Sin City Read online

  “Okay, show us a mini-miracle.”

  With a few keystrokes, Helpingstine outlined Lipton in the frame. Then the screen went blackly blank, except for the figure of the killer center screen.

  “Now that is interesting,” Sara said.

  The murderer had no legs below the level of where the bar would have been, but was intact from the waist up except for a spot on his shoulder where a customer’s head had been between him and the lens. They could barely make out the Las Vegas Stars logo on the ball cap, and the large dark glasses gave him the appearance of an oversized insect.

  “Can you give us better detail on his face?” Catherine asked.

  More work on the keys and the picture became slightly less blurry. “Quick fix,” Helpingstine said, “that’s what you get.”

  Catherine leaned forward in her chair. “That is a fake beard, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah,” Sara said. She jabbed at the monitor screen. “And a mustache too…. Could be what you found at Lipton’s.”

  Catherine asked the rep, “Any other quick tricks for us?”

  Using a mouse, Helpingstine moved the killer’s image into a corner. Then, fingers flying over the keys, he brought up another still, this one showing the killer from behind as he towed Jenna Patrick down the hallway, toward the private dance room where she was killed. A few more clacks from the keyboard and everything in the bar disappeared except for Lipton and Jenna.

  A few keystrokes later, the grainy image sharpened further, the Lipton Construction lettering on the back of the jacket springing into sharp relief. From this angle, just barely able to see one side of the killer’s partially turned head, they could clearly discern the fake beard.

  “Is that a shoe?” Catherine asked, pointing at a dark spot at the end of the killer’s leg.

  Helpingstine said, “It would appear to be the toe of some kind of boot.”

  Catherine and Sara traded looks.

  The killer stood practically upright, bent only slightly as he extended his hands back to Jenna’s. She seemed taller than he was, but then she was wearing those incredible spike heels.

  “Did you monkey with the aspect ratio on this?” Sara asked. “Is the picture squeezed or stretched in any way?”

  “Not at all,” the rep said. “That’s reality, as seen by a cheap VHS security camera.”

  “And cleaned up by an expensive electronic broom,” Catherine pointed out.

  Sara pressed: “What’s wrong with this picture?”

  They all studied the frozen image for a long time.

  Finally, Helpingstine said, “His head seems too big. Is that what you mean?”

  The question was posed to Sara, but it was Catherine who said, “That could be part of it…but there’s something else.”

  “What?” Sara asked. “It’s driving me crazy…it just looks…wrong to me.”

  Catherine pointed. “Look at the shoulders—doesn’t Ray Lipton have broader shoulders than that?”

  “You’re saying that’s not Ray Lipton,” Sara said.

  “Call it a hunch,” Catherine said.

  Sara gave her a wide-eyed look. “You know what Grissom would say. Leave the hunches to the detectives—we follow the evidence.”

  “Let’s follow it, then,” Catherine said. To Helpingstine, she said, “Can you stay at this a while?”

  “Absolutely,” he said.

  “Sometime today, call a cab, check yourself in to a hotel…there are a few in town…and save your receipts.”

  “Hey, Catherine, I’m here to help—no charge.”

  “You’re here to make a pitch for your product; but we’re not going to take advantage. You may have to stay over a night. We’ll cover it.”

  He shrugged. “Fine.”

  She explained that their shift started at eleven P.M., but gave him her phone and pager numbers, should he come up with something sooner.

  “Are you clocking out now?” Helpingstine asked.

  “No, Dan. I have a little more work to do, before I call it a night.”

  “Or day,” Sara said, hands on hips. “What do you have in mind?”

  “I’m going to check Ray Lipton’s alibi.”

  Her eyes getting wider, Sara said, “But he doesn’t have one.”

  Catherine shrugged, smiled. “Let’s follow the evidence, and see if you’re right.”

  9

  NOT AS MANY LIGHTS WERE ON IN THE PIERCE CASTLE, tonight—a few in the downstairs, one upstairs. Distant traffic sounds were louder than those of this quietly slumbering neighborhood, the only voices the muffled ones of Jay Leno and David Letterman.

