Catherine asked, "Would you care to comment on the photo albums? Pornography is one thing; but you obviously take a…proactive interest."
The attorney touched Randle's arm and said, "You don't have to explain yourself, Gary. We'll discuss this-"
But Randle said, "I have nothing to hide, Jonathan!"
"I know you don't, but-"
Randle looked directly at Catherine. "You see, my ex-wife-"
"Elaine."
His eyes tightened, when he realized Catherine knew his ex-wife's name; but he pressed on: "Yes, Elaine…. Elaine and I were, for a time, in…how should I say this…a certain lifestyle."
"Swinging," Catherine said. "Wife swapping? Group sex?"
His eyes fell to the floor; he nodded. "I'm not proud of it. It was kind of an experimental phase we were both going through. We'd both had affairs, and got back together, and we thought maybe…I don't know. We'd save the marriage somehow, by this…openness. Anyway, it was a mistake. In fact, in the end, I think that…activity…was what led to Elaine's drinking getting out of hand."
"And that phase is over?"
Randle waved dismissively. "Long since. We ditched the swinger's scene, but…I guess it was too late to save the marriage."
Nick said, "If it was just a phase, why hold onto the photo albums?"
"I don't know. I just did. I don't really think that's any of your business, anyway. I've been frank. Doesn't that count for anything?"
"You're not involved in that scene, anymore."
"No! I have nothing to hide!"
"Not in those photos," Nick said.
The attorney said, "Mr. Stokes!"
Catherine asked, "Your ex-wife has visitation rights, correct?"
"Supervised," Randle said, "by an officer of the court. Social worker in our case."
"So Elaine doesn't have custody on the weekends?"
"Much as she hates that, no. Her drinking burned a lot of bridges for her. She was drunk behind the wheel when she got into that accident-with Heather in the car!"
Catherine didn't think either one of them sounded like candidates for parent of the year. She handed Randle a piece of paper. "This is an itemized list of the property we're seizing. Anything that isn't evidence will be returned, in due course."
Randle slowly scanned the list; he looked up, surprised. "What's this about a laptop?"
"The one that was next to the couch," Catherine said, "in the family room."
"No."
"No?"
"Lady, I don't even own a laptop."
"Well, that's a new one, Mr. Randle. I've heard 'I don't even own a gun,' I've certainly heard 'That's not my grass'…but-"
"Show me this laptop. Come on-show me!"
They did.
"Not mine," Randle said, shaking his head emphatically. "Not Heather's, either."
Nick asked, "Then how did it come to be in your family room?"
Randle's eyes were huge, though the flesh around them had tightened; a vein was throbbing in his forehead.
Catherine said pleasantly, "Well, Mr. Randle?"
For first time, Randle seemed not just put out or frustrated or irritated: he was afraid. Clearly, utterly terrified. But he managed to say, "How can I explain it? You should tell me-you're the detectives!"
The attorney took his client firmly by the arm. "Mr. Randle has nothing further to say about this matter. Are you going to charge him? Take him in for questioning as a material witness?"
Catherine said nothing; Nick was silent, and O'Riley, too.
"Then please take with you what your search warrant allows," Austin said, "and leave my client's home."
Catherine looked right at Randle, though her words were directed to the attorney: "Your client should not leave town. He may feel he has nothing more to say to us, but we may have much more to say to him-once we've gone through this material at the lab."
Nick's smile looked almost sincere. "You'll be hearing from us real soon, Mr. Randle. Thanks for your cooperation."
Randle and his attorney headed back for the kitchen, and O'Riley helped the CSIs load up the Tahoe with the potential evidence.
At HQ, Nunez was given custody of the computers while Catherine and Nick split up everything else. Before they really dug in, Catherine said, "Hey-before we look at naked pictures, Nicky…isn't there someone we should talk to, first?"
"A man of the cloth?" Nick asked, wryly.
"Not even a man with a cloth…. A woman. With an ex-husband I'm confident she'll want to tell us all about…."
