Sara’s eyes tightened. “You think he’s dangerous?”
“Whoever killed James Moss is definitely dangerous. And just because Tony seems devastated, that doesn’t mean he isn’t our man.”
Sara nodded.
“You two be careful,” he said. To Maher, he said, “Look after her.”
“I can look…” Sara said, but then stopped. She was obviously going to say she could look after herself, but for some reason she didn’t complete the thought. Instead, she smiled and said to Grissom, “Thanks.”
What was that all about? he wondered.
Maher and Sara headed out of the lobby, while Grissom lagged. Gingerly, he picked up his coffee cup, careful to touch only the handle—the part Amy hadn’t touched—and walked across the lobby. In the men’s room, he dumped the coffee down the drain. Again carrying the cup by only the handle, he went to the elevator and waited for its return—Sara and Maher had already gone up.
Grissom’s room was hardly designed to be a crime lab, but, this evening, it would just have to suffice.
The door and bathroom occupied the north wall; a window on the south wall overlooked the lake, in front of which squatted a round table and two chairs. The east wall was home to a fireplace, and to the left stood an armoire with three drawers and two doors that opened to reveal the small television. The single bed and a nightstand hugged the west wall.
He had just finished clearing the table of his books and hotel literature when a knock came at the door, which he opened to reveal a perplexed Herm Cormier, standing next to a galvanized steel garbage can.
“How’d you do, Herm?”
“Hope you been a good boy, Dr. Grissom, ’cause Santa brought you everything on your damn list…but I can’t for the life of me figure why you wanted this bunch of stuff.”
“You’re welcome to stay, Herm—and see for yourself.”
“I thought I was a damn suspect!”
“You are,” Grissom said pleasantly. “This way I can keep an eye on you.”
Shaking his head, Cormier picked up the garbage can and squeezed past Grissom into the room. “You know, Dr. Grissom, I can’t tell when you’re kiddin’ or not.”
“Good,” Grissom said.
Before the CSI supervisor could close the door, Sara and Maher appeared as well, the constable holding a pair of stylishly clunky black boots, Sara holding a plastic bag with a drinking glass inside.
“Mr. Cormier, could you get me that pan now, please?”
“Sure.”
“Make sure it’s good and hot.”
“Oh I will,” he said, and stepped back out, pulling the door shut behind him.
“He’ll be right back,” Grissom assured his confused associates. Turning to Sara, he asked, “Any trouble with Dominguez?”
“No,” Sara said, and her expression was compassionate. “He really is broken up. Just sitting there. Not even crying, just…”
Maher finished for her: “Kid says he’ll help us any way he can, to catch James’s killer.”
Sara shrugged a little. “He seemed sincere.”
“Well, let’s see,” Grissom said. “First, Sara, I want you to compare Tony’s boots to the castings from both the crime scene and the lake. You can use the bed as a workstation.”
She nodded and Maher handed her the boots.
“Set the glass on the table,” Grissom said to her. “That’s my fingerprinting station.”
She placed the plastic bag next to the coffee cup that Grissom had brought up from the lobby. “Amy’s prints?” Sara asked, indicating the cup.
“That’s right,” Grissom said.
“What can I do to pitch in?” the constable asked.
“You can start with helping me unload that garbage can. Then we’ll set you up in the bathroom.”
Maher grinned. “That’s my station, eh?”
They took the lid off the can and were greeted by a cornucopia of seemingly unrelated items. Grissom reached in for a battery-operated drill and handed it to Maher, who gave him a quizzical look. Next Grissom withdrew a five-pound sack of flour, a basting brush, a tube of Super Glue, two wire coat hangers, a magnifying glass, and an inkpad for rubber stamps.
“Not exactly a cutting-edge lab,” Maher said.
“No, but they like it rustic here at Mumford Mountain Hotel, right?…Let’s start by getting you going. Cormier’ll be back soon, and we need to be ready.”
Sara, already hard at work, called out, “Size is way off on the boot—not even close. Soles have way different markings too.”
