Double Dealer ccsi-1

by Max Allan Collins

  "You're takin' a lunch break," Culpepper said, nodding to the half-eaten sandwich Grissom had put down. "I won't eat up any of your precious crime-solving time. . . . Relax, buddy. Ever think I might be here to help?"

  Bullshit, Grissom thought; but he said nothing. He would let the FBI agent do all the work.

  Sitting, Culpepper said, "Your people ran a print from a shell casing through AFIS."

  "We do that a lot."

  "Yes, and your federal government is glad to be of service."

  "Do you have a specific print in mind?"

  Culpepper nodded. "Related to a recent shooting at a resort hotel-the Beachcomber."

  "We got no match from that."

  "That's right. That's because a little flag went up-AFIS wasn't allowed to make that match-classified information."

  "Is that the federal cooperation you mentioned?"

  "The man who belongs to that print is a contract assassin. No one knows what he looks like, or who he is . . . but we've been looking for him ourselves, for a long, long time. And that's why I'm here-to share information."

  "Well thank you," Grissom said. "Let me think-when was the last time the FBI shared anything? Blame excluded."

  Leaning forward, wearing a disingenuous grin, Culpepper said, "I know we've had our differences in the past, Grissom-but this is a crucial matter. It relates to a plethora of organized crime matters. Consider this a heads up, if nothing else-this guy is bad people."

  Grissom remained cautious, skeptical. "Which is why you're going to help us catch him?"

  "Yes, oh yes-he needs to be stopped . . . and your unit, and Detective Brass and his fine contingent of investigators, seem to have the best shot at finally doing it."

  ". . . Right."

  "In fact," Culpepper said, "I've already forwarded our files to Detective Brass-everything we have on the Deuce."

  "That is cooperative," Grissom said. He didn't tell Culpepper that he and Brass were already on the trail.

  Culpepper beamed. "Now, you want to tell me what you have?"

  "Anything to cooperate," Grissom said.

  He didn't want to give up anything, but Gil Grissom knew how to play the game. He gave Culpepper the basics of the Beachcomber shooting-information he was pretty sure the FBI agent already had. He left out, among other things, the videotape evidence; and said nothing about the mummy at all. When he finally finished, he looked at Culpepper's insincere grin and said, "Now what?"

  "Nothing in particular," Culpepper said, rising. "Just nice to know we can work together like this."

  And he gave Grissom his hand, which Grissom accepted-the agent's flesh cool, clammy-and when Culpepper had gone, Grissom sat there for a while, looking at his own palm, as if thinking of running it through the lab.

  10

  THESE LINKED MURDER INVESTIGATIONS REPRESENTED JUST the sort of case Jim Brass needed-not that he'd ever admit it to anyone, himself included.

  Since his unceremonious return trip to Homicide, after the Holly Gribbs debacle, many of his colleagues avoided him as if he were a terminal case. Sheriff Brian Mobley spoke to Brass only when necessary. In recent months, Brass had, whenever possible, avoided Mobley, and would have ducked out fifteen minutes ago if the sheriff hadn't ordered him to come in and provide an update.

  With no enthusiasm, Brass knocked on the wooden door with Mobley's name and rank inscribed in raised white letters. After losing command of the Criminalistics Bureau, Brass had been reduced to a plastic nameplate on an anonymous metal desk in the bullpen.

  "Come in," came the muffled response.

  Bright sunshine from the huge window behind Mobley's desk infused the office with a white light that Brass supposed was meant to give the sheriff the aura of God. Unfortunately, it seemed to be working.

  Despite a well-tailored brown suit and crisp yellow tie, attire worthy of the chairman of the board of a small company, the redheaded, freckle-faced Mobley looked not so much youthful as adolescent, a boy playing cops and robbers . . . and the top law enforcement officer of a city of over one million souls.

  "Have a seat, Jim."

  The politeness made Brass even more uneasy, but he did as instructed. The wall next to the office door was lined with shelves of law books; on the left wall, a twenty-one-inch television-tuned to CNN, at the moment, sound low-perched atop a credenza. A computer sat on a smaller table on the sheriff's left, while his desk-smaller than the Luxor-appeared, as always, neat and clutter-free. The detective in Brass wondered if the sheriff ever worked.

