Grave Matters

Sara meant Archie Johnson, CSI's resident computer/video whiz.

Nick nodded. "Worth a shot-if we get lucky, Kathy and her mystery date may've survived the constant erasing."

Sara's eyebrows lifted. "I've been trying to find this Janie Glover, who was supposed to have known the identity of 'FB'. No luck so far. But I'm just getting started."

"What's next?" Nick asked.

Grissom held up a sheaf of papers. "Search warrant. While the lab works on all the trace and video evidence, we're going to the Black home, and then the mortuary."

Nick said, with a forced smile, "Doesn't that sound like a good time…."

The nightshift crew had caught up with themselves: It was approaching midnight when their Tahoe drew up in front of Black's brick fortress. Only one light shone in the living room, and the whole neighborhood was as quiet as Desert Palm Memorial Cemetery. Grissom and Nick followed Brass to the door, where the captain used the oversized brass knocker.

A few moments later, a strained-looking Dustin Black opened the door and Brass handed him the warrant. The mortician now wore a green polo shirt and faded denim shorts and sandals with no socks.

"A search warrant?" the mortician asked. "For my home?"

"And your business," Brass said.

"You people haven't done enough to ruin my life today?"

Grissom said blandly, "Homicide investigations move quickly."

Brass asked, "Are your wife and children here, Mr. Black?"

"Why no," Black said with heavy sarcasm. "Thank you for asking! Cassie took the kids and went to a hotel. I followed your advice and told her everything, got it all off my chest, completely honest…and she walked out on me. Happy?"

Ignoring that, Brass said, "I need you to step outside, please, while the investigators perform the search."

"Any way I can be of help," Black said mockingly, and obeyed, while gesturing as if a gracious host for them to enter. "Oh…and by the way?…When this is over, I intend to sue your asses for ruining my life. Assuming you're ever able to catch Kathy Dean's real murderer, that is."

Brass turned to the mortician, face a cold polite mask. "Mr. Black, it isn't our business to ruin anyone's life, though sometimes in the pursuit of justice that does happen. But I might suggest that you had a hand in your own 'ruination.' "

"Is that right?"

"We weren't the ones having an affair with a teenage girl. We weren't the ones who got her pregnant, and we're sure as hell not the ones wasting the department's time by lying about all of that from the beginning."

The mortician lapsed into brooding silence.

Grissom, halfway in the door, turned and smiled at the two men and raised a finger, like a precocious student correcting a teacher. "Might have got her pregnant. We don't have the DNA back yet…. Excuse me."

Inside, while Sara and Nick covered the rest of the house-Nick starting in back, Sara in front-Grissom headed upstairs where he began in the bathroom of the Blacks' master suite.

The bathroom was a modern affair with mirrors and glass and a massive glass-enclosed multiheaded shower that looked like a weapon in a science-fiction film. Grissom spent nearly an hour checking drawers, drains, the inside of the toilet tank, anywhere he might hope for evidence…finding nothing. He hadn't expected to discover much in the bathroom, however, and he'd been right-a thought that gave him no comfort as he moved into the equally opulent bedroom.

The light green room was dominated by a wall-mounted plasma television and a bed about the size of Grissom's first apartment. Modern art tastefully punctuated the walls over a long dresser and a narrow dressing table. The TV took one wall above an entertainment center whose bookshelves were home to a scattering of framed family photos. The final wall consisted of massive his-and-hers walk-in closets; these were larger than Grissom's second apartment….

The CSI supervisor spent nearly another hour going through the bedroom, the two closets interesting him the most. He went through the pockets of all of Black's suits and jackets, the drawers that held his underwear and socks, and shoe boxes of both husband and wife. He found nothing.

Grissom went on to do the rooms of the children, to no worthwhile end.

Nick and Sara were just finishing up downstairs when Grissom joined them.

"Anything?" he asked them.

Sara said with a shrug, "Some of Kathy's hairs in the living room…but that's all I found."

"No gun in this house that I could find," Nick said. "And we've looked everywhere."

"You ready to move on?" Grissom asked.

"You mean, to the mortuary?" Nick grinned. "Ready but not anxious…oh, and we should do the wife's car."

Grissom nodded. "It's undoubtedly at the hotel with her and the kids. So let's tackle Desert Haven next."

Outside, where Brass leaned against the brick and Dustin Black sat dejectedly on his front stoop, Grissom gave the captain a curt shake of his head as the CSIs marched past.

"Didn't find the gun, did you?" Black taunted. "Know why?…Because it's not there! I told you, I didn't kill that girl."

Brass asked, "Would you care to accompany us to the mortuary, Mr. Black?"

"Do I have a choice?"

"Yes. You have keys for us, or shall we break the lock?"

Scowling, the mortician got to his feet. "I'm coming, I'm coming…." Then he sighed heavily. "I, uh…don't have a car. You impounded it, remember?"

"We'd be delighted to have you ride with us."

"I just bet you would."

They all piled into the Tahoe, Nick driving, Black in the passenger seat, Brass and Grissom flanking Sara in the back. As they drove toward the mortuary, Grissom tried to smooth the waters some with the mortician. It was clear the man had gotten under Brass's skin and the tension between the two threatened to get in the way.

"I know you're unhappy with us, Mr. Black," Grissom said, "but you can understand why, at this point, you're a suspect we have to seriously consider. If you're innocent, your cooperation now will help clear you."

Black said nothing for a while. Then he sighed and nodded slowly. "I…I apologize for my behavior. Please understand…I've worked long and hard to keep Cassie happy, and to allow her to live in the manner she believes befits her. But the truth is, I haven't loved my wife for years. And I'm not sure she ever loved me."

The others stayed quiet. The darkness of the vehicle had turned it into a kind of confessional.

"That realization's been as hard to deal with as getting caught cheating," the mortician admitted. "Harder, really. I guess on some level I wanted Cassie to find out about the affair. But not like this, never like this…. Kathy was a wonderful girl. I had deep feelings for her, and she was an extremely affectionate young woman who felt trapped by her parents."

"Do you mind my asking," Grissom said, "whether she told you about this pregnancy?"

"She did. She wanted me to leave my wife and marry her."

This frank, unhesitating admission of motive shook even the unflappable Gil Grissom.

"What," Grissom asked, "were you going to do?"

"I…I hadn't made up my mind. I was honest with Kathy. I said I'd take care of her, of…the child…for sure. However she wanted to handle it. And the word 'abortion' was never uttered by either of us."

"I see," Grissom said.

"But I needed to do some soul-searching before I could decide whether the ramifications would…I have a standing in the community, after all…she was just a child…. Well, I was trying to think it through, work it through."

Eyes tight with thought, Grissom asked, "Is that why it took you two hours to take Kathy home that night, Mr. Black?"

"Yes…yes. We did make love. I won't deny it. In fact the memory of it is something I'll treasure to my dying day. But we also talked. I wish…I wish…"

"What did you wish, Mr. Black?"

"I wish I'd told the girl I would leave Cassie and marry her, like she wanted me to. I don't know why, but I…I have this feeling that if I had…she might be alive right now."

"Why do you feel that way?"

"Doctor Grissom, it's a feeling. 'Why' doesn't come into it."

Grissom wondered if he was sitting in the company of an innocent man or sharing a ride with a killer who was also a brilliant actor. In his extensive career he had seen both, and right now he wouldn't lay odds either way. Dustin Black was, after all, in the business of trying to make people feel comfortable at the most uncomfortable time of their lives, telling them what they needed to hear in a difficult time.

Were Grissom and the others in that same category right now?

If Black was guilty, though, the man was going to be great on the witness stand….

They arrived at the mortuary and piled out. After Black unlocked the door, the little group moved into the darkened lobby. They waited as the mortician got the alarm shut off and the lights turned on. Once this had been done, Black and Brass went back outside to wait in the parking lot. The tension between the two men had lessened considerably.

Grissom outlined the plan to Nick and Sara. "We're going to take our time-we'll start at the back, then move forward. We'll do one room at a time, beginning with the garage."

Once there, Nick used his Maglite to find the light switch, revealing a garage three doors wide, the first bay open, a workbench against the near wall. The limo sat in the middle bay, the hearse in the far bay.

Nick said, "Here's something I thought I'd never hear myself say…"

Grissom took the bait. "What, Nick?"

"…I'll take the hearse."

Grissom smiled. "And I'll take the bench and work area. Sara, that leaves you the limo."

"Got it."

The toolbench was an afterthought constructed of plywood and two-by-fours, with several cardboard boxes stacked on one end. Overlooking the area was a pegboard with the typical screwdrivers, pliers, hammers, and other hand tools, and a shelf below held a locked steel toolbox.

Grissom decided to start there.

He hit the power button on the overhead door and walked around the building, instead of back through. He found Brass and Black at the front corner of the building, the mortician puffing nervously on a cigarette.

Grissom gestured with a thumb. "There's a toolbox under your workbench. Could you unlock it for us?"

Black said, "That's for Jimmy-he works on the cars. Keeps the good tools in there, locked up."

"Do you have a key?"

"No."

"I'm going to open that toolbox, then."

"Do what you have to," the mortician said noncommittally.

Grissom returned to the Tahoe, got his bolt cutters out of the back, and in the garage, popped the lock on the toolbox, finding exactly what Dustin Black had said he would-tools, good tools.

Then Grissom went through the cardboard boxes on the workbench, three rows, three boxes each. Some contained clothes, others had chemicals, and the very middle box, the center square in the tic-tac-toe of cardboard, held several eight-ounce boxes of mortician's wax and, on the bottom, something else….

"Gun!" Grissom called over his shoulder.

In seconds, the other two were at his side.

Nick snapped pictures and Sara opened an evidence bag as Grissom carefully picked up the .22 Smith & Wesson automatic handgun and dropped it in.

"Shall we keep searching?" Nick asked.

"Not right now," Grissom said. "We'll be back, but…not now."

They packed up their gear, closed and locked the garage doors, then met Brass and Black out front.

"Mr. Black," Grissom said, "you need to lock up. And you may need to make arrangements-you're not going to be back for a while."

The mortician dropped his cigarette, his expression tinged with panic. "What? You didn't find anything. You couldn't find anything! There was nothing to-"

Grissom held up the evidence bag and Nick shone his flashlight on the pistol inside. The light glinted off the metal, winking at Black.

After Brass read Dustin Black his Miranda rights, the CSIs hung in the background as the captain accompanied Dustin Black to lock up the mortuary. The man was crying as Brass cuffed him and led him to the Tahoe.

"I didn't do this," he kept saying. "That's not my gun-I've never seen that thing before!"

"Not the first time I've heard that song," Brass said, and loaded him into the backseat.

Nick was studying his boss. "Gris-you don't believe him, do you?"

"I don't believe anybody, Nick. I believe evidence-and I've always been greedy."

"What do you mean?"

"To paraphrase Oliver Twist-I'd like some more."

And the three CSIs joined the detective and the suspect in the Tahoe.

10

THE SMALLEST OF THE CSI WORK AREAS, the Questioned Documents Lab was about twelve by fifteen feet, dominated by a long plastic-covered, backlit table. Sweeping around this workstation on a wheeled desk chair, Jenny Northam-formerly an independent contractor, now full time with the department-rolled away from a job she was doing for Sara Sidle to come around to where materials for the Vivian Elliot case awaited.

Catherine Willows stepped farther into the room, not comforted at all by being directly in Jenny's path.

"Vega said they look like a match," Catherine said.

"That's why they pay me the medium-size bucks, Cath," Jenny said. "No frickin' way."

Jenny had tamed her notorious longshoreman's vocabulary after coming onto the city's payroll; but hints remained. She held up Mabel Hinton's exemplar in one hand and the Sunny Day sign-in sheet in the other for Catherine to form her own opinion.

The CSI shook her head. "To me, they're dead on."

"A wax grape and a real grape look alike, too, y'know…. Somebody tried to copy Mabel's signature, but while it may look hunky-dory at first glance, a close look…reveals the sign-in sheet as an obvious forgery…. Go on, Cath, take a closer look."

Catherine studied them for a few moments. "Is it the loops?"

"What about the loops?"

"Too small?"

Jenny smiled. "Good, Cath…. Anything else?"

"Something…something about the slant?"

"Bingo," the handwriting expert said. "On the sign-in sheet, the slant is forced-you can tell the writer's natural slant is in the opposite direction. Pressure points are in the wrong places."

Catherine nodded. "So-there's no way the same person wrote both of these?"

"No way in heck."

Catherine laughed. "You have cleaned up your language."