  Out on bond on his possession charge, Owen Pierce opened the door on Brass’s first knock—as if he’d been expecting them—the physical therapist’s handsome features darkly clouded, the blue eyes trading their sparkle for a dull vacancy. He slouched there in a black Polo sweatshirt, gray sweat pants and Reeboks, like a runner too tired even to pant. His eyes travelled past the homicide captain to Grissom.

  “What you found…” Pierce began. “Is it…Lynn?”

  But it was Brass who answered: “Could we come in, Mr. Pierce? Sit and talk?”

  He nodded, numbly, gestured them in, and soon Brass and their host sat on the couch with its rifles-and-flags upholstery, while Grissom took the liberty of pulling a maple Colonial arm chair around, so that he and Brass could casually double-team the suspect.

  “It’s Lynn, isn’t it?” Pierce said, slumped, arms draped against his thighs, interlaced fingers dangling.

  “We think so, Mr. Pierce,” Grissom said. “We won’t have the DNA results for a while, but the evidence strongly suggests that what we found was…part of your wife’s body.”

  Pierce stared at the carpet, shaking his head, slowly. Was he trying not to cry? Grissom wondered. Or trying to cry…

  Grissom had a Polaroid in his hand; he held it out and up, for Pierce to see—a shot close enough to the torso to crop out everything but flesh. “Your wife had a birthmark on her left hip—is this it?”

  Swallowing, he looked at the photo, then dropped his head, his nod barely discernible but there. “Is it…true?”

  Brass asked, “Is what true, Mr. Pierce?”

  He looked up, eyes red. “What…what they’re saying on television…” Pierce’s voice caught, and he gave a little hiccup of a sob; a tear sat on the rim of his left eye and threatened to fall. “…that Lynn was…cut up?”

  Brass sat, angled toward the suspect. “Yes, it’s true…. I’d like you to listen to something, Mr. Pierce.” Pulling a small cassette player from his suitcoat pocket, already cued up, Brass pushed PLAY.

  Pierce’s angry voice came out of the tiny speaker: “You do and I’ll kill your holier-than-thou ass…”

  Another voice, Lynn Pierce’s terrified voice, said, “Owen! No! Don’t say—”

  “And then I’ll cut you up in little pieces.”

  Brass twitched half a humorless smile. “Gets a little ugly after that…. Wouldn’t want to disturb you in your time of sorrow.”

  Pierce had a pole axed expression. “Where did you get that?”

  Brass ignored the question. “Maybe now would be a good time to advise you of your rights, Mr. Pierce.”

  The therapist’s dull eyes suddenly flared bright, as he rose to loom over the detective and the criminalist, and the sorrow—possibly fabricated—turned to unmistakably real rage. “You’re arresting me? What for? Having an argument with my wife?”

  “You threatened to cut her into pieces,” Brass said, “and shortly thereafter…she was in pieces. We don’t view that as a coincidence.”

  “That tape probably isn’t even admissible. Who gave it to you? What, the Blairs? Those religious fanatics? Probably doctored that tape…edited it….”

  “We’ve had the tape closely examined,” Grissom said. “It’s your voice, and the tape is undoctored.”

  A half-sigh, half-grunt emanated from the therapist’s chest, and he sat back down, hard, shaking th
e couch, jostling Brass a little.

  Pierce fixed his red-rimmed blue eyes onto Grissom. “Are you a married man?”

  “No.”

  Then Pierce turned to Brass. “How about you, detective? Married?”

  Brass said, “My marital status isn’t—”

  “Ha!” Pierce pointed at homicide captain. “Divorced!…And I suppose you never threatened your wife? You never said, I could just kill you for that? One of these days, Alice, pow!, zoom!, straight to the moon?”

  “Ralph Kramden,” Grissom pointed out, “never threatened to dismember his wife.”

  Brass glanced at the criminalist, surprised by the cultural reference.

  Backing down now, Pierce ran a hand over his forehead, removing sweat that wasn’t there. “I see your point, guys, I really do…I have a nasty temper, but it’s strictly…verbal. I’m telling you, those words were just me losing it.”

  “Your temper,” Brass said.

  “Yes. No question.”

