RILEY AND NICK LOOKED at Grissom expectantly. Grissom, on the other side of the light table, pinched the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes.
“You okay, boss?” asked Nick.
“Fine. Just waiting for the migraine medication to kick in.”
“Hey, if you’ve got a migraine-” Nick began, but Grissom cut him off with a wave of his hand.
“No, Nick, really. Migraines are always worse if you delay too long before treatment; I think I caught this one in time.” He picked up a sheaf of papers from the light table and flipped through them. “Anyway, this can’t wait.”
“I heard about Doctor Robbins,” said Riley. “Is he going to be okay?”
“Yes. He’s still in considerable pain, but his heart rate’s stabilized. However, we can’t ignore the consequences of his being attacked.”
“What are we go i n g to do, fumigate the morgue?” asked Riley.
“The morgue isn’t the problem. This is the second insect-themed homicide within days; the planning, execution, and choice of victims suggest someone who’s more interested in the act itself than who he kills.”
Nick frowned. “Wait. You think our guy’s a serial? One whose weapon of choice has six legs?”
“Eight in the case of the spider. Sixty to sixty-two for the millipedes-depending on sex.”
Riley nodded. “Are we still looking at the entomologists as our prime suspects?”
“They would seem to be the most likely, yes. Neither Roberto Quadros nor Nathan Vanderhoff has an alibi for the Harribold murder.”
“Serial killers usually escalate,” said Nick. “Two murders in less than a week? He’s already off and running.”
“True,” said Grissom. “And both killings-while different in circumstan ce and execution-required a fair bit of preparation. Anyone who goes to that much trouble isn’t going to be satisfied with only two; it’s likely he has several more scenarios ready and awaiting implementation.”
“This guy doesn’t sound like any serial I’ve ever heard of,” said Riley. “He doesn’t seem to be getting any sexual satisfaction out of it, and the targets don’t seem to have anything in common. One he did up close and personal, the other at a distance and almost at random.”
“I don’t think the victim matters to him at all,” said Grissom. “Paul Fairwick was killed by a gunshot and had an insect planted in his corpse-similar to the way certain wasps will paralyze spiders and lay eggs in their bodies. Keenan Harribold was lured to a rendezvous by an online imposter posing as a romantic interest-not so different from the way the Photuris insect lures fireflies to their doom by duplicating the flashing light of a receptive female.”
“Pixels and text instead of pheromones and mating displays,” murmured Riley. “But with the same eventual effect.”
“Professor Vanderhoff already pointed out the similarity between one high school attacking another and anthills waging war. Even the graffiti left at the scene was reminiscent of chemical traces used by colony insects to mark property. I think our killer is mor e fascinated by the process and the resulting consequences than the immediate result.”
Nick crossed his arms. “So the riot at Plain Ridge High was what he was actually after, and killing Harribold was just a means to that end?”
“All serial killers express a desire for control, Nick-even Jack the Ripper’s letters to the press were a way for him to influence the behavior of the entire citizenry of London. Our… ‘Bug Killer’ is simply demonstrating a more advanced knowledge of sociology.”
“In that case,” said Riley, “why was Paul Fairwick targeted? What kind of effect was the killer trying to create?”
“Perhaps we should ask Fairwick’s employer,” said Grissom. “The queen…”
It was several long minutes before an officer walked out of the barn and waved an all-clear to them.
“Let’s suit up,” said Catherine.
Both of them slipped into hazmat suits with respirators-though they skipped the body armor-then drove up to the barn and got out.
“Nobody home,” said Sergeant Loyola. He kept his mask on, though, and so did they. “Nothing cooking, either.”
“That’s a relief. No traps?”
“Couple tripwires, nothing fancy. Give my guys a minute to finish up and you can go in.”
Greg hefted his CSI case in one hand. “Anything we should know?”
“Yeah,” said Loyola. “If your air conditioner ever gets sick and vanishes, I think I know where it crawled off to die.”
They saw what he meant when they en tered the barn. A double-wide trailer was parked along one wall, beneath what was left of the roof; the rest of the floor space was taken up by a rusting pyramid of metal and plastic that reached to the rafters.
“Wow,” said Greg. “He wasn’t kidding. There must be hundreds here-maybe even a thousand. It’s like a temple to climate control.”
