Dayton shrugged. “Somebody, one of you people, figured out I was CASt, hell, years ago … and the old man paid that person off. For years I thought it was you, Captain. And I’m glad it wasn’t.”
Brass felt something dying, deep inside.
“Anything else I can tell you, Captain?”
“Why did you come back? And kill Perry Bell?”
“You know why. Somebody was stealing something very precious to me—my identity. My … like Superman! Secret identity.”
“Why choose Perry?”
“Well … I’m not a smart detective like you. I work the other side of the fence, I guess. But I thought I had it figured out. I thought Perry was the copycat.”
“But he wasn’t.”
“My bad,” Dayton said. “Want to hear about it?”
Brass wanted to say no, but said, “Yes.”
“I can’t feel too terrible about the mistake,” Dayton said. “After all, Perry Bell was a fat old drunk with no pride. What little he had in life, I gave him … because he picked up the fame I spilled, with that book of his. He didn’t have the strength to do what I do.”
As CASt emerged and Jerry Dayton receded, the killer sat straighter, his eyes bright, and for the first time since entering this interview room, Brass felt he was facing the blood-streaked fiend who had stabbed him.
“He begged for his life, of course,” CASt said, voice cold, detached. “Said he was innocent, someone else must have done it. Funny thing is, he knew who the copycat was, but the damn drunk didn’t even know that he knew.”
“I’m not sure I understand.”
“Well, he didn’t suggest that the copycat might be Brower, until I helped him … focus.”
“How did you do that?”
“How do you think? Cut his finger off. It’s what I do.”
“… Why did you continue, Jerry—when you knew Bell wasn’t the copycat?”
“Captain, would you leave a job half-done? I hated Bell for the things he said about me in his trashy book. He made it sound like I was out of my mind.”
“The book helped make you famous.”
“True. And perhaps that’s why I took it so easy on him…. You found a key card at a murder site, didn’t you?”
This CASt introduced as blandly as if asking the detective to pass the salt.
“Yes,” Brass said.
“Bell’s, of course. It wasn’t until he and I were discussing my problem that he realized that Brower must have been the one who’d taken it.”
Brower had been Bell’s assistant; the card would have been easy enough for him to swipe.
“Why did you suspect Bell, and not his collaborator, Paquette? He cowrote CASt Fear, after all.”
CASt shook his head. “Bell was out stirring things up with speaking gigs and trying to peddle that old crap book. Paquette was successful, he’d moved on. Anyway, I always suspected my father had paid him off, too, like that cop.”
“Your father never mentioned who it was, this cop.”
“No. But we both know, don’t we, Captain?”
Brass said nothing.
CASt slumped in the chair and became Jerome Dayton. He looked exhausted.
Brass could hardly blame him, feeling drained himself.
“I fill in everything you need?” Dayton asked.
“You did fine, Jerry.”
“You’re not disappointed?”
“No. I may want to talk again. There’s a lot of ground to cover, so many old cases.”
“No problem. I like talking to you.”
Brass said, “Good. I’m glad.”
“You know what I really like about you, Captain?”
“What’s that, Jerry?”
“You never point your finger at me.”
“And Jerry,” Brass said, “I never will.”
The attending physician reluctantly granted Grissom and Catherine access to his patient. Despite a considerable loss of blood, Brower could talk without endangering himself. The doctor did limit the visitors to two, so Nick remained in the hall with the uniformed officer stationed outside the private room.
As the two CSIs entered this typical hospital room—the white walls, white ceiling, and single fluorescent tube behind plastic just above the bed—it oddly recalled to Grissom the living environs of the real CASt.
The copycat CASt lay under a white blanket, on top of which his heavily bandaged left hand lay, like a giant gauze club. Other than that, Brower seemed physically unaffected from his visit to CASt’s castle.
As they’d entered, Brower had turned toward the window, the blinds slightly open to give him a third-floor view south, toward the Strip.
Catherine said, “Really think looking the other way is going to do the trick, Mark?”
