer before Hodges stopped by.
"Another reason I thought I'd stop by to talk was because I'm stuck preparing Ecklie's funeral. Would you like to help?"
"I'm busy Hodges," Liz responded flatly.
He sighed heavily. "Fine. I see why. Nobody likes the lab techs; especially after they have one wall of their lab burned to a crisp and then are left to clean up the pieces of their boss's death. I understand."
"Actually David, it's because Liz has to go wash some cars and I have to go file some paperwork on the incident," Grissom answered, nodding at him.
Liz looked sideways at him, a disbelieving look on her face. "Who said anything about washing cars?"
"I did. Get going. You can buy a bucket and rag for $10 easy. Just wash the cars of every employee in this lab for $25 and you'll have about…" He paused for a moment, doing some quick mental math. "You'll have all the money you need. There're about 200 some employees—wash that many cars and you're all set."
Liz gaped at him.
"What?" he said.
"200 some cars?" she hissed. "I can hardly wash the one I have!"
"That's a Ferrari, you better learn to wash it properly," Hodges stated.
"It's a rental," Liz snapped at him.
Greg stepped out from the lab and turned to Grissom expectantly.
"Lab's all cleaned up. Evidence lost was minimal. We found the crispy remains of a box of matches; none were ripped out of the box. Shall I go interview the arsonist?"
"He's not an arsonist Greg," Liz muttered. "He's a pyromaniac and his name is Jason. And Nick is doing the interview anyway."
Grissom started walking towards his office, waving at Greg to follow him. Greg did so, leaving just Hodges and Liz standing there.
"Well you have some cars to go wash, don't you?" Hodges said.
Liz sighed, "Yeah…"
"Well I still have some leftover Jeeps and stuff from Ecklie's enormous order. He left them to me in his will. I'll pay you $175 to wash all thirteen of them."
"Thirteen?" Liz cried incredulously.
"Yes, but it's a whole 175 dollars…" Hodges teased.
Liz groaned heavily.
"So let me get this straight…" Nick said amicably. "You didn't start the fire."
"No! I told you that already!" Jason cried. He looked nervous, as if he needed to be somewhere else.
"Do you have something you need to be doing?" Nick questioned.
"I lost my mouse."
"Your mouse?"
"Yes, my pet mouse. His name is Matches and he's small and white. I set him on the floor while I went to the bathroom and he doesn't usually scurry off, but this time he did and I spent about five minutes looking for him and I still couldn't find him!"
"Do you have any proof?"
Jason threw his hands up. "Does it look like I have him?"
Nick remained silent and O'Reilly spoke up.
"So after you looked for the mouse in the bathroom, where did you go?"
"I left the bathroom and headed back down to the breakroom to ask Liz and Grissom and them for help, but I saw the Trace Lab on fire!"
"Did you see anybody nearby?" Nick inquired.
"I saw somebody turn a corner."
"Can you give us a description?" O'Reilly pressed.
"Not skinny. Losing some hair. He was wearing a sports coat and loafers. He was a couple inches shorter than me."
Nick sighed. He had just described a couple of men that worked at the lab, Brass being one of them, but Brass couldn't have done it.
"Am I going to go to jail?" Jason asked.
Nick shook his head. "As of yet we don't have any concrete evidence. But don't bother leaving town."
"Well duh. You think I'm going to leave Liz here alone with you lunatics? No way. Nu-uh. Absolutely not."
"Well then you're free to go for now," O'Reilly said.
Liz was agitated. No, scratch that, she was beyond agitated. She was infuriated. Yeah, that was the word—completely infuriated. She was up to her knees in soapsuds, her hair pulled behind her head and the back of her neck burning in the sunlight. Her fingers were wrinkled like prunes and the tennis shoes she had put on for the job were soaked through to her socks.
"I hate Grissom, I hate Grissom, I hate Grissom," she repeated over and over to herself as she washed the jeep. But hey, this was for 175 bucks. Surely, it was worth it.
A bubble in the bucket of soapy water burst as she bent down to pick it up. The wet particles landed in one of her eyes and on instinct, she brought a hand up to flush it out. The searing burn it left behind had her gasping and bouncing up and down in pain.
It was definitely not worth it.
Then suddenly from inside the pocket of her shorts her cellphone rang…again…
She scraped the soapsuds off into the bucket and gingerly pulled the device out, flipping it open with the back of her wrist, still feeling the urge to cry out in pain as she squinted against the sting.
"WHAT MOLLY?" Yelling would do.
"Liz?"
"Oh. Sorry Nick. What do you need?"