“Climate catastrophe, more like. Freon’s one of the chemicals used to make meth; they must have cracked open every one of these units to get at the leftovers.”
“Tweakers plus a gazillion AC-cooled rooms equals appliance graveyard,” said Greg. “It’s kinda cool, in a nonenvironmental, highly illegal way.”
They entered the double-wide. Most of the meth labs Catherine had seen were filthy: garbage strewn on the floor, every available surface crammed with dirty or broken glassware, open containers of chemicals everywhere.
This place was different.
A bulging plastic garbage bag sat in one corner, tied shut. It was the only evidence of trash in the place; every surface was clean, from countertops to tables to floor. Containers of chemicals had been lined up in cupboards like exotic spices. The sink was freshly scrubbed.
“Damn,” s aid Greg. “This is the best-kept illegal drug facility I’ve ever seen.”
“Yeah. I think I’m starting to understand why Boz Melnyk stored his urine at home; someone thought it was too unhygienic to keep around.”
“So which one do you think is the clean freak?”
Catherine shrugged. “I wouldn’t apply that description to any of them. Let’s see if we can find out.”
They found a bedroom in the back, with nothing in it but a mattress on the floor. Greg pulled out his UV light and shone it over the bedding. “I’ve got definite evidence of sexual activity.”
“So someone liked to party as well as cook. If we can match DNA samples to Tyford or Molinez we can tie them to the whole operation.”
The bathroom was next. It was as clean as the rest of the place, but one particular detail caught Catherine’s eye. “Greg. Take a look at this.”
“Oh, ho. That is above and beyond,” he said.
“Not really. But it is the mark of a professional…”
Henry Stancroft was a wide, bullet-headed black man in a dark suit. He could have been mistaken for an ex-prizefighter, except for the spidery, almost delicate eyeglasses that perched halfway down his flat nose. The impassive, evaluating look he gave Grissom from behind his desk was that of a small-town sheriff staring down a rival from another county intruding on his turf.
“Yeah, no, it’s a real shame wh at happened to Paul,” he said. “You like anyone for it?”
“The investigation is ongoing,” said Grissom. “I was hoping maybe you might have some ideas.”
“Of someone who’d want to kill Paul?” He shook his head. “Honestly, that’s a tough one. Paul’s job was to grease the wheels, make sure everything ran smoothly for Her Highness. And he was real good at his job-had the gift of gab, know what I mean? Everybody liked him. Guy should have been a diplomat instead of a glorified gofer.”
“How about his employer? I understand Ms. Jordanson recently received some disturbing mail from a fan.”
Stancroft snorted. “Yeah, she gets some pretty weird stuff sent to her. You think Paul was killed by some wacko? Because he was close to her?”
“It’s a possibility. Do you still have the letters?”
“Of course. We keep a file on guys like that, just in case.” He got up, moved over to a filing cabinet against the wall, and pulled open a drawer. Stancroft’s office reminded Grissom of the lab; it had the same kind of open layout and lots of glass so the head of security could keep an eye on everything in his domain. But instead of white-coated lab technicians strolling past outside, it was burly pit bosses with earpieces and dark blue blazers.
“Here,” said Stancroft. He handed Grissom a manila folder. “Everything he sent her. You need exemplars for fingerprints, I can provide them-nobody’s touched those but me, Fairwick, and whoever sent them.”
“Thank you.”
Stancroft hesitated. “You used to work with Warrick Brown, right?”
Grissom blinked. “For a number of years, yes. Did you know him?”
“Yeah-a long time ago. We grew up in the same neighborhood. Got into some of the same trouble, even dated some of the same girls. We were never that close, but-I don’t know, I kind of kept track of him. We were sort of on parallel paths, you know? When I heard what happened-”
Stancroft broke off. Warrick Brown had died in the line of duty, shot by a rogue cop; he’d died in Grissom’s arms. “Wish I’d made more of an effort to get to know him, that’s all.”
“He was a good man.”
“Yeah. Too damn few of those around. I’m sorry.”
“So am I,” said Grissom.
A radio car found Paul Fairwick’s car, parked two blocks away from where he lived. Nick and Riley took the call.
