12. Double fault
Sofia was pleased to find out Sara took a few days off to get her head clear. After the phone call with Grissom, she wasn't in a state of mind to work a criminal case. Nor was she ready to face her colleagues. They knew her and they'd know something was wrong. Sara, being a person, who didn't like to talk about her private life nor her feelings, was better off away from them until she could maintain a straight face again.
"Tell me what I missed at work." Sara said when Sofia sat next to her.
"You missed a tennis murder. First it looked Claudia, the victim, was killed because she won the match, but they found it, she was killed because her opponent was not only mad about the match, she also wanted the husband. He told her, he wants a divorce, but the night after the match, she heard him talk to his wife, they both agreed on working on their relationship. Losing two fights on one day was too much."
"Jealousy is always good for murder. I wonder if she thought, when she gets the wife out of the way, the husband will turn back to her again."
"Might have been a thought. Hw doesn't have to stay when she's dead, so get her out of the way and get the guy you want." Sofia paused for a few seconds. "Am I allowed to ask how you are?"
"Not good. I think it's time to go back to work, I can need some distraction. Thinking the whole day does more harm than good."
"Or a few more days off? Time to get away? See a different place, get her mind off Las Vegas."
"No, I don't think so…I don't know. It's all complicated."
"Which brings me away from you and straight to the biggest news in the lab: did you know Hodges has a fiancée?"
"Hodges? David Hodges? Which woman wants to spend her life with him?" Sara was really surprised. "He's… odd." Not a nice thing to say about a college, but it was what she thought.
"He's engaged to a woman from Italy. They met last year, when he took his mother there. Apparently it's real love, she's the one. The problem is, immigration doesn't believe it's real love. They suspect she wants to marry him because of a Green Card."
"I know it sounds mean, but I tend to believe the same."
"Yeah, she's really pretty, like a model. I wonder what she sees in him. He's great at his work, with people he is…not most people." He lived with his mother for what? Forty years? Who wanted to man like that?
"Maybe that's the attraction?" Sara couldn't argue that man, who were strange, could be interesting. Grissom has never been a social well educated man, he wasn't easy to reach and yet, she fell in love with him.
"Could be. We'll see what happens with them, if they get married this year or immigration stops them. If she makes him happy and really loves him, it's good for him. Maybe he gets less weird when he's married."
"I'm not sure a marriage changes your character." Sara finished her beer. Grissom didn't change after their wedding. He was still the same. Unavailable. "This tennis player, was she somebody I should know?"
"Claudia Webber. She was an upcoming star. Tara Janssen killed her. They were double partner, best friends off the court. Or so the world thought."
"Their names ring a bell, I'm not a big tennis fan, but I think I heard about them."
"Now you won't hear of them anymore. Oh, for a while it looked like Claudia's brother had killed her. Nick and Greg found the bodies of Claudia's parents up in the woods, they were killed with a shovel. Claudia, who saw a kind of doctor, who helped her to find out, what happened when she was a child. I'm not a fan of these theories, but it worked out, Claudia remembered a few things. Like her brother, Brent. So Claudia called Brent Abbots to find out, if one of them was her brother. He was in Vegas, to reconnect with her. Well, he confessed in killing their parents, but he didn't kill Claudia."
"Why did he kill their parents?"
"His father abused him for years, his mother covered it. He wanted it to end."
Sara nodded. She could understand this man to a degree. Not that she agreed on killing your abuser, but she understood how people could consider it.