Grissom held up the evidence bag and Nick shone his flashlight on the pistol inside. The light glinted off the metal, winking at Black.
After Brass read Dustin Black his Miranda rights, the CSIs hung in the background as the captain accompanied Dustin Black to lock up the mortuary. The man was crying as Brass cuffed him and led him to the Tahoe.
"I didn't do this," he kept saying. "That's not my gun-I've never seen that thing before!"
"Not the first time I've heard that song," Brass said, and loaded him into the backseat.
Nick was studying his boss. "Gris-you don't believe him, do you?"
"I don't believe anybody, Nick. I believe evidence-and I've always been greedy."
"What do you mean?"
"To paraphrase Oliver Twist-I'd like some more."
And the three CSIs joined the detective and the suspect in the Tahoe.
10
THE SMALLEST OF THE CSI WORK AREAS, the Questioned Documents Lab was about twelve by fifteen feet, dominated by a long plastic-covered, backlit table. Sweeping around this workstation on a wheeled desk chair, Jenny Northam-formerly an independent contractor, now full time with the department-rolled away from a job she was doing for Sara Sidle to come around to where materials for the Vivian Elliot case awaited.
Catherine Willows stepped farther into the room, not comforted at all by being directly in Jenny's path.
"Vega said they look like a match," Catherine said.
"That's why they pay me the medium-size bucks, Cath," Jenny said. "No frickin' way."
Jenny had tamed her notorious longshoreman's vocabulary after coming onto the city's payroll; but hints remained. She held up Mabel Hinton's exemplar in one hand and the Sunny Day sign-in sheet in the other for Catherine to form her own opinion.
The CSI shook her head. "To me, they're dead on."
"A wax grape and a real grape look alike, too, y'know…. Somebody tried to copy Mabel's signature, but while it may look hunky-dory at first glance, a close look…reveals the sign-in sheet as an obvious forgery…. Go on, Cath, take a closer look."
Catherine studied them for a few moments. "Is it the loops?"
"What about the loops?"
"Too small?"
Jenny smiled. "Good, Cath…. Anything else?"
"Something…something about the slant?"
"Bingo," the handwriting expert said. "On the sign-in sheet, the slant is forced-you can tell the writer's natural slant is in the opposite direction. Pressure points are in the wrong places."
Catherine nodded. "So-there's no way the same person wrote both of these?"
"No way in heck."
Catherine laughed. "You have cleaned up your language."
"Frickin' A," Jenny said.
Again Catherine's eyes affixed themselves to that sign-in sheet. If Vivian's friend Mabel Hinton hadn't signed it, then who had? Catherine's gaze traveled to the column to the right of the forged signature, where in a box had been scrawled what appeared to be a car license number.
"Jen-did Vega say anything about this?"
Frowning at the number Catherine pointed to, Jenny said, "No…no, just the signature…. What are you smiling about?"
"Leads have been a little scarce in this case. Always nice to find one…. Thanks, Jen."
"Any time, Cath."
Back in her office, Catherine ran the number through DMV to quick result. She grabbed the print-out, headed for the door, and-in less than ten minutes-pulled the Tahoe to a stop in front of the rundown, one-story concrete bunker housing Valley Taxi Company. Inside, she approached the dispatcher, a bald man in his sixties with Coke-bottle glasses, a dangling half-smoked cigarette, and a short-sleeve plaid shirt with evidence of breakfast on it.
"Need a cab, young lady?" he asked.
Flashing a smile, and her ID, she said, "Yes, but a specific one."
When she'd explained the situation-and given the license number of the cab that had taken "Mabel Hinton" to Sunny Day on the morning of Vivian Elliot's murder-the dispatcher got on the radio.
Catherine knew by all rights she should have rounded up a detective for this; but things were moving quickly now, and Brass's people were spread just as thin as the CSIs. So she'd taken the initiative….
And in under two minutes, the dispatcher had given her the address of a café on Boulder Highway, where driver Gus Clein was taking a break, and would wait for her.
Soon Catherine was in a fifties-style diner, sitting in a booth across from a pudgy middle-aged man with graying hair, lumpy features, and a mouthful of burger. The cabbie wore a Wayne Newton T-shirt that might have been purchased at the entertainer's first Vegas engagement.
