Grave Matters

"How about last week?…Anyway, there's only two numbers on the list, and frankly I haven't had time to run 'em yet."

"Got a pen or pencil?"

"Shoot."

Catherine gave him the number she figured belonged to Vivian's best friend.

"What are you, Catherine-psychic? That's one of the two!"

"The number comes up on her cell phone a buncha times. Give me the other one, would you, Sam?"

He did and said, "If we have the best friend, we may have the mystery guest at Vivian's room."

"Did that mystery guest sign in, Sam? At the guard shack?"

Vega sounded a little embarrassed as he admitted, "When I went back to check, the shift had changed. I need to go back and talk to the guard who'd've been on duty. Sorry."

"Hey, even the most diligent detective can get overworked, and tired…."

Vega laughed. "Okay, Cath. We're even."

And they broke the connection.

Catherine set the phone numbers aside to run later. No point in getting too deep into this, until she knew what, if anything, they were into…and that she wouldn't know until after the autopsy.

The final item before her was Vivian's wallet.

A black nylon tri-fold number, the wallet had one zipper pocket on the outside. Catherine opened it, finding nothing. She undid the snap and laid open the wallet on the desk. The first section was the fold-over outside, the next a coin purse with what Catherine assumed was Vivian's spare car key and a dollar-and-a-half in change. The front of the coin purse was a four-pocket credit card holder with a cardboard educator's discount card from a bookstore chain, an insurance card, a Visa card, and an ID from a cost club superstore.

Not much help.

The final section held Vivian's driver's license and a clear plastic credit-card holder with four more credit cards-a department store, a house-and-garden store, a women's clothing store, and a MasterCard. Behind the three sections was a wider one with seventy-two dollars. Absently, Catherine wondered where Vivian Elliot's checkbook was. Other than that, everything seemed pretty normal with this woman-exceedingly normal.

Over the next two hours, Catherine cataloged the evidence and sent the biohazard materials off to the lab. She'd already spent the better part of a day on the Elliot case and still didn't even know if it was a crime.

Time to go to the morgue….

There, she found David, Warrick, and Dr. Al Robbins hard at work. Robbins was performing the Vivian Elliot autopsy with David's help while Warrick looked on.

She slipped on a lab coat, gloves, and a paper mask, now matching her outfit to the others; they might have been a team of surgeons saving a life, not investigators probing a death.

Stepping up next to Warrick, across the table from David and Robbins, she asked, "Anything?"

Robbins said, "How about cause of death?"

"How about it?"

"Myocardial infarction."

"Heart attack." Catherine frowned in thought, looking at the exposed organ in question. "Caused by?"

With a facial shrug, Robbins admitted, "I think David's probably right…about the air embolism."

Warrick said, "Shared that theory, did he?"

This was the first Catherine had heard about it.

Robbins nodded, his eyes on his work. "I had gone through the autopsy already, and could find no good reason why this woman was dead. Her heart seized and stopped…but there was no real damage apparent before the event. She wasn't overweight, didn't have high cholesterol, minimal artery blockage-nothing, really, for a more or less healthy woman of her age."

"Natural causes maybe?" Warrick said with a silent chuckle. "A euphemism for 'who knows what killed her?' "

"A woman of her age could have a heart attack," Robbins said, "in the 'natural' course of events…but that doesn't really happen much. Something went very wrong with this woman's heart…and I can't find any reason for it."

David stepped forward. "Doc-I, uh…took X-rays of her when we brought her in."

Robbins looked surprised. "You did?"

David swallowed. "I thought, you know…you might want them."

The medical examiner gave David a sideways look. "Good idea."

David's relief was palpable.

"David," Robbins said patiently, his eyes on his assistant. "What do they say in Missouri?"

David thought about that. Then he asked, tentatively, "Show me?"

"Right. Why don't you?"

Spring in his step, David stepped out of the room, then came back in a flash carrying a large manila envelope. He handed it to Robbins, who grabbed his crutch and limped over to the light box on the wall.

Warrick flipped the switch and Robbins slapped the film up and began to study it. Moments later, he shook his head and moved on, taking that X-ray down and putting up another. On the second film, he found what he was looking for.

"There," he said, pointing to a dark spot near the center of a chest X-ray.

"What are we looking at, Doc?" Warrick asked.

"The dark spot in the pulmonary artery, Warrick. That's an air bubble."

Catherine drew in a breath, then asked, "And just how did that air bubble get there?"

Robbins gave her a grave glance. "I found no needle sites other than the IV catheter…. My guess is that's where it went in."

"Easy entry," Warrick said.

But Catherine was fighting the urge for immediate acceptance of the theory with a Grissom-taught insistence upon other options. "Could the air bubble be left over from the trauma of the car wreck?"

Robbins shook his head. "Doubtful."

"Possible?"

"Anything's possible…but my judgment is, in that case, it would have come up before, if it was going to. I think David is right."

Warrick's expression was grave. "You think we have an angel of mercy on our hands, Doc?"

"God knows it wouldn't be the first time someone killed the people they were supposed to be caring for."

Catherine turned to Warrick. "Get Vega on the cell. Tell him it looks like murder and we're going to investigate it like one. Until or unless we find evidence that it wasn't…this case is a homicide."

"I'm with you, Cath. But what do you want me to tell Vega we're doin' next?"

Catherine thought for a moment, then said, "The lab work is going to take some time…and we've already been to Sunny Day…."

"Vic's house?"

"Vic's house."

An hour later, Vega's Taurus pulled up and Warrick parked the Tahoe in front of Vivian Elliot's stucco home on Twilight Springs in Green Valley.

An average home for the neighborhood, pretty much matching the tile-roofed design of the others, the Elliot place had a lush green lawn that looked freshly mowed, a pair of well-tended small bushes on either side of the front door.

Catherine had gotten Vivian's keys from the late woman's purse. The missing checkbook hadn't been in there either, and Catherine could only wonder if someone had made off with it. She unlocked the door and the three of them entered.

The entranceway was small, a hallway, really, that led to the back. To her left, Catherine saw a short cherrywood table with a ceramic pot in which a peace lily bloomed.

"Lawn looked mowed," Warrick said, looking around. "That lily's healthy enough."

"Thriving," Catherine said.

"The Elliot woman was in the hospital for weeks, before transferring to the rest home. Somebody's coming around to take care of things."

Catherine shook her head, half-smiled. "A little eerie, don't you think? Air conditioning on, everything so normal-like Vivian's going to walk in the door, any second."

"If she does," Warrick said, "that won't be normal."

The hallway was inlaid Mexican tile and Catherine could almost feel its coolness through the soles of her shoes. She turned to the right and found herself in a small but immaculate living room, a flowered sofa against one wall, two chairs framing the picture window onto the front yard. An entertainment center occupied the opposite wall, complete with Book-of-the-Month-Club-filled bookshelves on either side of the 27" TV. The wall to the left had a potted plant in either corner and was home to an array of photos at various heights in assorted frames-family photos, most taken before the death of Vivian's seventeen-year-old daughter.

The girl looked similar to Lindsey-same big blue eyes and wide, easy grin. Her hair was darker than Lindsey's, but that was the only real difference. Catherine felt as if she were looking into the future. Then, recalling the fate of this child, she felt a chill…that chill of dread that only a parent, contemplating the death of a child, can understand.

Off the living room was a small study, pine-paneling with nature prints beautifully framed, built-in bookcases with volumes on hunting, fishing, baseball, and football, and a desk with a computer, circa 1995.

"Husband's home office," Catherine said.

"Clean as a whistle," Warrick noted. "But not in use for some time, I'd say."

Back in the living room, the trio compared notes.

"Nice enough digs," Warrick said.

"Clean," Vega said.

"Think somebody went over it?" Warrick asked.

"It's not a crime scene, Warrick," Catherine said. "A cleaning lady cleaned it."

"Or her friend?"

"Or her friend…. Let's get the lay of the land before we get too carried away."

"You're the boss," Warrick said.

She looked at him.

"What?" he said.

With a wrinkled grin, she said, "It's just…every time you say that to me, I look for sarcasm and can't quite find it."

He grinned. "Maybe you're not good enough a detective to."

The house was only one story, and their tour didn't take long. When Catherine went back into the hallway, she followed it to the entrance of the combination kitchen/dining room, where another hall peeled off to the left. Catherine went that way, the other two right behind.

The first door on the right was a bedroom-a small tidy room with a sewing machine, bed, and dresser. A '70s vintage portable stereo was on a stand under a bulletin board adorned with David Cassidy pictures cut from teen fan magazines. On the pink bedspread were stuffed animals with big eyes that stared accusingly at the investigators.

"Daughter's room," Catherine said.

"Doesn't look like it's been changed much," Warrick said, "since the kid's death."

"Sewing machine is probably Mom's."

"I don't know, Cath. Kids sew, too."

"Mine doesn't."

Warrick lifted his eyebrows. "Neither does this one, anymore."

There were more green plants in here-three sitting on a ledge attached to the windowsill. Healthy looking.

Across the hall was the bathroom and, beyond that, another bedroom-this one rather anonymous with a desk with a computer and a plastic organizer filled with files; on a small table next to the desk, an AM/FM radio. Across the room the glass face of a small TV on a stand winked at them. Green plants dotted this room, too.

Next was a bedroom, obviously Vivian's. Two pictures sat on the far nightstand-her husband, her daughter. Yet another TV perched on a table on the wall opposite the bed. A giant armoire filled the wall next to the door and a long dresser consumed the far wall, leaving barely room to walk around the bed. Catherine managed, though, and beyond the armoire was a door to another, smaller, bathroom. Judging by the toothbrush, hair spray, toothpaste, and other products Catherine had seen no sign of in the other, bigger bathroom, this was the one Vivian had used most of the time.

"Big house like this," Warrick said, "nice, too-and she relegates herself to, essentially, a small apartment. Rest of the place is like a shrine to her lost family. Sad."

"A lot of older people make their lives simpler," Catherine said, "and keep to a room or two in the house."

"Maybe. That's not what this feels like."

Catherine didn't express her agreement with Warrick, but she felt it. Being alone wasn't always a good thing….

More plants in the bedroom, everything freshly dusted.

"Someone was definitely taking care of this house while Vivian was laid up," Catherine said in the hallway.

"Who?" Warrick asked.

"This doesn't feel like the Merry Maids. I'll bet it's a friend."

The trio of investigators headed down to the living room to share their thoughts. Vega began by catching them up on what he'd found out already.

Referring to his notes, Vega said, "Husband's name was Ted, retired electrician, passed away last year at seventy-five. Daughter was Amelia, died in a car accident when she got hit by a driver who fell asleep from too much weed. That was 1970-they never had any more kids."

Shaking her head, Catherine said, "They went over thirty years without their child…a loss they obviously never got over…then Ted dies, and Vivian is left alone. Who would want to harm her?"

Vega shrugged.

