"Seniority?" Catherine offered, but she didn't like the feeling in her gut. She had worked with Grissom long enough to know she shouldn't always trust that feeling; and this case had already confirmed that tenet, in spades. Evidence, not intuition…
But unconsciously allowing yourself to be impacted by bias was one thing, and heeding a gut instinct-developed over years and years of on-the-job experience and just plain living life in the real world-well, that was something else again.
Nick was saying, "Could be the size of the bonus is discretionary, on the boss's part."
"We better make sure to ask Ian Newcombe about that."
"Or maybe Ruben Gold-we haven't even talked to him yet. When is head honcho number two due back in town?"
Catherine shrugged. "Another good question for us to ask when we go back there."
"Which will be…?"
She glanced at her watch. "They're not even open for another forty-five minutes."
"Do I detect another double shift coming on?"
"See, Nicky? You are going to have real money. Let's go back and see how Nunez is coming along, and then head over to Newcombe-Gold."
"It's a plan."
Still encamped in the air-conditioned garage, Tomas Nunez sat hunkered at a keyboard and monitor, his hair slicked back like a black helmet. Today's black T-shirt touted a gringo girl group-the Donnas-and the lanky, biker-esque computer guru had already worked up some sweat stains, despite the coolness of the concrete bunker. His black jeans had blown a knee but were otherwise intact, while his eight-thousand-buck forensic computer whirred quietly on the floor next to him as he studied a series of images rolling hypnotically across his monitor.
"Morning, Tomas," Catherine said, holding out a cup of coffee in a Styrofoam IHOP cup.
"Morning, Catherine, and gracias." Nunez accepted the cup and took a long sip through the hole-in-the-lid.
"Is it?" she asked. "A good day?"
"We've had worse on this case," Nunez said, casting an eye toward Nick. "What, no donuts?"
"Hey, treat us right," Nick said, "and I'll make a run."
"You found something?" Catherine asked.
"You could say that…. Have a seat. Have two."
They drew up chairs, on the same side of him, with a good view of the monitor.
"The laptop you brought in? Found a bunch more pictures…"
The CSIs sat forward.
"…the twelve you've seen and maybe a hundred sad little brothers and sisters."
"So," Catherine said, with an eyebrow lift, "Gary Randle's back on the radar."
"But we still don't have his prints anywhere on that laptop," Nick reminded her. "The whole thing's been wiped clean."
"Nick, it was in his possession!"
Nunez cut back in. "Chill, you two…let me give you a few more facts to chew on, before you jump to your next conclusion."
"Ouch," Nick said.
"I ran a search for angel12.jpg and found reference to that file in unallocated space. Guess where the reference indicated it'd been downloaded from?"
"A kiddie porn website," Catherine said hopefully, "that you traced to Gary Randle?"
"How about a website…in Russia."
"Russia?" Catherine blurted.
"Si. Since the Cold War ended, all kinds of crime has flourished in the former Soviet Union, as capitalism flowers in various interesting and often vile ways."
"Less commentary," Nick said. "More data."
"Fair enough. I was able to resolve the Internet address to an IP address using a Domain Name Server Resolver; then I traced the IP address using a Trace Route site on the net, which sends a PING message to the IP, and waits for a response. It'll then trace the route the PING takes to the destination server and show where the destination-or host server-is, for the IP address."
"Soooooo," Nick said, "if we want the actual peddlers of this smut…"
"…you'll be flying Aeroflot to Moscow, then hopping a train to East Armpit, Siberia."
Catherine asked, "How does this help us?"
"It helps you. Not directly, but it gives us something to hand over to the Feds."
Processing the info aloud, Catherine said, "This means that Randle, or someone else at Newcombe-Gold, is not a child pornographer, rather a consumer of the product."
Nick said, "I have to admit, I never really thought Randle had a camera and was taking photos…"
"A guy in an ad agency," Catherine said, flaring, "with his skills and smarts? With his sexually deviant tastes? With a teenager daughter in the house? I thought he might be."
"Till now."
"Till now," she admitted. "So he's a user, not a dealer. Either way, it's still 'drugs.' "
"If it's Randle."
"If it's Randle," she granted.
Nunez said, "Hey, kids-if you're through, I got a little something from that laptop to make you smile."
Catherine said, "Don't tease me, Tomas."
"No tease: I ran E-Script, which carved out the Internet history to an Excel spreadsheet, showing websites visited, along with the dates and time of each visit…and logged on user for each site."
And, as the computer wizard had predicted, Catherine and Nick traded smiles.
"That Russian website," Nunez was saying, "was last visited Friday at four o'clock P.M., local time. The logged-on user was Randyman."
After glancing over at Nick, who seemed suitably impressed, she asked, "You got all that from the laptop?"
Nunez nodded. "Like they say on the infomercials…but that's not all: the laptop had AOL software. I got O'Riley to get a search warrant for the subjects of the AOL logs-account history, billing history and website history, along with saved e-mails. The AOL logs matched the laptop's Internet history log, so that'll stand up. Anyway, I tried to access the website, but like a lot of these child porn sites, it's password protected."
"Does this mean Gary Randle really is guilty?" Catherine asked, trying not to give in to the spinning-head feeling she always seemed to get during Nunez's explanations.
"Not necessarily," Nunez said. "All it means is those twelve pictures that you confiscated from Newcombe-Gold were downloaded from the Internet using this laptop."
"Smoking gun," Nick said.
"But who was holding it?" Catherine asked. To Nunez, she said, "Next step?"
"You need a search warrant for Randle's local telephone records, to see if the AOL access number was dialed during the times this machine was online, and the Russian website was accessed. If they match, he's your guy."
Nick took a sideways look at the laptop. "Could this machine be the one that was plugged into work station eighteen, and used to mimic Ben Jackson's computer?"
"No. The MAC address of the NIC card doesn't match the server log."
Catherine sat with arms folded, eyes narrowed. "So-there's still a computer somewhere that sent that print order…and we haven't found it."
"You haven't found it. But there's one more puzzle piece I can give you."
"Which is?"
He withdrew a sheet from his printer tray and held it up for Nick and Catherine to read. There was only one paragraph:
Given this opportunity, we will help turn Doug Clennon's All-American Jukebox into the biggest attraction in Las Vegas. By launching a major media blitz, including using our contacts at the above-mentioned publications, we can guarantee you market awareness rivalling the All-American Jukebox TV show itself.
"Some kinda letter," Nunez said.
"Pitch letter," Catherine said, slowly, eyes half-shut. "But where's the rest of it?"
Nunez shook his head. "One of the Angel jpegs got overwritten on the other sector this file was in."