Grave Matters ccsi-5

by Max Allan Collins

  Vega took a left up a hallway and stopped in front of a closed room. The detective waited to knock until his little search party had caught up.

  A vaguely startled voice said: "Who is it?"

  Catherine and Warrick traded tiny smiles-she sensed her partner had also had the same mental image of David Phillips, jumping a little as he spoke. David was an assistant coroner assigned to Dr. Albert Robbins, with whom the nightshift CSIs frequently worked.

  "It's Vega," the detective said, a little irritated. "Unlock the door, David."

  The detective glanced sideways and gave Catherine a quick wide-eyed look that said, Jeeesh, this guy.

  Soon a click announced cooperation and the door cracked open, David's bespectacled face filling the gap.

  "Come in," David said.

  Warrick whispered to Catherine, "What is this, a speakeasy?"

  David, summery in a brown-and-white-striped short-sleeve shirt and light tan chinos, stepped aside and Vega entered with the others behind. With a touch of ceremony, David closed the door and turned to face them. Generally David had an easy if sometimes nervous smile, but right now there was no sign of it. His dark hair, getting wispy in front, seemed barely under control, as if wishing to abandon ship; and the sharp, wide eyes below the high forehead darted back and forth behind wire-frame glasses.

  This was, Catherine noted, a fairly typical hospital room, though with just one bed. Under the sheet lay a body. Soft lighting emerged from behind a sconce at the headboard.

  "Meet the late Vivian Elliot," David said as he drew back the sheet.

  The woman's appearance confirmed the assistant coroner's opinion: She was dead, all right; her gray hair, though cut short, was splayed against the pillow, her eyes closed, her skin slack and gray, her features at rest, her torso lifeless.

  "And?" Warrick asked.

  "And…I don't know," David said, his voice solemn. He shrugged elaborate. "Everything looks fine."

  "For a dead woman," Catherine said.

  "For a dead woman, right." Dr. Whiting stepped forward with stiff, strained dignity. "Sir-you indicated a problem. We called in a detective and crime scene investigators. What problem do you see here?"

  David smiled weakly. Catherine knew that David had sought out his singularly solitary job among the dead in part because of the stress he could occasionally feel around the living. Though the hospital room was cold-any colder, their breaths would have been visible-Catherine could see beads of sweat popping out on the young assistant coroner's forehead.

  "I said I thought there was something wrong here."

  "You don't know?" Whiting asked, eyes and nostrils flaring.

  "No! That's why we need, you know…an expert's read."

  Catherine stepped forward and put a hand on Whiting's sleeve. "A second opinion never hurts, does it, Doctor?…If you'll excuse me, I'd like a private word with my colleague."

  Now she took David by the arm and, in the corner of the room, spoke to him quietly. Even gently. "What's the matter, David?"

  He moved his head side to side. "Catherine, I've been doing this job for a while now."

  "Yes, you have. And you're very good at it."

  "Thank you…. And you know, a person gets used to a certain routine. Mine is really like a lot of other jobs-life and death or not, it can be monotonous…and usually is."

  Patiently she asked, "Point being?"

  "I come to Sunny Day to make a pickup, once, twice a month."

  "Yeah?"

  A humorless half-smile tweaked his face. "This month? This is the fourth time."

  Catherine called Warrick over and repeated what David had told her, still leaving Vega and Whiting out of the confab.

  Warrick shook his head. "Whoa, dude-that's why you called the crime lab?"

  Catherine gave Warrick a take it easy look.

  David looked embarrassed. "That may not seem like such a variation from the norm to you, Warrick-but it struck me. I mean, I've never been here four times in one month."

  Warrick's expression was skeptical, but something tugged at Catherine's gut. She asked, "How about three times?"

  "Only twice-in four years on the job."

  Warrick was considering that as he said, "David, four people dying in one of these places, in a single month…hardly unheard of."

  David said, "Maybe not unheard of…I'd be lying if I said I knew what the statistical probabilities are…but it strikes me as strange, far beyond the norm as I know it."

  "Better safe than silly," Catherine said, nodding.

