Distraction
Part 15 of the Diurnal Dreaming Series.
by maven
STANDARD DISCLAIMER: Characters owned by CBS Television, Jerry Bruckheimer and a few other production and distribution companies.
RATINGS DISCLAIMER: PG Rating. Catherine/Sara. A few bad words.
CONTINUITY DISCLAIMER: Season Five spoilers and setting. No real case specific spoilers.
CREDIT WHERE CREDIT IS DUE: This is the answer to Femvamp's snowbound challenge where Catherine is to fall back on her coke habit and Sara is to find out. Couldn't quite do that.
RESEARCH DISCLAIMER: I watch the show, I read an article in the Toronto Star and this website http://members.aol.com/remiped/csi-news-realcsi.htm. That's about it.
STORY SPECIFIC NOTES: If you were hoping for that kind of distraction, sorry.
FEEDBACK, COMMENTS AND FLAMES: Email at maven369@sympatico.ca
"Oh my," I say in wonder.
"Can you handle it?" Grissom asks. I know he means the quantity of evidence and not the content of the evidence. It wouldn't occur to him that the content would bother me because, to him, it's simply evidence.
"Sure," I answer automatically, referring to the quantity and not the content. No, not the content at all.
"Hate to make you stay late but if we can tie the seizures together we can build one big case instead of a bunch of penny ante cases. Or so the ADA says. And big cases look better come budget time. Or so Ecklie says. God, I hate politics."
"Not a problem."
"And I have about three slips already for my shift and…"
He sounds really guilty about asking to the point where I figure I can get some egregious payback out of him. "Let me make arrangements for Lindsey and ummm, yeah, not a problem."
I stand in the doorway after he leaves, leaning against the jam and survey the evidence. It's in sealed bags and boxes, all neatly labelled. I work out in my head the standard tests and some of the not so standard. Anything to delay actually stepping into the room.
My trance is broken by my cell phone playing the first few bars of Right Said Fred's "I'm Too Sexy".
"Hey, sexy," I say as I answer it.
"One day it'll be Lindsey," Sara says, voice serious but I can actually see the smile over the phone. "Just calling to say I'm on my way in and if you wanted something special for dinner?"
"I'm not hungry," I say, my attention distracted by the evidence.
There's a pause on the phone. "What's wrong?" she asks.
My attention returns 100% back to Sara. "Sort of work. Listen, can you stop by when you get in? I'm in the main chemistry lab."
"Yeah," she says. There's a pause and I can see the smile turn to a puzzled or worried frown. "Be there in about ten minutes."
+++++
"Oh my," Sara says from the doorway.
"Indeed," I mutter. I haven't got past putting on a lab coat and double gloving let alone opening the evidence.
"Oh my," she repeats herself. I glare at her. She's unknowingly mimicking my pose from fifteen minutes earlier, leaning against the door jam so that her open jacket falls open so I can see my favourite shirt underneath. She has a brown paper bag from Denny's in one hand and a donut box under her other arm.
"I told you I wasn't hungry," I say.
She ignores my tone and just shrugs. "You did. I picked up a sandwich in case you change your mind. And if you don't I'll eat it later. No biggie."
"I'm trying to pick a fight here, Sidle," I mutter.
"Sorry," she says, brow furrowing. "Um, I heard you. Stop acting like a brat and eat your supper."
I laugh despite myself. "You used that line on Lindsey last week."
"Successfully, I hasten to point out. I got your favourite," she says, waving the bag back and forth a bit. "And desert," she adds before frowning slightly, "I think. Maybe not."
"What?"
"Powdered donuts," she says, eyes wide in mock horror.
I stare at her in amazement. "Come here," I order, "and look at this." She nods, setting the bag and box on the counter by the door before coming to stand beside me. She looks down to the clipboard where I've listed the tests. It's near the centre of the table so she has to lean a bit to see the thing.
"Looks to be a pretty… oh mother of God," she breathes out. My favourite shirt leaves a hand's breadth of exposed skin when she leans forward. Skin that's warm to the point of hot even through latex and dancing underneath my fingertips, flexing so that I don't have to move my hand to explore the area.
"Do you have any idea how powerful that reaction makes me feel?" I ask her.
I can hear her swallow. "Pretty good idea, actually," she finally manages. "Based on how often you do it to me."
We don't screw around at work, literally or figuratively. Not with Ecklie and his army of moles watching our every move with the reprimand forms half filled out. But everyone knows I'm a touchy-feely type, often placing my hand on the small of someone's back. Usually not with that reaction.
