Chapter 8: Truths and Half-Truths
Las Vegas Crime Lab
4:00 PM
Dawn Banks had returned to CSI later that afternoon after catching a few very well-needed hours of sleep at home. She was sitting at one end of the table in the lab's break room, putting a forkful of fruit salad into her mouth, when Sean Yeager came in.
"Hey Dawn!" Sean warmly greeted as he sat down opposite her at the other end of the table, "How've you been?"
Dawn softly chuckled with the food still in her mouth before swallowing to reply. "I'm good", she said, "Thanks. How are you doing, Mister Yeager? Or should I say 'Supervisor Yeager'?" She smiled.
Sean smirked in retort. "Very cute," he replied, "I'm hanging in there. Supervising Dayshift is a big job, but I've got a good team despite being down one CSI at the moment since Jenny West transferred out to the Washoe County lab."
Dawn nodded. "I know," she said, "I trained her when she was accepted for the position right before I left to come back here. Any luck finding her replacement yet?"
"Catherine and I have been going through a big list of Level One hire candidates over the past few weeks," Sean explained, "she told me yesterday that she found someone who looks promising. This young guy who graduated last summer with a Bachelor of Science in Biochemistry from WLVU."
"Cool," Dawn supportively replied.
Sean cleared his throat before switching to a more serious tone and subject. "Hey Dawn," he said, "I don't think I got the chance to tell you after you got back here to Vegas, but I'm really glad you're okay."
Dawn nodded once again, but more apprehensively. "Thanks so much for that, Sean" she replied, "But the truth is, I wouldn't be here if you and Morgan hadn't found me in time out at that camp site and gotten me medical attention. Therapy's been going well, my antidepressant is helping, and obviously everyone here has been incredibly supportive."
"That's wonderful to hear," Sean said, "How's Tyler doing?" He referred to Dawn's once incorrigible son.
Dawn chuckled. "He's doing great," she said with boundless motherly pride, "After he successfully completed a stint at an inpatient drug rehab here, he moved down to New Orleans to live near his dad. My ex-husband Rob is an attending surgeon at Tulane University Hospital. He pulled some strings to get Tyler a nighttime job as a custodian at the hospital, so in addition to doing that, he's taking classes in Design at the university during the day."
Sean laughed. "That's awesome," he said, "So he wants to be an architect or something then?"
"Actually," Dawn explained, "He's been saying that he'd eventually like to flip some of those houses that were so badly damaged by Hurricane Katrina and turn them into low-cost housing for people."
"So cool," an impressed Sean replied.
Catherine Willows then entered the room as she put her cell phone back in the pocket of her black and gray striped suit jacket. "Great news, guys" she said, "Bobbi and Morgan have Isaac Serain in custody for Stephanie Watson's murder. They're helping keep guard over him at the sheriff's station in Borrego Springs until the Marshals can arrange secure transport back here to Vegas."
Dawn smiled and clapped her hands. "Wonderful," she said, "I take it the arrest went down well."
"Unfortunately," Catherine said, "Not too well, exactly. According to Morgan, Serain engaged them in a foot pursuit. One of the Marshals got cut up badly by some shattered window glass and had to be airlifted to a hospital in San Diego, but it looks like he'll be okay."
"That's good at least" Sean added.
Just then, Lindsay Willows and Greg Sanders entered the break room, with the former having a considerably fraught look on her face.
"Hey guys," Catherine said as she turned to notice them entering. She then noticed the uneasy look on her daughter's face. "What's wrong Lindsay?" she inquired.
"We have a problem with one of our suspects in the Lewick case," Greg said.
"I did some deep-dive research on Melody Ward at Sean's request," Lindsay explained, "Other than a few social media profiles: Friend Agenda, Twitter, and Instagram to be exact, and the work card that Mandy found, the young woman we know as 'Melody Ward' didn't really truly exist before Two-Thousand-Ten."
"Are you sure?" a now perplexed Sean asked.
Greg, always the chivalrous gentleman and avid historian, took his cue to chime in. "I wasn't sure what to make of it myself at first," he replied, "So I called the Nevada Department of Vital Statistics to cover an extra base or two. It turns out that the only real 'Melody Ward' in Nevada was a twelve-year-old girl from Pioche who died in June of Nineteen-Eighteen during the Spanish Flu pandemic."
Dawn shrugged her shoulders. "So 'Melody' or whoever she is," Dawn said, "Changed her name and used a deceased person's identity. It may not mean she is completely on the up-and-up, but it doesn't always constitute identity theft. I've had a few cases where battered women changed their names using the identity of someone who died to escape an abusive spouse."
"Even so," Catherine interjected, "What was she hiding?"
Sean got up from the table and shrugged his shoulders. "Your guess is as good as mine, boss" he said, "In any event, are you okay with our two shifts working the same case?"
"Absolutely," Catherine replied before briefly looking around the room. "Where's Rory?" she asked.
"He's in the Trace Lab," Sean said, "He found some weed killer in the maintenance closet at the Park Pines Motel, so he's trying to individuate the powder samples to see if it matches the sample that Greg found in the highball glass earlier."
Greg nodded. "I'll go check on his progress," he said before turning and leaving the room.
Catherine then turned to Lindsay. "Linds," she said, "I want you to keep up the good work with your research on Melody Ward. Get on the phone and get an Attorney General's waiver for any sealed official records pertaining to anyone with that name in our Melody's age range."
"Not a problem, Mom" she said, "I'll get right on it." She then left the room to complete her assigned tasks.
"Dawn," she said, "I'd like you to go to the Evidence Room and get ahold of that bag of weed killer that Rory brought in. Check it for prints, touch DNA, trace evidence, anything."
Dawn got up from the table. "I'm all over it," she said before moving past her to go toward the Evidence Room.
Roughly an hour later, Lindsay Willows was busy doing her assigned research at her desk in CSI's office bullpen area. She had spent this time making several phone calls and scouring the internet, trying to find anything she could on Melody Ward and determine how and why she seemed to appear out of thin air three years earlier.
She finally stumbled onto a front-page article from a newspaper in Nye County, Nevada that was dated April 20, 2006. As she carefully read the body of the article, Lindsay's mouth dropped. She then picked up her desk phone and hurriedly dialed Catherine's office extension. "Mom," she barked into the phone as soon as her mother answered, "It looks like that research is paying off. You and the guys need to see this."
[Author's Note: Sorry everybody, but this part of the story's going to have to be on a cliffhanger for now since we'll be checking in with Bobbi, Morgan, Nick, and our accused murderer in California during the next chapter. My sincerest apologies for leaving you all hanging for the moment! Thank you everybody for supporting and enjoying the story thus far!]
