As with so many businesses, the trend in mortuaries had become the big ones eating up the little ones; many mortuaries had started out as “Mom and Pop” shops, passed down from generation to generation, but the advent of chains was ending that, as corporations bought out family businesses. Dustin Black’s Desert Haven Mortuary was an exception to that rule.
Still family-owned, Desert Haven was simply too big and flourishing for the corporations to buy out. The Black family had been in the business since the late thirties, when Daniel Black (Dustin’s grandfather) had purchased a very early embalming machine. Even though at the time Vegas was little more than a wide spot in the road, Daniel had set up shop as a mortician and the family’s course and fortune were set from then on.
Now the biggest mortuary between California and Arizona, Desert Haven was a pillar of the community and the mortuary of choice for those who could afford it. Anyone who was anyone wouldn’t be caught dead anywhere but here.
The packed parking lot told Grissom that even though it was barely noon, visitations were going strong. Elegant double doors with etched glass provided entry into a large foyer area where the CSI supervisor and the detective were met by a quiet young gray-suited greeter with a loud tie, a handsome kid in his very early twenties.
Grissom was a little surprised to be met by such a young representative—often, funeral homes used older people with a comforting manner. This boy seemed anxious.
“Which family, please?” the greeter asked.
“The Black family,” Brass said.
“I…don’t understand….”
Brass showed his badge, discreetly. “We need to talk to Mr. Black.”
“We’re really very busy.” This request seemed to have thrown the greeter. “I’m not sure…”
Brass smiled—it was a particularly awful smile. “You’re not very high on the food chain around here, are you, son?”
“Uh…”
“Why don’t you fetch your boss and let him make this decision?”
Dark eyes beneath heavy brows tightened in thought; then the boy nodded and gestured. “Would you mind waiting over there?”
“Not at all.”
They stood off to one side as the boy disappeared down a hall and an older man, with hair as gray as his suit, met incoming guests, and led them to the correct viewing room.
Three greeters moved in and out of the action like a well-oiled machine. People came and went, and always the three men—all of a certain age and bearing—were friendly, courteous, and helpful. One approached Brass and Grissom to make sure they’d been helped; they said they had.
Grissom was impressed—he’d seen casinos with less traffic. He knew the studies showed four million visitors a year, five thousand new residents a month…but how many deaths per month? How many funerals? How many cremations? Of course, Grissom knew better than most the certainty of death. The Black business was thriving, a dying business only in the literal sense, never in the financial.
Soon the young greeter delivered a tall man in his forties with an oval, pleasant face and a monk-like bald pate.
Probably at least six-five, almost heavyset, the man—distinguished in a well-cut gray suit with a blue-and-white-striped tie—moved with confidence and grace where many his size might seem oafish; a wreath of brown circled the back of his head and he had a full but well-trimmed mustache under a slightly crooked nose and wide-set, sympathetic dark eyes.
The tall man automatically stuck out his hand. His voice was mellow and he spoke softly, almost whispering. “Dustin Black—you gentlemen are with the police?”
Brass shook Black’s hand, making short work of it. “I’m Captain Jim Brass and this is Doctor Gil Grissom, our top criminalist.”
“That sounds impressive,” Black said with a ready smile. “Nice to meet you, gentlemen.” The mortician turned to Grissom and shook his hand also. “I’m a big supporter of you guys. I’m a member of the sheriff’s auxiliary.”
“Great,” Grissom said with a forced smile, wondering why morticians always reminded him of ministers—or politicians. This one—both.
“I hope Jimmy wasn’t too awkward with you, gentlemen.”
Brass said, “Jimmy’s your young greeter?” The boy had long since disappeared.
“Yes. It’s his first time up front, but we have four showings right now. Kind of…bumper-to-bumper here today.”
Grissom asked, “Jimmy’s last name is?”
“His name is James Doyle. Why?”
The CSI shrugged. “I’m just curious by nature, Mr. Black.”
“Ah. Well, Jimmy’s been with me for years.”
“Years?”
“Starting in high school, then as an intern during mortician’s school, and since his graduation. But I have a big staff, Mr. Grissom, over a dozen employees…. How may I help you, gentlemen?”
Brass glanced around at the people milling in the foyer, some on their way out, others on their way in. “Is there some place we can talk in private?”
“Concerning?”
“Concerning,” Brass said, “something you won’t want us talking about in the lobby.”
Black led them into a spacious room that was obviously his office.
As Grissom had expected, the mortician’s inner sanctum was as tasteful and staid as the rest of Desert Haven—a large gleaming mahogany desk, a wall of beautifully bound, probably unread books, lithographs of wintry scenes of cabins and barns in New England. Behind Black’s desk were three framed diplomas and a window whose wooden blinds were shut. A banker’s lamp threw a warm yellow pool of light.
Two visitor’s chairs in front of the desk looked freshly delivered and the whole office had a mild patchouli aroma to it. Black gestured for Brass and Grissom to sit as he circled his desk and dropped into his high-back leather chair.
This, Grissom thought, had to be the fake office, this sterile, impersonal room out of a furniture ad, a place where Black met with the grieving to offer support and advice in a blandly soothing surrounding; somewhere else in this building, an office with clutter and real work had to exist.
