by November Tuesday
"Caught a bolt of lightening, cursed the day he let it go..."
“Okay, let’s go over what we have,” Captain Hall said. “We’ve got a corpse in the bayou, salt water in its lungs, and seawater diatoms to match. The corpse was obviously in the water long enough for freshwater fauna to invade, but we have no timeline. We’ve got a suspect with an alibi but only for a short window of time.”
“The entire case is predicated on nailing the exact time of death,” Sara summed up.
“I’m pretty much flummoxed,” Doctor Bradley said. “I think we should call in an expert.”
Sara paced and took a deep breath. “What about computer models? There’s gotta be something out there.”
“Maybe so, but when it goes to trial we’ll need someone credible on the stand. No jury, no matter how scientific they may be, is going to take the word of a computer model.”
Sara knew this. She had known it even before she spoke up.
Please call Jurgensen, she thought. Please.
Captain Hall tapped her pointer finger several times on the case file. She always did this when she was thinking. “I’ll call Grissom,” she said.
Shit, Sara Sidle thought.
.
The building was new, with an entire plate glass window to let the sunrise into Hall’s office.
“Hey Cap?”
“Yes, Sara.”
“Can I have a word?”
“Of course.” Sara shut the door behind her and sat across from Hall. Hall pushed her glasses up on the bridge of her nose and they promptly fell. She regarded Sara over the rim of her glasses.
Glory Hall was pushing fifty, and very ordinary looking. She looked like, and was, the mother of four boys.
“Everything okay?” she asked gently.
“Actually, you know that personal time you were pushing me to take?”
“Yes. You’d better do it soon, the fiscal year ends in a month.”
“I’d like to start tomorrow.”
Hall took off her glasses and regarded Sara. “Is everything okay?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay. Enjoy yourself. Take Ellie someplace nice.”
“Thanks. I think I will.”
“Oh, and Sara?”
“Yeah?”
“He’s not coming until Thursday, so if you could work tomorrow I’d really appreciate it.”
Sara met her boss’ eyes.
“It’s okay, Sara, you deserve the time off. It’s high time you take some mental health time. Frankly I’m glad.”
“Thanks. I’d be happy to work tonight. I’d prefer it actually. Better if we cross the T’s and dot our I‘s.”
.
He made sure the cabbie stowed his bags in the trunk, then slipped into the back seat.
He spoke his destination, then he was quiet. He watched the old architecture of the humid city pass him by.
She hadn’t spoken more than twenty words to him since that horrible night in Vegas.
He could still remember the way she tasted, the way she felt under him.
He’d long since tried to forget the way his words sounded. He wasn’t one for outright denial. But the way he said that they could never be...it hurt too much. He had come to hate himself for the way it sounded.
She gave her notice on the spot. She took all her vacation time and stayed away from the PD for the entire week, then returned to work the final week in silence, trying as hard to avoid him as he did her.
The cabbie stopped and he checked in to the hotel chosen for its proximity to the lab. This only took him a few minutes and when he emerged back into the late day June sun the humidity and heat hit him like a wall.
He didn’t need to check to know that his pulse was approaching a hundred. He knew that she was here, even though they had had no contact. Word traveled.
He wasn’t sure if he was ready to see her, or if he had been waiting for too long.
He tried to remember the last words she said to him in person. “Here’s the tox results and DNA on Penny Dale.” And the last words he said to her were thank you.
It was her last day. He knew that the others were taking her out for drinks after work. They knew something was up between he and Sara, and offered her this chance to say goodbye rather than have an office going away party.
Catherine hadn’t spoken to him for weeks, and his relationship with Warrick was still strained. That was almost five years ago. She had called once, when he was at a scene, and he told her he would call her back. He never had.
That was the last time he had been in contact with her. Until now. He opened the front door of the police HQ and breathed out slowly as the air-conditioning enveloped him.
He showed an ID and badge to the uniform behind bulletproof glass. She was slight and brunette and he thought for a split second that she was Sara. He blinked and swallowed. “Gil Grissom, here for Captain Hall.”
