Body of Evidence ccsi-4

by Max Allan Collins

  "May I help you?" Grissom asked, in a voice usually reserved for suspected shoplifters.

  The FBI agent eased into the room, helped himself to a chair, leaned back, crossed a leg, smiled with a million teeth. "Heard you found a body at Nellis this morning."

  "No."

  Eyebrows raised. "You didn't find a body at Nellis Air Force Base?"

  "We found a body outside the Air Force base."

  "Ah. Right. You're always precise. Admire that in you, buddy."

  "Thank you."

  "I also heard that the victim is the subject of an investigation of ours."

  Grissom couldn't help himself. "That missing person that you didn't find? Yes."

  Culpepper folded his arms, smiled big. Then he said, "Yeah, well, we're going to want to be kept in the loop, where your investigation's concerned."

  "Are you? What is it people in hell want, again?"

  "Hey, buddy, there's no need to be snotty-you don't still hold a grudge! You were working one case, I was working another-sometimes there's conflicts of interest, even between friends…if you gather my meaning."

  Grissom said nothing.

  "After all, we're on the same team, just different squads. All after the same thing, right? Justice."

  Culpepper could crawl under Grissom's skin like few other people on this earth. But the CSI's voice remained calm. "We're after the truth about crimes, and justice can flow from that. But, Culpepper, I have no idea what you're after-except maybe a corner office with a view."

  Culpepper rose, as if in slow motion, and smoothed out his suit; he glanced at the surrounding clutter. "Not everybody can have an office like this…. Just keep us apprised, buddy. Okay?"

  "Sure," Grissom said, hoping it would speed the agent on his way.

  "See," Culpepper said from the doorway, unable to leave without having the last word. "We are on the same team."

  And by way of goodbye, he fired a finger gun at Grissom and winked.

  When the agent had gone, Grissom decided that he would indeed inform Culpepper of their progress-just as soon as the killer was arrested, tried, convicted, sentenced and safely behind bars awaiting lethal injection. Even then, Grissom thought, Culpepper would still look for a way to turn the case to his advantage.

  Grissom bent over some paperwork and forced himself to concentrate; he would not allow the federal agent to get to him. But his head popped up when someone knocked on the jamb. He was ready to snap at Culpepper if the FBI agent had returned, only it was Greg Sanders framed in the doorway, a small stack of printouts in hand.

  The slender young DNA expert with the spiky hair and longish sideburns smiled nervously his sharp, brown eyes darting around. Greg always seemed to be one espresso over the line.

  Grissom willed calm into his voice, making sure the Culpepper irritation didn't bleed in. "Yes, Greg?" He knew he intimidated Greg and the kid was nervous enough, already.

  "Test results on your Air Force base vic."

  Pleasantly surprised, Grissom said, "That was fast."

  Sanders shrugged. "We had DNA from her hair-brush we got from the Lewis woman's apartment, back when she disappeared. Having the body made it easy-I didn't have to wait while we replicated over and over from one cell."

  "I know how DNA is processed, Greg. And?"

  Greg looked lost. "And what?"

  As usual, Greg's attention deficit disorder seemed to have kicked in, the tech so wrapped up in what he hadn't had to do that he'd forgotten the reason for his visit…which was what he had gotten done.

  Letting out a sigh Grissom asked, "And what did you find, Greg?"

  "Oh!" Greg said, snapping out of it. "The DNA matched. The body in the morgue is definitely Candace Lewis."

  "Thanks, Greg."

  "Hey. My pleasure. Any time. No problem."

  "The report, Greg."

  "Sure." Greg handed him the report, twitched three or four awkward smiles, and left.

  Grissom absently fingered through pages that all added up to just one thing: what had been a high-profile missing persons case had turned into an even higher-profile homicide, and the two best suspects?

  The mayor of the city and the sheriff who kept the peace.

  The CSI allowed himself a small, personal smile. It was a good thing he believed so firmly in following the evidence, because if he followed hunches-like his friend Brass-Gil Grissom would've had a really bad feeling about where this case was headed.

