Binding Ties ccsi-6

by Max Allan Collins

  Champlain waved that off. "Come off it, Jim-you, too, Gil. You both know we don't go around bragging about our failures…and CASt was my biggest."

  Nodding, Brass asked, "How about Margie?"

  "No. She's got a tough hide, but the rougher aspects of what I used to do…she's squeamish. And I don't remember ever getting into the case much with Sheila, either. Of course, that was a long time ago," Champlain said, brow furrowed. Then he shrugged, rather elaborately. "Guys-I'm afraid I got nothing for you. God knows I'd like to help. CASt was the big fish that got away."

  "I know how you feel, Vince," Brass said. "We just had to check."

  Champlain said, "Be honest with you?…If I can avoid it, I try to not even think about that goddamn case. We were so close to catching that bastard. So close. Jim, I was always pretty good at leaving the job behind, when I got home at night. But that case…those poor S. O. B.s who got humiliated and strangled…the mental pictures of those crime scenes…late at night…."

  Champlain shivered.

  Brass and Grissom got to their feet.

  "If it is him," Brass said, "we'll get him. Don't worry about that, Vince."

  "And if it's not him?"

  "If it's not him, if it's some other sick bastard, we'll catch his ass, too. Either way-this killer goes down."

  Champlain rose and walked them to the door. He laid a hand on Brass's shoulder. "You sure as hell aren't the young guy that filled my shoes when I left."

  "Those were big shoes," Brass said. "And I don't remember ever being young."

  "You will," Champlain assured him. "You will."

  "Lot of miles since then," Brass said distantly. "A lot of miles and a lot of death…."

  Out of nowhere, Grissom chimed in: " 'The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance.' "

  Brass smirked and asked Grissom, "Who said that?"

  But it was Champlain who answered: "Judge John Philpot Curran."

  Grissom, impressed, bowed his head and smiled at the retired cop.

  "But," Champlain said, "I kinda doubt that judge was talking about Las Vegas Homicide."

  With a little shrug, Grissom said, "Well, there's always that other old saying, Vince."

  "Yes?"

  "If the shoe fits…"

  Three

  A lmost every black leather chair around the large rectangular table in the CSI conference room was filled, although the one at its head remained vacant. The X-ray box on one wall, and the whiteboard running the length of another, were not in use. Fluorescent lighting gave the assembly a deathly pallor, as they sat like relatives gathered to hear the reading of a wealthy patriarch's will, each with the expectation of not getting one red cent.

  Catherine Willows, leaning back, arms folded, unobtrusively gauged the other faces around the table. To her left, Warrick Brown studied some papers, his eyes half-lidded, his face a grim mask. Across the way, Nick Stokes slouched in his seat, uncharacteristically down, staring at nothing, his mouth a tight line. Opposite Catherine, Sara Sidle fiddled with a pen, spinning it on the table in front of her, her forehead free of thought, her eyes hollow.

  The crack CSI nightshift team-who prided themselves on not only their expertise and energy, but their patience-seemed beaten down by a dreary week of dead ends.

  Left of Sara, Greg Sanders, their spiky-haired topnotch DNA lab tech-whose inexplicable aspirations for the lesser pay of CSI field work Grissom had been humoring of late-sat and rocked back and forth, his head bobbing to some rhythm playing in the iPod of his mind as he read a report. The energetic Greg alone seemed happy with where he was in the current investigation. Perhaps this was due to Grissom recently granting his request to leave the lab for the field, even though Greg's apprentice CSI status was not yet full-time.

  Across from Greg, immediately to Catherine's right, sat Dr. Al Robbins, his metal crutch propped next to him, his eyes riveted to autopsy photos spread out on the table in front of him, like a losing hand of cards he was trying to assemble into some kind of winning order. His salt-and-pepper beard was merely flecked with pepper now, its sodium count long since out of control. The doctor's normally cheerful eyes seemed clouded as he looked from one stark picture in the pile to the next. The gravity of the situation was apparent in the coroner's rare public appearance outside of the autopsy room.