Within half an hour, Catherine and Nick-with O'Riley chaperoning-were on the front porch of a one-story house in a quiet neighborhood on Gunderson Boulevard.
The older home, with its white and gray siding, tall trees sprouting from a lush, trim lawn, could hardly compare with Randle's Lakes area residence, but it had a quiet, homey appeal. In the driveway outside a one-car garage, a black Lincoln Continental seemed slightly incongruous next to the modest but well-kept home.
O'Riley rang the bell and, as if she'd been expecting them, a woman answered.
"May I help you?" she asked, her voice midrange and sweet, almost saccharine.
O'Riley said, "Elaine Randle?"
She nodded. "Why yes-what is it? You folks have an…official look."
Were the remnants of a Southern accent, Catherine wondered, lurking in there somewhere?
The detective was showing his wallet I.D. to the woman, introducing himself and the CSIs.
The woman's smile vanished. "Is it Heather? Is she all right? Please tell me she's fine!"
"Yes, she is fine," Catherine said, putting some warmth in it.
"Thank God," Elaine said, and her smile returned, however tentative.
"Sorry to alarm you," Catherine said. "Hey, I'm a mom myself. Mrs. Randle, we'd like to talk to you about your ex-husband."
The smile was gone again, but she opened the door. "Please come in. Is something wrong? Is Gary all right?"
They were all inside before Catherine answered. "Your husband's all right. As for, if something's wrong…frankly, we don't know yet. We'd just like to ask you a few questions."
Nick said, "You may be able to help us determine if there is a problem."
"I'm not sure I understand, but I'm glad to talk to you. Can I get anyone a drink?" They declined and their hostess led them into a small, neat living room with anonymous contemporary decor. A sofa lined one wall and a couple of chairs sat at angles, one at the sofa's far end, the other across the narrow room. A twenty-one-inch TV perched on a cart in a corner and an end table separated the sofa and the nearest chair.
"There's no polite way to say this," Catherine said, having been asked in advance by an embarrassed O'Riley to take the lead with the woman. "But we need to talk to you about Mr. Randle's sexual proclivities."
A hand went to the woman's mouth and trembled there; her eyes jumped. "Oh, God…I thought that was behind me. What has he done? What has Gary done?"
How quickly they'd gotten to this point caught Catherine by surprise, and she was astonished to hear herself pleading the suspect's case, however vaguely: "We're not sure Gary's done anything, Mrs. Randle."
"Oh. Well, I hope you're right…."
"Why would you think he had?"
Elaine Randle shrugged, sighed. "Gary's…appetites always seem to be escalating. When we were married, he just kept wanting more…more of…well, everything."
"When you were involved with him, in that lifestyle, you didn't like it?"
"No. I tried to like it-for Gary. For our marriage."
"Did that pressure, that stress, have anything to do with your drinking problem?"
The woman leaned forward and almost whispered to Catherine: "Could you and I talk, alone? I'm sorry, but this is…" She glanced at Nick and O'Riley. "…this is embarrassing."
"It needn't be," Catherine said. "Detective O'Riley and CSI Stokes are professionals, and they need to hear what you have to say."
"Well…but it
's…"
"We gather evidence," Catherine said in a firm but friendly manner. "We don't judge."
Elaine Randle drew in a deep breath, sighed, and pressed on: "Our lifestyle involved…well…there's no other way to say it: Gary's perverted tastes. He always wanted to see me with other men, other women and finally, in groups. It was getting out of hand. It was humiliating, demeaning, and as you guessed, yes, I started drinking to cope, and eventually that got out of hand, too."
Catherine cocked her head, studying the woman. "Was Gary ever interested in younger partners?"
With a derisive laugh, the woman said, "Yes-once I hit thirty, he had an affair with a woman barely out of her teens. And, later, I could see…in the swinging situations? Where Gary was concerned, the younger the partner, the better."
"Really?"
She grunted a laugh. "It's almost like he's obsessed with youth-youth and sex. He was constantly looking for attention from younger women. Maybe that's not unusual."
"What do you mean, Mrs. Randle?"
