by Ken Goddard
It would have been a terrible blunder on his part, because his only viable options at that point would have been to immediately kill the two CSIs, try to quickly down or disable the LVPD chopper, and then make a desperate run for his escape route before the circling Black Hawk crew realized what was going on and called in overwhelming reinforcements.
I wonder what the going price would be for a hit on you, Grissom,Mialkovsky thought as he casually allowed the crosshairs of his still-restabilizing rifle scope to center on the CSI’s head.Possibly a great deal of money; but who would have the nerve to issue the contract? They’d have to know that the other CSIs would never stop looking for the killer…or the people who set it into motion.
The idea of being known among his peers as the only assassin ballsy enough to take the internationally infamous Gil Grissom out with a single shot, and then successfully evade the subsequent all-points search by vengeful legions of detectives, CSIs, and forensic scientists, appealed to Mialkovsky in an oddly twisted Special Ops sort of way.
But he wasn’t about to give in to the impulses that had once fueled his most outrageously risky and successful missions. He’d long since outgrown those youthful flashes of insanity. Or, at least, he assumed he had.
The truth was, Viktor really didn’t know; and he only vaguely cared.
But of one thing he was certain: playing the odds with a clever and resourceful crime scene investigator like Gil Grissom was a Las Vegas long shot, indeed. Something he’d sworn not to do, but then accepted the Clark County contract anyway because the money had been too good to resist.
How long has it been, Grissom?Mialkovsky tried to remember.Six, seven years since you and I sat at that table in San Antonio, listening to that nutso wildlife forensic scientist talking about conducting field necropsies on decomposing walruses? Would you even recognize me now?
Mialkovsky didn’t think it was likely because, years ago, he’d looked properly clean-cut and squared away in his Army Ranger uniform—a military CSI looking to expand his general knowledge of forensics, and to pick up a few practical pointers, just like all of the other two-thousand-plus AAFS attendees.
So that’s what I’m going to do tonight, Grissom,the hunter-killer told himself as he continued to keep the CSI in the crosshairs of his scope,watch how you approach this scene…and pick up a few practical pointers before I leave. Fair is fair, after all.
“And here’s the deer you saw in the thermal scope,” Brass said, illuminating the sprawled animal with his flashlight as Grissom came up beside him. “Or Mr. E.T.’s deer, depending on how you want to look at it.”
Grissom knelt down beside the sprawled carcass, examined it briefly, and then looked back up at Brass. “It’s been shot,” he said.
“That’s generally what happens in a poaching situation.”
“But according to the blood-splatter pattern, the shot came from somewhere over there”—Grissom pointed to an area beyond the clearing—“ripped through the deer’s throat, and then continued on in that direction,” he finished, aiming his gloved hand back in the direction of the sprawled human corpse. “All of which suggests—”
“A hunting accident?”
“It certainlylooks like a hunting accident,” Grissom said. “Or, considering the high-tech rifle that presumably belongs to our victim, and not the shooter, maybe ‘poaching accident’ would be a better description?”
Brass looked skeptical. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard of a ‘poaching accident,’” he said. “I’ve always thought guys who did that sort of thing tended to be loners. What I have trouble understanding is how a hunter or a poacher aims at a deer, kills it, and with the same bullet manages to hit and kill the only other guy on the entire mountain. The odds against that ever happening in real life would have to be awfully…I don’t know…long?”
“Hold on just a second,” Grissom said as he squatted down and lined up the deer body, the blood splatter, and the sprawled human body in the distance. Then he reached into his jacket pocket, pulled the can of iridescent green paint out again, quickly bracketed the position of the deer with four long strokes…and then continued to spray a bright green line heading away from the deer in the opposite direction for about ten feet, duck-walking backwards as he did so. Finally, he stood up, went back to the deer, stared along the green line for a moment, and then started walking in that direction.
