Grave Matters

by Max Allan Collins

  No one would’ve found anything unusual about seeing the mortician rolling a casket cart along. Business as usual. But a nagging question remained—if Black’s prints weren’t on the murder weapon, then…whose were? And what about the hairs in Kathy’s coffin that were not hers?

  Grissom had dropped the soda can off and was heading back to his office when a voice from a doorway called out to him.

  Archie Johnson—the slender Asian video tech—waved to him from a lab door, a self-satisfied grin playing on his lips.

  “Got a second to look at something, Doctor Grissom?”

  “As long as it’s not another episode of Happy Tree Friends, Archie.”

  Archie grinned. “Almost as good…”

  Grissom followed the young tech into the video lab where a black-and-white image was frozen on a monitor. Grissom moved closer and realized he was viewing the inside of a convenience store, from a security camera aimed at the door. Most of the front windows could be seen, the front counter and register as well. The picture quality was far superior to what Grissom might have expected from a convenience store security cam.

  “How much have you made this image dance, Archie?”

  “It’s been to ballet class, all right,” Archie said. “But nothing that’ll preclude admissibility in court.”

  “This image is that important?”

  “You tell me…. The convenience store has decent equipment, but the tapes are crap and they’ve been erased and recorded over and over.”

  “What am I looking at, Archie?”

  “This is the Pahrump stop-and-shop where Sara picked up the tapes, and where she thought Kathy Dean might have rendezvoused with her lover.”

  The phrase “Pahrump paramour” came unbidden into Grissom’s mind.

  “Anyway,” the tech said, “I’ve been looking at these tapes, beginnings and the ends, that is.”

  Grissom nodded. “Places where it was possible they might not’ve been taped over.”

  “Right. Still, it was a slim chance…but I think maybe I found something.”

  “Sometimes haystacks do give up needles.”

  Archie nodded. “This may be one of ’em…. I know this was three months ago, and it’s only about five seconds of tape that might not even be the right day…but it could be.”

  “Show me,” Grissom said, concentrating on the screen.

  Archie hit PLAY and Grissom saw a male come in, and walk off camera; then the frame cut briefly to an obese woman in a flowered dress at the register, and then to an empty store—later recordings.

  Archie was frowning at the screen. “Did you see it?”

  Grissom shook his head. “See what?”

  “I’ll cue it up and freeze it this time.”

  Archie did. The tape ran about a second and froze. Grissom saw the entryway of the store, a man in T-shirt and jeans walking in, his face down, a ball cap covering his hair.

  “What am I supposed to see?” Grissom asked. “If it’s the guy, I’m not getting much….”

  “No,” Archie said patiently. “Look in the window.”

  Grissom adjusted and followed the tech’s instruction. At first he saw nothing; but when he stopped trying, the image revealed itself….

  There, in the window, was a reflection of someone slightly out of camera range: a young woman with auburn hair and a Las Vegas Stars T-shirt…

  …Kathy Dean.

  So clearly could he see her that he could make out the dangling cords of the iPod earbuds.

  “I see her, Archie—does she come on camera?”

  “Barely—I think they both know the camera’s there, and they’re careful to avoid it. I don’t know why. It’s not like they’re robbing the place….”

  “Still, they’re not taking any chances,” Grissom said. “The girl is paranoid about her over-protective parents…and whoever’s under that ball cap may well know he’s about to commit murder.”

  Archie grunted. “Date night in Vegas.”

  “Nice catch, Archie. Play it all the way through, will you?”

  The lab tech did.

  Eyes on the window, Grissom watched Kathy and her baseball cap date embrace, then turn and go.

  Frustrated, Grissom asked, “We never see his face at all?”

  “There’s one second worth a close look,” Archie said. He cued up the tape, ran it to the point just before the guy pushed open the door to leave, his arm around Kathy, both of them with their backs to the camera. “Check out the glass door.”

  At first Grissom couldn’t make out anything but shadows. Then Archie did a frame-by-frame advance, walking Grissom through, and suddenly the face appeared in the window.

  Even though the hat covered the man’s hair and the guy did his best to keep his face lowered, for a second frozen in time, Grissom could see the face clearly.

