Killing Game Read online

  The three CSIs spread out, the detective watching, staying out of their way; all wore latex gloves.

  Nick took photos. Warrick started sifting through the bathroom debris, and—while she waited for someone from the coroner’s office—Catherine had a closer look at the body, Detective Larkin looming nearby.

  “Who called this in?” the latecomer asked.

  “Next-door neighbor,” Catherine said. She glanced up at him and gave him half a wry smile. “Because she heard yelling—last night.”

  Eyes rolling, hands on hips, Larkin said, “Looks like goddamned World War III in here, and all she heard was yelling? And didn’t call it in tillwhen ?”

  “Less than an hour ago,” Catherine said.

  “I’ll get the background from Nissen,” Larkin said tightly, “and have a talk with this good citizen.”

  The detective marched out of the apartment, his jaw set, his eyes ablaze. The neighbor was about to have an unpleasant conversation, which was fine with Catherine. Angela Dearborn had gotten a hell of a lot worse.

  With Larkin gone, Catherine got to work processing the victim, starting with Angela’s hands. The autopsy would reveal the extent of the wounds, give them some insight into the weapon used to cause those injuries, and other information; but any trace evidence—say the killer’s DNA under the vic’s fingernails—might get lost in transport…and Catherine wasn’t about to let that happen.

  The CSI started with the left hand of Angela’s wide-spread arms, the one nearest her. The hand was a milky white, made more pale by death. Long, elegant fingers splayed wide, a gold ring with a line of inlaid colored stones encircled her middle finger. Clear polish covered the neatly trimmed nails.

  This was a pretty hand—an artist’s hand.

  Catherine steeled herself, trying to keep the sadness rising within from transforming itself into rage. Her job required coolness, dispassion. Even now, when she was a supervisor herself, she could not stop the mental reflex:What would Grissom do?

  A nasty blue bruise covered most of the back of Angie’s hand, as if she had raised it just in time to receive the full impact of a blow. Judging by the shape of the bruise, and the way it crossed the entire back of the hand, the blow had been struck with a cylindrical object.

  Looking around the room, Catherine sought possibilities: Her eyes noted beer bottles, round-based lamps, but already she was thinking that the killer might have used a weapon, a baseball bat, for example, that had been brought along, and taken with.

  She returned to the hand, carefully scraping under the nails to be rewarded with a few skin cells. Most likely, in a battle this intense, Angela had gotten in a few blows of her own, including scratching the killer either on the face or an exposed hand or arm.

  Good girl,Catherine thought. So often the victim provided the very evidence that meant the perpetrator’s downfall.

  After sealing the small evidence envelope housing her prize, Catherine moved on to the other hand, whose nails rewarded her with more skin cells. She also noted and photographed defensive wounds on that hand, as well.

  They were nearly an hour into working the scene, and Catherine was just finishing processing the corpse, when the coroner’s crew finally arrived to pick up the body.

  David Phillips, Coroner Albert Robbins’s chief assistant, led the way. Medium of build and height, David had thin brown hair and ever-questioning eyes behind dark-rimmed glasses. Behind him, a two-man team guided a gurney: the front one, tall and thin with sandy hair and glasses, the one on the back end shorter, dark-haired and just as skinny as his taller buddy. Catherine wondered idly how this slight pair would manage the gurney down three flights of stairs to the street.

  “David,” Catherine said, by way of greeting.

  He gave her a tight smile in return. “Homicide, huh?”

  “Homicide.”

  Part of her didn’t want to surrender Angela Dearborn to the coroner’s crew, even David, whom she trusted implicitly. All CSIs, all cops for that matter, had certain hot buttons among criminals; for example, they all despised child molesters. Some of them found a way to harden themselves against crimes committed against women; but Catherine had never managed.

  Though she hardly considered herself a radical feminist, she did carry a core belief that a crime of violence against one woman was a crime of violence against all women.

  She had admitted this to Grissom once, and he’d said, “I agree, but I would widen that.”

  “How so?”

  “A crime of violence against one of us is a crime of violence against all of us.”

