Body of Evidence

--04 Body of Evidence (12-2003)

For Paul Van Steenhuyse

computer king

M.A.C. and M.V.C.

What can be done with fewer assumptions is done in vain with more.

-WILLIAM OF OCKHAM

A ranch in the desert-that's how Las Vegas began. As years passed, and fashions changed, the ranch evolved into a town, albeit of the one-horse variety. And as time continued to crawl by, with a slowness the desert climate only exaggerated, the world changed even more, cars and buses and trains replacing steeds as the main mode of transportation. Men of hope and vision rode those vehicles to the tiny bump in the dusty road and saw not what was, but what could be….

Among those wayfarers was a bigger-than-life gangster out of Los Angeles (by way of New York), a wiseguy with movie-star good looks who hated his nasty nickname-Bugsy-which in the street parlance of the day suggested nothing insect-like, referring instead to the handsome thug's ugly temper.

Ben Siegel envisioned a city where the hamlet stood, could make out a neon mirage in the desert, with casinos in place of barns, hotels instead of hovels. He preached this vision to others-investors who ran in his same left handed circle-and these hard-nosed businessman heeded the gospel according to Bugsy, which led to the construction of the famed Flamingo on what would become the Strip.

But hope is often tempered by frustration, and such was the case with Ben Siegel. The mobsters who backed his play weren't known for patience and had no understanding that, like any new plant, hope needed nurturing and time to grow. Impatience grew, too, as the mob absorbed budget overruns, time lags, and Bugsy's bugsy behavior (he was always one to live up to his nickname).

In the end, frustration won out, and Bugsy slumped in blood-soaked sportswear, weighted down by bullets in his Beverly Hills living room, hit before he ever got the opportunity to watch his vision, his hope, take root and bloom into the desert flower that would be Las Vegas.

Even now, the sparkling lights are its petals and the Strip its stem; but as Ben Siegel always knew, the roots were then-and forever will be-the gaming tables. And though the flower has changed, mutated, multiplied a thousand times over, and leafed out into branches known as Venetian, Bellagio, and MGM Grand, the fertilizer that feeds them is, as always, hope…one more turn of the wheel, one more roll of the dice, one more deal of the cards, bringing instant riches and fulfilling the worker bees hovering around the tables, pollinating the process with what seems an endless supply of dollars.

And always lurking in the background, ready to cut off the flow of green nourishment, is Ben Siegel's old pal, frustration. The losers who walk away, perhaps turning to other, even darker forms of hope, might threaten to overgrow the flower's beauty; but will never cause it to wither, for hope (as Ben Siegel knew if never admitted) never reaches fruition without encountering frustration…and Vegas is a city where hope forever blossoms, even as frustration reaps its constant harvest.

1

A SENSE OF FRUSTRATION RARELY REGISTERED ON THE PERSONAL radar of Catherine Willows. Frustrating situations were so much a part of the fabric of her life by now that she could have long since gone mad had she let such things get to her. But at the moment, the sensation was registering, all right. In fact, she felt herself growing quietly pissed.

This was the tail end of yet another shift, and she and fellow Las Vegas Metro P.D. crime scene investigator Nick Stokes, who was at the wheel of the Tahoe, had been dispatched to take a 404 call-unknown trouble-at a business past the south end of the Strip. Unknown trouble could mean just about anything from petty theft to multiple homicides.

But what it definitely meant was another Monday morning where Mrs. Goodwin, the sitter, would have to get Lindsey up and off to school. Catherine's own childhood had often been spent waiting for her mother to come home, and she had hoped to do better for her own daughter. But she was a woman with many responsibilities. Once again, she would just have to tough it out. And be quietly pissed.

The Newcombe-Gold Advertising Agency, their destination, occupied a two-story, mostly glass building on West Robindale just off Las Vegas Boulevard, a couple miles south of the Mandalay Bay and the unofficial end of the Strip.

Newcombe-Gold had joined the new construction craze hitting that part of the city and even though the agency had been a fixture on the ad scene since the seventies, the building was a recent addition to that expanding urban landscape. Tinted windows gave the building a blackness in the morning sun, imparting a vaguely ominous vibe to Catherine, as she and Nick pulled into the gray-white welcome mat of a concrete parking lot, stretching across the building's blank black facade.

The small lot had room for between twenty and thirty cars, but aside from a dark blue Taurus (which Catherine recognized as a LVMPD detective's unmarked car), two patrol cars, and their own CSI Tahoe, only three other cars took up parking spaces.

Nick Stokes parked the Tahoe in a VISITOR'S space near the front entry and Catherine crawled down while her partner hopped out on his side-Nick was young enough, she guessed, not to feel the long night they'd just finished.

The tan and brown silk scarf-a Mother's Day present last year from Lindsey-flipped momentarily into her face, as if the breeze couldn't resist laying on another guilt pang. Her shoulder-length strawberry blonde hair whipped in the wind and she grimaced, wishing she were home. She stood nearby as Nick opened up the rear doors of the Tahoe.

Tall, muscular in a fashion befitting the ex-jock he was, Nick Stokes smiled over his shoulder at her, for no particular reason. His short black hair barely moved in the wind and the eagerness in his face made him look like a happy puppy. Catherine sometimes wondered if maybe he liked his job a little too much.

"Too early for admen to be at work?" Catherine said, casting her gaze around the mostly empty lot.

"Not even eight yet," Nick said, glancing at his watch. "Big shots'll be at least another hour-rest should be filtering in, any time."

"What kind of trouble, I wonder," Catherine sighed.

"Unknown trouble," Nick said, a smile in his eyes.

"Don't tease me at the end of shift."

"I would never tease you, Catherine. I have too much respect for you."

"Kiss my…" Catherine began, but she found herself almost smiling-damn him.

She grabbed the tool-kit-like stainless steel case containing her crime-scene gear, and led the way to the entry. A painfully young-looking patrolman, whose nametag identified him as McDonald, opened the door for her. The uniform man was tall and broad-shouldered, and you could smell recent-police-academy-grad on him like a new car. His brown hair was clipped high and tight and his smile also seemed a little excessive, considering the hour.

"Morning, guys," he said, with a familiarity that didn't negate the fact that neither CSI had ever seen him before.

"Thanks," she said as she entered, making her own smile pleasant enough but of the low-wattage variety.

"What's his problem?" she asked Nick when they were out of earshot.

"Aw, lighten up, Cath. He's chipper, that's all. You know these young guys. They haven't had time to get cynical."

Neither have you,Catherine thought, then said, "Well, I wonder how long it'll take him to stop opening doors for CSIs."

"CSIs that look like you, probably never…. You'll make it up to her, you know."

The non sequitur caught Catherine's full attention. "What?"

Nick shrugged, and his smile was tiny, without a trace of smirk. "Lindsey. She's cool. You'll be fine. Let's do our job-maybe I'll even buy you breakfast, after."

She gave up and smiled at him. "Maybe I'll even let you."

They were in a spacious lobby, and even though the building glass was smoked, sunlight flooded in. Four chairs, three sofas and two tables arrayed with trade journals and newsmagazines dotted the long, narrow area inside the door. In the far corner, a wall-mounted counter held neat little towers of styrofoam cups and a coffee pot that filled the room with the fragrance of fresh-brewed Columbian-blend. Catherine knew that this-unlike the sludge back at HQ-would be the first pot of the day.

A high counter, reminiscent of a hotel check-in desk, crossed the opposite end of the room, the receptionist's tall chair empty; on top of the desk rested an appointment book and a telephone system that looked to be capable of launching missiles across continents. The wall behind was replete with various awards from the Nevada Advertising Council, the Southwest Advertising Coalition and two awards Catherine recognized as the Oscars of the ad game, Cleos.

To the left of the reception counter, far off to the side, another uniformed officer stood at the aperture of a hall leading into the warren of offices.

Something was in the air besides that Columbian blend.

The pleasantness of the uniformed man on the front door had been replaced by a chilliness that had nothing to do with air conditioning. Catherine wondered if Nick sensed it, and she glanced at him. He too was frowning.

They moved through the room without touching anything. Though they had been dispatched here, the reason for the call had been obscured behind the "Unknown Trouble" tag. Sometimes the term mean just that: the nature of the crime was unknown, possibly because the person who called it in had been vague or hysterical, but troubled and insistent enough to get a response.

Other times, a crime was considered sensitive, and the officer on the scene made a decision not to broadcast its nature over the police band.

Was that the case here?

At any rate, as they made their way over to the second uniformed officer, they did their best to not contaminate anything that might later turn out to be evidence.

So much for a cup of that coffee.

"Detective O'Riley's in the conference room at the end of the hall," the uniform informed them. This officer-Leary, the nametag said-was perhaps five years older than the one posted outside, and he was dour where McDonald had been chipper. Maybe five years on the job was all it took.

Catherine thanked him, and they walked the corridor, which was wide and long and lined with framed print ads; at the end, a set of double doors yawned open.

Along the way, the artwork on the walls depicted some of the company's most successful campaigns. She was familiar with all of them. When they got to what appeared to be the conference room, another hallway peeled off to the right.

Through the open door of the conference room, Catherine could see a large ebony table that consumed most of the space, surrounded by charcoal-colored, high-backed chairs. Nothing was marked off as a crime scene, so neither CSI put on rubber gloves, as they approached. When she ducked in the room, with Nick just behind, Catherine saw, crewcut Sergeant O'Riley standing at the far end, hovering over a blonde woman, seated with her head bowed, the thumb and fingers of her left hand rubbing her forehead.

"Ms. Denard," O'Riley said, in his gruff second tenor. Whether this was for identification purposes, for the CSIs, or to get the woman's attention, wasn't quite clear.

In any case, the woman jumped a little, looked up at O'Riley, then her eyes tensed as Catherine and Nick entered deeper into the room, moving to O'Riley's side of the massive table.

"It's all right, Ms. Denard," O'Riley said as he placed one of his hands on her shoulder. "These people are here to help."

The woman seemed to relax, thanks to O'Riley's touch and reassurance.

Catherine had come to revise her feelings about O'Riley, over the years; once she had overheard him dismissing the CSIs as "the nerd squad." But such adversarial days were long gone.

As usual, the detective's suit looked like he had fallen naked from a plane into a clothing store, only to rise and find himself fully if haphazardly dressed.

"Ms. Denard," the sergeant said, "this is Catherine Willows and her partner Nick Stokes from the crime lab."

The woman started to stand, but O'Riley's friendly hand on her shoulder-coupled with Catherine saying, "No, no, please, that's all right"-kept her in her seat.

Catherine stuck out her hand and the woman shook it delicately, then repeated the action with Nick as O'Riley said, "This is Janice Denard-she's Ruben Gold's personal assistant and office manager."

Ms. Denard didn't seem to know what to say, then she finally settled on, "Would either of you like a cup of coffee?"

"No, thanks," Nick said. "We're fine." Catherine nodded her assent to Nick's call.

Denard wore a sleeveless black-and-white polka dot dress that showed off slim, tan shoulders, the high collar-which Catherine thought should have shortened the appearance of the woman's throat-instead seeming to elongate it, giving the woman a supple swan neck. A simple silver cross hung on a tiny chain and she wore a slim silver watch on her left wrist, her only other jewelry a silver ring on the fourth finger of her right hand. She was in her early to mid-thirties and beautiful, her wide-set big blue eyes bearing lashes long enough to give Catherine a flash of envy.

"Really," the woman said, unconvincingly, "I'm fine-it's no trouble, if you change your mind."

Moments later, Catherine and Nick had taken seats on either side of Janice Denard, who began, "I came to work early today."

"Is that unusual?" Catherine asked.

"No. I do that most days-especially Mondays. I like to have everything up and running…you know, before Mr. Gold comes in."

"What time is that usually?"

"That Mr. Gold comes in? Just before nine."

"And what time do you get here?"

"Between seven and seven-thirty most days, but six-thirty on Mondays."

"And that's when you came in this morning?"

"No. It was more like…six-forty-five. I was running late, because of a traffic accident on Maryland Parkway."

Nick, who was taking notes, asked, "Where do you live, Ms. Denard?"

"East end of Charleston Boulevard. There are some houses at the foot of the mountains…?"

"Yes," Catherine said, thinking, Nice digs for a secretary. "I know those houses. Very nice."

Nick bulled right in, though his tone was gentle. "You are Mr. Gold's secretary, I take it?"

Denard bristled. "Personal assistant to Mr. Gold and office manager. It's an executive position, and I do very well, thank you very much. Not that I see how it pertains to anything."

Catherine's frustration was very much on her radar now; neither O'Riley nor this woman had as yet indicated what kind of situation they were dealing with, so whether or not something "pertained" remained as "unknown" as the "trouble."

"No offense," Nick said, and he shared with the woman the boyish smile that had melted frostier types than Denard. "But you gotta admit, those are really nice houses."

Wouldn't you know it, Denard smiled back at Nick, showing lots of white teeth. Caps? Catherine wondered.

