Body of Evidence

"Obviously, this is no time to change that policy."

"Obviously." Looking from the detective to the CSI, Mobley asked, "Is that all you want to know?"

In his patented angelic manner, Grissom posed an apparent non sequitur: "Do you have carpeting in your home, Brian?"

The sheriff blinked. "Well, sure. Some. Living room, bedroom."

"How new is it?"

Mobley shrugged. "Well, hell…I don't know."

"We'll need to take a sample," Grissom said.

Finally realizing what Grissom was doing, Mobley sighed. "Send somebody out whenever you want. Could you wait until I've spoken with my family about this?"

Grissom's cell phone rang and Anthony jumped; the conversation froze while the CSI plucked it off his belt and hit the button. "Grissom."

"Sara, Gil. We checked City Hall records…from when Candace Lewis started work? Fingerprints are a match."

"Thanks," Grissom said and ended the call.

Turning to the sheriff, he said, "Fingerprints confirm the body's definitely Candace Lewis. You better start working on that statement, Brian-the press is going to have this before long."

Not asking if they were done this time, Mobley turned to leave and practically tripped over Anthony, who hustled to get out of the office ahead of his boss.

And when the politician and his toady were gone, Brass laughed nastily and said, "That's why I love working for that man-he's always so inspiring."

"Tell you the truth, Jim," Grissom said, "I thought the sheriff behaved rather well."

"Yeah. Well. I guess you're right. But that guy Anthony is a piece of work."

Feeling that comment required no confirmation, Grissom said, "I'm going back to check on how our side's doing. Interested?"

"Right behind you."

Doc Robbins was still in the middle of the autopsy, and Warrick and Sara were in the midst of processing various elements recovered from the carpet. They seemed not to be in need of help, so Grissom and Brass returned to the former's office where he turned on the TV on a small stand in the corner, and waited. He knew it wouldn't be long and he was right.

Less than an hour later-a time period during which Grissom humored Brass by discussing with him various political ramifications of the situation, none of which interested the CSI except in terms of enumerating suspects-the Candace Lewis story took over the airwaves.

Local anchorman Bernie Gonzalez's slicked-back black hair and expensive suit filled the screen as the local news interrupted a soap opera, so Mobley could give his press conference about their real-life soap opera. Grissom wondered if the interruption was merely for the Vegas audience or if it had gone national.

The picture shifted to City Hall where Mobley stood behind a lectern out front near Stewart Avenue. The sun beat down from almost straight overhead and a gaggle of reporters formed a semicircle in front of Mobley.

"I have a short statement to make," Mobley said, unfolding a single sheet of white paper and spreading it out onto the lectern. "And then I'll take a few questions."

The reporters shuffled a little, but didn't interrupt.

"Most of you already know that the body found on North Las Vegas Boulevard this morning was that of Candace Lewis, the missing personal assistant of Mayor Darryl Harrison. The sheriff's department-as well as my family and myself-wish to extend our deepest condolences to the Lewis family. I would like to assure them, in fact to promise them, that the LVMPD will do its very best to bring her murderer to justice. Questions?"

"Will you be heading the investigation?" one of the reporters yelled.

"No."

Before a follow-up could be addressed to the sheriff, another reporter blurted, "Are you planning to run for mayor?"

"That subject is not appropriate to this press conference. But I will say that my candidacy for that office is under serious consideration."

"And is that why you're not going to be involved in the investigation? Conflict of interest?"

"Until now," the sheriff said, off-script now and choosing his words carefully, "this has been a federal missing persons investigation. Now that it's a homicide, the LVMPD will take charge. I don't run homicide investigations: as you know, I oversee both the police and sheriff's departments, here. Those are my responsibilities."

"Then who will be running the investigation?"

"Two of our finest law enforcement professionals. And they are the ones to whom you should direct your future questions: Captain Jim Brass and CSI supervisor Gil Grissom. Thank you."

Watching in Grissom's office, Brass turned to the CSI, who shot him a glare and said, "You handle the media. I don't do media."

"You don't do it well," Brass admitted sourly.

Then both of them turned their eyes back on the screen, where the media throng was still shouting questions. But Mobley was in the process of disappearing back inside City Hall, leaving the reporters wondering what hit them.

But Grissom knew very well what had hit him and Brass: Mobley had just dumped this political hot potato into their collective lap. Aiming the remote at the TV and clicking off the power, he wondered if the day could get any worse.

About five minutes later, after Brass had shuffled glumly out, it did.

An oily voice said in a much too friendly manner, "Gil Grissom. Still offering twenty-four-hour service, I see-how can you stand these hours?"

Grissom swiveled in his chair toward the door, where-leaning against the frame, his blond hair slicked back straight like a snake trying to molt-resided a smiling Rick Culpepper.

Culpepper wore a well-tailored gray suit and a dark gray tie on a very light gray shirt. His arms were folded and his manner was casual in an all-too-studied manner. After all, the last time this "friendly" caller and Gil Grissom had met up, the two had been so at odds over a disputed prisoner, the FBI man had started to draw a weapon on the CSI.

The two law enforcement agents had crossed paths more than once; to Grissom, Culpepper represented the justice system at its most amoral. If Grissom could have picked one person not to see today, it well might have been Rick Culpepper.

"May I help you?" Grissom asked, in a voice usually reserved for suspected shoplifters.

The FBI agent eased into the room, helped himself to a chair, leaned back, crossed a leg, smiled with a million teeth. "Heard you found a body at Nellis this morning."

"No."

Eyebrows raised. "You didn't find a body at Nellis Air Force Base?"

"We found a body outside the Air Force base."

"Ah. Right. You're always precise. Admire that in you, buddy."

"Thank you."

"I also heard that the victim is the subject of an investigation of ours."

Grissom couldn't help himself. "That missing person that you didn't find? Yes."

Culpepper folded his arms, smiled big. Then he said, "Yeah, well, we're going to want to be kept in the loop, where your investigation's concerned."

"Are you? What is it people in hell want, again?"

"Hey, buddy, there's no need to be snotty-you don't still hold a grudge! You were working one case, I was working another-sometimes there's conflicts of interest, even between friends…if you gather my meaning."

Grissom said nothing.

"After all, we're on the same team, just different squads. All after the same thing, right? Justice."

Culpepper could crawl under Grissom's skin like few other people on this earth. But the CSI's voice remained calm. "We're after the truth about crimes, and justice can flow from that. But, Culpepper, I have no idea what you're after-except maybe a corner office with a view."

Culpepper rose, as if in slow motion, and smoothed out his suit; he glanced at the surrounding clutter. "Not everybody can have an office like this…. Just keep us apprised, buddy. Okay?"

"Sure," Grissom said, hoping it would speed the agent on his way.

"See," Culpepper said from the doorway, unable to leave without having the last word. "We are on the same team."

And by way of goodbye, he fired a finger gun at Grissom and winked.

When the agent had gone, Grissom decided that he would indeed inform Culpepper of their progress-just as soon as the killer was arrested, tried, convicted, sentenced and safely behind bars awaiting lethal injection. Even then, Grissom thought, Culpepper would still look for a way to turn the case to his advantage.

Grissom bent over some paperwork and forced himself to concentrate; he would not allow the federal agent to get to him. But his head popped up when someone knocked on the jamb. He was ready to snap at Culpepper if the FBI agent had returned, only it was Greg Sanders framed in the doorway, a small stack of printouts in hand.

The slender young DNA expert with the spiky hair and longish sideburns smiled nervously his sharp, brown eyes darting around. Greg always seemed to be one espresso over the line.

Grissom willed calm into his voice, making sure the Culpepper irritation didn't bleed in. "Yes, Greg?" He knew he intimidated Greg and the kid was nervous enough, already.

"Test results on your Air Force base vic."

Pleasantly surprised, Grissom said, "That was fast."

Sanders shrugged. "We had DNA from her hair-brush we got from the Lewis woman's apartment, back when she disappeared. Having the body made it easy-I didn't have to wait while we replicated over and over from one cell."

"I know how DNA is processed, Greg. And?"

Greg looked lost. "And what?"

As usual, Greg's attention deficit disorder seemed to have kicked in, the tech so wrapped up in what he hadn't had to do that he'd forgotten the reason for his visit…which was what he had gotten done.

Letting out a sigh Grissom asked, "And what did you find, Greg?"

"Oh!" Greg said, snapping out of it. "The DNA matched. The body in the morgue is definitely Candace Lewis."

"Thanks, Greg."

"Hey. My pleasure. Any time. No problem."

"The report, Greg."

"Sure." Greg handed him the report, twitched three or four awkward smiles, and left.

Grissom absently fingered through pages that all added up to just one thing: what had been a high-profile missing persons case had turned into an even higher-profile homicide, and the two best suspects?

The mayor of the city and the sheriff who kept the peace.

The CSI allowed himself a small, personal smile. It was a good thing he believed so firmly in following the evidence, because if he followed hunches-like his friend Brass-Gil Grissom would've had a really bad feeling about where this case was headed.

5

AFTER SOME SACK TIME AND A FEW MINDLESS HOURS OF ESPN, Nick Stokes felt like a new man. He could tell that Catherine was in a much better mood now, too-sleep and a little quality time with her daughter always seemed to work wonders.

With Grissom's permission, Nick and Catherine were starting their shift midway-three A.M.-which would allow them to work into daylight hours, and be along for interviews with witnesses and suspects. Also, it would put them only halfway through shift when Nunez and his computer cronies showed up to go to work at seven.

The two CSIs joined Nunez's compu-posse then in the large, air-conditioned, garage-like room at the rear of the complex.

The Ryder truck sat parked in the middle of the room with Nunez's team taking the computers out one at a time and placing them on banquet-style tables assembled around the truck. The scene looked vaguely like a swap meet. That vibe quickly faded, however, as the experts got to work: each hard drive was imaged twice, with one copy being put in the computer to be returned to Newcombe-Gold and the other marked for Nunez to search. Each of the originals was tagged and sent to the evidence room.

"Evidence room" was something of a misnomer ever since the LVMPD had been forced to add a building to the CSI complex in order to accommodate the overflow from all the department's investigations. The small, one-story, concrete building out back had a dozen rooms on the first floor and almost that many more in the even more heavily guarded basement.

This overwhelming backlog of evidence had built up fast because of the slow grind of the wheels of justice-not just the court system, but bureaucratic security measures. Each piece of evidence was now affixed with a scan tag, so that when Nick went there for evidence it felt like going to Sam's Club. Scan the number, take your prize with you. One room held computer equipment, others housed stereo equipment, tires and so on, while the really dangerous stuff, the drugs and guns, were stored within the bunker-like security of the basement. Access to this part of the building was only slightly harder than getting into the control room of a nuclear missile silo.

