Heat Wave Read online

  “Would never do that, H.”

  Caine patted Delko twice on the shoulder—a small gesture that put a big smile on the young CSI’s face, even considering the distasteful task he was about to undertake.

  Delko made his way out to the Hummer, where Speedle waited for him with gloves, a flashlight, and tools.

  “You’re gonna run out of hands down there,” Speed said, an edge in his voice. “You want some company?”

  Considering how often Speed played off seniority to stick him with dirty jobs, Delko was tempted to take him up on the offer. Instead, he said, “Naw, it’s a chore one guy can pull off. But I appreciate it…. You dig out the belt?”

  Speedle handed him a nylon belt with enough pockets to impress Batman, as well as a holster for Delko’s nine millimeter and a ring for his flashlight. After securing his weapon, Delko accepted the long black flash from Speed and dropped it through the designated belt loop. In a big pocket on his hip, he tucked his walkie-talkie.

  Next, Speedle helped Delko run the cord up his back and clip the mike onto the collar of his diving suit. Then Delko strapped a flat, black disc to the underside of his left wrist: the Borealis Aqua Pulse, the latest in underwater metal detectors. The Borealis was equipped with red, yellow, and green lights accompanied by a low-frequency vibration, alerting divers when they were close to buried metal.

  Of course, Delko had never used the device in a sewer before….

  Well, with any luck, the water would only be up to his boot tops. Just in case, though, he was also taking along an A.J. Greenfield 8X handheld metal detector—an apparatus about three and a half feet long with a cuff like a metal crutch for easy control, and a shaft-mounted control about the size of a cigar box, ending in a ring that was maybe a foot across.

  Finally, Delko put on a black-mesh rucksack, its large strap over his right shoulder, allowing the pouch to hang against his left hip. Whatever he collected would be put into evidence bags and dropped into the rucksack.

  The pair walked over to where Speedle had already pried off a manhole cover; orange cones marked the area. Speed carried the Greenfield metal detector under one arm, a loop of rope over his shoulder, and a halogen work light in the other hand, while Delko pulled on a pair of latex gloves.

  Above them the sky remained a starless black void, and Delko could feel the wind whip tauntingly across his face. Time was running out. He’d lived in Miami long enough to know that the next squall line wasn’t far off…and you just never knew how long the rain would last, or how severe the storm would be….

  Easing down into the manhole, heavily booted feet finding purchase on slippery rungs, Delko looked up at his partner. “Metal detector, please, Nurse.”

  “Here ya go, Doc,” Speedle said, passing him the device.

  “You set it?”

  “Don’t ya trust me? It’ll pick up most anything that’s down there.”

  “Borealis set, too?”

  “All-Metal mode.”

  Speed reached down, ran one end of the rope through the handle of the halogen light, and tied a secure knot. He then flipped the switch and lowered the light into the manhole, careful to keep the thing out of Delko’s way as the diver slowly made his way down the ladder.

  Slick under Delko’s boots, the ladder groaned; the damn rungs felt slimy even through his work gloves. Carefully he eased down one step at a time.

  “Give my regards to Norton,” Speedle called down from an opening that now seemed far away to Delko.

  “Who?” Delko asked, voice echoing with a metallic ring.

  Speed was shaking his head, way up there. “Ever see The Honeymooners…? What a culturally deprived life you’ve led, Eric…and keep an eye peeled for albino alligators!”

  Laughter resonating within his dark world, Delko yelled up, “Speed, there are no albino alligators down here! This is Miami, not New York!”

  Delko got to work, appreciating the concern from his coworker, couched in gags though it had been. The smell down here was an olfactory brew of garbage, urine, excrement, and alcohol. A CSI had to put up with a lot of odors at a crime scene, but this blend flirted with Delko’s gag reflex. He swallowed hard, breathing through his mouth, as he’d learned to do in the autopsy room.

  Dropping off the last rung with a splash, he landed in foul water up to his ankles. He turned on the Greenfield 8X and slipped his forearm into the cuff of the handle. The halogen light that Speedle had lowered provided some illumination, but the damned thing kept wanting to spin, wobbling back and forth, making crazy film noir shadows that danced on the sewer-pipe-infested walls.

