Warrick said, 'Two bullets in the back of the head, Gris, that's a sign of mob displeasure that goes
'This is more specific-vertically placed shots in this exact same location, an inch apart. That struck me from the start, not as a coincidence, but as the signature we now know it is.'
Grissom sat forward. 'After I examined your mummy, Nick . . . Catherine . . . I told Jim my theory, and he got his people digging in the national computers.'
Brass tapped the stack of files on Grissom's desk-twice. 'This guy is not tied to any one organized crime family, in any one part of the country. He is apparently a freelancer with a shared client base-no one knows what he looks like and, as far as we can ascertain, no one's ever seen him in action . . . and lived to tell.'
'We already knew we had a contract assassin who did mob hits,' Sara pointed out. 'We now believe two murders, fifteen years apart, were the work of the same assassin. Other than that . . . how does this help us?'
'It's more than we had,' Grissom said. 'We have context, now-we have direction.'
'Swell,' Catherine said. 'What do we do different?'
'Nothing.' His gaze met hers, then swept around the room including them all. 'We still operate as if it's two separate cases . . . but now we keep everybody informed about what we learn. Catherine, you and Nick keep working on the mummy. Like Brass says, we need corroborating evidence. Find it.'
'You want us to prove this is the same hitter,' Nick said.
Catherine, an eyebrow arched, stared at Grissom.
He looked back at her for a second. 'No,' he said to Nick, but holding her gaze. 'Follow the evidence-it's still possible we might have two murderers.'
Catherine smiled.
'What about the farm team?' Sara asked.
Grissom turned to Warrick. 'Watch those hotel tapes till your eyes bleed. . . . Sara, I want you to find out everything that's known about this killer. Study the files, but dig deeper. Look for linkages. Maybe other investigators missed something.'
She nodded.
'Nicky,' Grissom said, 'get the bullets from both cases to the firearms examiners for ballistics tests.'
'Sure thing,' Nick said. 'But, uh . . .'
'But what?'
Nick shrugged. 'We already know the riflings on the bullets match the gun barrel found half-buried next to Mr. Fortunato.'
Grissom nodded. 'The killer ditched the barrel, yes, but maybe he didn't ditch the gun. We've still got bullets with a matching caliber on these two murders. We've got to cover all the bases.'
Warrick had been studying his boss, and his voice conveyed confusion as he said, 'I don't get it, Gris. Why do you think Dingelmann may not have been a mob hit?'
'Just staying objective.'
'I'm the subjective asshole,' Brass said, pointing a thumb to himself. 'Philip Dingelmann was getting ready to represent Charlie 'The Tuna' Stark in the biggest mob trial since Gotti-why kill him? He's a golden mouthpiece, who'd already gotten Frischotti off, and Vinci, and the two Cleveland guys, Tucker and Myers.'
'What was he doing in Vegas?' Warrick wondered aloud.
Brass shrugged. 'This was probably his last chance to blow off steam, 'fore going into the tunnel of the trial.'
Nodding, Warrick said, 'Yeah, yeah . . . but why kill him?'
No one had an answer for that.
'Let Jim here worry about motive,' Grissom told his unit. 'Concentrate on the only witnesses who never lie: the evidence.'
Nods and smiles, all around-they'd heard it before.
Brass said, 'We've done a lot over the years to get the mob influence out of this city. We need to catch this son of a bitch to remind these scumbags this is not their turf anymore-it's never going to be like the old days again.'
The homicide detective told Grissom the files were copies for the unit, reminded the others to stay in touch, and slipped out.
'Personally,' Grissom said, now that Brass was gone, 'I think we owe less to the city fathers, and more to our two victims. Time doesn't lessen the injustice done to Malachy Fortunato-and an unsavory client list doesn't justify what was done to Philip Dingelmann.'
Warrick and Sara exchanged glances.
'So,' Grissom said, cheerfully. 'Let's go to work.'
Outside the office, Catherine stopped Nick with a hand on his elbow. 'After you get those bullets dropped off, can you check something for me?'
'Sure-what?'
'Mrs. Fortunato mentioned a dancer her husband was involved with at the time of his disappearance. She said the dancer . . . a stripper . . . disappeared the same day as her husband.'
'Do we have a name?' Nick asked.
'Joy Starr. It may be a stage name. . . .'
'You think?'
'Either way, Nicky, we need to find her if she's out there somewhere. Preferably, alive.'
'You mean she could be another corpse, hidden away someplace?'
'Definite possibility.'
Nick sighed. 'Know anything else about her?'
'Not much. She worked at Swingers-that dive out on Paradise Road. When she was dancing, it would have been a little nicer than now.'
'And?'
'And what?'
'She worked in a strip club before disappearing fifteen years ago? That's it?'
'That's it. Maybe you can round up one of Brass's people and go out there-though this many years later . . . Check the newspaper websites first. Check missing-persons records-she apparently dropped out of sight when Fortunato did.'
He shot her one of his dazzlers. 'Hey, if you want me to hang out at a strip club, I guess I can make the sacrifice.'
'First, check the records. That club, at this late date, is a real long shot.'
'Okay. What about you?'
Catherine was on the move already. 'I'm going back to the house. Back when Malachy wasn't a mummy yet, this was a missing persons case. Now it's the scene of a murder.'
'A crime scene,' Nick said, understanding.
Catherine wheeled the Tahoe out of the lot and pointed it toward the Fortunato home. She was considering calling in O'Riley, but decided against it. This was an evidential fishing expedition, and didn't involve interrogation; not a lot of point in him wasting time, too.
On her way, on her cell phone, she called the Fortunato home, got Gerry Hoskins, and asked if it would be all right to come around at this time of evening.
When she arrived, Catherine told Mr. Hoskins what she would be doing and got his okay. Annie was lying down, he said, and he wanted her to try and rest, after the stress of today's news.
Understandable.
While Catherine prepared, Hoskins moved their two cars out of the driveway and onto the street. The scene had been done once, fifteen years ago, and now she hoped to turn up something those guys had missed. Although massive changes had occurred in the science of investigation since then, sometimes you just had to fall back on the old stuff.
Hauling the metal detector from the back of the Tahoe, Catherine pulled the headphones on, cranked the machine up, and started at the end of the driveway nearest the street. Moving slowly back and forth, Catherine
