“Sir, remember—what we find may clear Mr. Lipton.”
“Should I believe you?”
“Off the record, sir—I have a hunch Mr. Lipton’s innocent myself.”
Sara flinched, but pretended not to hear it.
Howtlen said, “You’re not just sayin’ that.”
“No. But it’s my job to find out, either way—if Ray did kill his girlfriend, you wouldn’t want him to have a pass, would you?”
“I…no. Of course not.”
“Good. Now about that list, Mr. Howtlen? Of jackets?”
“Yeah, sure—puttin’ that together shouldn’t be a problem.”
“Mr. Lipton told us he gave them to preferred customers, too.”
“Oh, shit, come to think of it, yeah…but I have no idea who that’d be. But Jodi, that’s the gal out front, she’d probably know…. Yeah, no problem. We’ll get you that list.”
The now truly cooperative Howtlen left then to fill Catherine’s request, and the CSIs got down to work. Ninety minutes later they had pretty much dissected everything in the office and found nothing of value. The business records in the file cabinet, Catherine decided, could be left behind, for now; and there was no computer in here. Gathering up their gear, they moved down the hallway into the bay.
Two roll-up garage doors dominated the left wall of the high-ceilinged concrete chamber. Men’s and women’s bathrooms took up the rest of the side they’d entered through. A workbench ate up a large chunk of the righthand wall; some green metal garden furniture and, at the rear of the room, a couple of wood-and-metal picnic tables comprised the break area. The center of the room held two blue pickups with Lipton Construction stenciled in white-outlined red on their sides. The one parked nearest to them had “Ray” in white script letters over the driver’s side door. The back of the pickup was filled with tools and various piles of gear, as well as a steel toolbox mounted on the front end of the bed.
“I’ll take the box,” Sara volunteered, “if you want the cab.”
Catherine shrugged her okay. “Dealer’s choice.”
They took photos of the truck from every angle, fingerprinted the doors and tailgate, and then each went to investigate their own part of the truck. In the cab, Catherine found very little beyond an empty soda cup and a McDonald’s sack with a Big Mac wrapper and an empty french fry container.
“Got it,” Sara said from the back.
Catherine came out of the cab. “Got what?” She moved down the driver’s side of the truck to find Sara pointing the camera at something in the bottom of the truck bed. Following the line of the lens, Catherine saw what “it” was: a nest of black man-made snakes in a plastic bag….
Black electrical ties identical to the one that had squeezed the life from lovely Jenna Patrick.
The floor shook as Howtlen strode in, a piece of paper dangling from his massive paw. “Got your list, for ya!”
But Catherine was on to other things. “Mr. Howtlen, do you recognize this?” She pointed toward the bag.
Joining her alongside the truck, Howtlen looked down into the box, shrugged. “Sure—’lectrical ties. We use ’em all the time. I got a bag of them in back of my truck, too.” He gestured at the other pickup. “Why? Is that important?”
“An electrical tie like these,” Sara said, studying the man, “was the murder weapon.”
“No shit! Really?”
Catherine gave him a hard look. “Really—tied around Miss Patrick’s neck.”
“Hell of a way to go.” He was cringing at the thought, the tiny features almost disappearing into his fleshy face. “Don’t ever think, just ’cause she was a stripper, Jenna wasn’t a sweet kid…’cause she was.”
“Ray is said to have a temper,” Sara said. “And yet you don’t think he was capable of that? In the heat of anger?”
Howtlen shook his head quickly. “I’ve worked for Ray for six years—known him a hell of a lot longer than that…and, yeah, he can lose his top. But this is a sweet guy…and no killer.”
Everybody was “sweet” to Howtlen, it seemed.
Sara didn’t let up: “You do know the Dream Dolls club’s manager was able to get a restraining order against him?”
The big head wagged, side to side, sorrowfully. “Yeah, yeah, I know…Ray caused scenes in there more than once. Sometimes when a guy dates a stripper, at first it’s really great, and then it makes ’em crazy, other guys lookin’ at their lady, naked.”
“How crazy?” Catherine asked.
“Not that crazy, not Ray! He never hurt nobody in his life. Even that time when one of the bouncers hit him…with those brass knuckles? Ray yells, but he’s not violent. Not really.”