"Frickin' A," Jenny said.

Again Catherine's eyes affixed themselves to that sign-in sheet. If Vivian's friend Mabel Hinton hadn't signed it, then who had? Catherine's gaze traveled to the column to the right of the forged signature, where in a box had been scrawled what appeared to be a car license number.

"Jen-did Vega say anything about this?"

Frowning at the number Catherine pointed to, Jenny said, "No…no, just the signature…. What are you smiling about?"

"Leads have been a little scarce in this case. Always nice to find one…. Thanks, Jen."

"Any time, Cath."

Back in her office, Catherine ran the number through DMV to quick result. She grabbed the print-out, headed for the door, and-in less than ten minutes-pulled the Tahoe to a stop in front of the rundown, one-story concrete bunker housing Valley Taxi Company. Inside, she approached the dispatcher, a bald man in his sixties with Coke-bottle glasses, a dangling half-smoked cigarette, and a short-sleeve plaid shirt with evidence of breakfast on it.

"Need a cab, young lady?" he asked.

Flashing a smile, and her ID, she said, "Yes, but a specific one."

When she'd explained the situation-and given the license number of the cab that had taken "Mabel Hinton" to Sunny Day on the morning of Vivian Elliot's murder-the dispatcher got on the radio.

Catherine knew by all rights she should have rounded up a detective for this; but things were moving quickly now, and Brass's people were spread just as thin as the CSIs. So she'd taken the initiative….

And in under two minutes, the dispatcher had given her the address of a café on Boulder Highway, where driver Gus Clein was taking a break, and would wait for her.

Soon Catherine was in a fifties-style diner, sitting in a booth across from a pudgy middle-aged man with graying hair, lumpy features, and a mouthful of burger. The cabbie wore a Wayne Newton T-shirt that might have been purchased at the entertainer's first Vegas engagement.

"Any chance you remember the fare I'm talking about?" Catherine asked.

Clein nodded and kept chewing; the burger he was working on was smaller than a hubcap-just. "Yeah, I do remember, 'cause that's the only fare I had out to that rest home in…forever."

"But the fare herself-do you remember her?"

He swallowed, nodded, taking a drink from a Lake Mead-size Coke and said, "Sure. Little old lady. I been doin' this a long time, and I'm one of them chatty cabbies…only way I keep sane. And usually, the older ones? They love the attention, they stick right with me…but her? She was so quiet I thought she passed away. I mean, I kept tryin' to talk to her, but she didn't show much interest."

"Where did you pick her up?"

He took another bite of the monster burger, chewed as he thought about it, then washed it down with more soda before answering. "In Spanish Hills somewhere."

Catherine felt a spike of excitement. "Where, precisely?"

Clein wiped his hands, picked up his clipboard from the seat next to him and paged through. Finally he said, "Here it is-Rustic Ridge Drive."

Catherine's notebook was in hand. "Got a house number?"

"Sure," he said, and gave it to her.

Hel-lo! Rene Fairmont's address.

Catherine smiled, said, "Thanks, Mr. Clein," and got out her cell phone.

"Hey, it's my pleasure. Are all the CSIs as cute as you?"

She gave him a wry grin. "You may not like me as much as you think you do, Mr. Clein."

"Why's that, cutie?"

"I'm impounding your cab…cutie."

"Aw, hell…."

"Sorry, but it's evidence in a murder investigation now."

"Damn it!"

"I really am sorry. You were a big help. Here…" She put two quarters on the tabletop. "You'll want to check in with your dispatcher and have somebody pick you up."

"I don't need your charity, lady! I got a radio in the cab."

"You would, if you still had a cab."

"Damn!" Clein said again. Then he heaved a sigh, accepted the coins, adjusted to his new lot in life, and returned his attention to the burger.

Catherine went outside to call for a tow truck, but when she clicked the phone, the battery was deader than most leads in this case. She changed batteries and called the LVPD garage. Her second call was for a uniform to sit on the cab until the tow truck arrived. Her next call was to Warrick.

"What corner of the earth did you drop off?" Warrick asked, mildly irritated.

"Sorry-didn't know my cell had gone dead." She told him where she was and what she'd been doing. "What's up on your end?"

"Well," Warrick said, "Greg served the court orders for the skull and the tissue samples."

She laughed. "Greg'll do anything to get out in the field."

Warrick said, "Well, I couldn't go-I was working the evidence from the Masters crime scene; then I couldn't find you, and Greg was free. With our budget, manpower is manpower."

"When it isn't woman power," she said. "Meet you at the DNA lab in fifteen."

"It's a date,"he said and clicked off.

Vega and Warrick were walking down the hall, on their way to DNA, when she got back. Catherine fell in between them.

"The taxi will be here soon," she told them, "and we can go over that. With all the fares in between the false 'Mabel Hinton' and now, I don't know what we can hope to find."

Vega half-smirked. "It's been a grasping-at-straws kind of case."

"Mind handling that solo?" Warrick asked Catherine, meaning processing the impounded cab. "I'll still be processing the Masters evidence."

"Fair enough," Catherine said. "But let's see what Greg's been up to."

They entered the lab and found Greg bent over several reports. On the counter next to the spiky-haired lab tech was a human skull, grinning in welcome.

Hearing them enter, Greg turned and bestowed one of his silliest smiles and gestured to the skull in tah-dah fashion. "If I may, I'd like to present the head of the UWN drama department."

"Stop the presses," Warrick said. "Greg Sanders gets head."

"Spare me the puns, children," Catherine said, bending down to look Derek Fairmont in what had once been his face. "These are human remains."

"Question is," Warrick said, "is this a murder victim?"

Greg raised a hand. "Let's not get ahead of ourselves…. Sorry. That one was accidental."

Catherine, hands on hips, asked, "What luck have you had with the skull, Greg?"

"Well, you were both right-Warrick saying that it was unlikely any poison could be absorbed into bone before madness set in. But I am looking at the teeth, Catherine, which are indeed more porous than bone."

Catherine's eyes tightened. "Do they show traces of-"

"Haven't got that far yet."

"How far have you gotten, Greg?"

He gave a smug pixie smile. "Oh-just enough to say that Derek Fairmont was, in fact, poisoned."

The two CSIs and the detectives traded expectant expressions, allowing the lab tech to savor his dramatic pause.

"I tested the tissue samples from the University Medical Center," Greg said, "and found traces of prussic acid."

Warrick grunted. "Cyanide."

Vega asked, "If these organs were donated, wouldn't that have turned up before now?"

"No," Greg said. "These are traces. Wouldn'ta got on the medical radar. And the organs that have been transplanted-which is all of 'em-would function just fine."

Catherine was frowning. "With just traces, could that be written off as an…accident of some kind? Some innocent exposure to prussic acid?"

"If Fairmont had been a cow, Catherine-yes. I might in that case think these traces were accidental. Prussic acid poisoning is a problem with grazing animals, since it occurs in the epidermal cells of sorghums, and other related species those animals eat. Since Fairmont was a human, I'm gonna go waaay out on the edge and say…this is poisoning."

"Probably," Catherine said wryly, "nobody forced sorghum on him."

"Not likely. My educated guess? Rat poison."

Warrick winced in thought. "Plain old-fashioned commercial rat poison?"

"Yes-not that hard to get, and several major brands still use prussic acid as their active ingredient. It inhibits oxygen utilization by the body's cells. For all intents and purposes…"

Greg gestured to the skull, and his expression was somber now; nothing funny about this.

"…Derek Fairmont suffocated. What's more, it's the same poison that killed Gary Masters."

"Good!" Catherine said, then realized her response sounded odd. She explained, saying to Greg, "I was hoping you'd run that right away."

"I anticipated that, and what I found was, the toxic stuff is all over the wine bottle…and the glass he was drinking from." He held up the autopsy report. "And my associate, Doctor Albert Robbins, concurs: death by poisoning. Actually, not that common a murder technique, these days."

"Making it easier to miss," Warrick said almost to himself, "than you'd think."

Vega said, "We've got her using the same poison for two victims."

Catherine said, "Don't break out the champagne just yet-the same poison doesn't an MO make. The husband was killed over a long period of time, in small doses…hence the traces of poison in his remains."

Greg said, "She's right."

Warrick, smirking humorlessly, said, "Well, we do know Rene Fairmont's poison of choice, at least. All we need now is a way to prove our nasty nurse did these murders."

Greg scratched the side of his head. "Didn't you guys mention that Derek died in Mexico?"

Warrick nodded.

Catherine said, "Yeah."

Greg cocked his head. "Did you come up with a Mexican death certificate?"

Catherine wondered where Greg was going with this. "Yeah, we did, it was faxed to us-says heart attack."

Greg's smile was almost as charming as one of Grissom's. "Tell me-was there a consular mortuary certificate?"

Catherine winced. "A what?"

"If the Mexican death certificate said heart attack, my guess is someone was bribed," Greg said. "I mean, the poison was right there for anyone to see…and if there's no consular mortuary certificate, and Derek here really did die in Mexico…then his wife brought him back illegally. Which is against the law. I mean, that's a federal law she's broken."

Catherine looked at Greg with a newfound respect. "How did you know all that?"

"It's 22 U.S.C. 4196; 22 CFR 72.1."

"Huh?"

"That's the part of the federal code that deals with the death of U.S. citizens abroad." Greg smiled. He showed the cheat sheet in his hand. "Hey, where would science be without Google?"

Vega had a grimly satisfied expression. "We need to report that to the feds."

"I'll do it," Catherine said.

"And in the meantime," the detective said, "I'm going out to Sunny Day and have another chat with Rene Fairmont."

"We may not have enough to arrest her yet," Warrick said. "But this is a hell of a series of coincidences-seems like everyone she knows turns up murdered."

"Why don't you come with me, Warrick," Vega said, then turned to Catherine. "How about you, Cath?"

"No, Sam-I'll make that federal call…doing my best not to have to talk to agent Rick Culpepper…and then I'm going to see if I can run down those presumably bogus charities of hers. Keep Rene talking, and maybe between Uncle Sam and my own Google-ing, you can put the collar on her."

"We have enough to bring her back here for questioning," Vega said.

When Vega and Warrick were gone, Catherine turned back to Greg. "Thanks, Greg."

"No problem."

"Don't lose your focus, now-heads up."

"Oh yeah," Greg said, and he reached for the skull.

Warrick took the Tahoe and drove, Vega riding, and when they drew up at the Sunny Day guard shack, the CSI found the silver-haired guard, Fred, on duty.

Fred approached the vehicle and asked, "Hello again, fellas. What can I do for ya?"

"Hi Fred," Warrick said. "Rene Fairmont on duty this afternoon?"

The guard said, "Well, she was, but then she left about half an hour ago. Funny deal."

"Funny how?"

"She was only in for, oh I'd say…five minutes? Then she took off. Drove outta here, faster'n a bat out of hell. Next time I see her, I'm gonna talk to her about that. That's reckless behavior, for an employee."

Warrick looked at Vega and said, "Flight risk?"

"Oh yeah," the detective said with a curt nod. "Go!"

"Fred, stand clear," Warrick said, and jammed the Tahoe into reverse to peel out the driveway. He braked, tossed the gearshift into drive, and floored it, tires squealing as Vega got the dashboard light flashing and pulled the cell phone from his pocket.

"Who're you calling?" Warrick asked.

"Dr. Whiting-just watch the road!"

Warrick did as he was told, thanking the powers-that-be that Lake Mead Drive would eventually turn into Interstate 215. Trying to drive clear across this busy city, through snarled street traffic, would have cost them precious time, even with a flasher going.

Rene Fairmont had the same knowledge, of course, and a half hour head start. The siren's whine kept Warrick from hearing much of Vega's brief conversation with Dr. Whiting. When the detective hung up, they had to shout to be heard over the shrill siren scream.

"What did Whiting say?" Warrick yelled.

"That Rene said she had an emergency and just split! He tried to ask what was wrong, but she just grabbed her things and said she had to leave."

"I don't think Fred's ever going to get a chance to have his talk with Rene about recklessness."

"Me neither," Vega said. "But maybe we can…."

Warrick kept the pressure on the accelerator. The angel of mercy had the sense to know they were getting onto her, it seemed; maybe she wouldn't know how close they were…maybe they would reach this angel in time, before she flew off into her next identity….

Catherine had returned to looking into the various bogus charities, seeking some commonality between the entities themselves or at least their dead-drop mailboxes: ten different charities, not counting D.S. Ward Worldwide and its Des Moines drop, with ten different drop box sites.

