Grave Matters

by Max Allan Collins

  Due to the lack of space, the desk was shoved back close to the wall and, although the woman wasn’t particularly large, she seemed almost jammed behind and under it; a phone, a large blotter/calendar, and a walkie-talkie were arrayed on the desktop, but no pictures or other personal items, although a little stand with free dog-eared pamphlets—Grief Is God’s Way of Saying Goodbye, Eternal Rest for Your Loved Ones—perched at the front edge, next to a brass nameplate that read “GLENDA NELSON—MEMORIAL CONSULTANT.” File cabinets separated her from another desk, empty at the moment, and the rest of the cottage served as a small shop where artificial flowers could be picked up for mourners doing some last-minute shopping.

  “Welcome to Desert Palm Memorial, gentlemen,” the woman said in a mechanically mellow voice, with a practiced smile and wholly unengaged eyes. “I’m Glenda—how may I help you?”

  Brass flashed his badge. “This is Doctor Grissom from the crime lab; I’m Captain Brass. We were here early this morning—for that exhumation?”

  “Yes, of course! Mr. Crosby informed me of that.”

  “Well, that’s who we’re looking for—Mr. Crosby. Is he here this early?”

  Her smile disappeared but her eyes came alive. “I’m sorry, Captain, but he’s not scheduled to come in today.”

  Had Crosby taken the day off, Grissom wondered, because the cemetery manager knew they might be back?

  “Is there any way I can help you?” the woman asked.

  “It’s about the exhumation—there’s a problem.”

  She frowned and seemed to Grissom a trifle alarmed, despite Brass’s typically low-key manner; problems around here were fairly limited—the guests at this hotel didn’t likely complain much.

  The woman said, “Well—Joe and Bob didn’t mention any difficulties….”

  Brass said, “Thing is…is it Mrs. Nelson?”

  Grissom felt this guess on Brass’s part was substantiated by evidence: The woman had on a wedding ring and diamond.

  “Yes—it’s Mrs. Nelson. But Glenda is fine.”

  “Mrs. Nelson, we opened that casket at headquarters, and we found the wrong body inside.”

  She blinked and thought about that and then blinked some more. “How in heaven’s name is that possible?”

  “Our question exactly,” Grissom said.

  The woman glanced at the phone on her desk. Grissom could tell she wanted to pick it up, probably to call Crosby, but she didn’t reach for it. She’d been left in charge, and she would deal with it.

  Finally, Glenda said, “You’ll have to forgive me…I wasn’t here earlier…. Can you tell me the name of the person you were supposed to exhume?”

  Brass said, “Rita Bennett.”

  “Oh yes. From television.” Glenda rose and went to a filing cabinet nearby; computers had not come to Desert Palm—not uncommon with such facilities.

  “Rita Bennett,” she repeated to herself. She opened the second drawer down in the file cabinet and thumbed through a few files before finding the right one. “Section B, row 3, plot 117.”

  Grissom restrained a smile. On the green grounds nearby, with their headstones, eternal flames, and floral arrangements, loved ones rested in serene dignity; but here in the office, a file cabinet would do as final resting place.

  Brass was checking his notebook. “That’s what Crosby gave me—section B, row 3, plot 117…. Mrs. Nelson, do you mind walking us over there?”

  Glenda frowned. “I can’t leave my post,” she said, as if that desk really were her battleship. “What would happen if someone came in?”

  Grissom and Brass exchanged quick looks, both thinking the same thing: No MO was on file with LVPD for perps prone to heisting artificial flowers from cemetery offices.

  “I’ll tell you what,” she said. “I could call Bob on the walkie and have him take you back.”

  “Why don’t you?” Brass said pleasantly.

  Glenda called Bob.

  While they waited for Bob’s arrival, Brass asked a few more questions, beginning with, “Mrs. Nelson, is there any way one body could be…exchanged…for another?”

  Glenda looked at Brass like he’d just blurted a chain of obscenities. “Captain Brass! This is not a used parts store—urban legends about organ thieves do not take into consideration such small factors as embalming!”

