Mortal Wounds Read online

  “Yeah, looks like he used pruning shears or something. Pretty clean amputations, but there’s a gold ring that got left behind.”

  Picking up the camera, she snapped off several quick shots of the mummy’s hands showing the shrunken, blackened stubs of the fingers, and the gold ring. She set down the camera and, lifting the mummy’s right hand carefully, she easily slid the band off the ring finger.

  “Gold ring,” she repeated, “with an ‘F’ inlaid in diamonds.”

  “Interesting,” Nick said, then he repeated her description.

  “It would not seem to be a robbery, yes,” Catherine said, as she pulled an evidence bag from her pocket, put the ring inside and sealed it.

  “Cause of death?” Nick called.

  “Not sure—nothing visible in the front.”

  Gingerly, she eased the corpse onto its left side and looked at the sheet metal underneath the body, but saw no sign of bugs or any other scavengers. That would disappoint Grissom, who did love his creepy crawlies. The suit seemed to be stained darker on the back and, moving slowly toward the head, Catherine found what she was looking for.

  “Two entry wounds,” she announced. “Base of the skull, looks like a pro.”

  “Firearm?”

  “Firearm is my call.”

  “Anything else?”

  She didn’t want there to be anything else. The heat now pressed down on her from above. Any relief brought on by the cooler soil down here had evaporated and sweat rolled down her back, her arms, and her face.

  But she forced herself to stay focused on the job at hand. Then, just to the left of the mummy’s head, something caught her attention, something black poking out of the dirt. She at first thought it was one of Grissom’s little friends, a bug; but closer inspection proved it to be metallic: a gun barrel, almost completely buried! Almost….

  She picked up the camera and clicked off several more shots.

  “What have you got?” Nick asked.

  “At least the barrel of a gun, maybe more.”

  Maneuvering around the body, Catherine pulled herself closer. Carefully, she dug around the black cylinder and left it completely exposed. Though the pistol was gone, the killer had figured he’d fool the firearms examiners by leaving the barrel with the victim.

  More than one way to skin a cat, she thought, as she shot three more photos, then bagged the evidence. Catherine Willows knew lots of other ways to catch a murderer besides matching bullets.

  She glanced back into the hole from which she had extracted the barrel, and saw nothing…or was that something? Pulling out her miniflash, Catherine turned it on and stroked its beam over the shallow hole. A small bump, slightly lighter in color than the rest of the dirt around it, showed at one end of the hole.

  Excavating with care, she uncovered the remnants of an old cigarette filter. Part of this murder case, she wondered, or the detritus of a field used as a garbage dump for the last quarter century? Better safe than sorry, she told herself, and snapped some pictures before bagging it.

  “One last thing,” she said.

  “Yeah?” Nick said.

  “Cigarette filter. I’ve bagged it.”

  Climbing out of the wrecked trailer, she handed the evidence bags to Nick.

  “Small caliber,” he said, holding up the clear bag, peering in at the gun barrel. “A twenty-five?”

  She nodded as O’Riley came up to them.

  “Any ID?” the detective asked.

  Catherine said, “I didn’t find a wallet or anything and his fingertips are gone.”

  O’Riley frowned. “No fingertips?”

  “Don’t worry, Sarge. We can still print him.”

  “It’s like Roscoe Pitts,” Nick said.

  O’Riley looked confused. “Roscoe Pitts? I thought you said…”

  “No,” Catherine said. “Roscoe Pitts was a bad guy back in the forties. Had a doctor remove his fingerprints, then had skin grafted to his fingers from under his arms.”

  Nick picked up the story. “He walked around like this for weeks.” Nick crossed his arms, his hands flat against each armpit. “When he got them cut free,” Nick said, wiggling his fingers, “smooth skin.”

  Getting it, O’Riley said, “No fingerprints.”

  Catherine grinned. “What Roscoe didn’t understand was that, A, with smooth fingertips, he’d made himself stand out even more, and, B, you can get prints past the first knuckle.”

  “So he got busted?” O’Riley asked.