Although three of the mailboxes were local, the other seven were out of state. She would check, in person, the three locals, scattered around the city; already she'd memorized their locations.

Out of state would be trickier: Jonathan Hooker Ministries in Salt Lake City; Father Lonnegan's Children's Fund, Laramie, Wyoming; Shaw Ministries, Grand Island, Nebraska; Pastor Henry Newman Charities in Joliet, Illinois; and three more even farther east.

If Rene Fairmont was behind all these scams, how exactly was she picking up the money? In-person pickup was required. Could the woman have an accomplice in every one of these cities? That didn't seem likely-this was a loner's game….

The CSI decided to turn the computer loose on the problem. Into a search, she typed all the keywords from the charity names. While that ran, she pulled up a map of the United States and highlighted all the cities with Rene's drops.

In less than a minute, Catherine felt her mouth drop and her eyes pop.

All of the cities lined up.

From Vegas, I-15 north to Salt Lake City, then east on I-80 through Laramie, Grand Island, Des Moines, Joliet and so on. It wasn't just a network of scams, and certainly not an indication of accomplices hither and yon: This was an escape route.

The plan opened like a blossoming flower to Catherine, in all its sick beauty. With this route waiting, Rene Fairmont could pick up, leave town, and melt into the sunset. Well, sunrise actually, since she'd be traveling eastward.

Depending on how much money waited at each drop, their venal angel of mercy could come and go from each city, whenever she wanted. As far as Rene knew, no one figured out her route or her plan.

A chill prickled the back of Catherine's neck: She knew-and it was well beyond a hunch, even Grissom couldn't question this-that Rene was getting ready to run. The sleazoid local lawyer used in several of the estate scams the woman had tied off like the loose end that he'd become-perhaps right after Catherine and Vega had spoken to her at the Fairmont home-and probably right about now Warrick and Vega were discovering that Nurse Fairmont had departed Sunny Day as well.

Catherine was reaching for her cell phone when the results of her computer search came up.

The charity names all had something in common, too-they represented a colossal, arrogant thumbing-of-her-nose by Rene to anyone who sought to catch up with her.

The names had led Catherine to IMDb.com, the Internet Movie Database. And every one of the names of the fake charities came from a single source-The Sting, the 1973 film about clever con artists taking down a big score. D.S. Ward Worldwide was a reference to the picture's writer, David S. Ward; Jonathan Hooker, Johnny Hooker, Robert Redford's character; Pastor Henry Newman, taken from the first name of Henry Gondorff and the last name of the actor who'd played that role, Paul Newman…they all had some resonance within the famous movie. Robert Shaw had portrayed the villain, Lonnegan, his name and the character's showing up in a pair of the charities.

In a matter of seconds, she'd taken this in, and-hopping mad-she hit speed-dial for Warrick.

Surprisingly, she got Vega instead, as well as the distinctive sound of a wailing siren.

"Warrick's busy driving,"Vega said, signal crackling and breaking up. "We think Rene Fairmont's making a run for it."

"I'm sure she is," Catherine said. "That's what I called to tell you-she's got an escape route set up, conducive to picking up her stashes at the mailbox drops."

Vega said something that got eaten up in static-one of the downsides of working in Las Vegas was the cell phone signal sometimes just plain sucked.

"What?" she yelled into the phone.

Vega's voice came back, clearer now. "Warrick and I are headed for her house."

"I'll check the local drops," she said, clicked off, and ran out.

No red Grand Prix awaited in the driveway when Warrick pulled up to the ranch-style house on Rustic Ridge Drive with its browning lawn and FOR SALE sign. The CSI and the detective came out of the Tahoe, guns drawn. Warrick grabbed the ram out of the back-the Fairmont woman's flight gave them probable cause-and Vega led the way toward the house. Howling sirens in the distance told Warrick backup was on its way.

While Vega covered him, Warrick holstered his weapon long enough to swing the battering ram into the front door-the lock exploded inward, the door yawned open, and Warrick dropped the ram to pull his pistol again.

With Vega in the lead, the duo went through room by room. When the house was established as clear, the CSI holstered his gun and shook his head in frustration.

No doubt about it: Rene Fairmont was already gone.

The master bedroom, more than anything, told the story, the closet door thrown open, rejected clothes on the floor, the bed, and still hanging in the closet. The woman had clearly packed quickly and bailed.

"What next?" asked an exasperated Vega.

"Next," Warrick said, "we go through this damn house and see what we can find."

Not long after Warrick and Vega had hit the door, the uniforms had shown up, and they now had the neighborhood cordoned off.

Vega said, "Guess I better canvass the neighbors, and break up the siege outside. I don't suppose she's coming back…."

"Sure she is. Right after M.C. Hammer."

The detective sighed, and ambled out, saying, "Better put out an APB on her car, too."

After a cursory look around, Warrick retrieved his crime scene kit from the Tahoe and began work in earnest.

In the bedroom, little useful presented itself, at first. The CSI did find a cream-colored dress with red roses on it, on the floor, which he bagged. Then he rooted around in the closet, coming across something really worth finding: a plastic grocery bag on the floor containing several wigs, one of which was gray. A pair of glasses that looked like tri-focals but were clear glass was stuffed in the bag as well.

When Vega came back from his canvass of the neighbors, Warrick held up the wig in one evidence bag and the glasses in another.

The CSI said, "Meet the other Mabel Hinton."

"Hello Mabel," Vega said dryly.

"What about the neighbors?"

The detective shrugged. "Nobody's seen much. They say Rene Fairmont isn't a friendly neighbor. Keeps to herself. Woman next door says Rene left right before we got here. Says Rene loaded her car with suitcases before peeling away."

"You got the APB out, right?" Warrick asked.

"Yeah," Vega said. "But it's a big city and 'red Grand Prix' may not narrow it much…. Should we contact the airport and train station?"

"If you want, but Catherine says there's an escape route via car and interstate."

"Better cover our bases," Vega said, and got on his cell.

Warrick kept looking.

In the bathroom adjacent to the bedroom, he found a drawer filled with elaborate theatrical makeup. Later, in the kitchen wastebasket, amid coffee grounds and other trash, he discovered forensics treasure: a square envelope in Mabel Hinton's handwriting addressed to Vivian Elliot and three typing-paper sheets of practice attempts (presumably by Rene Fairmont) to duplicate the signature that was part of Mabel's handwritten return address.

After bagging and tagging, Warrick shared this gold with Vega, who was pleased, or as pleased as the man could be with their angel of mercy on the run.

Warrick got on the cell and updated Catherine.

"Not just the wig and dress," he said, "but the greasepaint and the works-never mind Derek Fairmont…Rene could have run the UWN drama department from Rustic Ridge Drive."

"So," Catherine's voice crackled over the cell, "Rene went into Sunny Day in disguise, killed her victim, then just melted out of sight in all the distraction of the code blue."

"Looks like it," Warrick said. "That way she never drew attention to herself. Didn't want all the victims to die on her shift…. And she seems to have swiped an envelope from a get-well card sent to Vivian at Sunny Day. I got three pages of forger practice sheets, Cath."

"Sweet…. Look, Warrick, I'm going to the Rent-A-Box on Warm Springs. Why don't you and Sam meet up with me there?"

"How come?"

"If Rene's really splitting, maybe she'll stop to pick up some traveling money. One of the charities she used has a drop at the Rent-A-Box. I've been to two others with no luck."

"Maybe she hadn't been there yet."

"I called to post uniforms at both. Listen, I can't believe she won't stop at one of 'em, before she books it."

"On our way. Where on Warm Springs?"

"Strip mall near Green Valley Parkway."

"I know it," Warrick said. "See you there."

A block away from the Rent-A-Box, Catherine turned off the flashers (she wasn't using the siren, not wanting to warn Rene Fairmont), slowed down slightly, then passed through the last intersection and wheeled the Tahoe into the parking lot.

Along with the mailboxes location, half a dozen or so other businesses made up the modest strip mall, with maybe fifteen cars in the parking lot. She quickly scanned the vehicles for Rene's Grand Prix, didn't see it, but then caught a glimpse of bright red beyond a big navy blue SUV….

Pulling forward, to see past the SUV, Catherine's flicker of red identified itself as a red Pontiac Grand Prix all right. The CSI was about to pull forward, to block the car's path, when the Pontiac suddenly backed out of its parking place, nearly hitting the Tahoe, and zoomed out of the parking lot to turn west onto Warm Springs Road.

Catherine, having slammed on the brakes when the Pontiac backed up, needed a few seconds to get moving forward again. By that time, the light at the exit had changed and she watched helplessly as several cars slowly eased past her while, up the road, the red Pontiac threatened to disappear.

Using her ear bud, Catherine could talk to Warrick on the phone and keep her hands free to drive. That was, of course, if the damned line of cars ever got out of her way….

Catherine was about to say the hell with it and hit the siren when she found a spot to get in. She could turn on the siren, and catch up to the Pontiac quickly; but she was in no big hurry to take down a murderer without backup.

She got through to Warrick as she began weaving through traffic. "Where are you?"

"On the beltway,"Warrick said. "We're headed your way."

"Better find another route," Catherine said. "She's turning north on Eastern."

"Roger that,"Warrick said. "We're getting off on Paradise."

Paradise would allow Warrick and Vega to run parallel with Rene and Catherine. If Rene turned left, the suspect would be turning right into their path. Catherine was getting nearer, and having an easier time keeping the Pontiac in sight. She wanted to pull the woman over-Warrick was closer now-but did she dare do so in the middle of all this traffic?

Though Rene was driving fast, the woman wasn't speeding any more than most of the drivers on the road-which was good, because it might mean the suspect didn't know Catherine was back here on her tail.

Maybe Catherine could afford to wait until Warrick was even closer, when they might get a chance to bust this woman without doing it in the middle of a traffic jam. Serving and protecting citizens was a concept at odds with putting them in the middle of a shoot-out or a high-speed chase….

Then Rene swung left on Sunset.

Catherine followed, three cars between them, and suddenly she had the feeling that everything was going to work out.

"Warrick," she said. "We're eastbound on Sunset, headed your way."

"I'll be waiting,"his voice replied.

But Catherine's confidence took a dive as she saw the Pontiac lunge right, cross two lanes of traffic, and disappear into a parking lot. The CSI stomped the brakes, heard tires squeal behind her, then jumped the two lanes of traffic herself…only she missed the access drive!

She didn't want to hop the sidewalk, and-realizing she was in front of a branch of the First Monument Bank-caught the next drive into the bank, going in the one-way wrong. She kept her foot on the brake, pausing there, facing the one-way drive-thru (which was customerless at the moment), as if contemplating a right turn into the parking lot in front of the bank.

The red Pontiac was nowhere in sight and Catherine figured Rene had driven behind the bank building, to come back this way and around through the drive-thru.

"Warrick," she said crisply, "we're at the First Monument Bank on Sunset. Suspect seems about to use the drive-thru. Her driving may indicate she spotted me; or this could be a cash stop. In any event, we need to bust her before she leaves the bank."

"We're onto Sunset,"Warrick's voice assured her.

Catherine saw the other Tahoe in her rearview mirror. "I see you! Sight for sore eyes…"

"We'll go in the entrance, go around, and come up behind her."

"Ten-four," Catherine said, as Rene's Pontiac drew around the corner of the building.

Rene's hand came out the driver's side window, dropped something into the slide drawer, then disappeared back into the car.

Where was Warrick?He should've been coming around the building by now…and then, finally, there was Warrick and Vega in their own beautiful SUV, easing up behind Rene.

The drive-thru drawer opened again, and Rene withdrew an envelope. Her hand disappeared back inside the car and the Pontiac didn't move for endless seconds.

Catherine started creeping forward, hoping Rene wouldn't notice the Tahoe closing the distance between itself and the Grand Prix, and not turning into the parking lot. She needed to nail Rene just after the woman pulled away from the drive-thru window, before she got back on the road.

The glass of the drive-thru window would be bulletproof, but Catherine saw no reason to take any chances at all. Warrick was in line immediately behind Rene, and they would soon have her boxed in. The only thing left was to close the trap.

The car started toward her and Catherine hit the gas to cut her off.

Rene hit the brakes, stopped the Pontiac and came barreling out of the car, on the driver's side, a large canvas bag of a purse slung over a shoulder.

The suspect had made them!

And now Rene, blonde hair flouncing, in a white blouse, dark slacks, and heels, was trying to make her escape on foot.

