Binding Ties

'Sorry.'

'Greg?'

'Hmmm?'

'Good work.'

Greg, heady with that praise, took his coffee cup and headed back to his lab, before he got himself in trouble.

'All right,' Grissom said to the others. 'Let's prioritize.'

'I'll take Orloff,' Brass said. 'I'll make our NLVPD associate Damon feel important and bring him along. I suppose I could stop and talk to the TV reporter, Jill Ganine, on the way. Maybe we can pin down the leak.'

Catherine said, trying not to smile, 'You should talk to her, Gil. She likes you.'

'I'll call her,' Grissom said, in quiet agony. 'Strictly phone call-if a follow-up seems necessary, then-'

Brass said, 'Appreciate that, Gil.'

Catherine said, 'Nick and I'll find out what we can about Hanson and Dayton.'

'Right,' the supervisor said. 'What did you do with Carlson?'

Nick grinned. 'He's in a cell. Found pot in the adjacent apartment, which is also his-not dealer quantity, though. And he did run.'

Grissom thought about that. 'Hold him at least till all the lab work's back and you're sure he's cleared. Last thing we want to do is put a serial killer back on the street.'

'If Carlson's in stir when the next murder goes down,' Brass said, 'we'll at least be able to rule him out.'

They just looked at him.

Brass, appalled with himself, said, 'Did I say that? Please tell me I didn't assume we'd have another murder before we could stop this guy….'

'I didn't hear anything,' Catherine said.

'Hear what?' Nick said, nibbling his bagel-and-egg.

Catherine said to Brass, 'Did you ever get a hold of Perry Bell?'

The detective shook his head. 'Tried until nearly midnight. He never answered his cell phone. I've got his daughter's number in her dorm room at UCLA.'

Grissom said, 'You find out what you can from this Orloff. I'll track Bell and his daughter.'

'What about Paquette?' Brass asked.

Before Grissom could say anything, Brass's cell phone interrupted.

Checking caller ID as he flipped open the phone, the detective said, 'Speak of the devil.' He punched the button. 'Brass. What's up, David?'

As Brass listened for several long moments, the detective's face seemed to lengthen, every line in it deepening; his eyes, unblinking, spoke alarm.

Finally Brass said into the phone, 'I'll have someone there in ten minutes. Don't touch a damn thing…I know you know!…and hold onto anyone who's been anywhere nearby, put 'em in a room together, because we'll want to print them.'

He listened again, as the CSIs traded grave looks.

'Ten minutes,' Brass said, 'count on it. And one more thing-thanks, Dave.'

Brass clicked off.

His eyes met Grissom's. 'He's got a letter and a package from CASt.'

'Or maybe the copycat,' Nick put in.

'I don't think so-the Banner people already read the letter, because they didn't know what they had, right away. But the gist is, the real deal is unhappy with the imitation.'

Catherine sighed, shook her head.

Brass went on: 'Paquette's seen the originals, remember, the letters from eleven years ago that also went to the Banner-and he says he thinks this is the real thing.'

Grissom spoke up. 'Everybody just keep working on what they're working on-I'll get Warrick and Sara down to the paper right away.'

'I'd prefer Dave to be wrong, you know,' Brass said. 'We've got enough trouble already with the copycat-last thing we need is the undefeated sicko, coming out of retirement.'

'What,' Nick said, with a sour half-smile, 'and try to top the new guy?'

It had been a flip remark, but its truth caught all of them like a board alongside the head. They all froze with dread at the terrible thought of that.

Even Gil Grissom.

Walking into the Banner lobby, following Sara, Warrick Brown decided these must have been the kind of faces that greeted crime-scene analysts who'd come to a building in response to one of those anthrax calls that had been so prevalent after 9/11.

The employees he passed on the stairs gave him glances more haunted than frightened. But it was clear, word had spread through the building: The notorious CASt had once again elected the Banner to be his personal messenger.

And when Warrick and Sara walked past the closed door of publisher James Holowell, who seemed to have bunkered himself inside his office, reporters at desks in the bullpen watched the two CSIs, as if observing ghosts haunting the paper, eyes glued to the pair but strictly nonconfrontational.

A loose crowd had formed outside Paquette's office, not unlike groups Warrick had seen gather when someone walked out to the edge of the roof of a high-rise hotel. Intellectually, the crowd wanted the jumper to be saved-the bystanders had, after all, cheered for the jumper's rescue, hadn't they?

But viscerally, in the domain of the id, they longed to see the poor soul take the long plunge to oblivion. This they would never admit to themselves, that animal fascination with death lurking deep in the species.

Warrick sensed that same response in the group gathered near Paquette's office-they knew that death, the real thing, lay behind that closed door. Not a corpse, but something even more exciting: the promise of death…

…by that superstar of death-dealers, a serial killer.

Sara fell in behind Warrick, and kept close as they neared the office. They both carried their flight-case-style silver crime-scene kits and had their credentials flapping loose on chains around their necks. Warrick could tell that Sara felt the vibe, too, that vicarious morbid rush, coursing through the crowd.

'Paquette's first one on the right,' Sara said.

With virtually every eye in the place on that office door, Warrick wondered why Sara was stating the painfully obvious-unless she just wanted to hear someone's voice (even her own) in the overt silence gripping the room.

Warrick knocked on the door and it opened a crack. He'd met David Paquette a time or two and the slice of face revealed to him was enough.

'You're…Brown, Warrick Brown,' the slice of Paquette said.

'There's two of us, Mr. Paquette. Sara Sidle's with me.'

The door opened wider but Paquette blocked the way; he frowned a little. 'Where's Jim Brass?'

'This is crime lab business…. Do you mind?'

Stepping back, Paquette allowed them inside, but never did open the door all the way, and once they'd scooted through, the editor shut and leaned against it, as if the crowd outside might try to rush the place. Maybe use a bench as a battering ram. Light up old rolled-up papers, as torches….

Hadn't the serial killer replaced the monsters of myth and movies? Perhaps due to the unique nature of Vegas-that desert oasis of fun and sun, attracting visitors and new residents from every corner of the map-the LVPD had faced more of these modern monsters than perhaps any other single department in the USA.

Nonetheless, it was a relative handful, and even Warrick Brown-the least flapable of all the CSIs, with the possible exception of Grissom-could never get used to the wholesale carnage, the literally monstrous egos, and the extremes of what had once been called evil and now seemed to be pathology.

But those 'townspeople' out there? They would keep their distance; that much Warrick knew from experience-however fascinated these civilians might be, contemplating the sick mind that had sent this package into their domain, the other side of that door was as close as they wanted to get.