Grave Matters

by Max Allan Collins

  Catherine made a mental note to tell Vega to alert the staff should the unidentified woman come back to visit Vivian Elliot in the next twenty-four hours. After that, the obituary would have run in the newspaper, and Catherine doubted that they’d have any chance of locating the mystery woman…unless she showed up at Vivian’s funeral or someone on staff actually knew the visitor.

  “When was the last time you saw this woman?” Catherine asked.

  “Why, just this morning,” Alice said. “In fact, she left just a few minutes before we heard the alarm coming from Vivian’s room.”

  “Can you describe her?”

  “Fairly young.”

  Warrick asked, “How young?”

  “Oh—sixty-five or so.”

  That stopped Warrick for a moment; then he asked, “Description…?”

  “She had gray hair and glasses.”

  Catherine and Warrick looked at the group of women in the hall, and then at each other, confirming a shared thought: Alice had just described all of them.

  “We don’t usually have a fuss this big when one of us passes,” Alice said, eyes making slits in her much-lived-in face. “Why now? Was she murdered?”

  Trying to keep her voice and expression neutral, Catherine asked the woman, “Why would you think that, Alice?”

  The heavyset woman, Willie, glowered at Alice, then turned to Catherine, “Never mind her—she watches way too much TV!”

  “I do not,” Alice argued back. “I swear there was a case just like this on Murder, She Wrote.”

  Everyone in the hall stopped and eyeballed Alice for a long moment.

  Behind her tri-focals, Alice’s eyes widened and her chin rose defensively. “Well, there was.…Of course, it could’ve been Barnaby Jones…or maybe Rockford Files. Isn’t that James Garner just adorable?”

  As the woman prattled on about television, Catherine watched as the other members of the Gossip Club slowly eased away into real life, each suddenly needing to visit someone in a nearby room.

  Taking the hint, Catherine and Warrick slipped back into Vivian Elliot’s room, leaving poor David alone in the hall with Alice theorizing on what had happened to an old woman on some detective show she’d seen either last week or perhaps twenty-five years ago.

  “What exactly are we looking for?” Warrick asked as they unpacked their equipment.

  Catherine’s eyes roamed around the room, stopping briefly on the body, then moving on. She prided herself on her ability to make the first read of a crime scene an important one. But she could only shake her head. “Warrick—I haven’t a clue….”

  “I hate when that happens.”

  With a sigh, Catherine said, “We better gather everything we can. Now that we know that this was a murder.”

  Warrick’s head reared back. “We do?”

  “Suuuure,” Catherine said. “It was on Barnaby Jones! Or was that Quincy…?”

  Shaking his head, smiling one-sidedly, Warrick got out his camera, pulled the sheet back, and began shooting pictures. Catherine started by taking electrostatic print lifts from the tile floor. Truth was, half the hospital had been in and out of here since Vivian Elliot had died; but if there was a killer, that person’s shoe prints would be among the many, and Catherine hoped they (and the computer) would be able to sort them all out.

  After he finished photographing the body, Warrick moved on and took shots of every piece of equipment, every machine, every piece of furniture in the room. Catherine bent at the plastic biohazard dump and pulled out the liner bag, marking it as evidence. When they finished, Catherine had a pile of maybe fifteen evidence bags and Warrick had shot at least six rolls of twenty-four exposure film.

  And yet not a single thing had jumped out at either of them as saying, This is a crime…I am significant….

  David and his coroner’s crew removed the body, while Catherine and Warrick took most everything else. When they departed, the bed had been stripped bare, including the pillows, and the metal stand that had held two different IV bags was empty. The biohazard dump was also empty, the closet too, and in separate containers at the bottom of one of the bags, Catherine had even collected the remnants of Vivian Elliot’s last breakfast left on a tray that apparently had been shifted into the bathroom when the recovering woman had gone code blue.

  Alice Deams peeked out a doorway as Catherine strode down the corridor with the last of her grisly booty.