Nick observed Carroll and Giles and the others poring over the computers, then he turned to watch their boss. Seeing the biker-like Tomas Nunez delicately tapping the keyboard of his laptop was like watching Lurch play the harpsichord for the Addams Family. The rangy Hispanic computer expert had jacked Ruben Gold's hard drive into his massive forensic computer and was using a program called ILOOK.

Developed by a Britisher named Elliot Spencer, ILOOK was the best computer forensic software this side of the National Security Agency, and Nick was pretty sure the NSA wasn't going to share its techno-wealth with the LVMPD. Nick leaned over Nunez's shoulder, Catherine next to him, as the expert punched keys, currently running through print orders searching for the work station that had ordered Gold's printer to run off the pornographic images.

"You know," Nunez said idly, "in 1995 only five percent of all crime involved computers. Now the figures are more like eighty-five percent." He went silent as he studied his monitor.

Catherine glanced at Nick, obviously surprised by these stats.

Nick didn't doubt Nunez; on the other hand, the computer expert might be viewing crime through his end of the CPU. "Anything yet?" he asked.

Nunez's touched a line on the screen. "Yeah. Already something crucial: the print order was not generated from Gold's computer."

Catherine and Nick again traded glances, and the former asked, "But do we know where the order did come from?"

Nunez looked hard at his monitor, then said, "That would be a big bingo-work station number eighteen."

"Whose station is that?" Catherine asked.

Nick looked at the printout Janice Denard had given them that showed who occupied which work station. "Ben Jackson."

Catherine sighed, rolled her eyes. "It would be one of the handful we didn't fingerprint."

"Yet," Nick remind her. Something didn't feel right, and he asked, "Didn't Janice Denard tell us that Jackson was gone all weekend?"

"Yeah." Catherine looked at her watch. "Let's go see if he came to work early today, now that he's back in town. Maybe he'd like to show us snapshots from his trip."

The edge in Catherine's voice troubled Nick. "Let's not get ahead of ourselves," he said, getting out his cell phone. "I'll fill O'Riley in. See if he can meet us over at Newcombe-Gold."

Turning to Nunez, Catherine said, "You'll call if you find anything?"

"In a cyber second."

Twenty-one minutes later, Nick Stokes was wheeling the Tahoe into the Newcombe-Gold parking lot, where on this sunny morning only a handful of cars were parked. The CSIs were getting their silver crime-scene kits out of the back of the van when Sergeant O'Riley pulled his Taurus into a slot next to them.

O'Riley ambled over. He had dark circles under his eyes and looked a little like the zombie Nick had almost mistaken him for, the other day.

"No fair," the detective said. "You guys caught some sleep."

Nick grinned. "Three hours'll do wonders."

Catherine made a wry face. "At Nicky's age, it will."

"Aw," O'Riley said to her, "you're beautiful at any age."

"I'm going to take that as a compliment."

They started toward the building, O'Riley saying, "Sounds like our computer geeks are making some progress."

Nick said, "Sounds like."

The agency's front door was unlocked. The attractive brunette receptionist was working and it took only a minute or so for Janice Denard to answer the summons. The two CSIs and the detective moved with Denard away from the reception desk, for some privacy.

The office manager had replaced yesterday's polka-dot dress with snug-fitting blue jeans and a long-sleeve red silk blouse with the top two buttons undone.

"Casual day?" Catherine asked lightly.

Janice sort of smiled. "Casual every day, thanks to you people."

That may have come out harsher than Denard intended, but Catherine didn't react. Oddly, it was Nick who found himself working hard to swallow an angry retort.

It was just that the woman's reaction was all too typical. People wanted protection, wanted law enforcement to keep all the badness in the world away…but without disturbing anything, without disruption.

Such an attitude played into why, the longer they were on the job, so many officers grew cynical. For his part, Nick tried hard to keep any cynicism in check-spending so much time in the lab, hitting the science end, helped. Still, Nick knew the Denard woman was doing her best to cooperate, balanced against her need and desire to keep making her living.

Funny-it wasn't that Nick was in a bad mood, really. Neither was Catherine. Nor did they seem particularly on edge, but…

…something about the nature of this case was working on them, and not in a good way. He would try to keep tabs on himself…and Catherine. Grissom's voice seemed to whisper in his ear: Not subjective, Nick-objective.

Catherine was bringing Denard up to speed, closing with, "Is Ben Jackson in yet? We need to talk to him."

"Oh, my God," Janice said, a hand coming up in front of her mouth. "Not Ben!"

"Let's not get ahead of ourselves," Catherine said pleasantly. "It was Ben's work station that ordered the print job, but that doesn't necessarily mean he's the one who did this."

Straightening, obviously trying to calm herself, Denard said, "Well, I hope it isn't Ben. It doesn't seem that it could possibly be Ben…."

O'Riley asked, "Who is he around here?"

"Well he's a sweetheart," Denard said. "Just a real sweetheart!"

Nick smiled a little. "Maybe you could be a little more specific."

"Yes. Sorry." Denard seemed mildly flustered; but then she composed herself and went on: "Ben's a young man who joined the firm just last summer-after he graduated from college."

"Is he in today?" Catherine again.

Janice nodded toward the doorway to the corridor of offices. "I'm pretty sure I saw him get here, oh, a little while ago. Half an hour maybe? He, Jermaine, and Mr. Randle, and maybe Mr. Newcombe are the only ones who'll be coming in today. Doing what they can, mostly on the phones. The rest of our staff won't return until we call them back."

O'Riley asked, "Are Mr. Allred and Mr. Randle here yet?"

Denard nodded, qualifying it: "Jermaine for sure. I told him the computer towers were gone and that the place was shut down. Naturally, he wanted to know why."

"What did you tell him?"

"Just that it was part of an investigation. I'm afraid I…I lied to him."

O'Riley arched both brows. "How so?"

"I…I told I didn't know what the investigation was about. He seems annoyed, I have to say."

"Just annoyed?" Catherine asked. "Not surprised?"

"Surprised, too. Then he said he might as well just go home, but I stopped him. I told him I thought you people would probably be back today, to talk to him and the others. Actually, I asked all three of them to stick around."

"Was anyone upset by that?" the detective asked.

"Not really. Jermaine said he had some drawing to do and he didn't need the computer anyway-not all of our graphics are computer-generated-so he went to his work station."

Nick said, "Let's go back to Ben Jackson for a moment."

"What about Ben?"

"You're positive he wasn't here over the weekend?"

"I'm positive as far as my personal knowledge goes…but if you'd like, I'll check the sign-in book…. Come with me."

Heels clicking, Denard led them back to the receptionist's desk. She made a request and the woman withdrew a large black three-ring binder from her center desk drawer desk.

Denard rested the big book on the counter and riffled through the pages to last Saturday. Methodically, she ran a finger down the lines. "No…. No, there's no sign of Ben's name. He wasn't here this weekend."

They strolled away from the desk again, Catherine saying, "Well, isn't there any way he could have come in without signing in?" They stopped and formed a little semicircle. Denard shrugged.

"I suppose, but people get paid by this book…so they always sign in when they come to work. Besides, Ben was out of town."

Nick said, "Or was supposed to be out of town."

Denard frowned. "Why would I disbelieve him? Why would you?"

Catherine said, "As far as signing in…maybe he didn't come in for work…. Maybe he came to do something else. Something recreational…."

Picking up on this, O'Riley asked, "Is there any way Jackson could have been here without anyone seeing him?"

Denard had started shaking her head halfway through the question. "Doubtful-too many people around. Yes, people come in and out, but there's always someone around during the day."

"Back ways into the building?"

"Of course-but all but two are fire exits with alarms."

Nick said, "Two doors is one more door than you need."

O'Riley pressed. "Could Jackson have gotten in at night when no one was around?"

Again Denard shook her head. "He doesn't have a key."

"Who does have keys?"

Denard list's was short: "Mr. Newcombe, Mr. Gold, Roxanne Scott and myself-that's it."

Nick considered that for a moment. "Someone could 'borrow' one of those keys, and make a copy…."

Denard's expression was skeptical. "Isn't that a lot of trouble to go to, just to use a work computer, after hours?"

But Catherine and Nick exchanged looks that said each had had the same thought: someone dealing in kiddie porn over the net might well want to keep that material off his home computer. Using a work computer might muddy the waters, nicely, should the police be alerted…like now.

O'Riley was still at it: "You're sure you didn't see Jackson on Saturday?"

Denard was admirably patient. "No, I didn't, but then, I left early. It was Roxanne who locked up."

"Roxanne," Catherine said, "who's currently on vacation."

"Yes."

Gesturing toward the reception desk, Nick asked, "Can we get a photocopy of the Saturday sign-in page, from the binder, please?"

"Certainly. I'll be right back."

Catherine said, "We might as well go with you. We'll want to speak to Ben and have a look at his work station."

"Whatever you need," Denard said, but a weariness had crept into the woman's voice.

They followed her down the long corridor, falling in line behind her, single file; then they were in the work area, where she escorted the safari around a wall of cubicles and down a path to another hive of partitions. Denard stopped at the third cubicle down.

"Ben's work station," Denard announced.

"But no Ben," Nick said.

Denard checked her watch, shrugged with her eyebrows. "He might be in the break room or in the washroom. Might even have stepped out for a moment."

"Stepped out?" Catherine asked, with a little frown.

"Advertising is a high-stress business," Denard explained. "You'd be amazed how many of our employees smoke. Since there's no smoking in the building, they have to go out back. We have a small area out there to accommodate them."

O'Riley wanted to take a look at that, and Denard gave him instructions; then the burr-headed detective lumbered off.

As Catherine set down her crime scene case and prepared to go to work, Nick took a quick look at the cubicle, which seemed at first just another of these anonymous interchangeable compartments. Then he looked closer and noted the touches Ben Jackson had added to make the place his own.

Thumb-tacked to one of the cloth walls was a pennant from Iowa State University-CYCLONES! A five-by-seven frame on his desk displayed a photo of a beaming blue-eyed blonde woman in her early twenties-Jackson's girlfriend or wife, presumably. Ten mini-bobble heads stood in a line atop Jackson's computer monitor: baseball players, a few of which were caricatured well enough for Nick to recognize.

Catherine held up the framed photo in a latex-gloved hand. "Who's this?"

Denard, who'd been hovering nervously in the nearby hallway, glanced around surreptitiously, then said, sotto voce, "Ben's wife, Laura. They've only been married a few months. That's part of why I can't believe it was him."

"Ms. Denard," Catherine said, "we do not assume it's Ben. Please-no jumping to conclusions."

When Nunez and crew, with the help of uniformed officers, removed the computer towers, the monitors and keyboards had been left behind. But Nunez had prepared a list of serial numbers with the names of the Newcombe-Gold employees at a given work station. Right now Catherine was checking the keyboard's serial number, making sure this was indeed Jackson's keyboard-which could have been switched, after all.

"This is Jackson's keyboard," she said, bumping into Nick for the third time.