Fifteen minutes later Hall came down to get him. He was watching an ant on the windowsill struggling to lift another insect. “So you’re Doctor Grissom.”
“Yes.” He smiled nervously.
“Glory Hall. Welcome to New Orleans.” She shook his hand and he knew that she was wondering about him. He could tell that she was speculating. She was professional, however, and it wasn’t overt.
She seated him in the conference room. “I’ll go get my crew. There’s coffee down the hall, help yourself. I’ll be right back.”
He assembled his legal pad and pen on the table and then sat with his fingers on his inner wrist. Thirty beats in fifteen seconds meant his pulse was at a hundred and twenty.
He hadn’t felt this sensation since college. His mouth was dry but swallowing only made him feel nauseated. He heard voices in the hall, male, and two younger men entered the room.
“Doctor Grissom?”
“Yes. Hello.”
“Jeremy Stokes, CSI, this is Terry Warzcyk.” Grissom shook both their hands.
“Stokes? Any relation to a Nick from Texas?”
“You’re the second person who’s asked me that. And no,” Stokes laughed.
Even before Stokes introduced himself Grissom had been thinking of Nick and Warrick. These men didn’t seem to have any animosity toward him, however, and he wondered how much, if anything, Sara’s co-workers knew about him. Hall obviously knew something, but just what it was wasn’t clear.
An older man came in. “Gil Grissom,” he said. “Don Bradley, M.E.. I’ve read a lot of your papers.”
“Nice to meet you,” Grissom said, shaking his hand. Something about this man set him at ease.
“Likewise. I sure hope you can figure this one out, because if we don’t nail down a timeframe the perp will walk.”
“From what Captain Hall told me this might be one to write a paper on.”
“True. First we’ve got to solve the puzzle.”
Grissom nodded. Captain Hall walked in with a woman. She wasn’t Sara.
“Doctor Grissom, this is CSI Warner, CSI Stokes, and CSI Warczyk, and Dr. Bradley. Thanks for coming so quickly.”
“No problem.”
“Our lead CSI is off tonight so we’re a bit short-staffed. Hopefully it will be a slow night and we can go over this case fully.”
She took a folder from the box and slid it over to Grissom. “Vic is named Nora Roberts. She was found by a kid out in the bayou, with bloating and a lot of chunks taken out of her. COD was drowning, but here’s the report on her lung contents. She drowned in salt water, and not an aquarium either, you can see the diatoms are the real deal.”
“Suspect is the stepfather, Gus Wallace. He had motive and a history of domestics. We like him for this, a lot. He has a fishing boat. Everything we have though is circumstantial.”
Grissom glanced at the report on the lung fluid and set it aside. He looked through the crime scene photos pictures of the murky swamp in which she was found, photos from the stepfather’s boat. He noticed Sara in the background of one of the pictures and pain stabbed through him at the sight of her.
“Toxicology?”
“Clean. She was on a therapeutic level of valproic acid.”
“Bipolar?”
“Probably.”
“Any evidence of suicide?”
“No. And even if it were, someone obviously moved her.”
“Obviously.” he nodded, looking through the photos. “What’s the motive?”
“Mom is on her deathbead. Nora was set to inherit a nice chunk of change. With Nora out of the way, Wallace becomes the beneficiary.”
“Do we have medical records on Nora?”
Hall slid a file toward him that was three inches thick. A quick glance told Grissom that most of them were psychiatric.
“Was she currently in therapy?”
“Yes,” Warner said.
“You seriously think this was a suicide?” Hall asked.
“No.” Grissom said. “Not really.”
“Okay, so let’s assume for the sake of argument she killed herself in the Gulf of Mexico.” Warczyk said. “First someone would have to know, then decide to move her, and then actually do it. Why?”
“Is the family prominent?”
“Somewhat. The mother is the niece of the former mayor, old money.”
“Would the family move her to make a suicide look like a homicide?”
“I don’t know,” Hall said. “I’ve met Diana, but never met Gus until we interrogated him.”
