Chapter 21

Sara was on the phone, updating Grissom on our progress as soon as we stepped out of the Police Department and into the dry morning heat. From beside her, I watched as Sara's facial expressions changed a number of times. She frowned when she told Grissom that we hadn't really gotten anywhere with Montoya. She nodded at something Grissom had said later, though Grissom couldn't see her. Her mouth pursed as a look of understanding, or resignation fell across her face. The right corner of her lips turned up in a crooked smile as she ended the call. On the phone, Grissom had suggested discussing the case over breakfast. Sara relayed this to me and we ended up leaving the clubhouse for Franks Diner instead of the lab.

It was shaping up to be a hot day, clouds not so conspicuously absent from the sky and the blazing sun already beating down hard. A bead of sweat trickled down my face by the corner of my eye. The crown of my head felt like it was baking beneath the rays. It almost felt like a reprieve to step out of the heat and bask in the cool air conditioned atmosphere of our regular greasy spoon. The air may have felt stale and greasy inside the dive, but at least it was cool.

The place was nearly empty, meaning it would be pretty easy to talk freely. There was a lone customer at the far end of the counter and a couple seated at a table across the diner, over by a window. Grissom was waiting for us in a booth. He was facing forward, both forearms leaning against the table and a cup of joe in his right hand. I slid in across from him and watched as Sara slid in beside him. Grissom shifted in his seat to face outwards slightly. As he did this, his left arm came up on the top of the ugly brown polyester seat back. His right arm, hand still gripping that cup of joe, slid along the table and rested against the wall. In a comfortable position, his left arm dropped and disappeared below the table. He took a sip of coffee. Sara reached for her mug and flipped it over. She looked at Grissom. "Have you ordered yet?"

I watched as Grissom shook his head. "I was waiting for you guys. Catherine should be here soon."

The waitress came by and filled Sara's cup. I flipped mine over for the waitress and watched the pretty little blond fill my mug. "Thanks," I said.

The waitress gave me a little smile and nodded. I watched her leave and return with a couple of menus. She was new.

Sara flipped open her menu and started to look through. "I'm starving."

She usually was. For a slender dame, she sure could pack it away. She could get pretty focused at work and forget to stop for anything, including sleep and food, but anytime she had a moment to spare, she could be seen nibbling on something.

"I don't know what you're looking at that for," I teased, nodding to the menu. "We all know what you're going to order."

One of Sara's eyebrows lifted. "Really? And just what is that?"

"You only order either one of two things. Since you're starving, it's not going to be the fruit bowl with yogurt and granola. Today, it's going to be pancakes and eggs."

Grissom chuckled. Sara puckered her lips in a smirk. "What if I feel like an omelet?"

"You don't like your omelets to run," I said, lifting my cup of joe to my mouth.

Sara let out a quick laugh, folded her menu closed and put it down. She turned to Grissom. "How did it go with Camille Vanasse's parents?"

Grissom gave his head a slight shake. "How it often goes, except with a slight language impediment, which may have been an advantage as much as a hindrance."

I raised a brow. "You can parlez-vous the français?" It shouldn't have surprised me. Apparently Grissom had a number of talents unknown to the rest of us.

Grissom jerked a nod. "A little, haltingly. Sofia was there and she's fluent."

"So, what did they say?" Sara asked. She turned slightly to Grissom and waited. Grissom paused for a moment. Sara's lips had flattened out into a closed-mouthed, soft, understanding sort of smile.

Grissom took a sip of coffee, placed the cup of joe down and fingered it with both hands. "After they'd composed themselves, they wanted to know where we were in the investigation. They are waiting for us to release the body so that they can cremate it and take the ashes back to France. They are anxious to get their daughter's ashes back." His left arm came up from under the table and rested on top.

Sara let out a small nod. "And they may have to wait awhile yet. Where are they staying?"

"They're booked into the Wynn."

I took a sip of java. "Did they give you anything?" I asked. "About Vanasse?"

"They haven't seen her for about a year. She went back to visit at the end of last summer. Fava was with her. They said she was crazy about him. They didn't like how she'd run off with him. They said she'd always been filled with a joie de vivre. She loved music, sailing and the sea. When she followed an older man to the desert, they felt like she was throwing her life away and didn't understand it. They haven't been able to maintain touch with her for about eight or nine months. Her calls became really irregular and less and less frequent. They had a hard time getting a hold of her. They thought she sounded sad or washed out and they tried to get her to come home, but she wouldn't." Grissom sipped at his coffee. "It didn't go well for you at PD?"

