AT THE SAME TIME GREG SANDERS WAS GIVING CATH-erine Willows and Sara Sidle the skinny on wig hair, Gil Grissom—in a loose long-sleeve dark gray shirt and black slacks—was striding down the hall, a file folder in one hand, his heels clicking softly on the tile floor. Finally arriving at his destination, he knocked on a door with raised white letters spelling: CAPTAIN JAMES BRASS.
“It’s open,” came the muffled voice from the other side.
Grissom walked in and granted Brass a boyish grin; the detective was sitting in a large gray chair behind a government-issue gray metal desk.
The office was a glorified cubicle, the wall to the left filled with file cabinets, a chalkboard all but obscuring the wall at right, with a table covered with stacks of papers camped beneath it. Brass’s desk, however, was tidy, bearing only the open file before him, a telephone, and a photo of his daughter, Ellie.
“Chic,” Grissom said.
“You came by for a reason, or just to brighten my evening?”
Standing opposite Brass, ignoring a waiting chair, Grissom deposited his own file on top of the one Brass had been perusing. “Results of the tox screen on our torso—no drugs, no alcohol.”
“Sounds like a good Christian corpse,” Brass said, cocking an eyebrow over the file. “But is it Lynn Pierce?”
“Still waiting on DNA confirmation. Replicating the DNA, heating it and cooling it, over and over, takes time.”
Brass nodded, put down the file, locked eyes with the CSI. “Tell me we’ve got something to hold us over till then.”
“Doc Robbins defleshed the torso, and used the bones to run some numbers, which reveals significant information, through wear.”
Though Brass had once supervised CSI himself, he still considered much of Grissom’s information to sound like gibberish. “Which in English means what?”
Nick Stokes—in a long-sleeve tan T-shirt and dark tan chinos—appeared in the open door, but didn’t interrupt. Brass waved him in, and Nick moved to the side and leaned against the corner file cabinet.
“It means,” Grissom said, “that the torso belonged to a white woman between the ages of thirty-five and forty-five, weight approximately one-ten, height about five-four…and she was definitely dismembered with a chain saw.”
With an amazed shake of his head, Brass asked, “Robbins got all that from the pelvic bones?”
“Yeah, that and that she was in a heavy exercise program…did a lot of sit-ups.”
“You can tell me all this, including her dismemberment by Black and Decker…”
“We don’t know the brand name. Yet.”
“But you can’t confirm who she is or how she died.”
“That’s true to a point. But we have the husband’s identification of the birthmark, and now, a lot more.”
“Such as?”
“Female between thirty-five and forty-five, weighing one-ten and standing five-four…who does that remind you of?”
Brass shrugged one shoulder. “Sure, those figures fit Lynn Pierce…but how many other missing women?”
Slowly, Grissom said, “Factoring in the birthmark, and the episiotomy scar?…Not another in Nevada.”
Silence stretched in the little office.
“Well…” Brass sighed. “We already knew it was Lynn Pierce, didn’t we?…And yet we still don’t have a thing to hang on that bastard husband of hers.”
Grissom held Brass’s eyes, and then slowly moved both of their gazes over to Nick, standing on the sidelines, leaning against that file cabinet.
Wearing a tiny enigmatic smile, Nick straightened. “We may have him…. You tell me.”
“I will,” Brass said. “Go on.”
“I’ve been working on the Lynn Pierce computer and credit card records.”
“Any movement since her disappearance?” Brass asked.
“Nothing on the e-mail front. She’s still getting them, a few friends, church announcements, spam; but she hasn’t answered any of ’em, since the day before she went missing. And nothing new on the credit cards or ATM.”
“What woman does not use her charge card?” Grissom asked.
“A dead one,” Brass admitted.
Nick said, “Hey, I got more—something really interesting. Going through the old credit card receipts, I found this.” He stepped forward holding out a slip of paper.
Brass took the slip and studied it. “A receipt for a box of forty-four caliber shells…” His head went sideways. “Didn’t Pierce say…”
“…that he never owned a gun?” Grissom finished. “Yes he did…. Gentlemen?”
Somehow, Brass managed to arrive in front of the Pierce home in less than ten minutes. The sun had long since dipped below the horizon, leaving the sky the purplish hue of a huge bruise. The evening was cool and only a few lights were on in the castle-like house. Grissom and Nick hurried to keep up with Brass who moved onto the porch, skipped the bell, and pounded on the front door with his fist.
