Grave Matters

Nick began at the rear bumper and worked his way slowly forward. The two rows of seats left the back half of the vehicle empty. Most families would use that for storage, while Black had made it his own personal playroom for himself and young Kathy Dean. Here, Nick found several reddish hairs the same color and length as Kathy's. In a storage compartment, he found a blanket that he thought Black might have used for his inside-the-car picnics. The ALS (Alternative Light Source) revealed a number of apparent body-fluid deposits on the blanket; but none of them were blood, so Nick set the blanket aside to take its many samples later.

He was just finishing the front seat when Brass, Grissom, and Sara came in.

'Progress?' Grissom asked.

'Our most important product,' Nick said with a smile, and told his boss about the findings thus far, including more hairs in the passenger seat and its headrest, some of which seemed to belong to the husband, wife, and kids.

'We'll have to wait for the lab to know for sure,' Nick said. 'But it looks like Kathy Dean spent a lot of time in the back of the Blacks's SUV.'

'Good job,' Grissom said. 'There's more for you to hear.'

They sat down at a worktable at one side of the garage.

Sara explained about the Lady Chatterley note and what she had found out from Shawna/Abeja the waitress.

'You know, that D. H. Lawrence book,' Nick said, 'that might be another link to Black.'

Sara frowned. 'How so?'

But Grissom understood immediately: 'Might be the kind of book an older man would share with a young lover.'

Sara gave Grissom an odd look, then said, 'Well, her tastes otherwise did seem to run to Stephen King…. As for that convenience store in Pahrump, where Kathy liked to leave her car? I went straight out there, from Habinero's. Guy recycles his security tapes every three weeks.'

'Kathy Dean's been gone three months,' Nick said.

'Yeah, but I brought all the tapes in, anyway. Gonna have Archie go over the beginnings and endings of the tapes.'

Sara meant Archie Johnson, CSI's resident computer/video whiz.

Nick nodded. 'Worth a shot-if we get lucky, Kathy and her mystery date may've survived the constant erasing.'

Sara's eyebrows lifted. 'I've been trying to find this Janie Glover, who was supposed to have known the identity of 'FB'. No luck so far. But I'm just getting started.'

'What's next?' Nick asked.

Grissom held up a sheaf of papers. 'Search warrant. While the lab works on all the trace and video evidence, we're going to the Black home, and then the mortuary.'

Nick said, with a forced smile, 'Doesn't that sound like a good time….'

The nightshift crew had caught up with themselves: It was approaching midnight when their Tahoe drew up in front of Black's brick fortress. Only one light shone in the living room, and the whole neighborhood was as quiet as Desert Palm Memorial Cemetery. Grissom and Nick followed Brass to the door, where the captain used the oversized brass knocker.

A few moments later, a strained-looking Dustin Black opened the door and Brass handed him the warrant. The mortician now wore a green polo shirt and faded denim shorts and sandals with no socks.

'A search warrant?' the mortician asked. 'For my home?'

'And your business,' Brass said.

'You people haven't done enough to ruin my life today?'

Grissom said blandly, 'Homicide investigations move quickly.'

Brass asked, 'Are your wife and children here, Mr. Black?'

'Why no,' Black said with heavy sarcasm. 'Thank you for asking! Cassie took the kids and went to a hotel. I followed your advice and told her everything, got it all off my chest, completely honest…and she walked out on me. Happy?'

Ignoring that, Brass said, 'I need you to step outside, please, while the investigators perform the search.'

'Any way I can be of help,' Black said mockingly, and obeyed, while gesturing as if a gracious host for them to enter. 'Oh…and by the way?…When this is over, I intend to sue your asses for ruining my life. Assuming you're ever able to catch Kathy Dean's real murderer, that is.'

Brass turned to the mortician, face a cold polite mask. 'Mr. Black, it isn't our business to ruin anyone's life, though sometimes in the pursuit of justice that does happen. But I might suggest that you had a hand in your own 'ruination.' '

'Is that right?'

'We weren't the ones having an affair with a teenage girl. We weren't the ones who got her pregnant, and we're sure as hell not the ones wasting the department's time by lying about all of that from the beginning.'

The mortician lapsed into brooding silence.

Grissom, halfway in the door, turned and smiled at the two men and raised a finger, like a precocious student correcting a teacher. 'Might have got her pregnant. We don't have the DNA back yet…. Excuse me.'

Inside, while Sara and Nick covered the rest of the house-Nick starting in back, Sara in front-Grissom headed upstairs where he began in the bathroom of the Blacks' master suite.

The bathroom was a modern affair with mirrors and glass and a massive glass-enclosed multiheaded shower that looked like a weapon in a science-fiction film. Grissom spent nearly an hour checking drawers, drains, the inside of the toilet tank, anywhere he might hope for evidence…finding nothing. He hadn't expected to discover much in the bathroom, however, and he'd been right-a thought that gave him no comfort as he moved into the equally opulent bedroom.

The light green room was dominated by a wall-mounted plasma television and a bed about the size of Grissom's first apartment. Modern art tastefully punctuated the walls over a long dresser and a narrow dressing table. The TV took one wall above an entertainment center whose bookshelves were home to a scattering of framed family photos. The final wall consisted of massive his-and-hers walk-in closets; these were larger than Grissom's second apartment….

The CSI supervisor spent nearly another hour going through the bedroom, the two closets interesting him the most. He went through the pockets of all of Black's suits and jackets, the drawers that held his underwear and socks, and shoe boxes of both husband and wife. He found nothing.

Grissom went on to do the rooms of the children, to no worthwhile end.

Nick and Sara were just finishing up downstairs when Grissom joined them.

'Anything?' he asked them.

Sara said with a shrug, 'Some of Kathy's hairs in the living room…but that's all I found.'

'No gun in this house that I could find,' Nick said. 'And we've looked everywhere.'

'You ready to move on?' Grissom asked.

'You mean, to the mortuary?' Nick grinned. 'Ready but not anxious…oh, and we should do the wife's car.'

Grissom nodded. 'It's undoubtedly at the hotel with her and the kids. So let's tackle Desert Haven next.'

Outside, where Brass leaned against the brick and Dustin Black sat dejectedly on his front stoop, Grissom gave the captain a curt shake of his head as the CSIs marched past.

'Didn't find the gun, did you?' Black taunted. 'Know why?…Because it's not there! I told you, I didn't kill that girl.'

Brass asked, 'Would you care to accompany us to the mortuary, Mr. Black?'

'Do I have a choice?'