Sin City

by Max Allan Collins

  And Lori Pierce’s voice said: “You don’t wanna go upstairs? Party a little?”

  “No! I wanna get back before my parents miss us. Don’t fool around, Lori!”

  “I thought you liked to fool around…”

  “Just get that stuff, and let’s go!”

  From their rec room post, Grissom and Sara heard her feet padding up the winding stairs.

  Within seconds, Lori’s reaction at realizing her stash had been discovered echoed through the house: “Shit! Shit shit shit!”

  The girl came flying down the stairs, wild-eyed, just as Grissom and Sara came around to meet her. She froze on the stairs, a few steps from the bottom, then glanced over her shoulder—Catherine and Brass were just above and behind her. Warrick and Nick entered the foyer, the latter hauling a bewildered-looking Gary Blair by the arm.

  “Lori Pierce,” Brass said, in a neutral tone that was nonetheless chilling in the teenagers’ ears, “you’re under arrest for the murder of your mother, Lynn Pierce.”

  “What?” Gary Blair blurted. He shook himself free from Nick’s grasp, but didn’t go anywhere; his expression was that of a kid who’d just heard the truth about Santa Claus. “Her father did it—he confessed!” Gary looked around at the adults clustered in the foyer. “You heard him, you all heard him! I heard him.”

  Grissom’s eyes weren’t on Gary, but on Lori, as he said, “Mr. Pierce lied, son…. He lied to protect his daughter.”

  “My father killed my mother,” Lori insisted, desperation edging her voice, her face, her gestures, animated. “Gary and me, we heard him confess—just like you did!”

  Grissom walked up several stairs to face Lori, where she was caught between the two groups of grown-ups. “We heard him confess,” Grissom acknowledged, “but we also heard him lie.”

  Lori’s voice was filled with typically teenaged contempt. “How do you know?”

  “We know because the evidence is at odds with what your father ‘confessed’—your mother’s murder couldn’t have happened the way he said, Lori. And the fingerprints on the gun and the box of bullets are going to be ID’ed as yours.”

  “I didn’t kill Mom,” Lori said. “I loved her! Daddy hated her—that’s why he killed her!”

  Brass came down and took her gently by the arm and Grissom got out of the way, as the girl was read her rights and handcuffed.

  The detective was about to escort the girl from the castle when Gary Blair said, to no one in particular, “I…I need to go home.”

  Lori swung her face toward the boy and gave him a withering look. “You suck,” she said.

  Brass walked the girl out, and Grissom answered the boy’s question: “You’re coming with us, Gary. You’re a material witness.”

  Back at HQ, Brass chose to interview Gary Blair first. Grissom was in the interrogation room with them, the rest of the team watching through the two-way glass. The boy’s parents had been called, and were on their way.

  Brass and the Blair kid sat on opposite sides of the table. Tears rolled down the young man’s cheeks and he was trembling.

  “Do you want to wait till your parents get here, Gary, before we talk?”

  “No…I’d…I’d rather talk without them here.”

  “Well, they’re coming.”

  “You better ask your questions, then, ’cause once they’re here, I’m zipping it.”

  “Okay, Gary. What happened that day?”

  “Wh…what day?”

  “What day do you think?”

  The kid swallowed snot and tears, and tried to get his crying under control before answering. Finally, staring at the table, he said in a small, very young voice, “Her mom, Mrs. Pierce…her mom caught us in bed together, in Lori’s room. She wasn’t even supposed to come home until hours later, ’cause she had church…but her meeting was cancelled and she came home early and she caught us…doing it.” He shuddered at the thought. “We’d been doin’ some, you know, lines, too, and Mrs. Pierce, she found the coke on the desk. Boy, did she come unglued! I just shut up and tried to stay out of it, but they had this huge screaming match, Mrs. Pierce threatening to go to my mom and see that Lori and me were split up. Mrs. Pierce told Lori she was sending her to a special school, somewhere out of state, to repent and get tight with Jesus. Crazy stuff like that—but mostly, Mrs. Pierce was saying over and over that Lori and me could never see each other again.”

