Chapter Two
Mining for the Truth
Wednesday Morning
Two brief taps on his open door drew Gil Grissom's attention away from the files spread over his desk. He looked up, a little surprised, as Nick Stokes crossed the crowded space to present him with a quarter-inch-thick folder. Their shift had officially ended almost an hour before, and their case load for once did not require working extra hours.
"Final report on the Tucker shooting," Nick announced. "There's nothing unexpected, and the evidence supports the witnesses' initial statements that it was self-defense."
Grissom accepted the file and glanced through the pages briefly. As he expected, everything was in order, the conclusions concise and well-documented. Without looking away from the folder he asked, "Is Sara still around?"
"She and Warrick are on their way to court. They're testifying in the Reeves murder trial today." Nick leaned slightly forward over the edge of the desk and frowned in curiosity at the open files. "Those are from that armored car heist last spring, aren't they?"
Grissom nodded. "Three of the four suspects were arrested and convicted. The fourth man got away, and none of the money was ever recovered. Over two million dollars seemed to vanish into thin air."
Nick flashed his amiable grin. "How many times have you told us things don't just vanish into thin air?"
"And they don't," Grissom agreed. "Which means the money has to be hidden somewhere." He reached to one side for another folder and turned it so Nick could see the contents. It was from a drug overdose death that had been called in not long after the start of the previous night's shift. "Burton Mahler," Grissom said, "now deceased brother of Benton Mahler, one of the men convicted for the heist."
Nick nodded slowly and picked up the file to take a closer look. "You and Sara worked this one," he noted.
Again Grissom agreed. "At the time we didn't realize the connection between our DB and the armored car case. In light of it, however, some papers we found at Mr. Mahler's apartment may have taken on a new significance." He paused a beat before explaining, "It seems that Burton Mahler owned an abandoned silver mine at Harper Ridge. He won it in a poker game about six months before the armored car robbery."
Nick's eyebrows lifted in eager speculation. "Great place to hide something."
Grissom sat back in his chair and studied the younger man for a moment. "Since Sara is otherwise occupied, how would you like to join me on a morning road trip?" he asked. "I'll even spring for breakfast on the way."
Harper Ridge was more than an hour from the city of Las Vegas. Grissom had declined Nick's offer to drive and now followed a lightly traveled secondary highway. Most of the time the interior of the Tahoe was silent except for the faint hum of the engine and the classical music issuing from the radio – Grissom's choice. The stream of casual chatter he had expected from Nick didn't materialize; he wondered if his traveling companion had nodded off to sleep, but a quick glance told him Nick was awake. The faint frown creasing the boyish features behind dark sunglasses signaled an active mind.
As if sensing that he was being watched, Nick shifted slightly in the passenger seat and looked over at Grissom. "You know, I wasn't really involved in that armored car investigation," he said reflectively. "The investigation had barely gotten started when you pulled Warrick and me off to work a gang shooting. Any chance the brother could have been the fourth man on the heist?"
Grissom shook his head without looking away from the road stretching out ahead of them. "No. Burton was in a court-ordered in-patient rehab program at the time."
"You'd think if he knew where the money was hidden, he'd have tapped into it by now to support his habit."
"He may not have known where Benton hid it," Grissom pointed out with a faint shrug. "From all reports, the brothers weren't all that close. Benton considered Burton untrustworthy because of his addiction. It's doubtful he would have confided that kind of information to him."
Nick was quiet for a moment, his head turned away as he peered out the side window. "So why didn't anyone come across this mine as a possible hiding place before?" he asked, his voice reflecting annoyance that their unit, highly regarded for their record of success, might have overlooked something important.
At that, Grissom spared another glance in Nick's direction. His mouth quirked upward in a one-sided, wry smile. "Because, Nicky, we are after all only human."
"You mean we screwed up."
Grissom tilted his head in a gesture that was neither confirmation nor dissent. "I mean we have our limitations. We gather and interpret the evidence. There was no evidence connecting Burton Mahler to the crime or the missing money, and clear evidence that he could not have been directly involved, so we looked elsewhere. It was not our failure that the fourth man was never identified or caught, or that the money was never found. The evidence simply wasn't there.
"We did all we could, Nick," he concluded philosophically. "Other cases came up. We had to move on."
Nick sighed but said nothing more. A few miles farther along they reached the cut- off leading to Burton Mahler's worthless piece of real estate, a dirt track that would have defeated a less sturdy vehicle. Grissom's grip on the wheel tightened as the Tahoe bucked and lurched over the deeply rutted surface. He had to keep his teeth tightly clenched or risk biting his own tongue, and Nick braced himself against the bouncing with one hand on the dashboard, the other on the edge of the seat.
They finally reached their destination, and Grissom parked the Tahoe near the mine entrance. He saw no other vehicles, even though he had contacted Dan Stevens, the primary detective on the armored car case, to let him know about this possible new lead on the missing money.
"Looks like Stevens is taking his sweet time getting here," Nick observed as he stepped from the car and stretched the road kinks from his spine. "Word has it he's turned into a real slacker now that his retirement is in sight."
Grissom heard the disapproval in Nick's tone but felt disinclined to defend the detective's tardiness. He pulled his cell phone from his belt, but replaced it when the "no signal" indicator flashed. "I'll try the radio," he said, leaning across the driver's seat while Nick went to open the rear hatch. He had no better luck, getting only a crackle of static when he tried to contact the dispatcher back in Las Vegas.
He joined Nick, who had begun loading a few essentials into a backpack. Mines tended to cover a lot of ground, and Grissom could understand Nick's decision to travel light unless he knew lugging their heavy field kits was necessary. If they found anything of interest inside the mine, they could always come back for additional equipment.