"My ex," Denard said, "was a divorce lawyer…but not as good as mine, as it turned out."

Nick gave half a grin and a head nod, and Catherine chuckled politely, thinking, Shark. Then Catherine asked, "So, back on point-you came in around six-forty-five, and then?"

A shrug. "I went about my routine."

Their silence prompted her to continue.

Denard did: "I shut off the alarm, I went to my office, took off my coat and hung it up, then turned on my computer."

Catherine could almost see the movie Janice Denard seemed to be watching in her own mind, as she retraced her morning.

"While the computer booted, I went through Saturday's mail, which was piled on my desk."

"How did it get there?" O'Riley put in, lurking on the sidelines, on his feet.

Denard blinked at him. "How did what get there?"

"The mail."

"Oh! An intern put it there."

"When?"

"On Saturday."

O'Riley frowned, mostly in thought. "You weren't here on Saturday?"

Nodding, Denard said, "In the morning, but I left before the mail came. Most of the staff works Saturday-"

Catherine put in, "Isn't that unusual?"

"Not in a competitive, deadline-driven business like ours. We're just that busy, and that includes the interns. One of them would've been in charge of making sure the mail was on my desk, before he, or she, left."

Nick asked, "Which intern?"

"I don't know," she said, with another shrug. "I could find that out for you. I can give you a list of all the interns, far as that's concerned."

"If you could."

"But not right now," O'Riley said, with just a little impatience. "Go on with your account, please, Ms. Denard."

She took a breath, and dove back in. "After I went through the mail, and my computer was up, I went online. I checked the e-mails of both myself and Mr. Gold. After that, I checked the fax machine in my office, and then went to the rear office and checked that fax, too. Once I had done that, I went out front and started the coffee."

"You started the coffee?" Catherine asked, sitting forward. "Not one of the interns?"

"The interns'll just be shuffling in about now. I'm here first and starting the coffee is just something I like to do myself. Anyway, after that…that's when I found…found those…things."

Catherine and Nick exchanged glances, and O'Riley said, "Show us, if you would, please."

The woman took a moment to compose herself-as if preparing to do something very difficult; then, rising, Janice Denard said, "Come with me."

They followed her down the hall into a huge room divided into a colony of cubicles that seemed to be set off in squares of four with perhaps four central squares taking up the bulk of the space. The outside walls of the work area were the glass windows of offices that formed the room's borders.

Except for the framed advertisements, Newcombe-Gold looked to Catherine more like an insurance company than an ad agency, at least until they rounded a corner and she glanced into one of the corner offices and saw a giant slot car setup, and in an adjacent office an array of action figure toys surrounding a work station.

Two doors later, Janice Denard took a right into a spacious office, outfitted in a sleekly modern fashion, accented with splashes of color via framed abstract art. A starship of a desk-wide, gray and fashioned of an indeterminate substance-jutted from the left wall at a forty-five degree angle, envelopes and papers in three neat stacks, a mini-missile-launch phone setup roosting nearby; adjacent, a small credenza was home to a computer monitor and printer.

"This is my office," Janice Denard said-gesturing to file cabinets and chairs as if addressing loyal subjects in passing. Sensing that her little safari group had slowed to take in the impressive surroundings, the personal assistant/office manager paused to make sure they were all keeping up before she led them into Ruben Gold's office.

Nearly a half again as large as Janice's office, Gold's quarters were tan and masculine-the only wall decorations a trio of framed ad magazines with Gold's picture on the cover; the expansive area was dominated by a mahogany desk for which untold trees had given their lives. A speaker phone capable of defending against any missile attacks the lobby or Ms. Denard might launch perched on one corner, a silver airplane on a C-shaped silver base hovered on the other. Two leather armchairs faced the desk and a massive oxblood leather throne loomed behind it.

A glass cutout in the top of Gold's desk provided the (as yet absent) boss a view of his concealed computer monitor; atop a matching mahogany credenza, behind and to the throne's right lurked a laser printer as well as a row of books between ornate silver bookends-the credenza likely sheltering the CPU tower.

"Everything seemed fine this morning," Janice said, her manner now detached, business-like, "until I happened to glance at Mr. Gold's printer."

Nick asked, "How did that change things?"

Janice's face screwed up as she pointed toward the printer tray, where Catherine could see a small pile of paper. Walking to the printer, pulling on latex gloves, Catherine asked, "Let's see what got your attention, Ms. Denard…."

And, even as she pulled the sheaf of papers from the tray, Catherine could see what had disgusted Janice Denard.

CSI Willows was not squeamish.

Without a twinge, she had once walked into a room where waited a bloated corpse, undiscovered until the smell alerted a landlord; she had dealt with liquefied human remains, emotionlessly; she had handled dis-embodied arms, legs, limbs, torsos and heads without a flutter of her stomach.

But revulsion and rage flowed through her now, an immediate response that she had to force back, to retain and maintain her professionalism.

The top sheet was a pornographic picture of a girl about Lindsey's age, being violated by a male adult in his thirties. Catherine closed her eyes, then opened them to glance toward Janice. "You found these in the printer this morning?"

Janice managed a weak nod and backed away a half-step, as if something in Catherine's manner had frightened her.

Catherine placed the top sheet on the desk, with the image up, and Nick's face whitened; his eyes looked unblinkingly, unflinchingly at the image, then looked away.

"Nick," Catherine said, gently.

His gaze came to hers and he nodded a little, and she nodded back. They both had issues with this kind of crime, and they knew it…and they would both stay professional.

Catherine looked at the next image.

It was worse than the first, and on and on they went, nearly a dozen in all, every one featuring a minor, both boys and girls, every one obscene. When no one was looking (she hoped), she brushed the tears from her eyes with her sleeve, and somehow each sheet got laid out on the desk, and when she and her partner were done, each sheet was slipped into an individual transparent plastic evidence bag. Nick collected them all and held them face down in his hands.

Her eyes again met his and she smiled, just a little, to be supportive. He swallowed and nodded, but didn't seem able to summon anything close.

With the photos out of sight, Catherine and Nick turned their attention back to Janice Denard.

"Is this the kind of thing Mr. Gold might be interested in?" Catherine asked. "To your knowledge, I mean?"

"My God, no!" She seemed shocked that Catherine might even suggest such a thing. "There's no way," she continued, looking from one CSI to the other. "He's just…not like that."

"We can talk to him at nine," Nick said. "That's when he'll be in, you said."

Shocked, as if it had slipped her mind, she said, "He's out of town."

"Out of town!" O'Riley blurted. "Where?"

Her shrug was noncommittal, but her words were specific: "He flew to Los Angeles for a trade show that starts this morning. He left last Friday and isn't due back until the end of the week."

Catherine, trying to keep the incredulity from her voice, asked, "And you simply forgot that little detail?"

"No, no, no, of course not…. This, this thing that happened…and then you coming…I was taken by surprise, is all."

"If Mr. Gold wasn't coming in," Catherine said tersely, "why did you come in early to prep for him?"

"I didn't-I just came in at the time I usually do on Monday." She was shaking her head, growing more and more agitated. "If you knew Mr. Gold, you would never dream…." Her voice trailed off.

Nick gestured with the pornographic sheets still in his hand. "You never know who some people really are."

Catherine gave him a quick look, then asked, "Why wouldn't we suspect Mr. Gold?"

"You just wouldn't. He's honest, he has integrity, he works hard. And he's dated a lot of women…mature women. I don't mean old, but women his own age."

O'Riley asked, "How old is Mr. Gold?"

"In his early forties, I guess. I can get you that information, if it's important.

Knowing that dating habits seldom had any real relevance to an interest in child porn, Catherine took the woman in another direction. "Who else has access to Mr. Gold's personal computer?"

Janice shook her head immediately. "No one."

Slowly, Catherine said, "No one has access to Mr. Gold's computer."

"That's right."

"You're his personal assistant."

The blonde risked a frown. "Do I have to tell you, a computer is also personal?"

"Some are more personal than others," Nick said dryly.

"Mr. Gold," Catherine said, letting each word out, one at a time, "is in LA and won't be back for a week…and yet you have no idea who could have printed out these pictures?"

The frown went away and a placating manner accompanied Denard's reply: "What I meant to say was, no one could have used Mr. Gold's PC to print those pictures. We each have our own private passwords, and there's no way anyone could use Mr. Gold's computer, unless he were careless with that password, which I assure you he was not."

Nick perked. "Was he especially careful about his password?"

Defensive now, Denard accused, "You make that sound suspicious! Are you careful about your password, Mr. Stone?"

"Stokes," Nick said.

Catherine could feel this interview starting to slip away from them, and she gave Nick a gently reproving glance, then said, "It is his printer, Ms. Denard."

"Our computers here are networked, linked together so that any of the work stations, or other offices, could have accessed Mr. Gold's printer."

"On purpose, you mean?" Catherine asked.

"Yes…but also by mistake! Just with a wrong keystroke."

Eyes narrowing, Catherine said, "So, we're looking at how many people, who've been in the building since the end of shift last Friday?"

"Nearly everyone. We work six days here most of the time-Newcombe-Gold is rated number two ad agency in Las Vegas, you know."

Catherine asked, "How many employees?"

"With computer access?"

"Yes."

The woman didn't miss a beat; she knew her office. "Twenty-seven."

Trading dismayed glances with Nick, Catherine said, "Twenty-seven?"

"Plus Mr. Gold, of course, and Mr. Newcombe. Without computer access? There's five interns and half a dozen janitorial staff."

Turning to O'Riley, Catherine said, "We're going to need a search warrant for all the computers, floppies, CDs, everything."

O'Riley sighed, nodded, withdrew his cell phone and punched in numbers, stepping over to the corner of the office for some privacy.

Janice Denard's eyes were wide and she looked as white as Nick had on seeing the pictures. "Oh, no-please don't say you're-"

"This is a serious felony," Catherine said, cutting the woman off. Then to Nick, she said: "Call Tomas Nunez, would you? Tell him to get down here ASAP."

"On it," Nick said, hauling out his own cell phone and moving to the corner opposite O'Riley.

Tomas Nunez, the best of several computer gurus the department used part time, would come in to oversee the operation of taking the computers out of Newcombe-Gold. Catherine was about to seriously inconvenience this business, but there was no other way.

"A search warrant means you'll…search the building, right?" Denard asked weakly.

"A warrant means," Catherine replied, "that we'll take everything in, computers, maybe some of the other hardware, and most of the software, and our expert will work on it until we figure out the origin of this material. This isn't an employee logging on to some adult website on his coffee break, Ms. Denard-this is child pornography. A serious crime."

"Eighty percent of our graphics are computer generated!"

"We don't do this lightly. And we do regret the inconvenience."

O'Riley asked, "Is Mr. Newcombe in town?"

More flustered than angry, Janice glanced at her watch. "Yes, he should be here any minute now."

"Good." O'Riley returned to the cell phone, spoke a few words, then punched the STOP button and faced them. "Warrant'll be here in ten minutes. I got Judge Madsen to issue it."

Catherine, Nick and O'Riley all knew that crimes against children sent Judge Andrew Madsen completely around the bend and he, of all local judges, would act fastest to help them gain possession of the evidence.

"When exactly is Mr. Newcombe due in?" O'Riley asked.

As if on cue, a tall, lantern-jawed man appeared in the doorway, a laptop computer case strapped over his left shoulder. Perhaps fifty, he might have stepped from an ad for his expensively tailored gray suit. He had silver-gray hair and thin, dark eyebrows, and managed to look both confident and confused as he strode into Ruben Gold's office.

Ignoring O'Riley and the CSIs, he demanded of Denard, "What's going on here?"

"Mr. Newcombe," she said, taking a tentative step toward her boss. "I…I…found something…terrible, this morning, and I'm afraid…."

O'Riley stepped between the man and woman, his badge coming up into Newcombe's face. "I'm Detective Sergeant O'Riley, Mr. Newcombe. You are Mr. Newcombe? These are crime scene investigators I called over-Catherine Willows and Nick Stokes."

"Crime scene…" Wheeling slowly, the polished Newcombe seemed finally to realize the CSIs were in the room. He repeated what he'd said, upon entering, but the words came out soft, even apologetic: "What's going on here?" Then, as an afterthought, he stuck out his hand and said, "Ian Newcombe, Sergeant, sorry."

O'Riley gave the man's hand a cursory shake and said, "Ms. Denard discovered something in Mr. Gold's printer this morning, and was exactly right in calling us."

"Something in a printer serious enough to call the police?" Newcombe said, his bewildered look travelling from O'Riley back to Janice.

Nick stepped forward and tossed one of the evidence bags onto the desk-image up. Newcombe eyed it from a distance, glanced at the officers, then-as if approaching a dangerous beast-took a few steps closer, moving past O'Riley, and finally braving to pick up the bag for a better look….

"Oh…my…God…."

"I take it," O'Riley said, matter of fact, "you've never seen these before?"

The adman dropped the bag onto the desk as if it were on fire, the laptop clunking against his hip as he involuntarily stepped back.