"There's not room for two of us in here," Nick said. "While you do this, why don't I go with Ms. Denard, to copy the sign-in book page?"

"Why don't you?" Catherine said. She was poised at the computer keyboard like a starving person about to sit down to a big, fine meal.

Field kit in hand, Nick followed Denard back to her office, where she photocopied the document and handed it toward Nick, who asked, "Would you mind if you kept the copy, and I took the original?"

"Well…I suppose. But why do you need the original?"

"We might have to have a handwriting expert look at it, and it'll be easier to work with the original."

Her expression was astounded. "A handwriting expert? You really think so?"

He shrugged, and gave her a little smile. "Just covering the bases."

She returned the smile, almost shyly, and handed over the original. He gave it a quick scan, then tucked it into an evidence envelope and slipped it inside his kit.

"Thanks," Nick said. "Now, shall we try to find Ben Jackson?"

"All right," Janice said. "Better start back at his work station."

But when they got there, Jackson still wasn't there. Catherine was just finishing up, packing her silver case.

"Anything?" Nick asked.

"Got some prints," she said, pulling off her latex gloves. "From the keyboard, desk, and even the edge of the cubicle itself; not much more. Tomas may be able to tell us something after he goes through the computer. You didn't happen to run into the elusive Mr. Jackson, on your journey, did ya?"

"Nope. But I have the original from the sign-in book. Ms. Denard kept the copy. We were kind of hoping he'd be back in his roost by now."

Catherine shook her head, red-blonde arcs of hair cutting the air. "Haven't seen him or anyone else."

Nick turned to Denard. "When we do locate Ben, is there somewhere we can talk to him alone?"

Denard made a vague gesture. "Break room is right around the corner, when you leave my office."

Nick nodded. "I know we've been imposing, but would you mind tracking Ben down for us? Asking him to meet us there?"

She nodded curtly, professionally; Denard was clearly happier when given a task. "I'll take care of it."

"And if you run into our wandering boy, Sergeant O'Riley, would you guide him to the break room, as well?"

"No problem."

When the office manager was gone, Catherine and Nick-field kits in hand-went the opposite direction through the covey of cubicles. Shortly, he was pushing open a door holding it open for Catherine as she stepped into the break room. Which was was larger than Nick would have expected for this facility, with round, dark-wood-topped tables and conference-room-style padded chairs positioned around the twenty-by-twenty-five-foot room. Against one wall was a big-screen TV, and along another a long counter with microwave, an espresso machine, a stainless steel sink and an assortment of condiments. At the far end of the counter a full-size refrigerator and a Coke machine stood guard. A smoked-glass window ran the length of the far wall and let in just enough sun and a nice view of a back-parking-lot basketball court.

"So this is what it's like to have perks," Nick said, setting his case on one of the tables.

"No kidding," Catherine said, doing the same with her kit. "If our break room was set up like this, I'd pitch a tent and move in."

Janice Denard didn't keep them waiting long. Barely five minutes after she had left them, she entered and held the door open for the young man they'd waited for.

The individual Nick took to be Ben Jackson stood well over six feet tall, carried over two hundred seventy pounds on a wide frame, yet moved with a grace a man half his size might envy. The artist's brown crewcut above an ample forehead gave him a collegiate look; his brown eyes were bright, alert.

"Detectives Willows and Stokes," Denard said, "this is Ben Jackson…. No sign of your sergeant."

"Thanks," Nick said to Denard, not bothering to correct the "detective" designation. But to Jackson, Nick said, "I'm Stokes, she's Willows. From the crime lab."

Jackson nodded at Catherine and seemed to want to shake hands, but thought better of it.

"Thank you again, Ms. Denard," Catherine said.

Denard took the hint and backed out of the room, pulling the door closed as she went.

"Have a seat," Catherine said to Jackson in a pleasant but not particularly friendly fashion. The man headed to a table, walking with the slightest hint of a limp.

Nick and Catherine sat on either side of the young man at one of the round tables. Still pleasant, Catherine said, "You're pretty casual." She gestured around the room. "I would've taken this for a shirt-and-tie kind of place."

Jackson shook his head. "Only if a client's coming in."

"Don't have to be a detective," Nick said, affably, "to figure you played some football."

Jackson smiled a little. "Second-string guard at Iowa State." His voice soft, his words measured. "You?"

Nick gave him half a grin. "Texas A&M, fourth-string tight end."

Jackson nodded, and seemed a little more at ease. Which had been the purpose of Nick letting the guy know they were both ex-jocks; further, their glory days had been more in high school than in college. Nick's football career, he was well aware, ground to a halt because he was too short and too slow. Jackson certainly wasn't too short and Nick-reflecting on the man's limp-wondered if that's what had kept him from moving on; hell, the guy had size enough for the pros.

Catherine-obviously seeing the rapport between the two ex-jocks-caught Nick's eyes and tightened hers, in a signal for him to take the lead. He responded with a nod so tiny Jackson surely didn't notice it.

"If you'll excuse me," Catherine said, and she went to her crime scene case on a nearby table and opened the lid.

"How long have you been with Newcombe-Gold?" Nick asked, drawing Jackson's eyes away from what Catherine was up to.

"Not quite a year."

"Like it here?"

Jackson nodded. "Very cool people, and the work is challenging."

Casually, Catherine asked, "Were you here over the weekend?"

"No." Jackson sat up. "Look, is that what the investigation's about? Something that happened this weekend?"

Ignoring the question, Nick insisted, "Tell us where you were this weekend."

Jackson looked hard at Nick, and then did the same with Catherine, before answering. "What exactly am I suspected of?"

Nick glanced at Catherine, who lifted an eyebrow. Looking back at Jackson, Nick said, "We didn't say we suspected you of anything, Mr. Jackson. Maybe Ms. Denard mentioned, we talked to everyone at Newcombe-Gold, yesterday, except for the handful of you who were away for whatever reason."

"Yes. She did mention that."

Nick smiled blandly. "Good. Now. We just want to know why you didn't work this weekend…. I understand you usually come in at least part of Saturday."

His expression skeptical, Jackson said, "My wife and I flew back to Iowa-Des Moines to be exact, to visit her mother."

Catherine wheeled, arcs of hair swinging. "I thought you were in Idaho."

Jackson frowned. "Who told you that?"

"Ms. Denard."

"Oh, well. That's a common mistake. They make it around here all the time."

Catherine gave Jackson that beautiful smile of hers that she reserved for suspects who were making her suspicious. "What mistake is that, Mr. Jackson?"

"I'm from Idaho. But I went to Iowa. I met my wife at Ames-at college. Her family's from Des Moines. Idaho, Iowa, they mix it up."

"Ah," Catherine said, as if he'd just told her an enormous whopper.

Nick said, "You left when?"

Thrown a little by Catherine's attitude, Jackson said, "Friday night after work…and we just got back, late last night."

Catherine tossed the question casually over her shoulder: "Anybody in Iowa besides your in-laws see you in Iowa?"

"About half the staff of Mercy Medical Center," Jackson said, a hard edge in his soft voice. "My mother-in-law went in for a mastectomy-that's why we went back to Iowa."

"I'm sorry," Nick said, genuinely.

If Catherine felt sorry, she didn't show it; she was pulling no punches: she tossed one of the evidence bags containing the child porn pictures onto the table.

"Ever seen anything like this before?" she asked. She did not sit, hovering ominously. "In Iowa? Idaho? Vegas?"

Jackson's face drained of blood as he looked down at the photo. "Oh, my God. Take that away. Please!"

Neither Catherine nor Nick complied.

He swallowed thickly. "Is that what this is about? This isn't me. What does it have to do with the agency, anyway?"

Nick and Catherine exchanged glances.

Then Nick said, "Can we trust you to not talk about this to anybody?"

Jackson looked from one to the other. "Of course you can. This kind of thing is a crime. I know that. Jeez!"

Nick nodded, then gestured to the photo. "Several of these were found in a printer here yesterday."

"Here? Damn! What kind of perv would-"

"According to the log," Nick said, "the print order originated from your work station."

His eyes bulged. "My-"

Catherine said, "On Saturday."

Jackson pressed a hand to his forehead and rubbed it down his face as if he were trying to wipe the features off. "Oh, man…. I was in Iowa, there are fifty, a hundred people who either saw me at the hospital, or in one of the airports, or for that matter on the plane!"

Nick asked, "Anybody else ever use your work station?"

"No. Not that I know of, anyway."

"Could they use it without your knowledge?"

Shrugging, Jackson said, "Sure, I suppose-if they had my password. Which they don't."

Catherine cocked her head, smiled, more to herself than to the others. Then she asked, "So-nobody knows your password?"

Jackson shrugged. "Well, maybe-I mean, the passwords are assigned to us."

Nick asked, "Do they ever change?"

"Sure-every month, sometimes even less. Last time was three weeks ago." Catherine said, "Your current password…is it SOL20DAC?"

Jackson's mouth fell open. "Well, I…God. I think that's it."

"And was it 2DEC47 before that?"

Jackson leaned forward. "How the hell could you know that?"

Catherine held up a small evidence bag in which a pink post-it resided, with SOL20DAC written above a crossed-out 2DEC47 and two other crossed-out numbers. "This was on the underside of your gel wrist protector. It is hard to remember a password when they change it on you all the time."

"What the hell did you do?" Jackson said, too stunned to be angry. "Go through my cubicle?"

Catherine beamed at him. "That's right, Mr. Jackson."

"But that's my personal space…"

"Actually," Catherine said, "it's not. Your cubicle is the property of Newcombe-Gold."

"But don't you need a search warrant?"

"We presented the agency with a warrant yesterday…. You said it yourself, Mr. Jackson." Catherine snatched away the offensive photo. "This is a crime. And we're investigating it."

Jackson's forehead had gathered into a frown of thought, but something in the flummoxed man's eyes said no thought was forming.

Finally Catherine sat down beside Jackson, and her manner softened, her tone, too. "That's why I'm reasonably certain you're not responsible," she said.

His expression brightened. "Really?"

She nodded. "Somebody knew where you kept your password, and they used that information to use your work station to print off these pictures."

"So, I'm in the clear?"

"I'm afraid I can't go quite that far. We'll check your story, Mr. Jackson…but you can rest easy, I think. You seem to be telling the truth."

A slow, relieved sigh preceded the man's next question: "If I might ask, why are you so sure I'm innocent?"

Nick said, "The airline'll have a record of you. It won't take any time at all to check that. The hospital staff in Des Moines will back up your story, too…if it's true."

"It's true!"

Nick smiled gently. "I believe it is. Relax, buddy."

Jackson nodded and seemed to relax for the first time since he entered the room. "You can ask my wife, but…go easy, would you?"

"About the pornography?" Catherine asked.

