“Cool,” Nick said. “Get right back to you.”
She sat in the SUV and studied the house as she waited for Nick’s call. So Malachy didn’t smoke, and at the time of his disappearance, his wife wasn’t a smoker, either. A cigarette butt in the backyard could mean somebody waited for Malachy Fortunato to leave the house, that morning fifteen years ago….
He lit the cigarette, clicked the Zippo closed, and leaned against the house as he took a long drag. Dew still clung to the new sod. Grass probably wouldn’t last long here, but they always seemed to make the effort when they put up one of these new homes. The house he stood behind had been built within the last six months and only inhabited for the last two. The mark inside, some guy named Fortunato, had pissed off the wrong people.
Houses on either side held families that still slept peacefully. Behind the house, where he now stood puffing away on his Marlboro, the backyard butted up against one from the next block. Those homes, however, had not been completed, and the construction crews hadn’t yet arrived to begin the day’s work. So he had the neighborhood to himself….
Fortunato’s schedule seemed etched in stone. For the week the hitter had been watching him, the mark had left the house within a two-minute window, every morning. The hitter loved a clockwork guy. Same time, same path, every day, an invitation for someone to cap a poor, sad son of a bitch.
He took another drag, let the smoke settle in his lungs, then slowly blew it out through his nose. Glancing at his watch, he smiled. Plenty of time to enjoy this cigarette, no reason to rush. Finish the smoke, put on his gloves, then go to work.
Taking one last drag, the hitter held it in for a long time before blowing the smoke out and stubbing the butt into the yard with his foot. He pulled the gloves from his pocket and slipped them on. Rotating his head, he felt the bones in his neck crack as he loosened up; then he checked his watch one last time.
Time to punch the clock.
He withdrew his automatic from its holster, checked the clip, then screwed on the silencer. He shifted slightly so he could see around the corner. No target yet. Ducking back, he slowed his breathing, waited….
The mark walked out of the door, closed it, then the screen, and turned to his car. The hitter came up behind Fortunato, squeezed the trigger and felt the small pistol buck in his hand. A tiny flower of red blossomed from the back of the mark’s head. Didn’t even have time to yell, simply folded in on himself and dropped.
Going down with him, the killer put another shot one inch above the first—an insurance policy and a signature. Then the killer pulled the car keys from the dead man’s hand, peered over the fender of the car to make sure no one had seen the action. Satisfied the neighbors still slept, he jumped up, opened the trunk, picked up the body and dumped it in, slammed the lid, then got in the front, behind the wheel, and turned the key.
The engine turned over, rumbling to life and, not rushing, the hitter backed the car out of the driveway and eased down the street, just another middle-class joe on his way to work.
There was no one around when he arrived at the vacant lot off Russell Road. None of the passing motorists paid any attention to a guy driving into the lot to dump his trash, like so many others had before him. It took only a moment to find what he sought. To his left, shielded from the road, was the abandoned house trailer he’d spotted earlier. The hulk had already begun to rust, and he figured no one would be nosing around it for some time. Several sheets of its aluminum skin had slipped off. Some hung precariously from the side, others lay scattered like molted scales.
He pulled the body from the trunk, careful to avoid the bleeding skull, and dragged the meat by its feet to the trailer. He shoved the body onto a sheet of aluminum, then pushed the sled of metal underneath the trailer. As a parting gift, he unscrewed the silencer, which he dropped in a pocket; then removed the barrel from the automatic and tossed it under the trailer with the corpse. With more strips of trailer skin, some wood and rubble, he blocked the opening. Then, using his foot, he covered over the blood trail with dirt, wiping out most of the footprints (among so many footprints already), and casually drove off. He would ditch the car elsewhere.
The cell phone rang and shook Catherine from her reverie-cum-reconstruction.
“Write down this address,” Nick said, and he gave it to her, and she did. “Dr. McNeal’s nurse’ll have Malachy Fortunato’s file waiting for you.”