“It doesn't seem plausible that they would move her after a suicide...” Grissom said.
“Assisted suicide?” Stokes said, not believing it.
“Or homicide.” Warner added.
“It doesn’t make sense.” Grissom said. “Anyway, it’s just a thought,” he glanced at the huge medical file. “What I want to do is look at the body and the insects. Do we have specimens?”
“Sidle did all that last night. They’re all ready for you.” Warczyk said.
He nodded, and realized that Hall was looking at him. He wondered how much she knew.
He knew that it wasn’t everything because there were questions in her eyes. He knew it wasn’t nothing because he saw tension there.
“I’ll take you down to the morgue,” Bradley offered.
Grissom followed the man down the hall, eyes darting around for any hint of Sara. He knew that she worked the night shift because she had prepared the specimens “last night.” He strongly suspected that she was the lead CSI that Hall had mentioned, who was off tonight. If so, how much of that was coincidental? Was she avoiding him? She had certainly done so in her last days in Vegas.
.
Sara stared at the phone and finally gave in.
“Hall,” her boss said.
“Hey Cap. Just wondered how the case is going.”
“Nothing new, Sara. I knew you wouldn’t be able to take a real night off.”
“I’m just curious.” Sara said, defensive at the amusement in Hall’s voice.
“He’s going through your bug evidence right now. He and Bradley spent a lot of time with the body since it has to ship to the funeral home tomorrow.”
“I figured,” she said. She was suddenly embarrassed, unsure of her own reasons for calling. “Allright. Well, if you need anything, call me.”
.
Hall and Grissom stood behind the two way mirror, watching as Gus Wallace was handcuffed.
“Thank you for coming, Doctor Grissom. I really appreciate it.”
“My pleasure.”
“Do you need a ride to the airport?”
“Actually I’m going to stick around for a day or so.”
“Ah, gonna see the Big Easy?”
“I’m going to Six Flags.”
“Well, enjoy.”
“Thank you. And, Captain?”
“Yeah?”
“How is Sara Sidle doing?”
“She’s doing well. They both are.”
“Both?”
“Yeah, her and Ellie. Her daughter.”
“She has a daughter?”
Captain Hall was quiet for a second. He could tell that she was surprised but she played it off well. “Oh, yeah, cute as can be. Would you like me to tell Sara hello for you when I see her again?”
“Um, no, that’s okay. Thank you.”
Glory Hall watched him walk down the hall, eyebrow raised. That, she thought, is one seriously odd duck.
.
“Ellie!”
He would know that voice anywhere.
He felt the blood leave his face as he looked up from his PDA. He was standing in line to ride the Jester and he saw a brunette walk down the midway. She was yelling after a little girl who didn’t appear to hear her.
He began walking backward through the line, excusing himself, having to double back once, and then again. By the time he was out of the line he could barely see her.
He walked quickly, eyes intense, quickly gaining on her. She was wearing a white sundress and Keds. He had not seen her face but he would know that walk, that body anywhere.
Beyond her, he saw the little girl. She was perusing the stuffed animals that hung from the ring toss booth. She was petite, frail even, with long curly brown hair.
He approached closer, weaving through the crowd until he was close enough to reach out and touch her.
“Ellie,” she shouted again. The little girl paid no attention.
“Excuse me, ma’am, can you get her attention?”
The woman at the ring toss booth pointed and the little girl turned to see Sara.
In that second, he knew. His head and face felt numb and his ears were ringing.
He stopped and pretended to use his cell phone. He didn’t take his eyes off of Sara or Ellie.
“Hello! Gabrielle Leigh Sidle, I was talking to you!”
“I didn’t hear you, mommy.”
Oh, god. Guilt washed over him. Sara never knew about his hearing.
“I think you’ve just become good at tuning me out.”
“I didn’t hear you.”
He couldn’t take it anymore. “Sara!” he said.
She froze. She didn’t turn around right away. The little girl was watching him.
Slowly, she turned. She was beautiful, tanned and healthy, slightly less thin, hair streaked with blonde. She didn’t say a word.