  5

  AFTER SOME SACK TIME AND A FEW MINDLESS HOURS OF ESPN, Nick Stokes felt like a new man. He could tell that Catherine was in a much better mood now, too-sleep and a little quality time with her daughter always seemed to work wonders.

  With Grissom's permission, Nick and Catherine were starting their shift midway-three A.M.-which would allow them to work into daylight hours, and be along for interviews with witnesses and suspects. Also, it would put them only halfway through shift when Nunez and his computer cronies showed up to go to work at seven.

  The two CSIs joined Nunez's compu-posse then in the large, air-conditioned, garage-like room at the rear of the complex.

  The Ryder truck sat parked in the middle of the room with Nunez's team taking the computers out one at a time and placing them on banquet-style tables assembled around the truck. The scene looked vaguely like a swap meet. That vibe quickly faded, however, as the experts got to work: each hard drive was imaged twice, with one copy being put in the computer to be returned to Newcombe-Gold and the other marked for Nunez to search. Each of the originals was tagged and sent to the evidence room.

  "Evidence room" was something of a misnomer ever since the LVMPD had been forced to add a building to the CSI complex in order to accommodate the overflow from all the department's investigations. The small, one-story, concrete building out back had a dozen rooms on the first floor and almost that many more in the even more heavily guarded basement.

  This overwhelming backlog of evidence had built up fast because of the slow grind of the wheels of justice-not just the court system, but bureaucratic security measures. Each piece of evidence was now affixed with a scan tag, so that when Nick went there for evidence it felt like going to Sam's Club. Scan the number, take your prize with you. One room held computer equipment, others housed stereo equipment, tires and so on, while the really dangerous stuff, the drugs and guns, were stored within the bunker-like security of the basement. Access to this part of the building was only slightly harder than getting into the control room of a nuclear missile silo.

  Nick observed Carroll and Giles and the others poring over the computers, then he turned to watch their boss. Seeing the biker-like Tomas Nunez delicately tapping the keyboard of his laptop was like watching Lurch play the harpsichord for the Addams Family. The rangy Hispanic computer expert had jacked Ruben Gold's hard drive into his massive forensic computer and was using a program called ILOOK.

  Developed by a Britisher named Elliot Spencer, ILOOK was the best computer forensic software this side of the National Security Agency, and Nick was pretty sure the NSA wasn't going to share its techno-wealth with the LVMPD. Nick leaned over Nunez's shoulder, Catherine next to him, as the expert punched keys, currently running through print orders searching for the work station that had ordered Gold's printer to run off the pornographic images.

  "You know," Nunez said idly, "in 1995 only five percent of all crime involved computers. Now the figures are more like eighty-five percent." He went silent as he studied his monitor.

  Catherine glanced at Nick, obviously surprised by these stats.

  Nick didn't doubt Nunez; on the other hand, the computer expert might be viewing crime through his end of the CPU. "Anything yet?" he asked.

  Nunez's touched a line on the screen. "Yeah. Already something crucial: the print order was not generated from Gold's computer."

  Catherine and Nick again traded glances, and the former asked, "But do we know where the order did come from?"

  Nunez looked hard at his monitor, then
said, "That would be a big bingo-work station number eighteen."

  "Whose station is that?" Catherine asked.

  Nick looked at the printout Janice Denard had given them that showed who occupied which work station. "Ben Jackson."

  Catherine sighed, rolled her eyes. "It would be one of the handful we didn't fingerprint."

  "Yet," Nick remind her. Something didn't feel right, and he asked, "Didn't Janice Denard tell us that Jackson was gone all weekend?"

  "Yeah." Catherine looked at her watch. "Let's go see if he came to work early today, now that he's back in town. Maybe he'd like to show us snapshots from his trip."

  The edge in Catherine's voice troubled Nick. "Let's not get ahead of ourselves," he said, getting out his cell phone. "I'll fill O'Riley in. See if he can meet us over at Newcombe-Gold."

  Turning to Nunez, Catherine said, "You'll call if you find anything?"

  "In a cyber second."

  Twenty-one minutes later, Nick Stokes was wheeling the Tahoe into the Newcombe-Gold parking lot, where on this sunny morning only a handful of cars were parked. The CSIs were getting their silver crime-scene kits out of the back of the van when Sergeant O'Riley pulled his Taurus into a slot next to them.