“You really think you’re going to find something out there?” Brass called to him as he watched Grissom walk a good hundred and fifty feet into the darkness, sweeping his flashlight beam in front of his boots the entire time, and then suddenly kneel down.
Moments later, the sound of a spray can, and then a bright strobe-flash that briefly illuminated the area where Grissom was kneeling, gave Brass his answer.
“Well?” he demanded as Grissom walked back to the deer with a grim smile on his face.
“One expended three-oh-eight Winchester rifle casing that hasn’t been out in the weather very long.” Grissom held up a six-inch piece of wood doweling with a shiny expended brass casing sitting on the end. “There’s a spot back there where it looks like a hunter—or poacher—might have set himself into a prone observation position, waiting for his shot.”
Brass pursed his lips, clearly unconvinced.
“Two poachers, independently working the same godforsaken piece of inaccessible mountain in the middle of a federal wildlife refuge, in the middle of the night, in the middle of winter no less, with a storm coming in; and neither of them realizing the other one was out there? And one guy ends up getting killed because the other one decides to shoot a malnourished mule deer instead of something actually worth making that five- or six-hundred-foot climb for? Is that what you’re trying to telling me?”
“I’m trying to tell you what Ithink the evidence is saying,” Grissom said patiently. “One rifle bullet ripping through a deer’s neck and causing the tip to start expandingbefore it hit the victim, which would explain the blood-splatter pattern across the victim’s rifle coming from an entry wound instead of an exit wound that doesn’t seem to be there.”
Brass started to say something, but then hesitated.
“And you’re saying the lack of an exit wound in a human from a three-oh-eight rifle bullet could be explained by the fact that it hit the deer first, and slowed down from the impact and the expanding tip before it hit the human victim?”
Jim Brass appeared to be painfully conflicted by two sources of information he normally trusted implicitly: Gil Grissom’s interpretation of physical evidence, and his own gut.
“That would be consistent with what we’re seeing,” Grissom agreed. “Based on the evidence we’ve found so far, it looks like at least two illegal hunters were up here trying to nail one of the last Desert Bighorns on the planet. Somebody decided to take a shot at this deer, for whatever reason, and accidentally shot their hunting partner…or their poaching partner…or maybe a complete stranger who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time—which would still explain the character in the big SUV hightailing it down the mountain.”
“What about the bursts of automatic gunfire the UCs all say they heard coming from roughly this direction?”
“We still haven’t eliminated the testing range behind us as a possible source of that gunfire,” Grissom reminded him. “Furthermore, I haven’t seen any of the expended casings you’d expect to find from extended bursts of automatic gunfire; and I can’t imagine anyone being able to find and pick them all up in a relatively few minutes, under pressure to leave the area, and in this kind of environment.”
“But we haven’t even started to make a detailed search of the area,” Brass protested, seemingly unwilling to set his gut instincts aside.
“No, we haven’t” Grissom said. “But we can’t do a detailed search until daylight because we can’t possibly get enough generator-powered lighting up here to do a decent job, and we’d go nuts trying to do it with those chopper searchlights. And it won’t mat
ter all that much if we wait until morning to look for casings, because they won’t be impacted to any significant degree by the storm.”
Brass stood quietly for a long moment, staring down at the sprawled deer, before he finally spoke.
“So what you’re really saying is you think we’re wasting our time up here. We’re working what appears to be an unrelated hunting accident when we really ought to be down below at the campsite, trying to unravel a questioned shooting at a botched drug buy-bust before the storm hits and destroys all the evidence?”
Brass’s vocal tones and body language made it clear that he didn’t necessarily see things that way at all.
“This does look like a clear and simple accident, whereas the shooting situation down at the camp strikes me as being anythingbut clear and simple,” Grissom said, standing his ground. “And that storm is coming—probably much sooner than later,” he added as he glanced up at the sky. “So, yes, I do think we’re wasting time up here.”
Brass started to say something else, but then blinked as if he’d suddenly remembered something important.
