Sin City

--02 Sin City (11-2002)

For Chris Kaufmann-

the CSI who saw the body

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

When two objects come into contact,

there is a material exchange,

from each to the other.

-EDMUND LOCARD, 1910

Father of Forensic Science

LAS VEGAS-LIKE NEW YORK AND RUST-NEVER SLEEPS. From dusk till dawn, the sprawl of the city and its glittering neon jewelery enliven the desert landscape, competing with a million stars, all of them so tiny compared to Siegfried and Roy. From the fabled "Strip" of Las Vegas Boulevard to the world's tallest eyesore-the Stratosphere-Vegas throbs to its own 24/7 pulse, hammering into the wee-est of wee hours.

If such modern monuments as the Luxor and Bellagio indicate a certain triumph of man over nature, this shimmer of wholesome sin is nonetheless contained by a desert landscape, including mountains (almost) as green as money, as peaceful as the Strip is not. And a slumbering city-as normal as any urban sprawl, people living, working, loving, dying-exists in the reality of Vegas off the Strip, away from Fremont Street, a world where couples occasionally marry in a real chapel, as opposed to a neon-trimmed storefront where the pastor is Elvis, and "gambling" means getting to work five minutes late, or eating fried food, or cheating on your wife, or maybe trying to get away with murder, figurative or literal.

Nonetheless, as Sinatra said of New York, New York (the town, not the resort), Las Vegas, Nevada, indeed does not sleep. This is a city where, for many a citizen, working nights is the norm, from a pit boss at the Flamingo to a counter clerk at a convenience store, from an exotic dancer in a live nude girls club to a criminalist working the graveyard shift.

1

MILLIE BLAIR HATED SPENDING NIGHTS ALONE. SHE HAD always been anxious, and even being reborn in the blood of Christ hadn't helped. Nor did the nature of her husband Arthur's job, which sometimes meant long evenings waiting for him to get home.

Tonight, Millie couldn't seem to stop wringing her hands. Her collar-length brunette hair, now graying in streaks, framed a pleasant, almost pretty oval face tanned by days of outdoor sports-playing golf or tennis with friends from the church-and she looked young for forty. A petite five-four and still fit, she knew her husband continued to find her attractive, due in part to her rejection of the frumpy attire many of her friends had descended to in middle age. Tonight she wore navy slacks with a white silk blouse and an understated string of pearls.

Millie was glad Arthur still found her desirable-there was no sin in marital sex, after all, and love was a blessed thing between husband and wife-but she was less than pleased with her appearance, noting unmistakable signs of aging in her unforgiving makeup mirror, of late. Frown lines were digging tiny trenches at the corners of her mouth-the anxiety, again-and although she tried to compensate with lipstick, her lips seemed thinner, and her dark blue eyes could take on a glittering, glazed hardness when she was upset…like now.

Moving to the window, she nervously pulled back the curtains, peered out into the purple night like a pioneer woman checking for Indians, saw nothing moving, then resumed her pacing. Tonight her anxiety had a rational basis-Millie had heard something terribly disturbing yesterday…an audio tape of an argument between a certain married couple.

It was as if some desert creature had curled up in her stomach and died there-or rather refused to die, writhing spasmodically in the pit of her belly. Millie knew something was wrong, dreadfully wrong, with her best friend Lynn Pierce. A member of Millie's church, Lynn seemed to have fallen off the planet since the two women had spoken, at around four P.M. this afternoon.

"Mil," Lynn had said, something ragged in her voice, "I need to see you…I need to see you right away."

"Is it Owen again?" Millie asked, the words tumbling out. "Another argument? Has he threatened you? Has he-"

"I can't talk right now."

Something in Lynn's throat caught-a sob? A gasp? How strange the way fear and sadness could blur.

Millie had clutched the phone as if hauling her drowning friend up out of treacherous waters. "Oh, Lynn, what is it? How can I help?"

"I…I'll tell you in person. When I see you."

"Well that's fine, dear. Don't you worry-Art and I are here for you. You just come right over."

"Is Arthur there now?"

"No, I meant…moral support. Is it that bad, that Arthur isn't here? Are you…frightened? Should I call Art and have him-"

"No! No. It'll be fine. I'll be right over."

"Good. Good girl."

"On my way. Fifteen minutes tops."

Those had been Lynn's last words before the women hung up.

Lynn Pierce-the most reliable, responsible person Millie knew-had not kept her word; she had not come "right over." Fifteen minutes passed, half an hour, an hour, and more.

Millie called the Pierce house and got only the answering machine.

Okay, maybe Millie was an anxious, excitable woman; all right, maybe she did have a melodramatic streak. Pastor Dan said Millie just had a good heart, that she truly cared about people, that her worry came from a good place.

This worry for Lynn may have come from a good place, but Millie feared Lynn had gone to a very bad place. She had a sick, sick feeling she would never see her best friend again.

As such troubled, troublesome thoughts roiled in her mind like a gathering thunderstorm, Millie paced and fretted and wrung her hands and waited for her husband Arthur to get home. Art would know what to do-he always did. In the meantime, Millie fiddled with her wedding ring, and concocted tragic scenarios in her mind, periodically chiding herself that Lynn had only been missing a few hours, after all.

But that tape.

That terrible tape she and Arthur had heard last night….

Millie perked up momentarily when Gary, their son, came home. Seventeen, a senior, Gary-a slender boy with Arthur's black hair and her oval face-had his own car and more and more now, his own life.

Their son kept to himself and barely spoke to them-though he was not sullen, really. He attended church with them willingly, always ready to raise his hands to the Lord. That told Millie he must still be a good boy.

For a time she and Arthur had been worried about their son, when Gary was dating that wild Karlson girl with her nose rings and pierced tongue and tattooed ankle and cigarettes. Lately he'd started dating Lori-Lynn's daughter, a good girl, active in the church like her mom.

He was shuffling up the stairs-his bedroom was on the second floor-when she paused in her pacing to ask, "And how was school?"

He had his backpack on as he stood there, dutifully, answering with a shrug.

From the bottom of the stairs, she asked, "Didn't you have a test today? Biology, wasn't it?"

Another shrug.

"Did you do well?"

One more shrug.

"Your father's going to be late tonight. You want to wait to eat with us, or…?"

Now he was starting up the stairs again. "I'll nuke something."

"I can make you macaroni, or-"

"Nuke is fine."

"All right."

He flicked a smile at her, before disappearing around the hallway, going toward his bedroom, the door of which was always closed, lately.

Growing up seemed to be hard on Gary, and she wished that she and Arthur could help; but this afternoon's taciturn behavior was all too typical of late. Gary barely seemed to acknowledge them, bestowing occasional cursory words and a multitude of shrugs. Still, his grades remained good, so maybe this was just part of growing up. A child slipping away from his parents into his own life was apparently part of God's plan.

But the problem of coping with Gary, Millie realized, was something to be worried about after this mess with Lynn got cleared up. The woman let out a long breath of relief as she peeked through the drapes and watched Arthur's Lexus ease into the driveway.

Finally.

A moment later she heard the bang of the car door, the hum of the garage door opener, and-at last!-Arthur stepped into the kitchen.

Stocky, only a couple of inches taller than his wife, a black-haired fire hydrant of a man, Arthur Blair-like Millie-had retained a youthful demeanor. Even though he was older than his wife (forty-four), his hair stayed free of gray; God had blessed him with good genes and without his wife's anxious streak. Black-framed Coke-bottle glasses turned his brown eyes buggy, but Millie's husband remained a handsome man.

Arthur had first met coed Millie ("Never call me Mildred!") Evans at a frat party back in their undergraduate days. A sorority sister and a little wild, she had dressed like, and looked like, that sexy slender Pat Benatar, all curly black hair and spandex, and she took his breath away. Immediately recognizing that she was out of his league, the bookish Arthur wouldn't have said a word to her if she hadn't struck up a conversation at the keg. Throughout the course of the evening they'd exchanged glances, but no further words. He could tell she was disappointed in him, but he'd been just too shy to do anything about it, at first; and then, pretty soon, he'd been too drunk….

The next semester they'd had an Econ class together and she had recognized a familiar face and sat down next to him. Now, twenty years later, she still hadn't left his side.

Walking through the kitchen, Arthur moved into the dining room, set his briefcase on the table, tossed his suit jacket onto a chair and passed straight into the living room to find Millie standing in the middle of the room, holding herself as if she were freezing. Her face seemed drained of color, her eyes filigreed red. She'd clearly been crying….

"Baby, what's wrong?" he asked, moving to her, taking her into his arms.

Arthur knew his anxious wife might have been upset about anything or nothing; but he always took her distress seriously. He loved her.

"It…it's Lynn," she said, sobs breaking loose as he hugged and patted her.

It was as if his arms had broken some sort of dam and she cried uncontrollably for a very long time before she finally reined in her emotions enough to speak coherently.

Arthur held her at arm's length. "What's wrong, baby? What about Lynn? Has that tape got you going…?"

"Not the tape…I mean, yes the tape, but no…" Gulping back a last sob, Millie said, "She phoned this afternoon, about four-real upset. Said she had to see me, talk to me. Said she was on her way over."

"Well, what did she have to say, once she got here?"

"Arthur, that's just it-she never showed up!"

She told him about trying to call, getting the machine, and how she just knew Lynn had "disappeared."

Her husband shook his head, dismissive of the problem but not of her. "Honey, it could be anything. There's no point in getting all worked up…at least, not until we know what happened."

She stepped out of his embrace. Her eyes moved to the drawer handle of the end table across the room. His gaze followed hers-they both knew what lay in that shallow drawer: the tape. That awful audio tape that they had played last night….

"Just because…" He stopped. "…this doesn't mean…necessarily…"

She drew in a deep breath, calming herself, or trying to. "I know, I know…It's just that…well, you know if she'd been delayed, she would have called, Arthur. Certainly by now she would have called."

He knew she was right. After a sigh and a nod, he asked, "Is Gary home?"

She nodded back. "In his room, of course. Behind the closed door."

"It's normal."

"He…sort of gave me the silent treatment again."

"Really?"

"Well. No. He was polite…I guess."

Arthur walked to the foot of the stairs and called up. "Gary!"

Silence.

A curtness came into Arthur's voice, now: "Gary!"

The clean-cut young man peeked around the hallway corner, as if he'd been hiding there all the while. "Yes, sir?"

"Your mother and I are going out. You okay with getting your own dinner?"

"Yes, sir. Already told mom I would microwave something. Anyway, I have to go into work for a couple of hours. Maybe I'll just grab something on the way."

"Well, that'll be fine, son…. We'll see you later."

"Yes, sir."

The boy disappeared again.

Millie, shaking her head, said, "All I get are shrugs. I can't believe how he opens up to you. He really respects you, Art."

Arthur said nothing, still staring up the stairs at where his boy had been. He wondered if his son's respect was real or just for show-assuming the kid even knew the difference. Arthur had had the same kind of relationship with his own father, always "yes sirring" and "no sirring," thinking he was doing it just to stay on the old man's good side, then eventually finding out that he really did respect his father. He hoped Gary would some day feel that way about him…even if the boy didn't do so now.

He turned to his wife. "Come on, sweetie," he said. "And get your coat. Some bite in the air, tonight."

"Where are we going?" she asked, even as she followed his directions, pulling a light jacket from the front closet. Also navy blue, the jacket didn't quite match her slacks and she hoped at night no one would notice.

"I think we'll drop by at our good friends, the Pierce's."

She didn't argue. For a woman with an anxious streak, Millie could be strong, even fearless, particularly when the two of them were together. Arthur realized going over to the Pierces was the course of action she'd wanted all along, she just hadn't wanted to be the one to suggest it.

Her respect for him was real, Arthur knew. Anyway, their church taught a strict, biblical adherence to the husband's role as the head of the household.

They moved to the door, but-at the last second-Millie hurried back to the living room, grabbed the small package out of the end table and tucked the audio tape into her purse.

The drive to the Pierce home took only about twelve minutes. Traffic had thinned out and the cooler autumn temperatures had settled in, apparently convincing many a Las Vegan to stay inside for the evening. Millie wondered aloud if they should listen to the tape again, in the car's cassette player, as they drove over.

"No thanks," Arthur said, distastefully. "I remember it all too well." Then he shook his head and added, "I don't think I'll ever forget the…thing," almost swearing.

