The Blairs exchanged searching looks.
Then, at the same time, Mr. Blair said, “Yes,” as Mrs. Blair said, “No.”
The two laughed in awkward embarrassment, and Brass waited for them to sort it out themselves, each saying, “You first,” and “No, you.” Finally, Mrs. Blair said, “Lynn has stress, but I’m not sure it’s any more than anyone else, you know, in these troubled times.”
Brass sat forward. “You mean to say, you don’t consider her problems with her daughter, and her abusive husband, exceptional?”
Mrs. Blair shrugged with her eyebrows. “Well, I think the trouble with Lori, at least, is behind them.”
“But what about with Owen?”
Mrs. Blair turned to her husband. Arthur Blair’s lips peeled back and his eyes narrowed. The calm Christian removed his mask to reveal an angry human beneath. “Owen Pierce is a worthless, Godless son of a…” Blair’s voice trailed off and his knuckles turned white on the arm of the sofa as he struggled to control his emotions. His wife slipped her arm around his shoulder, comfortingly.
Captain Jim Brass had spent enough time with the Blairs, and people like them, to know that for Arthur Blair to come as close as he had to calling that son of a bitch Pierce a son of a bitch indicated an unfathomable depth of anger toward Owen Pierce.
“I take it you listened to the tape?” Blair asked, his voice still edged with an unChristian viciousness.
“Yes, sir.” Brass nodded toward Grissom. “We did.”
Blair sighed heavily. “Then you know what that monster must be capable of, to threaten his wife with that.” He shifted on the couch, sitting forward. “Understand something, Detective—I wouldn’t have allowed Gary to get involved with Lori if I didn’t think that Lynn was going to…divest herself of Owen, and soon.”
Millie Blair patted her husband’s arm in an effort to calm him.
“Normally,” Mrs. Blair said, “our faith discourages divorce. But Pastor Dan says, when a spouse has fallen into satanic ways, a person must protect one’s self, and children.”
Brass winced. “You don’t mean…literally…that Owen Pierce practiced satanism?”
“Of course not,” Mr. Blair said, sitting back, calmer. “But he’s a…devil…a demon himself. Capable of the worst atrocities…. ”
For the first time, Grissom spoke. “So, then, Mr. Blair—I take it you think Owen Pierce has made good on his threat to cut her into ‘little pieces’?”
Arthur Blair’s eyes became huge behind the lenses and his wife’s curled-fingered hand went to her mouth, where she bit a knuckle. Grissom might have slapped them, the way his words registered.
“That is what you think, isn’t it?” he pressed. “Isn’t that why you brought the tape to us?”
Mrs. Blair stared at her lap and covered her face with one hand and began to cry, quietly. Mr. Blair, slipping an arm around his wife’s shoulders, gave a tired nod.
Yes, Brass thought, Gil really has a way with people.
Grissom pressed on. “Do you think there are any circumstances at all under which Lynn might have just…left?”
Trembling with tears, Mrs. Blair shook her head.
Calmly, Grissom said, “Mr. Pierce said his wife had a significant amount of money in her own name and could have used it to disappear.”
“She had money,” Mrs. Blair conceded, the tears subsiding, “but it was all tied up in investments…stocks, bonds, CDs.”
Mr. Blair concurred: “None of it was liquid enough for her to get to easily.”
Nodding, Mrs. Blair went on. “She complained about that. It was something Owen talked her into. Even though she had her own money, she had little cash. I don’t think I ever saw her with more than, say, fifty dollars in her purse. Even though the money was hers, Owen seemed to keep her on a tight leash.”
The interview continued for a few minutes, but neither Brass nor Grissom found any new ground to cover. The Blairs had been unfailingly cooperative, but they were weary, and the detective and the criminalist knew nothing more was to be learned here, at least not right now.
On the way back, Grissom rode up front with Brass.
“Do you think Owen Pierce is the devil?” Brass said to the CSI, half-kidding.
“No,” Grissom said, seeming distant even for him. “But he’s a hell of a suspect.”
