"A little," Lindsey said, yawning and bringing a fist up to her eyes to rub away the sleep as she sat up slightly. "My tummy still feels yucky, though."
"Yeah?" Catherine asked, reaching up to brush bangs out of beautiful blue eyes. "How yucky?"
"Pretty yucky," she decided. "Not as yucky as yesterday, though."
"Why don't you try to eat something," Catherine suggested, standing up. "If you'll just get dressed for me, I'll go make some pancakes, and then we can decide if you're feeling well enough to go to school, okay?"
Lindsey's grin showed the hole where a front tooth had been until three days ago. "Okay." She pushed the covers back and swung her legs around to hop out of bed.
Catherine hesitated at the door, her hand on the frame as she watched her daughter go over to the dresser. She never regretted the passing of time in any other area of her life than with Lindsey. It was both terrifying and amazing to watch her grow day by day. It seemed like just yesterday that she'd had to set out clothes for her to wear, and hold the sleeves out straight to overcome the difficulty of bent elbows and shoulders.
"Mo-mmy," Lindsey interrupted her thoughts, and the CSI blinked to see her daughter standing, hands on hips, in front of the dresser. "I can pick out my own clothes."
"I know you can, sweetie," Catherine said with a bittersweet smile. She closed the door behind her and refused to let herself get caught up in melancholy thoughts of how quickly her life was moving as she set a pan on a burner and reached up to pull down the box of instant pancake mix. Eddie had been the one who'd known how to make fluffy, delicious buttermilk pancakes from scratch. It had been his reconciliation meal of choice.
No, those weren't good thoughts to be dwelling on either. She mixed in the water with an expert hand, dropped butter into the pan, and set the table while she waited for the pan to warm up enough. Lindsey emerged from her bedroom just as the smooth hiss of the butter as it began to melt called her attention back to the stove.
"What kinds of shapes do you want today?"
It was the traditional question, and Lindsey pulled up the traditional stool next to the counter, leaning over on her elbows to watch as Catherine spread the butter around the pan with a spatula. "A butterfly."
Privately, Catherine decided that the stomach bug had very much passed, and the first queasiness at waking up had simply been that, if her daughter was now well enough to be leaning halfway over the stove taking in the scent of the batter as it made contact with the pan. "Butterfly it is. That's going to be hard."
"You can do it," Lindsey said confidently, and Catherine blinked back sudden tears. She'd never had such unrestrained faith placed in her as this beautiful girl did every day. She restrained herself from reaching over and hugging her, saddened by the knowledge that her daughter was starting to outgrow her desire for physical affection.
Bubbles began to rise up through the pancake batter, and with a flip of her wrist, she turned it over. "How's that?"
"Perfect," Lindsey said ecstatically. Next was a heart, and then an L for Lindsey, and then Catherine made a few small medallions for herself. Batter dropped across the pan, creating a track of tiny beige dots, and she froze when she caught herself thinking that they looked like blood drop patterns. Deliberately, she pushed the tiny spots into the larger round pancakes, and they disappeared when she flipped them over.
They ate quickly, as school would be starting in a half an hour, and Catherine set the dishes in the sink to deal with later. "Feeling any better?"
She could almost see the calculation in the usually guileless eyes. It was the time-honored look of guesstimation as to just how gullible a parent was feeling on any given day, and that look alone told her Lindsey was recovered enough. "Yeah, I guess so." She paused. "Would you do my hair?"
The smile that touched her lips was wobbly as she felt the tears again, and decided it must be that time of the month for her to be reacting so strongly. "I'd love that."
The corn silk blonde hair was slippery in her fingers, but soon enough it was tamed to a French braid, and when Catherine pulled up to the school, she leaned over and gave Lindsey a kiss on the cheek despite the girl's squirming embarrassment at being seen like that at school. The car was instantly silent and empty, and all the exhaustion of the long shift caught up to Catherine as she stumbled in the front door and through the rote motions of brushing her teeth and getting ready for bed, falling into sleep the minute her head touched the pillow.
Warrick woke from a dream full of flickering lights and the green felt of a blackjack table under his fingers to the shrill ringing of his phone. Given how often he was woken up by the thing, he'd long ago learned to set it at the highest possible volume. Blearily, he pulled the covers away from his head. The first thing his eyes alighted upon was a well-used pack of cards on his nightstand, placed there the way some people left packs of cigarettes by their beds. The paper tab of the cardboard box was soft and separating slightly, and the edges of the cards were pale brown from repeated thumbings.
The phone rang again, and he threw off the covers entirely, padding across the floor in bare feet and boxers. He may have turned the volume of the ring all the way up, but he refused to keep it next to his bed. "Brown."
