Grissom handed out assignments, and Sara glared at him when she saw she'd be working with Nick. Grissom looked at her, his face expressionless, and said nothing. Nick picked up his field kit and headed out of the break room.
She lagged behind him in the parking lot on the way to the Denali.
He sat the kit on the hood and fished in his pocket for the keys when Sara reached him.
"Nick, I think we should talk about this."
"DB at the Palms," he said, unlocking the door. He put his kit in the back and climbed in, and Sara walked to the passenger side and got in.
"According to the slip, there's a riot going on and the police are trying to clear the area." He put his seatbelt on and started the engine.
"Why do they always have to act like animals?" he asked aloud, backing out of the lot.
Sara clicked her seatbelt on. "Fear makes people do crazy things."
They arrived at the Palms to see police and people everywhere.
"It's a mob."
Nick shut the Denali off and grabbed his kit as Sara exited the vehicle.
The walked alongside one another into the crowd and an officer met them.
"Glad to see you guys, finally."
"What's goin' on?" Nick asked, glancing around.
"Somebody found a body in the lobby and then ran into the casino screaming. It went downhill from there."
The officer began walking inside and the CSIs followed him.
"Wait a minute, someone found the body in the lobby?"
"Sitting upright on the sofa," he said nonchalantly. "Now tell me how the hell someone pulled that off?"
"Maybe they had a heart attack?" Sara questioned.
Just then a woman ran past the police tape screaming, almost knocking Sara over. An officer ran after her and Sara scoffed and began walking again. Nick put his hand on the small of her back as they entered the lobby.
David hovered over the body.
The DB, a male, was in the floor in front of the sofa. He'd been trampled on.
Nick and Sara looked at each other.
"Hi, David."
David nodded to Sara. "Been dead four to five hours, best I can tell."
"That what killed him?" Sara asked, motioning toward the footprints.
"No, those look to be post-mortem."
David stood up.
"Can give you a better idea after we examine the body."
Sara nodded and thanked him as he left.
Nick looked toward the casino. "How many people came outta there?"
The officer guessed. "Capacity's about five hundred. From the looks of it outside, they were full up."
Nick glanced at Sara, who was already taking photos.
"We need to get this area taped off."
"You got it."
"Why do people freak out so bad when they see a body?" Sara snapped another photo as the officer walked away. "I can understand it to a point, but this? Five hundred plus people trampling the body?" She shook her head, "I just don't get it."
"I guess it depends on how freaked out the person who found the body was." Nick began the sketch. "Apparently he, or she, was pretty convincing to everyone else."
Sara glanced over all the footprints and leaned back. "We'll never figure out who all these footprints belong to."
Nick stopped sketching and glanced at the body. Right away he noticed something. He put the pad and pencil down, put on his gloves. He motioned for Sara, who took a picture, and then Nick flipped back the edge of the man's coat to reveal a syringe. Sara took another photo and he picked it up. "Maybe this can help us." He looked it over and then bagged it. "No needle."
"Well that's odd. Think somebody else stuck him, then broke it off?"
Nick looked at the floor around the body. "I don't know yet, Sara, that's why we're here."
Sara glanced at him. She didn't like how he made her feel like she didn't already know that. She took a few more photos and then turned the body over and snapped away again. She jotted some notes down and opened her field kit.
Sara put the file together as they waited on the coroner to pick up the body.
Nick sipped his coffee and sifted through his notes on the earlier case.
"Nick, I'm sorry."
He didn't look up.
"Maybe whoever found the body did it? Caused the panic on purpose?" He said it almost like he was talking to himself, like he didn't care that Sara sat right beside him. "First witness, first suspect." He frowned.
"Nick."
He stared over at the body, tapping his chin with his pencil in thought, ignoring her, and Sara fumed.
"You're acting like Grissom right now."
Nick's head darted toward her. "Well that should make you very happy, Sara." He took the file from her and went to greet the coroner's assistant.
"He came running in, screaming like a madman."
The man held his shaken wife.
"He said there was a bomb in the lobby, and that was it."
Nick looked at them. "Did you see what he looked like?"
"Big guy, about six one or so. Dark hair, jeans, scruffy looking jacket."
"You saw all that when he ran through the casino?"
The woman wiped her nose. "He looked like the last person you'd see in Vegas."
Nick nodded and the officer closed the notepad.
"Got a TOD?"
"Levity and liver temp suggest he died sometime between nine or ten."
Doc picked up a silver tray. "Pulled this from his upper torso, took a blood sample, sent it over to tox. Should have the results any time."
Sara looked at the needle.
"Whatever was on this needle was quickly absorbed into the blood stream."
Sara looked at the man.
"What's most interesting is that he was blind."
"Blind?"
Doc nodded.
"Okay, thanks Doc."
Nick answered his cell. "Stokes."
"The guy was a blind diabetic. Dr. Robbins found the needle from the syringe in his stomach, and it turns out that it was heroin…enough to OD almost instantly…some kind of bad mix. Photo ID lists a Wesley March, 1431 Brau Lane, Los Angeles, California."