  “I didn’t mean to suggest—”

  “We take our responsibility very seriously!”

  Grissom bestowed a charming smile upon her and said, “Of course we understand that, Mrs. Nelson—but it’s not impossible, is it?”

  The gentleness of Grissom’s tone calmed her, and she considered the question finally. “We would notice a disturbance in the ground. We are very particular about our landscaping. We’re proud of the service we perform.”

  “As well you should be,” Grissom said with a nod and a smile.

  “But what about,” Brass asked, “before the body is buried?”

  Shaking her head, Glenda said, “The caskets are locked, for one thing; and for another, there are people at the graveside for the service….”

  “Always?”

  “Usually. Then after that, the vault is sealed and the vault with the coffin is lowered, then covered. The only people who would have any opportunity at all, for what you’re suggesting, are Bob and Joe, and they’re both good men.”

  “Can you give us their full names?”

  “Roberto Dean and Joseph Fenway,” she said, “but you’re wrong about them.”

  Grissom smiled again. “We don’t have any opinion about them, Mrs. Nelson.”

  Brass was jotting the names in his notebook when Bob showed up on a rider lawn mower. They thanked Mrs. Nelson again, and she nodded rather coldly, and they went out to greet their old friend Bob, who already knew what they needed from Mrs. Nelson’s walkie-talkie summons.

  In the Taurus, Grissom and Brass followed the rider mower around to section B, row 3, plot 117—and found the open grave from which they had removed the vault this morning.

  “Bob,” Brass said out the car window, “you’re sure this is plot 117? Section B, row 3?”

  Bob, sitting on his mower, made a face, and not a terribly intelligent one. “Think I’m likely to make a mistake like that?”

  “Of course not,” Grissom said. “But do you have a map, or chart…?”

  Bob had both—a map of the entire cemetery and a chart of section B. He withdrew them from a back pocket of his dirty jeans and unfolded them and came over like a carhop to share them with the detective and the CSI.

  “Bob,” Grissom said, studying the folded sheets, “this is the right grave, right?”

  Bob nodded, and there was pride in his voice when he said, “ ’Round here, guy’s gotta be careful what hole he sticks it in.”

  “Words of wisdom.”

  Waving at Bob from the Taurus, they drove back to the office and found Glenda fidgeting behind her desk and not terribly happy to see them return.

  “Are you satisfied now?” she asked. “It was the right grave, wasn’t it?”

  Brass shook his head. “Right grave—wrong body.”

  Glenda’s voice got very small. “This is terrible…this is awful…. Our reputation…”

  His charming smile nowhere in sight, Grissom said, “Don’t you think the loved ones of the deceased deserve better than your concern for your reputation?”

  Glenda swallowed and stared at nothing. “You’re right…. I should be ashamed.” Then she raised bright, alarmed eyes, gesturing to herself. “Certainly you people don’t think we had anything—”

  Brass hesitated, and Grissom stepped in. “We don’t think one of your employees did this.”

  Relief softened her features.

  “But,” Grissom added, “that doesn’t mean they didn’t. We just have no evidence to support that notion…so we’ll be looking other places.”

  Cutting in, Brass said, “Like for starters, the funeral home that officiated over Rita Bennett’s service.” />
  “Which one was that?” Glenda asked.

  Brass’s voice stayed remarkably even and sarcasm free. “We were kind of hoping you could tell us.”

  “Certainly.” The file was still on Glenda’s desk and she thumbed through it, then said, “Mr. Black’s establishment.” She found half a smile somewhere. “I should’ve known—they’re the biggest mortuary in Las Vegas. They do most of the funerals involving clients with money. And this Rita Bennett? If it’s not too disrespectful for me to say so?…She was loaded.”

  “We know,” Brass said.

  “Does that make this more suspicious?” Glenda asked, eyebrows knitted.

  “You know,” Grissom said, “I think finding the wrong body in a coffin is suspicious enough.”

  She was pondering that as they went out.

  Nick had bagged two more of the short black hairs, as well as a thin white fiber, and tested the maroon drops (just to make sure they were blood), before Sara finally ambled back into the garage.

