Double Dealer ccsi-1

by Max Allan Collins

  Sara smirked and shook her head. "So, there's nothing?"

  Warrick shrugged. "We can print the mailbox door, but that's about it. Looks like a dead end."

  Conroy said, "I'll question her . . . what's her name?"

  "Laurie," Warrick said.

  "Last name?"

  Embarrassed, he shrugged again. "Never came up."

  Conroy just looked at him; then she went over to question the woman and put on the record the things that had been told to Warrick, off.

  Sara sighed and said, "I gave up running prints for this?"

  "You were tired of doing that, anyway."

  She tried not to smile, but finally it broke through. "Yeah, I was."

  "Well, you're gonna love it when I give you the dozens of prints I got off that slot machine."

  "More prints. You find anything good?"

  "Yeah." He leaned in conspiratorially, as Conroy's questioning echoed in the hollow storefront. "A Dairy Queen, around the corner. Lunch. You buy."

  She clearly liked the sound of that; but as they were exiting, Sara nudged him in the ribs, saying, "Buy your own damn lunch."

  Two hours later, back in the office, Warrick had already struck out with "Peter Randall"-an alias, of course-and Sara had run the prints from the casino, which had also proved worthless. And the guy's mailbox door had failed to yield a single usable print.

  Laurie Miller, the manager, had waited on " Randall" both times he'd been in the store, and her description of him to Detective Conroy was painfully generic: dark glasses, dark baseball cap was all that got added to what the hotel tapes had already told them. A witness sketch would be worked up, but not much hope was held for it.

  Backing up, Warrick decided to see what they could get on the footprints from the hallway.

  Sara used a database that identified the running-shoe design as the probable product of a company called Racers; the match was not exact, due to the imperfect nature of the crime-scene footprint. So Warrick went online and found the number for the corporate office in Oregon.

  "Racers Shoes and Athletic Apparel," said a perky female voice. "How may I direct your call?"

  "My name is Warrick Brown. I'm with the Las Vegas Criminalistics Bureau. I need to talk to someone about sales of different product lines of your shoes."

  There was a silence at the other end.

  Finally, Warrick said, "Hello?"

  "I'm sorry, sir," the voice said. "I had to ask my supervisor how to route your call. I'm going to transfer you to Ms. Kotsay in sales."

  "Thank you."

  He heard a phone ring twice, then another female voice-somewhat older, more professional-said, "Sondra Kotsay-how may I help you?"

  Warrick explained the situation.

  "This is a most unusual request, Mr. Brown. We manufacture many lines of shoes."

  "I know. And we have a tentative match from a database, already. But I could really use your expert confirmation."

  "Am I going to have to testify?"

  He smiled to himself. "Probably not. I'd just like to fax you a footprint."

  "Oh," she said, "well, that would be fine," and gave him the number.

  He chose not to send her the bloody print he'd highlighted with the Leuco Crystal Violet and instead sent her one from the landing that Grissom had obtained with the electrostatic print lifter.

  A few minutes later, he was asking the woman, "Did you get that?"

  There was a moment of silence on the line, then Sondra came back on the phone. "Came through fine," she announced. "Give me a little time. I'll call you back when I've got something."

  How tired he was just dawning on him, Warrick wandered down to the break room and got himself some pineapple juice out of the fridge. He went to see Sara, at her computer, but she wasn't there. He tracked her down-in all places, at the morgue, standing over Dinglemann's corpse.

  "You okay?" he asked.

  "Yes," she said. "No . . . I don't know."

  "What?"

  "Why are we working so hard to find out who killed this guy? Why am I busting my butt to find his killer?" She pointed at the body. "I mean, mob lawyer, getting the scum of the earth off, scot free . . ."

  "Better not let Gris hear you talking like that."

  She threw her gaze at him, and it was almost a glare. "I'm not talking to Grissom. I'm talking to you."

  "You know it's not for us to decide." Warrick moved a little closer, so that Dinglemann lay between them. "This guy, he's past all that now. Good, evil-doesn't matter. He's been murdered. That puts him in the next world, if there is one-but his body's in our world."

