Sin City

by Max Allan Collins

  Conroy approached him and displayed her I.D. and a professional smile. “Who could I talk to about one of your employees?”

  The stocky, wispily mustached guard had a radio mike clipped to the epaulet of his left shoulder. He used the mike to check with a Mr. Waller, who would receive the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police contingent in his office, which proved to be on the first floor, past the front desk, and down a deserted corridor behind a door labelled SECURITY.

  A tall, thin man in a well-tailored gray suit and black and gray tie extended his hand to Conroy even as the guard showed them in. With a smile just a little too wide and teeth just a little too white, the casino man introduced himself as Jim Waller, and I.D.’s were proffered, hands were shaken, Catherine finding the man’s grip limp and his palm slightly moist.

  Waller moved behind the desk and sat in a massive maroon leather chair, a computer whirring behind him, the screensaver showing fish swimming around. He motioned toward the three leather-covered chairs in front of his large dark-wood desk.

  Waller was a typical casino security man: unfailingly polite and helpful to the police, but wary as hell. “What can I do to help you, officers? Something about an employee, I understand? Is it a criminal matter?”

  “Yes, Mr. Waller, it’s criminal,” Conroy said, and the security man’s smile vanished, all those big shiny teeth tucked away in his face. “But the crime doesn’t involve your employee.”

  Conroy explained the situation and soon Waller was using a walkie-talkie to summon Marty Fleming.

  “Should only be three or four minutes,” Waller said.

  It was five, a security guard showing up, escorting a slump-shouldered, medium-sized man in his late forties with sandy hair, a bad complexion and gold-rimmed bifocals. A walking cast peeked out from the man’s left pant leg; Catherine found him a rather pitiful-looking character. Waller rose, came around the desk and approached the man.

  “Marty,” he said, speaking to the dealer (though in a facility this size, the odds were scant Waller actually knew the employee), “these police officers need to talk to you.”

  The dealer’s face turned anxiously inquisitive as his attention turned from Waller to the women.

  “Detective Conroy,” Waller continued, “I’ll be at the front desk, when you’ve finished using my office.”

  “Very kind of you,” Conroy said.

  Then the security guard and Waller and the latter’s shit-eating grin left them alone.

  “Wh-what is this about?” Fleming asked.

  Sara got up and vacated the chair next to Conroy, gesturing to Fleming to take it, saying, “Why don’t you have a seat, Mr. Fleming, that cast doesn’t look very comfortable.”

  He sat down, Conroy made the introductions, and explained the purpose of their visit, including the tragic death of Jenna Patrick.

  “Damn it, anyway,” Fleming said, shaking his head. He had a perpetual “why me?” demeanor. “I told Ty it was no big deal. Now he goes around telling the police.”

  Catherine said, “Mr. Fleming, it is a big thing—Mr. Kapelos did the right thing informing us. If Ray Lipton did attempt to strangle you, it might represent a pattern—a pattern of violence that culminated with him killing that young woman.”

  Fleming shook his head. “That’s so sad…she was just the nicest girl. So beautiful. Nice and beautiful.”

  Catherine pressed: “Is Ty Kapelos telling us the truth? Did Ray Lipton choke you at Dream Dolls three months ago?”

  Slowly, Fleming nodded; he seemed embarrassed. “About that—maybe a little longer ago. He saw me coming out of one of the back rooms with his girlfriend—I had, uh…you know, a private dance with her. Listen, you’re not gonna talk to my wife, are you?”

  Conroy said, “No, Mr. Fleming.”

  “I mean, she’ll kill me, and then you’ll be investigating that.”

  “Tell us about that night, Mr. Fleming—the night Ray Lipton attacked you.”

  He sighed, thought back, pushing his glasses up on his nose—they didn’t stay there long. “Jenna, she gave me a hug, you know, as we were comin’ out of the booth—that’s not something they usually do, I mean, when the dance is over, it’s over. But she was a nice girl, and I used to have a dance from her, I don’t know, a couple times a week.”

  Catherine nodded just to keep him going.

