GRISSOM MET WITH Nick and Riley in his office. The tox report had come back on the sample of Roberto Quadros’s hair, and the first thing he did was hand copies of the report to both of them.
Riley responded first. “According to thi s, Quadros had the homobatrachotoxin in his system as far back as six weeks ago.”
Grissom nodded. “And in levels high enough to induce paralysis.”
Nick frowned. “But… we had Quadros in here, walking and talking. He wasn’t paralyzed then.”
Riley gave her report back to Grissom. “Snake handlers will dose themselves with small amounts of venom over a long period of time in order to build up a tolerance. Maybe he did the same thing.”
“In that case,” said Grissom, “we would have seen a gradual buildup. That didn’t happen-a fairly high level simply appears at around the six-week mark and stays consistent until death. That suggests something else entirely.”
“Captivity,” said Nick. “Someone was using it to keep him immobile for the past month and a half.”
Riley shook her head. “So if Roberto Quadros was a prisoner, unable to move-who was it we interviewed?”
“The motel room the body was found in was registered to Larry Wheeler,” said G r i ssom. “LW-the same initials he used online to lure Keenan Harribold.”
“So Quadros isn’t our killer,” said Nick. “LW is still out there.”
“Yes,” said Grissom. “Presumably with a large amount of HBTX that he still intends to use. And we have no idea where or when.”
Riley and Nick surveyed the various items spread out over the surface of the light table. They included a tent, a sleeping bag, and several heaps of unwashed clothes, everything they’d confiscated from the last-known location of Robert Ermine, aka Buffet Bob.
“Okay,” said Nick. “We didn’t find anything obvious on the first go-round, so it’s time to look a little closer. I’m thinking we concentrate on clothing; doesn’t look-or smell-like he’s washed any of it for a while, so it’s possible something he wore while working for LW picked up some trace.”
“Unless the killer decided he didn’t want his drones wandering away from the hive. Could be that once Bob started working he wasn’t allowed to leave-which is why no one’s seen him for weeks.”
“Yeah, but LW did send three of them on a field trip to obtain supplies at one point. Bob could have slipped back to his tent then, maybe for a change of clothes.”
“I guess it’s possible. You want tops or bottoms?” asked Riley.
Nick grinned. “I’ll take anything above the waist.”
“So I get socks and underwear? Lucky, lucky me.”
Grissom studied the recorded interview with the man who’d called himself Roberto Quadros. On-screen, he was leaping to his feet and pointing an accusing finger at Nick Stokes, calling the entire process an outrage.
Defensive posturing. The larvae of the elephant hawk moth mimicking a snake about to strike.
“I didn’t come here for the hedonism, Mr. Stokes,” the imposter said.
Many insect species die after mating.
“I came for the intellectual stimulation provided by an exchange of ideas between men and women like myself…”
What was it he said to me when we first met? “We study arthropods, do we not? The biological equivalent of machines. They have no psychology, no culture, no advanced cognitive functions. Seeing them through the filter of h uman experience does nothing but distort data.”Were you really talking about insects? Or was that your opinion of the human race?
He watched the interview through to the end, then went back to something Quadros had said near the beginning.
“-at the very least Dr. Grissom could have talked to me himself.”
He froze the image. Quadros had looked directly into the camera when he said it, knowing full well that at some point Grissom would be staring back.
Was that a trace of a smile hidden behind his bushy white beard?
“Think I’ve got something,” said Riley.
Nick put down the T-shirt he’d been examining. “Fibers?”
“Yes. White, and very fine. They’re all over the cuffs of these jeans.”
Nick walked around to her side of the light table to take a better look. “Those don’t look like they came from an animal. Could be plant matter.”
“Well, you’re the fiber expert.”
“So they say. I’ll check it against the database.”
“You mind if I do it?”
Nick raised his eyebrows. “No, go ahead. I do something wrong?”
“No, no. It’s just-you track down a fiber, it’s business as usual. I do it-” She stopped.
“You do it, Grissom might notice. Funny, I didn’t think you much cared what Grissom thinks.”
“He’s my superior-of course I care w hat he thinks. And this isn’t about sucking up, either. I just want him to see that I’m competent.”
Nick smiled. “I wouldn’t worry too much about that. If there’s one thing Grissom notices, it’s how the job gets done. Just don’t expect a lot of hearts and flowers-getting a ‘good work’ from Grissom is like three cheers and a parade from anyone else.”