"Hate to borrow trouble," Warrick said, a humorless half-smirk digging a hole in one cheek, "but how sure are we that Vivian's recent car crash was an accident, and not just the first attempt to kill her?"

"Pretty sure," the detective said. "She got hit by a drunk who ran a red light on Tropicana."

"You're positive," Warrick said.

"If it was a murder attempt, it was a lousy one."

"Why do you say that?"

Vega shrugged again. "Drunk ended up dead."

Warrick's eyebrows lifted. "Guess that qualifies as 'lousy.' "

"Also qualifies as freaky," Catherine said.

Vega frowned. "Why's that?"

"Two deaths in one family? Both getting hit by impaired drivers?"

"I've seen weirder," Vega said.

They all had-and they let it go. For now, at least.

Warrick said, "So-Vivian wasn't a target, in the car crash…but could she have been trying to kill herself, in the manner her daughter died?"

"That's sick," Vega said.

"I've seen sicker," Warrick said.

They all had.

"What are you saying, Warrick," Catherine said, shaking her head, smiling in a glazed fashion, "that Vivian waited, engine idling, till a drunk came by, to pull out in front of?"

And they let that go, too.

"Maybe it was just bad luck," Vega said. "In this town, I've seen worse."

And indeed-they all had.

Catherine said, "Only now, Vivian's luck's finally turned from bad to just plain shitty."

"Got that right," Warrick said.

"No disagreement here," Vega said. "Now what?"

"Now," Catherine said, glancing at Warrick, "we really get to work."

"I'll take the living room," Warrick said. "You wanna start with Vivian's bedroom?"

"It would seem the most promising place, yes."

"Sounds good."

Vega said, "I'll canvass the neighbors and see what I can come up with."

"A best friend, maybe?" Catherine said.

"A best friend, maybe."

The two CSIs unloaded their equipment and went back inside while Vega headed for the house next door. Warrick and his crime-scene kit took the living room while Catherine and her kit entered Vivian's bedroom.

But Catherine started with the dead woman's private bathroom, going through the medicine chest first. Other than some Paxil, which treated anxiety disorders, she found nothing stronger than ibuprofen. The Paxil made sense-a seventy-one-year-old woman living alone in a house with shrines to the family taken from her, her only child gone at an early age. Who the hell wouldn't have anxiety attacks?

In the bedroom, Catherine went through the dresser and came up with nothing in particular, then the armoire, where she found some of Ted's old clothes; she got no help from the TV stand or the bed either. She moved on to the other, larger bathroom and discovered nothing that seemed pertinent. The sewing room-cum-Amelia shrine gained the CSI nothing. Finally, she went into the bedroom/office.

Though she expected little in the way of help from the computer, you never knew what information lurked inside those devious little boxes. She photographed the machine and all its connections, then called Tomas Nunez, a computer expert who had worked with her and Nick on several cases-not a cop, but an outside specialist on the LVPD's approved list.

When she finally got him, Tomas said, "Hola, Cath-good to hear your voice!"

"That's just because you know my voice means greenbacks…. Where are you, anyway? Sounds like a circus!"

"Sports bar at the Sphere, doing a favor for a friend."

"How long are you going to be?"

"You got business for me?"

"Yeah."

"Well, business trumps favors. What's the sitch?"

She explained and gave Nunez the address.

"Twenty-five minutes,"he said.

He was there in twenty.

If the neighbors had seen Tomas Nunez arrive, they were now busy locking themselves in their houses, assuming the Hell's Angels had invaded this quiet respectable 'hood. Six feet and rangy, the top computer expert in Vegas had slicked-back black hair, a mustache that looked like an old shoelace, and a face with the color and sheen of your favorite brown leather belt. He wore black motorcycle boots, black jeans, a black leather vest, and a black T-shirt with the logo and name of a band called, provocatively enough, Molotov.

As she walked him back to the bedroom office, Nunez cased the place.

"You say she lived here alone?" Nunez asked.

"Yeah-husband's been gone almost a year."

Inside Amelia's shrine, Nunez looked at the computer on the desk and shook his head. "I'll buy you dinner at the top of the Sphere, if the old gal has anything more exciting than a cake recipe on this puppy."

Catherine said, "Prejudging, are you?"

"Hey, I'm an expert. That's an expert opinion."

"We don't do 'opinions' at CSI."

He gave her a sideways look. "You gotta hang with somebody besides that Grissom character, Cath; you're gettin' contaminated. Hey, you know I'll do a first-class job."

"For first-class pay."

"You want the best, don't you? You ready for me?"

She nodded. "I took pictures of everything. The husband's computer is in his study, but it's unlikely to have anything of interest."

He unhooked the monitor, keyboard, mouse, speakers, and phone line. Then he packed the CPU under his arm and headed for the door. "I'll put this in the truck," he said.

Fifteen minutes later, the process had been repeated with the computer in the study. He hauled that CPU to his vehicle, then returned to the living room to tell Catherine, "Two days." he said.

"Two days for cake recipes?"

"Two days for two computers."

She just looked at him.

He said, "You think I've got nothin' else on my plate? Nothin' and nobody else in my life but Catherine Willows, girl detective?"

She kept looking at him. She was using her best half-smirk and single arched eyebrow.

So, of course, finally he caved. "Give me a call tomorrow. I might have something."

She beamed at him. "I know you'll come through. Adios, amigo."

He grinned and waggled a finger at her. "Patronize me, chica, and see where it gets you."

Then he and the two CPUs were gone.

With the computers out of the way, Catherine went back to the bedroom office and started going through the desk and all the files. Soon she found Vivian's checkbook in a drawer. That was something, at least.

The balance was just over a thousand dollars. Catherine found paperwork from a lawyer and a financial advisor, as well as envelopes with statements from June that Vivian had evidently opened just before her car accident.

Vivian had a money market and an annuity. It wasn't a lot, but it was far from nothing. Murders were committed in Vegas for pocket change every day. And Catherine estimated the value of Vivian's estate at just about a hundred thousand, not figuring in the house.

She joined Warrick in the living room. "Anything?" she asked.

He shook his head. "Not unless you count chicken pot pies in the freezer or a half-bottle of Canada Dry in the fridge. How about you?"

She told him about the money.

"With hubby and baby gone," Warrick said, "who inherits?"

She shrugged. "Don't know yet. The mysterious guest? The best friend? Who are maybe one and the same."

"None of this makes sense," he said, shaking his head. "Why would anyone go to all this trouble to kill this woman?"

Catherine said, "The money isn't chump change-but other than that, I can't see any reason to do it."

"Where's the money now?"

"Still invested, I'd assume. I'll call the financial guy and the lawyer when we get back to the office."

Warrick looked at her for a long moment, then his voice grew quiet and serious. "Please tell me we're not on a wild-goose chase."

"Wouldn't be the first time."

"Yeah, but as backed up as we are right now, can we afford chasin' wild damn geese?"

"Doc Robbins thinks it's murder. That air bubble says so. Can we afford not to chase what might be a wild goose, if somebody murdered the nice old lady that lived here? She may have had a sad little life, in the end…but it was hers. And she deserved to finish it out at her own speed."

Warrick's expression had sobered. He nodded. "Yes she did…and she deserves our best damn effort."

"Yes she does."

Vega came in through the front door.

"What did you find out?" Catherine asked.

Vega had that wide-eyed look he got when he finally had something. "The neighbor to the west thinks Vivian was the most wonderful person she ever met. She's a widow lady, too. Her name's Mabel Hinton-she's the one that's been watching the house."

Jazzed by this news, Catherine asked, "Did she visit Vivian early this morning?"

"Like, right before she coded?" Warrick put in.

Vega said, "She says no. But do we buy it?"

Catherine held out open hands. "Who else could be our mystery lady? And now we have a suspect."

"Yes we do," Warrick said.

"Hold those horses, gang," Vega said. "This gal's a basket case. She hadn't even heard about Vivian's death before I told her. She came frickin' un-glued!"

Warrick said, "She could be acting."

"If she is, Meryl Streep could take lessons."

But Warrick pressed. "Was this Hinton in line to inherit any of that dough?"

"No! That's the crazy thing-no one was. Several neighbors told me Vivian planned to leave everything to some charity!"

"We'll have to confirm that," Warrick mumbled.

Catherine said crisply, "Anybody say which charity?"

Vega shook his head. "No one knew that for sure."

"Another reason for me to call the lawyer," Catherine said, almost to herself.

Vega threw up his hands. "Everybody said Vivian Elliot was the grandma for the whole neighborhood! Everybody's kids were welcome and accepted here. She baked more cookies than Mrs. Fields."

"Greeaat," Warrick said.

"Well, somebody didn't accept her," Catherine said, hands on hips. "Where there's a murder, there's a motive."

"We look for evidence, Cath," Warrick said.

"The evidence can show us the motive."

"True."

Vega's and Warrick's skepticism was understandable to Catherine. It certainly seemed like they had a crime-someone had to have administered Vivian her deadly shot of air…but who in hell would want to murder the neighborhood's grandma?

And why?

5

DUSTIN BLACK HAD about as much color as his clients before the makeup; unlike the dead he served, however, he was sweating.

Right now the obliging mortician, leading them down a hallway at Desert Haven Mortuary, was assuring Brass and Grissom that he could not understand how they might think the bodies had been switched here at Desert Haven; and, still, the answers Black gave to their questions all sounded just…off.

"Gentlemen!" Black said, up ahead, holding open a door for them. "This is the preparation room…."

They stepped into a large chamber that might have been a morgue-three steel tables in the middle, walls lined with countertops and cupboards. Over to the far wall was a double door; three embalming machines lined up against the near wall. At this moment, the room was empty of either the living or the dead-not counting Brass, Grissom, and Black, of course.

Brass asked, "What's the procedure, exactly?"

Black frowned in confusion. "I'm not sure I know what you're asking."

"The whole deal-the funeral home routine."

"We don't really think of it as a 'routine,' Captain…."

Vaguely uncomfortable, Brass tried again: "What happens when, say, my ex-wife dies?"

Grissom gave Brass a quick arched eyebrow, as if to ask, Wishful thinking?

The mortician tented his fingers; his voice assumed a slow, calming cadence. "You would call us, of course. We would arrange to pick up the body of the deceased, wherever the final moments took place-her home, perhaps, a hospital…."

"Keep walking me through, Mr. Black."

"All right. We would bring your ex-wife here…you'd be handling the arrangements yourself, despite being divorced?"

"Let's say we're not divorced."

Black frowned again. "But you indicated this was your ex-wife…."

Fighting exasperation, Brass said, "Hypothetically speaking, Mr. Black-make it my wife."

"Sorry…. In that case, you and either myself, or one of my staff, would make decisions concerning the disposition."

"Disposition? Of the body, you mean?"

A solemn nod. "Either burial or cremation. We offer both services here."

"Always nice to have options," Grissom said pleasantly.

Brass winced; his headache was coming back. He managed to get out, "Let's say I decide to bury her."

"Then," the mortician said, "the next step would be embalming, which would happen in this room…. Did you want me to go into that process, in detail?"

