Grave Matters

--05 Grave Matters (10-2004)

For Skip Willits-

who knows that art matters.

I would like to acknowledge my assistant on this

work, forensics researcher/co-plotter,

Matthew V. Clemens.

Further acknowledgments appear at the

conclusion of this novel.

M.A.C.

"I never guess. It is a shocking habit."

-The Sign of Four, ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE

"Very few of us are what we seem."

-Partners in Crime, AGATHA CHRISTIE

1

AUGUST HEAT PUMMELED LAS VEGAS, the nighttime temperature hovering just over 100 degrees, driving the natives inside the air-conditioned sanctity of their homes. Out on Las Vegas Boulevard, in front of Treasure Island, electronically controlled sprayers over the sidewalks cool-misted the crowd as they watched pirates killing each other…though where mist stopped and the sweat started, who could say?

Downtown, on Fremont Street, even as the evening light show flashed overhead like gaudy lightning, many of the usual gawkers ducked into the coolness of casinos lining the pedestrian mall. Hearing Sinatra sing about luck being a lady, craning your head back to watch giant tumbling electric dice, wasn't nearly so much fun when salty pools of perspiration settled in and around your eyes.

In the desert around the city, even the animals were hunkering down, seeking the coolest spots Mother Nature could provide. Coyotes lay silent, too parched to howl, and the snakes sought refuge under rocks, away from the scorching desert air, slithering into coiled solitude as if finally accepting guilt for the Garden of Eden.

During the day, when the heat did its worst, the temperature rising to over 110 degrees, tourists still milled around the Strip, shuffling with the dutiful doggedness of the vacationer ("We paid for this fun package, and by God…") from one attraction to the next, all of them bleeding sweat, each weary traveler trudging along shell-shocked, wondering how they aimed for an oasis and wound up instead in the Ninth Circle of Hell. The endless parade-this Bataan Death March outfitted in garish T-shirts, Bermuda shorts, and dark socks with sandals-took each step as if absorbing a punch.

Stuck in traffic, watching the sorry spectacle, Captain Jim Brass could relate, even though his Ford Taurus's air conditioner was cranked to the max. It's not the heat, he thought, it's the humanity. The coolness of the car's interior did nothing to relieve the sensation that he was being pummeled with each throb of a massive headache that had settled behind his eyes like a house guest that had no intention of leaving, though the party was long since over.

He hadn't even taken off his sportcoat, a sharp brown number that with his gold-patterned tie reflected an improved fashion sense that admittedly had taken him years past his divorce to cultivate. A compact man with short brown hair and a melancholy mien that belied an inner alertness, Jim Brass fought hard against cynicism, and mostly won. But what Brass had not seen in his almost twenty-five years on the Las Vegas Police Department, he was not anxious to.

As usual, the summer heat had brought out the crazies-local and imported. Here it was, not even the fifteenth of August, and already the city was pushing double-digit homicides for the month. LVPD had averaged investigating just over a dozen homicides per month for the last two years-a staggering number for a department short of bodies, at least the right kind of bodies-and now the heat seemed to be driving that number off the graph.

Brass worried that the hotter this oven of a desert got, the sooner the city might boil over….

And, of course, the politics of Brass's job were as unrelenting as the blinding sun.

There was, as the saying went, a new sheriff in town…who was bringing down some heat of his own. Former Sheriff Brian Mobley, had-after a failed mayoral bid-resigned; Mobley had never been anybody's favorite administrator, and few mourned his passing. But Sheriff Rory Atwater, while possessing better people skills than his predecessor, was no pushover. Atwater wanted the spate of killings stopped, and-Brass had already learned, in the new sheriff's first few months on the job-what Rory Atwater wanted, Rory Atwater generally got.

Both sheriffs were good, honest cops; but each was, in his way, a career politician, which only reflected the reality of the waters both lawmen had to swim in. The difference was: Mobley had always seemed like a high-school bully trying to behave himself while running for class president; Atwater, on the other hand, was smoother, more polished, and there were those in the department who considered the new boss a barracuda in a tailored suit.

Sighing to himself, stuck behind an SUV at a light, Brass pondered the latest absurdity: Atwater's meetings and memos had made it clear the sheriff expected these murders (and probably the damned heat wave as well) to stop simply because the man wanted them to…as if he could will homicide to take its own Vegas vacation. And it was up to Brass and the rest of the LVPD to turn the sheriff's desire into reality…with the results expected sooner, not later.

The snarled line of cars pulled forward another yard and Brass eased ahead, his eyes flicking toward the switch for the flashers. He was tempted, but he wouldn't break the rules and, besides, what the hell good would it do? Even if the cars ahead were willing to move out of the way, they couldn't.

Another twenty minutes passed before Brass finally slipped the Taurus into a parking place and hustled from the car into HQ, the broiling temperature popping beads of sweat out on his forehead, despite the short walk into the building. Sidestepping the metal detector, Brass nodded to the uniformed officer guarding the entrance and resisted the urge to mop his brow with his sleeve; the fabric wouldn't like it. Metal detectors had become SOP for many government buildings after 9/11, and Vegas had been no different from hundreds of other American cities in jumping on the security bandwagon.

The officer at the door was a post-9/11 occurrence as well. City Hall's atrium lobby was large and saw a great deal of foot traffic during any given day. Today was typical, with pedestrians seemingly everywhere and Brass having to duck in and out of the crowd as he made his way toward the elevator.

He had just squeezed in, touched the button for the correct floor, and was watching the doors slide shut when a suit-coated arm broke through and stopped them. Amid frowns and sighs from the half-dozen other people in the car-irritation was high on a hot day like this-Sheriff Rory Atwater strode into the elevator and gave them all a quick once-over and smile, as if this were a meeting he'd convened. Then he nodded and turned to face front.

The sheriff-in a double-breasted gray suit, white shirt with a red and blue patterned tie-showed no sign whatever that he had spent even a second in the blast furnace outside. The man's wide gray eyes matched his suit and his light brown hair, slowly turning silver, was close-cropped and as neatly trimmed as his thick mustache. The effect was dignified and gave weight to his self-possession, serving to make him appear older than his forty-five years.

"Well, this saves me a phone call," Atwater said cheerfully, tossing a grin toward the detective who found himself at the sheriff's side.

Brass managed to smile just enough in return, inwardly wondering, Now what in hell?

"Does it?" Brass said mildly.

"It does," Atwater said. "Someone I want you to meet, up in my office."

Liking this conversation less and less, Brass tried to bow out. "I was just going to stop by my office for a second, then head over to CSI to check on some evidence…."

Atwater's grin carried no mirth. "This meeting takes precedence."

The bell announcing the second floor interrupted any further explanation Atwater might have offered. Passengers scurried between and around them, all but two others getting off. The sheriff and his subordinate eyed each other as the doors whispered shut and the car again rose.

Brass twitched a noncommittal smile. "Mind if I ask who I'll be meeting?"

With his voice lowered almost theatrically, the sheriff replied, "Rebecca Bennett…. You recognize the name, of course."

Brass shook his head. "Can't say I do."

"I guess that's understandable," the sheriff said, as if forgiving the detective. "She hasn't been around for a while-most of the last decade, actually."

"Afraid you've lost me, Sheriff."

The doors opened on the third floor and the other two passengers got out to finally give the two law enforcement officers some privacy. As the door closed, Atwater said, "Well, you've no doubt heard of her mother."

No bells rang for Brass. "Bennett" was the kind of name the phone book had no shortage of.

The sheriff raised an eyebrow. "Rita Bennett?"

The third floor bell rang and so did another in the detective's mind-an alarm bell.

They stepped onto the third floor.

"The car dealer," Brass said. And a major political contributor of yours, Sheriff, he thought. "But didn't she pass away not long ago?" Right after your election…?

"Yes, she did. She was a dear woman, a dear friend." The sheriff's grief seemed genuine enough; but perhaps any politician had the ability to truly mourn the death of a money source.

And Rita Bennett had been money, all right. She had won custody of one of her ex-husband's used car lots in their divorce settlement some fifteen years ago, after she'd caught hubby using his dipstick to check his secretary's oil in his office. She had turned the used car lot into one of the top GM dealerships in all the Southwest, leaving her ex in the dust.

The two men were walking down the hall toward the sheriff's office.

"Mrs. Bennett had a solid reputation in this town," Brass said, and he was not soft-soaping his boss. "But why is it we're meeting with her daughter?"

"Let's let the young woman tell her own story."

In the outer office, Brass saw Mrs. Mathis, the forty-something civilian secretary and holdover from Mobley's regime. Coolly efficient and constantly a step ahead of either boss, Mrs. Mathis ran the sheriff's office with a velvet hammer.

"Miss Bennett is in your office, Sheriff," Mrs. Mathis said as Atwater and Brass passed her desk.

Atwater thanked her and opened his door, going in ahead of Brass.

The room hadn't really changed since Mobley had called it home-different awards, different diplomas, different photos of the current resident with various celebrities and politicos. The most remarkable thing about the masculine office was the striking female seated in the chair in front of the sheriff's desk.

She rose and turned to them-a brunette in her late twenties, beautiful even by Las Vegas standards, though her clothing was decidedly not flashy: light-blue blouse, navy slacks, navy pumps. She wore her black hair short and in curved arcs that accented her high cheekbones; her eyes were wide-set, blue and large, conveying both alertness and a certain naivete. Her nose was small and well-sculpted, possibly the work of a plastic surgeon. And her full lips parted to reveal small, white teeth in a narrow mouth.

The smile, however, was joyless, like the sheriff's was in return. Also like the sheriff, the young woman showed no sign of the heat. How did they do it? Brass wondered; as he crossed the room toward her, Brass could almost hear himself sweating. But now he wondered if it was from the heat or in anticipation of whatever card Atwater was keeping up his sleeve.

"Rebecca Bennett," Atwater said, "this is Captain Jim Brass-if there's a finer detective in the department, I'd like to meet him."

This ambiguous praise sent another round of warning bells clanging inside Brass's brain as he stuck out his hand toward the Bennett woman. Atwater was about to spring some surprise, Brass just knew it-but didn't know where it would hit him.

Rebecca Bennett had a firm handshake and a no-nonsense cast to her eyes. And was there something predatory in those small, white, sharp teeth…?

"Captain Brass," she acknowledged as they shook.

"Ms. Bennett," Brass said. "My condolences on your recent loss."

"Thank you, Captain. Actually, that's why I'm here."

Atwater moved behind his desk and motioned for her to sit and for Brass to sit next to her. "Miss Bennett," the sheriff began.

"Rory, you're a family friend. Just because you haven't seen me since I was a kid-it's still 'Rebecca'…."

"Rebecca." His eyes narrowed. "I know this has been…difficult for you."

"I'm sure you do."

Atwater looked thoughtful, then assumed an expression that Brass knew all too well: sad eyes, soft frown, the staples of generic concern. "Rebecca, why don't you explain your…situation…to Captain Brass."

Odd way to put it-situation. Glancing sidelong at the woman, Brass could see Rebecca composing herself. Something was wrong here, or anyway…weird.

"You offered your condolences about my mother," Rebecca said, her voice strangely businesslike.

"I hope that was appropriate," Brass said, wondering if he'd committed a faux pas.

"Actually, it wasn't," she said with an odd little smile. "But you couldn't know that."

"Your mother was a unique woman," Atwater put in. "Larger than life-it's understandable that you'd be…conflicted."

What the hell was up, here?

Rebecca shrugged. "You could call it that."

"If you'll excuse me," Brass said, "maybe I'm the great detective the sheriff implied…maybe not…but I'm definitely not good enough to read between these lines. Please, Ms. Bennett-what's this about?"

"Excuse me, Captain Brass," the woman said. "I sort of…forgot that you were in the dark here. You see, I already filled in Sheriff Atwater, in some detail."

Brass shot a look at the sheriff who wore his politician's smile and shrugged, just a little.

Rebecca said, "You see, my mother and I had been estranged since I was eighteen. I moved in with my father after high school, and never looked back."

"Sorry to hear this," Brass said. A thought of his own estranged daughter, Ellie, flashed through his mind; but then something gripped him: Why was the disaffected daughter of a political contributor important to Atwater?

"Captain Brass," she was saying, "I do regret it…now. You get a little older and understand that you've probably held your parents to an unrealistic standard. But the bitterness between us was very real. She wrote me a letter, oh, seven years ago, but I never responded, and…Anyway, I always meant to reestablish contact with Mother, but the timing just never seemed right. And now, of course…it's too late."

She shrugged. No tears, not even wet eyes-just a shrug.

Atwater said, "You should give Captain Brass the background of this…situation."

Situation again.

"Captain, it wasn't long after my mother finagled my father out of his flagship car lot…in their divorce…that I learned her new boyfriend was actually someone she'd been seeing at the very same time my father was indulging in his own extramarital meanderings…. In other words, she was playing the violated wife in the divorce court, when she herself had been cheating. Her lover was one Peter Thompson, and they'd been seeing each other for months before Mother caught Daddy…what's the term? In flagrante delicto?…with that bimbo secretary of his. Would you like to know something interesting?"

Brass, fairly overwhelmed by this little soap opera, said, "Sure."

"My mother never fired the woman-Daddy's secretary, I mean. Don't you think it's possible the secretary was in on it? That it was a put-up job?"

Brass said, "Possible."

