"How can I help the LVPD?" Black asked as he steepled his fingers under his chin and rested his elbows on the desk.
"Did you handle the Rita Bennett funeral?" Brass asked.
A confident nod. "Yes, her husband-Peter Thompson-is a close personal friend of mine."
Grissom found that people who claimed many "close personal friends" seldom had anything but acquaintances.
"Losing Rita," the mortician was saying, "was a tragedy-such a vibrant woman. She was a two-time president of the Chamber of Commerce, you know."
Brass asked, "Which of this large staff of yours was in charge of the arrangements?"
Confusion creased Black's face. "Why are you asking me about this particular funeral?"
"It's come up in the course of an investigation. We'd like to know who was in charge."
He shook his head, eyes wide, half in thought, half in surprise. "I can't imagine what type of investigation would involve Rita Bennett's funeral."
"Bear with us," the detective said. "Who was in charge?"
"I was," Black said. "I oversaw Rita's arrangements personally…. As I said, Peter is a close personal friend. Rita was as well."
Grissom said, "Must be painful."
Black blinked. "What?"
"We recuse ourselves in cases involving friends or family. Must be painful, preparing a close personal friend at a mortuary."
"That presumes, Doctor, uh…Grissom? Doctor Grissom. That presumes a negative aspect to what we do."
Grissom's head tilted to one side. "Not at all. A physician does not operate on family, healing art or not."
"You're correct," Black said, his voice spiking with defensiveness. "But I consider it an honor, a privilege, to use my art where friends are concerned. I would stop short of family, I grant you."
"The Bennett arrangements," Brass said, trying to get back on track. "Everything go as planned?"
Black clearly was working to hold back irritation. "I'm sorry, Captain. Unless you can give me some idea about why you're here, I won't be answering any more of your questions today."
"Then I'll give you an idea, Mr. Black-at the request of her daughter, Rita Bennett's casket was exhumed this morning."
The mortician frowned. "Why was that considered necessary?"
Grissom said, "Actually, that fact is not pertinent."
Black grunted a non-laugh. "How could the reason for an exhumation not be pertinent?"
"When the body in the vault is the wrong one."
Black blinked. "What?"
Brass said, "The body in the coffin was not Rita Bennett."
Black froze, then recovered quickly. "Gentlemen, I'm sure you mean well, but there's clearly been a mistake. That's just not possible."
Grissom said, "You're right…"
The mortician gestured, giving Brass a look that said, You see?
"…there has been a mistake."
"Well, the mistake was not ours," the mortician insisted, and folded his arms, rocking back.
Brass leaned forward a little. "Rita Bennett was how old?"
"Late fifties. But she looked younger."
"Did she look twenty?"
Black's mouth dropped open, but no words came out.
"The woman in the casket," Grissom said, "was at least thirty years younger than the woman whose name was on the headstone. Any ideas?"
"There's no way…" Black's eyes flashed in sudden alarm. "And you think I…we…had something to do with this…this switching of bodies?"
Brass said, "We're making no accusations, Mr. Black."
"We're just gathering evidence," Grissom said.
"What evidence do you have?"
"A body in a coffin. The coffin belongs to Rita Bennett. The body doesn't."
"Who the hell was in the coffin?"
"We don't know yet; we're working on identifying her now. You also have to agree it would be very hard to switch the bodies after the vault was sealed and the grave was filled in."
Grasping at straws, Black said, "But not impossible."
"The grave hadn't been disturbed," Grissom said, "and the vault was still sealed tight when we did the exhumation…. The evidence indicates the switch was made before the vault was sealed."
"I understand why you're here," Black allowed. "That fact makes you think that, somehow, we here at Desert Haven had something to do with this unholy travesty."
Brass leaned forward. "You were in our place-what would you think?"
"I see your dilemma, but I must assure you, gentlemen, there's no way that anything like that could have happened at this mortuary."
"You seem quite sure," Brass said.