“Well if you’re right,” Catherine said, “our work will help clear him.”
Howtlen held up the paper to Catherine. “Then take that list you said you wanted. I never had no idea just how many jackets Ray passed out…I admit I’m a little surprised, ’cause they’re pretty expensive. But, anyway, Jodi found the receipts. Thirty-five.”
Catherine accepted the list. “And how many of the jackets are accounted for on this list?”
“Twenty-seven we’re sure of, who he gave ’em to, and a few maybes. The others…who knows? Maybe Ray can help. He’ll probably remember.”
“May we have copies of the receipts too?”
Howtlen nodded. “I’ll get Jodi to do that for you right away.”
“Thank you. And we’ll need to take the ties from your truck too. Just to be sure.”
“All right.” He turned and lumbered to the door, then stopped and turned, sheepish—the big man was a big kid. “Hey, uh…sorry about before. You girls seem nice. You gotta understand—Ray’s my friend, and he’s a good guy.”
“It’s all right, Mr. Howtlen,” Catherine said. “And we do understand—one of our coworkers was accused of murder, last year.”
“How did that come out?”
Sara said, “He was innocent.”
Catherine gave Howtlen a genuinely friendly smile. “Happy endings are still possible, you know.”
“Yeah,” Howtlen said, shaking his pumpkin head, “but not for that sweet kid, Jenna.”
Ten minutes later they left Lipton Construction with the list, the photocopies of receipts, and two bags of electrical ties from both trucks. Catherine phoned Conroy again and the detective said she was on her way to Jenna Patrick’s apartment. Did they still want to meet her there?
Catherine said yes, then clicked off, and said to Sara, “You don’t mind? You are up for that?”
“We put in this much overtime,” Sara said, at the wheel, with half a smirk, “why not?”
Catherine laughed silently. “Would you rather do your job than sleep?”
“Sure. So would you, Catherine.”
Catherine said nothing; it was true. She loved her job, she loved solving puzzles. She just feared that she might become Grissom or, for that matter, Sara.
Jenna Patrick’s apartment was off Escondido near the UNLV campus. Conroy’s Taurus already sat in front of the building when Sara pulled up and parked across the street. From the outside, the three-story building looked like an early sixties motel, all rust-color brick and crank-open windows. Concrete stairs ran up the right side of the building, and there seemed to be a small parking lot out back.
The three women—one detective and two criminalists—met up at the curb, where Catherine and Sara filled Conroy in on what they’d learned at Lipton Construction. Then the trio paraded single file up the stairs (Conroy, then Catherine, then Sara) to the third floor, around the back and up the far side of the building to 312. A picture window faced them, curtains drawn over it keeping out any sunlight that might try to sneak through.
Strippers worked the night shift, too.
Conroy knocked on the white wooden door. Nothing. They waited, then Conroy knocked again and said, loudly, firmly, “Police.”
Slowly, the door cracked open, chain latch still in place, and a tired woman peer
ed out. “What?…Awful early…”
Conroy flashed her badge. “Are you Tera Jameson?”
The one visible eye widened enough to take in the badge. “That’s me.”
“Ms. Jameson, could you open the door, please?”
“Yeah. Sure.” A sigh, and the door closed; they heard the chain scratch across the latch, then the door opened again. The voice of their hostess was more alert, now: “What’s this all about?”
The three stepped in, Tera Jameson closing the door behind them. She was a buxom woman, her curly brunette hair flowing down her back but also framing her heart-shaped face. Tallish, maybe five nine, she wore only a 49ers football jersey about five sizes too large for her and a pair of baggy gray cotton shorts.
The living room was tidy if crammed with rent-to-own-type furniture. A low-slung dark coffee table with a glass top and piles of magazines crouched in front of a couch, and an overstuffed brown chair sat against the right wall with a hassock in front of it. In the opposite corner a twenty-five-inch color TV occupied a maple wall unit with a stereo, VCR, DVD and the attendant software.
“Thank you, Ms. Jameson,” Conroy said, and she gestured to the couch, adding, “Maybe you should sit down. I’m afraid I have some bad news.”
