Chapter Five
The sidewalk of the crime scene was in front of an entire half a block of apartment buildings, five stories high, and the walls made of red brick. The scene was still surrounded by yellow tape and well lit by streetlights, shining in the dark that had fallen so quickly. Sara stood near the middle of the rectangle outlined by the tape. She was fiddling with the dummy replicating Tony Hammond, positioning the laser inside of him, and referencing a drawing on the clipboard in her hand. Greg was to the far left of Sara, working with a much smaller foam dummy, representing Samantha.
Warrick arrived an hour after the other two had left Sara's apartment. He pulled up behind Greg's Denali and headed out to greet them.
"Nobody invited me to the party?" he said, holding his hands out as he neared. "Had to ask Ecklie where you guys were. Wasn't pleasant."
Sara mentally slapped her forehead. She'd been so nervous and jumpy after being tailed by Rayfield she'd forgotten to call Warrick to ask him if he wanted to come along.
"Sorry, Warrick. I meant to call but got distracted," Sara answered as she adjusted the laser in Tony and checked the drawing again.
"Yeah, heard that before." He strode up next to her and examined the laser. "What had you of all people so distracted?"
Greg turned around to glance at Sara and they made eye contact. Should they tell Warrick about the tail? Greg shrugged and averted his gaze, returning to the task at hand. The decision was up to her, it seemed.
Sara shrugged, looking back at Warrick. "Work. I wanted to get started." She threw him a false grin.
"Oh really? The one thing that distracts you from responsibilities of work…is work?" He almost laughed—there was a definite sideways grin.
"Yeah." She smiled again, turning her head away and pretending to look busy. "Why don't you start workingand go put a laser in Archie what's-his-name over there. I set it on the ground next to him."
Once the dummies were all set up, Sara gave the word to turn on the lasers. The lights all flickered on and the three of them quickly noted their locations. Samantha's beam of red light led, as suspected, to the back of Tony.
"Samantha got hit with the through-and-through," Greg declared from his post.
Behind Archie Murray's replica, the light led to the tree where his bullet was found. But what was most surprising was where the shots that killed the two men came from. Both of their laser beams were on the other's elbow.
"Sara…" Warrick said slowly. "Bend up Tony's right arm, like he was gonna shoot somebody." Warrick was squinting at the two dummies, his jaw set firmly as he stared at each in turn. He did the same to Archie's dummy, bending his forearm.
Sara did as she was ordered, and saw what Warrick was getting at when the red point of light met up with Tony's hand.
"Tony and Archie shot each other…" Sara stated softly. "What are the chances of that happening? Both of them firing at virtually the same time?"
Warrick shrugged. "Well, one thing is for certain…" He gestured at the scene. "There are no guns here, which means that somebody had to have taken them."
"Taking evidence from a murder scene is still a crime. We still have a case." Sara concluded.
Warrick nodded affirmatively.
They began to clear up and Sara continued to feel more and more anxious. She was looking over her shoulder at passing cars, trying to make sure they weren't the one she feared. She was jumpy, and her heart pounded deafeningly at the sound of every wheel. On the outside, she knew nobody had a clue exactly how stressed out she felt. It was always like this, and she knew it wasn't good for her health (mental or otherwise), but she hardly knew anything else. Burdening her friends with her own problems and the aftereffects of that were not something she enjoyed.
Towards Rayfield, she felt nothing but hatred. All the memories she had of him were full of that feeling. The fact that he had been following her and Greg only made it worse. She was scared of him, she knew, and it was hard to admit it to herself—impossible to admit it to anybody else. Except Max, she thought, feeling suddenly embarrassed. Earlier today, she'd told him her feelings, if only in a single word. She'd told him she was afraid, so what was so wrong with everybody else she knew? The people who had been her good friends for several years? Why couldn't she tell them?
Sara was putting the littlest dummy in the back of Greg's vehicle as Warrick approached with one of the larger ones.
"Hey," he said.
"Hey…" she replied, noting bitterly her tone had been that of despair. He was going to ask questions now.
"You okay?" he questioned softly.
Furious, Sara tried not to grit her teeth. She looked up and met his gaze, but only briefly. The dummy was refusing to cooperate and she was finding herself frustrated with making it fit among everything else in the Denali.
"Sara," Warrick said slowly, subtly rolling his eyes through a sigh.
"What?" she snapped, turning to face him. Suddenly anger was boiling and she was having trouble calming it down.
"I asked you if you were okay." He was stern, but still soft, with only an echo of annoyance.
"I'm fine." She returned to the task at hand.
He set his hand on hers, stopping her actions. He set the large dummy on the ground, then took the small one from her, slid it sideways, and eased it properly into the car. His fit neatly in next.
