Mortal Wounds

by Max Allan Collins

  When they arrived at the site, however, Grissom was already pawing in the snow near the body, like a kid on Christmas morning who hadn’t waited for his folks to get up before getting at his presents.

  “Dr. Grissom!” Maher called.

  The CSI supervisor continued on as if he hadn’t heard. Leaving the toboggan with Cormier, Maher strode on ahead and called Grissom’s name again. This time Grissom, looking comical in the stocking cap and muffler, turned.

  “Plenty of time to do the body later,” Maher said.

  “All right,” Grissom said, stepping away. “What’s first?”

  Maher was at Grissom’s side now. “If this was a crime scene back in Vegas, what would you do first?”

  “Take photos of everything—I presume Sara brought her camera today.” Grissom was nicely ambiguous about that, Sara noted.

  Maher was nodding, saying, “What else?”

  “Look for footprints.”

  “Then let’s do that.” Maher gestured to the white landscape. “We don’t want to risk trampling the killer’s footprints, so let’s find them.”

  Sara had joined them, by now, and asked, “How, exactly?”

  Maher extended a hand, like a hypnotist before a subject. “Grid it out in your mind—like you would any other scene. Ignore the snow.”

  She stared at him, eyebrows arched. “Ignore the snow?”

  Maher gave her a gentle smile. “Just for now.”

  She looked all around the buried crime scene. “All right, Gordy…I’ve got it.”

  Grissom said, “Gordy?”

  Maher said, “That’s my name. Feel free to use it, too, Dr. Grissom.”

  Grissom said nothing, just glanced at Sara, who shrugged.

  “Mr. Cormier,” Maher said.

  “Yes, sir?”

  “Would you unpack the leaf blower, please?”

  “You got it.”

  Soon the hotel owner was bending over the toboggan, untying ropes.

  “Now, Dr. Grissom,” Maher said, “and Sara—you two remember about where the footprints were, correct?”

  “Well,” Sara said, pointing, “the victim ran a fairly straight line. So…from the body down the hill.”

  Grissom said, “The other four sets—the two up and the two back—were scattered sort of on either side of the victim’s.”

  Maher nodded, breath pluming. “We’re going to have to work these from the outside in. Where would you say the tracks were the furthest out?”

  Pointing to a tree slightly downhill from their position, perhaps ten feet to their left, Grissom said, “Just this side of that tree.”

  “All right.” Maher turned toward the old boy at the toboggan. “How you doing there, Mr. Cormier?”

  “Comin’ along!”

  Maher turned back to the Vegas CSIs and said, “Okay, for a few minutes I’ll be doing all the work…but it won’t be long and there’ll be plenty for everybody, eh?”

  They nodded.

  “For now, Sara, you better start finding a way to warm your camera.”

  “It’s digital.”

  “Yes, and you won’t want the lens fogged, and the batteries don’t like the cold, either.”

  “How about inside my coat, Gordy?”

  “That may be a little too warm, but it’s better than any idea I’ve got.”

  Sara went back to the sled, carefully unpacked her camera and slipped half-out of the coat—God, it was bitter!—and withdrew an arm from one sleeve, slung the strap over her shoulder and put the camera against her side. Then she tugged the coat back on and zipped up. Maher’s concern wasn’t misplaced—the camera already felt cold, even though it had made the journey up here in its leather case. She hugged it close and hoped it would warm up quickly.

  Grissom followed Maher as the constable circled down to the point the CSI had indicated, and they stood just on the wrong side of the tree from where the footprints had been before being buried under all that snow.

  “This is the tree?”

  “Yes,” Grissom said, pointing toward the area on the other side. “The prints were right over there.”

  With a Cheshire cat grin, Maher asked, “Do you get a kick out of experiments?”

  Grissom said simply, “Yes,” which was the understatement of the new century.

  “This isn’t exactly an experiment, Doctor, but I think you’re going to like it.”