“What kind of bad news?” The woman’s dark eyes flared, but she took Conroy’s advice, sliding over to the couch and taking a seat. Sara sat down on her far side, not crowding the woman, and Catherine took the overstuffed chair, while Conroy got down on her haunches in front of Tera Jameson, parent to child.
“It’s about your roommate,” Conroy said. “I know you were friends.”
“Best friends,” Tera said. Then the eyes widened again, and she said, “…were?”
Conroy sighed and nodded. “I’m sorry to report that Jenna Patrick died last night.”
Tera’s hand shot to her mouth, her teeth closing on a knuckle as tears took the path over her high cheekbones down her face. “Oh, my God. But…she was in perfect health!”
“I’m afraid she was killed, at work, last night.”
“What do you mean, ‘killed’? An accident of some—”
“Murdered.”
Tera covered her face with her fingers and began to sob.
Conroy eased forward, a hand rising to settle soothingly on the dancer’s shoulder. “Ms. Jameson, I’m very sorry.”
Now a certain anger seemed stirred into the sorrow. “What…what in hell happened to her?”
“Jenna was in one of the private rooms…and she was strangled.”
“I told Ty those lap-dance rooms were dangerous. Goddamnit! I wouldn’t work them…I refused. Goddamnit.”
Catherine asked, “You did work at Dream Dolls, at one time, Ms. Jameson?”
“Yes…I’ve been at Showgirl World for, I don’t know…three months?” Tera pulled a tissue out of a box on the coffee table and dabbed at her eyes. “Did you get him?”
Conroy, still on her haunches, blinked. “Excuse me?”
“That asshole Ray Lipton. It was him, wasn’t it? It must have been.”
Sitting forward, Catherine asked, “Why would you think that? He was her fiancé; he loved her.”
She sneered, her lip damp with tears. “He’s a fucking nutcase. He hated that she danced…and he hated that she lived with me, another dancer…I was a ‘bad influence’! He fucking met her at the club! Jesus.”
Catherine tilted her head. “Mr. Lipton said they were going to be married, soon. Was he lying?”
“Yes. No…I mean, yeah, that was the plan—they were getting married. Jenna was barely even my roommate anymore. To keep Ray happy, she moved out of here about a month ago.”
Sara asked, “Was she quitting dancing for him?”
“Eventually, she planned to. I mean, most of us plan to get out, sooner or later. I have a nursing degree, you know. But she wanted to keep dancing for a couple of years, after they got married, to help build a nest egg. I mean, do you have any idea what those tits of hers cost?”
“Around ten thousand,” Catherine said.
Conroy asked, “Well, was she living here, or not?”
“Her name’s still on the lease, but she’d pretty much moved in with Ray. She still had a few things here, but it was mostly just stuff she hadn’t picked up yet.”
Conroy—squatting must have been getting to her—moved to sit down on the other side of Tera. She asked, “And why do you think Ray would kill her?”
“Probably over the dancing. That she hadn’t quit, that she wanted to keep going with it…. He hated that she danced even more than he hated her living with me. I mean, she liked it here—our hours were similar, it was close to work—but she moved in with him, to…what’s the word? Placate the prick.”
Conroy asked, “You think Ray hates you?”
Tera looked uncomfortable. “I know he does. You know about the restraining order Ty had against him, and what caused it?”
“We know that he tried to choke a customer,” Catherine said.
“Well, that was just one particularly juicy time. It was me pulled his ass off that poor nerdy guy he jumped. More than once, when I was still at the club, he started trouble over our friendship, Jenna and me. He’d see us sitting together, or standing at the bar, laughing, and get all paranoid we were laughing at him. He’d start screaming at me. He probably yelled at me as much as he did Jenna.”
“Why was that?” Conroy asked.
“You know how guys can be—jealous over their girlfriend’s best friend. It’s stupid, such a guy thing. He thought I had some…I don’t know, kinda power over her. That I was this wicked witch trying to keep them apart.”
“Why would he think that?”
Tera pulled her knees up under her, sat that way. Her chin was up. “Because I told her not to take any crap off him. If they were gonna be married, she still had to be her own person, and stand up for her rights, like dancing if she wanted to. I just generally encouraged her to do what she wanted to do.”