Catherine slammed on the brakes, threw the Tahoe in park, and leapt from the vehicle, yanking her pistol from its hip holster. She didn't point the weapon at Rene, since-right behind her-Warrick and Vega were coming out of their vehicle and were in Catherine's line of fire. If she shot and missed Rene-a distinct possibility, with the range changing every second-she could easily hit one of her own team.

Conversely, if they should fire and miss, she'd be on the target line.

Catherine resisted the urge to raise the weapon, even as Rene came rushing toward her. Then, at the last second, Rene veered away from Catherine, toward the bank.

Wheeling, the pistol finally up and ready to take aim, Catherine could see why Rene had cut to one side-an older woman…gray and frail and not so different from the Sunny Day victims of the angel of mercy…stood on the sidewalk in front of the bank. The older woman had just come out of the building and held her purse in both hands, probably waiting to be picked up.

The old gal didn't have long to wait: Rene swung around behind her, making a shield of the woman, who squawked in surprise as her assailant's left arm looped around her neck, the other hand fishing in that big purse.

Catherine kept the gun trained on the pair as a syringe rose up in Rene's right hand, stopping just short of the older woman's creped throat.

"I always wanted to say this to a cop," Rene snarled. "Freeze!"

Warrick and Vega came up alongside Catherine, and made with her a three-person line facing Rene and her hostage-the two CSIs and the detective each with a handgun poised to shoot.

"What's in the syringe, Rene?" Catherine said. "Prussic acid?"

"How'd you guess, bitch?"

Traffic had slowed, and bystanders were peering from windows of nearby buildings, and Catherine hoped 911 had been called by now-backup would be nice. Sweat trickled down Rene's face, like the tears the killer was probably incapable of shedding, and the hostage's eyes were wide, pitifully so, brimming with terror.

"Well," Catherine said, "it's what you used on your lawyer friend, isn't it? And what you gave to your husband."

Catherine had a fine line to walk, between scaring the hostage further, and keeping the attention of a serial killer.

Rene's eyes were wide now, a weird echo of her hostage's frightened countenance. "How the hell could you know about Derek?"

"He told us-his generosity did, anyway, leaving his skull to the college and his organs to the medical center…. Rene, it's over. You need to let that woman go."

"Think so? I'll need a new lawyer, won't I?"

Without a word being spoken, the trio from LVPD slowly started fanning out-Vega was at left, Warrick in the middle, Catherine on the right, nearest the street.

"You got cocky, Rene-and then sloppy. We know about all of them-not just Derek and the lawyer and Vivian Elliot, but the other victims at Sunny Day."

Rene was a beautiful woman; still, her smile over her hostage's shoulder was hideous. "Oh, you think that's all of them?"

Catherine and Vega each eased yet another step away from Warrick….

And this time, Rene spotted it. "I said freeze, damn it! All of you!" The syringe drew closer to the old woman's neck. Rene looked toward Vega. "You-! Drop the gun."

The detective took a long moment, glancing at Warrick and Catherine for support they couldn't offer; then finally complied.

"Now you," she said to Warrick.

Warrick knelt, carefully placed his pistol on the concrete in front of him, and slowly stood.

Rene turned slightly, the hostage moving with her now, and faced Catherine, looking over the old woman's shoulder. "Now you, Nancy Drew. Drop it!"

Catherine knew her only advantage right now was having the late afternoon sun at her back. She must be a silhouette to Rene, little more….

"Make me ask again, bitch-and see what happens!"

Catherine held up her left hand in a "slow down" fashion, then began to bend to lay down her weapon, though she had no intention of doing so. It was well within Rene Fairmont's character to grab one of their weapons from the cement and shoot all three of them.

The CSI would have to shoot…

…though with precious little of Rene showing to aim at, and no margin at all for error. Catherine kept crouching lower, the shot ever more precarious.

Vega said, "Give it up, lady-you got no way outta here."

"I think I do," Rene said, and shook her hostage, who cried out in fear. "I have a senior travel discount…."

Catherine was hunkered down now, the gun barely inches off the pavement. "Say you do make it out of here," the CSI said, "by car or plane or magic carpet. You're still washed up."

"Shut up and put the gun down…."

"Y'see, we know where all your drop boxes are-all your fake charities. So much work, so much death-and you're never going to see a penny of it."

Something feral went off inside Rene.

The angel of mercy pulled the syringe back, incrementally, to gain momentum to drive the needle into the old woman's neck…

…but in the momentary window that provided, Catherine rolled to her left, nearly sweeping Warrick's feet out from under him, and on her stomach, with a better angle, she fired up, the sound of it like a whip crack as the shot shook Rene's shoulder, sending the syringe spinning through the air where it bounced onto the parking lot with a plastic clatter.

The other two rescuers snatched up their weapons even as Rene-with an animal cry of pain and rage-fell backward, taking the old woman with her. The hostage landed on top of Rene, then rolled off and scurried away with surprising spryness, leaving the killer prone on the ground with a wounded arm, the wind-and her future-knocked out of her.

Vega went to the hostage and swept her into his arms, getting her away, as Warrick stood over their suspect with his handgun aimed at Rene's face.

"Just try something, Nurse Fairmont," Warrick said, "and it'll be time for your shot."

Catherine felt bile rising within her and fought the urge to purge.

She wasn't upset about the shooting. It was righteous enough. But she would lose sleep over possibly endangering that suspect with such Annie Oakley nonsense. Still, she'd had less than a second to make her decision and knew she'd made the right one.

Oddly, she was relieved she hadn't had to kill the angel of mercy, much as the monster might deserve it. Catherine Willows already had two kills to live with, and that seemed sufficient to her.

Suddenly Warrick was at her side. "You okay, Cath?"

"Yeah. Yeah. Peachy. I was just thinking…"

"Yeah?"

"Wasn't Sunny Day supposed to be a normal call?"

11

GIL GRISSOM SAT in his darkened office at a desk piled left and right with paperwork, which he was ignoring in favor of staring into his thoughts.

Jim Brass poked his head in and said, "Brooding? Meditating? Saving the city on the electric bill?"

Grissom waved Brass in. The detective took the liberty of hitting the light switch, which caused the CSI supervisor to grimace.

Brass dropped himself into the chair opposite. "We have a good suspect, finally. Why are you troubled?"

"I'm not troubled," Grissom said. "I'm just not convinced."

"The evidence-"

"Not enough yet. And there are anomalies."

Brass winced. "I hate it when you use that word…."

"Such as…whoever murdered Kathy Dean also disposed of Rita Bennett's body. Where are those remains?"

"Who knows? But who better than a guy like Black to stage the disappearing act? Getting rid of corpses is his racket."

"Why, then-in a house of corpses-would our presumed guilty party, mortician Dustin Black, choose a high-profile local celebrity like the Bennett woman for the switch?"

"I have no idea," Brass admitted. "She must have been…handy."

"Handy? The choice of Rita is further compounded by the used-car queen having been a friend of our mortician."

Brass shrugged. "I have to tell you? People do wacked-out things"

"Granted." Grissom sat forward. "But doesn't it strike you as odd that Black, running a mortuary where dozens of bodies move through in a week, didn't pick a stranger for his shuffle?"

Brass ticked off on his fingers. "Motive points to Black. Opportunity points to Black…means to dispose of the body, possession of the murder weapon. Somebody told me once that the evidence doesn't lie."

"No. But you have to ask it the right questions."

Amusement twitched at Brass's lips. "You know what, Gil? I think you're a man with a hunch. Hey, happens to the best of us. Even atheists pray in foxholes."

Grissom arched an eyebrow. "Well, right now I'm praying for more evidence. At the moment, I'm waiting for lab results. Anything on your end?"

"Also waiting. Patrolmen are bringing in Grunick and Doyle from the Desert Haven staff-assistant morticians who helped with Rita Bennett's funeral."

"Makes sense," Grissom said, nodding. "If Black did switch the bodies, one of them may have seen something. Meaning no criticism, Jim-we should have interviewed them sooner."

Brass sighed. "Yeah, I know, and we would have, if Black hadn't kept us hopping, chasing down his lies."

"Let me know when the junior morticians arrive. I'd like to watch the interviews."

"Will do."

First to be led by a patrolman into HQ was Mark Grunick, in a conservative suit the color of a storm-bearing sky, his short dark hair fading north of his forehead, ears sticking out slightly.

In the observation booth adjacent to the interview room, through the one-way glass, Grissom watched and listened.

Seated at the table with its two chairs, a portable cassette recorder nearby, Grunick had a passive manner that may have reflected the fatalism of his chosen profession. If being interviewed by a police detective created any anxiety in this subject, Grissom would hate to see the assistant mortician bored.

Brass, seated across from Grunick, hit the RECORD button. "State your name, please."

"Mark Patrick Grunick." The young man looked at Brass with an unblinking expression that was not quite sullen. "I'd like to know why I was brought in."

Brass outlined the situation in very general terms, which were nonetheless startling, though you wouldn't know it by the assistant mortician's shrug.

"I don't think so," Grunick said.

"What don't you think?"

"That any kind of switch was made. Mix-up maybe-that's a long shot. But a switch? It's not a horror movie; it's a funeral home."

Brass cocked his head. "Mr. Grunick, I was there when the casket was exhumed. That wasn't Rita Bennett in the coffin. It was a young woman named Kathy Dean."

"Fine, if you say so-but I don't know how that could've happened. Before the service, Jimmy and I closed the coffin ourselves."

Brass smiled with what might have been patience but wasn't. "Why don't you think carefully and give this to me in more detail? A lot more."

Grunick sighed, which was the first indication the young man was capable of an emotional response; he looked skyward, as if referring to notes in the air.

Finally he said, "We sat through the service, took the casket out, loaded it in the hearse, went to the cemetery, had the committal service there, and the casket was interred. The end. Literally."

Brass's eyes narrowed. "You were with the coffin for every second?"

"Yes-that is why it's impossible…."

Brass tossed a picture of Kathy Dean in the coffin onto the table in front of the interview subject. "Not impossible. It happened…and I'm asking you again. Think hard. Were…you…with…the…coffin…every…second?"

His brow knit as he indeed thought about it. Then the color drained from Grunick's face.

"Wait," he said. "Wait a minute…I'm sorry. I am sorry."

"About…?"

Energy came into the young man's manner and his expression. "I do see how it happened…. Understand, inmost cases these days, the pallbearers are ceremonial. We're the ones that do the work, and it's always the same: After Mr. Black backs the hearse up to the door, Jimmy and I do the lifting. That one funeral, Rita Bennett, though-it didn't go down that way, not exactly."

"What did happen 'exactly,' Mark?"

"Well, Mr. Black and Jimmy were talking about something. I was leading the way, and the two of them were pushing the cart with the coffin down the hall…toward the side door? Anyway, they were blabbing and I couldn't hear about what, nor did I care…but suddenly Jimmy peeled off and went back into the chapel. And when we got to the door, Mr. Black told me he'd watch the body while I got the car."

"So Black was alone with the coffin."

"Sure, which means he was alone with the body. And I'll bet that's when the switch went down!"

Brass nodded now, playing along as the guy got more into it. "What happened, Mark, when you came back with the hearse?"

"Well, we loaded the coffin in the hearse."

"Who did?"

"Jimmy and me."

"Where was Mr. Black?"

Mark Grunick shrugged. "I'm not really sure. Maybe in the limo, already…didn't think about it then. Jimmy was there, and him and me loaded the body. Things were, you know, back to normal."

"When do you remember seeing Black again?"

"Oh, well, by the time the procession was ready to leave, Mr. Black was behind the wheel of the limo. Jimmy and me, we were in the hearse."

In the observation booth, Grissom heard the door behind him open and he looked back at a grave Nick, in the doorway. The younger CSI gestured for Grissom to join him out in the hall.

"Something, Nick?"

"Something, all right. I fingerprinted Black."

"Good."

"Then I compared his prints to the ones we had from the coffin? His prints are on the casket Kathy Dean was in."

"Also good. If to be expected."

"Well, maybe that is. But I lifted prints off the gun-"

"Really? You got prints off the gun? Unusual."

Nick shrugged. "Being packed away in that box, all those smaller boxes on top of it, kept the gun cool and safe from the weather. Desert Haven's garage being air-conditioned didn't hurt, either."

"So," Grissom said, "is that the unexpected development?"

"Not really." Nick's expression was apologetic. "I printed Black, and his prints don't match the ones on the gun. Indicates Black is not the shooter."

"Well."

"And the hairs found in the casket with Kathy? Not the undertaker's either. Sorry."

Grissom shook his head, then said, "Never apologize for the evidence, Nick. We listen to it, it doesn't listen to us."