  Grissom asked, “Where was the gun, Gary? Somewhere in the garage?”

  “No—in Lori’s backpack.”

  Brass frowned. “Why there?”

  He shrugged. “She’d started buying coke from this guy who was her father’s connection, too.”

  “Did Mr. Pierce know about this?”

  “No! Hell, no! But Lori met this guy at the house a couple times, when he came to do business with Mr. Pierce.”

  “The gun, Gary.”

  “I’m getting to that. Lori was afraid of this guy.”

  Frowning, Grissom said, “Lil Moe?”

  “Yeah—Lori said he was hitting on her and she didn’t want him to. She said that the next time he, you know, sexually harassed her, she was going to put a stop to it, and threaten him with the gun.”

  Frowning in thought, Grissom asked, “Where did this gun come from?”

  Brass picked up on that. “Was it her father’s gun, Gary?”

  “Yes…she got it out of a drawer somewhere, and her dad didn’t even miss it.”

  Brass took a deep breath, let it out, and said, “So, Gary—what happened after Mrs. Pierce went ballistic?”

  “Mrs. Pierce said she was going to drive straight over to my parents’ house, and tell ’em what was going on.”

  “Your parents have no idea that you’re sexually active? That you’ve used drugs?”

  He shook his head.

  Brass said, “Mrs. Pierce threatened to go your parents. What then?”

  “Lori followed her to the garage, arguing all the way, but more…trying to reason with her now, and begging her and stuff. She got in the car with her mom, to try and talk her out of it. And they drove off, still yelling at each other.”

  “Did you know Lori had taken the gun with her?”

  “No. It was in the kitchen, on the counter—the backpack?”

  “What did you do then, Gary?”

  He shrugged. “I just got my stuff and went home, praying that Mrs. Pierce didn’t show up to blow my world apart. And then when Lori and her mom didn’t show up, I figured Lori and her mom had worked it out—that she talked her mom out of telling my folks. Later that night, Lori called to say her mom had taken off somewhere. You know, needed time to think and stuff, after the shock of what she found out about Lori and me.”

  “You didn’t know Mrs. Pierce was dead?”

  “Oh, no. Lori told me that you people thought her mom was dead, but I didn’t really know till I heard her father confess. I thought he was telling the truth…. Are you sure he wasn’t?”

  The interview continued a while, but nothing new was revealed; and then the Blairs were there, and Brass and Grissom left them alone with their son, after telling the young man to be frank with his folks.

  “You tell them, Gary,” Brass said, “or I will.”

  The interrogation with Lori Pierce did not go well, at first. Again Grissom accompanied Brass, while the rest of the CSIs looked on through two-way glass. The girl refused to budge off her father’s story.

  Watching the interrogation, Catherine said to Sara, “She’s a smart kid. Knows if she keeps her mouth shut, her old man will take the rap.”

  “That’s cold,” Nick said.

  Sara said, “So is killing your mother.”

  Grissom hadn’t asked any questions yet; protocol gave that honor to Brass, but the detective was not getting anywhere, and was clearly frustrated, giving Grissom a wide-eyed look that granted the CSI supervisor permission to take a shot.

  “Lori,” Grissom said, “I’m a criminalist.”

  Lori
Pierce looked up, her face haggard, years added to her features with each passing hour. She summoned some contempt for the adult: “And I care why?”

  “Do you know what a criminalist is? What he does?”

  The girl stared straight ahead, avoiding Grissom’s casual but penetrating gaze.

  “I work with evidence,” he said. “Like finding your fingerprints on that gun.”

  Lori didn’t seem to be paying any attention to this.

  “Do you know what the evidence in this case is telling me?”

  The girl gave him a patronizing look. “Don’t talk to me like I’m twelve.”

  “The evidence tells me both you and your father are lying.”

  Within their mascara caverns, Lori’s eyes seemed suddenly nervous.

  With a smile that seemed friendly enough, Grissom said, “You’re not going to tell me what really happened, are you, Lori?”

  The girl showed him a middle finger and said, “Sit, and spin.”

