Sin City

Warrick said, 'If he didn't, we want to prove that, too.'

Sadler snorted a laugh. 'Yeah, right-I forgot all about where the police was into justice and shit.'

Tersely, the attorney said, 'Kevin, if you must speak…think first. And check with me if you have doubts about-'

'I'm on top of this,' Sadler said sharply to Shannon. Looking from Brass to Warrick and back, he said, 'That stuff last night…the blade and all-that was goin' no place. You dig? That's just, you know-theater.'

Warrick, who still had a small Band-Aid on his neck, said, 'Theater.'

'Yeah-people got to take this shit serious.'

'Dealing, you mean.'

Sadler shrugged. 'Anyway, I never killed nobody. I scare people if I have to-to buy me, you understand, street cred.'

Brass said, 'Kevin-when your knee went south, and you dropped out of school, and entered your new line of work…did Owen Pierce help you line up clients by introducing you to certain of his patients?'

'…If I answer that, it'll help clear up this murder? Won't be used to nail my sorry ass to the wall?'

Brass said, 'All we want is Lynn Pierce's killer. I'm a homicide captain-I don't do drugs.'

'That's a good policy,' Sadler admitted. Then, smiling broadly, the dealer said, 'It is a sweet deal-his clients, my clients, got a lot in common, y'know: money and pain.'

'Are you and Pierce still in business together?'

'Oh yeah, we tight-ain't shit could come between us. I even let him borrow my boat.'

Brass's eyes widened. 'You've got a boat?'

'Yeah,' Sadler said, misreading the detective's reaction. 'What, a brother can't own a boat?'

Warrick asked, 'What kind of boat is it?'

'Three hundred eighty Supersport. That is one fast motherfucker, man.'

Brass again: 'And you let Pierce borrow it?'

'Sure…We might come from different places, but, hey-we understand each other, 's all 'bout the benjamins, baby. Hell, he even kept an eye on my crib while I was in the lockup-brought my mail in, let the housekeeper in and shit.'

'This was during your recent vacation with the county?'

'Yeah-I only jus' got out. Don't you got that in your computer?'

Leaning in alongside the dealer, Brass said, 'Kevin, you seem to have heard about Lynn Pierce's disappearance.'

'Yeah. I don't live in a fuckin' cave.'

Warrick, seeing where Brass was going, dropped in at the young man's other shoulder. 'Then you heard about the body part that was found at Lake Mead?'

'Yeah, sure, I…' Once more, Sadler looked from Warrick to Brass and back again, this time with huge eyes. 'Oh, shit…are you sayin' he used my boat to…'

The attorney said, 'Kevin, be quiet.'

'Your good friend Owen Pierce,' Warrick said, 'made an accessory-after-the-fact out of you.'

'But I was in jail!'

'An accessory doesn't have to be present, just help out-lend a boat, for example.'

The attorney said, 'Gentlemen, I think my client should confer with me before this goes anywhere else.'

But Brass said, 'How would you like a pass on the drugs?'

Sadler said, 'Hell, yes!'

And his attorney settled back in his chair, silently withdrawing his demand.

'Then,' Brass continued, 'give us the address and key to your house, and the location of your boat.'

Sadler frowned. 'Just let you go through all of my shit?'

'That's right-and we don't need a search warrant, do we? After all, you're going to be a witness for the prosecution.'

Shannon was way ahead of his client, leaning forward to say to Brass, 'And anything you might find, beyond the purview of your murder investigation, goes unseen?'

Brass thought about that, then glanced at the two-way glass.

Moments later, Grissom entered the interrogation room, conferred briefly with Brass, who then said, 'We can live with that.'

Sadler looked at his attorney, who was smiling. Shannon said, 'So can we, gentleman,' with a smugness not at all commensurate with how little the lawyer had had to do with the deal.

* * *

Gil Grissom, Jim Brass, Nick Stokes and Warrick Brown-the latter behind the wheel-rode together in one of the black SUV's, their first stop the Quonset hut-style storage building where Sadler kept his speedboat. One of half a dozen adjacent cubicles, the oversized shed was at the far end of a U-Rent-It complex not far from where Sadler lived.

Warrick dusted the metal door handle for prints, but the CSI found nothing; no surprise, as the desert air caused fingerprints to disappear sooner than in more humid climes.

With that pointless task completed, they swung the overhead door up and moved inside to have a look at the drug dealer's very expensive boat. With no electricity in the garage, they compensated with flashlights. Forty-feet long, the sleek white craft was crammed into the shabby space with barely enough room to shut the door, a beautiful woman in a burlap sack. Triple 250 horsepower Mercury motors lined the tail and, as Brass played his beam of light over the engines, he let out a long low appreciative whistle.

'Fast boat,' he said.

'If you say so,' Grissom said, eyes on the hunt for something pertinent.

Nick and Warrick climbed up into the craft while Brass and Grissom remained on the cement floor. Warrick started at the stern, Nick in the bow, and they worked toward the center. To the naked eye, the boat appeared pristine, and the lingering scent of solvent and ammonia suggested a fresh cleaning.

'When was the last time Sadler had the boat out?' Nick called down.

Shining his flashlight on his notebook, Brass said, 'If our charming cooperative witness can be trusted, right after the Fourth of July. He was in lockup most of the time after that.'

Nick glanced back at Warrick. 'Then where's the dust?'

'Boat's way too clean,' Warrick said, shaking his head. 'Ask me, somebody used it, and cleaned it.'

From below, Grissom said, 'Don't ask yourself-ask the evidence.'

Nick and Warrick dusted the controls and the wheel for prints. Everything had been wiped. Opening the fish box, Nick shone his beam inside and saw that it too had been hosed clean.

'There's nothing here,' Warrick said finally. 'There'd be more dust and dirt if it had come straight off the showroom floor.'

'Keep at it,' Grissom said, working the cubicle itself.

Up in the boat, the indoor/outdoor carpet covering the cockpit floor was a mix of navy, light blue, and white swirls. Even on his hands and knees, with the beam of his light barely six inches off the deck, Warrick doubted he would see anything even if it was there. Fifteen minutes of crawling around later, he had proved himself correct.

Nick jumped down onto the cement, nimble for the big guy he was. 'I don't know what to say, Grissom.'

Grissom's smile was barely there. 'Remember the old movies when the Indians were out there, about to attack? 'It's quiet…''

''Too quiet,'' Nick finished, with a nod. 'And this is too clean, way too clean for sitting as long as it's supposed to…but we can't find anything.'

Grissom's head tilted and an eyebrow hiked. 'If a dismembered body was disposed of from the deck of that boat, Nick-what should we expect to find?'

Nick smiled, nodded, went to Warrick's field kit, picked out a bottle and tossed it up to him.

'Luminol, Gris?' Warrick called down. 'You don't really think he cut her up on the boat, do you?'

'I don't know,' the supervisor said. 'I wasn't here when it happened…see if anything's still here that can tell us.'