seconds, she said, 'Jim, it's Catherine. We've ID'ed the body from Lake Mead: Missy Sherman-that missing persons case from-'
She waited while Brass spoke, then looked at her watch, and said, 'You want to go at this hour?'
Brass said something else, then Catherine said, 'All right-we'll meet you there.'
Punching the END button on her phone, she turned to Warrick and Nick. 'Brass was out on a call. He'll meet us at the Sherman place.'
Before long, they were turning right off Maryland Parkway onto Silverado Ranch Boulevard; then the Tahoe swung into the Silverado Development and followed a maze of smaller streets back to Sky Hollow Drive, a neighborhood peaceful under a starry sky with a sliver of moon, asleep but for a few windows flickering with TV watching, and Warrick could've sworn he could hear the muffled laughter from the Conan O'Brien show audience.
A handsome mission-style stucco, 9613 was a tall, wide two story with a tile roof that seemed more pink than orange under the mercury-vapor streetlights. Large inset windows were at either end of the second floor with a smaller window, a bathroom maybe, in the center. A two-car garage was at left, flush with the double archways of a porch at right, leaving the dark-green front door in shadows.
For so nice a home, the lawn was modest-true of all the houses in the development-and had turned brown for the season, though evergreens along the porch provided splashes of green while blocking the view of the front-room picture window, whose drapes were shut, though light edged through. An upper-floor window, with closed curtains, also glowed.
The temperature again hovered around the forty-degree mark, just crisp enough to justify Warrick and Nick putting on CSI jackets. Brass, in his sportscoat, didn't seem to notice the chill; this was typical of the detective, Warrick knew, as the man had spent a large chunk of his life in New Jersey, where a winter like this would rate as tropical.
They did not go up to the front door immediately. Instead, the detective and the three CSIs stood in the street next to the black Tahoe parked behind Brass's Taurus, and got their act together.
'What do we know about this guy?' Nick asked.
'I remember this case,' Brass said. 'I wasn't on it, but I sat and talked to the guys working it, often enough.'
'What did they say about Sherman?' Warrick asked.
Brass shrugged. 'Guy did all the right things-full cooperation, went on TV, begged for his wife to contact him or, if she was kidnapped, for the kidnappers to send a ransom demand. You probably saw some of that.'
Nick was nodding.
With a shake of the head, Brass said, 'They say Sherman seemed genuinely broken up.'
'What does your gut say?' Warrick asked the detective.
'Just wasn't close enough to it to have a gut reaction. But in the car, on the way out here, I called Sam Vega-he caught the case, was lead investigator.'
They had all worked with Detective Sam Vega when he did graveyard rotation. He was a smart, honest cop.
Catherine asked, 'What did Sam have to say?'
'Well,' Brass said, 'at first, as convincing as Sherman seemed, Sam figured this was a kidnapping…but then when no ransom demand came in, he started looking at the husband again.'
'Was Mrs. Sherman unhappy in her marriage?' Nick asked. 'Could she have just run off, to start over someplace?'
Brass shook his head. 'By all accounts she was a happy woman with a happy life, and if she was going to run off, why leave a doggy bag in the car?'
'People rarely carry leftovers into their new life,' Catherine said.
Brass went on: 'If she did run off, consider this: Missy Sherman took no money, no clothes, never called anyone from her cell phone, never e-mailed anybody-this woman just flat out disappeared, and didn't even bother with the puff of smoke.'
'So she didn't run off,' Warrick said.
'Anyway,' Brass went on, 'the longer this case dragged on, the harder Vega looked at the husband. This guy came up so clean, water beaded off him.'
Catherine asked, 'What was Sam Vega's bottom line on the husband?'
'Sam says Sherman seems like a right guy, who hasn't done anything weird or different or outa line, since Scotty beamed the poor bastard's wife to nowhere. No new girlfriend, no attempt to collect on the wife's life insurance policy, which wasn't that substantial, anyway-nothing.'
'How'd he pay for that hacienda?' Warrick asked, with a nod toward the formidable stucco house.
'Very successful computer consultant,' the detective said. 'He's got some real estate too.'
Nick asked, 'What kinda real estate?'
'Apartments. Sherman makes good money. Pretty much pool the four of our salaries, and you got his annual income.'
They stood there, contemplating that.
Then Catherine said, 'Maybe we better stop loitering in the street before somebody in this nice quiet neighborhood calls the cops about the riffraff.'
They followed Brass to the dark-green front door of the Sherman home; the four of them barely fit on the shallow porch. From the living room, they could hear voices-loud, animated.
'Movie,' Nick said.
'Sounds like
'Bad what?' asked Brass, wincing.
'
'If they're cops,' Brass said, 'I'm a police dog.'
Warrick and Nick exchanged he-said-it-not-us glances.
Smirking sourly, Brass turned back to the door.
Warrick was listening to the sounds from within. 'That's a high-end sound system. He's watching a DVD.'
'I'll be sure to put that in my report,' Brass said, and rang the doorbell.
They waited. The loud movie voices ceased, then a few seconds later the door cracked open; one brown eye behind one wire-framed lens peeked cautiously out. 'Yes?'
Brass held up his badge on its necklace. 'Mr. Alex Sherman?'
The eye narrowed, examining the badge; then the door swung open wide, revealing another eye and the rest of his wire-framed glasses, and the rest of him.
Alex Sherman-six-two, easily, and in his mid-thirties-wore his black hair short, razor cut, and with his high cheekbones, dark brown eyes and straight nose he had a vaguely Indian look, though he was only moderately tanned. In his stocking feet, he wore gray sweatpants and a green tee shirt with a white Michigan State logo; his build said he worked out.
'What can I do for you, Detective?'
'May we come in?'
Sherman motioned for them to enter, eagerly, saying, 'It's about Missy, isn't it? Is it about Missy?'
They stepped into a foyer with a small, round table next to the door and a framed black-and-white photo of Missy Sherman on top of it.
'Is there somewhere we can sit down, Mr. Sherman?' Brass asked evasively.
Anxious, Sherman led them to the right into a living room smaller than the Bellagio casino, though Warrick would've needed a tape measure to be sure. A massive wide-screen plasma TV monitor hung on the far wall; beneath it a small cabinet held stereo and video components with speakers scattered strategically around the room. A tan leather sofa ran under the picture window, its matching chair and hassock angled toward the television; to the right of the sofa was an easy chair in rough fabric with a faux Navajo design.
Sherman sat on the sofa, Brass next to him, while the others fanned out in front of them. Brass quickly identified himself and the CSIs by name.