  Brass had been under Mobley, some years before, when the latter had been captain of Homicide. In truth, the man was probably as conscientious and hardworking as anyone; but Mobley's job was more about politics, these days, than actual law enforcement.

  In 1973, the Clark County Sheriff's Department and the Las Vegas Police Department merged into one entity, putting the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department under the command of the sheriff. Now, the office more closely resembled that of a corporate CEO. Mobley was the fourth man to hold the position since the unification; rumor had it Mobley had his sights on the mayoral office.

  The sheriff used a remote to switch off the television. "Well, at least CNN hasn't picked up Dingelmann's murder yet."

  Brass nodded. "Local press has stayed off it-mob stuff's bad for tourism."

  "You got that right-but the national press will pick up on this, and soon. Dingelmann's too high-profile for some national stringer not to connect the dots."

  "I know."

  "It's bad enough that the newspapers and the local TV picked up on this 'mummy' business. Now that's everywhere. Is it true it was our CSIs who dubbed the corpse that way?"

  "I don't know."

  "Well, the press sure loved that baloney." Sighing, the Sheriff loosened his tie. "Tell me where we're at, Jim."

  The detective filled him in.

  Mobley closed his eyes, bowed his head, and pinched the bridge of his nose between two fingers. "Do we really think the same asshole killed two people, fifteen years apart?"

  "The CSIs are working to prove it now."

  "And?"

  "Who knows?"

  Mobley shook his head, scowled. "Stay on top of this, Jim. There's a lot riding on it."

  "Sir?"

  "We can look like champs if we catch this killer, or chumps if this guy gets away-bottom line'll be, we can't protect our city."

  "Yes, sir," Brass said.

  "And let's handle the FBI."

  "Sir?"

  A tiny sneer curled the baby upper lip. "Take all the help they want to give . . . but if the FBI makes the arrest, they get all the glory. Now, if we make the arrest before them . . ."

  "Yes, sir."

  "Okay, go get him."

  Brass left the office, searching the halls for Grissom, wanting to tell him about Mobley's challenge, in particular the avoidance of the FBI, which put him in rare agreement with the sheriff. Instead Brass met Warrick Brown coming down the hall in the opposite direction.

  "What are you still doing here?" Brass asked.

  Warrick looked at his watch and laughed once and grinned. "Overtime, I guess. I was working on stuff, lost track. I've got something I need you to do."

  Skeptical, Brass asked, "What?"

  The CSI explained about the running shoes and the different retailers.

  "All right, I'll look into it. You going home?"

  Shaking his head, Warrick said, "No. I'm going to the Beachcomber to look at some more tapes."

  "Cheaper than Blockbuster. Grissom still here?"

  Warrick nodded back down the hall. "Yeah, we're all still here. Somethin' about these cases, you know, intertwined like they are-it's like a bug we all caught. Can't shake it."

  Warrick disappeared one way down the hall, Brass continued the other. He finally caught up with Grissom in the break room. They sat on opposite sides of the table.

  Grissom took off his glasses, rubbed his eyes and looked at Brass. "So-tell me about our
friend Brian."

  Brass gave him the whole story, concluding, "The sheriff's hot to trot to close this case-these cases. Show the tourists we're on top of it. Show the citizens he's a great man."

  Grissom's half-smirk was humorless. "We'd like to solve it too, Jim. We're all working double shifts, what more-"

  "Whoa, whoa," Brass interrupted, holding up a palm. "Remember me? I'm on your side."

  Shaking his head, Grissom said, "Sorry. Stress. We're all feeling the pressure on this one."

  "Warrick said it was like a sickness."

  "The flu you can get over," Grissom said. "Search for the truth has no cure."

  "Who said that?"

  Grissom blinked. "Me."

  Looking surprisingly fresh in a blue silk blouse and black slacks, Catherine strolled in, a devious smile making her lovely face even lovelier.

  "I was wondering who committed the crime," Grissom said.

  "What crime?" she asked.

  "So you're the one that ate the canary."

  Her smile widened, eyes sparkled.

  Brass looked at her, then Grissom, then back at Catherine. "What?"

