Catherine said nothing, smiling, nodding, then waiting for Ecklie to start the meeting.
Only she soon realized it had already started, and the sheriff was driving the bus….
Burdick’s gaze focused on Grissom. “I just have one more thing to get off my chest. Gil, you don’t make Conrad’s job—or anyone else’s, for that matter—any easier by pushing the political and public-relations ramifications of a case to the side.”
Grissom could only nod.
“Just because you have the ability to remain objective, don’t mistake the world for sharing it. Understood?”
“Yes, sir,” Grissom said.
“And Conrad, you’ll make an effort to treat Grissom in a fair and impartial manner. Understood?”
“Understood, Sheriff.”
“You’re two of the best. If you ever got on the same page, do you have any idea how much we could accomplish?”
Catherine supressed a smile. These two strong men—the scientist and the bureaucrat—were sitting with their heads slightly lowered, like two kids a principal had put in their respective places.
“All right. Let’s move on.” Burdick turned to Catherine. “Can’t you make these two get along?”
She smiled and shrugged. “How would you say I’m doing so far, sir?”
After a chuckle and shake of his head, Burdick was about to move forward on the meeting agenda, when Nick Stokes burst into the room.
“Yes?” the sheriff said, surprised at the intrusion.
“Sorry,” Nick said. “I know I’m interrupting, and I apologize—but we have a big one. Real trouble.”
A buff former Texas A&M football player with close-cropped dark hair, piercing dark eyes, and a heroic jaw, Nick was normally the epitome of cool—he did not excite easily. But right now, as he approached Grissom, planting himself between Gil and Conrad, the broad-shouldered CSI seemed pretty worked up.
That worried Catherine.
“What kind of trouble?” Burdick asked, resuming his position at the table.
“We got a major shoot-out between two motorcycle gangs, the Predators and the Spokes—that annual Biker Blowout at Boot Hill?”
“Damn,” Catherine said.
“You haven’t heard the really good part—it went down inside the Four Kings Casino.”
Burdick put a hand to his head as if checking for a fever.
“Dead?” Grissom asked. “Wounded?”
Nick said, “I don’t have all the facts yet, this is straight from Dispatch; but, yes, Gris, there are dead and there are wounded. Not just bikers but civilians—casino employees, tourists…sounds like they pretty much trashed the place. D-Day indoors.”
“And that’s our crime scene,” Ecklie said gravely.
“All right,” Burdick said, heading for the exit. When he got there, he turned and issued orders. “I’m going to call the governor—he’s probably a heartbeat away from sending in the National Guard. Conrad, you get the crime scene team organized and on its way.”
“Right now,” Ecklie said, nodding.
Catherine stepped forward. “We need the media kept out for at least twenty-four hours. We’ll have an extensive crime scene and a volatile situation with those two biker gangs.”
“We can handle our end of that,” Burdick said, “and I’ll talk to the Highway Patrol…but anything you can do to encourage the local people to keep the lid on will tell the tale.”
Burdick left and the others turned to Ecklie.
“If it’ll help,” Grissom said to Ecklie, “I’ll go—Catherine’s shift is shorthanded.”
“Good idea, Gil,” Ecklie said.
The graciousness seemed strained, Catherine thought, but at least Ecklie was trying.
“This is a unique situation,” Ecklie was saying. “Possible mass injuries and deaths to rival a plane crash. And as Catherine says, a high-profile case that’ll attract media attention. I need my best people, so I appreciate your offer, Gil. You’ll go.”
“Good,” Grissom said.
“I want Stokes, Sofia, and Catherine there, too,” Ecklie said. “Gil, call in Sidle from your shift.”
“No problem.”
“Catherine, you’ll be in charge.”
She sneaked a glance at Grissom, but he seemed to accept this as a matter of whose shift was on duty and not an Ecklie put-down.
Ecklie was saying, “Catherine, call Brown in for me, would you? His vacation day is canceled. Gil, better get Sanders in here early, too.”
Grissom frowned. “Conrad, I don’t think we need him. Somebody has to hold down the fort.”