Brass held up a palm. "No."

Black nodded again, exhaled, gestured to one of the trays. "After embalming, your wife would be dressed in clothing selected by you or other family members, and our cosmetics expert would make her up for viewing, probably using photographs you provided for reference as to her preferred style. May I assume there'd be a viewing?"

"You may."

"The viewing would probably be the afternoon and/or evening before burial, with visitation, followed by the service, perhaps in the morning or afternoon, after which your wife would be laid to rest for eternity."

The only thing creeping Brass out more than the mortician's Addams Family demeanor was Grissom's little smile; the CSI was standing there, arms folded, lapping up the information.

Black was saying, "As you can see, gentlemen-the deceased would always be with someone…and frankly, in this controlled environment and situation, I don't begin to know how someone could ever have exchanged the bodies."

Grissom's smile disappeared. "You don't see anywhere in this process when the corpse would be left alone for a significant time?"

"We don't use the term 'corpse' in this facility, Doctor Grissom. It's disrespectful."

Grissom's brow knit. "It is?"

Brass said, "Could you answer Doctor Grissom's question, Mr. Black?"

"Certainly. I don't see any window of opportunity for this ghoulish thing to have occurred."

Grissom asked, "Obviously, the visitation is attended by friends and family, looking at the…body in an open casket? So a switch can't have occurred until afterward."

"Yes, of course."

"So, any switch would have to have been made after that. Visitation for Rita Bennett was the night before the service?"

"Yes."

"Is there anyone here after hours?"

Black looked uncomfortable. "No, but obviously the mortuary is locked for the night and our security is first-rate."

"You use a service?" Brass asked.

"Yes-we have a contract with Home Sure Security. They drive by on a regular basis…and all the doors and windows are wired. No one gets in without the security code."

"Who has the code?"

"Myself and five employees."

"Which gives us at least six suspects," Grissom said, almost to himself.

"Suspects?" Black's eyes and nostrils flared. "I cooperate like this, and you call me, and my people, suspects?"

Grissom, innocently, said, "Why? Is that another disrespectful word here at the facility?"

"You have no right-"

"We have every right, Mr. Black," Grissom said, his tone as gentle as his words were not. "Someone switched those bodies, and the best opportunity was right here in your shop. The body that replaced Rita Bennett's was that of a murder victim…and that makes this a homicide investigation. So, yes-you and your people are all suspects."

Black's eyes darted around the empty room, as if confirming no one was hearing Grissom's accusations.

"Now," the CSI said, "let's get back to how and when the bodies could have been switched."

"I…I still don't see how…"

"The visitation is usually the night before the service-was that the case with Rita Bennett's funeral?"

"Yes."

"You're sure."

"Positive."

"That means her body spent the night in here…with no one watching over it."

Black shrugged dismissively. "That's a question of semantics-yes, no one was in the building; but Home Sure Security was on the job every second. Besides, in Rita's case, a second, shorter visitation took place an hour before the service."

Grissom frowned in thought. "The coffin was open?"

"Yes."

"Do you close the coffin before or after the service?"

"Generally, before."

"Specifically," Grissom said, "in Rita's case…before or after?"

Obviously struggling to control his temper, Black said, "Before."

"Good. All right-what happens after you close the coffin?"

"I need to back up a step…."

"Please."

The mortician folded his hands in a dignified manner over his slight paunch. "Behind the curtain, the family has one last opportunity to privately say goodbye to their loved one before the coffin is closed. The family is escorted to their seats and we then shut and lock the coffin, and open the curtain to begin the service."

Brass asked, "You were personally with Rita's body during that entire time?"

Impatience edging his voice, the mortician asked, "Why don't you follow me to the chapel? I can show you in detail."

"Please."

The trio walked across the preparation room and out the double doors, which took them to a short, dark corridor. A few steps more led them to another set of double doors, one of which Black opened, and bid Grissom and Brass to pass through, which they did.

Brass found himself facing the pews of the chapel, as if he were officiating the service. He was standing near where the coffin would have been.

Grissom and Black flanked the detective.

"That," the mortician said, gesturing, "is my station during most services…and I was here for Rita's."

Brass said, "But you could see Rita the whole time until the coffin was closed."

"Yes."

"How did it proceed from there?"

"The family left after the service to gather in a receiving line. While that took place, we wheeled the casket out the back, through the doors we just entered…to the hearse."

The detective frowned. "Who's we?"

"Myself, Jimmy Doyle…you met him…and the new guy, Mark Grunick."

Brass jotted down the names. "And the three of you loaded the coffin into the hearse?"

"Yes, then Jimmy drove the hearse and I chauffeured the limousine, conveying the family to the cemetery."

"No stops along the way?"

Black shook his head. "Short of a flat tire or some other emergency, that's just not done. One does not make a detour from a funeral procession into a 7-11 for a package of gum."

"Everything, as you remember it, went off without a hitch?"

"Yes."

"And yet, somehow, some way…Rita Bennett's body was not in that casket."

Black held out his hands, palms up. "There's always the cemetery, you know. All I can say is, I spent the whole day with Rita-she was in the casket from the time we got her into it."

Brass turned to Grissom. "Any thoughts?"

After considering for a moment, Grissom said, "Not now. We just keep gathering information, which will lead us to more evidence and eventually we'll find Rita Bennett."

Black said, "She deserves a proper burial. To rest in peace."

"Mr. Black," Grissom said, "we also have a murdered woman who took Rita Bennett's place in your casket-and she deserves to rest in peace, too…with her killer tracked down, and punished."

Any sign of anger or irritation banished behind his calm facade, Black said, "I wish you gentlemen nothing but good luck in your endeavors. I only wish I could be of more help."

Grissom smiled. "Oh, Mr. Black-you will be."

As Brass and Grissom found their way out, the detective could almost feel the mortician's uneasy eyes on them.

Sara and Nick were in the breakroom, huddling over a file folder, when Brass and Grissom strode glumly in.

The usual exchange of "hey's" was foregone as Brass poured himself some coffee and Grissom went to the refrigerator for a bottle of water.

"I'm not feeling a good vibe," Sara said. "No lucky streak in Vegas this morning?"

Grissom was in the middle of a long pull on the bottle and Brass, stirring in creamer, answered her question. "Nothing at the cemetery-less at the mortuary."

"Come on," Nick said. "Somebody has to know something."

Brass offered up half a smirk. "They knew all kinds of things, both places-just nothing useful."

Grissom said, "We don't know enough yet to make that call-something important might be right in front of us, and we don't have the context yet to make sense of it."

Brass said, "It would be nice to at least know who our girl in the box is."

"I can brighten your day, then," Sara said. She showed them a photograph. "Meet Kathy Dean-before she stowed away in Rita Bennett's coffin."

Grissom and Brass came over to view the snapshot of a smiling, pretty teenage girl.

"Came in just a few minutes ago," Sara said.

"Fingerprints do it?" Grissom asked.

Nick said, "Naw-AFIS was no help. Missing Persons matched our morgue photo of her with this one."

"So who is Kathy Dean, exactly?" Brass asked, the young woman's photograph in one hand.

"A nineteen-year-old, just out of high school, getting ready for college."

"And never made it."

"No. Disappeared about three months ago."

Grissom's eyes widened. "Around the time of Rita Bennett's funeral?"

Sara smiled without humor. "Actually? Within twenty-four hours of Rita Bennett's funeral."

Grissom asked, "Disappeared from where?"

Sara glanced down at the report before answering. "She came home from a babysitting job, talked to her parents for a few minutes…they both said she seemed fine, normal, so on…then she went up to bed. Her parents woke up the next morning, her bed was empty, what she'd been wearing in her hamper, and her nightgown on her bed…and no Kathy."

"When we found her," Grissom said, "she was fully clothed…. Did she change clothes and sneak out, or was she forced to get dressed, and abducted?"

Sara lifted an eyebrow. "The parents say they didn't hear anything unusual during the night."

"And what does the evidence say?"

"We've just started going over the reports in detail, but what it looks like? She sneaked out. Bedroom window showed no signs of forced entry…and the only sign that anyone other than the family was in that house was a semen stain in her bed."

Grissom found that interesting. "Fresh?"

"No. Predating the disappearance."

Brass asked, "So there was a boyfriend?"

Nick shrugged. "Hard to say."

Brass's eyebrows rose. "There was semen in her bed but it's hard to say if she had a boyfriend?"

"The parents don't think she had a regular boyfriend. Matter of fact, they thought their daughter was still a virgin."

Sara picked it up. "According to these reports? Mom and Dad had no idea who Baby Bunting was seeing, or for how long."

Nick was nodding sagely. "These are parents who kept their daughter on a pretty tight leash."

"She was nineteen," Grissom said.

"And just out of high school, and an only child, still living at home. Gris, parents of a girl that age don't always know what their 'little girl' is up to."

"Tell me about it," Brass said.

"It gets worse," Sara said. "During the autopsy, Doctor Robbins discovered a pregnancy-just over two months."

"Let me get this straight," Brass said. "She disappeared, when…around Memorial Day?"

Nick nodded. "May twenty-ninth."

"And was buried on…?"

"Same day…at least that's when Rita Bennett was buried."

"But she'd been pregnant since…?"

Sara said, "Sometime around the end of March."

Brass shook his head. "And her parents didn't know she was seeing anyone?"

Nick gave up half a wry smile. "You know how it is."

"Yeah," Brass said gloomily. "Little too well."

Sara said, "A nineteen-year-old girl who's been sheltered like that? Out in the world but living at home? Sometimes, she can lead a double life. She could have multiple boyfriends…guys…She could be breaking loose, and throwing caution…and birth control…to the wind."

Grissom said, "Let's lay off on the speculation. Back to the facts-what are the parents' names?"

Sara checked the report. "Jason and Crystal Dean. He owns and manages half a dozen strip malls. Pretty well off, but not rich. They live on Serene Avenue in Enterprise."

Brass said, "Anybody tell them about their daughter yet?"

Nick said, "Not yet. We just identified her right before you two showed up. We decided we better read the report first, familiarize ourselves with the Missing Persons case."

"Good call," Grissom said.

"All right," Brass sighed. "Hell…. I better go tell them." He turned to Grissom. "You want to come along?"

"I'm going to pass," Grissom said. "Everybody says my people skills are weak, so I'll leave it to the master."

"Gee thanks."

"Anyway, I need to see what I can find out about Desert Haven Mortuary."

Sara said to the detective, "Hey, I'll go…if you want someone to tag along."

"Wouldn't mind," Brass admitted.

Hair ponytailed back under a CSI ball cap, Sara followed Brass out into the parking lot where another scorcher of a day awaited. She wasn't looking forward to the long drive out to Enterprise, but the CSIs were the ones who had found Kathy Dean and Sara felt a responsibility to be there when the news was delivered to the victim's parents.