  This, at last, was the evidence he needed.

  “How did I do, Grissom?”

  “Archie—A-plus-plus.”

  The lab tech grinned just as Grissom’s cell phone trilled.

  “Grissom.”

  “It’s me,” Sara said. “Talked to Janie Glover. She says FB means Funeral Boy. You’ll never guess who that is!”

  “Jimmy Doyle?”

  “Damn it, Grissom!” Sara’s exasperation leapt from the phone. “A hundred years ago, they’d’ve burned you as a witch!”

  Grissom smiled. “Thank you.”

  If Grissom had a problem with Black as a suspect, then Jim Brass had a problem, too. He had faith in the CSI supervisor’s instincts, even if Grissom himself claimed such things as hunches and assumptions weren’t in his makeup. The detective decided that the best thing for now was to re-interview the mortician.

  In interview room one, Black—now garbed in the standard prisoner orange jumpsuit—was marched in by a uniformed officer, who (at Brass’s behest) removed the mortician’s handcuffs.

  Once Black was seated, Brass hit RECORD and asked Black to state his name.

  Black did.

  Brass said, “You indicated you were going to call your attorney. Can we proceed without him?”

  “I did call my attorney only to discover that my wife has secured his services in a divorce action. He gave me a referral number to a criminal lawyer, who I have a call into.”

  “You are, however, willing to speak to me?”

  “I’ll answer any questions that I think may help you unravel this affair. I am innocent, Captain Brass. Some of what I told you…in the van the other night, before you read my rights to me?…I was in an emotional state. I won’t go into those matters again until I’ve discussed them with my criminal representation.”

  “Fair enough.”

  That meant that the mortician’s affair with Kathy, the loveless marriage to Cassie, and details about the night of Kathy’s disappearance remained off-the-record. Still, Brass decided to press on, guiding Black to the day of Rita Bennett’s funeral.

  “What happened after the service?” Brass asked.

  Black said, “We got the congregation out, then the three of us—Mark, Jimmy, and I—moved the coffin.”

  “Do you remember how?”

  “On a cart, of course.”

  “No—what I mean is…in what order? Who pushed, who pulled?”

  “Oh.” He thought about it. “Mark was in front…Jimmy and I pushed the casket.”

  “And then?”

  “Jimmy realized he’d left a floral spray behind in the chapel. I told him to go back and get it. Then…when we got to the door…I sent Mark after the hearse.”

  “And you were alone with the body.”

  “Yes. Yes, yes, yes! But I didn’t—”

  “Settle down, Mr. Black. Think back—is there any possibility you were away from the casket, for even a few moments?”

  “No, I…well.” He frowned, and then his eyes widened. “Actually, there was…but only for a little while…a minute at the most.”

  “Tell me.”

  The mortician was s
taring into his memory as it came back to him. “I was with the casket, but Marie…one of our part-timers…came and said I had a phone call, someone wanted to talk to me right away. Marie followed me back, and I rushed to my office to tell whoever it was I’d call them later…only by the time I got to the phone, the line was dead. When I returned to the rear area, Jimmy and Mark had Rita’s…or what I thought was Rita’s casket…loaded. I got into the limo and drove the family to the cemetery.”

  “All three of you were together after that, through the graveside service? The casket was never out of your sight?”

  “No, just when I briefly went to get the phone.”

  “Why didn’t you mention this before?”

  “I’m sorry…. I’d completely forgotten, because when I got there, there was no one on the line. Captain Brass…do you think somehow that’s when the bodies were switched? But there wouldn’t be time, would there?”

  “Thanks, Mr. Black. I appreciate your help.”

  “You almost sound like…like you…believe me, Captain.”

  “I believe you enough,” Brass said, “to go check the phone records…. Stay put. This shouldn’t take long.”

  Sara was seated across from Grissom in the latter’s office when Nick, looking very pleased with himself, leaned in.

  “You will never guess,” Nick said, “whose fingerprints were on that gun….”

  “Jimmy Doyle,” Sara and Grissom said simultaneously.

