Snake Eyes
Page 21
Murmuring rippled through the crowd, building, building…she hoped it would not build into a full-throttle riot….
Then, in the distance, so far away she didn’t know if she really perceived it or if it was just wishful thinking, Catherine heard a familiar electronic wail…
…the swell of sirens.
The crowd heard it, too, and looked behind them, then back at her as she continued on the bullhorn.
“The four Spokes now in custody—including Buck Finch—will remain with us to answer for their crimes.”
On the Spokes side of the police line, the bikers began to shout threats and obscenities again. They seemed about to surge forward….
Lopez leaned in where only the CSIs—and Finch—could hear him and see what he was up to. Easing his pistol out of his holster, behind Finch’s back, he pressed the barrel into Finch’s spine and said, “You care to defuse this for us, Buck? Because if we have any more fatalities here today, I’d say you’re first on the firing line.”
Finch craned his neck to look into the dangerously placid face of the police chief.
Catherine held the bullhorn toward the biker honcho. “Anything you’d like to say to the Spokes, Mr. Finch?”
He sighed.
And nodded.
Catherine held the bullhorn up.
“Enough killing,” he said in a voice that would have been loud and commanding without the amplification. “You Spokes—all of you! Back down.”
Some of Finch’s gang appeared confused by this order, and a few seemed outright angry, but scattered booing was cut off by their leader’s voice.
“Goddamnit! I still run the Spokes, and I say back down! Now!”
Both gangs backed off a little, but they did not disperse. The sirens in the distance seemed very real to Catherine now, growing ever closer.
Lopez, who had holstered his pistol without the crowd ever seeing it, held out his hand for the bullhorn; Finch gave it to him.
The chief asked Finch, “Who’s your second in command?”
“Eddy,” Finch said. All of the air was out of him. “Eddy Prentice.”
Using the bullhorn, Lopez called Prentice of the Spokes and Jake Hanson of the Predators to join the group on the stairs. As they waited for the two to make their way up, Lopez called a uniformed officer over and had him take Finch back inside.
“But just inside—out of sight, in case we need to play this card again.”
The two high-ranking reps from either gang came up the short flight of steps simultaneously, never taking their eyes off each other.
Prentice was maybe six feet tall, skinny but muscular, with curly black hair, cool dark eyes, and a black soul patch; he had tattoos on either hand and wore tight black jeans and a faded black T-shirt.
The brown-haired, ripped, rock-star-ish Hanson wore a frayed white Harley T-shirt and blue jeans.
Neither man spoke to his counterpart. Catherine could tell that was fine with Lopez, who had plenty to say.
“First thing,” the chief said quietly to the new leaders, “is I want you to both look at the roof of the building across the street.”
Lopez waved and—out of view for most of the crowd, but plainly visible from the steps of the police station—a Boot Hill police officer wielding a sniper’s rifle waved back.
The chief said, “Any questions?”
Prentice shook his head.
Hanson said, “No.”
“Eddy,” Lopez said to the Spokes rep, “Buck’s being charged with inciting a riot and attempted murder. You try to break him out”—he glanced toward the sniper—“let’s just say, we all know you’re top dog with Finch in jail.”
Prentice said, “Spare me the threats, Jorge—Buck says it’s done…it’s done.”
Hanson nodded. “Yeah. Done. Hell…sometimes, both sides lose.”
“Town lost, too,” Lopez put in.
“What d’you want from us?” Hanson asked.
“I want you gone,” Lopez said. “Now. The state police have names and addresses from all of you; we’ll know where to find you. Get your people out of here—both of you. This was the last Biker Blowout in Boot Hill—ever.”
The Spokes rep nodded and started down the stairs; but he stopped when Hanson didn’t move to go, too.
Hanson’s eyes locked with Lopez’s. “We’ll go. This is done. But Chief—we still want Val’s body.”
Grissom stepped forward. “We don’t have it, but we know where to look. We’ll get it back, do what we need to, then you can have the body…tomorrow, next day at the latest.”
Lopez said, “You can stay in town, Jake—send your crew away, and you can stay and collect your leader. I’ll need next-of-kin sanction, understand?”
Hanson considered all that; then he slowly nodded.