"I just finished up interviewing Jason. Do you think he did it?"
"No."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes." Maybe.
"Do you believe that he spent five minutes looking for his mouse in the bathroom?"
"He loves that mouse."
"I was just checking. Hey, while you're out there washing cars—"
"Who told you?"
"Grissom. Anyway, I was wondering while you're out there if you'd wash my car."
She gritted her teeth. "That'll be $25. Would you like fries with that?"
"I'll give you $50 if you vacuum the inside."
"Deal."
After five more hours, blisters had begun to form on Liz's shoulders. Every one of her limbs felt like they were about to fall off, and yet all fourteen cars had been freshly cleaned, one vacuumed. She dragged herself into the building and went searching for Hodges. She found him in the breakroom, pouring over forms.
"Wow, you look like crap."
"Shut up." She collapsed into a chair at the opposite end of the table and placed her sunburned cheeks against the cool metal.
"Did you finish?"
"Yes. And I want my money."
"I'm busy."
"Like hell you are. Gimme my cash."
"Do you want to plan this funeral? This requires careful planning, especially since there's no body."
"Didn't Greg kill that guy?"
"Yeah, but they don't have murder laws in Nowhere County."
Liz peeled her head off the table and looked incredulously at Hodges.
"They have laws against killing eagles, but not against murder?"
Hodges shrugged.
"Anyway," he continued, "I guess I can give you the cash now..." He reached around behind him and pulled out his wallet, fingered through it and pulled out two twenties and a ten.
"You said 175 bucks." Liz cried, her voice rising an octave.
"Well that's all I have so far."
"You jerk."
He shrugged. "I get that a lot." Then he turned back to filling out the forms.
She was just about to stand up to go looking for Nick, when he strolled in.
"I want my fifty bucks," Liz demanded.
"You bet…" Nick pulled out his wallet and fingered through until he had fifty.
"At least somebody can pay up," she muttered, taking the cash from him, recounting it and putting it in her back pocket.
"Hey, I'm gonna go over to the prison and talk to Sara. You want to come with?" Nick asked.
"Do you have any Aloe Vera gel?"
"We could stop on the way."
"Count me in."
"I'm not coming."
"What do you mean you're not coming?" Liz said.
"I'm not leaving here. I'm perfectly happy here. I get all the asparagus with cheese I want! Nobody else likes it!" Sara cried.
She, Liz, and Nick were standing in the visitors' area. It was a minimum-security facility, so they were allowed to share the same air space.
"You have to come! I just spent six hours in the glaring sun washing cars to raise money to bail you out!" Liz said, making giant gestures with her hands. The back of her neck had been slathered with coconut scented Aloe Vera gel and the rest of her body still reeked of soap.
"Well I'm sorry you had to go through all that pain for nothing," Sara said in a dignified way. "My court date is coming up. I can live here until then."
"There is absolutely no way we're letting you stay here until then," Nick declared. "Imagine what the feds will say! The mayor! Good God, what about the sheriff?"
"Say about what?" Sara asked.
"About there not being enough females!"
"Liz is here."
"Yeah, but I can't stay here forever."
Sara huffed.
"I'm not coming," she said again. Then her stomach growled uncomfortably.
"I thought you got all the asparagus you wanted?" Liz asked.
Sara's eyes narrowed and Nick knew the warning signs immediately.
"Are you sure you're okay?" he asked and she returned to normal. "Why did your stomach growl?"
"Well, but…well…it's nothing."
Liz raised an eyebrow.
Then her cellphone rang.
"GOOD GOD!" she shouted, turning several heads and causing the guards to subconsciously brush their hands over their guns. She grabbed her phone, flipped it open and stifled a snarl as she muttered, "Hello?" into the phone.
"Elizabeth!" It was Molly.
"WHAT?"
"Mindy is driving the car!"
"WHY?"
"Because she tied me up and threw me in the back seat!"
Liz smacked her hand to her head.
"How are you talking on the phone then?"
"She's holding it to my mouth."
"Do you know where she's taking you?"
"The candy store down on South Street."
Good grief.
"Tell her that as soon as she fulfills her sweet tooth's desires, she unties you and let's you drive or she's fired," Liz replied.
"Of course."
"Goodbye."
"Cheerio!"
The line was severed and Liz closed her phone.
"Who was that?" Sara asked.
"Molly."
"How's she doing?"
"She's tied up in the back of the car and Mindy is driving on a sugar-craving gone bad. I might have to leave earlier than I thought."
"Then you should probably speed up washing those cars," Nick said.
Liz smacked her head on the table. Uggh. There had to be a better way.