"Any chance you remember the fare I'm talking about?" Catherine asked.
Clein nodded and kept chewing; the burger he was working on was smaller than a hubcap-just. "Yeah, I do remember, 'cause that's the only fare I had out to that rest home in…forever."
"But the fare herself-do you remember her?"
He swallowed, nodded, taking a drink from a Lake Mead-size Coke and said, "Sure. Little old lady. I been doin' this a long time, and I'm one of them chatty cabbies…only way I keep sane. And usually, the older ones? They love the attention, they stick right with me…but her? She was so quiet I thought she passed away. I mean, I kept tryin' to talk to her, but she didn't show much interest."
"Where did you pick her up?"
He took another bite of the monster burger, chewed as he thought about it, then washed it down with more soda before answering. "In Spanish Hills somewhere."
Catherine felt a spike of excitement. "Where, precisely?"
Clein wiped his hands, picked up his clipboard from the seat next to him and paged through. Finally he said, "Here it is-Rustic Ridge Drive."
Catherine's notebook was in hand. "Got a house number?"
"Sure," he said, and gave it to her.
Hel-lo! Rene Fairmont's address.
Catherine smiled, said, "Thanks, Mr. Clein," and got out her cell phone.
"Hey, it's my pleasure. Are all the CSIs as cute as you?"
She gave him a wry grin. "You may not like me as much as you think you do, Mr. Clein."
"Why's that, cutie?"
"I'm impounding your cab…cutie."
"Aw, hell…."
"Sorry, but it's evidence in a murder investigation now."
"Damn it!"
"I really am sorry. You were a big help. Here…" She put two quarters on the tabletop. "You'll want to check in with your dispatcher and have somebody pick you up."
"I don't need your charity, lady! I got a radio in the cab."
"You would, if you still had a cab."
"Damn!" Clein said again. Then he heaved a sigh, accepted the coins, adjusted to his new lot in life, and returned his attention to the burger.
Catherine went outside to call for a tow truck, but when she clicked the phone, the battery was deader than most leads in this case. She changed batteries and called the LVPD garage. Her second call was for a uniform to sit on the cab until the tow truck arrived. Her next call was to Warrick.
"What corner of the earth did you drop off?" Warrick asked, mildly irritated.
"Sorry-didn't know my cell had gone dead." She told him where she was and what she'd been doing. "What's up on your end?"
"Well," Warrick said, "Greg served the court orders for the skull and the tissue samples."
She laughed. "Greg'll do anything to get out in the field."
Warrick said, "Well, I couldn't go-I was working the evidence from the Masters crime scene; then I couldn't find you, and Greg was free. With our budget, manpower is manpower."
"When it isn't woman power," she said. "Meet you at the DNA lab in fifteen."
"It's a date,"he said and clicked off.
Vega and Warrick were walking down the hall, on their way to DNA, when she got back. Catherine fell in between them.
"The taxi will be here soon," she told them, "and we can go over that. With all the fares
in between the false 'Mabel Hinton' and now, I don't know what we can hope to find."
Vega half-smirked. "It's been a grasping-at-straws kind of case."
"Mind handling that solo?" Warrick asked Catherine, meaning processing the impounded cab. "I'll still be processing the Masters evidence."
"Fair enough," Catherine said. "But let's see what Greg's been up to."
They entered the lab and found Greg bent over several reports. On the counter next to the spiky-haired lab tech was a human skull, grinning in welcome.
Hearing them enter, Greg turned and bestowed one of his silliest smiles and gestured to the skull in tah-dah fashion. "If I may, I'd like to present the head of the UWN drama department."
"Stop the presses," Warrick said. "Greg Sanders gets head."
"Spare me the puns, children," Catherine said, bending down to look Derek Fairmont in what had once been his face. "These are human remains."
"Question is," Warrick said, "is this a murder victim?"
Greg raised a hand. "Let's not get ahead of ourselves…. Sorry. That one was accidental."
Catherine, hands on hips, asked, "What luck have you had with the skull, Greg?"