Black straightened. "Of course I am. I trust all our employees-we're family, here. And none of them would do anything like this, and anyway…it's just not possible. There are always too many people around."
Grissom asked, "Can you offer us another explanation for the confusion of corpses?"
The mortician thought about it. "No-honestly, I can't. And the truth is…I've never heard of anything like this before. It makes no sense to me. Why would someone trade one dead body for another?"
"Possibly," Grissom said, "someone with something to hide, Mr. Black."
"Something like what?"
"Oh I don't know-a body, maybe?"
4
WARRICK WAS BONE TIRED. Beat. The long night he'd recently endured promised to be followed by what was developing into an equally long morning and afternoon. With two dayshift investigators out sick, and three others working a gang-related shoot-out in the desert, that meant overtime for everybody, which meant more money…but then you had to have a life to spend it on, right?
While the nightshift CSIs hung around and stayed on call for anything that might come up, they pursued their current cases.
Instead of drawing the shooting, which would have been enough to perk him up, Warrick (and Catherine) had been dealt some fairly unexciting cards-namely, following up on David Phillips's hunch at the Sunny Day Continuing Care Facility.
Not that Warrick would give anything less than one hundred percent. Beneath a surface of steady purpose that could be mistaken for boredom, despite a wry and dry sarcasm that might suggest lack of interest, an alert, brilliant criminologist lurked behind the green eyes of Warrick Brown.
The CSI took his job dead serious, even when it meant fingerprinting bedpans and photographing walkers. Exploring a suspicious death at Sunny Day rest home may not be as compelling as working a gang-banger shoot-out, but it deserved all due consideration and deliberation. If foul play had been done to Vivian Elliot, then it was Warrick's job to speak on her behalf.
As Grissom had said more than once, "We can't give them back their lives, so we have to find the meaning of their deaths."
By this Gris meant, in his oblique way, that the only thing left for a murder victim was justice-what could still be done for Vivian Elliot was to find her killer, and deliver that killer for punishment.
If Vivian Elliot had been murdered….
Such idealistic notions didn't mean Warrick couldn't run out of gas, however, and he was definitely driving on fumes. Catherine had shut herself in her office to (quote) catalog the evidence (unquote); but on his way to the breakroom, Warrick noticed no light under her office door.
Cath had to be just as whipped as he was; but she had remarkable recuperative powers-she could nap fifteen minutes and be good to go for another eight hours. Warrick, on the other hand, was pumping coffee through his system in hopes the caffeine would help fight the sluggishness that had settled over him like damp clothing upon their return from Sunny Day.
Uncoiling his tall frame from a breakroom chair, he strolled to the counter and poured himself another cup of what had purportedly once been coffee (the lab results weren't back yet). He turned and looked at the table and chair he'd just vacated, and considered sitting back down and closing his eyes for what he hoped would be a short nap…only he didn't have Catherine's ability to quickly recharge, nor
was the caffeine in his bloodstream likely to cooperate.
Instead, he would go check with David about the autopsy on Vivian Elliot.
Assistant coroner David Phillips often worked alongside Dr. Robbins in the morgue, but when Warrick peeked in, Robbins was in the midst of an autopsy with Nick and Sara looking on and providing whatever assistance might be necessary-no David. And Warrick could see just enough of the corpse's face on the table to know she wasn't their woman from Sunny Day; this corpse was young, if a corpse could be said to possess youth.
Warrick moved on in his search, which didn't take long-the assistant coroner was two doors down in X-ray.
As Warrick walked in, David was adjusting the placement of the X-ray tube over Vivian Elliot's remains. An X-ray had a multiplicity of uses where live bodies were concerned; and Warrick had seen such machines used even on dead bodies, to locate bullets or other foreign objects.
But the CSI wasn't sure he knew what David was up to, using the thing with the late Vivian Elliot….
"Hey," Warrick said.
"Hey," David said. He smiled, glad for the living company apparently, and gestured. "Step into my booth…."