The Taurus's air conditioning fought valiantly, but with the sun beating down, the car interior remained barely bearable. At least it was a straight shot down Rainbow Boulevard from the CSI lab on Charleston to Serene Avenue, if they could survive the stoplights and traffic.

By the time they made the turn onto Serene, despite the air conditioner's best efforts, Sara could feel sweat trickling down. Vegas had a lot to offer those who came here for more than a few days vacation; but today would not make a good argument for it.

The Dean home was an impressive two-story white stucco with a tile roof and many windows, shades down all round; a two-car garage to the right of the house seemed buttoned up tight, and the yard was dirt with scrub brush, similar to the xeriscaping so prevalent these days in Vegas, but rather more barren-looking. Though the house said its owners had money, the place possessed a forlorn, even vacant look.

Sara hoped that someone was home, or she and Brass would have to sit in the car waiting and roasting.

As the detective and CSI strode up the driveway, Sara wondered if the desolate look of the house was a response to Kathy's disappearance; or perhaps the Deans had always liked their privacy. Brass rang the bell more than once, but no one answered.

"Check the back?" Sara asked.

Brass shook his head glumly, and pointed. "Fenced-in yard."

"Talk to the neighbors?" Sara hoped Brass would say yes just so they could step inside an air-conditioned home.

Before Brass could answer her question, though, a white SUV pulled into the driveway. They watched as two people got out-the driver a tall, big-shouldered man in a green Izod shirt and jeans, his wispy blond hair combed straight back, making no attempt to disguise a high forehead; his female passenger wore khaki cotton shorts and a v-necked peach-colored T-shirt. She came around to join him, a good seven inches shorter than his six-three, probably about a hundred pounds shy of his two-twenty, with long curly hair whose auburn color was at once remindful of Kathy Dean's.

There could be little doubt that this was Kathy's mother, Crystal, whose big, dark eyes mirrored her daughter's as well (though Sara had only seen Kathy Dean's eyes open in the Missing Persons report). Not surprisingly, the couple stared openly at Sara and Brass, but with the seasoned look of parents whose shared tragedy had put them in enough contact with police to know that this was an official visit.

Showing his badge in its wallet, Brass approached them, saying, "Captain Jim Brass-CSI Sara Sidle. You're the Deans?"

"I'm Jason Dean," the man said, crisply solemn. He shook hands with Brass. "This my wife-Crystal. Kathy's mother…. That's why you're here? Kathy?"

"Yes. Yes it is."

Crystal Dean was staring at them with unblinking eyes, understated but unmistakable fear in her expression.

"Do you think we could go inside and talk?" Brass asked.

Before anyone could take a step, tears began to trickle down Crystal Dean's cheeks. Her husband slipped an arm around her, and she said, her voice trembling, "We've been waiting for over three months. Can't you just…tell us? Tell us now?"

"Darling," Jason Dean said, "let's go inside and talk to these nice people."

He was gently trying to steer her toward the house, but she was having none of it.

Her unblinking eyes were frozen in something near rage. "Tell us what you know-please!"

"We have found your daughter…" Brass began.

Sara edged closer to Mrs. Dean, without the woman noticing (she hoped).

"If Kathy was all right," the mother said, "you'd say so, wouldn't you? You'd be smiling! You wouldn't look like…like you were going to cry."

"Your daughter is gone," Sara said. "I'm so sorry."

"What…what right do you have to be sorry? You think we didn't know she was dead? After all this time? You think…you think…"

Crystal Dean started to fold in on herself, but both her husband and Sara were ready. They each caught her under an arm, then guided her toward and onto the front walk. Mr. Dean tossed his keys to Brass, who caught them with one hand. The detective moved out in front of the procession and somehow managed to pick out the right key on the first try; he flung the door open and stepped out of the way as Sara and the husband drunk-walked the distraught Crystal Dean inside the house.

The front door opened on the living room and Sara helped Dean get his wife to the couch, where he plopped down next to her.

He said to Sara, "Thank you," and seemed terribly composed as he slipped his arm around his wife's shoulder and drew the crying woman to him. Then he shattered into tears and Sara, though she had just met these people, felt her own eyes well up and she turned away.

She and Brass moved to the far side of the spacious living room, which was furnished in white leather, the tables and entertainment center a dark, polished cherry. Family pictures adorned the walls and end tables, like an audience for a prominent high school prom-dress portrait of Kathy that presided over the fireplace. To Sara, the room told the story of a fortunate family, successful, even affluent, blessed with closeness and everything an American household could hope for-except a happy ending.

Sara whispered, "Are they up to this?"

Brass whispered, "Give it a few seconds. We'll follow their lead."

Perhaps two minutes later, Jason Dean called them over to the couch, where they stood before their host like defendants awaiting a jury's decision.

With his wife's face still buried in his shoulder, Jason Dean asked, "Where is she?"

"In the coroner's care," Brass said.

Sara could only admire the delicacy of the detective's phrase; how horrible it would have been for these parents to have to hear, At the morgue.

Pulling away a bit from her husband, her face slick with tears, Mrs. Dean asked, "Can we go to her?"

"Of course," Brass said. "But it would be helpful if we could talk now, here, first."

But both parents were shaking their heads.

Firmly, Dean said, "We want to see our daughter-right now. This ordeal has lasted over three months-anything else…everything else…can wait."

Brass glanced at Sara, who shrugged.

"Would you like us to drive you?" Brass asked.

In his office, Grissom sat at his computer going over Clark County records pertaining to Dustin Black and Desert Haven Mortuary. He wasn't sure what he was looking for, but he was reasonably certain that he would know it if he saw it. He would seek the business's financial records next. Evidence wasn't always a fingerprint on the murder weapon or a tire track on the shoulder of the road. Sometimes, Grissom knew, evidence could be far more subtle-it wasn't always tangible….

A knock at his open door alerted Grissom.

Sheriff Rory Atwater leaned there, with a casualness that was as studied as his mild smile.

"Hope I'm interrupting some real progress you're making," he said, his tone friendly, "on the Bennett case."

"Sheriff-actually, it's the Dean case."

"That's the young woman in the casket?"

"Right. Kathy Dean."

"Spare a second to talk?"

"No," Grissom said.

Atwater chuckled, as if Grissom had been kidding, and ambled in, the closing of the door behind him signaling just how un-casual this meeting was. Then he dropped himself into the chair opposite Grissom, leaning back, tenting his long fingers.

"Have you found Rita Bennett?"

"Not yet."

"Where are you with that?"

"She's not the priority, Sheriff."

"Her body is missing, and she's not a priority?"

"I didn't say she wasn't 'a' priority-I said she wasn't 'the' priority. The murdered teenager we found in her casket is."

Atwater nodded knowingly, then said, "Rebecca Bennett is quite distraught over this."

"Really. I didn't think she and her mother were close."

"How close would somebody have to be to their mother, Gil, to be upset about having her body go missing?"

"That would probably vary."

Atwater sighed. "Look, I'm not trying to tell you how to do your job-"

"Good."

"But I don't know how long we can keep this from Peter."

"Peter Thompson? Rita Bennett's husband?"

"Right."

Grissom never failed to be surprised by the behavior of the human animal. "You haven't told Mr. Thompson that his deceased wife is missing?"

Atwater sat for a long moment before shaking his head. "When Brass told me Rita was missing, I hoped you and your crew would solve this quickly, and we could avoid telling Peter…you know, until we'd recovered Rita's body. I mean, why cause him any needless aggravation or grief?"

"Because he's a contributor to your campaign, you mean?" Grissom blurted. Immediately, he wished he could withdraw the words.

Surprisingly, Atwater took no offense. The smile was gone, and he merely seemed weary. "Politics is a dirty word to you, Gil-I know that. You found my predecessor, Brian, far too political for your taste."

"We worked well enough together. You know our arrest and conviction record."

"I do. But your conflicts with Sheriff Mobley are frankly legendary. Let me explain something to you-in the kind of clinical, even scientific manner you should understand. Look around you-look at the technological wonders at your fingertips-look at a crime lab, a facility, that is among the finest in the nation."

"I don't take that for granted," Grissom said.

"With all due respect, Gil-I think you do. You disdain politics-but where do you think facilities like this come from, in a state where there's no damn income tax? Figure it out, man."

Faintly chagrined, Grissom said, "You have a point, Rory. Easy enough for me to criticize, while you're in the trenches, trying to get me my toys."

"Thank you. Now, you may not like it, but the outcome of this case has political ramifications."

"What are you asking me for, Rory?"

"Just your best."

"No problem," Grissom said.

Atwater nodded, then his eyes narrowed. "Do you think Peter Thompson could have killed Rita…and then somehow switched the bodies to keep us from exhuming Rita and doing a proper autopsy?"

"You mean, is he a suspect?"

"Yes."

"Everyone related to the case is a suspect. But I would say, doubtful."

The sheriff fidgeted and Grissom wondered how big a campaign contributor the Bennett-Thompson family had been.

"Talk me through it," Atwater said.

"Well…not to bore you with details about the funeral home and its layout and how they do things…Thompson would literally have had to smuggle his wife's dead body in and out while he was with the funeral party. Seems absurd on its face."

Atwater nodded. "I just want to make sure we're covering our-"

"Bases?"

"Right. Gil, could it have been a mistake? You know, a mix-up, either at the mortuary or cemetery?"

"On any given day there's, what? Maybe two dozen funerals in Vegas, spread over a dozen or more mortuaries? Then on top of that, we have two corpses in the exact same casket at the exact same time? The odds would seem astronomical."

"Who is this Kathy Dean?"

"A young woman someone killed-we're working on why and who. But someone intentionally put her where she was, so she wouldn't be found. What better place to hide a body?"

"But what about the damn body that had to be displaced? What good does it do to get rid of one body and have another on your hands?"

"That would seem to be the question. But the answer is wrapped in somebody hoping to get away with murder…who won't, if we have anything to say about it."

"And that someone isn't Peter Thompson."

"I don't think so. But if it is-and even if he's your biggest contributor, Sheriff…he will go down for it."

Atwater slapped his knees, then rose. "Wouldn't have it any other way."

And the sheriff was gone.

The four of them got into the Taurus, Brass driving, Sara in front, the Deans in the back. As they pulled away from the forlorn stucco house, Brass knew he would have to steer the conversation as much as the car. Sara would expect this and just sit quietly and follow his lead. They were less than a block when he started offhandedly in.

"What kind of student was Kathy?" he asked.

"Straight A's since junior high," Mrs. Dean said. "Never anything lower than a B before that."

"Involved in a lot of activities?"

"Band, chorus, drama club, Spanish club…in the spring she ran cross-country on the track team."

Looking in the rearview mirror, Brass could see that he was already doing well-Crystal Dean wasn't thinking about where they were going…the morgue…or what they would see when they got there…her daughter's body. She was, instead, answering his questions, keeping her daughter alive.

"She liked cross-country?"

In the rearview, Mrs. Dean actually smiled a little. "She said she loved the quiet of running alone."

Brass said, "Really into it, huh?"

The father finally spoke up. "She was, but she always kept her grades up. That was her number-one priority."

