Chapter 2

Driving with Nick to the scene of the crime, Sara was still smarting over having her case taken away from her. Grissom of all people knew how much she hated not finishing what she started. Or was it her past that she revealed to him that had made him bump her to another case, coddling her. This job meant everything to her and if Grissom was starting to doubt her competency, she didn't know what she would do. There was a strange awkward vibe between her and Grissom that she detested. It had been like that ever since he told her he didn't know what to do about this. Nick seemed to know what had happened with the previous case, the lab had a legendary grape-vine, but he didn't prompt her. She was very grateful to him for that.

The silence was companionable, not awkward.

They arrived at the scene, a seedy dilapidated hotel room that reeked of old sweat and urine. A female victim had been shot multiple times through the chest and was still seated on a stool. The table and another chair in front of her had been overturned and its content scattered all over the floor. An ashtray lay broken on the floor, spilling its ash onto the carpet, hardly to be noticed amongst the other stains and rubbish. Empty beer bottles and a few shell casings littered the floor and lay amongst money bills.

In the next room was another victim. This time a man, beaten almost unrecognizable. It was brutal.

"When they take each other out, they save us the trouble," the uniform sneered as Sara stepped into the room.

Whether the victims had been criminals or not didn't really matter, they still had to treat this as any other case. A good scientist did not make assumptions.

"Hi Sara, Nick. Female vic's name was Nomsa Matabane. I don't know if I'm pronouncing that right." Brass said as he squinted at the murdered woman's ID.

"Who called it in?" Sara wanted to know.

This part of town was not exactly known for its friendly neighborhood attentiveness.

"Anonymous 911 caller."

"And the neighbors heard nothing?" Sara queried.

"I'll go find out, but don't hold your breath." Brass grinned at them as he left them.

Putting on a fresh pair of gloves Sara started looking around.

"Almost looks like she was sitting and talking when a fight broke out, I don't see any restraints. Wonder if she knew her attacker?" Nick observed.

There were bank notes lying all over the floor. Sara started photographing them but frowned.

"Hey Nick, do you recognize these?"

She held up a foreign note. It was shorter but broader than a US hundred dollar bill and depicted the head of a buffalo in blue ink. On the reverse side there was a figure head, also in blue. It proclaimed to be R100, but was written in another language.

"Issued by the Reserve Bank of the Republic of South Africa. 100 Rand." Sara read on the bill "I think this might be Nelson Mandela depicted here. What the heck is it doing here?" She passed the note to Nick and looked at the other bills on the ground. Most of them seemed to be USD but she could see some of the other strange blue notes peeking through.

"Well bag them and we'll check it out at the lab," said Nick as he handed her the note back to put in an evidence bag.

Some of the notes were stained with blood drops and Sara found many more bullet casings as well. She was just bagging the last of the notes when David arrived with the coroner's assistants in tow.

"Sorry it took so long guys, traffic is a nightmare." David said as he entered but he was really just looking at Sara as he talked.

"All yours Doc," Sara smiled as she put all the evidence baggies in her kit.

There were lots of other detritus on the floor and she and Nick worked through it methodically in a companionable silence.

In one corner there was a pile of clothes that Sara began bagging after she took some photographs. Under the clothes there was a black leather briefcase but it was locked so she just bagged the entire thing to be opened at the lab with a more controlled environment. Nick was lifting fingerprints, while Sara looked for biological material.

They were just about to leave when Brass popped his head back into the room.

"This might be your lucky night. We caught a suspect a block down trying to sell a gun to a druggy. Has blood spatter of his shirt. Thought you guys might want to have a look."

"I have bags full of 9-mil casings." Sara said as she held up the evidence bags.

"Dumbass was trying to hawk a 9-mil as it turns out." Brass said with a smile
Both Sara and Nick looked at each other.

"I love it when they make it easy for us" said Nick with a grin. Sara had to agree, but a part of her suspected that it wasn't going to be this easy..

Back at the lab Sara dropped the evidence baggies at trace and ballistics. Then she went to one of the empty lay out rooms with the bank notes. Catherine was nowhere to be seen, for which Sara was grateful.

Sara had had a previous run in with the state department when they rang a sting operation with forged bills, and she wanted to make sure she had all her information ready first before she gave them a call again. She had already looked at all the bills from the US and was just starting on the blue bills when Grissom popped it. Once again Sara could feel a blush rising over her chest. Why does this man have to affect my so? She thought bitterly to herself.

"How's the case going? I heard you found some foreign currency." It was almost as if the previous altercation over Catherine's case hadn't happened.

"How did you find out about that?" Sara asked as he took a seat on the opposite side and put on some gloves. Watching him as he absentmindedly flexed his fingers doing so.

Ok, she thought, I shall take my lead from him

"Oh David let me know when you guys find something interesting." he said with a smirk as he picked up a bill and examined it through a magnifying glass.

"Right," Sara answered as she smirked despite herself. "Well, we have bills from South Africa and also from Mozambique"

"Two neighboring countries." Grissom observed. "I have always wanted to travel to Africa"

"I would like to go to South America" Sara said almost wistfully as she handed Grissom some bills from Mozambique. The atmosphere between them felt a better than it had before. More easy.

Grissom looked at her for a moment before asking: "Any idea how they landed in Vegas?"

"Brass has a suspect in custody, Nick is with him now." Sara answered

Getting up Sara walked over to the furthest end of the table where the briefcase was.

"We also found this," she told Grissom as she took it out of the evidence bag, beckoning him over "I was going to start on it as soon as I finished the bills."

Grissom had gotten up to follow her and standing at her shoulder, looked at the case.

"Do you know what the combination is?"

"That is one of the things Nick hopes to find from our suspect"

As if summoned by her words, Nick walked into the room – looking very frustrated.

"Did you get anything?" Sara asked him, reading the answer from his face.

"He claims he can't speak English, yet we know that is a lie because he tried to sell his piece to a street junky. He refuses to cooperate and just keeps repeating 'lawyer'. The public defender is just as confused as we are. He clearly has what appears to be blood stains on his shirt, but won't let us touch him. We have sent for an interpreter but we are not even sure what language the guy is speaking."

"Well South Africa has eleven official languages, and if you take Mozambique into account you might as well add another forty including French and Portuguese as well." Grissom told them matter-of-factly.

"Eleven languages for South Africa alone? Seriously?" Nick asked incredulously and Sara just stared. "The guy could speak eleven languages?"

"No Nick," Grissom replied turning back to the briefcase. "But most people in the Southern Africa speak at least two or three languages. This guy's probably no different. Also you are assuming he is from either South Africa or Mozambique yet the evidence only indicates that someone visited one or both of those countries fairly recently."

"Don't get ahead of the evidence, right" Nick said and Sara could see that he was starting to calm down.

"So," he said turning to Sara. "What have you got?"

"Still waiting on Ballistics and Trace, I have also sent DNA samples from the bills to DNA as well as everything collected at the hotel room. The cigarette butts I also sent to DNA. I am waiting for David to page me for the PM. Speaking of which," she said as her pager goes off. Checking that it had indeed come from David, she smiled.

"Keep me updated." Grissom said as the two junior CSI's left together.

"Will do," Sara answered over her shoulder.