"Said the spider to the fly?"
"Or not. And don't worry: That glow-in-the-dark rumor you hear is a buncha b.s."
"I'm coming, teacher," Warrick said.
David led Warrick into the control booth and hit a switch. Soon David shut it down, and moved quickly out into the main room to remove that film from under Vivian's body and to place another a little farther down.
"I could use a hand," David asked.
Warrick joined David. "I don't suppose you mean applause."
"No," David said, with his nervous smile.
Warrick turned Vivian slightly so David could get the film under her. "What are you up to, David?" he asked. "Not playing another hunch, are ya?"
"Not exactly. More…trying to confirm a theory."
"Which is?"
"That someone at Sunny Day injected Mrs. Elliot with air, causing an embolism that sent her heart into seizure…after which she died."
Frowning and nodding, Warrick said, "You think the killer did that, to make the death look like a heart attack?"
"I do-and this is something a bad guy could get away with…if the good guys weren't looking for it."
Warrick raised one eyebrow and gave David half a smirk. "First you think the woman was murdered, because you've been called out to that nursing home too many times…."
"Yes, that…but also, that none of the last four people who died at Sunny Day had any family to notify, remember."
"I remember…and now you're telling me the murder weapon is air."
"Well, here's another fact for you…."
"Facts are good. We like facts a lot better than hunches."
"I know you do. The others have all been heart attacks, too."
Warrick felt his skepticism fading and his interest rising; the facts were beginning to pile up like a winner's chips, and something in David's earnestness made Warrick want to trust the assistant coroner's instincts.
After all, a "hunch" from an expert, the "instincts" of a professional, could be as valid as a physician's diagnosis.
"The theory is really pretty simple," David began. "The killer injects a fairly large syringe full of air into the victim. In Mrs. Elliot's case, the IV catheter gave the killer an injection site that wouldn't even be noticed. The air embolism reaches the heart and the muscle seizes. The outward symptoms are that the victim is having a heart attack, but the truth is…she's been murdered."
"Dispose of the needle," Warrick said, "and it's like you were never there."
"That perfect crime you hear so much about."
"Not so perfect."
David frowned. "Where's the flaw?"
Warrick grinned. "Somebody smart like you, David, can see right through it."
David beamed, but Warrick didn't let him bask in the praise, asking, "What do you hope to accomplish with the X-ray?"
With a gesture toward Vivian Elliot, who posed under the X-ray's eye, David said, "The cardiovascular system is a closed system. Despite the fact that there's over 60,000 miles of arteries, veins, and capillaries, the air bubble will show up on an X-ray. If there's an air bubble, Vivian Elliot was murdered. If not…I've wasted a lot of valuable time, and this poor woman is still dead."
"Dead not murdered."
"Dead but not murdered…. Only, doesn't this woman have a right for us to make a serious effort to find her cause of death?"
Warrick gave David the complete and profound answer the assistant coroner was hoping for: "Yes."
They moved the body and took more X-rays. Working in silence for a while, they finished their task in a relatively short order.
Holding up the last undeveloped X-ray, Warrick said, "Is this the only way to find out if she was murdered by an air bubble?"
Shrugging a little, David said, "There is one other way, but I don't think Doctor Robbins would ever go for it."
"Well, try me."
David's eyes flicked wide. "Well…you crack the chest and fill the cavity with water. If there's an air embolism, it'll leak out, and the ME will see bubbles in the water."
"That's nasty," Warrick said.
"So is murder."
"Good point."
"I've heard about this technique, but I've never actually seen anyone do it in practice. The X-rays are still our best bet."
"Well," Warrick said, "let's take these vacation pics to one-hour photo, and see if our next trip's gonna be to track down a murderer…."
Catherine stretched her arms wide, yawning herself awake. The windowless office was pitch-black, the only light coming in under the crack of the door. She checked the iridescent dial of her watch and realized she'd slept five more minutes than the twenty she'd planned. Blessed with an uncanny internal clock, Catherine seldom had use for an alarm and only wore a watch for confirmation of what her body was already telling her.
