Grave Matters

by Max Allan Collins

  “Where are you with that?”

  “She’s not the priority, Sheriff.”

  “Her body is missing, and she’s not a priority?”

  “I didn’t say she wasn’t ‘a’ priority—I said she wasn’t ‘the’ priority. The murdered teenager we found in her casket is.”

  Atwater nodded knowingly, then said, “Rebecca Bennett is quite distraught over this.”

  “Really. I didn’t think she and her mother were close.”

  “How close would somebody have to be to their mother, Gil, to be upset about having her body go missing?”

  “That would probably vary.”

  Atwater sighed. “Look, I’m not trying to tell you how to do your job—”

  “Good.”

  “But I don’t know how long we can keep this from Peter.”

  “Peter Thompson? Rita Bennett’s husband?”

  “Right.”

  Grissom never failed to be surprised by the behavior of the human animal. “You haven’t told Mr. Thompson that his deceased wife is missing?”

  Atwater sat for a long moment before shaking his head. “When Brass told me Rita was missing, I hoped you and your crew would solve this quickly, and we could avoid telling Peter…you know, until we’d recovered Rita’s body. I mean, why cause him any needless aggravation or grief?”

  “Because he’s a contributor to your campaign, you mean?” Grissom blurted. Immediately, he wished he could withdraw the words.

  Surprisingly, Atwater took no offense. The smile was gone, and he merely seemed weary. “Politics is a dirty word to you, Gil—I know that. You found my predecessor, Brian, far too political for your taste.”

  “We worked well enough together. You know our arrest and conviction record.”

  “I do. But your conflicts with Sheriff Mobley are frankly legendary. Let me explain something to you—in the kind of clinical, even scientific manner you should understand. Look around you—look at the technological wonders at your fingertips—look at a crime lab, a facility, that is among the finest in the nation.”

  “I don’t take that for granted,” Grissom said.

  “With all due respect, Gil—I think you do. You disdain politics—but where do you think facilities like this come from, in a state where there’s no damn income tax? Figure it out, man.”

  Faintly chagrined, Grissom said, “You have a point, Rory. Easy enough for me to criticize, while you’re in the trenches, trying to get me my toys.”

  “Thank you. Now, you may not like it, but the outcome of this case has political ramifications.”

  “What are you asking me for, Rory?”

  “Just your best.”

  “No problem,” Grissom said.

  Atwater nodded, then his eyes narrowed. “Do you think Peter Thompson could have killed Rita…and then somehow switched the bodies to keep us from exhuming Rita and doing a proper autopsy?”

  “You mean, is he a suspect?”

  “Yes.”

  “Everyone related to the case is a suspect. But I would say, doubtful.”

  The sheriff fidgeted and Grissom wondered how big a campaign contributor the Bennett-Thompson family had been.

  “Talk me through it,” Atwater said.

  “Well…not to bore you with details about the funeral home and its layout and how they do things…Thompson would literally have had to smuggle his wife’s dead body in and out while he was with the funeral party. Seems absurd on its face.”

  Atwater nodded. “I just want to make sure we’re covering our—”

  “Bases?”

  “Right. Gil, could it have been a mistake? You know, a mix-up, either at the mortuary or cemetery?”

  “On any given day there’s, what? Maybe two dozen funerals in Vegas, spread over a dozen or more mortuaries? Then on top of that, we have two corpses in the exact same casket at the exact same time? The odds would seem astronomical.”

  “Who is this Kathy Dean?”

  “A young woman someone killed—we’re working on why and who. But someone intentionally put her where she was, so she wouldn’t be found. What better place to hide a body?”

  “But what about the damn body that had to be displaced? What good does it do to get rid of one body and have another on your hands?”

  “That would seem to be the question. But the answer is wrapped in somebody hoping to get away with murder…who won’t, if we have anything to say about it.”

  “And that someone isn’t Peter Thompson.”

  “I don’t think so. But if it is—and even if he’s your biggest contributor, Sheriff…he will go down for it.”

