Body of Evidence

volumes.

As the CSI broke the circle and exchanged nods with a uniformed officer, the detective was jotting something in his notebook.

When Brass looked up and saw the CSI boss, he said, 'Mr. Benson, this is crime lab supervisor Grissom. Gil, this is David Benson.'

The man extended his hand, but Grissom already had his latex gloves on, and shook his head while raising ghostly hands as if in surrender.

The witness looked innocuous enough-tall and thin with a reddish blond brush cut; he was nervous but not anxious. His ears stuck out a little, leaving plenty of room for the stems of his black plastic glasses, the lenses thin and possibly tinted a little, hard for Grissom to tell in the lights of the patrol cars and headlights.

Grissom dragged out the preliminary smile he bestowed on witnesses-it was generally as far as he'd go toward loosening them up-and said, 'Mr. Benson, could you tell me what happened here?'

Benson, with an expression that said he'd just finished doing that with Brass, looked toward the detective for relief.

But Brass only said, 'Please tell Dr. Grissom what you told me.'

'All of it?'

Grissom flinched another smile, mildly impatient. 'Just the highlights won't do, Mr. Benson. All of it, please.'

Sighing, Benson looked down at the road for a moment, gathered himself, then his eyes met Grissom's in the swirling purple smear of lights from the vehicles. He pointed up the road, his hand trembling a little. 'It started with me noticing a car, up there.' Grissom remained silent, but offered a nod of encouragement.

'Tell him what kind of car,' Brass said.

Benson frowned in a mild mix of confusion and irritation. 'Well, I already told you. Couldn't you have told him, as easy as asking me to, again?'

Brass sighed a small cloud, and said, 'But I'm not the witness, Mr. Benson. You're the witness.'

'Oh. I'm sorry. I just…nothing like this ever happened to me, before.'

'Nothing like this happened to the victim before, either,' Grissom said with an insincere smile. 'So why don't you continue?'

'It was a white Chevy…Monte Carlo, I think.'

'What was the car doing?'

'Doing?'

'What was it doing that attracted your attention? Was it weaving, was it speeding, was it going unusually slow…'

'Unusually slow! It's like I told Captain Brass, I wouldn't have noticed a thing, except the guy was kind of creeping along, hugging the shoulder…. Made me think maybe he was having car trouble, and might need help. But he could've been looking for something…like a turnoff, or something on the side of the road.'

'Was he maintaining a steady slow speed?'

'I don't understand…'

'Did he slow down, then pick it back up again, then slow again, or-'

'Yes! Like that. And then, finally, he slowed all the way to a stop, and got out of his car.'

'Were you right behind him?'

'No! He was way up ahead, and I slowed down myself, when I was trying to tell if he needed help…but I kind of kept my distance, figuring I oughta do that for a while-I mean, there's all kinds of weirdos around. Somebody can seem to be in trouble, then you stop and get robbed or killed or something. It's a dangerous world to be a Good Samaritan in, don't you think?'

'It is indeed,' Grissom granted. 'So when he stopped, what did you do?'

'I stopped, too. I cut my lights. I…I can't exactly explain it, but I got a…creepy feeling. Like something was wrong. I was just trying to get a handle on what was going on, you know?'

'Yes.'

'So, anyway, like I said, I stopped too, killed my lights, and stayed back where he couldn't see me. I watched him get out, open the trunk, and pull out that…that thing.'

With a shudder, the witness pointed up the road again, this time at something on the shoulder, a dark wrapped-up apparent corpse, near where Warrick and Sara were already at work, Sara snapping photos, the flash making tiny lightning in the night. Almost out of sight, beyond the parked cars, Warrick was bent down, probably searching for footprints. It all comes down to shoe prints was Warrick's byword, and Grissom could not disagree.

'And then?' Brass prompted.

Benson tucked his shaking hands into his pockets. 'Then I watched him dump the…package, dump it on the side of the road, and I just knew right away that it was a body. I don't think I've ever been so scared-it was like all the blood left my body.'

'What did you see that made you think it was a body?' Grissom asked.

'It wasn't the…the package itself, though the shape kinda suggested as much, but more how he acted. The guy moved kind of…funny, you know, on the way back to the car, like he was trying to wipe out his footprints or something…with the side of his shoe? Then the guy slammed the trunk lid, hustled back in the car and split. He wasn't goin' slow then!'

'And where were you while this was going on?' Grissom asked.

Benson turned and pointed toward the other side of the road. 'You know where Hollywood Boulevard runs south of the track?'

'I do.'

'I'd come across from the interstate.'

'I thought that access was blocked at night,' Grissom said. 'Locked up.'

The CSI knew that, while a public street, Hollywood Boulevard ran inside the fence line of Las Vegas Motor Speedway, and metal gates were in place to be dragged across, effectively shutting it down. The LVMS staff did that every night, or at least such was Grissom's understanding.

Brass answered the CSI's question. 'Some days yes, some days no-mostly no.'

Turning back to Benson, Grissom said, 'If you don't mind my asking, what were you doing out here in the middle of the night?'

'Am I in trouble? Am I like a suspect or something?'

Grissom did his best to make his smile friendly. 'Mr. Benson, the first witness is always the first suspect. That's why we have to ask you so many questions.'

'But it's just routine,' Brass interjected, giving Grissom a look.

'The deal is,' Benson said, 'I can't sleep.'

'Just tonight?' Grissom asked. 'Or is insomnia a problem for you?'

'It's a problem. I take medication. But if it doesn't work, I don't dare take more, I'll get sick. Sometimes I take a drive to help me relax. It's usually pretty quiet out here. And it's kind of…beautiful, in a funny kind of way, sort of like you're on another planet. It's sort of…What's the word I'm lookin' for?'

'Austere?' Grissom suggested.

'I don't know that word. But it sounds right.'

'Where do you live, Mr. Benson?'

'Forty-six-forty-two Roby Grey Way.'

Grissom knew that neighborhood-middle-class two-story homes not too far west of here, just off Craig.

The CSI asked, 'If you thought the other driver might be having car trouble, why did you hang back when he stopped?'

'Like I said before, I know that in this city, everything is not always what it seems. You get to know that right away, in my business.'

'And your business is?'

'I sell surveillance video equipment-I know the kinds of things that some people will pull. And I have a certain police-type, security-oriented way of looking at things. I remember reading literature where a gang faked car trouble and then when someone would stop to help them, the gang beat them up and robbed them. I didn't want to