"I wasn't thinking of that. She'd know that's not me. She'd never believe that of me. I meant, take it easy in general…. She's a wreck, after this weekend."

Finally genuine concern colored Catherine's voice as she asked, "And how is your mother-in-law doing?"

He let out another sigh. "Well, she's still got some chemo to get through, but they say she's through the worst of it."

Silence hung in the air; having a little normal real life, even tinged with tragedy, interrupt the case seemed to provide a grounding influence, somehow.

Finally Nick said, "Mr. Jackson-Ben. You may still be able to help with our case."

His eyes grew alert. "Sure. Name it."

"Think for a second. Got any idea who would…or could…have used your work station?"

Glumly, Jackson shook his head. "Nobody and anybody. They don't put locks on cubicles."

Nick's eyes narrowed. "This may sound funny, but…you have any enemies here?"

"Enemies? No-hell, I don't think I've been here long enough to get anyone pissed at me, yet. Besides, all I do is grunt work. They won't let me near anything important until I've got more experience…. Doesn't bother me. I mean, that's the business. That's any business."

Catherine asked, "Anybody been hanging around your cubicle lately?"

Jackson considered that, but shook his head. "No more than usual."

"I'm thinking," she said, "somebody who wasn't all that interested in you, but suddenly starts dropping by, to shoot the breeze."

"I see where you're coming from, Ms. Willows-but no."

"What about somebody who happened to be around when you were checking your password? Either refreshing your memory with that post-it, or just keying it in…?"

"It may not seem like it, but I tried to be discreet and not check it when anybody was around. After the first couple days with a new password, I generally have it down."

"You weren't sure when I first asked you."

"I know, but…it's different, typing it in. My fingers remember, you know?"

Nick took another tack. "Who knew you were leaving town for the weekend?"

Another head shake. "I don't have any idea."

"Well, who did you tell?"

"Janice and Roxanne and maybe a dozen or more friends here. And Janice got it wrong, right? But on the other hand, a lot of people knew my mother-in-law was sick and they asked about her. I might have mentioned it to as many as twenty people. Newcombe-Gold has been like an extended family for Laura and me. Everybody here is like family. Sounds like a cliché, but here it happens to be true."

"One more question."

"Shoot."

"Can you tell us why something printed on your computer would print on Mr. Gold's printer, instead of the one in your cubicle?"

The young man thought about that, but for only a moment. "The last thing I did Friday was a drawing that Mr. Gold was taking to Los Angeles with him. It was a mockup for a client there, sort of a rush job…but really not important enough for any of the senior artists to do."

"Okay, but that doesn't answer the question."

"Actually, it does. I was late to pick up Laura to getto the airport. So, instead of printing it off in my cubicle, and hunting down Mr. Gold, I just sent the drawing to his printer so he'd have it before he left. I didn't bother to change my printer selection back to mine before I left. Slipped my mind, actually."

Nick nodded. "Makes sense."

"All right, Mr. Jackson," Catherine said, on her feet again. "May we fingerprint you?"

"I guess. But why?"

"We're going to end up fingerprinting everybody, but you're important, because your work station was used. We have to be able to separate your fingerprints from whoever did this."

"Sure, I understand. Go ahead."

Catherine fingerprinted Jackson efficiently, then handed him a paper towel. "We're going to ask you to not talk about this investigation with anyone."

"Sure, but why?" Jackson used the paper towel on his fingertips, only the ink wasn't coming off easily.

"Publicity for one," Catherine said. "How would Newcombe-Gold's clients feel about this kind of investigation centering on the agency?"

"Oh. Yeah…"

"But there's another concern," Nick said. "Your co-workers."

"What about them?"

"You're the first person we've interviewed privately. That was in part because you weren't here yesterday, when the other interviews were conducted out in the lobby; but it might not look that way to your co-workers."

He gave them a blank stare.

Catherine asked, "How do you think they would feel about you, if they believed our investigation had focused on you and your work station?"

Jackson stopped working on cleaning his fingers for a moment. "Shit."

"Well put," Nick said.

Studying his blue fingers, Jackson seemed strangely lost.

"Come on," Catherine said, taking pity, withdrawing a small bottle out of her case and leading the big man over to the sink. "Put your hands in the sink."

She opened the lid and sprayed the contents of the bottle on Jackson's hands.

"What is it?" he asked.

"It's what we in the crime lab call 'soap.' Good old-fashioned soap-you can wash up and no one will know what happened in here."

His expression was grim. "You…you think my co-workers are going to suspect me, don't you?"

Catherine shook her head. "They have no reason to; and by the time people find out what we're investigating, we're hoping to have the guilty party in custody."

As the big man aggressively dried his hands, Nick approached him. "May we have your discretion in this matter, Mr. Jackson?"

"You've got it…. Can I get out of here?"

"You can," Catherine said.

Nick offered his hand and the two ex-jocks shook. "Thank you for your cooperation, Ben."

"No problem," the big man said. "Just do me a favor and catch the guy."

"Our pleasure," Catherine said.

Not long after Jackson left them, O'Riley finally found his way to the break room, but he was not alone-an African American with a shaved head followed him in. O'Riley gestured to their new guest.

"This is Jermaine Allred," the detective said. "Mr. Allred, this is Catherine Willows and Nick Stokes, CSI."

Allred, whose manner was self-confident, gave them a guardedly friendly nod. Like Jackson, Allred was dressed casually, a white business shirt untucked over faded jeans, the top few buttons ignored.

"So you're the crime lab," he said, and stuck out his hand toward Nick who shook it; then Allred shook hands with Catherine too. "I always watch those forensics shows on Learning Channel, cable, you know. Fascinating stuff."

"I'm going to see if the other guy's here yet," O'Riley said.

"All right, Sarge," Nick said, and O'Riley went out. Nick continued: "Mr. Allred, we're not the crime lab, but we are criminalists with the crime lab. And it is fascinating work."

"Hey, havin' a cool job is…cool. Very cool indeed."

Catherine, already bored with this, started right in: "Well, you missed your work yesterday."

Allred smiled, shrugged. "They call in the cops over that now?"

Catherine smiled back. "I was hoping for an answer, not a flip question."

"Hey, sorry, no disrespect meant."

Allred helped himself to a chair at one of the tables. The CSIs remained standing.

"I had the flu," he explained with an elaborate sosue-me shrug. "Started gett in' sick on Friday, laid up in bed, whole damn weekend. Still had it yesterday, so I stayed home."

"Doctor's excuse?" Nick asked.

"No."

"Anyone see you?"

"My wife saw me. My two kids saw me."

"That's a good start. Anybody else? Anybody not family?"

Allred thought about that. "No. I mean, I don't socialize when I'm sick. When I wasn't in bed I was, you know-either sittin' on, or bendin' over, the throne."

"I've been there. But think. No one stopped by?"

Allred shook his head, but then his eyes widened. "Saturday afternoon, my wife took the kids to a movie…. They get noisy, and she wanted me to get some sleep. While they were gone, the doorbell rang, and it just kept ringing…kind of insistent, y'know? I managed to haul my sorry ass to the door. It was Patty's Avon lady dropping off a bag. She normally wouldn't do it on a weekend, she said, but she was in the neighborhood so she stopped by. She can tell you I was home."

"Good," Catherine said, standing by the fingerprint station she'd set up on the nearby table. "That's a nice solid alibi, Mr. Allred. You know what would really put you in the clear with us?"

Allred nodded, smirking humorlessly. "All right, let's do it." He held out his hands. "Get it over with."

As Catherine took Allred's prints, Nick kept talking to the man. "How long have you been with the agency?"

"Twelve years."

Catherine did his left hand.

"What do you do here, Mr. Allred?"

"Call me Jermaine. I'm an artist."

"You work with clients?"

"Sometimes. It depends."

She did his right hand.

Nick asked, "You know the name of that Avon lady?"

Allred shook his head. "I should, but I don't remember. Patty'll know."

When they were finished, they gave Allred the same speech about discretion, then sent him on his way.

Interviewing Ruben Gold and Roxanne Scott would have to wait until the two came back next week, but that didn't bother Nick. They would get to them and, in the meantime, there was only one more name to go on yesterday's M.I.A. list. And soon O'Riley was parading in the last of the three employees they had missed yesterday-Gary Randle.

Randle was sneaking up on forty, with short, curly dark hair sliding back on a roundish head with evenly spaced features, brown eyes that laughed a little and an easy, expansive white smile. Like Allred, Randle wore faded jeans but his shirt was a black Polo and tucked in. He wore loafers and no socks.

After the introductions, O'Riley and Nick sat at the table with the man while Catherine lurked near the field kit.

Nick said, "I understand you were on a sales call yesterday."

Randle's grin seemed shy and self-effacing. "Yeah-stretched into a long one, and I had to let the client beat me at golf before he'd give in."

"Tough job," Catherine said lightly.

Shrugging, Randle said, "Actually, sometimes it is. I had to let him win, and yet make it look like I wasn't throwing the match."

Catherine was still shaking her head at that answer when Nick asked the next question. "So-when did you get back to the office?"

Another shrug. "I didn't. I went straight home from the golf course. It was late, and why should I?"

"How do you mean?"

"I mean, hell-I had a hundred-thousand-dollar sale in my hip pocket."

O'Riley asked, "Were you in the office over the weekend?"

"Why?"

Nick said, "I'm sure you've heard about our investigation. It has to do with that."

"Yeah, but I haven't heard what the investigation's about."

"That's because we're trying to keep that confidential."

"Well, then, why don't I keep my whereabouts this weekend confidential."

O'Riley glared at Randle. "We can do without the smart mouth."

Randle laughed. "You're kidding, right? You come in here, start asking me questions about…something…but you won't tell me what that something is…and you expect me to answer?"

"If you're innocent-"

"Go to hell." He stood; the affability had been replaced with cold anger. "This has nothing to do with innocence-this has to do with your goddamned gestapo tactics."

O'Riley stood. "You want to take it down a notch, sir?"

"No," Randle said, and got right in O'Riley's face. "I don't. Am I supposed to be scared of you, or that hair-cut?" He took a step away from the big cop and directed his next demand to Nick: "Either tell me what the hell this is about, or I walk."

Nick didn't know what to say, and glanced at Catherine, who said to Randle, "We need to get your fingerprints."

"Let's see…. How about: no."

"We can get a court order."

"Go for it. In the meantime, I'm outa here." Without another word, he bolted out.

O'Riley, seething, turned to Nick and Catherine.

But both of the CSIs were smiling.

"What are you guys grinnin' about?"

Catherine already had her cell phone out and was punching buttons. "I'll get the court order and be at his front door before the end of the day," she said.

Nick put a hand on O'Riley's shoulder. "Lighten up, Sarge. We've finally got a real suspect."