  David was getting in gear now.

  "Then," he was saying, "you factor in Mrs. Elliot's relatively good health-at least compared to the other residents here-and you're running into odds worse than the casinos!"

  Turning to Vega, Catherine asked, "You've heard all this?"

  Vega's half-smile was uncharacteristically meek. "David's been like this since I got here. Frankly, that's why I agreed to call you guys in-I thought maybe you could talk him down off his ledge."

  Catherine turned back to the assistant coroner. "What you have, David, is what we call around CSI a hunch-but we don't have them out loud. You know how Grissom would react, if we did."

  David's eyes widened. "Oooh yeah."

  She smiled sweetly and supportively at David, the way she did her daughter Lindsey, when the child had hit a homework brick wall. "Pretend I'm Grissom."

  "That good an imagination," David said, "I don't have."

  "I mean-convince me like you would him. If he were standing here, not me-tell me, what do you think we've got?"

  David rubbed his chin as if it were a genie's lamp that might grant his wish for a good answer. Finally he let out a long breath and said, "Too many deaths spaced too close together."

  "That doesn't suggest a crime," Catherine said. "Not inherently."

  "Right…right…."

  "Think out loud if you have to, David."

  "Well…I never considered it before today, but the four DOAs we picked up here this month?"

  "Yeah?"

  He smiled a little, raised one eyebrow, like a novice gambler laying down a winning ace. "All widows."

  Ace or not, Catherine was not impressed, and said so: "Women generally outlive men, David. No big surprise there."

  David's face screwed up in thought. Finally he said, "We always mark the next of kin on the report…so we know who to call?"

  "Riiight."

  "Well, I was just thinking…I don't remember seeing that any of these four women had any family."

  Catherine and Warrick traded a look. Warrick's eyes had taken on a harder cast, that steady unblinking look he got when something was really starting to interest him….

  Turning to Whiting, Catherine said, "Doctor, is what David thinks he remembers…true?"

  The doctor shrugged. "I really can't say. I'd have to check the records."

  Warrick said, pleasant but tight, "Why don't you?"

  Catherine softened it: "Would you, please?"

  Whiting nodded; but then he just stood there.

  "Now would be good," Warrick said.

  Sighing, Whiting said, "Anything to help, of course…but the truth is?…A lot of our residents at Sunny Day are widows." He cocked his head, raised an eyebrow. "As you sagely pointed out, Ms. Willows, it's hardly unusual for women to outlive men."

  "Well," Warrick said, and smiled, "maybe you better check those records, before everybody passes away but CSI Willows here."

  Whiting, obviously annoyed and probably not overjoyed leaving these investigators unattended in one of his rooms, nonetheless went off to do Catherine's bidding.

  With the four of them alone now-but for the late Vivian Elliot-Vega turned to Catherine. "You see why I called you?"

  "You did the right thing." She sighed, rolled her eyes. "It's a little borderline, but-"

  "But," Vega said forcefully, "if we're not chasing our tails, this is a crime scene."

  Suddenly all four of them felt the g
host of Gil Grissom haunting the room.

  "Yeah," Warrick said, "and if we don't investigate it now…no telling what evidence'd be lost forever."

  "If it's natural causes, though," Catherine said, "think of the time we're wasting in the middle of this murder spike…."

  "I wish I had more for you, right now-" David said, "but until the autopsy, there's no way to know for sure."

  Catherine thought for a few seconds, then said firmly, "We've got to treat it as a crime scene…and if we're wrong? We're wrong."

  "Won't be the first time," Warrick said.

  "I'll interview Whiting," Vega said. "If the Elliot woman was killed, that makes the entire staff suspects."

  "Not just them," Catherine warned. "It could be any resident with reasonable mobility. But the staff is where to start."

  "What can I do to help?" David asked.

  Catherine gave him a supportive smile. "You can wait in the hall. If you are right-and you've discovered a string of homicides-you're standing in our crime scene."