The patient said nothing, staring out the window in stony silence.
Catherine walked around the bed and across his field of vision, and closed the blinds.
Brower glared at her, then turned away only to be confronted by Grissom, standing with arms folded and a placid smile.
Then the patient looked straight ahead and raised his right hand, in which the television remote resided, and turned the high-riding TV on, volume way up.
Grissom plucked the remote from the killer’s hand and switched the set off. Brower’s eyes never left the black screen.
“You don’t have to look at us, Mark,” Grissom said. “In fact, I’m fine with that. But you do have to talk about this.”
“Nothing to say.”
Catherine leaned in. “Well, we have things to say.”
“I don’t have to listen. I’m the victim here, and you people are treating me like I did something wrong.”
“You’re the CASt copycat, Mark,” Catherine said. “That’s very wrong.”
“I was investigating the original case,” he said. “You should give me a reward for helping you nab the real CASt.”
“Thanks,” Grissom said, his inflection light. “But I’m afraid the understudy doesn’t get to go back on stage and become a star. You see, Mark, we’ve been to your house. We found the tinsmith clippers—which test positive for blood—that you used to cut off the fingers of your victims; we’ve got the rope you used, lipstick, the entire makings of the road company CASt.”
Brower’s face fell, but then he managed to summon indignation. “What the hell good will that do without a warrant?”
“That’s why we’re here, Mark,” Grissom said pleasantly, and lifted a hand that held the very document; he handed it toward Brower, who looked at the small sheaf of papers as if it were on fire.
“On what grounds?” he demanded.
Grissom tossed the warrant on the bed, while Catherine provided the patient with a soothing smile. “We matched your fingerprints to the door bells of Marvin Sandred and Enrique Diaz.”
Brower said, “They … they must have been planted. I’m a crime beat reporter! I wouldn’t do anything, so … so …”
“Dumb?” Grissom asked. “Want to tell us about it?”
“No.”
“All right. Then I’ll tell you…. Paquette wouldn’t fire Bell and he wouldn’t promote you while Perry was still there. If Mark Brower was ever going to get his own column, make a real name for himself, Perry Bell had to go. But why not just kill Bell?”
Brower said nothing.
So Catherine answered, “What, and make him a martyr? You needed to discredit him, Mark, and at the same time provide yourself the ringside seat for a major crime story, and do your own CASt book.”
Suddenly Brower spoke, softly, very softly. “I was carrying that fat drunken bastard for the last five years. It was my turn to be someone … my turn to be the star reporter.”
“Maybe you still can be,” Grissom said brightly. “Ely Hard Times is always looking for a good scribe.”
Brower clearly didn’t know what Grissom was talking about.
Catherine patted the patient’s bandaged hand, ever so gently, and explained: “Prison new
spaper, Mark. You can be the Death Row correspondent … for a while.”
How long he’d been driving around, Brass had no idea; darkness had settled over the city, and he still hadn’t found his way home.
Things had sorted themselves out and Grissom had assembled the evidence in a manner that gave them a pretty good handle on the facts.
Mark Brower would likely receive a lethal injection, though he had cooperated, giving Grissom and Catherine a complete confession—which actually might buy the reporter a lifetime lease on a maximum security cell out in Ely. Might.
Jerry Dayton would likely not face the ultimate punishment, at least not the one this world provided. At least six men were dead, but Dayton would spend the rest of his life in a mental hospital, the kind that didn’t hand out weekend passes like free samples at a supermarket.
Though he could hardly believe it himself, Jim Brass felt sorry for Dayton, and hoped within the walls where he would live out his troubled life, the man would get some real help, a measure of peace.
Not every day that a cop took two serial killers off the streets, but what should have been an evening for celebration had found the detective driving aimlessly around Henderson, avoiding the address he’d come to town seeking. Finally, he gave up and pulled in at the guard shack at Sunny Day Continuing Care Facility.
