Chapter 19

Brass knocked on the door of the Greeves residence where a middle aged man answered the door.

"Las Vegas Police," Brass said showing the man his badge. "I'm Detective Jim Brass and this is Sara Sidle from the crime lab. May we come in for a moment please?"

The man stepped back with wariness in his eyes and led them to the next room where a woman was sitting watching TV. He introduced himself and his wife simply as Mr. and Mrs. Greeves.

When the formalities were over, Brass slowly started explaining to them why they were there, doing most of the talking while Sara watched their reactions. Apprehension followed confusion and was replaced by shock and disbelief and finally horror and grief.

Apparently Vincent and three of his mates were supposed to be studying at a friend's house that evening. A few quick phone calls revealed that most of the boys were missing. Brass had the parents of the one boy that did show up at his house bring him into PD.

Photos lined the walls of the Greeves house; mostly family photos of holidays, birthdays or momentous occasions. One picture in particular drew Sara's attention. It showed Vincent Greeves and a few other boys, all dressed in their football clothes standing in various poses around a massive male lion.

"Um, I'm sorry. Where was this taken?" Sara asked the stricken parents.

"At last year's quarter finals," Mrs. Greeves answered tearfully.

"Where does the lion come from? Isn't it dangerous?"

"Oh no. It's a stuffed lion. It's the school mascot."

"Where did they get it?" Sara asked incredulously. All her research into the African wildlife trade made her acutely aware how difficult it is to bring such specimens and trophies legally into the States.

"An uncle of one of the girls in Vincent's class donated it to the school." Mrs. Greeves studied the photo. "Does it have anything to do with my son?"

The mixture of hope and despair in the woman's eyes tugged at Sara's heart.

"No I doubt it. We are still investigating exactly what happened."

Sara didn't mention that it piqued her interest regarding another case.

"I know that look. What are you thinking Sara Sidle?" Brass asked as they got back in the car.

Sara hesitated before answering. She was pretty sure Brass already knew she was still looking into the poaching case.

"One of the girls me and Greg talked to at the school, her surname is Nieves. I recognized the name from somewhere and I think I know where. There was a Nieves mention in the files from South Africa. I just find it very coincidental that her uncle donated a stuffed lion."

"We don't know it was her uncle yet," Brass reminded her, swinging the car around.

Sara quietly replied with a steely look which made Brass sigh.

"You want to talk to the Nieves girl again, don't you?"

Sara opened her mouth to say something but Brass cut her off.

"I know, I know. Just keep all your questions pertaining to this case. Or Ekclie will have a field day."

Sara gave him a lopsided grin.

"I'll set it up." Brass said.

Back at the lab, Greg found Sara heading for trace.

"Have you eaten anything yet?"

"No Mom," she teased, glancing at the papers in his hands. "What have you got?"

"Hodges came back with a result. He found traces of charcoal, sulfur nitrate, potassium nitrate, aluminum, iron, zinc and magnesium."

Greg looked at her expectantly.

"In other words, fireworks."

"Got it in one," Greg smiled as he passed her the piece of paper containing the results.

"And the samples from the vic's scorched clothes?"

"Same thing. But with strontium salts. Apparently that burns red."

"So these kids were playing with fireworks and something went wrong."

"Very wrong."

When Brass brought some of the other kids in, the whole story came out. In stops and starts the traumatized boys told the story. Vincent and a group of his friends were playing a game with the fireworks. They had to put a lit firework in their mouth and spit it out just before it exploded. Vincent accidently swallowed his. It would have been funny if it weren't so tragic. His death would probably be ruled as death by misadventure.

You did become desensitized to loss of life working as a CSI. As a rule you dealt with people whose death could have been prevented. Natural causes were as a rule not the COD. But the senselessness of the death in this case was worse than usual. This kid played a bloody stupid game and died for it.

Sara stood nursing a cup of coffee outside the school waiting for Melanie Nieves to arrive. Brass had already finished his and stood examining his nails.

"What exactly is it you want to know from this girl?"

"Where her uncle got that lion from for starters," Sara replied taking a sip.

The coffee-house brew was much better than what was on offer in the break room. Although there were things floating around in ponds that would also be an improvement. Fortunately the bus stopped shortly thereafter. Sara saw Melanie hesitate when she saw them approaching her. Some of the other kids hung back curiously to hear what was being said. Glancing at them Sara took Melanie's arm and led her to a nearby bench away from the other students and carefully sat down next to her. The girl didn't look at her, but kept staring at her hands.

"Is it true that Vincent killed himself with a firecracker?"

"It seems so yes" Sara answered. "Will it be ok if we asked you some more questions?"

"I guess," Melanie answered with a shrug.

"Vincent played football, didn't he?"