"Well, you were both right-Warrick saying that it was unlikely any poison could be absorbed into bone before madness set in. But I am looking at the teeth, Catherine, which are indeed more porous than bone."
Catherine's eyes tightened. "Do they show traces of-"
"Haven't got that far yet."
"How far have you gotten, Greg?"
He gave a smug pixie smile. "Oh-just enough to say that Derek Fairmont was, in fact, poisoned."
The two CSIs and the detectives traded expectant expressions, allowing the lab tech to savor his dramatic pause.
"I tested the tissue samples from the University Medical Center," Greg said, "and found traces of prussic acid."
Warrick grunted. "Cyanide."
Vega asked, "If these organs were donated, wouldn't that have turned up before now?"
"No," Greg said. "These are traces. Wouldn'ta got on the medical radar. And the organs that have been transplanted-which is all of 'em-would function just fine."
Catherine was frowning. "With just traces, could that be written off as an…accident of some kind? Some innocent exposure to prussic acid?"
"If Fairmont had been a cow, Catherine-yes. I might in that case think these traces were accidental. Prussic acid poisoning is a problem with grazing animals, since it occurs in the epidermal cells of sorghums, and other related species those animals eat. Since Fairmont was a human, I'm gonna go waaay out on the edge and say…this is poisoning."
"Probably," Catherine said wryly, "nobody forced sorghum on him."
"Not likely. My educated guess? Rat poison."
Warrick winced in thought. "Plain old-fashioned commercial rat poison?"
"Yes-not that hard to get, and several major brands still use prussic acid as their active ingredient. It inhibits oxygen utilization by the body's cells. For all intents and purposes…"
Greg gestured to the skull, and his expression was somber now; nothing funny about this.
"…Derek Fairmont suffocated. What's more, it's the same poison that killed Gary Masters."
"Good!" Catherine said, then realized her response sounded odd. She explained, saying to Greg, "I was hoping you'd run that right away."
"I anticipated that, and what I found was, the toxic stuff is all over the wine bottle…and the glass he was drinking from." He held up the autopsy report. "And my associate, Doctor Albert Robbins, concurs: death by poisoning. Actually, not that common a murder technique, these days."
"Making it easier to miss," Warrick said almost to himself, "than you'd think."
Vega said, "We've got her using the same poison for two victims."
Catherine said, "Don't break out the champagne just yet-the same poison doesn't an MO make. The husband was killed over a long period of time, in small doses…hence the traces of poison in his remains."
Greg said, "She's right."
Warrick, smirking humorlessly, said, "Well, we do know Rene Fairmont's poison of choice, at least. All we need now is a way to prove our nasty nurse did these murders."
Greg scratched the side of his head. "Didn't you guys mention that Derek died in Mexico?"
Warrick nodded.
Catherine said, "Yeah."
Greg cocked his head. "Did you come up with a Mexican death certificate?"
Catherine wondered where Greg was going with this. "Yeah, we did, it was faxed to us-says heart attack."
Greg's smile was almost as charming as one of Grissom's. "Tell me-was there a consular mortuary certificate?"
Catherine winced. "A what?"
"If the Mexican death certificate said heart attack, my guess is someone was bribed," Greg said. "I mean, the poison was right there for anyone to see…and if there's no consular mortuary certificate, and Derek here really did die in Mexico…then his wife brought him back illegally. Which is against the law. I mean, that's a federal law she's broken."
Catherine looked at Greg with a newfound respect. "How did you know all that?"
"It's 22 U.S.C. 4196; 22 CFR 72.1."
"Huh?"
"That's the part of the federal code that deals with the death of U.S. citizens abroad." Greg smiled. He showed the cheat sheet in his hand. "Hey, where would science be without Google?"
Vega had a grimly satisfied expression. "We need to report that to the feds."
"I'll do it," Catherine said.
"And in the meantime," the detective said, "I'm going out to Sunny Day and have another chat with Rene Fairmont."
"We may not have enough to arrest her yet," Warrick said. "But this is a hell of a series of coincidences-seems like everyone she knows turns up murdered."
"Why don't you come with me, Warrick," Vega said, then turned to Catherine. "How about you, Cath?"
