Binding Ties

by Max Allan Collins

  A place this relentlessly entertaining, no sane local would ever frequent.

  Grissom said, “A suggestion?”

  “Sure.”

  “Let’s not pose the copycat theory.”

  Brass nodded. “Yeah. Good idea. Be interesting to gauge their reactions.”

  The detective was less than halfway through his coffee when the crime beat writer, Perry Bell, waved at him from the hostess stand. Two other men huddled behind him—David Paquette, the Banner’s Metro editor, and Bell’s research assistant, Mark Brower.

  The captain had known Bell and Paquette for the better part of eleven years, and Brower he’d met not long after the man took the job as Bell’s assistant, maybe seven years ago. Or was that eight? Brass sighed to himself, struck by how the years were slipping away, and yet how immediate the old CASt case still felt.

  Brower had, no doubt, heard all of the stories about CASt, but hadn’t been part of the original coverage. The guy was in his early thirties now, and would have still been in journalism school somewhere or even high school, when the crimes occurred.

  The hostess, the diner’s idea of Sandra Dee (ironically, a waiter was doing Bobby Darin’s “Splish Splash” right now), spoke to Bell, who pointed at Brass, then moved past Gidget to waddle toward the table, Paquette and Brower trailing.

  Bell was all smiles, but Brass wasn’t: He was wondering just why the hell Brower was even along on this trip. Damn it, he had told Bell that he wanted to meet the two of them, Bell and Paquette, alone….

  A roly-poly man with a thick brown toupee parted on the left, Perry Bell looked like he’d been trapped in a time warp in the disco era—witness the wide-lapeled brown suit with yellow shirt, its top three buttons open to show a gold Star of David medallion on a gold, chest-hair-nestling chain. The huge open collar of the shirt extended like giant wings outside the jacket.

  Bell had a concrete block of a head with a large glob of loose mortar serving as a nose. His deep-set dark eyes peeked out from under broad, heavy brows and as he approached, his wide mouth broke into an easy, if uneven and tobacco-discolored, smile.

  “Got a hot lead for me, Jimbo?” Bell said, extending his hand.

  Yes, Brass thought, a real wordsmith….

  “We’ll get to that,” Brass said, shook the moist hand, and gave it back to its owner.

  “Must be big,” Bell said, turning to shake Grissom’s hand as well, “if you’re bringin’ ’round the Crime Scene Investigator’s Crime Scene Investigator—great to see you, Gil.”

  The big build-up got a curt nod out of Grissom.

  “You all know my boss and buddy, Dave, here.”

  Nods were granted to the editor.

  Paquette had mischievous blue eyes and a ready smile; his blond hair had long ago flown south for the winter and showed no signs of coming back north. But Brass thought both the editor and his columnist seemed forced in their bonhomie, with each other as well as Brass and Grissom.

  Though Paquette and Bell had been peers at the time their book CASt Fear came out, their careers had taken significantly different routes. Easy-going with a ready-smile, happy in his fate, editor Paquette now supervised his old pal, whose career had hit a groove more than a decade ago only to have the needle get stuck: A crime column that had gone briefly national had flamed out in syndication, making a bumpy local landing.

  Perhaps out of the grace of his old friend, Bell and his column were hanging on.

  Brass and Grissom both shook hands with Paquette and Brower also. Grissom moved around to Brass’s side of the booth, while Bell and Paquette sat on the opposite side, Brower pulling up a chair from a nearby table.

  Solidly muscular—hardly the norm for the sedentary newspaper breed—Brower wore his dark brown hair short; his dark eyes and the thought-carved groove between his thick brows conveyed seriousness, and a narrow, nearly lipless mouth gave him a vaguely feral look, especially when he smiled. He’d been with Bell for quite a while now, and had earned from Brass the same trust as his boss.

  Still, Brower remained, in Brass’s mind, an uninvited guest, which was the first topic of conversation….

  Brass said, “Don’t take this personally, Mark,” he said, then turned to Bell and asked, “but what’s he doing here?”