Nick spread the rest of the evidence bags out on the desk, like a terrible (if winning) hand of cards.

Newcombe glanced from picture to picture, his eyes never resting on one photo longer than a second, his mouth falling open in appalled shock, hands balling into fists then uncoiling and balling again.

"I have frankly never seen anything like this," he said, the calm in his voice obviously forced, his tone cold, almost mechanical. "One…hears of such things. These are…," he searched for the word, "…revolting."

But O'Riley was still in charge, saying to the ad exec, "You have no idea how they could have gotten here?"

"None," Newcombe said. "I…I don't recognize any of these children, either…if that helps at all."

Catherine said, "So you're as surprised as Mr. Denard to find these photos in Mr. Gold's printer?"

"Absolutely…. How could that have happened?"

"That's what we have to find out," Nick said.

"But your company will be inconvenienced," Catherine said. "You can speak to your lawyers if you like, of course, but we'll have a warrant shortly and-"

He held up a hand in a "stop" motion. "Anything we can do to help, we'll do."

"I'm relieved to hear you say that, Mr. Newcombe, because we're going to have to confiscate every computer in this facility."

Newcombe's shock seemed to congeal on his face, then something new appeared in his eyes: alarm. "What?"

O'Riley's face was as expressionless as a block of granite. "Ms. Willows is correct. We're going to take along everything these criminalists consider to be evidence, so we can trace the source of the pornography."

"That's what I was trying to tell you, Mr. Newcombe," Janice said, appearing at the executive's side, looking up at him pitifully. "They're planning to shut us down."

The adman stood a little straighter. "Oh, they are, are they? Well, maybe I will call my attorneys, at that."

"You said you'd do anything to help," Catherine reminded him.

"Not shut down the source of income for thirty people," he said, eyes intense. "Not if I have anything to say about it."

Actually, Catherine thought, twenty-nine, but she said, "Sir," with a smile that at least pretended to be friendly, "that's just it: you don't. Have anything to say about it, I mean."

A uniformed officer walked in with a folded sheaf of papers and handed them to O'Riley.

"Thanks," the detective said, as the uniform turned and left the room. O'Riley gave the warrant a cursory read, then handed the papers to Newcombe.

The adman was on his cell phone before he was done with the first page.

"Is that your lawyer?" Catherine asked, helpfully.

"You can rest assured it is."

"That would be the attorney who handles all your business affairs?"

"Yes, and why is that of any concern to you?"

"It isn't-but it might be to you. This is a criminal matter and your attorney probably hasn't studied in that area since law school."

O'Riley got into it, saying to the exec: "But, hey-yammer at the guy all you want, if it'll make you feel better…and for, what? Five hundred bucks an hour?…He'll get back to you and consult with a real criminal attorney and then finally they'll tell you what I'm about to tell you…for free."

Newcombe looked pissed, but he said into the phone, "Just a moment, Wayne," then said to O'Riley, "And what legal advice can you share with me?"

O'Riley shrugged. "That you can't do shit."

The adman growled into the phone, "Wayne, I'll call you back from my office," and started to leave.

Catherine called out: "There's another thing your attorney can tell you, Mr. Newcombe!"

The executive halted in the doorway, looked over his shoulder at her, glaring.

"It's that if you do try to fight this," she said, "it could cause you far more harm than being shut down for a day or two."

Newcombe's eyes tightened, but there was no hostility in his tone as he said: "What kind of trouble?"

Catherine approached him, her manner calm, professional. "Let's explore the path that doesn't come with trouble. Let's say you don't stand in our way, we take your equipment, and find the kiddie porn source. Then, when the case makes the news-and trust me, it will make the news-we praise you and your agency in all the media for helping us ferret out this dangerous individual."

Newcombe cocked his head, skeptically.

"Or," Nick said, an edge in his voice, "not."

The executive came back into the room, put himself at the center of Catherine, O'Riley and Nick. "How long do you think we'll be shut down?"

Catherine said, "A few days, if we're lucky. You might want to call your insurance company-you may be able to file a lost time claim."

Newcombe nodded. "Our coverage may include something for this, at that. What else can we do to help you?"

O'Riley pulled out a pad. "Tell us about this trade show your partner's attending."

"The aaay miss buddy show?"

O'Riley squinted; it wasn't the most intelligent expression Catherine had ever seen on a face. "Pardon?" O'Riley asked.

The exec spelled it out: "The AAAA-MIS-BUDDY show."

The detective looked at the CSIs, his eyebrows raised in confusion; the spelling bee hadn't helped any of them, both Catherine and Nick shaking their heads.

Newcombe turned on a smile normally reserved for clients-its wattage lower than your average Strip marquee, but just barely.

"Sorry," he said, "too much time with ad people. The American Association of Advertising Agencies, AAAA, has a Member Information Services section, the MIS, and they are using the trade show in LA to introduce their Business Demographics and Data for You or BUDDY system."

O'Riley tried to write all that down, but it was clear he was struggling. So Nick asked, "And that's where Mr. Gold is now?"

"Yeah, since Friday."

Turning to Janice, Nick asked "You said he flew out, Ms. Denard-what airline?"

"Airline?" she asked, confused for a moment, then she said, "Oh, I'm sorry-Mr. Gold didn't use any airline: he flew himself."

Catherine nodded toward the silver airplane on the desk. "So he's a pilot?"

"Yes," Newcombe said. "As am I. The company owns the plane, but we both use it. At our own discretion."

Tomas Nunez strolled in.

The computer geek looked more like a refugee from a Southwestern biker gang than the best computer analyst in the state. Tall and rangy, his long, black hair slicked straight back, Nunez had a leathery brown, pockmarked face, a stringy black mustache, and deep-set eyes as brown as they were cold. He wore a black leather vest, black jeans and a black promo T-shirt for an album by Los Fabulosos Cadillacs.

Newcombe and Janice Denard eyed him like they thought he'd blown in to rob the place.

Nunez smiled, displaying even, white teeth, startlingly so against his dark complexion. "Hola, Catherine-Nick, you rang? Lucky for all of us I was close by-over at Mandalay Bay, catching breakfast."

Catherine brought him up to speed, including showing him the pornographic printouts. He betrayed no emotion, which Catherine envied.

"You want all the computers processed?" he asked.

"Yes, Tomas-every last one."

He clapped once. "All right. Gonna need a trout with a Polaroid-maybe two."

Catherine nodded. Newcombe and Janice looked at each other as if Nunez's English was outer-space lingo. Catherine did not bother to explain that a "trout" was one of those uniformed officers who stood around at crime scenes, gawking more than helping, generally with their mouths hanging open-like a trout. One would be pressed into duty, taking photos of all the computers and where they sat, the wiring hooked to each one, and-if Nunez demanded it-pictures of devices they were hooked to, as well.

Before any of the computers could be processed, that photographic record had to be made.

"We're going to need more hands," Nick sighed, "and a Ryder truck."

O'Riley held up a hand for silence-he was already making the call.

Nunez approached Newcombe; the adman backed up half a step.

"Might as well start with yours," Nunez said.

Newcombe bristled and his hand tightened around the strap of his laptop bag. "Now, I'm sorry, but there I'm just going to have to draw the line. This is my personal computer from home!"

"Warrant specifies every computer on the premises," Nunez said. "That's a computer, these are the premises."

Newcombe tried to stare down the computer expert, and-though the tactic may have worked for Newcombe in the business world-with the likes of Nunez, the cause was a lost one. The geek just stared back deadpan, hand held out, until Newcombe finally laid the bag in it.

"Gracias," Nunez said. Turning to Nick, he said, "Nicky, can you get the pictures of this one-be real thorough, man-and pull it out while Catherine and I take care of the rest."

"No problem, Tomas."

"Gracias."

Officer Leary came in then, a Polaroid camera in his hands, his mouth yawning open, waiting for Nunez's hook.

"Hope you got a shitload of film," Nunez said.

Leary's expression turned confused, but the uniform had the good sense to tag after Nunez when the computer expert waltzed out of Gold's office and into Denard's.

Catherine followed and watched as Nunez had the officer take photos of the keyboard, the front of the computer tower, then the back to match the wiring and finally, Janice Denard's Zip drive and printer.

"Let's get crackin' on the others," Nunez said to Catherine. "I'll unhook hers, afterwards." He looked at Leary. "You got the idea now?"

Leary nodded. "No sweat."

"Not in this air conditioning," Nunez said. "Like Gary Gilmore said, let's do it."

Leary, Nunez and Catherine walked into the warren of cubicles, filled with workers now, and Nunez put his fingers in his mouth and whistled long and loud. Heads popped up from almost every station and, when he had their attention, Nunez raised his voice loud enough that Catherine figured they could probably hear him out in the parking lot.

"Las Vegas Metro P.D.," he called. "This building is now officially a crime scene. Please file out of the room and into the lobby without touching your computers. If I see so much as a keystroke, I'm breaking fingers."

Although several of the workers tried to ask what was going on, Nunez shushed them and herded them all into the lobby. Catherine watched carefully and no one had ducked back into a cubicle before marching out.

"That's it," Nunez said, in the lobby. "Thank you for your cooperation. Mr. Newcombe will be out shortly to explain to you what's going on."

When the last of the employees was in the hallway, Nunez turned to Catherine.

"Shall we get to work?"

"Tomas, my boss would admire your people skills."

Catherine joined Nick, who was still shooting photos in Gold's office.

"How are you doing, Nicky?"

He looked at her and forced a little smile. "Good. Good."

She touched his shoulder. "It's not easy for me, either…. Think I'll take a rain check on breakfast."

He nodded, his mouth twitched, and he got back to work.

2

EARLIER THAT SAME MORNING, THE THREE OTHER MEMBERS of the CSI graveyard shift had responded to a 419, i.e., a Dead Body call-representing another unpleasant discovery by a Las Vegas citizen.

From his usual spot in the front passenger seat, CSI supervisor Gil Grissom let out a small prayer-like sigh of relief as Warrick Brown heeled the black Tahoe onto the east shoulder of Las Vegas Boulevard. Grissom rarely drove, either to or from a crime scene; he was distracted, preoccupied, and while he was probably a perfectly fine driver, it disturbed him that he could arrive at a destination with no memory of ever having looked out the windshield along the way.

But at least as disturbing was Warrick's expeditious approach to driving. The young CSI had a low-key, even laidback manner at odds with a driving style that strongly suggested a manic streak lurked not far beneath the calm.

The dash-mounted blue strobe mixed in with the flashing red lights of two parked prowl cars to paint the deathscape an eerie purple; it would still be a good three hours before the crack of dawn would do the same. This far north on the Strip, there were no wind-breaks and the drafts roared down off the mountains like angry spirits, perhaps heading over to haunt the sprawling ghost town across the road-the Las Vegas Motor Speedway, sitting as dark and dormant as a forgotten mining town a century after the gold petered out. Mere weeks ago, tens of thousands of avid NASCAR fans had poured in and filled the place to the rafters for the Busch and Winston Cup races; now, however, the sprawling ghost town was inhabited, fittingly enough, by a skeleton crew, not due to come in for another five hours.

On this side of the road, almost due east, the federal prison camp, attached to Nellis Air Force base, could be made out by way of its illuminated perimeter, lights snaking a trail up and down the foothills almost a mile away from where Grissom stood. To the south of that, the Air Force base slept on, or at least no sign had presented itself yet to indicate anyone on those premises had noticed the cop parade taking place just beyond their backyard.

That didn't mean the Fibbies wouldn't be poking their noses into a death so close to their doorstep-but for now, Grissom and his team had the scene to themselves.

Jumping down from the back seat on shaky legs, a pale Sara Sidle glared at Grissom in the darkness. Though this was supposedly spring, a cold snap had steam pluming from their lips. Not saying a word, Sara turned toward the rear of the SUV where their gear was stowed.

"Up for driving on the way back?" Grissom asked, conversationally.

"Oooh yeah," she said, rolling her eyes.

Two prowl cars blocked the road on either side of the crime scene. The CSIs had already passed another patrol car at Craig Road, the first major intersection south of here, where an officer was diverting all northbound traffic west onto Craig. Grissom knew another officer would be stationed to the north at the mile-marker 58 interchange on Interstate 15, an officer whose job would be to divert the few cars heading toward Las Vegas Boulevard back onto the freeway and to the Craig Road exit to the south.

Besides the diagonally parked patrol cars, two more vehicles sat on the shoulder (Warrick had pulled the Tahoe in behind them). Immediately in front of the CSI vehicle was Captain Jim Brass's tired Taurus; beyond that was a dark-colored Toyota Corolla, which Grissom-tugging on latex gloves-couldn't see very well in the gloom. Bathed in purple light, Brass, a uniformed office and another man stood in the middle of the road near the front of the Corolla and Grissom strode toward them, as Sara and Warrick-crime-scene kits in hand-moved on up ahead.