"Anyway, my finding out that Mommy screwed Daddy over was what drove the wedge between us. My father going broke, dying of alcoholism a few years later, didn't exactly…help. I didn't even go to the wedding when she married Peter. I was still in high school then-that was one of our four-alarm arguments, let me tell you."

"I can imagine," Brass said. "How long since you've spoken to your mother?"

"Over ten years." Another shrug. "As I said, since shortly after my eighteenth birthday…when I moved out. Not so much as a Christmas card."

"And, if you don't mind my asking," Brass said, "what have you been doing all this time?"

"I worked my way through Cabrerra University in Miami. Waitressing. Took six years to get the four-year degree."

"Why Miami?"

"That seemed about as far away from home as I could get without falling in the ocean. I majored in hotel/motel management-both my parents had business in their blood, and it got passed on, I guess. After that, I worked for a chain in Miami, last six years. Two months ago, I got transferred out here-the Sphere."

"Finding yourself in such close proximity to your mother-did you try to contact her?"

"Yes…yes, I thought fate had finally put me on the spot. Time to be a grown-up and make some kind of peace with the miserable bitch." She laughed harshly and then it turned into a sob. She got into her purse, found a tissue, and dried her eyes.

Brass and Atwater exchanged raised eyebrows.

Then Rebecca was talking again. "That was when…when I finally learned that she'd died. Just this May."

"You talked to your stepfather?"

"Yes-he said she died peacefully." She paused for a long, ragged breath. "In her sleep."

Brass glanced at Atwater, but the sheriff had his eyes on Rebecca Bennett.

"But you don't believe him," Atwater prompted.

"No, I don't."

"That's what brought you here today, isn't it?"

Hesitating, Rebecca glanced between the two men before saying, "Yes. I think my stepfather murdered my mother."

A prickle of anger tweaked the back of Brass's neck-so that was why Atwater had brought him in on this! With the daughter of a deceased major contributor battling the widower, who could say where the money would wind up?

Brass allowed himself to cast his boss a disgusted smirk, but Atwater didn't seem to notice-he appeared placid, somberly so. Just a concerned friend of the family, trying to do the right thing…

"I want you to know right now, Rebecca," Atwater said, "that we'll look into this immediately…and thoroughly."

Brass had sense enough to tread carefully around the sheriff when Atwater was playing one of those cards from up his sleeve. Nonetheless, he asked, "Why don't you believe your stepfather, Ms. Bennett?"

She turned to Brass, her wide eyes like exclamation marks in her surprised face. Apparently it had never occurred to her that anyone might question her reasoning, much less her motives.

"There are several things," she finally said, as if that were explanation enough.

"What were the autopsy results?"

Rebecca's mouth formed a sarcastic kiss. "What autopsy results?"

"There was no autopsy?"

She shook her head. "In fact, that's one of the reasons I suspect Peter-he told me an autopsy would have been contrary to my mother's wishes…due to her religious beliefs."

"And you're skeptical of that reason?"

"I'm skeptical of that excuse-I've been away from Mom for a long time, and I understand that things can change, people can change…but she wasn't religious at all when I lived with her."

"Some kind of religious conversion, then…." Brass offered.

"Yes, a conservative fundamentalistic church she and Peter joined-the body has to be preserved for resurrection and all of that b.s."

"Not everyone considers that belief 'b.s.,' Ms. Bennett…."

"I know, I know…. I don't mean to sound like some kind of religious bigot, but it just…seems very drastic for Mom. Out of character. But there are other things too. For example…Peter got everything in Mom's will."

Brass already knew why Atwater was here (to protect his ass, whichever Bennett inheritor wound up with the family fortune) and why he himself was here (to provide Atwater with a potential fall guy); and now, finally, Brass understood why Rebecca Bennett was here. Whatever contempt she might have felt for her mother, Rebecca wanted her share. Her piece.

She must have read what he was thinking, because she quickly said, "Understand, it's not about the money."

Keeping his face neutral, Brass nodded. Very little was certain in this wicked world; but one thing Jim Brass knew: Whenever somebody said it wasn't about the money-it was about the money.

"My mother's fortune was built on my father's used car business-a business she and Peter Thompson all but swindled Daddy out of. That after all these years Peter would be the one to benefit-it's just too much. Just too goddamn much."

"Ms. Bennett-"

She sat forward, blue eyes flashing. "There just seems to be so much…secrecy about my mother's death, and when I tried to talk to Peter? He shut me out."

"Which is why," Atwater said, with terrible casualness, "you want her exhumed."

Brass sat up like a sleeping driver awakened by a truck horn. "Ex-," Brass said, "-humed?"

"Yes," Rebecca said, with her own dreadful ease. "I want my mother exhumed, and an autopsy performed, so I'll know once and for all whether or not Peter Thompson killed her."

Brass felt the words tumble out: "Well, certainly your stepfather will fight you on this…."

She laughed, head back, as if proud of herself. "He promised me he would. He hates me like poison…and he'll use my own murdered mother's money against me."

Softly, to try to bring the melodrama down a notch, Brass said, "We'll check him out."

"What about the exhumation?" she asked, sitting forward, excited now, nostrils flaring, tiny teeth clenched.

"Well…" Brass said, looking toward the sheriff, who would surely have the sense to call off this witch hunt….

Atwater jumped into the situation with both feet…which of course landed on Brass, right where the sun didn't shine, even in a Vegas heat wave.

"The exhumation will be no problem," Atwater said, his gaze flicking for just a second to Brass, then back to his potentially lucrative audience. "As your mother's last blood relative, you have the right to an autopsy…especially with your suspicions about your stepfather. My best man, Captain Brass, will see to it…personally."

Here they were, murders up higher than the temp, and Sheriff Atwater was assigning him a case that was little more than a political favor.

In his mind, Brass said, "Like hell I will. Do your own damn political bullshit!"

But what he said was, "Get right on it, Ms. Bennett."

He had to swim in these waters, too.

The Desert Palm Memorial Cemetery occupied a lush green space not far from the intersection of North Las Vegas Boulevard and Main Street. Two days had passed since Captain Brass met with Sheriff Atwater and Rebecca Bennett, and the detective stood with court order in hand, in the middle of the cemetery. Like most grave robbers, they were working in the wee hours-at the behest of the cemetery management, who requested that this effort not interrupt their regularly scheduled interments.

The desert was cool at night, it was said; and right now the temperature was all the way down to ninety-eight, with a slight devil's-breath breeze. Of course this was actually morning, about two hours from dawn, toward the end of the CSI graveyard shift…literally graveyard, this time.

Brass was well aware that CSI Supervisor Gil Grissom sympathized with his distaste for politics. But they all had a job to do, including two more nightshift crime scene analysts, Sara Sidle and Nick Stokes. The four of them cast long shadows in the light of a full moon as they waited while a backhoe tore open the earth over Rita Bennett's grave.

Two gravediggers were paid accomplices tonight on this ghoulish mission. Joe, a lanky guy with stringy black hair and sky blue eyes, sat atop the backhoe. His partner, Bob, shorter but just as skinny, stood beyond the grave directing Joe to make sure the backhoe didn't smash the concrete vault that held Rita Bennett's casket. Both men wore filthy white T-shirts and grime-impacted blue jeans, appropriate for this dirty job that somebody had to do, if less than wholly respectful to the deceased they were disturbing.

Next to the backhoe, a flat bronze headstone with Rita's name, birth, and death dates carved into it, stood on edge, standing sentinel over the awkward proceedings. Brass and the CSIs stood well off to one side, watching the growling machine paw at the dirt.

Moderately tall with graying hair and a trim dark beard, Gil Grissom was dressed in black, head to toe, blending with the night. Even when the sun was out, though, the man in black gave no sign that the heat bothered him in the least. Brass, meanwhile, wore a tan sportcoat and light color shirt and had, all day, felt like he was walking around inside a burning building.

Grissom's two associates seemed dressed more appropriately for the weather. Sara, her dark hair tucked under a CSI ball cap, wore tan slacks and a brown short-sleeve blouse; her oval face had a ghostly beauty in the moonlight. Square-jawed, kind-eyed Nick Stokes stood next to her, a navy blue CSI T-shirt doing its best to contain the former jock's brawn; his dark hair was cut high over his ears and he seemed almost as at ease in the heat as Grissom.

Stokes said, "With the run of murders we been havin', I wouldn't think the sheriff would want to go digging up new customers."

"If it does turn out to be a legitimate customer, Nick," Grissom said, in his light but pointed way, "we'll give full service."

"No autopsy," Sara said. "That doesn't smell right."

"Don't say 'smell' at an exhumation," Nick said.

"That's not inherently suspicious," Grissom said to Sara, meaning the lack of autopsy. "Some people want to get shuffled off this mortal coil in one piece…. Not unusual for religious beliefs to preclude an autopsy."

Sara made a face and shrugged. "I'm just saying."

But that was all she said.

They watched as the backhoe clawed another gouge in the earth. Before long, Bob the gravedigger waved for Joe, the backhoe operator, to stop. Joe climbed down off the machine and the two men met at the head of the grave, in executive session, apparently.

"Everything okay?" Brass asked with a frown.

Bob, hands on hips, looked over. "We've reached the vault."

Brass and the CSIs moved to where Bob and Joe stood at the edge of a hole that went down three to three-and-a-half-feet. Barely visible at the bottom was a sliver of something brown.

"Have to dig the rest by hand," Bob said. "Graves on each side are too close to use the backhoe, and 'course we don't want to damage the vault."

Brass knew this and so did Grissom, Sara, and Nick; but the gravedigger had never done an exhumation with this group before, and he seemed to enjoy sharing his wealth of information.

"Not our first time at the rodeo, Bob," Brass said dryly. "Do what you do."

"Could take some time," Bob said, cocking his head, relishing his power.

"This is a graveyard, Bob," Grissom said. "We'll reflect on the relative nature of time."

"Huh?" Bob said.

"Dig," Nick said.

Bob thought about that and then a grin appeared in the midst of his dirty face. "Yeah-yeah, I dig."

And the gravedigger scurried back to work, as Sara and Nick traded rolling-eyed expressions.

The detective and the three CSIs watched as the two men used tile shovels to carefully excavate around the concrete vault. Neither of the workers looked very happy as they gingerly pawed at the earth within their small hole.

"Where's the concerned daughter," Nick asked, "to watch us dig up Mommy?"

"Be nice, Nick," Grissom said.

Brass said, "She'll meet us back at CSI and be there when we finally open the coffin. Legal procedure requires her presence."

Sara said, "If I were forced to do this, with the grave of a loved one…? I wouldn't want to be anywhere around."

Grissom looked at her curiously. "But you're a scientist."

"Even scientists have feelings," she said, with a mildly reproving glance.

Shrugging, Grissom said, "Nobody's perfect."

Sara and Nick took photographs of what followed. Grissom made field notes. Brass just watched.

The two workers finally got cables under the vault and, using the backhoe like a crane, they lifted the concrete box out of the ground and set it on a flatbed truck. Brass and the CSIs piled into the black Tahoe and followed the vehicle back to the station, where the flatbed backed in the tall door at the end of the garage behind the CSI building. Meanwhile, Nick parked the Tahoe, after which the quartet marched inside to get down to business.

The garage had spaces for three cars, beyond which was an oversized bay built to accommodate trucks even bigger than the one that carried the strapped-down remains of Rita Bennett. Essentially a concrete bunker with a twenty-foot ceiling and an overhead crane, the garage had a workbench along the back wall and two huge tool chests, one against each of the side walls.

First, Nick and Sara climbed up onto the truck and removed the straps from the vault. As they did, Brass went inside, to the office, to bring back Rebecca Bennett. As Brass disappeared through the door, Nick motioned for Grissom to come closer to the truck.

Keeping one eye on the door even as he and Sara undid the straps, Nick asked, "Don't we have better things to be doing than an exhumation to satisfy one of Atwater's contributors?"

Grissom's voice remained soft, but his face grew serious. "She's not a contributor-her late mother was."

"What, are we gonna quibble?"

"No, Nick, we're not going to quibble-this is a woman who needs answers about the death of her mother…answers that we might be able to provide."

"Hey, all I mean, there's serious crimes-"

"Do your job, Nick."

Nick started to say something, but Sara cut him off: "It's a sealed vault! Gonna take us some time gettin' into it."

Nodding once, Grissom said, "No time like the present."

Using the overhead crane, Nick and Sara put the crane's metal runners under the frame of the concrete lid and tightened them down. Then, using the column of buttons on the hanging control box, Nick nudged the RAISE button a few times, until the slack was gone from the chain and the vault was just about to leave the bed of the truck.

Accepting a pry bar from Sara, Nick went to work on the sealed edge of one side of the vault while Sara worked on the opposite side. They had been at it for almost ten minutes, both perspiring despite the air conditioning inside the garage, when Brass reappeared with an attractive, slender, black-haired woman in dark-green slacks and a black silk blouse.

Grissom extended his hand as Brass and the woman approached where he stood next to the truck. The woman's eyes remained locked on the vault on the back of the vehicle, the two CSIs still plugging away with the pry bars.

"I'm Gil Grissom from the crime lab," he said, his hand still hanging out in space.

She finally tore her eyes from the vault, looked for a moment at his hand like she couldn't understand why it was there; then, with a visible flinch, she focused and shook it.

"Sorry," she said. "Rebecca Bennett…. I guess I wasn't prepared…."

"As an abstraction, exhumation is just a word," Grissom said. "The reality is…sobering. You don't have to stay long."