6

SARA SIDLE TOOK ANOTHER BITE OF HER SANDWICH-turkey on whole wheat with lettuce and sprouts-and chased it with a swig from her bottle of kiwi-strawberry Snapple. She was sitting in the break room eating her lunch, or anyway what she thought of as her lunch: funny way to describe her three a.m. meal; but in the middle of shift, what else was there to call it?

Doc Robbins appeared in the doorway, leaning on his metal crutch; an arched eyebrow sent Sara a signal that something, besides just that eyebrow, was up.

"Care to hear the report on Candace Lewis?"

She looked down at the remnants of her sandwich. "Should I finish my sandwich first?"

"Depends on whether you want these results on a full stomach or not. Would you round up Grissom and Warrick, and meet me in the morgue?"

Sara said, "We'll be right there," and stuffed the stub of the sandwich in her mouth. She was not by nature squeamish.

On the other hand, Robbins was well aware of that fact….

The coroner disappeared and Sara chugged the last of her drink. She sat, for a few moments, just taking that midshift moment to recharge, before bounding off to find the other two CSIs on the Lewis case.

And in less than ten minutes, the three criminalists and the Chief Coroner stood in a loose circle around Candace Lewis's sheet-draped body displayed on the cold metal surface of the table.

"Let's start with the cause of death," Robbins said.

"Ligature strangulation," Warrick said.

"Right." Robbins looked at the CSI. "Care to take a guess at the ligature?"

With a quick sideways look at Grissom, Warrick said, "Uh, we don't do 'guesses,' Doc."

Grissom twitched the tiniest smile as he exchanged a glance with the coroner, who said, "Make an educated guess, Warrick, just for me-you're my guest, after all."

Sara watched as Warrick pulled back the sheet revealing Candace's face and neck.

Warrick leaned closer to the body. The flesh of Candace's throat showed bloody gouges as well as massive bruising and something else…

…a pattern that wasn't quite discernible.

Sara wondered what Warrick-and for that matter, Grissom-would make of that.

"Some kind of chain, maybe?" Warrick offered.

Robbins turned to her. "Sara?"

She glanced at Grissom, who nodded his permission; then she shrugged. "Seems about right-don't know what else it might be."

"Gil?"

Grissom bent over the body, his Mini-MagLite materializing to light the dead woman's throat. He studied the brutalized flesh for several long moments, touched a portion of the wound, looked at his finger, then rubbed it against his thumb.

"A chain," the CSI supervisor said. "An oiled bicycle chain."

"And we have a winner," Robbins said dryly.

Sara leaned in to study the woman's throat more closely. Her colleagues were right: the design bruised into Candace's neck did resemble the markings of a chain, and a bicycle chain at that.

"Weird choice for a weapon," she said, with a quick facial shrug.

"Not a studied choice," Grissom said. "Probably a weapon of opportunity-her assailant kidnapped her, and probably meant to keep her alive…that's why there was never any ransom demand."

Eyes narrow, nodding just a little, Warrick said, "But something went wrong."

Grissom nodded back, curtly. "Something went wrong. She angered him…or tried to escape, or call for help…and the only thing he could do was kill her with the first thing he could lay his hands on."

Gesturing, Robbins added, "If you look at her hands, you can see evidence she fought back-tore her nails, lacerated two fingers."

Glancing down, Sara could see the tattered nails and the dried blood around the gashes in her fingers.

Then she felt Grissom's eyes on her.

Gently, Grissom asked, "Can you see it, Sara?"

"Yes…. Yes, I think I can…."

Candace is scared.

She's in a darkened room and all she can see is shadows. She starts to run, hoping to escape and crashes into something…

…and finds herself in the arms of her kidnapper!

Screaming, kicking out, she strikes him in the groin and he releases his grip on her. As she turns to run in the opposite direction, he fumbles around and picks up a bicycle chain, looping it over her head and pulling it tight around her throat.

Candace tries to get her fingers under the chain but her nails break off and the metal bites into the flesh of her fingers. She feels herself getting weaker, the pressure intense on her neck, the pain nearly blinding as her lungs scream for oxygen. Bursting stars appear at the corners of her vision and, as she closes her eyes, little colorful fireworks explode behind her lids.

Slowly, blessedly, the pain eases, the burning in her chest lessens, and her vision blurs, the colorful little explosions blinking, winking, on and off now. It's like trying to watch fireflies on a foggy night, but the tiny lights get lost in a mist that grows, turning ever darker until all she can see is peaceful blackness.

"That's how she might have experienced it," Sara said.

"What about him?" Grissom asked. "What about our kidnapper, our killer?"

"Well…" Sara began.

He has slipped up, his prize nearly escaping….

When she kicks him, the world seems to implode for a moment; but he can't let the pain consume him, he must prevail. She is his-he's worked so hard to obtain her, to possess her, he simply has to hold onto her now.

He gropes around on the nearby toolbench in the pitch-dark room; his fingers touch the cold steel of the bicycle chain. He knows what it is instantly-he'd been working on the bike when he finally nabbed his "guest." He snatches up the chain, manages to get it over her head and around her neck.

She struggles at first, struggles hard-gotta hand it to her, she's a fighter…that's part of what drew him to her in the first place. No ordinary girl for him….

Slowly his strength wins out, and her weight falls against him as she sags backward, taking him to the floor with her, the chain still taut around her neck. He realizes at once that something's wrong.

He didn't mean to kill her-merely to subdue her; but now she wasn't fighting, in fact…she didn't seem to be breathing.

He loosens the chain, puts a hand to her throat-no pulse.

He had hoped to keep her alive. Alive, she could come to finally feel the love for him that he felt for her. But even though she was dead, she would be his now, all his, compliant at last. Cooperative. Behaving herself.

Now, she's his forever.

"Good," Grissom said to Sara. "Good…. What else have you got, Doc?"

Robbins sighed, gathering his thoughts. "Preliminary tox screen is negative, but we're still waiting for the final report. As we posited, there's evidence of necrophilia. The jaws were broken post-mortem, to allow for easier entry."

"The tearing around her vagina?" Sara asked. "Is that the same…?"

"Also post-mortem-though I'm sure he assaulted her before her death. There's bruising that could only have occurred when she was alive. SART exam had nothing."

Warrick asked, "Why'd he get rid of her now?"

"Take a whiff, Warrick," Grissom said. "That's not springtime."

"Gil's right," Robbins said. "To put this as delicately as possible, Ms. Lewis was becoming a touch too…ripe."

Sara frowned. "Would a man obsessed in this fashion even be aware or concerned about that?"

"Within his obsession," Robbins said, "possibly not. But psychotics are exceptionally good at compartmentalizing, and often able to function and blend into normal society, with relative ease."

Still frowning, Sara said, "I don't get your point, Doc."

But it was Grissom who provided the answer: "The stench may not have bothered our man, but the neighbors, the postman, the meterman, most certainly might be expected to notice. He's cognizant enough of the realities of day-to-day life in the real world to be aware of such things."

Robbins picked up the thread. "She'd ripened past keeping her in the house or apartment or garage he was holding her in. He had to get rid of her, so he did what he could think of."

Sara nodded. "Left her by the side of the road."

Grissom asked Robbins, "Any idea how long she's been dead?"

"He tried to preserve her, but he wasn't very successful," Robbins said. "Rigor has come and gone and there's some post-mortem lividity."

Rigor mortis started as little as two hours after death, Sara knew, and was generally gone within forty-eight to sixty hours; post-mortem lividity meant that the blood had begun to pool after the heart stopped pumping.

She asked, "You figure he kept her lying on her back?"

The coroner shook his head. "The lividity is concentrated more in the buttocks and lower back. She was reclined at least slightly, and since the killer tried to preserve her, I'm going to say he probably kept her in a bathtub or perhaps a trough of some kind. There's also some marbling."

Marbling was a part of the putrefaction process; the veins took on a purple or bluish pigment under the skin, due to the decomposing blood.

Robbins asked a question: "How long has she been missing?"

Grissom said, "Three weeks-give or take a day or two."

"She's probably been dead half that time, anyway."

That was all Robbins had for them, for the moment.

"As the tests start coming back," the coroner said, "I'll have more for you."

"Don't by shy about staying in touch, Doc," Grissom said. "The politics of this smell worse than your patient."

"Not like you, Gil," Robbins said, "getting involved in politics."

"I'm not involved in politics." The CSI supervisor lowered his gaze upon the dead woman; with the science out of the way, his guard was down, and Sara could see the pity in his eyes. "Unfortunately, Ms. Lewis here was."

Then Grissom began issuing orders to his team members: "All right, let's split up. Warrick, find out what you can about the piece of taillight."

"All over it, Gris."

"Sara, get that missing persons file and go over it like a crime scene."

"Ecklie's shift drew that case, you know."

"I know. I just don't care. Go over that file, make sure we know all we can, and meanwhile, I'll check with the labs. End of shift, my office."

When Sara arrived at Grissom's office some three hours later, the door was open, but neither her boss nor Warrick were there; for a fleeting instant, she had the feeling that the meeting had been moved and no one had bothered to tell her. A little kneejerk paranoia was starting to kick in when Warrick ambled up from his tiny office.

"Where's Gris?" he asked.

Hanging just outside Grissom's door, she shrugged. "Just got here myself. Find anything?"

"Maybe. How about you?"

"I think so."

Warrick chuckled. "You notice how gun-shy Gris has made us, about forming our own opinions?"

She grinned. "Tell me about it."

That was when Grissom arrived.

"Inside," he said.

They entered his office and spread out, Grissom sitting behind his desk, Warrick leaning against a set of shelves to the left of the entrance, Sara remaining near the door where she could see them both.

Grissom began speaking without preamble: "The trace lab is working on the carpeting and the duct tape."

"Anything yet?" Sara asked.

"Results from the mass spectrometer say that the carpet is made of polypropylene-olefin."

"Gezzundheit," Warrick said.

Grissom gave Warrick the look he seemed to reserve for those times when his young CSIs exhibited humor too sophomoric for his tastes. "It's actually a good thing."

"Why?" Sara asked.

"Only about twenty-two percent of manufactured carpeting," Grissom said, not referring to any notes, "is made from that particular compound."

"Which narrows our search," Warrick said.

"Which narrows our search. What did you two find out?"

Warrick and Sara traded looks, then she nodded at him to go first, which he did.

"The plastic is from a taillight; we were already pretty sure of that. But I found a partial part number stamped on the inside, and ran that."

"And?"

"And the piece of plastic came from one of three types of cars: a 95-01 Chevrolet Monte Carlo, a Chevy Lumina from the same years or a Chevy Impala from 2000 or 2001."

Grissom frowned in thought. "What did Mr. Benson say he saw?"

Also not referring to notes, Warrick said, "A white Chevy, possibly a Monte Carlo."

Sara said, "Could we possibly have actually found a reliable eyewitness?"

"Let's not jump to that conclusion," her boss said. Then he asked Warrick, "How many 95-01 white Monte Carlos registered in Clark County?"