Pierce, in an open-neck navy Polo shirt and dark blue jeans, opened the door displaying the same hangdog expression they’d seen on their last visit. He had not shaved; perhaps, Grissom speculated, the physical therapist had stayed home from work again today.
Brass held out the photocopy of the receipt like a bill collector demanding a payment way overdue. He didn’t even wait for their reluctant host to speak. “You lied, Pierce! You told us you never owned a gun—so how do you explain a receipt for bullets you bought?”
The detective kept walking as he spoke, backing Pierce inside the house with the force of his words and forward motion. Grissom and Nick followed them in, the former even shutting the door behind him, as the group gathered in the foyer by the winding stairway.
“And don’t bother feeding us some bull about buying them for a friend,” Brass ranted. “This time, I want the truth.” Finally, when the detective stopped to take a breath, Pierce got a word in.
“All right!” the therapist said. “All right, I admit it…. I…I had a gun in the house…for awhile.”
Brass seemed ready to blow again, but that statement brought him up short. He looked hard at Pierce. “Had a gun?”
“Had a gun,” Pierce repeated.
Brass’s open hand shot to his right temple, as if he were either fighting off a vicious migraine or a sudden stroke. Neither option struck Grissom as positive.
The therapist held up his hands in a fashion that was equal parts surrender and calming gesture; then he led them into the living room, gesturing to the rifles-and-flags sofa. “Please, please…sit down. Let me explain.”
In a stage whisper in Grissom’s direction, Brass said, “This should be prime.”
But Brass took a seat on the couch, while Grissom again sat at the edge of the maple chair opposite; Nick hovered in the background, while Pierce settled in chummily beside the skeptical detective.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Pierce said, reasonably, with a tone usually reserved for children. “Cocaine in the house, gun in the house, Born-Again wife…he had to have killed her.”
“Now that you mention it,” Brass said.
Running a hand over his unshaven face, the therapist sighed in resignation. “Okay. I had a gun. A .44 Magnum I bought from…an acquaintance.”
“And of course it wasn’t registered.”
“Your negative attitude, Captain, doesn’t keep that from being any less true.”
“The name of the acquaintance?”
Pierce hesitated.
The sarcasm in Brass’s tone had been replaced with matter-of-fact, almost cheerful professionalism. “One of you is going to jail this afternoon, Mr. Pierce—either you or the person who sold you an illegal weapon. You make the call.”
“I can’t tell you, Captain.”
“Can’t? Won’t, you mean.”
“I bought it from the man I was buying cocaine from. He doesn’t even know my wife—he’s no suspect in this.”
Brass frowned in shock. “And you’re protecting him?”
“I’m protecting myself and my daughter. Do I have to tell you that these kind of people are dangerous?”
Grissom said, “You were friendly enough with this person to purchase a weapon from him…what, to protect your family from the likes of the man you bought it from?”
“You might say…Guys, fellas…this is hard to admit.”
Brass smiled an unfriendly smile. “Try.”
Pierce sighed. “For a while, I was…when Lynn got involved with her church, gone all the time…well. She used to be…God!”
Grissom said, “Mr. Pierce, if you are innocent, you need to be frank us, so we don’t waste our time going down your road. Do you understand?”
Pierce swallowed thickly, nodded. “My wife used to be a wildcat…in the bedroom? Do I really have to say more?…Anyway, when she…got religion, certain things suddenly seemed…perverted to her. We hardly…had relations at all, anymore…. I need something to drink. Just water.”
“Nick,” Grissom said, and gestured toward the kitchen.
Nick nodded and went away.
“I’m not proud of it,” Pierce said, “but…I started seeing prostitutes. They’re not exactly tough to hook up with in this town. Sometimes I brought them to my office, sometimes to a motel, and sometimes…I brought them here.”
The son of a bitch was confirming the next door neighbor’s story!
Nick delivered the glass of water, Pierce took it, saying, “Thanks…You know how some of these girls, these women can be. How they sometimes bring their pimps or whoever around…and my…my coke connection said I should be careful. Said I needed protection in the house…. So I bought the Magnum.”
