"Hi, this is Nick Stokes calling from the Las Vegas Police Department. I just need to ask a few questions about deliveries made the evening of the twenty-fourth to the Las Vegas Repertory Theater." He leaned back in the chair and stared up at the ceiling. This was the sixth florist he'd called that morning, and the only difference so far had been in the level of alertness in each of the clerks.
"I'm sorry, but information on our clients' purchases is confidential," the clerk sniffed.
"Right." Nick rolled his eyes at the crack in the ceiling. "Look, I can be there in about a half an hour with a warrant, or we can make this easier on both of us and you can just give me the information."
Two lab techs passed by the niche Nick was in, discussing the results of some test, heads bent close together over a LVPD folder in discussion. A phone rang in the distance. Someone laughed throatily.
"If you'll give me just a few minutes to call that information up," the clerk finally said.
"Your cooperation in this matter is appreciated," Nick replied, and was glad he was talking over the phone instead of in person. The smirk forming on his lips wouldn't be very PR friendly.
At least, there was a smirk forming until the clerk put him on hold and "You Light Up My Life" began playing.
He pulled the receiver away from his ear and stared at it in horror for a few seconds, finally settling for holding it away from his head. He could still hear faint strains of the music, but it was no longer quite so jarring.
It had started somewhere in the middle of the first chorus, and ran through to the end and then started again on the first few bars before the clerk picked up the phone on his end again.
"I'm sorry, I have no deliveries for the Las Vegas Reperetory Theater for that evening," the man informed him primly.
"Right." Nick ground his teeth in frustration. "Thank you for your help."
The clerk hung up without even a goodbye.
The next two florists were also a bust, and that exhausted his list. He was resting, head in hand, glaring at the list, when Erin Conroy knocked on the table next to him to get his attention, startling out of his haze.
"They told me you were calling florists." He just stared at her. "Anyway, I figured you might be going about it the hard way." A manila folder dropped down in front of him, narrowly missing his nose. "Carter James's credit card records. Look at the night of the twenty-fourth."
He sat up abruptly and opened the folder. "Two dozen red roses, D'Angelo's Florists." That fit with what Mallory had told them - that the man delivering the flowers hadn't been a delivery man. "I wonder what Carter James looks like?"
"Keep looking."
Nick flipped over the credit card statements and saw a color copy of a 4"x6" photo of Bianca Tolmen wearing Mickey Mouse ears, standing next to a young man - blond, built, wearing a polo shirt and slacks. Mallory Smith's description had been perfect.
"I think we may have just cracked this case wide open," he said with a grin, and when he looked up, Erin was smiling back at him.
The hiking trail that Sara's directions led her to was a good half hour outside of Vegas proper, and she had to pull the Tahoe off-road to park behind the other Tahoe that Grissom had driven to the scene, which was in turn parked behind a police cruiser, its red and blue lights flashing silently in the pre-dawn. Sara followed the trail just ahead of the cruiser, keeping her flashlight trained on the ground in front of her as she made note of the scuffs that lead to the crime scene. The tracks had been hopelessly compromised, first by the hikers who had discovered the body, then by the park ranger who had been called in, and finally by the officer who had responded to the 419 page.
Though it amused her to no end that alongside the trail she saw careful methodical steps and recognized the tread from Grissom's shoes.
The body was in an area remarkably similar to where Kaye Shelton's had been dumped, though they were on the other side of Vegas, and Sara had to pause for a moment on the crest of the hill and swallow hard against the memories. They would revisit in dreams during the day, of that she was sure, but for now they would have to be tucked away deep inside.
Halfway down the hill, something caught her eyes, and she veered right, shining her flashlight into the bushes. There it was again - a slight movement. She knelt down and stuck her flashlight between her teeth, grimacing at the metallic taste, manipulating the beam with her lips as she balanced on one hand and pushed aside the bushes with the other.
