She faxed him the list.
And then Warrick Brown went looking for Grissom.
8
AS CATHERINE LOOKED ON, DR. ROBBINS MATCHED Malachy Fortunato's dental records against the teeth of the mummy. Both criminalist and coroner were in scrubs, but underneath his, Robbins was in a pinstriped shirt and diagonally striped tie with charcoal slacks; he'd had a court appearance today.
It was a little before seven P.M. -Catherine in early again, shift not officially beginning till eleven.
The coroner would study the dental X ray, then bend over the mummy, then straighten to check the X ray, a dance Robbins repeated half a dozen times before waving her over. 'Catherine Willows, meet Malachy Fortunato.'
She smiled. 'At long last?'
Nodding, he said, 'At long last-trust me, this is indeed the elusive Mr. Fortunato. We have a textbook dentalwork match.'
'Well, well,' she said, looking down at the mummy, her hands pressed together as if she were contemplating a fine meal. 'Mr. Fortunato, it's nice to finally meet you. . . . Now that we know who you are, we'll see if we can't find your murderer.'
The leathery mummy had no reply.
'Nice work, Doc,' she said, and waved at Robbins on her way through the door.
'That's what I do,' he said to the swinging door.
Out of her scrubs, Catherine ran into Nick, coming out of the lab.
'Hey,' she said. 'You're in early, too, I see.'
'Hey,' he said. But he looked a little glum. 'DNA's going to take another week-they're completely backed up in there.'
'Doesn't matter,' she said with a grin. 'Dr. Robbins just matched the dental records to our mummy-Malachy Fortunato.'
'All right!'
'You did good with that ring, Nick.'
'Thanks.'
They headed into the break room for coffee. Nick poured, asking, 'When was the last time this office solved a mob hit?'
'A week ago never. Surprisingly little of that in Vegas.'
'Like they say, you don't defecate where you dine.'
'I always try not to.' She sipped her coffee, feeling almost giddy. 'We're on a roll, Nick. Let's get this guy.'
'Sure-what's fifteen years between friends?'
She half-frowned, half-smiled. 'You tryin' to rain on my parade?'
'No way. No statute of limitations on murder. What do you need from me?'
She headed out of the break room, coffee cup in hand. 'We'll get to that. First, let's go tell Grissom what we've got.'
After Warrick explained what they'd turned up at the casino and at the storefront in Henderson, Grissom said, 'This still doesn't prove he's local.'
Grissom was behind his desk, jumbles of papers, a pile of binders seemingly about to topple, and an unfinished glass of iced tea cluttering the desk, as well as assorted displayed insect specimens, dead and alive. Warrick sat in one of the two chairs opposite his boss, and Sara leaned against a file cabinet in the corner.
Sara said, 'But the maildrop-'
Grissom shook his head. 'Our man could just be using the maildrop. And who knows how many slot cards he has in how many names, and in how many casinos . . . in how many towns.'
'What about the shoe?' Warrick asked.
Grissom said, 'That will help, particularly in ascertaining whether he's local. But half a million pair were sold nationally, you said.'
Warrick nodded, unhappily.
Grissom continued: 'For that shoe to be of any real benefit, we've got to find the foot that goes in it.'
Sara smirked. 'The guy attached to the foot would also be nice.'
Warrick sighed and said, 'Tomorrow morning, I can start watching the older tapes at the casino. If our man is local, that's a good place to look.'
'It is,' Grissom said, nodding. 'No luck with the prints? Anything on 'Peter Randall'?'
'No and no,' Sara said.
Warrick shook his head. 'Gris, you really think we're going to track this guy down? I mean a mob hit . . .' He shrugged helplessly.
'You're thinking of that guy at the Sphere,' Grissom said, 'aren't you?'
Not so long ago, Warrick had worked the murder, still unsolved, of a bad debtor who had been shot to death in a glass elevator at the Sphere Hotel-that M.O., though different, also reeked mob.
'Maybe,' Warrick said. 'What makes this different?'
'Among other things,' Grissom said, 'the evidence.'
Before Grissom could amplify, Brass came into his office from one direction, quickly followed by Catherine and Nick from the other. Brass, a stack of files tucked under an arm, gave Grissom a quick nod.
'We've got a positive ID from the dental records,' Nick said, dropping into the chair next to Warrick. 'Our mummy is Malachy Fortunato, a local who disappeared fifteen years ago, owing the mobbed-up casino bosses a whole lot of money. The mummy's a mob hit.'
Warrick-who'd been kept in the dark about the similarity of the wounds on the two murder victims-sat forward, alert.
'The mummy seems to be,' Grissom said. 'I'm still not sure about Philip Dingelmann. But I do believe they were both shot by the same man.'
With the exception of the blank-faced Brass, mouths dropped open all around the room.
The homicide detective stepped up and tossed the stack of files on Grissom's desk. 'We're pretty sure both crimes are the work of an assassin the FBI has monikered, of course, 'The Deuce.' He is apparently responsible for at least forty contract killings across the length and breadth of our fine country, over a period approaching twenty years.'
Perched in the doorway, Catherine asked, 'How do you know?'
'By the signature,' said Brass. 'Two vertically placed small caliber wounds approximately an inch apart.'
' 'Deuce,' ' Warrick said dryly.
'But we're going to need more than just the signature,' Grissom said, 'to prove we're right that these murders share a murderer.'
A brief discussion ensued, as those who knew about the similarities between the corpses skirmished with those who hadn't been in the know.
Finally Grissom notched up his voice. 'We may have a legitimate coincidence in the discovery of these bodies,' he said.
'The timing, you mean,' Catherine said.
'Yes-Dingelmann was killed prior to the discovery of Fortunato's remains, but basically they were simultaneous, unconnected events . . . a murder going down just about the same time as a long-dead victim of the same killer is unearthed. And nothing here indicates the two murders have anything to do with each other. Nothing yet, anyway.'
Nodding, Catherine said, 'But the signature suggests the victims share a killer.'
'Now that's a coincidence I