The guard rang ahead, and when Brass got to the building at the far end, his old partner was sitting on the front step of the building in a dark bathrobe and slippers, smoking a cigarette.
“Want one?” he asked Brass.
The detective shook his head. “I quit.”
“I got a drink for you inside…?”
“Quit that, too.”
“What a damn bore you’ve become, Jim.”
Brass looked through the darkness at Vince Champlain. In the meager light seeping from neighboring apartments, Vince seemed very old, almost frail. Funny to have it come this—Champlain had always seemed so strong to Brass, back when they were partners, almost a father figure; but the man who had covered his back for years now seemed weak.
Brass sat next to his old friend.
Vince took a long drag; let it out; chuckled, coughed. “Margie won’t let me smoke in the apartment. Makes me come out here. Treats me like a little kid.”
“We put Dayton away today.”
“I heard. All over the tube. And Mark Brower? Who’da thunk it?”
“Who’da thunk it.”
With a sideways glance, Champlain said, “So I suppose you talked to that lunatic Dayton yourself?”
“I did.”
“Never know what those crackpots are gonna claim, do you?”
“Is that your way of denying it?”
The retired cop shrugged. “If you think you know, you think you know. What can I do about it?”
“Until just now, I figured maybe I was wrong. We weren’t the only ones on the case.”
“Damn near. Well.” Champlain took another deep drag. Let it slowly out. Did not look at Brass. “What are you going to do about it?”
Brass looked up at the stars. “Not sure yet.”
“You could forget about it. Write it off as the ravings of a loon.”
Brass lowered his vision and brought it in line with his ex-partner’s, and the men locked eyes.
“Sorry,” Champlain said, and looked away. “Shoulda known better.”
“… Margie know?”
Champlain shook his head. “Why? … You gonna tell her?”
“Not my place.”
“What are you going to do? I have a right to know.”
“The rights you have are to remain silent and to have a lawyer appointed for you if you can’t afford one, though with the money Tom Dayton gave you over the years, I’m pretty sure you can get a decent one. Maybe even Carlisle Deams.”
The frown had anger in it, and disappointment; but also embarrassment. “So … you’re taking me in? My own partner?”
“Maybe I’m just reminding you. I don’t know how you verified Dayton was CASt, or how you did that without the press … or me … tipping to it. But you had enough to put the squeeze on Tom Dayton, despite all his power.”
“When did you get so goddamn self-righteous?” Champlain said, stubbing out his smoke under a slipper. Without hesitation, he lit another one.
“Call it that if you want, Vince. I took an oath and they gave me a badge. I don’t have a wife. I have precious few friends away from my job. So I don’t have much but the ability to go to sleep, justified. It’s enough.”
“Go to hell, Jim. Just a little goddamn money, is all.”
“If that’s how you get to sleep, that’s your business. But people died, Vince. Vincent Drake and Perry Bell were both killed by the real CASt, after you took Tom Dayton’s money to look the other way. Those murders could have been prevented…. Why? So you could retire in comfort?”
Champlain tossed his cigarette into the night, trailing sparks. He gave Brass a long hard look. “Yes.”
“That simple.”
“Simple choice: retire on Dayton’s money and have a little something, or retire after thirty years on a pension I could barely live on myself, let alone support my wife. See, I do have a wife. And life.”
“A life that a couple of people had to die so you could maintain?”
Champlain stared into the dark. “I’m not proud of that. I thought the son of a bitch was just another vegetable on the funny farm, never to be heard from again.”
“You were wrong.”
“You think I don’t know that? But it was too late to do anything about it!”
“Yeah? Or did you just ask for a bigger stipend from Daddy Dayton…? What do these apartments run for, anyway? You get full health treatment here, too, right?”
“Right. What are you going to do, Jim?”
Brass thought about it. “Give me a cigarette.”
Champlain did. Lighted it up. “Thought you stopped.”
“I did. But you’re not worth losing my sobriety over.”
The detective took several long drags.