  O'Riley ambled over. He had dark circles under his eyes and looked a little like the zombie Nick had almost mistaken him for, the other day.

  "No fair," the detective said. "You guys caught some sleep."

  Nick grinned. "Three hours'll do wonders."

  Catherine made a wry face. "At Nicky's age, it will."

  "Aw," O'Riley said to her, "you're beautiful at any age."

  "I'm going to take that as a compliment."

  They started toward the building, O'Riley saying, "Sounds like our computer geeks are making some progress."

  Nick said, "Sounds like."

  The agency's front door was unlocked. The attractive brunette receptionist was working and it took only a minute or so for Janice Denard to answer the summons. The two CSIs and the detective moved with Denard away from the reception desk, for some privacy.

  The office manager had replaced yesterday's polka-dot dress with snug-fitting blue jeans and a long-sleeve red silk blouse with the top two buttons undone.

  "Casual day?" Catherine asked lightly.

  Janice sort of smiled. "Casual every day, thanks to you people."

  That may have come out harsher than Denard intended, but Catherine didn't react. Oddly, it was Nick who found himself working hard to swallow an angry retort.

  It was just that the woman's reaction was all too typical. People wanted protection, wanted law enforcement to keep all the badness in the world away…but without disturbing anything, without disruption.

  Such an attitude played into why, the longer they were on the job, so many officers grew cynical. For his part, Nick tried hard to keep any cynicism in check-spending so much time in the lab, hitting the science end, helped. Still, Nick knew the Denard woman was doing her best to cooperate, balanced against her need and desire to keep making her living.

  Funny-it wasn't that Nick was in a bad mood, really. Neither was Catherine. Nor did they seem particularly on edge, but…

  …something about the nature of this case was working on them, and not in a good way. He would try to keep tabs on himself…and Catherine. Grissom's voice seemed to whisper in his ear: Not subjective, Nick-objective.

  Catherine was bringing Denard up to speed, closing with, "Is Ben Jackson in yet? We need to talk to him."

  "Oh, my God," Janice said, a hand coming up in front of her mouth. "Not Ben!"

  "Let's not get ahead of ourselves," Catherine said pleasantly. "It was Ben's work station that ordered the print job, but that doesn't necessarily mean he's the one who did this."

  Straightening, obviously trying to calm herself, Denard said, "Well, I hope it isn't Ben. It doesn't seem that it could possibly be Ben…."

  O'Riley asked, "Who is he around here?"

  "Well he's a sweetheart," Denard said. "Just a real sweetheart!"

  Nick smiled a little. "Maybe you could be a little more specific."

  "Yes. Sorry." Denard seemed mildly flustered; but then she composed herself and went on: "Ben's a young man who joined the firm just last summer-after he graduated from college."

  "Is he in today?" Catherine again.

  Janice nodded toward the doorway to the corridor of offices. "I'm pretty sure I saw him get here, oh, a little while ago. Half an hour maybe? He, Jermaine, and Mr. Randle, and maybe Mr. Newcombe are the only ones who'll be coming in today. Doing what they can, mostly on the phones. The rest of our staff won't return until we call them back."

  O'Riley asked, "Are Mr. Allred and Mr. Randle here yet?"

  Denard nodded, qualifying it: "Jermaine for sure. I told him the computer towers were gone and that the place was shut down. Naturally, he wanted to know why."

  "What did you tell him?"

  "Just that it was part of an investigation. I'm afraid I…I lied to him."

  O'Riley arched both brows. "How so?"

  "I…I told I didn't know what the investigation was about. He seems annoyed, I have to say."

  "Just annoyed?" Catherine asked. "Not surprised?"

  "Surprised, too. Then he said he might as well just go home, but I stopped him. I told him I thought you people would probably be back today, to talk to him and the others. Actually, I asked all three of them to stick around."

  "Was anyone upset by that?" the detective asked.

  "Not really. Jermaine said he had some drawing to do and he didn't need the computer anyway-not all of our graphics are computer-generated-so he went to his work station."

