Catherine sat in the break room, cradling a cup of coffee and deep in thought. She was worried about Grissom. Her old friend seemed to be taking the Michelle Winters case far too personally, which was something he never did. He was always the objective one, the one who waited for the evidence to tell its story. Catherine took a sip of the coffee and closed her eyes, hoping the hot bitterness would drown some of her worries.
Catherine's eyes flew open as she felt someone touch her shoulder. She looked up and straight in to Warrick's concerned eyes. He took a seat beside her.
"Is everything ok, Cath?"
She sighed heavily and rubbed her eyes.
"Yeah, everything's fine. I'm just tired. We are pulling a double again."
Warrick leaned back in his chair and folded his arms.
"Uh huh, and you expect me to buy that? We're always pulling these damn doubles. You're worried about Grissom, aren't you?"
She glanced at him with a frown.
"What are you talking about?"
"Please, even O'Riley's noticed how hung up Grissom is on this Mark Boreman guy. It's not like him. And it's not like you to be sat in here on your own worrying about stuff. So, I put two and two together and hopefully didn't come up with five."
Catherine laughed.
"No, once again you're spot on. I just can't talk to Grissom when he gets like this and I'm worried it's affecting his judgement. What if Mark is innocent and Grissom just keeps pushing it? The real killer could just slip away."
Warrick nodded slowly and then shrugged.
"If the evidence says Mark's innocent then Grissom will accept that. He's not stupid, Catherine, and you know it. He gets like this when kids are involved, it gets him angry."
"Yeah, you're right. I guess me worrying doesn't change anything anyway."
"Exactly."
Warrick got up to pour himself a cup of coffee while Catherine sipped her own and grimaced.
"I always forget just how awful this sludge is."
Warrick laughed.
"Tell me about it. I really wanna know where Greg keeps that special stash of his. That stuff is good."
"And expensive."
Greg's voice made both of them jump.
"Sorry, didn't mean to scare you. Just came by to give you some results, seeing as I seem to have turned into your errand boy."
He sat down at the table opposite Catherine.
"You know you're not just an errand boy, Greg, it's just there's not that much for you to do right now."
He shrugged.
"Maybe there will be soon seeing as I've found out who the third blood donor on Michelle's shirt is."
Warrick sat down next to Catherine.
"Is it Mark?"
Greg shook his head and slid the results across the table. Warrick looked up at him with a frown.
"Who the hell is John O'Connor?"
"He's the guy who nearly ran Michelle over on the Strip. His DNA was on file after he was charged with DUI a few years back."
Catherine nodded slowly.
"So if he's the one that found her, couldn't that explain why there was some of his blood on Michelle?"
"Only if you can explain how he cut himself when he found her."
She stood, pulling on her jacket.
"We'd better go and explain it then hadn't we? Feel like doing some real work, Greggo?"
"Hell, yeah. Lead the way."
Warrick knocked on the bright blue door in Mesquite. It opened within a matter of seconds.
"John O'Connor?"
He looked at the trio in front of him with confusion.
"Yes. Can I help you folks?"
Catherine smiled as she introduced herself.
"I'm Catherine Willows from the Las Vegas crime lab. These are my colleagues Warrick Brown and Greg Saunders. We're investigating the circumstances surrounding Michelle Winters death and have a few questions for you. Do you mind if we come in?"
He held the door open and motioned them inside. In the living room, he offered them all a seat and settled on the armchair opposite them.
"Does anyone want a drink? Tea, coffee, orange juice? Or maybe something stronger?"
Catherine smiled and shook her head.
"No thank you Mr O'Connor. We're fine."
He nodded slowly, wringing his hands in his lap.
"So you want to know about Michelle then? I didn't even know her name till one of the officers told me."
"Can you tell us what happened, Mr O'Connor."
"Well, I was just driving home from work. It was a long day, a bad day. Loads of paperwork and red tape, you know? Anyway, I was on the Strip when this woman stumbled into the road. She was all messed up, her clothes ripped to shreds and hanging off her. I stopped the car and got out to ask her if she was ok. She stopped but didn't say anything. Then she dropped a gun on the road, which kinda freaked me out, especially when she turned around…"
Greg looked up from the notes he was taking.
"Why'd it freak you out when she turned round?"
John grimaced slightly at the memory.
"There was blood all over face. It looked like she was crying the stuff. Plus, you know, she had a gun and I hate anything like that, always have."
Catherine smiled reassuringly and motioned to him to carry.
"Sorry, well, I was a bit freaked out and all these cars had stopped behind me and were beeping and stuff. There were loads of people staring from the sidewalk too. I'm guessing one of them called the ambulance or something cos I could hear sirens. But then she started to fall forwards and I ran to catch her. It was too late though, she died right there."
Warrick leaned forward.
"Is that how you cut your hand, catching her?"
John looked down at the bandage round his left hand, a slight red stain tainting his knuckles.