"Car's only five years old, so there's quite a few. White ones? Just under a hundred. All Monte Carlos, Luminas and Impalas that fit the profile, and all the others-just in case our eyeball witness got the color wrong, or the car had been repainted-there's just about a thousand."

"Tell me you started with the short list."

"I did. Already put it on the radio-patrol cars'll be watching for a car that matches."

"Good."

Warrick twitched a smile. High praise from Grissom.

Who moved onto to his other CSI, saying, "Sara?"

"Biggest news is Ecklie's people found definite evidence that Mayor Harrison was having an affair with Candace Lewis."

Grissom sat up. "How definite?"

"Well…real definite. Like, his DNA was in her bed."

Grissom's mouth dropped open like a trapdoor; the CSI supervisor rarely expressed surprise so blatantly. And the normally laid-back Warrick straightened up, the usually half-lidded eyes wide open.

"Ecklie's people," Grissom said, in a measured manner, "found His Honor's DNA in Candace's bed…and said nothing?"

Sara shrugged. "I don't know about that. File doesn't indicate whether or not they informed the sheriff or the FBI or either or neither…no notes in the file mention anything to that effect."

Warrick let out a bitter chuckle. "Well, at least Ecklie didn't leak it to the press."

Sara had not followed the story intently, but anyone in Las Vegas-really, anyone in America with cable or access to a newsstand tabloid-knew the parameters of the case.

And for conclusive evidence of an affair between the Mayor and Candace to be the one bit of information about the case to have fallen through the cracks…well, that was unthinkable. The hell His Honor was currently living through would have been multiplied by a factor of ten.

Grissom's eyes were grim. "Warrick, stay on the carpeting and the car." Turning to Sara, he added, "Get that file-we're calling on Sheriff Mobley."

Ten minutes later, Sara was standing in the sheriff's outer office; her "day" was supposed to be over, and the city government's was just beginning. A recent City Hall renovation had garnered the sheriff the extra room and his civilian secretary, a very efficient-seeming woman in her forties, was doing her best to convince Grissom he couldn't enter Mobley's private office.

"You simply can't go in there," she said again, her voice growing more shrill.

But the preoccupied Grissom was already almost past her now, his hand on the knob of a door marked PRIVATE, and only when the woman gripped him by the arm did he turn to acknowledge her presence, despite the fact that probably most of the building had heard her all-but-scream at him.

"What is it you want?" he asked, frowning mildly.

"I said you can't go in there-Sheriff Mobley is in a very important meeting and doesn't wish to be disturbed."

"I'm afraid he's going to be," Grissom said, "when he sees this." He held up the file folder. "You tell Sheriff Mobley that Gil Grissom from CSI has discovered suppressed evidence from the Candace Lewis case…and see if he doesn't make time for me."

At that instant Mobley's door opened and the sheriff stood framed there, red-faced with anger, inches away from Grissom. "What the hell is going on out here?"

Grissom brandished the manila folder. "Did you know about this?"

The two men moved deeper into the office; the secretary was fading back, confused and alarmed. Sara kept her position on the periphery, fascinated to see Grissom in such an emotional state. Others might have assumed Grissom was as cool as usual, but Sara could sense the rage.

"Did I know about what?" Mobley snapped, defensively. Then, taking it down a notch, the sheriff added, "I honestly have no idea what you're talking about, Gil."

A short, pudgy man in a crisp suit and tie, his flat face decorated with a beaky nose and black-button eyes, stood eavesdropping in the doorway. Sara did not know this man, but his grimace and generally dismayed expression indicated he recognized the file folder, even if the sheriff did not.

"This," Grissom said, indicating the folder, "is the report Conrad Ecklie's people did on their search of Candace Lewis's apartment."

The pudgy little man stepped into the room and said, "You two gentleman have things to talk about-I'll stop back later, Sheriff."

"Don't rush off on my account, Mr. Anthony," Grissom said with an acid smile.

"See you later, Ed," the sheriff said, absently, and Anthony hurried across the office, flashing a nervous smile at Sara before he rushed out and was gone.

Interesting, Sara thought.

"Mrs. Mathis," the sheriff said to the secretary, "please step out into the hall, and make sure no one enters."

"Yes sir," she said, her confusion apparent, but she complied.

They did not move into the sheriff's office, remaining in the outer reception area, as if this were somehow neutral turf. The sheriff seemed calmer, now. "I didn't know there was a report from the Lewis woman's apartment. I thought they were still waiting for lab results."

Grissom winced. "For three weeks?"

"Well, don't some of your lab results take a long time?"

That slowed Grissom down. He flapped the air with the folder. "You didn't know about the report?"

"Gil, you have my word."

Grissom said nothing for a moment; he was studying the sheriff as carefully as he might a specimen on a slide. Then he said, "How is it that you never saw the crime scene report from the highest-profile missing persons case we've had in years?"

Mobley thought about that, and the irritation in him was building-and Sara didn't sense the irritation was aimed at Grissom.

Finally the sheriff said, "Frankly, I don't know-let's find out."

Mobley went to the door and opened it, scaring his secretary a little, as she stood out there awkwardly waiting. "Mrs. Mathis," he said, "come back in and find out where Conrad Ecklie is-and tell him I want to see him immediately."

"Certainly, sir," Samantha said, slipping in, moving past the sheriff and returning to her desk.

Mobley was heading toward his inner office, motioning in a manner that wasn't unfriendly. "You two come in," he said, "and let me have a look at that report."

Now it was Grissom who hung back. Sara was surprised to note an expression of confusion on the boss's face-it wasn't common.

"What is it?" Mobley demanded.

Grissom shrugged. "You've recused yourself from this case."

"Gil!" Mobley blurted. His eyes were huge and rolling. "For God's sake, man, you can't have it both ways. Either you want me to see that report, or you don't!"

"You're a suspect, Brian."

"Well, I think you've already made that clear," Mobley said sarcastically.

Grissom's tone seemed tentatively conciliatory. "What I need is for you to tell me the truth about this report. I need to know if you've already seen it."

The secretary was on the phone, trying to make her call to Ecklie.

"You have my word, Gil, I haven't. I have never seen any crime scene report about Candace Lewis. Now, damnit…come in."

As Sara and Grissom entered Mobley's inner office, the CSI supervisor handed the sheriff-who had shut the door-the manila folder.

Seated behind his desk now, Mobley opened the folder, slow-scanning contents; then he looked up disbelievingly at Grissom and Sara, who stood in front of his desk.

"Sit," the sheriff said, his voice weary, and they did, as Mobley went back to the report to read it more carefully.

When he'd finished, the sheriff looked across at the two CSIs. "They found Harrison's DNA in her bed?"

Grissom nodded.

Sara couldn't tell how her boss was reading the situation, but to her, Mobley seemed completely, honestly surprised. She believed the man had never seen the report before; and, if he had, Sheriff Brian Mobley was a better actor than the vast majority of liars the CSIs encountered. And they had encountered quite a few.

Before the discussion could even begin, a soft knock came at the door.

Mobley said, "Come in," and Mrs. Mathis ushered in dayshift CSI supervisor Conrad Ecklie. The secretary disappeared, but Ecklie froze just inside, apparently surprised to see Grissom and Sara.

"Come in, Conrad," Mobley said.

Ecklie nodded to the other two and stood next to where Grissom was seated.

"Good morning, Sheriff," Ecklie said. "I understand, there's a matter of some urgency…?"

Mobley tossed the report across the desk. Ecklie looked down at it; his eyes and nostrils flared. "What's this?"

"Nothing much," Mobley said. "Just the Candace Lewis crime scene report."

Ecklie seemed confused. "What do you mean?"

"Do I stutter? How much more clearly do I need to put it? This is the Candace Lewis crime scene report!"

"But…Sheriff…Brian…I gave that to you weeks ago."

Sara and Grissom exchanged glances, then turned back to the sheriff, Grissom saying sharply, "So then, you have seen it?"

Mobley shook his head vigorously. "No." Then to Ecklie, he demanded, "Conrad, why the hell are you lying about this?"

Both Mobley and Grissom were glaring at the dayshift supervisor.

Who seemed beside himself. "But I'm not! I'm not lying-what possible reason would I have to lie about that?" Ecklie looked pleadingly at Grissom. "I know we've had our little problems, Gil-but the sheriff…this must be some political maneuvering. If one of us is lying, it has to be him!"

"Goddamnit," Mobley began, thrusting to his feet.

Eyes moving quickly from Grissom to Mobley and back again, a desperate-sounding Ecklie said, "I'm telling you, Grissom, I brought that up personally to this office, two weeks ago!"

Mobley, almost shouting, said, "And you claim you gave this to me, personally?"

"Yes! I…" Ecklie's mouth went slack. "Actually…no. No, come to think of it…no. I didn't."

"Did you or didn't you give the report to the sheriff?" Grissom demanded.

Pitiful now, Ecklie said, "I gave it to him…but I didn't give it to him."

No wonder,Sara thought, Grissom always seemed on the verge of tearing his hair out, when Ecklie's name came up….

"Care to explain that?" Grissom asked, outwardly calm; but one of the hands in his lap had, Sara noted, involuntarily balled into a vein-throbbing fist.

Taking a deep breath, Ecklie alternated his gaze from Grissom to Mobley and back again. "I was bringing it to the sheriff, when I ran into Ed Anthony in the hallway."

Grissom sat up; Mobley's face fell.

Ecklie was saying, "We got to talking, some political chit chat or other, and Ed volunteered to deliver the report to the sheriff for me…. You were in some kind of meeting, Brian."

Mobley sighed and fell into his chair, hanging his head.

"And you handed that little toady a confidential report," Grissom said. It wasn't really a question….

"He…he was already coming this way," Ecklie said, with an elaborate open-handed defensive gesture. "Told me the sheriff was busy in a meeting, and…anyway, it's not like that was the only case we had on our plates…"

"Just the biggest case in Vegas so far this century," Mobley said softly.

Ecklie swallowed and continued: "…and besides, the report was going straight from here to the FBI. After all, at that point it was just a kidnapping."

Sara couldn't believe anyone could, with a straight face, say "just a kidnapping"; but she knew better than to get into this.

Mobley's fist banged off his desk.

Sara jumped a little and Ecklie flinched; Grissom had no reaction.

The sheriff's face had turned a delicate shade of pink, definitely on its way to the full-blown red-faced rage for which the sheriff was famous.

Mobley used the intercom to tell his secretary: "Mrs. Mathis, get Ed Anthony back up here, now!"

Within minutes-long, strained minutes, during which Sara, Grissom, Ecklie (seated now) and Mobley waited silently, the sheriff's rage palpable-a timid knock came to the door.

"Come in!" the sheriff bellowed.

It was not the most inviting invitation Sara had ever heard….

