'Hell,' Randle blurted, 'I've said that all along!' Austin nodded approvingly next to him.
'For example,' she said. 'We found Ben Jackson's fingerprints on the keyboard and in the cubicle. After all, it's his work station, right?'
Both men nodded now.
'But Mr. Jackson was out of town when this happened…so it wasn't him. Then we found your prints and you claimed you only used Ben's cubicle for work.'
'Which is the truth,' Randle said.
Catherine gave him a little smile. 'If it is the truth, someone at Newcombe-Gold must've been wearing gloves on Saturday-notice anyone like that?'
'Gloves? You're kidding, right?'
'The only prints on that keyboard belonged to you and Ben Jackson-how do you explain that?'
Austin sat forward, his eyes intense. 'It's not my client's job to explain it-it's yours.'
Catherine held up a hand to silence the lawyer. 'Let's slow down. If you're telling the truth, Mr. Randle, there's a third party involved here.'
Both Randle and his attorney looked at her blankly.
'And if somebody wore gloves, using the keyboard,' Catherine said, her tone one of thinking aloud, 'that means they-'
Nick jumped in.
He and Catherine shared a tense look. Randle and Austin suddenly looked lost, the conversation having taken a turn they had neither expected nor could follow.
Nick, moving to Catherine's side, said to her, 'And the only reason a third person would know that the keyboard was going to be fingerprinted would be if they were trying to…'
'…frame him,' Catherine said, eyes tight.
They both looked at Randle-as if for the first time.
'Anybody at work hate you?' asked Catherine.
Randle seemed to really consider that before answering; finally, he simply shook his head.
Catherine pressed: 'No one at work has a reason to dislike you?'
'Not that I can think of…and, frankly, I can't think of a reason why anybody would.'
'No professional jealousies?' Catherine tried. 'Any personal relationships? Affairs? Please be frank, Mr. Randle-it's for your own benefit.'
Randle looked at the lawyer, who was no help.
The adman said, 'Not really. Nothing professionally. And my private life is separate from my professional one.'
'Anyone outside of work?' Catherine asked. 'How about from your swinger days? Any enemies at all?'
'Well, the only 'enemy'…Only real enemy I have is my ex-wife, Elaine.'
Catherine frowned. 'Does Elaine have access to Newcombe-Gold?'
He shook his head vigorously. 'No, no, not now. Oh, she met a few of the old-timers, who were there back ten years ago or so-Ruben and Ian, Janice and Roxanne, a few more. But the truth is, with her drinking getting so out of hand back then, I'd already stopped taking her to office functions a year or two before our divorce…and after that she wouldn't have seen any of those people.'
'You don't believe there's any way she could be behind this?'
'Well, hell! She definitely hates me enough to do this. But there's just no way she could have gotten into the office.'
'Anyone else you can think of?'
'No one-not neighbors, not any parents of Heather's friends, nobody at the church…no.'
Catherine heaved a sigh of finality. 'All right, Mr. Randle…. I do want to thank you, sincerely, for this interview.'
He beamed at her. 'So then-'
'You can go, but don't leave town.'
His face fell.
'No, Mr. Randle, you're not in the clear, yet; but if you're innocent, knowing we're going to keep investigating should provide some reassurance. And if there's evidence to exonerate you, you…and your attorney…will be the first to know.'
Almost humbly, he said, 'Thank you.'
She smiled tightly. 'Of course, if we find out you're guilty, you'll be the first to know that, too.'
Randle merely shrugged.
After the adman and attorney had made their exit, the two CSIs and the detective remained in the interview room; they sat silently for several minutes, each on his or her own mental track.
Nick finally said, 'So-first, we look at the rest of the staff.'
O'Riley sat immobile, staring into the wall; it was just possible he'd lapsed into a coma.
Catherine laid it out: they would spend the rest of the day digging into Newcombe-Gold, the financial reports of the company and records of Ian Newcombe, Ruben Gold, Janice Denard, Roxanne Scott, Gary Randle, Ben Jackson and Jermaine Allred. They would do background checks on those seven as well, and had Nunez concentrate on their computers first. If those inquiries didn't turn up anything, then the investigators would pick another group of employees and start on them.
'But just to give Grissom his due,' she said, 'we'll begin with the best first suspect: Janice Denard.'
10
THE CARPET FIBERS FROM THE REMNANT IN WHICH THE corpse of Candace Lewis had been wrapped were polypropylene olefin, used in less than a quarter of carpeting in the United States.
Sara Sidle had tracked down the ten stores locally selling that variety of carpet, though she had yet to find out how much each one had sold of this particular type and pattern.
'But as ugly as it is,' she told Warrick Brown in the Tahoe, parked across from the Kyle Hamilton residence, 'they can't have sold much.'
'You never know,' Warrick said with a wry smirk, sitting behind the wheel. 'Underestimating the bad taste of people can get you in trouble.'
'No argument there. Anyway, I'll get on that when I get back to the lab.'
'More overtime?'
'Well, I can't call stores during our shift. Even in Vegas, carpet stores keep regular hours.'
This was one of the hassles of working night shift, aggravated by their poor relationship with Conrad Ecklie's personnel on days: some contacts you needed to make just couldn't happen on graveyard.
They'd been sitting in the Tahoe-he sipping coffee, she drinking tea-for fifteen minutes. It was a little before six A.M.; Brass was on his way. Despite the hour, Brass had gone to a judge to obtain a search warrant for Kyle Hamilton's white Monte Carlo with the busted taillight.
They had relieved the North Las Vegas patrol car, who'd been watching the residence on Cotton Gum Court. The NLVPD reported no signs of activity at the two-story, orange-tile-roofed stucco. The odds that the car would be in the garage-which sat forward, the front door recessed to its left-were slim; but just getting in the garage would be a start. The sun had already peeked over the horizon, but the night hadn't yet given up the ghost, the sky a cobalt gray, early rising residents in surrounding houses still depending on electricity to guide their way.
Warrick sat up, almost spilling his coffee. 'Was that light on before?'
'What light?'
'Upstairs. Second window over. I don't remember that being on.'
She shrugged. 'I'm sorry. I wasn't paying attention. Just sitting here zoned, waiting for Brass.'
Around them, the neighborhood was slowly coming to life. The houses may have been cookie-cutter, but morning rituals varied, at least a little. Here a car backed out of a garage, the driver eyeballing the black man and white woman in the Tahoe as his own SUV rolled slowly out of the court. There a thirtyish guy in a business suit