"L.A.? What was he doing here?" He sighed. "All right, I'll be there in a few. I'm not getting much here, anyway." He paused. "Sara?"
"Yeah?"
"Listen, about what happened earlier…" He sighed and climbed into the Denali. "I'm sorry for being such a jerk. I shouldn't have done that, and I apologize. I just want you to know that."
Sara took a deep breath. "I gotta go, so I'll see ya in a few."
Nick snapped his cell phone shut and started the engine.
"Why didn't we find his wallet on his person?"
Sara looked at him. "It was uh, in his shorts."
Nick shook his head.
"Around three grand in it."
"Lot of dough, guy in Vegas, alone…blind guy, at that…guess I could see why someone'd wanna hide that much cash."
"There's a woman in with Brass, said she was on her way to meet our vic. They met online."
"We'd talked on the phone several times and agreed to meet. I was on my way..." The woman sniffled. Nick noticed the Seeing Eye dog beside her.
"Ms. Parker, you claim to've met Mr. March online?"
"In a chat community specifically for the blind," she explained. "As you'd imagine, it's hard for people…like us…to meet other people."
Brass glanced at Sara. "You really can find anything on the net, huh?" he mumbled, and Sara looked at him.
Nick looked at Brass for help, who checked the paper in front of him. "TTS. Text-to-speech engines. Installed on all newer personal computers, reads text from the screen aloud for the visually impaired." He shrugged.
"Do you know anyone who may've wanted to hurt Mr. March?"
She shook her head quickly.
"Friends, family, someone from Vegas?"
"Nonono…his only friends were online friends and he didn't have any family. No one in Vegas knew him."
"You knew him."
Nick and Brass looked at Sara.
"Did you know that Mr. March was diabetic?"
"Well yes, so am I."
"And took insulin daily?"
"Yes."
"Did he ever mention anything about drugs? Heroine, maybe?"
The woman laughed. "Are you serious?"
"We pulled a needle from his body, he'd been injected with a large dose of heroine…enough to make him OD almost instantly."
She shook her head. "No, that can't be."
"Yeah, why's that?" Brass asked.
"Wesley used to be a detective for the LAPD. That's how he lost his sight."
Sara put the evidence into the vault and headed to the locker room. She avoided the break room, thinking that's where Nick was, filling up on more coffee, but she was wrong.
He looked tired.
He put his sneakers on and grabbed his denim jacket, rubbed his eyes again.
He stood up and stretched, almost hitting Sara when she breezed past him.
"Oh, sorry…"
She sat down and Nick opened his locker again.
"What do you think about online dating?"
Nick smiled. "Why, you lonely Sidle?"
Sara grinned, she couldn't help it.
"No. I just can't imagine falling in love with someone you've never met, going cross-country to meet them. Especially online?" She shook her head. "Doesn't seem safe."
Nick closed his locker again. "Not all internet surfers who go to dating sites are psychos, Sar. Some of them are legitimately lonely. Just because it doesn't seem conventional, doesn't mean that it doesn't work for some people."
He put his jacket on.
"G'night."
"Night."
Sara stared at her username and hesitated before hitting the enter key.
When she did she was amazed to see the conversations moving so fast; she could barely keep up. She exited the room, chose another with fewer people: Vegas Hangout, nineteen users.
She entered, eyed the other peoples' usernames.
PrettyPal41, SexKitten007, LonelyinLV…on and on. She watched the conversations mindlessly, not understanding most of it.
A box popped up on her screen, an instant message, or "IM," from someone called BigGuy517, and she stared at it.
"A/S/L?"Sara blinked. "What?" she asked aloud.
"38, m, desert boy here"
Sara closed the message without responding.
She got another cup of coffee and returned to her laptop to see three more blinking boxes. She closed them quickly and another popped up, this one from a "ShyTexasCowboy." She moved the cursor over to the "x" when "Cowboy" typed a message: "Your handle is interesting."
Sara looked at the screen.
"I work in forensics, how 'bout you?"She panicked and closed the box, cursing herself.
She went to Google search and typed in "text to speech engine" and browsed the results. After following a few links she found a few online dating communities for the handicapped and browsed over the member profiles, surprised to find so many seemingly legitimate lonely people.
She wondered about online dating in general, then, and thought of what Nick had said. She remembered the "ShyTexasCowboy" and had to smile. Couldn't be him, could it?
She went back to the chat community and entered the Vegas Hangout room again. She right clicked on Cowboy's username but his profile was blank. She shrugged, double clicked his username, and began typing.
"What do you think of online dating?"
"LOL."
A pause.
"That means laugh out loud."
Sara nodded.
There was a long moment with no typing, and then a box popped up on Sara's screen. ShyTexasCowboy was sending her his photo.
She hesitated before accepting it.
She opened the file and laughed when she saw the expression on his face.
"I knew it was you."
"You did not."
Sara laughed and spoke aloud as she typed, "Oh yes I did."
"So why are you in a chat room?"She kept talking aloud, as though he could hear her. "Research."
"LOL I bet."
Another pause.
"You gotten any interesting IMs yet?""Like what?"
"Nude photos, invitations for cyber sex…?"Sara choked on her coffee.