“I agree. My intention is that Sanders will work with Brown, here in the city. Better divide up the calls—Gil, I’ll ring Sidle for you.”
Warrick Brown, Sara Sidle, and Greg Sanders were fellow LVPD crime scene investigators—Warrick on Catherine’s team, Sara and Greg from Grissom’s shift.
They all started moving at once, cell phones coming out, speed dialers in play, and gravitated to different corners of the room so they could hear themselves, leaving Nick standing alone by the door, the messenger who’d started all this having nothing to do at the moment.
Five minutes later, the little group huddled around Nick again.
“Sara will be here in twenty minutes,” Ecklie said.
Grissom added, “Greg’s on his way, too.”
“Warrick will be here in ten,” Catherine said. “Nick, get the trucks loaded. Gil, you want to collect Sofia?”
Nodding, Grissom went out the door in search of his team member. Nick followed him out, leaving Catherine alone in the conference room with Ecklie.
The assistant lab director put a hand on her shoulder. “Wrap this up quick, Catherine. This could be a real problem.”
“Sounds like it already is a problem,” she said, finding the remark odd.
His eyes narrowed. “Aside from any injuries and loss of life, the potential for disaster here is imminent. If CNN gets a story about a gunfight in a casino—with motorcycle gangs!—the public won’t care whether it’s Boot Hill or Fremont Street. Once they hear Nevada, the tourists will stay away in droves.”
Catherine was glad Grissom hadn’t heard that. She had a tolerance for political views like this one, where the lives of human beings seemed secondary in importance to tourism concerns, but the goodwill the politician and scientist had shared in the wake of the sheriff’s reprimand would likely have been short-lived had Gil been privy to that PR speech.
Twenty minutes later, two dark, sleek SUVs pulled out of the CSI parking lot, dashboard-mounted emergency lights flashing as they made their way east on Charleston Boulevard to Decatur Boulevard, then north to Highway 95 and the long looping trip south to Boot Hill.
Nick drove one SUV with Catherine in the passenger seat. Sara Sidle—the striking brunette’s hair tucked up under a CSI ballcap—was at the wheel of the other, Grissom in the passenger seat and blond Sofia Curtis in the back.
On the highway, Nick barreled along but could have made better time if people got out of the way. Not particularly wanting to die prematurely of a heart attack, Catherine had, over the course of her years on the job, trained herself not to yell at motorists who refused to pull over when they saw the alternating red and blue flashing lights.
Drivers always seemed to move over for ambulances and fire trucks, but most went brain-dead when it came time to pull over for the cops. Why that was, she had no idea; but it was one of the little-known truths of the job.
They were maybe halfway into the forty-five-minute trip when they got a radio call from Burdick.
“Jorge Lopez is the police chief out there,” Burdick’s voice told them. “A good man. You shouldn’t have any problem with him cooperating.”
“What about the Guard?” Catherine asked.
“I don’t have to tell you about the shortage of personnel,” the sheriff said.
Sixty percent of the Nevada National Guard was deployed overseas.
“By the time the
governor gets you any help,” Burdick was saying over the radio, “you probably won’t need it. Half a dozen state troopers are there or en route, but you know they’re scattered to hell and gone, too.”
“What about our people?”
“We’re spread too thin, too,” Burdick said. “It’s mostly going to be you guys and the locals. But, as I say, Chief Lopez is terrific, and he has strong people. We’ll maintain media blackout as long as possible. Good luck.”
The sheriff signed off.
Nick flicked a glance at Catherine. “Yeah—good luck to us.”
The two black vehicles rocketed down the highway, Nick barely keeping the speedometer below one hundred. Once away from the metropolitan area, traffic thinned, though the highway was not deserted: they passed eighteen-wheelers, a few cars, and at one point, just south of Searchlight, both SUVs slid to the right lane to let a Nevada Highway Patrol car buzz by.
The state cop was definitely not holding his speed under a hundred….
“Nice to know the Patrol’ll beat us there.”
Nick grinned. “Not by much.”
“From Primm Substation, Jean Substation, maybe.”