Nick said, "Well if it did, it'd hear me saying, 'Huh?' "

"Is the weapon with the firearms examiner?"

"Yeah, I dropped it off. We haven't confirmed it as the murder weapon yet, though the caliber is right."

"One step at a time," Grissom said. "Now, here's what I want you to do next…."

He laid out a plan and Nick nodded, and went off to carry it out. Grissom was about to head back in to the observation booth for the rest of the Grunick interview when his cell phone chirped.

"Grissom."

"It's Sara. Got the results of the DNA tests-Dustin Black is the father of Kathy Dean's baby."

"Not really a surprise."

"And I finally tracked down Janie Glover. Off to interview her now."

"Janie Glover? Remind me."

"Kathy Dean's friend…who told our Habinero's waitress about 'FB'?"

"Ah. Good."

"Is Black looking more guilty, or less?"

"Too early."

They rang off.

As he turned back toward the booth, the interview-room door opened and Mark Grunick filed out, followed by Brass. A free man, the slightly shell-shocked-looking Grunick kept going, while Brass fell in alongside Grissom.

"Well," Brass said cheerfully, "young Mr. Grunick seems to like his boss for the body switch. And so do I."

"Don't get ahead of yourself, Jim."

Exasperated, Brass invited the CSI supervisor into the observation booth so their discussion wouldn't be in front of the whole world.

Forcefully, the detective pointed out, "The murder weapon was found in Black's place of business."

"We haven't confirmed that it's the murder weapon."

"It's the right caliber, it's been fired…."

"Probably is the murder weapon. Probably isn't enough. We'll know soon."

"For the sake of argument, then. Say it's the murder weapon."

"All right," Grissom said. "Let's say it is."

"Now we're getting somewhere…."

"Black's fingerprints weren't on it."

Brass's eyes popped. "What…? Well, then Black wore gloves, or wiped it clean."

"Someone else's prints are on the gun."

"Who in hell's?"

Grissom shrugged. "We don't know yet. May I make a suggestion?"

"Please!"

"Get the prints from the other mortician's assistant-Doyle."

Brass's eyes narrowed. "What about the other assistant-Grunick?"

"I posted Nick up around the corner-waiting to bump into Mr. Grunick, as he exits. My guess is when they separate, Nick will have some helpful fingerprints."

Finally Brass seemed to like something Grissom had said. "Sneaky," he said with admiration.

"And if Black is innocent," Grissom said, "these two are our next most likely suspects. They're the only other ones who had access to Rita Bennett's casket."

"Makes sense."

"And Kathy Dean was seeing a younger man, in addition to Black-the assistants are in that age range."

"Now you're talking…."

"If one of them's the killer, Jim, we can't put too much stock in what they individually have to say in interview. We can't expect either one to be cooperative or honest, when it comes to helping us catch him."

"One should be telling the truth…."

"Right. Not to tell a skilled interrogator what to be looking for, but inconsistencies between Grunick's interview and young Doyle's could be…helpful."

Brass's cell phone rang. "Brass…Yeah, all right, interview room one." He hung up. "Doyle's here," he said.

As if those words were the starting gun, Grissom dashed off, leaving Brass wondering what the hell that was about. In the breakroom, the CSI got a can of soda out of the fridge; he wiped it down with a towel and held it gingerly by the top edges and took it to the interrogation room, where Brass was waiting for Doyle to come in.

"For me?" Brass said, looking at the soda can. "I didn't think you cared."

"I do care," Grissom said. "About this case…" He placed the can on the table, touching only the sides of the top. "Offer it to Doyle, a few minutes in."

Brass, smiling knowingly, nodded.

Then Grissom exited to assume his position in the observation booth. Moments later a uniformed officer escorted Jimmy Doyle into Interview, depositing him at the table.

Unlike fellow mortician-in-the-making Grunick, Doyle's attire was unfunereal-navy blue Dockers, a lavender dress shirt, open at the throat, loafers with no socks. His black hair was slicked back. The anonymous funeral home helper suddenly struck Grissom as a young man who might have looked attractive to affection-hungry Kathy Dean.

Brass hit RECORD again and filled in Doyle about the body switch and the discovery of Kathy Dean's body. He put the dead girl's photo before the interview subject-the same in-the-coffin shot.

Doyle glanced at the photo of the deceased Kathy Dean. "Never saw her before-good-looking girl, though."

Brass twitched a smile. "Considering she was dead for several months when this was taken, you mean."

The young man shrugged. "I work in a funeral home. I can see past that."

"Ah…Tell me what happened with the Rita Bennett service."

Doyle lacked Grunick's sullenness; he seemed fine with helping the police.

"Mark and I closed the casket, right before the service. Afterward, Mark rolled the coffin back, Mr. Black and me pushed it, as we went from the chapel…to the side door where we load, y'know?"

"I'm familiar," Brass said.

"Mr. Black said that the flowers from the top of the casket were missing, which they were. I said I was sorry, that I thought he'd put 'em back on after we closed the coffin. He said no, and sent me back, toot sweet, to the chapel."

"For the flowers?"

"For the flowers." Doyle shrugged. "It was just a small spray, and no one noticed it during the service, but a good mortician pays attention to details, and Mr. Black's a good mortician. Anyway…I catch up, and the coffin's sitting alone in the corridor. And there's no sign of Mr. Black."

"That's unusual?"

"Real unusual! So Mark pulls up with the hearse, then him and me load the coffin. Just as we're wondering where the hell Mr. Black is, he comes out and jumps in the limo. To me, he looked sweaty, and…well, this is an opinion. Is that all right to express?"

"Sure, son."

"Well, he looked like something was really bothering him. Freaked out, kinda."

Brass leaned in. "Any idea what was the matter?"

Doyle shook his head. "No, sir. Not a clue."

"You okay, Jimmy?" Brass gestured to the soda can. "Help yourself, if you're thirsty."

Shaking his head again, Doyle said, "Never touch that junk-too much sugar."

On his side of the mirror, Grissom frowned. But then, to his amazement and pleasure, the CSI saw Doyle pick up the soda can and move it next to the tape recorder, closer to Brass. "But you can have it if you want, Captain Brass-won't bother me."

Brass smiled again. "Thanks, Jimmy. Maybe later."

The interview continued, but the explosive aspects had all passed; everything else was mundane material about Doyle's work at Desert Haven. Soon the talk was over, and James Doyle was allowed to leave.

Grissom slipped into the interview room and carefully took charge of the soda can and transported it down to the lab for fingerprinting.

If the boy was telling the truth, the CSI could easily see how Dustin Black could have committed the crime.

Kathy Dean-shot to death the night before-is packed away in a matching coffin. The mortician knows his business, after all, and keeps his inventory, so only he will know that the two coffins are both gone.

Black sends Jimmy Doyle back into the chapel, for the conveniently missing flowers, and Mark Grunick out to fetch the hearse. This allows the mortician a minute, maybe even two, to make the well-planned switch. Storage rooms of various sorts are off the corridors of Desert Haven, each one under lock and key-locks and keys controlled by Black.

The mortician Black unlocks a door, rolls out a waiting cart with Kathy in the matching casket. He leaves that in the hall, and pushes Rita's casket somewhere, and hides it for later disposal, at his leisure….

No one would've found anything unusual about seeing the mortician rolling a casket cart along. Business as usual. But a nagging question remained-if Black's prints weren't on the murder weapon, then…whose were? And what about the hairs in Kathy's coffin that were not hers?

Grissom had dropped the soda can off and was heading back to his office when a voice from a doorway called out to him.

Archie Johnson-the slender Asian video tech-waved to him from a lab door, a self-satisfied grin playing on his lips.

"Got a second to look at something, Doctor Grissom?"

"As long as it's not another episode of Happy Tree Friends, Archie."

Archie grinned. "Almost as good…"

Grissom followed the young tech into the video lab where a black-and-white image was frozen on a monitor. Grissom moved closer and realized he was viewing the inside of a convenience store, from a security camera aimed at the door. Most of the front windows could be seen, the front counter and register as well. The picture quality was far superior to what Grissom might have expected from a convenience store security cam.

"How much have you made this image dance, Archie?"

"It's been to ballet class, all right," Archie said. "But nothing that'll preclude admissibility in court."

"This image is that important?"

"You tell me…. The convenience store has decent equipment, but the tapes are crap and they've been erased and recorded over and over."

"What am I looking at, Archie?"

"This is the Pahrump stop-and-shop where Sara picked up the tapes, and where she thought Kathy Dean might have rendezvoused with her lover."

The phrase "Pahrump paramour" came unbidden into Grissom's mind.

"Anyway," the tech said, "I've been looking at these tapes, beginnings and the ends, that is."

Grissom nodded. "Places where it was possible they might not've been taped over."

"Right. Still, it was a slim chance…but I think maybe I found something."

"Sometimes haystacks do give up needles."

Archie nodded. "This may be one of 'em…. I know this was three months ago, and it's only about five seconds of tape that might not even be the right day…but it could be."

"Show me," Grissom said, concentrating on the screen.

Archie hit PLAY and Grissom saw a male come in, and walk off camera; then the frame cut briefly to an obese woman in a flowered dress at the register, and then to an empty store-later recordings.

Archie was frowning at the screen. "Did you see it?"

Grissom shook his head. "See what?"

"I'll cue it up and freeze it this time."

Archie did. The tape ran about a second and froze. Grissom saw the entryway of the store, a man in T-shirt and jeans walking in, his face down, a ball cap covering his hair.

"What am I supposed to see?" Grissom asked. "If it's the guy, I'm not getting much…."

"No," Archie said patiently. "Look in the window."

Grissom adjusted and followed the tech's instruction. At first he saw nothing; but when he stopped trying, the image revealed itself….

There, in the window, was a reflection of someone slightly out of camera range: a young woman with auburn hair and a Las Vegas Stars T-shirt…

…Kathy Dean.

So clearly could he see her that he could make out the dangling cords of the iPod earbuds.

"I see her, Archie-does she come on camera?"

"Barely-I think they both know the camera's there, and they're careful to avoid it. I don't know why. It's not like they're robbing the place…."

"Still, they're not taking any chances," Grissom said. "The girl is paranoid about her over-protective parents…and whoever's under that ball cap may well know he's about to commit murder."

Archie grunted. "Date night in Vegas."

"Nice catch, Archie. Play it all the way through, will you?"

The lab tech did.

Eyes on the window, Grissom watched Kathy and her baseball cap date embrace, then turn and go.

Frustrated, Grissom asked, "We never see his face at all?"

"There's one second worth a close look," Archie said. He cued up the tape, ran it to the point just before the guy pushed open the door to leave, his arm around Kathy, both of them with their backs to the camera. "Check out the glass door."

At first Grissom couldn't make out anything but shadows. Then Archie did a frame-by-frame advance, walking Grissom through, and suddenly the face appeared in the window.

Even though the hat covered the man's hair and the guy did his best to keep his face lowered, for a second frozen in time, Grissom could see the face clearly.

This, at last, was the evidence he needed.

"How did I do, Grissom?"

"Archie-A-plus-plus."

The lab tech grinned just as Grissom's cell phone trilled.

"Grissom."

"It's me," Sara said. "Talked to Janie Glover. She says FB means Funeral Boy. You'll never guess who that is!"

"Jimmy Doyle?"

"Damn it, Grissom!" Sara's exasperation leapt from the phone. "A hundred years ago, they'd've burned you as a witch!"

Grissom smiled. "Thank you."

If Grissom had a problem with Black as a suspect, then Jim Brass had a problem, too. He had faith in the CSI supervisor's instincts, even if Grissom himself claimed such things as hunches and assumptions weren't in his makeup. The detective decided that the best thing for now was to re-interview the mortician.

In interview room one, Black-now garbed in the standard prisoner orange jumpsuit-was marched in by a uniformed officer, who (at Brass's behest) removed the mortician's handcuffs.

Once Black was seated, Brass hit RECORD and asked Black to state his name.

Black did.

Brass said, "You indicated you were going to call your attorney. Can we proceed without him?"

"I did call my attorney only to discover that my wife has secured his services in a divorce action. He gave me a referral number to a criminal lawyer, who I have a call into."

"You are, however, willing to speak to me?"

"I'll answer any questions that I think may help you unravel this affair. I am innocent, Captain Brass. Some of what I told you…in the van the other night, before you read my rights to me?…I was in an emotional state. I won't go into those matters again until I've discussed them with my criminal representation."

"Fair enough."