  “How about I tell you what happened.”

  “Who told you, genius?”

  “The evidence. The evidence says you argued with your mother over her catching you and Gary in bed and finding drugs.”

  She sneered at him. “You mean, Gary told you that. He is so ball-less.”

  Grissom continued: “Your mother was going to the Blairs to force Gary’s parents into making Gary break up with you; then your mother was going to send you to private school.”

  “Gary. Again, Gary. He’s not evidence. He’s just a little weasel, and a big disappointment.”

  “You’re right, Lori—that much Gary did give us. But after that, the evidence takes over the tale. You rode in the car with your mom. You were trying to calm her down, but she was in the grasp of religious fervor and there was no reasoning with her.”

  The first chink in her tough teenage armor appeared as a tear rolled down Lori’s cheek, trailing mascara. “She didn’t understand that I loved Gary…or thought I did.”

  “Your mother’s religious beliefs were…unforgiving.”

  “Mom, she was like a Nazi, with all this religious junk. She was like Jim Jonesing my ass!”

  “You tried to talk to her but she wouldn’t listen. But there’s something the evidence hasn’t told us yet…. It will. But it hasn’t yet. Where did you go, Lori? You never made it to the Blairs. Where did you go?”

  She swallowed. Her lips were trembling, her eyes spilling tears. “The church.”

  Brass leaned forward. “The church?”

  The girl nodded. “It’s out past the Strip, on the outskirts of town…almost in the desert. It’s got this big parking lot. I asked Mom if we could go there and…pray together.”

  Grissom said, “No one was around?”

  “No other cars in the lot. Later that evening, there would be church stuff goin’ on, but sorta over the supper hour…no. It was pretty deserted. But Mom had her own key; she was one of the church leaders, you know—we coulda gone in and prayed together.”

  “But you didn’t go in and pray,” Brass asked, “did you?”

  “No. We sat in the car and I tried to talk to her, I really tried. Only she was so wrapped up in ‘God’s will’ and how we’re all sinners and need to be punished that…She was mental, she really was.”

  Grissom asked, “You grabbed the gun from your backpack on the kitchen counter, Lori, and took it with you, when you jumped in the car with your mother.”

  She nodded numbly. “Mom didn’t see the gun. I had it wrapped in my jacket.”

  Brass looked like his head was about to explode. “You manipulated your mother into going to that church parking lot…so you could shoot her?”

  “No! No…” Tears erupted full force now, long violent, racking sobs.

  Catherine Willows, watching through the glass, could not bear any more of this; however hardboiled a CSI she might be, Catherine was also a mother. She exited the observation booth and entered the interrogation room, glaring at the two men as she sat beside the girl, and comforted her.

  After a while, Lori—Catherine holding her hand—said to them, “I didn’t mean to shoot her, it was an accident…. I just couldn’t bear to have Gary taken away. He was the only good thing in my life. He was all I had.”

  “Why did you have the gun with you?” Catherine asked.

  “So I could threaten to kill myself. And that’s exactly what I did: I told her I would kill myself right there, in front of her, if she didn’t promise to let me finish high school here, and keep seeing Gary, and not tell his parents. I meant it, too! I even said I’d stop the drugs and Gary and I wouldn’t have relations, anymore. Didn’t do any good.”

  “How did your mother die, Lori?” Catherine asked, gently.

  “It was an accident! She grabbed for the gun…I think she thought I was going to use it on myself, and…it just went off. The window blew out, and…it was awful. It was an awful nightmare!”

  Grissom asked, “How did you get home?”

  “I spread my jacket on the floor, on the rider’s side? And I put mom down on the floor there, on the jacket, y’know? And I drove home. I don’t know how. I wasn’t crying or afraid or anything. It was like I was outside myself, watching.”

  “And then?” Grissom asked.

  “Then I drove the car into the garage and got Daddy. Told him what happened, and…he took care of it. I know he went out to the church parking lot and kind of…cleaned up out there. Otherwise…he didn’t tell me how or anything; all I knew was the car…and mom…were gone.”