Though Owen and Lynn Pierce were supposed to be their best friends, Arthur and Millie Blair both loved her, and barely tolerated him. Arthur found Pierce to be a vulgar, cruel, Godless man, an opinion with which Millie agreed wholeheartedly. Arthur also believed that Owen dabbled in drugs, or so the rumors said; but he had no proof and kept that thought to himself. He feared that Millie wouldn't allow Gary to continue dating Lori Pierce if she thought there were drugs anywhere near the Pierce home-even if Lynn was her best friend.

The Pierce house looked like a tan-brick fortress, a turret dominating the left side of a two-story structure that presided over a sloping, well-landscaped lawn, sans moat however. Inside the turret, a spiral staircase led to the second floor (the Blairs had been guests at the Pierces' home, many times). The front door sat in the center of this mini-Camelot with a three-car garage on the right end. With just the one turret, the house seemed to lean slightly in that direction, giving the place an off-kilter feel.

When the Lexus pulled into the castle's driveway, Arthur said, "Now let me handle this."

Again, no argument from Millie on that score. She just nodded, then-almost hiding behind him-she followed her husband up the curving walk to the front door.

Arthur rang the bell and they waited. After thirty seconds or so, he rang it again, three times in rapid insistent succession. Again they waited almost a half a minute, an endless span to spend standing on a front porch; but this time as Arthur reached for the button, the door jerked open and they found themselves face-to-face with Lynn's husband-Owen Pierce himself.

Muscular in his gray Nike sweats, with silver glints in his dark hair, Pierce had striking blue eyes, and a ready, winning smile that displayed many white, straight teeth. Pierce's face seemed to explode in delight. "Well, Art! Millie! What a nice surprise-what are you doing here? I mean…" He chuckled, apparently embarrassed that that might have sound ungracious. "How are you? We didn't have plans for dinner or something tonight, did we? Lynn didn't say anything…"

The therapist's grin seemed forced, and his words came too fast and were delivered too loudly. Arthur again considered those drug rumors. "No, no plans tonight, Owen. We were hoping to speak to Lynn."

"Lynn?" Pierce frowned in confusion, as if this were a name he'd never heard before.

"Yes," Arthur said. "Lynn. You remember, Owen-your wife?"

An uncomfortable silence followed, as Pierce apparently tried to read Arthur's words and tone.

Finally, Millie stepped forward. "Owen, Lynn called me earlier, and said she was coming to see me…then she never showed up."

"Oh!" He smiled again, less dazzlingly. "Is that what this is about…."

Millie said, "It's just not like her, Owen. She would have called me, if she had a change in plans."

Pierce's smile finally faded and his eyes tightened. "Her brother called. She barely took time to tell me! Something about an illness, and how they needed her there. You know how she jumps to, when her family's involved. Anyway, she packed a few things and left, lickety split."

What a load of bull,Arthur thought. He knew Lynn Pierce wouldn't leave the city without telling Millie where she was headed, and how long she'd be gone-particularly when Lynn had told Millie she was coming "right over"! Something was definitely not right here.

Arthur considered the tape in Millie's purse. Should he confront Pierce about it?

As Arthur was mulling this, his wife took a step nearer to Pierce, saying, "I'm sorry, but I don't believe you, Owen. Lynn would never…"

A frown crossed Pierce's face and Millie fell silent. The expression replacing the phony smile was all too sincere: as if a rock had been lifted and the real Owen had been glimpsed wriggling there in the dirt.

Over the years, the Blairs had both seen Pierce lose his temper, and it was never a pleasant sight-like a boiler exploding. Arthur took Millie gently if firmly by the arm and turned her toward the car. "Excuse us, Owen. Millie's just concerned about Lynn, you know how women are."

Pierce twitched a sort of grin.

As the couple moved away, Arthur said, "Hope Lynn has a good trip, Owen. Have her give us a call when she gets back, would you?…Thanks."

And all the time he spoke, Arthur steered Millie toward the car at the curb. She did not protest-she knew her place-but when he finally got her in the car, backed out of the driveway, and drove away from Owen Pierce and the castle house, she demanded an explanation.

"Don't you worry, darling," Arthur said. "We'll do something about that evil bastard."

Sometimes, when a swear word slipped out of him, she would scold him. He almost looked forward to the familiarity of it.

But tonight, she said only, "Good. Good. Good."

And she sat beside him in the vehicle, with her fists clenched, the purse in her lap…and that tape, that terrible tape, in the purse.

2

CAPTAIN JIM BRASS AMBLED DOWN THE HALL TOWARD THE washed-out aqua warren of offices that served as headquarters for the Las Vegas Criminalistics Bureau, a coldly modern institutional setting for the number-two crime lab in the country. The sad-eyed detective was sharply attired-gray sports coat over a blue shirt, darker blue tie with gray diagonal stripes, and navy slacks-and his low-key demeanor masked a dogged professionalism.

A cellophane bag dangled from the detective's right hand, an audio tape within. Slowing to peer through various half-windowed walls, Brass passed several rooms before he found the CSI graveyard shift supervisor, Gil Grissom, in the break room at a small table, hunkered over a cup of coffee and a pile of papers. Dressed in black and wearing his wire-framed reading glasses, the CSI chief looked like a cross between a gunfighter and a science geek, Brass thought, then realized that that was a pretty accurate mix.

Grissom-one of the top forensic entomologists in the country, among other things-was in his mid-forties, with his boyishly handsome features seemingly set in a state of perpetual preoccupation. Brass liked Gil, and felt that what some considered coldness in the man was really a self-imposed coolness, a detachment designed to keep the CSI chief's eye on facts and his emotions in check.

Brass pulled up a chair. "Latest issue of Cockroach Racing Monthly?"

Grissom shook his head, and responded as if the detective's question had been serious. "Staffing reports. Scuttlebutt is the County Board wants to cut the budget for next year."

"I heard that, too." Brass sighed. "Doesn't election time just bring out the best in people?"

Grissom gave him a pursed-lipped look that had nothing to do with blowing a kiss.

"Maybe you need something to put you in a better mood, Gil-like threats of dismemberment."

Grissom offered Brass another look, this one piqued with interest.

Brass held up the plastic baggie and waved it like a hypnotist's watch, Grissom's eyes following accordingly. "Among your state-of-the-art, cutting-edge equipment…you got a cassette player?"

Nodding, rising, removing his glasses, Grissom said, "In my office. What have you got?" He gathered up the pile of papers, the cup of coffee, and led Brass out into the hall.

The detective fell in alongside Grissom as they moved down the corridor. "Interesting turn of events, just now, out at the front desk."

"Really?"

They moved into Grissom's office.

"Really."

Brass had only lately ceased to be creeped out by Grissom's inner sanctum, with its shelves of such jarred oddities as a pickled piglet and various embalmed animal and human organs, and assorted living, crawling creatures-a tarantula, a two-headed scorpion-in glassed-in homes. At least the batteries had finally worn down on the Big Mouth Billy Bass just above Grissom's office door.

A desk sat in the middle of the methodically cluttered office, canted at a forty-five-degree angle, two vinyl-covered metal frame chairs in front of it. Brass handed the bag over to Grissom, then plopped into a chair. Behind his desk, Grissom sat and placed the bag on his blotter like a jeweler mounting a stone. From the top righthand drawer, he withdrew a pair of latex gloves and placed them next to the bag.

"Is this all tease," Grissom said, hands folded, "or do you plan to put out?"

Brass sat back, crossed his legs, twitched a non-smile. "This couple comes in tonight, to the front desk. Nice people, late thirties, early forties-straight as they come. He's in the finance department at UNLV."

Grissom nodded.

"Arthur and Millie Blair. They say their friend, woman named Lynn Pierce, has disappeared…and they think something 'bad' has happened to her."

Grissom's eyes tightened, just a little. "How long has Lynn Pierce been missing?"

Checking his watch, Brass said, "About seven hours."

Grissom's eyes relaxed. "That's not twenty-four. She may be gone, but she's not 'missing,' yet."

Brass shrugged. "Officer at the desk told 'em the same thing. That's when they pulled out this tape."

Grissom glanced at the bag. "Which is a tape of what?"

Brass had to smile-Grissom was like a kid waiting to tear into a Christmas present. "Supposedly an argument between Lynn Pierce and her husband."

"Husband?"

Brass pulled a notebook from his jacket pocket and flipped it open, filling Grissom in on the particulars-Owen Pierce, successful physical therapist, married eighteen years to the missing woman.

"Clinic-'Therapeutic Body Works'-in a strip mall out on Hidden Well Road. East of the Callaway Golf Center."

One of Grissom's eyebrows arched in skeptical curiosity. "And the Blairs are in possession of this tape because…?"

"This is where it gets good," Brass said, shifting in the chair. "The Blairs say Mrs. Pierce showed up on their doorstep last night-with this tape in her hot little hand. Mrs. Pierce told her friends the Blairs that she'd hidden a voice-activated tape player in the kitchen. Wanted to prove what kind of verbal abuse she'd been suffering, of late."

"I like a victim who provides evidence for us," Grissom said.

"Well, then you'll love Lynn Pierce. Her hidden microphone caught a doozy of an argument, it seems. Anyway, the Blairs said that Mrs. Pierce gave them the tape for safe keeping, then she sat with them and talked and talked about her marital problems, and trouble with their daughter, Lori…"

"Lori is whose daughter?"

"The Pierces. But most of all, Lynn was tired of the constant threats of violence her husband had been making."

"Let's hear the tape."

Brass held up a palm. "You still haven't heard the best part."

The detective told Grissom about the Blairs going to the Pierce home, where Owen Pierce claimed his wife had gone to visit a sick brother.

"Is that the best part?" Grissom asked, unimpressed.

"No-the best part is, while the Blairs are talking to one officer at the front desk, the other officer is taking a phone call from guess who."

"Owen Pierce."

"Owen Pierce. Calling to report his wife missing. He now claims that she got pissed off after a 'misunderstanding,' and he figures she left him, and he doesn't know where the hell she went."

Grissom was sitting forward now. "Did the wife take anything with her?"

"A couple of uniforms went to the house," Brass said. "Pierce told them he didn't see her go. But she took her own car-a '95 Avalon-also a suitcase, some clothes."

"Let's listen to the tape."

Brass raised both eyebrows. "Why don't we?"

Slipping on the latex gloves, Grissom removed the tape from the bag. He rose, moved to a small boombox behind the desk, and slid the tape into the holder. After closing the door, he pushed PLAY with a latexed fingertip-Brass noted that Grissom brought the same anal-retentive precision to the simple procedure of playing an audio tape cassette as he would to one of his bizarre experiments involving blood spatter spray patterns or insect eating patterns.

The sound was somewhat muffled; apparently the couple had been standing across the room from the secreted tape recorder. But the words soon became clear enough, as the Pierces raised their voices in anger.

"If you don't stop it, just stop it, I swear I'll do it! I'll divorce you!"

That had been the woman's voice.

Now the man's: "Stop it? Stop what?What the fuck are you talking about?"

"I'm talking about the cocaine, Owen-and your slutty women! I've already talked to a lawyer-"

"You bitch-lousy rotten bitch…go ahead, go ahead and file for divorce. I'll make sure you don't get a goddamned thing-including Lori!"

Brass glanced at Grissom, but the criminalist's face was blank, his focus complete.

"Owen…" The woman's voice had turned pleading. "I just want us to be a…family, again. Do you think what I really want is a divorce?"

The man's reply was mostly inaudible, but they heard three words clearly: "…give a fuck."

The woman spoke again, and she too was inaudible, but then her voice rose, not in anger, but as a conclusion to a speech: "I just want you and Lori to find the peace that I've found serving our Lord!"

"Oh, Christ! Not that Jesus crap again. I've told you a thousand fucking times, Lynn-I believe what I believe."

"You don't believe inanything ."

"That's my choice. That's America. That's what your forefathers died for, you dumb…"

At the next word, Grissom shot a look at Brass.

The man was saying, "You need to give Lori the same space, too, Lynn. She's a young adult. She deserves a little respect."

"She's a child."

"She's sixteen! Hell, in half the world she'd be married already! Old enough to bleed, old enough to breed!"

"Owen!"