  “Lost your temper, killed your wife, dismembered her. You’re a physical therapist—you have some knowledge about anatomy.”

  “I didn’t kill her. It was just an argument—we had them all the time, since her…conversion, that Born-Again crapola. But do you honestly think I would kill my wife over religious differences?”

  Brass was about to respond when the front door opened and a teenage girl stepped into the foyer.

  Grissom didn’t recognize the girl—she had short, lank black hair, a pierced eyebrow, enough black mascara to offend Elvira, black form-fitting jeans, and a black Slipknot T-shirt. He wondered if this was a friend of Pierce’s daughter, Lori, come to visit.

  “Daddy, what is it?” the girl asked in a mousy voice that didn’t go with her punky Goth look.

  Pierce’s eyes went from Brass to Grissom to the girl. “Lori,” he said slowly. “These officers have some information about Mom.”

  Grissom looked harder—this was indeed Lori, formerly blonde and rather wholesome-looking, perhaps getting an early start on Halloween.

  The girl froze, her eyes wide, the whites of them making a stark contrast with the heavy black mascara. “Is she…al…all…right? What they found…on TV…was it…?”

  Pierce was on his feet, nodding gravely, motioning to her. “Come here, baby…come ’ere.”

  A short, sharp breath escaped her, then Lori ran to her father’s arms and he held her tight, saying, “She’s gone, honey…Mom’s gone.” They stayed that way for a long time. Finally, Pierce held his daughter at arm’s length.

  “What happened?” Lori asked, her pseudo-adult makeup at odds with eyes filled with a child’s pain.

  Pierce shook his head. “No, honey. It’s not the time for that…. I have to deal with these…the authorities.”

  “Dad…”

  “Lori, we’ll talk about this later.”

  She pulled away from his grasp. “I want to know, now.”

  Grissom had a shiver of recognition: he’d said almost exactly the same thing about Lynn Pierce to Warrick and Nick.

  Brass was on his feet. He moved near the father, and said, almost whispering, “Why don’t you let me talk to her, Mr. Pierce. I have a daughter, not much older than her….”

  Turning to face him, Pierce said, rather bitterly, “Your compassion is noted, detective. But I don’t think that’s such a good idea.”

  “I do need to ask your daughter some questions,” Brass said. “I’m sure you want to cooperate…both of you?”

  The girl’s eyes were tight, her expression paralyzed, as if she couldn’t decide whether to scream, cry, or run.

  “Lori’s had a great shock,” Pierce said, reasonably. “Can’t this wait until later?”

  “Frankly, Mr. Pierce…no. This is a murder investigation. Delays are costly.”

  Exasperated, Pierce turned to Grissom. “Can’t you stop this? You seem like a decent man.”

  With a tiny enigmatic smile, Grissom rose and said, “You seem like a decent man, too, sir…. Maybe you and I should leave Lori and Captain Brass alone, so they can talk…and you can show me the garage.”

  Pierce was looking at Grissom as if the criminalist were wearing clown shoes. “What?”

  “Your garage,” Grissom said, pleasantly, pointing. “It’s this way, isn’t it?” He started toward the kitchen.

  Reluctantly, with a world-weary sigh and one last glance at his daughter, Pierce followed the CSI.

  “Sit down, Lori, please,” Brass said, gesturing toward the sofa. “You don’t mind if I call you Lori?”

  “Do what you want,” Lori sniffled. Tears were trailing down her face, mascara painting black abstract patterns on her cheeks. She looked at him skeptically, then demanded, “Are you going to tell me what happened to my mother?”

  “Lori…please. Sit.”

  She sat.

  So did he.

  “I’m Detective Brass. You can call me Jim, if you like.”

  Her response was tough, undermined by a teary warble in her Sniffles the Mouse voice: “I feel so close to you…Jim.”

  Brass took in a deep breath, let it out slowly through his mouth. No sugar coating this; the girl had seen the television news, after all. He said, “Your mother was murdered.”

  He watched her as she took that in. Her face auditioned various emotions, one at a time, but fleeting—surprise, fear, anger—as she struggled to process and accept what he’d just told her. Her internal struggle, barely letting any emotion out beyond the unstoppable tears, reminded Brass a great deal of his own daughter. He wondered if Ellie had cried when his wife told her that he had left them; he wondered where Ellie was now, and if she still hated him.