  By the time Catherine and Warrick returned with their kits, a small crowd of onlookers in the hall had gathered outside the closed door. A few were in robes and slippers, and two used walkers; but most were fully dressed and looked suspiciously chipper, for this particular ward. Some had already started to question David, really pressing him as he stood there, looking extremely ill at ease.

  Noting this tableau up ahead, Warrick said, "Man, those gals are pretty aggressive."

  "They've seen David here before," she said. "And always in the context of accompanying one of their own to a morgue wagon."

  "Yeah. See what you mean. Not very often you get to turn the tables on the angel of death."

  Striding into the middle of the group of seniors, most of whom were women, Catherine said, "I'm very sorry, but this is an official investigation, and we can't tell you anything right now."

  "It's Vivian, isn't it?" asked a woman to Catherine's right.

  Just under five feet tall, her gray hair short and straight, the woman wore a bulky gray sweater-the temperature outside may have been over one hundred, but it was, after all, chilly in here. Tri-focals peered up at Catherine, one bird studying another, new one.

  "Vivian passed away this morning," Catherine said, "yes."

  "Shame," another, more heavyset woman said. "She was a sweetie pie."

  "You knew her?" Catherine asked. "I understood Mrs. Elliot didn't live here."

  "She didn't," the first woman said, with a shrug. "It's just that…we're the Gossip Club, don't you know. We know everybody. And everything."

  "That could come in handy," Warrick said under his breath.

  Catherine said, "Gossip Club?"

  "We visit the sick and dying," the heavyset woman said, matter of factly. "We considered 'Visitor's Club,' but it just sort of lacked pizzazz."

  One of the few males in the crowd, from the back said, "I think Gossip Club is perfect!"

  "You be quiet, Clarence," the heavyset woman said, good-naturedly, and general laughter followed.

  Catherine focused on the bird-like woman, who appeared to be the leader. "And you are?"

  "Alice Deams-I'm the president of G.C., and this is my vice president, Willestra McFee." She nodded toward the heavyset woman nearby. "And that's our treasurer, Lucille-"

  Catherine interrupted the Mouseketeer Roll Call. "You're all residents here, I take it?"

  Alice nodded. "Most of us live in the partial care building-next door? Dora and Helen…" Two women next to David waved. "…they live in the independent apartments down at the other end."

  "You all come here every day?"

  "Most of us," Willestra said. "Unless we've got doctor's appointments or Margie's arthritis is kicking up, in which case she'll spend the day in her room, watching her stories."

  "And you've taken it upon yourself to visit the sick?"

  "Oh my, yes. It's the Christian thing to do, and besides, someday we'll be in this wing, won't we? Wishing for a little company. These people are our friends and neighbors, you know."

  Catherine raised her voice. "Did any of you know Vivian Elliot well?"

  "I probably spent the most time with her," Alice said. "She was really a great gal."

  Warrick asked, "Vivian have any family?"

  Alice shook her head. "No, and that's tragic. Her husband just passed away a year ago and they only had one child, a daughter who was killed when she was just seventeen by a hit-and-run driver. Viv still mourned the girl."

  Catherine asked, "No brothers or sisters?"

  "No."

  Warrick said, "You seem sure of that. You didn't know her that long, really. How is it-"

  "Oh, well, she was like me, don't you know-an only child. It was sort of a more rare thing, back then, being an only child. Bigger families were the thing-everybody had brothers and sisters. So Viv and me, we made kind of a bond out of being only children. We decided we could be sisters-never too late, we said!"

  "So, she had no family that you know of?" Catherine asked, just making sure.

  "Not a soul-not even very many friends. I only saw one other person visit her the whole time she was here-another woman."

  Warrick asked, "This woman, her name-did you get it?"

  "No, no, I'm sorry. I never actually met her, you see. When the patients have visitors, we make a policy of not bothering them. The job of the Gossip Club is to lend support when no family and friends are around."

  "Do visitors have to sign in here?"

  Alice shook her head again. "No, this wing is like a hospital that way. During visitor's hours, people just sort of come and go."