That meant that the mortician's affair with Kathy, the loveless marriage to Cassie, and details about the night of Kathy's disappearance remained off-the-record. Still, Brass decided to press on, guiding Black to the day of Rita Bennett's funeral.

"What happened after the service?" Brass asked.

Black said, "We got the congregation out, then the three of us-Mark, Jimmy, and I-moved the coffin."

"Do you remember how?"

"On a cart, of course."

"No-what I mean is…in what order? Who pushed, who pulled?"

"Oh." He thought about it. "Mark was in front…Jimmy and I pushed the casket."

"And then?"

"Jimmy realized he'd left a floral spray behind in the chapel. I told him to go back and get it. Then…when we got to the door…I sent Mark after the hearse."

"And you were alone with the body."

"Yes. Yes, yes, yes! But I didn't-"

"Settle down, Mr. Black. Think back-is there any possibility you were away from the casket, for even a few moments?"

"No, I…well." He frowned, and then his eyes widened. "Actually, there was…but only for a little while…a minute at the most."

"Tell me."

The mortician was staring into his memory as it came back to him. "I was with the casket, but Marie…one of our part-timers…came and said I had a phone call, someone wanted to talk to me right away. Marie followed me back, and I rushed to my office to tell whoever it was I'd call them later…only by the time I got to the phone, the line was dead. When I returned to the rear area, Jimmy and Mark had Rita's…or what I thought was Rita's casket…loaded. I got into the limo and drove the family to the cemetery."

"All three of you were together after that, through the graveside service? The casket was never out of your sight?"

"No, just when I briefly went to get the phone."

"Why didn't you mention this before?"

"I'm sorry…. I'd completely forgotten, because when I got there, there was no one on the line. Captain Brass…do you think somehow that's when the bodies were switched? But there wouldn't be time, would there?"

"Thanks, Mr. Black. I appreciate your help."

"You almost sound like…like you…believe me, Captain."

"I believe you enough," Brass said, "to go check the phone records…. Stay put. This shouldn't take long."

Sara was seated across from Grissom in the latter's office when Nick, looking very pleased with himself, leaned in.

"You will never guess," Nick said, "whose fingerprints were on that gun…."

"Jimmy Doyle," Sara and Grissom said simultaneously.

Nick's astonishment was matched only by his disappointment. He fell into a chair with a dazed look.

"How," he managed, "could you have guessed that?"

"I didn't guess, Nick," Grissom said. "Sara got videotape from the security camera at that convenience store in Pahrump. Archie helped us spot Jimmy Doyle, picking up Kathy Dean on what appears to be the night she disappeared."

Sara said, "And one of Kathy's friends told me that FB…you know, the initials from the Lady Chatterley note? Was 'Funeral Boy,' Jimmy Doyle's user ID…. Don't feel bad, Nick. When I called Grissom to share this scoop, he already knew about Doyle." She gave her boss a look. "From the videotape I provided, I might point out."

"Hey," Grissom said. "Credit where credit is due."

Nick said, "My money says the black hairs in the coffin with Kathy Dean are also Jimmy Doyle's."

Brass stuck his head in the door. "Thought you CSIs would like to know that occasionally somebody else cracks a case around here…."

"Really?" Grissom said.

Brass stepped in, his expression smug. "Black says he got called away to the telephone…at the moment when he was alone with that casket. I just tracked the number that called, and guess whose cell phone it belongs to?"

"Jimmy Doyle," the three CSIs said in perfect unison.

For a moment Brass just stood there, looking like he'd been doused with a bucket of water.

Then, without even asking Grissom and company for an explanation, Brass said, "Why don't we go nail his ass?"

When uniformed officers had no luck finding Doyle at his home, Grissom obtained Dustin Black's keys, and Brass got the security code from the mortician.

Soon Grissom, Brass, Nick, and Sara were racing toward the mortuary, the first two in the Taurus, the latter pair in a Tahoe. Heading to Desert Haven had been Nick's suggestion.

"Besides his house, it's the only place we know of where we may find the kid…and if Doyle thinks after being interviewed we could be zeroing in on him, then he'd want to get rid of any evidence that might still be at the mortuary."

Sara had wondered, "You don't think Rita Bennett's body could still be there?"

"It's possible."

Grissom pointed out that even if Doyle didn't think he was a suspect, the boy had hidden the probable murder weapon in the mortuary…and had no knowledge that the CSIs had already found it.

"If Doyle knows his prints might be on the gun," Nick said, in the Tahoe, "he'll want to retrieve it."

"Or maybe wipe it clean and use it to frame Black," Sara suggested.

Both vehicles arrived at the mortuary just as darkness was settling over the place. Nick and Sara took the back, Brass and Grissom the front.

Nick's voice crackled over Brass's radio. "Got a car back here-empty. Looks like Doyle's already inside."

"Well, you and Sara stay outside," Brass said. "Call for backup, and make sure Doyle doesn't come out that way. We'll go in the front door."

Brass had his gun drawn as Grissom unlocked the entrance.

"Gun out, Gil-you may need it."

Much as Grissom disliked guns, he did as he was told. He had no desire to let himself, or any of his people, become martyrs in the field.

Brass moved to the alarm box, but the light was already green-Doyle turned it off upon entering, apparently. Brass took the lead, as the detective and CSI went down the hall, edging slowly toward the back, Brass's gun outstretched in both hands, Grissom hugging the wall, gun barrel up.

They didn't see so much as a light under a door until they were approaching the rear of the building. At right-from under the outward-opening double door to a room neither man had been in-a long slice of light beckoned….

Using hand signals, Brass bid Grissom to open one of the double doors so the detective could rush in, the CSI supervisor following.

Grissom nodded.

They got into position. Then Grissom jerked the door open, and Brass entered with gun extended….

Barely had Brass stepped inside the darkness when something shoved through, thrusting open the other door, slamming into the detective, pinning Brass against the corridor wall with a sickening crunch!

Grissom watched in shock as he realized a massive concrete vault on a cart had been shoved into Brass…

…and poised in that open double-doorway was Jimmy Doyle, in his spiffy lavender shirt, the wild-eyed wielder of the cart.

Brass winced in pain; his gun had slipped from his hand. Grissom's first thought was for his friend, and he was grappling with the square slab of concrete as Jimmy Doyle slipped around the other end of the thing and went running down the corridor toward the garage.

Grissom somehow shoved the vault-on-the-cart out of the way, freeing Brass, who crumpled to the floor.

"Never mind me," Brass sputtered. "G-get the bastard!"

Grissom didn't argue-he sprinted down the hall after Doyle, while from behind him he heard Brass talking into his radio: "Doyle's in the garage, Nick-careful!"

Under the door to the garage was another slice of light. The CSI supervisor did not think of himself as a hero; he didn't even consider himself a cop. Situations like this were beyond his purview.

But he took a deep breath, expelled it, jerked the door open, and came into the garage low, fanning his vision-and the gun-in-hand-around the room. At left a frantic Jimmy Doyle was at the workbench, going through boxes like a hyperactive kid on Christmas morning…looking for the gun that was no longer there.

"It's gone, Jimmy," Grissom said, voice echoing. "We already found it."

The boy grabbed a wrench off the wall and whirled with eyes flaring and teeth bared, attack-dog fashion; he brought his arm back to pitch, but it froze as another voice called out to him.

"Jimmy," Nick said from his doorway at the far end of the garage, "there are two guns on you. You might want to put that down…."

The boy's face morphed from savagery to pitiful surrender, and the wrench clunked to the workbench as Doyle's hands went tremblingly up, and locked behind his neck. He stood complacently, waiting for the cuffs that Nick quickly brought to him.

When Grissom turned to go check on Brass, the detective was already leaning in the doorway, his suit rumpled, blood trickling from his bottom lip, and one arm pressed against what were likely broken ribs.

"I'll call nine-one-one," Grissom said.

"Beat you to it," Brass said.

"You don't look so good."

"They come prettier than you, too, Gil."

They exchanged tiny grins.

Sara entered the garage, a plastic evidence bag in hand.

"What do you have there?" Grissom called over.

Holding the bag up like the prize catch it was, Sara said, "Most likely, Kathy Dean's iPod! I just got it out of Jimmy's car."

"That's mine," Doyle protested meekly.

Sara came over to where Doyle, wrists cuffed behind him, stood slump-shouldered next to Nick. "Digital songs are computer files-they can be tracked."

Doyle swallowed thickly.

Sara gave him the sweet smile she reserved for the worst people. "After our computer expert is done with it…? We'll know for sure, whether it's yours or Kathy's."

Tears filled the young man's eyes, but hung there stubbornly, as if not wanting to admit a defeat that was already complete.

"You know, Jimmy," Nick said with a devilish grin, "if you've been downloading tunes without paying for them…you could be in a lot of trouble."

12

WHILE CATHERINE WILLOWS FELT NO REMORSE about shooting Rene Fairmont, she did regret having to frighten the elderly hostage. But the reality was, Rene's hostage had already been checked out and sent home, shaken but uninjured, while Catherine was still here, hostage to her job.

The angel of mercy lay on a small hospital bed in the emergency room, a curtain pulled around the tiny cubicle for a semblance of privacy, as her white blouse had been unbuttoned and then scissored away to give the young East Indian ER physician access to her wound. Accordingly, Detective Vega waited on the other side of the curtain.

The suspect's left hand was handcuffed to the bed, and she lay so still that the cuff never rattled against the metal of the rail. The doctor, working from a tray, hovered over the woman's right shoulder; soon he had nearly finished suturing the wound, a process the killer seemed not even to notice in her sullen, self-imposed catatonia.

While Warrick had stayed behind to work the crime scene outside the bank, Catherine had accompanied the woman on the ambulance ride, and observed the prisoner's treatment in the hospital, too. In all that time, Rene hadn't uttered a word, not a single syllable (including "Ouch"), as the doctor cleaned the wound and began sewing it up.

"Before long, Nurse Fairmont," Catherine said pleasantly, "you'll be taking your own brand of medicine."

A tiny frown indicated for the first time that the woman was listening…also, that she didn't understand this remark.

So Catherine clarified: "I mean, you're a master of lethal injection yourself…right?"

The cold eyes registered something-not much, just a tightening-and what happened next was so fast, Catherine's memory could only report back a blur….

The prisoner raised the hand of her wounded arm and snatched the scissors from the doctor's tray, looped her arm around his neck, and brought his head down against her chest, the closed points of the scissors resting against his throat, the metal gleaming and winking against the dark flesh, dimpling it, drawing a pearl of glistening blood. The young physician looked more startled than scared at first.

Rene Fairmont's eyes were hard, feral, glittering things in a face whose prettiness was lost in an animal snarl, as she held the doctor to her breast as if he were some oversized helpless child.

To Catherine she snapped, "Handcuff keys, bitch-now!"

The CSI looked at the fearless prisoner and the frightened doctor, and she drew the nine millimeter from her hip and placed the nose of its barrel against the forehead of the prisoner, whose reaction seemed more indignant than shocked.

Wearing the coldest expression she could muster, Catherine said, "Ask the doctor-when I fire this gun your motor responses will stop and he will be in no danger…."

"You think I'm kidding?"

"You think I am? Drop the scissors…bitch."

The suspect did so.

The doctor, relief not yet washing away his alarm, backed away. Vega, hearing the commotion, swam through the curtains and now stood with his own weapon trained on the again catatonic Rene Fairmont.

"Take over for a moment, Sam," Catherine said. "This just became a crime scene-and I need to take a couple pictures and bag those scissors."

Vega, usually unflappable, seemed very much flapped at the moment; but he said, "No problem, Catherine."

Catherine slipped on latex gloves and collected the scissors, then walked the shell-shocked doctor outside the cubicle.

She spoke reassuringly to the physician-with her own best bedside manner-explaining they'd need a statement from him. In moments, he seemed all right, and they were able to discuss the transfer of the prisoner to the high-security ward of the Clark County jail-a move the doctor would be all too happy to help facilitate.

Half an hour later, Catherine left the hospital thinking about the over-a-dozen people (at least) who had died at this pretty monster's hands; but the hell of it was, despite two hostage takings, Catherine still didn't know if she had enough evidence to prosecute Rene Fairmont for even one of the murders.

Oh, they could keep the angel of mercy off the streets, and out of the nursing-home wards, all right; but a lot of people, alive and dead, deserved to see Rene Fairmont's spree of murder resolved, every evil act cleared up.

Catherine would go back to HQ and start sifting through everything again. What had already been a very long shift promised to get much, much longer. Still-stopping a serial killer would make being tired at the end of a long day really, really worth it….

