Warrick's notion of a shack dissolved and he realized that couple back on Roby Grey Way had not exaggerated. The house perched on a low hill to the west, a long, low-slung stucco ranch-style with a typical Vegas-area tile roof.
Grissom said, 'Most people have a cabin to 'rough it,' get away from civilization. Why does David Benson need two houses, roughly the equivalent of each other, only miles apart?'
Sara said, 'Do I have to answer that?'
Their supervisor went on: 'He's not next to a stream, for fishing. There's nothing to recommend this location, other than its…'
'Splendid isolation?' Warrick offered.
Grissom nodded.
Only one way up the hill to the house: a curving dirt driveway that-no matter how slow they took it-would give Benson ample opportunity to spot them coming. Nonetheless, Brass took the hill slowly, kicking up a minimum of dust, though if Benson was home, they were made, no question.
They pulled up in front, in a small graveled area extending from the garage's gravel drive. A propane tank sat off to one side of the house, and next to it a large generator chugged right along, little wisps of exhaust disappearing skyward.
'Okay,' Grissom said, almost to himself. 'So he's a survivalist-that's one reason to have a second house, in the boondocks….'
They got out and no one made a move to unload the Tahoe. Unholstering his sidearm, Brass gave the CSIs a look that had all of them-even Grissom-unhesitatingly unholstering theirs.
Even if David Benson wasn't their homicidal necrophiliac, he was a loner in the security business who had the earmarks of a survivalist, and when the cops showed up, that type of individual sometimes…overreacted.
They went to the door, with its cement-slab stoop, the detective in the lead, Warrick right behind him, feeling beads of sweat on his brow, and not just because they were no longer in the air-conditioned vehicle.
Brass tried to peek around the curtains of the front window with no success, then turned and gave Warrick a had-to-try shrug.
Poised at the front door, with Grissom and Sara off to the sides of the stoop, weapons in hand, Brass signaled Warrick to go around back.
Which Warrick did, the gun heavy if reassuring in his hand as he skirted along the side of the structure. With no lawn out here, the desert floor seemed to crunch under his feet like broken glass, as if the ground itself were a security alarm. With his left hand, he rubbed the perspiration from his face, particularly away from his eyes, drying his hand on his shirt, and crept along. Three windows on this side-as heavily curtained as the one in the front.
In back, a twenty-foot-wide flat space extended to where the scrubby hill sloped steeply up. More windows- four to be exact, two on either side of a screened backdoor, each as heavily curtained as the others. Beyond the screen, the rear door was steel with a peephole but no window.
Warrick pounded hard on the metal border of the screen, but got no response; and it proved to be locked.
To the far side of the house, the CSI noticed three small bushes, their leaves brown and withered…and Warrick realized he'd likely located the source of the crushed leaves found in Candace Lewis's carpet cocoon.
He didn't know how far Brass and the others were-or weren't-getting, out front; but he figured if Benson did happen to be inside, and Brass succeeded in chasing him out, this was the way the suspect would be exiting…so Warrick decided this was exactly where he ought to be.
Nerve endings on alert, Warrick imagined he could feel every molecule of the breeze slipping past him. The gun now felt more heavy than reassuring, and the impulse to drop his arms down to his sides beleaguered him; but he fought it, and kept the gun up, barrel pointed at the sky.
If he leveled it, it would be for one purpose only.
Warrick took a position off to one side, preparing himself for whatever came through that door. His back was against stucco, shirt cool and damp against his back, bumps of the wall digging into him, reminding him he was alive. A good way to be…
Nothing to do but wait.
Then his cell phone trilled, and he felt himself jump a little-no one was around to see that, thankfully-and he jerked the phone off his belt, about to shut it down when he recognized the incoming number as Brass's.
'What?'
'We don't think he's here,' Brass said without preamble.
'He could be burrowed in,' the slightly amped Warrick reminded the detective, 'just waiting to jump out and say 'boo.' '
'Is there a car, any kinda vehicle, back there?'
Warrick glanced, then felt silly for not putting it together sooner: no car out front, no car in the back, middle of nowhere, equals…
No Benson.
'No vehicle out back,' Warrick said.
'Join us,' Brass said, sounding laidback. 'We'll do our deal with the door, you and I, then while you CSIs start working your wonders, I'll move the Tahoe around back of the house. Assuming there's room…?'
'Plenty,' Warrick said, taking in the flat space.
Warrick circled the building and met Brass at the rear of the Tahoe. They fetched the battering ram and lugged it to the stoop, to repeat the action from the other house. This door proved more secure, and it took a second blow to send the puppy sailing in, this jamb splintering, too, survivalist measures or not.
After leaning the battering ram against the side of the house, Brass told Grissom and Sara to stay put and keep a watch for Benson, should he return.
Then Brass went in first, Warrick after him, guns drawn. Warrick held a flashlight in his left hand and the weapon in his right, fanning them both around.
The single curtained picture window shrouded the room, but sun spilling through the open door aided the flashlights, if also creating dancing shadows. A certain strobe-like effect resulted, and Warrick had trouble adjusting for a few moments, not able to recognize even familiar objects.
The room was air-conditioned-cold in here, which explained why the generator was working with nobody (apparently) home. Warrick recalled Doc Robbins saying Candace Lewis's body had been preserved for some time, and a chill ran through him that had nothing to do with air conditioning.
Brass clicked the light switch and revealed a medium-sized living room that was at once cluttered and stark: parked in the middle were the only furnishings-a big lounge chair and a small, round table with a coaster and a remote control, opposite a huge projection TV against the far. The cluttered feel arrived by way of the right wall, which was consumed by shelving, the upper levels home to more electronic gear than the backroom at Best Buy- several VCRs, DVD players and recorders, laserdisc player, various cameras and more. The lower shelves were lined with hundreds of videotapes, all the homemade variety, with white spines hand-lettered in black felt-tip.
Even from across the room, Warrick could make out a row of tapes labeled CANDY, volumes one and two and three and on and on….
Shuddering, Warrick glanced around the other, vacant walls-no pictures at all, not mom, not Jesus, not even a velvet John Wayne.
Brass and Warrick exchanged lifted-eyebrow glances, and the detective led the way through an archway into a dining room, each going down one side of a scuffed, secondhand-looking wooden table and two wooden chairs with spindle backs. The chair on Warrick's side was rubbed white on one of the spindles-could this indicate Candace had sat here, handcuffed, while her host fed her during her imprisonment?
Beyond the dining area was the kitchen, but Warrick couldn't move any further without exposing himself to a hallway at left. Brass indicated he'd take the kitchen, and Warrick nodded toward the hall, a choice Brass confirmed with a return nod.
Warrick had taken only a few steps down the narrow corridor when Brass whispered from behind him, 'Kitchen's clear, too.'
The first two doors in the hall faced each other.
As before, Brass went right and Warrick left, turning into a room bearing the fragrance of a relatively recent paint job, the walls a flat white; probably intended as a bedroom, this had been converted into a kind of office-