"No, that's all right," she said, her voice cold, detached now, an attitude she assumed like a cloak she'd suddenly gathered herself in. "So that's Mother?"

"Yes. We've already started working on the vault, but it's sealed…so it's going to take a little time."

She nodded, her eyes returning to the vault.

At that moment the epoxy bond was broken and the vault settled back onto the truck bed, the shock absorbers and springs grunting as it did. The noise made Rebecca jump a little.

Brass walked the woman to a chair across the garage.

"Easier than I thought," Sara said, mopping her brow with her hand.

Nick gave her a sarcastic look. "Piece of cake."

Sara looked at him, smiling, but hard-eyed. "Nick…tell me you're not creeped out by this…."

"What? Gimme a break. I'm a scientist, too, you know."

"Scientists have feelings, remember?"

"After all we've been through? Don't insult me."

Sara made a shrug with her face. "I wouldn't dream of it…but we all have our little, you know…bugaboos."

Nick grunted a small laugh. "Yeah, well help me open this one."

Rita Bennett had only been buried about three months and remarkably little odor crept over the sides of the vault and down to the trio on the floor.

Using the crane, Nick set the vault lid off to one side.

Brass walked over and asked, "How's the casket look?"

The two CSIs glanced down into the vault at the same moment.

Sara spoke first. "Looks good, surprisingly."

"Like brand new," Nick added. To Sara under his breath, he said, "Only one owner…."

"Not much smell," Sara said quietly.

Their comments were sotto voce, to keep them from the daughter seated across the room.

Turning to Brass, Grissom said, "One of the good things about living in the desert-things decay slower, here."

"Personally," Brass said, "I'm decaying pretty damn fast these days, this heat."

Next, Nick and Sara worked straps around the casket and Nick used the crane to lift it out of the vault and swing it over the side of the truck. Lowering it slowly, Nick set the casket gently on the floor not far from Grissom and Brass.

Brass turned to the seated woman and said, "Ms. Bennett-if you'd join us?"

She did, and the five moved to the oaken box; then Grissom, Brass, and Rebecca watched as Sara and Nick released the locks and flipped up the lid of the coffin.

Within, Grissom had expected to find Rita Bennett looking much as she had when she'd been buried, just three months ago. The dress would be tasteful, her makeup in place but slightly over the top, like it always had been in her TV spots for the car dealership, and her hair would be dyed platinum blonde.

Looking into the casket, Grissom felt his stomach lurch a little.

He saw tennis shoes, jeans, a Las Vegas Stars T-shirt, painted fingernails, pierced ears, pink-glossed lips, and auburn hair surrounding a face that had to be younger than twenty-five. The young woman in the casket, younger than Rebecca standing next to him, looked very peaceful indeed.

She just didn't happen to be Rita Bennett.

Rebecca's hand shot to her mouth and her eyes opened wide.

Sara was the first to find her voice. "Uh…oh…."

She looked at Nick, whose slack-jawed, wide-eyed expression mirrored her own.

"Gris," Nick said gingerly, "this doesn't look like a heart attack."

"What have you people done with my mother?" Rebecca demanded. She turned to Grissom and said, "Where is my mother?"

The shift supervisor turned to Brass, who seemed suddenly about three inches shorter, an invisible and very heavy weight having settled across his shoulders.

Sheriff Atwater was going tolove this….

Grissom faced Brass and asked, "We double-checked the grave location-right?"

"I went to the office myself," the detective said, his voice wavering between anger, confusion, and frustration. "And the damn headstone is even in the truck! Everything matched."

Holding up his hands, Grissom said, "No need to get defensive, Jim…just checking." Grissom turned to Sara and Nick with renewed energy. "If our paperwork was right, and the cemetery staff took us to the correct site…all of which seems to have happened, then we have ourselves a brand-new crime scene."

Rebecca Bennett got between them. "I'm thrilled for you! But where is my mother?"

Grissom raised a palm, as if trying to stop traffic. "I don't know, Ms. Bennett…but I can promise you we're going to do everything we can to find her."

"This isn't happening," Brass said, and sat on the bumper of the truck. "We come in to do a simple exhumation, and now we have a murder?"

"Not necessarily," Grissom said. "Could be a simple mistake."

The dead woman's daughter managed to open her eyes even wider. "Simple mistake?"

Covering his eyes, Brass was calling for a dispatcher on his radio.

"Forgive me, Ms. Bennett," Grissom said. He began to lead the stunned woman away from the casket. "We, as criminalists, have to approach this as a problem that needs to be solved. But we don't really mean to be callous."

"My mother, what the goddamn hell happened…?"

"You have my word, Ms. Bennett-we'll solve this. All your questions will be laid to rest."

"Like my mother was?"

Grissom didn't have an answer for that.

Sara approached and said, "We're very sorry about this awful turn of events. This has been a terrible traumatic thing, but please believe me-we're going to help."

Grissom watched as a uniformed officer entered. Brass joined Grissom and the distraught young woman, showing up at the same moment as the uniform man.

"Ms. Bennett," Brass said, "I'm afraid we're going to have to ask you to step out now."

"Are you people trying to get rid of me now?" she asked, her voice, practically a shriek, careening off the cement walls.

Grissom stepped up. "No, Ms. Bennett-we're trying to preserve evidence. We have to find out what happened to the woman in your mother's casket."

"What…about…my mother?"

Shaking his head, Grissom said, "The only clues we have to what happened to your mother are inside that casket with this girl. You need to let us do our job."

Rebecca obviously wanted to put up a fight, but Grissom could tell she saw the logic of his argument; he read her as a strong, intelligent young woman. Hanging her head, sighing in defeat, she allowed the uniformed officer to lead her out of the garage.

Turning back to his charges, Grissom's face was tight. "Let's do it."

Sara was already bent over the coffin. "Blood on the pillow," she said. "I can't tell more until we get the body out."

Grissom said, "All right, then…Nick, you work the casket. Someone put her in there-let's see if we can't find out who. Sara, find out who she is and walk her through autopsy. Tell Doc Robbins this is a rush-we're already at least three months behind."

Brass added, "I'll start with the cemetery and work my way back to the mortuary." He checked his watch. "The staff should be there by now-you gonna work past the end of shift?"

Grissom nodded. "All the shifts are working overtime these days."

Sara asked, "What about Rita Bennett?"

"We can't find out what happened to her," Grissom said, "until we find her…and the only clue we have to her whereabouts is the mystery guest buried in Rita's grave."

"Blood on the pillow," Sara said. "Already looking like murder."

Nick shook his head slowly. "Doesn't anybody in this town ever die normal anymore?"

Grissom cast his charming smile on the younger CSI. "Where would the fun be in that, Nick?"

2

THE "RED BALLS," as high-priority murders were known in some jurisdictions, got the adrenaline flowing, and were the kind of cases that could build careers. But CSI Catherine Willows had come to prize the more normal calls, particularly in a period of record homicides and double shifts like the one she was in the midst of.

This morning-at a time when a nightshift criminalist like Catherine should by all rights be in bed asleep-she and her partner, Warrick Brown, were riding out to the Sunny Day Continuing Care Facility with the Tahoe siren blessedly off and the air conditioning whispering its soft song. In addition to less stress, such a relatively routine call provided Catherine a better sense of connection with the people she and the LVPD served.

For having worked all night, Catherine Willows looked surprisingly, if typically, crisp in cool cotton, a man-tailored white shirt, and khaki-color slacks; after twenty years of harsh Vegas sun, the slender, strawberry-blonde crimefighter remained blessed with the facial features and general architecture of a fashion model, though her past actually included runways of another sort. The journey of this former exotic dancer into this highly respected, demanding profession had been very much a self-made one.

Behind the wheel, Warrick Brown-with his restrained dreadlock Afro, creme de cacao complexion and arresting green eyes-did not reveal the long hours either. In the tan cotton pullover and cargo pants, he looked almost collegiate…or would have if his world-weary demeanor didn't convey something of the terrible things a CSI had to learn to live with.

The sun was already high, but the temperature hadn't risen to the broiler-like numbers it would register in another few hours; so the day still held the promise that perhaps the heat-soaked murder spree gripping the city might let up.

They had been summoned to Sunny Day by Detective Sam Vega, a veteran investigator with whom the nightshift CSIs had worked on numerous occasions. Routine or not, Catherine knew something must be up-the no-nonsense Vega neither spooked easily nor suffered fools lightly.

But as they made their way through traffic, Catherine forced herself away from pointless speculation about what might await them at the Sunny Day facility, and tried instead to concentrate on the very real sunny day all around them. Heat or not, she was enjoying it, particularly in thinking that she and her daughter Lindsey might get to the park later and enjoy some of this golden sunshine.

But Warrick, at the wheel, wouldn't let her evade the reality of her…of their…job. "So what's this about, anyway? Vega say?"

Catherine shook her head, gave her partner half a smirk. "Vega was vague."

Warrick arched an eyebrow. "Actually, 'vague' is not Vega…he's usually one specific cop."

"Not this time. Just said he had something he wanted us to take a look at."

"What, scene of a missing bedpan?" Warrick took a left.

Catherine laughed in spite of herself. "Hey, don't be smug-we're all headed to Sunny Day, someday. You be nice, now. Respectful."

Warrick's easy grin seemed a little embarrassed. "Sorry, just kidding. I mean, with the kind of high-flyin' homicides we've been pulling lately, a rest home sounds, I don't know…"

"Restful? Would you rather have a dead scuba diver up a tree, or possibly a frozen corpse in the desert?"

Warrick nodded. "Maybe. Keeps you awake, on these endless shifts…."

Tucked away in a quiet Henderson neighborhood, just off Lake Mead Drive, Sunny Day Continuing Care was a sprawling facility of the one-stop-shopping sort that seemed to be springing up in cities everywhere. Not merely a nursing home, Sunny Day offered the growing number of retirees invading the Vegas Valley everything from independent living to constant care.

Heading there, Warrick turned one more corner and they found themselves moving down a street with houses on the right side and an eight-foot wall down the left. Easing the Tahoe up to the guard shack outside the gate in the middle of the block, Warrick hit the down button on his power window.

A silver-haired guard, who might himself have been a Sunny Day resident, asked and received their names, inspected Warrick's ID, said he was expecting them, checked something off on a clipboard, and returned to his shack to hit the button that opened the wrought-iron gate.

The drive split in two around a green space occupied by park benches and, at the far end, a shuffleboard court. One side of the gated community was split between condos and duplexes, where the more active residents lived. The other was dominated by a pair of high-rises that housed the semi-care and full-care patients of the facility. Out in front of one high-rise could be seen Vega's Taurus, an ambulance, and a squad car.

"I think we've found the party," she said.

"I doubt I'll need my noisemaker," Warrick said dryly, referring to the automatics both CSIs packed on their hips, weapons that were rarely drawn, though a department mandate of recent years required carrying them-even on a nursing home call.

Warrick pulled the Tahoe up near the other vehicles, parked, and they climbed down. A single officer manned the door of the building.

"What about our kits?" Warrick asked, deferring to the senior officer.

Catherine shrugged. "Vague as Vega was, I say we get the story first, then come back for whatever we need…if we need anything."

"I like the way you think, Cath."

They approached the officer playing sentry. He was a dayshift guy who Catherine had encountered a couple times, most recently on a love triangle murder in a Summerlin kitchen-Nowak was the name, if she remembered right. As they neared the tall, painfully young-looking officer, Catherine sneak-peeked at his nameplate.

Then with friendly familiarity, she said, "Hey, Nowak-what's the word?"

"Two words," the uniform said, giving Catherine a shrug and Warrick a quick nod. "Heart attack."

Catherine asked, "You know where we're headed?"

The officer gestured. "Doctor's office, second door down the hall. Administrative wing." He pulled the glass and steel door open for them. "On the right."

"Heart attack," Warrick said, shaking his head. He looked at Catherine and said, "And we're here why?"

Catherine said, chipper, "I don't know, Warrick. Why don't we ask Detective Vega?"

Officer Nowak said, "I think Vega's interviewing Doctor Whiting right now."

Warrick grunted, "Well, we'll try not to get in the way."

Warrick headed in and the officer raised his eyebrows and said to Catherine, "What's his problem?"

"Three days of double shifts." Catherine grinned. "Or maybe just his time of the month."

That surprised a laugh out of the officer, as Catherine stepped inside to catch up with Warrick.

It must have been even hotter outside than she thought, because this place felt like a walk-in refrigerator.

"Wow," Catherine said, head rearing back, almost laughing.

"What happened to senior citizens liking it warm?" Warrick asked with a little eye roll.

The long hallway was a pale institutional green, the overhead lighting fluorescent, the atmosphere sterile and decidedly unhomey-more hospital than hospitable. They walked past oversize, gurney-friendly doors that stood ajar, announcing a corridor where nurses and orderlies moved with joyless efficiency.

"Business must be good," Catherine said, pausing to note the plastic chart bins attached to the walls just inside.

Catherine could see beyond those double doors into the nearest room, to glimpse a bedridden woman with black-streaked silver hair, impossibly thick glasses, and an oxygen tube in her nose; her skin was the color of wet newspaper.

Across the way, a frail old man with wispy hair, his eyes closed, his countenance peaceful, made Catherine wonder if the old boy was dead or just asleep. Without more evidence, the CSI could not be sure.

Still, it was clear to Catherine that no one down that corridor would likely ever, under his or her own power, walk out of Sunny Day into any day, sunny or otherwise.