  She thought about that, then she shrugged. "Maybe it is that simple. I don't know. It's just . . . hard for me."

  "Well, if you can't divorce yourself from the good and bad, think of the guy who did this. Somebody who takes money to take lives. That bad enough for you?"

  She smiled, just a little. "Yeah. Yeah, that'll do it."

  His cell phone rang and they both jumped. He almost dropped it in his haste to answer. "Warrick Brown."

  "Sondra Kotsay, Mr. Brown. I think I can help you."

  Waving at Sara that he had to take this call, Warrick went back down the hall to his office, grabbed a pad and plopped into his chair.

  The professional voice said, "The print that you faxed us is for our X-15 running shoe."

  "Okay."

  "It's a line that, I'm sorry to say, has not done very well for us."

  Warrick knew that the smaller the production run, the better his chances. "How many have been produced?"

  "Before production stopped, just under one million pair."

  His heart dropping to his stomach, his head drooping, he said, "A million?"

  "I know that sounds daunting, Mr. Brown. But it's not that bad-at least not for you."

  "Uh huh."

  "Over half were never sold."

  That helped-sort of. As she gave him her report, he scribbled the information on the pad.

  "And of the remaining half-million," she said, "only about one hundred pair were sold in the greater Las Vegas area."

  He was liking the sound of this more and more.

  "The particular size that you gave us, men's size eleven, sold less than two dozen pair in the Vegas area."

  The smile split his face nearly in half. "Thank you, Ms. Kotsay. Great work."

  "Would you like the names and addresses of the retailers that sold them?"

  Would you like to marry me? he thought. "Thank you, Ms. Kotsay-that would be incredibly helpful."

  She faxed him the list.

  And then Warrick Brown went looking for Grissom.

  8

  AS CATHERINE LOOKED ON, DR. ROBBINS MATCHED Malachy Fortunato's dental records against the teeth of the mummy. Both criminalist and coroner were in scrubs, but underneath his, Robbins was in a pinstriped shirt and diagonally striped tie with charcoal slacks; he'd had a court appearance today.

  It was a little before seven P.M. -Catherine in early again, shift not officially beginning till eleven.

  The coroner would study the dental X ray, then bend over the mummy, then straighten to check the X ray, a dance Robbins repeated half a dozen times before waving her over. "Catherine Willows, meet Malachy Fortunato."

  She smiled. "At long last?"

  Nodding, he said, "At long last-trust me, this is indeed the elusive Mr. Fortunato. We have a textbook dentalwork match."

  "Well, well," she said, looking down at the mummy, her hands pressed together as if she were contemplating a fine meal. "Mr. Fortunato, it's nice to finally meet you. . . . Now that we know who you are, we'll see if we can't find your murderer."

  The leathery mummy had no reply.

  "Nice work, Doc," she said, and waved at Robbins on her way through the door.

  "That's what I do," he said to the swinging door.

  Out of her scrubs, Catherine ran into Nick, coming out of the lab.

  "Hey," she said. "You're in early, too, I see."
>
  "Hey," he said. But he looked a little glum. "DNA's going to take another week-they're completely backed up in there."

  "Doesn't matter," she said with a grin. "Dr. Robbins just matched the dental records to our mummy-Malachy Fortunato."

  "All right!"

  "You did good with that ring, Nick."

  "Thanks."

  They headed into the break room for coffee. Nick poured, asking, "When was the last time this office solved a mob hit?"

  "A week ago never. Surprisingly little of that in Vegas."

  "Like they say, you don't defecate where you dine."

  "I always try not to." She sipped her coffee, feeling almost giddy. "We're on a roll, Nick. Let's get this guy."

  "Sure-what's fifteen years between friends?"

  She half-frowned, half-smiled. "You tryin' to rain on my parade?"

  "No way. No statute of limitations on murder. What do you need from me?"

  She headed out of the break room, coffee cup in hand. "We'll get to that. First, let's go tell Grissom what we've got."

  After Warrick explained what they'd turned up at the casino and at the storefront in Henderson, Grissom said, "This still doesn't prove he's local."