"Warrick," the expected voice said. Grissom was on his cell phone; in a car, perhaps, judging by the ambient noise that was filtering through. "I need you at Desert Palms. Bianca Tolmen's next-of-kin just signed a DNR."
Warrick was already putting the mug full of water in the microwave. He'd have to get by on instant coffee this morning. "And..."
"And I need you to be there to ensure chain of custody on the body," Grissom said bluntly, and Warrick winced and nearly dropped the packet of instant coffee he was taking out of the cabinet.
"Okay." He ran a hand through his hair. "Okay, I'll be there as soon as I can. Who's her next-of-kin?"
The was a muffled scratching as the other man covered the mouthpiece of his phone, and Warrick smiled at the muted feminine voice in the background. Wherever Grissom was going, Sara was with him. "Samuel Tolmen, a brother."
He nodded and had almost hung up before he swung the phone back up to his ear. "Griss? What about overtime?"
"The sherriff woke me up to give me this news himself and make sure I had one of my CSIs at the hospital. Whatever is going on here, he's caught up in it, and he wants to get to the bottom of it. He'll approve any extra overtime we want."
"Got it. All right, I'm off."
He hung the phone back up just as the microwave beeped, and stirred in the coffee powder on his way to the bathroom to hop into the shower, gulping the hot liquid to the back of his mouth to avoid burning his tongue. It was a technique he'd perfected by the necessity of getting as much caffeine into his system as quickly as possible. Within twenty minutes he had showered, dressed, and was out the door, slipping on shades against the bright sunshine.
It was three o'clock in the afternoon, and he'd had four hours of sleep.
Nick juggled his keys, desperately trying to sort out the appropriate slip of metal that would let him unlock his car. He finally gave up and trapped the phone between his shoulder and ear just as the dialing ended and someone picked up on the other end.
"Grissom."
"Grissom, hey, it's me," he said, finally succeeding in getting the car door open, hopping up into the seat. He left the door open, not willing to let the noise of it closing drown out any part of the conversation. "Look, I'm really sorry I missed your call, I went to the gym and forgot my cell and pager..."
"It's okay, Nick. I called Warrick."
That hurt, far more than he wanted to admit. "Oh. So, um...anything else you need me to do?"
"Nothing in particular." The entomologist's voice was breezy, slightly distracted, and Nick heard the dull thud of a car door slamming shut.
"Oh," he repeated.
"If you feel like more overtime, there's always work to be done." Grissom was pointing out the obvious, and they both knew it.
"No, that's...that's okay. I kinda had plans anyway." He swallowed hard against the lie and found himself studying the way the number on the first memory button of his car radio was just beginning to wear off.
"Fine. Goodbye, Nick."
He hung up the phone and slammed the palm of his hand against the steering wheel of the SUV in frustration.
While there was no logical reason for it, somehow the theater seemed more airy during the daytime. Grissom caught himself thinking that perhaps some of the magic was lost, and then chided himself for such foolish thoughts.
The officer had met him at the door and was now leading him back the same corridor he had traveled the night before that led to the actors' dressing rooms, green room, and other assorted rooms that were used during a production. He entered the green room to see Brass sitting across from a young man.
It wasn't practical to bring every member of the cast and stage crew to the police station for an interview, so several officers had set up impromptu interview rooms throughout the honeycomb of incidental rooms.
Grissom nodded to Brass, who looked up at him sourly. "Sherriff call you too?" At the entomologist's nod, he added in a low grumble, "And here I thought I was done with middle-of-the-afternoon wakeup calls when I went back to detective."
Grissom simply shrugged with a wry half-smile, indicating that their current situation wasn't exactly his choice either, and tried not to think of what Sara had looked like sleepy and mussed in his bed. He'd dropped her off at the lab on his way to the theater - she hadn't wanted to stay in the empty bed and had opted to get started on the paper trail work of the case while he went to find out whatever it was they thought he should know at the theater.
Brass sighed heavily, bringing Grissom back to the green room at the theater. "Neil Meadows, prop manager. Mr. Meadows, why don't you tell Mr. Grissom what you just told me?"
Neil nodded. He was thin, almost emaciated, and pale, with an angled face and short, slightly spiked dirty blond hair. He had thumbs hooked in black jeans, a black polo shirt with the theater insignia embroidered in white on the breast, and terrible posture.
"Well, I mean, it's pretty obvious who killed Bianca." He gulped at the end of the sentence, muddy brown eyes darting nervously from officer to CSI.
"Not to us," Grissom reminded him, more sharply than he'd intended. He tried again. "Are you saying you know someone with motive?"