Nick said, “You’d think a bunch of the Highway Patrol guys from Laughlin’ll make it over there quickly.”
“If not,” Catherine said, “no telling what’s going on in Boot Hill. Those two gangs might still be going hot and heavy.”
“Instead of a crime scene, we could be driving into a battlefield.”
“D-Day, you said before. Maybe you were right, Nicky.”
He grimaced. “Yeah, well in this case, I don’t particularly hope to be….”
They passed the wide spot in the road known as Cal Nev Ari—little more than a casino and a stop sign. The latter Nick blew through.
Catherine was on the radio now, trying to get a sit. report from Dispatch.
“Lots of cross traffic on the Highway Patrol channel,” the dispatcher said. “Sounds like things have calmed down a little, but hard to tell.”
“Thanks,” Catherine said. “That’s better news than it could’ve been. 3CSI out.”
She replaced the microphone in its holder and sat back. “Gonna be a looooong shift, Nick.”
“Think the bikers’ve all split town?” Nick asked.
She shrugged. “We’ll know soon enough, but the cops are most likely way outnumbered by bikers. Be hard to round them all up.”
“And keep them rounded up. Normally, the perps would head for the hills.”
“Normally, Nicky? Based on all the other biker gang shoot-outs in casinos we’ve worked?”
He laughed at that.
But neither one of them really saw anything funny about what they were heading into….
About halfway between Cal Nev Ari and the intersection with Highway 163 that led to Laughlin, Nick took a right onto a two-lane blacktop road.
The desert world this far outside Vegas looked more like a moonscape than Earth—rocks, sand, and the occasional plucky green plant doing its best to hang on in this harsh environment, where the summer temperature would regularly reach 120 or higher, at which point even the snakes looked to cop some shade. With all the hills and valleys out here, Boot Hill wasn’t readily visible from Highway 95; but before long, going down the two-lane, the outlines of the town’s buildings could be made out in the distance against the background of the mountains to the west and south.
Driving in from the east, still a couple of miles away, the onset of twilight began to give the poor man’s Tombstone a surrealistic cast—from here, the place looked to Catherine like a miniature movie set from a Godzilla movie, maybe.
Nearing the town, Boot Hill gained scale, of course, but the movie-set feeling would not let Catherine go. Blue Highway Patrol cars, red lights flashing, sat at angles blocking the road; no one was being allowed in or out of town. Well, they never were in a science-fiction film, right?
Nick slowed as he neared the roadblock and a Highway Patrolman with a shotgun at his side waved for Nick to stop. Catherine counted three more Highway Patrolmen on the scene: two were on the opposite side of the road, one on either side of their car, preventing anyone from leaving to the east. As the shotgun-toting Patrolman came toward the Denalis, his partner remained on the other side of the vehicle, which would provide cover should anything go wrong at the checkpoint.
Normally, the flashing lights would have gotten the CSIs a wave-through. But with two motorcycle gangs shooting up a casino, “normal” was not an operative term, and Catherine didn’t blame these guys for being cautious.
The Patrolman nearing Nick’s window was a burly guy whose frame had probably been plenty muscular twenty years ago (maybe even ten); but now, the man had gone soft around the middle. His face, however, hadn’t gone soft at all; under a sand-colored crewcut, he had on seriously dark sunglasses and a surly frown.
“Las Vegas Crime Lab,” Nick said, showing the Patrolman his ID.
“We need all the help we can get,” the officer said, his voice friendly though the frown remained.
Leaning toward the driver’s side, Catherine asked, “How bad?”
The Patrolman seemed to notice her for the first time; he bent down a little more. “Shooting seems to be over, at least for now. But everybody within ten miles of here is pretty edgy.”
“Town under control?”
“Good guys in charge,” the Patrolman said. “For now, anyway.”
“Possible it could go the other way?”
A tiny shrug from the big officer. “Lots of tension…and there’s nowhere big enough to lock up everybody on both sides. We’re way outnumbered. Chief Lopez has the town locked down.”
“How many officers does he have?”
The Patrolman said, “Counting his detectives, eight…ten, when two more off-duty guys are rounded up.”