Warrick paused, and something flickered across those private, somewhat melancholy features.

"What?" Catherine asked with a gentle smile, as they walked on.

"Just thinking-we see all kinds of people end up all kinds of ways, most of them reeaaal bad."

"That we do."

His sigh came up from his toes. "This?…Is the worst."

The door with the nameplate "DR. L. WHITING, CHIEF OF STAFF" was closed, though muffled conversation within confirmed Vega's presence. Catherine knocked and a deep voice bid her to come in.

Catherine entered-there was no reception area-with Warrick just behind her, a formidable mahogany desk facing them. The office, also an institutional green, was less than spacious but not cramped, with a two-seater sofa next to the door, and the wall at left obscured by a credenza-style bookcase of medical tomes and family photos. On the wall at right, a few framed photographs taken on a golf course joined a handful of diplomas to intermingle with filing cabinets and provide this sparsely decorated office with a touch more warmth than a scalpel.

Pen and pad in hand, Vega occupied one of two chairs opposite the desk. The compact, broad-shouldered detective-he might have been a boxer or wrestler before his days on the force-was in his white shirt with the sleeves rolled up, his tie loose; only the over-the-top heat would inspire such casualness in this tightly wound cop. His black hair cut short, sans sideburns, his eyebrows dark and thick over sharply intelligent brown eyes, Vega had a serious visage that made a lot of his brother officers wonder if the man had had his sense of humor surgically removed.

The two CSIs, however, knew Vega well enough to know that he did on occasion laugh-though seldom at work.

The man across from the detective had a build similar to Vega's, a handsome, even distinguished man of about forty-five in a white lab coat. His hair was the color of desert sand and neatly combed; he had dark blue eyes, high cheekbones, a deep Vegas tan, and the slightly remote expression of so many physicians. The straight, rigid way their host sat indicated he might have a bad back.

Physician, heal thyself,Catherine thought.

"Doctor Whiting," Vega said, without rising, swivelling toward the CSIs and gesturing with his pen, "this is Catherine Willows and Warrick Brown…from our crime lab. Catherine, Warrick-Dr. Larry Whiting."

The doctor rose stiffly, and Catherine and Warrick leaned past the seated Vega to exchange handshakes with their host.

"Good of you to come," Whiting said, his tone quiet, serious. He met Catherine's eyes and gestured toward the remaining chair.

"Thank you, Doctor," Catherine said, and sat next to Vega while Warrick settled his long frame onto the sofa just behind them, sitting forward, any doubleshift tiredness wholly absent from his low-key keen attentiveness.

For a few moments, an awkward silence prevailed.

That happened frequently with CSIs, who often arrived in the middle of a police interview.

Vega decided to catch them up. "Doctor Whiting came to work today and found…" The detective looked toward the doctor. "Why don't you tell them what you found, Doctor?"

Whiting took a deep breath. He seemed very much like a man preparing himself to embark on a long, difficult journey.

"I've been here for almost a year," he said slowly. "That's not a terribly long time, of course, but I'm in charge of…how should I put it?"

Warrick said, "The last stop on the line?"

"We are indeed the last stop at Sunny Day-the terminal cases, and those so elderly that constant care is required. My point is that losing a patient is hardly cause for alarm. It is, I'm sorry to say, business as usual. Routine."

Catherine thought back to her own characterization of this call as a routine one, and wondered if her attitude had really been any better than Warrick's….

"So today, when Vivian Elliot died, and then your assistant coroner, uh, Mr. uh…" He looked to Vega for assistance.

"David Phillips," Vega said.

"Today, when Mr. Phillips suggested maybe something wasn't right about Vivian's body, well I started thinking back, and wondering…." His eyes went from Catherine to Warrick and finally settled on Vega, as if hoping he would not have to say any more.

"Doctor Whiting," Catherine said, with a smile that was really a frown, "with all due respect, sir-you're all over the map here."

Frustration tweaked the handsome features. "Well…isn't it obvious?"

Head to one side, Warrick said, "You're going to have to read us your prescription, doc, if you want us to fill it. We're just not making out what you mean."

The physician ran a hand through his dry sandy hair and looked at Catherine with a kind of helplessness. "You're right…. Obviously you're right. And I'm sorry, but this has just become almost…uh…surreal."

"A patient named Vivian Elliot died today," Catherine said. "Why wasn't that business as usual? Routine?"

"But that's just it-Vivian wasn't a typical resident of this ward. She doesn't even…I should say, didn't even…live at Sunny Day."

Warrick winced in thought. "How does someone who doesn't reside in this facility end up in your ward?"

"It's not frequent, but a certain number of our patients are not permanent residents. Mrs. Elliot, for example, came to us from St. Anthony's Hospital. She'd been in a serious car crash and was looking forward to a long, slow recovery."

Warrick said, "So she was transferred here? For the kind of long-term care you people do day in and day out."

"Exactly. And I can tell you, she's been doing well, very well!"

"Except," Warrick said, eyebrows lifting, "for today's little setback."

Dr. Whiting whitened. "Yes…yes. This morning I came in and-before I even got to rounds-she coded."

Catherine glanced at Vega, then turned back to the doctor. "Nothing could be done to save her? Don't people 'code' around here, all of the time?"

"Obviously, yes, but…" He shrugged and shook his head. "She was dead before I even got to the room."

Warrick said, "People do die of old age-natural causes."

Whiting gestured to a file folder on his desk. "Seventy-one years of age…that's young for Sunny Day. And before the automobile accident, Mrs. Elliot had been in good health and, after time and therapy, was making real progress."

Still confused, Catherine asked, "This is tragic, I'm sure, and unusual for your circumstances…but, Doctor-I'm still not sure I see why we were called in."

Vega turned to Catherine, gesturing with his notepad in hand. "What do you say we start by talking to David-this is his red flag."

"Fine," Catherine said, and patted her knees. "Where is David?"

Rising, Vega said, "Let's go for a walk."

The ward seemed a hive of activity, nurses bustling about in and out of rooms, the kitchen staff hustling along with trays of breakfast for those patients still able to feed themselves, and the odd visitor here and there coming to check on a loved one.

Vega took a left up a hallway and stopped in front of a closed room. The detective waited to knock until his little search party had caught up.

A vaguely startled voice said: "Who is it?"

Catherine and Warrick traded tiny smiles-she sensed her partner had also had the same mental image of David Phillips, jumping a little as he spoke. David was an assistant coroner assigned to Dr. Albert Robbins, with whom the nightshift CSIs frequently worked.

"It's Vega," the detective said, a little irritated. "Unlock the door, David."

The detective glanced sideways and gave Catherine a quick wide-eyed look that said, Jeeesh, this guy.

Soon a click announced cooperation and the door cracked open, David's bespectacled face filling the gap.

"Come in," David said.

Warrick whispered to Catherine, "What is this, a speakeasy?"

David, summery in a brown-and-white-striped short-sleeve shirt and light tan chinos, stepped aside and Vega entered with the others behind. With a touch of ceremony, David closed the door and turned to face them. Generally David had an easy if sometimes nervous smile, but right now there was no sign of it. His dark hair, getting wispy in front, seemed barely under control, as if wishing to abandon ship; and the sharp, wide eyes below the high forehead darted back and forth behind wire-frame glasses.

This was, Catherine noted, a fairly typical hospital room, though with just one bed. Under the sheet lay a body. Soft lighting emerged from behind a sconce at the headboard.

"Meet the late Vivian Elliot," David said as he drew back the sheet.

The woman's appearance confirmed the assistant coroner's opinion: She was dead, all right; her gray hair, though cut short, was splayed against the pillow, her eyes closed, her skin slack and gray, her features at rest, her torso lifeless.

"And?" Warrick asked.

"And…I don't know," David said, his voice solemn. He shrugged elaborate. "Everything looks fine."

"For a dead woman," Catherine said.

"For a dead woman, right." Dr. Whiting stepped forward with stiff, strained dignity. "Sir-you indicated a problem. We called in a detective and crime scene investigators. What problem do you see here?"

David smiled weakly. Catherine knew that David had sought out his singularly solitary job among the dead in part because of the stress he could occasionally feel around the living. Though the hospital room was cold-any colder, their breaths would have been visible-Catherine could see beads of sweat popping out on the young assistant coroner's forehead.

"I said I thought there was something wrong here."

"You don't know?" Whiting asked, eyes and nostrils flaring.

"No! That's why we need, you know…an expert's read."

Catherine stepped forward and put a hand on Whiting's sleeve. "A second opinion never hurts, does it, Doctor?…If you'll excuse me, I'd like a private word with my colleague."

Now she took David by the arm and, in the corner of the room, spoke to him quietly. Even gently. "What's the matter, David?"

He moved his head side to side. "Catherine, I've been doing this job for a while now."

"Yes, you have. And you're very good at it."

"Thank you…. And you know, a person gets used to a certain routine. Mine is really like a lot of other jobs-life and death or not, it can be monotonous…and usually is."

Patiently she asked, "Point being?"

"I come to Sunny Day to make a pickup, once, twice a month."

"Yeah?"

A humorless half-smile tweaked his face. "This month? This is the fourth time."

Catherine called Warrick over and repeated what David had told her, still leaving Vega and Whiting out of the confab.

Warrick shook his head. "Whoa, dude-that's why you called the crime lab?"

Catherine gave Warrick a take it easy look.

David looked embarrassed. "That may not seem like such a variation from the norm to you, Warrick-but it struck me. I mean, I've never been here four times in one month."

Warrick's expression was skeptical, but something tugged at Catherine's gut. She asked, "How about three times?"

"Only twice-in four years on the job."

Warrick was considering that as he said, "David, four people dying in one of these places, in a single month…hardly unheard of."

David said, "Maybe not unheard of…I'd be lying if I said I knew what the statistical probabilities are…but it strikes me as strange, far beyond the norm as I know it."

"Better safe than silly," Catherine said, nodding.

David was getting in gear now.

"Then," he was saying, "you factor in Mrs. Elliot's relatively good health-at least compared to the other residents here-and you're running into odds worse than the casinos!"

Turning to Vega, Catherine asked, "You've heard all this?"

Vega's half-smile was uncharacteristically meek. "David's been like this since I got here. Frankly, that's why I agreed to call you guys in-I thought maybe you could talk him down off his ledge."

Catherine turned back to the assistant coroner. "What you have, David, is what we call around CSI a hunch-but we don't have them out loud. You know how Grissom would react, if we did."

David's eyes widened. "Oooh yeah."

She smiled sweetly and supportively at David, the way she did her daughter Lindsey, when the child had hit a homework brick wall. "Pretend I'm Grissom."

"That good an imagination," David said, "I don't have."

"I mean-convince me like you would him. If he were standing here, not me-tell me, what do you think we've got?"

David rubbed his chin as if it were a genie's lamp that might grant his wish for a good answer. Finally he let out a long breath and said, "Too many deaths spaced too close together."

"That doesn't suggest a crime," Catherine said. "Not inherently."

"Right…right…."

"Think out loud if you have to, David."

"Well…I never considered it before today, but the four DOAs we picked up here this month?"

"Yeah?"

He smiled a little, raised one eyebrow, like a novice gambler laying down a winning ace. "All widows."

Ace or not, Catherine was not impressed, and said so: "Women generally outlive men, David. No big surprise there."

David's face screwed up in thought. Finally he said, "We always mark the next of kin on the report…so we know who to call?"

"Riiight."

"Well, I was just thinking…I don't remember seeing that any of these four women had any family."

Catherine and Warrick traded a look. Warrick's eyes had taken on a harder cast, that steady unblinking look he got when something was really starting to interest him….

Turning to Whiting, Catherine said, "Doctor, is what David thinks he remembers…true?"

The doctor shrugged. "I really can't say. I'd have to check the records."

Warrick said, pleasant but tight, "Why don't you?"

Catherine softened it: "Would you, please?"

Whiting nodded; but then he just stood there.

"Now would be good," Warrick said.

Sighing, Whiting said, "Anything to help, of course…but the truth is?…A lot of our residents at Sunny Day are widows." He cocked his head, raised an eyebrow. "As you sagely pointed out, Ms. Willows, it's hardly unusual for women to outlive men."

"Well," Warrick said, and smiled, "maybe you better check those records, before everybody passes away but CSI Willows here."

Whiting, obviously annoyed and probably not overjoyed leaving these investigators unattended in one of his rooms, nonetheless went off to do Catherine's bidding.

With the four of them alone now-but for the late Vivian Elliot-Vega turned to Catherine. "You see why I called you?"

"You did the right thing." She sighed, rolled her eyes. "It's a little borderline, but-"

"But," Vega said forcefully, "if we're not chasing our tails, this is a crime scene."

Suddenly all four of them felt the ghost of Gil Grissom haunting the room.

"Yeah," Warrick said, "and if we don't investigate it now…no telling what evidence'd be lost forever."

"If it's natural causes, though," Catherine said, "think of the time we're wasting in the middle of this murder spike…."

"I wish I had more for you, right now-" David said, "but until the autopsy, there's no way to know for sure."

Catherine thought for a few seconds, then said firmly, "We've got to treat it as a crime scene…and if we're wrong? We're wrong."

"Won't be the first time," Warrick said.

"I'll interview Whiting," Vega said. "If the Elliot woman was killed, that makes the entire staff suspects."

"Not just them," Catherine warned. "It could be any resident with reasonable mobility. But the staff is where to start."