  “Almost immediately.”

  “And that’s how you’re going to ID this guy?”

  Nick nodded. “If our mummy’s in the computer, we’ll know who he is before the end of the day.”

  They turned when they heard one of the EMTs swearing.

  “What’s the matter?” Catherine asked.

  The EMT, a big guy with a blond crewcut, held up one of the loafers with the foot still snugly inside. “I’m sorry. It just came off. It’s like trying to pick up a potato chip.”

  Catherine said, “Nick, let’s get the hands bagged first, then help these guys before they dismember the whole body.”

  With a grin, Nick said, “Sure—I always listen to my mummy.”

  Catherine tried not to smile, and failed.

  Then, two small figures in the midst of a vast, crime-scene-taped lot, they got back to work.

  3

  The security room took up much of the second floor of the hotel, an anonymous blue-gray chamber where banks of VCRs covered one full wall, a security guard checking off a list on a clipboard whenever he changed tapes. The adjacent wall, constructed of one-way glass, overlooked the casino floor, the frantic universe of gamblers on silent display.

  The east wall and most of the middle of the room were taken up by security guards sitting in front of computer screens. Some seemed to be watching one camera feed or another, while several more seemed to be monitoring gauges. One gauge, Grissom noticed, was the temperature inside the casino. A huge console inset with nine video monitors filled the south wall. In front of it sat a young Asian man, in attire similar to a desk clerk, tapping on a keyboard.

  “Let’s see,” the computer tech said. “The fourth floor hall, between when?”

  Behind him, Brass checked his notes. “Five-thirty and six o’clock this morning.”

  Grissom watched as the center video screen went black, then flipped to a grainy black-and-white shot of a vacant corridor, a time code in the bottom right-hand corner, the date in the left. “Can we speed it up until someone comes into sight?”

  The guard said, “Sure. Probably not much traffic at that hour.” He tapped some more and nothing seemed to happen in the hallway, but the time code was racing ahead. A man appeared and, as suddenly as the numbers had sped up, it slowed to normal.

  “Mr. Smith Goes to Vegas,” Brass said.

  Picking up the narrative, Grissom said, “Heading for his room—practically running. Does he know his killer is coming for him?”

  Starring in the documentary of his death, Smith ducked into an alcove about halfway down the hall on the right-hand side. In less than twenty seconds, a second man entered the corridor at the far end. This man stayed near the center of the hallway, glancing from side to side as he went, careful to keep his head lowered so his face never appeared on the video.

  “Camera shy,” Grissom said. “Stalking his victim—here! He ducks in after John Smith.”

  The videotape had no sound, so they didn’t hear either gunshot. But when the killer stepped back into the hall, they saw the muzzle flash of the second shot. Bobby LaFay entered the hallway, the killer spun to face him, and the tray of food fell to the floor soundlessly as LaFay ran back toward the elevator. The killer turned back this way, head still lowered, slipped in Smith’s blood, then ran headlong toward the camera, throwing up an arm to cover his face. He passed the camera and disappeared, presumably down the fire stairs to the first floor.

  “Run it again,” Grissom said.

&nb
sp; Now that he knew what happened, he would be free to hone in on the details.

  Again Smith scrambled down the hall wearing a dark suit, a look of fear etched on his face as he fumbled with his keycard until he ducked out of sight into the alcove. Next came the killer, a light-colored sports jacket over a light-colored shirt, dark slacks, possibly jeans, and dark shoes, maybe running shoes of some kind, the small pistol already in his right hand, his left hand also up in front of him, doing something. What was that about? Grissom asked himself.

  “Run it back ten seconds,” Grissom told the tech, adding, “and can you slow it down?”

  The tech tapped the keys, the time code reversed ten seconds, and the tape ran forward again, this time crawling along in slow motion. The killer entered the corridor, his two hands up in front of his chest, his right holding a gun, his left…

  “He’s screwing on a noise suppresser,” Grissom said.

  “Mob hit,” Brass said automatically.

  “Too soon to say,” Grissom said just as automatically.