  The reporter’s smile faded. “Well, hell, Jim. He … he’s my assistant. Mark goes where I go, you know that.”

  “Did you think this was a social call?”

  Bell glanced at both Paquette and Brower. “Isn’t it?”

  Brass studied the crime writer for a long moment. “Your scanner broken?”

  “No, why?”

  “You didn’t hear the 420 in North Las Vegas this morning?”

  The newspapermen would all know the radio code for homicide.

  Bell shrugged. “Yeah, so? There was the original radio call, then nothing. I figured there’d be more later, if it was anything worth covering. Is that what you got for me?”

  “It’s not like you to miss a residential murder call, Perry …” Brass tried to keep his voice neutral, even nonchalant. “So where were you off to, this morning?”

  The reporter seemed not to notice that he was being questioned. “In the office, mostly.”

  “All morning?”

  For the first time, Bell seemed to understand he was being interrogated.

  Alarm was morphing into anger, and he was about to speak when their Teen Idol waiter came over and put a cup of coffee in front of Bell and the others, then freshened Brass’s and Grissom’s.

  “Any food for you guys?” the waiter asked.

  “No,” Brass said, waving the waiter away.

  Steam rose off the coffee—but the reporter was steaming, too.

  “What in the hell kind of crap is this, Brass?” Bell caught himself—he’d almost been shouting—and looked around, but none of the other diners seemed to notice over the din of the restaurant and the singing staff. “I mean, really, Jim … am I some kind of suspect in something? What the hell kind of murder went down this morning, anyway?”

  Brass said nothing.

  Paquette leaned forward, his features intense. “Look, Captain Brass, if you’re accusing one of my employees of something, you do it through proper channels, not call us out to a restaurant on some flimsy damn—”

  Eyes taut, Grissom said, “There’s nothing flimsy about murder. Captain Brass is making this informal, as a courtesy to you people.”

  Brass held up a hand and said, “No, Gil—Perry and Dave have a point.”

  The editor and columnist exhaled air, like twin punctured tires, and settled into a placated limbo, waiting for Brass to continue. From the sidelines Brower watched quietly but intently.

  The detective gathered himself, took a long pull on his coffee and then studied Bell, considering exactly how much he wanted to tell the reporter.

  Finally, he said, “I’m sorry, Perry … Dave. We caught one that’s put me on edge, and if I’ve been out of line with you guys … I do value our relationship … please blame it on tension.”

  The two journalists shrugged, in accidental rhythm with a waiter doing Elvis singing, “All Shook Up.”

  “But,” Brass said, “when this case goes public, there’s going to be hell to pay.”

  Reaching into his inside pocket for a pen and pad, his anger all but forgotten, Bell said, “Well, then, let’s get started….”

  Brass held up his hands, as if being robbed. “That’s just it—I don’t want it to go public, just yet.”

  The reporter froze for a moment, then, slowly, his hand came out of his coat—empty. “Well, Jim, why are we here, then, if we can’t talk about it?”

  For the first time in a long time, Brass wished he hadn’t quit smoking. “I needed to talk to you, off the record.”

  “Captain Brass,” Paquette said irritably, “we’re all for cooperation with the authorities, but just like you have a job to do, so do we. We have a responsibility to the public.”

  “You
have a responsibility to me,” Brass said, “that overrides that, in this instance.”

  The editor shook his head. “You don’t have that kind of pull.”

  “I don’t?” Brass asked. “My cooperation on a certain case gave you two a bestselling book. Which you both made careers out of.”

  “What,” Bell said, “you’re calling in that marker?”

  “Yes,” Brass said.

  After a moment’s consideration, Paquette asked, “If the story’s that big … and you need our help, including putting the public’s right-to-know on hold … we’ll want something in return. Something more than the old news of what you did for us a long time ago.”

  Brass and Grissom both just looked at him.

  “When the time comes,” Paquette said, his hands flat on the edge of the table, “we want an exclusive.”

  Brass started to say something, his temper rising, but Grissom put a hand on his arm.

  “Not possible,” Grissom said. “Not even legal.”

