Grave Matters

Black's mouth dropped open, but no words came out.

'The woman in the casket,' Grissom said, 'was at least thirty years younger than the woman whose name was on the headstone. Any ideas?'

'There's no way…' Black's eyes flashed in sudden alarm. 'And you think I…we… had something to do with this…this switching of bodies?'

Brass said, 'We're making no accusations, Mr. Black.'

'We're just gathering evidence,' Grissom said.

'What evidence do you have?'

'A body in a coffin. The coffin belongs to Rita Bennett. The body doesn't.'

'Who the hell was in the coffin?'

'We don't know yet; we're working on identifying her now. You also have to agree it would be very hard to switch the bodies after the vault was sealed and the grave was filled in.'

Grasping at straws, Black said, 'But not impossible.'

'The grave hadn't been disturbed,' Grissom said, 'and the vault was still sealed tight when we did the exhumation…. The evidence indicates the switch was made before the vault was sealed.'

'I understand why you're here,' Black allowed. 'That fact makes you think that, somehow, we here at Desert Haven had something to do with this unholy travesty.'

Brass leaned forward. 'You were in our place-what would you think?'

'I see your dilemma, but I must assure you, gentlemen, there's no way that anything like that could have happened at this mortuary.'

'You seem quite sure,' Brass said.

Black straightened. 'Of course I am. I trust all our employees-we're family, here. And none of them would do anything like this, and anyway…it's just not possible. There are always too many people around.'

Grissom asked, 'Can you offer us another explanation for the confusion of corpses?'

The mortician thought about it. 'No-honestly, I can't. And the truth is…I've never heard of anything like this before. It makes no sense to me. Why would someone trade one dead body for another?'

'Possibly,' Grissom said, 'someone with something to hide, Mr. Black.'

'Something like what?'

'Oh I don't know-a body, maybe?'

4

WARRICK WAS BONE TIRED. Beat. The long night he'd recently endured promised to be followed by what was developing into an equally long morning and afternoon. With two dayshift investigators out sick, and three others working a gang-related shoot-out in the desert, that meant overtime for everybody, which meant more money…but then you had to have a life to spend it on, right?

While the nightshift CSIs hung around and stayed on call for anything that might come up, they pursued their current cases.

Instead of drawing the shooting, which would have been enough to perk him up, Warrick (and Catherine) had been dealt some fairly unexciting cards-namely, following up on David Phillips's hunch at the Sunny Day Continuing Care Facility.

Not that Warrick would give anything less than one hundred percent. Beneath a surface of steady purpose that could be mistaken for boredom, despite a wry and dry sarcasm that might suggest lack of interest, an alert, brilliant criminologist lurked behind the green eyes of Warrick Brown.

The CSI took his job dead serious, even when it meant fingerprinting bedpans and photographing walkers. Exploring a suspicious death at Sunny Day rest home may not be as compelling as working a gang-banger shoot- out, but it deserved all due consideration and deliberation. If foul play had been done to Vivian Elliot, then it was Warrick's job to speak on her behalf.

As Grissom had said more than once, 'We can't give them back their lives, so we have to find the meaning of their deaths.'

By this Gris meant, in his oblique way, that the only thing left for a murder victim was justice-what could still be done for Vivian Elliot was to find her killer, and deliver that killer for punishment.

If Vivian Elliot had been murdered….

Such idealistic notions didn't mean Warrick couldn't run out of gas, however, and he was definitely driving on fumes. Catherine had shut herself in her office to (quote) catalog the evidence (unquote); but on his way to the breakroom, Warrick noticed no light under her office door.

Cath had to be just as whipped as he was; but she had remarkable recuperative powers-she could nap fifteen minutes and be good to go for another eight hours. Warrick, on the other hand, was pumping coffee through his system in hopes the caffeine would help fight the sluggishness that had settled over him like damp clothing upon their return from Sunny Day.

Uncoiling his tall frame from a breakroom chair, he strolled to the counter and poured himself another cup of what had purportedly once been coffee (the lab results weren't back yet). He turned and looked at the table and chair he'd just vacated, and considered sitting back down and closing his eyes for what he hoped would be a short nap…only he didn't have Catherine's ability to quickly recharge, nor was the caffeine in his bloodstream likely to cooperate.

Instead, he would go check with David about the autopsy on Vivian Elliot.

Assistant coroner David Phillips often worked alongside Dr. Robbins in the morgue, but when Warrick peeked in, Robbins was in the midst of an autopsy with Nick and Sara looking on and providing whatever assistance might be necessary-no David. And Warrick could see just enough of the corpse's face on the table to know she wasn't their woman from Sunny Day; this corpse was young, if a corpse could be said to possess youth.

Warrick moved on in his search, which didn't take long-the assistant coroner was two doors down in X- ray.

As Warrick walked in, David was adjusting the placement of the X-ray tube over Vivian Elliot's remains. An X-ray had a multiplicity of uses where live bodies were concerned; and Warrick had seen such machines used even on dead bodies, to locate bullets or other foreign objects.

But the CSI wasn't sure he knew what David was up to, using the thing with the late Vivian Elliot….

'Hey,' Warrick said.

'Hey,' David said. He smiled, glad for the living company apparently, and gestured. 'Step into my booth….'

'Said the spider to the fly?'

'Or not. And don't worry: That glow-in-the-dark rumor you hear is a buncha b.s.'

'I'm coming, teacher,' Warrick said.

David led Warrick into the control booth and hit a switch. Soon David shut it down, and moved quickly out into the main room to remove that film from under Vivian's body and to place another a little farther down.

'I could use a hand,' David asked.

Warrick joined David. 'I don't suppose you mean applause.'

'No,' David said, with his nervous smile.

Warrick turned Vivian slightly so David could get the film under her. 'What are you up to, David?' he asked. 'Not playing another hunch, are ya?'

'Not exactly. More…trying to confirm a theory.'

'Which is?'

'That someone at Sunny Day injected Mrs. Elliot with air, causing an embolism that sent her heart into seizure…after which she died.'

Frowning and nodding, Warrick said, 'You think the killer did that, to make the death look like a heart attack?'

'I do-and this is something a bad guy could get away with…if the good guys weren't looking for it.'

Warrick raised one eyebrow and gave David half a smirk. 'First you think the woman was murdered, because