ARTHUR AND MILLIE BLAIR LIVED IN AN ANONYMOUS, cookie-cutter white-frame two-story with a well-tended barely sloping lawn on a quiet street in a fairly well-to-do neighborhood not far from the UNLV campus, where Mr. Blair worked. The effect of the Lynn Pierce disappearance on the Blairs was at once apparent, when Brass and Grissom rolled up in the unmarked car: every light in the house was on, lighting the grounds like a prison yard.
To Brass, the Blairs seemed like nice people, salt-of-the-earth church-goers who kept to themselves mostly, worked hard, saved money, raised their only son the best way they knew how. Then, one day, their lives had changed forever—just because of who they were acquainted with.
Happened every day. Somebody had to live next door to JonBenet and her parents; someone had to take the apartment next to Jeffrey Dahmer; John Wayne Gacy had next door neighbors on his quiet street; O.J.’s wife Nicole had girl friends close to her.
Lynn Pierce was Millie’s friend, Arthur’s too, and had trusted them with the tape that might now be the only link to what Brass still hoped was just a missing persons case, and not a murder. Even though the disappearance was in no way the fault of this nice couple, Brass could see the guilt there on their faces.
He could tell they felt they should know where she’d gone, even though they couldn’t possibly have that information. Like most people caught up in a tragedy, the Blairs battled the feeling that somehow, some way, they should have done something, anything, to prevent this terrible situation…and they hadn’t.
Yes, they could have come to the authorities with the tape right after Lynn brought it to them; but the Pierce woman had asked them to hold onto it for her. They couldn’t have realized she might have anticipated her own murder, and was leaving a smoking gun behind, to identify her killer.
Only right now Brass did not have a murder—just a missing person. Nonetheless, he had brought Gil Grissom along, since at present the criminalist and his people were the only ones really, truly looking for Lynn Pierce.
The couple sat on their tasteful beige couch across from Brass and Grissom. Mr. Blair was in the white shirt, striped tie and gray slacks he’d probably worn to work that day. Nervously, the man pushed his dark-rimmed glasses back up his nose, so thick-lensed they exaggerated his eyes—to comic effect in other circumstances. Next to him, his wife Millie had on black slacks and a black-and-white striped silk blouse—dignified attire, vaguely suggesting mourning. She kept her arms crossed in front of her, clutched to herself, as if they could somehow keep out the problems that now faced them.
Grissom, like a priest in black but without the collar, perched on the edge of a tan La-Z-Boy, as if afraid to sit lest the thing might swallow him whole. Grissom, it seemed to Brass, seemed uncomfortable with comfort. On the other hand, Grissom surely knew as well as Brass that this was not going to be a pleasant interview.
After clearing his throat, Brass asked, “So, Mrs. Blair, you don’t believe that Mrs. Pierce would abandon her husband and daughter?”
“No, I don’t.” She looked at him curiously. “Do you?”
Brass smiled meaninglessly. “It’s not important what I believe, ma’am. What’s important is that we find Mrs. Pierce.”
Mrs. Blair unfolded herself a little, revealed the tissue in her right hand, and dabbed at her eyes. “Lynn would never run off like that, and not tell anyone where she’s going. That’s just not her. Not at all.”
“Help me get to know her, then.”
“She’s…” Mrs. Blair searched for the word.
“…sounds corny but…she’s sweet.” The woman glanced toward her husband, who took her hand in his. “We met a year or so ago, when she joined our church…then our women’s Bible study group.”
“You didn’t know the Pierces before that?”
“No.” She smiled—it was half melancholy, half nervous. “I think Lynn had a change of heart, a change of…spirit…direction.”
“I see,” Brass said, not seeing at all. Grissom was looking at the woman as if she were something on a lab slide.
“Before she met the Lord, Lynn had a different set of values, a different social circle…but since she joined our group, she and I became good friends—best friends.”
“Would you say Lynn is reliable? Could she ever be…flighty?”
Mrs. Blair smiled at the absurdity of the thought. “Oh, Detective Brass, you can always count on Lynn. If she says she’s going to do something, she does it.”
“I see.”
“That’s why I was so surprised last night when she phoned to tell me she was on her way over—right over—and then never showed up.”
“Tell us about that phone call,” Brass said. “How did she sound?”
She glanced at her husband; they were holding hands like sweethearts. “I feel so bad about that…”
“Darling,” Mr. Blair said, “it’s all right.”
