Soon Brass was pulling out onto Las Vegas Boulevard, where he glided aimlessly, both the detective and CSI searching for the white-car needle in the traffic haystack of the Strip, really just killing time until a computer coughed up the name and address of their suspect.
After an endless wait-about four minutes-the dispatcher came back on. "1Zebra10, that car, a white 1998 Chevrolet Monte Carlo is registered to Kyle A. Hamilton."
"Address?"
The dispatcher told him.
"Ten-four," Brass told the mike. "1Zebra10 will be 423 at that address."
"Ten-four," the dispatcher replied.
A 423 radio call meant they'd be seeing a person for information-not usually the business of a CSI, but both Warrick and Brass knew they might well be going to the home of a killer. That meant possible evidence, even-considering the nature of Candace Lewis's apparent extended stay with the killer-a crime scene.
Anyway, two heads were better than one in such a situation; also, two guns….
The address was way up north, Cotton Gum Court, above Craig and off Lone Mountain Road and Spruce Oak Drive. From the Strip, even in relatively light midmorning traffic, the trip took the better part of an hour and, when they finally pulled up to the house, the distinct signs of nobody-home awaited them.
The two-story stucco with two-car garage had one of those new xeriscape yards. With the drought oppressing the area for the last two years, ripping up and replacing lawns with low-moisture plants-xeriscaping-had become more than a fad, including a way to gain rebates from the water company as the dry spell continued its stranglehold on the city's unchecked growth.
The double-wide garage door was down, the blinds were pulled tight, and the upstairs curtains were drawn; all that was lacking was some tumbleweed to blow across the landscape. Warrick followed Brass to the front door and the detective rang the bell; no answer. They tried again, and again, with the same result. They took a quick trip around the residence, but saw nothing, including peeking through the few windows that provided a view.
Brass tried the neighbors on either side. At the house to the east, the detective talked briefly to a soccer mom just getting ready to leave. She reported that Hamilton was a nice, quiet neighbor who worked days and sometimes into the evening. What job? She couldn't quite recall; sales of some kind.
When the woman excused herself and closed the door, Warrick said, "Pretty much the kind of innocuous report the neighbors give when a TV crew comes around asking about the serial killer next door."
Brass didn't disagree.
The neighbor to the west, like Hamilton, wasn't home.
"Well," Brass sighed, leaning against the driver's side door of the Taurus, looking across at Warrick. "Shall we wait him out?
"I'm into double shift," Warrick reminded the detective. "Could we get a patrol car out here, to watch for him?"
"I could arrange that. If you'd care to volunteer to answer the call from Sheriff Mobley, when he wants an explanation why we parked an officer in front of the empty house of a guy who might be a suspect, or might just be a good citizen."
Warrick thought about that, then shook his head. "Jim, this isn't just any case-it's a national story, and the sheriff's ass is on the line. I think this is one time he'd justify the outlay."
Brass stopped to reconsider. Then he said, "You know…you're right. And I know just how to do it."
Brass got on his cell and called a detective at the North Las Vegas PD. He filled the man in, clicked off and said to Warrick, "Guy owes me a favor. He'll send a patrol car out here and keep us posted."
"And it won't even come out of our budget. Captain Brass, nicely played."
Brass smiled a little; it was almost like he was blowing a kiss at Warrick-almost. "So what now? This is one of those cases where I gotta follow the CSI lead."
"Nice to hear you admit that. So why I don't check in with Grissom? I think he's headed to the mayor's office, and he might want us to try to catch up."
Brass's brow rose and yet his eyes remained half-lidded. "All the way back downtown, then."
"All the way back downtown."
On the way south, Warrick made the call. "Gris? Warrick-we've tracked the taillight to a possible suspect, but the guy isn't home."
"Is someone watching the house?"
Warrick filled Grissom in, and the CSI supervisor requested that his kudos also be passed along to Brass.
Grissom added, "Why don't you join us, then. Brass, too, if he's free."
"It's not like there's a bigger case in Vegas, right now. Mayor's office?"
"Office, and then house. We have warrants for both, but it took a while."
Warrick could hear the weary frustration in his boss's voice, and asked, "You mean you haven't even talked to His Honor yet?"
Grissom's voice displayed the lilting sarcasm he often lent to his understatements. "Judge Clark was reluctant to give us the warrant."
Warrick groaned. "Probably thought it was political. That Mobley was behind it."
"As if we'd do that kind of bidding for the sheriff."
Grissom's contempt for politics was well known not only within CSI itself but local government, generally.
"That's why it took overnight," Gris was saying. "Judge called the sheriff this morning and, devil his due, Mobley must have convinced Clark, because we finally got the ruling."
"Yeah, well, at least you got it-we'd be S.O.L., otherwise."
"We have an appointment with the mayor, at his office, in half an hour. Can you make it?"
Warrick checked his watch; and traffic looked light. "We'll meet you outside the Mayor's door in twenty minutes." He ended the call and turned to Brass. "City Hall."
Half an hour later, Warrick, Brass, Sara and Grissom were seated in the mayor's maple-paneled outer office. Comfortable seating lined the walls and it was easy to imagine the spacious office bustling; but today it was strangely quiet. Only the detective and the CSIs were present, as well, of course, as the mayor's new secretary, a man in his vague thirties, in a crisp gray suit with dark blue tie. The secretary's brass nameplate on a formidable maple desk identified him as Woo, which struck Warrick as ironic, considering the homely man was replacing the late lovely Candace Lewis, who'd been so much more than a secretary to His Honor.
"The mayor will be receive you shortly," Woo said to them.
No one bothered to select a magazine to flip through. While Brass seemed (as was often the case) faintly bored, Grissom looked relaxed and focused, while Sara appeared tense and Warrick felt somewhere between.
Celebrities, important people, were a routine part of the Vegas landscape, and Warrick was a local boy, after all, and not easily impressed. He'd met the mayor before, at an LVMPD recognition dinner, but shaking the man's hand and exchanging smiles was a different deal than coming to the dignitary's office to serve him a search warrant on a possible murder charge.
Woo was right: they didn't have to wait long.
After the secretary spoke softly on the phone to his boss, he rose and opened the door and-in a show-bizzy manner, perhaps fitting for the mayor of Las Vegas-Mayor Darryl Harrison, in a crisply tailored tan suit with red tie, strode into the outer office, like a headliner bounding on stage.
Grissom and company got to their feet and the smiling politician came to them, and shook hands with each of them, making eye contact, but bestowing a general greeting, "Well, this is real pleasure. An honor. I'm so proud of what you're doing for our city."
Before the Candace Lewis case had put him under a dark cloud, Mayor Darryl Harrison had been one of the most popular, best-liked, most widely known mayors in the nation. Some day his party's nomination for governor would be (or anyway, would have been) his; and he had the sort of Clinton-esque charisma to make the White House a real possibility, in a foreseeable future.