Brass said nothing; then glanced at Grissom, who shrugged. It was a good story.
“Okay, Mr. Pierce,” Brass said softly, “then where’s the gun now?”
Pierce looked at the floor, then at Brass, and back at the floor. “I had second thoughts about having it around the house, and, anyway, I stopped seeing those kind of girls.”
“You haven’t answered my question.”
“I threw it away.”
Grissom, wincing, said, “You threw the gun away?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“Lake Mead.”
Grissom felt as though he’d been slapped; he glanced at Brass, whose expression said he felt the same.
Brass asked, “You own a boat?”
“No. I went out on one of those excursions. Just tossed the thing overboard when nobody was looking.”
Grissom said, “Don’t suppose you kept the receipt for that ride?”
“No. Why should I? Wasn’t deductible.”
Brass rose, reaching for his cuffs. Grissom, still seated on the edge of the chair, touched the detective’s elbow, then—with his head—signaled for Brass to come with him.
Rising, Grissom said, “We’ll be right back, Mr. Pierce. If you don’t mind, we’re going to borrow your kitchen for a moment.”
Pierce sipped his water. “Be my guest.”
The three of them adjourned to the kitchen.
“Lake Mead?” Brass said, eyes wide with fury, though he kept his voice low. “He’s rubbing our goddamn faces in it!”
“No, that’s good,” Grissom said, with a hand gesture and a little smile. “He’s cute. He thinks he’s smarter than us.”
“Maybe he is smarter,” Brass said.
“Than some of us…maybe.” And Grissom grinned sweetly, while Brass shook his head in utter irritation—only some of it at Pierce.
“You are going to arrest him for the pistol?” Nick asked Brass, also keeping his voice low.
“Damn right,” Brass said. “That much we do have on the son of a bitch.”
Now it was Grissom shaking his head. “It’ll never hold up, Jim—you know that. There’s no gun. All we really have is a receipt for bullets dated six months ago.”
“He confessed to having a gun!”
“Remind me—which one of us read him his rights?”
Brass’s face was red; he was breathing hard. “I can’t believe this! It’s crazy. Insane…That evil bastard killed his wife, cut her up and dumped the pieces of her in the lake. There’s gotta be something here! Where’s the justice?”
“No justice yet,” Grissom said, gently, touching the detective’s sleeve. “But there will be. Now, let’s get out of here before we screw something up.”
They took their leave quietly, and let Pierce have the last word.
At the doorway, he said, “I hope I’ve been of some small help.”
Nick Stokes parted company with Grissom and Brass at HQ, and headed into the lab where Warrick had been working. He found Warrick practically spotwelded to the monitor of a computer.
“What’s up?” Nick asked.
“I’m trying to track down that red triangle we found on the bag of dope at Pierce’s.”
“Timely,” Nick said. “Pierce just copped to getting not just coke from a dealer, but a gun as well.”
Nick filled Warrick in on the latest visit to the king of the Pierce castle, including the therapist’s refusal to I.D. his connection.
Nick asked Warrick, “Getting anywhere?”
“Not yet…but I just know I’ve seen that signature somewhere, it’s ringin’ a bell…a distant one, anyway. I’m gonna keep diggin’.”
“All right.” Nick yawned. “I’m fried—Grissom had me in early today, to keep at those computer records…I gotta go home and catch some z’s.”
“It’s a plan…. Later.”
“You may want to try getting some sleep one of these days yourself,” Nick said, at the doorway. “Latest thing—they say it’s really catching on.”
Warrick expended half a smirk. “Not around here.”
Warrick Brown stayed with it, going through file after file looking at drug dealers the LVMPD had busted in the last few years. An hour later, he was still rolling through files looking for the odd little red triangle.
A knock at the doorframe took him away from his work, and he turned to see one of the interns, a young, dark-curly-haired guy named Jeremy Smith, slight of build, in a black UNLV sweatshirt and blue jeans. A criminal justice major at the university, Smith had been working part-time for the last few months, sometimes days, occasionally nights.
“Hey, Jeremy,” Warrick said, mildly annoyed to be interrupted. “What’s up?”
Smith stepped gingerly into the lab, as if not sure he had permission. “I talked to every glass company in the metro area—remember, to see if they replaced the driver’s side window of a ’95 Avalon?”
