A/N: Joan, eh? Sure, why not! Maybe I'll have her appear in random chapters! Thanks for your comments, icklebitodd and Solomynne!
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Disclaimer: I do not own any part of CSI or its characters. That honor goes to the good folks over at CBS. And credit for Sara's fictitious past goes to QuoththeRaven. If you want to know more about her version of Sara's childhood, she is on my favorites list. The story that you are looking for is the "Life & Times of Sara Sidle."
Title: The Rocking Horse: Part 3
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"Alrighty folks, we're done here," Warrick said, getting the last fingerprint sample stored safely in his kit. "You are free to leave," he added, glancing over at Catherine, who nodded her agreement. "We'll be in touch."
"So, what do you think?" Vance asked, rubbing a bald spot on his head.
"Honestly?" Catherine replied, a small grin forming on her face. "I don't want to speculate…yet."
Vance nodded, before heading toward the door. "See you two back at the lab," he said, "I have some people that I need to look in on."
Warrick and Catherine nodded their goodbyes, before cleaning up the rest of their gear. "You know, though, this is just bizarre..." he trailed off, frowning.
"No kidding," Catherine replied, smoothing out her shirt.
"The thing still has to be in the bar. Didn't Vance say that he combed the area?" Warrick asked, shaking his head. "As much as we laughed about a missing head before, I don't get it. It's not like it could have walked off by itself," he added, "And I don't think that there was enough time while everyone was distracted for it to completely disappear..."
"So it still must be here," Catherine finished his thought for him, glancing around the now almost empty bar. "But where, is the question. The head is about five feet by five feet, right?" she asked Warrick, looking around. "So it can't be shoved behind anything…we know that it isn't under a table…"
"And it has to be somewhere close by," Warrick indicated, "in order to account for the decreased amount of time to get it out of here..."
"Hey, Rick?" Catherine frowned, standing next to the mechanical bull. "Every bar has to have several emergency doors to get outside, right?" she asked him. Warrick simply nodded. "Well, where is the closest door to our bull?"
Warrick glanced around, noticing an emergency door half-way between the mechanical bull and the Rocking Horse's bathrooms. "I see what you're getting at," Warrick nodded, once again slipping on a pair of gloves. Walking over to the emergency door, he bent down to examine the handle. "Well, it appears to have been used lately," he mused.
"How do you know that?" Catherine asked, coming up beside him.
"Well," Warrick replied, still kneeling on the ground. "Take a look at this, Cath," he pointed to the door handle and the ground. "First of all, there are cobwebs all over the bar; the ceiling, the corners of the walls, the bathroom doors. But none on this door," he added. "Someone must have gone through it, and knocked the webs down."
Catherine raised an eyebrow, looking over at Warrick. "And the second reason?"
"Look at the peanut shells," Warrick simply said, taking out his camera. Snapping a few shots, he used a gloved finger to point out several of the shells. "Notice anything?" he asked his colleague.
Catherine squinted for a couple of seconds, trying to see what her partner was seeing. "No—Yes," she finally said. "There are a couple of larger, un-cracked shells here," she pointed to an area ten feet away from the door. "And then smaller, more cracked shells, as you get closer to the door."
Warrick nodded. "So the way I see it," he mused, "Someone stepped on the shells, and headed towards the door. The shells got stuck in the shoes—probably from all of the beer and other…fluids…on the floor—and got crushed. The more that the person walked," he shrugged, "the more shells fell out of the shoe."
"Yeah, but that doesn't really prove anything," Catherine said. "Anyone could have left through that door," she indicated.
"True," Warrick replied. "But not everyone would have had a mixture of shells, straw, and vomit stuck to their shoes as they left," he added, recalling Catherine's attention to what they found around the bull. "Let me get a sample of the liquid around here," Warrick told Catherine, taking out a swab, "And if we're lucky, maybe a possible print out of this whole thing?"
Catherine reached into her kit, and drew out the materials necessary for finding prints on the door. "With any luck, the last person to use this door left a print—a print that should hopefully match the bull."
"You got it," Warrick smiled, finally standing up. "And we can lay this bull…case… to rest!"
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TO BE CONTINUED