Hiding under the tumbleweed and covered in dust were charred remains of clothing; a few scraps of denim, and a slightly larger piece of tan material. Tan material with a dark brown stain on it - blood. Sara pushed her face as close as she dared, spreading the bushes aside, but couldn't see any further. Either way, it was quickly apparent to her that the fire hadn't burned here. The remnants had been jumbled into a pile, and if there had been flames anywhere near the tumbleweed, dry and cracked from the summer heat, it too would have gone up in flames.
Squirming backwards, she stood up and wiped the dust from her black jeans and then took the flashlight out of her mouth and tucked it back into her belt in order to free both her hands to reach into her evidence kit and pull out her camera. Sliding the evidence card as close to the bush as she could still get it and keep the number visible, she photographed repeatedly and then set the camera aside.
With tweezers, she was able to separate three small pieces of denim, the largest the size of her palm. The tan fabric hadn't burned as easily for whatever reason - it was flimsier than the denim, and so in theory would have burned faster. Perhaps it had been rolled inside the jeans? The creases in the fabric certainly seemed to indicate so. Working carefully to make sure the larger piece - about a six by eight inch flap, charred at the edges - didn't snag on the bush, she bagged it. After that there were four smaller pieces of tan fabric, all equally splashed with brown, the smallest of which was still larger than the biggest piece of denim.
When that was finished, she gathered up the ash - or as much ash as was left. The movement that had originally caught her eye had been the tan fabric flapping in the breeze that had begun to idly scatter the white motes to the winds. Fully half of the bag would probably be eliminated as the sand of the desert and Sara bagged an exemplar of that, too. Once the area was clear, her suspicions were confirmed: there were no scorch marks on the cracked ground or the few rocks that were exposed to the elements.
"Sara! What are you doing up there?" Grissom's voice was irritated, and she rolled her eyes while her back was still to him.
"Evidence," she sing-songed back, knowing that a playful stance would likely dissipate his bad mood, and even if it increased his temper, she would still be amused. "Some charred pieces of clothing under this bush. Covered in blood. I'm thinking the perp tried to burn the evidence."
"Oh," he huffed as she continued precariously down the slope, and his arm jerked out involuntarily as she slid slightly more than she'd intended and careened wildly to regain her balance. She didn't take his hand, but smiled at him gratefully for offering it.
"Where's the body?"
"Down here," he said, and she followed him down to a hollow underneath a jutting rock where flies were humming busily. She winced, and it was his turn to be playful. "They're having quite the party."
"Yeah," she said with a grimace, swatting with a free hand. "How long have they been having their party?"
"I'll need to bring samples back to the lab, but at first guess, no longer than twenty-four hours." Grissom knelt down by the body, and Sara followed suit.
The face was wedged into the ground, but at first glance, the injuries the corpse had sustained prior to death seemed consistent with the amount of blood on the walls of Carter James's apartment. The flies were feasting at any of a dozen open wounds on the back alone, and the victim's clothing had been soaked clear through and looked to have crusted through as well from the sheer amount of blood.
She reached a gloved hand down and slid the shirt up a few inches. "Lividity," she observed, and pressed a finger against the dark skin closest to the ground. "Fixed, too." The skin had not paled where she'd pushed against it.
"But he was moved," Grissom pointed out, and touched his finger a few inches up from where she had just pressed, indicating a reddish stain that covered most of the lower back. "At some point, he was lying on his back."
Sara thought back to the pool of blood on the apartment floor, where Catherine had extrapolated that Carter James had died, and nodded in agreement. She didn't bring the coincidence up, however, knowing Grissom would prefer to keep all prior assumptions about the victim's identity out of the picture for now.
Irritably, she swung at another fly as it buzzed past her ear. "Still never get used to this part."
It was an old argument, and a rhetorical statement, one he merely grunted in response to as they both stood up. They knew each other well enough to know that Grissom would already have tended to the routine of evidence gathering as well as to the initial insect collection in the forty-five minutes it had taken Sara to return to the labs and log in the evidence from James's apartment.