“Driver’s-side window is smashed,” said Nick as they walked up.
“More glass in than out,” said Riley. “No blood spatter in the car, though. He wasn’t shot here.”
“No, but I’ll bet this is where he was grabbed. Smash the window for maximum shock value, then stick a gun in his face.”
Nick opened the driver’s door a nd shone a flashlight into the interior. “Keys are still in the ignition. We’re lucky somebody didn’t grab it for a joyride.”
“Whoever took him would have had to put him into another vehicle-probably in the trunk.”
Nick checked the pavement close by. “No tire marks. He didn’t lay down any rubber when he left.”
“Kidnapping someone like that, in a relatively open area, then calmly driving away? Cool customer.”
“Yeah. Ligature marks on the body indicated he was bound-so he must have driven Fairwick to another location and tied him up before killing him.”
“And adding a little surprise to his box of Cracker Jacks,” Riley murmured. “Let’s get this back to the lab-maybe it can tell us why Fairwick parked two blocks away instead of in the lot of his own building.”
Nick stood back and studied the car while Riley called for the tow vehicle. It was a different color, a different year, but the make of the car was the same as Warrick’s.
Nick had helped process that vehicle. It was the car that Warrrick had been shot in, the car that he would have died in if Grissom hadn’t been at the scene. Instead, he’d died cradled in Grissom’s arms.
They ’d caught the killer. Nick had pointed a loaded gun at the man’s face while the killer shouted at him to shoot-and he had, into the ground. It hadn’t been an act of kindness-the killer was an undersheriff, and Nick knew that his existence in prison would be one of isolation and constant fear.
Nick wasn’t going to help Warrick’s murderer commit suicide. Not unless it took a long, long time.
“Truck’ll be here in ten,” said Riley. She noticed the look on his face and added, “You okay?”
“Fine.” Nick shook his head, forced a smile. “Just thinking about another case.”
“Bad one?”
“Yeah,” said Nick. “About as bad as it gets.”
Grissom studied the twelve letters laid out before him on the light table. According to Stancroft, they had arrived over the last two months, one a week at first and then two.
The envelopes and the stationery the letters were printed on were all identical. Each had been mailed from within Las Vegas itself. Each letter was a single page, double-spaced and printed by an inkjet. The content was an almost mathematical progression of obsession, the first only hinting at it and the last practically raving. Despite that, there was a uniformity to them that was chilling-each was almost exactly the same length, each was folded at exactly the same p lace.
He had lifted numerous fingerprints from the envelopes, several of which were unknown-most likely those of postal employees. Fingerprints on the letters themselves were those of Henry Stancroft and Paul Fairwick, the only two people to have read them; it was Fairwick’s job to read the mail, and he apparently passed the letters directly to Stancroft.
The letters made frequent disparaging remarks about the hotel itself and how Athena Jordanson deserved better. The writer insinuated that her safety was at risk and directed blame, again, at the hotel. The logic was faulty, but the intention was clear: if anything bad were to befall Athena Jordanson, it would ultimately be the hotel that was at fault.
One passage in particular, from the very latest letter, Grissom found especially disturbing: I pity you, in your glass castle in the sky. You think yourself immune to all the ills that befall us ordinary drones, toiling in our endless busywork while you play and sing. I used to think that you were a goddess, that the divinity of your voice was there to lift us up; but now it only serves to remind me of everything we’ll never have, of just how special you are and how unremarkable the rest of us will always be. Living in that penthouse, looking down upon all of us, we must see m no more than scurrying insects to you…”
Scurrying insects was underlined. It was the only phrase in any of the letters that was.
When they got Paul Fairwick’s car back to the lab, Nick processed the inside of the car, while Riley did the outside.
The first thing he found was a crumpled piece of paper on the floor. He flattened it out and read it: it was a single photocopied sheet informing the residents of 4359 Carleton that due to the parking lot being resurfaced, they would have to find alternate arrangements for the next forty-eight hours. A hand-drawn map suggested spots along the same block the car had been found in.
“I didn’t notice any roadwork equipment when we drove past Fairwick’s apartment building, did you?” asked Nick.
“No-but I did notice a security camera over the front door. Could be the killer was redirecting his target to a more suitable stalking ground, one where he wouldn’t be observed.”
