Grave Matters

by Max Allan Collins

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Saturdays…if there isn’t a funeral…Dustin usually likes to work with the staff on getting everything around the mortuary spiffed up for the next week.”

  “Spiffed up?”

  “The hearse and limo get washed and waxed, and the mortuary is cleaned from top to bottom.”

  Grissom said, “For insisting your husband leave his work behind, you seem well-versed in the business.”

  “I own half of the business, Mr. Grisham.”

  “Grissom.”

  “Grissom. As co-owner, there’s much I’m aware of. That doesn’t mean I want to talk about the rising cost of hearses and caskets, or the latest in embalming techniques, over rare prime rib.”

  “Of course not.”

  “So,” Brass said, picking it back up, “you got your husband to knock off work early.”

  “Yes—we were going to go out for an early dinner and then a movie. We get so little time away for ourselves. Between Dustin’s business and my career, we eat up a lot of hours. The rest of the time we try to spend with our children.”

  “Your career?” Brass asked.

  “I’m a vice president at InterOcean Bank. I work at the branch office in Henderson.”

  “You spoke of your children—where are they now?”

  “My sister’s. Patti sits for the kids—she’s a stay-at-home mom—and can handle David and Diana when both Dustin and I have to work late.”

  “Like today?”

  “Like today. I’m doing some work at home.”

  “Okay,” Brass said. “Dustin left work early that Saturday.”

  “Yes. Kathy walked over just before five. Dustin and I left for dinner.”

  “At?”

  “The Lux Café at the Venetian. It’s always been a favorite of ours. We finished dinner just before seven and went to a seven-thirty movie.”

  “What did you see?”

  “Some violent reprehensible action movie that I let Dustin talk me into. It made me ill. Physically ill.”

  “So, you came home,” Brass said. “And then?”

  Shifting slightly on the couch, Mrs. Black brushed her pant leg as if scolding it for being rude enough to wrinkle. “The kids were asleep on the couch. I put them to bed and went to bed myself. I was asleep almost immediately…. So that’s really all I know about that evening.”

  “Just a couple more questions, please. What time did you get home from the movie?”

  “Just after ten.”

  Grissom frowned. Something was not adding up—literally.

  Brass asked, “And what time did you go to bed?”

  “Right after. I put the kids down, went to bed, oh…before eleven?”

  “You were asleep when Mr. Black got home?”

  “Yes, but that didn’t matter, anyway—Dustin didn’t come straight home.”

  Brass sat forward. “He didn’t?”

  “No, he said he knew I was ill—that foul movie really did turn my stomach—and he wanted to let me get to sleep. I have trouble sleeping and sometimes, though he doesn’t mean to, Dustin keeps me awake. Don’t quote me, but…he snores.”

  Brass nodded. “So…what did he do, so you could get to sleep?”

  “He went by the mortuary to catch up on some paperwork. He got home just after midnight.”

  Grissom glanced at Brass, then asked, “If you were asleep when he got home, Mrs. Black…how do you know it was just after midnight?”

  She smiled. “Because he told me, Mr. Grissom—the next morning. I was asleep the whole night…. Now, I really have things to do, gentlemen. Can I show you out?”

  She did, and at the car Brass said, “ ‘Don’t quote me, but he snores’…I’ll try to keep that out of the papers, but no promises!…What do you make of her, Gil?”

  “She’s a strong, smart woman. But something’s wrong.”

  “What?”

  “I’ll get back to you.”

  Soon, in the car, when Brass was turning onto Serene Avenue, Grissom finally figured out what bothered him.

  “Pull over,” he said. “Let’s talk.”

  Brass pulled over and parked in front of the Dean home.

  The CSI said, “The Deans and the Blacks agree that Dustin Black drove Kathy home.”

  “Right.”

  “And the Deans and Dustin also agree that Black dropped Kathy off around midnight.”

  “Yeah—Mrs. Dean was still up when her daughter got home. They talked.”

  “Yes,” Grissom said. His eyes locked onto Brass’s. “So…if Mrs. Dean’s correct about the time, and Mrs. Black isn’t lying about the time she and her husband got home from the movie…”

  “Why would she?”

