but she didn't want to contaminate the site any more than it had been already.
'Alley's full of prints in the snow,' said Danny. 'At least six different people. I've taken footprints.'
Danny had first used an aerosol spray snow print wax to retain the details of the prints and stop the effects of melting. Then he had taken a casting of each print, using a pouch of casting powder mixed with water, which he kneaded and poured directly from the pouch into the print, adding a couple of pinches of salt to speed the setting of the plaster.
'Any particularly large?' asked Mac.
'One set,' said Danny. 'Clean one over here.'
Danny knew why Mac had asked about large prints. Collier was over six feet tall and more than two hundred pounds. He was also in good shape, worked out. Hawkes would weigh him to get an exact figure.
Whoever had killed Collier had been stronger and at least as big as the detective, if it was one killer. Again, Hawkes would be able to tell them more.
Danny pointed to a trio of footprints heading toward the Dumpster and then at two more, approximately the same size, heading away. The ones heading away weren't as deep as the ones heading toward the Dumpster. The weight of Collier's body had been off of the shoulders of the man who had dropped the body.
'Get a cast of the footprints moving away,' said Mac. 'Measure the snow density. We'll find a formula to be sure that he was carrying Collier's body. Check Collier's wallet. See what it gives as his weight.'
Danny nodded. There was no doubt that the footprints belonged to the bearer of Collier's body, but it might come down to evidence given in court and Mac wanted everything confirmed.
Flack joined Danny and Mac and watched Stella work.
The question didn't have to be asked, but all four members of the CSI unit knew the odds of the detective's murder being connected somehow to the murder of Alberta Spanio, the woman he had been protecting only hours ago.
Stella was up now, taking off her gloves.
Mac could see the places on the Dumpster that had been dusted for prints. There were plenty of them, but it wasn't likely that any belonged to whoever had dropped Collier's body here.
'He wasn't killed here,' Stella said.
Mac nodded.
'No footprints in the snow behind the body,' she said. 'If he was killed and pushed over, he'd have to be turned around. No sign of that.'
'No signs of struggle,' said Mac.
'That too,' said Stella.
'We've got footprints,' said Danny.
It was Stella's turn to nod. There was nothing more for them to do here. The rest would be done in the lab.
Each of them had a theory, one they were ready to give up or modify with the next piece of evidence.
Flack's first thought was that Collier had found a lead to Alberta Spanio's murderer, followed it and got spotted by the killer.
Danny considered that Collier may have seen or remembered something about the murder and either told the wrong person, or the killer figured out that Collier knew something that might reveal who he was.
Stella considered that Collier might have been involved in the murder of Alberta Spanio and had been killed to protect the killer or killers.
'Ed Taxx,' Mac said. 'Bring him in. He may be on the killer's list. If Collier saw or knew something that got him killed, Taxx might know the same thing.'
Flack nodded.
'And let's find Stevie Guista,' Mac added, glancing at the body and nodding at the paramedics who had just arrived.
Mac checked his watch.
'Anyone hungry?' he asked.
'Yeah,' said Danny, rubbing his hands together and shifting his feet which were beginning to feel numb.
'I'll pass,' said Stella.
Don shook his head and watched the paramedics move the Dumpster and zip the dead man into a black bag.
The quartet didn't move. They watched silently until the body was well down the alley. Mac noticed a trio of wrapped fortune cookies lying in the snow where the Dumpster had been. He knelt and picked them up.
Mac and his wife had been to Ming Lo's once. They'd had fortune cookies that night. He didn't remember what they said.
After a few seconds, he dropped the unopened fortune cookies in the Dumpster and turned to the others, saying, 'Dim sum?'
Big Stevie knocked at the door and waited while Lilly said, 'Who is it?'
'Me, Stevie,' he said.
When she opened the door, he handed her the shopping bag from Zabar's. It weighed her down and touched the floor.
'It's my birthday,' he said. 'How about a birthday party?'
He stepped in and closed the door behind him.
'I knew it was your birthday,' she said, moving to the small kitchen and starting to lift out each of the goodies, pausing to savor the touch and smell of what was to come. 'I made you a present.'
Stevie was caught off guard, touched. It must have shown on his face.
'It's nothing much,' Lilly said. 'I'll give it to you after we eat.'
He took off his coat and removed his shoes, placing the coat on the chair near the door and the shoes on a mat next to the chair.
'How about before we eat,' he said, trying to remember the last time he had been given a birthday present. Not since he was a young boy. He had never been a 'little' boy.
'Okay,' Lilly said, removing the last package from the shopping bag.
She moved to the bedroom on the left, went in, and came back seconds later with a small package awkwardly wrapped in wrinkled red paper with a pink ribbon. She placed the small package in his huge hand.
'Open it,' she said.
He did, carefully, not tearing paper or ribbon. It was a small, pocket-sized animal. Lilly had made it from clay or something and painted it white.
'It's a dog,' she said. 'I was going to make a horse but it was too hard. You like it?'
'Yes,' he said, putting the dog on the table.
It wobbled but didn't fall.
'Can I name him?' Lilly asked.
'Sure.'
'Rolf, like the dog on
'Rolf,' he said. 'Sounds like a bark.'
'I think it's supposed to.'
'So,' he said. 'Should we eat?'
Lilly got plates, knives, forks, paper towels, and glasses.
'Did those people find you?' she, asked unwrapping a package of sausage.
'People?' Stevie asked.
'A man and a woman, when Mom left for work.'
'Who did they say they were?' he asked as Lilly carefully placed a slice of sausage on a roll she cut in half.
'I think they were the police,' she said, handing him the sandwich she had made and then the card her mother had given her before she left.