"What can I do to help?" David asked.

Catherine gave him a supportive smile. "You can wait in the hall. If you are right-and you've discovered a string of homicides-you're standing in our crime scene."

By the time Catherine and Warrick returned with their kits, a small crowd of onlookers in the hall had gathered outside the closed door. A few were in robes and slippers, and two used walkers; but most were fully dressed and looked suspiciously chipper, for this particular ward. Some had already started to question David, really pressing him as he stood there, looking extremely ill at ease.

Noting this tableau up ahead, Warrick said, "Man, those gals are pretty aggressive."

"They've seen David here before," she said. "And always in the context of accompanying one of their own to a morgue wagon."

"Yeah. See what you mean. Not very often you get to turn the tables on the angel of death."

Striding into the middle of the group of seniors, most of whom were women, Catherine said, "I'm very sorry, but this is an official investigation, and we can't tell you anything right now."

"It's Vivian, isn't it?" asked a woman to Catherine's right.

Just under five feet tall, her gray hair short and straight, the woman wore a bulky gray sweater-the temperature outside may have been over one hundred, but it was, after all, chilly in here. Tri-focals peered up at Catherine, one bird studying another, new one.

"Vivian passed away this morning," Catherine said, "yes."

"Shame," another, more heavyset woman said. "She was a sweetie pie."

"You knew her?" Catherine asked. "I understood Mrs. Elliot didn't live here."

"She didn't," the first woman said, with a shrug. "It's just that…we're the Gossip Club, don't you know. We know everybody. And everything."

"That could come in handy," Warrick said under his breath.

Catherine said, "Gossip Club?"

"We visit the sick and dying," the heavyset woman said, matter of factly. "We considered 'Visitor's Club,' but it just sort of lacked pizzazz."

One of the few males in the crowd, from the back said, "I think Gossip Club is perfect!"

"You be quiet, Clarence," the heavyset woman said, good-naturedly, and general laughter followed.

Catherine focused on the bird-like woman, who appeared to be the leader. "And you are?"

"Alice Deams-I'm the president of G.C., and this is my vice president, Willestra McFee." She nodded toward the heavyset woman nearby. "And that's our treasurer, Lucille-"

Catherine interrupted the Mouseketeer Roll Call. "You're all residents here, I take it?"

Alice nodded. "Most of us live in the partial care building-next door? Dora and Helen…" Two women next to David waved. "…they live in the independent apartments down at the other end."

"You all come here every day?"

"Most of us," Willestra said. "Unless we've got doctor's appointments or Margie's arthritis is kicking up, in which case she'll spend the day in her room, watching her stories."

"And you've taken it upon yourself to visit the sick?"

"Oh my, yes. It's the Christian thing to do, and besides, someday we'll be in this wing, won't we? Wishing for a little company. These people are our friends and neighbors, you know."

Catherine raised her voice. "Did any of you know Vivian Elliot well?"

"I probably spent the most time with her," Alice said. "She was really a great gal."

Warrick asked, "Vivian have any family?"

Alice shook her head. "No, and that's tragic. Her husband just passed away a year ago and they only had one child, a daughter who was killed when she was just seventeen by a hit-and-run driver. Viv still mourned the girl."

Catherine asked, "No brothers or sisters?"

"No."

Warrick said, "You seem sure of that. You didn't know her that long, really. How is it-"

"Oh, well, she was like me, don't you know-an only child. It was sort of a more rare thing, back then, being an only child. Bigger families were the thing-everybody had brothers and sisters. So Viv and me, we made kind of a bond out of being only children. We decided we could be sisters-never too late, we said!"

"So, she had no family that you know of?" Catherine asked, just making sure.

"Not a soul-not even very many friends. I only saw one other person visit her the whole time she was here-another woman."

Warrick asked, "This woman, her name-did you get it?"

"No, no, I'm sorry. I never actually met her, you see. When the patients have visitors, we make a policy of not bothering them. The job of the Gossip Club is to lend support when no family and friends are around."

"Do visitors have to sign in here?"

Alice shook her head again. "No, this wing is like a hospital that way. During visitor's hours, people just sort of come and go."

Catherine made a mental note to tell Vega to alert the staff should the unidentified woman come back to visit Vivian Elliot in the next twenty-four hours. After that, the obituary would have run in the newspaper, and Catherine doubted that they'd have any chance of locating the mystery woman…unless she showed up at Vivian's funeral or someone on staff actually knew the visitor.

"When was the last time you saw this woman?" Catherine asked.

"Why, just this morning," Alice said. "In fact, she left just a few minutes before we heard the alarm coming from Vivian's room."

"Can you describe her?"

"Fairly young."

Warrick asked, "How young?"

"Oh-sixty-five or so."

That stopped Warrick for a moment; then he asked, "Description…?"

"She had gray hair and glasses."

Catherine and Warrick looked at the group of women in the hall, and then at each other, confirming a shared thought: Alice had just described all of them.

"We don't usually have a fuss this big when one of us passes," Alice said, eyes making slits in her much-lived-in face. "Why now? Was she murdered?"

Trying to keep her voice and expression neutral, Catherine asked the woman, "Why would you think that, Alice?"

The heavyset woman, Willie, glowered at Alice, then turned to Catherine, "Never mind her-she watches way too much TV!"

"I do not," Alice argued back. "I swear there was a case just like this on Murder, She Wrote."

Everyone in the hall stopped and eyeballed Alice for a long moment.

Behind her tri-focals, Alice's eyes widened and her chin rose defensively. "Well, there was.…Of course, it could've been Barnaby Jones…or maybe Rockford Files. Isn't that James Garner just adorable?"

As the woman prattled on about television, Catherine watched as the other members of the Gossip Club slowly eased away into real life, each suddenly needing to visit someone in a nearby room.

Taking the hint, Catherine and Warrick slipped back into Vivian Elliot's room, leaving poor David alone in the hall with Alice theorizing on what had happened to an old woman on some detective show she'd seen either last week or perhaps twenty-five years ago.

"What exactly are we looking for?" Warrick asked as they unpacked their equipment.

Catherine's eyes roamed around the room, stopping briefly on the body, then moving on. She prided herself on her ability to make the first read of a crime scene an important one. But she could only shake her head. "Warrick-I haven't a clue…."

"I hate when that happens."

With a sigh, Catherine said, "We better gather everything we can. Now that we know that this was a murder."

Warrick's head reared back. "We do?"

"Suuuure," Catherine said. "It was on Barnaby Jones! Or was that Quincy…?"

Shaking his head, smiling one-sidedly, Warrick got out his camera, pulled the sheet back, and began shooting pictures. Catherine started by taking electrostatic print lifts from the tile floor. Truth was, half the hospital had been in and out of here since Vivian Elliot had died; but if there was a killer, that person's shoe prints would be among the many, and Catherine hoped they (and the computer) would be able to sort them all out.

After he finished photographing the body, Warrick moved on and took shots of every piece of equipment, every machine, every piece of furniture in the room. Catherine bent at the plastic biohazard dump and pulled out the liner bag, marking it as evidence. When they finished, Catherine had a pile of maybe fifteen evidence bags and Warrick had shot at least six rolls of twenty-four exposure film.

And yet not a single thing had jumped out at either of them as saying, This is a crime…I am significant….

David and his coroner's crew removed the body, while Catherine and Warrick took most everything else. When they departed, the bed had been stripped bare, including the pillows, and the metal stand that had held two different IV bags was empty. The biohazard dump was also empty, the closet too, and in separate containers at the bottom of one of the bags, Catherine had even collected the remnants of Vivian Elliot's last breakfast left on a tray that apparently had been shifted into the bathroom when the recovering woman had gone code blue.

Alice Deams peeked out a doorway as Catherine strode down the corridor with the last of her grisly booty.

"Was I right?" Alice asked, eyes wide behind thick lenses. "Is it murder?"

"We don't know," Catherine said, pasting on a pleasant smile. "Why would you even think that?"

"Oh! All the hubbub!" Alice said, as she moved into the hall, closer now, more confidential. "Besides…it isn't like we haven't noticed that more of us are passing away than usual."

Catherine's eyes tightened, but she kept her voice casual. "You think so?"

"Oh, my, yes. They're dropping like flies around this joint!"

A little stunned by Alice's no doubt TV-driven phrasing, Catherine managed to ask, "How long have you lived here?"

Alice shrugged; within the heavy sweater, her arms were folded. "Going on ten years."

"You have family that visits you?"

She beamed and nodded and withdrew a snapshot from a sweater pocket, holding it up so Catherine (whose hands were full) could see it plainly.

Alice said, "I carry this with me all the time-my son, daughter-in-law, and their boy and girl."

"Do they visit often?"

"Once or twice a week. They take me to the market-sometimes even out to a movie."

Catherine nodded. "It's good to have good kids…. You say, in ten years, you've never seen deaths bunched this closely together?"

"Not really…. The Gossip Club sends flowers to everybody's funeral. You know, we take up a collection, get everybody to sign a card. Our flower budget this month is already twice normal and there's still a week and a half to go in the month! The last few months have been hard, too."

"How so?"

"You get used to people dying in a place like this-in a way. But, still…. May I tell you something that will sound…awful?"

"Uh…sure. Go right ahead."

Alice moved closer; she smelled like medication. "When you live at a nursing home…and don't kid yourself, honey, this is a nursing home…and you see one or two people pass…you kind of sigh a sigh of relief, and think…whew. Odds are, not gonna be me this month."

"But lately…"

"Lately? All bets are off, kiddo."

Catherine drew in a breath. Then she said, "Alice, we're going to look into this-but I'm sure there's nothing to worry about."

Alice Deams trundled off down the hall, but she didn't look convinced; maybe that rerun of an old TV show was haunting her-more likely, it was seeing David show up with his coroner's wagon a little too often.

Catherine kept telling herself that four elderly people dying in one such facility was not unusual. The heat was at dangerous levels and, even though Sunny Day was air-conditioned, somehow that might be a factor.

Later, as Catherine moved down the hall with her gear, Vega came out of Whiting's office and approached her. He did not look like a happy man.

"No good diagnosis from the doc?"

"The guy's such a basket case over this," Vega said, shaking his head, "he might as well be one of the patients."

"What's his problem?"

"The usual-all he can see is lawsuits, malpractice insurance, and a bunch of really, really bad news happening on his watch."

"Can he live through one more question?"

They knocked at Whiting's office door and were again admitted. Within they found the frazzled physician sitting behind his desk, head in his hands. He barely looked up as they came in.

"Doctor Whiting," Catherine said, leaning a hand against the desk, not bothering to sit. "Mrs. Elliot had a visitor, another woman, who stopped by this morning right before Mrs. Elliot died. Is there any way of finding out the identity of the visitor?"

Whiting shook his head. "Other than our guard gate, we don't have sign-in books or video security or anything. We spend the money we make on the residents, and maintaining a top facility."

"Wouldn't security be part of that?"

"We have security locks on the doors, but that's about it. If Mrs. Elliot buzzed the woman in, or if one of the other residents simply opened the door for her, the visitor would be inside, and we'd have no way of knowing it."

"Isn't that a little risky, Doctor?"

"I don't really see how."

"If your patients are being murdered…you may. Thank you for your cooperation."

Whiting was staring into space as Catherine and Vega left his office.

Back in the corridor, Catherine asked the detective, "What do you think?"

"I think David better hurry up and get that damn autopsy done." Vega locked his eyes on Catherine's. "The other three residents who died this month? All were without families, too."

"All?"

"Not so much as a long lost cousin."

"Sam, that still doesn't prove foul play…."

"Well, we'd better find out from Vivian Elliot's remains, because we sure won't ever know with the other three."

"Why not?"

"As part of a cost-cutting measure here at Sunny Day, all three were cremated. No family to have an opinion, much less a service."

"Four people in a month? It's not that weird."

"Catherine, you were investigating that room for quite some time. That gave Dr. Whiting and me time to go over the records. Four this month, three last month, three the month before that, two each in May, April, and March, three in February, three in January-David isn't the only coroner making pickups, you know. That's a grand total of twenty-two deaths in less than eight months."

He opened the door and held it for her as she walked out into the heat. After the air conditioning, it was something of a shock. She braced herself for another.

Glancing back at the detective, she asked, "Is that a high figure for a place like this?"

"Almost double last year's total for the whole year."

"Ooooh…and you think someone's 'helping' these people to get out of Sunny Day?"

Vega shrugged. "I was hoping you'd find out for me."

"Well, let's start with Vivian Elliot first. You'll check with that guard, to see if our visitor's name got written down?"

"Sure. On my way out, I will."

Catherine loaded the last of the evidence into the Tahoe. Warrick was still inside, getting the last of his gear.

She turned to hold the detective's gaze with her own. "What do you make of David's hunch now?"

Vega rubbed his forehead like he was trying rub all thought away. "He did the right thing-but I still hope he was wrong. The number of deaths this could make suspicious?…Guess what that'll do to the homicide stats that the sheriff is loving so much right now?"

Catherine decided to take that as a rhetorical question; even if it wasn't, answering would be too painful.

After Vega had disappeared into his own vehicle, Catherine sensed Warrick at her side.

"You think we have a murder, Cath? Give me your best guess-I won't tell Grissom."

"Well, Warrick, if it is a murder, we could be looking at a serial killer, and possibly, oh…two dozen victims? Most of whom have been cremated…."

Warrick's eyes glazed over. "I'm sorry I asked…. Keep your damn guesses to yourself, Cath."