  To Catherine's left, beyond Warrick, at the far end of the table, Brass stared into space, as if seeking an opinion on whether he should remain pissed off or give in to despair. He had been the last one to walk in, carrying a large cardboard box that now sat on the floor next to him.

  Supervisor Gil Grissom, who had called this meeting, wasn't here yet, and his disheartened troops were getting antsy. They had been on the Marvin Sandred murder for a week and had little more to go on than the victim's name. The only thing working in their favor was the press coverage-no one in the media had thus far connected Sandred with CASt.

  While Grissom had kept tabs on what each individual CSI (as well as Greg and Robbins) had been up to, this would be their first group meeting, to present, contrast, and compare what they'd all learned, and have a look at the lab results that were just coming in.

  Grissom entered quickly, his demeanor just as serious as the rest but minus any overt sign of frustration. Catherine admired quite a few things about Gil, but not the least of them was the chief CSI's ability to remain objectively professional no matter how fast and hard the brown rain was coming down. Oh, there'd been exceptions; even Grissom had his weak spots-violence against children brought the human side out, in spades-but generally he maintained a high standard of scientific detachment that Catherine could esteem without really striving toward.

  Catherine's process necessitated maintaining her humanity, and even subjectivity. Different strokes.

  A light-blue lab coat was draped over Grissom's standard black attire; his wireframed glasses were on. Unceremoniously, he dropped a stack of folders onto the table with a dull thud. The CSI's upper lip formed a subtle sneer, which was the equivalent of anybody else tearing the room up and throwing things out windows.

  Sitting up, Catherine said, "Let me guess-somebody up there hates us…." She'd gone for a lighthearted tone but fell just short.

  "Nicely deduced, Catherine," Grissom said tightly.

  Nick groaned. "Atwater?"

  "Atwater," Grissom affirmed, the word sounding more like an epithet than the name of a human being-specifically, their boss, the sheriff. "He's starting to get calls…about CASt."

  "Ah hell," Warrick said, pawing the air.

  Grissom continued, "Our esteemed sheriff wanted my assurance that no one at CSI was leaking anything to the press."

  Brass said, an edge in his voice, "Who is it, bugging the sheriff? Our pal Perry Bell?"

  "No," Grissom said. "It's from the broadcast side-a local TV station."

  Catherine considered that for a moment, then asked, "Do we trust our North Las Vegas brothers? Bill Damon and Henry Logan? You gave Logan kind of a hard time."

  "I did?" He seemed genuinely not to know what Catherine was referring to.

  Brass said, "I'd be more inclined to think it was one of our 'friends' from the Banner, feeding info to the TV guys-tips get traded, you know."

  "Once the CASt aspect is public knowledge," Nick said to the detective, "any gentlemen's agreement you had with the Banner boys becomes moot-and they'd be free to run with it."

  "If those clowns sold us out," Brass said, his voice as hard as the table his hands rested on, "they'll never get cooperation out of this department again…Gil, do you know which TV reporter?"

  Grissom's shrug indicated that to him, these reporters were interchangeable, but he said, "Jill Ganine."

  "Maybe we ought to go have a chat with her," Brass said.

  "I have no intention of wasting my time with the media," Grissom said. "If we've been betrayed by the Banner, finding out exactly who leaked it does not put us any closer to our killer."

  B
rass grimaced, but said, "Right. You're right."

  Grissom's eyebrows flicked up and down. "We had a week without press pressure, and that luxury helped us get a good start on this thing."

  Warrick looked at Grissom like his boss was cutting out paper airplanes, but said nothing.

  "Now," Grissom said, finally sitting, "we work the case and worry about the media in our spare time…and if any of you have any spare time, please let me know. So…what have we got?"

  He looked around the table, but no one volunteered to get things going.

  Not a good sign,Catherine thought. But she didn't feel like being the first in class to raise a hand….

  Grissom turned to Greg, sitting immediately to his right; apparently the supervisor sensed the only positive attitude in the room and honed in on it. "Make me happy, Greg."

  Greg said, "All the blood belongs to the victim."

  Grissom looked no happier. "Anything else?"

  "The semen on his back did not belong to the victim. CODIS is still working on finding a match."