“Like the spot where he was attacked. That suggests he was actually lying in wait.”
“There were no obvious hiding places on that block, which confirms he was in a vehicle,” said Riley. “So far, that’s about all we’ve got.”
The tiny white dog cradled in Jill Leilani’s arms stared at Catherine with wide brown eyes. It seemed perfectly happy to stay where it was, though the same couldn’t be said about its owner. Leilani shifted in her seat uncomfortably, glancing around the interview room as if she might bolt at any moment. Her eyes were bloodshot, her hair a wild, scraggly mess. She was dressed in club clothes: a short skirt, tiny top, and high-heeled shoes.
“So, Jill,” said Catherine, “how’s that plan to kick meth going?”
“Yeah, okay, maybe not so good,” she mumbled. “But that’s my problem, right? I mean, I don’t have any or anything.”
“Not now. But you’ve got a nice deal lined up for a steady supply, right? Straight from the source.”
Her hands stroked the dog compulsively. “No. No, that’s not true.”
“Sure it is. Hanging around with Hal Kanamu got you a heavy habit, but then you and Hal had a falling out. You needed a new supplier, and you found it in Aaron Tyford and Diego Molinez. Didn’t you?”
“No, no, no. I score on the street, same as anyone else, it’s not hard to find, so much stuff moves through Vegas it’s a hub it all comes up the interstate from Mexico and-”
Catherine cut her off. “No, Jill. The economy’s bad, and you only work part-time at the Shore-mont. Not enough to pay for what you need. So you decided to do a little moonlighting, right? Even a meth cook can use a maid.”
“I-I don’t-”
“It was the little folds you put in the end of the toilet paper that tipped me off. Habit, right? And probably more than a touch of meth-induced obsessive-compulsive behavior. We found towels from the Shoremont in the trash, too.”
“That-that doesn’t prove anything, so what, so what-”
“Maybe not. But we found traces of sexual fluid from three different people on a mattress at the meth lab-DNA from two males and a woman. Aaron Tyford and Diego Molinez are already in jail.” She paused. “As for the female DNA-I’m pretty sure it’s going to be a match to yours. Isn’t it?”
Her bravado broke. Tears began to spill silently down her face. “Yeah. Not enough they made me clean up their damn lab. They wanted other things, too.”
“And how did Hal feel about all this?”
“He didn’t know. I was ashamed to tell him, so I kept it a secret. That’s the real reason we stopped hanging around together-I mean, at first it was because I was trying to get clean, and then it was because I didn’t want him to know what I was doing. Lester knew, but I made him promise not to tell.”
Catherine nodded. Jill had pointed her at Lester Akiliano but hadn’t counted on Catherine finding out about Boz, Molinez, and Tyford. “So what happened, Jill? Did Hal find out? Did Lester tell him? Did Hal confront Molinez and Tyford about what they were doing to his old friend?”
“I don’t know what happened, I swear to God,” she sobbed. “Di ego wanted me to convince Hal to go into business with them. Lester couldn’t change his mind, but Diego thought I could. He was wrong, though-Hal was tweaking big-time on this art project he was into, didn’t want to talk about anything else.”
“I’ll bet Diego didn’t take that well.”
“He was starting to get impatient. I told him I’d keep trying. But then-then Hal turned up dead.”
“You think Diego was responsible?”
“I don’t know.” She stopped, wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “Thing is, Diego didn’t know where to find Hal. He’d been to his place, but Hal was spending most of his time at this warehouse, where him and this artist were working together. I knew where it was, but I never told Diego.”
Catherine thought back to what she’d learned about Hawaiian women who used to dress up as Pele and extort favors from superstitious villagers. “Did you do that to keep him safe?” she asked. “Or because it gave you a bargaining chip with your dealer?”
Jill Leilani looked down and stroked her dog, who looked back with trusting eyes. She didn’t answer.
She didn’t have to.
Nick and Riley were supposed to interview Athena Jordanson-but the diva declined an invitation to come down to the police station, and so they went to talk to her at her hotel.
“Can you believe this?” Riley said a s they walked through the lobby. “I don’t care how many gold records she has, she isn’t above the law.”