He closed the distance between them slowly. She met his eyes and he couldn’t discern a thing that she was feeling. Sara usually wore her heart on her sleeve. This was so unusual for her that it was startling to him.
She turned away. He heard her mumble something to the girl and she dug some bills from her purse. “Go,” she said, and the girl walked away. She looked over her shoulder, however, clearly wondering why her mommy was talking to a strange man. The kid was clearly smart.
Sara turned around. “Grissom.”
She was surprised when she saw that his eyes were haunted and full of emotion.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
Her mouth opened, and stayed that way.
“What?” she finally whispered.
“Why didn’t you tell me, Sara?”
“Is this...is this some kind of sick joke?” Her inscrutable face gave way to anger and it was somewhat of a relief to him.
“I’m dead serious. I think I had the right to know.”
“Are you... Are you crazy? I did tell you!”
“I think I would remember something like that,” he snapped.
“Well, I told you, and you said you would call me back, and you never did. That was over five years ago, so fuck you, Grissom!”
Recognition dawned on his face, and he watched the way her eyes never left the little girl.
“Sara, do you remember what time of year that was? It was what, two months after you left.”
“Nine weeks,” she said.
“When you called me I was at a fire scene. There was a lot of ambient noise. I could barely hear you.”
“Oh, give me a-”
“Listen to me. I have a hearing condition. It’s progressive and that was a week before I went back in for surgery. It’s progressive and waxes and wanes randomly. It‘s worse when there‘s a lot of ambient noise. You know how loud a fire is.”
She stared at him, stupefied. “Why should I believe you? You could have called me back. God, I wish I’d known what you were made of, it would have saved me ten goddamn years of my life! I don’t even believe that you couldn’t hear! Even if you didn’t, you could have had the courtesy of calling me back. I didn’t want a damn thing from you, just to tell you, and you couldn‘t even give me that!”
“You have to believe me,” he said, watching Ellie buy a large spool of cotton candy. “Because my condition is also hereditary.”
He watched Sara collapse into a bench and stare at the ground. It all made sense to her then. Her face crumpled and she closed her eyes as if that would keep the tears from falling.
“Sara, please believe me. Me not calling you back, that was wrong and I’ll own it. But if I had known, god, I would have been here.”
“I don’t want you here.” she said.
He reeled from that, though he deserved it.
“I mustn’t have heard you on the phone. If I remember that night correctly, I could hardly hear a thing. That was why I said I couldn’t talk, not because I wanted to avoid you. But later that night I had the opportunity to call and I just... chickened out.”
She stared at the pavement, looking from cigarette buts to crushed popcorn to bubble gum. “I fucking hate you,” she whispered, shaking her head back and forth. “Oh, my god, I hate you” she whispered to herself, in quiet disbelief.
“Sara-”
“What’s your condition called?” she snapped.
“It’s called otosclerosis. It usually results from the bones in the inner ear fusing together. It is hereditary, progressive without treatment, but it’s treatable with surgery. One usually does the trick but I had to go back twice, which isn’t unusual. Usually it manifests between ages fifteen and thirty. She’s... she’s young, though. Usually it’s not seen younger than seven or eight. She... You need to get her to the doctor.” Sara missed the way his voice nearly breaks.
“Oh my god.” She began to sob and he reached for her shoulder. She slapped him away in a single breath, with a surprising amount of force, narrowed eyes flashing with anger and tears. He had forgotten how strong she was.
“Sara... what can I do? What can I do to help?”
She stood so quickly it startled him. She regarded him with wide brown eyes, and he saw a microcosm there, roiling.
“You can go directly to hell, and never contact us again.”
He watched as she wiped her tears and walked away. She scooped up the girl and carried her away.
.
The UVA lecture hall was full of students, almost fifty of them, talking and flirting and laughing. He felt impossibly old as he limped to the front of the room, undoing his briefcase, rubbing his bleary eyes. He had turned seventy this summer. Retirement terrified him. He’d never done anything but work.
He seemed emotionless as he took out a folder and arranged his transparencies, plugged in the overhead projector. He didn’t know that he was being watched closely.
