“Exactly. But maybe the rent for The Palms wasn’t coming out of her pocket.”
Brass had a hollow-eyed look. “Oh, shit…”
“What?”
“I missed something.”
“What?”
He was shaking his head, his expression self-recriminatory. “When I interviewed Regan Mortenson, and she said she worked for the Las Vegas Arts Council, she told me she’d had an appointment, a meeting with somebody, right after the lunch with Missy.”
“And?”
“It was with an artist…a woman. I’d have to check the notes I made from the interview tape…but I’m almost positive Regan said the woman’s name was Sharon Pope.”
Catherine’s eyes widened. “That’s who Regan claims she was spending her time with, while Missy was getting murdered?”
“I think so…. Maybe ‘Lavien Rose’ was supposed to be her alibi, and it went south on her? D’you think Regan ended up whacking her alibi?”
Catherine hadn’t processed that fully when Greg Sanders knocked on the doorjamb. The DNA tech, working on a soul patch that was not making it, carried a sheaf of papers in one hand.
Rather irritably, she said, “What, Greg?”
“Woah! Chill—I’m just lookin’ for Warrick and Nick. They brought me the hairs they found in that freezer. They told me it was a rush job, and now they’re MIA.”
“What did you find?”
“Hairs from Missy Sherman and an as-yet-unidentified person.”
Sitting up, Brass asked, “What do you know about the other person?”
“Blonde, female,” Sanders said. “All I know at this point is that her hair matches one Warrick brought me earlier.”
Getting that electric tingle again, Catherine asked, “Where did he get it?”
“Not sure—if you can find Warrick, you can ask him.”
Catherine looked at Brass, who said, “Regan Mortenson and Sharon Pope—both blonde.”
Catherine nodded. “But only one of them is still alive. We have enough to call on Regan Mortenson, wouldn’t you say?”
“Oh yeah,” Brass said.
Nick appeared in the doorway next to Sanders, putting a hand on the lab rat’s shoulder and smiling at him impatiently. “Tell me you have our results.”
Jumpily, Sanders gave up the papers like a thief caught in the act.
“Thank you,” Nick said.
“Don’t go anywhere, Greg,” Catherine said.
She convened the group in the layout room. Nick, Warrick, and Sanders sat, while an edgy Brass paced by the door.
“What good things have you been up to?” she asked the two CSIs.
“We were in the Trace lab,” Warrick said, “running prints and matching evidence.”
“I thought we were past that,” Catherine said.
“Yeah,” Warrick said, “but when prints from Sherman and Ortiz didn’t match anything, I decided to go back to try to match our freezer prints against the one I lifted from Missy’s visor mirror.”
“And?”
“Perfect match…I’m good, by the way.”
“I noticed,” Catherine said with a smile.
Nick said, “I may not be as good as John Shaft here, but I matched the duct tape adhesive we found in the apartment to the adhesive on Missy Sherman’s clothes. That do anything for you?”
“Nice,” Catherine said. “Greg—your turn.”
Sanders filled Warrick and Nick in on what he’d found; then Brass told them what he and Catherine had been discussing, including the Sharon Pope detail, an oversight he copped to.
“I missed it, too,” Nick said, through clenched teeth. “Damn—it was in your notes, Jim!…That’s why that name seemed familiar.”
“We need to go see Regan Mortenson,” Warrick said.
“Actually,” Catherine said, “Jim and I’ll handle that. You and Nick’ll gather the rest of the evidence we need…. Nick?”
“Yes?”
“Talk to the people at Las Vegas Arts and see if we can track the money.”
Nick was on his feet. “On it.”
“Warrick—run down that freezer. The Sears stores are open by now. Kenmore’s the house brand.”
“Shopping on overtime,” Warrick said, getting up. “Fine by me.”
Then they were in the hall, walking together, except for Sanders, who made his getaway back to his lab cubbyhole.
“In the meantime,” Catherine told her fellow CSIs, “Captain Brass and I will discuss the fine art of murder with Regan Mortenson.”
“Maybe you’ll get a grant,” Warrick said.