“I’m starting to get that.”
“Don’t worry, you’re doing fine. Let me know what you find on those fibers.”
This time, she smiled back.
In the end, Riley turned to Wendy Simms.
“Hey, Riley,” said Wendy. “You look like you’ve got something on your mind.”
Riley handed her the sample of the fibers she’d collected from the jeans. “I do. This.”
“Fibers? I do DNA.”
“I know. But these are plant fibers; I’ve searched through every botanical database I can find and can’t get a match through physical characteristics alone. I’m hoping you can ID it for me.”
“Well, plants have genes just like all living organisms. As long as this particular species is on file, I should be able to track it down.”
Riley noticed Hodges in a corner of the lab, hunched over a piece of paper and muttering to himself. “No, no, that’s too big…”
“What’s Hodges doing?” asked Riley. “I’ve never heard him talk to himself before.”
Wendy sighed. “Oh, you will. But he usually only does it when in the throes of creativity.”
“What’s he creating?”
“I’m not sure. But he asked me for my measure-ments-including hat size-so I’m a little worried.”
“I can hear you, you know,” said Hodges.
Riley and Wendy looked at each other, then approached Hodges together. He quickly turned over the large sheet of paper he’d been working on.
“Are those crayons?” said Wendy.
“Pencil crayons,” said Hodges. “I was working on the color scheme. I was originally going to go with something that went with your eyes, but then I realized nobody’d be able to see your eyes anyway…”
“Do I even want to know?” said Wendy.
“It’s still in the planning stages,” said Hodges. “But maybe I need a female perspective; fashion isn’t really my thing. Tell me what you think-but sign these first.” He handed each of them a piece of paper.
“What’s this?” asked Riley, scanning it.
“A nondisclosure agreement. Standard boilerplate, just says you won’t talk to anyone else about what I’m going to show you.”
Wendy rolled her eyes, pulled out a pen, and signed it. R iley shrugged and did the same.
“Okay,” said Hodges. “Now, give me your gut- level first impression of both of these.” He held up two large sheets of paper in front of him. “I’m calling the one on the left Trudy Transfer and the one on the right Buddy Bloodspatter.”
Wendy blinked. Riley frowned.
“Trudy seems like she’d be cold,” said Wendy. “Even though she’s covered in… What is all that stuff? It looks as if she was practicing Dumpster diving in a bikini.”
“Well, it’s all kinds of things. Paper, fabric, bodily fluids-”
“And why’s her head so big?”
“Because it’s made out of foam rubber. It’ll be lightweight, with oversize eyes and a biiiiig smile. Very anime-just in case our new owners are Japanese.”
Wendy crumpled the NDA into a little ball and threw it at him. “For the last time, Hodges-the lab isn’t being sold. Don’t you have real work to do?”
“Actually,” said Riley, “I kind of like the other one. What’s that big necklace he’s wearing, though?”
“DNA,” said Hodges. “I know, I know. But you try drawing a double helix and making it both accurate and artistic.”
“Got a result on those fibers for you,” said Wendy.
Riley looked up from the file she’d been scrolling through. “Yeah? What is it?”
“If you were a cat, you wouldn’t have to ask . ”
“Catnip?”
“Not quite. It’s Teucrium marum, a plant commonly known as cat thyme. Some cats react to it the same way they do catnip.”
“Where’s it grow?”
“Well, it’s native to Spain and the western Mediterranean but does well in dry, sandy soil with a lot of sun-so it wouldn’t be hard to grow it here. Maybe your guy’s a cat lover.”
Riley frowned. “Maybe.”
She sat and thought about it after Wendy left. Somehow, she couldn’t see the Bug Killer cozying up to a purring tabby-it didn’t fit his modus operandi at all. So what was the connection?
She turned back to the file she’d been reading. It was the arrest record of Robert Ermine, who it seemed hadn’t been entirely successful in his career as Buffet Bob. In fact, he’d been arrested five times and barred from at least a dozen places.
She wondered how the Bug Killer had chosen him. Had he trolled the homeless corridor, looking for subjects who fit a particular profile, or had he viewed his workers as interchangeable drones? Had all of his choices worked out, or had there been rejects? If there had been, some of them might still have valuable information.
Riley had always had good instincts as a street cop. Right now, t hey were telling her that someone out there had talked to the mysterious LW and could be persuaded to talk to her.
