since then. Stem to stern.'
'We know. But with this new information, we need to take another look. We hope you won't ask us to go to the trouble of a warrant, because that will slow us down.'
Sherman said, 'Whatever it takes. It means a lot to me that you people are doing something.'
As Brass went back to the Taurus to call for a tow truck, Warrick said, 'We appreciate this, sir. And we'll stay at it until we find whoever did this.'
Sherman's expression seemed doubtful. 'No offense, but you hear a lot about unsolved cases, and even about people who get caught and then walk…'
'We have high arrest and conviction rates, Mr. Sherman. We're ranked the number two crime lab in the country.'
Sherman found a smile somewhere. 'Well, I guess I know what that means.'
'Sir?'
'You try harder.'
Warrick returned the man's smile.
'I'll get you the keys,' he said, and went off.
The tow truck showed up quickly and, within an hour, Warrick had the SUV in the CSI garage, ready to do his own search of Missy Sherman's Lexus.
The exterior was clean and he checked for prints, but came up with only a few, probably mostly Sherman's, and maybe those of employees at the car wash. Warrick had already asked Brass to contact Premimum Car Wash and take employees' prints. Any employees who'd quit in the meantime would have to be tracked down; once again, Warrick was glad not to have Brass's job.
He compared the prints from the Lexus with Sherman's prints on file; one of two sets of prints on the driver's door and the hood belonged to Sherman. The other set belonged to some John Doe-a car wash employee, maybe…but almost certainly not Missy's killer.
Being essentially a liquid, fingerprints on the exterior of the vehicle would have long since evaporated in the dry Vegas heat. A fingerprint found in, say, Florida, where the humidity was much higher, would evaporate more slowly. The only way that fingerprint belonged to the killer was if the killer had touched the van a hell of a lot more recently than when murdering Missy.
Warrick also got prints, some full, some only partials, from the other door handles on the vehicle and also from the hood; but all proved to be Sherman's. Getting trace from the tires-to see where the vehicle had been during its missing time-would be useless after the car wash, and Ecklie's people had neglected to do it at the time of discovery because they'd assumed they knew where the SUV had been the whole time.
Warrick opened the rear hatch and combed the carpeting for clues. As he expected, Alex Sherman's cleaning up after Ecklie's people had left little evidence behind: a scuff mark here, a stray hair there.
The scuff mark on the plastic seemed to have come from something black and rubber, but probably not from Missy Sherman's shoe. Chances were that if she had been thrown back there and scuffed the plastic with the heel of her shoe, more than one such mark would've been left.
As for the hair, it was black and short, more likely from Alex Sherman than from his wife or her killer.
Still, Warrick took a scraping from the scuff mark and bagged the hair. He just didn't expect them to pan out.
More of the same awaited him in the backseat, where he bagged a fiber or two and another hair, the latter looking like it was indeed from Missy-black, but much longer than a stray from Alex's razor-cut, where it might have fallen from the driver's seat. He drew a blank on the front passenger seat, then finally made his way to the driver's side.
Using his mini-MagLite, Warrick went over every square inch of the seat and the back. He was about to give up when he glimpsed something pressed between the headrest and the top of the seat. He moved in closer: a blonde hair. Missy's hair was black; also, this hair was longer than Missy's hairstyle would have given up. He plucked it carefully with his tweezers, then bagged it.
As Warrick closed the last door, Brass strolled in, looking bored; but then the detective always appeared bored, even at his most interested. 'Anything?'
'Few hairs and a couple of fibers, but this wagon's been cleaned so thoroughly, I was lucky to find 'em.'
Warrick stood looking at the SUV for a long moment, as if this were a showroom and he was seriously considering buying. What had he missed? His gut…which he listened to religiously, despite Grissom's warnings…told him there must be something.
But if there was, why hadn't Ecklie's people found it?
Then he said to Brass, 'Is Ecklie a dick?'
'Does a bear shit in the woods?'
'Is graveyard crime lab better than day shift?'
'You're better than just about any CSI shift in the country.'
Warrick, surprised by this admission from Brass, said, 'Yeah, I know. Thanks. I don't think I'm done here….'
The criminalist went to the driver's side door, bending, looking hard…the top ridge, the window, the handle, the…
Hoooold it, he thought.
The handle.
Just like the guys on Ecklie's crew, he'd dusted the outside, but what about the underside? Getting out his mini-MagLite, he knelt next to the door and shone the beam up at the underside of the door handle.
'Something?' asked Brass.
'Another brilliant idea…nets another nothing.'
Warrick stood, stepped back, surveyed the vehicle again. Then he opened the door, glanced around the interior. Looked at the steering wheel, the dash, the windshield and, finally, looked up at…
…the visor.
'Jim, get me a forceps out of my bag, would ya?'
Brass withdrew the instrument from the silver case and brought it to Warrick. 'Got something?'
'Don't know yet.'
Using the forceps, Warrick slowly pulled down the visor. Next to the airbag warning label lay a small plastic lid. He used the forceps to raise the plastic and a tiny light came on next to a business-card-sized mirror. Warrick looked at himself in the mirror, and also at a small bit of fingerprint on the corner of the glass.
'There you are,' he said, as if to his own image.
Brass was alongside the vehicle now. 'Like what you see?'
'It's more than just my handsome face-it's a fingerprint that Ecklie's people missed.'
'How'd they manage that?'
'Didn't pull down the visor. And I bet once I dust the plastic lid, we may have more.'
'I thought you didn't bet anymore,' Brass said.
'Not often,' he said, climbing out of the car to go after his fingerprint kit. 'And I couldn't tell you what the odds are, here…other than that they've just improved.'
A white plastic Sears bag in hand, Catherine Willows walked briskly down the corridor, like a shopper at a mall heading for a really great sale.
Catherine, however, had already made her purchases. After making the rounds of just about every appliance store in Clark County, Catherine had finally ended up 'where America shops,' to quote a slogan from bygone years. The Sears bag held-potentially-two of the most elusive answers in the Missy Sherman inquiry.
She barged right in, startling Dr. Robbins, who was at his desk taking care of paperwork.
'Need a look at one of your customers, Doc,' she said, striding over to the vault where Missy Sherman still resided.
'Catherine-what are you doing?'
Setting her bag on a nearby worktable, Catherine opened the vault, slid out the tray bearing Missy's body, then turned and grabbed something from the shopping bag. As she did, Robbins came hustling over, barely letting