  While the Combined DNA Index System was growing, Catherine knew all too well that getting a hit off CODIS was far from a sure thing.

  "Catherine," Grissom said, turning her way, his face passive, any tension from the sheriff and media a distant memory now, "what do we know about the victim?"

  Without referring to the report before her, Catherine said, "Marvin Sandred, forty-seven, lived in Vegas a little over a year. Worked for a welding supply company where he'd been for six months."

  She glanced at Brass to pick up her thread, which he did: "I talked to Sandred's boss, and half a dozen coworkers, too. Nobody had anything bad to say about him. No one had much good to say about him, either-he was still the newbie, never really integrated with his coworkers. They thought of him as kind of a sad guy, oddly distracted, like work was something he was just putting up with till he could get back to…what really interested him."

  Taking over again, Catherine said, "He was originally from Eau Claire, Wisconsin. Ex-wife back there. Her name's Andrea Dean, Annie for short, remarried after Marvin moved to Vegas."

  Grissom winced in thought. "You found this out how?"

  But it was Brass who explained: "I asked Catherine to make the call for me-I know it's not really CSI work, but I felt, woman to woman we'd get more."

  Catherine picked up: "She really broke down big-time when I told her…cried so much, she asked me to call back in five minutes. I did, and she had composed herself, and answered all my questions. But she couldn't help us much, either."

  "Had she kept in touch with her ex?" Grissom asked. "Ever visited him here?"

  "They talked on the phone a few times. They were a childless couple, who broke up acrimoniously, over his cashing in his retirement and moving here…to be closer to his gambling habit."

  Warrick said, "So that's what he was preoccupied about at work."

  Both Catherine and Brass nodded.

  "By the way," Brass said, "the neighborhood canvass was a bust-what few people were home didn't notice anybody strange in the area, much less actually see our killer go to the front door."

  "So much for talk," Grissom said. "What about actual evidence?"

  "The partial footprint is from a current Stasis M658 running shoe," Warrick said. "There weren't any of those in Sandred's closet, or anywhere on his property for that matter…and the next door neighbors don't own any either. Could belong to the killer."

  "Good, Warrick," Grissom said.

  Sara said, "Partial prints on the bell and front doorknob? Didn't belong to Sandred."

  "Do we know whose they are?" Grissom asked.

  Nick said, "I ran them through AFIS and got a goose egg."

  Sara added, "I went through the Gaming Commission, the military…came up empty."

  "Any trace?" Grissom asked.

  "Just those black threads you found," Nick said. "Polyester."

  Grissom turned to the coroner.

  Dr. Robbins said, "Victim died of asphyxiation due to the ligature around his neck. Quite a bit of struggle. I'm afraid I don't have a lot more than that to offer."

  "You've gone over the original CASt files?"

  "Yes-this death is consistent with those."

  Grissom nodded and the coroner did the same, then rose, slipped the cuff of his crutch over his arm, and headed out, but then paused at the doorway, file of photos under one arm.

  "It wasn't a pleasant death," Robbins said. "It'd be nice not to have to add any more pictures to my collection."

  Catherine said, "See what we can do, Doc."

  Robbins nodded somberly, then exited.

  "Takes one sick perp," Nick said, "to bum out a coroner."

  Grissom turned to Nick. "You were working the lipstick database…"

  "Yes-this one's called Bright Rose, made by Ile De France. Similar to, but not the same as, the Limerick Rose that was CASt's preference years ago."

  Catherine said, "Limerick Rose was also an Ile De France."

  Nick found a meager grin. "Ask an expert…. Problem with the Bright Rose is, it's sold everywhere, from the cosmetics counter at a Fashion Mall department store to Walgreens. We'd have about as much chance as tracking a bottle of soda."

  "The rope?" Warrick said. "Same deal-sold in every hardware store. But I did get epidermal cells off both sides and both ends of the rope."

  "I'm still testing them," Greg said. "Trying to figure out which are the vic's, which the killer's. Where the rope was around the vic's neck, that was easy-but the rest of the rope, well, key is trying to find where the vic fought against it, and where the killer might have been pulling it. Then we can determine whose cells are whose."