"Yeah, he was our star quarterback."

"I saw a picture of him next to a stuffed lion," Sara broached the subject carefully, studying the girl's reactions.

"Yeah. It's our mascot. My uncle donated it to the school in my junior year."

Bingo.

"Wow, who is your uncle?"

"Conrad Nieves"

"Where did he get it from?"

"I dunno, my uncle travels a lot. He and my Dad don't really get on well."

Melanie seemed to think for a moment.

"Does the lion have something to do with Vincent's death?"

"No, we're just tying up loose ends," Brass answered, looking pointedly at Sara

"Oh, ok then. Ah… listen I don't want to be late for class…"

"Yeah sure. We're done anyway. Thanks for your help."

Melanie gave then a sad smile and walked away.

"So, does that help?" Brass asked, watching Melanie's retreating back.

"Very much so. There is a Christopher Nieves mention in the files from South Africa. He's an American who was arrested there last year during a sting operation that targeted poachers. His lawyers got him off, but the South Africans have been keeping a close eye on him ever since. They even flagged his passport."

"You think he could be related to this uncle?"

"Probably. It's not a very common surname. Should be easy enough to check."

Sara was very quiet during the drive back. Brass let her think and drove in silence.

"Detective Wolmerans gave me a call yesterday," she said finally. "He said they busted a poaching ring and found a whole bunch of passports. Many of them containing American Visas. Apparently it is very hard to get your hands on one of those. Wolmerans says that if you have a criminal record, it's practically impossible."

"So obviously they're fake," Brass replied, turning into the PD parking lot. "I read somewhere that South African passports among those that gets faked the most. Obviously they know what to do there."

"That's the thing. Apparently they're not. Wolmerans thinks someone on our side is being bribed to approve them."

"That could be a serious problem," Brass said, facing Sara fully. "It implies that Immigration or the State Department might be involved. You sure you wanna stick your head in that beehive?"

"If I don't, who will? No one seems to care about this but me. Wolmerans says he tracked the people involved on their side, but can't do anything to the people involved on our side."

Sara ran her hand over her tired face.

"Thanks for coming with me Jim."

"Anytime. That's what friends are for, right?"

Sara smiled as she got out. The shift was over and the case was solved. She should go home and get some sleep before the next shift. She really should. Instead she logged onto the main network and drew all the information about the Nieves family she could find, copying this to her laptop to go through it at home. She requested a list of the employees at Immigrations that work with issuing visas for people from Africa. She also requested the travel information of Conrad Nieves and Christopher Nieves for the last few years. It would be interesting to see where they had been. It was probably a shot in the dark, but she couldn't think of anything else to do.

Then she went to check on the file from the Ross case. Everything was there, but her report. Sara frowned; she could vividly remember finishing the report. She thought she must have misfiled it. Digging out her personal case notes, she re-wrote it as best as she could remember. It unsettled her that she might have made such a basic mistake. She gave the lab a quick cursory glance, hoping to see Grissom, but he must already have gone home. The baggie of food she brought was gone from his desk, so he must have taken it.

When she got home, she first went to fetch Chris. He seemed his usual boisterous self, but Sara only took him for half their usual run in the early morning sun. Sara didn't want to push him to hard just yet. Chris seemed reluctant to turn back home.

"Sorry boy. This is as far as we go today," Sara told him as they turned to go back to her apartment.

After a nice hot shower and some muesli Sara settled herself on her comfortable bed as Chris joined her.

"Right, let's see what we have."

The file on the Nieves made for some very interesting reading. Conrad Nieves owned many of the older casinos in Vegas. Not the big flashy ones on the strip, but some of the successful old standbys that have been going for years. Greg was right; it was a very old Vegas family business. Sara made a mental note to ask Greg for more information. Conrad Nieves had had numerous brushes with the law, but nothing very serious and no charges were ever filed. It painted the picture of a shrewd and calculated man skating on the edge of the law. Christopher Nieves however seemed the proverbial black sheep of the family. He had gotten himself into trouble in various countries, not just South Africa. He was supposedly staying in one of the family homes in Miami. Sara made a few notes to follow-up. Finally she sent an email to Wolmerans. Not that she had much to tell him, but it was more to let him know that she was following up on his hint.

There were several businesses registered to Conrad Nieves besides the hotels. One appeared to be travel agency. They specialized in organizing trips to Vegas from all over the USA and even from further afield. Sara went to their web-page. It had an icon for international guests. Clicking on that, Sara was given a list of all the services the company supplied. The guests would be staying in one of Nieves's hotels of the strip, the Rift Valley Hotel. They professed to be able to cater to special needs. Sara wondered what that could be. She had a feeling that if the poachers had a base in Vegas, it would be most likely in one of Nieves's hotels.