“And you state boys?”
“Four of us here. Four more at the west end of town, even though that blacktop peters out at the edge of the mountains.”
Nick said, “Well, there’s five of us.”
For the first time, a glimmer of a smile crossed the Patrolman’s face. “You Vegas CSIs pack heat, don’t you?”
“We do,” Catherine said, and Nick was nodding.
“Good to hear. Every little bit helps.”
Nick asked, “Where’s the casino?”
The Patrolman pointed. “There’s two of ’em, right across the street from each other. Allen Street. You start into town, go two blocks, then left—that’s Allen. The casinos are in the first block.”
Catherine said, “Thanks, Officer.”
“No problem.” He backed away from their window and waved to his partner, who jumped in the car and backed it out of the way. When the Patrol car was on the shoulder, the patrolman motioned the SUVs through and they rolled cautiously into Boot Hill.
The town seemed to have finally embraced its inner ghost town. Deserted streets gave the impression that the whole population had gone on vacation. Occasionally a venetian blind or curtain would shudder, the only sign that the inhabitants had all sought refuge indoors. The Denalis moved west on the extreme north edge of town. As they passed the first street, Catherine looked down the corridor of buildings and parked cars. The only movement was a patrol car, two blocks down, slowly rolling in their direction.
“Cue the tumbleweed,” Nick said.
Allen Street, the next block west, had more action. Here three squad cars and a Blazer (the latter with the words POLICE CHIEF stenciled on the doors) were all parked at odd angles, one car blocking the street, its driver’s door standing wide open. Also on the street were two ambulances, their back doors open, their gurneys gone. All of the vehicles had their light bars going. The officers and EMTs, though, were nowhere in sight.
Two casinos, neither big enough to displace the smallest Vegas Strip hotel, squatted on opposite sides of the street, two broad-shouldered gunfighters getting ready to shoot it out. The Gold Vault occupied the east side, jus
t south of a two-story building with a sign proclaiming it THE OLD WEST MUSEUM & GIFT EMPORIUM. Six stories with a parking garage to the south, the Gold Vault appeared to be doing well enough.
Across the street, the Four Kings seemed to be faring even better. Eight stories and taking up twice its rival’s space, the Four Kings could damn near have made the grade in downtown Vegas.
They piled out of the Denalis and unloaded their gear. Even though it was early spring, in the shadow of the mountains with a purple dusk settling, the town held heat like a skillet. Whether it was the temperature or the weather or the different kind of heat that generated all this violence, Catherine could not hazard a guess. She only knew that for this time of year, Nevada was unnaturally hot.
Boot Hill, Nevada, anyway.
The five Vegas CSIs joined up behind Catherine and Nick’s vehicle. They were red in the blush of a big neon sign of a fanned-out poker hand revealing four kings and an obscured kicker. Underneath, smaller signs advertised an all-you-can-eat buffet and this week’s entertainment, a one-hit wonder band from the early ’70s that maybe had one original member.
“No police in sight,” Grissom said. “You know what that means.”
Catherine nodded and frowned. “They’re tromping through our crime scene.”
“Your crime scene,” Grissom reminded her, and his tiny smile held not one hint of condescension. “How do you want to play this?”
“Let’s see our cards first, and then decide.”
“That’s a good policy.”
Crime scene kits in hand, they strode toward the row of six glass doors at the Four Kings. Catherine could hear more sirens in the distance.
One of the six front doors had shattered, glass scattered across the sidewalk like broken, punched-out teeth. The team picked the door farthest from that and entered. The air-conditioning hit them like a refreshing breeze.
What they beheld was anything but refreshing.
“God in heaven,” Sofia said softly, shaking her head.
“This wasn’t a gunfight,” Nick said, wincing. “This was a goddamn war zone.”
Around them only the five remaining glass doors looked like they were part of a casino. The rest of the huge room was like nothing Catherine had ever seen. She’d worked her share of shoot-outs in the past—gang violence was not unknown on her Vegas beat—but none of those had amassed anything remotely like this sort of destruction.
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