His wife went on: “I’ve thought and thought about it since last night. I knew at the time she was upset, but I should have heard it then—she sounded distraught. Even terrified, but trying to…you know…hide it a little.”
“You’re sure about this?” Brass asked.
She shook her head, sighed. “I’m not sure about anything, anymore. I’ve replayed it so many times in my mind, I don’t know if she really sounded distraught or if I’m putting my own feelings into it…. I won’t lie to you, Detective Brass, I have…nervous problems. Sometimes I take medication.”
Brass glanced at Grissom, but the criminalist’s eyes were fixed upon the woman. The detective said, “Is that right?”
“Yes—Prozac.”
Her husband added, “A small dosage.”
“Well,” she said. “Prozac or no Prozac…I think Lynn was distraught. Really and truly.”
“Any idea what was troubling her?”
With a tiny edge of impatience, Arthur Blair said, “Maybe it was her husband threatening to cut her up in little pieces.”
Brass nodded. “I don’t mean to downplay the tape. But remember, some husbands and wives make those kind of idle threats all the time—”
“We don’t,” Mr. Blair said.
Brass continued: “And, at any rate, that was an argument from the day before. Did you get a sense of what specifically was troubling her the afternoon she called?”
Glumly, Mrs. Blair shook her head. “No. She didn’t tell me what it was, exactly…and I’d have no way of guessing.”
“Was she upset with her husband? I mean, this is a woman who went to the trouble of capturing her husband’s verbal abuse on tape, after all.”
“That was my assumption, but when I asked her, directly, if it was another argument with Owen, she kind of…dodged the issue.”
Mr. Blair sat forward. “It must have been about Owen. Lynn calls Millie all the time when Owen becomes…uh…overbearing.”
“That’s happened a lot?”
“I don’t know if it’s fair to say ‘a lot,’” Mrs. Blair said, thoughtfully. “She does call other times, though.”
“Has she ever called upset about something other than her husband’s abusive behavior?”
“Lori,” Mr. Blair blurted, before his wife could answer. “Their daughter—she aggravates Lynn almost as much as Owen.”
“That’s true,” Mrs. Blair admitted, shrugging one shoulder, raising one eyebrow. “Lori gave Lynn fits…although—and I don’t like to brag—they seem to’ve had a lot less trouble with her, since Lori started dating our Gary.”
Brass smiled. “Then Gary’s a positive influence on the Pierce girl?”
Mr. Blair smiled and nodded. “He’s a good boy—follows the Lord’s teachings and studies hard in school.”
Brass wondered what planet this was, but said, “That’s great. You’re very lucky.”
“No question,” Mr. Blair said. “Gary’s helped settle Lori down. She was a little…wild, before.”
“Wild?” asked Brass. “How so?”
Mr. Blair was searching for the words, so Mrs. Blair answered for him: “Impetuous, I would say. She made some mistakes with boys…drugs. It’s an evil world out there, Detective Brass.”
“I’ve noticed.”
Mrs. Blair went on, in a pleased rush: “But between Gary’s good influence, and Lynn’s good parenting, they got her straightened out.”
“Despite her father,” Mr. Blair grumbled.
“Anyway,” Mrs. Blair said, “I would say the girl’s doing fine now. Better grades, active in church, doesn’t try to dress like those…slatternly singers that are so popular now—like Lori used to.”
“Even so,” Brass said, “it would seem Lynn’s had more than her share of stress in her life—would you agree?”
The Blairs exchanged searching looks.
Then, at the same time, Mr. Blair said, “Yes,” as Mrs. Blair said, “No.”
The two laughed in awkward embarrassment, and Brass waited for them to sort it out themselves, each saying, “You first,” and “No, you.” Finally, Mrs. Blair said, “Lynn has stress, but I’m not sure it’s any more than anyone else, you know, in these troubled times.”
Brass sat forward. “You mean to say, you don’t consider her problems with her daughter, and her abusive husband, exceptional?”
Mrs. Blair shrugged with her eyebrows. “Well, I think the trouble with Lori, at least, is behind them.”
“But what about with Owen?”
Mrs. Blair turned to her husband. Arthur Blair’s lips peeled back and his eyes narrowed. The calm Christian removed his mask to reveal an angry human beneath. “Owen Pierce is a worthless, Godless son of a…” Blair’s voice trailed off and his knuckles turned white on the arm of the sofa as he struggled to control his emotions. His wife slipped her arm around his shoulder, comfortingly.