  Grissom was behind his desk, jumbles of papers, a pile of binders seemingly about to topple, and an unfinished glass of iced tea cluttering the desk, as well as assorted displayed insect specimens, dead and alive. Warrick sat in one of the two chairs opposite his boss, and Sara leaned against a file cabinet in the corner.

  Sara said, "But the maildrop-"

  Grissom shook his head. "Our man could just be using the maildrop. And who knows how many slot cards he has in how many names, and in how many casinos . . . in how many towns."

  "What about the shoe?" Warrick asked.

  Grissom said, "That will help, particularly in ascertaining whether he's local. But half a million pair were sold nationally, you said."

  Warrick nodded, unhappily.

  Grissom continued: "For that shoe to be of any real benefit, we've got to find the foot that goes in it."

  Sara smirked. "The guy attached to the foot would also be nice."

  Warrick sighed and said, "Tomorrow morning, I can start watching the older tapes at the casino. If our man is local, that's a good place to look."

  "It is," Grissom said, nodding. "No luck with the prints? Anything on 'Peter Randall'?"

  "No and no," Sara said.

  Warrick shook his head. "Gris, you really think we're going to track this guy down? I mean a mob hit . . ." He shrugged helplessly.

  "You're thinking of that guy at the Sphere," Grissom said, "aren't you?"

  Not so long ago, Warrick had worked the murder, still unsolved, of a bad debtor who had been shot to death in a glass elevator at the Sphere Hotel-that M.O., though different, also reeked mob.

  "Maybe," Warrick said. "What makes this different?"

  "Among other things," Grissom said, "the evidence."

  Before Grissom could amplify, Brass came into his office from one direction, quickly followed by Catherine and Nick from the other. Brass, a stack of files tucked under an arm, gave Grissom a quick nod.

  "We've got a positive ID from the dental records," Nick said, dropping into the chair next to Warrick. "Our mummy is Malachy Fortunato, a local who disappeared fifteen years ago, owing the mobbed-up casino bosses a whole lot of money. The mummy's a mob hit."

  Warrick-who'd been kept in the dark about the similarity of the wounds on the two murder victims-sat forward, alert.

  "The mummy seems to be," Grissom said. "I'm still not sure about Philip Dingelmann. But I do believe they were both shot by the same man."

  With the exception of the blank-faced Brass, mouths dropped open all around the room.

  The homicide detective stepped up and tossed the stack of files on Grissom's desk. "We're pretty sure both crimes are the work of an assassin the FBI has monikered, of course, 'The Deuce.' He is apparently responsible for at least forty contract killings across the length and breadth of our fine country, over a period approaching twenty years."

  Perched in the doorway, Catherine asked, "How do you know?"

  "By the signature," said Brass. "Two vertically placed small caliber wounds approximately an inch apart."

  " 'Deuce,' " Warrick said dryly.

  "But we're going to need more than just the signature," Grissom said, "to prove we're right that these murders share a murderer."

  A brief discussion ensued, as those who knew about the similarities between the corpses skirmished with those who hadn't been in the know.

  Finally Grissom notched up his voice. "We may have a legitimate coincidence in the discovery of these bodies," he said.

  "The timing, you mean," Catherine said.

  "Yes-Dingelmann was killed prior to the discovery of Fortunato's remains, but basically they were simultaneous, unconnected events . . . a murder going down just about the same time as a long-dead victim of the same killer is unearthed. And nothing here indicates the two murders have anything to do with each other. Nothing yet, anyway."

  Nodding, Catherine said, "But the signature suggests the victims share a killer."

  "Now that's a coincidence I can't accept," Grissom said. "That two different murderers, connected to two different mob-related murders, would have the same M.O."

  Warrick said, "Two bullets in the back of the head, Gris, that's a sign of mob displeasure that goes way back."

  "This is more specific-vertically placed shots in this exact same location, an inch apart. That struck me from the start, not as a coincidence, but as the signature we now know it is."

  "How do we know?" Nick asked.

  Grissom sat forward. "After I examined your mummy, Nick . . . Catherine . . . I told Jim my theory, and he got his people digging in the national computers."