  With the silencer in place, the killer ducked into the alcove out of sight. Then Smith’s feet appeared as he fell.

  Grissom said, “Impact forced him face first into the door. He hit it, then slid down, his feet coming out into the hall.”

  Stepping back, the killer pointed the pistol at his fallen victim and fired a second shot, the muzzle flash a bright white light. And at that precise moment came Bobby LaFay carrying his tray. Once again the killer turned, raising the pistol toward the waiter, the tray of food spilled all over the floor, this time not only silently but in slow motion, and both men took off running in opposite directions. The killer sprinted by one more time, his arm still up, his face still hidden, no distinguishing marks, no rings on his fingers, no bracelet on his wrist, nothing.

  Turning to Brass, Grissom said, “You’re bringing in all the tapes from this morning, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Then I’m going back upstairs.”

  Brass made some quick arrangements with the tech, then accompanied Grissom back to the fourth floor, where Warrick approached them, a plastic evidence bag in hand.

  “What have you got for me?” Grissom asked.

  Holding the bag up for inspection, Warrick said, “Five large—money clip in his front left pants pocket.”

  “Well, the tape didn’t look like a robbery anyway,” Grissom said.

  Warrick asked, “Anything else good on the tape?”

  “Looks like a pretty typical mob hit,” Brass said.

  Giving Brass a sideways look, Grissom said, “Let the evidence tell us what it was. Don’t be so quick to judge.”

  Brass rolled his eyes.

  Sara ambled up to join the group. “Found a shell casing under the body, but there’s no sign of the second one.”

  Grissom nodded and led them back to the murder scene.

  “I’ve gone over every square inch of this hallway, Grissom,” Sara said somewhat peevishly. “There isn’t a shell casing here anywhere.”

  Warrick nodded his agreement. “We’ve been over it twice, Gris—there’s nothing.”

  Grissom’s eyes moved over the hallway, took in the spilled tomato sauce and the trail of water from the vase that had held the carnation. His eyes followed the trail of wet carpeting, his gaze finally settling on the door across the hall. “Can we get into that room?”

  “Someone’s in there,” Brass said, pulling out a list from his pocket.

  Careful where he placed his feet, Grissom moved into the opposite alcove and knocked on the door.

  “Mr. and Mrs. Gary Curtis,” Brass announced.

  Grissom heard a shuffling of feet on the other side and the door slowly opened. He stood face to face with a fortyish man with a peppery goatee.

  “Can I help you?” the man asked.

  Looking down at the end of the trail of water in the corner of the doorjamb, Grissom saw the brass shell casing winking up at him. “You already have, Mr. Curtis, you already have.”

  Brass said to the guest, “We’re conducting an investigation, Mr. Curtis.”

  “I know,” Curtis said, mildly annoyed. “I was interviewed already. How much longer are my wife and I going to be confined to our room?”

  Brass smiled meaninglessly. “Not long. Be a good citizen. Murder was committed on your doorstep.”

  Curtis frowned, shrugged.

  Ignoring all this, Grissom had bent down to scoop the casing into a small plastic bag; now he was holding the bagged shell casing up to the light. “No such thing as a perfect crime.”

  Brass said, “That’s all, Mr. Curtis,” and the guest was shut back in his room.

  Grissom pulled a keycard from his pocket. He glanced at Warrick and Sara. “Party in Mr. Smith’s suite. Interested in going?”

  Warrick asked, “Get that keycard from the manager?”

  With a quick nod, Grissom said, “You bagged the victim’s, right?”

  “You know I did.”

  “Well, you can’t use that one, ’cause it’s evidence. But now you two can do the room.”

  Warrick accepted the keycard.

  Sara asked her boss, “What about you?”

  “I’ll take the stairwell.”

  “We’re on it,” Warrick said, and they retreated across the hall.

  The EMTs now loaded John Smith onto a gurney and wheeled him down the hall toward the elevator.

  “You can let these people off this floor now,” Grissom said to Brass. “Have them take all of their bags with them—the manager needs to get them new rooms.”