Captain Jim Brass had spent enough time with the Blairs, and people like them, to know that for Arthur Blair to come as close as he had to calling that son of a bitch Pierce a son of a bitch indicated an unfathomable depth of anger toward Owen Pierce.
“I take it you listened to the tape?” Blair asked, his voice still edged with an unChristian viciousness.
“Yes, sir.” Brass nodded toward Grissom. “We did.”
Blair sighed heavily. “Then you know what that monster must be capable of, to threaten his wife with that.” He shifted on the couch, sitting forward. “Understand something, Detective—I wouldn’t have allowed Gary to get involved with Lori if I didn’t think that Lynn was going to…divest herself of Owen, and soon.”
Millie Blair patted her husband’s arm in an effort to calm him.
“Normally,” Mrs. Blair said, “our faith discourages divorce. But Pastor Dan says, when a spouse has fallen into satanic ways, a person must protect one’s self, and children.”
Brass winced. “You don’t mean…literally…that Owen Pierce practiced satanism?”
“Of course not,” Mr. Blair said, sitting back, calmer. “But he’s a…devil…a demon himself. Capable of the worst atrocities….”
For the first time, Grissom spoke. “So, then, Mr. Blair—I take it you think Owen Pierce has made good on his threat to cut her into ‘little pieces’?”
Arthur Blair’s eyes became huge behind the lenses and his wife’s curled-fingered hand went to her mouth, where she bit a knuckle. Grissom might have slapped them, the way his words registered.
“That is what you think, isn’t it?” he pressed. “Isn’t that why you brought the tape to us?”
Mrs. Blair stared at her lap and covered her face with one hand and began to cry, quietly. Mr. Blair, slipping an arm around his wife’s shoulders, gave a tired nod.
Yes, Brass thought, Gil really has a way with people.
Grissom pressed on. “Do you think there are any circumstances at all under which Lynn might have just…left?”
Trembling with tears, Mrs. Blair shook her head.
Calmly, Grissom said, “Mr. Pierce said his wife had a significant amount of money in her own name and could have used it to disappear.”
“She had money,” Mrs. Blair conceded, the tears subsiding, “but it was all tied up in investments…stocks, bonds, CDs.”
Mr. Blair concurred: “None of it was liquid enough for her to get to easily.”
Nodding, Mrs. Blair went on. “She complained about that. It was something Owen talked her into. Even though she had her own money, she had little cash. I don’t think I ever saw her with more than, say, fifty dollars in her purse. Even though the money was hers, Owen seemed to keep her on a tight leash.”
The interview continued for a few minutes, but neither Brass nor Grissom found any new ground to cover. The Blairs had been unfailingly cooperative, but they were weary, and the detective and the criminalist knew nothing more was to be learned here, at least not right now.
On the way back, Grissom rode up front with Brass.
“Do you think Owen Pierce is the devil?” Brass said to the CSI, half-kidding.
“No,” Grissom said, seeming distant even for him. “But he’s a hell of a suspect.”
At headquarters, back from the strip club, Catherine sat down in the layout room, with a notepad and pen, the Dream Doll tapes and a VCR. Meanwhile, Sara took their findings to Greg Sanders so he could begin testing.
The tapes weren’t labeled, so each one was a new adventure. The first one had been from the back right corner of the stage, the camera farthest from the door, the bar, and far to the left of the hallway. Only the chairs around the stage on the backside were visible from this angle.
No one fitting the description of Ray Lipton came into view. Catherine flew through the tape on fast forward, knowing she would view the tape more carefully later. For now, she just wanted to see what Worm, the cheerful DJ, had seen. Ejecting that tape, she moved on to the next one. This camera hung behind the left side of the bar, nearer the front door.
Halfway through the tape, Catherine was about to give up and move on, when she glimpsed, on the fuzzy black-and-white picture, a two-tone jacket. Stopping, she rewound the tape until the jacket came into view, and went in reverse, then pushed PLAY.
The guy came into view wearing the denim and tan jacket, a ball cap pulled low, dark glasses and jeans. He walked through the shot and out the other side. She rewound it, ran it again. Something on the guy’s face…a beard? Worm had said Lipton might have grown his beard back; hard to tell with this tape. Popping the cassette out, Catherine went to the next, then the next—one after another, until she finally got through them all.