"What about college?"

Mrs. Dean sniffed, said, "She was…was going to start at UNLV. This fall."

Dean added, "She had a dual scholarship. Track and academics."

"Wow. How often does that happen?…Lot of her friends going to UNLV, too?"

"Not really," Mrs. Dean said. "Kathy didn't have all that many friends. Don't get me wrong-she was no wallflower, she was popular, in her way."

Sara smiled and glanced over her shoulder. "Lovely girl."

Her mother went on: "Kathy knew lots of people, had many acquaintances, she just wasn't…close to a lot of them. She was more of a loner. Focused on her studies."

Sara asked casually, "She have a boyfriend?"

"No!" Dean said.

The response was loud (and surprising) enough to make Sara jump a little.

Brass wondered why the reaction had been so strong, but decided not to push it. He glanced over at Sara and gave her a signal with his eyes to keep carrying the ball for a while.

Sara said, "I know how it is. I was into my studies so much I just didn't have time for boys."

"That's how it was with Kathy," Dean said. "She had her studies and her running to concentrate on. Anyway…do I have to tell you what boys are after? Just one thing. One thing."

At this moment Brass decided that today would not be the day to inform these parents that their daughter had died pregnant.

A silence fell over the car and Brass wondered if he'd pushed too hard. The couple seemed to be clamming up now, and that wasn't going to do any of them any good, including the late Kathy. With another glance in the rearview, he saw Mrs. Dean pat her husband's knee. Dean's tears were flowing again and Brass figured he'd blown it.

He had needed to get as much as he could out of them, on the ride over. Once they saw their daughter on a morgue slab, they would be in no shape or mood to give Brass the information he so needed.

Then, out of nowhere, Mrs. Dean said, "You know, on top of school and her running? Kathy had several jobs, too."

"Jobs?" Brass asked. "Really? Busy as she was?"

"Yes! She worked as a waitress at Habinero's Cantina, and she still had some people she babysat for. She even volunteered at the blood bank."

"Habinero's Cantina?" Brass asked. "Is that-"

Dean said, "On Sunset. In Henderson."

And then the Taurus was pulling into the CSI HQ parking lot. As Brass ushered the Deans out of the car, Sara went quickly inside to set things up with Dr. Robbins.

Soon Brass was escorting the grieving parents into a small tile-walled room just off the morgue. A curtain covered the upper half of one wall-a big window. The only furniture were two chairs and a metal table against a wall, a box of tissues at the ready.

The Deans huddled together in front of the curtain, his arm around her shoulder, her arms around his waist. Brass had already explained what would happen-that when he opened the curtain, Sara would uncover the face of the victim for confirmation that this was indeed their daughter.

There really wasn't any doubt, but this was a formality that could not be avoided.

"Ready?" Brass asked as gently as he could.

Dean let out a breath and tightened his grip on his wife's shoulder. He nodded.

Brass pulled the drawstring and the curtain slid away to reveal Sara standing on the other side of the glass; she was no longer in the baseball cap and her expression was solemn, dignified. A body under a sheet on a gurney was between Sara and the picture window.

When Brass nodded to her, Sara pulled the sheet back to reveal Kathy Dean from the neck up.

Jason Dean groaned and his wife lurched into his arms. Then the mother took a quick step forward, hand splayed against the window opposite her daughter's face, the mother's breath fogging the glass. They were both crying now, Mrs. Dean whimpering and her husband's lip quivering, though neither spoke.

Brass was a hardened homicide detective; but he was also a father. And right now he hated his job almost as much as he would love that job when Kathy Dean's killer was in his custody.

When Brass nodded again-his signal to Sara to cover the body-Jason Dean waved for her to stop and she froze, the sheet not yet up over the dead girl's features.

His eyes still locked upon his daughter's still countenance, Dean said, "She looks so…beautiful…normal…natural, almost as if she could just…sit up."

"My baby," the mother said.

An edge in his voice, Dean said, "What killed her?"

"Gunshot to the back of the head," Brass said.

"Ooooh," Mrs. Dean said.

"She felt no pain," the detective said.

Both parents looked at him, though Mrs. Dean's hand remained touching the glass.

"Is that…is that true?" the mother asked.

"It's true," Brass said. "She never knew what happened. I will say to you as the father of a girl not much older than your daughter…that's a blessing."

"Where did you find her?" Dean asked.

"Why don't we sit down and I'll give you all the information," Brass said.

Dean turned back to face the window, as did his wife. They looked at their little girl for another long moment before Sara finally covered Kathy Dean's face with the sheet and-as Mrs. Dean reluctantly broke contact with the glass-Brass pulled the curtain, banishing the image that neither parent would ever forget.

"Sit-please?" Brass gestured toward the table and the tissue box.

Both parents shook their heads, holding their ground, standing there waiting for more, when they clearly had already had more than enough.

Brass had no choice but to give it to them. "As to where your daughter was, we found her in a grave in the Desert Palm Memorial Cemetery."

Dean was understandably incredulous. "Cemetery…how the hell…?"

Brass filled them in quickly, giving them the broad strokes of the fantastic situation.

"We're doing our best to find out how she ended up there," Brass told the startled parents. "Obviously we suspect the one who took her life did this thing as well."

Brass eased the stunned mother and father out into the corridor.

"You can understand," he said, "why we'd like to talk to you about Kathy's activities around the time she disappeared."

Before the door closed, Mrs. Dean stopped, looking back toward the curtained window. "When can we take her out of that dreadful place?"

"Just a little longer," Brass said. "Now that Kathy's case is a homicide, we have to make sure we have all the evidence we can before we release her body."

Mrs. Dean recoiled. "I want her out of there now!"

"Mrs. Dean, please, I can certainly understand your feelings…but your daughter's body is our only link to her killer."

"I don't care! I want her out of there!"

Jason Dean kept an arm tight around his wife. Wild-eyed, Mrs. Dean strained to get back into the viewing room; finally, Dean got control of her and looked pleadingly at Brass.

Keeping his voice low, his tone even, Brass said, "Our crime scene people are the best. You met CSI Sidle-she cares deeply about this case, I promise you."

Dean said, "What kind of 'evidence' can you hope to find at this late date? We need to deal with this-we have arrangements to make. We want our daughter, Captain Brass."

"Sir-there might be some microscopic clue that can lead us to her killer. Finding that piece of evidence might be the only way to stop whoever did this from doing it again…to someone else's daughter."

Mrs. Dean turned toward him and her expression had an alertness, as if Brass had slapped her awake. "You really think you can catch whoever did this?"

"I can't promise you. But our CSIs are the best, anywhere. And I promise you I will do my best. I see your daughter and, frankly…"

Something happened to Brass that hadn't happened to him on the job for a long, long time: He felt his eyes filling with tears.

He swallowed and said, "I see your daughter and I see my daughter. Do I have to say more?"

Mrs. Dean studied Brass for a moment, then she touched his cheek, very gently, and allowed her husband to steer her away from the viewing room door.

They were still trudging toward the exit when Sara came out of the morgue and rejoined the somber parade.

They all got into the Taurus for the long ride back to the Dean home. More traffic made this ride slower than their initial trip to the house on Serene Avenue. Brass watched in the rearview mirror as the Deans huddled in the backseat. Now, though, Dean seemed to have gone inside himself while his wife stared out the window, seeing nothing.

Finally, Mrs. Dean turned to look at Brass in the mirror. "I don't know what we can tell you that we haven't already told the other officers. When Kathy was a missing person."

Brass smiled mildly. "Well, let's go over it again and see what we can see."

Mrs. Dean nodded slightly. "What do you want to know?"

"How about her job at Habinero's Cantina? How did she get to work?"

"She had her own car."

Dean said, "2003 Corolla. Your crime scene people impounded it after she disappeared."

Sara caught Brass's eyes and mouthed: Dayshift.

Dean was saying, "They found Kathy's Corolla abandoned in a parking lot on Maryland Parkway. We still haven't gotten it back."

Brass ignored the small jab and asked, "How'd Kathy like her job? Been there long?"

Mrs. Dean gave that some consideration, then said, "She worked there for two years or so-started right before her seventeenth birthday."

"Did she enjoy it there?"

"Most of the time."

"Not all of the time?"

In the mirror, Brass saw Mrs. Dean wipe her nose with a tissue. "She did have some trouble…with a boy she dated there for a while?"

"What kind of trouble?"

"I said it was a boy."

Dean piped in to say, "He couldn't take the hint that she had other, more important priorities in her life than dating."

Definitely not the day to tell the Deans that they had almost been grandparents….

Brass said, "What kind of trouble exactly?"

"He wouldn't stop calling her," Mrs. Dean said, "but that was right after she started at the restaurant. She'd only been there a month or so when they began dating. It must have been over in, oh…two months?"

"Did you tell the Missing Persons detectives about this?"

Mrs. Dean thought for a moment. "I may have mentioned it, but maybe not-it was such old news."

Brass stopped for a red light and turned to look at Mrs. Dean. "Do you know if the detectives looked into it?"

"They never said."

"The boy's name?"

The light turned green and Brass got them moving again.

"Gerardo Ortiz."

"Did the trouble with this boy come to any kind of a head?"

Dean harumphed. "Kid must have finally taken the hint. He stopped calling. I was just about ready to track him down and beat the ever-living crap out of him."

Brass glanced in the mirror and saw the anger reddening Dean's face. "But you're over that now…right?"

Rubbing his forehead and obviously forcing himself to calm down, Dean said, "Yeah…yeah, I'm over it. Anyway…that kid quit the restaurant, disappeared, far as I know."

"No idea where he is?"

"No! And good riddance, too."

Brass pulled into the Deans' driveway and they all got out.

As they walked up the sidewalk, Brass fell in alongside Dean, whose arm was around his wife. "Do you think the Ortiz boy was capable of harming your daughter?"

Dean paused and looked hard at Brass, eyes glittering. "For his sake?…I hope to God not."

They went inside the house and sat in the living room, the Deans on the sofa again, Brass and Sara in two wing chairs angled next to the couch. The grouping was great for facing the entertainment center, but not wonderful for eye contact during conversation, much less a police interview.

"We'll look into Gerardo Ortiz," Brass assured them. "But now I'd like to hear more about her other jobs. She have any problems at the blood bank?"

Both parents shook their heads.

Mrs. Dean said, "She handed out cookies and drinks to the people who gave blood. Everyone loved her."

Someone didn't love her,Brass thought; or maybe somebody had loved her too much….

Sara asked, "What about the babysitting jobs? Isn't that more a job for junior high, middle-school girls…?"

"Maybe so," the father said. "That's when Kathy started, and she held on to some of her 'clients'…mostly people who were friends of ours, who Kathy knew and got along with well. She loved kids, so she was a natural at babysitting."

Sara asked, "Would you mind if I took a look around her room?"

Nonconfrontationally, Dean said, "The other officers did that, already…when she first disappeared?"

"I understand, but fresh eyes might turn up something."