“Appears the Doc Martens are innocent, anyway,” Grissom said. “Now, Sara, see what you can get from the gloves.”
She went back to work.
In the bathroom, Maher put the garbage can in the tub, then sat on the toilet, drilling holes in the can’s lid, while Grissom pulled down hard on the bottom of one wire coat hanger, thinning and elongating the hanger until it was hotdog-shaped with a hook on one end; then he pulled the tail end up into a U, forming a small rack.
“How’s the trashcan?” asked Grissom.
Maher said, “She’s ready.”
A knock at the door told Grissom that Cormier was ready, too. Putting the hangers in the sink, the CSI left the bathroom and answered the door.
Herm Cormier stared at the nearly red-hot pan he clutched in a pot-holder-protected hand.
“Hot comin’ through,” the hotel man said.
Grissom stood aside and allowed Cormier to pass by, holding the orange-bottomed frying pan away from him, as if he had a skunk by the tail.
“Bathroom, Herm,” Grissom said. “Put ’er right in the bottom of the garbage can.”
Cormier did as he was told, then backed out of the bathroom.
“Good job,” Grissom said to him.
But Cormier had the dazed expression of a small child forced to attend a long ballet.
In the bathroom, Grissom found that Maher was ahead of him, having already bent the hooks of the hangers through the holes in the lid of the garbage can.
Grissom dripped drops of Super Glue onto the red-hot pan, as Maher carefully draped the folded ziplock bag from the lake over the normal hanger. On the bent hanger, the constable balanced the knife across the bars of the U, and said, “Ready.”
After a dozen or so drops, Grissom stopped and waited; a few seconds crawled by and the glue began to smoke. “All right,” Grissom said, timing it, “now.”
Maher eased the lid down on top of the garbage can.
“Mind if I ask you boys what the hell you’re up to?” Cormier asked.
Matter-of-factly, Grissom said, “Fingerprinting.”
The old boy’s eyebrows rose. “Fingerprinting…with Super Glue, coat hangers, and a garbage can?”
Grissom shrugged. “You use the tools at your disposal.”
Rising from the toilet, Maher said, “If you don’t mind, eh, I’ll step out in the hall and have a smoke.”
“It’s a life choice,” Grissom said.
Maher thought about that for just a moment, then went out.
It would be at least ten minutes, Grissom knew, before they could open the can. The process would have to be repeated with the gun, the casings, and the bullet. While he was waiting, he went in to check on Sara’s progress.
Cormier was now leaning against the armoire, watching Sara work.
Sara smiled tightly at Grissom, holding up the gloves, and said, “Killer definitely wore these.”
“The cut on the cloth mirrors the cut on Amy Barlow’s hand.”
Enthusiasm danced in the young woman’s eyes, though her words were understated: “I would say so.”
Grissom prized her love for the job.
The hotel manager stood away from the armoire; confronted with damning evidence regarding his waitress, he looked stricken. “I can’t believe it—Amy? She’s such a nice girl…such great people skills.”
Sara arched an eyebrow. “You may wish to revise that opinion.”
Gr
issom moved to the table by the window on the lake, and sat down with the flour and the basting brush. Carefully, he applied a little flour to the coffee mug that Amy had served him downstairs—that it was a dark green cup was a nice little break. Brushing away the excess flour, he saw a surprisingly well-defined partial.
Flour was maybe five percent as good as commercial fingerprint powder, but in a spot like this, five percent was a good number. When he finished, Grissom had three partials and a pretty good thumbprint. He dusted the glass from Tony’s room and discovered a workable set of prints there as well. Of course, Sara had asked the waiter to pick up the glass specifically to provide his fingerprints—no trickery, as with the waitress—so Grissom wasn’t terribly impressed.
Maher strolled back in and they opened the garbage can to reveal several smudged fingerprints, a couple of good ones and what appeared to be a partial off the glove. And they got three more prints from the ziplock.
Grissom called out for Cormier.
A few moments later, the hotel manager peeked into the bathroom; he still had a shell-shocked look, no doubt due to learning his waitress, a good and valued employee, was likely a murderer.