  Everyone at the table knew that the two county employees could never consent to an exclusive on a big case; but by asking for the whole pie, Paquette clearly expected to come away with the biggest slice.

  Brass relented a little. “Twenty-four-hour lead.”

  Paquette considered that, then nodded.

  “What have you got?” Bell asked, sitting forward, the hunger in his voice obvious. Other than an exposé on crime in the rap world, when Tupac Shakur got shot, Bell hadn’t had a story go national since the CASt book; and the columnist could easily see, from Brass’s behavior, that this was something very big….

  “You gotta promise, Perry,” Brass said. “Not even a hint until I give you the okay. That means all three of you. You can cover the story in a modest way, just straightforward news … but the key aspect, we have to downplay, even sit on.”

  Bell studied him, questions all over his face, even though the reporter never uttered a word, simply nodded his agreement.

  “Cross me,” Brass said, with a smile that wasn’t friendly, “and the cooperation you’ve known in the past … will be past.”

  The reporter snapped, “Hey, Jim, when was the last time any of us screwed you over?”

  Brass wiped a hand across his forehead. Christ, he’d been on the job forever and here he was sweating like a rookie. He’d been needlessly antagonizing these people, who had always been allies.

  “You’re right,” Brass said. “You’ve always been straight-up. So let me ask a question—how long ago was it? The CASt case.”

  The reporter, apparently thinking this was another reference to Brass helping him and Paquette out on their book, raised a single eyebrow, then shrugged. “I don’t know, ten, eleven years?”

  Bell looked to Paquette for confirmation.

  The editor nodded. “Eleven. When it started.”

  “Qualifies as ancient history in this town,” Bell said. “Is that a point of reference, or … what?”

  Three waitresses were singing, “My Boyfriend’s Back (and You’re Gonna Be in Trouble).”

  Brass sipped his coffee, eyes travelling from Bell to Paquette and making the return trip. “We always wondered why he stopped—had he died in an automobile accident? Was he committed somewhere? Did he move, and pick up somewhere else?”

  Bell said, “You know the latter isn’t true—even now, I keep an eye on the national scene, looking for that M.O. to turn up again. I mean, as M.O.’s come, they don’t come much more specific.”

  “Not hard to recognize,” Brass admitted. “What would you say if that M.O. had turned up again?”

  “I’d want to know where,” Bell said. “What state, what city, hell, what country?”

  Grissom said, “Nevada. North Las Vegas. The United States of America.”

  “Bull …” Bell began; but then he pushed away from the table a little. “You two aren’t kidding, are you?”

  Brass sighed. “Has this meeting struck you as hilarious so far?”

  “The M.O.,” Bell said. “The same M.O.—in North Las Vegas, this morning?”

  Brass indicated Grissom with a head bob. “We just left the crime scene, and it looks very much like CASt’s handiwork.”

  “Hard to miss,” Grissom said.

  Brower hadn’t said anything yet, but now he leaned forward, as did Bell and Paquette. Their eyes were glued to Brass, waiting for more, coyotes catching the scent of blood.

  The detective’s eyes volleyed from Bell to Paquette as he said, “We wanted to talk to you two, because nobody knew as much about that case, those murders, as you guys…. And frankly, Mark, that’s why your presence here got under my skin. No offense meant.”

  Brower said, “None taken.”

  But Bell’s hackles were up. “So that’s why you’re treating me like a suspect! Because I am one. Listen here, Brass, you knew as much, more than either Dave or me. You and Vince Champlain were our primary sources!”

  “That’s fair,” Paquette said.

  Grissom said, “Let’s hold off before we start suspecting the police, shall we, gentlemen?”

  “What’s this?” Bell blurted. “The great Gil Grissom making an assumption! I thought you were Mr. Follow-the-Evidence-Wherever-It-Goes! Unless in this case, if it goes to your pal Brass….”

  To his credit, Grissom kept his cool. The press annoyed the CSI, their place on his list of unfavorite things ranking just under politics and politicians.

  Knowing that, Brass jumped back in. “Guys, yes, you’re right—Vince Champlain, and, yes, yours truly, knew more about this case than anyone.”