  Atwater slapped his knees, then rose. “Wouldn’t have it any other way.”

  And the sheriff was gone.

  The four of them got into the Taurus, Brass driving, Sara in front, the Deans in the back. As they pulled away from the forlorn stucco house, Brass knew he would have to steer the conversation as much as the car. Sara would expect this and just sit quietly and follow his lead. They were less than a block when he started offhandedly in.

  “What kind of student was Kathy?” he asked.

  “Straight A’s since junior high,” Mrs. Dean said. “Never anything lower than a B before that.”

  “Involved in a lot of activities?”

  “Band, chorus, drama club, Spanish club…in the spring she ran cross-country on the track team.”

  Looking in the rearview mirror, Brass could see that he was already doing well—Crystal Dean wasn’t thinking about where they were going…the morgue…or what they would see when they got there…her daughter’s body. She was, instead, answering his questions, keeping her daughter alive.

  “She liked cross-country?”

  In the rearview, Mrs. Dean actually smiled a little. “She said she loved the quiet of running alone.”

  Brass said, “Really into it, huh?”

  The father finally spoke up. “She was, but she always kept her grades up. That was her number-one priority.”

  “What about college?”

  Mrs. Dean sniffed, said, “She was…was going to start at UNLV. This fall.”

  Dean added, “She had a dual scholarship. Track and academics.”

  “Wow. How often does that happen?…Lot of her friends going to UNLV, too?”

  “Not really,” Mrs. Dean said. “Kathy didn’t have all that many friends. Don’t get me wrong—she was no wallflower, she was popular, in her way.”

  Sara smiled and glanced over her shoulder. “Lovely girl.”

  Her mother went on: “Kathy knew lots of people, had many acquaintances, she just wasn’t…close to a lot of them. She was more of a loner. Focused on her studies.”

  Sara asked casually, “She have a boyfriend?”

  “No!” Dean said.

  The response was loud (and surprising) enough to make Sara jump a little.

  Brass wondered why the reaction had been so strong, but decided not to push it. He glanced over at Sara and gave her a signal with his eyes to keep carrying the ball for a while.

  Sara said, “I know how it is. I was into my studies so much I just didn’t have time for boys.”

  “That’s how it was with Kathy,” Dean said. “She had her studies and her running to concentrate on. Anyway…do I have to tell you what boys are after? Just one thing. One thing.”

  At this moment Brass decided that today would not be the day to inform these parents that their daughter had died pregnant.

  A silence fell over the car and Brass wondered if he’d pushed too hard. The couple seemed to be clamming up now, and that wasn’t going to do any of them any good, including the late Kathy. With another glance in the rearview, he saw Mrs. Dean pat her husband’s knee. Dean’s tears were flowing again and Brass figured he’d blown it.

  He had needed to get as much as he could out of them, on the ride over. Once they saw their daughter on a morgue slab, they would be in no shape or mood to give Brass the information he so needed.

  Then, out of no
where, Mrs. Dean said, “You know, on top of school and her running? Kathy had several jobs, too.”

  “Jobs?” Brass asked. “Really? Busy as she was?”

  “Yes! She worked as a waitress at Habinero’s Cantina, and she still had some people she babysat for. She even volunteered at the blood bank.”

  “Habinero’s Cantina?” Brass asked. “Is that—”

  Dean said, “On Sunset. In Henderson.”

  And then the Taurus was pulling into the CSI HQ parking lot. As Brass ushered the Deans out of the car, Sara went quickly inside to set things up with Dr. Robbins.

  Soon Brass was escorting the grieving parents into a small tile-walled room just off the morgue. A curtain covered the upper half of one wall—a big window. The only furniture were two chairs and a metal table against a wall, a box of tissues at the ready.

  The Deans huddled together in front of the curtain, his arm around her shoulder, her arms around his waist. Brass had already explained what would happen—that when he opened the curtain, Sara would uncover the face of the victim for confirmation that this was indeed their daughter.

  There really wasn’t any doubt, but this was a formality that could not be avoided.