At headquarters, back from the strip club, Catherine sat down in the layout room, with a notepad and pen, the Dream Doll tapes, and a VCR. Meanwhile, Sara took their findings to Greg Sanders so he could begin testing.
The tapes weren’t labeled, so each one was a new adventure. The first one had been from the back right corner of the stage, the camera farthest from the door, the bar, and far to the left of the hallway. Only the chairs around the stage on the backside were visible from this angle.
No one fitting the description of Ray Lipton came into view. Catherine flew through the tape on fast forward, knowing she would view the tape more carefully later. For now, she just wanted to see what Worm, the cheerful DJ, had seen. Ejecting that tape, she moved on to the next one. This camera hung behind the left side of the bar, nearer the front door.
Halfway through the tape, Catherine was about to give up and move on, when she glimpsed, on the fuzzy black-and-white picture, a two-tone jacket. Stopping, she rewound the tape until the jacket came into view, and went in reverse, then pushed PLAY.
The guy came into view wearing the denim and tan jacket, a ball cap pulled low, dark glasses, and jeans. He walked through the shot and out the other side. She rewound it, ran it again. Something on the guy’s face…a beard? Worm had said Lipton might have grown his beard back; hard to tell with this tape. Popping the cassette out, Catherine went to the next, then the next—one after another, until she finally got through them all.
This Lipton guy, it seemed, had gone out of his way to avoid the camera. He hadn’t walked over to the bar, for a drink; and the camera above the door had gotten barely a glimpse of him…none of the stage cameras caught more than a snatch of him. Of course, Catherine told herself, with that restraining order, Lipton wasn’t supposed to be in there anyway, so maybe he was just being careful.
Only the camera at the head of the hallway got a decent shot of him, and that was of his back as he led busty, leggy Jenna through the door. Even with the poor quality of the tape, Catherine was able to make out the words Lipton Construction on the back of the jacket, as the couple disappeared out of frame.
Catherine sped the tape forward, until the figure in the jacket…bearded, all right…returned for a quick exit—alone.
“Conroy’s back.”
Catherine spun to see Sara standing in the doorway.
Sara ambled over to the monitor. “Anything good on?”
Catherine nodded. “Looks like Lipton was there, all right—got a good shot of his jacket going down the hallway with Jenna Patrick.”
“Time on those tapes?”
“Yeah…” Catherine pointed to her notes. “Time jibes. And Lipton, or anyway a guy in a Lipton Construction jacket, comes back out of the lap-dance cubicle…alone.”
“Interesting,” Sara said. “But why watch TV, when a live performance is available?…Come on. Conroy’s got the star of your show in interrogation.”
They walked quickly down several connecting hallways and ducked into the observation room next to interrogation. Through the two-way mirror, they could see Ray Lipton, directly across from them—sitting alone, eyes cast down, the streaks of tears drying on his cheeks.
“He must’ve loved her,” Sara said. “Crying for her.”
“Love’s the motive of choice,” Catherine said, “of many a murderer.”
Lipton’s hands were balled into fists and lay on the table like objects, forgotten ones at that. The denim jacket with the tan sleeves hung over the back of the chair. He was thinner and shorter than Catherine would have expected from someone in construction, with hazel eyes, a long, narrow nose and, to her surprise, no beard.
> Could she have been mistaken about what she’d seen on the video? He might have shaved, but…no, his cheeks were shadowed blue with stubble, indicating Lipton hadn’t shaved for many hours.
A moment later, Detective Erin Conroy entered the interrogation room, a Styrofoam cup of water in one hand, notepad in the other. She placed the cup in front of Lipton, said, “There you go,” and sat at the end of the table, giving her observers a view of both of them. Lipton picked up the cup, sipped from it, returned it to the table, then leaned his elbows on the wood, running his hands through his longish brown hair.
“I can’t believe she’s dead,” he said, his voice quiet and raspy, a rusty tool long out of use.
Catherine looked at Sara as if to say, “What’s he trying to pull?”
Lipton looked across at Conroy, his expression pitiful. “We were going to be married, you know.”