  Brass tapped the stack of files on Grissom's desk-twice. "This guy is not tied to any one organized crime family, in any one part of the country. He is apparently a freelancer with a shared client base-no one knows what he looks like and, as far as we can ascertain, no one's ever seen him in action . . . and lived to tell."

  "We already knew we had a contract assassin who did mob hits," Sara pointed out. "We now believe two murders, fifteen years apart, were the work of the same assassin. Other than that . . . how does this help us?"

  "It's more than we had," Grissom said. "We have context, now-we have direction."

  "Swell," Catherine said. "What do we do different?"

  "Nothing." His gaze met hers, then swept around the room including them all. "We still operate as if it's two separate cases . . . but now we keep everybody informed about what we learn. Catherine, you and Nick keep working on the mummy. Like Brass says, we need corroborating evidence. Find it."

  "You want us to prove this is the same hitter," Nick said.

  Catherine, an eyebrow arched, stared at Grissom.

  He looked back at her for a second. "No," he said to Nick, but holding her gaze. "Follow the evidence-it's still possible we might have two murderers."

  Catherine smiled.

  "What about the farm team?" Sara asked.

  Grissom turned to Warrick. "Watch those hotel tapes till your eyes bleed. . . . Sara, I want you to find out everything that's known about this killer. Study the files, but dig deeper. Look for linkages. Maybe other investigators missed something."

  She nodded.

  "Nicky," Grissom said, "get the bullets from both cases to the firearms examiners for ballistics tests."

  "Sure thing," Nick said. "But, uh . . ."

  "But what?"

  Nick shrugged. "We already know the riflings on the bullets match the gun barrel found half-buried next to Mr. Fortunato."

  Grissom nodded. "The killer ditched the barrel, yes, but maybe he didn't ditch the gun. We've still got bullets with a matching caliber on these two murders. We've got to cover all the bases."

  Warrick had been studying his boss, and his voice conveyed confusion as he said, "I
don't get it, Gris. Why do you think Dingelmann may not have been a mob hit?"

  "Just staying objective."

  "I'm the subjective asshole," Brass said, pointing a thumb to himself. "Philip Dingelmann was getting ready to represent Charlie 'The Tuna' Stark in the biggest mob trial since Gotti-why kill him? He's a golden mouthpiece, who'd already gotten Frischotti off, and Vinci, and the two Cleveland guys, Tucker and Myers."

  "What was he doing in Vegas?" Warrick wondered aloud.

  Brass shrugged. "This was probably his last chance to blow off steam, 'fore going into the tunnel of the trial."

  Nodding, Warrick said, "Yeah, yeah . . . but why kill him?"

  No one had an answer for that.

  "Let Jim here worry about motive," Grissom told his unit. "Concentrate on the only witnesses who never lie: the evidence."

  Nods and smiles, all around-they'd heard it before.

  Brass said, "We've done a lot over the years to get the mob influence out of this city. We need to catch this son of a bitch to remind these scumbags this is not their turf anymore-it's never going to be like the old days again."

  The homicide detective told Grissom the files were copies for the unit, reminded the others to stay in touch, and slipped out.

  "Personally," Grissom said, now that Brass was gone, "I think we owe less to the city fathers, and more to our two victims. Time doesn't lessen the injustice done to Malachy Fortunato-and an unsavory client list doesn't justify what was done to Philip Dingelmann."

  Warrick and Sara exchanged glances.

  "So," Grissom said, cheerfully. "Let's go to work."

  Outside the office, Catherine stopped Nick with a hand on his elbow. "After you get those bullets dropped off, can you check something for me?"

  "Sure-what?"

  "Mrs. Fortunato mentioned a dancer her husband was involved with at the time of his disappearance. She said the dancer . . . a stripper . . . disappeared the same day as her husband."

  "Do we have a name?" Nick asked.

  "Joy Starr. It may be a stage name. . . ."

  "You think?"

  "Either way, Nicky, we need to find her if she's out there somewhere. Preferably, alive."

  "You mean she could be another corpse, hidden away someplace?"