“Right. And?”
The young man shook his head. “Zip zally zero.”
Warrick muttered a “damn,” but the kid was stepping forward, more sure of himself now.
“Then I thought I better check the car dealerships too.”
“That was good initiative, Jeremy—any luck?”
“Not really.”
“Yeah. Well. Good thought, though. Thanks.”
“All right, then…Warrick?”
Warrick sighed to himself, suddenly sorry he’d told the kid to call him by his first name.
Smith was beside the computer, now, bright-eyed as a chipmunk. “Anything else I can do for?”
Why not tap into all this energy? Warrick considered the offer for a long moment, then said, “Junkyards, Jeremy—try the junkyards.”
Smith nodded, grinned. “I’m on it.”
The kid was halfway out the door when Warrick called out, “One more thing, Jeremy! You ever see this before?”
The intern came back over and Warrick passed him the evidence bag with the baggie of coke inside.
Turning it over and over, Smith studied it, then handed it back. “Yeah, I’ve seen this mark.”
Warrick knew the intern had been working a lot of days, and gave him the benefit of the doubt. “Bust you were in on?”
The intern shook his head, saying, “No, this is something I’ve seen on campus…. Small-time dealer, sells mostly grass. I don’t know if he’s been in the system or not.”
“He wouldn’t have a name, would he?”
“Well, I don’t know his real name—his street name is Lil Moe. Supposed to be once you’ve tried his stuff, you always want…a little mo’.”
Warrick just looked at Smith.
Jeremy gave him a quick nervous smile and patted the air with his hands, like an untalented mime. “Hey, that’s just what I heard.”
“Uh huh.”
“Honest, Warrick!”
Smith used some of his nervous energy to haul his ass out of there, and Warrick immediately tried “Lil Moe” in the database, coming up blank. He checked pending files and struck out again. Finally, he went in search of Jeremy the intern and found him in the break room with a phone book in one hand and a phone in the other, a notepad and pencil before him.
The kid looked up, saw Warrick, and said, “Starting on the junkyards. Some of ’em work at night, y’know. Anybody I can’t talk to, at least I can have a list of numbers ready for tomorrow.”
“Table that. Would you know Lil Moe if you saw him?”
“Sure.”
“Help me know him.”
“Five-nine, -ten maybe, a hundred twenty-five or thirty. Real skinny. He’s got dreadlocks to his shoulders and always wears this big Dodgers stocking cap.”
“Stocking cap in Vegas?”
Smith shrugged. “Makes him easy to find.”
“Find where?”
“He kind of bounces around the edges of the campus…but he’ll probably be somewhere around the Thomas & Mack Center.”
Easy for students to find him, Warrick thought, and nodded. “Thanks.”
“What now?”
“Junkyards.”
“Junkyards,” Jeremy said, and got back to it.
Warrick found Brass in his office and shared his new information.
“Lil Moe, huh?” Brass said.
“A little is better than nothing at all.” Warrick stood with his hands on his hips, his eyebrows high. “You wanna go for a ride, and see if we can score?”
Brass was already on his feet. “Let’s do that—even a drug dealer’ll feel like a step up from Owen Pierce.”
The home of the Runnin’ Rebels basketball teams squatted on the far southwest corner of the UNLV campus, but the Taurus came at the Thomas & Mack Center from the campus side. The detective made the trip just below the speed limit, but not too slow. The Taurus stuck out enough without them crawling along in an obvious search. It wasn’t midnight yet, and the campus hadn’t quite yet gone to sleep.
People (kids mostly) dotted the sidewalks here and there, quiet students heading to their dorms, louder ones off to the next kegger, the occasional professor walking with briefcase and sometimes a young teaching aide, a few joggers working off the stress of the day in the cool of the night…
…and another strata more in the shadows, harder to see, unpredictable, even dangerous, some searching for drugs, and—more important to Brass and Warrick—some selling. On their first lap, as their eyes probed the shadows and recesses of doorways, they didn’t see anyone fitting Lil Moe’s description…and not on the second lap, either, or even the third.
By lap four, midnight had come and gone, the sidewalks had thinned, and they hadn’t gotten even a whiff of Lil Moe.
“Maybe he’s not out tonight,” Brass offered.