"I'm just telling you whatI do, what our grown daughter does, is none of your goddamned Bible-beating business."

"Maybe…maybe Ishould get a divorce then."

"Knock yourself out…. But remember, you don't get one dime, not one fucking thing."

"Is that right? I hired the best divorce lawyer in town, Owen-and when I get around to telling him about the drugs and the women and you screwing the IRS by skimming off the top of the 'Body Works'? Well, then we'll just see who gets custody of Lori!"

The woman sounded triumphant, Brass thought, and for a moment the husband had no response. The woman's time on top of the argument didn't last long.

"You do,"Pierce said, "and I'll kill your holier-than thou ass…"

"Owen! No! Don't say-"

"And then I'll cut you up in little pieces, my darling bride. I will scatter your parts to the four winds, and they will never put Humpty Dumpty back together!"

The argument lasted only a couple of more minutes, none of it coherently audible-the couple had apparently moved farther away from the hidden machine-before the detective and the criminalist heard the sound of a door slam and then the tape clicked off.

"What do you think?" Brass asked. "We got enough to go out there? Or is that just the road company of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?"

Grissom stood. "I think we need to go out there. Everybody's in-house, at the moment-let's take the whole crew."

Brass winced. "Don't you think we should try for a warrant, first?"

Grissom gave Brass that familiar mock-innocent smile. "Why? Mr. Pierce called the police. He's concerned about his missing wife. We should help the poor guy, don't you think?"

"Yeah, who needs a warrant to do that?" Brass said, grinning, climbing out of the chair. "What about the tape?"

"What tape?"

"Yeah," Brass said, eyes narrowing. "Obviously Pierce doesn't know it exists. No need to tell him that we do."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Grissom said. "Let's go see what there is to see."

Ten minutes later, six colleagues-all but Brass in dark FORENSICS windbreakers-met in the underlit parking lot.

Lanky, loose-limbed, African-American Warrick Brown stood a few inches taller than the athletically brawny Nick Stokes; both men were in their very early thirties.

Off to one side were the two women on the team, Grissom's second-in-command, Catherine Willows, and the relatively recent addition, Sara Sidle.

The Willows woman had a checkered past, Brass knew, but her experience had made her a valuable counterbalance to the overly cool Grissom. Brass had less confidence in Sara Sidle, despite her status as a former Grissom pupil handpicked by Gil for the job. Sidle seemed to be a Grissom-in-the-making, similarly obsessed with work-and with people skills rivaling those of her tactless mentor.

Grissom filled his people in, quickly, on the contents of the tape and the potentially missing woman.

"So we have a verbally abusive husband," Grissom said, tone as tight as his eyes, "who threatened his wife with dismemberment."

"But we're pretending to help him out," Warrick said.

"I didn't hear that," Grissom said, sweetly.

Warrick, Nick, Catherine, and Sara rode in the Tahoe, Grissom rode with Brass in the detective's Taurus. Just before midnight, they arrived at the castle-like house on the impressive sloping lawn, lights shining out downstairs windows, sending sword-like shafts of light into the dark.

Brass and Grissom led the way to the front door. The detective rang the bell and had to wait only a moment before the door opened to reveal a muscular man in dark slacks, black T-shirt, and black loafers, dark hair peppered with gray. The man stood before Grissom like a mirror reflection-only, Brass thought, this was Gil Grissom on steroids.

Brass smiled, mildly. "Mr. Pierce?"

The man nodded. He seemed anxious. "You're the police?"

Touching the badge on his breast pocket, Brass affirmed, "We're the police-sorry it took us so long to respond to your call…. We had to round our people up."

Grissom flicked Pierce an insincere smile. "We're a full-service operation, Mr…. Pierce, I assume?"

Still not inviting them in, Pierce nodded.

Grissom lifted the necklace I.D. "Gil Grissom, Las Vegas Criminalistics. This is Captain Jim Brass, and this is our Criminalistics crew."

Pierce regarded the considerable assembly overflowing his front stoop. "Then…you haven't found my wife?"

"No, sir," Grissom said, "I'm sorry, as yet we haven't."

Pierce shook his head. "I don't understand what you're doing here. I gave all the information to the officer, on the phone. Shouldn't you be out looking for Lynn, Detective…Griswald, is it?"

"It's Grissom, Mr. Pierce, only I'm not a detective. I'm a supervisor of Criminalistics." He flashed another empty smile. "And we are out looking for your wife. That's why we're here. You see, we handle crime scene investigation."

A puzzled look tightened Pierce's face. "Crime scene? I don't understand. This isn't a crime scene-my wife walked out on me."

"Sir, my understanding is, you don't know that for sure. She might well have been abducted."

"Well…that's possible. Maybe I hadn't wanted to…admit that to myself."

Grissom nodded in supposed sympathy. "Also, there's the matter of the Blairs."

"The Blairs."

"Yes. Your wife called them in the afternoon…said she would come by, never materialized. They said they spoke to you."

Pierce sucked in air, his expression turning sheepish. "Oh. I see…look, when they came by, I was embarrassed. I told them that Lynn went to visit her brother to, you know, get rid of them."

Frowning, Brass asked, "You wanted to get rid of them?"

"They mean well, Detective…Brass?"

"Yes. Brass."

"They're kind of busybodies, Detective Brass. Judgmental types-Bible beaters? And the wound was fresh, Det…uh…Mr. Grissom. I needed to be alone while I sorted some things out."

Grissom shrugged one shoulder. "Then why did you telephone the police?"

He shrugged both his. "I wanted someone to help me find her. I thought maybe Lynn and I could find a way to work out our problems."

"So, then, you really don't know where she is?"

Pierce shook his head. "Nope, no idea."

"And you weren't here when she left?"

"No. I was at my office…my clinic."

"That makes abduction a real possibility, Mr. Pierce. And that's why we're here."

He frowned. "Just because I have no idea where Lynn is? And because she made a phone call?"

"Yes, sir." Grissom's expression turned almost angelic. "We want to help you. Maybe we can find a clue as to what happened to your wife."

"But," Brass said, with half a smile, "we can't help you out here on the stoop."

Pierce sighed again, shrugged with his eyebrows this time. "Well-if it'll help find Lynn…of course, come in."

The response surprised Brass a little, and he exchanged glances with Grissom, who the detective figured had also been expecting objections from Pierce, not cooperation-particularly if a crime had gone down within these castle walls, earlier today.

Pierce stepped back inside and held the door as the group trooped in, moving through a small entry way into a larger anteroom of a home whose walls were cream-color stucco with dark woodwork. A winding staircase disappeared up a landing at left, and a hallway was at left also, with the dining room visible through one arched doorless doorway, in the facing wall, and, to the right, a living room yawned through another archway. The furnishings were colonial, tasteful enough, but a bit at odds with the castle-like architecture.

Brass asked, "Is there anyone else in the house, sir?"

"Just my daughter."

Grissom asked, "Was she here when your wife left?"

"No. I'm afraid not."

A teenage girl stepped down the winding stairs into view. She wore Nikes, nice new jeans, a big white sweatshirt, with her long blonde hair pulled back and held in place with a blue scrunchy. Her pretty face-she resembled her father, though the eyes were wider set-was well scrubbed and her bright blue eyes were rimmed red. She glanced down at the contingency in the anteroom, and froze on the landing.

"This is my daughter," Pierce said, "Lori."

The girl gave a barely perceptible nod, then turned and disappeared back upstairs.

Pierce sighed again and said, "You'll have to forgive her, please. This has been hard for both of us, but especially for Lori. She's taken it pretty hard, the idea of her mother…abandoning us."

Brass nodded. Grissom was looking around, taking in the framed wildlife artwork.

"Will you have to…" Pierce looked for the words. "…disturb Lori, when you make your search?"

Brass glanced at Grissom, who gave a little shrug.

"I don't think so, sir," the detective said. "We'll leave her alone for now…though it's possible we might have some questions later."

"I understand."

Grissom approached Pierce, standing a little too close, as if having a better look at an insect specimen, and said, "Mr. Pierce, if you and Captain Brass will wait in the living room, we'll get to work. Then we'll talk to you when we're finished."

"All right."

For the next two hours, the CSI crew-in latex gloves but wielding little else of their elaborate equipment-crawled over every inch of the house, examining everything from the basement to the garage, speaking to the teenage girl only to ask her to step out of her bedroom for a few minutes. When they had finished, they conferred in the kitchen, careful to keep their voices down as they discussed what they'd found, and hadn't found.

An eyebrow arched, Catherine said to Grissom, "There are gaps in the closet. Some clothes and shoes gone, apparently."

"Consistent with Lynn Pierce packing up and leaving," Grissom said.

Catherine smiled humorlessly, nodded.

Sara was nodding, too. "Yeah, and there's a row of suitcases in the basement, with a space in it-so maybe one of them is gone. Space on the shelf above, where a train case could've been."

Warrick piped in: "Only one toothbrush in the master bathroom. Some empty spaces on her makeup table, like she took perfume, makeup, stuff like that."

"No sign of her purse," Nick said. "And there was no blood in the drains, no knives missing that I could tell, no sign anyone did…what he said he would…on the tape."

"I'd sure like to bring a RUVIS in here," Catherine said, referring to the ultraviolet device that would show up blood stains.

"I don't think we can justify that," Grissom said. "If there is a crime here, we don't want to do anything that would be thrown out of court…. So what does this house tell us?"

"She may have gone," Catherine said.

Sara's eyebrows were up. "Or somebody may have made it look like she left."

"Gris," Warrick said, "I did find one thing that could be significant." He showed them a clear evidence bag with a hairbrush in the bottom.

Grissom took the bag, held it up and looked at it as if it held the secrets of the universe; several blonde hairs dangled from the brush. He asked, "Does a woman pack up and go, and leave her hairbrush behind?"

"Maybe Sara," Nick said with a grin, and Sara grinned back and elbowed him, a little.

Grissom focused on the hairbrush in the bag. "Why don't we ask Mr. Pierce about this?"

They followed their supervisor into the living room where Pierce and Brass (his notepad out) sat on a couch in front of a thirty-six inch Toshiba in an early-American entertainment hutch (just like George and Martha Washington used to have); CNN was going, with the mute on.

"Anything you'd like to share?" Brass asked Grissom.

"You'll be relieved to know," Grissom said, "that there are no signs of a struggle anywhere in the house."

"I could have told you that," Pierce said.

Catherine said, "We don't see any overt indications of abduction."

"That's a relief, anyway," Pierce said, letting out a big sigh-too big, maybe.

Grissom offered up his patented smile. "What can you tell me about this, Mr. Pierce?"

And he held up the bag with the brush.

"Well…that's Lynn's," Pierce said.

Catherine asked, "Would you say your wife is well-groomed, Mr. Pierce? Takes pride in her appearance?"

Pierce bristled. "She's a beautiful woman. Of course she's…well-groomed."

Catherine's smile was utterly charming, her words casually heartless. "Does she usually go off without her hairbrush?"

"Maybe she has more than one." Pierce held his hands out, palms open. "How should I know?…Anyway, she only uses a brush when her hair is long. Lynn had her hair cut recently-it's barely over her ears. I've seen her combing it, but not brushing."

Sara said, "I noticed three computers in the house, Mr. Pierce."

He nodded. "Yes. Lori's is in her bedroom, mine is in the basement-I have my business programs on that-and in the spare bedroom, Lynn has her own for e-mailing her friends and, I don't know, whatever else she does."

Grissom said, "We'd like to take Lynn's computer with us, if you don't mind."

Pierce winced at that one. "You want her computer?"

With a brief nod, Grissom said, "May help us track her movements. See if your wife e-mailed someone to notify them that she'd be coming for a visit. Can you access her account?"

"Afraid I can't. She has her own password…. Even the closest couples have privacy issues-who doesn't want to have a few secrets?"

Grissom said, "Secrets don't stay secret long, in my world, Mr. Pierce."

Catherine asked, "How about a cell phone? Does Mrs. Pierce have one?"

"Why, yes-she carries it in her purse, all the time."

"Have you tried to call her since she turned up missing?"

"Of course!"

"And?"

A shrug. "And it comes back 'out of service.'"

Catherine thought about that, then asked, "May we see last month's bill?"

Starting to look mildly put out, Pierce said, "Well…all right."

"And her credit cards and bank statements?"