"Well, he was past thirty, too, remember-younger women, girls, that was a way to prove to himself that he hadn't lost it-that he really wasn't getting older."
"How young were these 'girls'?" Nick asked.
Elaine Randle flushed a little. She answered Nick's question, but looked at Catherine, her voice soft. "One night, shortly before I ended our relationship, I let him talk me into a threesome…I'm not proud of this…with the eighteen-year-old girl babysitting our daughter."
Catherine sat forward. "Did Gary ever display a desire for an even younger girl?"
She frowned. "Younger than that? Teenage girls, you mean? Our daughter's age…?"
The words were barely out of the woman's mouth when she froze in horror.
"Your daughter's age," Catherine said gently. "Or younger."
Elaine Randle leaned forward and gripped Catherine by the wrist; the woman's face was tight with concern. "Dear God, is my daughter safe? Are you sure Heather's safe with him? Where is she? Is she-"
"Heather's fine," Catherine said firmly. "We're investigating a crime where Mr. Randle works."
Fury enveloped the woman's face. She flew to her feet. "Why that no-good son of a bitch! That lousy no-good perverted son of a-"
Catherine stood and faced the woman; held onto her forearms. "Whoa…go slow, Mrs. Randle. We don't know anything yet-your husband may just bean innocent bystander. There are several dozen people at his agency, and he's just one of many we're looking at."
"Well, that may be…but he's the only one with access to my daughter!"
"Elaine?" Catherine said, locking her eyes with Mrs. Randle. "I said I was a mother, too. Do you understand?"
Elaine Randle swallowed, nodded.
"I would feel the same about my daughter," Catherine said. "I know all about the maternal urge to protect…and as one mother to another, I'm telling you-don't worry."
"How can I not-"
Catherine put a hand on Elaine Randle's shoulder. "We won't let anything happen to Heather. She will be safe."
8
FOR THE FIRST TWENTY-FOUR HOURS AND THEN SOME, THE "Want" on the radio for the white Chevy had been a bigger bust than the car's broken taillight.
And then a prowl car reported a white Monte Carlo with a broken tail near the New York New York casino resort. The patrolman said the Monte was headed into the hotel parking ramp and that he would follow, but by the time Warrick Brown and Captain Jim Brass arrived, both the patrolman and the Monte were gone.
Livid, Brass radioed dispatch and was told that 2Paul34-the patrol car in question-had responded to a 444…"officer needs help-emergency"…on Russell Road, where a drunken motorist had taken a potshot at another officer during a routine traffic stop.
"Talk about good excuse," Warrick said. This was midmorning-Warrick already several hours into a double shift-so the drunk was either getting an early start or heading home way late.
Brass nonetheless looked pissed-off, though Warrick knew damn well the detective would have done the same as the patrolman-the urge to help a brother officer ran deep. Brass pushed the button on the radio and said, "Dispatch-did 2Paul34 report a license number?"
The female dispatcher's voice crackled: "1Zebra10, that's affirmative. It was a match for your partial."
"Dispatch, you have the whole number?"
"Affirmative."
"Run that for me, will you?"
While they waited, Warrick talked Brass into driving up and down every row in the parking building to search for the vehicle; there were lots of white cars, several Chevys, even a few Monte Carlos, but none the right year, nor with a broken taillight.
Soon Brass was pulling out onto Las Vegas Boulevard, where he glided aimlessly, both the detective and CSI searching for the white-car needle in the traffic haystack of the Strip, really just killing time until a computer coughed up the name and address of their suspect.
After an endless wait-about four minutes-the dispatcher came back on. "1Zebra10, that car, a white 1998 Chevrolet Monte Carlo is registered to Kyle A. Hamilton."
"Address?"
The dispatcher told him.
"Ten-four," Brass told the mike. "1Zebra10 will be 423 at that address."
"Ten-four," the dispatcher replied.
A 423 radio call meant they'd be seeing a person for information-not usually the business of a CSI, but both Warrick and Brass knew they might well be going to the home of a killer. That meant possible evidence, even-considering the nature of Candace Lewis's apparent extended stay with the killer-a crime scene.