  Grissom shrugged. “For the sake of argument, we’ll assume for a moment that she’s being truthful. Mrs. Black said they got home just after ten and Dustin drove Kathy home at that time.”

  Brass was getting it. “But the girl didn’t get home until midnight.”

  “Right. Which means it took Dustin Black two hours…to drive two blocks.”

  Brass’s eyes were bright. “I’m surprised at how anxious I am for a return trip to that funeral home.”

  “Without me, this time,” Grissom said. “I need to get back to the lab and find out what Sara and Nick’ve learned. This may be starting to come together, and I want to make sure we have the evidence processed and ready.”

  When Grissom got to his office, he found Nick waiting for him just outside the door.

  “Progress, Nick?”

  “Yeah—got some fibers off Kathy Dean’s jeans.”

  “Good. Do we know their origin?”

  Nick grinned. “If ‘we’ didn’t, I wouldn’t be here.”

  Sometimes Nick’s attitude could get under Grissom’s skin. Though Nick had a deep talent for forensics, the young CSI also had a tendency toward cockiness. Or maybe it was just that the supervisor had the unsettling suspicion that Nick reminded him of himself, once upon a time….

  “The fibers,” Nick said, “came from a Cadillac Escalade.”

  Grissom considered that. Not long ago, Dustin Black had been climbing out of an Escalade at Desert Haven. On the other hand, the Deans had an SUV, too; he just hadn’t caught the make or model. “Do the Deans own an Escalade?”

  “I checked with DMV—they drive a Toyota Land Cruiser. Different carpeting, different fibers.”

  “But Dustin Black does own an Escalade,” Grissom said. “Saw him getting out of it today…and he drove it to take Kathy Dean home the night she disappeared.”

  Nick nodded. “The fibers came from the knees of her jeans…both knees…and, besides praying, I can only think of one reason why she might be kneeling inside that SUV.”

  It went a long way toward explaining why it had taken Black two hours to drive two blocks to take the babysitter home. “You have anything else, Nick?”

  “Always, Gris. Ecklie’s people say underwear found in a hamper at the Dean home showed Kathy had sex the night she disappeared.”

  After a tryst with Black, had she gone home to change her clothes, then sneaked out to meet someone? If so, that someone was very likely the person who had killed her.

  Of course, if Black had actually gone home when he told his wife he had, then he wasn’t a suspect in Kathy’s murder. If he’d lied to Cassie, though…

  Well, from what Nick had told him, that wouldn’t be the first time. Brass would be getting back to Desert Haven about now, and this was information the detective could use. He got his cell phone out and hit the speed dial.

  A moment later, he heard, “Brass.”

  “Grissom. Developments.”

  He laid out the story for Brass, explaining the evidence that could be used to make Black finally tell the truth.

  “Oh, you did good,” Brass said. “You did fine.”

  “Thank Nick—I’m sending him over. Nick’ll ask Black for a DNA sample, and if our mortician balks, tell him you’ll have a court order in
less than an hour.”

  “On it.”

  He clicked off and turned to Nick. “Get over to Desert Haven and get a buccal swab from Mr. Black…. Oh, and take Sara!”

  “Sara’s not here.”

  This case was coming together, and Grissom didn’t need Sara off somewhere. “Where is she?”

  Nick grinned. “Having dinner…with clues on the side.”

  8

  CATHERINE WILLOWS HAD MET her Des Moines contact, William Woodward, at the International Association for Identification convention in Vegas in 2002. They had served on a panel together and she had found the rangy, rugged, fortyish Woodward (like her, a veteran of the divorce wars) to be smart, funny, and, truth to tell, not hard to look at. They had shared drinks and promised to stay in touch—a promise they had kept over the last two years, including getting together again for dinner at a regional IAI conference in Des Moines when he’d brought her in to lecture on blood spatter, her specialty.

  He picked up on the first ring. “Bill Woodward.”

  “Lieutenant Woodward,” she said, putting a smile in her voice.