He turned finally looked up at his class. “Can I have your attention please? This class is Introduction to Forensic Science. If you aren‘t here for that class, you‘re in the wrong place.”
No one left. “Okay, we’ll start with roll call. Abrams, Brent?”
He went through the list. When he got three quarters of the way through, he stopped.
He students buzzed, watching him. He was somewhat of an enigma on campus, and a legend to the criminal justice students.
He was much more to one student who watched him with narrowed eyes.
He stared dumbly at the roster for a long time, quiet.
Finally, he spoke. “Sidle, Gabrielle?”
For the others he didn’t look up from the roll call. He looked up with watery blue eyes to see the girl with the curly black hair and red lips, who was staring at him so intently. “Here,” she said icily.
He looked away and tried his damnedest to forget that she was there. He had done this lecture enough times that, though it wasn’t easy, it was doable. Other than his moment’s hesitation when doing roll call, he did nothing to show his flustered inner state.
But as he showed slides and defined terms he remembered another lecture, a lifetime ago, at Harvard. He remembered another slim brunette who watched him raptly, with a face full of open, calm appreciation, rather than anger.
And, just as in that lecture thirty years earlier, she approached him after the class. They stared at each other for a long time as the other students stood and packed up backpacks and filed out of the room.
“Hello,” he finally said.
She was holding a stack of paper. She placed it on the lab table without a word.
He squinted and pushed his glasses up on his nose. He saw bank statements reflecting deposits made every other week for thirteen years. The money was put into CDs and rolled over and over again. The most recent statement was first, and the account totaled almost fifty thousand dollars.
“I don’t want your money,” she said.
Her voice was high, sweet, but the intonation and inflection were all Sara’s. Her delicate face was much like her mother’s but her hair was unruly and wildly curly, and her eyes were blue. She was eighteen, he knew, probably a freshman. He couldn’t take his eyes off the face that resembled his and Sara‘s.
“What do you want,” he asked gently.
“Answers.”
“Absolutely.” he said, and she was surprised by his openness. In truth he was glad to do something to assuage his guilt, even if it meant just giving her this. “What do you want to know?”
“Why?”
“Why what, exactly?”
“Why were you never a part of my life?”
“Let’s sit down,” he said. His knees were bothering him. He slowly took a seat in the front row of the lecture hall.
She sat next to him, two seats over. He tried to decipher the emotions on her face. Her hands were shaking, so she held them in a knot on her lap. She was still angry, jaw set tightly, but her eyes were avid and eager for answers, so much so that she resembled Sara in a way that stabbed his heart.
Finally, he spoke.
“I don’t know how much your mother told you about me. I’ll give you the background. I met her in college, well, when she was in college...”
“I know that. I know she worked for you in Vegas. I know she was in love with you and you broke her heart.”
He closed his eyes, surprised that after all these years, it could still hurt him so much.
“I felt I couldn’t give her what she needed. I was her supervisor. One night we were on a case. It was the only time I ever gave in to my feelings. That’s where you came in. I honestly didn’t know that she was pregnant. She called me about two months after she quit and went to New Orleans. I was at a crime scene, where there was a fire. It was loud, and it was at a time when my hearing was worsening. I could barely hear her, and I told her that I couldn’t talk. I think she said she didn’t want me to talk, she wanted me to listen. At least that’s what I think she said. After I found out about you I tried so many times to remember. It was so long ago.”
He didn’t look the way she imagined. in the old pictures he was strapping and tall, even taller than her mother, with a middle-aged paunch. Now, he seemed shrunken, denatured, almost ethereal. He was quiet for a second.
“I told her I would call her back. She must have just spilled it out that she was pregnant with you, but I honestly didn’t catch that. I had no idea. I didn’t see her until I came to New Orleans on a case.”
“At the amusement park.”
“You remember that?”
“I remember everything.”
“I think she took a few days off because she knew they were calling me in on the case. I never expected to see her. Captain Hall told me that she had a daughter, I didn’t really think anything of it. I figured that she had gotten married and had a daughter. I honestly never thought you were mine. I went to ride the roller coasters, stayed in town an extra day. I was in line when I heard her voice.”