“Or maybe he’s making the car. Just ’cause it’s unmarked, that doesn’t mean Moe doesn’t know a police car when he eyeballs it.”
“We could disguise ourselves,” Brass commented dryly from the wheel, “as cheerleaders.”
“I got a better idea…. Let me out.”
Brass just looked at him. “You have your weapon, Brown?”
“No—I don’t wear it around the lab.”
“We’re not in the lab. You’re asking to do some kind of half-assed, impromptu undercover dance, and that’s not—”
“C’mon, Brass! I’m not saying leave me alone. Just back me up from a distance. Let me see if I can smoke this guy out.”
“You’re a criminalist, Brown—not a cop.”
“And you’re a middle-aged white guy. Which of us stands to score easier?”
Brass considered that. “Well, it’s plain this plan isn’t working.”
“All right then—Plan B.”
Hopping out at the corner of Harmon and Tarkanian Way, Warrick ambled down the street named after the legendary UNLV basketball coach. Taking his time, not wanting to appear anxious or in a hurry, Warrick strolled toward the arena, enjoying the cool evening. In the dusky light he could barely make out the sign for the Facilities Management Administration Building (whatever that was) across the street. Passing the single-story building, he continued inexorably toward the Thomas & Mack Center.
Warrick turned left, keeping the basketball arena on his right as he circled the building. The street-lights spaced their pools of light about every ten yards, giving a sense of security to a gaggle of passing coeds, but only made Warrick feel more like a moving target. The shadows deepened and became fathomless in contrast to the spheres of white.
He glanced up to see Brass’s Taurus turning off Gym Road into the Thomas & Mack parking lot near Tropicana Avenue. Then he shifted his gaze around, as if aimlessly looking at this and that, so that anyone watching him wouldn’t realize he’d been keeping tabs on the unmarked car.
The CSI had almost made it to the Jean Nidetch Women’s Center when a male voice called out to him from the shadows. “Bro!”
Warrick swiveled that way but stayed on the sidewalk. He said nothing.
The voice from the darkness said, “You lookin’ for somethin’? Or you jus’ lost?”
“That depends. What kinda map you sellin’?”
A figure took a step closer, remaining in the shadows, but now visible as a slight, sketchy presence. “Roadmap to bliss, bro—happiness highway.”
Warrick settled into place on the sidewalk. “Who couldn’t use a little happiness?”
The guy took another step toward the light. Warrick got a better look at him now: a tall, gangly man in a silk running suit, a Dodgers stocking cap perched atop a tangle of dreadlocks. Just a kid, Warrick thought, maybe twenty-one tops.
“You lookin’ for happiness, I got it. Just not out there, man—light hurts my eyes. Ease on down the road.”
After a glance around, Warrick stepped out of the pale circle of streetlamp light, and into the shadows in front of the guy…
…who fit the intern’s description of Lil Moe like a latex glove. Long time since I hit a jackpot in this town, Warrick thought.
The dealer was saying, “What kind of happiness you in the market for?”
“You might be surprised what makes me happy.”
“Hey, bro—I’m strictly pharmaceutical…strange sex stuff, try the yellow pages.”
“Not sex, Moe…”
Eyes and nostrils flared. “How you know my name? I never done bidness with you.”
“Information, Moe—that’s all I want.”
“You want infor mation from me? Do I look like a fuckin’ search engine? What am I, some Yahoo Google shit?”
Lil Moe snapped his fingers, and before Warrick could move, a third party grabbed his left arm, wrenched it behind him, and pain streaked up his arm, spiking in his shoulder. He heard a sharp metallic snick, and suddenly felt the point of a blade dimple his throat, next to his Adam’s apple. He froze—and hoped to hell that somewhere Brass was watching this, somewhere close, calling in some backup.
“I’m gonna ask you again, homey,” Lil Moe said, moving in on Warrick, the dealer’s face contorted, waving his hand like a pissed off rapper. “Why you want information from me?”
The knife pressed deeper, and Warrick felt the sting before something warm began trickling down his neck. Behind him, whoever held his arm was strong, and kept Warrick’s hand high between his shoulder blades, the muscles stretching and ready to explode, if the assailant snapped the bone.
In front of Warrick, the young man in the Dodger stocking cap hopped from foot to foot, as if the sidewalk were a bed of coals under his expensive sneakers. “Who sent you, man? What’s this about?”