  “Catherine Willows,” he said immediately, and he was obviously pleased to hear from her (just as she was that he’d at once recognized her voice). “Enjoying that vacation wonderland of yours?”

  “So you’ve heard about our heat wave.”

  “Notice I had the good taste not to ask if it was ‘hot enough for you’…in our business, it’s always hot, and temperature is only one measurement.”

  She enjoyed Woodward’s easygoing baritone. He was a notorious kidder, possibly because he got kidded so much himself about “hick Iowa” from other CSIs who might well have been jealous of his facility’s standing. Woodward’s ranked in the top five CSI labs after L.A., Vegas, Miami, and New York.

  “Yeah, well, Bill, you know what they say around this town—it’s a dry heat.”

  “Pushing 120 degrees, last three days, CNN says. At that temperature, humidity be damned—it’s just plain damn hot.”

  “Hey, last time I was in your part of the world, it was so humid I thought I was inhaling water.”

  He laughed a little, then said, “I’d love to think this was a social call, Catherine—but I’m not that confident about my masculine appeal. What can I do for you?”

  She explained about D.S. Ward Worldwide, Vivian Elliot’s will, and the PO box attorney Pauline Dearden would be sending a fat check to.

  “Dead drop, sounds like,” he said.

  “Sure does. I got the box number; got a pencil?”

  “I’m ready. Read it to me.”

  She did.

  He grunted a laugh. “Gonna be one of those Mister Mailboxes. I’ll see if I can find out the renter. Anything else?”

  “Nope. I’ll just owe you one.”

  “Actually, Catherine, we’ll be even. That teen runaway you helped me with, couple months back?”

  “Yeah—how’d that come out?”

  “Kid’s in rehab, doing fine. Hey, even if we are even, I’ll buy you dinner, next time you come to Des Moines.”

  “You know, Bill, there are a few places to eat, and things to do, here in Las Vegas. You could hop a plane, give yourself a break…”

  He chuckled. “We’ll complete this negotiation when I get you your info.”

  They clicked off, and Catherine went to Warrick’s office to tell him what she’d found.

  “You’re doing better than I am, Cath,” he said, seated at his computer. “Background checks are goin’ way slower than I’d like.”

  She drew up a chair. “How far did you get?”

  “Whiting is clean…other than this potential lawsuit with Vivian, anyway…and the other doctors, Barclay and Dayton, also look clean. Still have some work to do on Miller, but so far he’s checking out, too.”

  “How about the nurses?”

  “Well, nothing more on Kenisha Jones. She seems fine.”

  “Oh, she seems ‘fine’ to you, does she?”

  He smiled. “This is your third warning, Cath….”

  “Okay, okay,” she laughed. “What else?”

  “Well, of course, Meredith Scott had that misdemeanor theft charge. But that’s not much to build on.”

  Nodding, Catherine said, “That still leaves Rene Fairmont.”

  “Right, and that’s who I’m working on now. So far about all I know is, she was married to Derek Fairmont.”

  “Was?”

  “He passed away suddenly about eleven months ago. He was that theater guy at the University of Western Nevada—you probably read about him or went to some of the plays he produced. Local celeb.”

  “Right, right, head of the drama department—fairly young, wasn’t he?”

  “Younger than a Sunny Day resident—why?”

  “Nothing. Just…never mind.”

  Warrick half-smiled. “What is it, Cath? A hunch? A feeling? Gris isn’t around—feel free to share.”

  She ignored that and asked, “What was the cause of Fairmont’s death?”

  “Heart attack. Presumably.”

  “Presumably?”

  “There was no autopsy.”

  “Cremated, by any chance?”

  “Yeah, he was. But a lot of people have heart attacks, Cath; and cremation’s kinda common, too, y’know.”

  Catherine nodded. “What else on Nurse Fairmont?”

  “Not much of a history I can find, before she married Fairmont. The name on the marriage license was Rene Gondorff.”

  “Gondorff?”

  “Yeah, isn’t that a Lord of the Rings mouthful.”

  Catherine grunted, “Huh,” then asked, “Do we know what her nursing background is?”