  Cursing silently, Delko pulled out the flashlight and flicked the power button. With the flash in his left and the metal detector in his right, he hoped he didn’t run into any of Speedle’s albino alligators or, for that matter, a hungry rat, in which case he’d have to feed it the metal detector. He touched his arm to his holster, feeling the reassuring weight of the pistol there…and grinned for letting Speed get inside his head like that.

  Slowly, he swept the flashlight beam from side to side. The concrete sewer pipe was noisier than he would have expected, water whooshing around his feet, echoing as it dripped from the grate in the distance. Even farther away he could hear the water sloshing against something else. To this hydrokinetic symphony, Delko added the low hum of the active Greenfield 8X.

  He hoped to use the metal detector to find shell casings washed down here by runoff from the storm. The problems with this theory were twofold: first, he couldn’t see the bottom of the pipe, due to the running water; and second, the casings themselves were about the size of his little finger and, if any were down here, were probably still moving in the current.

  Unless they’d fallen into one of the traps that he knew hid under the rushing current. The sunken metal baskets were designed to catch rocks and other detritus that found its way into the sewer, possibly plugging up filters further along. These same traps were hiding beneath the water, just waiting to break his ankle, or worse….

  From the radio came the crackle of Speedle’s voice: “How deep is it piled down there?”

  “No deeper than one of your stories about your dates. Hate to disappoint you, Speed, but there isn’t an albino alligator in sight.”

  “Patience, buddy—let ’em get your scent, and they’ll be along soon enough. You find anything yet?”

  “No—just getting started.”

  Delko swept the detector in small, flat arcs in front of him, a current feeding the coil and sending out an electromagnetic field that would receive an answering current from the electromagnetic field of any metal under the murky water.

  Moving slowly, Delko edged toward the drain at the other end of the block. He’d gone only thirty or so methodical feet when the metal detector vibrated against his hand.

  Something down there…but what?

  He made his arcs smaller and smaller, until he was sure he was over the object. Then, carefully balancing the metal detector and flashlight in his left hand, he plunged his right hand into the frigid, goopy water, and groped around the rough concrete floor of the pipe.

  Through the latex glove, the bottom felt not only ice-cold but slimy.

  Whose idea was this again?

  He stayed at it, feeling along the bottom, touching something…but when he reached for whatever it was, the current carried the thing away. It was like trying to find a bar of soap in a great big bathtub. Only there wasn’t a hell of a lot of soap down here….

  The notion that he could be down here the rest of the night, searching for God knew what, settled around him like a damp, depressing fog. He transferred the metal detector back to his right hand and started making arcs again—this time back in the direction he had come from.

  It took only a couple of sweeps to relocate the object.

  This time, instead of fishing around for his prize, Delko turned off the Greenfield 8X, switched on the smaller Borealis wrist detector, and transferred the flashlight to his right h
and, along with the Greenfield. Carefully he crouched, the Borealis vibrating against his wrist, telling him he was still directly over the object.

  When his fingers wrapped gingerly around it, he brought the object above the surface, to be rewarded with the sight of a 7.62 mm shell casing—the very size fired by the AK-47, the gun Kenneth LaRussa claimed had been used in the drive-by.

  Dropping the casing into an evidence bag, Delko sealed it, dropped the bag into the rucksack, then keyed the mike. “Shell casing,” he reported.

  Speedle’s voice sounded eager. “Can you make it? Or do I need to send Calleigh down there?”

  “Even she wouldn’t want to go wading for slugs down here. It’s an AK-47.”

  “LaRussa was right.”

  “Looks like it. I’ll see what else I can find.”

  Speedle cranked the urgency in his voice up a notch. “Don’t waste a lot of time, Eric—rain’s coming down again. You don’t want to be down there if a flood comes rushing through.”

  “Ten-four,” Delko replied and went back to work.