Nick grinned. “This is Vegas, not Saint Louis. Town’s kind of like an archeological dig: lots of different layers. You’ve got old Vegas, built by mobsters; high-roller Vegas, where the rich and famous come to throw away money and get quickie weddings; family Vegas, with kid-friendly hotels and roller coasters; and post-crash Vegas, where everyone’s scrambling to make a buck and real estate values are dropping into the basement.”
“Guess it’s obvious which one Jordanson is.”
Nick nodded at the security guards-he played golf with one of them now and then-and they punched in the code for Jordanson’s private elevator. “Yeah, she’s Vegas royalty. That doesn’t mean she’s above the law, but it does mean she gets a certain level of respect. The mob may have built this town, but it was people like her who filled it. These days, anyone who can put butts in seats has clout, and in Vegas that doesn’t just trickle down-it gushes.”
The doors opened and they got in. “So she gets special treatment?”
“Hey, would you rather talk to her in a luxury apartment or a windowless interview room? I’ll bet her place smells better.”
Riley smiled. “ Okay, you got me there.”
When the doors opened, Riley took two steps, stopped, and blinked. “This isn’t an apartment,” she said. “It’s a theme park.”
Nick chuckled. “Come on, Alice. Time to step through the looking glass.”
He led the way down the path, calling out, “Hello? Las Vegas Crime Lab.”
“Over here,” called a voice.
Athena Jordanson was in a sunken hot tub, the edges lined with foam rubber that had been molded to resemble rocks. A steaming waterfall at one end of the irregular pool provided a steady trickle of white noise and hot water.
Jordanson herself was at the other end, her hair tied back with a length of scarlet cloth. There was an empty wine bottle at the edge of the tub, and she had a half-full one clutched in one hand.
“Ms. Jordanson,” said Nick, “we were hoping we could talk to you about Paul Fairwick.”
“All right,” she said. She sniffed back tears and gestured with the bottle. “Please, have a seat.”
Nick grabbed a wicker chair, while Riley stayed on her feet. “Can you tell us if anything strange happened involving Paul in the last few weeks?” asked Nick.
“All kinds of things. Paul was my man Friday; he handled all the strange little details of my life. I used to say his job description was ‘weirdness wrangler.’” She smi led, a full-on face-stretching beam that only emphasized the pain in her eyes. “People don’t understand what it’s like, living my kind of life. They think, Oh, she’s rich and famous-what does she have to complain about? But like a wise man once said, there’s trouble at every level of life.”
“Elvis Presley,” said Nick.
She nodded at him, her smile fading into sadness. “Yeah. People get sick, or die, or break your heart-all the money in the world doesn’t change that. And sometimes what you think is your strength turns out to be your greatest weakness. See, I counted on Paul for so many things. All the little necessary things, the food and the getting from place to place, getting stuff from the drugstore or going to the bank or-just the day-to-day things everyone does and takes for granted. And I haven’t done any of them for over twenty years… I was thinking about grilled cheese sandwiches today. I hardly eat them anymore, but I used to love them when I was a teenager. You know, I couldn’t remember how to make one. Isn’t that stupid? Simplest thing in the world, but I couldn’t remember it. If I lost all my money tomorrow, I’d probably starve to death.”
“I doubt that,” said Riley.
Jordanson leaned back, resting the base of her skull against the padded rim of the tub. “I know, I know. Someone who has as much as I do has no right to complain. One of the things money buys is f reedom, freedom from all those little jobs-poor me, now I’ll have to hire someone else to do them.” She closed her eyes. Tears leaked through them, sliding down her face to join the water she was immersed in. “But I’ll never be able to replace Paul. Losing him doesn’t feel like losing someone I loved-it feels like an amputation.”
Nick nodded. “I understand. He can’t be replaced-but we can bring the person who did this to justice. If you depended on Paul that much, I’m sure you would have noticed anything out of the ordinary.”
Jordanson took a long swig from the bottle of wine without opening her eyes. “I’ve always gotten threats; it’s just part of the business. But after your colleagues Captain Brass and Mr. Grissom came to see me, I talked to the hotel’s head of security, Stancroft, myself.” Her tone got angrier. “He told me that the number of crank letters I’d been getting had jumped in the last couple of weeks. I demanded to see them and he told me he’d given them to the police. I asked if Paul knew about them and he told me that wasn’t Paul’s job, it was his.”