11
Having just emerged onto the loading dock, in snow driven by a stiff wind, Gil Grissom and Tony Dominguez stood with hotel manager Herm Cormier, as snug in his parka as the waiter in his sweatshirt was not. Though it was barely 5 p.m., night was already conspiring with the storm, ready to cast the Mumford Mountain Hotel into darkness.
Grissom looked toward the parking lot, where Constable Maher and Sara Sidle had been working, and saw nothing but the snow-covered vehicles. “Where did they go?” he demanded of Cormier, having to work his voice over the wind.
Cormier shook his head. “They went off that way,” he said, pointing toward the far end of the parking lot. Grissom could barely hear the man, but could read his lips.
“I’m going to join my associates,” Grissom told the hotel manager. “You two need to get back inside!”
“No argument!” Cormier said.
But Dominguez—so underdressed in this bitter snowy weather—said nothing, his eyes staring but not seeing. The tears had stopped, but the grief was probably just starting. Grissom had no doubt this boy had loved James Moss; that just didn’t mean Dominguez hadn’t killed him.
And much as he hated losing custody of his best suspect, Grissom wanted to hook back up with Maher and Sara, and share what he’d learned, and see what they’d found. Anyway, where was there for Tony Dominguez to run?
The criminalist had nothing on the waiter, beyond the circumstantial evidence of a sexual relationship with the victim and a cut forearm. The most dangerous aspect of releasing the suspect—Grissom was half-forgetting his lack of authorization, here—was the possibility that Dominguez would get rid of his boots before Grissom could try to make a match. But he didn’t think the boy knew that his Doc Martens were potential evidence.
Shouting over the wind, Grissom said to the pair, “You need to go in and act like you don’t know anything about this!”
That riled the waiter out of his funk, momentarily anyway. “Don’t know anything?” Dominguez exploded. “That’s James in there! How can you expect me to—”
“Tony,” Grissom said, cutting him off. “If you’re as innocent as you say you are…there’s likely a murderer in that hotel.”
“Yeah, that bitch Amy!” he snarled.
“If that’s so, I can’t have you tipping her off that we suspect her.” The wind howled. “Do…you…understand?”
The young man nodded. He was shivering now.
“Now get inside. You’re freezing.”
Through the haze of snow, Dominguez was studying Grissom. “You say you suspect Amy…but you really suspect me, don’t you?”
“I told you, everyone here is a suspect, including Mr. Cormier and Constable Maher. The only people not on my list are Sara and myself.”
“You suspect me?” Cormier blurted, eyes wild.
Calmly, Grissom said, “You and everyone at the hotel, Herm. But no innocent person need worry—the evidence doesn’t lie. And remember—the fewer people who know what we know, the easier it’ll be to catch the killer.”
Cormier nodded.
Dominguez said, “I’ll do what you want…for James’s sake.”
“Good. Now go in and warm up and dry off!”
Cormier locked up the loading dock door and he and Dominguez went down the stairs and trudged through the deepening snow to the hotel’s rear door.
Grissom shuffled out
onto the parking lot, going first to the blue Grand Prix. The tomato stakes were still visible, but Sara and the constable—and their equipment—were gone. Their tracks, however, weren’t hard to follow.
The sky was a gunmetal gray, a darkening shroud over him, as Grissom slogged on past the parking lot to the end of the building, where he still saw nothing but drifted snow. He turned the corner and, as he plodded on, slowly scanned the horizon. In the distance, through the slanting white, he could—finally!—make out two dark figures.
They were standing on the lake.
He had a tiny jarring moment before he realized the lake would be frozen over and safe—relatively safe—for human footsteps.
Soon, moving as fast as he could, Grissom had made his way around and to the front of the hotel; he began to tramp down the hill, almost losing his balance. He could now plainly see Maher and Sara up ahead. Shouting would be useless, he knew, over the ghostly shriek of the growing blizzard; his voice just wouldn’t carry to them.