Within an hour an energized Catherine Willows was driving back to headquarters with the dental records in hand, certain she was about to establish the identity of their mummy.
Finding him had only been yesterday; today, with the victim identified, the search would shift to his killer.
7
As if hypnotized by a fascinating work of cinematic art, Grissom watched the gray grainy picture crawling across the monitor; this was yet another Beachcomber video, one of scores he’d examined over the past twenty-four hours. Right now he was taking a second pass through the stack of tapes that represented the morning of the shooting. Occasionally he would remove his glasses and rub his eyes, and now and then he would stand and do stretching exercises, to relieve the low back pain all this sitting was engendering.
But mostly he sat and watched the grainy, often indistinct images. A normal person might have gone mad by now, viewing this cavalcade of monotony; but Grissom remained alert, interested. Each tape was, after all, a fresh piece of evidence, or at least potential evidence. Right now, in an angle on the casino, the time code read 5:40 A.M.
The ceiling-mounted camera’s view—about half-way back one of the casino’s main aisles, looking toward the front—included a blurry picture of the path from the lobby to the elevators. At this time of morning, casino play was relatively sparse. Notably apparent in frame were a man sitting at a video poker machine, on the end of a row near the front, and a woman standing at a slot two rows closer to the camera, this one facing it. For endless minutes, nothing happened—the handful of gamblers gambling, the occasional waitress wandering through with a drink tray; then Grissom noticed a figure in the distance—between the lobby and the elevator.
Sitting a little straighter, forcing his eyes to focus, Grissom felt reasonably certain the blurry figure in the background was their victim from upstairs. He hunched closer to the screen, eyes narrowed, watching—yes!—John Smith as he took a few steps, and then glanced casually in the direction of the man at the video poker machine. Almost as if Grissom had hit PAUSE, John Smith froze.
Smith was too far in the background for the security camera to accurately record his expression; but Grissom had no trouble making out Smith as he abruptly took off toward the elevator. Nor did Grissom have any trouble seeing the poker player start after him, get stopped by something attaching him to the machine, which he pulled out, and then followed Smith to the elevator.
As the man on the monitor screen moved away from the poker machine, Grissom was able to note the same clothes he’d seen on the fleeing killer on the videotape from upstairs, right down to the black running shoes.
Damn—how had he missed this first time around? Grissom shook his head—it had all happened quickly, in the time it might have taken him to rub his eyes from fatigue.
Grissom stopped the tape, replayed it, replayed it again. As with the hallway tape, the killer never looked at the camera. Had he knowingly positioned himself with his back to the security camera? Was he a hit man stalking his prey?
He watched the tape several more times, concentrating now on the hesitation in the killer’s pursuit. Finally he noticed the flashing light on top of the machine. The killer had hit a winner just as he took off after the victim! Was that what had stopped him?
No. Something else.
Grissom halted the tape. He knew who could read this properly. He knew just the man….
He stood in the doorway and called down the corridor: “Warrick!”
When this got no immediate response, Grissom moved down the hallway, a man with a mission, g
oing room to room. He stuck his head inside the DNA lab, prompting the young lab tech to jump halfway out of his skin.
“I didn’t do it, Grissom,” Greg Sanders said. “It’s not my fault!”
This stopped Grissom just long enough for him to twitch a tiny smile. “I’m sure you didn’t do it, Greg—whatever it is. Have you seen Warrick?”
“Last I saw him, he and Sara were working on AFIS…but maybe that was yesterday….”
At that, Grissom frowned. “Precision, Greg. Precision.”
Back in the hallway, he moved on in his search, and almost bumped into the lanky Warrick, stepping around the corner, typically loose-limbed in a brown untucked short-sleeved shirt and lighter chinos.
“You rang, Gris?”
Grissom was on the move again. “Come with me—I want to show you something.”
Back in his office, Grissom played Warrick the tape—twice.
“Well?” Grissom asked.
There was never any rushing Warrick; his eyes were half-hooded as he played the tape for himself one more time.