She printed out a picture of Roberto Quadros and headed downtown.
Riley talked to half a dozen homeless men and women before she found one who seemed to recognize the photo of Quadros.
“Do I know him?” the man with the blanket wrapped around his shoulders said. He was somewhere in his thirties, missing one of his front teeth, and very dirty; his beard was gathered into a kind of chin ponytail, bound by what seemed like dozens of rubber bands. “I don’t know. Who knows anyone? I don’t know you. You don’t know you. I don’t know me.”
“Okay, you don’t know him,” said Riley. “But have you seen him?”
Rubber Band Man thought about it. “Yes. I have seen him. Not that picture-no, I’ve never seen that picture before-but I have seen that man, the one in the picture. Yes.”
“Uh-huh. When?” Riley’s hopes stayed firmly in the basement; she doubted she’d get anything approaching reality from this particular subject.
“Fifty-one days ago. It was a Tuesday. I like Tuesdays and sometimes give them their own name. That was Humphrey Tuesday, and it was very friendly.”
She did some quick calculation in her head. Fifty-one days ago had, in fact, been a Tuesday-Humphrey or not. Maybe R ubber Band Man was more credible than she’d thought. “Did you talk to him?”
“Yes.” The man stared at her without blinking.
“What about?”
“He wanted me to work for him. He noticed me counting the bottles I’d collected and said I was very focused. He liked that.”
“What did you tell him?”
“I told him I already had a job. I pointed at the bottles. He said he understood.”
“Did he say anything else?”
The man tugged the blanket tighter around his shoulders. “He said he’d give me food. Place to stay, too. That was when I knew there was something wrong with him.”
A chill went through Riley. “What was wrong with him?”
“Eyes. Cold, cold eyes. Didn’t see me, no, didn’t see me at all. Like he was looking at a bug.”
“Did he tell you anything about the job? Where it was, what you’d be doing?”
“Farming. Said we’d be farming. Making plants happy. Making happy plants. I told him no thank you, I have my bottles, and today’s name is Humphrey. Other people went with him. Buffet Bob went. He never came back.”
“No. No, he didn’t.”
“I liked Bob. He gave me food. More people used to give me food, but now they don’t. Or water. Water is life, but you can’t give it to people like me, because we’re dying. I’m thi rsty. All the time.”
Riley hadn’t quite acclimated to the dry air of Nevada, either; she always tried to keep some water handy. She took the bottle she had with her out of her bag and handed it to the man. “Here.”
“You can’t do that,” the man said. “You’re the law. You’re breaking yourself.”
“Wouldn’t be the first time. Take it, please. You won’t get in trouble.”
The man did. “This is not a Tuesday, but it is a happy day anyway. I think I will call it Hortense.”
“Works for me,” said Riley.
“Cat thyme?” Grissom asked.
“That’s what we found,” said Nick. He tapped a few keys, calling up a picture on the monitor. “Don’t know what it means, though. It’s not indigenous, it’s not a commercial crop-you can get it easily enough from nurseries, but it’s not so rare that a purchase would stand out. I’ve made some phone calls to local greenhouses and importers, but no one seems to have ordered any in large quantities.”
“If he’s growing it himself, it’s to hide his trail. It also suggests a fairly large facility.”
“Yeah, but why? Is he planning on getting every cat in the city stoned? I just don’t get it.”
Grissom stared at the picture of the plant on the screen. “Have Hodges run a chemical an alysis of the plant sample. There’s something we’re missing.”
“Will do.”
“Where’s Riley?”
“She said something about conducting a few more interviews in the homeless corridor, showing a picture of Quadros around. Thinks someone may have seen or overheard him recruiting his workforce.”
“That’s good thinking.”
Nick grinned. “I’ll tell her you said that.”
Riley ended up talking to the Rubber Band Man-who eventually volunteered that his name was Orson-for quite a while. His mind, while fractured, still housed a pretty good memory-a memory that worked mainly on whatever Orson considered important, but one that worked nonetheless.
Orson had considered the man with the cold eyes important.
The place the fake Quadros wanted to take Orson to didn’t seem to be in the city limits, but it wasn’t far outside them-less than half an hour’s drive, anyway. Nobody would bother them there, meaning it had to be fairly isolated. And perhaps most important of all, they wouldn’t be working outside-which meant a greenhouse, barn, or warehouse.
