Grave Matters

bed asleep already. So, the police just asked Cassie general stuff about Kathy.'

'What did they ask you?'

'Their questions were more pointed to me-after all, I'd driven the girl home. Haven't you spoken to them about it?'

Actually, Brass had assigned Sergeant O'Riley to that very task, but the report hadn't come back yet.

'That's not your concern, Mr. Black,' Brass said. 'Now, if Rita Bennett died on a Thursday, why did the funeral wait till the following Tuesday? Isn't that an unusually long time?'

'It varies quite a bit. In this case, the husband, Peter, had a sister flying in from Atlanta for the services. She couldn't get in until Monday night.'

Brass's gut was twitching. Something was wrong here. For now, the detective would keep this feeling to himself; hold it close to himself, actually, nurturing it….

'One last question,' Brass said.

'Yes?'

'Were you aware that Kathy Dean was pregnant?'

For just a moment, Black stiffened, the man's eyes tightening. It wasn't much of a reaction, but enough for Brass to note.

Recovering quickly, the mortician said, 'How sad…but how would I have known that? Why would I have known that?'

'The young woman's parents are under the impression that she didn't even have a boyfriend. A problem like pregnancy, she might have wanted to turn to an adult she trusted for advice. A father figure.'

'We were friendly, but I can't honestly say she confided in me.'

'Okay. Just wondering.'

In the parking lot, walking to their car, Brass said to Grissom, 'You weren't exactly chatty in there.'

'You were doing fine.'

'Was I?'

'He knows something he's not telling us.'

Brass stopped and turned to Grissom. 'Then you saw it, too. He's guilty of something.'

Grissom twitched a smile. 'Aren't we all? Question is, in Black's case…guilty of what? Let's get some evidence, Jim, 'cause what he's guilty of is something you might want to know before you read him his Miranda.'

Sara came into a lab at CSI to find Nick bent over what she assumed was the box of Kathy Dean's belongings, courtesy of an evidence locker. Smaller items were spread across the table, but most of it was still in the box.

'Anything?' she asked.

Nick gave her half a smile. 'How about, Kathy Dean had sex the night she disappeared.'

'She did?'

'According to the lab report on her clothes.'

Sara frowned. 'There was nothing at the autopsy….'

A raised eyebrow cut into Nick's forehead. 'She went home and changed clothes, remember, maybe took a shower, and God only knows what was done to her before she went into that coffin.'

Sara withdrew the bagged note from her crime kit.

'What's that?' Nick asked.

'Give me your opinion.'

Nick examined the note, leaving it in its plastic home. 'Parents have any idea who 'FB' is?'

'No,' she said. 'They still think their daughter was a virgin…. They didn't know 'A' either.'

'What Cracker Jack box did you find this prize in?'

She pulled out the bag with the book. 'In her room.'

'Lady Chatterley…. Not exactly virginal reading.'

'Maybe it was research. Anyway, Nick, I'm going to take the note to the document examiner-maybe she can do something with it. What else have you found out?'

'Tomas Nunez went over Kathy Dean's computer, back when Ecklie's people brought it in.'

'What did Tomas find? Knowing him, he came up with something. That electronic diary, maybe?'

'No-nothing that helps us. Mostly lots of songs. She was downloading digital tunes like there was no tomorrow.'

'Legally?'

'Ninety-five percent of them.'

'Anything else from the Internet?'

'There were some e-mails from a couple of people, but they were in that same 'almost' language as your note.'

Sara pondered momentarily, then asked Nick, 'Did Tomas trace the sources of the other e-mails?'

'Yeah, but only a couple were local, and we got nothing from them. They translated the e-mails, but it was nothing helpful. Girlfriends from high school days. Stuff's still in the box, if you care to read them.'

'Anybody called 'A'?'

'Nope, not even an e-mail handle that started with A.'

Sara rubbed her forehead. 'She's downloading music, only…there's no stereo in her room.'

'No, but she had the computer.'

'I suppose. Was there a stereo in her car?'

Nick picked up a report and read it. 'AM/FM, CD player. CD burner on her computer, too.'

'But if music is so important to her, don't you think she'd have a way to play it?'

'Besides the CDs?'

Sara thought back on the room. 'I didn't see any CDs. You got some among this stuff?'

'No.'

Sara shrugged. 'Then either they've disappeared or they never existed.'

'So she's downloading strictly to her hard drive, you think?'

Sara shook her head. 'Seems to me she'd have something that would play 'em.'

'IPod? Rio player?'

'Something like that, and there was no phone in her room either.'

'Meaning?'

'Meaning the Deans were good parents with money and yet there was no phone in their daughter's room.'

'She had a cell phone,' Nick said, checking the Missing Persons info. 'It must've been her only phone.'

'Do we have it?'

Nick gestured with empty hands. 'No. Just the phone records indicating she had one.'

'Well, where is the thing?'

'With her MP3 player?'

She pointed a finger at Nick. 'If somebody used the cell, phone records could lead us somewhere.'

'Sara, that phone's been dead since the day she disappeared.'

Sara made a face, then tried again: 'Ecklie's people get anything useful from those phone records?'

'Just the names of some of her friends that the parents didn't know about, mostly girls she worked with either at the Mexican restaurant or the blood bank…but they didn't know jack about Kathy's disappearance.'

'Any 'A' names among the friends, or 'FB'?'

Nick shook his head.

'How about Gerardo Ortiz?'

Nick reared back, smiled a little, and said, 'What are you doin' there-pulling names out of a hat?'

'No, he's a guy she used to date.'

'Yeah, he's in here. Name's crossed out with a black marker, though. And there's a Post-It from one of the detectives that has the guy's name and an address.'

'My guess is he doesn't live there anymore.'