Pierce gave Grissom a sharp look, as if to say, Can't you keep this underling in check?

Grissom turned on the angelic smile again. "It's an old, old theory, Mr. Pierce-follow the money. Wherever Mrs. Pierce is, she's spending money, somehow or other…and unless she left carrying a massive amount of cash, there should be a credit card trail to follow."

The color had drained from Pierce's face. "Well…Now, she could have taken cash with her, quite a bit of it. But I wouldn't know."

"You had separate accounts?"

"Yes."

Catherine said, "Privacy issues?"

Pierce ignored that, looking instead at the CSI chief. "Lynn's from a wealthy family, Mr. Grissom. She has a considerable amount of money beyond what I earn…. There's her money, my money, and our money-lots of couples are that way." With yet another sigh, he rose. "I understand you're just trying to help…. I'll get you the papers you need."

Brass, still seated, asked, "Do you have a recent photo of your wife we could take?"

"Yes. Of course. I'll get one for you." Pierce left the room, and they could see him going up the stairs; in a few minutes he was back, handing Brass a five-by-seven snapshot. "This was taken at her birthday party, just two months ago."

Grissom took the photo away from Brass and looked at the casual image of a haggard, haunted-eyed blonde standing rather somberly next to several laughing female friends, a HAPPY BIRTHDAY banner in the background. In her late thirties, early forties, with short hair that flirted with the collar of a blue silk blouse, Lynn Pierce had blue eyes that matched her daughter's, high cheekbones with a touch too much blush, a long but graceful nose, nicely full lips, and a stubby flat chin. She was neither beautiful nor unattractive-a "handsome" woman, as they used to say. As she stared up at him with clear, piercing eyes, Grissom got the impression that she was a no-nonsense, down-to-earth person.

The somberness of her expression, however, seemed almost to speak to him, as though there were something she needed to say.

Fifteen minutes later, after forced-friendly handshakes and good-byes with their host, the group trooped back out of the Pierce home, Catherine's arms piled with papers, Nick lugging Mrs. Pierce's computer.

As the rest of the CSI team loaded what they'd taken into the Tahoe, Catherine, with arms folded like a Sioux chief, faced Grissom. "Your tape not withstanding…the evidence shows no signs that any crime has been committed on those premises."

Nearby Brass was rocking on his heels. To no one in particular, he said, "You really think Owen Pierce is the distressed husband he claims to be?"

"You looking for an opinion?" Grissom asked. "I don't do opinions."

Catherine was smiling, though, regarding her boss with cat's eyes. "You don't fool me."

Grissom's brows rose. "I don't?"

"Something's wrong in that house, and you know it."

Grissom frowned at her. "I don't know it," he said.

And he stalked back toward the Taurus, Brass following him, throwing a shrug back at the quietly amused Catherine.

"Retaining water," Catherine said to Sara.

"And me fresh out of Midol," Sara said.

Grissom got in on the rider's side and sat and brooded. He didn't know that something was wrong in that house-but he felt it.

And he hated when that happened.

For now, he had nothing to go on. Nothing to do but return to HQ and wait for a real crime to come in.

And hope it wasn't a murder, and the victim: Lynn Pierce.

3

A DAY LATER, AND LYNN PIERCE REMAINED AMONG THE missing-the only change in status was that she was now officially listed as such.

Grissom was seated at his desk in his office, dealing with paperwork. The CSI supervisor would not have admitted it under torture, but the face of the sad-eyed blonde in that snapshot haunted him.

Still, at this stage, little remained appropriate for his CSI team's attention: no sign of foul play had been found. There was only the husband's threat to kill his wife to go on…and how many husbands and wives, in the heat and hyperbole of an argument, had threatened as much?

He had assigned Sara to the case, and she had drawn upon her considerable computer expertise to track the woman's credit cards; but none of the cards had been used since Lynn Pierce's disappearance, and the woman hadn't been to an ATM or used a phone card either. E-mails from friends were piling up unanswered and none of her recent cyber-correspondence mentioned a trip or hinted that she might be preparing to run away.

If she was alive, she would leave a trail-this Grissom knew to a certainty; the absence of such, so far, only substantiated his conviction that she had been killed. This was not a hunch, rather a belief built on the circumstantial evidence thus far.

Sara, sitting at her computer, had looked up at him with eyebrows high, and said, "She could be paying her way with cash-she does have money of her own."

"Check for withdrawals, then."

"Maybe she kept a stash of cash, somewhere."

"What, under a mattress? No, if that's the case, it'll be in a safety deposit box-check with her bank on that, as well."

Sara smirked at him. "But that's the point of safety deposit boxes-nobody knows what goes in and out, banks included."

Grissom lifted a finger. "Ah, but the banks record who goes in and out, to have a look at their safety deposit boxes…. See if Lynn Pierce has done that, lately."

Sara, nodding, went back to work.

Even as he sent Sara scurrying to check, Grissom didn't hold much stock in the notion that Lynn Pierce was funding her disappearance, paying as she went. From what he had gathered thus far, this was a woman of faith and family who spent little money on herself.

The phone rang. Grissom, who hated having his thoughts interrupted, looked at it like the object had just flipped him off. It rang a second time, and finally, he reached for the receiver.

He identified himself, listened for several moments, writing down the information, and then told Jim Brass, "I'll have a team there in under fifteen minutes, and see you in five."

Grissom glanced at his own notes.

A dead woman-not Lynn Pierce-needed their attention.

Catherine Willows-typically stylish in a formfitting green V-neck ribbed sweater, tailored black slacks and ankle-high black leather boots-was peeling an orange when Grissom walked into the break room and handed her his notes.

"Dream Dolls?" she asked, peering over the edge of the note at Grissom. Her expression split the difference between a smile and a frown. "You're kidding, right?"

Grissom risked just the hint of a smile. "You know the place better than anybody else on staff."

"What's that, another excerpt from The Wit and Wisdom of Gil Grissom?" She tossed the scrap of paper on the table next to the orange peels. "A very slender volume, I might add."

He took a seat beside her. "You can handle this? It's not a problem, is it? Is this…a sensitive issue with you?"

Her eyes were wide and unblinking as she said, "You'd know this, why? Sensitivity being your long suit and all." She sighed, nibbled an orange slice. "A dead stripper, and you immediately think of me-should I be complimented?"

Grissom thought about that for a moment. "You may have my job one day, you know."

"It's been offered to me before," she reminded him, adding wryly, "Sometimes I wonder why I didn't take it."

"Me too," Grissom admitted. "If you were supervisor, and one of your CSIs was a former stock-car racer, and you had a case turn up at a speedway…who would you send?"

She sighed. "Point well taken." She glanced at the notes again. "How did the woman die?"

"That's what the coroner will tell us…Looks like strangulation."

"All right," she said. "You're not coming?"

He shook his head. "I'm meeting Brass in five minutes. He's invited me along-interviewing the Blairs, the friends who reported the Lynn Pierce disappearance…now that it's official."

Catherine was cleaning up her trash, depositing the peels and her Evian bottle in a bin, when he told her, "I said a CSI team'd be right out."

She bestowed him her most beautiful sarcastic smile. "I'll shake a tail feather."

On her way out of the break room, he called, "And take Sara!"

Catherine nodded, threw him a wave over her shoulder, and strode down the hall.

Catherine found Sara Sidle huddled over her computer monitor, her mouse racing around the pad as she studied something on the Internet. Wearing dark bell-bottom jeans and a dark blue scoop-neck top under her baby-blue lab coat, she looked more like a clerk at Tower Records than a dedicated scientist. Her dark curly hair bounced as she bobbed in time to some internal rhythm.

"Sorry to interrupt," Catherine said, "but we've got a call."

Sara barely glanced at her. "Uh, Grissom assigned me to this Pierce disappearance."

"Well, he wants you to accompany me on this one. We've got a live one."

"You mean a dead one."

Catherine shrugged.

"Just give me another minute," Sara said, her gaze glued to the monitor.

Catherine leaned in for a look.

"I've been checking hotel reservations and check-ins for the last two days," Sara said, "and nothing."

"We'll find her," Catherine said, "or she'll turn up on her own. Nobody disappears 'without a trace,' no matter what you hear."

They gathered their equipment, jumped in one of the department's black Tahoes-Catherine tossing the keys to Sara-and strapped themselves in for the short drive to Dream Dolls.

"So," Sara said, with a sideways glance, "this is one of the older, uh, clubs in town, isn't it?"

"That's right. And yes, Dream Dolls is one of the clubs I worked at."

"Oh. Really. Interesting."

"Is it?" Catherine turned and folded her arms and faced the windshield. "Grissom assigned me to this, he says, because I worked there, and have an advance knowledge of the place."

"Makes sense. But…why'd he send me?"

"Probably because he figured it would be less awkward for me, than taking Nicky or Warrick…assuming Grissom could be that sensitive."

Sara mulled that a moment or two. "Maybe he figures, since we'll have to deal with a lot of women, you know, at the club…sending two women kinda makes sense."

"Maybe."

The club sat in the older part of downtown, blocks away from the renovation of Fremont Street. Though it wasn't that far from headquarters, and she had passed the place numerous times, Dream Dolls-and that life-seemed to Catherine worlds away from where she was now. She wondered if Ty Kapelos still ran the show there. He'd always seemed just one brick short of a pimp; but he had, at least, always been fair.

"Even your looks won't last forever," he'd told her. "Start saving. Think up a future for yourself."

In a way, that had been an important point on the winding road to the straight life she now lived.

Sara pulled the SUV into a parking space beside two squad cars, whose rollers painted the night alternately blue and red. The two women climbed out of the Tahoe, gathered their equipment, and turned toward the club, a one-story faded bunker of a redbrick building.

Catherine looked up at the garish glowing neon sign on a pole looming over the sidewalk, featuring a red outline that suggested an overly endowed woman, sliding down a blue neon firepole; when the neon stripper reached the bottom, giant green letters…one at a time…spelled out DREAM DOLLS, then held and pulsed…before the sequence started again.

Smirking, shaking her head, Catherine figured Ty must have finally decided to spend a few bucks on the business. Hearing footsteps on the cement, she looked toward a young male uniformed officer coming their way from where he'd been positioned at the front door.

"CSI?" the officer asked.

She read his nameplate: JOHNSTON. A newbie, right out of the academy she'd bet, all wavy blond hair and blue-eyed, vacant stare-was this his first crime scene?

"Catherine Willows and Sara Sidle," she said with a nod toward her partner. "Pardon the expression, but it's kinda dead out here."

His voice was a breathy tenor. "I was told not to let anyone in or out, 'cept you guys and the detectives."

She nodded and strode past him.

"Real mess," he said, hollowly.

Spinning to face him, Catherine demanded, "You were in there?" All she needed was for some rookie to contaminate her evidence. "You saw the scene?"

Eyes bright and glistening, he nodded. "Just for a second-from out in the hall." He swallowed. "Never seen anything like that."

"But you didn't go near the body?"

"No."

She studied his face for a second, then-satisfied he'd been frank with her-said, "Good," turned back to the club and pulled open the front door. Behind her, Sara tossed a hip to hold the door open. They entered a small alcove with still another door between them and the bar; already the smoky, spilled-beer-stench atmosphere assailed them. To their right, behind a small table, sat a good-looking if steroidally burly doorman in a white shirt, red bow tie and black jeans.

"You ladies…" He seemed to have been about to say one thing, in his pleasant baritone, then-perhaps noting Sara's silver flight-case field kit-finished by saying something else. "…are with the cops?"

Catherine said, "Crime scene investigators."

He nodded, gesturing toward the club, as if there were anywhere else to go.

Catherine opened the inner door and the blare of amplified rock almost knocked her back into the entry way. The music hadn't been this loud back in her day-or at least she didn't remember it that way. Stepping inside, the two women let the door swing shut behind them.

The stage was where it had always been, still about the size of Wayne Newton's yacht, filling the center of the room, a brass pole anchoring either end. No dancers were on stage at the moment, though the lights continued to blink to the beat of the music. A few customers dotted the chairs near the stage and most of the girls huddled in a faraway corner with two uniformed officers. In the corner to the left an elevated DJ booth oversaw the room like a prison tower, the sentry a scrawny guy in headphones, a scruffy beard, short blond hair and a fluorescent DREAM DOLLS T-shirt. His head moved to the music like a head-bobbing toy. He seemed oblivious to the fact that another employee was dead and the stage was empty.