The detective nodded to a citizen whose back was to Grissom-apparently the driver of the Corolla. Grissom was still out of earshot when the driver spoke again as Brass quietly listened, though his sad eyes spoke volumes.

As the CSI broke the circle and exchanged nods with a uniformed officer, the detective was jotting something in his notebook.

When Brass looked up and saw the CSI boss, he said, "Mr. Benson, this is crime lab supervisor Grissom. Gil, this is David Benson."

The man extended his hand, but Grissom already had his latex gloves on, and shook his head while raising ghostly hands as if in surrender.

The witness looked innocuous enough-tall and thin with a reddish blond brush cut; he was nervous but not anxious. His ears stuck out a little, leaving plenty of room for the stems of his black plastic glasses, the lenses thin and possibly tinted a little, hard for Grissom to tell in the lights of the patrol cars and headlights.

Grissom dragged out the preliminary smile he bestowed on witnesses-it was generally as far as he'd go toward loosening them up-and said, "Mr. Benson, could you tell me what happened here?"

Benson, with an expression that said he'd just finished doing that with Brass, looked toward the detective for relief.

But Brass only said, "Please tell Dr. Grissom what you told me."

"All of it?"

Grissom flinched another smile, mildly impatient. "Just the highlights won't do, Mr. Benson. All of it, please."

Sighing, Benson looked down at the road for a moment, gathered himself, then his eyes met Grissom's in the swirling purple smear of lights from the vehicles. He pointed up the road, his hand trembling a little. "It started with me noticing a car, up there." Grissom remained silent, but offered a nod of encouragement.

"Tell him what kind of car," Brass said.

Benson frowned in a mild mix of confusion and irritation. "Well, I already told you. Couldn't you have told him, as easy as asking me to, again?"

Brass sighed a small cloud, and said, "But I'm not the witness, Mr. Benson. You're the witness."

"Oh. I'm sorry. I just…nothing like this ever happened to me, before."

"Nothing like this happened to the victim before, either," Grissom said with an insincere smile. "So why don't you continue?"

"It was a white Chevy…Monte Carlo, I think."

"What was the car doing?"

"Doing?"

"What was it doing that attracted your attention? Was it weaving, was it speeding, was it going unusually slow…"

"Unusually slow! It's like I told Captain Brass, I wouldn't have noticed a thing, except the guy was kind of creeping along, hugging the shoulder…. Made me think maybe he was having car trouble, and might need help. But he could've been looking for something…like a turnoff, or something on the side of the road."

"Was he maintaining a steady slow speed?"

"I don't understand…"

"Did he slow down, then pick it back up again, then slow again, or-"

"Yes! Like that. And then, finally, he slowed all the way to a stop, and got out of his car."

"Were you right behind him?"

"No! He was way up ahead, and I slowed down myself, when I was trying to tell if he needed help…but I kind of kept my distance, figuring I oughta do that for a while-I mean, there's all kinds of weirdos around. Somebody can seem to be in trouble, then you stop and get robbed or killed or something. It's a dangerous world to be a Good Samaritan in, don't you think?"

"It is indeed," Grissom granted. "So when he stopped, what did you do?"

"I stopped, too. I cut my lights. I…I can't exactly explain it, but I got a…creepy feeling. Like something was wrong. I was just trying to get a handle on what was going on, you know?"

"Yes."

"So, anyway, like I said, I stopped too, killed my lights, and stayed back where he couldn't see me. I watched him get out, open the trunk, and pull out that…that thing."

With a shudder, the witness pointed up the road again, this time at something on the shoulder, a dark wrapped-up apparent corpse, near where Warrick and Sara were already at work, Sara snapping photos, the flash making tiny lightning in the night. Almost out of sight, beyond the parked cars, Warrick was bent down, probably searching for footprints. It all comes down to shoe prints was Warrick's byword, and Grissom could not disagree.

"And then?" Brass prompted.

Benson tucked his shaking hands into his pockets. "Then I watched him dump the…package, dump it on the side of the road, and I just knew right away that it was a body. I don't think I've ever been so scared-it was like all the blood left my body."

"What did you see that made you think it was a body?" Grissom asked.

"It wasn't the…the package itself, though the shape kinda suggested as much, but more how he acted. The guy moved kind of…funny, you know, on the way back to the car, like he was trying to wipe out his footprints or something…with the side of his shoe? Then the guy slammed the trunk lid, hustled back in the car and split. He wasn't goin' slow then!"

"And where were you while this was going on?" Grissom asked.

Benson turned and pointed toward the other side of the road. "You know where Hollywood Boulevard runs south of the track?"

"I do."

"I'd come across from the interstate."

"I thought that access was blocked at night," Grissom said. "Locked up."

The CSI knew that, while a public street, Hollywood Boulevard ran inside the fence line of Las Vegas Motor Speedway, and metal gates were in place to be dragged across, effectively shutting it down. The LVMS staff did that every night, or at least such was Grissom's understanding.

Brass answered the CSI's question. "Some days yes, some days no-mostly no."

Turning back to Benson, Grissom said, "If you don't mind my asking, what were you doing out here in the middle of the night?"

"Am I in trouble? Am I like a suspect or something?"

Grissom did his best to make his smile friendly. "Mr. Benson, the first witness is always the first suspect. That's why we have to ask you so many questions."

"But it's just routine," Brass interjected, giving Grissom a look.

"The deal is," Benson said, "I can't sleep."

"Just tonight?" Grissom asked. "Or is insomnia a problem for you?"

"It's a problem. I take medication. But if it doesn't work, I don't dare take more, I'll get sick. Sometimes I take a drive to help me relax. It's usually pretty quiet out here. And it's kind of…beautiful, in a funny kind of way, sort of like you're on another planet. It's sort of…What's the word I'm lookin' for?"

"Austere?" Grissom suggested.

"I don't know that word. But it sounds right."

"Where do you live, Mr. Benson?"

"Forty-six-forty-two Roby Grey Way."

Grissom knew that neighborhood-middle-class two-story homes not too far west of here, just off Craig.

The CSI asked, "If you thought the other driver might be having car trouble, why did you hang back when he stopped?"

"Like I said before, I know that in this city, everything is not always what it seems. You get to know that right away, in my business."

"And your business is?"

"I sell surveillance video equipment-I know the kinds of things that some people will pull. And I have a certain police-type, security-oriented way of looking at things. I remember reading literature where a gang faked car trouble and then when someone would stop to help them, the gang beat them up and robbed them. I didn't want to be on the end of that kind of thing."

"No one does," Grissom said. "Can you describe the man?"

The witness glanced at Brass-again, they'd been over this ground, obviously. Brass said, "It doesn't hurt to go through these details several times. I'll listen carefully, Mr. Benson, and jot anything new you might think of."

Benson nodded, drew a deep breath, and started in. "He was tall-probably taller than any of us. And he was Caucasian. You know-white?"

Grissom, considering that a rhetorical question, merely stared at the bespectacled Benson.

Who went on: "He was kind of skinny, I'd say-one-twenty-five, one-fifty maybe."

"What about his clothing?" Grissom asked.

Benson shook his head. "At night like this, about all I can say is…dark clothes. Really all I could tell from this distance."

"Was he in coat or jacket?"

"No. His arms were bare."

"Was it a T-shirt, or a shirt with sleeves?"

"I couldn't say."

"Hair color?"

Shrugging, Benson said, "Dark hair, I guess. Again, from this distance…"

Grissom nodded.

"I did ease forward," Benson added, "when he got back in the car, but all I got was a partial plate number. Will that do any good?"

Grissom's gaze went from Benson to Brass, who held up his notebook to show he already had it, and the CSI's eyes returned to and settled on the witness. "Nice job, Mr. Benson."

"Oh, and his right taillight was broken too."

"Good. Anything else distinctive about the car?"

"No. Not really. I wish I was of more help."

"You've been very helpful," Grissom said, sincerely. "We're fortunate to have a witness with your security background."

Benson broke out in a grin. "Well, thanks!"

Brass led the man back toward the Corolla.

Grissom stood shaking his head, as he watched the two men walk away. What was the old saying? "A good man is hard to find." A good woman, too, for that matter….

But a good witness? Endlessly harder…yet, for once, Grissom seemed to be on the short list of the lucky in Vegas. Despite mild and understandable nerves, Benson appeared sure of what he'd seen and that could prove very helpful in court.

What would be even more helpful, though, was evidence; even a reliable eyewitness was a human being, after all, and Gil Grissom preferred not to count on human beings.

He moved up the road to check on Sara and Warrick. They were both standing over the bundle on the side of the road now, and-engine noise attracting his attention, as he walked to join his colleagues-Grissom turned to see Benson's Corolla making a U-turn and heading back south on Las Vegas Boulevard.

As he approached, the criminalist recognized the sickly sweet stench of death, of decay; but even on the breeze, it didn't seem as overwhelming as one might expect, given its pungency.

Grissom looked from Sara to Warrick, finding no clues in their business-like expressions. He was putting on his wire-frame glasses as he said, "So. What have we got?"

"Well, it's definitely a body," Sara said, shining her flashlight down on a piece of carpeting about six feet in length and rolled three or four times around something; then, with duct tape, the whole bundle had been sealed once around the middle and around each end.

Sara gave Grissom a quick tour of the corpse, using the flashlight like an usher leading him to a theater seat. He could see at one end of the enchilada-like shape the dark hair of the top of a human head, and at the other bare feet, white but for heels blue with lividity.

"Smell is minimized," Sara said, "because this package is fairly well-wrapped…but that's not the whiff of somebody who died a few hours ago."

"Not hardly," Warrick said, with a quick lift of the eyebrows.

"Possibly a female," Grissom offered.

"From the small feet," Sara said, "I would say so, yeah. Could be a child, but not a young one-this body is over five feet tall."

Grissom nodded his curt approval of her assessment, then said, "All right. What else have we accomplished?"

"Photographed from every angle," Sara said.

Warrick added, "I've got some prints marked. I'll cast them as soon as we're done here." He pointed and Grissom followed the gesture. "Piece of red plastic up on the road."

"Taillight, maybe?"

Warrick nodded. "Taillight, maybe."

Again Grissom nodded his satisfaction. "Could be a nice find. Our witness mentioned the dump vehicle had a broken tail."

"Dumper broke it, trying to unload the body?" Sara wondered aloud.

"Possibility."

Warrick squinted at Grissom. "You seeing it, Gris?"

"I'm seeing a possibility," he said, and told them.

A white Chevrolet Monte Carlo pulls to a stop in the northbound land of Las Vegas Boulevard. It's dark and no one appears to be around. A driver in dark clothes climbs out of the car, looks around, sees nothing, then hurries around to the trunk, struggles with the rolled-up bundle inside and finally hefts it out. As he does, the bundle strikes the corner of the taillight, breaking out a small piece of plastic that falls unseen to the pavement.

Also unseen by the driver: Benson's Corolla, sitting up the road in the darkness, the surveillance-camera salesman surveiling every move the man makes.

The driver carries the rug and corpse to the side of the road, moves a few feet onto the dusty shoulder, his footprints clear in the dirt as he does, and he dumps the body to the ground. As he returns to the car, he sees his tracks and blots out some of the prints, but it's dark and he doesn't completely erase them all.

Then the driver slams the trunk lid, takes a quick look around and sees nothing; he climbs into his car and drives away.

Looking back down at the wrapped package, Grissom asked Sara, "You were about to unroll it?"

"Well, yeah," Sara said. Now she was squinting at her boss, detecting something in his voice. "Shouldn't we?"

"Let's do that back at the lab."

"You sure, Gris?" Warrick asked. "Once we remove this from the crime scene, we-"

"We've got photos, right?"

The two looked at each other, shrugged, then both nodded.

"Okay." He cast a smile on the younger CSIs, so they could tell he wasn't displeased. "I prefer to open this particular package in as clean an environment as we can get…and that means the lab."

"Not the side of a road," Warrick said, nodding, seeming vaguely irritated with himself that he hadn't come to the same conclusion.

Sara hadn't made the jump yet, it seemed, as she said, "You sure don't want to have a look now?"

He shook his head. "I bet you could never wait for Christmas morning. We'll do it at the lab."

Now Sara was nodding. A few moments later, the ambulance crew ambled up: two men, one short and thin, the other tall and thin, dressed in their blue uniforms; they took positions alongside the edge of the road and impatience came off them like heat over asphalt.

After a while, the short one asked, "How long you guys going to be?"

Grissom turned, looked at the man with a withering expression Medusa might have envied. "Well, the 'guys' and I-which is to say these criminalists-will be here as long as we need to be."

The short one shot him a defensive look, but swallowed nervously, saying nothing.

"But as long as you're here," Grissom said, suddenly cheerful, "you can help."

The tall one gulped and asked, "How?"

"Get us a clean sheet-the biggest one you've got. And a new body bag."

"Not the gurney?" the short one asked.

"Not yet," Grissom said. He held up one finger. "A sheet…" He held up another finger. "…and a new body bag. New."