This Lipton guy, it seemed, had gone out of his way to avoid the camera. He hadn’t walked over to the bar, for a drink; and the camera above the door had gotten barely a glimpse of him…none of the stage cameras caught more than a snatch of him. Of course, Catherine told herself, with that restraining order, Lipton wasn’t supposed to be in there anyway, so maybe he was just being careful.
Only the camera at the head of the hallway got a decent shot of him, and that was of his back as he led busty, leggy Jenna through the door. Even with the poor quality of the tape, Catherine was able to make out the words Lipton Construction on the back of the jacket, as the couple disappeared out of frame.
Catherine sped the tape forward, until the figure in the jacket…bearded, all right…returned for a quick exit—alone.
“Conroy’s back.”
Catherine spun to see Sara standing in the doorway.
Sara ambled over to the monitor. “Anything good on?”
Catherine nodded. “Looks like Lipton was there, all right—got a good shot of his jacket going down the hallway with Jenna Patrick.”
“Time on those tapes?”
“Yeah…” Catherine pointed to her notes. “Time jibes. And Lipton, or anyway a guy in a Lipton Construction jacket, comes back out of the lap-dance cubicle…alone.”
“Interesting,” Sara said. “But why watch TV, when a live performance is available?…Come on. Conroy’s got the star of your show in interrogation.”
They walked quickly down several connecting hallways and ducked into the observation room next to interrogation. Through the two-way mirror, they could see Ray Lipton, directly across from them—sitting alone, eyes cast down, the streaks of tears drying on his cheeks.
“He must’ve loved her,” Sara said. “Crying for her.”
“Love’s the motive of choice,” Catherine said, “of many a murderer.”
Lipton’s hands were balled into fists and lay on the table like objects, forgotten ones at that. The denim jacket with the tan sleeves hung over the back of the chair. He was thinner and shorter than Catherine would have expected from someone in construction, with hazel eyes, a long, narrow nose and, to her surprise, no beard.
Could she have been mistaken about what she’d seen on the video? He might have shaved, but…no, his cheeks were shadowed blue with stubble, indicating Lipton hadn’t shaved for many hours.
A moment later, Detective Erin Conroy entered the interrogation room, a Styrofoam cup of water in one hand, notepad in the other. She placed the cup in front of Lipton, said, “There you go,” and sat at the end of the table, giving her observers a view of both of them. Lipton picked up the cup, sipped from it, returned it to the table, then leaned his elbows on the wood, running his hands through his longish brown hair.
“I can’t believe she’s dead,” he said, his voice quiet and raspy, a rusty tool long out of use.
Catherine looked at Sara as if to say, “What’s he trying to pull?”
Lipton looked across at Conroy, his expression pitiful. “We were going to be married, you know.”
“Again, Mr. Lipton, I’m sorry for your loss,” Conroy said. “But there are some things we need to talk about.”
Lipton looked down, shaking his head, tears again trailing slowly down his cheeks. “Can’t it…can’t it wait?”
“No. The first hours of a murder investigation are vital. I’m sure you understand that.”
“Murder…a gentle soul like Jenna…murdered….”
“For Jenna being a ‘gentle soul,’ Mr. Lipton,” Conroy said, no inflection in her voice, “you two seemed to fight a great deal…especially for a couple about to be married.”
“But…we didn’t fight,” he sputtered. Then his eyes moved in thought. “Well…no more than anybody else. All couples fight.”
Conroy shook her head. “All couples don’t include a partner with a restraining order on them…like the one the court issued on you, to keep you away from where Jenna worked—right?”
“Oh Christ,” Lipton said, all the air rushing out of him. Catherine and Sara watched as, before their eyes, sorrow turned to despair. “You…you think I killed her!”
“I didn’t say that, Mr. Lipton.”
“Do I…need a lawyer?”
Conroy ducked that. “No accusations have been made. I simply asked if there isn’t an in-force restraining order against you.”
“You must know there is,” he said, sullenly. Now his voice grew agitated: “I loved Jenna, but I hated her job—everybody knew that. But that doesn’t mean I killed her. Jesus, she was going to quit! We were going to be married.”
“Where did you meet Jenna?”
“At…Dream Dolls.”
“You were a customer.”
“At first, but….” His look was more pleading than angry now.
“How do you explain being in Dream Dolls tonight?” Conroy asked. “Considering the restraining order.”