"Montoya's not spilling any secrets," I said, "but at least we can hold him for possession for now. He's not going to be arraigned today; the line up is too long. He'll make tomorrow's docket though, so if the judge decides to release him on a minor charge with only a fine, at least it buys us a day. Brass is still there, working on him."

Grissom nodded. Sara lifted her mug to her mouth and took a long, slow drink. "You know, that is the most I've heard Montoya's lawyer talk in interrogation."

I nodded. "He usually prefers to do his chinning in front of the cameras. It wouldn't surprise me if that mouthpiece was jabbing at a bunch of newshawks right now."

Sara let out a short laugh. The door to the diner rattled. I glanced up to see Catherine striding in. She slid in next to me and immediately flipped her mug over. "Hey, sorry I'm late. I dropped off all the prints with Mandy to compare, and then I had to make a call to Lindsay and tell her I'd be working late. For once, it wasn't an issue. She's going out to Lake Mead with friends later today."

"It should be a good day for that. It's looking like a hot one."

Catherine jerked a nod. "Did you order yet?"

We all shook our heads. The waitress came by and filled up Catherine's cup. She tried handing Catherine a menu, but Catherine shook her head. "I'll have ham and eggs please, two eggs, over easy."

The waitress nodded. The rest of us put in our orders and I smirked when Sara asked for pancakes and eggs. She glanced at me just after she ordered. The glance was brief, but the smile that accompanied it lingered. I leaned forward on my elbows, drank some java and watched her.

"How did it go with Montoya?" Catherine asked.

Sara and I both shook our heads. I shifted in my seat and looked at Catherine. "We can't find anything to link him to any opiates."

"So far, the only heroin we did find was all Camille Vanasse's," Sara added.

"So, whoever killed Camille Vanasse used her heroin."

"But they didn't touch the bindles, or the baggie. The only prints are Vanasse's and there weren't any smudges or anything to suggest somebody else touched them."

"But she was with Montoya not long before she overdosed?"

Sara nodded. "Yeah, back at Montoya's place."

"Alright, let's talk it out," Grissom said.

Sara frowned. "What if he brought her back there, all hopped up, thinking he could take advantage of her, things got a little rough, well, more than a little if we take into account those bruises on her neck…"

"Which could have come from some bird forcing hop down the pipe," I said.

Sara cocked her head. "Sure, but Montoya's argument still plays. Camille Vanasse was not strangled to death. Doc Robbins did say the vaginal bruising was indicative of rough sex, and as for the bruises on Vanasse's neck, junkies bruise if you breathe on them. Montoya could have got a little carried away. Camille Vanasse freaks out and flees back to the club…"

"And then what?" I asked. "Montoya follows her, trying to make sure she isn't going to spill to Fava? He forces her to overdose?"

Catherine shook her head. "No, an addict like Vanasse? She snorts a little more heroin to take the edge off," Catherine said. I figured Catherine might know something about that. Back when Catherine was Eddie Willows's frau and prancing her pins around the pole, it was rumored she used to take a little something to take the edge off. She looked over at me. "Camille Vanasse was at the club at least a couple of hours before she overdosed, if we go by what the witnesses said. She was in between sets. Unless they are all covering for Harry Montoya…"

I glanced between the two sharp and desirable women. "So how does she overdose? We still only have her prints on the bindles and baggie."

Sara had been taking a sip of her coffee. She placed the mug down and shrugged. "If only she touched the heroin that killed her? She took too much? Was so freaked out that she purposely O.D.'ed?"

"You think that girl pulled the Dutch act?" I asked, not so sure if it played and seeing that Sara felt the same way. She was just playing an angle, without much conviction behind her words. "She liked the nose candy and she couldn't overdose by sniffing."

"What if she swallowed it?"

Grissom shook his head. "No, it was brown powder laced with coffee. If she ate it, some of it would have been left behind in her mouth, in her teeth, or on the inside of her cheek. Doc Robbins didn't find any traces of heroin in her mouth. It had to be washed down."

"There was only one empty baggie with traces of heroin as well." Catherine took a sip of coffee and looked at Sara. "Most of it was probably in the bindles we found, and the rest was probably the stuff Vanasse took up the nose. It's not enough to put her levels up that high, so whatever the other opiates came in is missing."