They both stood a few feet off from the body and Grissom motioned for David to come in with the gurney to collect the body. Grissom looked on anxiously as the experienced coroner rolled the body and, with the assistance of an orderly, hefted it onto the gurney. Sara tiptoed forward and looked carefully at the victim's insect-ravaged face.
"That's Carter James," she confirmed, remembering the smiling young man from the pictures on his mantelpiece and from the photographs stuck into Bianca Tolmen's dressing table mirror. "There goes our best suspect."
"Not necessarily," Grissom chided. "We need to pinpoint time of death a little closer. Warrick was working on the security tapes, and Nick was tracking down florist shops. He's still a viable suspect for Bianca's murder. The question becomes, was his own murder related to hers?"
"Revenge or serendipity?" Sara wondered aloud.
"The PD are working on cracking Sam Tolmen's alibi as we speak. We'll know soon enough."
"Well, if it's not related, this case just got a whole lot more complicated." Sara pulled out her flashlight again. "You want perimeter or resting place?"
"Elton Software Systems," Warrick muttered to himself as he thumbed through the yellow pages, his finger coming to rest on the line with the appropriate number. They were located out of Reno. He frowned slightly in memory as he reached across for the phone and dialed.
"Elton Software Systems," the crisp voice on the other end of the line said. The first ring hadn't even finished yet.
"This is Warrick Brown, Las Vegas Crime Lab," he said, leaning back in the chair. "I'm going to need to speak to someone in human resources."
"One moment please."
Strains of a symphony Grissom would have been able to identify played for about thirty second, and then with a click, another voice spoke into the phone. "Maureen Reynolds, Human Resources Manager. What can I do for you?"
"I just need a few minutes of your time to help with an ongoing criminal investigation, Ms. Reynolds," he said, keeping his tone just this side of ingratiating.
"I should warn you, we will not release any employee records without a warrant," Maureen returned, her tone still light and pleasant.
"No more than I expected," he answered in the same tone. "No, for right now, I just need to know who in your company would have access to a baseball cap with your company's logo stitched on it."
"What color was the stitching?"
He narrowed his eyes in surprise. "What?"
"What color was the stitching?" she repeated patiently. "We re-issue baseball caps with the company logo each fall to all new employees at the company picnic. There's a five-year color rotation. If you can tell me what color the stitching on the cap in question is, I can give you a year."
Warrick shuffled through his pictures until he came to the one of the slight young man. "I'm working from a black and white screen capture, so I can't give you much, but it's definitely lighter. White, or a light color."
"This fall's color was silver, and three years ago was white," she supplied. "The other three colors are red, blue, and green, all darker. I don't think they'd look light in a black and white photograph."
"So I'm looking for someone hired either this fall or three years ago?" He tapped the photograph idly.
"Or six or nine falls ago. Like I said, we're on a five-year rotation."
"No, this cap is well-worn, but it's definitely newer than six years. Thank you for your help."
"Is there anything else I can help you with today, Mr. Brown?"
"Ah - yes, just one last thing." He yanked the receiver back from its journey back to the cradle to be hung up. "This is an embarassing question, but what does your company do?"
"We're contracted to develop new computer and video game gambling software for several of Las Vegas's largest casinos," Maureen stated, and the phrase had the well-polished feel of a company line. "I can mail you some brochures if you like."
A chill settled deep in his gut as he stared at the young man in the picture. "No - no, thank you, you've been extremely helpful."
"Elton Software Systems is always glad to contribute to the community," she said, and once again Warrick recognized the ring of a company line. "If you have any further questions, please don't hesitate to contact us again."
"I won't," he reassured her, and set the phone down, staring at it for a few seconds before picking it up again and dialing.
"Conroy," the voice on the other end breezed.
"Hey," he said, and leaned back and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Just wondering where you were on Sam Tolmen's alibi."
"Quite the coincidence, Warrick," she teased. "I'm in the hospital parking lot right now. The nurse who checked on Bianca at nine-thirty, ten o'clock, and ten-thirty AM yesterday was able to recall that she didn't see Sam during any of those check-ups."