"You were doing fine."
"Was I?"
"He knows something he's not telling us."
Brass stopped and turned to Grissom. "Then you saw it, too. He's guilty of something."
Grissom twitched a smile. "Aren't we all? Question is, in Black's case…guilty of what? Let's get some evidence, Jim, 'cause what he's guilty of is something you might want to know before you read him his Miranda."
Sara came into a lab at CSI to find Nick bent over what she assumed was the box of Kathy Dean's belongings, courtesy of an evidence locker. Smaller items were spread across the table, but most of it was still in the box.
"Anything?" she asked.
Nick gave her half a smile. "How about, Kathy Dean had sex the night she disappeared."
"She did?"
"According to the lab report on her clothes."
Sara frowned. "There was nothing at the autopsy…."
A raised eyebrow cut into Nick's forehead. "She went home and changed clothes, remember, maybe took a shower, and God only knows what was done to her before she went into that coffin."
Sara withdrew the bagged note from her crime kit.
"What's that?" Nick asked.
"Give me your opinion."
Nick examined the note, leaving it in its plastic home. "Parents have any idea who 'FB' is?"
"No," she said. "They still think their daughter was a virgin…. They didn't know 'A' either."
"What Cracker Jack box did you find this prize in?"
She pulled out the bag with the book. "In her room."
"Lady Chatterley…. Not exactly virginal reading."
"Maybe it was research. Anyway, Nick, I'm going to take the note to the document examiner-maybe she can do something with it. What else have you found out?"
"Tomas Nunez went over Kathy Dean's computer, back when Ecklie's people brought it in."
"What did Tomas find? Knowing him, he came up with something. That electronic diary, maybe?"
"No-nothing that helps us. Mostly lots of songs. She was downloading digital tunes like there was no tomorrow."
"Legally?"
"Ninety-five percent of them."
"Anything else from the Internet?"
"There were some e-mails from a couple of people, but they were in that same 'almost' language as your note."
Sara pondered momentarily, then asked Nick, "Did Tomas trace the sources of the other e-mails?"
"Yeah, but only a couple were local, and we got nothing from them. They translated the e-mails, but it was nothing helpful. Girlfriends from high school days. Stuff's still in the box, if you care to read them."
"Anybody called 'A'?"
"Nope, not even an e-mail handle that started with A."
Sara rubbed her forehead. "She's downloading music, only…there's no stereo in her room."
"No, but she had the computer."
"I suppose. Was there a stereo in her car?"
Nick picked up a report and read it. "AM/FM, CD player. CD burner on her computer, too."
"But if music is so important to her, don't you think she'd have a way to play it?"
"Besides the CDs?"
Sara thought back on the room. "I didn't see any CDs. You got some among this stuff?"
"No."
Sara shrugged. "Then either they've disappeared or they never existed."
"So she's downloading strictly to her hard drive, you think?"
Sara shook her head. "Seems to me she'd have something that would play 'em."
"IPod? Rio player?"
"Something like that, and there was no phone in her room either."
"Meaning?"
"Meaning the Deans were good parents with money and yet there was no phone in their daughter's room."
"She had a cell phone," Nick said, checking the Missing Persons info. "It must've been her only phone."
"Do we have it?"
Nick gestured with empty hands. "No. Just the phone records indicating she had one."
"Well, where is the thing?"
"With her MP3 player?"
She pointed a finger at Nick. "If somebody used the cell, phone records could lead us somewhere."
"Sara, that phone's been dead since the day she disappeared."
Sara made a face, then tried again: "Ecklie's people get anything useful from those phone records?"
"Just the names of some of her friends that the parents didn't know about, mostly girls she worked with either at the Mexican restaurant or the blood bank…but they didn't know jack about Kathy's disappearance."
"Any 'A' names among the friends, or 'FB'?"
Nick shook his head.
"How about Gerardo Ortiz?"
Nick reared back, smiled a little, and said, "What are you doin' there-pulling names out of a hat?"
"No, he's a guy she used to date."
"Yeah, he's in here. Name's crossed out with a black marker, though. And there's a Post-It from one of the detectives that has the guy's name and an address."
"My guess is he doesn't live there anymore."
Nick frowned. "And why is that, Kreskin?"
"You read the Missing Persons file on her, right?"
"Yeah."
Sara grinned. "You didn't know who he was. If he was mentioned in the report, if they had found him…you would have recognized the name. Simple deductive reasoning."
Nick just stared at her for a long moment. "That's scary-you're starting to sound a liiittle too much like Gris…."
"Yeah, well I could use a liiittle more of his reasoning power right about now. I might know what we should do next."
"I don't know about you," Nick said, "but I'm going to Trace, to work on the fibers and hairs I culled from Kathy Dean's clothes and coffin."
Sara looked at her watch. "I'm going to drop off the note, then catch some dinner."
"Eating. Yeah, I remember that. I used to do that now and then. Anywhere special? Maybe I'll have you bring me something back."
"Pretty special," Sara said with a smile. "I was thinking of trying this Mexican place I keep hearing about…Habinero's?"
Brass passed the Dean home on Serene Avenue, took a right on Redwood and cruised down several houses before he and Grissom saw a massive two-story brick home, the backyard surrounded by a six-foot wooden fence, the top of a swimming pool slide visible above it.
The detective stopped in front of Dustin Black's castle, which seemed to belong in Georgetown or a Connecticut country estate, not the Clark County desert. On a pole in the front yard, near the three-car garage, flapped an American flag. A small red, white, and blue sign near the pole said: "We support the Pledge." A massive white front door awaited the visitors under a portico supported by four gleaming white columns.
"Quite the all-American little bungalow," Brass said.
Grissom shrugged. "Morticians are just like us, Jim."
"That right?"
"Long as people keep dying, we're in business."
"And you say I'm the cynical one."
Grissom gave him the charming smile. "You are, Jim. I'm just stating a fact."
The front walk wound through a lushly green lawn that might have been hand-trimmed with scissors, two perfectly coiffed bushes standing sentinel on either side of the entrance. The other houses on the block all had healthy grass and shrubbery, too; perhaps the neighborhood hadn't gotten the memo that Clark County was suffering through a major drought.
Brass used the huge brass knocker in the midst of that white door. Thirty seconds or so later, the door opened and a tall brunette looked at them accusingly.
The dignified beauty was in black high heels, tan slacks, and a v-neck black sleeveless blouse showing just a hint of cleavage. Her overly large brown eyes might have seemed cartoonish had they not been glinting with intelligence. Her curly hair rolled to her shoulders like a cresting wave. She had a slightly beakish nose, hinting ill-advised plastic surgery, and collagen-full lips rouged a deep red.