“Again, Mr. Lipton, I’m sorry for your loss,” Conroy said. “But there are some things we need to talk about.”
Lipton looked down, shaking his head, tears again trailing slowly down his cheeks. “Can’t it…can’t it wait?”
“No. The first hours of a murder investigation are vital. I’m sure you understand that.”
“Murder…a gentle soul like Jenna…murdered…. ”
“For Jenna being a ‘gentle soul,’ Mr. Lipton,” Conroy said, no inflection in her voice, “you two seemed to fight a great deal…especially for a couple about to be married.”
“But…we didn’t fight,” he sputtered. Then his eyes moved in thought. “Well…no more than anybody else. All couples fight.”
Conroy shook her head. “All couples don’t include a partner with a restraining order on them…like the one the court issued on you, to keep you away from where Jenna worked—right?”
“Oh Christ,” Lipton said, all the air rushing out of him. Catherine and Sara watched as, before their eyes, sorrow turned to despair. “You…you think I killed her!”
“I didn’t say that, Mr. Lipton.”
“DoI…need a lawyer?”
Conroy ducked that. “No accusations have been made. I simply asked if there isn’t an in-force restraining order against you.”
“You must know there is,” he said, sullenly. Now his voice grew agitated: “I loved Jenna, but I hated her job—everybody knew that. But that doesn’t mean I killed her. Jesus, she was going to quit! We were going to be married.”
“Where did you meet Jenna?”
“At…Dream Dolls.”
“You were a customer.”
“At first, but…. ” His look was more pleading than angry now.
“How do you explain being in Dream Dolls tonight?” Conroy asked. “Considering the restraining order.”
Now he sat up, alert suddenly. “Dream Dolls? I wasn’t in Dream Dolls! You think I want to go to jail?”
Conroy didn’t answer that.
“Lady, I was home all night.”
“That’s not what everyone at the club says.”
“What do you mean by ‘everyone’? Who says I was there?”
“Just the owner, the girls, and the DJ.”
“What the hell…” Lipton’s voice was incredulous; he shook his head, desperately. “Well, they’re mistaken. They’re wrong! Or maybe lying!”
“All of them? Wrong? Or lying?”
“That fucking Kapelos, he hates me. He’s the one took out the restraining order! He’d say anything. Where was he when Jenna was…was…”
He couldn’t seem to say it.
Conroy said, “And the rest of them? Lying? Wrong?”
He sighed, shrugged. “I don’t know what else to say—I was home all night. Honest to God. I swear.”
“Anybody to verify that?”
“I live alone, except…when Jenna stays over.”
And he began to cry. To sob, burying his face in his hands.
Catherine left the observation room, circled to the other door, and strode in. Lipton jumped in his seat, looking up, though Conroy didn’t even turn.
“Who…who are you?” Lipton asked, face a wet smear, eyelashes pearled.
“Crime scene investigator, Mr. Lipton. Catherine Willows.” She came around and sat opposite him. “Would you like to know how I’ve been spending the night?”
He swallowed thickly, shrugging as if nothing could rock him now—he’d been through it all. But he hadn’t.
Catherine said, “I’ve been watching videotape of you at Dream Dolls—videotape captured on security cameras…tonight.”
His eyes widened, lashes glistening. “What? But that’s…that’s just not possible.” His voice had a tremor, as if he was about to break down, utterly.
Still Catherine pressed, gesturing to his jacket. “I saw Jenna going into one of the back rooms, with a man about your size, wearing your jacket.”
“My jacket?”
“The jacket had your Lipton Construction logo on the back. Denim with tan sleeves—just like that one.”
Something close to relief softened his face. “Oh, well shit. I had those made up for all my guys, and even a few of our better customers.”
Conroy, poised to write in her notepad, asked, “How many jackets like this exist?”
Another shrug. “Twenty-five…maybe thirty.”
“Could you be more exact?”
“Not off the top of my head. Probably my secretary could. At work.”
A bad feeling in the pit of her stomach started to talk to Catherine, and she wished those security cams had caught a better face shot of the person wearing the jacket in the bar. Was it Lipton or not?