“She was yelling at me.”
“She was. I followed her, and I’ll never forget the second you finally turned around. I knew then... You looked like a female version of me at that age, plus you couldn’t hear, so I knew.”
“Just like that.”
“Just like that. She gave you some money to make you go away, I think she wanted to protect you from me.”
“Can you blame her?”
“No,” he said quietly. “I asked her why she never told me. At first she didn’t believe me. Actually, I don’t know if, to this day, she believes that I never knew. But I explained about the otosclerosis, and she knew I was telling the truth about that.”
He paused. Gabrielle offered nothing.
“I asked her then what I could do to help. She told me to never contact her or you again.”
“So you didn’t.”
“Only to notify you of your college fund.”
“I don’t want your money.”
“Okay. It’s just money. I don’t have any other children.”
“Does it help assuage your guilt?” she asked. She wasn’t trying to hurt him, just curious. She was so like Sara and he felt simultaneously proud, and as if he had no right to be proud.
“No. I do feel good about giving it to you, but no, not really. It isn’t intended to assuage my guilt. I don't think anything could do that. It’s just because I wanted to give you something.”
Gabrielle was quiet.
“Your hearing- it’s okay?”
“I had surgery when I was five and it’s been fine ever since.” She played with the fringe on her purse. She swallowed and he knew she was close to tears.“Did you love her?”
“It was complicated.”
“I said, did you love her.”
“Yes.”
“Then why didn’t you just call her back?”
“Because - I was afraid that if I spoke to her that I would give in. I was afraid that I would be hurt. I was afraid of losing her when someone younger and better came along.”
The incredulous eyes staring at him were much like his own. “All this is because of fear? You wasted a life we could have had, because of fear?”
“I never said I was a good man. And I didn’t know about you when she left Vegas. It would have been different, before, had I known. I would have sucked it up, and tried. But your mother, the way she looked at me that day... I honestly thought that the best thing I could give you both was my absence.”
Ellie stared at him, agape. “You really are an asshole.”
“So they say,” he smiled sadly.
That night Ellie cried on the bed in her dorm room. Her roommate wondered why but she didn’t feel she should explain that Gil Grissom, Professor Emeritus, was her father. She felt for some reason that asshole or no, she owed the man that much.
“Man trouble,” she said, and that was that.
On parents’ weekend Ellie met her mother and stepfather in the dorm lobby.
Ellie hugged Sara close, aware of her on a newer, deeper level, after having met Grissom, and learned their story. John was a UVA alumnus, and he went off to the physics department to spend the day. That left Gabrielle and Sara to walk around the campus, amid falling leaves of Indian Summer.
“I told him I didn’t want his money."
Sara turned to stare at Ellie.
“You talked to Grissom?”
“Yes.”
Sara tensed, then shrugged. She knew that Ellie was too old to protect now, and that she had every right to speak to Grissom. “And?” she asked.
“And I told him I wanted answers.”
“And did you get them?”
“Yeah. All but one.”
“Which one is that?”
“How he could love you but not overcome his fear for you.”
“Sometimes in life there are questions whose answers don’t make sense,” Sara said. “It took me a long time to reach that conclusion, but the sooner you accept it, the easier things are.”
“Yeah. It just - it just hurts.”
“I know.” Sara put her arm around Ellie and they walked that way. “Ell, for so long I waited for him to turn it around, I gave him so many chances. When I learned about you I just couldn’t keep doing it. I had to move on, for you and for me.”
“I’m not blaming you, mom.”
“Are you sure? Because sometimes I feel I should have made more of an effort, for your sake.”
“He said that he thought it might be best if he stayed away. After meeting him I think that may have been true. We didn’t need him. We did fine on her own.”
Sara pulled her daughter closer and they walked side by side. “I love you, kid.”
“Me too.”
From behind a window the old man smiled sadly, glad to see mother and daughter walk together that way.
--Pearl Jam