Sara tried hard not to frown, squeezing her lips tightly, as if she was sucking on a lemon.
"What's going on?"
Angrily she turned to him, straining harder to keep composure. "Nothing, I already told you. I'm fine, Warrick." She tried to smile, but damnit, she was getting teary eyed. Lying wasn't helping.
"Sara—"
"Stop worrying!"
"No, Sara…look at yourself." He closed the trunk of the car, and Sara glanced at her faint reflection in the rear-window.
"You look like you haven't had a day off in months. You just took one yesterday. First of all, that vacation day was kind of unexpected. Second, you've been looking over your shoulder constantly the entire time you've been here. I'm asking you so I can do something to help you. I don't care if you don't want to tell me exactly what it is; I just want you to find some help."
She tore her eyes away from her sunken image in the window and glared at Warrick. He did nothing but stare calmly back. Her eyes turned away first, and as she walked away, she muttered under her breath just loud enough for him to hear, "I told you there's nothing wrong..."
Warrick turned to enter his car as Sara walked up to the side of Greg's Denali. Greg was in the driver's seat, paging through a collection of CD's, and Sara glanced in at him before opening the passenger door.
"Hey, I have to go back to my apartment really soon, my landlord is going to be back in about fifteen minutes and I want to catch him before he goes to sleep."
He nodded distractedly. "Sure…"
"I'll tell Warrick to meet us back at the lab—that it won't take more than half an hour."
Greg appeared to be only half-heartedly listening to her speak as he victoriously emerged from the CD's. The disk was inserted into the player, giving Sara cue to leave as loud rock music washed over the interior of the Denali.
Sara headed back to Warrick's car, where the man sat behind the wheel. She bent down to the window to speak to him, but found it difficult to start.
"Greg and I are…well I locked my keys in the house. We're going back to catch my landlord and I'll see you back at the lab in about a half hour."
He nodded, and she could tell he was trying to think of something to say as well. The topic turned again to work. "Meet me back here actually. I think I'm going to call Brass—we should look around for that gun. Suspect mighta dropped it somewhere around here on this block, or the next."
"Alright."
Silence. Was he expecting her to say something else?
"Look, Warrick, I promise you, there is nothing you need to worry about."
He nodded, tapping his fingers on the steering wheel. "That's fine, but you know if there's anything any of us can do about it we will. Any of us—you know that."
Sara forced a smile. "Okay, Warrick. Thanks." She nodded a goodbye and headed back to the slightly vibrating Denali.
"Greg! Turn it down!" she shouted.
He stopped bobbing his head and glanced at her as she entered the car, her hands over her ears. She mouthed the words to him again, and this time he obliged.
"Sorry," he said.
As Greg pulled ahead, Sara looked back at the rearview mirror, trying to see Warrick as they drove away, but a set of headlights behind his vehicle blinded her. She squinted against them, and her inner alarm bells signaled when the car pulled up behind Warrick and stopped. She couldn't make out the color of the new vehicle but her heart jumped into her throat when she saw Rayfield exit it.
"Greg, stop!" she shouted.
"What?"
"Stop the car! Let me out!" She fumbled with her seatbelt and unlocked the door, jumping out of the Denali as it slowed. The car beeped in protest to the open door, but Sara blatantly ignored it, as well as Greg, who kept asking her what was going on. Rayfield had leaned against Warrick's car and it seemed the two men were talking—about what, Sara could only guess, though it would be a very good one.
"Hey!" she shouted, storming towards the two of them.
Rayfield looked up and straightened at the sight of her, though one arm still rested on the side of Warrick's vehicle.
"What are you doing here?" Sara hissed, folding her arms to keep them from shaking.
Rayfield glanced at Warrick who looked utterly confused. The detective turned back to Sara and began to speak. "I was just asking some questions. Why is that so wrong? It's my job."
"Well I'm doing mine here, so I would really appreciate it if you would leave."
"I have as much right to be here as you," the man said coolly.
Immense frustration filled her and she clenched her hands tightly, her nails digging into her arms. "Please, just get out of here." She didn't want much revealed in front of Warrick. His presence was making her even more uptight, and she felt Greg approach as well.
"Maybe you two should talk in private," Warrick suggested sternly.
Sara jerked her head to the side, gesturing for them to move onto the sidewalk, by a chain-link fence and away from everybody else. She felt like a child, holding in a temper tantrum while at the same time wanting to run and hide. The two of them stood in the cover of the trees, the streetlights casting eerie shadows of them across the sidewalk. Her lips pursed as she bit her cheek with irritation, crossing her legs where she stood, looking at the ground. His stance was more authoritative, his feet planting themselves evenly and firmly, his gaze harsh and unwavering.