  Grissom's head tilted to one side. "Matter of time?"

  "Matter of time-not much of that, really."

  "All right, Greg. Keep me in the loop."

  "In this case," Greg said, "you might not want to be in a loop."

  Grissom said, "I'll do the gallows humor, Greg-and I'm not in the mood."

  The lab tech lifted his eyebrows and set them down and looked anywhere but at Grissom.

  "Come to think of it, Greg," Grissom said with a ghastly smile, "don't you have work to do?"

  "Yes. Yes I do." Greg rose, his smile one of the most strained in the history of man. "Work. To do. 'Bye. Everybody…."

  And Greg took his files and went.

  So much for the only upbeat attitude at the table.

  Travelling from face to face of his CSI team, Grissom said, "All right-here's what we're going to do."

  Brass said, "You're going to tell me what to do, Gil?"

  Grissom said, "Yes."

  Brass thought about that; then said, "Okay."

  "You want to talk to that reporter, Jim, be my guest. But first, sit down with Catherine and Nick."

  Brass gave Grissom a tentative nod.

  Grissom said, "Cath, I want you and Nick to go through the old case file, all five kills, all the old suspects, find out everything you can, cross-reference and collate and stay alert. Sit down with Jim. Find out where our suspects are…here in town, moved away, in the ground, but find their whereabouts. And keeping in mind what the files have told you, develop theories about whether any of them might be back in business with an adjusted M.O."

  "Theories?" Catherine said, wondering if she'd heard him right.

  "That's right. Not wild guesses."

  "Glad to."

  "Warrick, Sara, and I will continue to work the evidence from the Sandred house and see if we can turn something we've missed. Call it the first of the theories if you want. But I'm on record: This guy is just getting started."

  Not a wild hunch, Catherine knew, as they all recognized the mark of a serial killer when they saw it, and there could be no question: This creep was just amping up.

  "And another troubling aspect," Grissom said. "If, as with our would-be Jack the Ripper a while back, we have a copycat who's following the pattern of an original, then we might have a fi
nite number of victims…five in this case…after which our homicidal performance artist stops, and fades into the night."

  "Like the original Ripper," Nick said.

  "Hell," Warrick said, "like the original CASt!"

  Grissom, Warrick, and Sara surrendered the conference room to Brass, Nick, and Catherine, who huddled around one end while Brass pulled the large cardboard box closer to him, to lift items out.

  Businesslike, nearly robotic, Brass withdrew the first file. "First vic was November 1994. Guy's name was Todd Henry. He lived in an apartment downtown. No family, no friends. He'd been dead better part of a week before we got the call."

  "Who found him?" Nick asked.

  "Smell got so bad one of the neighbors called in a public-nuisance complaint, and we went in. Guy was on the living-room floor, rope still around his neck."

  Catherine asked, "Was the full M.O. established from the start? Lipstick, semen, noose?"

  "Yeah," Brass said. "This perp had either been setting this up, planning it out, for a long time, fantasizing maybe…or he'd been doing it somewhere else. However you look at it, when the killings started in Vegas, the M.O. was full blown and never deviated."

  Nick said, "Obviously you and Vince checked other jurisdictions."

  "Nationwide, but nobody ever matched up. We checked out Canada, too, and finally Europe. Anyway, after Todd Henry, John Jarvis showed up dead a month later. Everything was exactly the same as the previous case."

  Catherine asked, "Jarvis have any connection to Henry?"

  "Other than a basic physical similarity? No." Brass tapped a forefinger in a palm. "Henry was a transplant, Jarvis a lifelong Vegas resident. Henry did odd jobs, Jarvis was an accountant. Henry lived alone, Jarvis had a family, wife and a son. Lived in a nice house in Boulder City, while Henry hung out in that downtown rathole. The only thing they had in common was appearance. Fiftyish white males, overweight."

  "What about the others?"

  "George Kim, the third vic, was half-Asian-other than that all five…Henry, Jarvis, Kim, Clyde Gibson and Vincent Drake…were overweight white men around forty-five, fifty. Although each had some things in common with one or two of the others, nothing other than physical appearance could be seen as a common denominator."