  Noble words, and correct; but Catherine still retained a special empathy for victims like Angela.

  Every bruise, every scratch would be detailed for her report. She finished her search for hairs on Angela’s clothes, found a few, gathered them, then finally—reluctantly, almost sorrowfully—she turned Angela Dearborn over to David and his assistants.

  “Are you all right, Catherine?” David asked her, with genuine concern.

  “What? Uh. Sure. Fine.”

  “Been wild lately, all these changes. Congratulations, by the way.”

  “Thanks. Thank you.”

  The two men were carefully loading the body onto the gurney, covering Angie with a sheet, strapping her down.

  David swallowed, nodded toward the victim. “You’d think something like this wouldn’t get to us, after a while.”

  She smiled a little. “Shame on us when it doesn’t.”

  He smiled back, nodded. “We’ll have something for you as soon as we can.”

  Then he was following the gurney and the body out.

  Returning to her work, Catherine studied the floor beneath where the body had rested, if you could call that “resting.” This cheap carpeting might be able to tell her almost as much as the body itself.

  Nick and Warrick had both moved into the bedroom now. Catherine closed that door on them, and turned off the overhead lights. She was down on her hands and knees—going over the dirt-gray carpeting with an Alternate Light Source—when Larkin came through the front door and hit the light switch.

  Her head popped up and she decided not to swear at him, when she saw his doleful expression. At least he was still wearing his latex gloves.

  “Find out anything?” she asked.

  Larkin nodded. “Nellie Pacquino is a party animal. She heard the yelling around six last night, but being inclined to rowdy partying herself, didn’t think all that much of it.”

  “Some party.”

  “Anyway, Nellie went out all night and got in just around sunup. She decided to stay up for her morning coffee klatch with the vic, but when she knocked on the door, she got no answer.”

  “The door was unlocked. Didn’t she try the knob?”

  “She says she didn’t. She just went to work as usual, knocked on the door when she got home, and tried calling the Dearborn woman, too; and when she didn’t get an answer again, she called us.”

  “If I hadn’t wanted to preserve this crime scene, I’d’ve asked you to bring Nellie in to I.D. the body.” Catherine gestured to where the victim had been. “We don’t really have an official identification yet.”

  As Catherine was saying that, Nick was exiting the bedroom; he had something in his latex-gloved hand—a small blue wallet.

  “I’m not often right on cue,” he said, “but how’s this for service?”

  Nick held the wallet in one latexed hand and opened it with the other, to display Angela Dearborn’s driver’s license, along with a photo that—even with all the brutality the victim had suffered—was clearly a match.

  “Thanks, Nick,” Catherine said.

  “I have my moments.”

  Nick briefly returned to the bedroom, to bag his find, and returned to move past the upturned dining table. Soon he was shining his flashlight into the shadowy depths of the kitchen. After a few seconds, Catherine saw the glow of an overhead light, once Nick found the switch.

  Turning back
to Larkin, Catherine asked, “Did the neighbor have anything else to say?”

  “She was pretty broken up, seemed real enough; but said that Angie had an ex-husband that gave her some trouble from time to time.”

  Back of her neck prickling, Catherine asked, “Whatkind of trouble?”

  A knock at the door headed off Larkin’s answer.

  Catherine and the detective traded a glance before Larkin answered the door, where Officer Nissen handed the detective a piece of paper, then disappeared back down the hall.

  Grinning as he shut the door, Larkin said, “Everybody’son cue this evening,” then he read the sheet and made a click in his cheek.

  “What?” Catherine asked.

  Larkin waved the sheet of paper. “You wanted to know what kind of trouble Angie Dearborn had with her ex? Well, before I came back in here, I got Nissen to run him through the computer, just to see what crops up. Name’s Taylor Dearborn. Guy’s a career lowlife…and the victim had arestraining order against him.”

  “Well, that seems to have worked out well,” Catherine said dryly. “Who says the system doesn’t work?”

  Larkin, apparently channeling Grissom for a moment, said, “Catherine, we don’t know that yet. Just ’cause he’s a wife beater that doesn’t mean he’s our guy. Just that he’s, like I said, a lowlife.”