Anyway, two heads were better than one in such a situation; also, two guns….
The address was way up north, Cotton Gum Court, above Craig and off Lone Mountain Road and Spruce Oak Drive. From the Strip, even in relatively light midmorning traffic, the trip took the better part of an hour and, when they finally pulled up to the house, the distinct signs of nobody-home awaited them.
The two-story stucco with two-car garage had one of those new xeriscape yards. With the drought oppressing the area for the last two years, ripping up and replacing lawns with low-moisture plants-xeriscaping-had become more than a fad, including a way to gain rebates from the water company as the dry spell continued its stranglehold on the city's unchecked growth.
The double-wide garage door was down, the blinds were pulled tight, and the upstairs curtains were drawn; all that was lacking was some tumbleweed to blow across the landscape. Warrick followed Brass to the front door and the detective rang the bell; no answer. They tried again, and again, with the same result. They took a quick trip around the residence, but saw nothing, including peeking through the few windows that provided a view.
Brass tried the neighbors on either side. At the house to the east, the detective talked briefly to a soccer mom just getting ready to leave. She reported that Hamilton was a nice, quiet neighbor who worked days and sometimes into the evening. What job? She couldn't quite recall; sales of some kind.
When the woman excused herself and closed the door, Warrick said, "Pretty much the kind of innocuous report the neighbors give when a TV crew comes around asking about the serial killer next door."
Brass didn't disagree.
The neighbor to the west, like Hamilton, wasn't home.
"Well," Brass sighed, leaning against the driver's side door of the Taurus, looking across at Warrick. "Shall we wait him out?
"I'm into double shift," Warrick reminded the detective. "Could we get a patrol car out here, to watch for him?"
"I could arrange that. If you'd care to volunteer to answer the call from Sheriff Mobley, when he wants an explanation why we parked an officer in front of the empty house of a guy who might be a suspect, or might just be a good citizen."
Warrick thought about that, then shook his head. "Jim, this isn't just any case-it's a national story, and the sheriff's ass is on the line. I think this is one time he'd justify the outlay."
Brass stopped to reconsider. Then he said,
"You know…you're right. And I know just how to do it."
Brass got on his cell and called a detective at the North Las Vegas PD. He filled the man in, clicked off and said to Warrick, "Guy owes me a favor. He'll send a patrol car out here and keep us posted."
"And it won't even come out of our budget. Captain Brass, nicely played."
Brass smiled a little; it was almost like he was blowing a kiss at Warrick-almost. "So what now? This is one of those cases where I gotta follow the CSI lead."
"Nice to hear you admit that. So why I don't check in with Grissom? I think he's headed to the mayor's office, and he might want us to try to catch up."
Brass's brow rose and yet his eyes remained half-lidded. "All the way back downtown, then."
"All the way back downtown."
On the way south, Warrick made the call. "Gris? Warrick-we've tracked the taillight to a possible suspect, but the guy isn't home."
"Is someone watching the house?"
Warrick filled Grissom in, and the CSI supervisor requested that his kudos also be passed along to Brass.
Grissom added, "Why don't you join us, then. Brass, too, if he's free."
"It's not like there's a bigger case in Vegas, right now. Mayor's office?"
"Office, and then house. We have warrants for both, but it took a while."
Warrick could hear the weary frustration in his boss's voice, and asked, "You mean you haven't even talked to His Honor yet?"
Grissom's voice displayed the lilting sarcasm he often lent to his understatements. "Judge Clark was reluctant to give us the warrant."
Warrick groaned. "Probably thought it was political. That Mobley was behind it."
"As if we'd do that kind of bidding for the sheriff."
Grissom's contempt for politics was well known not only within CSI itself but local government, generally.
"That's why it took overnight," Gris was saying. "Judge called the sheriff this morning and, devil his due, Mobley must have convinced Clark, because we finally got the ruling."
"Yeah, well, at least you got it-we'd be S.O.L., otherwise."
"We have an appointment with the mayor, at his office, in half an hour. Can you make it?"
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