him up, either. He had a tender touch, Malachy. But he was selfish, and weak, too-that's what led him to embezzle from the Sandmound, you know . . . the casino where he worked.'
Tavo said nothing, letting her tell it in her own time, in her own way.
'I stripped at a bar called Swingers. I'd been there since the owner, Marge Kostichek, took me in when I was fifteen. Marge knew that once the mob found out Mal was embezzling they'd kill him, and anybody who had anything to do with him. So, she beat them to the punch.
'She hired this guy who did these mob hits. I don't know how she knew about him, how to contact him; I heard Swingers was a money laundry for some mob guys . . . I just heard that, you know . . . so maybe that was how. Anyway, hiring this guy cost her most of the money she'd saved over the years. The rest she gave to me along with a bus ticket to L.A.'
'Excuse me, Ms. Petty-I want to remind you that I did advise you of your rights.'
'I know you did. See, I didn't know Marge did it, till years later. I thought . . . I thought the mobsters had Malachy killed. And Marge told me I was in danger, too, and put me on that bus. And I went willingly. I was scared shitless, believe me.'
'So . . . you stayed in touch with Marge over the years?'
'Yes-we wrote to each other regularly. She even came out to visit a few times.'
'Have you been back to Las Vegas?'
'I'm not that brave.'
'So how did you come to find out the truth?'
'Maybe five years later, when she visited me. I was in Reseda at the time. We spent a long evening, drinking, reminiscing . . . and she spilled her guts. I think she felt guilty about it. I think she'd been carrying it around, and she told me how about, and cried and cried and begged me to forgive her.'
'Did you?'
'Sure. She did it to save me, she thought-those mobsters mighta killed me, too,
'I see.'
'Do you? End of the day, I loved her a hell of a lot more than I did that candy ass Malachy. . . . Listen, Officer-I need to use the restroom.'
And that was the end of the taped interview.
O'Riley covered for his pal Tavo in L.A. 'Hey, she wasn't under arrest or anything. She came in voluntarily. He let his guard down. By the time he got a female officer to check the john, and hunted down his partner, they were fifteen minutes behind her, easy.'
'Plenty of time,' Nick said, 'for Joy to pack up and get out of Dodge . . . but why? Why did she run?'
Grissom was staring at the blank screen.
'Running is all she knows how to do,' Catherine said, with an open-handed gesture. 'That's what she's done her whole life. It started at fifteen when she ran from her parents, and she's never stopped since.'
'And Marge Kostichek was just trying to help the poor girl,' Nick said, bleakly.
'You don't win Mother of the Year,' Grissom said, 'by hiring a hitman to commit first-degree murder.'
15
ABOUT THE TIME O'RILEY AND NICK FOUND MARGE Kostichek's body, Warrick was hunkered over a computer monitor in the layout room at work. His eyes burned and his temples throbbed and his neck muscles ached. A while back Sara had stopped by to tell him about the bewildering background search on Barry Hyde's personal history, and Warrick had told her that Hyde's business life was proving equally messy and mysterious.
'No matter what I learn,' he'd said to her, ' something else suggests the opposite.'
'I know the feeling,' she'd said.
Now, an hour later at least, things were messier and more mysterious. Although the business spent money buying the latest video releases, A-to-Z did little advertising and had the worst rental rates around. Patrick the pot-smoking manager had copped to the store's light traffic, and yet every month Hyde paid what Warrick considered an exorbitant rent in addition to buying more and more movies. Where did the money come from?
He turned away from the monitor's glow, rubbing his eyes, wondering where he would search next.
That was when Brass stumbled in, exhausted and a little disheveled, looking for Grissom.
'Not sure where he is,' Warrick said. 'One minute he was here, then O'Riley called from Kostichek's house.'
'What was it?'
'Frankly, sounded like your ballpark-I think Marge got sent to that big strip club in the sky.'
Brass's well-pleated face managed to tighten with alarm. 'You don't think it's the . . .'
'Deuce if I know,' Warrick said.
Brass slipped into a chair next to Warrick, slumping. 'The more we work on this, the more bizarre it gets.'
With a slow nod, Warrick said, 'Tell me about it. It's like that damn video store-hardly any business, you wouldn't think much cash flow, and yet Hyde seems to have plenty of dough.'
The cop grunted a humorless laugh. 'What do you make of Hyde traveling all the time?'
'If he's the Deuce, maybe he's got gigs all around this great land of ours.'
Brass shrugged. 'So we just trace where he went. And see who got murdered, or disappeared, there.'
'I'm all over that-for what good it's doing. No record of Barry Thomas Hyde on any passenger manifest for any airline . . . ever.'
'Some people hate to fly. Maybe he drives.'
Warrick shook his head. 'Last month, when he was traveling, his car was in a Henderson garage getting serviced.'
'What about ren-'
'No rental records. And he doesn't have a second car-I mean, he's unmarried, no record of a divorce or kids, either.'
'What are you telling me?'
'That the guy leaves town regularly. He doesn't fly, drive his own car to get there, or even rent a car.'
'Bus? Train?'
'No records there, either. For a guy who gets around, there's no sign he ever left home.'
Brass smirked. 'Just that calendar and that pothead's word.'
'Why would Hyde tell his video store staff he was gonna be out of town, if he wasn't?'
'Well, then he's got another identity.'
'Our maildrop guy, Peter Randall, maybe? That's the only thing that makes sense-particularly if he's still taking assignments as the Deuce, despite the lack of bodies that've turned up in the past few years.'
Brass stared into nothing; then he shook his head, as if to clear the cobwebs, and turned to Warrick and asked, 'What about hotels?'
'Well, that's going to take forever to check in detail, you know, to try to see if he was registered anywhere . . . I mean, he never told Patrick where he was off to . . . but I can tell you this: Hyde never charged a hotel or motel room to any one of his three credit cards, and never wrote 'em a check either.'
Brass sighed heavily-then he rose, stretched; bones popped. 'Something very wrong here-very wrong . . . When Grissom gets back, have him page me.'
'You got it.'
Brass walked out of the office, got about four feet, and his cell phone rang. The conversation was a short one, Brass sticking his head back inside the layout room moments later, his expression suddenly alert.
'C'mon,' Brass said, waving impatiently. 'You're with me.'
'All right,' Warrick said, and in the corridor, falling in next to Brass, he asked, 'What's up?'
Brass wore a foul expression. 'Barry Hyde's number, I hope.'
Sara awoke with a start. She had fallen asleep at her computer and evidently no one had noticed. She sat up, made a face then rolled her neck and felt the tight stiffness that came when she slept wrong. Reaching back, she kneaded her neck muscles, applying more and more pressure as she went, but the pain showed little sign of dissipating. Standing up, her legs wobbly, she got her balance and went out into the hall to the water fountain.
