Body of Evidence

  CSI: Crime Scene Investigation 04

  BODY OF EVIDENCE

  Max Allan Collins

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  An Original Publication of POCKET BOOKS

  A Pocket Star Book published by POCKET BOOKS, a division of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

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  ISBN: 0-7434-8019-8

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  About the Author

  MAX ALLAN COLLINS, a Mystery Writers of America “Edgar” nominee in both fiction and nonfiction categories, was hailed in 2004 by Publishers Weekly as “a new breed of writer.” He has earned an unprecedented fourteen 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-bestselling 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 three video games, two jigsaw puzzles, and a USA Today–bestselling series of novels.

  An independent filmmaker in his native Iowa, he wrote and directed Mommy, premiering on Lifetime in 1996, as well as a 1997 sequel, Mommy’s Day. The screenwriter of The Expert, a 1995 HBO World Premiere, he wrote and directed the innovative made-for-DVD feature, Real Time: Siege at Lucas Street Market (2000). His latest indie feature, Shades of Noir (2004), is an anthology of his short films, including his award-winning documentary, Mike Hammer’s Mickey Spillane. He recently completed a documentary, CAVEMAN: V.T. Hamlin and Alley Oop, and a DVD boxed set of his films will appear next year.

  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 in nearby Iowa City.

  For Paul Van Steenhuyse

  computer king

  M.A.C. and M.V.C.

  What can be done with fewer assumptions is done in vain with more.

  —WILLIAM OF OCKHAM

  A ranch in the desert—that’s how Las Vegas began. As years passed, and fashions changed, the ranch evolved into a town, albeit of the one-horse variety. And as time continued to crawl by, with a slowness the desert climate only exaggerated, the world changed even more, cars and buses and trains replacing steeds as the main mode of transportation. Men of hope and vision rode those vehicles to the tiny bump in the dusty road and saw not what was, but what could be….

  Among those wayfarers was a bigger-than-life gangster out of Los Angeles (by way of New York), a wiseguy with movie-star good looks who hated his nasty nickname—Bugsy—which in the street parlance of the day suggested nothing insect-like, referring instead to the handsome thug’s ugly temper.

  Ben Siegel envisioned a city where the hamlet stood, could make out a neon mirage in the desert, with casinos in place of barns, hotels instead of hovels. He preached this vision to others—investors who ran in his same left handed circle—and these hard-nosed businessman heeded the gospel according to Bugsy, which led to the construction of the famed Flamingo on what would become the Strip.

  But hope is often tempered by frustration, and such was the case with Ben Siegel. The mobsters who backed his play weren’t known for patience and had no understanding that, like any new plant, hope needed nurturing and time to grow. Impatience grew, too, as the mob absorbed budget overruns, time lags, and Bugsy’s bugsy behavior (he was always one to live up to his nickname).

  In the end, frustration won out, and Bugsy slumped in blood-soaked sportswear, weighted down by bullets in his Beverly Hills living room, hit before he ever got the opportunity to watch his vision, his hope, take root and bloom into the desert flower that would be Las Vegas.

  Even now, the sparkling lights are its petals and the Strip its stem; but as Ben Siegel always knew, the roots were then—and forever will be—the gaming tables. And though the flower has changed, mutated, multiplied a thousand times over, and leafed out into branches known as Venetian, Bellagio, and MGM Grand, the fertilizer that feeds them is, as always, hope…one more turn of the wheel, one more roll of the dice, one more deal of the cards, bringing instant riches and fulfilling the worker bees hovering around the tables, pollinating the process with what seems an endless supply of dollars.

  And always lurking in the background, ready to cut off the flow of green nourishment, is Ben Siegel’s old pal, frustration. The losers who walk away, perhaps turning to other, even darker forms of hope, might threaten to overgrow the flower’s beauty; but will never cause it to wither, for hope (as Ben Siegel knew if never admitted) never reaches fruition without encountering frustration…and Vegas is a city where hope forever blossoms, even as frustration reaps its constant harvest.

  1

  A SENSE OF FRUSTRATION RARELY REGISTERED ON THE PERSONAL radar of Catherine Willows. Frustrating situations were so much a part of the fabric of her life by now that she could have long since gone mad had she let such things get to her. But at the moment, the sensation was registering, all right. In fact, she felt herself growing quietly pissed.

  This was the tail end of yet another shift, and she and fellow Las Vegas Metro P.D. crime scene investigator Nick Stokes, who was at the wheel of the Tahoe, had been dispatched to take a 404 call—unknown trouble—at a business past the south end of the Strip. Unknown trouble could mean just about anything from petty theft to multiple homicides.

  But what it definitely meant was another Monday morning where Mrs. Goodwin, the sitter, would have to get Lindsey up and off to school. Catherine’s own childhood had often been spent waiting for her mother to come home, and she had hoped to do better for her own daughter. But she was a woman with many responsibilities. Once again, she would just have to tough it out. And be quietly pissed.