  “Point well taken…. What kind of lowlife?”

  Larkin grunted a non-laugh. “Drugs, breaking and entering, assault on Angie—quite a laundry list, plus a lot of petty stuff.”

  Nick came out from the kitchen. “Could it be we have a slam dunk, for a change?”

  Larkin said, “Wouldn’t that be nice, for once?”

  Catherine said, “Yeah, well, I can’t tell you when weever had a slam dunk. You got to work to win in this town.” She dropped back down to study the carpet some more. “And that means, collect the evidence…. Marty, could you get that light?”

  The detective flipped the switch, the room going almost black, the only remaining illumination from the kitchen’s overhead light. Turning on her ALS, Catherine bent down and resumed combing the carpeting with the UV light.

  “I’m going to canvass the rest of the building,” Larkin said. “Maybe we’ll get lucky and find a witness who saw Taylor leaving this apartment.”

  She looked up at Larkin, and quoted him: “ ‘Just ’cause he’s a wife beater that doesn’t mean he’s our guy.’ ”

  They exchanged grins, and Larkin was gone.

  She could hear Warrick moving around in the bedroom and Nick clicking photos in the kitchen. Blowing out a long, deep breath, she looked through the orange filter attached to the pen-sized ALS.

  The carpeting was light blue with hints of sea green and purple in an indiscriminate pattern designed to hide both wear and dirt. Though a fair amount of the former was evident, little, if any, of the latter showed up. Angela Dearborn had been a meticulous housekeeper. That much was clear, even among the detritus of what must have been a horrible struggle.

  Spots darker than the purple in the carpet presented themselves—spots that fluoresced nicely under the glow of the UV light, blood droplets that raised up in several places, small scarlet periods punctuating the violence that had occurred here. Marking each one with a small plastic, numbered A-frame, Catherine documented the site. At one point, she found a single, long, dark hair, definitely not the same color as Angie’s. After carefully photographing it, Catherine used tweezers to pick up the hair, then—studying it for a second—deposited it in a cellophane evidence bag, which she sealed.

  At some crime scenes the team would scour for hours, seeking a solitary scrap of evidence. In the Dearborn apartment, everywhere Catherine looked she saw another piece of potential proof. Maybe Larkin was right; maybe they did finally have their slam-dunk case. The lab results would tell. In the meantime, she would follow the evidence wherever it led; but if it pointed to Taylor Dearborn, with his history of violence against his ex-wife, she would allow herself a sense of satisfaction for removing him from society.

  The brutal clash had carried through the entire apartment, and the trio spent the better part of four hours sifting through everything. Catherine offered a silentthank you that the apartment wasn’t any larger, or they would have been on overtime; and now that she was a supervisor, she had a budget to deal with.

  You needed patience for this job, she knew that; and she had plenty—what single mother could survive without it? Still, in a city the size of Las Vegas, even as she was working one crime scene diligently, between one and six more would be turning up. This ugly fact she could not dare forget—not in her new position.

  Once they had finished, packed up, lugged their gear down the three flights back to the SUV, and loaded, Larkin came over to join them behind the open back door of the vehicle.

  “Any good news?” he asked.

  “Well, Nissen was right,” Catherine said. “No signs of forced entry. She probably let the killer in.”

  “Probablyknew the killer, then,” Larkin said. “Anything else?”

  Catherine looked at Nick, but it was Warrick who spoke. “More likeeverything …except maybe the kitchen sink.”

  “Kitchen sink, too,” Nick said with wry frustration. “I found blood drops there, and more in the trap underneath. Almosttoo much evidence….”

  Warrick withdrew an evidence bag from the rear of the Tahoe. Inside the clear bag, on a light-blue men’s dress shirt, spatters of blood were plainly visible. “This was in the bedroom, tossed in a corner.”

  “All this blood thevictim’s ?” Larkin asked.

  Catherine gave him a look. “Marty, you’ve been doing this long enough to know we can’t tell you that till we get back to the lab and test it.”