  “Anyway, she hugged me and I gave her a peck on the cheek and the next thing I know, this guy is all over me, like ugly on a bulldog. Knocks me down, pins me to the floor in that, you know, that narrow hallway? On the floor there, digging his fingers into my throat. His face was all red…mine probably was, too. The girl was screaming and all, and I started to black out. I tell you, I thought I was dead.”

  Conroy asked, “Then what?”

  He swallowed, pushed his glasses up again. “This brunette, another of the dancers, grabbed him by the hair and pulled him off. Saved me, sort of. She wasn’t a very nice person…kinda cold, the other one, dark-haired. I had a private dance from her, once, too…brrrrr! But she did save me, I guess, from that Lipton guy. Anyway, she doesn’t work there anymore.”

  “Tera Jameson, you mean?” Sara asked.

  Fleming shrugged. “I didn’t pay any attention to her name—I didn’t like her. Anyway, the girls danced under different names, different nights…. So, then he and her started screaming at each other. He looked like he wanted to punch her, but he kept his distance. I just got up and a couple of the girls helped me back into the dressing room…only time I was ever back there.”

  He stopped and smiled as he thought back to that experience.

  Conroy prompted him: “Mr. Fleming?”

  “Yeah, anyway—I stayed back with the dancers, in their dressing room, till Ty and that Worm DJ guy hustled this Ray out of the club.”

  “Did you get the cast from that attack?”

  Looking a little sheepish, Fleming said, “No. Got that about a month ago—accident at home. You know. Most accidents happen there.”

  Maybe his wife would kill him, Catherine thought.

  Conroy asked, “That night at the club, that the last time you had contact with Ray Lipton?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “I’d remember.”

  “Guess you would.” Conroy gave him a smile. “Thank you, Mr. Fleming.”

  He sighed, nodded. “You won’t talk to my wife?”

  “We won’t talk to your wife.”

  Fleming rose and went out, and the trio lingered in Waller’s office briefly, then did the same.

  They stopped at the front desk and Conroy thanked Waller, and they made their way out of the gaudy casino, that pioneer in making Sin City family friendly.

  Then they drove back to HQ, where they finally ended the night that had long since turned to day.

  7

  LAKE MEAD WAS BORN OF HOOVER DAM STEMMING THE Colorado River’s flow; downstream Davis Dam had given birth to Lake Mohave, and together the pair of man-made bodies of water—and the surrounding desert—comprised Lake Mead National Recreation Area, a million and a half acres set aside in ’64 by the federal government for the enjoyment of the American tourist. Lake Mead’s cool waters were ideal for swimming, boating, skiing, and fishing.

  But some people had a peculiar idea of fun, which meant the CSIs were no strangers to the recreation area. They were at the end of another long shift, the day after the Toyota Avalon had been found at McCarran, when a phone call had come in, just as Nick Stokes and Warrick Brown were about to head home. Grissom had headed them off, announcing another discovery, this time a grisly one.

  And now, once again, three nightshift CSIs, including their supervisor, were dragging their weary bones into the sunshine. Or at least Warrick and Nick were weary: Grissom never seemed tired, exactly, nor for that matter did he ever seem particularly energetic—except when evidence was stirring his adrenaline flow.

  Soon Warrick was steering one of the team’s black Tahoes out Lake Mead B
oulevard, Route 147, past Frenchman’s Mountain and on toward the recreation area as he followed the twisty road west of Gypsum Wash and then down the Lake Shore Scenic Drive. The landscape was as untamed and restless as the Old West itself, rugged, chaotic, God working as an abstract artist, sculpting rocks in countless shapes in a raw rainbow of colors—snowy whites, cloudy grays, gentle mauves and fiery reds.

  When Warrick swung into the parking lot for Lake Mead Tours, Brass’s Taurus pulled up and parked next to them.

  The autumn morning was cool enough for their windbreakers. None of them bothered with field kits yet—they would get the lay of the land, first—or maybe the lake, the endless expanse of which glistened nearby. Grissom and Nick climbed down and followed Warrick a few steps to where a man in a tan uniform stood next to a U.S. Fish and Wildlife pickup. Brass caught up quickly.