She reached over to switch on her desk lamp. When her eyes had adjusted to the light, her gaze came into focus on the framed picture of her daughter Lindsey. The blonde-haired, blue-eyed girl smiled at her and Catherine smiled back. Not long ago, she might have felt a twinge of guilt over the many hours she spent away from the child.
But she had come to terms with her single-parent status, and dedication to her job was something to feel pride about, not shame. Catherine's nightshift work actually made it possible for her to spend more time with Lindsey than many a working mom…although in doubleshift marathons like this one, that notion was put to the test.
At a counter in her office, Catherine reached at random for one of the brown bags of evidence from Vivian Elliot's room. After breaking the seal, she realized she'd picked up the one filled with sheets. She set that aside, saving that for the layout room where she'd have more space. For now, she selected the bag containing Vivian Elliot's personal belongings; inside was a smaller bag of valuables as well, which she'd picked up from the Sunny Day office.
She carefully emptied the contents of the smaller bag onto the counter: three rings, a watch, a gold cross necklace, a wallet, and a cell phone. A few years ago, the cell phone might have surprised her, with a woman of Vivian's age; but now the whole world seemed to have one, and many seniors in fact carried cells for I've-fallen-and-can't-get-up emergencies.
The rings were a gold wedding band with an attached diamond engagement ring, possibly a karat, and a decorative number with a diamond-centered ruby rose. The rings weren't cheap, but they probably weren't from Tiffany's, either.
Likewise, Vivian's gold cross necklace was a nice mid-range piece that looked like she'd had awhile, but had taken good care of it, as with her rings. The watch was a Bulova that looked to be about ten years old; it seemed as well-maintained as the other pieces, and the band was a replacement one, fairly recent.
Nothing terribly significant-a woman with enough money to have nice if not lavish things, which she t
ook care of and (as in the case of the Bulova) made last.
The cell phone was what really interested Catherine-cells often held a wealth of information just waiting to be tapped.
She jotted down the numbers from the speed dial-only three, but one might be the mystery woman who had visited Vivian right before her death. Next, Catherine checked the call log, which gave her the last ten numbers Vivian had dialed, the last ten calls she'd received, the calls she'd missed, and the in-box for text messages, though the latter was empty. Several of the numbers turned up again and again, most likely Vivian's closest friends. Women Vivian's age often rivaled teenage girls for phone time with their gal pals….
In fact, one of the numbers showed up on the speed dial, the missed calls, the received calls (three times), and the dialed calls (four times). That would be where Catherine would start, figuring that number (keeping in mind the late woman's lack of family) probably belonged to Vivian's best friend.
Catherine was going through this list of cell phone numbers when she realized neither she nor Warrick had gotten a log of the calls to and from Vivian's room at Sunny Day. She made a mental note to ask Warrick about it, then picked up her own cell phone and dialed Vega.
"It's Catherine, Sam-got time for a question?"
"From you, always."
"Did you and Doctor Whiting discuss the telephone in Mrs. Elliot's room?"
She could hear the smile in Vega's voice as he said, "I was wondering when the most diligent CSI in Vegas would get around to asking about that."
Sighing her own smile, Catherine said, "Oh-kay, smart guy-don't gloat. You may pull a double shift someday."
"How about last week?…Anyway, there's only two numbers on the list, and frankly I haven't had time to run 'em yet."
"Got a pen or pencil?"
"Shoot."
Catherine gave him the number she figured belonged to Vivian's best friend.
"What are you, Catherine-psychic? That's one of the two!"
"The number comes up on her cell phone a buncha times. Give me the other one, would you, Sam?"
He did and said, "If we have the best friend, we may have the mystery guest at Vivian's room."
"Did that mystery guest sign in, Sam? At the guard shack?"
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