would be on both the casket and the vault-no helping that. They had expected to find Rita Bennett inside, so, obviously, hadn't been particularly careful about not leaving fingerprints. Once they found the other woman, though, they had pulled on the ever-trusty latex gloves….
He dusted the coffin all down the lip of the lid, along the handles, and around the locks. Normally, the only prints he would expect to find would be his and Sara's; but with the sealed vault protecting the fingerprints from the arid desert air, he hoped to get luckier than that. It was a time-consuming job, but whenever he found something, he'd transfer it to tape and move on. In the end, he collected more than two dozen prints. How many would prove to be his and Sara's remained to be seen.
With the outside of the casket done, Nick moved back to the interior. Using his Maglite, he combed the satin lining, looking for any clue that might lead him to identify either the victim or the killer. Having gone over the head end of the coffin thoroughly (while the body was still inside), he now began at the foot. Several small pieces of something black-dirt, he decided-were visible, where they had probably hidden under the heel of the girl's shoes. It was possible the dirt had come from Rita Bennett's shoes, too, but the Bennett woman would likely have been buried in clean, perhaps even new shoes, whereas the girl had been murdered, not prepared and spruced up for burial. Either way, he took photos of the dirt, then bagged it.
Next, Nick moved on toward where her knees had been, then her waist, her back, and, finally, again to the pillow. He was going around the edge one final time when he saw a fiber hung up in a tiny flaw in the wood. Using his tweezers, he picked up the fiber and examined it more carefully-white, and less than an inch long. To Nick it looked like plain old-fashioned white thread; but he knew that David Hodges, CSI's resident trace expert, might well give him enough info to start a Plain Old-Fashioned White Thread website. He bagged the thread and then went over the casket one more time, this trip taking an alternative light source along for the ride….
The blood showed up under the UV light, all right, but he found nothing else. Spraying Luminol on the pillow didn't help either: The blood that he'd already seen-the drops and the small patch under the woman's head-was all there was to find.
Finally finished with the casket, Nick stared at the empty vessel, as if waiting for a wraith to rise up and reveal all to him. Unlikely as that prospect might be, he sure could have used the help.
He had precious little to go on. He moved on to the cement vault, but there was even less there. The vault would have already been at the cemetery, and the casket sealed inside there. The possibility remained that the body could have been transferred right before it went into the vault; but the concrete wrapper had been exposed to the desert climate far more than the casket sealed within, and Nick was not confident of finding anything.
Still, he went over it inch by inch. He dusted for fingerprints, went over the outside and the edges for signs of blood, and examined the inside with both his Maglite and an ALS.
And came up empty.
He cleaned up, stored the evidence, then caught up with Sara in the morgue. Though the garage had been air-conditioned, Nick's hard work had him sweating, and when he strode into the morgue, the chill of the room gave him a shiver.
Sara stood opposite Dr. Al Robbins, the body on the steel table between them. The unknown girl was naked now, her clothes in evidence bags on a nearby counter, where Sara had put them.
Sara had put on a powder-blue lab coat and latex gloves as she assisted Robbins with his duties. Following suit, Nick took a blue lab coat off a hook and slipped into it. As he crossed to the table, he pulled on a fresh pair of latex gloves.
A rather tall, balding, salt-and-pepper-bearded man, Robbins was looking at less than twelve months before his tenth anniversary with the LVPD. A man who seemed composed of equal parts cool professionalism and warm compassion, Robbins moved with the aid of a metal cane, which now leaned, as it often did when he was working, in a corner near the table. The father of three and a devoted family man, Doc Robbins had a daughter whose age would not be far removed from that of their nameless victim.
Nick settled in next to Sara.
'Find anything?' she asked.
He shrugged. 'Couple needles in the haystack. We'll see.' Looking down at the body, Nick saw that their victim not only had been disrobed, but her face had been scrubbed clean. She was even prettier than he had originally thought. 'How about you, Sara?'
'I'll want to go over her clothes more thoroughly, later,' Sara said.
Nick looked at Robbins. 'And you, Doc? She tell you anything interesting yet?'
Robbins glanced up at Nick, then turned his attention back to the woman on the table. 'Cause of death was a single gunshot wound to the back of the head. Small caliber, probably a twenty-two. But you knew that.
'Here's what you didn't know,' Robbins continued. 'The fact is that the young woman is…was… pregnant.'
Nick's eyes widened. He bit the word off: 'Really?'
The ME nodded. 'About nine weeks.'
'So what we may have here,' Nick said, thinking out loud, 'is a father who didn't
'What we may have here,' Sara added, 'is an abortion.'
* * *
Located on Valle Verde Drive in Henderson, Desert Haven Mortuary was about as far from Desert Palm Memorial Cemetery as you could get and still be within the city limits. Caught in the noon rush hour, Grissom and Brass had taken the better part of an hour making the trek across town. When they arrived, the parking lot was practically full and Brass had to pull the Taurus over to the far side of the building.
Through shimmering heat they walked around to the front. Done in tasteful brick with white painted trim and pillars, the mortuary was but a single story, though an endless, rambling affair. No matter how far Grissom felt like he had walked, the front door always seemed to still be in the distance; he knew that inside were at least six, and maybe more, visitation rooms, as well as a cluster of offices, the workroom where the bodies were prepared, and the crematorium.
As with so many businesses, the trend in mortuaries had become the big ones eating up the little ones; many mortuaries had started out as 'Mom and Pop' shops, passed down from generation to generation, but the advent of chains was ending that, as corporations bought out family businesses. Dustin Black's Desert Haven Mortuary was an exception to that rule.
Still family-owned, Desert Haven was simply too big and flourishing for the corporations to buy out. The Black family had been in the business since the late thirties, when Daniel Black (Dustin's grandfather) had purchased a very early embalming machine. Even though at the time Vegas was little more than a wide spot in the road, Daniel had set up shop as a mortician and the family's course and fortune were set from then on.
Now the biggest mortuary between California and Arizona, Desert Haven was a pillar of the community and the mortuary of choice for those who could afford it. Anyone who was anyone wouldn't be caught dead anywhere but here.
The packed parking lot told Grissom that even though it was barely noon, visitations were going strong. Elegant double doors with etched glass provided entry into a large foyer area where the CSI supervisor and the detective were met by a quiet young gray-suited greeter with a loud tie, a handsome kid in his very early twenties.
Grissom was a little surprised to be met by such a young representative-often, funeral homes used older people with a comforting manner. This boy seemed anxious.
'Which family, please?' the greeter asked.
'The Black family,' Brass said.
'I…don't understand….'
Brass showed his badge, discreetly. 'We need to talk to Mr. Black.'
'We're really very busy.' This request seemed to have thrown the greeter. 'I'm not sure…'
Brass smiled-it was a particularly awful smile. 'You're not very high on the food chain around here, are you, son?'
'Uh…'
'Why don't you fetch your boss and let
Dark eyes beneath heavy brows tightened in thought; then the boy nodded and gestured. 'Would you mind