  “Was I right?” Alice asked, eyes wide behind thick lenses. “Is it murder?”

  “We don’t know,” Catherine said, pasting on a pleasant smile. “Why would you even think that?”

  “Oh! All the hubbub!” Alice said, as she moved into the hall, closer now, more confidential. “Besides…it isn’t like we haven’t noticed that more of us are passing away than usual.”

  Catherine’s eyes tightened, but she kept her voice casual. “You think so?”

  “Oh, my, yes. They’re dropping like flies around this joint!”

  A little stunned by Alice’s no doubt TV-driven phrasing, Catherine managed to ask, “How long have you lived here?”

  Alice shrugged; within the heavy sweater, her arms were folded. “Going on ten years.”

  “You have family that visits you?”

  She beamed and nodded and withdrew a snapshot from a sweater pocket, holding it up so Catherine (whose hands were full) could see it plainly.

  Alice said, “I carry this with me all the time—my son, daughter-in-law, and their boy and girl.”

  “Do they visit often?”

  “Once or twice a week. They take me to the market—sometimes even out to a movie.”

  Catherine nodded. “It’s good to have good kids…. You say, in ten years, you’ve never seen deaths bunched this closely together?”

  “Not really…. The Gossip Club sends flowers to everybody’s funeral. You know, we take up a collection, get everybody to sign a card. Our flower budget this month is already twice normal and there’s still a week and a half to go in the month! The last few months have been hard, too.”

  “How so?”

  “You get used to people dying in a place like this—in a way. But, still…. May I tell you something that will sound…awful?”

  “Uh…sure. Go right ahead.”

  Alice moved closer; she smelled like medication. “When you live at a nursing home…and don’t kid yourself, honey, this is a nursing home…and you see one or two people pass…you kind of sigh a sigh of relief, and think…whew. Odds are, not gonna be me this month.”

  “But lately…”

  “Lately? All bets are off, kiddo.”

  Catherine drew in a breath. Then she said, “Alice, we’re going to look into this—but I’m sure there’s nothing to worry about.”

  Alice Deams trundled off down the hall, but she didn’t look convinced; maybe that rerun of an old TV show was haunting her—more likely, it was seeing David show up with his coroner’s wagon a little too often.

  Catherine kept telling herself that four elderly people dying in one such facility was not unusual. The heat was at dangerous levels and, even though Sunny Day was air-conditioned, somehow that might be a factor.

  Later, as Catherine moved down the hall with her gear, Vega came out of Whiting’s office and approached her. He did not look like a happy man.

  “No good diagnosis from the doc?”

  “The guy’s such a basket case over this,” Vega said, shaking his head, “he might as well be one of the patients.”

  “What’s his problem?”

  “The usual—all he can see is lawsuits, malpractice insurance, and a bunch of really, really bad news happening on his watch.”

  “Can he live through one more question?”

  They knocked at Whiting’s office door and were again admitted. Within they found the frazzled physician sitting behind his desk, head in his hands. He barely looked up as they came in.

  “Doctor Whiting,” Catherine said, leaning a hand against the desk, not botheri
ng to sit. “Mrs. Elliot had a visitor, another woman, who stopped by this morning right before Mrs. Elliot died. Is there any way of finding out the identity of the visitor?”

  Whiting shook his head. “Other than our guard gate, we don’t have sign-in books or video security or anything. We spend the money we make on the residents, and maintaining a top facility.”

  “Wouldn’t security be part of that?”

  “We have security locks on the doors, but that’s about it. If Mrs. Elliot buzzed the woman in, or if one of the other residents simply opened the door for her, the visitor would be inside, and we’d have no way of knowing it.”

  “Isn’t that a little risky, Doctor?”

  “I don’t really see how.”

  “If your patients are being murdered…you may. Thank you for your cooperation.”

  Whiting was staring into space as Catherine and Vega left his office.

  Back in the corridor, Catherine asked the detective, “What do you think?”

  “I think David better hurry up and get that damn autopsy done.” Vega locked his eyes on Catherine’s. “The other three residents who died this month? All were without families, too.”