They shuffled off to their ambulance, and a couple of minutes later returned with a huge white sheet and, atop a gurney they'd hauled over, a body bag, which they brought to the edge of the road.

"Okay, gentlemen," Grissom said. "Let's lay out the sheet, and then oh so carefully rest our package on top of it."

Frowning, the short one asked, "We're taking the whole thing?"

"Yes. We'll load it up and take it back to the lab."

"Carpet and all?"

Grissom's expression was only technically a smile. "When one says 'whole thing,' that would indicate carpet and all, yes. Is there a problem?"

"That thing could really mess up our…" After trailing off, the short one glanced over at the body bag.

Grissom frowned. "That's not a new one, is it?"

"Well, it's the newest one we've got," the tall one said.

Despite what people might assume, body bags were not a one-time-use article. The truth was they simply cost too much. Grissom, however, had requested a pristine one because he didn't want to have to worry about any cross-contamination.

True, body bags were cleaned thoroughly after every grim use; but for his evidence to stand up in court, Grissom knew he needed a brand-new bag.

"Warrick," he said, at last.

"Papa needs a brand new bag?"

"I don't care what anybody says," Grissom said, flicking a little grin at Warrick. "You're the hardest-working man in show business…and you're going to prove it by heading over to Nellis and tell them what we need."

"And what we need is a brand-new body bag."

"Yes."

The Air Force base would have new bags. They had very little use for them here; but they had them on hand, just in case.

Sara gave Warrick a sunny if sarcasm-laced smile. "See-you get all the fun jobs."

"Greaaat," Warrick growled, like a depressed Tony the Tiger. "Haven't been on a scavenger hunt since grade school."

"Well, you do get to drive yourself," Grissom said, reminding him. "We'll stay here and work the scene."

Warrick grunted and strode over to the Tahoe.

Within an hour later, the piece of taillight plastic had been collected and bagged; dental stone was setting up in the footprints; and-with the ambulance crew hanging around and looking grumpy, but knowing enough now to stay away from Grissom-Warrick finally got back, a black body bag under his arm.

The purple of the red and blue of flashing lights had finally given way to the purple and pink smudging the horizon, courtesy of the morning sun, parting the darkness.

"What took so long?" Grissom asked.

"Hey, imagine the song I had to sing to sell them," Warrick said. "Starting with the guard at the entrance, then his supervisor, then the M.P.s, then the officer of the day, and the officer of the watch and God only knows how many more-I lost track. I'm lucky I'm not in the brig, or on my way to the Middle East."

"But is it a new bag?" Grissom asked, eagerly.

"Bran' spankin'. Doesn't take much to please you, does it, Gris?"

"I'm a simple soul," Grissom said, taking the body bag in his latex-gloved hands, while Warrick and Sara exchanged wide-eyed reactions to this remarkable statement.

Using the ambulance crew for assistance, the CSIs carefully laid the bundle inside the white sheet, wrapping it up as best they could; then they put the whole package into the body bag. The ambulance crew placed the body bag onto the gurney and rolled it back to their vehicle. Once loaded, they took off, the siren off now-no reason to rush with this patient.

While Warrick finished removing the casts of the partial footprints, Sara took more pictures, this time of the ground beneath where the carpet-wrapped body had been. Grissom spent the time surveying the area, looking for anything that might have come loose when they were moving the body. He found nothing, but that didn't worry him. He had evidence, lots of it, waiting back at the lab…

…and, for once, the killer had even been kind enough to gift-wrap it.

Dr. Al Robbins was waiting for them in the morgue. A good twenty to twenty-five degrees cooler than the rest of the labs, the morgue always gave Grissom both a feeling of calm and of purpose. Something about the change in temperature made the room seem more peaceful to him, the very crispness of the air inherently reassuring. The atmosphere seemed somehow…scientific. Here, Dr. Gil Grissom felt insulated from the chaos that brought him his "patients": the victims who needed him. This was the last place where Grissom saw most victims, in the flesh at least, so it became a place that filled him with a deep sense of purpose. A morgue was a kind of church to Grissom, the autopsy tray a sort of altar; but these victims were not to be worshipped, nor were they to be sacrificed. They had come here, albeit against their will, to ask him to do right by them.

To find justice for them.

And their killers.

The gurney bearing the body bag containing the carpet-wrapped corpse had been drawn up next to the metal table over which Doc Robbins spent most of his time. Grissom, Warrick and Sara had all pulled on blue lab coats and latex gloves. Robbins stood leaning against the table in his usual surgical scrubs, his metal crutch propped in a nearby corner.

"And what have you brought me today?" the coroner asked, his eyes on the body bag.

With the slightest twinkle of humor, Grissom asked, "Why, you didn't look inside?"

Robbins smiled. "Nope-just finished some reports and got in here myself. I found this waiting for me. I figured you wouldn't be too far behind."

"We don't know what it is ourselves, for sure," Grissom admitted, "other than a body that didn't die today." And then he proceeded to fill Doc Robbins in.

"So you've brought the crime scene to me, for a change," Robbins said, opening his eyes wide.

"A big part of it," Grissom said.

"I have to admit I find that somewhat…exciting."

"Why?"

"Why do you think our resident lab rat, Greg, is so eager to get out in the field? To be in on the discovery. To be part of the process from the beginning. The chance to be Sherlock Holmes, and not Doctor Watson. To have the feeling that you CSIs have when you find that crucial piece of evidence, on the scene."

Grissom shrugged a little. "You often find the crucial piece of evidence, right on the corpse. Or in it."

"True. But there's something about a crime scene that's inherently more exciting than the lab."

"I disagree. I find them equally stimulating."

Neither Grissom nor Robbins saw Warrick and Sara exchanging rolling-eyed glances at this exchange.

"Well," Robbins said. "Let's have a look."

Grissom stepped over to the bag and unzipped it. All that was visible through the opening was the white sheet. He spread the sides of the bag and Warrick pitched in to help him slide the bag down over the sheet; then carefully, Grissom peeled back the sheet and revealed the carpeting, the package still sealed with duct tape.

"I don't suppose Cleopatra's in here," Robbins said.

"Let's see," Grissom said.

3

IN JANICE DENARD'S OFFICE, COMPUTER WHIZ TOMAS NUNEZ sat at the desk while the assistant herself and Catherine Willows occupied two chairs against the wall. Nick Stokes hovered just behind Nunez, who was on his cell phone.

"Round up the whole crew," Nunez said into the phone. "Yeah, Webster and Wolf too-everybody but Bill Gates. This is gonna be a big one, my brother. Lemme tell when you get here-time is precious."

Listening again, Nunez spun toward Nick and seemed to glower at him, but it was intended for the party on the other end of the line. "No way!" the computer expert said, his voice louder, edgier. "That won't do at all. I need you all here an hour ago. Two words: kiddie porn."

This time the response seemed to please Nunez more and he almost smiled. "I knew you could make it happen." He ended the call and grinned up at Nick. "Cavalry's on the way…. Now, where's that sergeant of yours?"

"O'Riley's in the lobby with Mr. Newcombe," Catherine said.

A few minutes ago, the detective and Ian Newcombe had gone out to the lobby so the agency's co-owner could do his best to explain the situation to his staff. Janice Denard had stayed behind, and still seemed shaken. Catherine reached over and patted the woman's hand.

"I know you feel invaded," Catherine said. "Even violated. But that's part of what this is about-someone who violated this agency's trust. Someone working in this building who used your company's computers to do something that doesn't have anything to do with advertising."

"I know," Denard said, but the words didn't exactly ring with cognizance.

Of all the CSIs he might have been teamed with on this call, Nick was relieved, even glad, to have Catherine Willows at his side. When it came to crimes against children, Catherine had a definite mean streak…as did most cops, truth be told…but with her daughter Lindsey on her mind Catherine would, Nick knew, give every ounce of her skills, talent and energy to get a conviction on this one.

As would Nick.

The abuse Nick Stokes had suffered as a child was something he had dealt with. He knew the experience had played a role in his choosing law enforcement as a career; he knew, too, that he had a craving, even a need for justice exceeding the norm. Nonetheless, he prided himself on his professionalism and tried not to carry any remnants of the victim-getting-even syndrome into his work.

He was well aware, and in certain moments even relished, the opinion shared among many of his co-workers that, for all his sunny disposition, he was hardnosed and a workaholic; he knew, if they didn't, that he also strove to be fair and objective.

Still, there could be no question that his history made these cases more personal to him than the average crime, that such a case increased his thirst for justice to the level of crusade. That whoever was behind these wretched photos would not be allowed to walk. No way.

"What's next?" Nick asked. "I've never worked anything of this magnitude with computers."

"Oh, you're gonna love it," Nunez said dryly, and ran a hand over his face. He was half-standing, half-sitting on the edge of the desk. Then, after considering Nick's question for a few moments, he glanced over at Denard and gave her a quick smile that to Nick was not terribly convincing. Rather contrived, in fact.

"Despite what we've told your boss," Nunez said to the woman, "we'll do our level best to try not to shut down your business any longer than is absolutely necessary-that's why, just now, I called in all the troops. The more hands I have available to me, the better off you folks will be."

"Thank you for that," Denard said, earnestly.

"So," Nunez sighed, continuing, "the first thing we'll do is load all this stuff up, get it back to the lab and, fast as we can, start imaging it."

Denard frowned. "Imaging?"

"That's computer-nerd-speak for copying," Nunez explained. "We'll copy all the hard drives and all the media in the building-floppies, CDs, DVDs, zip disks, everything. You use tape backup?"

"Yes."

"We'll need that too."

"You're…you're stripping us bare."

This choice of phrase seemed at once apt and ill-chosen to Nick.

"Yes we are, ma'am," Nunez said. "We'll get all of that stuff imaged, soon as we can, and then we'll give you copies too, so you can get your business up and running again."

"How can we do that without computers?"

"You may have to rent or lease some, for what should be a matter of days. That's strictly a business decision for you people to make."

"I'm not the boss of this place!"

"Nor am I. But I am the boss of the computers and all media 'of this place.' That's my job, and it's the law. No offense is meant, and I certainly don't relish causing a hardship to your business. Do you understand?"

The color seemed to have drained from Denard's face and Nick wondered if she was about to faint. "You'll give us copies…. What about the originals?"

Nunez folded his arms. "Those will be locked up in the police evidence room until this matter is resolved. When I start searching your equipment for the source of the illegal material, I'll be searching copies, too. The originals will be perfectly safe. Other than copying them, your property won't have any processing done-nothing will happen to it. It will be completely safe in our evidence lockup."

Denard was shaking her head now, disconsolate again, much as they had found her when they first arrived. Catherine tried a few more soothing words, but she didn't have much luck with the woman, and soon gave it up.

"Oh-kay," Nunez said, standing, turning his gaze from Denard to Nick. He clapped, once. "Let's start getting this equipment loaded up-the truck here yet?"

"I'll check," Nick said, moving toward the office door.

He wove through the maze of cubicles, making his way past the conference room to enter the long corridor that led back to the lobby; funny-the floor had been deserted when they'd entered, then was filled with workers starting their day, and now, not long after, was deserted again. Something eerie about it. It was as if the CSIs had the power to…

But Nick stopped the thought cold.

It wasn't the CSIs who had the power to stop the world, or even the police in general-it was crime. Criminals. The job of the police, and the CSIs, was to see to it that its reign was a brief one….

Barely halfway down the hall, he could hear Ian Newcombe's voice carrying from the lobby, where the ad agency partner continued to address his personnel.

"I know it's irritating," he was saying, "and frustrating, but these police and crime scene people have a job to do, and we have to let them…and do anything we can to assist them."

"Are we in any danger?" a woman asked, toward the front.

"Physical danger? No. Not at all."

"Mr. Newcombe, may I ask a question?" a very professional-looking woman in front asked.

"Certainly," the executive said.

"Are we still getting paid?"

A tiny amount of nervous laughter rippled, but the faces were mostly grave.

"Yes," Newcombe said, and the wave of relief was palpable…and short-lived. Because the exec went on to say: "At least for the time being. We don't know how long this is going to go on…how long the authorities will take with this matter. Our computers are being seized. All of our software."

A ripple of discontent replaced the relief.

Newcombe raised a hand and silenced it. "We don't know the ramifications yet, but for now-for the short-term, yes. And please understand, it's to my selfish personal benefit to keep the best team in Vegas advertising on the payroll."

Relief again. Nick did not envy these employees their emotional roller coaster.

"We'll let you know when we're up and running again," Newcombe said, blandly summing up. He turned to O'Riley, and put him on the spot: "Detective, do you have any idea how long that will be?"

O'Riley shrugged; he was a good guy, but not Nick's pick for handling p.r. "I'll talk to the experts and get a better idea. But I can't tell you now."

Another negative roll of the emotional roller coaster, and Nick had had all he could take of it. He walked to the front door and stuck his head out to see a Ryder truck backing into the parking space next to the black Tahoe.