  Before very long, Maher fired up the leaf blower, yanking the cord, and aimed it at the new-fallen snow. Wet though it was, the white powder still flew in every direction as the leaf blower eased over it. Despite the use of forced air, the Canadian worked carefully.

  Moving down to join them, careful to take the same path they had taken, Sara and Cormier came down to watch the show. The camera felt warm against her now and Sara decided to snap off a couple of preliminary shots, getting photos of Maher at work. She looked over at Grissom, who studied Maher in rapt fascination and even admiration.

  Quiet and still, Grissom seemed mesmerized as the leaf blower cleared layer after layer. Within a few minutes Maher shut down the leaf blower and signaled them to join him. He had blown open a circle about fifteen by fifteen inches and—in the bottom, dug into the five inches of snow already packed there when they’d arrived yesterday—Sara saw a pristine boot impression.

  She turned to Grissom. “No way.”

  Shaking his head, Grissom said, “I just saw him do it.”

  They had a little sunshine now, but Maher’s smile was brighter. “Medium-velocity snow dispersal device. Pretty cool, eh?”

  “Pretty cool, indeed,” Grissom said. “I trust the term is designed to sound impressive in court?”

  “That, and ‘leaf blower’ just has no charm.”

  Looking like an overgrown demented kid in that stocking cap, eyes gleaming, Grissom asked, “May I?”

  “Sure,” Maher said. “You saw how I did it—just be careful and don’t hit the area too directly.”

  “I’m all over it.”

  “Just be all over it—carefully.” The Canadian refired the leaf blower and handed the business end to Grissom. “Take her for a spin.”

  Grissom moved just under a yard downhill and a little to the left. The impression Maher had unearthed—or more accurately, unsnowed—was of a right footprint. That meant the next one should be a left, which was the reason for Grissom moving just a few inches off line.

  While Grissom worked with the blower, Sara put a ruled scale next to the footprint and snapped a couple of photos.

  “Wait,” Maher said. “You need the scale, you’re exactly right…but for it to be accurate in a photo, it should be at the same depth as the impression.” He dug out beneath the scale and set it down. Sara took two more photos, then slipped the camera back inside her coat to keep it warmed up.

  “You’ll see the difference once you get those up on a computer screen,” Maher continued. “Use your tripod too—that and some oblique lighting should raise the detail.”

  “Thanks. I will.”

  Maher moved to where Grissom was blowing away more snow. With a small amount of guidance from the Canadian, Grissom eventually uncovered another footprint.

  “Got a left foot,” Grissom said, his smile almost feral.

  “You comfortable doing this?” Maher asked.

  “I’m always at my most comfortable,” Grissom said, “at a crime scene.”

  Maher said, “All right, then—you keep moving. Do one more set from this row, then try to find the other three and we’ll do two molds each from each row.”

  “Sounds good.”

  “And while you’re doing that, Sara’s going to take more pictures, while I’m melting the sulfur.”

  Grissom just nodded and went back to work.

  “Sulfur?” Sara asked.

  “Never made sulfur casts?” Maher asked her, as he led her back up the hill.

  “Can’t say I have.”

  “Just dental stone, huh?”

  “That’
s what works best in our climate.”

  Opening one of his cases on the toboggan, Maher withdrew a Sterno burner and handed it to Sara.

  “Take this,” he said, then pulled out a small saucepan and handed it to her. “And this.”

  Finally, he brought out a yellow block slightly smaller than a brick and a cooling rack with extended legs.

  “Come on, Sara,” Maher said, “and I’ll show you how this alchemy works.”

  Clearing a spot in the snow, he lit the Sterno burner and—while it got going—he dumped the yellow brick into the saucepan. As Sara watched, Maher put the saucepan on top of the cooling rack he’d opened up and set over the flame.

  “Okay, Sara—this is going to start stinking to high heaven before long, so why don’t you set your tripod up, and take your pictures, before I pour the sulfur in. We’re only going to have a small window before our sulfur smells real ugly.”

  “Anything you say, Merlin,” she said, and grabbed her tripod off the toboggan.

