Maher smiled pleasantly, but in an entirely businesslike way. 'Would you get us that padlock key, please?' He turned to Grissom. 'We really should start to hurry on the parking lot.'
The hotel man sighed and it hung in the air. 'Be back in a few minutes.'
Cormier started away, and Sara called out: 'Sir!'
He turned. 'Yes, Ms. Sidle?'
'You might not want to mention this to Pearl.'
The hotel man's eyebrows rose, then he nodded, saying, 'Good thought, Ms. Sidle. Good thought.'
They watched as the dejected-looking Cormier went inside.
Maher asked Sara, 'What's this about Mrs. Cormier? We got another suspect?'
'If our host really wants to keep the news about a stiff in the cooler from the guests,' Sara said, 'he'll be wise to keep it from his wife…. She's one of the few communications systems around here not affected by the storm.'
'Ah,' Maher said.
'Now about the blood on that knife blade,' Sara said.
Maher and Grissom faced her.
'What about it?' her boss asked.
'That waitress, Amy Barlow? She's got a bandage-cut on her hand.'
Grissom nodded, remembering. 'She said she got it slicing onions in the kitchen. Do we believe her?'
Sara shrugged. 'She's the only person I've seen with a cut.'
'There's the waiter,' Maher said.
Sara frowned. 'The one who dropped the tray?'
'Spot on his sleeve, eh?'
Sara smiled. 'Oh, you noticed that…. I couldn't tell what it was. He's working with food and liquids, so that stain-'
'Might have been blood,' Maher said. 'Could explain why he dropped that tray. Weak arm, sore arm.'
'Have we narrowed the list of suspects,' Grissom asked, 'or increased it?'
Maher shook his head. 'We still don't really have any significant evidence pointing toward anyone.'
Sara asked, 'Is there any way to cross-match the blood on the knife?'
Grissom shook his head as well. 'Doubtful the hotel has the tools for that.'
Cormier emerged and trailing him-surprisingly enough-was Tony Dominguez, the tall, slender Hispanic waiter. Instead of his white-shirt-and-black-slacks uniform, the young man wore a loose-fitting white sweatshirt with an orange Syracuse logo on the front, and new black jeans. In white tennis shoes, Dominguez did not venture into the snow, rather stayed on the shoveled sidewalk near the rear door.
The investigators were trading what-the-hell expressions when Cormier strode over and said, 'You said you all were in a hurry-I thought you might need some help carrying the…uh…package inside.'
'Thanks,' Grissom said tightly, 'but we can probably manage.'
Cormier gestured toward the building. 'You sure? We'll be going in through the delivery entrance down there. It's a long haul.'
Maher said to Grissom, 'I know it's not exactly what we had in mind, but why don't you and Herm and… what's your name, son?'
'Tony,' the young man said, hands dug in his pants pockets.
'You should have a jacket, son.'
'Mr. Cormier said this wouldn't take long.'
'It doesn't have to. If you three will escort the…package inside, Ms. Sidle and I will get started out here. Snow's coming and the sooner we're at it, the better our chances of finding something useful.'
Grissom, clearly not liking this a bit, nonetheless said, 'All right.'
Then Maher, Sara, and Grissom stripped the lawn tools and CSI equipment off the toboggan, and Sara and Maher-weighed down by their load-went off across the parking lot to where the tomato stakes barely peeked out of the snow.
While Sara worked with the constable, Gil Grissom took command of the corpse-hauling detail.
He said to Dominguez and Cormier, 'You'll have to lead the way, gentlemen.'
Cormier, who'd already shown himself to be squeamish around the remains, didn't make a move. And the young man just stood there staring at the sled.
'Is that the…body?' he asked.
Grissom shot an irritated look at Cormier, who shrugged and shook his head, his expression saying,
'So much for discretion,' Grissom said to the hotel man. Then, with a tight smile, he said to the waiter, 'This is a body, yes. It needs refrigeration. We're preserving evidence.'
'Ohmigod…' The young man swallowed. 'I thought it was just a rumor.'
Grissom, whose patience had run out already, said, 'Are you up to helping with this? I can get Ms. Sidle back here, if you two aren't capable.'
Dominguez, his eyes still riveted to the space blanket lashed to the toboggan, said, 'I…I'm up to it. Do we… undo this, unwrap it, or…are we moving the toboggan, too?'
'Toboggan and all,' Grissom said. 'There's other perishable evidence here, and it's all going into the cooler until the police arrive.'
Grissom hated having another of the suspects this close to the remains, but at this point there was nothing to be done. It was almost as if Cormier were trying to complicate matters.
He glanced over at the work going on in the parking lot, Maher with the leaf blower, again dispersing snow, clearing the footprints near the blue Grand Prix, Sara assisting. Already snowflakes were drifting to earth all around, the wind picking up too, and Grissom knew that the only way they had any chance of getting the prints from the parking lot was to get the body inside with the help of the waiter-suspect or not.
'Can we do this, please?' Grissom asked.
Intimidated, the waiter took the front end and Grissom the rear, facing each other as they lifted it between them.
'I'll get the doors and clear a path,' Cormier said, moving out ahead; but Dominguez was already backing toward the little receiving dock at the far end of the parking lot.
They were off the shoveled area now, shuffling through high snow, taking care to keep their balance. The sled and its charred cargo seemed surprisingly heavy to Grissom. The victim hadn't been a particularly large man, but with the added weight of the toboggan, Grissom might have been helping haul anvils. Having the corpse buried in snow overnight, with the beginnings of the freezing process kicking in, had cut the foul odor of the roasted flesh, at least.
'Who is this?' Dominguez asked suddenly, eyes on the space-blanket-wrapped 'package.'
'No ID,' Grissom said. 'Don't look at it yet.'
The two of them made eye contact then, the waiter backing toward the loading dock, Grissom with the corpse before him, the pair working together, Cormier slogging through the snow to get ahead of them.
'Stairs,' Grissom said, for the waiter's benefit, and they halted for just a moment so Cormier could kick the snow off the four concrete steps that led up to the dock. When the man had finished, the waiter took a moment to get his bearings, then nodded at Grissom and backed up the first step.
Starting up the steps put even more of the weight on Grissom, and he let the young man set the pace-if Grissom pushed, they might lose their grip and wind up dumping their cargo. But Dominguez-slightly built though he was-was doing fine, taking the second and third steps with no trouble. Cormier was unlocking and opening a door on the loading dock when Dominguez reached the landing…and slipped.
The weight came forward, as if Grissom was on the down end of a seesaw, and Cormier-to his credit-quickly grabbed on to the waiter's abandoned end of the toboggan, bracing it.
In the meantime, Dominguez had sat down, rudely, on the loading dock, the baggy lefthand sleeve of his sweatshirt hiking up to reveal a white-gauze-bandaged arm. Quickly, obviously embarrassed, the young man got to his feet, tugging the sleeve down over his bandaged arm, and took his end of the sled back from the older man.
'You all right, Tony?' Grissom asked.
