once upon a time. Joy Starr, Monica Petty, Joy Petty-one gal.'
Catherine stopped, their footsteps on the hard hall-way floor like gunshots that trailed off. Her gaze locked with O'Riley's less-than-alert sagacious stare. 'Now that we've confirmed that, we need to have Joy Petty interviewed in more depth.'
He shrugged his massive shoulders. 'I can work this through Tavo-he's a good guy.'
'Can you fly over there, or even drive?'
'I think we're better off usin' Tavo. I mean, he's willing, and he's tops.'
'Then get back in touch with him,' Catherine said, walking again, heading toward the lab where Nicky worked. 'We need Joy Petty interviewed in detail about her relationship with Marge Kostichek.'
'Okay, but Tavo phoned me from the site of a homicide, to give me that much. I mean, it is L.A.-they do have a crime of their own go down, sometimes.'
'Stay on him, Sarge.'
'Will do. Here.' He handed her the folder. ' Background check on Gerry Hoskins.'
'Good!'
Another shrug. 'Seems to be a right guy, got his own contracting business-you know, remodeling and stuff.'
'Thanks, O'Riley. Fine job.'
He smiled and headed off. Catherine caught up with Nick in the lab where he was already poring over the fingerprints.
'What do we know?' she asked as she came up next to him.
'It's looking like Gerry Hoskins is in the clear.' Nick sat on a stool before a computer monitor whose screen displayed two fingerprints, one from Joy Starr's note to Fortunato, the other from Hoskins's fingerprint card. 'This is not his print.'
Catherine nodded and held up the file folder. 'O'Riley just gave me this. Hoskins's background check.'
'What's it say?'
She opened the folder, gave its contents a quick scan, saying, 'Carpenter, got his own business, lived in Scott's Bluff, Nebraska till, seven years ago. Got divorced, moved here, been relatively successful, moved in with Annie Fortunato . . .' She did the math. '. . . five and a half years ago.'
'Okay,' Nick said, 'one down.'
Catherine filled him in on what O'Riley had told her about Joy Petty.
'An in-depth interview with her could really fill in some blanks,' Nick said.
'We won't know until O'Riley's guy gets back, and that could be hours. For now, we stay at it.'
The next print he brought up belonged to Annie Fortunato.
'The wife's prints don't match the forged note, either,' Nick said.
Silently, Catherine gave thanks; she had hoped that Annie Fortunato was innocent. Grissom could preach science, science, science all he wanted: these were still human beings they were dealing with.
And the CSIs were human, too-even Grissom. Probably.
'This print, though,' Nick said, bringing up a third one, 'is a very definite match. Textbook.'
Catherine leaned in. 'The former owner of the strip club?'
'Yeah-Marge Kostichek.' Nick's smile was bittersweet; he shook his head. 'I'm almost sorry-the salty old girl is a real character.'
'Character or not,' Catherine said, studying the screen, 'she wrote that note to Malachy Fortunato.'
Nick's eyes narrowed. 'I don't think it really was written for Malachy to read, do you?'
'No. Our friend Mr. Fortunato was probably tucked away under that trailer, by then-a fresher corpse than when we found him, but a corpse.'
'But why would Marge sign Joy Starr's name to a note like that? What motive would the old girl have for killing Fortunato?'
Nick just sat there, absorbing it all; finally he said, 'I think we need a search warrant.'
'Oh yeah.'
Hopping off his stool, Nick asked, 'We better round up O'Riley-seen him lately?'
'Just,' Catherine said. 'He's probably back in the bullpen by now. . . . You get your field kit organized, and I'll go tell Grissom what we're up to-and see if he can't find a judge to get us that warrant.'
Ten minutes later, Catherine and Nick were moving quickly into the detectives' bullpen. Two rows of desks lined the outer walls and another ran down the center, detectives in busted and battered swivel chairs behind gray metal desks about the color of Malachy Fortunato's desiccated flesh. The skells, miscreants, and marks that made up their clientele sat in hard straightback metal chairs bolted to the floor, to prevent their use as weapons.
O'Riley was nowhere to be seen; his desk-the third one from the back on the far wall-looked like an aircraft carrier. His in-out baskets served as the tower, his phone perched on the corner like a parked fighter, and the desk top was as clean as a deserted flight deck.
Nick ran a finger over the surface and said, 'I wonder if he does windows?'
Catherine called to Sanchez, the detective at the desk behind O'Riley's. 'Where's he hiding?'
Without looking up from his one-finger typing, Sanchez said, 'Do I look like his mother?'
'Just around the eyes and when you smile.'
The detective graced her with a sarcastic smirk and resumed his hunt-and-pecking.
'Leave him a note,' Nick said to her. 'And we'll page him from the car.'
There wasn't so much as a Post-it on that spotless desk top. She turned to Sanchez. 'You got a . . .'
A small pad came flying at her and she caught it.
'Thanks.' She wrote the Post-it, stuck in right on the phone, then, without looking, tossed the pad over Sanchez's way, heading out of the bullpen with Nick on her heels. When driven by a sense of urgency like this, Catherine felt frustrated by the minutiae of daily existence.
They were halfway to the suspect's house when Catherine's cell phone rang. 'Willows,' she said.
'It's O'Riley. I got your page, and I got your note. I'm on my way. Somebody had to pick up the search warrant, y'know.'
'Ah. You're leaving the courthouse?'
'Yeah, what am I . . . maybe five minutes behind you?'
'Yep. You want us to wait for you, Sarge?'
Nick stopped for a red light. 'O'Riley?'
She nodded.
'Has he got the warrant?'
She nodded again.
'Tell him he better hurry if he wants to be there when we question her.'
O'Riley's voice said in her ear, 'I heard that. You tell him to wait till I get there.'
And O'Riley clicked off.
Matter of factly, Catherine said to Nick, 'He wants us to wait for him.'
'Damn.'
'It's procedure, Nick. His job-not ours.'
'But it's our case. . . .'
As the light turned green and Nick eased the Tahoe into the intersection, he shook his head. Ahead of them the sun was just dipping below the horizon leaving behind a trail of purple and orange that danced against fluffy cumulus.
'He wants us to wait for him,' Catherine repeated, not liking it any better than Nick, but accepting it.
Nick shrugged elaborately. 'I don't see why. The old girl likes me. We'll just chat with her until O'Riley shows. Loosen her up.'
Catherine said nothing.
Five minutes later, Nick pulled the Tahoe up in front of Marge Kostichek's tiny paint-peeling bungalow. Darkness had all but consumed dusk, but no lights shone in the windows. For some nameless reason, Catherine felt a strange twinge in the pit of her stomach.