And then he had an odd, dread-inducing thought—what if Maher was the killer? What if all the help in the snow, the forensics magic, had been deception and cover-up, not straightforward detection? What if Maher had lured Sara out there, to where the man knew the ice was weak, to throw her to an icy death?
The thought of Sara thrashing in the glacial waters, her screams in the storm unheard by a world gone deaf, gave Grissom a ghastly chill; Sara, another victim for him to process…
He had closed half the distance between himself and them when he glanced left and saw the dock. He knew instantly that he was running across the lake and that Sara and Maher were almost in the middle of the thing. The ice would get thin, the farther out they went—but as he neared, he realized that his imagination had run away with itself; and he felt foolish.
Maher, his metal detector still tucked under his left arm, was leaning over and digging through the snow with his right hand. He seemed to be going very carefully. Nearby, in her parka, Sara—now a convert to the Canadian’s ways—liberally sprayed gray primer into a footprint.
They both looked up at the sound of his approach.
“You’re all right?” Grissom said to Sara.
Still kneeling, she gazed up at him curiously. “Of course…We’re doing the best we can, in this snow.”
“What happened to working the tomato stakes?” he asked the constable.
Maher said, “Somebody must have figured out what we were up to, and moved them to try to throw us off.”
“But whoever moved the stakes left new prints,” Sara said, “and they led down here.”
Grissom smiled a little. “That confirms the presence of the murderer in the hotel.”
“Yes it does,” Maher said.
“And I know who the victim is,” Grissom added.
Sara got to her feet, her eyes bright. “Who?”
“James Moss—a waiter.”
Maher and Sara traded a look.
Grissom frowned. “What?”
“Amy Barlow’s boyfriend, you mean?” Sara said.
“Well, yes and no,” Grissom said, and he explained about the love triangle involving the two waiters and the one waitress.
“Amy told us that ‘Jimmy’ didn’t make it in to work yesterday,” Sara said. “They usually ride together, but he had an appointment with somebody.”
Grissom shook his head. “She’s lying.”
Maher said, “Is she? What if that ‘appointment’ was with Dominguez?”
Sara arched an eyebrow. “Amy’s got that cut on her hand, remember.”
“And Dominguez has a cut on his forearm,” Grissom said. “Claims it’s from working on his car.”
“We should go back and talk to Amy,” Sara said.
Maher said, “Not just yet—I got a major hit on the metal detector…. Let me dig a minute.”
And he was back on his hands and knees. Sara and Grissom exchanged shrugs and were about to join him, when Maher called, “Jackpot!”
The Canadian stood and displayed his find: a plastic ziplock bag that seemed to have some heft to it.
“It may not be Christmas yet,” Grissom said, “but I’d go ahead and open that…. ”
The Canadian did, carefully undoing the ziplock top, and they all looked in at the contents: a pair of bloody leather winter gloves, a rock about the size and shape of a softball, and—peeking out from under the gloves—the silver barrel of a small gun.
“Are we looking at the murder weapon?” Maher asked.
Sara, snow-flecked eyebrows high, said, “That a .32? Looks about right.”
“Obvious, isn’t it?” Grissom asked.
Feeling the noose tightening, the killer decides to lose the murder weapon. He or she packs the gun and the incriminating gloves in the plastic bag, adds a rock for weight, and walks out and buries the package in the snow atop frozen Lake Mumford. In the spring, the snow and ice will melt, the package will sink and the evidence will be gone forever.
Using a pen down its barrel, Maher lifted the .32 Smith and Wesson revolver out of the ziplock bag. He carefully opened the cylinder and allowed five spent cartridges and one bullet to drop out, down into the bag, then he closed the cylinder and slid the pistol back into the bag as well.
“Okay,” Grissom said. “Sara, you have pictures of the footprints out here?”
She nodded.
“Good—can we still cast it?”
“I’ve got one block of sulfur left,” Maher said.
The snow was hammering them now, the wind whistling its carefree tuneless tune—the storm had plenty of time. The criminalists didn’t. They worked fast and accurately and made a cast of the print Sara had shot…
…and the team was back inside the hotel in less than an hour. The newfound evidence was dry and safe, locked inside Sara’s field kit. Soaked and freezing, they paused in the underpopulated lobby and stripped off their coats.