  Nick’s astonishment was matched only by his disappointment. He fell into a chair with a dazed look.

  “How,” he managed, “could you have guessed that?”

  “I didn’t guess, Nick,” Grissom said. “Sara got videotape from the security camera at that convenience store in Pahrump. Archie helped us spot Jimmy Doyle, picking up Kathy Dean on what appears to be the night she disappeared.”

  Sara said, “And one of Kathy’s friends told me that FB…you know, the initials from the Lady Chatterley note? Was ‘Funeral Boy,’ Jimmy Doyle’s user ID…. Don’t feel bad, Nick. When I called Grissom to share this scoop, he already knew about Doyle.” She gave her boss a look. “From the videotape I provided, I might point out.”

  “Hey,” Grissom said. “Credit where credit is due.”

  Nick said, “My money says the black hairs in the coffin with Kathy Dean are also Jimmy Doyle’s.”

  Brass stuck his head in the door. “Thought you CSIs would like to know that occasionally somebody else cracks a case around here….”

  “Really?” Grissom said.

  Brass stepped in, his expression smug. “Black says he got called away to the telephone…at the moment when he was alone with that casket. I just tracked the number that called, and guess whose cell phone it belongs to?”

  “Jimmy Doyle,” the three CSIs said in perfect unison.

  For a moment Brass just stood there, looking like he’d been doused with a bucket of water.

  Then, without even asking Grissom and company for an explanation, Brass said, “Why don’t we go nail his ass?”

  When uniformed officers had no luck finding Doyle at his home, Grissom obtained Dustin Black’s keys, and Brass got the security code from the mortician.

  Soon Grissom, Brass, Nick, and Sara were racing toward the mortuary, the first two in the Taurus, the latter pair in a Tahoe. Heading to Desert Haven had been Nick’s suggestion.

  “Besides his house, it’s the only place we know of where we may find the kid…and if Doyle thinks after being interviewed we could be zeroing in on him, then he’d want to get rid of any evidence that might still be at the mortuary.”

  Sara had wondered, “You don’t think Rita Bennett’s body could still be there?”

  “It’s possible.”

  Grissom pointed out that even if Doyle didn’t think he was a suspect, the boy had hidden the probable murder weapon in the mortuary…and had no knowledge that the CSIs had already found it.

  “If Doyle knows his prints might be on the gun,” Nick said, in the Tahoe, “he’ll want to retrieve it.”

  “Or maybe wipe it clean and use it to frame Black,” Sara suggested.

  Both vehicles arrived at the mortuary just as darkness was settling over the place. Nick and Sara took the back, Brass and Grissom the front.

  Nick’s voice crackled over Brass’s radio. “Got a car back here—empty. Looks like Doyle’s already inside.”

  “Well, you and Sara stay outside,” Brass said. “Call for backup, and make sure Doyle doesn’t come out that way. We’ll go in the front door.”

  Brass had his gun drawn as Grissom unlocked the entrance.

  “Gun out, Gil—you may need it.”

  Much as Grissom disliked guns, he did as he was told. He had no desire to let himself, or any of his people, become martyrs in the field.

  Brass moved to the alarm box, but the light was already green—Doyle turned it off upon entering, apparently. Brass took the lead, as the detective and CSI went down the hall, edging slowly toward the back, Brass’s gun outstretched in both hands, Grissom hugging the wall, gun barrel up.

  They didn’t see so much as a light under a door until they were approaching the rear of the building. At right—from under the outward-opening double door to a room neither man had been in—a long slice of light beckoned….

  Using hand signals, Brass bid Grissom to open one of the double doors so the detective could rush in, the CSI supervisor following.

  Grissom nodded.

  They got into position. Then Grissom jerked the door open, and Brass entered with gun extended….

  Barely had Brass stepped inside the darkness when something shoved through, thrusting open the other door, slamming into the detective, pinning Brass against the corridor wall with a sickening crunch!

  Grissom watched in shock as he realized a massive concrete vault on a cart had been shoved into Brass…

  …and poised in that open double-doorway was Jimmy Doyle, in his spiffy lavender shirt, the wild-eyed wielder of the cart.