“How can I help the LVPD?” Black asked as he steepled his fingers under his chin and rested his elbows on the desk.
“Did you handle the Rita Bennett funeral?” Brass asked.
A confident nod. “Yes, her husband—Peter Thompson—is a close personal friend of mine.”
Grissom found that people who claimed many “close personal friends” seldom had anything but acquaintances.
“Losing Rita,” the mortician was saying, “was a tragedy—such a vibrant woman. She was a two-time president of the Chamber of Commerce, you know.”
Brass asked, “Which of this large staff of yours was in charge of the arrangements?”
Confusion creased Black’s face. “Why are you asking me about this particular funeral?”
“It’s come up in the course of an investigation. We’d like to know who was in charge.”
He shook his head, eyes wide, half in thought, half in surprise. “I can’t imagine what type of investigation would involve Rita Bennett’s funeral.”
“Bear with us,” the detective said. “Who was in charge?”
“I was,” Black said. “I oversaw Rita’s arrangements personally…. As I said, Peter is a close personal friend. Rita was as well.”
Grissom said, “Must be painful.”
Black blinked. “What?”
“We recuse ourselves in cases involving friends or family. Must be painful, preparing a close personal friend at a mortuary.”
“That presumes, Doctor, uh…Grissom? Doctor Grissom. That presumes a negative aspect to what we do.”
Grissom’s head tilted to one side. “Not at all. A physician does not operate on family, healing art or not.”
“You’re correct,” Black said, his voice spiking with defensiveness. “But I consider it an honor, a privilege, to use my art where friends are concerned. I would stop short of family, I grant you.”
Black clearly was working to hold back irritation. “I’m sorry, Captain. Unless you can give me some idea about why you’re here, I won’t be answering any more of your questions today.”
“Then I’ll give you an idea, Mr. Black—at the request of her daughter, Rita Bennett’s casket was exhumed this morning.”
The mortician frowned. “Why was that considered necessary?”
Grissom said, “Actually, that fact is not pertinent.”
Black grunted a non-laugh. “How could the reason for an exhumation not be pertinent?”
“When the body in the vault is the wrong one.”
Black blinked. “What?”
Brass said, “The body in the coffin was not Rita Bennett.”
Black froze, then recovered quickly. “Gentlemen, I’m sure you mean well, but there’s clearly been a mistake. That’s just not possible.”
Grissom said, “You’re right…”
The mortician gestured, giving Brass a look that said, You see?
“…there has been a mistake.”
“Well, the mistake was not ours,” the mortician insisted, and folded his arms, rocking back.
Brass leaned forward a little. “Rita Bennett was how old?”
“Late fifties. But she looked younger.”
“Did she look twenty?”
Black’s mouth dropped open, but no words came out.
“The woman in the casket,” Grissom said, “was at least thirty years younger than the woman whose name was on the headstone. Any ideas?”
“There’s no way…” Black’s eyes flashed in sudden alarm. “And you think I…we…had something to do with this…this switching of bodies?”
Brass said, “We’re making no accusations, Mr. Black.”
“We’re just gathering evidence,” Grissom said.
“What evidence do you have?”
“A body in a coffin. The coffin belongs to Rita Bennett. The body doesn’t.”
“Who the hell was in the coffin?”
“We don’t know yet; we’re working on identifying her now. You also have to agree it would be very hard to switch the bodies after the vault was sealed and the grave was filled in.”
Grasping at straws, Black said, “But not impossible.”
“The grave hadn’t been disturbed,” Grissom said, “and the vault was still sealed tight when we did the exhumation…. The evidence indicates the switch was made before the vault was sealed.”
“I understand why you’re here,” Black allowed. “That fact makes you think that, somehow, we here at Desert Haven had something to do with this unholy travesty.”
Brass leaned forward. “You were in our place—what would you think?”
“I see your dilemma, but I must assure you, gentlemen, there’s no way that anything like that could have happened at this mortuary.”
“You seem quite sure,” Brass said.
Black straightened. “Of course I am. I trust all our employees—we’re family, here. And none of them would do anything like this, and anyway…it’s just not possible. There are always too many people around.”
Grissom asked, “Can you offer us another explanation for the confusion of corpses?”
The mortician thought about it. “No—honestly, I can’t. And the truth is…I’ve never heard of anything like this before. It makes no sense to me. Why would someone trade one dead body for another?”
“Possibly,” Grissom said, “someone with something to hide, Mr. Black.”
“Something like what?”
“Oh I don’t know—a body, maybe?”
4
WARRICK WAS BONE TIRED. Beat. The long night he’d recently endured promised to be followed by what was developing into an equally long morning and afternoon. With two dayshift investigators out sick, and three others working a gang-related shoot-out in the desert, that meant overtime for everybody, which meant more money…but then you had to have a life to spend it on, right?
While the nightshift CSIs hung around and stayed on call for anything that might come up, they pursued their current cases.