  “Still checking, but she was working as a caregiver before she married Fairmont, anyway.”

  “Where? Who?”

  “Doctor’s office. Dermatologist named LeBlanc. Practice on Charleston near the University Medical Center. She was there about three months before she married Fairmont.”

  “And before that?”

  Warrick shrugged. “That’s as far as I’ve got.”

  “Well, hell! We need more.”

  “Right—that’s why Vega’s going out to her place to talk to her. Has an appointment in just under an hour, in fact…. We can tag along, Vega said. Want to?”

  Eyes wide, nodding, Catherine said, “Ooooh yeah…”

  The Fairmont home nestled in Spanish Hills out Tropicana Avenue. A wide, low ranch-style on Rustic Ridge Drive, the house had the obligatory tile roof and a two-car garage, a late-model red Pontiac Grand Prix parked out front. The lawn didn’t appear to have met water since spring and—other than a droopy fruit tree—the only other decorative touch was the red, white, and blue FOR SALE sign of a local Realtor.

  Vega led the way as the three walked up a narrow sidewalk that led to an inset front door.

  The detective rang the bell and, a moment later, the heavy Spanish door was swung open by a lithe blonde, perhaps five-foot-eight, an extremely well-preserved forty-something. She wore the white pants and floral smock of the Sunny Day nurses.

  “Detective Vega,” Vega said, showing her his badge. “You’re Rene Fairmont?”

  “Yes,” the woman said, her voice husky.

  “We spoke on the phone earlier. Afraid we’re a few minutes late.”

  “Traffic in this town,” she said, with a shrug. “But I do have to get to work…so can we make this brief?”

  “We’ll do our best. These are Catherine Willows and Warrick Brown from the crime lab.”

  With a friendly smile, she shook all of their hands, then gestured and stepped aside for them to enter. “But remember, I’ve only got a few minutes.”

  “We won’t be long,” Vega assured her.

  To the left of the front entry was a spacious, formal living room, not at all lived-in looking; the interior was brick here and wood there, with a stark geometric feel, including the overhang mantel of a built-in rough-stone fireplace.

&nbs
p; Why, Catherine wondered, did people in Vegas, where the temperature was seldom below sixty, so often insist upon having fireplaces?

  A giant picture window overlooked the brown front lawn, and the furniture—two sofas, three chairs, and numerous tables—were fifties modern, either copies or well-preserved originals…like Rene Fairmont, Catherine thought. Several geometric modern-art paintings dotted the brick walls and a few abstract sculptures had been carefully placed around the room. The woman’s late husband had been a drama professor, after all, and a whiff of the artistic permeated.

  A nice home of its era, in fine shape; but something about the lack of yardwork outside, and the dominance of the late husband’s taste, gave Catherine the feeling that the Fairmont woman was somehow just…passing through. And of course that FOR SALE sign was the best evidence backing up that theory.

  Rene Fairmont waved for them to take a seat and she perched on the edge of a sofa; between them was a kidney-shaped coffee table cut from wood and heavily laminated. A very pretty woman, Catherine thought, noting the high cheekbones and heart-shaped face, shoulder-length hair, flawless complexion, big dark blue eyes with long lashes, and a smile that seemed both shy and endearing.

  Catherine noticed something else, however: a high-gloss hardness, not unlike that shiny coffee table. This might be a product of the sudden death of her husband; she’d seen the quality in recent widows before. And those big blue eyes, for all their smile crinkles, seemed detached from the woman’s pleasant expression. She was studying them, the way…

  …the way a cop studies a potential suspect.

  Their hostess took the lead. “On the phone you said you wanted to talk to me about Vivian Elliot. I don’t have much to share, but please—ask me whatever you like.”

  “Let’s start with your reaction,” Vega said, “to hearing she’d died.”

  “Well, of course I was sorry to hear Vivian had passed. She was a dear sweet lady, very friendly. But she had spine. She couldn’t be pushed around or manipulated.”

  “When did you learn of her death?”

  “In the most routine manner—every day we get an update at the beginning of shift.”

  “Is it commonly known at Sunny Day that Vivian was murdered?”