  The Newcombe-Gold Advertising Agency, their destination, occupied a two-story, mostly glass building on West Robindale just off Las Vegas Boulevard, a couple miles south of the Mandalay Bay and the unofficial end of the Strip.

  Newcombe-Gold had joined the new construction craze hitting that part of the city and even though the agency had been a fixture on the ad scene since the seventies, the building was a recent addition to that expanding urban landscape. Tinted windows gave the building a blackness in the morning sun, imparting a vaguely ominous vibe to Catherine, as she and Nick pulled into the gray-white welcome mat of a concrete parking lot, stretching across the building’s blank black facade.

  The small lot had room for between twenty and thirty cars, but aside from a dark blue Taurus (which Catherine recognized as a LVMPD detective’s unmarked car), two patrol cars, and their own CSI Tahoe, only three other cars took up parking spaces. br />
  Nick Stokes parked the Tahoe in a VISITOR’S space near the front entry and Catherine crawled down while her partner hopped out on his side—Nick was young enough, she guessed, not to feel the long night they’d just finished.

  The tan and brown silk scarf—a Mother’s Day present last year from Lindsey—flipped momentarily into her face, as if the breeze couldn’t resist laying on another guilt pang. Her shoulder-length strawberry blonde hair whipped in the wind and she grimaced, wishing she were home. She stood nearby as Nick opened up the rear doors of the Tahoe.

  Tall, muscular in a fashion befitting the ex-jock he was, Nick Stokes smiled over his shoulder at her, for no particular reason. His short black hair barely moved in the wind and the eagerness in his face made him look like a happy puppy. Catherine sometimes wondered if maybe he liked his job a little too much.

  “Too early for admen to be at work?” Catherine said, casting her gaze around the mostly empty lot.

  “Not even eight yet,” Nick said, glancing at his watch. “Big shots’ll be at least another hour—rest should be filtering in, any time.”

  “What kind of trouble, I wonder,” Catherine sighed.

  “Unknown trouble,” Nick said, a smile in his eyes.

  “Don’t tease me at the end of shift.”

  “I would never tease you, Catherine. I have too much respect for you.”

  “Kiss my…” Catherine began, but she found herself almost smiling—damn him.

  She grabbed the tool-kit-like stainless steel case containing her crime-scene gear, and led the way to the entry. A painfully young-looking patrolman, whose nametag identified him as McDonald, opened the door for her. The uniform man was tall and broad-shouldered, and you could smell recent-police-academy-grad on him like a new car. His brown hair was clipped high and tight and his smile also seemed a little excessive, considering the hour.

  “Morning, guys,” he said, with a familiarity that didn’t negate the fact that neither CSI had ever seen him before.

  “Thanks,” she said as she entered, making her own smile pleasant enough but of the low-wattage variety.

  “What’s his problem?” she asked Nick when they were out of earshot.

  “Aw, lighten up, Cath. He’s chipper, that’s all. You know these young guys. They haven’t had time to get cynical.”

  Neither have you, Catherine thought, then said, “Well, I wonder how long it’ll take him to stop opening doors for CSIs.”

  “CSIs that look like you, probably never…. You’ll make it up to her, you know.”

  The non sequitur caught Catherine’s full attention. “What?”

  Nick shrugged, and his smile was tiny, without a trace of smirk. “Lindsey. She’s cool. You’ll be fine. Let’s do our job—maybe I’ll even buy you breakfast, after.”

  She gave up and smiled at him. “Maybe I’ll even let you.”

  They were in a spacious lobby, and even though the building glass was smoked, sunlight flooded in. Four chairs, three sofas and two tables arrayed with trade journals and newsmagazines dotted the long, narrow area inside the door. In the far corner, a wall-mounted counter held neat little towers of styrofoam cups and a coffee pot that filled the room with the fragrance of fresh-brewed Columbian-blend. Catherine knew that this—unlike the sludge back at HQ—would be the first pot of the day.

  A high counter, reminiscent of a hotel check-in desk, crossed the opposite end of the room, the receptionist’s tall chair empty; on top of the desk rested an appointment book and a telephone system that looked to be capable of launching missiles across continents. The wall behind was replete with various awards from the Nevada Advertising Council, the Southwest Advertising Coalition and two awards Catherine recognized as the Oscars of the ad game, Cleos.

  To the left of the reception counter, far off to the side, another uniformed officer stood at the aperture of a hall leading into the warren of offices.

  Something was in the air besides that Columbian blend.

  The pleasantness of the uniformed man on the front door had been replaced by a chilliness that had nothing to do with air conditioning. Catherine wondered if Nick sensed it, and she glanced at him. He too was frowning.

  They moved through the room without touching anything. Though they had been dispatched here, the reason for the call had been obscured behind the “Unknown Trouble” tag. Sometimes the term mean just that: the nature of the crime was unknown, possibly because the person who called it in had been vague or hysterical, but troubled and insistent enough to get a response.