Detective Erin Conroy stood at the long bar at the right, a notepad in hand, talking to someone Catherine couldn't see.

Still moving slowly, Catherine and Sara made their way to the bar and Conroy looked up, her green eyes tight, whether from the situation or the smoke, who could say? On the other side of the bar stood a short, bald, fat man, the sleeves of his white shirt rolled up, the top three buttons left open to reveal the sort of gold chains it takes hours to win at a carnival.

Catherine had to yell to be heard. "Hey, Ty!" She jerked a thumb toward the DJ, then slashed her throat with a finger.

His mouth dropped open, as he recognized her, but he obeyed. Tyler Kapelos looked over at the DJ's corner and yelled. "Worm!"

The DJ glanced up-the club owner, too, dragged a finger across his throat, the DJ nodded and the sound system went quiet, though Catherine figured she'd be hearing the echo for hours. Minus the blare of music, the club's essential seediness seemed to assert itself.

"Cath," Kapelos said, a smile spreading like a rash over his ample face. "Jeez, it's good to see you. What's it been…ten, fifteen years? I was starting to think you didn't love me no more. I heard you were with the cops, but still…never expected to see you in my place. You know me, I run a clean shop-no drugs, no hooking."

"I'm not a cop, Ty-I'm a scientist."

His dark eyes danced; he was in a good mood, considering. "You did make good!"

Sara-apparently feeling left out-said, "Crime scene investigators-my name is Sidle."

Kapelos acknowledged Sara with a nod, then turned his sweaty grinning countenance back on Catherine. "I just knew you'd make something of yourself." He gestured with a wag of his head to the squalid world around them. "You were always too good for this place."

"Okay," Catherine said, all business, "we're officially all caught up-now, what happened here?"

Kapelos began to speak, but Detective Conroy stepped in, glancing occasionally at her notepad. "We have a dead dancer in the back, in one of the private rooms. Goes by 'Jenna Patrick'-don't know if that's her real name or not. Late twenties, strangled-apparently by a john."

"Excuse me," Kapelos said, mildly indignant, "but they're not 'johns.' This is not the Mustang Ranch, y'know. They're customers. Patrons."

"Speaking of which," Catherine said to Conroy, "if you don't mind a suggestion-we could use a couple more detectives to question those customers. We can't release them without preliminary statements, at least."

But Conroy was ahead of her. "I have a call in. O'Riley and Vega are on the way…. Crime scene?"

The detective led the way, Catherine and Sara falling in line behind her as they moved to the back. With the music off and the echo subsiding, the customers and dancers corralled out there were talking too loud, yelling to be heard over music that had gone away.

As the trio of female investigators edged into the cramped hallway in back, Catherine noticed a small video camera overhead. She paused and pointed it out to Sara, who had seen it, too.

"We'll get the tapes before we go," Sara said.

The hallway contained six doors, three on each side, all standing open; this area was not part of the building's original design, and had not been here during Catherine's tenure-strictly contrived out of sheetrock, cheap trim and black paint, to accomplish a specific purpose.

Looking through the first door on the left, Catherine saw a room the size of a good-sized closet with a metal frame chair facing the door. The walls back here were black, too, and the carpeting looked like some cheap junk maybe picked up at a yard sale. Each cubicle had a mounted speaker to feed in the DJ's tunes.

"Private dance rooms," Conroy said. "Lap dances, they call 'em."

Table dances-where a dancer, between sets, would work the room, squeezing dollars out of patrons for up-close-and-slightly-more-personal glimpses at a girl-were as far as things had ever gone, in Catherine's day. Nothing to compare with the likes of "lap" dances and the stuff that went on in these private rooms, on the current scene.

"There are doors on the rooms," Conroy pointed out, "but no locks."

"If a customer gets out of line," Sara said, thinking it through aloud, "a bouncer can respond to a shout or a scream, and put a stop to it."

"In theory," Catherine said. "But that doesn't seem to have helped, here…."

Peeking over Sara's shoulder, Catherine got her first look at the body. Nude except for a lavender thong, Jenna Patrick lay in a fetal position, her long blonde hair splayed away from her face and bare back, something thin and black tight around her throat. Her head faced left, one sightless brown orb staring at the place where the wall and floor met. Full dark lips were frozen in a parody of a kiss and a tiny mole punctuated the corner of her mouth. She had full, heavy breasts and the strong, muscular legs of a dancer. She wore black patent-leather spike heels that would have been a bitch to walk, let alone dance, in.

"That looks like an electrical tie," Catherine said.

"Looks like it," Conroy said.

The women remained in the hallway, huddled around the doorway, maneuvering around each other for a better view.

Sara said, "Cut off the carotids-she was out in seconds…and dead in under a minute."

Catherine said to Conroy, "How many men was she in here with tonight?"

The detective shook her head, ponytail swinging. "Kapelos said they never settled up till the end of the night-he and the dancers split the take, back here…twenty-five dollars a dance."

"Plus tips," Catherine said, "which the girls wouldn't share, even if they were supposed to."

Conroy went on: "Jenna came in at five and was scheduled until twelve-only a couple of bathroom, cigarette breaks. No lunch break."

Catherine nodded; she knew the drill.

"That normal?" Sara asked, wincing.

"Yeah," Catherine said. "Most of the girls don't eat much anyway, gotta stay in shape. If they want a meal, they brown-bag it in the dressing room…. Jenna here would've worked straight through till midnight, getting out before the crowd got too out of hand…. Those last hours of the night are the worst."

Sara was doing a lousy job of hiding how fascinated she was, hearing Catherine's inside scoop on the skin business.

"Or," Catherine went on, "if there were some high-rollers and she thought she could make some real bucks, maybe she'd stick around another hour or so. That's pretty typical."

Sara asked, "When did you quit doing this…yesterday?"

Conroy piped in: "Am I catching the drift of this, correctly? You used to dance for Kapelos? Here?"

"About a hundred years ago, I did. Got my degree, and got out-any other questions?"

"No," Conroy said. "None. Glad to have your, uh, insights."

The two CSIs unpacked their tools in the tiny hallway and went to work. First, Catherine used an electrostatic print lifter to get footprints off the floor of the room, and then the hallway. She'd have to take shoe prints from the cops, Sara and herself, to eliminate them, but she still had hope of getting something. They photographed everything, dusted the chair and the door knobs for prints; then Catherine bent close to the victim's neck for a better look at the weapon that had taken Jenna Patrick's life.

"About three-eighths of an inch in diameter," Catherine reported. "Standard black electrical tie, available in every hardware store in the free world."

Picking a spot that looked clean, she used a small pair of wire cutters to snip the tie, which she then bagged. It wasn't very wide, but even if they snagged a partial print, that'd be useful.

Over the course of the next two hours, they lifted hairs, samples of stains, fibers, dirt, anything that might help them identify who had killed Jenna Patrick in that room. Using the RUVIS-a sort of pistol-gripped telephoto lens-they turned up occasional white splotches on the carpet, indicating probable semen spills from happy customers.

"Greg's going to love us," Sara said sarcastically, referring to their resident lab rat, Greg Sanders, whose job it would be to wade nose deep in the DNA cesspool they uncovered tonight.

"This cubicle could be a career for him," Catherine said with a smile. "But oddly…there's not as much as I thought there would be. Place like this should be wall-to-wall DNA."

Sara nodded, shrugged. "Yeah. What's up, y'suppose?"

Catherine thought Sara's question over for a few seconds, then said, "I'll be back."

Walking across the club-the lights on now, exposing Dream Dolls as the dingy nightmare it was-she saw that the place had emptied out except for cops and employees. She nodded to Detectives O'Riley and Vega, who were interviewing a waitress and the red-bow-tied bouncer. The dancers were in the dressing room in back where Conroy would be questioning them; the DJ in his corner was covering his equipment under tarps. Catherine moved to the bar, behind which Tyler Kapelos moped with a cup of coffee.

"How long am I gonna be closed down, Cath?" he asked as he poured her a cup, too.

"You can probably reopen tomorrow if you want. We'll be done soon."

"That's a relief, anyway." He nodded and sipped from his cup.

"Pretty ugly in there."

"Shame. She was a nice kid."

Catherine knew that whichever one of his dancers had died, Kapelos would likely have said the same thing.

"But, y'know, funny thing," she said casually, "it's not as bad as it could have been." She sipped her coffee, hot, bitter, but better than the break room swill. "You got a cleaning woman coming in daily or something?"

He smiled a little, shrugged. "Spent some money, fixed stuff up, some. How d'you like the new sign?"

"Class," she said, only half-sarcastic. "What did you do in the back? And when?"

"Fresh paint, new carpet." He rubbed a palm over his forehead, then back over his balding scalp, distributing the sweat. "Maybe a month ago, two, no more'n that."

"I should thank you. You're making our job a little easier."

"Yeah? How so?"

Now she shrugged. "Normally, a place like this-we'd be sifting through DNA until we all retired."

A defensive frown formed on his Greek Lou Grant face. "I told ya, Cath, this is no hooker haven. With these lap dances, guy makes a mess, it's in his pants."

"Even so-there'd be some of that on the floor, and hairs and sweat and…well, the general residue that follows a good time being had by all."

"That wicked sense of humor." His smile was feeble but sincere. "Almost wish you was still here, kid."

"That makes one of us, Ty."

"Seriously. You still got the looks, and Lord knows you got style."

Interrogation was Conroy's job, but the detective was busy, and Catherine knew her familiarity with Kapelos might make him more open with her. "Any idea who would do this to her, Ty?"

He sucked in a breath. "Probably that son of a bitch Ray Lipton…. I guess I should a thought to tell that female detective about that prick. Nice looking woman, that detective." He glanced back toward the hallway. "And you know that kid you come in with, what's her name? Siddon?"

"Sidle."

"She could make a few bucks here, too. What's the PD policy on a little innocent moonlighting?"

Catherine ignored that. "Who is this Ray Lipton?"

"Jenna's boyfriend. He hated her workin' here." He shrugged. "Old story."

Very old story, Catherine knew. Half the guys dating dancers hated what their women did for a living; the other half only dated the women because they danced. Sometimes the first group had started out in the second. "Ray and Jenna, they fight?"

Kapelos snorted a laugh. "Cats and dogs. It got so bad I had to get a damn restraining order against the guy."

Catherine frowned. "Did he hit her?"

"Well…not exactly-he would kinda man-handle her, sometimes. Anyway, he kept coming in here, making scenes, causin' trouble. Hell, Lipton practically choked one of my regulars here, once."

The image of the strangled woman leapt into Catherine's mind. "You call the police on him?"

"Naw. You remember how it is, Cath-like I said, the guy Lipton got into it with, he was a regular. Didn't want no trouble, either. After that, I got the restraining order to keep Lipton out."

"Could we talk to this regular?"

Kapelos found a glass to dry with a dirty towel and considered that. "You ain't gonna make no trouble for him, Cath, right? I mean, he's a right guy."

In other words, married.

"No trouble, Ty," Catherine said. "The detectives'll just want to ask a couple questions."

Kapelos shrugged again and said, "Guy's name is Marty Fleming."

"Know where we can find him?"

The bar owner thought about that and dried two more glasses. "He ain't been in for a while. Last I heard, he was dealing over at Circus Circus."

"When did this run-in with Jenna's boyfriend happen?"

"Oh, three…maybe four months ago."

She patted the man's hand, where it rested on the counter. "Thanks, Ty. By the way, restraining order or not-you didn't happen to see Lipton in here tonight?"

Kapelos shook his head. "Nope; but I was in the back, in the office, most of the time. Ask the girls, or maybe Worm."

"The DJ?"

"Yeah. He knows Lipton. Anyway, I've seen 'em sit and chew the fat, before."

"Thanks for the coffee," Catherine said, and had a final sip.

The CSI was starting away when Kapelos said, "She was a nice girl, Cath-like you. Might a got out a the business one day…. Do me a favor?"

"Try to."

"Catch the son of a bitch?"

She grinned at him. "That's why they pay me the medium-sized bucks."

Catherine crossed the room to the opposite corner where the DJ was just pulling on his jacket. "You speak to a detective yet?"