Before Grissom could say or do anything else, Brass turned and started walking back toward the human corpse at a rapid pace, Grissom scrambling to keep up.
When they arrived at the body, Brass knelt down and examined the portion of the man’s face that was exposed for a good five seconds with his flashlight beam. Then he stood up and turned to Grissom.
“Look, Gil, I’m really not disagreeing with your technical assessment of the evidence. I’m just trying to reconcile my ‘right-sided’ cop brain with your analytical ‘left,’ and it’s driving me crazy, so just humor me for a moment. Take a picture of the body, right now. Take several, from all sides, like you usually do before the coroner’s investigators move it.”
“Why, what are you going to do?” Grissom asked suspiciously.
“When you’re done taking the pictures, I’m going to try and turn the body over.”
“Without a coroner’s investigator being present?”
“Yes.”
“Why would you do that?” Grissom demanded.
“Because I think you’re absolutely right about one thing: if thisis a hunting accident, it can definitely wait until after we’ve reconstructed the buy-bust shooting. But something about this entire situation stinks, and I’m not necessarily talking about this guy’s corpse or that of the deer. I want to resolve this now, in my own mind, before we waste any more time; so yes, I’ll assume responsibility for violating protocol.”
Grissom considered Brass’s statement for a moment, and then nodded in agreement.
“Okay, fine by me. You’re the scene commander here, so it is your call.”
As Brass waited impatiently, Grissom took a series of four overall, right-angle-to-the-body photos, and then a fifth of the man’s partially exposed face.
“Okay,” Grissom said, stepping back away from the body, “he’s all yours.”
Grunting something in the affirmative, Brass knelt down, struggled to slowly turn the heavy body over, directed the beam of his flashlight at the man’s face, and then chuckled in satisfaction.
“You find this guy’s death amusing?” Grissom asked curiously. He hadn’t seen this aspect of Brass’s personality before.
“No, but I do find it very interesting that an extremely dangerous and paranoid mob boss like Enrico Toledano would allow himself to get himself killed on a remote mountain, in the middle of the night, by some idiot poacher shooting at a deer.”
7
CATHERINEWILLOWS WAS BUSYoverseeing the CSI efforts of four members of her team—while at the same time helping Coroner’s Assistant David Phillips and his morgue technician gently move the bullet-and pellet-mangled subject out of the passenger-side door of the truck and into the waiting body bag—when her cell phone suddenly rang.
After carefully handing the hammerless Smith & Wesson pistol she’d removed from under the truck set to Sara—along with an admonition that the weapon was still loaded—Catherine stepped away from the truck and reached into her vest for her phone, snapping it open.
“Willows.”
“Catherine, this is Gil. How are things going down there?”
Catherine looked around, taking in the entire scene for a few moments before framing her answer, knowing all too well that even when Gil posed his questions in a social manner, he was really asking for specific details.
“Things are progressing nicely,” she finally said. “We have all six sets of the UCs’ gloves, the gunshot-residue kits, my grid trace evidence samples from the truck, all the firearms and extra ammo, and all of the elimination print sets packaged, tagged, and locked up in our van. Their weapons consisted of one M-4 assault rifle, two twelve-gauge Remington pump shotguns with extended magazines, one Sig-Sauer pistol in forty-caliber, two Smith & Wesson MPs in forty-caliber, three nine-millimeter Glocks, and one hammerless thirty-eight Smith & Wesson from our Jane Smith. Interesting enough, that last weapon not only appears identical to the hammerless thirty-eight I just pulled out of the truck, but the serial numbers are within three last-digit numbers of each other.”
“Thatis interesting,” Grissom agreed. “Who’s following up on that?”
“I was going to, but then I decided to wait until you and Jim got back. I don’t think Jane Smith is going to appreciate the nature of my questions, nor will the rest of the narcs, Fairfax especially.”
“Definitely hold off on that until we get back,” Grissom said. “What else do you have?”