“We’re studying those letters now,” said Riley. “While they do mention you, they seem more directed against the hotel itself. They also make a reference to ‘scurrying insects.’ Does that mean anything to you?”
Jordanson opened her eyes and glared at Riley. “Scurrying insects? No. Th at’s crazy.” She shook her head. “But it doesn’t matter. I’ve just about had it with this place. Stancroft should have done a better job; he should have told me what was going on. The Embassy Gold has been trying to lure me over there for years, and I’m seriously thinking about going. And if I do, I’ll make damn sure their security is better than this place’s.”
Riley frowned. “Forgive me for asking, but-how exactly are you going to do that?”
Jordanson sighed. “The only way I know how, honey. With lawyers, and lots and lots of money.”
“Okay,” said Brass. “So we bring in Vanderhoff and Quadros and sweat them. It’s got to be one or the other, right?”
Grissom shook his head. They were in Brass’s office, discussing the case and their next move. “It’s not that simple, Jim. Both of them are only here for the next few days; we can’t hold them long unless we charge them, and we simply don’t have the evidence to do that yet.”
“And if we don’t charge them soon, they’ll just go back to their respective countries.”
“Where the guilty party could simply disappear into the jungle, South Africa, or South America. Both men have years of field experience.”
Brass sighed. “So we’ve got what, seventy-two hours? To either come up with better cards or fold.”
“More or less.”
“Wonderful. Anything else?”
“I’m afraid so. It’s fairly likely that the killer has more attacks planned. The murders seemed to be planned to showcase his ingenuity-but the more complex t he scheme, the greater the chance he’ll make a mistake.”
“Any idea who he’ll go after next? So far, his victims haven’t had anything in common.”
Grissom rubbed his temples. “The victims are linked by the conceptual nature of the attacks, especially the secondary results. The Harribold case caused a riot, mimicking one anthill waging war against another. I believe Paul Fairwick was targeted because of his promixity to Athena Jordanson, the ‘queen’ of soul.”
“Why? What’s his death supposed to accomplish?”
“Athena Jordanson’s contract is almost up, and she’s been considering moving to another hotel; one of the reasons she’s cited has been lax security at her current venue. When the queen of a termite colony is threatened, her workers move her to another site.”
“Or in this case, another penthouse suite. You think our killer’s trying to accelerate the process?”
“It’s possible. But I don’t know why.” Grissom paused. “You said the victims didn’t have anything in common. But-conceptual link aside-there is one element both cases share.”
“What?”
Grissom got to his feet. “Me.”
“Is this a confession?”
“The killer is clearly trying to impress someone. I don’t think it’s any accident that he chose Vegas to stage his crimes.”
“You think he’ll come after you?”
Grissom shrugged as he headed out the door. “ I’ll be careful.”
As soon as he’d left, Brass picked up the phone. “Dispatch. Yeah, I’m gonna need a couple of uniforms to set up on Grissom’s place. Twenty-four-hour surveillance. I’ll authorize the overtime.”
With Doc Robbins in the hospital, the day-shift coroner had to finish the autopsy. He sent the spider cylinder and tube to the lab, along with the bullet he retrieved from the vic’s skull and the thread Robbins had collected.
Nick examined the thread, Riley the bullet. Grissom took the cylinder.
There were no fingerprints on the cylinder or the tube, outside or in. Grissom examined the edges of the cylinder on the open end. They were rough, the cylinder itself being nothing more than a narrow plastic bottle sawed in half. The tubing was surgical grade, inserted into a small hole punched in the lid of the bottle at one end. He took high-resolution pictures of the tool marks on both.
Nick found that the thread used to sew shut the wound was a thirty-braided filament with a diameter of 0.3 millimeters. He took pictures of the cut ends, then checked the fiber database.
The bullet was.22 caliber Remington ammo, fired from a gun with six grooves, or “lands,” in a right-hand twist of 1:14; that meant the bulle t had to travel one turn in fourteen inches. Riley thought the gun was most likely a Ruger revolver.
“Okay,” said Grissom. “What do we have?”