He shook his head. Worm was maybe twenty-five, his black satin jacket bearing a Gibson guitar logo on the left breast. He wore black jeans, Reeboks, and a black T-shirt with a Music Go Round logo stenciled across the front. "That lady cop, she told me to wait around for her."

Catherine nodded. "Detective Conroy. Shouldn't be long. As soon as she's done in the dressing room, she'll be out here."

"It's all right," he said, with a good-natured shrug. "I've got nothin' better to do anyway. Still on the clock."

"So they call you Worm?"

He flashed an easy smile. "Name's Chris Ermey. Why they call me Worm's a long story-let's just say it involves a tequila bottle."

"I'll take your word for it," Catherine said, with a little smile. "Ty mentioned you know a guy named Ray Lipton."

"Yeah, sure, I know Ray."

"See him in here tonight?"

Worm thought about that for a long moment. "I might have."

Catherine cocked an eyebrow. "Might have?"

"Gets pretty smoky in here, but I thought I saw him, across the room-see, Ray usually wears that one jacket of his."

She nodded, letting him tell it in his own way, his own time.

"It's kinda like a letter jacket, 'cept it's denim with, like, tan cotton sleeves. Has the name of his company-Lipton Construction? On the back."

"And you saw him tonight."

"I saw a jacket like that, across the bar tonight-near the private dancer rooms? Guy had a cap on and dark glasses, coulda been Ray-only I think he had a beard."

"Does Ray have a beard?"

"When I first met him he did. Then he didn't. And I haven't seen him for a while, so he coulda grown it back. Hell, come to think of it, it probably was Ray. He hated Jenna working here, y'know."

"Thanks, Mr. Ermey," Catherine said.

"Am I done now?"

"No-I was just getting a little background. The detective will be with you soon, and go over all of this again."

The DJ nodded, said, "Fine with me, still on the clock," plopped on a chair, fished a pack of cigarettes out of somewhere and lit up.

Catherine went back down the hall, where she found Sara packing up the last of their gear. Conroy, moving briskly, came down the hall from the dressing room end.

"Get anything?" Catherine asked.

"Her boyfriend seems prime." She glanced at her notepad. "One Ray Lipton-lot of the girls mentioned him. Said he had an attitude about Jenna dancing here."

"Yeah, I heard that story too," Catherine said, and quickly filled the detective in on what Ty had told her.

"Doin' my job again, Catherine?" Conroy asked, kidding.

"I figured Ty might open up to me," Catherine said, lifting her shoulders and putting them down again. "For old time's sake."

"Well, evidently the Patrick woman lived with another dancer, a…" Conroy checked her notes.

"…Tera Jameson. They say Jameson used to work here, too, but took a job at another club, Showgirl World, about three months ago."

"Movin' on up," Catherine said.

"I'm going to talk to the DJ," Conroy said, "then follow up with Kapelos-half an hour, I'll be done here."

"We're wrapping up now," Sara said.

"If I can find Ray Lipton tonight," Conroy said, moving off, "I'll be bringing him in for questioning-you two want a piece?"

Sara and Catherine traded looks, then both gave Conroy nods.

Catherine said, "Let us know when you get back to HQ. In the meantime, we'll run our findings over to the lab and get the DNA tests started."

The two CSIs had the SUV loaded up when Sara remembered the videotapes; Catherine went back inside to talk to Ty Kapelos one last time.

"Ty," Catherine said, "we're going to need tonight's security tapes."

Kapelos was seated on a bar stool now, on the customer side of the counter; he was smoking the stubby remains of a foul cigar. "No problem, Cath. Got 'em in back."

Five minutes later he handed her a grocery bag brimming with videotapes.

Her eyebrows rose. "These are all from tonight?"

"Yeah, sure," Ty said, as he swept his hand around the bar, a king gesturing to his kingdom. "Eight cameras-can't be too careful, in this business. One over the door, one on each corner of the stage, two behind the bar, and that one at the end of the hallway. Seems like every other asshole who walks in the place is lookin' to sue me over some goddamn thing or another. Tapes don't lie."

"Thanks, Ty," Catherine said, arms filled with the bag, the heft of it reassuring. "We'll get these back to you."

"Keep 'em till ten years from Christmas," he said, "if it'll help get that son of a bitch."

Catherine glanced around, to make sure no one was looking, and gave the bar owner a kiss on the stubbly cheek.

Then-once again-she was out of there.

4

ARTHUR AND MILLIE BLAIR LIVED IN AN ANONYMOUS, cookie-cutter white-frame two-story with a well-tended barely sloping lawn on a quiet street in a fairly well-to-do neighborhood not far from the UNLV campus, where Mr. Blair worked. The effect of the Lynn Pierce disappearance on the Blairs was at once apparent, when Brass and Grissom rolled up in the unmarked car: every light in the house was on, lighting the grounds like a prison yard.

To Brass, the Blairs seemed like nice people, salt-of-the-earth church-goers who kept to themselves mostly, worked hard, saved money, raised their only son the best way they knew how. Then, one day, their lives had changed forever-just because of who they were acquainted with.

Happened every day. Somebody had to live next door to JonBenet and her parents; someone had to take the apartment next to Jeffrey Dahmer; John Wayne Gacy had next door neighbors on his quiet street; O.J.'s wife Nicole had girl friends close to her.

Lynn Pierce was Millie's friend, Arthur's too, and had trusted them with the tape that might now be the only link to what Brass still hoped was just a missing persons case, and not a murder. Even though the disappearance was in no way the fault of this nice couple, Brass could see the guilt there on their faces.

He could tell they felt they should know where she'd gone, even though they couldn't possibly have that information. Like most people caught up in a tragedy, the Blairs battled the feeling that somehow, some way, they should have done something, anything, to prevent this terrible situation…and they hadn't.

Yes, they could have come to the authorities with the tape right after Lynn brought it to them; but the Pierce woman had asked them to hold onto it for her. They couldn't have realized she might have anticipated her own murder, and was leaving a smoking gun behind, to identify her killer.

Only right now Brass did not have a murder-just a missing person. Nonetheless, he had brought Gil Grissom along, since at present the criminalist and his people were the only ones really, truly looking for Lynn Pierce.

The couple sat on their tasteful beige couch across from Brass and Grissom. Mr. Blair was in the white shirt, striped tie and gray slacks he'd probably worn to work that day. Nervously, the man pushed his dark-rimmed glasses back up his nose, so thick-lensed they exaggerated his eyes-to comic effect in other circumstances. Next to him, his wife Millie had on black slacks and a black-and-white striped silk blouse-dignified attire, vaguely suggesting mourning. She kept her arms crossed in front of her, clutched to herself, as if they could somehow keep out the problems that now faced them.

Grissom, like a priest in black but without the collar, perched on the edge of a tan La-Z-Boy, as if afraid to sit lest the thing might swallow him whole. Grissom, it seemed to Brass, seemed uncomfortable with comfort. On the other hand, Grissom surely knew as well as Brass that this was not going to be a pleasant interview.

After clearing his throat, Brass asked, "So, Mrs. Blair, you don't believe that Mrs. Pierce would abandon her husband and daughter?"

"No, I don't." She looked at him curiously. "Do you?"

Brass smiled meaninglessly. "It's not important what I believe, ma'am. What's important is that we find Mrs. Pierce."

Mrs. Blair unfolded herself a little, revealed the tissue in her right hand, and dabbed at her eyes. "Lynn would never run off like that, and not tell anyone where she's going. That's just not her. Not at all."

"Help me get to know her, then."

"She's…" Mrs. Blair searched for the word.

"…sounds corny but…she's sweet." The woman glanced toward her husband, who took her hand in his. "We met a year or so ago, when she joined our church…then our women's Bible study group."

"You didn't know the Pierces before that?"

"No." She smiled-it was half melancholy, half nervous. "I think Lynn had a change of heart, a change of…spirit…direction."

"I see," Brass said, not seeing at all. Grissom was looking at the woman as if she were something on a lab slide.

"Before she met the Lord, Lynn had a different set of values, a different social circle…but since she joined our group, she and I became good friends-best friends."

"Would you say Lynn is reliable? Could she ever be…flighty?"

Mrs. Blair smiled at the absurdity of the thought. "Oh, Detective Brass, you can always count on Lynn. If she says she's going to do something, she does it."

"I see."

"That's why I was so surprised last night when she phoned to tell me she was on her way over-right over-and then never showed up."

"Tell us about that phone call," Brass said. "How did she sound?"

She glanced at her husband; they were holding hands like sweethearts. "I feel so bad about that…"

"Darling," Mr. Blair said, "it's all right."

His wife went on: "I've thought and thought about it since last night. I knew at the time she was upset, but I should have heard it then-she sounded distraught. Even terrified, but trying to…you know…hide it a little."

"You're sure about this?" Brass asked.

She shook her head, sighed. "I'm not sure about anything, anymore. I've replayed it so many times in my mind, I don't know if she really sounded distraught or if I'm putting my own feelings into it…. I won't lie to you, Detective Brass, I have…nervous problems. Sometimes I take medication."

Brass glanced at Grissom, but the criminalist's eyes were fixed upon the woman. The detective said, "Is that right?"

"Yes-Prozac."

Her husband added, "A small dosage."

"Well," she said. "Prozac or no Prozac…I think Lynn was distraught. Really and truly."

"Any idea what was troubling her?"

With a tiny edge of impatience, Arthur Blair said, "Maybe it was her husband threatening to cut her up in little pieces."

Brass nodded. "I don't mean to downplay the tape. But remember, some husbands and wives make those kind of idle threats all the time-"

"We don't," Mr. Blair said.

Brass continued: "And, at any rate, that was an argument from the day before. Did you get a sense of what specifically was troubling her the afternoon she called?"

Glumly, Mrs. Blair shook her head. "No. She didn't tell me what it was, exactly…and I'd have no way of guessing."

"Was she upset with her husband? I mean, this is a woman who went to the trouble of capturing her husband's verbal abuse on tape, after all."

"That was my assumption, but when I asked her, directly, if it was another argument with Owen, she kind of…dodged the issue."

Mr. Blair sat forward. "It must have been about Owen. Lynn calls Millie all the time when Owen becomes…uh…overbearing."

"That's happened a lot?"

"I don't know if it's fair to say 'a lot,'" Mrs. Blair said, thoughtfully. "She does call other times, though."

"Has she ever called upset about something other than her husband's abusive behavior?"

"Lori," Mr. Blair blurted, before his wife could answer. "Their daughter-she aggravates Lynn almost as much as Owen."

"That's true," Mrs. Blair admitted, shrugging one shoulder, raising one eyebrow. "Lori gave Lynn fits…although-and I don't like to brag-they seem to've had a lot less trouble with her, since Lori started dating our Gary."

Brass smiled. "Then Gary's a positive influence on the Pierce girl?"

Mr. Blair smiled and nodded. "He's a good boy-follows the Lord's teachings and studies hard in school."

Brass wondered what planet this was, but said, "That's great. You're very lucky."

"No question," Mr. Blair said. "Gary's helped settle Lori down. She was a little…wild, before."

"Wild?" asked Brass. "How so?"

Mr. Blair was searching for the words, so Mrs. Blair answered for him: "Impetuous, I would say. She made some mistakes with boys…drugs. It's an evil world out there, Detective Brass."

"I've noticed."

Mrs. Blair went on, in a pleased rush: "But between Gary's good influence, and Lynn's good parenting, they got her straightened out."

"Despite her father," Mr. Blair grumbled.

"Anyway," Mrs. Blair said, "I would say the girl's doing fine now. Better grades, active in church, doesn't try to dress like those…slatternly singers that are so popular now-like Lori used to."

"Even so," Brass said, "it would seem Lynn's had more than her share of stress in her life-would you agree?"

The Blairs exchanged searching looks.

Then, at the same time, Mr. Blair said, "Yes," as Mrs. Blair said, "No."

The two laughed in awkward embarrassment, and Brass waited for them to sort it out themselves, each saying, "You first," and "No, you." Finally, Mrs. Blair said, "Lynn has stress, but I'm not sure it's any more than anyone else, you know, in these troubled times."

Brass sat forward. "You mean to say, you don't consider her problems with her daughter, and her abusive husband, exceptional?"

Mrs. Blair shrugged with her eyebrows. "Well, I think the trouble with Lori, at least, is behind them."