  Catherine made a mental note to tell Vega to alert the staff should the unidentified woman come back to visit Vivian Elliot in the next twenty-four hours. After that, the obituary would have run in the newspaper, and Catherine doubted that they'd have any chance of locating the mystery woman…unless she showed up at Vivian's funeral or someone on staff actually knew the visitor.

  "When was the last time you saw this woman?" Catherine asked.

  "Why, just this morning," Alice said. "In fact, she left just a few minutes before we heard the alarm coming from Vivian's room."

  "Can you describe her?"

  "Fairly young."

  Warrick asked, "How young?"

  "Oh-sixty-five or so."

  That stopped Warrick for a moment; then he asked, "Description…?"

  "She had gray hair and glasses."

  Catherine and Warrick looked at the group of women in the hall, and then at each other, confirming a shared thought: Alice had just described all of them.

  "We don't usually have a fuss this big when one of us passes," Alice said, eyes making slits in her much-lived-in face. "Why now? Was she murdered?"

  Trying to keep her voice and expression neutral, Catherine asked the woman, "Why would you think that, Alice?"

  The heavyset woman, Willie, glowered at Alice, then turned to Catherine, "Never mind her-she watches way too much TV!"

  "I do not," Alice argued back. "I swear there was a case just like this on Murder, She Wrote."

  Everyone in the hall stopped and eyeballed Alice for a long moment.

  Behind her tri-focals, Alice's eyes widened and her chin rose defensively. "Well, there was.…Of course, it could've been Barnaby Jones…or maybe Rockford Files. Isn't that James Garner just adorable?"

  As the woman prattled on about television, Catherine watched as the other members of the Gossip Club slowly eased away into real life, each suddenly needing to visit someone in a nearby room.

  Taking the hint, Catherine and Warrick slipped back into Vivian Elliot's room, leaving poor David alone in the hall with Alice theorizing on what had happened to an old woman on some detective show she'd seen either last week or perhaps twenty-five years ago.

  "What exactly are we looking for?" Warrick asked as they unpacked their equipment.

  Catherine's eyes roamed around the room, stopping briefly on the body, then
moving on. She prided herself on her ability to make the first read of a crime scene an important one. But she could only shake her head. "Warrick-I haven't a clue…."

  "I hate when that happens."

  With a sigh, Catherine said, "We better gather everything we can. Now that we know that this was a murder."

  Warrick's head reared back. "We do?"

  "Suuuure," Catherine said. "It was on Barnaby Jones! Or was that Quincy…?"

  Shaking his head, smiling one-sidedly, Warrick got out his camera, pulled the sheet back, and began shooting pictures. Catherine started by taking electrostatic print lifts from the tile floor. Truth was, half the hospital had been in and out of here since Vivian Elliot had died; but if there was a killer, that person's shoe prints would be among the many, and Catherine hoped they (and the computer) would be able to sort them all out.

  After he finished photographing the body, Warrick moved on and took shots of every piece of equipment, every machine, every piece of furniture in the room. Catherine bent at the plastic biohazard dump and pulled out the liner bag, marking it as evidence. When they finished, Catherine had a pile of maybe fifteen evidence bags and Warrick had shot at least six rolls of twenty-four exposure film.

  And yet not a single thing had jumped out at either of them as saying, This is a crime…I am significant….

  David and his coroner's crew removed the body, while Catherine and Warrick took most everything else. When they departed, the bed had been stripped bare, including the pillows, and the metal stand that had held two different IV bags was empty. The biohazard dump was also empty, the closet too, and in separate containers at the bottom of one of the bags, Catherine had even collected the remnants of Vivian Elliot's last breakfast left on a tray that apparently had been shifted into the bathroom when the recovering woman had gone code blue.

  Alice Deams peeked out a doorway as Catherine strode down the corridor with the last of her grisly booty.

  "Was I right?" Alice asked, eyes wide behind thick lenses. "Is it murder?"

  "We don't know," Catherine said, pasting on a pleasant smile. "Why would you even think that?"

  "Oh! All the hubbub!" Alice said, as she moved into the hall, closer now, more confidential. "Besides…it isn't like we haven't noticed that more of us are passing away than usual."