  “What does our friend AFIS have to say?”

  Sara shook her head. “Not chatty yet—Jacqui loaded the prints into Missing Persons, too.”

  “Anything?”

  “Not so far…but it was just getting started.”

  Nick sighed and gestured toward the girl in the casket. “Well…time for the coming out party?”

  “Why not.”

  Sara pulled over a gurney and locked down the wheels. As she did, Nick put his latex-gloved hands under the body’s shoulders and lifted her up and out; there was some resistance before the head finally tore loose from the pillow, leaving behind a glob of dried blood and some hair.

  Looking at the back of the woman’s head, Nick could see the reason for the blood: a small black hole, no bigger around than a ballpoint pen.

  “Entrance wound,” he said.

  Sara snatched up the camera and snapped four photos of the tiny aperture. “No exit?”

  “Doesn’t look like it.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “Small caliber, huh?”

  Nick nodded. “Twenty-two, maybe.”

  “Or a twenty-five?…No sign of defense wounds.”

  Nick twitched a grimace. “She didn’t see it coming.”

  “Maybe that’s not such a bad thing…. The killer—we agree there’s a killer now, right?”

  “We agree there’s a killer now. Right.”

  “The killer? He or she went to a whole lot of trouble to get rid of the body. This wasn’t some random act.”

  “Not hardly.” Nick trained tight eyes on Sara. “If the killer didn’t know her, if it was just a thrill kill or something…why not just leave her where she dropped?”

  Sara set down the camera. “Point well-taken—the killer must have known her.”

  “That makes sense, but Grissom’ll want more.”

  “He’s not the only one.”

  “Yeah?”

  Sara nodded at the dead girl. “She wants it, too.”

  The two of them lifted the girl out of the coffin and carefully laid her on the gurney. To Nick, even though he held the heavier end, the young woman felt feather light. It was said that when a person dies, their body weight drops by twenty-one grams; but this vic seemed to have lost much more than that.

  Releasing the brake on the gurney, Sara prepared to take the body over to Doc Robbins for the autopsy. “Coming, Nick?” she asked.

  “Not just yet. Now that it’s empty, I want to go over this coffin….”

  “Good thought. You want me to come back, and help?”

  “No, that’s okay. I got it—not really room enough for two of us, nosing around in there anyway. You see what the autopsy has to tell us, and I’ll catch up with you.”

  She said, “Sure thing,” then pushed the gurney across the garage and through the doors into the corridor.

  Alone with the coffin and vault now, Nick went to work. He started with the casket: They had been very careful about touching it while they worked, and so the first thing to do was to fingerprint the box; their own prints would be on both the casket and the vault—no helping that. They had expected to find Rita Bennett inside, so, obviously, hadn’t been particularly careful about not leaving fingerprints. Once they found the other woman, though, they had pulled on the ever-trusty latex gloves….

  He dusted the coffin all down the lip of the lid, along the handles, and around the locks. Normally, the only prints he would expect to find would be his and Sara’s; but with the sealed vault protecting the fingerprints from the arid desert air, he hoped to get luckier than that. It was a time-consuming job, but whenever he found something, he’d transfer it to tape and move on. In the end, he collected more than two dozen prints. How many would prove to be his and Sara’s remained to be seen.

  With the outside of the casket done, Nick moved back to the interior. Using his Maglite, he combed the satin lining, looking for any clue that might lead him to identify either the victim or the killer. Having gone over the head end of the coffin thoroughly (while the body was still inside), he now began at the foot. Several small pieces of something black—dirt, he decided—were visible, where they had probably hidden under the heel of the girl’s shoes. It was possible the dirt had come from Rita Bennett’s shoes, too, but the Bennett woman would likely have been buried in clean, perhaps even new shoes, whereas the girl had been murdered, not prepared and spruced up for burial. Either way, he took photos of the dirt, then bagged it.