"But what about with Owen?"

Mrs. Blair turned to her husband. Arthur Blair's lips peeled back and his eyes narrowed. The calm Christian removed his mask to reveal an angry human beneath. "Owen Pierce is a worthless, Godless son of a…" Blair's voice trailed off and his knuckles turned white on the arm of the sofa as he struggled to control his emotions. His wife slipped her arm around his shoulder, comfortingly.

Captain Jim Brass had spent enough time with the Blairs, and people like them, to know that for Arthur Blair to come as close as he had to calling that son of a bitch Pierce a son of a bitch indicated an unfathomable depth of anger toward Owen Pierce.

"I take it you listened to the tape?" Blair asked, his voice still edged with an unChristian viciousness.

"Yes, sir." Brass nodded toward Grissom. "We did."

Blair sighed heavily. "Then you know what that monster must be capable of, to threaten his wife with that." He shifted on the couch, sitting forward. "Understand something, Detective-I wouldn't have allowed Gary to get involved with Lori if I didn't think that Lynn was going to…divest herself of Owen, and soon."

Millie Blair patted her husband's arm in an effort to calm him.

"Normally," Mrs. Blair said, "our faith discourages divorce. But Pastor Dan says, when a spouse has fallen into satanic ways, a person must protect one's self, and children."

Brass winced. "You don't mean…literally…that Owen Pierce practiced satanism?"

"Of course not," Mr. Blair said, sitting back, calmer. "But he's a…devil…a demon himself. Capable of the worst atrocities…."

For the first time, Grissom spoke. "So, then, Mr. Blair-I take it you think Owen Pierce has made good on his threat to cut her into 'little pieces'?"

Arthur Blair's eyes became huge behind the lenses and his wife's curled-fingered hand went to her mouth, where she bit a knuckle. Grissom might have slapped them, the way his words registered.

"That is what you think, isn't it?" he pressed. "Isn't that why you brought the tape to us?"

Mrs. Blair stared at her lap and covered her face with one hand and began to cry, quietly. Mr. Blair, slipping an arm around his wife's shoulders, gave a tired nod.

Yes, Brass thought, Gil really has a way with people.

Grissom pressed on. "Do you think there are any circumstances at all under which Lynn might have just…left?"

Trembling with tears, Mrs. Blair shook her head.

Calmly, Grissom said, "Mr. Pierce said his wife had a significant amount of money in her own name and could have used it to disappear."

"She had money," Mrs. Blair conceded, the tears subsiding, "but it was all tied up in investments…stocks, bonds, CDs."

Mr. Blair concurred: "None of it was liquid enough for her to get to easily."

Nodding, Mrs. Blair went on. "She complained about that. It was something Owen talked her into. Even though she had her own money, she had little cash. I don't think I ever saw her with more than, say, fifty dollars in her purse. Even though the money was hers, Owen seemed to keep her on a tight leash."

The interview continued for a few minutes, but neither Brass nor Grissom found any new ground to cover. The Blairs had been unfailingly cooperative, but they were weary, and the detective and the criminalist knew nothing more was to be learned here, at least not right now.

On the way back, Grissom rode up front with Brass.

"Do you think Owen Pierce is the devil?" Brass said to the CSI, half-kidding.

"No," Grissom said, seeming distant even for him. "But he's a hell of a suspect."

At headquarters, back from the strip club, Catherine sat down in the layout room, with a notepad and pen, the Dream Doll tapes and a VCR. Meanwhile, Sara took their findings to Greg Sanders so he could begin testing.

The tapes weren't labeled, so each one was a new adventure. The first one had been from the back right corner of the stage, the camera farthest from the door, the bar, and far to the left of the hallway. Only the chairs around the stage on the backside were visible from this angle.

No one fitting the description of Ray Lipton came into view. Catherine flew through the tape on fast forward, knowing she would view the tape more carefully later. For now, she just wanted to see what Worm, the cheerful DJ, had seen. Ejecting that tape, she moved on to the next one. This camera hung behind the left side of the bar, nearer the front door.

Halfway through the tape, Catherine was about to give up and move on, when she glimpsed, on the fuzzy black-and-white picture, a two-tone jacket. Stopping, she rewound the tape until the jacket came into view, and went in reverse, then pushed PLAY.

The guy came into view wearing the denim and tan jacket, a ball cap pulled low, dark glasses and jeans. He walked through the shot and out the other side. She rewound it, ran it again. Something on the guy's face…a beard? Worm had said Lipton might have grown his beard back; hard to tell with this tape. Popping the cassette out, Catherine went to the next, then the next-one after another, until she finally got through them all.

This Lipton guy, it seemed, had gone out of his way to avoid the camera. He hadn't walked over to the bar, for a drink; and the camera above the door had gotten barely a glimpse of him…none of the stage cameras caught more than a snatch of him. Of course, Catherine told herself, with that restraining order, Lipton wasn't supposed to be in there anyway, so maybe he was just being careful.

Only the camera at the head of the hallway got a decent shot of him, and that was of his back as he led busty, leggy Jenna through the door. Even with the poor quality of the tape, Catherine was able to make out the words Lipton Construction on the back of the jacket, as the couple disappeared out of frame.

Catherine sped the tape forward, until the figure in the jacket…bearded, all right…returned for a quick exit-alone.

"Conroy's back."

Catherine spun to see Sara standing in the doorway.

Sara ambled over to the monitor. "Anything good on?"

Catherine nodded. "Looks like Lipton was there, all right-got a good shot of his jacket going down the hallway with Jenna Patrick."

"Time on those tapes?"

"Yeah…" Catherine pointed to her notes. "Time jibes. And Lipton, or anyway a guy in a Lipton Construction jacket, comes back out of the lap-dance cubicle…alone."

"Interesting," Sara said. "But why watch TV, when a live performance is available?…Come on. Conroy's got the star of your show in interrogation."

They walked quickly down several connecting hallways and ducked into the observation room next to interrogation. Through the two-way mirror, they could see Ray Lipton, directly across from them-sitting alone, eyes cast down, the streaks of tears drying on his cheeks.

"He must've loved her," Sara said. "Crying for her."

"Love's the motive of choice," Catherine said, "of many a murderer."

Lipton's hands were balled into fists and lay on the table like objects, forgotten ones at that. The denim jacket with the tan sleeves hung over the back of the chair. He was thinner and shorter than Catherine would have expected from someone in construction, with hazel eyes, a long, narrow nose and, to her surprise, no beard.

Could she have been mistaken about what she'd seen on the video? He might have shaved, but…no, his cheeks were shadowed blue with stubble, indicating Lipton hadn't shaved for many hours.

A moment later, Detective Erin Conroy entered the interrogation room, a Styrofoam cup of water in one hand, notepad in the other. She placed the cup in front of Lipton, said, "There you go," and sat at the end of the table, giving her observers a view of both of them. Lipton picked up the cup, sipped from it, returned it to the table, then leaned his elbows on the wood, running his hands through his longish brown hair.

"I can't believe she's dead," he said, his voice quiet and raspy, a rusty tool long out of use.

Catherine looked at Sara as if to say, "What's he trying to pull?"

Lipton looked across at Conroy, his expression pitiful. "We were going to be married, you know."

"Again, Mr. Lipton, I'm sorry for your loss," Conroy said. "But there are some things we need to talk about."

Lipton looked down, shaking his head, tears again trailing slowly down his cheeks. "Can't it…can't it wait?"

"No. The first hours of a murder investigation are vital. I'm sure you understand that."

"Murder…a gentle soul like Jenna…murdered…."

"For Jenna being a 'gentle soul,' Mr. Lipton," Conroy said, no inflection in her voice, "you two seemed to fight a great deal…especially for a couple about to be married."

"But…we didn't fight," he sputtered. Then his eyes moved in thought. "Well…no more than anybody else. All couples fight."

Conroy shook her head. "All couples don't include a partner with a restraining order on them…like the one the court issued on you, to keep you away from where Jenna worked-right?"

"Oh Christ," Lipton said, all the air rushing out of him. Catherine and Sara watched as, before their eyes, sorrow turned to despair. "You…you think I killed her!"

"I didn't say that, Mr. Lipton."

"Do I…need a lawyer?"

Conroy ducked that. "No accusations have been made. I simply asked if there isn't an in-force restraining order against you."

"You must know there is," he said, sullenly. Now his voice grew agitated: "I loved Jenna, but I hated her job-everybody knew that. But that doesn't mean I killed her. Jesus, she was going to quit! We were going to be married."

"Where did you meet Jenna?"

"At…Dream Dolls."

"You were a customer."

"At first, but…." His look was more pleading than angry now.

"How do you explain being in Dream Dolls tonight?" Conroy asked. "Considering the restraining order."

Now he sat up, alert suddenly. "Dream Dolls? I wasn't in Dream Dolls! You think I want to go to jail?"

Conroy didn't answer that.

"Lady, I was home all night."

"That's not what everyone at the club says."

"What do you mean by 'everyone'? Who says I was there?"

"Just the owner, the girls, and the DJ."

"What the hell…" Lipton's voice was incredulous; he shook his head, desperately. "Well, they're mistaken. They're wrong! Or maybe lying!"

"All of them? Wrong? Or lying?"

"That fucking Kapelos, he hates me. He's the one took out the restraining order! He'd say anything. Where was he when Jenna was…was…"

He couldn't seem to say it.

Conroy said, "And the rest of them? Lying? Wrong?"

He sighed, shrugged. "I don't know what else to say-I was home all night. Honest to God. I swear."

"Anybody to verify that?"

"I live alone, except…when Jenna stays over."

And he began to cry. To sob, burying his face in his hands.

Catherine left the observation room, circled to the other door, and strode in. Lipton jumped in his seat, looking up, though Conroy didn't even turn.

"Who…who are you?" Lipton asked, face a wet smear, eyelashes pearled.

"Crime scene investigator, Mr. Lipton. Catherine Willows." She came around and sat opposite him. "Would you like to know how I've been spending the night?"

He swallowed thickly, shrugging as if nothing could rock him now-he'd been through it all. But he hadn't.

Catherine said, "I've been watching videotape of you at Dream Dolls-videotape captured on security cameras…tonight."

His eyes widened, lashes glistening. "What? But that's…that's just not possible." His voice had a tremor, as if he was about to break down, utterly.

Still Catherine pressed, gesturing to his jacket. "I saw Jenna going into one of the back rooms, with a man about your size, wearing your jacket."

"My jacket?"

"The jacket had your Lipton Construction logo on the back. Denim with tan sleeves-just like that one."

Something close to relief softened his face. "Oh, well shit. I had those made up for all my guys, and even a few of our better customers."

Conroy, poised to write in her notepad, asked, "How many jackets like this exist?"

Another shrug. "Twenty-five…maybe thirty."

"Could you be more exact?"

"Not off the top of my head. Probably my secretary could. At work."

A bad feeling in the pit of her stomach started to talk to Catherine, and she wished those security cams had caught a better face shot of the person wearing the jacket in the bar. Was it Lipton or not?

Catherine asked, "Have you ever worn a beard, Mr. Lipton?"

"What? Yeah…yes."

"Recently?"

"No. That was last year."

"You didn't shave off your beard, this evening."

"No! Hell no."

Catherine studied the man. Then she said, "I'll need your jacket, Mr. Lipton."

"Sure. But I'm tellin' you-I wasn't there."

"Jenna was strangled with an electrical tie."

Lipton flinched, then shook his head. He could obviously see where this was going.

She said, "And when I search your truck, I'm going to find electrical ties in the back, aren't I?"

"You…you could search a lot of trucks and find that."

Catherine could tell Conroy was starting to have her doubts about the suspect, too, particularly when the detective tried another tack.

"While you were home alone tonight, Mr. Lipton, did you call anybody?" Conroy asked. "Anybody call you?"

He thought for a moment, then shook his head.

"D'you order pizza or something?"

This required no thought: "No."

"What did you do this evening?"

Lipton lifted his hands, palms up, and shrugged. "I watched TV-that's it."

"What did you watch?"

"Was it…a football game?"

Conroy leaned forward now. "What, you're asking me?"

"No, no, I know! Yeah, I watched a football game."

"What game, what network, what time?"