Then Warrick said, “Looks to me like he’s pulling a casino card from the machine.”
Grissom smiled. “And we know what that does for us.”
“Oh yeah. Casino can track the card. They can give us the name on the card.” Warrick frowned in thought. “You don’t suppose the killer’s local?”
“I don’t suppose anything,” Grissom said. “But that possibility hasn’t been ruled out…. What are you working on?”
Warrick jerked a thumb toward the door. “Sara and me, we were working on tracing the sender of a piece of e-mail on Dingelmann’s Palm Pilot.”
Grissom frowned. “Dingelmann?”
Warrick gave him a look. “That’s the victim’s name—Philip Dingelmann.”
“Were you waiting for Christmas to give it to me?”
“Didn’t you see Brass’s report—it’s on your desk.”
Grissom nodded toward the monitor. “I’ve been in here a while.”
“You were in here yesterday when shift ended. This is a new shift, Gris. You oughta get some sleep, maybe even consider eating a meal now and—”
“Dingelmann! Chicago. The mob lawyer?”
Warrick, now wearing his trademark humorless smirk, just nodded.
Grissom put a hand on Warrick’s shoulder. “Okay, let Sara work the e-mail; she’s the computer whiz—you’re my resident gambling expert.”
“Is that a compliment?”
“I don’t care what it is—I want you back at that casino, now. Check that machine for prints, and find out whatever you can from the slot host.”
“Should I page Brass, and call in a detective?”
“When the time comes.”
Already moving, Warrick said, “I’m on it,” as Grissom assured him, “I’ll tell Sara what’s up.”
Grissom walked back down the hall to the office where Sara worked at a keyboard. “Any luck?” he asked.
“Sure—all lousy,” she said. “This guy covered his tracks pretty well. This e-mail must have been laundered through every freakin’ ISP in the world.”
“Okay, relax.” Grissom sat on the edge of the desk, smiled at her; he’d hand-picked the Harvard grad for his unit—she’d been a seminar student of his, and he valued her tech skills, dedication, and tenacity. “There are other things to be done, right?”
“Always. Where’s Warrick?”
“I sent him back to the Beachcomber.”
Her brow tightened. “Without me?”
“Yes.”
“Think that’s a good idea? Sending him to a casino all by his lonesome?”
Grissom shrugged a little. “I trust him.”
A sigh, a smirk. “You’re the boss.”
“Nice of you to notice,” Grissom said. “Anyway, I need you.”
She looked at him, eyebrows up, not quite sure how to take that.
“We have a date in the morgue.”
They both wore blue scrubs and latex gloves, and stood between the two autopsy tables. In front of them lay Philip Dinglemann, behind them Catherine and Nick’s mummy.
“So, what are we doing here?” Sara asked.
“Read this,” he said, handing her the autopsy report for John Doe #17.
She scanned it quickly, stopped, read part of it more slowly. “What’s this, a screw-up? Robbins got the bodies backward?”
Grissom shook his head. “The pattern’s the same, to within an eighth of an inch.”
“That can’t be right….”
“The evidence says it’s right, it’s right. But you and I are going to measure them again just to be sure.”
“It’s a heck of a coincidence.”
“Is it?”
“Grissom, why didn’t you tell Warrick and me about this?”
“Keeping the cases separate. No assumptions that we have one case, here, until or unless the evidence tells us so.”
Nodding, she said, “Which one first?”
“Age before beauty,” Grissom said, turning to the mummy.
Warrick parked in the vast lot behind the Beachcomber, entering through the casino, a smaller version of his field kit in hand, including fingerprinting gear. He knew (as Grissom surely did) that this was probably a pointless exercise, all this time after the killer had left the machine behind; but you never knew.
Grissom had sent him here alone, even making the questionable call of not inviting a detective along for any questioning that might come up. Either Grissom finally trusted him completely, Warrick figured, or this was a test. The whirrings of slots, the calling out of dealers, the dinging, the ringing, made for a seductive madhouse through which he walked, somehow staying focused on the job at hand.
