Body of Evidence

calm. 'We're after the truth about crimes, and justice can flow from that. But, Culpepper, I have no idea what you're after-except maybe a corner office with a view.'

Culpepper rose, as if in slow motion, and smoothed out his suit; he glanced at the surrounding clutter. 'Not everybody can have an office like this…. Just keep us apprised, buddy. Okay?'

'Sure,' Grissom said, hoping it would speed the agent on his way.

'See,' Culpepper said from the doorway, unable to leave without having the last word. 'We are on the same team.'

And by way of goodbye, he fired a finger gun at Grissom and winked.

When the agent had gone, Grissom decided that he would indeed inform Culpepper of their progress-just as soon as the killer was arrested, tried, convicted, sentenced and safely behind bars awaiting lethal injection. Even then, Grissom thought, Culpepper would still look for a way to turn the case to his advantage.

Grissom bent over some paperwork and forced himself to concentrate; he would not allow the federal agent to get to him. But his head popped up when someone knocked on the jamb. He was ready to snap at Culpepper if the FBI agent had returned, only it was Greg Sanders framed in the doorway, a small stack of printouts in hand.

The slender young DNA expert with the spiky hair and longish sideburns smiled nervously his sharp, brown eyes darting around. Greg always seemed to be one espresso over the line.

Grissom willed calm into his voice, making sure the Culpepper irritation didn't bleed in. 'Yes, Greg?' He knew he intimidated Greg and the kid was nervous enough, already.

'Test results on your Air Force base vic.'

Pleasantly surprised, Grissom said, 'That was fast.'

Sanders shrugged. 'We had DNA from her hair-brush we got from the Lewis woman's apartment, back when she disappeared. Having the body made it easy-I didn't have to wait while we replicated over and over from one cell.'

'I know how DNA is processed, Greg. And?'

Greg looked lost. 'And what?'

As usual, Greg's attention deficit disorder seemed to have kicked in, the tech so wrapped up in what he hadn't had to do that he'd forgotten the reason for his visit…which was what he had gotten done.

Letting out a sigh Grissom asked, 'And what did you find, Greg?'

'Oh!' Greg said, snapping out of it. 'The DNA matched. The body in the morgue is definitely Candace Lewis.'

'Thanks, Greg.'

'Hey. My pleasure. Any time. No problem.'

'The report, Greg.'

'Sure.' Greg handed him the report, twitched three or four awkward smiles, and left.

Grissom absently fingered through pages that all added up to just one thing: what had been a high-profile missing persons case had turned into an even higher-profile homicide, and the two best suspects?

The mayor of the city and the sheriff who kept the peace.

The CSI allowed himself a small, personal smile. It was a good thing he believed so firmly in following the evidence, because if he followed hunches-like his friend Brass-Gil Grissom would've had a really bad feeling about where this case was headed.

5

AFTER SOME SACK TIME AND A FEW MINDLESS HOURS OF ESPN, Nick Stokes felt like a new man. He could tell that Catherine was in a much better mood now, too-sleep and a little quality time with her daughter always seemed to work wonders.

With Grissom's permission, Nick and Catherine were starting their shift midway-three A.M.-which would allow them to work into daylight hours, and be along for interviews with witnesses and suspects. Also, it would put them only halfway through shift when Nunez and his computer cronies showed up to go to work at seven.

The two CSIs joined Nunez's compu-posse then in the large, air-conditioned, garage-like room at the rear of the complex.

The Ryder truck sat parked in the middle of the room with Nunez's team taking the computers out one at a time and placing them on banquet-style tables assembled around the truck. The scene looked vaguely like a swap meet. That vibe quickly faded, however, as the experts got to work: each hard drive was imaged twice, with one copy being put in the computer to be returned to Newcombe-Gold and the other marked for Nunez to search. Each of the originals was tagged and sent to the evidence room.

'Evidence room' was something of a misnomer ever since the LVMPD had been forced to add a building to the CSI complex in order to accommodate the overflow from all the department's investigations. The small, one- story, concrete building out back had a dozen rooms on the first floor and almost that many more in the even more heavily guarded basement.

This overwhelming backlog of evidence had built up fast because of the slow grind of the wheels of justice- not just the court system, but bureaucratic security measures. Each piece of evidence was now affixed with a scan tag, so that when Nick went there for evidence it felt like going to Sam's Club. Scan the number, take your prize with you. One room held computer equipment, others housed stereo equipment, tires and so on, while the really dangerous stuff, the drugs and guns, were stored within the bunker-like security of the basement. Access to this part of the building was only slightly harder than getting into the control room of a nuclear missile silo.

Nick observed Carroll and Giles and the others poring over the computers, then he turned to watch their boss. Seeing the biker-like Tomas Nunez delicately tapping the keyboard of his laptop was like watching Lurch play the harpsichord for the Addams Family. The rangy Hispanic computer expert had jacked Ruben Gold's hard drive into his massive forensic computer and was using a program called ILOOK.

Developed by a Britisher named Elliot Spencer, ILOOK was the best computer forensic software this side of the National Security Agency, and Nick was pretty sure the NSA wasn't going to share its techno-wealth with the LVMPD. Nick leaned over Nunez's shoulder, Catherine next to him, as the expert punched keys, currently running through print orders searching for the work station that had ordered Gold's printer to run off the pornographic images.

'You know,' Nunez said idly, 'in 1995 only five percent of all crime involved computers. Now the figures are more like eighty-five percent.' He went silent as he studied his monitor.

Catherine glanced at Nick, obviously surprised by these stats.

Nick didn't doubt Nunez; on the other hand, the computer expert might be viewing crime through his end of the CPU. 'Anything yet?' he asked.

Nunez's touched a line on the screen. 'Yeah. Already something crucial: the print order was not generated from Gold's computer.'

Catherine and Nick again traded glances, and the former asked, 'But do we know where the order did come from?'

Nunez looked hard at his monitor, then said, 'That would be a big bingo-work station number eighteen.'

'Whose station is that?' Catherine asked.

Nick looked at the printout Janice Denard had given them that showed who occupied which work station. 'Ben Jackson.'

Catherine sighed, rolled her eyes. 'It would be one of the handful we didn't fingerprint.'

'Yet,' Nick remind her. Something didn't feel right, and he asked, 'Didn't Janice Denard tell us that Jackson was gone all weekend?'

'Yeah.' Catherine looked at her watch. 'Let's go see if he came to work early today, now that he's back in town. Maybe he'd like to show us snapshots from his trip.'

The edge in Catherine's voice troubled Nick. 'Let's not get ahead of ourselves,' he said, getting out his cell phone. 'I'll fill O'Riley in. See if he can meet us over at Newcombe-Gold.'

Turning to Nunez, Catherine said, 'You'll call if you find anything?'

'In a cyber second.'