Instead of drawing the shooting, which would have been enough to perk him up, Warrick (and Catherine) had been dealt some fairly unexciting cards—namely, following up on David Phillips’s hunch at the Sunny Day Continuing Care Facility.
Not that Warrick would give anything less than one hundred percent. Beneath a surface of steady purpose that could be mistaken for boredom, despite a wry and dry sarcasm that might suggest lack of interest, an alert, brilliant criminologist lurked behind the green eyes of Warrick Brown.
The CSI took his job dead serious, even when it meant fingerprinting bedpans and photographing walkers. Exploring a suspicious death at Sunny Day rest home may not be as compelling as working a gang-banger shoot-out, but it deserved all due consideration and deliberation. If foul play had been done to Vivian Elliot, then it was Warrick’s job to speak on her behalf.
As Grissom had said more than once, “We can’t give them back their lives, so we have to find the meaning of their deaths.”
By this Gris meant, in his oblique way, that the only thing left for a murder victim was justice—what could still be done for Vivian Elliot was to find her killer, and deliver that killer for punishment.
If Vivian Elliot had been murdered….
Such idealistic notions didn’t mean Warrick couldn’t run out of gas, however, and he was definitely driving on fumes. Catherine had shut herself in her office to (quote) catalog the evidence (unquote); but on his way to the breakroom, Warrick noticed no light under her office door.
Cath had to be just as whipped as he was; but she had remarkable recuperative powers—she could nap fifteen minutes and be good to go for another eight hours. Warrick, on the other hand, was pumping coffee through his system in hopes the caffeine would help fight the sluggishness that had settled over him like damp clothing upon their return from Sunny Day.
Uncoiling his tall frame from a breakroom chair, he strolled to the counter and poured himself another cup of what had purportedly once been coffee (the lab results weren’t back yet). He turned and looked at the table and chair he’d just vacated, and considered sitting back down and closing his eyes for what he hoped would be a short nap…only he didn’t have Catherine’s ability to quickly recharge, nor was the caffeine in his bloodstream likely to cooperate.
Instead, he would go check with David about the autopsy on Vivian Elliot.
Assistant coroner David Phillips often worked alongside Dr. Robbins in the morgue, but when Warrick peeked in, Robbins was in the midst of an autopsy with Nick and Sara looking on and providing whatever assistance might be necessary—no David. And Warrick could see just enough of the corpse’s face on the table to know she wasn’t their woman from Sunny Day; this corpse was young, if a corpse could be said to possess youth.
Warrick moved on in his search, which didn’t take long—the assistant coroner was two doors down in X-ray.
As Warrick walked in, David was adjusting the placement of the X-ray tube over Vivian Elliot’s remains. An X-ray had a multiplicity of uses where live bodies were concerned; and Warrick had seen such machines used even on dead bodies, to locate bullets or other foreign objects.
But the CSI wasn’t sure he knew what David was up to, using the thing with the late Vivian Elliot….
“Hey,” Warrick said.
“Hey,” David said. He smiled, glad for the living company apparently, and gestured. “Step into my booth….”
“Said the spider to the fly?”
“Or not. And don’t worry: That glow-in-the-dark rumor you hear is a buncha b.s.”
“I’m coming, teacher,” Warrick said.
David led Warrick into the control booth and hit a switch. Soon David shut it down, and moved quickly out into the main room to remove that film from under Vivian’s body and to place another a litt
le farther down.
“I could use a hand,” David asked.
Warrick joined David. “I don’t suppose you mean applause.”
“No,” David said, with his nervous smile.
Warrick turned Vivian slightly so David could get the film under her. “What are you up to, David?” he asked. “Not playing another hunch, are ya?”
“Not exactly. More…trying to confirm a theory.”
“Which is?”
“That someone at Sunny Day injected Mrs. Elliot with air, causing an embolism that sent her heart into seizure…after which she died.”
Frowning and nodding, Warrick said, “You think the killer did that, to make the death look like a heart attack?”
“I do—and this is something a bad guy could get away with…if the good guys weren’t looking for it.”
Warrick raised one eyebrow and gave David half a smirk. “First you think the woman was murdered, because you’ve been called out to that nursing home too many times….”
“Yes, that…but also, that none of the last four people who died at Sunny Day had any family to notify, remember.”
“I remember…and now you’re telling me the murder weapon is air.”
“Well, here’s another fact for you….”
“Facts are good. We like facts a lot better than hunches.”
“I know you do. The others have all been heart attacks, too.”
Warrick felt his skepticism fading and his interest rising; the facts were beginning to pile up like a winner’s chips, and something in David’s earnestness made Warrick want to trust the assistant coroner’s instincts.
After all, a “hunch” from an expert, the “instincts” of a professional, could be as valid as a physician’s diagnosis.
“The theory is really pretty simple,” David began. “The killer injects a fairly large syringe full of air into the victim. In Mrs. Elliot’s case, the IV catheter gave the killer an injection site that wouldn’t even be noticed. The air embolism reaches the heart and the muscle seizes. The outward symptoms are that the victim is having a heart attack, but the truth is…she’s been murdered.”
“Dispose of the needle,” Warrick said, “and it’s like you were never there.”
Grave Matters Page 7