"You feeling more in control?" Sara asks, straightening and moving away.
"Yeah," I say. "Got a dollar I can borrow?"
"You want that one?" she asks, stressing the word 'that'. I nod and her hand goes to the PDA case and she pulls out the laminated dollar bill with my name written across the front. I take it, snip off a bit of evidence tape and affix it to the light shade.
"You need me?" she asks, voice low and teasing, giving me an opening.
"Always. Now, get to work, slacker."
"Yes, ma'am," she says, scooping up the donut box but leaving the sandwich behind.
"Sara," I call as she's about to leave.
"Yeah?"
"Thanks for the distraction."
"Any time."
+++++
"My," Warrick comments from the door. "My, my, my."
"Go ahead," I say. "Say it."
"Nah, like shooting fish in a barrel. Well, only if you wanted to waste it shooting up fish. Stoned fish is kinda…"
"Shut up, Warrick," I mutter.
"You okay?" he asks, entering the room and standing behind me.
"How do you do it?"
"Do what?"
"Walk into the casinos, what, three - four times a week for work? There's video poker in 7-11s and slots in the washroom stalls. How do you do it?"
"Distract myself," he says, beginning a gentle massage on my shoulders. "Just run over the odds. Remind myself of the house edge. Make sure I never carry more than twenty bucks and lock my plastic in the glovebox. Know that if I start I'll lose everything again. Same as you do, right? You need any help?"
"No, take off. I'm pretty much finished the first round," I say.
"Is that illegal," he asks, pausing the massage long enough to point at my talisman. "Defacing currency and all?"
"Potential hundred dollar fine. It's worth it."
'Yeah, the silly little things are. You going to take a break between rounds here?"
Something in his tone tips me off. "What's up?"
"I dunno. She seemed a bit distracted when I saw her last."
"Where?" I don't have to ask who.
He hesitates and my unease grows. "Garage. She swapped cases with Greg and's been holed up there ever since."
I doubt Warrick understands the full ramifications of the garage but enough to let me know. I briefly touch my fingers to his hands, stilling them. "Thanks, War."
"Hey, keep the boss happy. Not too happy mind you," he adds gesturing at the beakers, petri dishes and tubes. And about 3 kilos of uncut cocaine still in evidence bags.
I elbow him. In a friendly yet firm manner.
+++++
"Oh, my."
There's a late model Ford on the low hoist. Hood, doors, wheels, seat and trunk lid are spread in a neat circle around it. All that's visible of Sara is her legs.
"Catherine?"
"It's me. Taking a break for ten while they locate some more evidence for me. Thought I'd stop by."
"Oh. Can you give me a hand?"
"Sure. What do you want?" I ask, turning to the tool tray.
"Just a tug."
Reaching down I grab her around the ankles and pull.
"Whee," she says. Her tone of voice isn't very "whee".
"What's up?" I ask.
She shrugs, sitting on the scooter board and wrapping her arms around her raised knees.
"Don't give me that face," I say in my best mom voice. That usually either gets a smile or an answer.
"That reminds me," she says and I realize that I'm getting neither as she tries to distract me from the question. "You know that look Lindsey gives you? The one where you pull something over on her?"
"The 'are you sure you're my mother' look?"
"Yeah. I got it the other day."
I motion for her to continue.
"We were driving back from one of her friends houses and I took a short cut through an industrial park," she says, reaching down and picking up a socket wrench from the tray. I refrain from pointing out that there's such thing as a short cut through an industrial park and make 'go on' motions.
"So," she says, holding the socket and spinning the handle. It makes a clicking, ratcheting noise that irritates me as much as it seems to calm her. "We drive past a polyethylene terephthelate packaging facility."
"Quite the mouthful." I doubt I could say it with any ease.
"Well," she says with the first hint of a smile since I entered the garage. "The sign actually said Acme PET Packaging."
I laugh. "I take it you explained exactly what the acronym P, E, T stood for?"
"Of course," she tells me. "But first I told her about the lucrative business of packaging dogs and cats for mailing across country and overseas."
"You didn't."
"Yeah," she said softly. "I… umm…" she bows her head, resting it on her knees. I pull over the stool and sit.
"What's up?" I repeat. Silently she pulls an envelope from the inside of her overalls. LVPD letter head and her name and badge number on the front. I pause, waiting to make sure she wants me to read it but she's hiding again. I go ahead, reading it quickly and then again slowly.
