Double Dealer

Going down with him, the killer put another shot one inch above the first-an insurance policy and a signature. Then the killer pulled the car keys from the dead man's hand, peered over the fender of the car to make sure no one had seen the action. Satisfied the neighbors still slept, he jumped up, opened the trunk, picked up the body and dumped it in, slammed the lid, then got in the front, behind the wheel, and turned the key.

The engine turned over, rumbling to life and, not rushing, the hitter backed the car out of the driveway and eased down the street, just another middle-class joe on his way to work.

There was no one around when he arrived at the vacant lot off Russell Road. None of the passing motorists paid any attention to a guy driving into the lot to dump his trash, like so many others had before him. It took only a moment to find what he sought. To his left, shielded from the road, was the abandoned house trailer he'd spotted earlier. The hulk had already begun to rust, and he figured no one would be nosing around it for some time. Several sheets of its aluminum skin had slipped off. Some hung precariously from the side, others lay scattered like molted scales.

He pulled the body from the trunk, careful to avoid the bleeding skull, and dragged the meat by its feet to the trailer. He shoved the body onto a sheet of aluminum, then pushed the sled of metal underneath the trailer. As a parting gift, he unscrewed the silencer, which he dropped in a pocket; then removed the barrel from the automatic and tossed it under the trailer with the corpse. With more strips of trailer skin, some wood and rubble, he blocked the opening. Then, using his foot, he covered over the blood trail with dirt, wiping out most of the footprints (among so many footprints already), and casually drove off. He would ditch the car elsewhere.

The cell phone rang and shook Catherine from her reverie-cum-reconstruction.

'Write down this address,' Nick said, and he gave it to her, and she did. 'Dr. McNeal's nurse'll have Malachy Fortunato's file waiting for you.'

Within an hour an energized Catherine Willows was driving back to headquarters with the dental records in hand, certain she was about to establish the identity of their mummy.

Finding him had only been yesterday; today, with the victim identified, the search would shift to his killer.

7

AS IF HYPNOTIZED BY A FASCINATING WORK OF CINEMATIC art, Grissom watched the gray grainy picture crawling across the monitor; this was yet another Beachcomber video, one of scores he'd examined over the past twenty-four hours. Right now he was taking a second pass through the stack of tapes that represented the morning of the shooting. Occasionally he would remove his glasses and rub his eyes, and now and then he would stand and do stretching exercises, to relieve the low back pain all this sitting was engendering.

But mostly he sat and watched the grainy, often indistinct images. A normal person might have gone mad by now, viewing this cavalcade of monotony; but Grissom remained alert, interested. Each tape was, after all, a fresh piece of evidence, or at least potential evidence. Right now, in an angle on the casino, the time code read 5:40 A.M.

The ceiling-mounted camera's view-about halfway back one of the casino's main aisles, looking toward the front-included a blurry picture of the path from the lobby to the elevators. At this time of morning, casino play was relatively sparse. Notably apparent in frame were a man sitting at a video poker machine, on the end of a row near the front, and a woman standing at a slot two rows closer to the camera, this one facing it. For endless minutes, nothing happened-the handful of gamblers gambling, the occasional waitress wandering through with a drink tray; then Grissom noticed a figure in the distance-between the lobby and the elevator.

Sitting a little straighter, forcing his eyes to focus, Grissom felt reasonably certain the blurry figure in the background was their victim from upstairs. He hunched closer to the screen, eyes narrowed, watching-yes!-John Smith as he took a few steps, and then glanced casually in the direction of the man at the video poker machine. Almost as if Grissom had hit PAUSE, John Smith froze.

Smith was too far in the background for the security camera to accurately record his expression; but Grissom had no trouble making out Smith as he abruptly took off toward the elevator. Nor did Grissom have any trouble seeing the poker player start after him, get stopped by something attaching him to the machine, which he pulled out, and then followed Smith to the elevator.

As the man on the monitor screen moved away from the poker machine, Grissom was able to note the same clothes he'd seen on the fleeing killer on the videotape from upstairs, right down to the black running shoes.

Damn-how had he missed this first time around? Grissom shook his head-it had all happened quickly, in the time it might have taken him to rub his eyes from fatigue.

Grissom stopped the tape, replayed it, replayed it again. As with the hallway tape, the killer never looked at the camera. Had he knowingly positioned himself with his back to the security camera? Was he a hitman stalking his prey?

He watched the tape several more times, concentrating now on the hesitation in the killer's pursuit. Finally he noticed the flashing light on top of the machine. The killer had hit a winner just as he took off after the victim! Was that what had stopped him?

No. Something else.

Grissom halted the tape. He knew who could read this properly. He knew just the man. . . .

He stood in the doorway and called down the corridor: 'Warrick!'

When this got no immediate response, Grissom moved down the hallway, a man with a mission, going room to room. He stuck his head inside the DNA lab, prompting the young lab tech to jump halfway out of his skin.

'I didn't do it, Grissom,' Greg Sanders said. 'It's not my fault!'

This stopped Grissom just long enough for him to twitch a tiny smile. 'I'm sure you didn't do it, Greg- whatever it is. Have you seen Warrick?'

'Last I saw him, he and Sara were working on AFIS . . . but maybe that was yesterday. . . .'

At that, Grissom frowned. 'Precision, Greg. Precision.'

Back in the hallway, he moved on in his search, and almost bumped into the lanky Warrick, stepping around the corner, typically loose-limbed in a brown untucked short-sleeved shirt and lighter chinos.

'You rang, Gris?'

Grissom was on the move again. 'Come with me-I want to show you something.'

Back in his office, Grissom played Warrick the tape-twice.

'Well?' Grissom asked.

There was never any rushing Warrick; his eyes were half-hooded as he played the tape for himself one more time.

Then Warrick said, 'Looks to me like he's pulling a casino card from the machine.'

Grissom smiled. 'And we know what that does for us.'

'Oh yeah. Casino can track the card. They can give us the name on the card.' Warrick frowned in thought. 'You don't suppose the killer's local?'

'I don't suppose anything,' Grissom said. 'But that possibility hasn't been ruled out. . . . What are you working on?'

Warrick jerked a thumb toward the door. 'Sara and me, we were working on tracing the sender of a piece of e-mail on Dingelmann's Palm Pilot.'

Grissom frowned. 'Dingelmann?'

Warrick gave him a look. 'That's the victim's name-Philip Dingelmann.'

'Were you waiting for Christmas to give it to me?'

'Didn't you see Brass's report-it's on your desk.'

Grissom nodded toward the monitor. 'I've been in here a while.'

'You were in here yesterday when shift ended. This is a new shift, Gris. You oughta get some sleep, maybe even consider eating a meal now and-'

'Dingelmann! Chicago. The mob lawyer?'

Warrick, now wearing his trademark humorless smirk, just nodded.

Grissom put a hand on Warrick's shoulder. 'Okay, let Sara work the e-mail; she's the computer whiz-you're my resident gambling expert.'