  “The tens of thousands who read our book,” Paquette said, “also knew the case inside out, from the naked vics to that distinctive knot. Mark’s been subjected to Perry and me babbling over beer about this case so much, he oughta go on your suspect list, too, I suppose. And maybe that Hollywood producer who optioned our book, and—”

  “The killer,” Brass said, “knows more than what was in your book—he knew the handful of things you agreed never to share with the public.”

  Bell blinked. “How much did … this killer know?”

  “Every damn detail,” Brass said. “And as to adding Mr. Brower to the suspect list, hey, I’d be glad to. How much have you told him?”

  “Hey, hold on there, Jim,” Brower said. “You want to know what I know, ask me!”

  Paquette held up a silencing palm, Brower’s way. “Mark knows more than was in the book, but he doesn’t know everything everything. The things that Perry and I agreed we wouldn’t tell anyone until the killer was caught, we haven’t told him, we haven’t told anyone.”

  Brass gazed at the editor for several seconds then turned his eyes to Bell who nodded affirmation.

  Bell leaned closer again. “Did he cut off—”

  But Brass cut Bell off, with a look.

  The detective’s eyes went to Brower, then back to Bell, who got the message.

  “Mark is my research assistant,” the reporter complained.

  Shaking his head, Brass said, “You can’t tell anyone about the two hold-backs. Even at this late date—especially at this late date.”

  The “hold-backs”—designed to trip up false confessors—were the semen on the victim’s back, and the severed (and collected) finger. These key details both Brass and Grissom knew, and Paquette, too. The point was to keep the circle as small as possible, and that didn’t include adding Mark Brower to the loop.

  “I know,” Bell said in embarrassed frustration, “I know …”

  A waitress was doing Connie Francis singing, “Who’s Sorry Now?”

  Pointedly, Brass asked, “So neither of you has shared either hold-back with anyone?”

  Paquette shook his head. “No one’s even asked about that case in years. Old news.”

  “Now me, I’ve talked about the case to groups,” Bell said, “even as recently as this year. See, I put our book back into print—print on demand? I have several boxes in my car trunk, and you can buy it o
n Amazon and …”

  Bell, it seemed, had been out on the local lecture circuit, even travelling to towns as far away as Los Angeles, hawking his self-published reprint.

  Sad, what things had come to: Paquette had used the national publication of the book to build a local celebrity that had ultimately led to the editor’s chair; but short, pudgy Bell—less telegenic than Paquette—had a stalled career that his self-financed reprint was being used to help shore up.

  But Brass knew this effort was far too little, far too late, to have any effect on Bell’s flagging fortunes, and the reporter mining the rubber-chicken circuit, selling paperbacks out of his trunk, seeking support to help him hang onto his column, was frankly a little pathetic—Rotary Club luncheons, library chat groups, and the odd program at the museum, were not going to rekindle a flame that had never burned that brightly to begin with.

  Bell was saying, “… but obviously, I’ve never spoken on the things we kept silent about.”

  Grissom asked, “Is the book a revision?”

  “I did a new introduction, but we just used a copy of the original book to shoot from—didn’t retype-set it or anything.”

  A nugget of ache that would eventually become a full-fledged headache throbbed just behind Brass’s eyes. Such headaches had been with him for years; they’d began about the time he’d become embroiled in the CASt case….

  He said, “Either somebody has shared information, or CASt is back, and his M.O. is the same.”

  Brass studied their faces. Paquette seemed to be processing the information, while Bell appeared shellshocked. Brower was unreadable, the intense serious expression pretty much a constant with the guy. None of the men said anything for several long moments.

  Paquette was the one who finally broke the silence. “Have you talked to your old pal Vince? Maybe he’s been talking.”

  “There’s a thought,” Brower agreed.

  Brass’s words came out cold and hard: “Look, Mark, I’m going to cut you slack, because Vince was long retired before you even started at the Banner. Dave, you know better. Vince was always a good cop. He never did anything to jeopardize an investigation, not on any case!”