Catherine asked, “Have you ever worn a beard, Mr. Lipton?”
“What? Yeah…yes.”
“Recently?”
“No. That was last year.”
“You didn’t shave off your beard, this evening.”
“No! Hell no.”
Catherine studied the man. Then she said, “I’ll need your jacket, Mr. Lipton.”
“Sure. But I’m tellin’ you—I wasn’t there.”
“Jenna was strangled with an electrical tie.”
Lipton flinched, then shook his head. He could obviously see where this was going.
She said, “And when I search your truck, I’m going to find electrical ties in the back, aren’t I?”
“You…you could search a lot of trucks and find that.”
Catherine could tell Conroy was starting to have her doubts about the suspect, too, particularly when the detective tried another tack.
“While you were home alone tonight, Mr. Lipton, did you call anybody?” Conroy asked. “Anybody call you?”
He thought for a moment, then shook his head.
“D’you order pizza or something?”
This required no thought: “No.”
“What did you do this evening?”
Lipton lifted his hands, palms up, and shrugged. “I watched TV—that’s it.”
“What did you watch?”
“Was it…a football game?”
Conroy leaned forward now. “What, you’re asking me?”
“No, no, I know! Yeah, I watched a football game.”
“What game, what network, what time?”
He collected his thoughts. “I didn’t see the whole thing—I came in during the third quarter. Indianapolis Colts against the Kansas City Chiefs.”
Conroy was writing that down.
Lipton went on: “Just as I sat down, Peterson kicks a field goal for the Chiefs…then on the kickoff, some guy I never heard of ran it back for a touchdown.”
“That was the very first thing you saw?” Conroy asked.
“Yeah. Very first. Field goal. Peterson.”
“We’ll check that out, Mr. Lipton,” Catherine said. “If you’re innocent, we’ll prove it. But if you’re guilty…”
His eyes met hers.
“…we’ll prove that too.”
“I’m not worried,” he said.
But he sure as hell looked it.
5
A mid pine trees in a deceptively peaceful setting, a low-slung nondescript modern building played host to a maze of hallways connecting the conference rooms, labs, offices, locker room, and lounge of the Las Vegas Police Department’s criminalistics division. A sterile, institutional ambience was to be expected, but the blue-tinged fluorescent lighting and preponderance of mostly glass walls gave CSI HQ an aquarium-like feel that Nick Stokes, at times, felt he was swimming through.
In one of these hallways, Nick rounded a corner and all but bumped into Grissom, who had just returned from the interview with the Blairs.
Grissom paused, as if it took him a moment to register and recognize his colleague, who had also paused, flashing his ready smile.
The CSI supervisor did not smile, nor did he bother with a hello. “Nick, Sara’s teamed with Catherine on the stripper case—I need you to take over the search of the Pierce records.”
Nick shrugged. “No problem.”
“It’s all in Sara’s office—work there…she won’t mind. Look at the Pierce woman’s computer, her bank accounts, ATM, calling card, the works. Find us something.”
“How far has Sara gotten?”
“Start over. Fresh eye.”
“Okay.” Nick risked half a smirk. “I don’t suppose you considered assigning me to that exotic dancer case.”
Grissom’s bland baby-faced countenance remained expressionless. “No. Not for a second. Warrick, either. He’s on the Pierce case, too.”
“You gotta admit, this doesn’t sound like as much fun as interviewing nude girls.”
Now, finally, Grissom smiled a little. “But you’re like me, Nick—only interested in truth and justice, right?”
Then Grissom was gone, leaving Nick to wonder if that had been sarcasm…. Sometimes it was damn tough to tell, with that guy.
Nick set himself up in Sara’s office—she was out in the field with Catherine, but Grissom was probably right, she wouldn’t mind. Sara was that rare individualist who relished being a team player. Though his specialty was hair and fiber analysis, Nick—like all the CSIs Grissom had assembled—was versatile enough to step in and take over any other criminalist’s job. And a video-game buff like Nick was hardly a stranger to computers.
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