"Oh, more than enough." They waited for him to continue the sentence, but he remained silent.
Brass brought a hand up to rub over his face. "Mr. Meadows. Please. Just tell us."
The prop manager seemed to stop to consider for a few seconds. "Well, really, two people, and, uh, either of them would be good."
"You only told me one name before," Brass interrupted with frustration.
"I just remembered a second one."
"Mr. Meadows." Now Grissom injected the sharp tone into his voice on purpose.
"Okay, okay, right, fine." He held up one finger. "So we've got Richard Ellory. I mean - yeah. Seriously."
"Why do you believe Mr. Ellory had something to do with Ms. Tolmen's death?" Grissom asked, realizing that he was going to have to lead Neil along question by question and still in the back of his mind wondering why he had been called to the theater to discuss this.
"Because she broke it off with him," Neil said in tones that suggested this should be incredibly obvious. "Nobody breaks up with Richard Ellory. No one ever has. That's what he told her, too. I heard it."
Now this was finally getting more useful. "When did you hear this?"
"Like a week ago. It was in hell week, sometime, I dunno, things all blend together when they're that insane."
"Hell week?" Brass asked, thoroughly confused.
"The last week of dress rehearsals before a production," Grissom interjected quickly before Neil could get sidetracked. "Go on," he addressed to the prop manager.
"Well...they were in her dressing room. I was going to see her about her garland. She'd messed it up pretty good when it caught on Josephine's dress when she fainted that afternoon, so I stayed through the afternoon break and fixed it. I was bringing it back, thinking I'd just put it on her dressing table, and I heard Richard inside the room, yelling."
When it became obvious he wasn't going to continue without prompting, Brass said, "And?"
"He was yelling what I told you. That no one broke up with him. Well, I mean, I added the part about no one ever has, because it's what everyone knows."
"Not us."
"He usually dates one or two of the younger girls in the company during a production. This time it was Bianca and Mallory."
"And Mallory?" The second name had caught Grissom's attention. "Mallory Smith?"
"Yeah. Actually, y'know, that's kind of weird, because he had a thing with Mal last production, too. Midsummer Night's Dream." Neil nodded, as if to himself.
"He played Theseus," Grissom remembered. "And Ms. Smith?"
"Oh, Hippolyta."
Grissom's eyes narrowed. "She went from Hippolyta in Midsummer Night's Dream to an understudy for Hero in Much Ado About Nothing? What happened?"
"Oh, Bianca," he said, as if that answered everything. Neil suddenly sat straight up. "You don't think Mal - no, she wouldn't. I mean, yeah, she was bummed, but she's a professional. Plus she used the extra time to audition for the Lincoln."
"Did she get a part?"
"Well, no, but it was an experience." Neil shrugged. "Look, I'm telling you, it was Ellory. Mal has never even said anything to Bianca about it."
Brass was still scrawling notes to himself, and when Grissom looked over, their eyes met in complete understanding - after Richard Ellory, Mallory Smith would be their next interview.
"You said two people," Grissom remembered.
"Well, sort of. I mean, it's a long shot."
Brass shifted in a way that gave Grissom the impression he was trying not to strangle the prop manager. "Who?"
"Carter James." Neil shrugged. "Her fiancé. But he's not the murder type, if you know what I mean."
Grissom considered asking Neil to strike the phrase "I mean" from his vocabulary, and also to ask him what he thought the "murder type" was, but was afraid any more questions would invite even more equivocation. "I see. Thank you for your help, Mr. Meadows."
"Glad to." He stood and brushed his hands down his jeans to loosen them out again.
"Wait." Grissom reached behind him for his evidence kit without taking his eyes off the prop manager. When Neil had passed his hand across his thigh, he had disturbed what Grissom had previously assumed to be simply wear and tear on the jeans - but now, the pattern changed, it looked strikingly like the residue he'd tape lifted from Bianca's dressing room, the beige powder that Sara had told him was sawdust. "Do you mind if I take a sample of that?"
Neil looked down at his pants to where the entomologist was staring. "Uhhh...sure. It's just sawdust, though."
"Is it?" Grissom asked casually, as he leaned forward and pressed the tape to the jean fabric. "From what?"
"Set dressing. I was helping Leo - he's the set design guy - measure and cut a new leg for the wedding platform. The old one had a crack running through it. He was worried about strain. Why?"
"No particular reason. Do you help Leo out often?"
"I guess. Whenever he needs it. If you're done, I have to run through a few more checklists before the matinée."
"That will be all." Grissom offered him a pleased smile that had nothing to do with the man himself and everything to do with the sawdust currently stuck to the tape he held in his hand.