Soon he found himself standing under the camera that had captured the videotape images Grissom had shared with him. He ignored the bells and whistles, the smoke-filled air, the expressions on faces—defeat, joy, frustration, boredom—and just did his job. He strode to the video poker machine where, less than twenty-four hours ago, the killer had sat.
The patron sitting there now, bald, bespectacled, in his mid-thirties, wore a navy Polo shirt, tan Dockers, and sandals with socks. Warrick watched as the man kept a pair of tens, drew a wild deuce and two nothing cards. Three of a kind broke even, returning a quarter for the quarter bet. Big spender, Warrick thought, as the man kept a four, six, seven, and eight, a mix of clubs and diamonds.
Sucker bet, Warrick thought; trying to fill an inside straight, what a joke. The guy drew an eight of spades—another loser. Mr. Sandals-with-socks quickly lost four more hands before he turned to Warrick, standing peering over his shoulder.
Irritation edged the guy’s voice. “Something?”
Warrick flashed his badge. “I’m with the Las Vegas Criminalistics Bureau. Need to dust this machine for fingerprints.”
The gambler flared with indignation. “I been sitting here since Jesus was a baby! I’m not giving up this machine.”
Nodding, Warrick bent down closer. “A killer sat at this very machine yesterday morning.”
The man didn’t move; but he also didn’t return his attention to the poker machine.
Warrick gestured with his head. “You see that camera over my shoulder?”
Looking up at the black bulb sticking out of the ceiling, the guy nodded.
“From a videotape shot by that camera,” Warrick said calmly, “I viewed the killer sitting right here. Now, I’m going to call over someone from the staff and we’re going to dust this machine, so I can find out who that guy was.”
“What about me? What about my rights?”
“Do you want to cash out now, or you wanna wait in the bar till I’m done? That way you can get your machine back…protect your investment.”
The guy gave him a sour look. “I’ll be in the bar. Send a waitress over when you’re finished.”
“Thank you,” Warrick said. “Be advised I may decide to print you, as well, sir—so I can eliminate yo
ur prints.”
Grumbling about his right to privacy, the guy hauled away his plastic bucket (with several unopened rolls of quarters in it) and walked toward the bar, padding away in his socks and sandals. Right then a casino security officer came gliding up to Warrick.
“May I help you, sir?” he asked, his voice mingling solicitude and suspicion.
The guard was black and Warrick’s height, more or less, but carried an extra forty pounds—apparently of muscle—on a broad-shouldered frame. That much was evident even through the guy’s snug-fitting green sports coat with its BEACHCOMBER patch stitched over the pocket. The walkie-talkie he carried in a big hand looked like a candy bar.
Again, Warrick flashed his badge and explained the situation. “I need to see the slot host.”
“I’ll have to call my supervisor,” the guard said.
“Okay.”
The guard spoke into the walkie-talkie and, in less than two minutes, Warrick found himself surrounded by half a dozen of the crisply jacketed security guards, a green sea that parted for a California-ish guy in a double-breasted navy blue suit. Though he was the youngest of them, this one seemed to be the boss—six-one, blond, good-looking.
“I’m Todd Oswalt, the slot host,” he said, extending his hand. He smiled, displaying the straight white teeth and practiced sincerity of a TV evangelist.
“Warrick Brown,” the criminalist said, shaking with the guy, “crime lab following up on the murder, yesterday.”
Oswalt’s smile disappeared, his eyes darting around to see if any of the customers had heard Warrick. “Mr. Brown, we’ll be happy to help you if you’ll please, please just keep your voice down.”
Now Warrick smiled. “Gladly, Mr. Oswalt. There was a man sitting here around five-thirty yesterday morning. I need to know everything about him that you can tell me.”
“Based on what? We have a lot of patrons at the Beachcomber, Mr. Brown.”
“This one used a slot card on this machine at 5:42 A.M yesterday.”
Oswalt’s eyes were wide; he nodded. “I’ll get right on that.”
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