Brass already had his I.D. out to show her. "That's right, ma'am. I'm Captain Jim Brass and this is crime-scene investigator, Gil Grissom. Is Mel Charles here?"
"Mel is my husband-I'm Kristy Charles." Her smile disappeared. "The house is kind of a mess-you mind if I bring Mel to you?"
"Not at all," Brass said. "This shouldn't take long."
"Any help we can give, we're glad to-Lynn's a great gal, but her husband…well, I'll get Mel for you."
Soon Mel Charles filled the doorway, his wife staying just behind him, taking it all in. She seemed to have a satisfied expression, as though relishing this call by the police.
"Mr. Charles," Grissom said, "did you loan a chain saw to your next door neighbor, Mr. Pierce?"
"Couple days ago," Charles said.
"Have you loaned him the saw on other occasions?"
Charles considered that for a moment, then shook his head. "Never needed it before. He had his own. He's always out there cutting wood."
"Why'd he need yours?"
"Said his had rusted up on him, and he hadn't had a chance to get a new one."
"Are you and Owen Pierce close, Mr. Charles? Hang out, shoot the breeze, loan each other garden tools and so on, pretty casually?"
"No. We just nod at each other…. Kristy and Lynn are friendly, share a cup of coffee now and then…I wouldn't say 'close.'"
"Obviously, you've seen the news about the disappearance of Mrs. Pierce, and what was found out at Lake Mead, today…"
Mrs. Charles's face was etched with dread. "You don't mean…he used our chainsaw to…oh my God…. Excuse me."
And she was gone.
Brass said, "Your wife liked Mrs. Pierce."
Eyebrows rose above the Buddy Holly rims. "You make it sound like Lynn's dead, Captain Brass."
"The evidence leans that way, yes."
Charles shook his head, mouth tight. "Well, that's a damn shame, God, a pity. She was real nice-kind of straight-laced? But nice."
"Straight-laced?" Brass echoed, remembering using the term himself when questioning Lori.
"You know-Born-Again Christian, conservative as hell."
"How about Mr. Pierce?"
With a shrug, Charles said, "We don't know them that well, really. But I get the idea he wasn't the church-going type, himself."
"What makes you say that?"
Charles was clearly trying to decide how much it was fair to say. "…I've seen rough characters stop by the house."
"Any you might be able to identify?"
"There was this one guy…I don't want to sound prejudiced."
"Black? Hispanic? Asian?"
"Black guy-dreadlocks, jewelry, baseball cap backwards."
"Often?"
"No. Few times, when Pierce's wife was away. He had different women in the house, too, when Lynn was visiting relatives or even just off doing some church thing."
Brass frowned. "Different women? Not one woman?"
"Hookers, is my guess. Right in his own house."
"What about his daughter? Would she have witnessed it?"
"She wasn't home that much, especially when the mom wasn't around."
Mrs. Charles's voice chimed back in; she'd returned, drying her eyes with a tissue-maybe she'd been off throwing up. "That daughter's got a smart mouth…but I suppose people think the same thing about our kids."
Brass was not surprised the Charleses and the Pierces weren't close-typical for neighbors in a city growing as fast as Vegas. It was one of the things Brass hated about living in the fastest-growing city in the United States. In the last ten years, the population had expanded by the size of Minneapolis, and every single day the equivalent of Salt Lake City came to visit. He lived in a city of strangers, some good, some bad, and one of them had killed and dismembered Lynn Pierce.
Mel Charles did not object when Grissom collected the chain saw into evidence.
As they drove back, Brass turned to Grissom. "What do you think?"
"If Pierce used this chain saw, all the cleaning in the world didn't get the blood off. The luminol will tell."
But an hour later Grissom was in his office, on the phone to Brass. "This chain saw hasn't cut anything but cord wood."
"Jesus," Brass said into the phone. "This guy Pierce has an answer for everything."
"Too many answers, Jim-and too pat. Don't despair-this tells us a lot."
"What does it tell us? A chain saw with no blood on it? That doesn't tell us a damn thing!"
Patiently Grissom said, "It tells us there's a missing chain saw-probably at the bottom of Lake Mead."
"Where we'll never find it-but how do you figure…?"
"I should have known," Grissom said, disgusted, "when Pierce all but walked me over to that next door neighbor. He was sending us on a wild goose chase, Jim, while trying to build a sort of alibi. Doesn't wash, though."
"Because there's a third chain saw?" The skepticism in Brass's voice was thick.
"No, there are four chainsaws. Think it through, Jim-Pierce has an ancient, rusted-out chain saw. That thing hasn't been used for some time. Yet the neighbor has seen him, fairly recently, cutting cord wood."
"There's also a brand-new, in-the-box chain saw."
"Yes-to replace the chain saw used to dismember Lynn. The one now, presumably, at the bottom of the lake."
Brass was getting it. "And after he tossed that chain saw in the lake, he borrowed his neighbor's…to cut some firewood, and to throw us off the trail."
"Exactly. To make it appear that there had never been a chain saw in the Pierce household between the old rusted one and the new-in-the-box."
Brass grunted a humorless laugh. "Well, Gil-I'll let you walk your new proof over to the D.A. That's about the most circumstantial circumstantial evidence I ever heard."
"I didn't say it would hold up in court. But it's a piece of the puzzle, and we need all the pieces we can get our hands on."
"Particularly since we only have one piece of Lynn Pierce. Can you make the picture out yet, Gil, of this puzzle you're working?"
"I can tell you Owen Pierce cut up his wife with the missing chain saw."
"After he murdered her?"
"That," Grissom said, "I can't say."
"Great. If we can prove he cut his wife up, but not that he murdered her first, we can book him on his other crime."
"What other crime?" Grissom asked.
"Littering."
And the phone clicked in Grissom's ear.
10
WELL PAST THE END OF HER SHIFT, THE LONG HOURS SUD-denly catching up to her, Catherine Willows sat at her desk, on the phone, talking to a lawyer-and the hell of it was, it had been her own idea.
She was speaking to Jennifer Woods, in "legal" at ESPN, and had introduced herself. The woman-whose voice was alto range, self-confident, professional-did not seem at all surprised, or for that matter impressed, to be hearing from a Las Vegas PD criminalist.
"How may I help you, Ms. Willows?"
"Ms. Woods, we have a suspect in a murder case who claims he was watching television at the time of the murder."
"Our network, I take it."
"That's right."
"What day, what time?"
Catherine read from her notes: "Thursday, October twenty-five, from five thirty Pacific time until, let's say midnight."
"And what are you after, Ms. Willows?"
"First, your program listing. Second, a VHS dub of your file tape, assuming you keep such a thing. As I said, we're checking a murder suspect's alibi."
A pause-ducks were being gathered into a row. "All right, Ms. Willows, here's how it works. We need a letter of request sent to us. If it's not in writing, it doesn't exist."
"May I fax it?"
The lawyer's silence indicated consideration. "You may fax it to get the process started, but I can't really divulge any information or share any videotape until we have the letter mailed to us."