GROUPS THAT CAME TO Black Rock City organized themselves as theme camps. A theme camp could be as small as one person operating out of the back of their vehicle or number a hundred people or more and involve a structure the size of a circus t ent. Theme camps could be based on literally anything, though in recent years the festival had announced an overall art theme to lend some direction; people were free to embrace or ignore the theme as they chose. There were camps that gave away food, massages, costumes, alcohol, haircuts; camps that offered dating services, minigolf, tea, floggings, live music, swing dancing, trapeze lessons, or meditati o n circles. There were hundreds. Each had its own identity, was run entirely by volunteers, and was responsible for packing out every single scrap of material it brought in.
Doozer’s crew was an art collective who called themselves the Phyre Brigade. They were hard-core pyromaniacs, building vehicles and sculptures that played with flame the way a fountain played with water. The group’s base of operations was an old garage on the outskirts of town, its use donated by a fellow Burner who had no current plans for the property.
Greg pulled up next to the rusting spots where the gas pumps had once stood. He could see sparks and the ultraviolet glare of a welding rig inside, through the narrow glass panes of the rolling panel doors. It was late, but Glowbug had told him Doozer preferred working late.
The front entrance was unlocked; a stuffed deer head gazed at the ceiling from the spot on the counter where the cash register had once stood. A door beside that sto od open, leading to the garage; Greg stood in the doorway and called out, “Hello?”
A man in blue coveralls turned off his welding torch and turned around, flipping up the smoked glass visor. His face was as greasy as his clothes, and a cinder smoldered in his heavy black beard.
“Hi,” said Greg. “You’re, uh, on fire.” He pointed.
The man reached up and snuffed out the cinder by pinching it with two fingers. He didn’t say thanks, and he didn’t flinch. “Yeah?”
“I’m Greg Sanders, Las Vegas Crime Lab. Doozer, right? I’d like to talk to you about Hal Kanamu-Kahuna Man. ”
Doozer snorted. “Let me guess. He ODed.”
“Not a surprise, huh?”
“No. He was headed there in a hurry-only a matter of time.”
“You don’t seem real upset by that.”
Doozer glared at him. “Hey, it pisses me off, okay? Every time some sponge brain with no sense of judgment and a death wish kills himself through sheer stupidity, it makes everyone else look bad. And by everyone else, I mean anyone who might like to indulge in a little chemical recreation now and then.”
“Okay, I get it. He was irresponsible. But if so, why let him be part of your camp?”
Doozer studied him for a second before responding. “That’s just it-we didn’t. Turfed him a few weeks ago. He’d show up to planning meetings so wired you could have hook ed him up to a klieg light. Rambling on and on about all this Hawaiian stuff he was into. Don’t get me wrong, I like a good rolling tiki bar as much as the next guy, but he was trying to convince us to change our plans for next year. We’re already halfway done-no way we’re gonna suddenly shift to some half-baked tweaker idea.”
Greg had to admit the vehicle Doozer had been working on was impressive: a gigantic metal scorpion on wheels, the articulated tail ending in a flamethrower. It looked skeletal at the moment, the metal segments that would make up its armor leaning against the wall like a knight’s inventory of shields.
“So this is it, huh? Pretty damn cool.”
“Thanks. Gonna outline the whole thing in electroluminescent wire-either blue or red, not sure. Thing’ll kick some serious ass after nightfall.”
“So what did Kanamu want to build instead?”
“Ah, he kept changing it. Some kind of giant volcano goddess one week, then a fire-breathing shark the next. He was all over the place.”
“You hear about his gambling win?”
“Yeah, everybody knew about it. Only reason we didn’t tell him to take a hike sooner-kept saying he’d finance the whole trip, you know? But there was just no way. Black Rock’s not about money, anyway-it’s about self-suffiency. Find yourself relying on a junkie, that’s a recipe for disaster.”
“ Anyone try to get him to straighten out?”
Doozer shook his head. “Yeah, a couple people talked to him. But he was just as high on the money as the meth, you know? Didn’t want to come down.”
“When was the last time you talked to him?”
“Couple weeks ago. Heard he hooked up with another artist, was gonna pay him to build something and take it to the playa himself.”
“You have the artist’s name?”
“Sorry, no. And Kahuna Man kind of dropped off the radar after that.”