He collected his thoughts. "I didn't see the whole thing-I came in during the third quarter. Indianapolis Colts against the Kansas City Chiefs."

Conroy was writing that down.

Lipton went on: "Just as I sat down, Peterson kicks a field goal for the Chiefs…then on the kickoff, some guy I never heard of ran it back for a touchdown."

"That was the very first thing you saw?" Conroy asked.

"Yeah. Very first. Field goal. Peterson."

"We'll check that out, Mr. Lipton," Catherine said. "If you're innocent, we'll prove it. But if you're guilty…"

His eyes met hers.

"…we'll prove that too."

"I'm not worried," he said.

But he sure as hell looked it.

5

AMID PINE TREES IN A DECEPTIVELY PEACEFUL SETTING, A low-slung nondescript modern building played host to a maze of hallways connecting the conference rooms, labs, offices, locker room and lounge of the Las Vegas Police Department's criminalistics division. A sterile, institutional ambience was to be expected, but the blue-tinged fluorescent lighting and preponderance of mostly glass walls gave CSI HQ an aquarium-like feel that Nick Stokes, at times, felt he was swimming through.

In one of these hallways, Nick rounded a corner and all but bumped into Grissom, who had just returned from the interview with the Blairs.

Grissom paused, as if it took him a moment to register and recognize his colleague, who had also paused, flashing his ready smile.

The CSI supervisor did not smile, nor did he bother with a hello. "Nick, Sara's teamed with Catherine on the stripper case-I need you to take over the search of the Pierce records."

Nick shrugged. "No problem."

"It's all in Sara's office-work there…she won't mind. Look at the Pierce woman's computer, her bank accounts, ATM, calling card, the works. Find us something."

"How far has Sara gotten?"

"Start over. Fresh eye."

"Okay." Nick risked half a smirk. "I don't suppose you considered assigning me to that exotic dancer case."

Grissom's bland baby-faced countenance remained expressionless. "No. Not for a second. Warrick, either. He's on the Pierce case, too."

"You gotta admit, this doesn't sound like as much fun as interviewing nude girls."

Now, finally, Grissom smiled a little. "But you're like me, Nick-only interested in truth and justice, right?"

Then Grissom was gone, leaving Nick to wonder if that had been sarcasm…. Sometimes it was damn tough to tell, with that guy.

Nick set himself up in Sara's office-she was out in the field with Catherine, but Grissom was probably right, she wouldn't mind. Sara was that rare individualist who relished being a team player. Though his specialty was hair and fiber analysis, Nick-like all the CSIs Grissom had assembled-was versatile enough to step in and take over any other criminalist's job. And a video game buff like Nick was hardly a stranger to computers.

With a sigh and a mental farewell to his bevy of beautiful dancers, Nick Stokes buried himself in the computer records of Lynn Pierce. E-mails were still coming in, mostly junk, but one from her brother indicated she hadn't gone to visit him…unless something really clever was going on-a possibility that, however far-fetched, had to be considered.

Another e-mail, from a Sally G., whose handle was AvonLady, was even less promising. Several mass e-mailings from Lynn Pierce's church indicated a limited and specific social circle. But Nick kept digging and had been at it about an hour when Grissom stuck his head in Sara's office and announced their first real chunk of evidence.

"You coming with?" Nick asked.

"No. Take Warrick."

Less than two minutes later, Nick strode into the locker room, where Warrick sat on the bench in front of his locker, his head hanging down, a jock who just lost the big game.

"Who cleaned your clock?" Nick asked.

Warrick gave him a slow exhausted burn. "Me, myself, and all that overtime."

"Well, guess what-we just bought some more."

Looking up, alert suddenly, Warrick asked, "What gives?"

"Grissom got a call from Brass-Lynn Pierce's Toyota's turned up in long-term parking at McCarran."

Warrick was on his feet. "Yeah, I was hoping to put in a few more hours-let's go before I change my mind."

McCarran International Airport was one of the five busiest airports in the nation, and one of the most efficient. In the wee hours, dawn not yet a threat, airliners still screamed hello and good-bye, and cars made their way in and out of the parking lot.

Twenty-five minutes after leaving HQ-five minutes of which had been taken up dealing with security at the parking-lot entrance-Nick and Warrick's black Tahoe pulled to a halt behind a squad car that blocked in a white 1995 Toyota Avalon. As they climbed down from the Tahoe a uniformed officer got out of his squad and came back to meet them.

"Anybody been near here?" Warrick asked.

The uniformed man, a fair-haired, weathered pro in his forties, shook his head; his nameplate read JENKINS. "Airport security, making the rounds, recognized the car from our wants list and matched the plate, then gave us a call."

"Good catch," Warrick said.

Officer Jenkins nodded. "They've been making more frequent visits out here ever since September eleventh. Security guy stayed by the car until I got here, but he never got out of his Jeep."

"Good," Warrick said.

"You take a look?" Nick asked.

"Yeah," Jenkins said. "Walked around it once, cut it a wide swath, though-looks locked. Didn't touch shit. Didn't smell anything foul comin' from the trunk area, so I just got back in the squad and waited for you."

"Not your first time at the rodeo," Warrick said. "Thanks."

Jenkins liked that. "You fellas need me to stick around?"

"Naw," Warrick said.

Nick asked, "You call for a tow truck?"

Jenkins shook his head. "Should I have?"

"Naw, that's cool," Warrick said. "We'll get it."

"All right then," Jenkins said, and let out some air. "I'm gone."

"Thanks again," Nick called after him.

The officer waved but never turned back. He climbed into the cruiser, fired it up and rolled away-Nick's guess was the officer's shift was also long since over and the guy had likely logged more than his own share of overtime.

Warrick used his cell phone to call for a truck. The parking lot was well lighted and, at first, they didn't need their Maglites for their work, which they began by photographing the car from every angle. Then they dusted the handles, the hood and the trunk for prints.

"Wipe marks on the handles," Nick said.

Warrick smirked humorlessly. "Trunk too."

"Kinda makes you think maybe it wasn't Mrs. Pierce who parked it here."

"Don't let Grissom catch you at that."

Nick frowned. "At what?"

"Thinking."

Nick grinned, and Warrick motioned for them to go back to the Tahoe, and wait, which they did.

"You know, if you're in the trunk of a car," Nick said, "you're doing one of two things."

"Yeah? What's that?"

"You're a corpse waiting to get dumped, or you're sneakin' into a drive-in movie."

Warrick smiled a little. "They still got drive-in movies in Texas?"

"Last time I was home, they did."

It took forty-five minutes for the flatbed truck to arrive and another three or four for Warrick to stop Nick from bitching out the driver for taking so long. In under ten minutes, the driver-a civil servant in coveralls impervious to Nick's complaints-had hooked up the car and dragged it onto the bed.

"Well, that was quick," Nick admitted to the guy.

"You made my night," the driver said with no sincerity whatsoever, and disappeared into it.

Once they had the car out of the way, the pair of CSIs got out their flashlights and searched the parking space carefully, even getting down on their hands and knees-but found nothing. Satisfied they hadn't overlooked anything, they drove back to the CSI garage to take a more careful look at the car.

After putting on coveralls, they entered the bay where the Avalon sat like a museum exhibit. Fluorescent lights gave the car a bleached, almost ghostly cast. Warrick used a slim-jim to undo the lock.

"Twelve seconds," Nick said with a chuckle. "Man, you're slippin'."

"Want me to lock it back up, and give you a shot?"

Waving his hands in surrender, Nick said, "No, no, that's okay-if I showed you up, you'd lose the will to live."

"Yeah, well I'm just hangin' on as it is," Warrick harumphed, and opened the door. He dusted the driver's door handle, the armrest, the steering wheel and the gear shift. Nick did the passenger side handle, armrest, and the glove compartment. Again, they noticed that the car had been wiped.

"Somebody's hiding something," Warrick said.

"Usually are," Nick nodded, "or we wouldn't be involved-we're just going to have to look harder."

"Yeah, well I better start looking with my eyes open, then," Warrick said. He stared down at the armrest of the open driver's door. "You see that funky power-window button?"

Nick glanced down at the passenger arm rest. "Yeah, it's got that weird…lip, in the front."

"So…how do you suppose one would go about raising the window?"

Nick frowned-was this a trick question? "Well, 'one' would put his finger under the lip…and pull up."

"Which should leave the clever team of criminalists with…what?"

Nick smiled, wide. "A fingerprint on the underside…"

"Very good, class."

So Warrick printed the underside of the power-window button…and got a partial. He got another partial off the back of the gear shift lever, and Nick lifted a pretty good print off the passenger-side window button. The prints would go into the computer as soon as they finished with the rest of the vehicle. They would also need to take Owen Pierce's prints, of course, and daughter Lori's.

"You got a preference over the trunk," Nick asked, "or the interior?"

Warrick shrugged. "Whichever."

"I'll take the trunk."

"Go for it, drive-in boy," Warrick said dryly, and opened the passenger-side door. Sinking to his knees, next to the car, he shone his Maglite on the floor and started going over the carpeting, inch by inch. After his inspection he would vacuum the floor as well; but for now, he just wanted to see the car, up close and personal.

The two CSIs worked in church-like silence, each focused on his particular task. Nothing on the passenger-side floor, nothing in the glove compartment, nothing wedged into the seat. Warrick looked in the cup holders, in the console storage area, even ejected the plastic sleeve of the CD player and found nothing.

Moving around to the rear of the vehicle, Warrick stopped for a moment. "Anything?"

Nick was bent over the trunk, his face buried under the spare tire. "Nothing-you?"

"Zip squared. Somebody's cleaned this car within an inch of its life. It's like it just came off the showroom floor. It's got everything but the new car smell."

Nick beamed at him, mockingly. "I know where you can get a little spray can that'll provide that, if you want."

"I'll pass."

"So we keep lookin'?"

"Keep looking," world-weary Warrick said, and moved to the driver's side of the car.

As he went to lean in, the beam of his flashlight swept over the headrest and…something glinted.

It was there, then it was gone-like the car had winked. Warrick frowned. The Avalon had tan cloth seats…what could've glinted?

He swept the flashlight over the headrest a couple of times, but nothing showed up. The car did not wink at him. He leaned in, inspected the headrest, saw nothing. He raised the Maglite so that the beam shone straight down. Leaning in closer, he looked at the seam that ran across the top of the headrest. Then he saw it…

…gleaming up at him: a tiny piece of glass.

After photographing the mini-shard at rest, Warrick tweezered the fragment free. He carefully studied it for a moment, but its miniscule size kept its origin a secret.

After bagging his prize, Warrick went back to the seam. Moving slowly, a stitch at a time, he found first one blonde hair, then another. Both hairs, like those on the brush already in evidence, could easily belong to Lynn Pierce Then he found another hair-shorter, darker.

Bingo, he thought.

He stored all three hairs in separate baggies and went back inside the Avalon for one last look at that helpful headrest-first the side on the right, then the top, and finally down the left side, nearest the door. He shone the light at the underside of the headrest and picked up on a tiny spot on one of the stitches, about the size of a period. His experience told him the answer to a question he didn't bother to ask.

"Found it!" he yelled, but his voice remained cool.

"All right," Nick said, coming around from the back. "Found what?"

"Blood."

Nick leaned in. "Where?"

Warrick showed him.

"I think we have a crime scene," Nick said.

Warrick said, "I think we have a crime scene."

They got a photo of the blood speck, after which Warrick carefully scraped the tiny dot into an evidence bag.

Grissom strolled in and looked through the open driver's door. "Clean car."

"Too clean," Nick said.

"And yet not clean enough," Warrick said.

"Give," Grissom said.

They explained what they had found so far.

"What's next?"

"Luminol," Warrick answered, shrugging as if to say, What else?

"If there's one spot of blood in that car," Grissom said, nodding, "there's probably more."

When they sprayed the luminol on, any other blood would fluoresce. No matter how carefully the car had been cleaned, blood would glow blue-green at even one part per million.

"Before you hit that interior with luminol," Grissom said, "are you otherwise through in there? Anything else you found? Noticed?"

Nick could sense they were being sucker-punched, but nonetheless he shrugged and said, "No, that's it."

Warrick, though, said, "Why, Gris? You got something?"

Grissom leaned inside the car for a look of his own; his eyes were everywhere. "How tall was Lynn Pierce?"