"Radio reception is bad, too," Grissom reported as he picked up a camera and a hard hat equipped with a battery-powered lamp, the twin of the one Nick already wore.
Nick eyed the boarded-over entrance to the mine. "So what do we do, boss? Procedure says we don't go in first, but…"
Grissom scanned the area around them, seeing no signs that another human being existed within miles. For all he knew, Stevens had received a call and was unable to reach them to advise them of his delay. "This far out, if anyone was in the vicinity, there would be a vehicle of some kind," he pointed out. He smiled his deceptively placid smile and said, "Let's go mining."
The mine had been abandoned for decades. Weathered boards with painted warning messages almost worn off by time and the elements barricaded the entrance. Narrow gaps between the 1-by-8 planks would have allowed passage of nothing larger than a jack rabbit. While Nick went back to the Tahoe for a pry bar to loosen the boards, Grissom studied the ends of the planks where they were secured to sturdy support posts that outlined the opening.
"Some of these have been replaced fairly recently," he noted, pointing to the shiny silver nails and hammer dents that showed far less weathering than the face of the boards. He took several pictures of the barricade, with close-ups of both the original and newer nails, then stood back while Nick pried loose a few of the boards to create an opening large enough for them to squeeze through.
Grissom entered first, the lamp on his hard hat augmented by his MagLite, which he directed down to the mine floor. Although the ground was more rock than dirt, he spotted what could have been a partial footprint. He glanced up at Nick, who had just cleared the narrow opening, and pointed to the ground.
"Mark that," he said. "It's doubtful we'll be able to get a decent cast, but we'll give it a try after we've checked out the rest of the shaft."
Nick crouched to place a yellow numbered marker and a measuring tool next to the spot so Grissom could photograph the shallow marks that appeared to be the heel and one edge of a shoe print. When he was done, he straightened and slowly turned so his helmet light played over the rock walls surrounding them. The mine shaft curved slightly to the left and lacked the uniform width and shape of a mine in use. Small breakdown areas partially blocked the path, and the shoring timbers looked as if they'd been in place since the beginning of time. Grissom noticed that the younger man's shoulders tensed and his weight rocked slightly forward like a runner poised to bolt.
"Uh…Grissom…" Nick kept his voice low as if unwilling to risk disturbing the delicate balance within the mine shaft. "I know our usual routine is to hug the walls, but in this case…"
"We'll go straight down the middle," Grissom agreed, having reached the same conclusion as Nick.
They moved slowly, MagLites directed downward, but saw nothing to indicate that anyone had been inside the mine within either of their lifetimes. Deep, parallel grooves in the rocky floor indicated that at one time the mine had been equipped with a track for ore carts to transport large quantities of rock from deep inside the shaft to the outside.
The sunlight filtering in from the mine entrance had long since faded to black when they reached the area where active mining had taken place. The shaft widened and showed uneven depth bands where tons of rock had been dug out in hopes of discovering precious ores. In several places they found artifacts from the mine's working days -- large wooden tool boxes whose metal bindings were only moderately rusted in the arid environment. They examined each one, but saw only dusty picks, sledge hammers, and other implements stowed in the boxes.
The amount of rubble underfoot also increased, and the two men had to move even more carefully to keep from stumbling on the uneven ground. In several places they encountered partial breakdowns where shoring had failed and allowed rock falls to cascade into the shaft. Both men found themselves showered from time to time with dust sifting down from ragged crevices near the overhead timbers and flinched when the coarse powder invaded the narrow spaces between collars and unprotected necks.
A particularly ominous clatter of small stones mixed with the cascading dust brought Nick to a dead stop half a pace behind Grissom. "I don't suppose this is a good time to mention that I'm a little claustrophobic."
Grissom turned in place and cast a searching glance back at Nick. In retrospect he realized that, given a choice, Nick chose to examine the more open aspects of a crime scene. But he had never refused to go wherever he was needed. "Is that true?" Grissom asked, his brows furrowing.
Nick's mouth twisted in a wry half grin. "Uh…actually, it is." He shifted uncomfortably, his gaze dropping as a flush of color, scarcely noticeable in the dim light, rose under his skin. He looked up again with a smile that seemed a little forced. "But, hey," he added, "it could be worse." And he moved on, passing Grissom almost defiantly to take the lead.
A little farther along, Nick stopped again, so abruptly Grissom narrowly avoided colliding with him. But this time it was something on the ground reflecting back the beam of his flashlight that had caught his attention. Grissom brought his own light to bear on the spot as well, illuminating a dime that looked newly minted. Nick pulled another marker from his pack, and Grissom photographed the coin in place. When he was done, Nick quickly dusted the coin for fingerprints, finding none, and dropped it into an evidence envelope.
"It's dated 2003," he said. "Someone has definitely been checking this place out."
The mine shaft branched before they found anything else of interest. Grissom stood a moment at the intersection, looking first one direction then the other, and finally turned down the left-hand tunnel, raising his MagLite to shoulder height. No track grooves marred the rocky footing, and he soon discovered why. He followed the path only a short distance before it ended in an enlarged chamber that appeared to have been consigned to use as a dumping ground. Piles of rock dotted the space littered with broken boxes and tools, a rotting leather water flagon, empty food tins -- and a crumpled body slumped against the far wall.
The corpse had been there quite some time, long enough to have shed the distinctive odor of death and decomposition. The skin, dried and darkened like leather, had shrunk over the bones. Longish, grey-flecked black hair clung stubbornly to the scalp, and a plain leather-banded watch drooped over one withered wrist. A large, irregular brown-black patch on the front of the faded sport shirt indicated that the man had not died of natural causes. Shot or stabbed, he had certainly met a violent end.
"We'll need our full kits," Grissom said, his voice oddly flat in the dense silence. "We now have an apparent crime scene."