"Son of a bitch," I mutter.
"Well, I see his point," she says to her knees. "It's better but there were still some incidents recent enough for him to use in this. I cancelled the mandated sessions…"
"But you're seeing Dr. Sutton instead."
"Not the mandated by the department shrink. I guess it didn't get into my employee file. And, you know, decrease in work performance."
"Sara, cutting back from 80 hours a week to 60 should not be grounds for discipline for anyone but the supervisors that allowed you to rack them up. If he's going to equate hours with results..."
"I dunno. Maybe Ecklie's right. Maybe I shouldn't carry. Maybe it's just safer for everyone if…"
"Sara," I interrupt and then, when she doesn't look up, I say her name again. "Do I need to quote one of your own movies at you?" I don't need to specify the movie; she tears up every time Hogarth tells the Iron Giant that he's not simply a gun.
"No," she says, finally looking up. "I'm not about to go Dirty Harry on a suspect. But it's not a requirement to carry a firearm anymore. And I don't know if it's worth the hassle."
I think it over. The pros and cons of CSIs carrying is hotly discussed and I'm not unbiased in the matter. But that's not what this is about.
"Honestly?" I say. "In itself it's not. What's worth the hassle is not admitting to the possibility that he's right. So, make an appointment to get certified at the range and anything else that you feel is reasonable. Contact the union rep about the psych evaluation and anything that doesn't seem reasonable. Let Ecklie know that we're not impressed with his games."
Another ghost smile flits by. "Seems like I'm doing all the work here to show Ecklie 'we're' not impressed with him."
I laugh. "True. Make you a deal."
"I'm all ears."
"We share a midweek long weekend in three days. Get this settled, I'll arrange for Lindsey to stay at Nancy's and it'll just be you and me."
She chews her lip a bit. "Longs are for Lindsey," she protests.
" During summer break it'll be different but midweeks during the school year I barely see her anyway."
She chews some more. "What'll we do? I mean," she adds as her cheeks begin to pinken, "any plans?"
"Whatever your heart desires," I say, purposely lowering my tone and husking my voice. Delighted when the pink flares into red. She's so damn cute when she blushes.
"My place?" she asks. "Can we stay there?"
I nod. "Sure. Why?"
"I can eat popcorn in bed without tripping over the vacuum cleaner," she says. "And we've never… I don't want it to be just your place and never mine. That sounds so…"
"It's fine," I interrupt before she gets too flustered. Sometimes you have to stop her from explaining her emotions when you already get it. And sometimes you have to interrupt even when you don't exactly understand and go back to it later. "Now, this is settled?" I ask, holding up the envelope and passing it back to her when it she nods. "Then I'll let you get back to playing Bob the Unbuilder while I go back to playing Babe in Snowland."
"Thank you."
"Any time, Sara. You know that."
"Yeah. But still, thank you."
+++++
"My goodness," comments the sheriff. He's flipping back and forth through the report summaries with just enough science and legal knowledge to make sense of it. "Can you summarize this?"
Or maybe not. It's not like publicly elected officials actually have to know anything.
"Basically all the samples of cocaine confiscated as evidence by the task force contained a commonality. In this case a specific chemical." I rant off the chemical formula.
"So this proves…"
"That it processed in the same manner. However," I add and both Ecklie and the sheriff lose their happy smiles, "any good defence lawyer is going to ask if those commonalities are in other samples. Therefore, I recommend a random testing of unrelated evidence to prove or disprove before it goes to trial."
"You'll do these tests?"
"Scientifically you want someone else to do the test and not tell them what they're looking for."
"And if they find it?" Ecklie asks.
"Hope like hell that you can tie those cases to this one," I answer honestly. I've given up being politic to Ecklie.
"Sounds good. Arrange for the control test and I'll see if we can get Quantico to run an independent series. They owe us for using our labs in the cases they steal from us," the sheriff says. He's got his happy smile back as there's nothing like a multi-million dollar drug bust in the first three months of taking office to make you look good. "I'll get that going. Good job, Catherine."
I smile and nod and hold it until he's gone.
"Good work, Catherine," Ecklie says. "You're a good team player," he adds and I can hear his thought before he verbalizes it, "unlike your girlfriend."
He turns and walks off before I can think up a suitable response other than 'die you scum sucking sorry excuse for a human'. Last thing I need is an admin suspension.
The long weekend can't get here soon enough.
END
Next: Danger Pay.
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