Rayfield was the one who began. "Sara, I don't know what you think you're getting away with here, or what you've been getting away with."
She forced her voice to be calm and level as she cast a sideways glance. "I haven't done anything wrong." Breathlessly, almost despairingly, she added, "I don't know what ever made you think I would do that in the first place…"
The detective's features softened, if only for a moment, before he turned back to the authoritarian. "Sara, we have DNA evidence processing right now. Within the next 48 hours, we will get those results."
Numbness suddenly filled her, and her mouth hung open. Without thinking, she managed in an outburst, "DNA? What DNA? There wasn't—"
"DNA technology barely even existed when Allen's murder took place," Rayfield hissed suddenly. "You know you and your father have the same blood type. We had no clue there were two samples back then, because there was no DNA to differentiate."
"But, Laura's—"
"You know Laura has a different blood type than the both of you!" His appearance was becoming more threatening, and his harsh whispers were slowly becoming louder.
Panic was quickly filling her every limb, and the urge to run was becoming close to unbearable. DNA. DNA. DNA. She knew what that meant in a case. It meant near certainty. How could there be two samples on the knife? So far as she could remember, she'd never even touched it. "There can't…there can't be two samples," she nearly pleaded, frantically brushing hair out of her face.
He was yelling now. "Why? Why can't there be two samples? Because you were twelve years old? Because you're a girl? Because it was your father? Because you would never kill family? Do you think age, gender, or whatever has anything to do with being a murderer? So you tell me, Sara! Do you think saying there can't be two samples would make the truth any less than what it is? There are two sets of DNA! Who do you think the second one is going to belong to? There was nobody else in that house!"
Tears suddenly fell involuntarily down her face. "STOP!" she yelled, wiping the wetness from her cheeks. "Go away! Get out of my life, please! You have no more business coming anywhere near me, or my friends, or my job. I don't want to see you again." She choked through a small sob. "God, I never wanted to see you again!" She took a deep breath and turned to leave, but his hand suddenly shot out, resting on her shoulder. She spun around and viciously spat, "Don't touch me! Don't ever touch me!"
He spoke to her rapidly receding form. "Sara, you know I'm just doing my job!"
Over her shoulder, she shot back, "Then stop wasting your time with me and go bother somebody else!"
She stormed onward, marching straight past Greg and Warrick standing helpless and confused on the curb. Greg peeked over his shoulder as Rayfield took a final long look at Sara and nodded his head at the two other men. The old man entered his sedan and drove away into the night, leaving Greg and Warrick still very confused.
Warrick spoke up after a couple of long, silent seconds. His voice was very subdued. "I'm going to call Brass. We'll get a small search team out here to look for that gun. In the meantime, why don't you take Sara home."
"Yeah, okay," Greg mumbled, matching Warrick's tone. "And just so you know, that guy was following us earlier. That's what actually had Sara distracted; she said she didn't know who it was that was tailing us, but we obviously know she does."
"He's a detective," Warrick muttered. "Only got to ask me one question before Sara marched over."
"What was it?"
"Has Sara ever mentioned her family to you?" he quoted.
"And what'd you say?"
He shrugged. "I said no."
Greg paused to take the thought in, noting curiously that the same went for him, and as far as he knew, everybody else in the lab. She never talked about her past. And now that he was actually thinking about that fact, it was striking him as very, very odd. Not a word. No mention of Christmas gifts from them, no birth announcements, no phone calls, and no visits. Were they dead? Did they kick her out? Was her relationship with them nonexistent? He had no idea, but was sure she wasn't going to answer any of those questions if he asked. She was too distraught.
He walked away, nodding goodbye to Warrick as he did so. The older man returned it, pulling out his cell and dialing Brass. Greg approached the Denali slowly, wondering whether to say anything to her or not. He could say something, and have her bite his head off, or worse, start crying. But that way he might get some answers. He could say nothing, and she would go home and do something not so great from all the bottled up emotions. But at least he wouldn't have to see her cry…
Greg opened the driver's side door and saw Sara, as suspected, sitting in the passenger seat. Her knees were brought up to her chin, her arms folded across them. Her sleeves were wet with tears, and her face shone from the streetlights. Her appearance worried him slightly. She looked pitiful…and scared. It was then he knew—whatever that detective was here about, it was very serious.
"Hey," Greg said as nonchalantly as he could.
Sara said nothing as she stared out the window.
"Umm…" He was still trying to make the decision, but he knew she was already crying. Guess it didn't really matter what he did then. "Umm…that guy…"
"Just take me home Greg…" she said meekly. "Please." Her voice squeaked as she held back a sob, and she sniffed. "I just want to go home."