  “It’s a busy time of year,” Brass said. “Might not be rooms available….”

  “Then have ’em pitch tents in the lobby, I don’t care. This is a crime scene, Jim.”

  “Yeah, I was just starting to gather that.”

  The sarcasm didn’t register on Grissom. “Station some of your men in the hall, though, and keep them to this side.” He pointed to his left. “We don’t want them tromping through like a chorus line. Just get them on the elevator and get ’em out of here.”

  Brass nodded and got out his cell phone. Warrick and Sara disappeared into the victim’s room while Brass and Grissom walked to the stairwell.

  The first thing Grissom did was run a piece of duct tape across the door latch so they could get back into the fourth-floor corridor. The fire escape stairwell consisted of eight textured metal steps rising to a metal landing, then did a one-eighty down eight more stairs to the third floor. No point in working the textured stairs, but the landings made Grissom smile.

  “Sit on these and you’ll be okay,” Grissom said, pointing to the flight up to the next floor.

  “Swell,” Brass said, and sat, and made his phone calls.

  When the fourth-floor landing yielded nothing, Grissom moved down to the next one.

  On his hands and knees, he used a rubber roller to flatten a Mylar sheet on the landing. Black on the downside and silver on the upside, the sheet would help him lift footprints out of the dust. With the sheet pressed flat, Grissom turned to the small gray box nearby. The box’s front contained a switch, a red light, a voltmeter, and two electric leads, one ending in an alligator clip, the other ending in a stainless steel probe roughly a quarter-inch in diameter.

  Brass, off the phone, asked, “How about footprints?”

  “We’ll know in a second.”

  Grissom fastened an alligator clip to one side of the Mylar sheet, then touched the probe to the other side of the sheet. When the meter on the front of the box spiked, he smiled and removed the probe. Turning off the box, he took off the alligator clip, then turned his attention to the Mylar sheet.

  “Here we go,” he said, rubbing his palms on his pants legs.

  Carefully, he pulled back the Mylar sheet, revealing two distinct footprints, one going up, one going down.

  “Wouldn’t you know,” Grissom said. “One of them stepped right on top of the killer’s print.”

  “One of
them?”

  “Either your man Patterson or the manager. Judging from the print, probably the manager.”

  “What makes you think it’s the killer’s footprint?”

  “Running shoe. Looks like the bloody one in the hall, but it might just be wishful thinking, and the manager is wearing something smooth with a rubber heel. Florsheim maybe.”

  Next, Grissom dusted the right-hand banister between the landing and the third floor. The railing on the same side between the fourth floor and the landing yielded dozens of prints. The odds of getting a useful one from the killer were maybe one in a thousand or so. Guests, hotel staff, both security and maintenance, fire marshals, and who knew who else had touched these railings since the last time they were cleaned.

  Looking up through the railing at Brass, Grissom asked, “Can you find out who cleans this stairwell and how often?”

  “No problem. Find anything?”

  “Anything?” Grissom echoed, with a hollow laugh that made its own echo in the stairwell. “More like everything. It’s a fingerprint convention.”

  Grissom spent the better part of an hour and a half finishing in the stairwell. He gathered scores of prints, but had very little confidence that any would prove helpful. The downside of public places, even one as seldom used as this stairwell, was that crime scene investigators could get buried under the sheer volume of information, most of which had no bearing at all on their case.

  The hotel room looked like any other one in Vegas, with only a few differences. The bedspread lay askew, puddling near the bottom of the bed. A champagne bottle sat on the dresser with two glasses next to it. Clothes hung in the small closet and the victim’s shaving kit was laid out neatly in the bathroom. A briefcase, a pile of papers, and a Palm Pilot lay arrayed on the round table in the corner.

  “I’ll take the table and the bathroom,” Sara said to Warrick, “you get the dresser and the bed.”

  “I had the bed last time.”

  Shaking her head, she said, “It’s all the same, Warrick.”

  He gave her a slow look. “Like hell it is.”

  She threw her hands up. “Okay, you take the bathroom. I’ll take the bed.”