"They could still be pill form," Grissom said. "There were no injection marks and nothing to suggest it was Vanasse's heroin that killed her."

"So she had to have ingested it," I said, "with a little help."

Sara nodded. "And there were no bottles of water or drinking glasses, or anything in that room to help wash it down."

"Wine," Catherine said. "Doc said the stomach contents contained wine and we found a red wine stain on her dress. The killer probably used wine to mix in the drugs or to wash them down."

I jerked a nod. "So she had to have had help, because pill bottles or drinking classes and half filled wine bottles don't disappear on their own. The bruises on her neck could be from somebody holding her down while forcing her to drink a Mickey Finn. There were a couple of empty slots in the wine rack and a few places available for some missing glasses behind the bar. Something was taken out of that club." I paused. "There was time between the 911 call and the arrival of the cops."

Sara nodded. "So, who had motive and opportunity?"

I shrugged. "Everybody. My money is still on Harry Montoya. He watches her and stews for a couple of hours. He sees her sniffing some more nose candy and lets the wheels turn until he could think of a way to make her murder look like just another junkie overdosing. Vanasse could have had more H. lying around in another baggie, giving Montoya access to the drugs he needed and Montoya could have used the time between her death and the arrival of the police to ditch the evidence. He was laying odds on us thinking it was an overdose."

Sara cocked her head to the side. "Montoya's pretty volatile though. He gets heated and strikes out quickly. He doesn't control his temper. He trashed his own apartment because he got angry over our print powder, and twenty minutes of throwing things didn't calm him down any. He has priors for assault. He's an act first and maybe think about it later kind of a guy. Would he really wait a couple of hours to kill Vanasse? Would he even think about making it look like an overdose?" She shook her head. "No, he would have fit better if Vanasse had died of strangulation."

"Unless he didn't figure her for spilling to Fava until a couple hours later, then blows up, strangles her, sees her heroin and forces it down her throat."

"If Vanasse did spill about sleeping with Montoya, or if they had suspected something, then Fava and Perske had motive and opportunity as well." Grissom let out a long breath. "We need to find the missing evidence."

I scratched the top of my head and took another sip of java. "Alright, if our killer was trying to get rid of some bindles of drugs and some wine glasses, where would he take them?"

"He, or she would trash them," Sara said, her brow pursed in thought. "Not right outside the club, but close enough so that the killer would have time to get back. It probably took a little time to clean up, so our killer probably thought it was better to chance being seen at the club than fleeing from it. You know, we didn't check the dumpsters in the alley for anything."

"No," Catherine said. "The crime scene was inside, and the bruises on the neck had suggested she'd died of strangulation."

I emptied the last of my java into my mouth and swallowed. "Well I'm sure a few birds had to have lammed. They could have killed her and taken the evidence with them, but what connection would they have had to her and why would they have killed her? Camille Vanasse's connection to everything was Fava, so it had to have been somebody from the club. If it was somebody who was still there, the drugs, or the bindles, plus whatever was used to help the drugs along, should be nearby. If we can find where they ditched the evidence, it might be enough to link someone to Camille Vanasse's murder and have it stick."

Catherine nodded. "I'll go back and check all the dumpsters after breakfast. Hopefully they haven't been emptied yet."

"I'll help you," Sara said. She leaned forward and sipped at her coffee. Her brow was still wrinkled in contemplation. Our young waitress came by and set a plate in front of her, causing Sara to have to lean back and lift her arms. Her face softened. The arrival of our food had interrupted her train of thought.

A waft of the aroma of hot grease rose up from my plate and into my nose. I looked down at my bacon and eggs and then across the table at Grissom's order of eggs and toast. I hadn't paid much attention to what he'd ordered at first, but seeing his order across from me caused a slight lift of the brow. I cocked my head to the side. He'd told Sheriff Montgomery he was cutting down on the red meat, but I'd figured that for a quick Grissom quip. Guess he was trying to trim the fat. Apparently that conversation with Sheriff Montgomery had been more telling than I'd originally figured. My mind went back to that conversation, thinking back to what else had been said. My brow scrunched. "Was there a phone line inside Ric's?"

Across from me, Grissom and Sara's looks mirrored my own. Sara chewed slowly on her pancake and frowned. She swallowed. "No."