The door squeaked open and Ed Anthony's hairchallenged head poked through the narrow opening; the political adviser's eyes were bright, or was that just…fear?

"Wanted to see me, Brian?"

"Get your ass in here, Ed."

Swallowing, the aide shut the door gently and padded over, standing beside Sara, his hands fig-leafed before him. "Problem, Sheriff?"

Mobley picked up the manila folder, shaking it nastily. "Did Conrad Ecklie give you this report, to pass on to me?"

Anthony nodded meekly. "Why? Is that a problem?"

"Well, you didn't pass it on to me, did you?"

"No…I didn't."

"Do you know what's in this report?"

The political hack looked everywhere but at the sheriff. "Yes. I, uh…gave it a read."

He might have been talking about the latest Stephen King novel.

Grissom turned Anthony's way and said, pleasantly, "And then you decided to hold it back until the election-so you could use it to smear Mayor Harrison?"

Anthony said nothing.

"That," Mobley said tightly, "is tantamount to withholding evidence."

"No! No, I was protecting you, Brian."

"Protecting! You're about to screw my career over!"

"Not at all." Anthony patted the air, placatingly. "I was attempting to help you. Information of that sensitive a nature needs to be released carefully, at an opportune time. Correctly used, that's the ammunition we need to-"

"We?" Mobley interrupted, on his feet again, hands flat on the desk. "There is no 'we,' Ed. You're fired."

"Brian, I understand that you're concerned. And we both know you have a temper. I'm going to advise you count to ten and-"

"You're not going to advise me about shit, from here on out!"

"Brian…"

"Get out! Get out!"

And now Anthony was almost running to the door.

But Mobley froze him: "And don't even think about leaving town, because if I can find a way to bring charges against you for this, I will."

At the door, with a little space between them now, Anthony suddenly summoned some anger of his own. "For what, Brian? For trying to get your hot-headed ass elected mayor?"

Sara was not quite able to process that mixed image.

"No," someone said, calmly.

Grissom.

His voice was quiet, the serenity of it causing the other two men to stop shouting and gape at him: "For aiding and abetting. For possibly turning Candace Lewis's kidnapping into a murder."

Anthony gestured to himself, his eyes enormous, almost as enormous as the fear in his voice. "I…I…I didn't kill her!"

Grissom's tone remained placid. "You withheld key information from our top law enforcement officer…the sheriff, here…information that might have saved her."

"You can't know that."

"You're right, I can't, I don't-and now? None of us ever will."

Finally Grissom stood, turning toward the former aide. His voice was so unthreatening that it went beyond any threat: "But I will tell you this, Mr. Anthony. Without your interference, that young woman might still be alive…. A fact that will not reflect well on your candidate-Sheriff Mobley."

"Out, Ed," Mobley said, sounding fatigued. "Just go."

Face white with alarm, features slack with defeat, Anthony slipped out.

Turning his attention to Ecklie, Mobley said, "You know better than this, Conrad."

Ecklie nodded; the normally egotistical supervisor now seemed humble. "What can I say? I was careless. I screwed up."

"Yeah, you did."

"Brian, I appreciate this…you being so understanding."

"You're welcome, Conrad-three days' suspension. No pay."

Swallowing hard, Ecklie accepted his punishment in silence.

"Go home, Conrad. And if you breathe a word to the media, I'll fire your ass, too."

Nodding, Ecklie left the office, his eyes never landing anywhere near Grissom and Sara.

With just the three of them in the room, the silence seemed deafening. Finally, Mobley was the one to shatter it. "I know," Mobley said, "I don't have to tell the two of you what to do."

Still on his feet, Grissom nodded, picked up the report and headed toward the door, Sara following him. They were almost there when Mobley's voice stopped them.

"Am I in the clear as a suspect yet?"

Turning back, Grissom said, "Not yet."

"DNA?"

"Don't have those results yet."

"I suppose it would be mean-spirited to hope it turns out Ed Anthony did it."

Grissom managed a miniscule smile. "Not really, considering it would probably kill you politically."

Mobley grunted a laugh. "Sometimes, Grissom, having an apolitical asshole like you on the team is a real benefit."

"I appreciate the compliment, Brian. And if it helps-I believe you're innocent."

"Don't tell me that's a hunch?"

"An educated one. Just don't tell anybody."

The sheriff tried to smile but couldn't quite muster it.

In the hall, all business, Grissom said to Sara, "We need a search warrant for Mayor Harrison's house and home."

Sara frowned. "Will a judge give us a warrant based on that DNA evidence?"

Shrugging, Grissom said, "Not only were they having an affair, we also have His Honor's fingerprints in her car, day she disappeared. Go to Judge Giles-he'll listen to reason."

"All right."

They were still walking down the hall when Grissom's cell phone chirped. He took it from his belt, punched a button, and raised the phone to his ear. "Grissom."

He listened for a while.

Then he said, as they walked along, "All right. Sara and I have something to do here…. Well, that'll make Mobley feel a little better, anyway."

He listened again, Sara unable to read him.

"All right-stay in touch." He punched the end button then and replaced the phone on his belt.

They walked a little and then Sara asked, "Do I have to beg?"

"That was Warrick-he got carpeting samples from the sheriff's house. None of it matches our remnant."

"That's good news, I guess. For Mobley, anyway."

"One step at a time," Grissom said. "We still have other suspects."

"Like the mayor."

"For one. Now, let's get that search warrant and ruin Mayor Harrison's day."

7

GARY RANDLE'S BELLIGERENCE WAS NOT ENOUGH TO EARN Catherine Willows a search warrant for the suspect's house. But it did provide extra weight in landing her a court order for fingerprinting the Newcombe-Gold employee, which meant-the courthouse being the courthouse-the process took till Wednesday morning. In the meantime, however, Catherine and Nick had learned a good deal about the advertising man.

A few quick calls Tuesday evening had confirmed that Randle had indeed been in the agency offices over the weekend. Janice Denard and several other employees all remembered seeing him, though none could verify whether he'd been working at his own desk or had perhaps been in Ben Jackson's cubicle. And no one seemed to know what project Randle might have been working on.

For all Janice Denard's efficiency, Catherine had the feeling that Newcombe-Gold was a pretty loosely run ship.

When the court order came through this morning, Nick had talked Catherine out of accompanying him to take the man's fingerprints.

"Really, Cath," Nick said. "It's not just necessary-how many CSIs does it take to screw in a light bulb, anyway?"

"AC or DC? Fluorescent or incandescent?"

But in the end, she sent Nick off to Newcombe-Gold, by himself.

Probably a good call. She was still pissed at Randle for balking and making such a scene, yesterday. Sure, the man was well within his rights; but there was just something about the guy that got her hackles up. Her presence might only serve to accelerate a simple fingerprinting into another scene….

Thanks to some speedy imaging work by Tomas Nunez and his trusty compu-posse, the ad agency would be back at work some time this morning. They were using copies of their old drives, but all their information was there, and they could return to business as usual. At least that problem was out of the way, and it would encourage Newcombe-Gold to be even more cooperative in what could prove to be difficult days ahead.

While she waited for Nick's return, Catherine for the third (or was it the fourth?) time went through what they had learned about Randle, thanks to investigative work by O'Riley, who had talked to neighbors and other agency employees, and seen to the routine computer checks.

Divorced from an alcoholic ex-wife named Elaine, Randle had sole custody of their fourteen-year-old daughter, Heather; he volunteered as a youth counselor at Scenic Peak Presbyterian on Del Webb Boulevard in Summerlin. He and his daughter lived in a two-story stucco home on Crown Vista Lane, not far off Fort Apache Road and Prize Lake Drive.

Randle had originally lost custody of the girl in the divorce, but when Elaine was charged with DUI and reckless endangerment of her daughter, the father had gotten the child back with little trouble. For her part, the ex-wife seemed to have kept her nose clean since her last arrest five years ago. Court records showed that she still had contact with her daughter, through supervised visits.

Looking vaguely nautical in today's ensemble of white Polo with horizontal navy stripes and navy Dockers, Nick Stokes came jauntily back in, waving a white card. "Stop the presses-got the dude's prints, right here."

"When you say 'dude,' are you trying to make me feel young?" Catherine asked, swinging around in her chair. "Because it's not working…. Let's get these loaded in the computer."

"You got it."

They were in the corridor in seconds.

Nick said, "And I'm just saying 'dude,' 'cause I'm just…saying dude."

Catherine stopped abruptly and so did Nick, who looked at her wide-eyed as she touched his chest with a forefinger. "Nicky, never forget-it's all about me."

He grinned at her. "Sometimes that does slip my mind."

They were on the move again, Catherine saying, "I want to know ASAP if there's a match."

"Wouldn't it be nice if we could nail this guy."

Catherine looked sideways at him. "You think he's guilty?"

"I don't think anything!…I just meant…Well…he is a good suspect."

"He's a great suspect."

"That's doesn't make him guilty, Cath."

"No. Of course not."

"Only the evidence can do that."

"Right, Nicky. Hey, we're cool."

"You don't think…'cause of…your daughter…My background, and…"

"Nick! We're professionals."

They had already fed the prints of all the other employees into the computer; and of the two sets of prints on Ben Jackson's keyboard, one belonged to Ben himself, and the other set remained unknown.

"Either Randle is our match," Nick said, "or…"

"Or we're back to square one. I hate going back to square one."

Nick shrugged as they turned the corner on the corridor. "Maybe not square one. Ruben Gold left town Friday, yeah, but we should still look at him, talk to him…and Roxanne Scott was in the office on Saturday."

Catherine threw a smirk at Nicky. "And if neither of them pans out?"

Another shrug, but less upbeat. "We really are back at square one."

Catherine dreaded that-starting over, and maybe looking outside the company somehow. Newcombe-Gold employed a rent-a-cop security outfit, which O'Riley was looking into; maybe some security guard had…

But Catherine knew she was getting ahead of herself. First things first.

While Nick took care of the fingerprints, Catherine checked in with Nunez. The computer expert had returned the ad agency's equipment, but he was still sifting through the copies he'd made for himself.

She found the tall, unlikely computer geek still in the garage where he and his crew had first set up. The others were gone, and Nunez was left to wade through the mountain of information on his own.

"What's new?" she asked, giving him a smile.

Glancing up from the screen of his monitor, he said, "You clearly haven't heard." Catherine frowned. "What haven't I heard?"

"Hey-I'll tell you, but don't shoot the messenger."

"Well, not to kill, anyway. What, Tomas?"

"Mobley took me off your case…. Temporarily! Just temporarily…."

Catherine felt red-hot anger rising inside her, but she managed not to detonate all over Nunez. "And why would the esteemed Sheriff Mobley do that?"

He sighed, shrugged. "Sorry-but some thoughtless asshole hacked into a bank last night, and the sheriff's got me on that. I'll start working your stuff again, ASAP-but Mobley's on my tail to find this hacker, stat."