  “And while you’re there,” Maher said, half-turning, “could you bring me that can of gray primer?”

  She looked in the nearest bag and found the paint. “Got it.”

  As she set up the tripod, so that the camera would be directly over the footprint, Maher shook the paint, then sprayed a light layer of primer over the print.

  Alarmed, Sara said, “Hey—you’re disturbing evidence!”

  He shook his head. “I’m enhancing the visibility. And besides, you already have pictures of it, au naturel.”

  Grissom turned off the leaf blower and, watching where he was going, walked over to them.

  “Look what the Mountie did,” she said, pointing at the print.

  Maher was taking out his own mini-Maglite; he set it in the hole he’d cleared, so that it shone at an oblique angle across the impression.

  “The visibility is a lot better,” Grissom said. “I’ve read about this a couple of places.”

  “You have?” Sara asked.

  “Kauffman’s guide to winter crime scenes is pretty much definitive; and there’s a good paper, done by two Alaska CSIs, Hammer and Wolfe. Still, reading about it’s one thing—working it out in the field…that’s the ticket.”

  “But paint?” she said.

  Her supervisor shrugged. “No different than us using hair spray on tire tracks.”

  Sara thought about that.

  “That’s a good one,” Maher said, giving them a thumbs-up. “I love my Aqua Net.”

  With a quick nod, Grissom turned and moved back to the leaf blower.

  Looking through the viewfinder, Sara had to admit, the prints seemed better-defined. She snapped off several shots from various heights. The rotten-egg smell of the sulfur floated down to her and she fought the urge to gag. It wasn’t her way to give in, and she prided herself on her strong stomach, so she decided to risk her breakfast and get a closer look. Edging up, she saw Maher stirring the sulfur as it melted into a translucent amber liquid.

  “You were right,” she said. “That impression looks great, Gordy. Sorry I snapped at you…”

  “It may smell like Daffy Duck’s backside,” he said, “but, damn—it works, eh?”

  “You prefer it to dental stone?”

  “Detail with sulfur is even higher. Cures faster too. The downside is, it’s a lot more expensive, and a pain in the ass to work with, sometimes. You let it get too hot, it’ll either ignite or get flaky…. Then you have to cool it down and start from jump.”

  Sara wondered if any of this would ever come in handy at home. Chances were, probably not; still, it never hurt to learn new techniques.

  “The optimum temperature is about 119 degrees. But you’ve got to be careful because the flashpoint is 207 degrees and the self-ignition point is only 232. Once it’s at the right temp, though, all we have to do is pour it in and wait…. You ready?”

  She nodded.

  Maher took the pot off the flame and carried the brew toward the print. Eyes wide, he said, “And, oh yeah—never use this stuff indoors!”

  Grinning a little, she said, “Kinda guessed that. Noxious fumes aren’t my favorite.” She watched as he carefully filled the impression with the liquid sulfur. “That won’t melt the impression?”

  He shook his head. “Not enough to matter. The detail’ll still be better than dental stone, and we don’t have to take a week off, waiting for it to cure. Besides, if you use dental stone, you’ll mix it with potassium sulfate and that reaction creates enough heat that if you don’t put it in the snow while it mixes, it’ll completely melt your impression.”

  A short while later, Grissom came over to them again. “I’ve uncovered two sets in each row.”

  “Good job,” Maher said.

  “Just looking with the naked eye,” said Grissom, “I’d say all four sets were made by the same person.”

  “No kidding? Not two killers, then?”

  “Looks like one. Smaller person, too—men’s size eight or nine, woman’s nine or ten.”

  “So—what happened?”

  Grissom explained what he knew so far.

  The killer chases the victim away from the hotel. The victim sprints up the slope and the killer is shooting at him, at least three shots fired.

  So the killer fires and misses, fires and misses, then connects, putting one in the victim’s back, the victim pitching forward. Then the killer rolls him over and sets the victim on fire. To disguise the body, perhaps, or even…to punish the corpse, disfigure it vengefully.

  “But what about the other tracks?” Sara asked.