“Okay, thanks.” Greg took one final, admiring glance at the scorpionmobile. “Have fun.”
“Always do.”
“Slow down, David,” said Grissom. “Take a deep breath. Now let it out.”
They were in the hall outside the autopsy room. Grissom had rushed over after a panicked, nearly incoherent phone call from David. “Good. Now tell me again what happened.”
David swallowed. “I was just outside. I heard Doc yell-not like he’d dropped something and was angry, more like something had scared him. I ran in there.”
“What did you see?”
“I saw… I saw the biggest spider I’ve ever seen in my life.”
“Can you be more specific?”
“It was as big as my hand. Tan colored. It was sitting on the thigh of the body and waving i ts front legs in the air. Doctor Robbins was on the ground, not moving. I didn’t know what to do, so I grabbed a chair and sort of waved it at the spider. It jumped off the table and ran away, I think under one of the shelves. I grabbed Doctor Robbins and pulled him outside, then called the paramedics. He was in a lot of pain-”
“Were its fangs red?”
David frowned. “I-yes. Yes, I think so.”
“All right. Call the hospital and tell them he’s likely been bitten by a Brazilian wandering spider. Its venom is neurotoxic, not necrotic. Got it?”
“I-yes, yes, I’ve got it. Is he going to be all right?”
Grissom hesitated. “Less than one percent of those bitten by this spider die. I’m sure he’ll be fine-just make the call.”
Grissom left David guarding the door while he made a quick trip to the supply closet, returning with a pair of heavy gloves and a large plastic jar.
“I told them,” said David. “They said they had the antivenin.”
“Hopefully they won’t need it. Don’t let anyone else in, all right? This species is highly aggressive-it’s one of the few spiders in the world that will pursue and attack animals much larger than itself.”
“You’re-you’re going in there?”
Grissom slipped on the gloves. They were made of industrial rubber, more suited to chemical spills than inch-long fangs, but they should provide some protection. “I’ll be fine.”
He opened the door cautiously, slippe d inside, and closed it behind him.
The body of Paul Fairwick lay on the autopsy table. Robbins must have grabbed at the overhead light as he fell, because it was tilted up at a crazy angle, throwing odd shadows across the room.
What Grissom hadn’t told David was that the Brazilian wandering spider was listed in the Guinness World Records Book as the most venomous spider on the planet. Its venom contained a neurotoxin known as Tx2-9, an ion-channel inhibitor that caused profuse sweating, vomiting, and tachycardia. The venom also contained a high amount of serotonin, producing intense pain that could range from local to radiating throughout the body. The spider itself didn’t weave a web and wait for its prey to come to it; it was a nocturnal hunter, moving through the jungle night in search of something to kill and eat. It was incredibly fast and agile and wouldn’t hesitate to attack if it felt threatened.
Grissom scanned the base of the room first. The spider would most likely have found refuge under something low, but it would be attracted to anyplace warm. He got down on his hands and knees, putting the jar down beside him, and peered under the row of shelves along one wall.
He hoped Robbins would be all right. While most victims of the genus Phoneutria survived, two types were most at risk: children and the elderly. Whil e Al Robbins was only fifty-seven, he had a pacemaker-and when the spider’s venom did kill, it was through pulmonary edema. More worrisome was the fact that Doc Robbins had two prosthetic legs, meaning a much lower body mass for the venom to be distributed through; that was thought to be the factor that killed children who had been bitten.
He took a flashlight out of his pocket and shone it under the shelf. The Brazilian wandering spider had eight eyes, two of them quite large; Grissom knew they would reflect light well.
No spider. He stood up and turned in a slow circle, looking for movement. Nothing.
It would look for a heat source, but the autopsy room was kept cold. Perhaps he should just wait and let the chill slow it down?
No. Better to trap it now, before it hid itself away in some unreachable nook or cranny.
And then he saw Doc Robbins’s laptop sitting on the stainless steel counter. It would be radiating heat, but the spider would have no way to get up there; the stainless steel legs would be too smooth for it to climb, as would the tiled wall it was attached to. The laptop, though, had a power cord trailing down the side… and the transformer in the power adapter would be just as warm and a lot more accessible.