"Be our guest," Mrs. Dean said. "Her room is upstairs-last on the left."

"Thank you. Jim, could I have the keys? I need to get my kit."

Brass passed her the car keys.

"Kit?" Dean asked.

"Crime scene kit," Brass said. "Sara doesn't want to contaminate any evidence, should she find something."

"I see. But her bedroom isn't a crime scene, surely."

Brass thought, If she was abducted, it could be, but said instead, "Just routine."

Sara went out the front door.

"Let's get back to her babysitting," Brass said.

Mrs. Dean said, "Well, as I say, she didn't have that many regulars anymore-she was down to, oh, one or two nights a week? Usually, just helping out so a couple could go to dinner and a movie away from the kids. She was hardly ever out past midnight."

Sara came in carrying her silver crime scene kit and headed up the stairs.

"Didn't she have a sitting job," Brass asked, "the night she disappeared?"

"Yes," Dean said, "but she was home around twelve and in her room by twelve-thirty. She said everything went great. She really liked David and Diana."

"David and Diana," Mrs. Dean said, "kids she sat for that night."

"But she was home after that and everything seemed fine?"

"Yes, she closed her door, like my husband said, before twelve-thirty. She'd had a long day and was really tired. Jason had gone to bed about eleven, but I stayed up until Kathy got home-one of us always did. Anyway, she went to bed and, about ten minutes later, I went up."

"And that was the last time you saw her?"

Mrs. Dean swallowed; her eyes were very red. "Until today…yes. Kathy told me she was tired and that it had been a long day…those were the last words she ever said to me."

She stared into her lap; no tears-she was, for the moment at least, past that. Her husband's arm remained a comforting presence around her shoulder.

"Well, we'll start in her room and with that last day," Brass said, checking his notebook. "Uh, one more thing-what was the name of the family she sat for that night?"

"The Blacks," Dean said.

Brass's gut tightened. "Excuse me…? The Blacks?"

"Why, yes."

"Dustin Black?"

"Dustin Black," Jason said, nodding. "Do you know Dustin? He and his wife, Cassie, own Desert Haven Mortuary…. In fact, I'll be calling Dustin soon, about Kathy."

Me too,Brass thought. Me too….

6

THE HEAT WAVE HADN'T BROKEN YET, but at least Catherine Willows had gotten some time in with her daughter Lindsey yesterday; and the CSI felt more rested than she had in weeks.

Grissom had given both Catherine and Warrick the graveyard shift off to enable them to catch up on sleep and work the Vivian Elliot case in the daylight it called for.

Catherine was comfortable enough in her ponytail, sleeveless dark brown T-shirt, and pinstriped brown slacks; and Warrick, at the wheel of the Tahoe, in his light green T-shirt and blue jeans, looked cool in several senses of the word.

But it was early-they'd walked from the air conditioning of the police station to the air conditioning of the SUV. The hot day hadn't really had at them, yet…

They pulled up to the gate of the Sunny Day Continuing Care Facility. Detective Sam Vega had tagged along and was in the backseat, leaning up like a kid wondering how-many-more-miles-Daddy. The same silver-haired guard from yesterday was on duty, and Warrick had barely come to a stop when the guy waved them through.

"Hold up, Warrick," Vega said, hand on the CSI's shoulder. "We still need to talk to him. First chance I've had…"

The guard came out of his air-conditioned shack, frowning and clearly worried; this was apparently the biggest commotion he'd had to handle in some time.

"Hey!" he said to Warrick, who'd powered down the window. "Didn't you see me wave you through?"

Warrick nodded. "Yeah-we're Crime Lab, remember?"

The guard peered into the vehicle, his eyes finding Vega. "Yeah, I remember you people…. How are you doing, Detective? You need some backup?"

Catherine couldn't hold back the grin, but Vega remained stony as he unhitched his seat belt to lean even farther up, talking to the guard past the back of Warrick's headrest.

"We do need to ask you a few questions, sir. Starting with, what's your name?"

"Fred Mason. I'm an ex-deputy from Summerlin. Retired ten years ago."

"Meant to check with you yesterday, Fred, but you'd gone off shift. The other gentleman said that you each lock up your own clipboard. That right?"

"We each have our own responsibilities, yes."

"Could you check yesterday's sheet, and tell me if anybody signed in to see Mrs. Elliot?"

"Mrs. Elliot died yesterday morning. You know that."

"Before she died, Fred. Could you check?"

"Sure."

The retired deputy-did he have a single bullet in his pocket, Catherine wondered, like Barney Fife?-went back to his shack, got his clipboard and returned, flipping sheets. "Yeah, yeah, here she is…Martha Hinton."

Warrick and Catherine exchanged looks, Catherine mouthing: the neighbor.

"Fred," Vega was saying, "I'll need that sheet."

"Well-I'll have to get it photocopied before I hand 'er over."

"No problem, Fred. But if you go off shift, leave the original in an envelope with the guard who comes on after you. I'll give him a receipt for it."

The guard nodded.

Behind them a car honked.

"Anything else?" the guard said. "They're really starting to pile up."

One car was waiting.

Vega said, "Thank you, Fred. Appreciate your professionalism."

Fred liked hearing that.

Warrick pulled ahead. "Martha Hinton, huh? That's the best friend, right? But she said she didn't visit Vivian, right?"

"Said she hadn't been to see Vivian," Vega said, "for a day or so."

"Could she have been confused?" Warrick asked.

"Possible." Vega shrugged. "She was upset, hearing about her friend's death. Could have rattled her a little."

Catherine said, "In any case, you'll be talking to the good neighbor again, then."

"Yes…" Vega's eyes narrowed in thought. "…but we're here. Let's deal with what's in front of us."

"Agreed," Warrick said.

Catherine nodded, ponytail swinging.

Within five minutes the detective and the CSIs were again seated in Dr. Larry Whiting's office.

The doctor did not look thrilled to see them, but he remained professional and polite. Again, he wore a lab coat, his tie brown-and-white striped and neatly knotted. Vega and Catherine sat in the chairs opposite Whiting while Warrick opted not to sit on the couch this time and leaned against the door.

The detective wasted no time. "Our crime lab has conducted an autopsy. The evidence indicates that Vivian Elliot was murdered."

"That's terrible," Whiting said, obviously surprised.

Catherine wondered if the doctor considered it "terrible" for Vivian that she'd been murdered, or for the Sunny Day facility?

Sitting forward, the doctor asked, "Do we know how it happened yet?"

Catherine noted the doctor's editorial "we"-as in, a doctor on rounds greeting a patient with, How are we feeling today?

"I'm not at liberty to say at this point, Doctor," Vega said. "But the CSIs and I will be looking into the backgrounds and records of all the employees here."

Whiting sighed, but said, "I understand."

Getting out his notebook, Vega asked, "I'll need the names of Vivian's caregivers."

"I would have to pull the records to know for sure. When do you need that?"

Catherine said, "Now would be good."

Whiting reached for a file on his desktop; he had vaguely implied it would take some doing finding the file, and here it was, at his fingertips-clearly he'd anticipated needing it.

He read, "Kenisha Jones…Rene Fairmont…and Meredith Scott." He lay down the file. "Those were the main ones. Various nurses might enter for assorted small tasks."

Vega was writing down the names. "What shifts did these three work?"

"Kenisha works days, Rene is second shift, and Meredith works overnight."

"What can you tell us about them?"

"Nothing beyond that they're professionals," Whiting said, gesturing with open palms. "Frankly, I don't know what kind of information you're looking for. Do I think any of them killed Vivian or any of the others? No. Of course not."

"Can you be specific about their individual performance?"

"I don't work with Meredith that much, as you might imagine-I'm seldom here overnight. As for the other two, Kenisha is a first-rate nurse; I've worked with her for as long as I've been here. Rene, the second shift nurse, strikes me as a dedicated caregiver as well. Never had a bit of problem with either of them."

Looking up from his notebook, Vega asked, "And how long have you been here, Doctor?"

"Two years last April."

"Any particular reason you're at Sunny Day, and not at a bigger hospital?"

Catherine added, "Or in private practice?"

Whiting closed the file on his desk and shunted it aside. "I view medicine as my calling," he said, choosing his words carefully. "But, temperamentally, I crave a slower pace than a bigger hospital or a private practice would grant me. I prefer the tempo of Sunny Day or, I should say, I preferred it before the last eight months."

"How so?"

"You're here, aren't you?…Things have been getting further and further out of hand, and until your assistant coroner noticed certain suspicious trends, I think we were all simply writing these deaths off as a streak of bad luck."

Catherine asked, "People dying? Streak of bad luck?"

"I don't mean to sound flippant," Whiting said. "I'm anything but.…It's just that this isn't the first assisted care facility I've worked in, and over the years you notice that sometimes deaths seem to come in…yes, streaks."

"Life and death," Catherine said, "just another game in Vegas?"

"I told you I didn't mean it in any kind of flip way. It's just…sometimes you'll go months without a death…then suddenly…" He snapped his fingers, once, twice, three times. "…three people go in a single month. Then we'll go a month with nothing, and get one or two in a row again. You have to understand-over five hundred people reside in the various wings of Sunny Day. Twenty-two seems like a lot of deaths but, truth is, there are extenuating circumstances."

Catherine arched an eyebrow. "Such as?"

"Sunny Day doesn't have an overnight physician, understand. There's a four-hour gap in service, with what you might call a skeleton crew on hand. Any crisis after midnight, the nurses call nine-one-one-just as you might at home. Myself, along with Doctors Todd Barclay, Claire Dayton, and John Miller…we're the only doctors on staff full time."

Warrick asked, "How are the shifts split up?"

Whiting said, "We split the two shifts, seven days a week. Claire and I are a team, as are Todd and John. We do three ten-hour shifts, then we're off two days. A few of these patients are visited by their own personal physicians…but not many."

Vega frowned. "You work fifty hours a week?"

"Plus overtime," Whiting said. "And there's plenty of that to go round, too."

"Sounds brutal," Warrick said.

"It is," Whiting said.

Catherine said, "What about that slower pace you say you crave?"

A grin blossomed-the first sign of spontaneity from this controlled interview subject. "Compared to having a private practice, and seeing thirty to forty patients every day, six to seven hundred a week? I prefer to see fifty patients today, the same fifty I saw yesterday, and the same fifty or so I'll see tomorrow. Where a physician in private practice will have a roster of over a thousand patients, mine is fifty and I get to spend considerably more time with each one of them."

"More personal," Warrick said.

"Much," Whiting confirmed. "The pace is a lot different than private practice. The vast majority of these patients never walk out of Sunny Day, remember. Those of us who work here do our best to provide them care and comfort before they are, frankly, rolled out."

Flipping his notebook closed, Vega said, "We'll likely be in touch again, Doctor."

"Let me know how I can help," Whiting said.

The trio marched from the administrative wing and back down one of the hallways lined with patient rooms. An attractive African-American woman in white slacks and a floral smock came out of a room, head lowered, studying a chart as she walked right into Warrick, the chart popping out of her hands.