  Brass winced in pain; his gun had slipped from his hand. Grissom’s first thought was for his friend, and he was grappling with the square slab of concrete as Jimmy Doyle slipped around the other end of the thing and went running down the corridor toward the garage.

  Grissom somehow shoved the vault-on-the-cart out of the way, freeing Brass, who crumpled to the floor.

  “Never mind me,” Brass sputtered. “G-get the bastard!”

  Grissom didn’t argue—he sprinted down the hall after Doyle, while from behind him he heard Brass talking into his radio: “Doyle’s in the garage, Nick—careful!”

  Under the door to the garage was another slice of light. The CSI supervisor did not think of himself as a hero; he didn’t even consider himself a cop. Situations like this were beyond his purview.

  But he took a deep breath, expelled it, jerked the door open, and came into the garage low, fanning his vision—and the gun-in-hand—around the room. At left a frantic Jimmy Doyle was at the workbench, going through boxes like a hyperactive kid on Christmas morning…looking for the gun that was no longer there.

  “It’s gone, Jimmy,” Grissom said, voice echoing. “We already found it.”

  The boy grabbed a wrench off the wall and whirled with eyes flaring and teeth bared, attack-dog fashion; he brought his arm back to pitch, but it froze as another voice called out to him.

  “Jimmy,” Nick said from his doorway at the far end of the garage, “there are two guns on you. You might want to put that down….”

  The boy’s face morphed from savagery to pitiful surrender, and the wrench clunked to the workbench as Doyle’s hands went tremblingly up, and locked behind his neck. He stood complacently, waiting for the cuffs that Nick quickly brought to him.

  When Grissom turned to go check on Brass, the detective was already leaning in the doorway, his suit rumpled, blood trickling from his bottom lip, and one arm pressed against what were likely broken ribs.

  “I’ll call nine-one-one,” Gris
som said.

  “Beat you to it,” Brass said.

  “You don’t look so good.”

  “They come prettier than you, too, Gil.”

  They exchanged tiny grins.

  Sara entered the garage, a plastic evidence bag in hand.

  “What do you have there?” Grissom called over.

  Holding the bag up like the prize catch it was, Sara said, “Most likely, Kathy Dean’s iPod! I just got it out of Jimmy’s car.”

  “That’s mine,” Doyle protested meekly.

  Sara came over to where Doyle, wrists cuffed behind him, stood slump-shouldered next to Nick. “Digital songs are computer files—they can be tracked.”

  Doyle swallowed thickly.

  Sara gave him the sweet smile she reserved for the worst people. “After our computer expert is done with it…? We’ll know for sure, whether it’s yours or Kathy’s.”

  Tears filled the young man’s eyes, but hung there stubbornly, as if not wanting to admit a defeat that was already complete.

  “You know, Jimmy,” Nick said with a devilish grin, “if you’ve been downloading tunes without paying for them…you could be in a lot of trouble.”

  12

  WHILE CATHERINE WILLOWS FELT NO REMORSE about shooting Rene Fairmont, she did regret having to frighten the elderly hostage. But the reality was, Rene’s hostage had already been checked out and sent home, shaken but uninjured, while Catherine was still here, hostage to her job.

  The angel of mercy lay on a small hospital bed in the emergency room, a curtain pulled around the tiny cubicle for a semblance of privacy, as her white blouse had been unbuttoned and then scissored away to give the young East Indian ER physician access to her wound. Accordingly, Detective Vega waited on the other side of the curtain.

  The suspect’s left hand was handcuffed to the bed, and she lay so still that the cuff never rattled against the metal of the rail. The doctor, working from a tray, hovered over the woman’s right shoulder; soon he had nearly finished suturing the wound, a process the killer seemed not even to notice in her sullen, self-imposed catatonia.

  While Warrick had stayed behind to work the crime scene outside the bank, Catherine had accompanied the woman on the ambulance ride, and observed the prisoner’s treatment in the hospital, too. In all that time, Rene hadn’t uttered a word, not a single syllable (including “Ouch”), as the doctor cleaned the wound and began sewing it up.