Nick Stokes was not anywhere he would ever have hoped to find himself.

Grissom and Brass had returned to HQ with Jimmy Doyle; Sara was back in the lab working with Tomas Nunez, matching the iPod files to Kathy Dean's computer; and Nick had been left to deal with the evidence at Desert Haven.

So here Nick was, alone in a mortuary in the middle of the night….

In the garage, he photographed the boxes Jimmy Doyle had been rummaging through. The photos, and Doyle's fingerprints, would provide a compelling circumstantial case that the young man had expected to find the .22 automatic he'd stowed away.

Then, in the hallway, Nick fingerprinted the concrete vault Doyle had used as an improvised weapon to attack Captain Brass. This, too, Nick photographed, then wheeled back inside the workroom, which was essentially a warehouse for coffins and vaults.

About the size of the garage at CSI, the chamber had metal shelving, five high, lining three of its four walls-the bottom two devoted to the large concrete and metal vaults, the top three home to numerous coffins of varied styles in metal or wood, the metal ones running to gray, blue, and even the occasional pink, the wood ones mostly oak.

In the center of the room, looming above and attached to metal rails, hung a crane very similar to the one in the CSI garage. A tall, wheeled staircase stood to one side of the crane, to help workers attach the device to the needed coffin. On the floor, in the middle of the room, was a row of three tables, each about the size of a human being.

Staging area,Nick thought.

An embalmed body would be put on the table while a particular casket was readied; then the body would be placed inside the coffin, the details arranged, after which the coffin would be wheeled to the appropriate viewing room for the service.

At Desert Haven, death was an assembly-line business-so much so, bodies moving in and out with such matter-of-fact haste, that two bodies…actually coffins…had been switched, one disappearing completely, and no one even noticed.

Nick glanced back at the concrete vault he'd pushed into the room-the only one in the chamber on a wheeled cart; he wondered if this vault had already been out for some particular purpose of the funeral home…or could Doyle have been doing something with it, when the good guys interrupted?

After all, the kid wouldn't have had time to go get the vault, load it up, and roll it out to serve as a battering ram-the assistant mortician had been surprised by Brass's entrance, and simply responded with what was handy.

Nick's curiosity got the best of him, and he went to the trouble of attaching the crane on either side of the lip of the vault lid. When he pushed the button, the crane lifted not just the lid…but the entire vault!

Meaning: The vault was sealed.

This struck Nick as peculiar, and he got on his cell to Sara.

"It's me," he told her. "Are Grissom and Brass in interviewing Doyle?"

"Not yet. Doyle's in holding; Brass is still getting his ribs taped, and probably trying to talk the doctors into letting him go back to work…. Having fun by yourself at the mortuary in the middle of the night?"

"Oh it's swell. If anybody comes up behind me and says 'boo,' I'll just shoot them is all…. Listen, Sara-I've run into what Grissom likes to call an anomaly."

"Which is?"

He told her about the sealed vault.

Sara said, "I don't know enough about the funeral-home business to say whether that's unusual or not. Why don't you ask Dustin Black?"

"Good idea. He still there?"

"No-Grissom shook him loose an hour ago. Guy looked whipped when he left."

"That's no surprise. You got his home phone number?"

"I can get it for you,"she said, and did.

Nick broke the connection and made another call.

The machine came on, and a cheerful Cassie Black's greeting-from a day or so (or a lifetime) ago-was followed by the familiar beep.

"Mr. Black-it's Nick Stokes, from the crime lab. If you're still awake, please pick up-we need your help."

A weary-sounding Black came on the line and said, "I really don't know why I don't just ignore you people, at this stage."

"Possibly because the future of your business hinges on us cleaning this matter up," Nick said, "and clearing you."

"Good point. What do you want?"

"I really am sorry to disturb you, but I was wondering…why would there be a sealed vault at your mortuary?"

"There wouldn't be."

"That's what I thought. Wouldn't a sealed vault have gone directly to the cemetery?"

"Yes-are you sure it's sealed?"

"I have had some experience with sealed vaults before-for instance, I was one of the team that opened Rita Bennett's coffin and found Kathy Dean instead."

An uncomfortable silence followed. Then: "We have no sealed vaults in storage. That would be pointless."

"Well, could the lid be stuck on so tight that the entire vault could be craned up, without dislodging it?"

"That's doubtful."

"Sir, right now your place of business is a crime scene. If you'd like to help make it just a business again-"

"I'm on my way."

The line clicked dead.

Appropriately enough.

Just as Catherine had expected-had hoped-the evidence quickly began piling up against Rene Fairmont.

Handwriting expert Jenny Northam matched the forgery practice sheet from Rene's wastebasket to the signature on the Sunny Day sign-in sheet. Catherine had already confirmed that a cab had gone from Rene's house to pick up "Mabel" and take her to Sunny Day; hair from the backseat of the taxi matched a wig Warrick had taken into custody.

Though the modus operandi was different in the poisonings of Derek Fairmont and Gary Masters, the poison itself had been the same. And prussic acid had turned up a third time when Rene held that syringe to the throat of the woman in the bank parking lot-the recurrence of the poison making circumstantial but compelling evidence. If Catherine could match the batches of prussic acid from Masters and the syringe she'd confiscated at Rene's arrest, the case would be practically airtight.

A canvassing of the other businesses at the strip mall where Masters kept his office had, thanks to Sergeant O'Riley, turned up three photo identifications of Rene Fairmont; in-person ID's would likely follow. The only dead-end had been computer expert Tomas Nunez's failure to tie Rene to any of the e-mails on Vivian's PC.

But with the prisoner's fingerprints, Catherine was able to make a match through AFIS, and the results were as satisfying as they were unsurprising and, frankly, tragic: Under various names, in several states, Rene Fairmont was wanted for murder. Her fifteen-year career in continuing care had been a ruse to help her bilk money out of the patients she was hired to help; once she had an estate earmarked for one of her "charities," she killed the victim.

A study of those cases revealed a very clear line of bogus charities and dead-drops stretching from Florida to Vegas. Rene had been planning to leave here and make her way back east. Though a sociopath, the angel of mercy had the ability to portray a compassionate, caring person who entered the lives of a succession of older, lonely, needy people; for fifteen years, she had fooled not only her victims, but law enforcement agencies and nursing homes and God only knew who else…

…and the arrest Catherine, Warrick, and Vega had made appeared to be the only time Rene had ever come close to getting caught.

Her fingerprints had ended up in AFIS only because she had been printed at several of the care centers she had worked in. Only after she had disappeared from a town, and what she'd been up to had been perceived after the fact, were her prints posted. And despite the short but impressive list of jurisdictions looking for Rene, Catherine could only wonder how many other victims had gone unrecognized as such.

To Rene's credit, she'd never gone for the big score. She had kept her cons relatively small, flying just under the radar of the authorities, making every murder look like a plausible death. At the first sign that she'd drawn any attention to herself, Rene would make tracks (but not leave any).

Catherine and Warrick compared notes and consolidated their evidence. Convinced that all the ducks were in a row, Catherine returned to the ER, where the transfer to the jail hospital was pending.

Rene Fairmont had a small private room in the ER now, with two uniforms on the outside and another inside, sharing space with Vega and Rene herself, who was in a hospital smock with both hands handcuffed to the bed rails.

Catherine entered, and Rene's blank stare gave no indication she had even noticed.

Vega met Catherine and they confabbed at the foot of the bed and spoke as if the angel of mercy weren't present.

"She's been a good girl," Vega said. "Hasn't taken anybody hostage since you left…and hasn't said a word, either."

"Maybe that's because you're calling her by the wrong name, Sam. You're using Rene Fairmont." Catherine turned toward the prisoner and gestured. "Meet Rene Delillo."

Rene's eyes tightened. Though the woman's face remained otherwise blank, the animal behind the mask somehow made its presence known to Catherine.

"Rene Delillo, huh?" Vega said matter of factly.

"That's the name she's wanted under in Las Cruces, New Mexico, anyway."

The prisoner stared at Catherine and her lips parted slightly in an expression that was at once a smile and a sneer.

"Or," Catherine said, "you could call her Judith Rene-the name she's wanted under in Baton Rouge; and there's two or three more. Unless she tells us, we may never know her real name, or how she got started in this interesting line of work."

Rene continued to fix her gaze on the CSI, but petulance had crept into her defiant glare.

"That is," Catherine went on, "if she even remembers her name anymore."

That one must have struck a nerve, but the only reward for Catherine was a single trickle of tear down Rene's cheek.

Catherine moved alongside the bed. She looked at the prisoner but spoke to Vega. "You know, Sam, I really didn't think Rene here was capable of feeling anything for anybody-a bad seed, born without compassion. But I was wrong."

Rene's lip was trembling now; another tear rolled down a lovely cheek.

"She does feel something," Catherine said, "…for herself."

In the interview room at CSI HQ, tears were streaming down another killer's face.

Jimmy Doyle-seated across from Brass and Grissom, with Sara Sidle hovering in the background-hadn't been nearly as hard to crack as the detective's ribs. Once they got Doyle in the interview room, he'd started bawling like a kid who wanted his mommy.

"I…I didn't mean to," Doyle said.

He'd been offered the opportunity to call an attorney, but hadn't acted upon it.

Right now Doyle was just a scared kid, but a kid of age, and Brass intended to keep him scared. "Didn't mean to, Jimmy? What, did you accidentally shoot her in the back of the head?"

Doyle grasped at the tissues from the box that Sara had provided him; he struggled to gain control. "I mean, I didn't…didn't want to."

"She asked you to do it, then," Brass said, mocking. "It was a kind of suicide…a mercy killing."

"Stop it! Stop it! It wasn't that way at all…."

"What way was it, Jimmy?"

"You didn't know her…how she could be…how she could wrap a guy around her little finger. If you knew, you'd get it-you'd know this was all her fault."

The detective fought the urge to come out of the chair and…

Sara asked, quietly, almost gently, "How was it her fault, Jimmy?"

He swallowed snot; his face glistened with tears. "She was going to ruin everything. Everything I worked for."

Calm again, Brass asked, "Ruin it how?"

Though his hands were cuffed, Doyle's fingers tapped out a nervous rhythm on the table. "I'm not a rich kid. I didn't have no…any silver spoon. But in high school, Mr. Black gave me a job. I lived with my mom, my dad's off in…somewhere. Mr. Black, he's been like a father to me."

Brass thought, He was like a father to Kathy Dean, too.

The boy was saying: "Not easy to get help at a funeral home. Not just any kid can take it, you know. I had the stomach for it. I had the talent. Mr. Black saw it in me, and I took the work, and he paid my way to school, and I'm his top assistant now. I went around a lot of guys, way older than me, landing that spot. You know how successful Desert Haven is? A few years, and I could be rich…respectable."

"How did Kathy get in the way of that?"

"Kathy said she was pregnant. She…she wanted to know if I was willing to marry her."

"What did you tell her?"

"I told her yes! Sure! Of course, I'd do the right thing."

Sara asked, "Why did you do the wrong thing instead, Jimmy?"

His head hung; tears dripped onto the table, tiny rain. "You don't understand…Mr. Black, him and his wife…they're very, very straight. Very, very conservative. If they found out I had to get married, that I knocked some girl up…Mr. Black, he'd fire me! I'd lose everything! Including…including his respect."

The words hung in the room. The two CSIs and the detective exchanged now-I've-heard-everything glances.

"I…I couldn't let that selfish little slut ruin everything. I told her to get an abortion. We could still get married and have kids down the road-just not now! She ruined her life, not me! She said she was using birth control! She was a liar!"

Grissom said, "She said you were the father of her baby?"

"Yes! Yes, yes…of course."

"Why did you believe her?"

"Huh?"

Grissom shrugged. "She was a liar. Why believe her?"

The slick-faced boy looked from face to face; when he landed on Sara, she spoke.

"It wasn't your baby, Jimmy," Sara said.

"What?"

"She was pregnant, but not with your child."

The boy's eyes froze into marbles; the tears had stopped.

Grissom said, "Dustin Black was the father."

"No…no, that's impossible. Not Mr. Black! And Kathy wouldn't even've told me she was pregnant, unless I was the father and she wanted me to marry her…right?"

"You were the backup."

"Huh?"

"If Dustin Black didn't want to leave his wife…he was a successful, respectable businessman, remember…? she needed somebody to step in and take responsibility."

Brass said, "Maybe it wasn't admirable, Jimmy-but she was just a kid, after all. Worried about the future. With dreams."