Warrick caught it.

"Oh, I'm sorry!" she said, a hand shooting to her mouth. "Didn't see you there." The hand came away and revealed an attractive smile. "Nice catch."

Catherine read the woman's nametag: Kenisha Jones. Since Warrick was closer to the nurse, Catherine waited for him to say something. He didn't-he was looking at the woman with the glazed, dazed expression of a hypnotist's volunteer on stage in a casino lounge.

The power of a beautiful woman over a man had always amused Catherine, and for a number of years, she'd made a good living taking advantage of that male trait. And this was a handsome woman so Warrick could hardly be blamed.

The woman's long neck-a stethoscope her necklace-rose gracefully to a heart-shaped face dominated by full lovely lips, a straight nose, and wide brown eyes with dark, narrow brows. Tight banana curls erupted out of the nurse's upswept black hair-she was a lovely Medusa who had turned Warrick Brown to stone.

Finally, Warrick managed, "Hey, no problem," and handed back the chart, as if presenting her with an award.

Cutting this mating dance short, Vega stepped forward and flashed his badge. "Kenisha Jones?"

Her head reared back. She gestured to the nametag, saying, "Uh…yes." The "duh" implied….

"I'm Detective Vega and this is Catherine Willows from the crime lab. You've already met Warrick Brown-he's also from the crime lab."

The nurse nodded sagely. "Ah-you must be here about Vivian."

"That's right," Warrick said.

They smiled at each other, and Vega-who appeared to have no romance in his soul, at least right now-said, "Somewhere we could talk?"

"Look," she said, her eyes finding Vega's past Warrick, "I'm fine with answering questions about Vivian; but this is not a good time. I'm the only dayshift nurse for this wing."

"If you get called away," Warrick said, "we'll wait for you."

"Well…" She smiled, shrugged. At Warrick. "All right…"

She led them into a small breakroom with just room enough for three round tables, a counter (with a microwave and a coffeepot), a refrigerator, and the four of them.

"Help yourselves to coffee," the nurse said. "Water and soda in the fridge."

No one took her up on it, but Kenisha got herself a bottle of water. "Gotta stay hydrated," she said.

"I hear that," Warrick said, rather nonsensically, since he hadn't bothered to get anything to drink.

They sat around a table.

The nurse asked, "What can I tell you about Vivian?"

The detective said, "First, you need to know-Vivian Elliot's death was a murder."

Kenisha Jones shrugged. "And?"

Warrick and Catherine traded raised eyebrows; Vega just stared at the woman in his cold unblinking way.

"You don't seem terribly surprised," Catherine said.

"Figured as much."

The woman had known from jump that they were here to talk about Vivian; since the CSIs and Vega had been here yesterday looking into the death that assumption made sense. But knowing that it was murder…?

Vega said, "You…figured as much?"

"Do I sound cold?"

Warrick said, "A little."

"Don't mean to be. But this wing is not home to a lot of happy endings, right?…People come here to take their time dying, to not suffer while they're doin' it…but nobody's making big plans, post-Extended Care wing."

"Granted," Warrick said. "But you don't get murders every day."

"Not every day…. Hey, she was a healthy woman-plus, she was gettin' better. Suddenly, she has a heart attack and dies? There was not a damn thing wrong with Mrs. Elliot-hell, she was in better shape than me. Up and died? I didn't buy it. I don't buy it. And if you're here saying she was murdered, you don't, either."

Catherine watched Warrick as the young woman got a smile out of him with her sassy, smart attitude. With the barest nod of her head, Catherine signaled Warrick.

Without missing a beat, Warrick said, "Ms. Jones, you're right. We are here looking into it. Which is why we need your help. You were on duty, when she coded?"

"Yes," Kenisha said, adding emphasis with several nods. "I looked in on her, then went down the hall to check on Mrs. Jackson. Vivian was fine when I left her, and less than ten minutes later…damn. She coded, all right. All the way."

Catherine and Vega were hanging back now, letting Warrick talk to the young woman, who seemed to feel as comfortable with him as he did with her.

Warrick asked, "And what'd you do then, Ms. Jones?"

" 'Kenisha.' Your name's what again?"

"Warrick."

"Warrick, the whole damn crash team came in. First team, off the bench and in the game-Doctor Whiting, myself, and the two staffers from the other wing, Nurse Sandy Cayman and Doctor Miller."

Vega checked his notebook and put in: "Doctor John Miller?"

"Yes."

Warrick resumed the lead. "So, Kenisha-what happened next?"

"Well, I was the closest," Kenisha said. "Got there first. Only…she was already gone, poor thing. Only 'poor thing,' that's not right, really…. Warrick, that woman was healthy as a horse. No way she shoulda died. Vitals were strong just, what…ten minutes before. She was one of the handful, ya know."

"Handful?"

"The handful who had a future. The handful who walk outta here into some more life. No walker, no wheelchair-under her own damn speed. We savor those. This…this…should not have gone down like that."

"Place like this," Catherine put in. "Don't these things happen?"

Kenisha's eyebrows rose. "Little too many of these things are just 'happening' round here, you ask me."

Catherine said, "We are asking you, Kenisha. And I'm Catherine."

"All right, Catherine. I'm just saying, I had my suspicions, way before this."

Warrick picked it up again. "Then why didn't you call us in, Kenisha? Or say something to that assistant coroner who comes around?"

"And say what?" Kenisha asked, her voice rising now. She did a mocking voice: " 'Too many old folks dyin' out here at Sunny Day, come runnin' '?"

Looking sheepish, Warrick said, "Well, yeah-I see your point."

"In a world of malpractice, you learn not to make waves, unless you are very damn sure of something." She shook her head. "You point the finger, then they'd be all…where's your proof? And what do I have to offer, except a feeling in my gut."

Gently, Warrick said, "And what is your gut telling you, Kenisha?"

"Telling me, something's wrong here, only…nobody seems to know what it is, or how to stop it."

Warrick's expression was somber. "Kenisha, if something wrong is going down here, I promise you: We'll find it."

Her eyes were moist. "You know it's so easy to hide a murder in a place like this-another old fogey dies, and who the hell cares? Well, I care."

Catherine said, "Kenisha…trust me. So do we."

Kenisha's face showed that she wanted to believe her.

Before they left, Kenisha gave Warrick her cell phone number, "In case you need to contact me…about the case."

Warrick gave the nurse his cell, too.

On the way out, Catherine said, "Wow, very thorough…that exchange of phone numbers. You're really trying to stay on top of this."

Warrick gave her an uncommonly shy grin for such a confident man. "Cath-don't even go there."

Her chin crinkling with amusement, she raised her hands in surrender as they walked out of one Sunny Day into another.

At the office, they split up.

Vega went right back out, this time to interview Mabel Hinton about her visit to Vivian Elliot the morning she died. While the lab techs worked on the evidence, Warrick and Catherine, each pursuing separate courses, concentrated on doing background checks on the doctors and nurses who worked at Sunny Day.

Catherine had been at it for hours when finally Greg Sanders interrupted. Probably the brightest among the rising stars of the crime lab, Greg was young, ambitious, if sometimes scattered, his streaked blond hair giving him the appearance of a man who had just stepped off a Tilt-A-Whirl.

"Hey, Catherine," he said, hovering over her desk, his hands behind his back.

Catherine scooted her chair back and looked up at him. "So Greg-spill."

"I…found…your…murder weapon."

She grinned. "Really?"

A quick nod, and Greg explained: "We went through everything in the biohazard bag you brought in."

"We?"

He gestured with a thumb over one shoulder. "I had help from a couple of interns. Just a small tip? Any time you gotta go through the contents of a biohazard bag? Call an intern."

"Noted."

"When your vic coded, they gave her a thrombolytic agent."

Catherine nodded that she understood. "To break up a clot if there was one."

"Exactly. Streptokinase, in this case. They also gave her dopamine and nesiritide-Natrecor as it's called."

"Natrecor?"

"It's a vasodilator. It's the synthetic version of BNP, a hormone manufactured in the heart."

She'd followed this for a while, but now was lost. She'd become a CSI, not gone to medical school.

"Oh-kaaay," she said finally. "So the murder weapon was…?"

"After going through all the different syringes," he said, "I found this homeless puppy." He produced a plastic evidence bag from behind his back.

She took the bag from him. Within, a large, nasty-looking syringe looked as clean as when it had come out of its protective wrapper.

"How can you know it was this specific needle?" she asked.

Greg held up one finger, said, "Ah!…That's why you come to an expert for an opinion. Because you'll get an expert opinion."

"Greeeggg…?"

"There were traces of both blood…Vivian Elliot's, by the way…and saline from her IV on the needle."

"And on the inside?"

"Not so much as a molecule of dust-not…a…particle."

Catherine frowned. "But there should have been traces of something, right?"

"There were in all the others," Greg said, with an affirming shrug. "And in every syringe I've ever looked in. This one? This one has never held anything more than…air."

"Fingerprints?"

"Not on the plunger, not on the tube, not on the needle, nothing."

Catherine said, "All right-maybe we can track it some other way."

"Just let me know if you need anything," Greg said. "Always happy to solve your cases for you."

"Do you want me to say it?"

"I wish you would."

"Greg-you're the best."

He was gone less than a minute when Warrick rolled in, Catherine still staring at the plastic evidence bag.

"And what have we here?" he asked.

"You know that old cop expression? All we've got in this case is a pound of air?"

"I've heard it."

"We've got it…only we're happy to have it."

She held up the bag and explained what Greg had said.

"Murder weapon," Warrick said. "Always nice to have."

"So far it's a dead end, though."

"Plenty other leads."

Catherine nodded. "So. How go the background checks?"

"Kenisha Jones came up clean."

Catherine laughed once. "And Warrick Brown's heart skipped a beat."

"Cath…I said don't go there…. As for Kenisha, she went to UNLV, put herself through school. Hard worker, and never so much as a parking ticket. What'd you come up with?"

"Meredith Scott?" Catherine said.

"Third shift nurse?"

"Right. She wasn't so lucky."

Warrick pulled up a chair, his eyes perking with interest. "Really?"

"Really. Got busted just after high school for shoplifting. Then, while she was still in college, there was a petty theft beef with the boss of the restaurant where she worked. He said she was pocketing money out of the register."

"How did that one turn out?"

"Scott pled to misdemeanor theft, repaid the money. At the time, she claimed she'd intended to pay the money back. Just a youthful error of judgment. And truth is, other than that, her jacket's clean. Since college? Solid citizen."

"How about Rene Fairmont?" Warrick asked.

"I'm passing her off to you. Plus, you've still got the doctors to do, right?"

"Yeah, but now that we established my plate's full, what are you gonna be up to?"

Catherine leaned back in her chair. "I'm taking that proverbial fine-tooth comb to Vivian Elliot's finances…. If our killer is picking these people because they have no family, to me that signals a financial-gain motive."