  "She knows something," Grissom said, his own smile forming.

  Pouring herself a cup of coffee, she said, "I know a lot of things."

  "For instance?"

  "For instance . . . I know that the same gun killed both Philip Dingelmann and Malachy Fortunato."

  Brass said, "I don't know whether to laugh or cry. The same killer responsible for two murders, fifteen years apart?"

  Grissom remained skeptical. "We can't say that yet, can we?"

  "No," Catherine said, sitting down with them. "Not quite yet. But I can prove that both men were shot with the same gun."

  Astonished, Brass said, "I thought you found a discarded gun barrel with the mummy."

  She said, "We did. Riflings matched the bullets we found in Mr. Fortunato's head, too."

  Brass struggled to follow. "But the bullets didn't match Dingelmann, right?"

  "No match, that's right."

  "So," the detective asked, "how can you say they were shot with the same gun?"

  Grissom-arms folded, sitting back-just watched her work.

  "Wait," Brass said, thinking back, "I've got it. This is just like Brad Kendall, the coffee shop guy."

  "Not quite," Catherine said. "Even though Kendall had changed out the barrel, we proved he used bullets from a box in his possession, matching the manufacturer's imprint. We can't do that here-these bullets not only didn't come from the same box, they didn't come from the same manufacturer. Doubtful our man would be using bullets from the same box of ammo, fifteen years later, anyway, right?"

  "Right, right, of course," Brass said, bewildered.

  Grissom just smiled.

  Catherine continued, "When a bullet is fired from an automatic what happens?"

  Brass sighed. "The firing pin strikes the primer, the bullet fires through the barrel, the casing gets ejected."

  "Bravo," Grissom said.

  "Shut up," Brass said.

  "There are," Catherine said, "three distinct marks on any shell casing fired from an automatic. Like you said, the firing pin strikes the primer. The extractor scratches the casing as it grabs it, and the casing gets slammed into the breech wall before it's sent sailing out of the pistol. Each of those strikes leaves its own individual mark that, like fingerprints, is different for every weapon."

  Eyes narrowed, Brass said, "And you're saying . . ."

  "The shell casings from the Beachcomber and the casing we pulled from Mr. Fortunato's driveway are from the same weapon."

  Brass allowed a smile to form. "Can we use that in court?"

  "There's no way of arguing against it," Grissom said.

  "But couldn't they say this evidence is tainted, because one of the casings was buried under asphalt for years?"

  Catherine said, "The defense can say that, but saying it's tainted won't make it so, and the argument won't fly."

  "Why?"

  "You familiar with these guys that collect guns from the Old West?"

  Brass shrugged. "What about them?"

  "Lately they've been using these same marks to verify the authenticity of pistols from Little Big Horn."

  "Matching firing pins to shell casings?"

  "Yeah," she said. "They've dug up shell casings from the battlefield and matched them to firing pins from pistols used by Custer's men. Those casings have been in the ground for over a hundred years. Our casing was protected from the environment between the gravel and the asphalt, and for only fifteen years."

  "Science and history meeting," Grissom said, loving it.

  Brass could only ask, "And this will work?"

  "Yeah," Grissom said. "It will work fine."

  "But we don't have the gun?"

  "Not yet," Catherine said. "But now we do know we're only looking for one gun, and the chances are if this guy hasn't gotten rid of it in the last fifteen years, he won't get rid of it now."

  Now Brass had something to offer: "It is amazing how some of these guys have a sentimental attachment to a damn weapon. It's put a bunch of them away."

  Sara joined the group. Grabbing a soda out of the fridge, she plopped into the chair next to Brass. She looked at Catherine, but her question was for all of them. "Why would a hitman . . . gee, somehow that's fun to say . . . why would a hitman this successful have a five-year hole in his career? Then, suddenly, resurface now?"

  "A hole?" Grissom asked.

  "Yeah," Sara said, nodding, sipping her soda, "no one's reported anything on this guy for just over five years. It's like he fell off the edge of the world."

  "Or went to jail for something else," Brass offered.

  Grissom shook his head. "No, there would have been a set of prints to match, then."

  Brass said, "Yeah, right. Didn't think."

  "Maybe he was sick," Catherine tried.