“The thread’s surgical grade,” said Nick. “Looked a little funky under the microscope, so I had Hodges run a chemical analysis. It’s a homopolymer of N-acetyl-D-glucosamine.”
“Chitin,” said Grissom. “Used in self-dissolving sutures because of its antimicrobial properties- that and the fact that it’s the second-most common carbon compound on the planet.”
“Cellulose being first,” said Riley. “Chitin’s derived from the outer shells of crustaceans, right?”
“And insects,” said Grissom. “He’s showing off. Common thread would have worked just as well.”
“Good,” said Riley. “Arrogance works for us in the long run. Got an IBIS hit on the bullet-matches one recovered at the scene of a liquor store robbery, though the gun was never found. The clerk identified a suspect later in a lineup, but without the gun the county prosecutor decided not to go to trial and the charges were dropped. Suspect’s name was Richard Waltham.”
“Any firearms registered in his name?” asked Grissom.
“No. But he does have a history of minor crimes ranging from possession of stolen property to burglary.”
Grissom nodded. “The cylinder was made from a plastic bottle, cut down to size. The tool used had a serrate d edge-it might be a handsaw, but I’d guess a kitchen knife. The cut’s jagged and uneven, suggesting an implement that was handled in a start-and-stop fashion. There’s no label, but the shape of the neck is distinctive.”
“Nick, see if you can track down the source of that thread. Riley, I’d like you to concentrate on the bottle.”
“I-all right,” she said. “What about Richard Waltham?”
“I think I’ll go see him,” said Grissom.
Grissom talked to the manager of the motel Richard Waltham lived at; the manager described Waltham and told Grissom that Waltham could usually be found at the Tuxedo Casino, where he played cards when he had the cash.
The Tuxedo was brand-new, a hundred-million-dollar updating of an older Vegas property. It was heavy on classic style, lots of brass and oak and crystal chandeliers, HD plasma screens running clips of movies featuring Gene Kelly singing in the rain or Bogey and Bacall in a passionate exchange. All the black-and-white charm was somewhat offset by the crowds of tourists, many of them clutching drinks in gigantic novelty cups made of neon-bright plastic: three-foot-high replicas of the Eiffel Tower or stretched-hourglass shapes called yards, filled with daquiris or margaritas or piña coladas.
Walth am was sitting alone at a table, playing twenty-one. The dealer was a young blond woman dressed in a tuxedo-style top, fishnets, and heels. Waltham himself wore a faded chambray shirt, dark blue jeans, and grimy white sneakers; his hair was entirely gray and pulled back in a ponytail beneath a battered straw cowboy hat. He had a cigarette tucked behind one ear.
Grissom sat next to him. “Richard Waltham?”
Waltham gave him a wary glance. “Why?”
“Mr. Waltham, my name is Gil Grissom. I hate to interrupt your game, but I need to ask you a few questions.”
Waltham signaled for another card and snorted when he busted. “What about?”
“Your gun.”
“Don’t own a gun.”
“Maybe not now, but you did. You used it to rob a liquor store, remember?”
“That case was thrown out.”
“Because nobody could find the gun. I assume you got rid of it?”
“I told you-”
“That would have been the smart thing to do. Thing is, a gun is a valuable commodity; I doubt if you just threw it away. I think you sold it, and I want to know who you sold it to.”
Waltham pushed another chip from his dwindling pile at the dealer. “Everybody wants something, Mr. Grissom. I want to double down on a pair of aces, myself. You can see how that’s going.”
“Maybe I can change your luck. Your gun was used in a murder.”
Waltham paused. “Not my problem.”
“Not yet. But that gun is evidence in two different crimes, and I will find it. At that point, whomever you sold it to will probably accuse you of both crimes. At the very least, you’ll be charged as an accessory to murder.”
“If you find it.”
“On the other hand, if you were to direct me to that person, you’d be assisting in the investigation. If that led me to locating the weapon, it’s unlikely any further charges against you would be pursued.”
Waltham thought about it for a moment and signaled for another card. Twenty-two. He shook his head. “So you’re offering me a gamble, huh? Take a chance that you won’t find it and risk getting dragged into a murder investigation-or fold my cards, give it up, and hope you’ll honor your word.”
“That’s it.”
