Binding Ties

Thankfully, he had little time to worry about it. His phone rang and Grissom told him to grab his kit-an officer had found Perry Bell's missing car.

The parking garage for the Big Apple Casino and Hotel hid behind the main building, which was on the corner of Tropicana and Las Vegas Boulevard. The six-story concrete parking structure was the perfect place to ditch a ride. A cop on a routine drive-through had spotted the local wheels parked on the sixth level, almost by itself.

When the officer ran the car, Brass's APB came up, and the officer called in that he had found Bell's car.

The 2003 blue Cadillac hunkered in a corner, a lonely visitor to the Big Apple. While Grissom worked the trunk, Sara hit the backseat, and Warrick labored up front.

Warrick found several hairs lodged in the seams of the headrest, which he carefully caught with tweezers, then bagged. He dusted the ignition, the dash, the steering wheel, and the glove compartment for fingerprints, vacuumed the floor for stray fibers and detritus, then used the electrostatic print lifter to get footprints from the gas and brake pedals.

When he had finished all that, Warrick went over the seats (as they said in the Vegas lounges) one more time. Just on the front edge of the driver's seat, out of sight (unless you were on hands and knees), he found a maroon spot, the diameter of a pencil.

First he photographed it, then carefully scraped what appeared to be dried blood into an evidence envelope. He hoped the blood wasn't Bell's.

When he showed Grissom what he had found, the supervisor said, 'Nice catch.'

Warrick grinned at what, coming from Grissom, was an effusive response. 'Just doing the job.'

'Get back to the lab and keep up the good work. Find us something that can help us track down Perry Bell's murderer.'

'You got it, Gris.'

As they loaded their equipment back into the Tahoe, Sara cast a tiny crooked smile on him. 'Suck-up,' she said.

Warrick just grinned.

Nine

B ack at the Crime Lab, Warrick Brown catalogued the evidence from Perry Bell's car, sent it off to the appropriate labs, then dug in to try matching the footprints from Bell's brake pedal with the print he'd obtained in Marvin Sandred's yard.

Nothing.

He checked the pedal print against Bell's shoes.

Nothing.

He checked Bell's shoes against the print from Sandred's yard.

Nothing.

Longer it don't,he told himself, sooner it's gotta.

Hadn't Grissom himself said, 'The essence of good police forensics is perseverance?' On the other hand, Warrick's supervisor was unlikely to accept what was known as 'the gambler's fallacy,' that piece of folk wisdom Warrick picked up before kicking his gambling habit: The longer you didn't win, the sooner you had to start.

For gamblers, a fallacy. For this CSI, a theory.

Sara came in, waving a report; she seemed chipper, which considering the double shifts they'd been pulling was either a miracle or hysteria.

'Got the results on the hairs you found in the headrest of Bell's car,' she said, easing up next to where he sat.

He looked up, arching an eyebrow that asked for more info.

She gave it: 'All but one strand matched Bell's toupee.'

'What about the other hairy little devil?'

She offered a shrug. 'A stranger.'

'Could belong to our killer.'

'We'll be closer to knowing when Greg gets through with that straggling strand-root was still attached.'

'Nice.'

She nodded brightly. 'Greg's running a DNA test to match it to the blood spot you got off the seat.'

'Which also may match our killer. Well-can you believe it? Getting somewhere.' He shifted on his chair, frowned in thought. 'Sara, is Greg also checking that DNA against the original CASt crimes?'

'Yes-but he won't have results for a while.' She gave him a pleasant shrug of a smile and said, 'Meanwhile, I'm back at it-just thought you'd wanna know.'

'I appreciate it,' he said, meaning it, knowing how easy it was for each CSI to get immersed in work and not take the time to bring the others up to speed. Tunnel vision, working in a vacuum, was an obvious but too frequent FUBAR in any CSI lab.

He got back to his own work, entering fingerprints from the Cadillac into AFIS. While those ran, he dropped by to see Greg Sanders himself-never hurt to apply a little pressure.

Greg leaned back in a desk chair, feet up on a table, Rolling Stone magazine open on his lap, listening to his iPod.

Warrick with both hands waved at the tech, as if bringing in an ailing plane for a landing, finally got his attention, and Greg smiled and tossed the magazine on the table, put his feet on the floor and detached himself from the iPod.

'And you want to give all this up,' Warrick said, with an open-hand gesture, 'to go out in the field with us?'

Arms folded, rocking back in the chair, Greg said, 'Here's the thing, Warrick-when you excel in a profession and reach the top of your game, you need to walk away and try something else…. You know, before you stagnate.'

'Right,' Warrick nodded, leaning against a counter. 'So is that what you're doing right now? Stagnating?'

'I'm working. Hard at it.'

'Maybe you should take five. Wouldn't want you to sprain anything.'

Greg cocked his head, raised his eyebrows. 'What I'm doing is running your DNA tests.'

'And what have you found?'

'Nothing yet. Perfection takes time.'

'So I hear.'

'Still replicating the DNA.'

Warrick nodded, started out. 'So I'll check back in an hour or so.'

'Sure-drop by. We'll trade barbs and witticisms some more.'

Warrick paused in the doorway. 'Two hours, then?'

'Make it tomorrow-end of shift. Even that's pushing it.'

Warrick smirked mirthlessly. 'Well, what do you have for me today? Anything?'

'How about, the rope that strangled Perry Bell is different than the ones used at the previous two murders? Do anything for you?'

Drifting back in, Warrick said, 'Yeah-consider me officially perked up…. Different how?'

'For one thing-it's older.'

Warrick frowned. 'Older rope?'

'Probably a good ten years. Same deal with the lipstick: It's Ile De France brand, all right; but it's a shade called Limerick Rose, which is what the original CASt used, back in the good old days.'

'I thought that stuff was off the market.'

Greg nodded. 'At least seven years. Copycat's been using Bright Rose-a newer product, but similar shade.'

Frowning, trying to wrap his head around this, Warrick said, 'Are you telling me that lipstick from ten years ago is still usable?'

The tech shrugged. 'All in the packaging. And if someone took care of it-kept it in climate-controlled