  Other times, a crime was considered sensitive, and the officer on the scene made a decision not to broadcast its nature over the police band.

  Was that the case here?

  At any rate, as they made their way over to the second uniformed officer, they did their best to not contaminate anything that might later turn out to be evidence.

  So much for a cup of that coffee.

  “Detective O’Riley’s in the conference room at the end of the hall,” the uniform informed them. This officer—Leary, the nametag said—was perhaps five years older than the one posted outside, and he was dour where McDonald had been chipper. Maybe five years on the job was all it took.

  Catherine thanked him, and they walked the corridor, which was wide and long and lined with framed print ads; at the end, a set of double doors yawned open.

  Along the way, the artwork on the walls depicted some of the company’s most successful campaigns. She was familiar with all of them. When they got to what appeared to be the conference room, another hallway peeled off to the right.

  Through the open door of the conference room, Catherine could see a large ebony table that consumed most of the space, surrounded by charcoal-colored, high-backed chairs. Nothing was marked off as a crime scene, so neither CSI put on rubber gloves, as they approached. When she ducked in the room, with Nick just behind, Catherine saw, crewcut Sergeant O’Riley standing at the far end, hovering over a blonde woman, seated with her head bowed, the thumb and fingers of her left hand rubbing her forehead.

  “Ms. Denard,” O’Riley said, in his gruff second tenor. Whether this was for identification purposes, for the CSIs, or to get the woman’s attention, wasn’t quite clear.

  In any case, the woman jumped a little, looked up at O’Riley, then her eyes tensed as Catherine and Nick entered deeper into the room, moving to O’Riley’s side of the massive table.

  “It’s all right, Ms. Denard,” O’Riley said as he placed one of his hands on her shoulder. “These people are here to help.”

  The woman seemed to relax, thanks to O’Riley’s touch and reassurance.

  Catherine had come to revise her feelings about O’Riley, over the years; once she had overheard him dismissing the CSIs as “the nerd squad.” But such adversarial days were long gone.

  As usual, the detective’s suit looked like he had fallen naked from a plane into a clothing store, only to rise and find himself fully if haphazardly dressed.

  “Ms. Denard,” the sergeant said, “this is Catherine Willows and her partner Nick Stokes from the crime lab.”

  The woman started to stand, but O’Riley’s friendly hand on her shoulder—coupled with Catherine saying, “No, no, please, that’s all right”—kept her in her seat.

  Catherine stuck out her hand and the woman shook it delicately, then repeated the action with Nick as O’Riley said, “This is Janice Denard—she’s Ruben Gold’s personal assistant and office manager.”

  Ms. Denard didn’t seem to know what to say, then she finally settled on, “Would either of you like a cup of coffee?”

  “No, thanks,” Nick said. “We’re fine.” Catherine nodded her assent to Nick’s call.

  Denard wore a sleeveless black-and-white polka dot dress that showed off slim, tan shoulders, the high collar—which Catherine thought should have shortened the appearance of the woman’s throat—instead seeming to elongate it, giving the woman a supple swan neck. A simple silver cross hung on a tiny chain an
d she wore a slim silver watch on her left wrist, her only other jewelry a silver ring on the fourth finger of her right hand. She was in her early to mid-thirties and beautiful, her wide-set big blue eyes bearing lashes long enough to give Catherine a flash of envy.

  “Really,” the woman said, unconvincingly, “I’m fine—it’s no trouble, if you change your mind.”

  Moments later, Catherine and Nick had taken seats on either side of Janice Denard, who began, “I came to work early today.”

  “Is that unusual?” Catherine asked.

  “No. I do that most days—especially Mondays. I like to have everything up and running…you know, before Mr. Gold comes in.”

  “What time is that usually?”

  “That Mr. Gold comes in? Just before nine.”

  “And what time do you get here?”

  “Between seven and seven-thirty most days, but six-thirty on Mondays.”

  “And that’s when you came in this morning?”

  “No. It was more like…six-forty-five. I was running late, because of a traffic accident on Maryland Parkway.”

  Nick, who was taking notes, asked, “Where do you live, Ms. Denard?”

  “East end of Charleston Boulevard. There are some houses at the foot of the mountains…?”

  “Yes,” Catherine said, thinking, Nice digs for a secretary. “I know those houses. Very nice.”

  Nick bulled right in, though his tone was gentle. “You are Mr. Gold’s secretary, I take it?”

  Denard bristled. “Personal assistant to Mr. Gold and office manager. It’s an executive position, and I do very well, thank you very much. Not that I see how it pertains to anything.”

  Catherine’s frustration was very much on her radar now; neither O’Riley nor this woman had as yet indicated what kind of situation they were dealing with, so whether or not something “pertained” remained as “unknown” as the “trouble.”