"Gee, I wonder if this bank has a president or chairman of the board who's a potential contributor to Mobley's mayoral campaign or anything…"

"Hey, I don't do politics!"

Her hands came up in front of her and she pressed them together, her knuckles turning white.

"Easy, Cath-it's not all bad news."

"Improve my mood. Quick."

Nunez did his best: "We imaged and processed all thirty hard drives using Encase, version four."

Catherine nodded-she'd heard of, though never used, the Guidance Software product. She knew it allowed for bit-by-bit copying of hard drives, zip disks, USB devices, even Palm Pilots.

"Then," Nunez was saying, "I verified the copies using an MD5 Hash algorithm."

"Of course you did," she said, invoking a light humor she didn't feel, both of them knowing she had no idea what an MD5 Hash whatever-the-hell was.

"It's like a digital fingerprint," Nunez said. "The odds of two files having the same hash value and not being identical is two raised to the 128th power, or 340 billion billion billion billion to one."

She shook her head. "You can't get better odds anywhere in Vegas."

"Not unless you're the house. Cath, that's about the same as winning the LOTTO four in a row."

"So, we're sure you got everything then."

"Damn sure," he said. "And that's not just the files-it's deleted files, file slack and unallocated space. If there was ever kiddie porn on any of these machines, I'll find it."

"That's good news. But when?"

"Either when I catch the bank hacker, or when Mobley decides to let me get back to it."

"Before the interruption, did you find out anything?"

Nunez nodded. "The hard drive in Ruben Gold's computer was negative for any child-porn pics."

"Okay-that's a start."

"I couldn't find any pictures on any of the client computers, either."

"Client computers?" she asked.

"The other machines in the network."

"So how did our pictures get there?"

A shrug. "Lots of possible ways-I just don't know which one yet."

Not liking the sound of this, Catherine made sure she was following Nunez, asking, "So there's no porn on any of the computers?"

"Not even a casual hit on an adult site. And just to make sure, I ran an E-Script to carve all the jpegs out of each hard drive-and none of those resembled the ones from the printer."

She knew jpegs-that is, .jpg files-were the common photo format for pornographers to use. "But did the print order come from work station eighteen or not?"

His answer didn't really sound like an answer to the CSI: "I searched the network server hard drives."

Striving for patience, Catherine nodded as if she followed this. The truth was, her daughter Lindsey probably knew more about the actual workings of the machines. Embarrassing as it might be to a scientist like Catherine, the guts of the things were completely foreign to her. Nunez, however, was babbling on: "I found print files showing pictures angel1.jpg through angel12.jpg were sent to Ruben Gold's computer."

"Which led to?"

"Me looking in the network logs and finding that the pictures came from a client computer using an IP address of 1.160.10.240."

"Okay-I can't even pretend you haven't lost me…."

"An IP address is an identifier for a computer or a device on a TCP/IP network. These networks route messages based on the IP address of the destination."

"The destination," she said, "not the sender?"

He nodded. "Don't panic just yet-there's more. Date and time stamps on the print file showed that it was created early Saturday morning. Then the IP address found in the server log showed that it came from client computer number eighteen."

Relief flooded through her. "So-we were right; and everything you've done has cemented that."

"That would be a great big si."

"But on the other hand, we really haven't gotten any further."

Nunez's face fell, a little. "No, we really haven't…and as long as Mobley's got me on this bank hacker, we're stalled."

"If you can steal a little time for me…"

"I will. You know I will.

"Thanks, Tomas."

Exasperated, Catherine strode off.

She found Nick hunkered in front of the AFIS computer.

Without waiting for him to look up, much less report, she launched into her tirade: "Mobley took Tomas away from us to track down some bank hacker!"

Nick shrugged. "Grand larceny trumps kiddie porn, I guess."

"Trumps kiddie porn?" she fumed. "Are you serious?"

He gave her a sideways look, then turned to face her. "No. I wasn't."

But she was already off the runway, and there was no coming back: "Just because this isn't a murder or a crime involving money, Mobley's willing to stick these abused kids on the back burner! Well I sure as hell am not!"

Nick patted the air in front of him until she lapsed into silence. "Why-do you think I am?"

"No, but…"

Reasonable as Nicky was being, Catherine could not stop the white-hot anger coursing through her. An urge to tear the lab apart caused her to tremble and she fought to stay in control. She fell into the chair beside Nick and she sensed his hand on her shoulder.

Her frustration was palpable now, a heaviness in her body, a rage in her brain, and a thickening of her tongue. She felt tears flowing. "Shit! Shitshitshit!…If you tell Grissom I broke down, I'll…"

"Hey, dude," Nick said gently. "Your secret's safe with me."

She laughed a little, though still crying, and Nick got her some Kleenex. She said, "It…it's jus…just…I'd like to track down that bastard Mobley and curse him into next week…."

"I hear you."

"Nicky, those girls in those photos-they're barely older than Lindsey!"

"I know."

"And the department just doesn't seem to care."

"I know that, too."

And she fell into his arms, she in her chair, he in his, and patted his back, as if he were the one crying.

He pushed her away, and smiled at her, providing more Kleenex. He reserved one for himself, but his voice was strong as he said, "We'll solve this. We will solve it. Now-how about some good news?"

Her trembling had subsided a little. "Yeah. Yeah, some good news…I could use it, I could really use it…."

Nick's grin was almost pixie-ish. "Gary Randle's prints…are a match."

"Oh, Nicky. That's great. I told you he was a good suspect."

"No, you said he was a great suspect."

She drew in a deep breath-she felt as though she'd been held under water for too long, and only now was just bursting through the surface.

Nick said, "Those were his prints on the keyboard in Ben Jackson's cubicle."

"How about AFIS?" she asked, meaning the national fingerprint database.

"I put him through," Nick said, "but he's got no priors."

"It's enough for a search warrant. We can get inside that house now!"

"Yes we can," he said, nodding. "Make the call, Cath. And I'll get O'Riley up to speed."

An hour later, the CSIs were back at Newcombe-Gold, moving single-file down the corridor toward Randle's office with Nick in the lead, holding a wad of papers in one hand and his CS case in the other. Catherine, carrying her own case and more papers, tagged right behind him with O'Riley trailing her. As the procession approached the conference room, Janice Denard stepped out in their path.

"Did you find out anything?" she asked.

"Still digging," Nick said, with a nod of hello, and then walked on.

The blonde office manager fell in beside Catherine, who said, "Getting closer," then handed the woman a copy of the new search warrant.

Denard dropped out to read the document, while the others kept going. The half-glass front wall of his office warned Randle of their approach and he was out of his chair even before they were completely through the door.

"Now, goddamnit, this is harassment!" He was coming around the desk as he spoke. "Didn't you already get your damned fingerprints?"

Nick stood and faced the ad man. "And I do appreciate your cooperation, earlier; and you don't even have to answer our questions, about whether or not you were here this weekend-we already know you were."

O'Riley stepped up, taking a referee's position, as the two men continued the tense exchange.

"So I was here! Damn it, I work here!" Today, the adman wore an expensive charcoal suit, white shirt and a red and blue diagonally striped power tie.

"You know," Catherine said from the sidelines, in a tone that pretended to be light, "you might want to ease up on the attitude…. It's not going to reflect very well."

Randle glared over at her. "What are you talking about?"

But it was Nick who spoke next: "It's not just that you were here this weekend, Mr. Randle-but that you also used Ben Jackson's work station." The CSI held up the sheaf of papers. "We matched your fingerprints."

Randle's anger evaporated and he laughed out loud, as he took a step back, as if reappraising not just the situation but these law enforcement officers.

"You're kidding, right? Is that what this is about? Me using some poor schlub's computer, while he was out of town for the weekend? Is this some weird crackdown Gold or Newcombe instigated?"

Catherine stepped forward. "Actually, it is about you using some poor schlub's computer over the weekend. And it is police business."

She held one of the pornographic printouts out, just inches from his face.

Tightly she said, "Specifically, it's about you using Ben Jackson's computer to print this out, and a dozen more like it…. Why, Mr. Randle!…You're not laughing anymore."

And he wasn't. His laugh had died in his throat as his eyes focused on the photo. He swallowed thickly and stumbled backward, till his desk stopped him.

"You…you think I did what?"

And his anger returned, the man recovering quickly, stepping forward, eyes flaring.

"You think I printed this filth-off company property? And that I did it with, with…sick shit like this? I have a daughter, a young daughter! You people are sick. You can't honestly believe…"

The man's eyes traveled from the photo to Catherine's and locked-she did her best to tell him, with her eyes, that that's exactly what she did believe. And he appeared to get the message.

He half-sat on the edge of the desk, clearly staggered.

Nick stepped forward. "You want to tell us what you printed out on Saturday? If it wasn't these photos?"

Randle's eyes, not so confident now, went to Nick's stony face. "You can't believe that I…" Then he shook his head. "I can tell trying to get through to you people is useless. You've already made up your minds."

Nick frowned. "Mr. Randle…"

"I'm not saying another word till I've spoken to my attorney."

O'Riley, still standing nearby like a ref, said, "That's your right, sir," but the respect of the words took on a chill, thanks to the detective's cold eyes.

Catherine said, "Give Mr. Randle the warrant, Nicky."

Nick did, saying, "As the true owners of this office, Newcombe-Gold's representative, Janice Denard, has already been served with this warrant; but out of consideration to your rights, this is a copy for you."

"Thank you very much," Randle said, oozing sarcasm as he took the piece of paper; but the voice was edged with anxiety now.

Then Nick handed the man a second warrant. "And this one is for your home."

Randle didn't accept this warrant, at first, looking at the paper as if Nick were offering a glass of poison. Still half-sitting on the desk's front edge, the adman fell into an uneasy silence. Nick held out the paper; Randle stared at it. Nick said nothing; Randle said nothing.

After seconds that seemed like minutes, Randle took the paper, reluctantly, and said, "I'll have to call my lawyer. Any objection?"

"Of course not," Nick said.

The man removed his cell phone from his suitcoat pocket.

Moving quickly, Catherine snatched the device from his hand. "But not with this!"

"What the hell?" Randle exploded. He was on his feet now, glaring at Catherine, his eyes wild. "Are you crazy? You can't stop me from calling my attorney!"

"Wouldn't dream of it," she said sweetly. "But we're going to place that call for you."

He looked baffled. "Why in hell?"

Catherine's eyebrows lifted. "Perhaps because we didn't just fall off a turnip truck. We're aware that you may set things up to wipe your hard drive, at home, clean-with just a phone call."

His eyes rolled. "You're insane-why in hell would I destroy my own computer? Why would I have it set up to do so with…a phone call?"

"Mr. Randle, if you're a trafficker in child pornography," Catherine said blandly, "you'll know the answer to that. If not, I suggest you allow us to do our job, which if you're innocent will include clearing you."