"No, Sam-I'll make that federal call…doing my best not to have to talk to agent Rick Culpepper…and then I'm going to see if I can run down those presumably bogus charities of hers. Keep Rene talking, and maybe between Uncle Sam and my own Google-ing, you can put the collar on her."
"We have enough to bring her back here for questioning," Vega said.
When Vega and Warrick were gone, Catherine turned back to Greg. "Thanks, Greg."
"No problem."
"Don't lose your focus, now-heads up."
"Oh yeah," Greg said, and he reached for the skull.
Warrick took the Tahoe and drove, Vega riding, and when they drew up at the Sunny Day guard shack, the CSI found the silver-haired guard, Fred, on duty.
Fred approached the vehicle and asked, "Hello again, fellas. What can I do for ya?"
"Hi Fred," Warrick said. "Rene Fairmont on duty this afternoon?"
The guard said, "Well, she was, but then she left about half an hour ago. Funny deal."
"Funny how?"
"She was only in for, oh I'd say…five minutes? Then she took off. Drove outta here, faster'n a bat out of hell. Next time I see her, I'm gonna talk to her about that. That's reckless behavior, for an employee."
Warrick looked at Vega and said, "Flight risk?"
"Oh yeah," the detective said with a curt nod. "Go!"
"Fred, stand clear," Warrick said, and jammed the Tahoe into reverse to peel out the driveway. He braked, tossed the gearshift into drive, and floored it, tires squealing as Vega got the dashboard light flashing and pulled the cell phone from his pocket.
"Who're you calling?" Warrick asked.
"Dr. Whiting-just watch the road!"
Warrick did as he was told, thanking the powers-that-be that Lake Mead Drive would eventually turn into Interstate 215. Trying to drive clear across this busy city, through snarled street traffic, would have cost them precious time, even with a flasher going.
Rene Fairmont had the same knowledge, of course, and a half hour head start. The siren's whine kept Warrick from hearing much of Vega's brief conversation wit
h Dr. Whiting. When the detective hung up, they had to shout to be heard over the shrill siren scream.
"What did Whiting say?" Warrick yelled.
"That Rene said she had an emergency and just split! He tried to ask what was wrong, but she just grabbed her things and said she had to leave."
"I don't think Fred's ever going to get a chance to have his talk with Rene about recklessness."
"Me neither," Vega said. "But maybe we can…."
Warrick kept the pressure on the accelerator. The angel of mercy had the sense to know they were getting onto her, it seemed; maybe she wouldn't know how close they were…maybe they would reach this angel in time, before she flew off into her next identity….
Catherine had returned to looking into the various bogus charities, seeking some commonality between the entities themselves or at least their dead-drop mailboxes: ten different charities, not counting D.S. Ward Worldwide and its Des Moines drop, with ten different drop box sites.
Although three of the mailboxes were local, the other seven were out of state. She would check, in person, the three locals, scattered around the city; already she'd memorized their locations.
Out of state would be trickier: Jonathan Hooker Ministries in Salt Lake City; Father Lonnegan's Children's Fund, Laramie, Wyoming; Shaw Ministries, Grand Island, Nebraska; Pastor Henry Newman Charities in Joliet, Illinois; and three more even farther east.
If Rene Fairmont was behind all these scams, how exactly was she picking up the money? In-person pickup was required. Could the woman have an accomplice in every one of these cities? That didn't seem likely-this was a loner's game….
The CSI decided to turn the computer loose on the problem. Into a search, she typed all the keywords from the charity names. While that ran, she pulled up a map of the United States and highlighted all the cities with Rene's drops.
In less than a minute, Catherine felt her mouth drop and her eyes pop.
All of the cities lined up.
From Vegas, I-15 north to Salt Lake City, then east on I-80 through Laramie, Grand Island, Des Moines, Joliet and so on. It wasn't just a network of scams, and certainly not an indication of accomplices hither and yon: This was an escape route.
The plan opened like a blossoming flower to Catherine, in all its sick beauty. With this route waiting, Rene Fairmont could pick up, leave town, and melt into the sunset. Well, sunrise actually, since she'd be traveling eastward.
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