SARA AND NICK stood on the street in front of Collin Gardner’s house, trying to figure out their next move, when Sara’s smart phone alerted her to a text. She read it and summarized the salient points for Nick.
“We got the details on the wax,” she said. “It is candle wax, like we thought. From the chemical composition and the dye used, Hodges has determined that it’s from a candle made by a company called Luxu Candles, in Santa Monica, California. It’s a bayberry-scented candle they make, two inches in diameter and either seven, nine, or eleven inches tall. It’s a red color they call ‘Vin Rose.’”
“So now all we have to do is find a house on this mountain with a partly burned candle matching that description? That couldn’t take more than two or three weeks, could it?”
“Might as well start with Mr. Gardner,” Sara said. “He’s just begging for attention.”
“Guy might go out and buy an angry dog so he can sic it on us,” Nick suggested.
“I’d hate to subject a dog to that. Living with him, I mean, not eating us.” Sara went back up Gardner’s walkway, knocked on the door again. “Mr. Gardner!” she called. “It’s us, LVPD Crime Lab!”
The door opened and Gardner stood there, his face purple with rage. “Again with you guys? Didn’t I tell you to get the hell out of here? Don’t tell me you’ve got a warrant already.”
“No, sir,” Sara said. “We just had one more question for you, before we do. Do you own any candles?”
Gardner blinked several times. Sara understood that the question was out of the blue, which was intentional. When people expected a question, they usually had also worked out how they would answer it. “I guess maybe some of the birthday cake kind,” he said. “I have a granddaughter, and her mom brings her here for birthdays sometimes.”
“That’s it? None of the big fat ornamental kind?”
“I got a propane lantern and some flashlights, for when the power goes out.”
“Okay, thanks.”
“That’s it?” Nick asked as they walked away from the door again. “Taking his word for it?”
“We can’t go in and look,” Sara said. “Besides, look at him. Does he really look like the candle-burning type to you?”
“Yeah, I guess not.”
“But that gives me an idea.”
“Yeah?”
“Let’s take a walk, Nick.”
“A walk?”
“It’s a little too dark to go tramping through the woods looking for clues. But if people up here are candle-burning types, this is when they’ll be burning them. Let’s walk the neighborhoods and see if we can see any through the windows.”
“I like it. It could still take a week, but it’ll be faster than going door to door and asking.”
“Faster, maybe. But less certain, since not everybody who uses candles lights them every night. Still, if you’ve got a better idea . . .”
“I’m fresh out,” Nick said. “It’s either that or knock off for the night, I guess.”
“Then let’s take a walk.”
Ray was in with Hodges, peering at the display from a scanning electron microscope on a computer screen. Standard microscopes used light to view the object under consideration, but a scanning electron microscope used an electron beam. Viewed through electromagnetic lenses—or displayed on the appropriate screen—even infinitesimal details achieved amazing clarity. They were looking at one of the tiny metallic disks Ray had found at Lucia’s home, which under the scope proved to be faceted and not as perfectly round as it had first appeared.
“Now we know what it looks like,” Hodges said. “But I still have no idea what it is.”
“Looks like a tiny flying saucer,” Ray admitted.
“If it is, I don’t think we have to worry about alien invasion.”
Catherine walked in while they were staring at it. She, too, studied the screen for a moment. “What’s that?”
“That’s what we’d like to know,” Hodges said. “Dr. Ray found a couple of these at the scene where the man missing his hand was abducted.”
“Let me see it.”
Ray glanced her way. She was looking at the same screen they were. She read his meaning before he had to ask the question. “The real thing,” she said. “Not the magnification.”
“Oh,” Hodges said. He shut down the SEM and removed the tiny disk. Catherine pressed down on it with her fingertip, picking it up. “Too small to get any usable impressions from, so it’s not like I’m blurring any, right?”
“Makes sense,” Ray admitted.
“You guys really don’t know what this is?”
“Should we?” Ray asked.
“I was thinking nanotechnology,” Hodges replied. “But I—”
“It’s body glitter.”
“Excuse me?”
“Believe me, I know body glitter when I see it. Probably eighty percent of the exotic dancers in Vegas wear it.”
“Oh,” Hodges said. “That kind of body glitter.”
“That kind, exactly. You would have recognized it if you’d seen more of it, but with only a few flecks it’s harder to identify. In my dancing days, though, I learned that once you get a little on you, you’re going to keep finding specks of it, in the strangest places, for days to come.”
“If it’s that common,” Ray said, “then it doesn’t necessarily help us narrow our search much.”
“And it’s not just strippers,” Hodges pointed out. “Plenty of women wear some when they’re going out. And prostitutes use it, too. There must be forty or fifty strip clubs in the city, and thirty or so brothels in the state.”
“And you know that prostitutes use it because . . . ?” Ray asked.