  “That doesn’t make sense,” Grissom admitted, eyes tightening with thought, “unless…”

  Still kneeling over the impression, Maher asked, “Unless what?”

  “Unless the killer didn’t have the gasoline along, and had to go back for it.”

  “Or,” Maher offered, “the killer may have had the gas along, but left something behind here at the scene—in the heat of the moment, eh?—and had to come back for it.”

  “Possible,” Grissom granted.

  Pulling the first cast up, Maher said, “One other thing.”

  “Yeah?”

  He held the casting of the impression where they both could see it. “Our killer has new boots. I couldn’t get a better casting in the parking lot of a shoe store with boots right out of the box.”

  “So,” Grissom said, “we’ve finally got some real evidence.”

  Rising, Maher said, “Sara, take your photos of the rest while I bring Grissom up to speed, with the sulfur process.”

  Pulling her camera out again, Sara asked Maher, “And what are you going to be doing?”

  “Well, we’ve got the killer’s feet. Be nice to know his weapon too, eh?”

  She just looked at him.

  “When I’ve got both of you working the footprints, I’ll go to find our missing bullets.”

  The sun was hiding and the air was growing colder. Was it going to start snowing again? No wonder Maher was trying to work fast.

  Cormier, who’d been a spectator on the sideline for some while, came up to them then. “You folks gonna be much longer?”

  “Some time, yes,” Grissom said.

  “Then I’m goin’ back down to the hotel and see if anybody’s tryin’ to dig us out or anything…and find out if the phones are workin’ yet. Be back in an hour, okay?”

  “Should be fine,” Maher said. “And bring up some more coffee, eh?”

  Sara whispered to Grissom, “Good day, eh?”

  But the reference was lost on him.

  Cormier waved and started down the trail.

  “Smallish feet for a man,” Sara pointed out as the hotel manager disappeared in the trees.

  “He doesn’t have new boots, though,” Grissom said.

  “At least, not that he’s wearing.”

  “Then,” Grissom said, “we can’t eliminate him—or anybody else—as a suspect, yet. So let’s get back to work and dig up some more eviden
ce.”

  Grissom rejoined Maher over by the Sterno burner. Sara went back to work taking pictures, using the tripod and digging down with the scale. She even sprayed the gray primer in a couple of the prints. Sneaking a look at Grissom, she noticed that again he seemed utterly content in his work. Sara wondered idly if she looked that happy as she was spray-painting snow.

  Somehow, she doubted it.

  8

  Catherine Willows could think of only one place to go, on a case this cold: back to the beginning. Under her direction, the CSIs watched old security videotapes from Mandalay Bay, the Chinese restaurant; they read original reports of the detectives and the day-shift crime lab, combing them for any lead that might have been missed thus far. Nothing promising had yet emerged.

  Catherine refused to be intimidated by the year they had lost. Nor would she accept the option that they’d run into a killer smart enough to get away with murder. Some murderers did go unapprehended, of course—rare ones who really did outsmart the police; and others who were lucky enough to draw second-rate detectives and third-rate crime labs. Most killers—even the smart ones—made at least one mistake, often many more than one, in the commission of their homicides.

  Tonight, Catherine was playing Grissom’s role, checking in with her people, cheering them on, exchanging ideas, priming pumps. Walking down the hall through the warren of labs under the cool aqua-tinged lighting, she ran into Greg Sanders, the young, spiky-haired lab rat who looked more like an outlaw skateboarder than the bright young scientist he was. Under his white lab coat, Sanders wore a black T-shirt with a Weezer logo.

  “Tell me you found something,” she said.

  “I have checked every result from the day-shift lab reports.”

  “Tell me,” she repeated, “you found something.”

  “I have personally examined every bit of evidence collected by Ecklie’s people: random hairs, fibers, even the Chinese food container from the Lexus.”

  “Tell me. You found something?”

  He pursed his lips as he thought, carefully; then, abruptly, he said, “No.”

  She placed a hand on the young man’s shoulder. “Tell me when you find something.”