Sin City

Just the hint of a smile appeared at the corner of Grissom's mouth. 'Why don't you?'

'There's this.' Robbins pointed toward the victim's episiotomy scar. 'She's had at least one child.'

Grissom nodded curtly, and moved on: 'Dismembered before or after her death?'

'After death.' Robbins gestured. 'No bruising around where the cuts were made. If she'd been alive…'

'There'd be bruises at the edges of the cuts. If the dismemberment didn't kill her, what did?'

Robbins shook his head, lifted his eyebrows. 'No other wounds. Tox screen won't be back for a couple of days, at least…. Truthfully, Gil, I haven't got the slightest idea how she died.'

'She is dead.'

'Yes. We agree on that. But if the tox screen doesn't reveal something-and I doubt if it will-we may never know cause of death.'

'Any other good news?'

'One very good finding-birthmark on her left hip.' Pulling the light down closer to the torso, Robbins highlighted the spot, which Grissom himself had glimpsed, earlier, at the lake.

Grissom rubbed his forehead. 'Be nice to have a little more.'

'Well, really we're just getting started,' Robbins said, touching the corner of the table as if that might connect him to the victim in front of him.

'What's next?'

'We'll deflesh the torso.'

'Good. Maybe the bones will talk to us.'

'Yes. Let's hope they have something interesting to say.'

'They often do,' Grissom said. 'Thanks, Doc. I'll be back.'

'I'm sure you will.'

Grissom made his way back to the break room where Warrick and Nick each sat with a cup of coffee cradled in hand. The coffee smelled scorched and the refrigerator in the corner had picked up a nasty hum. Although he liked working graveyard-because it helped him avoid dealing with much of the political nonsense, and obtrusive building maintenance, which happened nine to five, as well-Gil Grissom wondered why his day shift counterpart, Conrad Ecklie, never seemed to get around to getting that fridge fixed…much less teach his people not to leave the coffee in the pot so long that it became home to new life-forms. That was one scientific experiment Grissom was against.

Filling Nick and Warrick in on what Robbins had told him, Grissom concluded, 'I want to know who she is.'

Warrick shook his head. 'Well, that could take a while.'

Grissom's voice turned chill. 'I want to know now. Not in a month or even a week, when the DNA results roll in-now. Find a way, guys,' Grissom said, heading for the door, 'find a way.'

Still shaking his head, Warrick called out, 'Gris! Two hundred people a month disappear in this town, you know that…a lot of them women. How are we going to track down one of them without DNA?'

From the doorway, Grissom said, 'Eliminate the missing women who haven't had children.'

Warrick, thinking it through, said, 'And any that aren't white.'

Nick was nodding. 'And then we'll track one down who had a birthmark like that on her left hip.'

'See,' Grissom said, with that angelic smile that drove his people crazy. 'We have a lot.'

Moments later, Grissom was back in his office, seated behind his desk, jarred specimens staring accusingly at him from their shelves. A voice analysis report of the audio tape provided by the Blairs was waiting on his desk, and he read it eagerly.

He never would have admitted it to the reporters, and certainly not to his team, but Grissom was battling a small yet insistent voice in the back of his mind that kept telling him that they had just found Lynn Pierce.

And since one of his chief tenets was that the evidence didn't come to you, you went to it, Grissom picked up the phone and got Brass on the line.

'Jim, did you get a detailed description of Lynn Pierce beyond the photo her husband gave us?'

'I didn't, but the officer that spoke to Owen Pierce on the phone…he did. Why, what do you want to know?'

'Distinguishing marks?'

He could hear Brass riffling through some papers.

'A small scar on her left hand,' Brass read, 'an episiotomy scar, a bluish birthmark on her right shoulder…'

The torso didn't have a left hand or a right shoulder.

'…and another birthmark, uh, on her left hip.'

Grissom let out a long, slow breath.

'Jim, that was her in Lake Mead.'

'Damn,' Brass said, the disappointment evident in his tone. 'I was hoping…'

'Me too.'

'But if she's been killed, at least we have something to go on. We need to get over to Pierce's before the media…' The phone line went silent.

'Jim, what is it?'

'I just turned on a TV, to check…we're too late. It's already on channel eight.'

'I'll call you right back.' Grissom hung up and strode briskly toward the break room, pulling his cell phone and jabbing in Brass's number, on the move. In the break room (Warrick and Nick long gone), he turned on the portable television on the counter and punched channel eight. He heard the phone chirp once, and Brass answered.

'I've got it on,' Grissom said.

They watched as Jill Ganine stood next to Owen Pierce, the physical therapist, in dark sweats, towering over the petite reporter, on the front stoop of his home.

'Mr. Pierce,' Ganine said, her voice professional, her smile spotwelded in place, 'as you know, the severed remains of a woman were pulled from Lake Mead this morning. Do you believe this to be your wife?'

Pierce shook his head. 'As I've told the police, Lynn left us…both my daughter and myself. Lynn and I'd had some problems, and she wanted time by herself…. We will hear from her.'

'But, Mr. Pierce-'

'I have to believe that the poor woman found today is someone else…' He touched his eyes, drying tears-or pretending to. 'I don't wish anyone a tragedy, but…I…I'm sorry. Could I…say something to my wife?'

The camera zoomed past a painfully earnest Ganine in on Pierce. The big man steadied himself, rubbed a hand over his face, then looked into the lens.

'I'd just like to say to Lynn, if you're listening or watching-please, just call home, call Lori…that's the important thing. We so need to hear your voice.'

Giving a little nod of understanding, Ganine turned to the camera, as Pierce disappeared behind his front door. 'That's the story from the Pierce house, where the little family still holds out hope that Mrs. Pierce is alive and well…and will soon get in touch with them…. Jill Ganine for KLAS News.'

Grissom clicked off the television.

'You believe that shit?' Brass asked in Grissom's ear.

'What I believe doesn't matter. Melodramatic TV news is irrelevant. What matters is the evidence.'

'Like the birthmark?'

Grissom said, 'And the audio tape.'

'Shit! Damn near forgot about that tape.'

Grissom said, 'I just got the voice analysis back-and it's definitely Pierce talking. He threatens to cut his wife up in little pieces and now we have a piece of a woman…'

'Not a 'little' piece, though.'

'No…but one with a birthmark identical to a marking his wife's known to have. Can I assume, Captain Brass, you'll be on your way to call on Owen Pierce, soon?'

'Meet me at my car.'

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