Cormier had been waiting for them, and he carried over an armload of towels. The trio of detectives sat down in front of the roaring fireplace and began to dry off. Grissom and Sara, both in black, shared a sofa facing the fireplace, Maher in a nearby overstuffed chair perpendicular to the fire.
The hotel manager went over to the desk, used the phone, and came back and reported to Grissom, “Just called up to the restaurant—somebody’ll bring some hot coffee right down for you folks.”
Grissom glanced around the lobby—at the Christmas tree, the big picture window looking on a winter landscape that seemed far more picturesque from the indoors and the handful of guests seated reading and relaxing. Then he turned to the hotel man, who stood alongside the sofa, and said, “I don’t see Tony Dominguez.”
“He’s locked himself in his room, Dr. Grissom.”
“I was hoping you’d keep an eye on him.”
“He’s not going anywhere. He’s a wreck.”
Grissom curled a finger and the hotel man drew closer, as the CSI whispered, “Tony talk to anybody?”
Cormier shook his head. “No, sir. I took him up to his room, and neither one of us said not a damn word to nobody…. Just like you said. Listen, Dr. Grissom—you don’t really consider me a suspect, do you?”
Grissom beamed at him. “Of course.”
Cormier frowned, and moved off.
A moment later, Amy Barlow—in her white shirt, black bow tie, and black slacks outfit—appeared with a pot of coffee and a tray of cups. The bandage on her hand appeared fresh and Grissom made a show of studying it as the waitress placed a steaming green mug of coffee on the low-slung table in front of him.
“Is that any better?” Grissom said, nodding toward her bandage.
“I’ll live,” she said.
“Cutting onions in the kitchen, wasn’t it?”
“That’s right…. Maybe I’ll sue ol’ Herm and wind up ownin’ this place…. Any of you folks need anything else?”
They all said no, she gave them a quick smile, then Grissom’s eyes followed her as she walked back t
oward the stairs to the dining room.
When the waitress disappeared from his view, Grissom said to Sara, “Got a pen and notebook?”
“Sure.” She scrounged them out of her coat pocket, on the floor, and handed them to him.
He turned to Maher and asked, “Don’t suppose you brought any fingerprint powder along, for your demonstration?”
Shaking his head, the Canadian said, “Didn’t bother—too basic. Sucks to travel with, eh? So easy to get that stuff all over everything.”
Grissom nodded, having had similar experiences. He quickly scrawled a list and tore the page out of the notebook.
“What’s that about?” Sara asked.
Grissom glanced over at the desk, behind which Cormier had retreated. “Herm! A moment?”
The hotel manager came right over and Grissom said, “I need a few things,” and handed the man the paper.
Cormier took the list, read it over, and looked up in confusion. “What kind of scavenger hunt are you on, Dr. Grissom?”
“The best kind. Can you fill my grocery list?”
“Well, certainly.”
“Good. And what room is Tony Dominguez in?”
Cormier told him.
“Thank you. Could you deliver those items to my room?”
“Sure—but I wouldn’t mind knowin’ what you have in mind with ’em.”
“Show you when you get up there, Herm…but the quieter we keep this, the better.”
“I know, I know…. You’re kind of a Johnny One Note, ain’t ya?”
Cormier wandered off, going over the list again as he went.
Then, turning to Sara, Grissom said, “Let’s go up to my room.”
She just looked at him.
He continued: “Or don’t you want to solve this murder?”
“Am I invited, too?” Maher asked.
“Your attendance is required, Constable. I’m going to need your help. But, first, I need you and Sara to go up to Tony’s room, to pick up a couple more items.”
Maher frowned. “What items?”
Grissom told him.
“Will he cooperate?”
“I think so. But as he is still a suspect, I’d like both of you to go.”
Sara’s eyes tightened. “You think he’s dangerous?”
“Whoever killed James Moss is definitely dangerous. And just because Tony seems devastated, that doesn’t mean he isn’t our man.”
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