Riley hadn’t gone back to the lab. Instead, she’d parked her Denali somewhere she could get a decent wireless connection, turned on her laptop, and called up Google Earth.
She still found the application a mazing. It wasn’t real-time observation, but it let you zoom in on almost any patch of real estate in the world, giving you an instant feel for the layout of the area: buildings, roads, geographical features like rivers, lakes, and valleys. You had to be careful how you used it, but it was still a very, very useful tool. And what she was looking for should be fairly distinctive: a large outbuilding of some kind, probably on a farm or a ranch, one that appeared deserted.
Sadly, those criteria were a little too easy to meet. Las Vegas bore the distinction of holding the number one spot in the country when it came to abandoned property; people here found it easier to simply walk away from a bad mortgage or loan, leaving everything from private homes to places of business empty. The rural sector didn’t seem to be any exception.
After half an hour she had four possibilities. All were within range, title searches indicated all were in foreclosure, and none had shown any livestock, people, or vehicles when the satellite shots were taken. It was entirely possible LW had set up shop in a place that had been abandoned after these pictures were taken, but Riley figured he had to have been there for at least two months; his laborers had disappeared off the streets six weeks ago, and he would have needed a few more to get properly set up. The chances he was in one of the properties she’d narrowed it down to were good.
But was it good enough to tell Grissom?
She stared at the screen, tapping her finger on the edge of the case. Then she started up the Denali and headed for the highway.
“Okay, Hodges, I got your page,” said Nick, striding into the Trace lab. “What have you got?”
Hodges handed him a printout. “This.”
Nick took the sheet. “What, no guessing games, no wordplay? I figured you’d do ten minutes on the phrase cat thyme alone.”
Hodges sighed. “Sorry, I’m a little down. I found out the lab isn’t really going to be sold.”
“And that’s a bad thing?”
He shrugged. “It is for Buddy Bloodspatter.” He walked away, shaking his head.
“Hodges, you get a little stranger every day,” Nick murmured. Then he headed for Grissom’s office, scanning the sheet as he went. By the time he reached his boss’s doorway, he was shaking his head himself.
“Got the results back from the GC mass spec on the cat thyme,” said Nick. “Maybe you can see something here, but I don’t.”
He handed it to Grissom, who scanned it quickly. “Almost ten percent dolichodial,” he said. “There’s a monoterpene dialdehyde called anisomorphal that’s a diastereomer of dolichodial. Presumably, you could process one into the other.”
“So you think he’s producing an isomorphal? What is it, a poison?”
“Not exactly.” Grissom turned to his workstation and called up a file. “The chemical anisomorphal was discovered in 1962 and named after Anisomorpha buprestoides, the Florida walking stick insect.” He swiveled the monitor to give Nick a better view. “It’s the primary component of a defensive spray they aim at predators. But even though it can cause intense pain-and even temporary blindness if sprayed in the eyes-it’s not lethal.”
Nick studied the picture on-screen. The Florida walking stick’s body and legs were so thin that if you didn’t know what you were looking at, you could easily mistake it for a twig. “Cryptic camouflage and a chemical defense,” said Nick. “That definitely fits with LW’s pattern.”
“Yes-but again, we have to think in terms of his objectives. Since exposure to anisomorphal isn’t fatal, why is he producing it?”
Las Vegas was an artificial paradise, a manufactured oasis created by money, vision, greed-and most of all, water. The lush greenery that fronted many hotels, the palm trees, the fountains, the ersatz canal that flowed through the interior of the Venetian resort… none of it was possible without plenty of water. Even so, the plants t hat lived and breathed in the hot, dry air of the city needed regular tending, and that meant there was an entire horticulture subindustry dedicated to their welfare.
The greenhouse that sprawled in front of Riley was a branch of that industry-or had been, until the economy’s free fall had turned it into an empty glass bunker. The sign over the front door read TROPICANA BOTANICA, and from the painting of the brilliant, multicolored flower beside it Riley guessed they’d planned on supplying exotic tropical blooms to the hotels, casinos, and restaurants of the Strip. But while the water still flowed, the money had dried up-and so had one entrepreneur’s vision.
She got out of her vehicle, closing the door quietly. The previous two places she’d visited had been dead ends, but this one seemed different. There were fresh tire tracks on the dirt road that led to the place, and they led to a sliding steel door that was probably where delivery trucks had once been parked.