  “All?”

  “Not so much as a long lost cousin.”

  “Sam, that still doesn’t prove foul play….”

  “Well, we’d better find out from Vivian Elliot’s remains, because we sure won’t ever know with the other three.”

  “Why not?”

  “As part of a cost-cutting measure here at Sunny Day, all three were cremated. No family to have an opinion, much less a service.”

  “Four people in a month? It’s not that weird.”

  “Catherine, you were investigating that room for quite some time. That gave Dr. Whiting and me time to go over the records. Four this month, three last month, three the month before that, two each in May, April, and March, three in February, three in January—David isn’t the only coroner making pickups, you know. That’s a grand total of twenty-two deaths in less than eight months.”

  He opened the door and held it for her as she walked out into the heat. After the air conditioning, it was something of a shock. She braced herself for another.

  Glancing back at the detective, she asked, “Is that a high figure for a place like this?”

  “Almost double last year’s total for the whole year.”

  “Ooooh…and you think someone’s ‘helping’ these people to get out of Sunny Day?”

  Vega shrugged. “I was hoping you’d find out for me.”

  “Well, let’s start with Vivian Elliot first. You’ll check with that guard, to see if our visitor’s name got written down?”

  “Sure. On my way out, I will.”

  Catherine loaded the last of the evidence into the Tahoe. Warrick was still inside, getting the last of his gear.

  She turned to hold the detective’s gaze with her own. “What do you make of David’s hunch now?”

  Vega rubbed his forehead like he was trying rub all thought away. “He did the right thing—but I still hope he was wrong. The number of deaths this could make suspicious?…Guess what that’ll do to the homicide stats that the sheriff is loving so much right now?”

  Catherine decided to take that as a rhetorical question; even if it wasn’t, answering would be too painful.

  After Vega had disappeared into his own vehicle, Catherine sensed Warrick at her side.

  “You think we have a murder, Cath? Give me your best guess—I won’t tell Grissom.”

  “Well, Warrick, if it is a murder, we could be looking at a serial killer, and possibly, oh…two dozen victims? Most of whom have been cremated….”

  Warrick’s eyes glazed over. “I’m sorry I asked…. Keep your damn guesses to yourself, Cath.”

  She chuckled and got into the Tahoe, rider’s side. But the chuckle caught a bit.

  Something very evil might be turning Sunny Day cloudy indeed, in which case Catherine Willows doubted in the foreseeable future that she’d be taking a “normal” call again.

  3

  THE COFFIN HAD BEEN PLACED on a trio of sawhorses in the CSI garage to provide Nick Stokes and Sara Sidle with easier access. As if at a bizarre funeral, Nick leaned over the coffin and gazed down at the woman who lay peacefully within.

  No way this youthful corpse could ever have been mistaken for fifty-something Rita Bennett. Nick had never met Rita Bennett, but—like most Vegas residents—he’d seen her hawking cars in commercials often enough to recognize the woman; with her aging showgirl glamour, Rita had been a local celebrity with even a certain national fame, considering how many people came to Vegas and at some point switched on a TV.

  This woman—girl, really—was barely in her twenties, if that. Even after three months in a casket, pretty features presented themselves, the airtight vault having allowed the exposed flesh to gain just the barest patina of white mold, as if a spiderweb draped the girl’s face. For a moment Nick had an odd, even haunting sensation—it was as though the woman’s features were coming to him in a dream, through a translucent veil.

  Though the desert air didn’t cause human remains to break down in the manner common to more humid climes, moisture left in the body sometimes would be enough to give the deceased that distinctive sheen of white. Slim and auburn-haired, the woman revealed no visible wounds, the small trail of blood droplets on the pillow the only evidence, thus far, suggestive of violence.

  Jane Doe had a straight, well-formed nose, bangs that nearly covered large eyes closed over high, slightly rouged cheeks. Nick grunted and twitched a non-smile. Even in death, Ms. Doe seemed to glow a little, the desert conditions not having yet begun the mummification that occurred to so many bodies in the Southwest.