Warrick nodded. "Can't argue that. What about the other vics?"

Catherine heaved a sigh. "Bodies long gone, crime scenes cleaned up past the point of no return. Only thing left is the records of those that have died over the last eight months. Vega's over there picking them up for me now. Once I've gone through Vivian's finances, I'll start on those."

"Never a shortage of fun things to do around here," Warrick said, putting his feet up on the edge of her desk. "How do you like dayshift?"

"In this heat? Is it fair to have an opinion?"

Warrick, staring at the ceiling, said, "You've seen the security out at Sunny Day."

"Yeah-Deputy Dawg. Not exactly the vault at Mandalay Bay."

Warrick looked at Catherine. "What if our killer's not one of the staff?"

Shaking her head, Catherine said, "Then he or she better screw up soon, or we're gonna have trouble making a collar. If this isn't about money, how does the killer pick a victim? If it is about money, and the killer's not one of the staff…the neighbor, maybe…she or he's got to have an accomplice on the inside."

"You sure about that? An outsider with medical knowledge might've shot that air in that IV, right?"

"I don't think so. This syringe matches the ones from Sunny Day…. Maybe somebody doesn't like old people…and their hobby is taking one out every now and then…and I don't mean for lunch."

"Ah, Cath, you can't-"

"I can. It's always a possibility, you know."

"What is?"

"Being up against a killer who is well and truly around the bend."

Warrick had no response to that.

After he ambled out, Catherine began going through Vivian Elliot's personal papers.

The CSI had brought in all the things she'd found at the Elliot house. The checkbook, with more than a thousand dollars in it, hadn't been used since the morning before Vivian's car wreck. Looking through the register, Catherine saw that Vivian had purchased a brake job, radiator flush, and oil change with check #9842. That had been from the dealership that had sold her her 1999 Chrysler Concorde.

The next day, Vivian had been traveling south on Nellis Boulevard when the drunk ran the red light and plowed into her. Since the woman hadn't written a check thereafter, the top check in the book should be #9843. Flipping past the register, Catherine saw the correct check on top.

She wondered why Vivian hadn't carried the checkbook with her on the day of her accident. Thinking it through, she thought she had the answer: Catherine knew that many older folks, especially those raised during the Great Depression, believed in paying most things with cash. Three hundred dollars, the price of Vivian's auto repairs, was probably more cash than the woman liked to carry…hence the check.

Vivian's financial advisor was Christian Northcutt, whose office was in a new complex on Robindale near Las Vegas Boulevard, the same office park as Newcombe-Gold, an advertising company Catherine had investigated just last year.

Looking through the statements from Northcutt, Catherine discovered that Mrs. Elliot had a money market with about three thousand dollars, a mutual fund program with a shade over fifty thousand, and an annuity valued about forty-five thousand dollars. In no way could Vivian Elliot have been considered rich, but she hadn't exactly been standing in the government cheese line, either.

If someone wanted to steal Vivian's estate, how would they go about it? Was there a will? There was only one way to find out: Catherine would have to talk to Vivian's lawyer.

Before Catherine could take that thought any further, however, Vega entered her office, hauling a monstrous cardboard box, the sleeves of his suit straining to contain his biceps as he brought the thing over and dropped it unceremoniously on her desk.

"The hospital records," he said. Fit as he was, the heat had him sweating and even panting a little.

"What took so long?"

He cut her a look. "Court order, Cath-you know how it is."

"Yeah, I sure do. Doctor Whiting give you any trouble?"

"Naw. Once he saw the paperwork, he pretty much fell all over himself trying to help. He would've been fine without it, personally, he said-but Sunny Day's a business like any other."

"I think," Catherine said, gesturing to the financial records spread out elsewhere on her desk, "we need to talk to Vivian's lawyer."

"Do we know who the lawyer is?"

"Yeah-Pauline Dearden." She handed Vega an invoice the attorney had sent Vivian. "Know her?"

"No."

"Me either."

"Let's get acquainted then," Vega said.

Next thing Catherine knew, she was riding in Vega's unmarked Taurus, headed south on Boulder Highway. She filled him in on the news of the murder weapon, and he was pleased, though frustrated that it didn't seem to lead anywhere.

Just north of Flamingo, Vega waited for a break in traffic and turned left into a strip mall parking lot. A two-story stucco building, the mall was home to a variety of offices. The bottom floor included an insurance company, a loan company, a bail bondsman, and a pawnshop; top floor held another insurance company, a baseball card and comic book store, a vacant storefront, and, at the very end, PAULINE DEARDEN, ATTORNEY AT LAW.

They went up the stairs and entered the office. Catherine expected to find the firm of Drab, Dreary, and Dubious practicing here; to her surprise, the office was spacious and the decor bright and cheery-blond furniture, light green walls, waiting area with mini-sofa covered in a floral pattern, three chairs, and a coffee table scattered with glossy magazines. Beyond was a good-sized desk, two client chairs, and a high-back leather number for the attorney-the one who didn't seem to be here. A computer sat on a smaller desk next to the main one, and beyond that was a closed door, from behind which came the sound of a flush and then running water.

That door opened and a tall, wide-shouldered woman in a high-collared navy blue jacket and skirt stepped out, patting her hair, as if it could be out of place. Catherine knew the latter was unlikely, as the woman wore enough spray to shellac her obviously dyed red hair into a tight helmet. The blue-eyed redhead wore a great deal of scarlet lipstick, too, and when she saw her guests, the woman looked up and smiled with bright, white teeth-something slightly predatory about it, but then…this was a lawyer.

"May I help you?" she asked cordially enough.

Vega showed the badge and introduced them both. The woman studied the IDs carefully before handing them back. Then the attorney shook hands with them and gestured to the client chairs. "I am, as you've surely guessed by now, Pauline Dearden. What's this all about, Sam?"

Catherine glanced over toward Vega, to see how this no-nonsense professional was taking this woman he'd just met using his first name.

Vega let the comment pass without a ripple in his impassive expression. "We'd like to talk to you about one of your clients-Vivian Elliot."

Pauline Dearden leaned forward a little. "Within bounds of client confidentiality, I'm of course happy to help the police. But why Vivian?"

"Haven't you heard, Pauline?" Vega said. "She's been murdered."

The attorney's eyes opened wide, then she sagged a little. "Hell…. No. No, I hadn't heard anything about it. I seldom read the paper and almost never watch television." She sat for a long moment, her manner suddenly morose.

"Ms. Dearden?" Vega prompted.

"Sorry…. Vivian was a good client, and a nice woman."

Catherine asked, "Can you tell us a little about her?"

The Dearden woman opened a drawer and withdrew a tissue and dabbed at her eyes. "What…what would you like to know?"

"What legal work had you done for her recently? I noticed an invoice from your office among her financial records."

A humorless laugh coughed out of her. "Normally, I'd have to rail on and on about attorney-client privilege…but since she's been murdered…"

Catherine waited.

Gathering herself, the attorney said, "She was considering suing Doctor Larry Whiting for malpractice."

Catherine blinked. "Doctor Whiting? First we've heard of that."

"Well, it's true."

Vega was still trying to wrap his mind around this. "Doctor Whiting at Sunny Day?"

"Uh huh-the very one."

Catherine sat forward. "Why did Vivian stay under his care, then-if she was considering suing him for malpractice?"

A grunt of a laugh preceded the attorney's answer: "She thought all the other doctors at Sunny Day were even bigger problems than Doctor Whiting!"

Catherine said, "She could have moved to another facility, if she thought the care was subpar. It's not like Sunny Day's the only game in the valley."

"She was an old woman," the attorney said matter of factly. "Set in her ways, and not willing to listen to anything I had to say."

"You're not saying she was senile, or that Alzheimer's was setting in-"

"Oh, no! Far from it." The attorney sighed. "But Vivian could be very stubborn. Hell-bullheaded is more like it. She liked the people at Sunny Day, though-the nurses, the other residents, those Gossip Club ladies. She thought of them as friends, and even Doctor Whiting she actually even liked. She just thought he and the other Sunny Day doctors were, as she put it, overrated quacks."

"Frustration with doctors is common for patients enduring long hospital stays."

"No argument there. But you should've tried to tell Vivian that."

Catherine couldn't think of an easy way to ask the next question. "Pardon me for asking, and this is strictly off the record…but was Vivian's lawsuit frivolous?"

The attorney sat back a little, possibly trying to decide whether to be offended or not. "I didn't think so or I wouldn't have taken the case. She had back trouble from the accident and that's always a touchy area. She said Whiting had added to her pain and suffering by not listening to what she had to say about her condition."

"Did he know she was considering suing him?"

"Of course," Pauline said. "He thought he was doing the best he could with her. They had a couple of confrontations."

Catherine wondered why Whiting had neglected to mention this little fact. Trying to cover it up, or just an innocent omission?

"All right," Vega said. "Let's move on…. Did she have a will?"

The attorney seemed a little alarmed. "You think Vivian might have been killed for her money?"

Vega shrugged. "We're not ruling out anything-not the doctor, not the money, nothing."

The attorney's eyes glittered now, anger replacing sadness, at least momentarily. "She was in a full-time care facility. She should have been safe there. What the hell happened?"

"She was murdered," Vega said.

"You said that before, Sam. How?"

Catherine gave it to her straight: "Someone gave Vivian a syringe full of air creating-"

"An embolism." The attorney's exhale had controlled rage in it. "Yes, I could see how someone thought they might get away with that. And you think Doctor Whiting did it?"

"Please!" Catherine said, holding up a hand. "We haven't found the killer-we haven't even ascertained a motive yet."

Best not to trust the lawyer with the theory that they just might be dealing with a serial killer….

"But the potential motive you're exploring," the attorney said, "is money?"

Catherine shrugged. "When people are murdered…unless the killer's insane, the four main motives are money, love, sex, or drugs. Do any of those fit Vivian?"

"I see where you're going," Pauline Dearden said. She leaned down to withdraw a file folder from the bottom right-hand drawer of her desk, then scanned the folder's contents quickly. "Vivian did have a will and she changed it recently."

Catherine and Vega exchanged glances.

The CSI said, "Changed the beneficiary, you mean?"

The attorney nodded. "Originally, her estate was going to go to several charities. In the end, she gave it all to something called D.S. Ward Worldwide."

"Never heard of it," Catherine said, and Vega nodded the same.

"Neither had I," she said. "According to Vivian, it's a charity that feeds children overseas. Possible, I suppose, but I did some digging anyway."

"What did you find?" Catherine asked.

"Not a thing."

"Nothing?"

"At all, and when I look, Catherine, I look hard. D.S. Ward Worldwide doesn't even have a damn website."

Vega said, "Even scam charities have websites."

"Exactly," Pauline said. "That's what sent my red flags flying."

Catherine asked, "Did you discuss this with Vivian?"

"Till I was blue in the face. She refused to listen to reason. I said it before-a nice woman, but stubborn."

"Did she tell you how she'd come to hear about this D.S. Ward Worldwide?"