  "For five years?" Sara asked.

  "Or retired," Grissom said.

  They all paused to look at him.

  "Anything's possible," he said. "No more guessing-keep digging."

  "Well, fine," Sara said, "but where do you look on the Internet for retired hit men?" And she rose and headed back to work, her soda in her hand.

  Brass blew air out and said, "I better get going, too. I've got to hit the retailers that sold those running shoes." He got up, looked at Grissom and shrugged. "I guess we do what the man says."

  Grissom nodded. "The part about keeping the FBI at bay, I got no problem with."

  The detective departed leaving Catherine staring at Grissom. "And what was that about?"

  He tried to shrug it off, but she was having none of it.

  "C'mon, tell me."

  "Politics. Mobley wants to let Culpepper 'help' us, then he wants us to make the bust and cut the FBI out of it."

  "Kind of a dodgy game."

  "Yes, it is."

  She smiled. "But then, Culpepper is a real son of a bitch."

  Grissom managed to keep a straight face. "Yes, he is."

  In a nicely padded desk-type chair, Warrick sat next to a security guard in front of the wall of Beachcomber monitors. The guard, a short Hispanic guy in his early twenties, had just loaded the tape that Warrick brought in, showing Peter Randall's back at the poker machine, and Philip Dingelmann's reaction to seeing Randall. Then Dingelmann disappeared around the corner, Randall got dragged back to the machine, pulled his card, then followed, disappearing around the corner as well.

  They reran the tape and Warrick pointed at Randall. "I want to see anything else you might have with this guy in it."

  The guard nodded. "He's here nearly every Monday and Wednesday."

  Warrick's pulse skipped. "What was your name again?"

  "Ricky."

  "Hey, Ricky. I'm Warrick."

  Pleased, the guard said, "Hey, Warrick."

  "Tell me more about this guy, this regular."

  "Well, he didn't come this Wedne
sday, but he's a guy who likes the kind of off-times. Even a big place like this, you get to spot the regulars-particularly when studying these monitors for hours and hours."

  Dingelmann had been murdered Monday morning; and "Peter Randall" had missed his usual Wednesday round of poker-machine playing.

  "This guy, Peter Randall, he's a regular?"

  "I mean, I don't know the guy's name, but he's been around a lot-but just Mondays and Wednesday, early hours, like I said, off-times, slow times. Some people don't like a crowded casino."

  Warrick had never had a preference, as long as the dice were rolling. "Ricky, can you show me some more tapes of Mondays and Wednesdays?"

  "Warrick, don't get too excited. I don't wanna get your hopes up, man. You're not going to see his face on camera any other day either."

  "Why not?"

  Nodding again, the guard said, "I noticed him, all right? But he's pretty careful."

  "If you never saw his face, how do you recognize him?"

  "I don't know, man-watch these monitors long enough, you get a feel for it. I mean, the back of him always looks the same, right?"

  "Oh-kay," Warrick said.

  "I mean his height, shape of his head, haircut, even the style of clothes . . . you just start to read people. Know 'em."

  "Ricky, you ever get tired of this job, come see me where I work. I may have somethin' for you."

  Warrick and his new best friend looked at a tape from the previous Wednesday, about the same time. Again, Randall sat at the poker machine, his back to the camera, obviously wearing a different sports coat. He never turned toward the camera and when they tried other cameras in the casino, he managed to avoid those too.

  "How does a man come in here every day and never get his face on a camera?"

  Ricky shrugged. "Beats me."

  Warrick rolled his eyes. The guard had been right though, Randall came in every Monday and Wednesday; and his hair, frame, style of dress, made it easy enough to spot him, when you knew what you were looking for. They watched tapes for the Monday before the murder, and of the week before that, loading multiple tape decks of multiple angles on the casino, and Randall always showed up.

  He didn't always play the same poker machine, but he never went to the tables where he would have to interact with a live dealer. In fact, he usually stuck to the row of poker machines closer to the back door. Monday, Wednesday, week after week, he came. He played for about two hours, then he left. Sometimes he won, sometimes he lost. Either way, the next Wednesday, the next Monday, there he was again. And never once did the son of a bitch show his face on any camera.