"Does he strike you as savvy enough to obliterate each and every trace of evidence?" She pointed to the Monte Carlo. "If Candace Lewis's body had been in this trunk, there would be some evidence of it. Blood, fibers from the carpeting, a hair, something. Instead, there's nothing but trash. What did you find?"
"Diddly," Warrick said.
Sara gestured with both hands. "You think maybe that's because there is nothing to find? I mean, geez, we found more at the mayor's house. At least those hairs confirmed Candace had been there."
Warrick mulled that for a while; then, tilting his head toward the house, he said, "Let's go have a talk with Brass."
They packed up their gear, lugged it through the house and Warrick signaled for Brass to meet them in the front yard. A moment later, Brass joined them.
"What have you got?" he asked.
They both shrugged.
Brass frowned. "Meaning?"
Sara said, "Unless this guy is the Dr. No or Professor Moriarty of crime scene cleanup, Candace Lewis was never in that trunk."
"You're sure? Didn't that taillight match?"
She nodded. "It did, and that's a significant puzzle piece, a literal one. But other than that, I can't find anything. What's Hamilton saying?"
Brass sighed. "He claims he never heard of her until she made the papers."
"You believe him?"
The detective gave a half-hearted shrug.
"He have an alibi for that night?" Warrick asked.
"Yeah-he says he was at the All-American Jukebox casino, all night."
"Gambling?"
Brass shook his head. "Installing a new security system."
"He's not a security guard?" Warrick asked.
"No," the detective said. "He installs stuff. Works for a company that handles a lot of the casinos."
Warrick frowned. "Security systems. Doesn't that ring a bell?"
Sara's mind was elsewhere. "So, he should be on videotape somewhere, sometime, night of the murder?"
"Should be," Brass said.
"Helpful," Warrick said.
Hamilton peeked tentatively from his doorway, then came outside; he was holding a cup of coffee. "Are you guys done in there?"
They traded looks, then shrugs, and finally, Brass nodded to Hamilton.
Hamilton approached them and, in a confidential manner, asked, "So, are you allowed to tell me who claimed my car was at your crime scene?"
Slowly, Brass shook his head. "Sorry."
Hamilton took a slug from his mug, swallowed, and looking Brass in the eye, asked, "I was just wondering…Was it David Benson?"
Their eyewitness!
And Benson was also an installer of security systems…. That was the ringing bell none of them had been able to answer!
Brass kept his cool. "Why do you ask, Mr. Hamilton?"
"Oh, I don't mean to be rude-anybody want coffee?"
"Thank you, no, Mr. Hamilton," Brass said. "Benson?"
His voice icy, Hamilton said, "The little bastard's been my nemesis for a couple years now. See, I work for Spycoor, and Benson works for Double-O Gadgets."
Warrick said, "You're competitors?"
"Sort of. We work the same territory for different outfits. We've had a couple of run-ins over clients and he's tried to blackball me with customers, by trying to get me in trouble with the cops."
"Can you give us the details?"
"Sure. Chapter and verse."
Sara turned to Warrick and whispered, "Grissom's mantra."
With a pained expression, Warrick replied: " 'First on the scene, first suspect.' "
"So. We've been played?"
Moving closer to her, keeping his voice low, Warrick said, "We have been played."
Brass was still talking to Hamilton. "Thank you for your time, sir. I'm going to send another detective out to get the details on Benson's other…pranks on you. But in the meantime, you've given us a real lead."
The skinny man's eyes danced behind his glasses. "Have I? Great! I can't imagine anything cooler."
"Pardon?"
"Helping break a big case, and getting Benson's ass in a sling! You know-I'm feeling better!"
The trio practically sprinted to the street and around to the back of the Tahoe where Sara and Warrick loaded in their gear. Then they moved around to the far side, so the vehicle was between them and Hamilton's house.
"What do you think?" Brass asked.
Warrick still kept his voice down. "So who checked Benson out?"
They all took turns looking at each other.
Warrick groaned.
Sara was getting her cell phone out, to fill Grissom in, when it twittered on its own.
"Sara Sidle."
"We overlooked something," Grissom's voice said.
She glanced around the neighborhood as if he were somehow shadowing them. "We just figured that out too."
"Kyle Hamilton's car may be a wild goose chase," Grissom said, "the killer sent us on."
"That's right. The broken tail matches, but the car is cleaner than Martha Stewart's sink. How did you know?"
"I was just talking to Nick and Catherine about their case, and how they'd neglected a key aspect…and it dawned on me we'd made the same fundamental mistake…"
And in unison, Sara and Grissom said: "First on the scene, first suspect."
Sara said, "Hamilton's a rival of Benson's in the security installation game."
"Now we know why Benson was such a great eyewitness. Get back here."
"We're on our way," she said, but it was too late, as Grissom had already hung up.
Within the hour, they were all working different angles, trying to learn more about David Benson. Warrick was tracking the man's work history while Sara dug into his past, looking for a connection between Benson and Candace Lewis. Grissom spent the time dealing with the various labs about the physical evidence they had, such as it was.
He was, in fact, the first one to announce any progress when he came into the room where Sara was working.
"Mobley's in the clear," he said. "Greg reports the sheriff's DNA doesn't match any of the other samples we have."
"How about Ed Anthony?"
"Clean, too. He may be our favorite suspect, but he's not the guilty one."
"Pity. How's Warrick doing?"
"Nothing so far. How about you?"
She glanced up from the monitor and gave him a small shrug. "We know Candace was a workaholic and spent very little time with friends or family. Benson's sort of a cipher, himself. Bought his house two years ago, pays his bills, seems like a regular guy."
"He may be a regular guy whose hobbies include necrophilia and framing the competition for murder. Keep digging, there's got to be something."
"You know, Gil, our eyewitness may not be the killer. He could have just used this opportunity to cause trouble for this business rival."
"I don't buy that. There's no way he fit Kyle Hamilton for a frame without having something to do with this."
"What's that," she asked innocently, "a hunch?"
He just looked at her blankly; and then his expression turned into a little grin. "Okay, that's one for you. Get yourself another, by finding the link between Candace Lewis and David Benson."
And he was gone.
Warrick Brown finished Benson's work history and came up with nothing; but rather than just sitting around, he tracked down Grissom, finding his supervisor in the trace lab bent over a work table.
"What have you got, Gris?"
"If we've learned one thing in this case, it's not to ignore the basics. So I'm going back to the one thing that can't lie."
"The evidence," Warrick said.
Peeking over his boss's shoulder, Warrick saw a strip of duct tape on the table.
"I already did the smooth side and got nothing," Grissom said. "But I thought maybe we might get lucky on the adhesive side."
"Gentian Violet?"
Grissom shook his head. "What makes duct tape strong is the fibers running through it. Those fibers absorb Gentian Violet, and if we do raise a print, we wouldn't be able to tell what it is."