Forcing himself to slow his breathing and to remain calm despite the situation, Warrick’s mind raced over possible outcomes—most of them grim.
“I’ll pay for what I want,” Warrick managed.
“Oh, you gonna pay, all right! Who you workin’ for? You with Danny G?”
His unseen assailant’s breathing came in sharp, rapid gulps, breath hot on Warrick’s neck and reeking of liquor and garlic. The assailant sucked his teeth as if trying to control his salivating over the urge to plunge the blade into Warrick’s throat.
And the dealer was singsonging, “You better fuckin’ talk, boy, while you got your vocal cords.”
Rasping, his voice little more than a hoarse whisper, Warrick asked, “You don’t wanna cut me.”
Looking older suddenly, Lil Moe eyeballed the CSI, the anger shining through even in the darkness. “Aw fuck this, Tony—fuckin’ cut him, man!”
Even as Warrick tensed for the cold invasion of steel, he felt the pressure go slack on his arm and the blade drew away from his neck. Then he heard steel clatter to sidewalk, followed by Brass’s quiet voice saying, “Smart move—and I didn’t even have to tell you to drop it.”
Lil Moe’s eyes went wild, his mouth dropped open; no words exited, but he did: spinning on his heel, he ran like a starting gun had sounded. Turning, Warrick saw his assailant, a wiry black kid, this one in baggy UNLV jersey and baggier jeans and no more than sixteen, the nose of Brass’s automatic kissing the boy’s right temple.
“You just gonna stand there bleeding?” Brass asked Warrick. “Or are you gonna go catch him?”
Warrick took this gentle hint, and spun and sprinted after the drug dealer.
Moe had a good twenty-yard head start. But he was also stoned and pumping his arms wildly, his knees pistoning up and down, his stride lengths varying as the drugs kept him from running smoothly. And instead of heading toward the mass of buildings to the east, where he would have had options for escape and possibly obstacles to benefit his youth, he had taken off across the vast expanse of the parking lot.
Before he’d got halfway to Tropicana Avenue, Moe started to slow, and—by the far side of the lot—Warrick caught up and grabbed his jacket, slowing him as they both ran. “Stop!…It’s over!”
Lil Moe fought frantically with the zipper, trying to escape the jacket and still keep running at the same time. The drugs prevented him from doing either very effectively. Suddenly lurching to the right, Moe snatched the jacket from Warrick’s grasp, but tumbled, elbows and feet flying at odd angles, and he whumped onto the cement and rolled and came to a skidding stop at the parking-lot curb, in a fetal position, one hand going to his face, the other arm wrapping around ribs that were at least cracked if not broken.
Barely breathing hard, Warrick bent down over him. “That’s it—there ain’t no Moe.”
Sweat beading on his face and looking like he couldn’t decide whether to bawl or vomit, the young man stared up, all the fight gone from his face. “Okay, man, okay—so I’m Lil Moe. You five-oh?”
Warrick grinned. “Criminalist.”
“What-the-fuck ’ist’?”
“Don’t sweat the details—you’re still in a world of trouble.”
Brass strolled up, towing the other one by his elbow, the kid’s hands cuffed behind him. “Brown—you caught him,” the detective said, looking very pleased. “Nice job.”
Touching the small wound on his neck, Warrick returned his attention to Lil Moe. “You got a customer named Owen Pierce?”
The young man was shaking his head before Warrick finished the question. “Never heard of the dude and I ain’t sayin’ shit till I see my lawyer.”
Looking down at the dealer, Brass asked, “You got a name?”
“Told you! Talk to my lawyer.”
“He admits he’s Lil Moe,” Warrick said.
“What’s your real name?” Brass asked.
“Lawyer me up, or kick me, Barney Fife!”
Brass sighed. “Who’s your lawyer?”
Lil Moe shrugged. “P.D. my ass.”
Brass rolled his eyes and Warrick felt himself growing very weary. Public defender—this was going to be a long night.
“I got Band-Aids in the glove compartment,” Brass said.
Warrick said, “I’ve been cut worse shaving.”
“Probably.” Brass managed one of his rumpled smiles. “But that you can’t brag about.”
And they hauled the drug dealer and his scrawny “muscle” back to the Taurus.