Grave Matters

She half-smirked, then said, 'If there is a killer, that hair could still belong to somebody other than the killer….'

'Always a possibility. And I don't know enough about funeral homes and cemeteries to guess how many people might handle a casket.'

Sara-after carefully cleaning ink off dead fingertips-slipped the corpse's hand back into the coffin. 'I oughta load these prints into AFIS.'

'Go ahead-I'll stay busy, and by the time you get back, we should be ready to pull her out.'

Sara nodded. 'Back in a flash-don't you two run off.'

Nick gave her half a smile. 'We'll wait for you.'

* * *

With Brass behind the wheel of the Taurus, headed for the cemetery, CSI supervisor Gil Grissom sat quietly in the rider's seat, oblivious to anything but his thoughts, sunglasses keeping out much more than just glaring morning sunlight.

Barring the possibility that they'd exhumed the wrong corpse, the body in the casket could only have been exchanged for Rita Bennett's in a small and very finite number of places: inside the hearse, during transport, which seemed improbable at best; at the funeral home; or the cemetery.

'Soooo,' Brass said, voice a little loud. 'Do I take it, then, that you think the switch went down at the funeral home?'

'Huh?' Grissom asked, blinking over at Brass, who glanced at him, shook his head, then turned back to the road.

'I asked,' Brass said, just a wee bit testy, 'if you thought the bodies were switched at the cemetery. When you didn't answer, I figured-'

'Sorry, Jim. Thinking.'

'And what brilliant insight do you have for me?'

Now Grissom shook his head. 'None. Too early.'

Brass's tight eyes indicated he'd been mulling the same possibilities. 'Wouldn't it be hard as hell to trade bodies at the cemetery, if there was a graveside service?'

'Graves aren't filled in till after the mourners are long gone.'

Brass considered that. 'But the casket's already been lowered….'

'What goes down,' Grissom said, with a tilt of the head, 'can come up.'

The detective turned the Taurus through the gates and took a right into the gravel parking lot fronting the tiny office of Desert Palm Memorial Cemetery, which looked like a homespun stone cottage…which just happened to have had a cemetery spring up around it. Brass parked, then Grissom and the detective exited the vehicle and the blast of hot air was immediately withering. A little bell clinked when Brass opened the door and the two men entered into more blessed air conditioning.

The room was small and square with one window next to the door and another on the far facing wall, the green of the cemetery visible through both. A battered gray battleship of a metal desk lurked to their right, a woman of about sixty seated behind it in a short-sleeve rust-colored white-floral-print dress.

Due to the lack of space, the desk was shoved back close to the wall and, although the woman wasn't particularly large, she seemed almost jammed behind and under it; a phone, a large blotter/calendar, and a walkie- talkie were arrayed on the desktop, but no pictures or other personal items, although a little stand with free dog- eared pamphlets-Grief Is God's Way of Saying Goodbye, Eternal Rest for Your Loved Ones-perched at the front edge, next to a brass nameplate that read 'GLENDA NELSON-MEMORIAL CONSULTANT.' File cabinets separated her from another desk, empty at the moment, and the rest of the cottage served as a small shop where artificial flowers could be picked up for mourners doing some last-minute shopping.

'Welcome to Desert Palm Memorial, gentlemen,' the woman said in a mechanically mellow voice, with a practiced smile and wholly unengaged eyes. 'I'm Glenda-how may I help you?'

Brass flashed his badge. 'This is Doctor Grissom from the crime lab; I'm Captain Brass. We were here early this morning-for that exhumation?'

'Yes, of course! Mr. Crosby informed me of that.'

'Well, that's who we're looking for-Mr. Crosby. Is he here this early?'

Her smile disappeared but her eyes came alive. 'I'm sorry, Captain, but he's not scheduled to come in today.'

Had Crosby taken the day off, Grissom wondered, because the cemetery manager knew they might be back?

'Is there any way I can help you?' the woman asked.

'It's about the exhumation-there's a problem.'

She frowned and seemed to Grissom a trifle alarmed, despite Brass's typically low-key manner; problems around here were fairly limited-the guests at this hotel didn't likely complain much.

The woman said, 'Well-Joe and Bob didn't mention any difficulties….'

Brass said, 'Thing is…is it Mrs. Nelson?'

Grissom felt this guess on Brass's part was substantiated by evidence: The woman had on a wedding ring and diamond.

'Yes-it's Mrs. Nelson. But Glenda is fine.'

'Mrs. Nelson, we opened that casket at headquarters, and we found the wrong body inside.'

She blinked and thought about that and then blinked some more. 'How in heaven's name is that possible?'

'Our question exactly,' Grissom said.

The woman glanced at the phone on her desk. Grissom could tell she wanted to pick it up, probably to call Crosby, but she didn't reach for it. She'd been left in charge, and she would deal with it.

Finally, Glenda said, 'You'll have to forgive me…I wasn't here earlier…. Can you tell me the name of the person you were supposed to exhume?'

Brass said, 'Rita Bennett.'

'Oh yes. From television.' Glenda rose and went to a filing cabinet nearby; computers had not come to Desert Palm-not uncommon with such facilities.

'Rita Bennett,' she repeated to herself. She opened the second drawer down in the file cabinet and thumbed through a few files before finding the right one. 'Section B, row 3, plot 117.'

Grissom restrained a smile. On the green grounds nearby, with their headstones, eternal flames, and floral arrangements, loved ones rested in serene dignity; but here in the office, a file cabinet would do as final resting place.

Brass was checking his notebook. 'That's what Crosby gave me-section B, row 3, plot 117…. Mrs. Nelson, do you mind walking us over there?'

Glenda frowned. 'I can't leave my post,' she said, as if that desk really were her battleship. 'What would happen if someone came in?'

Grissom and Brass exchanged quick looks, both thinking the same thing: No MO was on file with LVPD for perps prone to heisting artificial flowers from cemetery offices.

'I'll tell you what,' she said. 'I could call Bob on the walkie and have him take you back.'

'Why don't you?' Brass said pleasantly.

Glenda called Bob.

While they waited for Bob's arrival, Brass asked a few more questions, beginning with, 'Mrs. Nelson, is there any way one body could be…exchanged…for another?'

Glenda looked at Brass like he'd just blurted a chain of obscenities. 'Captain Brass! This is not a used parts store-urban legends about organ thieves do not take into consideration such small factors as embalming!'

'I didn't mean to suggest-'

'We take our responsibility very seriously!'

Grissom bestowed a charming smile upon her and said, 'Of course we understand that, Mrs. Nelson-but it's not impossible, is it?'