Before Marlena and Sasha went to Solange Tanguy's house, Breeze was ordered to match up the shoeprints found in Grissom's apartment and match them with a brand and size and, hopefully, a suspect.
One was a delicately-sized high-heeled shoe and hoped to match it to "Lady" Heather Jeanne Paruvski. Another looked like a tennis shoe, a very narrow five or six. Several were large men's prints and figured that they were Grissom's.
But we won't know until we check, Breeze thought to herself.
She scanned the prints and looked them up in the shoeprint database. The high-heeled shoe was hard to match--there were so many she had to sort through but finally matched them to a pair of Steve Madden boots, a size seven. Victorian style ankle books with eye-and-hooks instead of laces were definitely the style of a Las Vegas dominatrix, or so she figured.
The tennis shoe matched several prints, since it was a simple design, but Breeze finally pulled up Keds and made a match. Marlena had told her that the maid was wearing white tennis shoes.
One of the last prints Breeze matched was a unique sort of boot. She had trouble matching it first because the print was worn and second because it was extremely rare. They were almost combat/hiking style, a man's size ten. They were a very exclusive Italian-made brand, called Aquilas, and cost about three hundred and fifty dollars a pair.
Could these be Grissom's?
Grissom never struck Breeze as an extravagant man who cared to spend money on nearly four-hundred dollar boots.
On a hunch, Breeze went on the Internet on the computer nearby and looked up Aquila boots. Unfortunately the only website she found devoted to Aquila boots was the official site and completely in Italian.
Who do I know that speaks Italian?
After racking her brain for longer than she should have, she decided to ask around randomly, starting with Catherine Willows, who might know someone else who did.
"Catherine?" Breeze breathlessly entered her new supervisor's office. The bureau had acted fast and Catherine had been immediately promoted to Grissom's position as soon as word got out of his death. To them, Breeze guessed, it seemed only natural that she take his place.
"What is it, Breeze?" Catherine was doing paperwork and didn't even look up when Breeze walked in.
"Do you know anyone in the bureau whom I can talk to right now that speaks Italian?"
"Why?"
Breeze explained the situation as best she could, "It's for Grissom's case. I have a print from a shoe Marlena found in his apartment but it's an Italian brand and the only information I could find on these shoes are in Italian."
Catherine looked up in interest, a wince on her face, sensitive to the subject of Grissom. "Oh. I see."
"So can you help me?"
"I don't speak Italian."
"But do you know someone who does?"
"You don't really need to know anyone who speaks Italian. Do you know any Spanish?"
Breeze shrugged, "Some."
"Spanish and Italian are somewhat similar. You don't need to read the website, just know enough to navigate yourself to a telephone number and call their corporate office. Find something that somewhat resembles the word you're looking for."
"The corporate office is in Rome."
Catherine shrugged. "So? You're not paying the phone bill. Go. You're wasting time. Arrivederci Roma."
Breeze did a Navy salute—with two fingers—but Catherine didn't notice, for she was once again bent over her paperwork, and then turned on her heels and left, mumbling to herself on how Catherine's stress level had skyrocketed after she'd been put in charge.
She returned to her computers and sat down, blowing her blonde crimps from her face. She stared at the Aquila Footwear website or the "Calzatura dell'aquila di Roma" site.
"I hate you," she mumbled as she tried to recall the Spanish that was lodged in the back of her mind, forgotten along with P.E. and prom dates.
When she gave up, she dug an ancient Berlitz Spanish-to-English-to-Spanish dictionary out from the recesses of her desk and flipped through the pages until she found what she was looking for.
One of the side bars read "Contatti" which to Breeze looked a lot like "contactos", which meant "contacts". She clicked on it and found out she was right. Another option menu gave her the link "Numeri di telefono", which she also clicked on.
Eventually she came to a screen that showed a list of phone numbers. Before each number was an animated flag of a country and then, after it, an extension number.
Adjacent to the small, waving United States flag was the extension 805 and the words, "for English/per l'inglese."
Pursing her lips and taking a deep breath, Breeze picked up the phone beside the computer and dialed the many numbers dictated to her on the screen. She crossed her middle and index fingers for luck, a childish habit she could not break.
It only rang twice before a recording asked her—in several different languages—to dial her extension. Breeze punched in 8-0-5 anxiously and waited, listening to terrible muzak.
Five minutes later, a female voice laced with a heavy Italian accent picked up Breeze's line, "Calzatura dell'aquila di Roma, this is Isotta speaking, how may I direct your call?"
"Hello, Isotta," Breeze began, "This is Breeze Hamelin, calling from the Las Vegas Criminalistics Bureau. In Las Vegas, Nevada? Ah, if I wanted to talk to someone about the sales of your Aquila boots, who would that be?"
"That would be Signore Vittorio Bongiorino. I shall transfer you now, Signorina Hamelin. Grazie per la chiamata della calzatura di Aquila."
Breeze tapped her foot impatiently, clicking her heel against the tile floor. Like Sasha, waiting was not her favorite part of the game. The bad muzak came back for ten minutes and then a somewhat affected male voice said,
"This is Vittorio Bongiorino, how may I help you?"