Without looking at the man, Grissom asked, “Could you heat the pan up again?”
“Yes, sir,” Cormier said, and Maher handed him the pan and the potholder.
The hotel manager, his expression hollow, sleepwalked away, and Grissom followed him, stopping him at the hotel room door. “You do know you can’t say anything to anyone about this.”
“Yes, Dr. Grissom.”
From across the room, Sara called, “That includes Pearl, Mr. Cormier!”
“Pearl,” the hotel manager said numbly, “ ’specially.”
Grissom said, “Mr. Cormier?”
Seeming to snap out of it a little, Cormier looked at Grissom.
“If you give Amy a heads-up,” Grissom said, smiling his pleasant smile that was not at all pleasant, “I’d have to construe that as aiding and abetting.”
Cormier came fully awake. “Wouldn’t do that, sir. Amy’s just an employee…. I only…it’s just…”
“People are a disappointment?”
Cormier swallowed. “Yes, sir.”
Grissom made a clicking sound in his cheek. “I find insects are much more consistent…. Go.”
“All right,” said Cormier, then he walked out the door, a little of the zombie creeping back in.
While they waited for the hotel manager to come back, Grissom and Maher sat at the table by the window and, using the magnifying glass, compared the prints from the coffee cup and the ziplock bag.
“I think that’s a match,” Maher said, frowning.
“Tough to tell in conditions like this,” Grissom said. “But it does look close—statistically, prints from such a small sample of people, appearing this similar, would just about have to be a match.”
When Cormier returned with the heated pan in hand, he said, “I need to get back downstairs.”
Still at the table, Grissom, not exactly suspicious—not exactly not suspicious—glanced over at Cormier, poised at the doorway, and asked, “Why is that, sir?”
“Pearl got through to the sheriff once,” the hotel man said, “but got cut off. I’m gonna take another crack with my ham radio.”
As the hotel manager was leaving, Sara got her cell phone out of her purse and punched in Catherine’s number. This time she heard nothing, not even the robotic voice. She put the cell phone away and went back to work.
Grissom and Maher returned to their bathroom crime lab. Grissom attached the pistol to the hanger, placed the bullets into a glass wrapped in one of the hangers, dripped more Super Glue on the reheated pan, then placed the lid on top. Again they waited and again they were rewarded: good prints revealed themselves, from several of the casings and the bullet. The gun had been mostly wiped clean, but a glove print appeared on the barrel, and Grissom felt sure it would match the wear patterns on the gloves Sara was processing.
Grissom sighed in satisfaction, and gave Maher a businesslike smile.
“What say we go find Amy Barlow?” Grissom said.
“And her boots,” Maher said.
The trio of criminalists went to the waitress’s room, and Grissom knocked on the door, but got no response.
“We could pick the lock,” Maher said.
“Not and have what we find hold up in court,” Grissom said. “Not in this country.”
Maher frowned. “What about getting Cormier to give us permission? I mean, he’s the manager.”
Sara said, “Supreme Court ruled in 1948 that, under the Fourth Amendment, a hotel room counts as a person’s home.”
Grissom added for the constable’s benefit, “Even if our buddy Herm gave us his permission, whatever we found would still get thrown out.”
The three tried the dining room, on the second floor, but the waitress was not there. They split up and looked around the main floor, but couldn’t find her. They met at the front desk, to track down Cormier and see if he had any notion where Amy Barlow had gone.
Through an open doorway behind the desk, they could see the hotel man in a small office, seated at a desk, bending over a microphone, fiddling with knobs on his ham radio set.
“Tom,” Cormier was saying into the mike, “can you hear me?”
Static was the only response.
Grissom slipped behind the desk, the others following him. He stood in the doorway and said, “Excuse me…Herm?”
The hotel manager jumped and swung around. “Judas H. Priest! You have to scare me like that, with a murderer on the loose?”
Grissom smiled. “Just the kind of discretion I was counting on, Herm.”