  He’d made it maybe three-quarters of the way down the block, collecting two more AK-47 shell casings, when he noticed the water rising around his feet…

  …and when he shone the flashlight at the drain grate ahead, he saw rainwater cascading in.

  Speedle’s voice came over the radio again, a spike of concern under the CSI’s usual casualness. “Better wrap it up, Submariner—it’s gonna get pretty wet down there.”

  No shit, Sherlock, Delko thought, but he bit back the comment. “Soon.”

  He wanted to rush but he remembered his mentor’s mantra: Horatio Caine had told him any number of times, “Be quick but don’t hurry.”

  Always good advice.

  Turning on the Greenfield metal detector, Delko started making arcs in the direction of Eleventh Street. A swift swing of the flashlight told him the water was pouring through the grate with greater ferocity, and another swing toward his feet showed him that he was now slogging through water to his midcalf.

  It wouldn’t be long before his boots started taking on water.

  He pressed forward until the metal detector vibrated so hard that it almost shook out of his hand. Bending down, he felt the edge of something deeper…and knew he’d almost stumbled into a damn drain trap.

  Crouching again, the light and metal detector both balanced in his left hand, he felt around the edge of the trap, and soon realized it was nothing more than a tray made out of heavy metal screen. Carefully tracing the edge with the metal detector, he figured the dimensions at about two by three feet.

  These traps didn’t need to be extraordinarily large—it wasn’t like cars were falling through the sewer grate, just water bringing the inevitable detritus stowaways.

  The problem was that in order to pull out the trap, he’d have to put down both the flashlight and metal detector. Speed had been right: Delko was running out of hands. He wondered if he could even get the trap out in complete darkness. Maybe he should call for Speed to come down here and give him a hand, after all.

  But Delko was wearing the only diving suit they’d brought, and he would never subject Speed to this swampy concrete hell in street clothes, not with the rain threatening to flood the passage.

  So he laid the Greenfield down, took one last, quick look around to get his bearings, then flipped off the flashlight and carefully replaced it in his belt loop.

  The halogen light down at the far end of the tunnel was of no use now, and the pitiful amount of light filtering in at this end didn’t help, either. On his knees, the cold water rushing over him, pounding off his chest, splashing up into his face, and now definitely filling his fireman’s boots with that lovely sludgy water, Delko pried at the edges of the trap…

  …but couldn’t make the damn thing budge!

  The water rushed at him even faster now. He looked up, fighting back panic. Must be one hell of a storm going up on the street.

  Finding the edges of the trap, Delko pulled again and felt the metal screen basket move slightly. He yanked once more but couldn’t seem to make any more progress. Hunkering down, grunting, he jerked with all his strength, the effort burning in his biceps as he strained to free the trap.

  With a sudden jolt, the basket broke loose, sending Delko backward, his head nearly going under the torrent of runoff; but somehow he managed to keep the basket from spilling its contents into the water.

  Finally able to steady himself, an upright Delko braced the basket against his leg, tugged the flashlight from its loop on his belt, and hit the power button.

  The basket was a heavy, rusty mess that looked like it hadn’t been cleaned out since Al Capone was spending time at the Biltmore. Palm fronds, muck, a few stones, and four more shell casings covered the bottom of the basket. He wanted to take the basket up to the street to work on it, but there was no way it would fit through the manhole without spilling its contents. And the water pouring through the storm grate made that exit impossible, as well.

  Working carefully, he tucked the flashlight under the arm holding the basket against his leg and with his free hand pulled the casings out one by one. With some careful juggling, he got them into an evidence bag, which he tucked into his rucksack.

  Next, though it was not the most fun he’d had lately, Delko ran his hand through the muck until he touched something solid.

  To his shock, he pulled out a smallish, silver-plated revolver.

  “How the hell did this get in here?” he said aloud, the echo emphasizing his surprise.

  Delko bagged the gun, dropped it into the rucksack, and gratefully replaced the heavy metal basket in the bottom of the pipe.

  Feeling around under the ever deepening water, he finally located the Greenfield, nearly three feet down the pipe from where he’d set it to rest. Then he began the slog back toward the manhole with his sack full of evidence.