She chuckled and got into the Tahoe, rider's side. But the chuckle caught a bit.

Something very evil might be turning Sunny Day cloudy indeed, in which case Catherine Willows doubted in the foreseeable future that she'd be taking a "normal" call again.

3

THE COFFIN HAD BEEN PLACED on a trio of sawhorses in the CSI garage to provide Nick Stokes and Sara Sidle with easier access. As if at a bizarre funeral, Nick leaned over the coffin and gazed down at the woman who lay peacefully within.

No way this youthful corpse could ever have been mistaken for fifty-something Rita Bennett. Nick had never met Rita Bennett, but-like most Vegas residents-he'd seen her hawking cars in commercials often enough to recognize the woman; with her aging showgirl glamour, Rita had been a local celebrity with even a certain national fame, considering how many people came to Vegas and at some point switched on a TV.

This woman-girl, really-was barely in her twenties, if that. Even after three months in a casket, pretty features presented themselves, the airtight vault having allowed the exposed flesh to gain just the barest patina of white mold, as if a spiderweb draped the girl's face. For a moment Nick had an odd, even haunting sensation-it was as though the woman's features were coming to him in a dream, through a translucent veil.

Though the desert air didn't cause human remains to break down in the manner common to more humid climes, moisture left in the body sometimes would be enough to give the deceased that distinctive sheen of white. Slim and auburn-haired, the woman revealed no visible wounds, the small trail of blood droplets on the pillow the only evidence, thus far, suggestive of violence.

Jane Doe had a straight, well-formed nose, bangs that nearly covered large eyes closed over high, slightly rouged cheeks. Nick grunted and twitched a non-smile. Even in death, Ms. Doe seemed to glow a little, the desert conditions not having yet begun the mummification that occurred to so many bodies in the Southwest.

Nick started with his 35mm camera, recording the casket and body from more angles than a fashion photographer at a Vogue shoot. When he was done, Sara stepped up to check under the woman's scarlet-painted fingernails, looking for any evidence that this possible victim might have gotten a piece of an attacker.

When finished, Sara shrugged and said, "Nothing."

"Fingerprints next?"

"Fingerprints next."

While Sara inked the woman's right hand, Nick used his Maglite to carefully search the area around the woman's head. The blood droplets were small, even, and dried to a dark maroon.

"Looks like she dripped," Nick said, "while the killer loaded her into the casket."

"We don't know there's a killer yet," Sara reminded Nick, though there was something unconvinced and perfunctory about her tone. "Anything under her head?"

"Can't see for sure…. Doesn't look like it."

"Anything else on the pillow?"

Nick eased the light around to get a better angle. "No…no…yeah! Yeah, right here-a short black hair." He snapped a photo of the strand, then used a pair of tweezers to pick it up.

"Not our vic's," Sara said.

"Let's hope it's the killer's."

"If there is a killer."

"If there is a killer. You have that feeling, too, huh?"

Sara frowned. "What feeling?"

Nick grinned. "That Gris is always looking over your shoulder."

She half-smirked, then said, "If there is a killer, that hair could still belong to somebody other than the killer…."

"Always a possibility. And I don't know enough about funeral homes and cemeteries to guess how many people might handle a casket."

Sara-after carefully cleaning ink off dead fingertips-slipped the corpse's hand back into the coffin. "I oughta load these prints into AFIS."

"Go ahead-I'll stay busy, and by the time you get back, we should be ready to pull her out."

Sara nodded. "Back in a flash-don't you two run off."

Nick gave her half a smile. "We'll wait for you."

* * *

With Brass behind the wheel of the Taurus, headed for the cemetery, CSI supervisor Gil Grissom sat quietly in the rider's seat, oblivious to anything but his thoughts, sunglasses keeping out much more than just glaring morning sunlight.

Barring the possibility that they'd exhumed the wrong corpse, the body in the casket could only have been exchanged for Rita Bennett's in a small and very finite number of places: inside the hearse, during transport, which seemed improbable at best; at the funeral home; or the cemetery.

"Soooo," Brass said, voice a little loud. "Do I take it, then, that you think the switch went down at the funeral home?"

"Huh?" Grissom asked, blinking over at Brass, who glanced at him, shook his head, then turned back to the road.

"I asked," Brass said, just a wee bit testy, "if you thought the bodies were switched at the cemetery. When you didn't answer, I figured-"

"Sorry, Jim. Thinking."

"And what brilliant insight do you have for me?"

Now Grissom shook his head. "None. Too early."

Brass's tight eyes indicated he'd been mulling the same possibilities. "Wouldn't it be hard as hell to trade bodies at the cemetery, if there was a graveside service?"

"Graves aren't filled in till after the mourners are long gone."

Brass considered that. "But the casket's already been lowered…."

"What goes down," Grissom said, with a tilt of the head, "can come up."

The detective turned the Taurus through the gates and took a right into the gravel parking lot fronting the tiny office of Desert Palm Memorial Cemetery, which looked like a homespun stone cottage…which just happened to have had a cemetery spring up around it. Brass parked, then Grissom and the detective exited the vehicle and the blast of hot air was immediately withering. A little bell clinked when Brass opened the door and the two men entered into more blessed air conditioning.

The room was small and square with one window next to the door and another on the far facing wall, the green of the cemetery visible through both. A battered gray battleship of a metal desk lurked to their right, a woman of about sixty seated behind it in a short-sleeve rust-colored white-floral-print dress.

Due to the lack of space, the desk was shoved back close to the wall and, although the woman wasn't particularly large, she seemed almost jammed behind and under it; a phone, a large blotter/calendar, and a walkie-talkie were arrayed on the desktop, but no pictures or other personal items, although a little stand with free dog-eared pamphlets-Grief Is God's Way of Saying Goodbye, Eternal Rest for Your Loved Ones-perched at the front edge, next to a brass nameplate that read "GLENDA NELSON-MEMORIAL CONSULTANT." File cabinets separated her from another desk, empty at the moment, and the rest of the cottage served as a small shop where artificial flowers could be picked up for mourners doing some last-minute shopping.

"Welcome to Desert Palm Memorial, gentlemen," the woman said in a mechanically mellow voice, with a practiced smile and wholly unengaged eyes. "I'm Glenda-how may I help you?"

Brass flashed his badge. "This is Doctor Grissom from the crime lab; I'm Captain Brass. We were here early this morning-for that exhumation?"

"Yes, of course! Mr. Crosby informed me of that."

"Well, that's who we're looking for-Mr. Crosby. Is he here this early?"

Her smile disappeared but her eyes came alive. "I'm sorry, Captain, but he's not scheduled to come in today."

Had Crosby taken the day off, Grissom wondered, because the cemetery manager knew they might be back?

"Is there any way I can help you?" the woman asked.

"It's about the exhumation-there's a problem."

She frowned and seemed to Grissom a trifle alarmed, despite Brass's typically low-key manner; problems around here were fairly limited-the guests at this hotel didn't likely complain much.

The woman said, "Well-Joe and Bob didn't mention any difficulties…."

Brass said, "Thing is…is it Mrs. Nelson?"

Grissom felt this guess on Brass's part was substantiated by evidence: The woman had on a wedding ring and diamond.

"Yes-it's Mrs. Nelson. But Glenda is fine."

"Mrs. Nelson, we opened that casket at headquarters, and we found the wrong body inside."

She blinked and thought about that and then blinked some more. "How in heaven's name is that possible?"

"Our question exactly," Grissom said.

The woman glanced at the phone on her desk. Grissom could tell she wanted to pick it up, probably to call Crosby, but she didn't reach for it. She'd been left in charge, and she would deal with it.

Finally, Glenda said, "You'll have to forgive me…I wasn't here earlier…. Can you tell me the name of the person you were supposed to exhume?"

Brass said, "Rita Bennett."

"Oh yes. From television." Glenda rose and went to a filing cabinet nearby; computers had not come to Desert Palm-not uncommon with such facilities.

"Rita Bennett," she repeated to herself. She opened the second drawer down in the file cabinet and thumbed through a few files before finding the right one. "Section B, row 3, plot 117."

Grissom restrained a smile. On the green grounds nearby, with their headstones, eternal flames, and floral arrangements, loved ones rested in serene dignity; but here in the office, a file cabinet would do as final resting place.

Brass was checking his notebook. "That's what Crosby gave me-section B, row 3, plot 117…. Mrs. Nelson, do you mind walking us over there?"

Glenda frowned. "I can't leave my post," she said, as if that desk really were her battleship. "What would happen if someone came in?"

Grissom and Brass exchanged quick looks, both thinking the same thing: No MO was on file with LVPD for perps prone to heisting artificial flowers from cemetery offices.

"I'll tell you what," she said. "I could call Bob on the walkie and have him take you back."

"Why don't you?" Brass said pleasantly.

Glenda called Bob.

While they waited for Bob's arrival, Brass asked a few more questions, beginning with, "Mrs. Nelson, is there any way one body could be…exchanged…for another?"

Glenda looked at Brass like he'd just blurted a chain of obscenities. "Captain Brass! This is not a used parts store-urban legends about organ thieves do not take into consideration such small factors as embalming!"

"I didn't mean to suggest-"

"We take our responsibility very seriously!"

Grissom bestowed a charming smile upon her and said, "Of course we understand that, Mrs. Nelson-but it's not impossible, is it?"

The gentleness of Grissom's tone calmed her, and she considered the question finally. "We would notice a disturbance in the ground. We are very particular about our landscaping. We're proud of the service we perform."

"As well you should be," Grissom said with a nod and a smile.

"But what about," Brass asked, "before the body is buried?"

Shaking her head, Glenda said, "The caskets are locked, for one thing; and for another, there are people at the graveside for the service…."

"Always?"

"Usually. Then after that, the vault is sealed and the vault with the coffin is lowered, then covered. The only people who would have any opportunity at all, for what you're suggesting, are Bob and Joe, and they're both good men."

"Can you give us their full names?"

"Roberto Dean and Joseph Fenway," she said, "but you're wrong about them."

Grissom smiled again. "We don't have any opinion about them, Mrs. Nelson."

Brass was jotting the names in his notebook when Bob showed up on a rider lawn mower. They thanked Mrs. Nelson again, and she nodded rather coldly, and they went out to greet their old friend Bob, who already knew what they needed from Mrs. Nelson's walkie-talkie summons.

In the Taurus, Grissom and Brass followed the rider mower around to section B, row 3, plot 117-and found the open grave from which they had removed the vault this morning.

"Bob," Brass said out the car window, "you're sure this is plot 117? Section B, row 3?"

Bob, sitting on his mower, made a face, and not a terribly intelligent one. "Think I'm likely to make a mistake like that?"

"Of course not," Grissom said. "But do you have a map, or chart…?"

Bob had both-a map of the entire cemetery and a chart of section B. He withdrew them from a back pocket of his dirty jeans and unfolded them and came over like a carhop to share them with the detective and the CSI.

"Bob," Grissom said, studying the folded sheets, "this is the right grave, right?"

Bob nodded, and there was pride in his voice when he said, " 'Round here, guy's gotta be careful what hole he sticks it in."

"Words of wisdom."

Waving at Bob from the Taurus, they drove back to the office and found Glenda fidgeting behind her desk and not terribly happy to see them return.

"Are you satisfied now?" she asked. "It was the right grave, wasn't it?"

Brass shook his head. "Right grave-wrong body."

Glenda's voice got very small. "This is terrible…this is awful…. Our reputation…"

His charming smile nowhere in sight, Grissom said, "Don't you think the loved ones of the deceased deserve better than your concern for your reputation?"

Glenda swallowed and stared at nothing. "You're right…. I should be ashamed." Then she raised bright, alarmed eyes, gesturing to herself. "Certainly you people don't think we had anything-"

Brass hesitated, and Grissom stepped in. "We don't think one of your employees did this."

Relief softened her features.

"But," Grissom added, "that doesn't mean they didn't. We just have no evidence to support that notion…so we'll be looking other places."

Cutting in, Brass said, "Like for starters, the funeral home that officiated over Rita Bennett's service."

"Which one was that?" Glenda asked.

Brass's voice stayed remarkably even and sarcasm free. "We were kind of hoping you could tell us."

"Certainly." The file was still on Glenda's desk and she thumbed through it, then said, "Mr. Black's establishment." She found half a smile somewhere. "I should've known-they're the biggest mortuary in Las Vegas. They do most of the funerals involving clients with money. And this Rita Bennett? If it's not too disrespectful for me to say so?…She was loaded."

"We know," Brass said.

"Does that make this more suspicious?" Glenda asked, eyebrows knitted.

"You know," Grissom said, "I think finding the wrong body in a coffin is suspicious enough."

She was pondering that as they went out.

Nick had bagged two more of the short black hairs, as well as a thin white fiber, and tested the maroon drops (just to make sure they were blood), before Sara finally ambled back into the garage.

"What does our friend AFIS have to say?"

Sara shook her head. "Not chatty yet-Jacqui loaded the prints into Missing Persons, too."

"Anything?"

"Not so far…but it was just getting started."

Nick sighed and gestured toward the girl in the casket. "Well…time for the coming out party?"

"Why not."

Sara pulled over a gurney and locked down the wheels. As she did, Nick put his latex-gloved hands under the body's shoulders and lifted her up and out; there was some resistance before the head finally tore loose from the pillow, leaving behind a glob of dried blood and some hair.