He put the flashlight in his mouth, held the open jar in one hand and the lid in the other. He crouched down, peering around the edge of the counter at the plug near the floor. There was no spider… but a thin line of web glinted in the beam of the light. A strand that led upward, paralleling the power cord itself.
Grissom turned his head. Eight eyes gleamed from behind the open laptop, on the same level as his own-and no more than two feet away.
The spider leapt at his face-but Grissom was quicker.
He brought the open jar up just in time and the arachnid landed inside. He slapped the lid on a split second later, the spider already frantically trying to get out.
He examined it critically as it tried to strike at him through the transparent plastic. “Lovely,” he murmured.
“Grissom?” David called from the other side of the door. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine, David. You can come in now.”
The door cracked open. “I just got off the phone with the hospital. Doc’s in a lot of pain, but they think he’s going to be all right.”
“Where did this come from?” asked Grissom.
“I have no idea.”
Grissom put the jar down and approached the body on the autopsy table. He noticed the cylinder with the tube attached to it immediately. “I don’t believe it…”
“It came from in there?”
“It appears so. This tube was inserted up and into the sinus cavity to provide air, while the body itself would have kept the spider warm. Once discovered, its natural inclination would be to attack.”
David blinked. “That’s in sane.”
“No, it makes perfect sense.” Grissom paused. “To an entomologist…”
Neither Aaron Tyford nor Diego Molinez would admit to any involvement in Hal Kanamu’s death, dealing methamphetamine, or manufacturing it-and Catherine hadn’t expected them to. The evidence seemed to point to some kind of drug deal gone wrong, and she thought if she could locate the drugs she’d be one step closer to solving the riddle of Kanamu’s death.
They had to be making the meth somewhere. The problem was that there was no shortage of places to do so in and around Vegas. Trailers or rural properties were often used because of their isolation, but meth labs had also been found in upscale condos and suburban homes. Even hotel and motel rooms were being used, the “cooks” leaving behind all sorts of toxic chemicals once they were done. One of the biggest tip-offs of a meth lab was the foul smell it tended to exude, but Catherine hadn’t noticed any such odor on Tyford or Molinez; that suggested they had extremely good ventilation, but maybe they’d just been careful about showering and changing their clothes.
She went through their records carefully. Neither owned any property, at least not under his own name. Molinez had spent a lot of time incarcerated and still had to report to a parole officer on a regular basis.
The proof of Boz Melnyk’s exposure to a meth precursor was enough to get a search warrant for his residence, anyway. Maybe it would lead to something more incriminating.
Boz Melnyk lived in a run-down house in north Vegas. It clearly wasn’t where he cooked meth-no burn pits in the yard, no oxidation on the aluminum window frames-but it was still a sty. Catherine shook her head as she picked her way through the trash-strewn living room, the floor littered with fast food wrappers, old newspapers, stacks of porn magazines, and empty beer cans. The bedroom was just as bad and the kitchen was worse; roaches skittered away from the beam of her flashlight, hiding under overturned dirty dishes with a film of mold growing on them.
There was an attached garage but no car. Instead, she found plastic crates of two-liter soda bottles stacked three high along one wall, many with mismatched caps. Each was full of a yellow liquid, and she knew even before she opened one and took a whiff what she would find.
“Well, well,” she murmured to herself. “Mr. Melnyk’s a tinkle tweaker.”
Catherine was never amazed at just how far an addict was willing to go t o get a hit of their favorite drug. This particular method, while more high-tech, wasn’t new; desperate alcoholics sometimes saved their own urine and drank it the morning after, essentially running it through the same system twice to strain out any remaining alcohol. Tweakers did much the same thing, saving their own urine and then adding acetone, lye, or paint thinner to filter and separate out the chemicals they were after. A gallon of urine produced around half a gram of meth-of noticeably poorer quality, but still enough to get the user high.
She looked around but didn’t find any of the filtering agents. He must take it to the lab for that; this is just for collection and storage. Which means these crates have presumably been to the lab and back.
She replaced the bottle, then knelt down and examined the crates themselves. There were bits of brownish matter stuck to the underside of several; they had their own distinctive odor, one she recognized. That narrows it down, but I’m going to need more information than my nose can give me.
She scraped a sample into an evidence vial. The next step was up to Hodges.
