She shook her head. 'By the time he called, I was with you. Our receptionist, Debbie Westin, took the call.'
'Jermaine told Debbie,' Denard was saying, 'he had the flu and expected to be in tomorrow.'
Catherine nodded. 'And the last one?'
'Gary Randle,' Denard said. 'He had a meeting with a client this morning.'
Looking at his watch, Nick said, 'He's not back? It's past three.'
Denard shrugged. 'Meeting could have run long-typical in the ad game. He could have gone for a late lunch, either with the client or by himself, or he could be on his way back.'
'He doesn't have to check in?'
Another shrug. 'Mr. Randle has been with the firm quite a long time-one of the top people. He has a certain amount of freedom, not unlike Mr. Newcombe or Mr. Gold.'
'Is he a partner?' Catherine asked.
'No, but he has been a steady earner for the firm for many years. No one questions the hours of a top earner.'
'I can see that.'
'You're welcome to wait,' Janice said. 'I'm sure he'll be in sometime this afternoon.' Nick looked at Catherine, and Catherine looked at Nick.
They were both coming up hard on the end of a double shift, and had to be back in tonight. At this point, all Nick wanted to do was catch a sandwich and grab some snooze time; he hoped Catherine felt the same way.
Her expression said she did.
'I don't think we'll wait,' Catherine said.
Nick hoped his sigh of relief went unnoticed.
Denard asked, 'Are you posting an officer here?'
That was O'Riley's bailiwick, and he responded: 'No. We've taken the evidence with us. You're free to go on about your regular business.'
Denard just looked at him.
Then she said, 'We'll be running a skeleton staff-even Mr. Newcombe has gone. I'll be here, and some of the janitorial staff.'
Catherine asked, 'These last three employees, can you give us their home addresses and phone numbers, please? We're at the end of our shift. We'll give them a call as soon as we can.'
Denard handed Catherine a sheet of paper. Looking over her shoulder, Nick saw the vitals for the three missing employees.
'Nice,' Nick said to her. 'ESP?'
Smiling a little, Denard said, 'You learn to anticipate. Comes with the job.'
'Thank you,' Catherine said. 'This has been a rough day for all of us…. I promise you, we'll follow this up as soon as we can.'
The blonde's smile faded and Nick was shocked to see that tears were welling in the blue eyes. 'This is a good place to work, good people, a good company-how could this happen?'
Nick wished he knew what to tell her, but he didn't. 'It can happen anywhere,' he said, a feeling of cold confidence running through him. 'But whoever did this won't do it again-not here.'
Catherine offered her hand and Denard took it, shook it, and the two CSIs headed for the Tahoe.
'I changed my mind,' Catherine said.
'How so?' Nick said.
'I do want breakfast. You still willing to buy?'
'Sure. Sky's the limit. Denny's?'
4
IN THE MORGUE, WARRICK BROWN HELPED GRISSOM LOWER the carpeted package to the floor, after which Sara took more photos.
Warrick got what Doc Robbins was talking about, with his Sherlock Holmes speech, because the lanky CSI felt the same way. Every crime scene brought opportunities to outthink a bad guy, to outsmart a criminal. Justice was the goal, and you could express that in various high-flown ways; but the truth of the CSI game was that it
Though he'd never spoken these thoughts and feelings aloud, not even to another criminalist (and certainly not to Grissom), the rush Warrick felt when he chased down that crucial piece of evidence, putting some perp behind bars, was not unlike the euphoria he'd felt riding a hot streak, back in the days when gambling ruled his life. 'As with every grand opening,' Grissom said dryly, 'start by cutting the tape.'
After withdrawing a utility knife from his pocket, Warrick cut the three strands of duct tape. The enchilada- shaped bundle loosened and the sickly sweet scent of decay rose like foul if invisible smoke.
Sara and Warrick took a time-out to apply some vaporizing ointment around their nostrils, to cut the smell. Doc Robbins seemed immune at this point, and nobody even bothered to pass the jar of Vick's toward Grissom- Warrick knew Gris's attitude was that this was science, and smells told you things, and were just generally part of the deal.
Soon, Warrick, Grissom and Sara were each slowly peeling off a strand of tape, placing them in individual evidence bags for later examination. God only knew what kind of fibers or other evidence might be embedded in the adhesive and there might even be, if they got really lucky, a fingerprint somewhere. Ironically, the tape and carpeting would probably tell them more about the killer than the victim's body.
Warrick had to fight the urge to just unroll the damn thing, and quickly-an urge he knew Sara shared and probably, though the man would never admit it, Grissom, too-and see what grisly present the killer had left rolled inside the piece of carpeting. Doing that, however, could destroy valuable evidence; and that knowledge alone prompted Warrick to calm himself and take his time.
They unrolled the bulky bundle once, exposing a sixteen-inch-wide piece of carpeting. This was the time- consuming, tedious work that TV cops always seemed to get done during a commercial break. In reality, the process could take anywhere from one to several hours, depending on what they ran into.
When Warrick looked at the exposed piece, then at what remained of the roll, he knew damn well they were going to accumulate some serious overtime on Cleopatra.
Sara took more photos as Grissom and Warrick went over the piece with their mini Maglites and tweezers. Robbins's part would come soon enough, but he hovered behind them, his gloved hands folded Buddha-like over his belly as he watched their every move, as if expecting them to yank the killer bodily out of the remnant.
Once they had gone over the section carefully, Warrick put a new bag in his hand-held vacuum and went over the section. When this process was finished, these bags would be sent to Trace for chemical analysis of their contents.
Before long they were unrolling a second section. Sara took pictures of the exposed piece from four different angles, then the three of them got down on their hands and knees, and went over the fabric practically fiber by fiber, just as they had the last one.
Warrick put another bag in the hand-held vacuum and went over this section. Finding nothing, they unrolled another sixteen-inch swath, and then another, and another….
By the time they exposed the first piece of the corpse's flesh, Warrick's stomach was growling and they had piled up over two dozen evidence bags with hair, fibers, a penny and material that appeared to be crushed leaves.
Another hour of intensive work passed before they had the body free. It lay on the floor at their feet, the three of them looking down at it. The stench challenged the Vick's Vapo-Rub around Warrick's nostrils, and whether his growling stomach craved food or not, Warrick Brown just wasn't interested in eating, right now….
'As we thought, female,' Sara said. 'Mid-to-late twenties?'
'That's how I call it,' Warrick said, and Grissom nodded his agreement; then Warrick and his boss lifted the body onto the coroner's metal table. Utterly free, now, of her casing of carpet, Cleopatra emitted a sick perfume that seemed to engulf the whole room. Grissom sniffed at the air, like a dog seeking just the right spot.
Warrick wondered if Gris could actually estimate stage of decay by the degree of smell; but, that being a talent he had no wish to develop, Warrick did not seize the opportunity to ask.