  Bouncing from one foot to the other, like a boxer warming up before a big fight, Larkin said, “I know, I know, I’m just getting antsy to pay our new pal Taylor Dearborn a visit.”

  “You have an address for him?” Catherine asked.

  Larkin waved his notebook. “Right here.”

  Looking at Nick, she said, “You guys take everything back to the lab—I’ll go with Larkin to inform Dearborn of his ex-wife’s death.”

  Nick nodded, Warrick remained silent and put the evidence bag back into the SUV.

  “I’m sure he’ll be stunned and surprised and saddened,” Larkin added sarcastically.

  Catherine arched an eyebrow. “Aren’t you the same guy who was warning me about jumping to that conclusion?”

  “Hey—even if he’s innocent, he’s a prick who beat up his wife and got a restraining order slapped on his ass.”

  Warrick laughed. “How do you guys out here in North Las Vegas manage to stay so objective?”

  “Go to hell, Warrick,” Larkin said, but he was smiling.

  Catherine’s cell phone rang; she yanked it off her belt and hit the button. “Willows.”

  “Catherine,” said a cheerful, even charming voice.

  Conrad Ecklie.

  “Conrad. We’re just wrapping at a crime scene.”

  Ecklie’s voice remained sweet, but artificially so—he was the NutraSweet of CSIs. “Hope you didn’t forget our meeting tonight—about the swing-shift budget?”

  Shit.

  She had.

  “No, of course not,” she said. “But I always remember what you say—the crime scene should take precedence.”

  Conrad Ecklie had never said this to her. Gil Grissom had. But she knew how Ecklie would reply….

  “Absolutely,” Ecklie said. “It’s my mantra. How are Brown and Stokes making out there?”

  He said this as if the two longtime, stellar CSIs were new recruits.

  “Doing fine. The best.”

  “Well, they’re both competent crime-scene analysts. And I admire your loyalty…. I’ll wait for you here, but hurry, will you? We’re already late.”

  Catherine considered screaming, then said, “Looking forward to it.”

  “Just a small piece of constructiv
e criticism, Catherine. Putting the crime scene first is commendable; but you yourself say Brown and Stokes are capable people.”

  “Right…”

  “Now that you’re a supervisor, you need to start thinking like one. When necessary, delegate. See you soon.”

  He clicked off.

  Forcing herself not to show her irritation to her colleagues, she said, “I need to get back to the office—who wants to accompany Marty to see the ex-husband?”

  Nick and Warrick looked at each other. Nick gave a little shrug. “Warrick’s probably a little less likely to clock the guy.”

  Warrick said, “I’m in.”

  Larkin said, “Let’s get going,” and he and Warrick did.

  Alone with Catherine now, Nick asked, “Mind my asking? The phone call?”

  “Ecklie,” she said. “Budget meeting.”

  Nick shook his head in sympathy. “Guy’s more worried about the price of paper clips than catching a killer.”

  Catherine almost seconded that; then she remembered what Ecklie had said:Now that you’re a supervisor, you need to start thinking like one.

  “Ecklie’s got a job to do,” Catherine said. “Just like us.”

  “I suppose,” Nick admitted.

  “Nickie—you know me well enough to realize I’d never let bureaucratic b.s. come between this team and bringing that poor woman’s murderer to justice.”

  And they set out to do that very thing.

  3

  Monday, January 24, 11:30A.M .

  EVIDENCE STOWED IN THE BACKof the Tahoe and otherwise packed up, CSI Supervisor Gil Grissom gathered his team—Sara Sidle, Greg Sanders, and Sofia Curtis—on the sidewalk in front of the Salfer house.

  The morning sun was losing its struggle to break through the overcast clouds, the sky a tarnished silver, the wind whistling through the gated community. Even so, morning had clearly arrived, putting their nightshift designation to the test. Neighbors now peeked through curtains to get a better view of the commotion in front of Grace Salfer’s place. Few watched for long, however—ambulances arriving in a rush, and leaving in no hurry, were a part of life in a community awaiting death.