'Remind me-which one of us read him his rights?'
Brass's face was red; he was breathing hard. 'I can't believe this! It's crazy. Insane…That evil bastard killed his wife, cut her up and dumped the pieces of her in the lake. There's gotta be something here! Where's the justice?'
'No justice yet,' Grissom said, gently, touching the detective's sleeve. 'But there will be. Now, let's get out of here before we screw something up.'
They took their leave quietly, and let Pierce have the last word.
At the doorway, he said, 'I hope I've been of some small help.'
Nick Stokes parted company with Grissom and Brass at HQ, and headed into the lab where Warrick had been working. He found Warrick practically spotwelded to the monitor of a computer.
'What's up?' Nick asked.
'I'm trying to track down that red triangle we found on the bag of dope at Pierce's.'
'Timely,' Nick said. 'Pierce just copped to getting not just coke from a dealer, but a gun as well.'
Nick filled Warrick in on the latest visit to the king of the Pierce castle, including the therapist's refusal to I.D. his connection.
Nick asked Warrick, 'Getting anywhere?'
'Not yet…but I just know I've seen that signature somewhere, it's ringin' a bell…a distant one, anyway. I'm gonna keep diggin'.'
'All right.' Nick yawned. 'I'm fried-Grissom had me in early today, to keep at those computer records…I gotta go home and catch some z's.'
'It's a plan…. Later.'
'You may want to try getting some sleep one of these days yourself,' Nick said, at the doorway. 'Latest thing-they say it's really catching on.'
Warrick expended half a smirk. 'Not around here.'
Warrick Brown stayed with it, going through file after file looking at drug dealers the LVMPD had busted in the last few years. An hour later, he was still rolling through files looking for the odd little red triangle.
A knock at the doorframe took him away from his work, and he turned to see one of the interns, a young, dark-curly-haired guy named Jeremy Smith, slight of build, in a black UNLV sweatshirt and blue jeans. A criminal justice major at the university, Smith had been working part-time for the last few months, sometimes days, occasionally nights.
'Hey, Jeremy,' Warrick said, mildly annoyed to be interrupted. 'What's up?'
Smith stepped gingerly into the lab, as if not sure he had permission. 'I talked to every glass company in the metro area-remember, to see if they replaced the driver's side window of a '95 Avalon?'
'Right. And?'
The young man shook his head. 'Zip zally zero.'
Warrick muttered a 'damn,' but the kid was stepping forward, more sure of himself now.
'Then I thought I better check the car dealerships too.'
'That was good initiative, Jeremy-any luck?'
'Not really.'
'Yeah. Well. Good thought, though. Thanks.'
'All right, then…Warrick?'
Warrick sighed to himself, suddenly sorry he'd told the kid to call him by his first name.
Smith was beside the computer, now, bright-eyed as a chipmunk. 'Anything else I can do for?'
Why not tap into all this energy? Warrick considered the offer for a long moment, then said, 'Junkyards, Jeremy-try the junkyards.'
Smith nodded, grinned. 'I'm on it.'
The kid was halfway out the door when Warrick called out, 'One more thing, Jeremy! You ever see this before?'
The intern came back over and Warrick passed him the evidence bag with the baggie of coke inside.
Turning it over and over, Smith studied it, then handed it back. 'Yeah, I've seen this mark.'
Warrick knew the intern had been working a lot of days, and gave him the benefit of the doubt. 'Bust you were in on?'
The intern shook his head, saying, 'No, this is something I've seen on campus…. Small-time dealer, sells mostly grass. I don't know if he's been in the system or not.'
'He wouldn't have a name, would he?'
'Well, I don't know his real name-his street name is Lil Moe. Supposed to be once you've tried his stuff, you always want…a little mo'.'
Warrick just looked at Smith.
Jeremy gave him a quick nervous smile and patted the air with his hands, like an untalented mime. 'Hey, that's just what I heard.'
'Uh huh.'
'Honest, Warrick!'
Smith used some of his nervous energy to haul his ass out of there, and Warrick immediately tried 'Lil Moe' in the database, coming up blank. He checked pending files and struck out again. Finally, he went in search of Jeremy the intern and found him in the break room with a phone book in one hand and a phone in the other, a notepad and pencil before him.
The kid looked up, saw Warrick, and said, 'Starting on the junkyards. Some of 'em work at night, y'know. Anybody I can't talk to, at least I can have a list of numbers ready for tomorrow.'
'Table that. Would you know Lil Moe if you saw him?'
'Sure.'
'Help
'Five-nine, -ten maybe, a hundred twenty-five or thirty. Real skinny. He's got dreadlocks to his shoulders and always wears this big Dodgers stocking cap.'
'Stocking cap in Vegas?'
Smith shrugged. 'Makes him easy to find.'
'Find where?'
'He kind of bounces around the edges of the campus…but he'll probably be somewhere around the Thomas & Mack Center.'
'What now?'
'Junkyards.'
'Junkyards,' Jeremy said, and got back to it.
Warrick found Brass in his office and shared his new information.
'Lil Moe, huh?' Brass said.
'A little is better than nothing at all.' Warrick stood with his hands on his hips, his eyebrows high. 'You wanna go for a ride, and see if we can score?'
Brass was already on his feet. 'Let's do that-even a drug dealer'll feel like a step up from Owen Pierce.'
The home of the Runnin' Rebels basketball teams squatted on the far southwest corner of the UNLV campus, but the Taurus came at the Thomas & Mack Center from the campus side. The detective made the trip just below the speed limit, but not too slow. The Taurus stuck out enough without them crawling along in an obvious search. It wasn't midnight yet, and the campus hadn't quite yet gone to sleep.
People (kids mostly) dotted the sidewalks here and there, quiet students heading to their dorms, louder ones off to the next kegger, the occasional professor walking with briefcase and sometimes a young teaching aide, a few joggers working off the stress of the day in the cool of the night…
…and another strata more in the shadows, harder to see, unpredictable, even dangerous, some searching for drugs, and-more important to Brass and Warrick-some selling. On their first lap, as their eyes probed the shadows and recesses of doorways, they didn't see anyone fitting Lil Moe's description…and not on the second lap, either, or even the third.
By lap four, midnight had come and gone, the sidewalks had thinned, and they hadn't gotten even a whiff of