Now he sat up, alert suddenly. “Dream Dolls? I wasn’t in Dream Dolls! You think I want to go to jail?”
Conroy didn’t answer that.
“Lady, I was home all night.”
“That’s not what everyone at the club says.”
“What do you mean by ‘everyone’? Who says I was there?”
“Just the owner, the girls, and the DJ.”
“What the hell…” Lipton’s voice was incredulous; he shook his head, desperately. “Well, they’re mistaken. They’re wrong! Or maybe lying!”
“All of them? Wrong? Or lying?”
“That fucking Kapelos, he hates me. He’s the one took out the restraining order! He’d say anything. Where was he when Jenna was…was…”
He couldn’t seem to say it.
Conroy said, “And the rest of them? Lying? Wrong?”
He sighed, shrugged. “I don’t know what else to say—I was home all night. Honest to God. I swear.”
“Anybody to verify that?”
“I live alone, except…when Jenna stays over.”
And he began to cry. To sob, burying his face in his hands.
Catherine left the observation room, circled to the other door, and strode in. Lipton jumped in his seat, looking up, though Conroy didn’t even turn.
“Who…who are you?” Lipton asked, face a wet smear, eyelashes pearled.
“Crime scene investigator, Mr. Lipton. Catherine Willows.” She came around and sat opposite him. “Would you like to know how I’ve been spending the night?”
He swallowed thickly, shrugging as if nothing could rock him now—he’d been through it all. But he hadn’t.
Catherine said, “I’ve been watching videotape of you at Dream Dolls—videotape captured on security cameras…tonight.”
His eyes widened, lashes glistening. “What? But that’s…that’s just not possible.” His voice had a tremor, as if he was about to break down, utterly.
Still Catherine pressed, gesturing to his jacket. “I saw Jenna going into one of the back rooms, with a man about your size, wearing your jacket.”
“My jacket?”
“The jacket had your Lipton Construction logo on the back. Denim with tan sleeves—just like that one.”
Something close to relief softened his face. “Oh, well shit. I had those made up for all my guys, and even a few of our better customers.”
Conroy, poised to write in her notepad, asked, “How many jackets like this exist?”
Another shrug. “Twenty-five…maybe thirty.”
“Could you be more exact?”
“Not off the top of my head. Probably my secretary could. At work.”
A bad feeling in the pit of her stomach started to talk to Catherine, and she wished those security cams had caught a better face shot of the person wearing the jacket in the bar. Was it Lipton or not?
Catherine asked, “Have you ever worn a beard, Mr. Lipton?”
“What? Yeah…yes.”
“Recently?”
“No. That was last year.”
“You didn’t shave off your beard, this evening.”
“No! Hell no.”
Catherine studied the man. Then she said, “I’ll need your jacket, Mr. Lipton.”
“Sure. But I’m tellin’ you—I wasn’t there.”
“Jenna was strangled with an electrical tie.”
Lipton flinched, then shook his head. He could obviously see where this was going.
She said, “And when I search your truck, I’m going to find electrical ties in the back, aren’t I?”
“You…you could search a lot of trucks and find that.”
Catherine could tell Conroy was starting to have her doubts about the suspect, too, particularly when the detective tried another tack.
“While you were home alone tonight, Mr. Lipton, did you call anybody?” Conroy asked. “Anybody call you?”
He thought for a moment, then shook his head.
“D’you order pizza or something?”
This required no thought: “No.”
“What did you do this evening?”
Lipton lifted his hands, palms up, and shrugged. “I watched TV—that’s it.”
“What did you watch?”
“Was it…a football game?”
Conroy leaned forward now. “What, you’re asking me?”
“No, no, I know! Yeah, I watched a football game.”
“What game, what network, what time?”
He collected his thoughts. “I didn’t see the whole thing—I came in during the third quarter. Indianapolis Colts against the Kansas City Chiefs.”
Conroy was writing that down.
Lipton went on: “Just as I sat down, Peterson kicks a field goal for the Chiefs…then on the kickoff, some guy I never heard of ran it back for a touchdown.”
“That was the very first thing you saw?” Conroy asked.
“Yeah. Very first. Field goal. Peterson.”
“We’ll check that out, Mr. Lipton,” Catherine said. “If you’re innocent, we’ll prove it. But if you’re guilty…”
His eyes met hers.
“…we’ll prove that too.”
“I’m not worried,” he said.
But he sure as hell looked it.