"Oh, yeah. I grazed it on the asphalt. Nothing serious."
Catherine smiled and the three of them stood.
"Thank you for your time, Mr O'Connor. You've definitely helped."
He walked them to the door but paused as he opened it.
"Do you have any suspects, any idea at all who did that to her? She looked like she'd been tortured or something."
He swallowed hard and Catherine turned on the typical speech she had said a thousand times to a thousand different people.
"I'm afraid that the investigation is still ongoing so we can't discuss it."
He nodded slowly as the criminalists passed him.
"One more thing, Ms Willows. Before she died, when I was holding her, Michelle said something. She said "Avenge me". I hope you find the son of a bitch that hurt her, Ms Willows."
With that he closed the door and Catherine turned back to her male counterparts.
"Do you get the feeling that Mr O'Connor might be getting the urge to turn vigilante on us?"
Warrick shrugged.
"Well, we've all felt that urge at some point and would it really be so bad if he did? I mean, you saw what this guy did to Michelle. Poking at her eyes with a needle to try and give her a lobotomy? That's beyond cruelty. Maybe she does deserve to be avenged."
Catherine and Warrick started walking back to the Tahoe but Greg just stood there in front of the house, obviously deep in thought. Glancing over her shoulder, Catherine sighed.
"Hey Greg, come on!"
He trotted over to the car, his face serious but also slightly excited.
"Maybe Michelle didn't mean she wanted revenge."
Catherine and Warrick shared a look of confusion.
"She told Mr O'Connor to avenge her. I'd say she was hoping someone would hurt the guy who hurt her."
Greg shook his head violently.
"Well, yeah, she probably did but that might not be what she meant. 'Avenge Me' is the name of a company here in Vegas, 'Avenge Me Films'. They're an amateur group really, but made that documentary about showgirls a while back, you know, the one on CBS late night."
Warrick nodded.
"Yeah, I remember that but it could just be a coincidence."
"Maybe, but guess who owns the company."
Catherine shrugged.
"Some guy with too much spare time? Maybe a geek with too little personality or looks to meet the young and beautiful without an excuse?"
Greg rolled his eyes.
"I'm cracking the case here and you're not even playing. It's owned by a guy called Elijah Boreman, who I'm guessing might be Mark's brother."
Catherine grinned at him and grabbed his shoulders.
"God, I could kiss you right now! Let's go."
She climbed back in the Tahoe before she could see the enormous blush flood across Greg's cheeks.
Nick and Sara dropped the two pieces of glass in beakers of water at the exact same time and turned to each other with huge grins.
"The flotation test proves that the glass in Joanna's hair came from the glass shower partition in the en suite bathroom. That fits our theory that the husband attacked her and it got violent."
Sara nodded.
"So all we've got to do is figure out who the other guy was."
A familiar voice came from the doorway.
"I think I can help with that."
Nick and Sara turned in unison to be greeted with Mia waving a piece of paper at them.
"I was running simultaneous tests in the labs, trying to clear the day shift's backlog basically. Anyway, it meant that I was waiting for the results of your second semen donor while looking at something else. At first I thought I'd mixed up the DNA exemplars, so I ran it again. I actually ran it three times…"
Sara cut her off.
"Okay, okay, so what did you find? You get a name off CODIS?"
Mia shook her head and offered them the paper.
"Actually, no. I thought I'd got the samples mixed up because two results came back identical. Your semen donor is a match to a suspect in another case, Grissom's case about a woman who was tortured and killed."
Nick frowned as he passed the paper to Sara.
"The Michelle Winters case from the Strip?"
"That's the one. The suspect's name is Mark Boreman."
Sara grinned at her.
"We got our intruder. I guess we better go talk to him at PD."
Mia pulled a face.
"I think it's a bit late for that. I've just seen O'Riley. They had to release Boreman due to lack of evidence."
"Damn it!"
Nick raised a hand to calm her down.
"No Sara, it might be ok. We should call Brass and see if this new evidence gives us enough probable cause to go to his house. Even if he's decided to hide anything to do with Michelle Winters, he may have forgotten evidence to do with the Davenports."
Sara nodded, a smile slowly spreading across her face.
"It's worth a shot. I'll call Brass."
Mia craned her neck round the doorway.
"No need. He's on his way here."
Brass appeared behind Mia.
"Ever get the feeling that people have been talking about you right before you walk in to a room."
Nick grinned and handed him the DNA results.
"We think we may have found out who the intruder was. A suspect in another case actually. Mark Boreman."
Brass produced a piece of paper himself.
"Funny because I was coming to tell you I'd found the intruder too. The neighbour-lady who heard the gunshots looked out her window and saw a young man running away from the scene. She recognised him as the Davenport's yard boy and assumed he was just scared by the gun fire. I checked it out. The guy's name is Mark Boreman. And yeah, I already got us a warrant. Let's go make a house call."