“I’ve been going over Sara’s statement.” Warrick informed Catherine Willows as she came in to start her shift.

It had been a week and four days since the Holmes incident and the Graveshift team, with the exception of Sara, whom Grissom would not allow to participate for fear of compromising the evidence through her involvement in the case, were searching for proof that Ann Holmes and her lover Joshua Gordon were responsible for the deaths of six people. Whilst working on other cases they continued to go back and review various aspects of the Seven Deadly Sins murders.

“In her statement she says that her abductor was taller than her, she estimated he was the same height as me. I checked Frederick Holmes height, and he was approximately 5ft 11, Nick’s height.” The tall, dark skinned man went on.

“The defence is going to claim Sara was in a stressful situation and might be mistaken,” Catherine began and went on quickly to forestall Warrick’s retort, “but the prosecution can rebut by stating she is a professional observer. Not that it matters what I say we just process the evidence not conduct the trial.” She finished with a smile, “Give it to Grissom, every detail helps.”

The only other evidence they had that might point to Ann Holmes being the murderer was the fact the team had not found the Pig Sticker knife at Holmes’ workshop, it was found in a cabinet in the basement of the Holmes’ house. They had been able to get a partial print which seemed to belong to Frederick Holmes but the rest of the prints had been smudged as though by a glove. What they found curious was not the fact they found the slow curved wood carving knife with traces of Ann Holmes’ blood on it at the workshop, but the fact it didn’t have his prints on it, despite the fact Holmes was supposed to have carved the partial letter E on his wife’s chest. Another interesting point was the knife had traces of blood from Peter Killian, so the question was why was the carving knife kept separate from the killing knife.

Grissom, Warrick and Catherine sat in the break room at the end of shift, Nick had whisked Sara off for breakfast, and tried to figure out where they were getting with the evidence they had discovered and did it really point to someone other than Frederick Holmes.

“Okay we have motive, the pre nuptial agreement and the fact he had been cheating for years.” Catherine stated.

“We have the fact that Sara states confidently and without any doubt that her kidnapper was taller than Frederick Holmes, and we now know Joshua Gordon is approximately 6ft 2".” Warrick added.

“The knives used in each murder were found in two different locations, the carving knife was in the workshop, with no prints,” Grissom reiterated, “and the knife which did the killings, in the basement of the house with a partial print from Frederick and signs of other prints which were smudge, possibly by a glove. Why would he keep the two knives separate?”

“We found a piece of wood with animal hide glue at the scene of Frances Wicker ’s murder. That sliver could have been left accidentally by Fred, or on purpose by his wife or her lover.” Catherine put in.

“Mrs. Holmes is so upset by the thought of her husband being a killer that after freeing Sara she rushes to his workshop to confront him. Instead of killing her straight away, he stops to carve the letter E for envy on her chest. Yet he usually carves the letter post mortem.” Grissom reminded them.

“But then there’s the fact that there was no way she could have carved that letter herself.” Catherine put in.

“Her lover could have done it.” Grissom stated forcefully, “I don’t think she would have worried about pain if it was going to get her the family fortune. After all she’s planned, if not actually physically participated in, the death of five strangers and hasn’t worried about the consequences if she and Joshua Gordon got caught.”

“So she gets Gordon to partially carve the letter so that it looks as though Holmes didn’t have time to finish, and tries to make us believe that she manages to grab a knife from his worktable and kills him before he kills her.” Warrick finished the scene.

Catherine then added dryly, “The grieving, shocked and stunned widow then heads straight for her husband’s solicitor as soon as she is released from hospital.”

“There’s an awful lot of circumstantial evidence here.” Warrick said shaking his head dejectedly. “And how do you convince a jury that someone would kill five innocent people to cover up one murder?”

“Why is that any harder to believe than someone killing these people because he considered them guilty of committing a sin, which is after all the motive we have for Frederick Holmes being the murderer?” Catherine pointed out.

“This world is crazy,” the younger CSI stated releasing a heartfelt sigh, “ here we are with evidence which can point either way and we’re discussing which motive is more believable than the other.”

“It’s all we’ve got.” Grissom told him, “Now it’s up to the DA to decide if he has a case.”

“Well I hope he does and he can prove it after what that bitch did and the terror she put Sara and us through.” Warrick snapped. “The only decent thing to come out of this is the fact Nick finally told Sara how he feels about her.” He stood up and started to leave. Suddenly he stopped and with a sly grin added “Well, that and the fact you,” and he looked at Grissom, “finally told Catherine how you felt.” He left before either one could comment.

“I didn’t think I was that obvious in how I felt about you.” Grissom said looking into Catherine’s eyes.

She gave a big smile, “Neither did I. We’ll have to watch that young man, he’ s more observant than we think.”

Grissom stood up and offered her his hand, “Maybe we should go make up for lost time.” Smiling she took it and allowed him to help her from her seat and they headed home.

The End