When the truck stopped, Nick watched the driver climb down and come around to the back of the vehicle where he opened the rear overhead door. Just as he did, a sky-blue Dodge van pulled into the lot and parked on the far side. Four men got out and strolled across the parking lot, making a total of five new people coming in, all of whom Nick assumed were answering Nunez's bat signal. One of the five, the driver of the Ryder, was a uniformed officer Nick recognized from swing shift-a tall blond guy named Giles. Another one, a passenger in the van, was an African-American FBI computer investigator, and now a connection finally made itself in Nick's mind: the guy's name was Carroll! They had worked one job together, first year Nick joined LVMPD CSI, albeit briefly, cop ships passing in the night.

Carroll wore jeans and a navy blue T-shirt with a large yellow FBI across the chest. Nick didn't know the other three, all of whom were dressed in T-shirts and jeans as well. But from recognizing the first two, he figured Nunez had already started calling in favors to get all the imaging done ASAP…whether that meant a week or just under a year, Nick had no idea.

"You the CSI on this?" Giles asked as he led the others inside.

"Nick Stokes," he said, nodding to the others. They paused and shook hands, all around; Nick was not, at the moment, in latex gloves. "There's two of us here-you'll meet Catherine Willows, soon. She's prettier than I am."

"Wouldn't be tough," Giles said good-naturedly. "Where's our guy Nunez?"

"I'll take you to him. You're going to be passing through some very unhappy campers."

None of them looked surprised.

The employees were still shuffling around in the lobby, most of them watching Nick and his squadron of computer investigators as they marched through. O'Riley waved Nick over and the tech group huddled just outside the corridor while the CSI and the detective had their own two-man huddle.

O'Riley said, "I'm callin' in some backup to help me interview these employees. If I don't, it'll take all day and they're already starting to look like a mob."

It occurred to Nick that O'Riley would make an excellent Frankenstein's monster for these angry villagers, but he nonetheless had to dampen the detective's notion, at least a little.

"That's a good idea," Nick said, "but we're gonna have to fingerprint them all before they go. And there's just me and Catherine."

O'Riley nodded. "How long you been on shift, anyway? Since last week?"

"It's going to be a full double shift."

"With all that overtime," O'Riley said, "I'll know who to come to for a loan. Mobley's gonna love you."

O'Riley meant Sheriff Mobley, whose hobby was cracking down on overtime; the police and of course the CSIs were under the sheriff's jurisdiction in Vegas.

Before long, Nick had escorted the makeshift computer squad to Janice Denard's office. When they gathered clumsily at the door, Nunez looked up and grinned. "Hey-the compu-posse!"

They trooped in and Nick went to Catherine's side. Her eyes were wide; she hadn't expected so large a crew.

"You all know each other?" Nunez asked as he rose from Janice's desk and came around.

"I know Giles and Carroll," Nick said.

"You'll know everybody before we're through. Better than you want."

The computer expert made intros all around, starting with Webster, a tall, thin state trooper who seemed unable to stand still. The other two, Nunez explained, were freelancer buddies of his: Wolf, a short muscular guy whose name suited him; and Moes, a slightly over-weight bemused middle-aged man who among the group looked closest to a stereotypical computer geek.

Nick and Catherine watched and listened as Nunez explained the situation to his volunteer team; neither CSI had any additions or corrections, and were impressed with Nunez's summary, since the man had followed them onto the scene.

He closed by saying, "It's Monday-best-case scenario, I want this company back open for business by Wednesday."

"What's the worst-case scenario?" Wolf asked.

"Thursday…. We can't punish this business for the perversity of one employee. That means we've got plenty of work to do and not much time to do it in, so let's get started."

Catherine stepped forward and offered a business-like smile. "I'd like to thank you for helping out. And while you get on it, Nick and I'll start fingerprinting the employees."

Somewhat forgotten in her chair off against the wall, Janice Denard piped up, in voice tinged with both outrage and resignation, "You can do that?"

Nick turned to her and said, pleasantly, "At this stage, it will be voluntary; but it's a good way to get yourself exonerated right away."

"I'm afraid I don't follow you."

Nick shrugged. "Sooner or later we'll find out which keyboard sent that print order to your boss's machine. When we do isolate the work station, we'll dust the keyboard for fingerprints. We will match those prints to someone, most likely someone who works in this facility…and then we'll be a lot closer to finding out who's guilty and who's innocent."

Denard said, "Well, you might let me pave the way by volunteering to go first."

Catherine said, "That's a nice gesture. We appreciate it. Anything you can do to keep the feathers un-ruffled around here would be helpful."

Denard managed a brave nod. "I'll try."

As Nick and Catherine set up fingerprinting shop, Tomas Nunez supervised the dismantling of Newcombe-Gold. This would be the most time-consuming part of the effort and, even with the extra help, would take hours. Nunez had already directed Leary to get a head start photographing each computer, all the peripherals and the wiring in the back, but even so, the uniformed officer still had plenty of pictures left to shoot when the team arrived.

Carroll and state patrolman Webster pitched in to help Leary. The plan was that when the photos were finally done, Nunez would personally disconnect each item, tag it, and hand it to one of his team, who would carry it out to the truck where Giles would catalogue and load each piece by hand. Catherine was just finishing fingerprinting Janice Denard, handing her a paper towel to wipe her hands, when O'Riley strolled into the room.

"I have three guys helping me now," O'Riley said. "We're maybe halfway through doing these preliminary interviews."

Catherine asked, "Have your questions alerted them to what's going on?"

"No. Of course they already know it had something to do with computers, and probably figured out we're not tryin' to figure out who's playin' computer solitaire on office time. And anyway, this thing isn't likely to stay hidden."

Denard said, "Well, I won't spread it around!"

Catherine smiled at the woman. "I'm sure you won't. But Sergeant O'Riley is right-it's unlikely to remain our little secret." She turned back to the detective. "Can you start sending them our way, for fingerprinting?"

"I'm glad to hear you say that," O'Riley said. The big man plopped into a chair, sighing, clearly exhausted. "Sooner we get these pissed-off people outa here, the happier I'll be. But telling 'em they got to stand around a while longer, while you get 'em fingerprinted, isn't going to make them love us more. How about one of you guys delivers that cheery news?"

Letting out a mirthless laugh, Catherine said, "I'm it." Then, clapping the detective on the shoulder, she added, "You can be my backup. Case somebody tries to kill me."

O'Riley gave her a look.

"It's not just a job, Sarge-it's an adventure."

Shaking his head, the detective hauled himself to his feet and followed her out.

While Catherine went to the lobby, Nick asked Janice Denard for a master employee list.

Nick explained, "We need to track who we have and haven't spoken to."

Denard rose to her feet; her eyebrows rose, too. "Take me a little while without the computer."

"I hear that," he said, giving her the sympathy she clearly craved.

In the lobby, Catherine was confronting the grumbling crowd, while off to various sides of the lobby, three detectives were pausing in the midst of interviews. After introducing herself, she said, "As you've gathered, we're looking for a suspect in a serious crime."

"What crime?" a voice yelled, echoing.

With a tight smile and a shake of the head, Catherine said, "I'm afraid I'm not at liberty to talk about it at this point; but here's the deal-in order to eliminate each of you as suspects as quickly as possible, we would like you to voluntarily submit to being fingerprinted."

"How about-no," a red-faced man said near the front of the crowd.

From behind him, another man suggested, "How about hell no!"

Catherine shrugged and remained low-key, even light. "There's another option. We can get court orders for each and every one of you, and that could take quite some time considering the number of people who work here. Then we'll just wait until the court orders arrive. Another possibility is releasing you now, and then you can come into the crime lab for fingerprinting. Maybe you think that would make an interesting day trip."

"You don't have to be sarcastic," a woman snapped. "We're just trying to do our jobs."

"I know the feeling," Catherine said.

This seemed to make the point as well as anything.

"I'm going to ask a show of hands," Catherine went on. "Who is willing to be fingerprinted, without a court order?"

Gradually, all of the employees raised their hands, as if in half-hearted surrender.

They were in that posture when Nick came in carrying their print kits and the employee list he had gotten from Denard.

Nick said to Catherine, quietly, "Let's not drag them into the crime scene."

Catherine, nodding that this was a good idea, pointed toward the receptionist's desk and he nodded. Going down the list, they printed twenty-two employees, while O'Riley and the three other detectives completed their preliminary interviews. All the while, the employees and CSIs watched Nunez's guys hauling the very guts of their business outside to the waiting truck.

When Nick and Catherine finally finished up, they cornered Janice Denard one last time, in her office. Neither Catherine nor Nick confronted her about her lack of "paving the way" with the employees, re the fingerprinting. But the personal assistant clearly read displeasure on their faces, just the same.

"What's the problem?" Denard asked.

"I thought," Catherine said, "you told us twenty-seven people had computer access."

"That's right."

"We've got prints for twenty-two."

Nick said, "Mr. Gold is out of town-where are the other four?"

"Who are they?" Denard asked. "You must have their names, you cross-checked-"

Nodding, Nick read from the list, "Jermaine Allred, Ben Jackson, Gary Randle, and Roxanne Scott."

With a one-shoulder shrug, Denard said, "Well, for starters, Roxanne Scott is my counterpart."

"Counterpart, how?" Catherine asked.

"Ms. Scott is Mr. Newcombe's personal assistant and the assistant office manager. She just started her vacation today."

Catherine was frowning, partly in confusion. "Mr. Gold's gone, and Roxanne is gone? One partner and the other partner's personal assistant? Isn't that unusual? Doesn't that put the business at a disadvantage?"

"Not as much as having our computers hauled out of here," Denard said, somewhat acidly. Then, gathering herself, she calmly explained, "The two partners have different responsibilities, which I would say is typical, not at all odd."

"Go on."

"Mr. Gold works on the client side, Mr. Newcombe on the fiduciary side. With this arrangement, they don't both have to be here all the time, and they can nonetheless have an understanding of what the other is up to, which is key, since major company decisions are still made jointly."

"But Roxanne was here Saturday?" Catherine asked.

"Yes-her vacation started when she went home that day."

"Do you know where she is?"

Denard smiled, and it seemed vaguely strained. Was there, Nick wondered, a hint of jealousy in that near smirk?

"Roxanne and her beau," Denard said, somewhat archly, "went to Tahiti for the week. Frankly, I wish I could say the same…."

"All right," Catherine said, finally processing all of that, sighing. "How about the other three?"

"Give me a few minutes to check on the others, will you? Without my computer-"

"Yes," Catherine said, a little sharply. "It will be difficult."

"Well it will."

And Janice Denard went briskly from the office.

Nick considered, briefly, making a cat growl, but thought better of it.

While the two CSIs waited for Denard to track down the three absent employees, they packed up their gear and walked through the empty office. The place really was like a big haunted house, empty even of its ghosts, all the employees having slowly filtered out to go home, as their fingerprinting obligation was fulfilled.

Now the place reminded Nick of some end-of-the-world movie, where vampires or zombies or mutants awaited around every corner. Like the empty streets of those B-movies of his adolescence, the Newcombe-Gold offices-stripped only of their computer equipment-were at once weirdly normal and strangely wrong, as if the human race had vanished from the planet overnight, though Nick was relatively sure no zombie waited around the next corner. Then he turned it and almost ran into O'Riley.

Nick jumped and the stocky detective gave him a quizzical look.

"What?" the detective asked.

Catherine was looking at Nick, amused.

"Sorry, Sarge, you just startled me," Nick said.

Wryly, Catherine noted, "He sometimes has that effect on people."

O'Riley made a little face-repartee was not his long suit-and fell in step with them and the trio made their way to the front door where Tomas Nunez watched the last of the computer equipment being loaded into the truck. Twenty-nine computers, thirty counting Newcombe's laptop, and all the zip disks, CDs, floppies and tape backups that Nunez could find, were piled into the back of the Ryder. It was a haul that came close to filling the rental truck.

"How goes it?" Nick asked.

"That's the load," Nunez said. He heaved a huge sigh; there'd been lots of sighing, today. "Now comes the hard part-we take all this stuff back to the lab and dig in. Wherever the perp has the stuff hidden, we'll find it."

"Good to hear," Catherine said, exhaustion in her voice.

Janice Denard walked out to join them in the parking lot. "I have the rest of the information you requested."

"Yes?" Catherine said.

"Ben Jackson left Friday to go out of town, and took a vacation day, today, for his return flight."

Squinting in sunlight, Catherine asked, "You know where he went?"

Denard held out two open, empty hands. "I think maybe he said something about Idaho-that's where he's from."

"And the others?"

"Jermaine Allred called in sick this morning."

"He didn't talk to you?"

She shook her head. "By the time he called, I was with you. Our receptionist, Debbie Westin, took the call."

"Jermaine told Debbie," Denard was saying, "he had the flu and expected to be in tomorrow."

Catherine nodded. "And the last one?"

"Gary Randle," Denard said. "He had a meeting with a client this morning."

Looking at his watch, Nick said, "He's not back? It's past three."