Again Champlain asked: “What are you going to do, Jim?”
Brass turned and looked hard at his former partner. “I’m going to sleep on it. Who knows what the night will bring? You know the cop trade, Vince—never know what’s coming next, when the next confession’s gonna walk in the door, or when some poor bastard’s gonna decide to eat his gun…. What are you going to do?”
Then Brass pitched the sparking cigarette into the night, rose, and began to walk away.
Champlain was on his feet, but Brass couldn’t see it.
But he heard the man call out: “Is that how you’re gonna leave it? After all these years? After I watched your back?”
But Brass did not reply, just kept walking.
And Vince Champlain watched his partner’s back one last time, until Brass had been swallowed by the darkness.
A Tip of the Test Tube
My assistant Matthew Clemens helped me develop the plot of Binding Ties, and worked up a lengthy story treatment, which included all of his considerable forensic research, from which I could work. Matthew—an accomplished true-crime writer who has collaborated with me on numerous published short stories—does most of the on-site Vegas research, and is largely responsible for any sense of the real city that might be found herein.
We would once again like to acknowledge criminalist Lieutenant Chris Kauffman CLPE—the Gil Grissom of the Bettendorf Iowa Police Department—who provided comments, insights, and information; Chris has been an important member of our CSI team since the first novel, Double Dealer, and remains vital to our efforts. Thank you also to another major contributor to our research, Lieutenant Paul Van Steenhuyse, Scott County Sheriff’s Office; as well as Sergeant Jeff Swanson, Scott County Sheriff’s Office (for autopsy and crime scene assistance), and Lieutenant Steve Johnson CLPE, Certified Forensic Artist, Davenport, Iowa, Police Department.
Books consulted include two works b
y Vernon J. Gerberth: Practical Homicide Investigation Checklist and Field Guide (1997) and Practical Homicide Investigation: Tactics, Procedures and Forensic Investigation (1996). Also helpful were Crime Scene: The Ultimate Guide to Forensic Science, Richard Platt; and Scene of the Crime: A Writer’s Guide to Crime-Scene Investigations (1992), Anne Wingate, Ph.D. We would also like to acknowledge BTK by David Lohr, www.crimelibrary.com. Any inaccuracies, however, are my own.
At Pocket Books, Ed Schlesinger, our gracious editor, provided solid support. The producers of C.S.I.: Crime Scene Investigation sent along scripts, background material (including show bibles) and episode tapes. In particular, I’d like to thank Corinne Marrinan, the coauthor (with Mike Flaherty) of the indispensible Pocket Books publication, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation Companion. As I’ve told Corinne, how Matt and I wish we’d had her excellent book from day one.
Anthony E. Zuiker is gratefully acknowledged as the creator of this concept and these characters; and the cast must be applauded for vivid, memorable characterizations that influence every word we write. Our thanks, too, to the various C.S.I. writers for their inventive and well-documented scripts, which we draw upon for backstory.
About the Author
MAX ALLAN COLLINS, a Mystery Writers of America “Edgar” nominee in both fiction and nonfiction categories, was hailed in 2004 by Publisher’s Weekly as “a new breed of writer.” He has earned an unprecedented twelve Private Eye Writers of America “Shamus” nominations for his historical thrillers, winning twice for his Nathan Heller novels, True Detective (1983) and Stolen Away (1991).
His other credits include film criticism, short fiction, songwriting, trading-card sets, and movie/TV tie-in novels, including Air Force One, In the Line of Fire, and the New York Times-bestselling Saving Private Ryan.
His graphic novel Road to Perdition is the basis of the Academy Award-winning DreamWorks 2002 film starring Tom Hanks, Paul Newman, and Jude Law, and directed by Sam Mendes. His many comics credits include the Dick Tracy syndicated strip (1977-1993); his own Ms. Tree; Batman; and CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, based on the hit TV series for which he has also written three video games, two jigsaw puzzles, and a USA Today-bestselling series of novels.
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