“Let’s just say I have a well-rounded education. Besides, hookers are easy prey, so we’ve had more than our share wind up in the middle of investigations. Catherine’s right, if there was more of it than just those couple of pieces you found, I’d have known it right away.”
“Well, I’m sorry there wasn’t enough left behind for you to make that call. I brought back what was there.”
“You’re right,” Catherine said. “That doesn’t limit your search parameters much. The stuff’s commonplace these days. Even if you can get a line on the manufacturer of this particular glitter, which is probably going to be difficult with such a small sample, it wouldn’t help a lot.”
“It looks like field work will be required,” Hodges said. “I can help with that, if you want.”
“Thanks for the offer,” Ray said. “I’m sure you’re needed here in the lab, though. We still need an ID on those fibers I collected at the scene.”
“He’s right, David,” Catherine added. “You’re not going anywhere tonight.”
“Okay, fine,” Hodges said. Few adult men Ray had known pouted as frequently, or as obviously, as Hodges did. Most men held their feelings inside, to some extent, but Hodges wore his right out there on his face for everyone to see. Maybe it was healthier that way.
Then again, did he really want to hold David Hodges up as an example of sound mental health?
Ray sat at his desk, using his computer to research ownership of the city’s many nude and topless clubs. Progress was difficult because so many were owned by shell companies, and he had to trace the principals of those back to the actual corporations, sometimes offshore, that owned them. Others were owned outright by locals, including characters with suspected racketeering ties, chased out of gaming but not out of the skin trade. Ray’s operating assumption, based on the available evidence, was that any gang that had grown up around the business of smuggling illegal immigrants in from Mexico would be largely, if not entirely, made up of Mexican nationals and/or Hispanic Americans. Those would be the people who could function most effectively on the far side of the border—it seemed self-evident that anxious would-be border crossers would be more trusting of their own kind than of gringos.
When he worked through the layers of obfuscation, he found that most Las Vegas strip club owners were Caucasian males. Two clubs were owned by African-American males, and seven, to his surprise, were owned by three different white women, one of whom ran a chain of four clubs.
A tap at his door drew his attention away from the monitor. Hodges stood there with a printout in his hand. “You probably didn’t think I’d get to your fibers so quickly.”
“I don’t know what your workload is tonight, but I know there are several open cases, so—”
“Well, I did. And here’s the result.” Hodges handed over the sheet of paper. Ray scanned it, seeing details of fabric type that were essentially meaningless to him. “It’s an upholstery fiber,” Hodges continued. “A unique blend of rayon, nylon, and cotton. I ran it through GC/MS and separated out the chemical structure of the dye, which you can see on the printout I gave you. I also found that it’s been treated with titanium oxide, and a combination of tin and bromide.”
“That’s a fire retardant,” Ray said, slightly distracted by perusing the details of the gas chromatography/mass spectrometry treatment Hodges described. “What’s the titanium oxide do?”
“You know how Converse sneakers aren’t shiny, but instead have a kind of matte finish to them?”
“I guess so.”
“Same idea. It’s a delustering agent, designed to keep the fabric from being too shiny. Perfect for a place where you want the bodies to stand out, not the chairs.”
“Like a strip club.”
“Exactly like a strip club. Fortunately for you, there’s only one in town that uses this specific upholstery fiber treated in this way.”
“Let me read your mind,” Ray said. “Think about the name.”
Hodges closed his eyes and wrinkled his brow.
“Are you thinking about it?”
“Yes.”
“Yes! Just the name. Come on, Ray, this is—”
“Cougars.”
“—silly, you can’t—what?”
“Cougars.”
Hodges’s mouth dropped open. “That’s right. How did you—?”
Ray tapped his computer screen. “I’ve been looking for strip clubs in town owned by someone with a Hispanic surname. I’ve only come up with a couple. One is owned by Oswaldo Carrizoza, and an informant told me to look for someone called Oz or Ozzie. Do you know the place?”
“Only by reputation,” Hodges said. “They specialize in dancers over thirty.”
“That’s old, for exotic dancers.”
“Hence the name. I gather the audience is mostly younger men, embracing their older woman fetish.”
“I’m hardly a younger man, but I guess I’ve got to pay the place a visit.”
“I could go along,” Hodges volunteered. “In case you need backup.”
“I remember when you couldn’t stand the idea of going into the field.”
“People can’t change?”
“I think I’ll be fine,” Ray said. “Sam Vega’s working on another angle, and I’m sure he’ll be able to meet me there.”
“Well, just in case, keep me in mind,” Hodges said.
“Catherine wants you here. But I’ll remember the offer. Thank you.”
“Sure.” Hodges spun around and started back toward the trace lab. “Sure, I do all the hard stuff, but am I appreciated? I am not.”
“You’re appreciated, David!” Ray called after him. “Trust me, you’re appreciated.” He reached for the phone to call Vega and muttered, “But you’re not going to any strip clubs tonight.”