The front door was sealed with a large padlock and chain, a peeling notice of foreclosure pasted to the wood above it. The greenhouse itself was set back behind the offices, its transparent roof gleaming in the sun. She couldn’t see what was inside, though; the wall panels had been covered with sheets of newspaper on the inside, floor to ceiling.
She walked around the side of the offices and got close enough to check the date on the nearest paper. Just over two months ago.
The wind was kicking up, blowing dust in her eyes. She leaned in close to the glass, listening intently and trying to shut out the sound of the wind.
Something moved inside.
Grissom got on the elevator of the Embassy Gold flanked by four security officers. It seemed Athena Jordanson’s vow to demand increased security hadn’t been forgotten.
The queen of soul was eyeing herself critically in a full-length mirror while a seamstress made final adjustments on her dress. It was a long, slinky affair, slit high on one end and plunging low on the other.
“Thank you for seeing me,” said Grissom. “I realize you must be extremely busy.”
Athena glanced at Grissom and smiled. “I am, but that’s a good thing. Helps keep my mind off recent events.”
“I apologize if my department’s search of your new hotel inconvenienced you-”
She stopped him with a wave of her hand-a move Grissom suspected she was rather practiced at. “No, no, no. Couldn’t raise a stink about security and then bitch when someone actually did something, could I? Well, I could, but that’s a little too diva for me.” She went back to studying the contours of the dress in the mirror.
“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about.”
She looked back at him sharply. “You find something?”
Grissom shook his head. “I wish we had. Unfortunately, all our searches came up negative.”
“Unfortunately? Guess you’re not a fan, huh?”
“On the contrary-I enjoy your music a great deal. But if we’d found what we were looking for, I could safely say you’re out of danger. Finding nothing… proves nothing.”
“Maybe there’s nothing to find. After all, isn’t the creep who sent me all those letters dead?”
“I don’t believe he is, Ms. Jordanson. And that’s why I’m here-to ask you to postpone your show.”
“Postpone my show?” She frowned. “I can’t do that, Mr. Grissom. Contracts work both ways-I squeezed this hotel for all I could, and in return they want their money’s worth. I try to back out now, I’ll spend the next ten years in court instead of on the stage.”
“I’m not asking you to cancel-just push it back.”
“Why? You think you’ll find something the second time you didn’t the first?” She turned back to the mirror. “I appreciate you trying to cover all the bases, but it’s just not gonna happen. I mean, can you give me any solid proof that the person who killed Paul is still alive and trying to sabotage my show?”
Grissom hesitated. “No.”
“Then I can’t disappoint my fans or the people who sign my paycheck. Sorry, Mr. Grissom.”
“So am I,” said Grissom. “Thank you for your time.”
The guards escorted him back to the elevator and down. He walked out through the lobby, then turned around and surveyed the front of the hotel. It was a massiv e structure, curving like a sine wave, and the front of the property was dominated by a series of stepped waterfalls surrounding a huge reflecting pool. The dancing fountains were as good as those in front of the Bellagio-some said even better.
Water, Grissom thought. In the middle of the desert, water is more than just life-it’s gold. And in Vegas, the more water you can waste on sheer spectacle, the more gold you obviously have. We treat the Strip more like a river than a street; we build bridges over it rather than disrupt the flow of tourists in their cars.
He walked toward the parking lot and his own vehicle, then stopped and turned around. On an impulse, he took the escalator up to where the nearest pedway crossed over the street.
No, these aren’t bridges. They’re aqueducts, piping visitors from hotels and casinos on one side of Las Vegas Boulevard to the other. In a town so dry we build escalators outside, water is a metaphor for wealth-but the real wealth is still in people’s pockets. Until, dazzled by the sights and sounds and carefully created atmosphere, they make their contribution to the local aquifer.
He stopped in the middle of the pedway. A homeless man was slumped against the wall at the halfway point, a han d-lettered cardboard sign propped up on his lap. It read WHY LIE? I NEED A BEER.
In another town people would have ignored him as an alcoholic. Here, he was just trying to join the party.
An image popped into Grissom’s head. When ants traveled in large numbers and needed to cross a stream, they formed a living bridge by holding on to each other’s bodies with their jaws. Once the rest of the group had crossed, they would let go, dissolving into individual drowning units. Their society had sacrificed them for its own needs, throwing them away once their usefulness had expired.
It was that image, of an ant bridge eroding under the relentless pressure of water, that somehow seemed important.
But he didn’t know why.