Once she and Grissom had returned, Catherine went directly into the lab and spent the next hour painstakingly cleaning the asphalt off the casing, dabbing it with acetone, doing everything within her power to make sure she did not damage it. Preserving fingerprints was a hopeless cause, but the casing itself could have other tales to tell.
She found the firearms examiner, a friendly twenty-eight-year veteran named Bill Harper, already examining the bullets that Nick had brought in earlier.
Harper's longish curly gray hair looked typically uncombed and he apparently hadn't missed a meal at least since the Nixon administration; but Catherine knew there was no better firearms examiner in the state.
'Anything?' she asked him.
'Not much,' he replied.
'Nothing?'
'Something, but . . .' He shrugged and stepped away from the microscope, gesturing for her to look. She stepped up and looked down at two different shells. Obviously they had not come from the same barrel.
'Rifling's completely different,' he said. 'Of the four shells, each pair matches, but the two pairs don't match. The pair from the mummy matches the barrel found with the body. These other two slugs are strangers. The only commonality between pairs is they're all the same caliber.'
Nodding, Catherine pulled back from the microscope and held up three evidence bags. 'You want to take a crack at the shell casings?'
Harper's brow creased in interest. 'What have you got?'
'Number one is from our mummy, two and three here are from the shooting at the Beachcomber.'
'Sure,' Harper said. 'Understand, this could take a while.'
'I'll wait,' she said, sitting down at Harper's desk in the corner, allowing herself to lean back.
Watching him work, she counted the hours since she had last slept. Somewhere around twenty-four, she nodded off.
Greg Sanders found Nick at a computer, and presented him with the DNA match for Malachy Fortunato.
'Thanks, Greg. Matched the dental already though.'
'I don't renege on a man who controls so much of my destiny.'
'Smart move.' Sanders shrugged. 'Not much off the guy's shoes, either. He'd been on some sort of loose rock. Driveway maybe. That make any sense to you?'
'Yes it does,' Nick said. 'What about the cigarette filter?'
Sanders smirked. 'That piece of crud was about fifteen years old-barely anything left.'
'Way it goes.'
Now Sanders grinned; the demented gleam in his eyes meant he was proud of himself. 'Got some DNA off it though.'
Nick sat up. 'You're kidding.'
'Not workable, though.'
This guy was a walking good news/bad news joke. 'Thanks, dude,' Nick said wearily. 'I'll bring that game in tomorrow.'
'Yes!' Eyes dancing with joy-stick mania, Sanders departed.
Nick Stokes spent two hours trying to find Brass and had no luck; the detective was not answering his page, so finally Nick decided he'd make the first run out to Swingers himself. At least the change of pace might help him stay awake. Figuring he'd be a nice guy about it, he went hunting for Warrick, to give his fellow CSI a chance to tag along.
He found Warrick in a darkened lab, his head on a counter, snoring. With the hours they'd all been working, this made a whole lot of sense to Nick; and, instead of waking his co-worker, Nick retreated and closed the door.
Grissom's door, usually open, was shut now, lights off. The boss had kept pretty much to himself since returning with Catherine, and Nick wondered whether to bother him. On the other hand, if he didn't check with him, Grissom might be pissed-and Nick hated that.
He knocked on the door.
'Yeah,' came the tired voice from the other side.
Nick opened the door and stuck his head into the darkened office. 'Boss-hey, I don't mean to disturb you.'
'Get the switch, will you?'
Nick did, bathing the room in fluorescent light.
Grissom, catching a nap on the couch, sat up; his graying hair was mussed, black clothes rumpled.
'You look like hell.'
'Thanks,' Grissom said, getting to his feet, stretching, 'you too.' Grissom met Nick at the doorway. 'What?'
'Did Catherine tell you about the dancer that disappeared, same night as Fortunato?'
Little nod. 'Yeah.'
'Well, she used to work at this place called Swingers.'
'On Paradise Road,' Grissom said. He rubbed his eyes, yawned a little. 'Sorry.'
'Even you get to be human.'
'No I don't. And don't let me catch you at it, either.'
Nick couldn't tell if Grissom was joking or not; drove him crazy.
'That place still open?' Grissom asked, meaning Swingers.
'Should be,' Nick said, with a thumb-over-his-shoulder gesture. 'I thought I'd go out there, see if anybody remembered her.'
'That's Brass's responsibility.'
Nick shrugged. 'Can't find him.'
'O'Riley?'
Nick shook his head. 'Off duty.'
'Conroy?'
'The same.'
Grissom considered the possibilities. 'Take Warrick with you.'
'He's snoring in a lab,' Nick said. 'I don't think he's slept in, I dunno, twenty-four hours.'
'Okay,' Grissom said casually, 'then let's go.'
Nick reacted as if a glass of cold water had been thrown in his face. 'What-you and me?'
Cocking his head, Grissom gave Nick a look. 'Something wrong with that?'
Hurriedly, Nick said, 'No, no, it's fine. You want to drive?'
'That's okay. You drive . . . but this isn't official, understand. We're just taking a break.'
'Right.'
'Give me a second to brush my teeth.'
'Sure, boss.'
'And, uh-brush yours, too. There'll be ladies present.'
Shaking his head, Nick went to quickly freshen up. Every conversation with Grissom was always a new experience.
The clapboard barn-looking building housing Swingers squatted on Paradise Road, a couple of miles southeast of McCarren Airport. Fifty years ago, before the tide of the city rolled out here to engulf it, the place had been a particularly prosperous brothel. Now, with the paint peeling and the gutters sagging, the structure looked like a hooker who'd stayed a little too long in the trade.
Even though Vegas was a twenty-four-hour town, the strip joint closed at three A.M., though the red neon SWINGERS sign remained on, with its pulsing electric outline of a dancing woman. Nick eased the Tahoe into a parking place with only about five minutes to spare. Perhaps half a dozen cars dotted the parking lot, with only a battered Honda parked near the Tahoe and the front door.
'Slow night,' Nick said.
'Experience?' Grissom asked.