"Cyber what?"
"Cyber sex."
She shrugged. "I had a few windows pop up but I closed them."
"What are you wearing?"Sara cackled and typed LOL.
"What are you doing?"
"Trying to pop your cyber-cherry."
Sara laughed so hard she had tears streaming down her face.
"Night, Cowboy," she typed finally, and exited the room and shut down the laptop.
Sara grinned when she saw Nick come into the break room.
He poured a cup of coffee and leaned against the counter, took a drink and sighed heavily, then pulled his jeans up and looked at Sara.
"Was it good for you, SassyLabGirl?"
Sara cackled and buried her face behind her book.
Greg stared at her.
"Why didn't you run his prints?"
Nick rubbed his forehead and Sara fidgeted.
"Grissom, he's blind. Why would he be in AFIS?"
Grissom smirked. "Why wouldn't he be? I think you're letting his physical impairment cloud your judgment." He paused, looked up to see Sofia enter the room. She walked to the front of the desk and stood beside Sara.
"We had no idea the guy'd turn out to be LAPD."
"We see only what we want to see…" Grissom began another quote, and Sara frowned.
"Yeah, we get it." She glared at him and Grissom looked at her, his brows furrowed.
"Sofia's going with you to question the owner of the syringe. They matched his prints in AFIS to a Chris Graham."
"The guy wouldn't gimme the stuff. I just wanted to trade him up, that's all. He wouldn't budge, just sat there. I tried taking it from him, he went crazy and got stuck."
"The 'stuff' you were trying to 'trade him up'," Nick began, "was insulin. The guy was a blind diabetic, sitting in the lobby, waiting on his girlfriend. You stuck him with your needle, knowing it was a bad mix. He overdosed in what, a minute or so? Did ya wait 'til he was in the floor before you took his needle?" Nick stared at him. "Then you ran through the casino screamin' 'bomb' to cause a commotion to get away."
"You forgot about your fingerprints, though, didn't you? Too much heroine earlier, maybe?" Sara asked coolly.
Nick glared at him. "Get a good buzz from it? Did it do anything for ya?"
Sofia pulled out her handcuffs and Chris Graham stood up. She cuffed him and led him out of the interrogation room, and Nick sat down on the table.
"Yeah, he definitely looks like the last guy you'd see in Vegas," he said sarcastically.
He sighed. "That guy was only trying to find love, y'know? Someone to give a damn, and this junkie comes along…" His voice faded and he shook his head.
Sara looked at him and remembered what Grissom had said, long ago, about criminalists burning out…letting the cases become personal…
She cleared her throat. "You on tonight, Cowboy?"
Nick looked at her and laughed. He pulled her to him and hugged her just as the door swung open.
Grissom stopped in his tracks and Sara backed away as Nick stood up and put his hands on his hips.
"What's going on in here? Why aren't you working?"
He was pissed, even if he tried not to be.
He pointed behind him, "Nick, you have a case file sitting on my desk that's incomplete."
"What case file?"
Grissom faltered. "The one from yesterday."
Sara looked at the two of them, staring one another down, daring the other to speak… the alpha males…sort of.
"I finished it, check it again."
Grissom's face flushed.
"I wrote up my notes, double checked the file, logged the evidence…all done."
Grissom looked at Sara and back to Nick, then again at Sara.
"I don't know what's going on, but it needs to stop."
He walked out of the room and Nick and Sara looked at each other.
Sara walked out of the room and followed Grissom to his office. She didn't bother closing the door.
"What was that about?"
"Yes, what was that about, Sara?" He sat down, put his hands together. "There are people busting their asses in this lab right now to finish cases because the DA and the sheriff and the mayor are pushing everyone to the brink, and you're hugging someone in the interrogation room?" He frowned. "I don't care what you do with your own time, but when you're in my lab, you're on my time."
"Not just 'someone.' Nick." Her voice was louder than she thought it would be. "I think you're just jealous but you're too busy hiding yourself to admit it---"
"It has nothing whatsoever to do with jealousy---"
"---and I'm sick and tired of trying to impress you and waiting for something, anything, that I know will never happen."
Sara glared at him. She'd always imagined she'd be tearful if and when she ever told him that, but right now she was angrier than she'd been in along while.
"And as far as people busting their asses?" She chuckled and shook her head, unable to find the words to say anything more. She turned and stormed out of the office, and Grissom got up and slammed the door closed.
Nick leaned against the wall, his arms crossed, as Sara hurried past him. He heard the locker door slam before reaching the locker room, and heard the cursing before he went in.
He watched her grab her things silently for about a minute when she looked up and saw him, and then stopped cursing under her breath.
"Hey there, sailor," Nick joked, uncrossing his arms.
Sara shook her head and bit her tongue. Her face was red.
"You know you probably shouldn't be here right now, Nick." She rolled her eyes and raised her voice, "You'd probably get fired for being seen with me again."
Nick chuckled.
He leaned toward her. "Well," he began, stopping to plant a quick kiss on her cheek, "try not to let it bother you," and then he walked out.
Sara looked at the empty space where'd he'd been and the tears stung her eyes.