"How can I help the LVPD?" Black asked as he steepled his fingers under his chin and rested his elbows on the desk.
"Did you handle the Rita Bennett funeral?" Brass asked.
A confident nod. "Yes, her husband-Peter Thompson-is a close personal friend of mine."
Grissom found that people who claimed many "close personal friends" seldom had anything but acquaintances.
"Losing Rita," the mortician was saying, "was a tragedy-such a vibrant woman. She was a two-time president of the Chamber of Commerce, you know."
Brass asked, "Which of this large staff of yours was in charge of the arrangements?"
Confusion creased Black's face. "Why are you asking me about this particular funeral?"
"It's come up in the course of an investigation. We'd like to know who was in charge."
He shook his head, eyes wide, half in thought, half in surprise. "I can't imagine what type of investigation would involve Rita Bennett's funeral."
"Bear with us," the detective said. "Who was in charge?"
"I was," Black said. "I oversaw Rita's arrangements personally…. As I said, Peter is a close personal friend. Rita was as well."
Grissom said, "Must be painful."
Black blinked. "What?"
"We recuse ourselves in cases involving friends or family. Must be painful, preparing a close personal friend at a mortuary."
"That presumes, Doctor, uh…Grissom? Doctor Grissom. That presumes a negative aspect to what we do."
Grissom's head tilted to one side. "Not at all. A physician does not operate on family, healing art or not."
"You're correct," Black said, his voice spiking with defensiveness. "But I consider it an honor, a privilege, to use my art where friends are concerned. I would stop short of family, I grant you."
"The Bennett arrangements," Brass said, trying to get back on track. "Everything go as planned?"
Black clearly was working to hold back irritation. "I'm sorry, Captain. Unless you can give me some idea about why you're here, I won't be answering any more of your questions today."
"Then I'll give you an idea, Mr. Black-at the request of her daughter, Rita Bennett's casket was exhumed this morning."
The mortician frowned. "Why was that considered necessary?"
Grissom said, "Actually, that fact is not pertinent."
Black grunted a non-laugh. "How could the reason for an exhumation not be pertinent?"
"When the body in the vault is the wrong one."
Black blinked. "What?"
Brass said, "The body in the coffin was not Rita Bennett."
Black froze, then recovered quickly. "Gentlemen, I'm sure you mean well, but there's clearly been a mistake. That's just not possible."
Grissom said, "You're right…"
The mortician gestured, giving Brass a look that said, You see?
"…there has been a mistake."
"Well, the mistake was not ours," the mortician insisted, and folded his arms, rocking back.
Brass leaned forward a little. "Rita Bennett was how old?"
"Late fifties. But she looked younger."
"Did she look twenty?"
Black's mouth dropped open, but no words came out.
"The woman in the casket," Grissom said, "was at least thirty years younger than the woman whose name was on the headstone. Any ideas?"
"There's no way…" Black's eyes flashed in sudden alarm. "And you think I…we…had something to do with this…this switching of bodies?"
Brass said, "We're making no accusations, Mr. Black."
"We're just gathering evidence," Grissom said.
"What evidence do you have?"
"A body in a coffin. The coffin belongs to Rita Bennett. The body doesn't."
"Who the hell was in the coffin?"
"We don't know yet; we're working on identifying her now. You also have to agree it would be very hard to switch the bodies after the vault was sealed and the grave was filled in."
Grasping at straws, Black said, "But not impossible."
"The grave hadn't been disturbed," Grissom said, "and the vault was still sealed tight when we did the exhumation…. The evidence indicates the switch was made before the vault was sealed."
"I understand why you're here," Black allowed. "That fact makes you think that, somehow, we here at Desert Haven had something to do with this unholy travesty."
Brass leaned forward. "You were in our place-what would you think?"
"I see your dilemma, but I must assure you, gentlemen, there's no way that anything like that could have happened at this mortuary."
"You seem quite sure," Brass said.
Black straightened. "Of course I am. I trust all our employees-we're family, here. And none of them would do anything like this, and anyway…it's just not possible. There are always too many people around."
Grissom asked, "Can you offer us another explanation for the confusion of corpses?"
The mortician thought about it. "No-honestly, I can't. And the truth is…I've never heard of anything like this before. It makes no sense to me. Why would someone trade one dead body for another?"
"Possibly," Grissom said, "someone with something to hide, Mr. Black."
"Something like what?"
"Oh I don't know-a body, maybe?"
4
WARRICK WAS BONE TIRED. Beat. The long night he'd recently endured promised to be followed by what was developing into an equally long morning and afternoon. With two dayshift investigators out sick, and three others working a gang-related shoot-out in the desert, that meant overtime for everybody, which meant more money…but then you had to have a life to spend it on, right?
While the nightshift CSIs hung around and stayed on call for anything that might come up, they pursued their current cases.
Instead of drawing the shooting, which would have been enough to perk him up, Warrick (and Catherine) had been dealt some fairly unexciting cards-namely, following up on David Phillips's hunch at the Sunny Day Continuing Care Facility.
Not that Warrick would give anything less than one hundred percent. Beneath a surface of steady purpose that could be mistaken for boredom, despite a wry and dry sarcasm that might suggest lack of interest, an alert, brilliant criminologist lurked behind the green eyes of Warrick Brown.
The CSI took his job dead serious, even when it meant fingerprinting bedpans and photographing walkers. Exploring a suspicious death at Sunny Day rest home may not be as compelling as working a gang-banger shoot-out, but it deserved all due consideration and deliberation. If foul play had been done to Vivian Elliot, then it was Warrick's job to speak on her behalf.
As Grissom had said more than once, "We can't give them back their lives, so we have to find the meaning of their deaths."
By this Gris meant, in his oblique way, that the only thing left for a murder victim was justice-what could still be done for Vivian Elliot was to find her killer, and deliver that killer for punishment.
If Vivian Elliot had been murdered….
Such idealistic notions didn't mean Warrick couldn't run out of gas, however, and he was definitely driving on fumes. Catherine had shut herself in her office to (quote) catalog the evidence (unquote); but on his way to the breakroom, Warrick noticed no light under her office door.
Cath had to be just as whipped as he was; but she had remarkable recuperative powers-she could nap fifteen minutes and be good to go for another eight hours. Warrick, on the other hand, was pumping coffee through his system in hopes the caffeine would help fight the sluggishness that had settled over him like damp clothing upon their return from Sunny Day.