  Nick said, "Let's go back to Ben Jackson for a moment."

  "What about Ben?"

  "You're positive he wasn't here over the weekend?"

  "I'm positive as far as my personal knowledge goes…but if you'd like, I'll check the sign-in book…. Come with me."

  Heels clicking, Denard led them back to the receptionist's desk. She made a request and the woman withdrew a large black three-ring binder from her center desk drawer desk.

  Denard rested the big book on the counter and riffled through the pages to last Saturday. Methodically, she ran a finger down the lines. "No…. No, there's no sign of Ben's name. He wasn't here this weekend."

  They strolled away from the desk again, Catherine saying, "Well, isn't there any way he could have come in without signing in?" They stopped and formed a little semicircle. Denard shrugged.

  "I suppose, but people get paid by this book…so they always sign in when they come to work. Besides, Ben was out of town."

  Nick said, "Or was supposed to be out of town."

  Denard frowned. "Why would I disbelieve him? Why would you?"

  Catherine said, "As far as signing in…maybe he didn't come in for work…. Maybe he came to do something else. Something recreational…."

  Picking up on this, O'Riley asked, "Is there any way Jackson could have been here without anyone seeing him?"

  Denard had started shaking her head halfway through the question. "Doubtful-too many people around. Yes, people come in and out, but there's always someone around during the day."

  "Back ways into the building?"

  "Of course-but all but two are fire exits with alarms."

  Nick said, "Two doors is one more door than you need."

  O'Riley pressed. "Could Jackson have gotten in at night when no one was around?"

  Again Denard shook her head. "He doesn't have a key."

  "Who does have keys?"

  Denard list's was short: "Mr. Newcombe, Mr. Gold, Roxanne Scott and myself-that's it."

  Nick considered that for a moment. "Someone could 'borrow' one of those keys, and make a copy…."

  Denard's expression was skeptical. "Isn't that a lot of trouble to go to, just to use a work computer, after hours?"

  But Catherine and Nick exchanged looks that said each had had the same thought: someone dealing in kiddie porn ove
r the net might well want to keep that material off his home computer. Using a work computer might muddy the waters, nicely, should the police be alerted…like now.

  O'Riley was still at it: "You're sure you didn't see Jackson on Saturday?"

  Denard was admirably patient. "No, I didn't, but then, I left early. It was Roxanne who locked up."

  "Roxanne," Catherine said, "who's currently on vacation."

  "Yes."

  Gesturing toward the reception desk, Nick asked, "Can we get a photocopy of the Saturday sign-in page, from the binder, please?"

  "Certainly. I'll be right back."

  Catherine said, "We might as well go with you. We'll want to speak to Ben and have a look at his work station."

  "Whatever you need," Denard said, but a weariness had crept into the woman's voice.

  They followed her down the long corridor, falling in line behind her, single file; then they were in the work area, where she escorted the safari around a wall of cubicles and down a path to another hive of partitions. Denard stopped at the third cubicle down.

  "Ben's work station," Denard announced.

  "But no Ben," Nick said.

  Denard checked her watch, shrugged with her eyebrows. "He might be in the break room or in the washroom. Might even have stepped out for a moment."

  "Stepped out?" Catherine asked, with a little frown.

  "Advertising is a high-stress business," Denard explained. "You'd be amazed how many of our employees smoke. Since there's no smoking in the building, they have to go out back. We have a small area out there to accommodate them."

  O'Riley wanted to take a look at that, and Denard gave him instructions; then the burr-headed detective lumbered off.

  As Catherine set down her crime scene case and prepared to go to work, Nick took a quick look at the cubicle, which seemed at first just another of these anonymous interchangeable compartments. Then he looked closer and noted the touches Ben Jackson had added to make the place his own.

  Thumb-tacked to one of the cloth walls was a pennant from Iowa State University-CYCLONES! A five-by-seven frame on his desk displayed a photo of a beaming blue-eyed blonde woman in her early twenties-Jackson's girlfriend or wife, presumably. Ten mini-bobble heads stood in a line atop Jackson's computer monitor: baseball players, a few of which were caricatured well enough for Nick to recognize.