  “Ready?” Brass asked as gently as he could.

  Dean let out a breath and tightened his grip on his wife’s shoulder. He nodded.

  Brass pulled the drawstring and the curtain slid away to reveal Sara standing on the other side of the glass; she was no longer in the baseball cap and her expression was solemn, dignified. A body under a sheet on a gurney was between Sara and the picture window.

  When Brass nodded to her, Sara pulled the sheet back to reveal Kathy Dean from the neck up.

  Jason Dean groaned and his wife lurched into his arms. Then the mother took a quick step forward, hand splayed against the window opposite her daughter’s face, the mother’s breath fogging the glass. They were both crying now, Mrs. Dean whimpering and her husband’s lip quivering, though neither spoke.

  Brass was a hardened homicide detective; but he was also a father. And right now he hated his job almost as much as he would love that job when Kathy Dean’s killer was in his custody.

  When Brass nodded again—his signal to Sara to cover the body—Jason Dean waved for her to stop and she froze, the sheet not yet up over the dead girl’s features.

  His eyes still locked upon his daughter’s still countenance, Dean said, “She looks so…beautiful…normal…natural, almost as if she could just…sit up.”

  “My baby,” the mother said.

  An edge in his voice, Dean said, “What killed her?”

  “Gunshot to the back of the head,” Brass said.

  “Ooooh,” Mrs. Dean said.

  “She felt no pain,” the detective said.

  Both parents looked at him, though Mrs. Dean’s hand remained touching the glass.

  “Is that…is that true?” the mother asked.

  “It’s true,” Brass said. “She never knew what happened. I will say to you as the father of a girl not much older than your daughter…that’s a blessing.”

  “Where did you find her?” Dean asked.

  “Why don’t we sit down and I’ll give you all the information,” Brass said.

  Dean turned back to face the window, as did his wife. They looked at their little girl for another long moment before Sara finally covered Kathy Dean’s face with the sheet and—as Mrs. Dean reluctantly broke contact with the glass—Brass pulled the curtain, banishing the image that neither parent would ever forget.

  “Sit—please?” Brass gestured toward the table and the tissue box.

  Both parents shook their heads, holding their ground, standing there waiting for more, when they clearly had already had more than enough.

  Brass had no choice but to give it to them. “As to where your daughter was, we found her in a grave in the Desert Palm Memorial Cemetery.”

  Dean was understandably incredulous. “Cemetery…how the hell…?”

  Brass filled them in quickly, giving them the broad strokes of the fantastic situation.

  “We’re doing our best to find out how she ended up there,” Brass told the startled parents. “Obviously we suspect the one who took her life did this thing as well.”

  Brass eased the stunned mother and father out into the corridor.

  “You can understand,” he said, “why we’d like to talk to you about Kathy’s activities around the time she disappeared.”

  Before the door closed, Mrs. Dean stopped, looking back toward the curtained window. “When can we take her out of that dreadful place?”

  “Just a little longer,” Brass said. “Now that Kathy’s case is a homicide, we have to make sure we have all the evidence we can before we release her body.”

  Mrs. Dean recoiled. “I want her out of there now!”

  “Mrs. Dean, please, I can certainly understand your feelings…but your daughter’s body is our only link to her killer.”

  “I don’t care! I want her out of there!”

  Jason Dean kept an arm tight around his wife. Wild-eyed, Mrs. Dean strained to get back into the viewing room; finally, Dean got control of her and looked pleadingly at Brass.

  Keeping his voice low, his tone even, Brass said, “Our crime scene people are the best. You met CSI Sidle—she cares deeply about this case, I promise you.”

  Dean said, “What kind of ‘evidence’ can you hope to find at this late date? We need to deal with this—we have arrangements to make. We want our daughter, Captain Brass.”

  “Sir—there might be some microscopic clue that can lead us to her killer. Finding that piece of evidence might be the only way to stop whoever did this from doing it again…to someone else’s daughter.”