Waltham sighed. He had a two-day growth of beard and a fifty-year growth of wrinkles, maybe sixty around the eyes. He sized Grissom up with the weary experience of a hundred wins and a thousand losses, then gave a rueful little laugh. “Tell you what, partner. Sit down and have a drink with me. You convince me you’re an honorable man, I’ll give you the hand. But if I’m gonna throw down my cards, I need to know the fella across the table from me; that’s fair, don’t you think?”
“Fine by me.”
They left the table, Waltham scooping up the few chips he had left, and walked across the casino to the bar. Waltham greeted the bartender by name and asked for the usual; Grissom had a beer.
“You’re not the kind of cop I’m used to,” said Waltham. He pulled out a crumpled pack of cigarettes and lit one with a silver Zippo embossed with a pair of dice.
“I’m a scientist, actually.”
“Yeah? That’s a strange thing to be in this city.”
“Is it?”
“Sure. Vegas is probably the most antiscientific place on the planet. This place feeds on hope, blind faith, and a complete denial of consequences. Don’t matter if you’re talking about sex, gambling, or entertainment; it’s all about how you feel in the moment, not about how you’ll feel later or what you should be thinking about right now. Even the shows-they’ll make you laugh or gasp, or turn you on. But none of ’em will make you think.”
“I know what you’re saying. But Vegas isn’t completely about feeling as opposed to thought; any good poker player will tell you that.”
“Any good poker player tends to wind up with my money in his pocket, so maybe you’re right.” Waltham took a long swig of his drink, something clear over ice with a slice of lime. “But that’ s the exception to the rule. You can walk down the Strip, cut through a casino, wander through a few miles of mall, and you know the one constant you’re gonna find? Music. The whole place is wired, speakers hidden in lampposts and fake rocks outside, everywhere inside. It’s like one big nightclub, and the tunes they’re pumping out are all about one thing: winning.” Waltham shook his head. “Old sixties standards, seventies disco, eighties hair-band anthems, nineties-and-up pop; it’s all put together to make you feel like you’re in the last twenty minutes of a movie, just about to kick the ass of the bad guy. Don’t stop believin’, ’cause the kid is hot tonight.”
Grissom drank some of his beer. He recognized when someone just needed to vent.
“Vegas has a special kind of despair built into it,” Waltham continued. “When you’ve lost it all, when you’re alone and broke and out of options… that’s when all those bright lights, all that upbeat music, all that glitter and promise just make you realize how far you’ve fallen.”
He was quiet for a moment then. Grissom realized that somewhere-not in the bar, but not far away-he could hear music. Something with a cheerful, danceable beat.
“Know what I like to do when I feel like that?” asked Waltham. “I find myself a fountain down on Las Vegas Boulevard. One of the big ones is best, outside Paris or Bellagio or Caesars. T he water’s always nice and clear, with lots of coins sparkling down at the bottom. But that’s not all that’s down there.” Waltham stubbed out the remains of his cigarette. “You know those guys who line parts of the Strip? Wear T-shirts that tell the tourists they can get a girl to their hotel room in twenty minutes? They’ve all got these stacks of business cards in their hands, with pictures of pretty girls wearing nothing but smiles and Photoshopped stars over their nipples. These guys offer them to everyone who walks by, and they snap a finger against the cards to get your attention. Snap. Snap. Snap. That’s the real soundtrack of Vegas. And after strolling past a line of these gentlemen-women, too, sometimes-I like to stop and stare down into one of those big, elaborate fountains that Vegas is so proud of. Because down there, among the coins, there’s always some of those cards. I stare down at them and the pretty women stare back. To me they look like drowned strippers, or maybe mermaids that have decided to turn tricks…”
Waltham turned on his bar stool to look at Grissom. “You have any idea what I’m talking about?”
Grissom considered the question carefully before answering. “In my job, I see death almost every night. I don’t just see pictures of those women-all too often, I see the women themselves. If you’re talking about the feeling you get when you see the consequences of death-not just the e nd of a life, but the end of all the potential of that life-then yes. I know exactly how that feels.”
Waltham finished his drink. “I’ll tell you who I sold the gun to,” he said. “What the hell. It’s a gamble either way, and I’ve been making bets my whole life. Little late to stop now.”