“We caught a little bit of a break on the ammo situation. All of the Glocks were loaded with identical nine-mil hollow-points from one case of ammunition from the UCs’ truck; but Grayson and the two DEA agents carried different brands of fortycaliber hollow-points. And the state narcs loaded their shotguns from two boxes of buckshot that turn out to be the same brand but different batches manufactured two years apart.”
“That could be helpful.”
“It could,” Catherine agreed, “but not directly. It turns out that both agents filled their jacket pockets with buckshot rounds first, and then loaded their shotguns…which probably resulted in a random mix of rounds in both guns, based on the two groupings of ejected hulls at the scene and the remaining live rounds in their pockets.”
“Ouch. Poor Greg,” Grissom remarked.
“Exactly,” Catherine acknowledged, looking down at the pair of coverall-encased legs sticking out from under the front of the truck. “He’s busy sifting sand under the engine compartment right now, as we speak, searching for deflected bullets and pellets. When he gets done there, he and Sara are going to follow the tow truck back to the station with the firearms. She’ll begin the test-firing while Greg gets the truck onto the lift and then starts in on the projectile-impact analysis.”
“Excellent.”
Catherine shifted her attention to Warrick and Nick, who had positioned themselves out near the “female-facilities” boulder and were busy manipulating a laser scanner attached to the far end of a thirty-foot-long double-elbowed “cherry picker” mounted on the roof of their new CSI van.
“Warrick and Nick finished photographing the shooting locations and the truck and then scene-scanning the truck a few minutes ago,” she went on. “They’re now in the process of repositioning the scene scanner over the boulder and cones where Jane Smith claims she was located when the truck arrived, and when she started shooting. We’ve got some conflicting information as to who was standing, kneeling, or prone when they were shooting specific rounds; but it’s more a timing disagreement than anything else, and the knee and elbow prints in the sand should help sort things out. The guys are having a little trouble getting the scanning van positioned ‘cause the sand is so soft, but they’ve only gotten stuck once so far. They say they’ll be done in another couple of hours, but I’m thinking more like three or four at the outside. Some of the sand around here is pretty deep.”
“The storm’s going to hit long before then,”
Gil said. “It’s already starting to get misty up here.”
“I know,” replied Catherine. “We’re going after the most exposed and disputed locations first. And if nothing else, we’ve always got the location-point data to cross-link the digital photos with the truck scan.”
Catherine looked over to her left, where Sara was kneeling down on a spread-out tarp in front of one of the parked LVPD patrol cars, using its illuminating headlights, an old-fashioned print brush, and fine white powder to dust the hammerless Smith & Wesson pistol for latent prints.
“Oh, and you’ll be happy to hear that our new portable laser crapped out the moment we plugged it into the generator. Warrick thinks it’s just the motherboard that probably got jarred loose on the road coming up here, but he doesn’t want to open the case up out here because there’s sand everywhere. He and Nick left the second laser back at the lab, because they needed the room for all the new scene-scanning gear; and our third unit is still in the shop, so we’re stuck with brush and powder for latents. We’ll wait on processing the UCs’ weapons until we get back to the lab, but I’ve got Sara processing the rifle and pistol we found in the truck cab right now.”
“What about—?”
“Sorry to interrupt, but I want to finish the scene-status report while I’ve still got it all in my head. David and I just finished getting our subject into a body bag. I’ll let you talk with David separately, but I’ll give you the basics: we didn’t find any ID on the body or in the truck, and there were no externally visible tattoos on his hands, arms, neck, or what was left of his face. I swabbed both of his hands for gunshot residues, but we’ll wait to fingerprint him back at the morgue.”
“Sounds reasonable,” Grissom agreed.
“Then, as soon as the morgue team heads back to the city,” Catherine went on, “I’m going to start collecting the expended casings and look for whatever else I can find in the way of evidence—ideally before the storm hits; which means I could use some help down here ASAP…if you’re not too busy up there, of course.”