Finally, they both went down the steps, side by side, parting to lead their respective gangs away. The officers on the street—Boot Hill cops and Highway Patrolmen alike—watched the bikers file away; but none of the officers relaxed their stance an iota.
As the stragglers filtered off and the sirens grew steadily louder, Lopez asked, “Doc, can we really find Valpo’s body?”
Grissom said, “We’ll need a thermal imager, but yes.”
“He’s been dead for over a day.”
“Disturbed soil from where Jacks buried him will give off a different heat signature than the surrounding ground. We’ll find him.”
“And what about Tom Price, Doc? That’s a murder, not a suicide.”
“Another crime scene in a very long day,” Grissom said.
“How about I call Sheriff Burdick,” Catherine said, “and get a fresh team out for that one?”
Grissom smiled. “You’re the boss.”
Lopez shook hands all around. “I can’t thank you people enough.” His eyes lingered on Grissom and then even longer on Catherine. “You saved our town—literally.”
“Don’t know about that, Chief,” Grissom said. “You did a pretty good job of staying on top of this yourself. We’ll have Valpo’s body sent out as soon as possible.”
“Appreciate that.” Lopez rubbed his forehead. “I just wish…hell, wish it hadn’t been one of my own.”
“He wasn’t,” Catherine said.
Lopez looked confused.
Grissom said, “Catherine’s right—Cody Jacks stopped being a police officer the day he decided to seek revenge, not justice…frontier or otherwise.”
Last thing Warrick Brown knew, he was just resting his head on the break-room table for a second….
Something was banging on that table and he sat up with a start, eyes bleary. He rubbed them and saw Nick, Sara, Grissom, and Catherine standing there, like he was Dorothy woken from Oz to find the farmhands gathered at her bedside.
“Sleeping?” Catherine asked, leaning a hand on the table. She was smiling but, for Catherine Willows anyway, looked terrible. “We work our butts off all night, processing the biggest crime scene ever, in the middle of a biker war—and you three are napping?”
Three? Warrick looked around, and Jim Brass and Greg were both groggily waking up, having fallen asleep at the same break-room table.
“Long night,” Warrick said.
“Tell us about it,” Nick said with a snort.
“Solved three murders,” Brass said, trying out the taste in his mouth and obviously not caring for it.
Nick waved that off. “We spilled more than that.”
Greg said helpfully, “We had a lion—king of the jungle?—turn up as roadkill at a gang killing.”
“Sure you did,” Sara said.
“Caught a bank robber,” Greg said, only suddenly it sounded kind of lame.
Unimpresed, Nick said, “All we did was stare down a couple hundred drugged-out bikers brandishing tire irons and chains.”
Brass’s eyebrows rose. “‘Brandishing’?”
Somehow Warrick grinned. “Yeah, but did any of you guys have a gun pointed at your head while another of you talked
the perp down? And saved your damn life?”
Nick said, “Who did that, ’Rick? Jim?”
“Greg.”
Grissom said, “Greg—I’m proud of you.”
Greg shrugged and tried not to blush.
Catherine said, “Oh, and Greg? Word to the wise. Tip from a pro?”
“Yes?”
“Careful how you sleep on hair with that much product in it. You look a little like a cactus something nasty happened to.”
Greg was still processing that remark as if it were a particularly puzzling piece of evidence, when just about everybody else began to laugh. Exhaustion hysteria made Catherine’s comment, and Greg’s hair sticking up, seem funnier than they really were, causing tears of laughter to flow at an unusual rate for a crime lab.
The only one not laughing was Grissom, who merely smiled—his eyes on Greg, pleased.
A Tip of the
Test Tube
MY ASSISTANT, MATTHEW CLEMENS, HELPED me develop the plot of Snake Eyes and worked up a lengthy story treatment, which included all of his considerable forensic research, from which I could work. Matthew—an accomplished true-crime writer who has collaborated with me on numerous published short stories—does most of the on-site Vegas research and is largely responsible for any sense of the real city that might be found herein.
On occasion, however, I accompany him on these trips, as when we spent the better part of two days with the real CSIs of Las Vegas, who told us of a case that inspired, loosely, the casino shoot-out in Snake Eyes. Doing so, they won the dedication of this novel, and our gratitude. We also note, however, that the inspiration was of a basic nature and the crimes detailed in this book are wholly fictional.
