Sin City

Holding up the bag with the fake beard, Catherine said, 'Jackpot.'

Sara came over with 'wow' in her eyes and had a look at the treasures Catherine had dug up.

Catherine asked, 'How about you?'

'Well, I found a box in the basement with two Lipton Construction jackets in it. They look new, or anyway they've never been worn.'

'Anything else?'

Sara shrugged, a little frustrated. 'There's some stuff down there that doesn't fit Ray. Most of it looks like Jenna's-diet books, Men Are From Mars, Cosmo's, and some other fashion magazines, buncha Vogue's.'

Conroy came back in from the master bedroom. 'Nothing in there. Clothes from both of them. Obviously, Jenna was living here. You want to take a quick look around?'

This was addressed to Catherine, but Sara said, 'I'll go, while you finish in here, 'kay?'

Catherine nodded. ''kay.'

She spent another hour going through boxes, but found nothing. When Sara and Conroy came back from the bedroom with a bag containing Ray Lipton's work boots, Catherine looked at the evidence curiously.

Sara said, 'You lifted boot prints, didn't you, from the lap dance room?'

'Right,' Catherine said, smiling, 'and Lipton was wearing tennies when Conroy hauled him in…Good catch, Sara!'

'Thanks.'

'That the only pair of boots in the house?'

'Didn't see any others.'

'Well, Warrick says it always comes down to shoe prints…we'll see.'

Back at HQ, the two CSIs and the detective logged in evidence for several hours. Catherine instructed Sara to line up some interns to go over the box of video cassettes, to check for a tape of that Colts game.

Shift was almost over, and the sun freshly up, by the time Catherine was back in one of the Tahoes, taking the 515 to 15 South, so she could get to the airport without having to fight morning traffic on the Strip.

Helpingstine was coming in on Southwest 826, which meant Gate C of Terminal One. A long hike, but after a cooped-up night of sitting in front of a monitor, then crouching in a closet at Lipton's, and finally logging evidence at CSI, the walk would seem like an invigorating relief.

As she made her way through the concourse, Catherine struggled to put a face with the name of the man she was picking up. They had met only once, briefly, about six months ago. Her memory was finally jogged, when the tall, fortyish man-glasses riding a pug nose, straight dark hair parted on the left, graying at the temples, his light gray suit looking suitably slept in-recognized her instantly, and strode up to her with a wide smile and a hand outstretched.

'Ms. Willows,' he said, in a nasal but not unpleasant twang that indicated Chicago somewhere in his background, 'good to see you again.'

'Mr. Helpingstine,' she said, smiling and allowing him to pump her hand, 'you're very kind to come at such short notice, and so quickly.'

He raised a gently scolding finger. 'It's Dan, remember?'

'And Catherine,' she said, falling in alongside him as he walked.

'Afraid we'll have to go to baggage claim to pick up the Tektive. They're understandably fussy about carry- ons.'

Helpingstine's luggage consisted of a nylon gear bag with a Lakers insignia on it, and a square silver flight case on wheels that Catherine assumed contained the Tektive.

She led the way back to the Tahoe, with the salesman's small talk running to how well the Tektive was going over with various major metro police departments. But when Catherine tried to turn the conversation to the Jenna Patrick case, the manufacturer's rep waved a meaty hand. 'Let's wait till I've had a chance to look at the tape.'

'Fair enough, Dan. We'll follow your lead.'

'I do have one other request.'

'Name it.'

'They didn't feed us anything on the flight. Can we go through a drive-thru or something?'

Suddenly she remembered her popcorn snack with Sara, a hundred years ago; her stomach growled its opinion. 'I think I can manage that request.'

They got McDonald's breakfasts, went back to headquarters and ate in the break room.

Sara ducked her head in. 'I smell something very nearly like real food…What'd you bring me?'

Catherine handed her a breakfast burrito-vegetarian, of course-and Sara pulled up a chair and soon was digging in like she hadn't seen food since the Reagan administration.

'Dan, the dainty flower to your left is Sara Sidle.'

Sara nodded and kept chewing.

'Dan Helpingstine,' he said. 'Tektive Interactive.'

'Heard all about you, Dan-can't wait for you to work your magic.' Between burrito bites, Sara said to Catherine, 'Lots of footprints in the lap-dance room, and in the hall.'

'Yeah, dozens,' Catherine said between bites of a bagel sandwich. 'Lots and lots of high heels. I remember.'

'But just the one pair of work boots.'

'I remember that, too.'

Sara shook her head, shrugged, started a second burrito. 'I haven't compared them up close yet, nothing Grissom-scientific yet…but the eyeball test says the boots we brought in tonight, from Lipton's, are larger than the prints we lifted at the strip club.'

Catherine said, 'We'll check that out more thoroughly, as soon as we're finished with the video.'

Setting up in Catherine's office, they got Helpingstine settled at a work station and lined up with the Dream Doll security tapes.

'First we'll digitize them,' he said, working in his shirtsleeves, 'then we shall see what we shall see.'

'How long's the digitizing take?' Catherine asked.

'How long are the tapes?'

Catherine explained what they had, what they wanted, and why, for now, they were going to concentrate on just small segments representing two cameras: the one from behind the bar and the one from the end of the hallway.

Leaving the Tektive rep to his work, they went back to the footprints. Working in the layout room, they took prints from Lipton's boots and compared them to the one they got from the strip club.

'This print,' Sara said, meaning what they'd just created, 'is definitely shorter than the lap-dance boot.'

'Are we sure Lipton had the boots on that night?' Catherine asked. 'Is it possible that it's somebody else's boot, and we missed Lipton's print? Maybe he's one of the running shoes we found.'

Sara shook her head. 'The tennie he was arrested in's been ruled out…and the boot print was the oddest we got at the strip club, as well as the freshest, I mean it was on top…so we assumed it had to be the killer's.'

Catherine wasn't sure whether to feel good or bad about this indication of Lipton's innocence; Grissom would advise her not to 'feel' anything.

So she calmly said, 'We'll check the videotape first, then if we get nothing, we head back to Lipton's to bring in all his shoes.'

'It's a plan.'

They returned to Catherine's office to find Helpingstine hunkered over his black box with its keyboard and built-in monitor screen.

'You ready for us?' Catherine asked.

The tech nodded. 'These tapes are for shit, of course. Not exactly broadcast quality.'

Catherine leaned in and patted his shoulder. 'Which is why you're here, Dan, right?'

He gave the two women a little sideways half-smile. 'You came to the right man…. I've cleaned up the images some, already, and I can isolate your guy in a couple of them.'

'Any shots of his shoes?'