  “Are you all right?” he asked the girl.

  “No, I’m not all right!…Yeah, right, I’m fine, I’m cool! You got a touch, don’t ya?”

  Brass felt a fool—just as his own daughter had so often made him feel. Of course Lori wasn’t “all right,” and for that matter, probably never would be. Mothers were not supposed to get murdered.

  Then the girl’s toughness dropped away. “I…I can’t believe it,” she finally managed.

  “It’s hard to lose family,” he said. “Especially a parent. Even if you had trouble with them. Sometimes that only makes it harder.”

  The streaky face looked at him differently now. “You…?”

  He glanced around, making sure they were alone. “Yeah, both of mine are gone. Not as rough as you, Lori.”

  “No?”

  “Natural causes, and I was an adult.”

  “But…it was still hard?”

  “It’s always hard. Lori, I don’t like this, but we all owe it to your mother to find out what happened to her, and clear this up as much as possible.”

  “What, like that’ll bring her back?”

  “Of course it won’t bring her back. But it could mean…closure, for you. And your dad.”

  “Closure, huh? Everybody talks about closure. You know what I think, Detective? Closure’s way fucking overrated.”

  “…You may have a point, Lori…. Now, I’ve got to ask you some questions—you up to it?”

  She took a deep breath and nodded, what the hell.

  Brass hated this part of the job, and wondered where he should start. If he hit a raw nerve, the girl—who had warmed to him some—might come unglued; and then he’d have a hell of time getting her to answer any questions. If she truly broke down, he’d have to call in the Social Services people, to provide the girl counseling…and his investigation would take a backseat.

  Best to tread carefully, he thought. “Did you get along with your mother?”

  Shrug.

  “You’re what, Lori? Sixteen?”

  Nod.

  “So, how did you get along with your mother?”

  “You already asked me that.”

  He’d gotten some words out of her, anyway. “Yes, Lori, but you didn’t really answer me.”

  Another shrug. “Not good, really. She di
dn’t want me to do, you know, anything.”

  “What do you mean…‘anything’?”

  “You know—go out with guys, go to concerts, get a job. She wanted me to be the girl in the plastic bubble. She barely tolerated my boyfriend, Gary.”

  “Tell me about your boyfriend.”

  This time the nod carried some enthusiasm. “Gary Blair. He’s cool.”

  “Cool? Aren’t the Blairs a pretty straight-laced family?”

  A tiny smile appeared. “Basically. I don’t know about lace, but he’s pretty straight. His parents are in a church group with Mom…otherwise, I don’t think she’d even let me go out with him.”

  “How strict was your mom?”

  She snorted. “She’s way past strict into…” Her expression turned inward. “…I mean, she was way past strict….”

  Brass could have kicked himself for the past-tense slip. She’d just been opening up, when he made the faux pas, and now he had to find a way to save the interview, before the kid caved.

  “What do you and Gary like to do together?” Brass asked. “Movies? Dancing?”

  Lori, lost in thought, didn’t seem to hear him. She was still on his previous question, mumbling, “Yeah, Mom made the 700 Club look like, you know, un-psycho.”

  “You and Gary?”

  She seemed to kind of shake herself out of it. “We, uh…you know, go to the movies, we hang out at the mall. Sometimes we just stay here.”

  “Ever go to the Blairs?”

  “Not much. His mom is really weird, kinda…you know, wired? Like a chihuahua on speed?”

  Brass smiled at that, though the drug reference was disturbing. “So when you and Gary hang out here, what do you do?”

  Yet another shrug. “Listen to CDs in my room, watch DVDs, stuff like that. Sometimes surf the ’net. Go in chat rooms and pretend to be people, you know, like pretend I’m a nympho or a dyke or somethin’—typical shit.”

  Brass was starting to wonder if the shrugging was a nervous tic, or simply generational—his sullen daughter had shrugged at him a lot the last time he’d seen her. Somewhere along the line, shrugging had become a substitute for speech. “Gary ever around, when your parents argued?”