Denard shrugged. "Meeting could have run long-typical in the ad game. He could have gone for a late lunch, either with the client or by himself, or he could be on his way back."

"He doesn't have to check in?"

Another shrug. "Mr. Randle has been with the firm quite a long time-one of the top people. He has a certain amount of freedom, not unlike Mr. Newcombe or Mr. Gold."

"Is he a partner?" Catherine asked.

"No, but he has been a steady earner for the firm for many years. No one questions the hours of a top earner."

"I can see that."

"You're welcome to wait," Janice said. "I'm sure he'll be in sometime this afternoon." Nick looked at Catherine, and Catherine looked at Nick.

They were both coming up hard on the end of a double shift, and had to be back in tonight. At this point, all Nick wanted to do was catch a sandwich and grab some snooze time; he hoped Catherine felt the same way.

Her expression said she did.

"I don't think we'll wait," Catherine said.

Nick hoped his sigh of relief went unnoticed.

Denard asked, "Are you posting an officer here?"

That was O'Riley's bailiwick, and he responded: "No. We've taken the evidence with us. You're free to go on about your regular business."

Denard just looked at him.

Then she said, "We'll be running a skeleton staff-even Mr. Newcombe has gone. I'll be here, and some of the janitorial staff."

Catherine asked, "These last three employees, can you give us their home addresses and phone numbers, please? We're at the end of our shift. We'll give them a call as soon as we can."

Denard handed Catherine a sheet of paper. Looking over her shoulder, Nick saw the vitals for the three missing employees.

"Nice," Nick said to her. "ESP?"

Smiling a little, Denard said, "You learn to anticipate. Comes with the job."

"Thank you," Catherine said. "This has been a rough day for all of us…. I promise you, we'll follow this up as soon as we can."

The blonde's smile faded and Nick was shocked to see that tears were welling in the blue eyes. "This is a good place to work, good people, a good company-how could this happen?"

Nick wished he knew what to tell her, but he didn't. "It can happen anywhere," he said, a feeling of cold confidence running through him. "But whoever did this won't do it again-not here."

Catherine offered her hand and Denard took it, shook it, and the two CSIs headed for the Tahoe.

"I changed my mind," Catherine said.

"How so?" Nick said.

"I do want breakfast. You still willing to buy?"

"Sure. Sky's the limit. Denny's?"

4

IN THE MORGUE, WARRICK BROWN HELPED GRISSOM LOWER the carpeted package to the floor, after which Sara took more photos.

Warrick got what Doc Robbins was talking about, with his Sherlock Holmes speech, because the lanky CSI felt the same way. Every crime scene brought opportunities to outthink a bad guy, to outsmart a criminal. Justice was the goal, and you could express that in various high-flown ways; but the truth of the CSI game was that it was, in part, a game.

Though he'd never spoken these thoughts and feelings aloud, not even to another criminalist (and certainly not to Grissom), the rush Warrick felt when he chased down that crucial piece of evidence, putting some perp behind bars, was not unlike the euphoria he'd felt riding a hot streak, back in the days when gambling ruled his life. "As with every grand opening," Grissom said dryly, "start by cutting the tape."

After withdrawing a utility knife from his pocket, Warrick cut the three strands of duct tape. The enchilada-shaped bundle loosened and the sickly sweet scent of decay rose like foul if invisible smoke.

Sara and Warrick took a time-out to apply some vaporizing ointment around their nostrils, to cut the smell. Doc Robbins seemed immune at this point, and nobody even bothered to pass the jar of Vick's toward Grissom-Warrick knew Gris's attitude was that this was science, and smells told you things, and were just generally part of the deal.

Soon, Warrick, Grissom and Sara were each slowly peeling off a strand of tape, placing them in individual evidence bags for later examination. God only knew what kind of fibers or other evidence might be embedded in the adhesive and there might even be, if they got really lucky, a fingerprint somewhere. Ironically, the tape and carpeting would probably tell them more about the killer than the victim's body.

Warrick had to fight the urge to just unroll the damn thing, and quickly-an urge he knew Sara shared and probably, though the man would never admit it, Grissom, too-and see what grisly present the killer had left rolled inside the piece of carpeting. Doing that, however, could destroy valuable evidence; and that knowledge alone prompted Warrick to calm himself and take his time.

They unrolled the bulky bundle once, exposing a sixteen-inch-wide piece of carpeting. This was the time-consuming, tedious work that TV cops always seemed to get done during a commercial break. In reality, the process could take anywhere from one to several hours, depending on what they ran into.

When Warrick looked at the exposed piece, then at what remained of the roll, he knew damn well they were going to accumulate some serious overtime on Cleopatra.

Sara took more photos as Grissom and Warrick went over the piece with their mini Maglites and tweezers. Robbins's part would come soon enough, but he hovered behind them, his gloved hands folded Buddha-like over his belly as he watched their every move, as if expecting them to yank the killer bodily out of the remnant.

Once they had gone over the section carefully, Warrick put a new bag in his hand-held vacuum and went over the section. When this process was finished, these bags would be sent to Trace for chemical analysis of their contents.

Before long they were unrolling a second section. Sara took pictures of the exposed piece from four different angles, then the three of them got down on their hands and knees, and went over the fabric practically fiber by fiber, just as they had the last one.

Warrick put another bag in the hand-held vacuum and went over this section. Finding nothing, they unrolled another sixteen-inch swath, and then another, and another….

By the time they exposed the first piece of the corpse's flesh, Warrick's stomach was growling and they had piled up over two dozen evidence bags with hair, fibers, a penny and material that appeared to be crushed leaves.

Another hour of intensive work passed before they had the body free. It lay on the floor at their feet, the three of them looking down at it. The stench challenged the Vick's Vapo-Rub around Warrick's nostrils, and whether his growling stomach craved food or not, Warrick Brown just wasn't interested in eating, right now….

"As we thought, female," Sara said. "Mid-to-late twenties?"

"That's how I call it," Warrick said, and Grissom nodded his agreement; then Warrick and his boss lifted the body onto the coroner's metal table. Utterly free, now, of her casing of carpet, Cleopatra emitted a sick perfume that seemed to engulf the whole room. Grissom sniffed at the air, like a dog seeking just the right spot.

Warrick wondered if Gris could actually estimate stage of decay by the degree of smell; but, that being a talent he had no wish to develop, Warrick did not seize the opportunity to ask.

Robbins bent over his new patient. "Some decomposition. She's been dead for a while."

Nude, the woman had matted black curly hair cut into a low-maintenance pageboy. Her face was still basically intact, although both jaws seemed to have been broken post-mortem, and were now offset by at least three inches, the flesh around her mouth having begun to tear away.

Her eyes were closed; her face, composed and peaceful. But a bizarre aspect struck them all: she wore too much makeup, almost clownishly so-crimson lipstick, an abundance of rouge, mascara nearly dripping from her eyelashes. Applied way too heavily, and carelessly, and perhaps hastily.

Was the makeup post-mortem, too? It seemed…fresh.

"Area around her right eye," Sara said, clinically, "swollen…heavy makeup layered over the welt can't disguise the fact she's been punched in the face."

"Good," Grissom said, as if to a student.

But then, they were all students of Grissom's.

"She was beautiful once," Grissom said.

Sara looked up, almost shocked. "That's not very…scientific."

"Beauty is a subjective thing," Grissom admitted, staring down at the face. Was that sadness in his eyes? "But by the standards of our culture…even with the damage, the camouflaging, perhaps ritualistic makeup…this was a beautiful young woman."

Warrick could only agree. The woman's olive skin had gone drab and gray, but in her long straight nose and wide full lips, the shadow of the beauty that had been seemed obvious to Warrick.

Gently thumbing open her eyelids, Robbins revealed large, lifeless brown eyes that Warrick imagined might well have sparkled with life…before her death.

"Petechial hemorrhaging," Grissom said.

Robbins nodded, studying his patient. "Sign of asphyxia."

"The welt tells us she was punched before she died-question is, how long?"

Robbins shrugged facially. "We'll know when I've finished the autopsy."

Her skin was a mottled gray, blue and white mess that would indeed tell them a long, detailed story about her death, once Robbins completed his work. Her torso and limbs seemed to be in relatively good shape, but for a dark necklace of torn flesh that suggested the cause of death-strangulation-and something, in its own way, even more disturbing. A vicious tearing of the flesh around her vagina, coupled with the broken jaws, gave Warrick an unsettling notion of what this body had endured after the murder.

Sara's eyes were tight, but if the horror before them, and all it suggested, had shaken her, she was not letting it show. Clinical, professional, she was the first to say it.

"Necrophilia?"

Grissom nodded.

Sara bent to study the victim's face-specifically, the broken jaws causing the bottom half to be offset; this, with the swollen eye and garish makeup, gave Cleo a slightly surreal appearance.

"My turn," Sara said. "For an unscientific observation."

"What?" Grissom asked.

"Something familiar about her," Sara said, cocking her head a little. "It's hard to look past the makeup and the distortions caused by beating and death, but…I'd swear I know this woman from somewhere."

Warrick and Grissom both took a closer look too; they had been looking at a corpse, and now they looked at the person, trying to see through the destruction and obscene face paint.

"Yeeaaah," Warrick said. "I do feel like I've seen her somewhere before. Damn! What is it that's so familiar about her?"

Gil Grissom felt a cold burn settle in his stomach; he recognized this woman.

"Meet Candace Lewis," Grissom said.

The two young CSIs looked at him with wide eyes. Then they looked down at the autopsy tray.

Warrick was first to find his voice. "Oh, shit…."

Sara was studying the face through narrowed eyes. "You think this is Mayor Harrison's personal assistant? I don't know about that…." But Sara kept looking, then finally she said, "No," but it wasn't a disagreement. "No, no, you're right. Yeah, I see it, guys. It is her."

This, Grissom thought, was all they needed right now….

In the three weeks since Candace Lewis's disappearance, the young woman-previously all but unknown to the media-had garnered more Vegas coverage than Danny Gans, Clint Holmes and Siegfried & Roy combined.

The twenty-eight-year-old brunette, personal assistant of Mayor Darryl Harrison, had attended a political dinner not long after the first of the month; and then, on her way home that evening, she had fallen off the planet.

Her car, a three-year-old Lexus, had been found in the driveway of her townhouse within a gated community near the intersection of Green Valley and Wigwam Parkways. Fingerprints in the car matched Candace's and Mayor Harrison's prints were found on the passenger doorhandle and seatbelt; but no one else's prints were found anywhere in or on the vehicle.

Given the arid nature of Vegas, Grissom hadn't been that surprised that no other prints had been found. Fingerprints exposed to the weather didn't last long here; and even those protected by being inside the car and under a carport didn't have a terribly long lifespan. For his part, Mayor Harrison explained his fingerprints in Candace's car by saying, "On the day she disappeared, we went to lunch together…and that was the only time I ever rode in her car."

The mayor's story had been backed up by Jill Ganine, a KLAS reporter with a nose for news and the teeth to hang onto a story. She arrived at CSI HQ with a videotape shot by her cameraman that showed Mayor Harrison climbing out of Candace's Lexus on the day in question. But almost from the moment the tape had aired, tongues had wagged around the city that the "lunch" was actually a euphemism for something else altogether. So, whether the tape had exonerated Harrison, or merely suggested a motive for him, was still an open question. To Gil Grissom, anyway.

Most of the media though-KLAS and Jill Ganine excepted, their take on the story having been established at the outset-did not have Grissom's open mind or need for proof.

Mayor Harrison had been vilified for the alleged affair, particularly in the newspapers; and of course the political and sexual aspects of the case, added to the glitzy Vegas backdrop, caught the attention of the national media. In a matter of a few weeks, a promising political career-the result of years of hard work and meticulous grooming-had been reduced to a talk-show joke.

"How deep are we standing in it?" Warrick asked.

"I don't think science has come up with that measuring tool as yet," Grissom said, mock-pleasant.

Sara said, "So it's a media crime. How does that affect us? Can't we just fly in under the radar? Doesn't it help that we're night shift?"

"Well, let's take it point by point," Grissom said.

He held up one finger.

"Until just now," he said, "Candace Lewis was a missing person, and a probable kidnapping, with the investigation under the jurisdiction of the FBI; and now she'll be ours again."

"Isn't that a good thing?" Sara asked.

He answered by holding up a second finger.

And saying, "Let's not forget that we picked up the body at the doorstep of a federal installation, in a high-profile political case. So, maybe the FBI isn't out of our hair just yet."

"Not a good thing," Sara admitted.

Grissom ticked off a third finger. "The late Ms. Lewis is the personal assistant to the mayor and, rumor has it, his lover."

A fourth finger came up.

"Not to mention," he continued, "that Mayor Harrison's chief political rival right now happens to be the man likely to run against him in the upcoming election…."

"Unnnggggh," Sara said.

Warrick had the glazed expression of a caught carp.

"…Our boss."

"Our boss," Grissom said amiably. "Sheriff Brian Mobley."