Looking at the back of the woman's head, Nick could see the reason for the blood: a small black hole, no bigger around than a ballpoint pen.

"Entrance wound," he said.

Sara snatched up the camera and snapped four photos of the tiny aperture. "No exit?"

"Doesn't look like it."

She raised an eyebrow. "Small caliber, huh?"

Nick nodded. "Twenty-two, maybe."

"Or a twenty-five?…No sign of defense wounds."

Nick twitched a grimace. "She didn't see it coming."

"Maybe that's not such a bad thing…. The killer-we agree there's a killer now, right?"

"We agree there's a killer now. Right."

"The killer? He or she went to a whole lot of trouble to get rid of the body. This wasn't some random act."

"Not hardly." Nick trained tight eyes on Sara. "If the killer didn't know her, if it was just a thrill kill or something…why not just leave her where she dropped?"

Sara set down the camera. "Point well-taken-the killer must have known her."

"That makes sense, but Grissom'll want more."

"He's not the only one."

"Yeah?"

Sara nodded at the dead girl. "She wants it, too."

The two of them lifted the girl out of the coffin and carefully laid her on the gurney. To Nick, even though he held the heavier end, the young woman felt feather light. It was said that when a person dies, their body weight drops by twenty-one grams; but this vic seemed to have lost much more than that.

Releasing the brake on the gurney, Sara prepared to take the body over to Doc Robbins for the autopsy. "Coming, Nick?" she asked.

"Not just yet. Now that it's empty, I want to go over this coffin…."

"Good thought. You want me to come back, and help?"

"No, that's okay. I got it-not really room enough for two of us, nosing around in there anyway. You see what the autopsy has to tell us, and I'll catch up with you."

She said, "Sure thing," then pushed the gurney across the garage and through the doors into the corridor.

Alone with the coffin and vault now, Nick went to work. He started with the casket: They had been very careful about touching it while they worked, and so the first thing to do was to fingerprint the box; their own prints would be on both the casket and the vault-no helping that. They had expected to find Rita Bennett inside, so, obviously, hadn't been particularly careful about not leaving fingerprints. Once they found the other woman, though, they had pulled on the ever-trusty latex gloves….

He dusted the coffin all down the lip of the lid, along the handles, and around the locks. Normally, the only prints he would expect to find would be his and Sara's; but with the sealed vault protecting the fingerprints from the arid desert air, he hoped to get luckier than that. It was a time-consuming job, but whenever he found something, he'd transfer it to tape and move on. In the end, he collected more than two dozen prints. How many would prove to be his and Sara's remained to be seen.

With the outside of the casket done, Nick moved back to the interior. Using his Maglite, he combed the satin lining, looking for any clue that might lead him to identify either the victim or the killer. Having gone over the head end of the coffin thoroughly (while the body was still inside), he now began at the foot. Several small pieces of something black-dirt, he decided-were visible, where they had probably hidden under the heel of the girl's shoes. It was possible the dirt had come from Rita Bennett's shoes, too, but the Bennett woman would likely have been buried in clean, perhaps even new shoes, whereas the girl had been murdered, not prepared and spruced up for burial. Either way, he took photos of the dirt, then bagged it.

Next, Nick moved on toward where her knees had been, then her waist, her back, and, finally, again to the pillow. He was going around the edge one final time when he saw a fiber hung up in a tiny flaw in the wood. Using his tweezers, he picked up the fiber and examined it more carefully-white, and less than an inch long. To Nick it looked like plain old-fashioned white thread; but he knew that David Hodges, CSI's resident trace expert, might well give him enough info to start a Plain Old-Fashioned White Thread website. He bagged the thread and then went over the casket one more time, this trip taking an alternative light source along for the ride….

The blood showed up under the UV light, all right, but he found nothing else. Spraying Luminol on the pillow didn't help either: The blood that he'd already seen-the drops and the small patch under the woman's head-was all there was to find.

Finally finished with the casket, Nick stared at the empty vessel, as if waiting for a wraith to rise up and reveal all to him. Unlikely as that prospect might be, he sure could have used the help.

He had precious little to go on. He moved on to the cement vault, but there was even less there. The vault would have already been at the cemetery, and the casket sealed inside there. The possibility remained that the body could have been transferred right before it went into the vault; but the concrete wrapper had been exposed to the desert climate far more than the casket sealed within, and Nick was not confident of finding anything.

Still, he went over it inch by inch. He dusted for fingerprints, went over the outside and the edges for signs of blood, and examined the inside with both his Maglite and an ALS.

And came up empty.

He cleaned up, stored the evidence, then caught up with Sara in the morgue. Though the garage had been air-conditioned, Nick's hard work had him sweating, and when he strode into the morgue, the chill of the room gave him a shiver.

Sara stood opposite Dr. Al Robbins, the body on the steel table between them. The unknown girl was naked now, her clothes in evidence bags on a nearby counter, where Sara had put them.

Sara had put on a powder-blue lab coat and latex gloves as she assisted Robbins with his duties. Following suit, Nick took a blue lab coat off a hook and slipped into it. As he crossed to the table, he pulled on a fresh pair of latex gloves.

A rather tall, balding, salt-and-pepper-bearded man, Robbins was looking at less than twelve months before his tenth anniversary with the LVPD. A man who seemed composed of equal parts cool professionalism and warm compassion, Robbins moved with the aid of a metal cane, which now leaned, as it often did when he was working, in a corner near the table. The father of three and a devoted family man, Doc Robbins had a daughter whose age would not be far removed from that of their nameless victim.

Nick settled in next to Sara.

"Find anything?" she asked.

He shrugged. "Couple needles in the haystack. We'll see." Looking down at the body, Nick saw that their victim not only had been disrobed, but her face had been scrubbed clean. She was even prettier than he had originally thought. "How about you, Sara?"

"I'll want to go over her clothes more thoroughly, later," Sara said.

Nick looked at Robbins. "And you, Doc? She tell you anything interesting yet?"

Robbins glanced up at Nick, then turned his attention back to the woman on the table. "Cause of death was a single gunshot wound to the back of the head. Small caliber, probably a twenty-two. But you knew that.

"Here's what you didn't know," Robbins continued. "The fact is that the young woman is…was…pregnant."

Nick's eyes widened. He bit the word off: "Really?"

The ME nodded. "About nine weeks."

"So what we may have here," Nick said, thinking out loud, "is a father who didn't want to be a father…."

"What we may have here," Sara added, "is an abortion."

* * *

Located on Valle Verde Drive in Henderson, Desert Haven Mortuary was about as far from Desert Palm Memorial Cemetery as you could get and still be within the city limits. Caught in the noon rush hour, Grissom and Brass had taken the better part of an hour making the trek across town. When they arrived, the parking lot was practically full and Brass had to pull the Taurus over to the far side of the building.

Through shimmering heat they walked around to the front. Done in tasteful brick with white painted trim and pillars, the mortuary was but a single story, though an endless, rambling affair. No matter how far Grissom felt like he had walked, the front door always seemed to still be in the distance; he knew that inside were at least six, and maybe more, visitation rooms, as well as a cluster of offices, the workroom where the bodies were prepared, and the crematorium.

As with so many businesses, the trend in mortuaries had become the big ones eating up the little ones; many mortuaries had started out as "Mom and Pop" shops, passed down from generation to generation, but the advent of chains was ending that, as corporations bought out family businesses. Dustin Black's Desert Haven Mortuary was an exception to that rule.

Still family-owned, Desert Haven was simply too big and flourishing for the corporations to buy out. The Black family had been in the business since the late thirties, when Daniel Black (Dustin's grandfather) had purchased a very early embalming machine. Even though at the time Vegas was little more than a wide spot in the road, Daniel had set up shop as a mortician and the family's course and fortune were set from then on.

Now the biggest mortuary between California and Arizona, Desert Haven was a pillar of the community and the mortuary of choice for those who could afford it. Anyone who was anyone wouldn't be caught dead anywhere but here.

The packed parking lot told Grissom that even though it was barely noon, visitations were going strong. Elegant double doors with etched glass provided entry into a large foyer area where the CSI supervisor and the detective were met by a quiet young gray-suited greeter with a loud tie, a handsome kid in his very early twenties.

Grissom was a little surprised to be met by such a young representative-often, funeral homes used older people with a comforting manner. This boy seemed anxious.

"Which family, please?" the greeter asked.

"The Black family," Brass said.

"I…don't understand…."

Brass showed his badge, discreetly. "We need to talk to Mr. Black."

"We're really very busy." This request seemed to have thrown the greeter. "I'm not sure…"

Brass smiled-it was a particularly awful smile. "You're not very high on the food chain around here, are you, son?"

"Uh…"

"Why don't you fetch your boss and let him make this decision?"

Dark eyes beneath heavy brows tightened in thought; then the boy nodded and gestured. "Would you mind waiting over there?"

"Not at all."

They stood off to one side as the boy disappeared down a hall and an older man, with hair as gray as his suit, met incoming guests, and led them to the correct viewing room.

Three greeters moved in and out of the action like a well-oiled machine. People came and went, and always the three men-all of a certain age and bearing-were friendly, courteous, and helpful. One approached Brass and Grissom to make sure they'd been helped; they said they had.

Grissom was impressed-he'd seen casinos with less traffic. He knew the studies showed four million visitors a year, five thousand new residents a month…but how many deaths per month? How many funerals? How many cremations? Of course, Grissom knew better than most the certainty of death. The Black business was thriving, a dying business only in the literal sense, never in the financial.

Soon the young greeter delivered a tall man in his forties with an oval, pleasant face and a monk-like bald pate.

Probably at least six-five, almost heavyset, the man-distinguished in a well-cut gray suit with a blue-and-white-striped tie-moved with confidence and grace where many his size might seem oafish; a wreath of brown circled the back of his head and he had a full but well-trimmed mustache under a slightly crooked nose and wide-set, sympathetic dark eyes.

The tall man automatically stuck out his hand. His voice was mellow and he spoke softly, almost whispering. "Dustin Black-you gentlemen are with the police?"

Brass shook Black's hand, making short work of it. "I'm Captain Jim Brass and this is Doctor Gil Grissom, our top criminalist."

"That sounds impressive," Black said with a ready smile. "Nice to meet you, gentlemen." The mortician turned to Grissom and shook his hand also. "I'm a big supporter of you guys. I'm a member of the sheriff's auxiliary."

"Great," Grissom said with a forced smile, wondering why morticians always reminded him of ministers-or politicians. This one-both.

"I hope Jimmy wasn't too awkward with you, gentlemen."

Brass said, "Jimmy's your young greeter?" The boy had long since disappeared.

"Yes. It's his first time up front, but we have four showings right now. Kind of…bumper-to-bumper here today."

Grissom asked, "Jimmy's last name is?"

"His name is James Doyle. Why?"

The CSI shrugged. "I'm just curious by nature, Mr. Black."

"Ah. Well, Jimmy's been with me for years."

"Years?"

"Starting in high school, then as an intern during mortician's school, and since his graduation. But I have a big staff, Mr. Grissom, over a dozen employees…. How may I help you, gentlemen?"

Brass glanced around at the people milling in the foyer, some on their way out, others on their way in. "Is there some place we can talk in private?"

"Concerning?"

"Concerning," Brass said, "something you won't want us talking about in the lobby."

Black led them into a spacious room that was obviously his office.

As Grissom had expected, the mortician's inner sanctum was as tasteful and staid as the rest of Desert Haven-a large gleaming mahogany desk, a wall of beautifully bound, probably unread books, lithographs of wintry scenes of cabins and barns in New England. Behind Black's desk were three framed diplomas and a window whose wooden blinds were shut. A banker's lamp threw a warm yellow pool of light.

Two visitor's chairs in front of the desk looked freshly delivered and the whole office had a mild patchouli aroma to it. Black gestured for Brass and Grissom to sit as he circled his desk and dropped into his high-back leather chair.

This, Grissom thought, had to be the fake office, this sterile, impersonal room out of a furniture ad, a place where Black met with the grieving to offer support and advice in a blandly soothing surrounding; somewhere else in this building, an office with clutter and real work had to exist.

"How can I help the LVPD?" Black asked as he steepled his fingers under his chin and rested his elbows on the desk.

"Did you handle the Rita Bennett funeral?" Brass asked.

A confident nod. "Yes, her husband-Peter Thompson-is a close personal friend of mine."

Grissom found that people who claimed many "close personal friends" seldom had anything but acquaintances.

"Losing Rita," the mortician was saying, "was a tragedy-such a vibrant woman. She was a two-time president of the Chamber of Commerce, you know."

Brass asked, "Which of this large staff of yours was in charge of the arrangements?"

Confusion creased Black's face. "Why are you asking me about this particular funeral?"

"It's come up in the course of an investigation. We'd like to know who was in charge."

He shook his head, eyes wide, half in thought, half in surprise. "I can't imagine what type of investigation would involve Rita Bennett's funeral."

"Bear with us," the detective said. "Who was in charge?"

"I was," Black said. "I oversaw Rita's arrangements personally…. As I said, Peter is a close personal friend. Rita was as well."

Grissom said, "Must be painful."

Black blinked. "What?"

"We recuse ourselves in cases involving friends or family. Must be painful, preparing a close personal friend at a mortuary."

"That presumes, Doctor, uh…Grissom? Doctor Grissom. That presumes a negative aspect to what we do."

Grissom's head tilted to one side. "Not at all. A physician does not operate on family, healing art or not."

