Double Dealer

the tourists we're on top of it. Show the citizens he's a great man.'

Grissom's half-smirk was humorless. 'We'd like to solve it too, Jim. We're all working double shifts, what more-'

'Whoa, whoa,' Brass interrupted, holding up a palm. 'Remember me? I'm on your side.'

Shaking his head, Grissom said, 'Sorry. Stress. We're all feeling the pressure on this one.'

'Warrick said it was like a sickness.'

'The flu you can get over,' Grissom said. 'Search for the truth has no cure.'

'Who said that?'

Grissom blinked. 'Me.'

Looking surprisingly fresh in a blue silk blouse and black slacks, Catherine strolled in, a devious smile making her lovely face even lovelier.

'I was wondering who committed the crime,' Grissom said.

'What crime?' she asked.

'So you're the one that ate the canary.'

Her smile widened, eyes sparkled.

Brass looked at her, then Grissom, then back at Catherine. 'What?'

'She knows something,' Grissom said, his own smile forming.

Pouring herself a cup of coffee, she said, 'I know a lot of things.'

'For instance?'

'For instance . . . I know that the same gun killed both Philip Dingelmann and Malachy Fortunato.'

Brass said, 'I don't know whether to laugh or cry. The same killer responsible for two murders, fifteen years apart?'

Grissom remained skeptical. 'We can't say that yet, can we?'

'No,' Catherine said, sitting down with them. 'Not quite yet. But I can prove that both men were shot with the same gun.'

Astonished, Brass said, 'I thought you found a discarded gun barrel with the mummy.'

She said, 'We did. Riflings matched the bullets we found in Mr. Fortunato's head, too.'

Brass struggled to follow. 'But the bullets didn't match Dingelmann, right?'

'No match, that's right.'

'So,' the detective asked, 'how can you say they were shot with the same gun?'

Grissom-arms folded, sitting back-just watched her work.

'Wait,' Brass said, thinking back, 'I've got it. This is just like Brad Kendall, the coffee shop guy.'

'Not quite,' Catherine said. 'Even though Kendall had changed out the barrel, we proved he used bullets from a box in his possession, matching the manufacturer's imprint. We can't do that here-these bullets not only didn't come from the same box, they didn't come from the same manufacturer. Doubtful our man would be using bullets from the same box of ammo, fifteen years later, anyway, right?'

'Right, right, of course,' Brass said, bewildered.

Grissom just smiled.

Catherine continued, 'When a bullet is fired from an automatic what happens?'

Brass sighed. 'The firing pin strikes the primer, the bullet fires through the barrel, the casing gets ejected.'

'Bravo,' Grissom said.

'Shut up,' Brass said.

'There are,' Catherine said, 'three distinct marks on any shell casing fired from an automatic. Like you said, the firing pin strikes the primer. The extractor scratches the casing as it grabs it, and the casing gets slammed into the breech wall before it's sent sailing out of the pistol. Each of those strikes leaves its own individual mark that, like fingerprints, is different for every weapon.'

Eyes narrowed, Brass said, 'And you're saying . . .'

'The shell casings from the Beachcomber and the casing we pulled from Mr. Fortunato's driveway are from the same weapon.'

Brass allowed a smile to form. 'Can we use that in court?'

'There's no way of arguing against it,' Grissom said.

'But couldn't they say this evidence is tainted, because one of the casings was buried under asphalt for years?'

Catherine said, 'The defense can say that, but saying it's tainted won't make it so, and the argument won't fly.'

'Why?'

'You familiar with these guys that collect guns from the Old West?'

Brass shrugged. 'What about them?'

'Lately they've been using these same marks to verify the authenticity of pistols from Little Big Horn.'

'Matching firing pins to shell casings?'

'Yeah,' she said. 'They've dug up shell casings from the battlefield and matched them to firing pins from pistols used by Custer's men. Those casings have been in the ground for over a hundred years. Our casing was protected from the environment between the gravel and the asphalt, and for only fifteen years.'

'Science and history meeting,' Grissom said, loving it.

Brass could only ask, 'And this will work?'

'Yeah,' Grissom said. 'It will work fine.'

'But we don't have the gun?'

'Not yet,' Catherine said. 'But now we do know we're only looking for one gun, and the chances are if this guy hasn't gotten rid of it in the last fifteen years, he won't get rid of it now.'

Now Brass had something to offer: 'It is amazing how some of these guys have a sentimental attachment to a damn weapon. It's put a bunch of them away.'

Sara joined the group. Grabbing a soda out of the fridge, she plopped into the chair next to Brass. She looked at Catherine, but her question was for all of them. 'Why would a hitman . . . gee, somehow that's fun to say . . . why would a hitman this successful have a five-year hole in his career? Then, suddenly, resurface now?'

'A hole?' Grissom asked.

'Yeah,' Sara said, nodding, sipping her soda, 'no one's reported anything on this guy for just over five years. It's like he fell off the edge of the world.'

'Or went to jail for something else,' Brass offered.

Grissom shook his head. 'No, there would have been a set of prints to match, then.'

Brass said, 'Yeah, right. Didn't think.'

'Maybe he was sick,' Catherine tried.

'For five years?' Sara asked.

'Or retired,' Grissom said.

They all paused to look at him.

'Anything's possible,' he said. 'No more guessing-keep digging.'

'Well, fine,' Sara said, 'but where do you look on the Internet for retired hit men?' And she rose and headed back to work, her soda in her hand.

Brass blew air out and said, 'I better get going, too. I've got to hit the retailers that sold those running shoes.' He got up, looked at Grissom and shrugged. 'I guess we do what the man says.'

Grissom nodded. 'The part about keeping the FBI at bay, I got no problem with.'

The detective departed leaving Catherine staring at Grissom. 'And what was that about?'

He tried to shrug it off, but she was having none of it.

'C'mon, tell me.'

'Politics. Mobley wants to let Culpepper 'help' us, then he wants us to make the bust and cut the FBI out of it.'

'Kind of a dodgy game.'

'Yes, it is.'