"Yes. Mister Bongiorino," Breeze sat up straight and fixed her hair as if he could see through the telephone. She explained her story and the case as best she could, having to stop every so often to repeat herself on Mr. Bongiorino's request.
"So what you are saying Signorina Hamelin," Bongiorino said after a lengthy explanation. "You want me to tell you how many of our boots were sold…in America?"
"Yes. Well, in the Nevada area."
"This is for a murder investigation?"
"Yes. An important one."
Bongiorino sighed into the phone. "Well, I am sorry to tell you this Signorina…there is un problema. Aquilas are sold only in Rome. We are a very elite brand, capisca? For Aquila boots to get from Italy to anywhere else is to order them from our website or actually come to Rome and purchase them."
"Can you give me any sales records of the boot?"
Another sigh, "All right. I will see what I can do. What size?"
"Men's size ten."
"Si. You must remember--Esclusivamente italiano. Every Aquila boot ever made is sold in Rome. Finding American sales will be difficult."
"Please, Mister Bongiorino…this is very important…"
"Farò il mio la cosa migliore, Signorina. I will do my best. Give me your number, cara, and I will call you when I come up with something."
Breeze thanked Bongiorino and hung up, wondering how long it would take for him to get what Breeze was looking for.
While she waited she tried to match the fourth print. It was a simple man's sneaker by Avia, a size twelve. The brand sounded very familiar.
Twelve?
The Aquila was a man's ten…the Avia was a twelve. Something didn't sit right. Why would one person have two shoe sizes?
"Well," Breeze said. "Hello…what's this here…"
"Breeze?"
Breeze looked up. Sasha and Marlena were in the doorway.
Marlena was holding a bag, "What'd ya got?"
"Plenty. Sit down, I just figured out something interesting."
Marlena and Sasha each pulled up a chair and put her bag in her lap, "Dish."
"Well, I matched a tennis shoe that most likely belong to Solange Tanguy."
Sasha pulled a latex glove from his pocket and put it on. He dipped into Marlena's plastic bag and pulled out a single tennis shoe, "These are Miss Tanguy's. We just got back from her house. Ked's, size six."
"Great. So that's done. Ah, this one is a Steve Madden boot, style's name is Old Vic. I think it's Lady Heather's."
"Why?" Marlena asked
"You found her prints there."
"Could be Sara Sidle's. We found hers too."
Breeze shrugged, "I don't think Sara would wear high-heeled Victorian boots. That's more my style."
"Hm. Moving on."
"Moving on. I'm awaiting a call from a guy named Vittorio Bongiorino, who is in charge of sales for the shoe that belongs to our next print. It's a special boot made from Italy, called Aquilas. Well, according to Bongiorino, Aquilas are very exclusive and are only available in Italy. You can get them in the states two ways: via the internet or going to Italy and getting them. Has Grissom ever been to Italy?"
Sasha and Marlena shrugged.
"I didn't think you'd know."
"Well, we could know. All we'd have to do is check expense reports," said Marlena. "Tap into credit card histories."
"Well, these boots, they're almost four hundred dollars and I don't know about you but I think Grissom would rather spent four hundred dollars on an ant farm that boots."
"My thoughts exactly," Sasha smirked.
"Anyway, I don't know what makes these boots so special. The website's completely in Italian but what I can gather, they come in one style and a wide variety of colors and are one hundred percent Italian-made leather. There are only two lines—men's and women's—so it narrows it down some. I should be getting sales reports back from Bongiorino soon but he said it would be difficult trying to find any in the states, since they're all sold in Italy."
"Anything else? You said you found something interesting just as we came in," Marlena asked.
"I did. The Aquila was a size ten. The next print I found was a men's size twelve, on an Avia sneaker, which is a brand I do recall being a favorite of Grissom's?" she raised her pierced eyebrow. "I now remember that one time a couple months ago I complimented him on his shoes—"
"Why?"
Breeze shrugged, "They looked new. I said, 'Cool shoes' and he gave me a weird look like he didn't know if it was an insult or a compliment but he said, 'Thanks. Avia.'"
The telephone rang. The three CSI's eyed it and Marlena and Sasha both turned to Breeze, who put it on speaker phone.
"Signorina Hamelin," announced Vittorio Bongiorino in his still somewhat affected voice, "I think I find it!"
"Found what? The sales?"
"Yes. See, I trace the Internet sales, since most people rather buy there than coming to Italy, which is understandable. Though if you can afford Aquila boots, why not a trip to Italy?" he laughed nasally and Sasha cringed as if it was the most uncouth noise he'd ever heard. "Anyway, through Internet sales I manage to find exactly sixty-four people in America who bought pairs of Aquila in the past eight years, which was when the Aquila line started—eight years ago. Those in the state of Nevada? Twenty-eight. Those who purchased men's size ten? Seven."
"Really?"
"Si, Signorina. Shall I send you the list?"
"Sure, that'd be wonderful."
"Wonderful! Just give me your e-mail and I shall go, boom, boom and send it to you."
"Thank you…um, grazie, signore," Breeze said and quickly gave him her e-mail address before hanging up with him and letting out a whoop of relief. "Wowza!" she went to the computer that still had the Aquila website on the screen and logged on to her personal settings. "The sooner we get these names, the sooner we can eliminate people."
Marlena nodded, "And the sooner we find Grissom's killer."