Robbins blinked at Grissom blearily from his bed in the ICU unit of Vegas General. He was propped in a sitting position, a swiveling tray over his lap. His prosthetic legs had been removed, creating the disturbing illusion that he wasn’t so much lying in bed as part of it, a sort of mattress centaur.
“How are you , Al?” asked Grissom.
“I feel like I was thrown in an industrial washing machine with a dozen baseball bats. What the hell, Gil?”
“You were bitten by a poisonous spider indigenous to South America. They sometimes show up in shipments of bananas.”
“I hate to tell you this, Grissom, but if there were any bananas around this spider, they were in the process of being digested.” He winced and held up his hand, which was beet red and extremely swollen. “Little bastard got me good.”
“The venom contains a high degree of serotonin- that’s what makes it so painful. In fact, once the serotonin wears off you may experience a downturn in mood-like coming off antidepressants.”
“Oh, good, something to look forward to.”
“Don’t worry, I captured it.”
“Don’t suppose you’d leave me and it alone in a room with my crutch, would you?”
Grissom smiled. “A rematch? I think you need to get back in shape first.”
“I don’t know if I already said this, but-what the hell, Gil?”
“I think this is related to the Harribold case.”
“First millipedes, now a spider. Both used as weapons.”
“That’s how it appears, yes.”
“So we’ve got a psycho on our hands?”
Grissom raised his eyebrows. “I think that judgment’s a little premature. We have someone with a knowledge of entomology, that’s undeniable. What’s more troubling is his choice of victims.”
“I’d have to agree with you on that one.”
Grissom shook his head. “The first victim was stalked online, with a great deal of preparation. The second attack was an elaborate trap, but its target was one of circumstance-the spider could have bitten anyone who was present at the autopsy. It could have been me.”
“Maybe it’s just the drugs they gave me, but I’m not sure I follow. Are these random killings or carefully orchestrated?”
“Both. It isn’t the identity of the victim that’s important,” said Grissom. “It’s how they die.”
“I hate to disappoint you, but I’m not planning on dying just yet.”
“Good. I’d hate to have to train another coroner.”
“You’re going to keep the damn spider, aren’t you?”
“It’s evidence. But they only live a year or two, anyway.”
“That’s a real consolation.”
“Is there anything I can bring you? Reading material, something to eat?”
Robbins shook his head. “I don’t think so. I ache too much to concentrate, and I’m too nauseous to eat.”
“Let me get that tray out of the way, then.”
Robbins stopped him by grabbing the tray with his good hand. “You can leave that, actually.”
Grissom frowned-and then a look of understanding crossed his face. “Oh. I don’t know if you know this about the Ph oneutria species, but one of the side effects of the venom is priapism. It’s actually being studied as an anti-impotence drug.”
“I wondered. It’s temporary, right?”
Grissom smiled. “Let’s just say that when it comes time for you to testify, it won’t stand up in court.”
“You can go now.”
Hodges looked up from his microscope. “The sample you brought me,” he told Catherine, “was crap.”
Catherine refused to rise to the bait. “I know that. What I need from you is what kind of crap it is.”
“Oh. Bovine. But what may be of more interest is what said moo-cow was eating that became the crap.”
“Which would be?”
“Eustoma exaltatum, or as it’s more commonly known, catchfly prairie gentian. A pretty purple flower, to be prosaic.”
“And what sort of distribution would the pretty purple flower have?”
“Sadly, widespread-at least in California. In Nevada, though, it’s made it onto the at-risk botanical list; there’s only one place it’s known to grow, out at Red Rock Springs.”
She nodded. “So I’m looking for a rural property near Red Rock. Thanks.”
“I live to please.”
“Okay,” said Greg. He and Catherine were in the layout room, comparing notes on the light table. “Here’s w hat I’ve got. Kanamu was hanging around the Burner community, but they weren’t comfortable with his drug use. He tried to convince an art collective that calls itself the Phyre Brigade to change gears on the art project they were already half-finished with to work on his, but they turned him down and turfed him because of the drugs.”
“What did he want them to build?”
Greg shrugged. “It changed depending on how high he was, but a volcano goddess was mentioned. And a fire-breathing shark.”
“What happened after they cut him loose?”
“Apparently he hooked up with another artist, but I haven’t been able to track him down. Still working on it.”