  “Warrick Brown,” the criminalist said, pointing to his necklace I.D. “Las Vegas CSI.”

  “Jim Tilson, U.S. Fish and Wildlife.”

  The two exchanged polite smiles and handshakes—the latex gloves weren’t on, yet.

  “This is Nick Stokes, CSI,” Warrick went on as the rest of the group caught up with him, “and our supervisor, Gil Grissom, and Captain Jim Brass from Homicide.”

  Tilson nodded to them—more polite smiles, more handshakes.

  Warrick was studying the guy, brow knitted. “I feel like I know you, Mr. Tilson.”

  A real smile creased Tilson’s face now, revealing a row of uneven but very white teeth. “I played a little ball—Nevada Reno, then the CBA, couple years…till I blew my ankle out.”

  Snapping his fingers, Warrick said, “Yeah, yeah, I remember you! Jumpin’ Jimmy Tilson. You spent some time with the Nuggets, too.”

  Tilson nodded. “That was a while ago.”

  “Mr. Tilson,” Grissom said, “why did you call us?”

  Tilson led them around his truck. “Over here…Not pretty.”

  Grissom smiled thinly. “They so seldom are.”

  They walked across the parking lot and down to the edge of the lake, where the water lapped at the sloping cement, and Tilson’s USFW flat bottom boat was tied to the cruise boat’s dock. If they looked hard, they could see the tour boat down at the far end of the basin; but that wasn’t what they’d come to see. Warrick gazed into the flat bottom’s bottom, where a canvas tarp covered something in the middle of the boat.

  “I was on the lake this morning taking samples,” Tilson said, a grimness in his tone.

  “Samples?” asked Brass.

  Tilson shrugged. “Testing chemical pollution in the lake, at various depths. It’s an ongoing USFW concern. Anyway, I bring up my container, then start hauling up the anchor to move to another spot. Well, the damn anchor snags on something.” Another shrug. “Happens once in a while. Lotta shit’s ended up in this lake over the years.”

  “I can imagine,” Brass said, just moving it along.

  “So,” the wildlife man said, “I start pullin’ the anchor chain back in, and damn, it’s heavy as hell.” Tilson moved close to the boat, then glanced up toward the parking lot—to make sure they were undisturbed—and pulled back the tarp. “And this is what I found.”

  Even Grissom winced.

  “That’s one nasty catch of the day,” Nick said, softly.

  The lake had bleached the slab of flesh the gray-white of old newspaper. Someone had severed the body just above the navel and near the top of the femurs, leaving only the buttocks and vagina and the tops of the thighs. The unctuous odor of rot floated up and Warrick forced himself to breathe through his mouth.

  “This is all you found?” Nick asked, frowning down at the thing.

  “That’s it.”

  Grissom was gazing out at the lake now. “Mr. Tilson, can you tell us where exactly you found this body?”

  Now Tilson looked out across the water, gesturing. “Straight out—half a mile or more.”

  “You have GPS?”

  Global positioning system.

  Nodding, Tilson said, “I took a reading, but the damned thing flamed out on me. Bad batteries, I guess.”

  “We can send divers down,” Nick suggested.

  Grissom and Tilson both shook their heads at the same time, but it was Brass who said, “Too deep.”

  “Nearly six hundred feet in places,” Tilson added.

  “Besides which,” Grissom said, “there’s no telling how many different places parts were dumped into the lake.”

  “Whatever happened to dragging the lake?” Nick asked.

  Tilson said, “You don’t drag a lake that covers two hundred forty-seven square miles…and, man, that’s just the water, never mind the seven-hundred miles of shoreline. And you take in the whole area, you’ve got twice the size of Rhode Island to deal with.”

  “And you have over ten million visitors a year, right, Mr. Tilson?” Grissom asked.

  “That’s right, sir.”

  “Lotta suspects,” Warrick said.

  And yet all of them knew, if this torso belonged to a certain missing woman, that one particular suspect would head their list. Warrick also knew that Grissom—whose mind had to be buzzing with the possibility of this being what was left of Lynn Pierce—would never countenance such a leap.