  Mrs. Dean turned toward him and her expression had an alertness, as if Brass had slapped her awake. “You really think you can catch whoever did this?”

  “I can’t promise you. But our CSIs are the best, anywhere. And I promise you I will do my best. I see your daughter and, frankly…”

  Something happened to Brass that hadn’t happened to him on the job for a long, long time: He felt his eyes filling with tears.

  He swallowed and said, “I see your daughter and I see my daughter. Do I have to say more?”

  Mrs. Dean studied Brass for a moment, then she touched his cheek, very gently, and allowed her husband to steer her away from the viewing room door.

  They were still trudging toward the exit when Sara came out of the morgue and rejoined the somber parade.

  They all got into the Taurus for the long ride back to the Dean home. More traffic made this ride slower than their initial trip to the house on Serene Avenue. Brass watched in the rearview mirror as the Deans huddled in the backseat. Now, though, Dean seemed to have gone inside himself while his wife stared out the window, seeing nothing.

  Finally, Mrs. Dean turned to look at Brass in the mirror. “I don’t know what we can tell you that we haven’t already told the other officers. When Kathy was a missing person.”

  Brass smiled mildly. “Well, let’s go over it again and see what we can see.”

  Mrs. Dean nodded slightly. “What do you want to know?”

  “How about her job at Habinero’s Cantina? How did she get to work?”

  “She had her own car.”

  Dean said, “2003 Corolla. Your crime scene people impounded it after she disappeared.”

  Sara caught Brass’s eyes and mouthed: Dayshift.

  Dean was saying, “They found Kathy’s Corolla abandoned in a parking lot on Maryland Parkway. We still haven’t gotten it back.”

  Brass ignored the small jab and asked, “How’d Kathy like her job? Been there long?”

  Mrs. Dean gave that some consideration, then said, “She worked there for two years or so—started right before her seventeenth birthday.”

  “Did she enjoy it there?”

  “Most of the time.”

  “Not all of the time?”

  In the mirror, Brass
saw Mrs. Dean wipe her nose with a tissue. “She did have some trouble…with a boy she dated there for a while?”

  “What kind of trouble?”

  “I said it was a boy.”

  Dean piped in to say, “He couldn’t take the hint that she had other, more important priorities in her life than dating.”

  Definitely not the day to tell the Deans that they had almost been grandparents….

  Brass said, “What kind of trouble exactly?”

  “He wouldn’t stop calling her,” Mrs. Dean said, “but that was right after she started at the restaurant. She’d only been there a month or so when they began dating. It must have been over in, oh…two months?”

  “Did you tell the Missing Persons detectives about this?”

  Mrs. Dean thought for a moment. “I may have mentioned it, but maybe not—it was such old news.”

  Brass stopped for a red light and turned to look at Mrs. Dean. “Do you know if the detectives looked into it?”

  “They never said.”

  “The boy’s name?”

  The light turned green and Brass got them moving again.

  “Gerardo Ortiz.”

  “Did the trouble with this boy come to any kind of a head?”

  Dean harumphed. “Kid must have finally taken the hint. He stopped calling. I was just about ready to track him down and beat the ever-living crap out of him.”

  Brass glanced in the mirror and saw the anger reddening Dean’s face. “But you’re over that now…right?”

  Rubbing his forehead and obviously forcing himself to calm down, Dean said, “Yeah…yeah, I’m over it. Anyway…that kid quit the restaurant, disappeared, far as I know.”

  “No idea where he is?”

  “No! And good riddance, too.”

  Brass pulled into the Deans’ driveway and they all got out.

  As they walked up the sidewalk, Brass fell in alongside Dean, whose arm was around his wife. “Do you think the Ortiz boy was capable of harming your daughter?”

  Dean paused and looked hard at Brass, eyes glittering. “For his sake?…I hope to God not.”

  They went inside the house and sat in the living room, the Deans on the sofa again, Brass and Sara in two wing chairs angled next to the couch. The grouping was great for facing the entertainment center, but not wonderful for eye contact during conversation, much less a police interview.