“All right. Lester Akiliano led me to three meth heads named Boz Melnyk, Aaron Tyford, and Diego Molinez. They didn’t have any problem with Kanamu’s using; in fact, I think they planned on going into business with him. According to them, he wasn’t interested.”
“You think they killed him over it?”
“Maybe-but the funds had to be for expansion, not start-up. They’re already in business.” She told him about the phossy jaw.
“Glow-in-the-dark grin, huh?” He shook his head. “Eit her of the other two have alibis?”
“Each other. Claim to have been up late watching movies at Melnyk’s place, which I’ve been to. A palace it isn’t. And I found something interesting-though disgusting-while I was there.” She described the garage, the crates of urine, and the manure sample that Hodges had analyzed.
“Red Rock Springs,” said Greg. “Can’t be that many properties within grazing range. Let’s do a title search and see what we come up with.”
“My turn to be one step ahead.” She handed him a printout. “Ready to go hang out with some livestock?”
“Okay, but this time I’m wearing boots.”
They knew they’d found it by the smell.
It was an abandoned barn, turned a faded gray by the elements, half its roof gone. Where a farmhouse once stood was only the crumbling remains of a stone chimney. A narrow dirt track led up to it, but there was no vehicle visible.
Catherine parked the Denali a good distance away and rolled down her window. The prevailing wind carried a chemical stink both she and Greg recognized immediately.
“Think anyone’s in there right now?” asked Greg.
“If they are,” she said, pulling out her cell phone, “they’re gonna wish they weren’t.”
The Las Vegas Police Department didn’t screw around when it came to meth labs. Even though the number of operati ons had dropped drastically in the last few years, largely supplanted by Mexican “superlabs” that smuggled their product across the border, there was always a local chemical entrepreneur willing to start his own enterprise-and the LVPD had learned not to take any chances with the smaller variety. The smaller the lab, the more likely it was run by addicts; that increased the danger on several levels.
Methamphetamine produced a wide variety of effects, both physical and psychological. Of the latter, paranoia and a compulsion to tinker-sometimes manifesting as dismantling and reassembling electronics-often led to a lethal tendency to build booby traps to protect the lab itself. Tweakers could be endlessly inventive: pit bulls, venomous snakes, even alligators were used as watchdogs; automatic weapons were trained on doors, triggers attached to doorknobs with fishing line; canisters of homemade poisonous gas or large amounts of high explosive were wired to light switches.
Those were the immediate threats. More indirect but no less dangerous were the large number of hazardous chemicals that could be present: solvents like acetone, ether, methanol, benzene, toluene, isopropanol; acetic, sulfuric, or hydriodic acid; amm onia, phosphine, or Freon gas; and metals like mercuric chloride, lithium, red phosphorous, metallic sodium, or potassium. The last two were especially dangerous-usually stored in kerosene, either one would react explosively when exposed to air or water.
Because of this, police responding to reports of a meth lab approached it with extreme caution. The large van trundling up the dirt track toward Catherine and Greg didn’t stop when it reached their position, but instead kept going to within fifty yards of the barn itself, where it opened and disgorged a team of six officers in hazmat suits, body armor, and full-face respirators. There was nothing but gentle rolling hills on either side of the structure and no trees at all. If the people inside tried to run, there was no place to run to.
The men quickly took positions around the building. Once they were in place, the officer in charge raised a bullhorn to his mouth: “ATTENTION! THIS IS THE LAS VEGAS POLICE DEPARTMENT. YOU HAVE ONE MINUTE TO EXIT THE BUILDING. COME OUTSIDE WITH YOUR HANDS CLEARLY VISIBLE AND LAY FACEDOWN ON THE GROUND.”
“Think they’ll put up a fight?” Greg asked.
“Depends on how stupid they are,” said Catherine.
The minute ticked by. There was no response.
“Might not be anyone home,” Greg murmured.
“ Lot of cooks do leave during the last forty-eight hours of the process.”
“Yeah, ’cause that’s when the whole thing is most likely to go boom.”
The officer in charge gave the signal, and his men started to move in, very slowly, with weapons drawn. They looked like futuristic storm troopers advancing on the site of a concealed UFO.
“I hate this part,” said Catherine.
“I know. No telling what’s in there…”