Captain Jim Brass chose this moment to come walking into the morgue, and noticed Grissom's upraised hand with four fingers raised. With a smirky little smile, the detective said, "What you cipherin' there, Jethro?"

The pop culture reference didn't penetrate Grissom's concentration, and he motioned with that upraised hand, in a presentational manner, to the body. Brass's eyes followed the CSI's gesture.

"If I may," Grissom said, "Jim Brass-meet Candace Lewis."

"Holy shit," Brass said, his normally sleepy eyes wide awake, whites showing all around. "Does the press know?"

Shaking his head, Grissom said, "We just now I.D.ed her. We won't make an official identification until we check her prints."

Brass was at the edge of the tray, looking down at the garishly made-up corpse. "Oh, that's her, all right. Hell." He cast his mournful gaze on Grissom. "You and I better go see Mobley, my friend-this is gonna get real ugly."

Grissom grimaced, not relishing the notion. "Do I need to go? Isn't that more…administrative?"

The cliché most people fell back on to describe Grissom and Sheriff Mobley was oil and water; the CSI supervisor himself viewed their relationship as more along the lines of gasoline and a lit match. It wasn't so much that Grissom didn't like Mobley-he didn't really have enough regard for the man for that to be an issue.

Despite all the blustering about law and order during his campaign, Brian Mobley was a politician first and a sheriff second; and Grissom disliked politics intensely. The constant battles over the CSI budget had been so bitter that Grissom had even considered resigning the supervisor's post so he could concentrate on the science; but in the end, he'd stayed on when he realized that if he didn't fight the budgetary constraints, no one would.

Only the high success ratio of arrests-to-convictions-they were rated number two crime lab in the nation-had helped convince Mobley (and other politicians) to keep the money flowing. With tourism the primary industry, keeping Vegas safe was a priority; this, added to the CSI success rate, enabled the lab to tap into the top technology in the field. But it also meant Gil Grissom had to deal with Brian Mobley far more often than he cared to.

"We're both going to have to deal with Mobley," Brass was saying, "throughout this mess-so I'd advise you to come. I can't force you."

"Let's get it over with, then," Grissom said. Turning to Sara and Warrick, he said, "Start working the evidence-I'll be back when I can."

"Fingerprinting first?" Warrick asked.

"Yes-and let me know for sure this is Candace. I know, I know…it's her. But let me know when it's officially her. For one thing, we'll have a family to notify."

A sober moment followed this observation.

Then Grissom said, "DNA can wait. All right?"

"All right," Sara said.

Warrick merely nodded, already gathering the evidence bags.

Stepping up to the tray, Robbins said to Grissom, "I'll page you if I get something significant during the autopsy."

"Thanks, Doc," the CSI supervisor said.

Then Brass and Grissom were walking down the hall, the former calling Mobley's cell phone.

"Brian," Brass said, "take my word for it, it's important. And it's not something you want broadcast over an unsecure line…. Okay. Fifteen minutes is fine…. No, Grissom's office…. That's right, Grissom's office."

Career politician though he was, Sheriff Brian Mobley was also a man of his word, and the kind of man who took matters of time seriously, one of the few things Grissom liked about him. Accordingly, Mobley walked into Grissom's office exactly fifteen minutes later.

Grissom felt at home in his office, much the way an animal might in its den or nest. He was wholly unaware that to others his office seemed uncharacteristically cluttered, even chaotic, for such a serious man of science, much less an individual charged with the duties of a manager.

Gray metal shelves lined the walls to the right and left of the door, home to two-headed pigs, various arcane experiments, books and periodicals from various centuries. His desk perched in the middle of the room, arrayed (or perhaps disarrayed) with piles of paper, a phone and an art deco lamp. More shelves, cubbyholes and other equipment consumed the back wall. The front section of the large room housed a small work area with a modest quantity of lab equipment.

When Mobley entered, Grissom was seated behind his desk, while Brass stood off to one side, careful not to lean against any of the jarred samples on the shelves. Whether the detective did this out of respect for Grissom's quarters, or out of fear that something might grab him, Grissom could not venture a guess.

Mobley positioned himself in front of the desk, facing Brass. The sheriff's aide and campaign manager-Ed Anthony, a short, pudgy individual for whom the term "toady" might well have been coined-tagged along in the sheriff's wake like a remora hanging on for dear life.

"I don't like having my chain pulled, Jim," Mobley said tightly. "I have a lot on my plate right now."

Twinkies and Big Macs, most likely, Grissom thought.

At Mobley's side, Anthony said, witheringly, "The sheriff doesn't have time for any of your fun and games, Captain." The aide had a flat face except for a sharp-beaked nose, thinning dark hair and shiny blackbird eyes.

"Just what is so goddamned important?" Mobley demanded, continuing to ignore his host behind the desk.

Without a word, Brass took a photo from his inside sportscoat pocket and handed it to Mobley, as if serving a summons.

The sheriff studied the picture-a Polaroid Sara had shot of their Cleopatra, on the morgue tray-while Anthony peeked around his boss's shoulder for a glimpse.

But neither seemed to recognize the woman whose face had graced the front page of both the Sun and the Review-Journal for the better part of the last twenty days. Of course, Grissom thought, she didn't look exactly like this, when she was alive, and applying her own makeup….

Brass waited for several long moments and, finally, when Mobley looked up in wordless confusion, Brass said, "Straight from the morgue, Sheriff…. Candace Lewis."

"Oh my God," Mobley said hollowly, glancing back at the face.

Anthony seemed hypnotized by the picture; his eyes were huge. "Hell…."

Nodding, Brass said, "That pretty much sums it up."

The aide took a sudden step forward. "And what's the meaning of summoning the sheriff to CSI about this?" Anthony demanded.

Brass answered, but directed it to Mobley: "To give you a heads up, Sheriff, and a head start. I thought this better dealt with on our turf." To both of them, Brass said, "The press will have this before the end of business, today…much sooner, probably…and you're going to have to respond in some way."

Mobley nodded. "Thanks, Jim," he said softly, sincerely. "We'll start working on a statement right away."

"Brian," Brass said, his voice remarkably gentle considering all the contention that had existed between these two, "you do know that you'll have to recuse yourself from the case. You might want to do that right now, at the outset."

Anthony took a step forward and stopped when he realized he had nowhere else to go, an angry terrier on a short leash. "Why the hell should he recuse himself? It's a major case, under his aegis!"

Moments before, the campaign manager had wanted to know why they were bothering the sheriff with this triviality.

"Why?" Brass snapped. "Jesus, man, what the hell kind of advisor are you? Why would you even need to ask that question? He's running against Harrison for mayor!"

"We haven't announced as yet," Anthony said, defensive.

Brass shot the little man a look that should have shut him up.

Instead, puffing up, the aide said, "That's exactly why he should stay on the case, and spearhead the investigation! The sheriff can demonstrate that he's the one man in Las Vegas who can keep the city safe."

To his credit, Mobley was having none of it; he was, in fact, shaking his head and patting the air, trying to slow down his overly aggressive aide.

"Why, you can't buy this kind of publicity!" Anthony crowed.

Speaking for the first time since Mobley entered, Grissom said, "And you wouldn't want to."

All eyes turned toward the criminalist, as he rose and stepped from around the desk; he edged past the mayor and stood at Brass's side.

"With all due respect, Mr. Anthony," Grissom said, "your advice to your candidate couldn't be more inappropriate."

The political hack seemed to notice for the first time Grissom's presence in his own office. "I…know…you," he rumbled. "You've caused us trouble before!"

Grissom's smile was tiny, if large with condescension. "There are two reasons why your plan won't work."

"Which are?"

"Number one: your client, the sheriff." Grissom nodded toward Mobley, who also seemed only to have recently noticed the CSI's presence. "He has something to gain by this woman's death-the embarrassment and perhaps downfall of his opponent in the mayoral race-so there's no way he can work the case."

Anthony said, "I said we haven't announced yet, and anyway, we can find a work-around…."

Grissom's eyes met Mobley's; Mobley's met Grissom's.

"Be quiet, Ed," the sheriff said, resigned, clearly accepting what Grissom had already said and probably knowing what was coming next.

"And two," the CSI supervisor said, "because the sheriff has something to gain, that also makes him a suspect."

Anthony started to puff up again, but Mobley held up a hand, like a traffic cop. "The man's right, Ed."

"A suspect!" the aide snorted. Then he blustered: "The sheriff can't be a suspect…. You can't be a suspect, Sheriff…."

Mobley faced his campaign manager. "Ed, here are your options: either shut the hell up, or go wait in the car."

Stunned, Anthony took a step backward.

The sheriff's attention turned completely to Grissom. "Gil, you and Jim will have complete autonomy in this investigation. Every asset of the LVMPD is at your disposal." He turned to Brass. "I can put that in writing, if you consider it advisable."

A syllable that might have been "no" escaped from Anthony.

Brass said, "Since that's not our standard procedure, I don't believe it's necessary. But if you anticipate elements within the department who might want to work against you…well, then maybe you should repeat what you just said to us, in your public statement."

Eyes narrowed, Mobley nodded. "I like that."

Bored with politics, Grissom said, "We need to talk DNA."

"You've got DNA already?" Mobley asked, surprised.

"Not yet." Grissom held out a swab. "But wouldn't you like to be eliminated as a suspect as soon as possible?"

Mobley opened his mouth, perhaps to comply, but Grissom seized the moment and took the swab.

The CSI bestowed the sheriff a small smile. "Thank you, Brian."

Anthony, apparently not able to contain himself further, stepped forward. "This really is disgraceful, Dr. Grissom. Your behavior-"

Grissom used another swab on the open mouth of the startled aide.

Pleasantly, the CSI said, "You're a suspect, too, Mr. Anthony. You also stand to gain from this woman's death. And I'm sure you're eager to be cleared, as soon as possible."

Speechless for a change, Anthony stood there, staring in dismayed wonder at the criminalist.

Mobley's attitude, however, remained professional. His face moving from Brass to Grissom and back, he said, "We've had our differences, gentlemen. But I appreciate what you're trying to do. All I ask is that you catch whoever did this thing."

Dealing with the swabs, Grissom beamed and said, "We're processing evidence as we speak."

Diplomatically, Brass said, "Sheriff, we already have some leads-we're on top of it."

Mobley seemed to stare into nothing for several moments; he sighed, tasted his tongue, then asked, quietly, "Did either of you know the Lewis girl? Ever meet her?"

Brass shook his head; Grissom, too. Anthony lurked on the periphery, hanging back now-since the swabbing, he seemed a little afraid.

Meanwhile, Mobley joined the sad choreography of shaking heads. "Hell of a nice kid. Bright. Going places. I really liked her, even if she was working for Harrison."

Anthony, his voice different, said, "For a while there, we were dealing with Candace…Ms. Lewis…more often, more directly, than the mayor."

Mobley shifted on his feet; his tone shifted, too. "Jim…Gil…Even though my candidacy hasn't been announced, I'm not gonna lie to you-I want to be mayor. With the exception of my family, my career is the most important thing in my life, and this is the biggest career move I've ever contemplated…. But I do not relish becoming mayor thanks to the misfortune of another. Not Candace Lewis, not Darryl Harrison. I want this badly…but not like this. Never like this."

Grissom had to admire the dignity of that.

Brass seemed a little embarrassed by Mobley's earnestness. He said, "I've only met the mayor once or twice, Brian-what can you tell me about him?"

The sheriff thought about that for a moment. Then a little smile blossomed and he even summoned a rueful laugh. "Maybe I'm not the one you should be asking."

"But I am asking," Brass insisted.

Grissom watched the interplay with interest: he didn't know if Brass was fishing for something, or was maybe taking the opportunity to make Mobley squirm.

Finally, after a long sigh, Mobley said, "I will tell you this: Darryl Harrison's a good man. We have different political views, but have I nothing to say about him, negatively, on a personal level." He shrugged. "I just don't happen to think he's the right man to lead Las Vegas for the next four years."

"Then he's honest?" Brass asked.

"Far as I know," Mobley replied, with a nod.

"No skeletons in the closet?"

The sheriff grunted a mirthless laugh. "Why don't you just ask it, Jim-was he sleeping with her?"

Brass's smile was there, then gone. Grissom wondered if he'd really seen it or just thought he had.

"Well-was he?" the detective asked.

"I don't know. And I don't have to tell you, we didn't conduct the investigation into the disappearance. That was the FBI. And if the federal boys found any evidence of Harrison and the girl having an affair, they didn't share it with me."

"The tabloids say they were."

"How seriously do you take that?"

A beat, and then Brass asked, "No plans to hint at it in the campaign?"

"I can't say we didn't discuss it," Mobley said. "Frankly, it was Ed here who was pushing for it, and you can ask him yourself-I told him there was no way I wanted to go there."

They all glanced at Anthony, who confirmed his boss's story with a nod. But then, he would, wouldn't he? Grissom thought.

Brass said, "I'm aware your official press position's been that you won't discuss it."

Mobley nodded insistently. "That's right. Exactly right."