“And Ray didn’t like that.”
“Oh, hell no. Ray’s a typical control freak. He thought getting her away from me would make her fall in line with his plans. Get her to live with him, stop dancing, do whatever he said.”
“Ray ever try to get physical with you?”
“No.” She sat up straighter. “He’s a coward, too—he knows I trained in tae kwan do. He figured, lay a hand on me and I’da sent his balls up to live in his throat…and he figured right.”
“Okay,” Conroy said, an uncomfortable tone creeping into her voice. “You mind if we look around?”
“Not at all. Anything that’ll help.” Tera shook her head, the dark locks shimmering. “Her bedroom’s the one on the left, opposite the bathroom. Or it used to be.”
Suddenly Tera’s tough talk dissolved into another round of tears, and that quickly built into racking sobs.
Conroy stayed and held the dancer, tried to comfort her as Catherine and Sara moved to the bedroom. They slipped on latex gloves and entered.
Tera hadn’t been kidding—Jenna had moved out, all right: no bed, no dresser, no furniture of any kind, just a few stray clothes hanging in the closet and a small pile of CDs sitting inside the door, the final artifacts remaining of Jenna Patrick’s life in this tiny apartment.
The two criminalists went back to the living room where Conroy still sat on the couch next to Tera Jameson, holding the woman’s hand—something she doubted Jim Brass would have done, and which would have mystified Grissom. Catherine caught Conroy’s gaze and shook her head—they hadn’t found anything.
Conroy rose, looking down at the young woman with a somber smile. “Ms. Jameson, we’re sorry for your loss.”
Tera, who was drying her eyes with a handkerchief, nodded bravely.
Conroy joined the CSIs at the door. “If we have more questions,” she said to Tera, “we’ll get back to you…. You have my card, if you think of something you consider important.”
“I do, yes—I will…and
thank you.”
“Have you ever been back to Dream Dolls,” Catherine asked suddenly, “since you quit?”
Tera shook her head, her long dark hair swinging. “No way. Good riddance to that hellhole.”
Catherine knew the feeling.
“Thanks,” Catherine said, and exchanged polite smiles with the woman.
Soon the trio from LVMPD were standing next to Conroy’s car.
Catherine asked, “You didn’t search Lipton’s place yet?”
“No,” Conroy said, “just picked him up and brought him in. We should get to that.”
“Since he’s in custody,” Sara said, “maybe it could wait till tonight—we’re way past the end of shift, and I’d hate to get the day shift’s sticky fingers in this.”
Conroy said, “That should work out fine. Meantime, I’ll ask Lipton if he’ll give us the go-ahead, and see if we have to get a search warrant or not.”
“You think he’ll stop cooperating?” Catherine asked.
Conroy arched an eyebrow. “Wouldn’t you, if you were about to go down for murder?”
“Yeah, I suppose I would…unless I was innocent.”
“Which you think he is?”
“Well, he’s cooperated with us so far—hasn’t hidden a thing.”
Sara asked, “Tera didn’t paint a very pretty picture of him.”
“She also didn’t paint that violent a picture of him,” Catherine pointed out. “Lipton and Tera hated each other, but it never went past shouting matches, didn’t come to blows.”
The three traded expressions that were made up of equal parts exhaustion and perplexity.
Catherine gave Conroy a wave, and she and Sara headed back to the Tahoe. They had plenty of work to do, though some of it could wait till tonight and, she hoped, the evidence would provide the right answers.
Concentrate on what cannot lie, Grissom liked to say: the evidence.
Hearing footsteps, Catherine turned to find Conroy right behind her. “I’m thinking of stopping at Circus Circus on the way back…you girls interested in some more overtime?”
Catherine looked toward Sara, and they both sighed and shrugged—at this point, what was the difference?
Twenty minutes later they pulled into the parking garage next to Circus Circus; then they were walking through the maze of halls to the second-floor casino where the familiar casino sounds—spinning slots, dealers calling out cards, rolling roulette balls—belied the breakfast hour. This large area was filled with slots, about half of which were in action; the cashier’s cage stood immediately to the right, an Hispanic security guard making small talk with a cute redhead on the other side of the bars.
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