  Next, Nick moved on toward where her knees had been, then her waist, her back, and, finally, again to the pillow. He was going around the edge one final time when he saw a fiber hung up in a tiny flaw in the wood. Using his tweezers, he picked up the fiber and examined it more carefully—white, and less than an inch long. To Nick it looked like plain old-fashioned white thread; but he knew that David Hodges, CSI’s resident trace expert, might well give him enough info to start a Plain Old-Fashioned White Thread website. He bagged the thread and then went over the casket one more time, this trip taking an alternative light source along for the ride….

  The blood showed up under the UV light, all right, but he found nothing else. Spraying Luminol on the pillow didn’t help either: The blood that he’d already seen—the drops and the small patch under the woman’s head—was all there was to find.

  Finally finished with the casket, Nick stared at the empty vessel, as if waiting for a wraith to rise up and reveal all to him. Unlikely as that prospect might be, he sure could have used the help.

  He had precious little to go on. He moved on to the cement vault, but there was even less there. The vault would have already been at the cemetery, and the casket sealed inside there. The possibility remained that the body could have been transferred right before it went into the vault; but the concrete wrapper had been exposed to the desert climate far more than the casket sealed within, and Nick was not confident of finding anything.

  Still, he went over it inch by inch. He dusted for fingerprints, went over the outside and the edges for signs of blood, and examined the inside with both his Maglite and an ALS.

  And came up empty.

  He cleaned up, stored the evidence, then caught up with Sara in the morgue. Though the garage had been air-conditioned, Nick’s hard work had him sweating, and when he strode into the morgue, the chill of the room gave him a shiver.

  Sara stood opposite Dr. Al Robbins, the body on the steel table between them. The unknown girl was naked now, her clothes in evidence bags on a nearby counter, where Sara had put them.

  Sara had put on a powder-blue lab coat and latex gloves as she assisted Robbins with his duties. Following suit, Nick took a blue lab coat off a hook and slipped into it. As he crossed to the table, he pulled on a fresh pair of latex gloves.

  A rather tall, balding, salt-and-pepper-bearded man, Robbins was looking at less than twelve months before his tenth anniversary with the LVPD. A man who seemed composed of equal parts cool professionalism and warm compassion, Robbins moved with the aid of a metal c
ane, which now leaned, as it often did when he was working, in a corner near the table. The father of three and a devoted family man, Doc Robbins had a daughter whose age would not be far removed from that of their nameless victim.

  Nick settled in next to Sara.

  “Find anything?” she asked.

  He shrugged. “Couple needles in the haystack. We’ll see.” Looking down at the body, Nick saw that their victim not only had been disrobed, but her face had been scrubbed clean. She was even prettier than he had originally thought. “How about you, Sara?”

  “I’ll want to go over her clothes more thoroughly, later,” Sara said.

  Nick looked at Robbins. “And you, Doc? She tell you anything interesting yet?”

  Robbins glanced up at Nick, then turned his attention back to the woman on the table. “Cause of death was a single gunshot wound to the back of the head. Small caliber, probably a twenty-two. But you knew that.

  “Here’s what you didn’t know,” Robbins continued. “The fact is that the young woman is…was…pregnant.”

  Nick’s eyes widened. He bit the word off: “Really?”

  The ME nodded. “About nine weeks.”

  “So what we may have here,” Nick said, thinking out loud, “is a father who didn’t want to be a father….”

  “What we may have here,” Sara added, “is an abortion.”

  Located on Valle Verde Drive in Henderson, Desert Haven Mortuary was about as far from Desert Palm Memorial Cemetery as you could get and still be within the city limits. Caught in the noon rush hour, Grissom and Brass had taken the better part of an hour making the trek across town. When they arrived, the parking lot was practically full and Brass had to pull the Taurus over to the far side of the building.

  Through shimmering heat they walked around to the front. Done in tasteful brick with white painted trim and pillars, the mortuary was but a single story, though an endless, rambling affair. No matter how far Grissom felt like he had walked, the front door always seemed to still be in the distance; he knew that inside were at least six, and maybe more, visitation rooms, as well as a cluster of offices, the workroom where the bodies were prepared, and the crematorium.