  “I get the picture,” Nick was saying. “So…what can we do?”

  Warrick twitched half a humorless smirk, and said, “We can do a DNA test on what we have, and hopefully identify the body.”

  Again, neither the criminalists nor the police detective said what they all were thinking.

  “Mr. Tilson,” Brass said, a mini-tape recorder at the ready, “can you tell us exactly what happened this morning? In detail?”

  Though this version of the tale took longer, it added very little to the original, more succinct story Tilson had told earlier.

  “Did you see anything unusual on the lake this morning?” Brass asked.

  Tilson looked at Brass with wide eyes, and gestured down into the boat.

  “Besides that,” the detective said quickly. “Other boats, suspicious activity, anything at all noteworthy?”

  The USFW man considered that carefully. Finally he said, “There were some boats…but, I mean, there’s always boats. Didn’t see anything odd, not like somebody dumpin’ stuff into the water or anything. And we keep an eye out for that kinda thing.”

  For several minutes, Brass continued to question Tilson, without learning anything new. Tilson requested permission to confer with some of the recreation area personnel, who were nervously hovering at the periphery. Brass—after glancing at Grissom, for a nod—okayed that.

  Finally, Brass said to Grissom, “We can’t exactly go door to door with a picture of this, and ask if anybody recognizes her.”

  They were near the flat-bottom boat. Grissom was staring at the torso, as if waiting for it to speak up. Then he said to Brass, “There’s a body of evidence, here.”

  “Are you kidding?”

  Grissom tore himself away from staring down at the torso to give Brass a withering look. Then he returned his eyes to the evidence and said, “Look at the edges.”

  The criminalist pointed first to the waistline, then the jagged cuts to the thighs. Warrick and Nick were looking on with interest.

  Grissom was saying, “We’ll figure out what made the cuts—that will help. She’ll talk to us…. She already is.”

  Nick took pictures while Warrick carefully searched the boat for any other trace evidence. Once he had photos of the torso, where it lay in the boat, the two CSIs removed it from the snarled anchor chain and gently turned the body over.

  Nick winced. “That left a mark…”

  “Gris!” Warrick called. “You’re gonna wanna see this!”

  Striding over from where he’d been conferring with Brass, Grissom called, “What?”

  Warrick raised an eyebrow and gestured in tadah fashion at the torso.

  Glancing down, Grissom saw intestinal tissue sticking out of a slice in t
he back, like Kleenex popping out of a box.

  Brass joined the group. “Something?”

  “Whoever cut her up made a mistake,” Grissom said. “He tried to cut through the pelvic bone. Whatever he used got jammed up, and when he pulled it out, the blade snagged on the intestines.”

  Warrick didn’t know which was grislier: the torso, or the glee with which Grissom had reported the butcher’s “mistake.” But Warrick also noted Grissom reflexively referred to the unknown killer as “he.”

  In the hour it took the CSI team to finish, the paramedics showed up, as did news vans from the four network affiliates. Uniformed officers held the reporters and cameramen at a distance, but there was no way Brass would get out of here without talking to them.

  Gil Grissom did not envy Brass this part of his job. The CSI supervisor watched as the detective moved over to the gaggle of reporters. It was a calculated move on Brass’s part: if the cameras were focused on him, they’d be unable to shoot the body being loaded into an ambulance.

  Grissom watched as the four reporters and their cameramen vied for position, each sticking his or her microphones out toward Brass’s unopened mouth. Grissom recognized Jill Ganine. She had interviewed him more than once, and he liked her well enough, for media. Next to her, Stan Cooper tried to look like he wasn’t shoving Ganine out of the way. Kathleen Treiner bounced back and forth around the other two like a yappy terrier until her brutish cameraman managed to elbow in next to Cooper and give her some space.

  Ganine got out the first question. “Captain Brass, is that the body of Lynn Pierce, the missing Vegas socialite?”

  Leave it to the press to ask the question none of them had spoken. And just when had Born-Again suburban mom Lynn Pierce become a “socialite,” anyway?