  His boots were still full of water, and climbing the slippery ladder was a greater struggle than coming down; but finally he felt Speedle tugging the Greenfield from his grasp even as he tried to help Delko up the last few rungs.

  Rain pelted their faces, and Speedle looked like a scruffy hitchhiker, the kind Noah wouldn’t pick up even if the ark were short one of that species.

  “Where the hell have you been?” Speed asked, his relief posing as irritation.

  Delko tapped the sack at his side. “Collecting evidence. That’s what we do, right?”

  “Well, what I’ve been doing is standing out here in this downpour, worrying about your ass. I think H was about to send me down there looking for you.”

  “Too bad, Speed. You’d have loved it. Where is H?”

  Speedle pointed toward the Archer. “Still in the bar, working evidence.”

  “Calleigh in there too?”

  Nodding, Speedle said, “Yeah, you can deliver your shell casing…. Why are you grinning? What else have you got?”

  “Nothing much. Come on and see, if you like…Ralphie Boy.”

  “Pulling my chain again, huh, Delko?”

  Delko beamed. “Isn’t that what sewers are all about?”

  Rain slanting through broken windows made the tile floor in the front part of the lobby bar slickly treacherous. Delko and Speedle moved carefully to avoid going down on their dignity.

  Delko pulled a chair up next to the vacant window frame, then yanked off one boot and emptied it outside—the sound of water and things that went plop gave him a shudder.

  Then he slipped the boot back on and repeated the action with the other one.

  “I hope you’ve had your shots,” Speedle said, looking on with wide eyes. “Seriously, dude, what the hell you been doing?”

  “You’ll see.”

  The pair of CSIs found Caine, Calleigh, and Detective Tripp huddled at a booth in the back, well out of the rain.

  “You were starting to worry me,” Caine said, tossing Delko a police-issue blanket to wrap up in. “Any finds?”

  One by one,
Delko laid out the bags he had brought up. The casings he’d found separately each had their own bag. The ones from the trap were together in another bag. Finally he revealed the bag with the silver pistol.

  The latter Delko laid in front of Calleigh as if she were his sweetheart and the weapon an engagement ring.

  She smiled dreamily as she picked up the bag. “Eric,” she drawled in her faint but unmistakable Southern accent, “you do know how to turn a girl’s head.”

  “What is it?” Caine asked.

  “It’s a gun,” Speed said.

  Caine gave him a look. “I was looking for a more specific answer.”

  “That’s Calleigh’s department,” Speed said with a shrug.

  Caine raised both eyebrows in an it’s-been-a-long-night manner.

  In the light of the lobby bar, Delko could see the pistol better now: a silver-plated snubnose revolver with a white handle, the word Valor in black within double black circles on the left side of the grip. Cal 32 S&W lg had been stamped on the left side of the barrel, and Made in Germany—and the scraped-off place where a serial number had been—were apparent on the right side of the barrel.

  Fondly, Calleigh said, “Gertsenberger and Eberwein, Gersetten-Gussenstadt.”

  Delko and Caine just stared at her, and Speedle said, “Gesundheit.”

  Cheerfully ignoring Speed, Calleigh went on: “It’s a Valor—a six-shot revolver that fires, just like it says on the barrel, thirty-two caliber Smith and Wesson cartridges, long.”

  “That’s one I’ve never heard of,” Caine admitted.

  “No reason you should have,” Calleigh said with a shrug that let them all off the hook. “These were originally twenty-twos—starter pistols.”

  Caine frowned. “Starter pistols?”

  She nodded, her ponytail swinging. “Yup—then they were modified. In the mid-sixties, these little angels were imported over here from Germany and sold as Valors…but they were outlawed by the 1968 Gun Control Act.”

  Caine seemed to be thinking about that while Calleigh took a closer look at the bagged weapon.

  “Eric’s find,” she said, “doesn’t look like it’s been in the sewer since 1968…so it’s probably safe to say that this is one sold in Europe.”