Catherine looked over at me. "The 911 call came from a cell. What are you thinking?"

"Sheriff Montgomery had said something about the Feds not being able to tap the phone at Ric's because Ricardo Ajala or Nicky Fava and the boys had never installed a phone line."

"Really?" Catherine frowned.

I jerked a nod. The waitress returned with a fresh pot of coffee, filling up our mugs. I thanked her and took another sip of java. "Yeah, and none of us saw a phone line when we processed the joint."

Sara looked across at me and grinned. "Nice work, Greg."

I met her eyes. The corners of my lips turned up. I took a bite of food. Chewing it, I continued on. "Back in the Sheriff's day, it was all about privacy. The Midwest boys were using it as a meet joint, so they wanted to keep it well under the radar. No phone and the back alley location made it really hard to do surveillance on the joint. They couldn't bug the joint without probable cause, but the Feds tried. Somebody inside Ric's swept for bugs and got rid of them all."

Sara looked at me. "The FBI can't place bugs inside without probable cause either."

I shrugged. "Hoover was the Director. He tried that racket all the time. It's one of the reasons the syndicate was able to keep operating in Vegas as they did. When the Feds tried to prosecute, everything would get thrown out of court. When Bobby Kennedy became Attorney General and couldn't get any convictions because of Hoover's illegal bugs and wire taps, Kennedy ripped into FBI Director for it. It wasn't until they put in legal taps that they were able to bust the mob for all their rackets and eventually shut down the mob's interests in Vegas."

"You've been doing some reading, Greg," Grissom said. I nodded. I'd read a little bit about some of that mess when I'd read Lois O'Neill's book, but after the conversation with Sheriff Montgomery, I'd looked into it a little further. I let out a small, ironic laugh. "Back when Ric's opened, they could have left those bugs and gotten a real laugh about failed attempts to shut the place down."

"But they weren't only protecting their own interests at Ric's," Catherine said. "They were protecting their customers'."

"Right," I said, looking at Catherine. "All those high pillows from the Midwest, or suits and highbinders who couldn't be seen hanging out with trouble boys, or those butter and egg men who were put in the black book and banned from casinos, not to mention the parade of celebrities that seemed to pass through. They were the reason the birds from Ric's brought in an exterminator to get rid of all the bugs. Don't you find it odd that the joint still doesn't have a phone line though? It's a different time. Mob interests are out of the city. Ric's is supposed to be a legitimate club now. Why wouldn't they put a phone line in?"

Grissom was leaning back against the wall and seatback with a thoughtful look on his face. "Everybody uses a cell these days, but that could really only account for the past few years." He pursed his lips. "Then again, Ric's is still a private club and discretion is paramount."

I took a bite of bacon and chewed it slowly. Washing it down with coffee, I glanced around the table. "Something is still going on over there, and not just runners coming in and placing bets for crooked suits. Look at the customers, Bernard Leonarduzi, Max Calvada, Sal Marchiano, Sam Braun…" I trailed off, glancing sideways at Catherine. "Plus, the birds who hit up the poker table, Alderman Preston Connolly, Commissioner Jack Archer…" I lifted up a fork of runny eggs and forced myself to swallow. "And the joint has to be making money. Fava has a Chicago bankroll. Vito Fava could not have inherited that much from his father to keep up with his lifestyle, tailored suits, Versace watches, trips to the French Riviera, expensive gifts for his girls… Plus, he had a bartender and a cocktail waitress on staff, one of his own girls all glitzied up for torching, and his pal's showgirl moll in costume. He doesn't put them all on the payroll for his own amusement."

"Maybe it's time we had another talk with Fava," Catherine said.

Grissom nodded. "This afternoon, when you're fresh. Go home after you check the dumpsters and get some rest. That goes for everybody. I'll pull Fava's financials and have them ready for when we bring Fava back in."

I jerked a nod. I wanted to be there when Fava was brought in again, so I figured it would be better to be fresh. We finished up our food and rose to pay. I followed Catherine to the till, with Grissom and Sara right behind us. Stepping outside, Catherine and I waited for Grissom and Sara to settle their bills. When they stepped out, we split up and made tracks, Grissom for the lab, Sara and Catherine for some dumpster duty and me, I traded the heat of the sun and the grease of the dive for a comfortable bed in my cool apartment.