"Maybe," Sara said, "she was just looking for somebody to love her. Somebody to give her consolation, comfort…maybe just somebody to talk to her, in a bad time of her life."

The boy swallowed; his expression was pitiful. "…You think?"

Grissom shrugged. "We don't know what Kathy was feeling or thinking. Our job is science. DNA tests prove conclusively that you weren't the father of Kathy's baby…but you did kill it, when you killed her."

His fingers no longer tapping, Doyle sat there with the empty eyes of a corpse.

The killer was led off to lock-up, and in the hall Sara showed Grissom and Brass a handful of papers. "By the way, that iPod? It's Kathy Dean's, like we suspected. Tomas just finished matching the files in the player to Kathy's computer."

"We probably won't need even half of this evidence," Brass said dryly. "Kid knows he's caught, and he's trying to buy off his conscience by telling us everything he knows."

Grissom asked, "Anybody hear from Nick lately?"

"He found something interesting at the mortuary," Sara said.

"Such as?"

"A sealed concrete vault. He got Black's number from me. Where that went, if anywhere, I have no idea."

Grissom's expression was thoughtful. "I think I know what might be in that vault…let's have a look. You and your ribs up to it, Jim?"

"If somebody else drives," Brass said, "I am."

"I'll stay here," Sara said, "and keep at this evidence."

But Grissom and Brass were already on their way.

Together, Nick Stokes and the mortician Dustin Black pried the concrete vault open.

A casket was revealed within; Nick recognized it as identical to the one in which Kathy Dean had been found.

Nick looked across the vault at the mortician, who gazed back with wide eyes.

"Rita," Black said.

Nick said, "Your assistant called you away for a nonexistent phone call, and then he just switched the coffins…." The CSI sighed. "We need to confirm. Let's pop the top…. No disrespect meant."

Using the crane, Black hauled the casket out of the vault and rested it on one of the tables in the center of the room. Nick waited for the mortician to climb down the ladder and join him before unlocking the casket. The two exchanged wary glances, and then Nick threw open the lid.

Inside, still perfectly preserved from being in the airtight vault and air-conditioned shelves of the workroom, lay an at-peace Rita Bennett. Beautifully coiffed and dressed, she might have walked off the set of one of her used-car commercials to lie down for a nap. Not even the smell of death was present to disturb the illusion.

"What now?" the mortician asked.

"These remains, and this casket, are evidence in two cases, Mr. Black."

"Two cases?"

Nick nodded. "We exhumed Rita…or tried to…because of suspicion of foul play in her death."

The mortician closed his eyes. "When will this be over?"

As if in response, a voice said, "Soon, you evil son of a bitch. Very, very soon…."

In the workroom doorway, in a polo shirt and jeans that looked slept-in, stood Kathy Dean's father, Jason. He somehow appeared both bleary-eyed and alert, his regular features touched with several days' growth of beard, his wispy blond hair askew.

Dean held a Glock in his right hand.

Barely six feet from Nick, the broad-shouldered, menacing figure was on the other side of the casket from the CSI, pointing the pistol directly at the undertaker.

Nick had no idea whether or not the distressed father was a decent shot, but at this range he wouldn't have to be. Black would be dead with a squeeze of the trigger; Nick would be dead before his own weapon cleared its holster.

But maybe Dean didn't realize Nick was armed-after all, the casket blocked the man's view of the hip-hugging nine mil….

"Unholster the gun," Dean said, his voice a deadly monotone, "and use only two fingers."

Nick did as he was told.

"Drop it in the casket."

Nick again obeyed, placing the weapon on the late Rita Bennett's midsection.

"Now close the lid."

Nick complied, and said, "Mr. Dean, we are handling this. We have your daughter's killer in custody."

"My daughter's killer is standing right in front of me."

Black said, "No…no, I didn't…"

Nick said, "It was a boyfriend-named Jimmy Doyle. He worked here for Mr. Black."

"I never heard of him," Dean said, and raised his handgun and trained it on the mortician's chest.

Black said, with resignation in his voice, "My wife called you."

"Yes," Dean said. "Yes. She told me everything. Are you going to deny that you defiled my daughter?"

Black said nothing.

"She was pure. She was a virgin. And you…old enough to be…you defiled her…." The man's voice was trembling, but his gun-in-hand was not.

Nick said, "We have evidence that-"

"Shut up!" Dean swung the gun around so that the barrel now aimed at Nick's face. "Move around to this side. I want you over here with the dead man."

Nick raised his hands slightly and came around to Black's side of the coffin.

The mortician was in full capitulation mode, hands raised high, no sign of fight in his body language, ready to offer himself up to the angry father.

Ready, Nick thought, to die.

"I trusted you," Dean said, the gun swivelling back to Black. "You have children! How could you be so goddamn low…?"

Black said nothing.

"You…you took advantage of her. You…you…"

"Loved her," Black said quietly. "I loved her."

The wrong thing to say!

Nick watched Dean's face tighten and so did the finger on the trigger and just as Nick was about to leap, Brass's echoing voice stopped all of them.

"No, Mr. Dean!"

Though the gun never left its Black-bound trajectory, Dean's eyes darted from side to side searching for Brass, who was somewhere behind him. Nick saw the detective just inside the doorway, his gun pointed at the middle of Dean's back. Grissom stood next to the detective, no gun in his hand, but with a grave, determined expression.

"You know what he did to my little girl!" Dean said, voice echoing off cement walls. "Why shouldn't I kill him?"

"I do know what he did," Brass said. "I've got a daughter, too. I know how you feel…I understand your rage, and your contempt."

"Then don't try to stop me."

"If you don't put that gun down, Mr. Dean, I'm going to have to shoot you…to stop you." The regret in Brass's voice was as real as the threat. "I can't take any chances-I'll have to take you down."

"You'd kill me? Is that justice?"

"No it isn't, but it is my job-you're threatening the lives of a citizen and a CSI. And I will take you down."

"It's worth it…."

"Is it, Mr. Dean?…You're hurting, and so is your wife. Crystal needs you, Mr. Dean. Don't give her another tragedy to have to deal with…alone."

Nick was watching Dean's eyes-they were wild, careening, though the gun-in-hand remained steady and poised to shoot.

Suddenly Grissom spoke. "Let him live," the CSI said. "That'll be your best revenge."

"What?"

"He's ruined," Grissom said matter of factly. "You know what a high-profile business he has. His wife's left him, and the reason why'll all come out soon enough. Whole city will know. They call us Sin City, but you know at heart, this is a conservative town-he'll be a pariah."

Dean finally seemed to be faltering. Nick could see the man sliding an inch toward sanity….

"Grissom's right," Brass said. "If you really want Dustin Black to suffer, Mr. Dean-let him live."

Dean considered that for a long time……and then he fell to his knees and began to sob, the gun limp in his fingers when Nick stepped forward to lift it from the man's grasp.

Nick cuffed the distraught father, but when he went to take his own gun from the casket, Grissom said, "Uh uh uh…it's evidence now, Nick."

"Oh. Sorry, Gris."

Grissom leaned close to Nick. "Take Mr. Dean out, Nick," the CSI supervisor whispered. "So Jim doesn't have to."

The detective approached the mortician. "You all right?"

Black said, numbly, "You and Doctor Grissom…you saved my life."

"You know," Brass said, "if I wasn't a cop? I'm not convinced I wouldn't've just laid back and watched."

Black began to smile, a slow, ghastly thing that had little to do with the usual reasons for smiling.

"Captain Brass," the mortician said, "I'm not sure I don't wish you hadn't done that very thing…. Just now? I'm not at all convinced you and Doctor Grissom did me a favor."

* * *

The CSI crew was having breakfast at the diner on Boulder Highway (where Catherine had met cabby Gus Clein).

Catherine and Warrick sat on one side of the booth, Sara and Nick on the other, Grissom occupying a chair at the end of the table. They had just finished filling each other in on their respective cases and were now quietly digging into their food.

"Kathy Dean's finally at rest," Sara said.

"More than can be said for Jimmy Doyle and Dustin Black," Grissom said. "Or her parents…. What could turn a decent normal kid like Kathy into such a manipulative little schemer?"

"Mom and Dad," Sara said.

Grissom's smile was distant. "Like so many parents, the Deans loved their child not wisely but too well."

"So what about Rita Bennett?" Warrick asked.

Nick shook his head. "No sign of poison. She wasn't murdered. Heart attack all along."

"So investigating a murder that wasn't a murder led you to a real one?"

"Yeah. Yeah, that's about right."

Catherine said, "So, then…Peter Thompson gets to keep his wife's estate, and his stepdaughter, Rebecca, is left out in the cold?"

"Hey, Cath, it's Vegas in August," Nick said. "It's not that cold…. Besides, she's got a job-she's doing fine, at least financially."

"What about Atwater?" Sara asked. "Does our esteemed sheriff still have a hefty contributor, even though he never told Thompson that Rita's body was missing?"

Grissom said, "I wouldn't say 'never.' "

Sara was shocked, in an amused way. "Rory did get around to telling Thompson about the body switch?"

"In a manner of speaking. Atwater sent Brass-that's where Jim is now, trying to mend the sheriff's political fences."

"Well," Warrick said, raising a glass of orange juice, "here's to us-in a matter of days, we cracked two of the most complicated cases any CSI anywhere ever saw."

Clinks of juice glasses and coffee cups followed.

Grissom said, "Let's not get too cocky-the first team did fine, but the second team made it happen."

Catherine was nodding. "Gil's right-our assistant coroner, David, had to push us into accepting Vivian Elliot as a murder case; then Jenny Northam's handwriting analysis, and Greg's findings from the remains of Derek Fairmont, gave us our case."

Sara nodded, too. "Greg's DNA findings handed us the father of Kathy Dean's baby, and Tomas linked the vic's iPod to Jimmy Doyle. Here's to our support team-without them, where would we be?"

And again the glasses clinked, and Nick said, "Let's just not tell them," and laughter ensued.

All their beepers squealed at once, causing the other diners to turn their way.

"A call now?" Warrick moaned.

Catherine said, "Poor Warrick…"

"I knew him well," Grissom finished.

Warrick half-smirked in response, albeit good-naturedly.

As they headed into the parking lot and another scorcher of a day, Nick shook his head. "Y'know, Gris-we been working so much, I don't know whether this is the end of the shift…or the beginning?"

"Some mysteries, Nick," Grissom said, "are beyond science."

A Tip of the Test Tube

My assistant Matthew Clemens helped me develop the plot of Grave Matters, and worked up a lengthy story treatment that included all of his considerable forensic research, from which I could work. Matthew-an accomplished true-crime writer who has collaborated with me on numerous published short stories-has taken frequent research trips to Las Vegas, essentially location scouting, and if any sense of the real city is achieved in these pages, he must take much of the credit.

We would once again like to acknowledge criminalist Lieutenant Chris Kauffman CLPE-the Gil Grissom of the Bettendorf, Iowa, Police Department-who provided comments, insights, and information; Chris, thank you for all you do! Thank you also to Lieutenant Paul Van Steenhuyse, Scott County Sheriff's Office, for help with computer forensics; Sergeant Jeff Swanson, Scott County Sheriff's Office for autopsy and crime scene assistance; Stephen M. Thompson, D.O., for help on the Vivian Elliot case; and Marcus Cunnick, Cunnick-Collins Mortuary, for his "behind the scenes" look at the running of a funeral home.

Also, Matt and I spent two days with dozens of real investigators at the actual CSI headquarters and lab in Las Vegas; in a future book we will list many of these helpful individuals-for now, a big thanks to all of these dedicated law-enforcement professionals.

Books consulted include two works by Vernon J. Gerberth: Practical Homicide Investigation Checklist and Field Guide (1997) and Practical Homicide Investigation: Tactics, Procedures and Forensic Investigation (1996). Also helpful were Crime Scene: The Ultimate Guide to Forensic Science, Richard Platt; and Scene of the Crime: A Writer's Guide to Crime-Scene Investigations (1992), Anne Wingate, Ph.D. Any inaccuracies, however, are my own.

Ed Schlesinger at Pocket Books provided gracious and friendly support. The producers of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation provided scripts, background material (including show bibles), and episode tapes, without which this novel would have been impossible. In particular, I'd like to thank Corinne Marrinan, with whom it's a genuine pleasure to work.

Anthony E. Zuiker is gratefully acknowledged as the creator of this concept and these characters; and the cast of the show must be applauded for vivid, memorable characterizations that make it easy to write for the theater of the mind. Our thanks, too, to various CSI writers for their inventive and well-documented scripts, which we frequently drew upon for inspiration and backstory.