  Nick started with his 35mm camera, recording the casket and body from more angles than a fashion photographer at a Vogue shoot. When he was done, Sara stepped up to check under the woman’s scarlet-painted fingernails, looking for any evidence that this possible victim might have gotten a piece of an attacker.

  When finished, Sara shrugged and said, “Nothing.”

  “Fingerprints next?”

  “Fingerprints next.”

  While Sara inked the woman’s right hand, Nick used his Maglite to carefully search the area around the woman’s head. The blood droplets were small, even, and dried to a dark maroon.

  “Looks like she dripped,” Nick said, “while the killer loaded her into the casket.”

  “We don’t know there’s a killer yet,” Sara reminded Nick, though there was something unconvinced and perfunctory about her tone. “Anything under her head?”

  “Can’t see for sure…. Doesn’t look like it.”

  “Anything else on the pillow?”

  Nick eased the light around to get a better angle. “No…no…yeah! Yeah, right here—a short black hair.” He snapped a photo of the strand, then used a pair of tweezers to pick it up.

  “Not our vic’s,” Sara said.

  “Let’s hope it’s the killer’s.”

  “If there is a killer.”

  “If there is a killer. You have that feeling, too, huh?”

  Sara frowned. “What feeling?”

  Nick grinned. “That Gris is always looking over your shoulder.”

  She half-smirked, then said, “If there is a killer, that hair could still belong to somebody other than the killer….”

  “Always a possibility. And I don’t know enough about funeral homes and cemeteries to guess how many people might handle a casket.”

  Sara—after carefully cleaning ink off dead fingertips—slipped the corpse’s hand back into the coffin. “I oughta load these prints into AFIS.”

  “Go ahead—I’ll stay busy, and by the time you get back, we should be ready to pull her out.”

  Sara nodded. “Back in a flash—don’t you two run off.”

  Nick gave her half a smile. “We’ll wait for you.”

  With Brass behind the wheel of the Taurus, headed for the cemetery, C
SI supervisor Gil Grissom sat quietly in the rider’s seat, oblivious to anything but his thoughts, sunglasses keeping out much more than just glaring morning sunlight.

  Barring the possibility that they’d exhumed the wrong corpse, the body in the casket could only have been exchanged for Rita Bennett’s in a small and very finite number of places: inside the hearse, during transport, which seemed improbable at best; at the funeral home; or the cemetery.

  “Soooo,” Brass said, voice a little loud. “Do I take it, then, that you think the switch went down at the funeral home?”

  “Huh?” Grissom asked, blinking over at Brass, who glanced at him, shook his head, then turned back to the road.

  “I asked,” Brass said, just a wee bit testy, “if you thought the bodies were switched at the cemetery. When you didn’t answer, I figured—”

  “Sorry, Jim. Thinking.”

  “And what brilliant insight do you have for me?”

  Now Grissom shook his head. “None. Too early.”

  Brass’s tight eyes indicated he’d been mulling the same possibilities. “Wouldn’t it be hard as hell to trade bodies at the cemetery, if there was a graveside service?”

  “Graves aren’t filled in till after the mourners are long gone.”

  Brass considered that. “But the casket’s already been lowered….”

  “What goes down,” Grissom said, with a tilt of the head, “can come up.”

  The detective turned the Taurus through the gates and took a right into the gravel parking lot fronting the tiny office of Desert Palm Memorial Cemetery, which looked like a homespun stone cottage…which just happened to have had a cemetery spring up around it. Brass parked, then Grissom and the detective exited the vehicle and the blast of hot air was immediately withering. A little bell clinked when Brass opened the door and the two men entered into more blessed air conditioning.

  The room was small and square with one window next to the door and another on the far facing wall, the green of the cemetery visible through both. A battered gray battleship of a metal desk lurked to their right, a woman of about sixty seated behind it in a short-sleeve rust-colored white-floral-print dress.