“…I’m sorry. Really, Dr. Grissom, I haven’t told a soul…. ”
“Have you seen Amy?”
He nodded. “Just a few minutes ago.”
Grissom’s eyes tightened. “Where?”
Cormier gestured vaguely. “Out in the lobby. Said she was wondering what was wrong with Tony. Said she hadn’t seen him since he came draggin’ in, looking all depressed, and since it was almost time for the dinner rush…”
Grissom turned to give Sara and Maher a concerned look, even as he said to Cormier, “And you didn’t think maybe you should’ve called that to my attention?”
Sara was shaking her head, eyes wide with dread. “Oh, she wouldn’t…would she? With us around?”
“With her people skills,” Grissom said, already on the move, “she just might.”
The trio sprinted across the lobby, eyes of the scattered guests popping up from books and magazines, responding to the unusual commotion in this quiet place. Grissom punched the UP button and they waited as the ancient car made its slow descent.
When the bell dinged and the doors groaned open, Grissom was about to rush in, when he found himself nose to nose with…
…Amy Barlow.
This gave the slender but bosomy waitress a start, and she jumped back, dark ponytail swinging, eyes wide in shock, her hands coming up in a defensive pose.
Recovering quickly, Grissom held the elevator door open and looked in at the woman, in the cell-like space, and said, “Amy Barlow, you’re under arrest.”
As he recited her rights, Amy made a face—part confusion, part disgust. “What the hell for? You’re not a cop!”
“Call it a citizen’s arrest…for the murder of James Moss.”
Her eyes widened more. “What?…Is that who was killed out in the woods? Jimmy?”
Sara stepped up beside Grissom, further boxing the woman in. “This is where you try to summon up some tears. I’d save the indignant act for later.”
The waitress just stood frozen for several long moments; then she said, “I’m shocked, that’s all. He was my boyfriend…. Everybody deals with grief, different.”
“I heard you two broke up,” Grissom said.
“That’s a lie! Who told you that? That queer?”
Grissom sighed, then stepped a
side and gestured with mock gallantry for her to step out of the elevator. “Why don’t you come with us…for a little grief counseling?”
She glared at him, slouching out into the lobby.
Grissom took her firmly by the arm, and turned to Maher. “Constable, go get a passkey from Cormier and get upstairs, and check on Tony Dominguez.”
“I thought Cormier couldn’t open a—”
“I’m not worried about evidence,” the CSI said. “I’m concerned for that kid’s life.”
Amy sneered at them. “Why? He isn’t!”
“Charming,” Sara said.
But Cormier, to his credit, had anticipated this, and was right there with the passkey, which he handed to Maher, who got onto the elevator.
“Sara,” Grissom said, “hold the door!…Herm, you need to accompany the constable.”
Cormier joined Maher in the elevator and, before the doors closed, Grissom—still holding on to his sullen suspect’s arm—said, “Mr. Cormier, could we use your office?”
The hotel manager nodded as he gazed at the waitress in disbelief. “I just can’t fathom it, Amy, you doing this.”
“I didn’t do anything, you old fart,” she said.
Cormier’s eyes showed white all around, as the elevator doors shut over him.
Grissom and Sara each took an arm and guided Amy behind the front desk to the larger of the offices back there, which was still fairly small, just a wooden desk, a couple file cabinets, and a big calendar of Hawaiian scenery—people who ran resorts longed for vacations, too, Grissom figured.
He ushered the waitress to the desk chair, as Sara closed the door.
“I didn’t do anything to anybody,” Amy said. Superficially, she seemed calm, but a tiny tremor underlined her words. “You should be after that faggot, Tony—he’s been, like…stalking Jimmy. What musta happened is, Jimmy spurned his pervert advances, and that sick creep went ballistic.”
Grissom said, “That’s your theory, is it?”
Sara, leaning against the door, arms folded, said, “Somehow you don’t seem very upset, or surprised, for a woman who just lost the love of her life.”
She shrugged. “I’m in, like…shock.”
Sara smiled a pretend smile at the waitress and said, “You might want to, like…work on that before your trial.”
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