We would once again like to acknowledge criminalist Lieutenant Chris Kauffman CLPE—the Gil Grissom of the Bettendorf, Iowa, Police Department—who provided comments, insights, and information; Chris has been an important member of our CSI team since the first novel and remains vital to our efforts. Thank you, too, to another major contributor to our research, Lieutenant Paul Van Steenhuyse, Scott County Sheriff’s Office; and also Sergeant Jeff Swanson, Scott County Sheriff’s Office (for autopsy and crime scene assistance). Thanks also go to Gary L. Johansen, crime lab supervisor, Salt Lake City Police Department, for sharing the anecdote from which the bank robbery chapter was developed.
Books consulted include two works by Vernon J. Geberth: Practical Homicide Investigation: Checklist and Field Guide (1996) and Practical Homicide Investigation: Tactics, Procedures, and Forensic Techniques (1996). Also helpful were Crime Scene: The Ultimate Guide to Forensic Science by Richard Platt; and Scene of the Crime: A Writer’s Guide to Crime-Scene Investigations (1992) by Anne Wingate, Ph.D. We also cite the Journal of Forensic Identification, Volume 56, No. 1, Jan/Feb 2006, and thank Anissa Rawji and Alexandre Beaudoin for their article about Red Oil O. Any inaccuracies, however, are my own.
At Pocket Books, Ed Schlesinger, our gracious editor, provided his usual keen eye and solid support. The producers of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation sent along scripts, background material (including show bibles), and episode tapes. As before, we wish to especially thank Corinne Marrinan, coauthor (with Mike Flaherty) of the indispensible Pocket Books publication CSI: Crime Scene Investigation Companion.
Anthony E. Zuiker is gratefully acknowledged as the creator of this concept and these characters; and the cast must be applauded for vivid, memorable characterizations. Our thanks, too, to various CSI writers for their inventive and well-documented scripts, which we draw upon for backstory.
Finally, thanks to the fans of the show who have extended their enthusiasm into following these novels. We have a fairly specific continuity in this series of prose “episodes,” which tends to lag behind that of the show itself, and we thank our readers for grasping and understanding that reality of production (and difference between mediums) as we have attempted to explore these familiar characters from within.
About the Author
MAX ALLAN COLLINS, a Mystery Writers of America Edgar Award nominee in both fiction and non-fiction categories, was hailed in 2004 by Publishers Weekly as “a new breed of writer.” He has earned an unprecedented fifteen Private Eye Writers of America Shamus nominations for his historical thrillers, winning twice for his Nathan Heller novels True Detective (1983) and Stolen Away (1991).
His other credits include film criticism, short fiction, songwriting, trading-card sets, and movie/TV tie-in novels, including Air Force One, In the Line of Fire, and the New York Times bestseller Saving Private Ryan.
His graphic novel Road to Perdition is the basis of the Academy Award–winning DreamWorks 2002 feature film starring Tom Hanks, Paul Newman, and Jude Law, directed by Sam Mendes. His many comics credits include the Dick Tracy syndicated strip; his own Ms. Tree; Batman; and CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, based on the hit TV series for which he has also written video games, jigsaw puzzles, and a USA Today bestselling series of novels.
An independent filmmaker in his native Iowa, he wrote and directed Mommy, which premiered on Lifetime in 1996, as well as a 1997 sequel, Mommy’s Day. The screenwriter of The Expert, a 1995 HBO world premiere, he also wrote and directed the innovative made-for-DVD feature Real Time: Siege at Lucas Street Market (2000). Shades of Noir (2004)—an anthology of his short films, including his award-winning documentary Mike Hammer’s Mickey Spillane—is included in the recent DVD boxed set of Collins’s indie films, The Black Box. He recently completed a documentary, Caveman: V.T. Hamlin and Alley Oop, and another feature, Eliot Ness: An Untouchable Life, based on his Edgar-nominated play.
Collins lives in Muscatine, Iowa, with his wife, writer Barbara Collins; their son, Nathan, is a recent graduate in computer science and Japanese at the University of Iowa and is currently pursuing post-grad studies in Japan.