  “Your father understood about the drugs, and you and Gary?”

  “Actually, I…I never told Daddy about the coke. Just about the sex…. He said that was my business and Mom should have left me alone. He was great, really—perfect father, the best—never cared what I did.”

  “And with your mother gone,” Grissom said, “the rules around the house loosened.”

  Brass asked, “How long had you been doing coke before your mom caught you?”

  She shrugged. “A few months. Gary and I, we just fooled around with it, a little. But after Mom died, every time I went to sleep, I saw her face, her…bloody face. The coke made that easier to deal with. I could stay up for a long long time, then I’d pass out. And the good part was, I didn’t have dreams.”

  Catherine sat with her arm around the girl, who again began to cry. Brass gestured to Grissom to step out into the hall.

  Brass asked, “Is she telling the truth?”

  “Her story and the evidence are compatible.”

  “I didn’t ask you that, Gil.”

  “I can only tell you what the evidence tells me.”

  Brass was shaking his head. “That girl was ready to let her father take the fall for her…. She may have cold-bloodedly killed her mother, lured her to that church parking lot, and…Jesus!”

  “We’ll go out to that church and see what we can find,” Grissom said. “We should find glass, and blood…but without the rest of Lynn Pierce’s remains…” He shrugged.

  Brass said, “I guess she’s going to Juvenile Hall, after all.”

  Warrick, Nick and Sara exited the observation booth, joining Brass and Grissom.

  “So Pierce walks?” Warrick asked, fire in his eyes. “He cuts up his wife with a chain saw, and walks?”

  Brass shook his head. “Not hardly—accessory after the fact and possession. Don’t forget his business arrangement with Kevin Sadler; Sadler will testify against his former silent partner. Pierce’ll be gone a good long while.”

  “What about Lori?” Sara asked.

  Brass said, “If they try her as an adult, she could get life.”

  Nick said, “I believe her story.”

  “So will a jury,” Warrick opined.

  “So she gets away with it?” Sara asked, vaguely disgusted.

  “Lori Pierce has given herself a life sentence,” Grissom said. “A life sentence of knowing she killed her own mother.”

  “All the coke in the wor
ld won’t make that go away,” Warrick said.

  No one disagreed.

  17

  AT THE END OF SHIFT, GIL GRISSOM INVITED CATHERINE Willows to his townhouse, offering to fix her some breakfast. She accepted.

  Sitting with her legs tucked under her on the small brown leather couch by a window whose closed blinds were keeping out the early morning sun, Catherine watched Grissom scramble eggs, standing in his sandaled feet on the hardwood floor in the open kitchen with its stainless-steel refrigerator and counterspace that spilled into the living room of the spacious, functional condo. Where they weren’t lined with bookcases or stacked electronics, the white walls were home to framed displays of butterflies—beautiful dead things that Grissom could appreciate.

  Catherine was sipping orange juice; actually, a screwdriver, the juice laced with vodka at her request.

  “Like a bagel with this?” he asked, poised over the eggs with the same quiet intensity he brought to any of his experiments.

  “That’d be fine—no butter, though.”

  He shuddered at that thought, but continued with his work.

  “You know, I took this job because I like puzzles,” she said.

  “Me too.”

  “And I like the idea of finding out who is responsible for the senseless violence that seems to be all around us, chipping away at what we laughingly call civilization.”

  She was a little drunk.

  Grissom said, “Again, we’re on the same page.” He, however, was not drunk; only orange juice in his glass.

  “I never expected,” she said, “in a job where I only carry a gun ’cause it’s part of the job description…where I’m investigating the aftermath of crimes, not out on the streets like so many cops are…I never…never…never mind.”

  He lifted his head from the eggs and looked over at her. “You saved Sara’s life…and Conroy’s. You should feel good about yourself.”

  “Would you feel good about killing someone?”

  “…No.” He used a spatula to fill a plate with eggs. Half a bagel—unbuttered, lightly toasted—was already deposited there.

  Sighing, she pulled her legs out from under her and sat up on the couch. “You didn’t do me any favor, you know, sending me back into that world.”