"You're correct," Black said, his voice spiking with defensiveness. "But I consider it an honor, a privilege, to use my art where friends are concerned. I would stop short of family, I grant you."

"The Bennett arrangements," Brass said, trying to get back on track. "Everything go as planned?"

Black clearly was working to hold back irritation. "I'm sorry, Captain. Unless you can give me some idea about why you're here, I won't be answering any more of your questions today."

"Then I'll give you an idea, Mr. Black-at the request of her daughter, Rita Bennett's casket was exhumed this morning."

The mortician frowned. "Why was that considered necessary?"

Grissom said, "Actually, that fact is not pertinent."

Black grunted a non-laugh. "How could the reason for an exhumation not be pertinent?"

"When the body in the vault is the wrong one."

Black blinked. "What?"

Brass said, "The body in the coffin was not Rita Bennett."

Black froze, then recovered quickly. "Gentlemen, I'm sure you mean well, but there's clearly been a mistake. That's just not possible."

Grissom said, "You're right…"

The mortician gestured, giving Brass a look that said, You see?

"…there has been a mistake."

"Well, the mistake was not ours," the mortician insisted, and folded his arms, rocking back.

Brass leaned forward a little. "Rita Bennett was how old?"

"Late fifties. But she looked younger."

"Did she look twenty?"

Black's mouth dropped open, but no words came out.

"The woman in the casket," Grissom said, "was at least thirty years younger than the woman whose name was on the headstone. Any ideas?"

"There's no way…" Black's eyes flashed in sudden alarm. "And you think I…we…had something to do with this…this switching of bodies?"

Brass said, "We're making no accusations, Mr. Black."

"We're just gathering evidence," Grissom said.

"What evidence do you have?"

"A body in a coffin. The coffin belongs to Rita Bennett. The body doesn't."

"Who the hell was in the coffin?"

"We don't know yet; we're working on identifying her now. You also have to agree it would be very hard to switch the bodies after the vault was sealed and the grave was filled in."

Grasping at straws, Black said, "But not impossible."

"The grave hadn't been disturbed," Grissom said, "and the vault was still sealed tight when we did the exhumation…. The evidence indicates the switch was made before the vault was sealed."

"I understand why you're here," Black allowed. "That fact makes you think that, somehow, we here at Desert Haven had something to do with this unholy travesty."

Brass leaned forward. "You were in our place-what would you think?"

"I see your dilemma, but I must assure you, gentlemen, there's no way that anything like that could have happened at this mortuary."

"You seem quite sure," Brass said.

Black straightened. "Of course I am. I trust all our employees-we're family, here. And none of them would do anything like this, and anyway…it's just not possible. There are always too many people around."

Grissom asked, "Can you offer us another explanation for the confusion of corpses?"

The mortician thought about it. "No-honestly, I can't. And the truth is…I've never heard of anything like this before. It makes no sense to me. Why would someone trade one dead body for another?"

"Possibly," Grissom said, "someone with something to hide, Mr. Black."

"Something like what?"

"Oh I don't know-a body, maybe?"

4

WARRICK WAS BONE TIRED. Beat. The long night he'd recently endured promised to be followed by what was developing into an equally long morning and afternoon. With two dayshift investigators out sick, and three others working a gang-related shoot-out in the desert, that meant overtime for everybody, which meant more money…but then you had to have a life to spend it on, right?

While the nightshift CSIs hung around and stayed on call for anything that might come up, they pursued their current cases.

Instead of drawing the shooting, which would have been enough to perk him up, Warrick (and Catherine) had been dealt some fairly unexciting cards-namely, following up on David Phillips's hunch at the Sunny Day Continuing Care Facility.

Not that Warrick would give anything less than one hundred percent. Beneath a surface of steady purpose that could be mistaken for boredom, despite a wry and dry sarcasm that might suggest lack of interest, an alert, brilliant criminologist lurked behind the green eyes of Warrick Brown.

The CSI took his job dead serious, even when it meant fingerprinting bedpans and photographing walkers. Exploring a suspicious death at Sunny Day rest home may not be as compelling as working a gang-banger shoot-out, but it deserved all due consideration and deliberation. If foul play had been done to Vivian Elliot, then it was Warrick's job to speak on her behalf.

As Grissom had said more than once, "We can't give them back their lives, so we have to find the meaning of their deaths."

By this Gris meant, in his oblique way, that the only thing left for a murder victim was justice-what could still be done for Vivian Elliot was to find her killer, and deliver that killer for punishment.

If Vivian Elliot had been murdered….

Such idealistic notions didn't mean Warrick couldn't run out of gas, however, and he was definitely driving on fumes. Catherine had shut herself in her office to (quote) catalog the evidence (unquote); but on his way to the breakroom, Warrick noticed no light under her office door.

Cath had to be just as whipped as he was; but she had remarkable recuperative powers-she could nap fifteen minutes and be good to go for another eight hours. Warrick, on the other hand, was pumping coffee through his system in hopes the caffeine would help fight the sluggishness that had settled over him like damp clothing upon their return from Sunny Day.

Uncoiling his tall frame from a breakroom chair, he strolled to the counter and poured himself another cup of what had purportedly once been coffee (the lab results weren't back yet). He turned and looked at the table and chair he'd just vacated, and considered sitting back down and closing his eyes for what he hoped would be a short nap…only he didn't have Catherine's ability to quickly recharge, nor was the caffeine in his bloodstream likely to cooperate.

Instead, he would go check with David about the autopsy on Vivian Elliot.

Assistant coroner David Phillips often worked alongside Dr. Robbins in the morgue, but when Warrick peeked in, Robbins was in the midst of an autopsy with Nick and Sara looking on and providing whatever assistance might be necessary-no David. And Warrick could see just enough of the corpse's face on the table to know she wasn't their woman from Sunny Day; this corpse was young, if a corpse could be said to possess youth.

Warrick moved on in his search, which didn't take long-the assistant coroner was two doors down in X-ray.

As Warrick walked in, David was adjusting the placement of the X-ray tube over Vivian Elliot's remains. An X-ray had a multiplicity of uses where live bodies were concerned; and Warrick had seen such machines used even on dead bodies, to locate bullets or other foreign objects.

But the CSI wasn't sure he knew what David was up to, using the thing with the late Vivian Elliot….

"Hey," Warrick said.

"Hey," David said. He smiled, glad for the living company apparently, and gestured. "Step into my booth…."

"Said the spider to the fly?"

"Or not. And don't worry: That glow-in-the-dark rumor you hear is a buncha b.s."

"I'm coming, teacher," Warrick said.

David led Warrick into the control booth and hit a switch. Soon David shut it down, and moved quickly out into the main room to remove that film from under Vivian's body and to place another a little farther down.

"I could use a hand," David asked.

Warrick joined David. "I don't suppose you mean applause."

"No," David said, with his nervous smile.

Warrick turned Vivian slightly so David could get the film under her. "What are you up to, David?" he asked. "Not playing another hunch, are ya?"

"Not exactly. More…trying to confirm a theory."

"Which is?"

"That someone at Sunny Day injected Mrs. Elliot with air, causing an embolism that sent her heart into seizure…after which she died."

Frowning and nodding, Warrick said, "You think the killer did that, to make the death look like a heart attack?"

"I do-and this is something a bad guy could get away with…if the good guys weren't looking for it."

Warrick raised one eyebrow and gave David half a smirk. "First you think the woman was murdered, because you've been called out to that nursing home too many times…."

"Yes, that…but also, that none of the last four people who died at Sunny Day had any family to notify, remember."

"I remember…and now you're telling me the murder weapon is air."

"Well, here's another fact for you…."

"Facts are good. We like facts a lot better than hunches."

"I know you do. The others have all been heart attacks, too."

Warrick felt his skepticism fading and his interest rising; the facts were beginning to pile up like a winner's chips, and something in David's earnestness made Warrick want to trust the assistant coroner's instincts.

After all, a "hunch" from an expert, the "instincts" of a professional, could be as valid as a physician's diagnosis.

"The theory is really pretty simple," David began. "The killer injects a fairly large syringe full of air into the victim. In Mrs. Elliot's case, the IV catheter gave the killer an injection site that wouldn't even be noticed. The air embolism reaches the heart and the muscle seizes. The outward symptoms are that the victim is having a heart attack, but the truth is…she's been murdered."

"Dispose of the needle," Warrick said, "and it's like you were never there."

"That perfect crime you hear so much about."

"Not so perfect."

David frowned. "Where's the flaw?"

Warrick grinned. "Somebody smart like you, David, can see right through it."

David beamed, but Warrick didn't let him bask in the praise, asking, "What do you hope to accomplish with the X-ray?"

With a gesture toward Vivian Elliot, who posed under the X-ray's eye, David said, "The cardiovascular system is a closed system. Despite the fact that there's over 60,000 miles of arteries, veins, and capillaries, the air bubble will show up on an X-ray. If there's an air bubble, Vivian Elliot was murdered. If not…I've wasted a lot of valuable time, and this poor woman is still dead."

"Dead not murdered."

"Dead but not murdered…. Only, doesn't this woman have a right for us to make a serious effort to find her cause of death?"

Warrick gave David the complete and profound answer the assistant coroner was hoping for: "Yes."

They moved the body and took more X-rays. Working in silence for a while, they finished their task in a relatively short order.

Holding up the last undeveloped X-ray, Warrick said, "Is this the only way to find out if she was murdered by an air bubble?"

Shrugging a little, David said, "There is one other way, but I don't think Doctor Robbins would ever go for it."

"Well, try me."

David's eyes flicked wide. "Well…you crack the chest and fill the cavity with water. If there's an air embolism, it'll leak out, and the ME will see bubbles in the water."

"That's nasty," Warrick said.

"So is murder."

"Good point."

"I've heard about this technique, but I've never actually seen anyone do it in practice. The X-rays are still our best bet."

"Well," Warrick said, "let's take these vacation pics to one-hour photo, and see if our next trip's gonna be to track down a murderer…."

Catherine stretched her arms wide, yawning herself awake. The windowless office was pitch-black, the only light coming in under the crack of the door. She checked the iridescent dial of her watch and realized she'd slept five more minutes than the twenty she'd planned. Blessed with an uncanny internal clock, Catherine seldom had use for an alarm and only wore a watch for confirmation of what her body was already telling her.

She reached over to switch on her desk lamp. When her eyes had adjusted to the light, her gaze came into focus on the framed picture of her daughter Lindsey. The blonde-haired, blue-eyed girl smiled at her and Catherine smiled back. Not long ago, she might have felt a twinge of guilt over the many hours she spent away from the child.

But she had come to terms with her single-parent status, and dedication to her job was something to feel pride about, not shame. Catherine's nightshift work actually made it possible for her to spend more time with Lindsey than many a working mom…although in doubleshift marathons like this one, that notion was put to the test.

At a counter in her office, Catherine reached at random for one of the brown bags of evidence from Vivian Elliot's room. After breaking the seal, she realized she'd picked up the one filled with sheets. She set that aside, saving that for the layout room where she'd have more space. For now, she selected the bag containing Vivian Elliot's personal belongings; inside was a smaller bag of valuables as well, which she'd picked up from the Sunny Day office.

She carefully emptied the contents of the smaller bag onto the counter: three rings, a watch, a gold cross necklace, a wallet, and a cell phone. A few years ago, the cell phone might have surprised her, with a woman of Vivian's age; but now the whole world seemed to have one, and many seniors in fact carried cells for I've-fallen-and-can't-get-up emergencies.

The rings were a gold wedding band with an attached diamond engagement ring, possibly a karat, and a decorative number with a diamond-centered ruby rose. The rings weren't cheap, but they probably weren't from Tiffany's, either.

Likewise, Vivian's gold cross necklace was a nice mid-range piece that looked like she'd had awhile, but had taken good care of it, as with her rings. The watch was a Bulova that looked to be about ten years old; it seemed as well-maintained as the other pieces, and the band was a replacement one, fairly recent.

Nothing terribly significant-a woman with enough money to have nice if not lavish things, which she took care of and (as in the case of the Bulova) made last.

The cell phone was what really interested Catherine-cells often held a wealth of information just waiting to be tapped.

She jotted down the numbers from the speed dial-only three, but one might be the mystery woman who had visited Vivian right before her death. Next, Catherine checked the call log, which gave her the last ten numbers Vivian had dialed, the last ten calls she'd received, the calls she'd missed, and the in-box for text messages, though the latter was empty. Several of the numbers turned up again and again, most likely Vivian's closest friends. Women Vivian's age often rivaled teenage girls for phone time with their gal pals….

In fact, one of the numbers showed up on the speed dial, the missed calls, the received calls (three times), and the dialed calls (four times). That would be where Catherine would start, figuring that number (keeping in mind the late woman's lack of family) probably belonged to Vivian's best friend.

Catherine was going through this list of cell phone numbers when she realized neither she nor Warrick had gotten a log of the calls to and from Vivian's room at Sunny Day. She made a mental note to ask Warrick about it, then picked up her own cell phone and dialed Vega.

"It's Catherine, Sam-got time for a question?"

"From you, always."

"Did you and Doctor Whiting discuss the telephone in Mrs. Elliot's room?"

She could hear the smile in Vega's voice as he said, "I was wondering when the most diligent CSI in Vegas would get around to asking about that."

Sighing her own smile, Catherine said, "Oh-kay, smart guy-don't gloat. You may pull a double shift someday."