“So which one do you think is the clean freak?”
Catherine shrugged. “I wouldn’t apply that description to any of them. Let’s see if we can find out.”
They found a bedroom in the back, with nothing in it but a mattress on the floor. Greg pulled out his UV light and shone it over the bedding. “I’ve got definite evidence of sexual activity.”
“So someone liked to party as well as cook. If we can match DNA samples to Tyford or Molinez we can tie them to the whole operation.”
The bathroom was next. It was as clean as the rest of the place, but one particular detail caught Catherine’s eye. “Greg. Take a look at this.”
“Oh, ho. That is above and beyond,” he said.
“Not really. But it is the mark of a professional…”
Henry Stancroft was a wide, bullet-headed black man in a dark suit. He could have been mistaken for an ex-prizefighter, except for the spidery, almost delicate eyeglasses that perched halfway down his flat nose. The impassive, evaluating look he gave Grissom from behind his desk was that of a small-town sheriff staring down a rival from another county intruding on his turf.
“Yeah, no, it’s a real shame wh at happened to Paul,” he said. “You like anyone for it?”
“The investigation is ongoing,” said Grissom. “I was hoping maybe you might have some ideas.”
“Of someone who’d want to kill Paul?” He shook his head. “Honestly, that’s a tough one. Paul’s job was to grease the wheels, make sure everything ran smoothly for Her Highness. And he was real good at his job-had the gift of gab, know what I mean? Everybody liked him. Guy should have been a diplomat instead of a glorified gofer.”
“How about his employer? I understand Ms. Jordanson recently received some disturbing mail from a fan.”
Stancroft snorted. “Yeah, she gets some pretty weird stuff sent to her. You think Paul was killed by some wacko? Because he was close to her?”
“It’s a possibility. Do you still have the letters?”
“Of course. We keep a file on guys like that, just in case.” He got up, moved over to a filing cabinet against the wall, and pulled open a drawer. Stancroft’s office reminded Grissom of the lab; it had the same kind of open layout and lots of glass so the head of security could keep an eye on everything in his domain. But instead of white-coated lab technicians strolling past outside, it was burly pit bosses with earpieces and dark blue blazers.
“Here,” said Stancroft. He handed Grissom a manila folder. “Everything he sent her. You need exemplars for fingerprints, I can provide them-nobody’s touched those but me, Fairwick, and whoever sent them.”
“Thank you.”
Stancroft hesitated. “You used to work with Warrick Brown, right?”
Grissom blinked. “For a number of years, yes. Did you know him?”
“Yeah-a long time ago. We grew up in the same neighborhood. Got into some of the same trouble, even dated some of the same girls. We were never that close, but-I don’t know, I kind of kept track of him. We were sort of on parallel paths, you know? When I heard what happened-”
Stancroft broke off. Warrick Brown had died in the line of duty, shot by a rogue cop; he’d died in Grissom’s arms. “Wish I’d made more of an effort to get to know him, that’s all.”
“He was a good man.”
“Yeah. Too damn few of those around. I’m sorry.”
“So am I,” said Grissom.
A radio car found Paul Fairwick’s car, parked two blocks away from where he lived. Nick and Riley took the call.
“Driver’s-side window is smashed,” said Nick as they walked up.
“More glass in than out,” said Riley. “No blood spatter in the car, though. He wasn’t shot here.”
“No, but I’ll bet this is where he was grabbed. Smash the window for maximum shock value, then stick a gun in his face.”
Nick opened the driver’s door a nd shone a flashlight into the interior. “Keys are still in the ignition. We’re lucky somebody didn’t grab it for a joyride.”
“Whoever took him would have had to put him into another vehicle-probably in the trunk.”
Nick checked the pavement close by. “No tire marks. He didn’t lay down any rubber when he left.”
“Kidnapping someone like that, in a relatively open area, then calmly driving away? Cool customer.”
“Yeah. Ligature marks on the body indicated he was bound-so he must have driven Fairwick to another location and tied him up before killing him.”
“And adding a little surprise to his box of Cracker Jacks,” Riley murmured. “Let’s get this back to the lab-maybe it can tell us why Fairwick parked two blocks away instead of in the lot of his own building.”
Nick stood back and studied the car while Riley called for the tow vehicle. It was a different color, a different year, but the make of the car was the same as Warrick’s.
Nick had helped process that vehicle. It was the car that Warrrick had been shot in, the car that he would have died in if Grissom hadn’t been at the scene. Instead, he’d died cradled in Grissom’s arms.
They ’d caught the killer. Nick had pointed a loaded gun at the man’s face while the killer shouted at him to shoot-and he had, into the ground. It hadn’t been an act of kindness-the killer was an undersheriff, and Nick knew that his existence in prison would be one of isolation and constant fear.
Nick wasn’t going to help Warrick’s murderer commit suicide. Not unless it took a long, long time.
“Truck’ll be here in ten,” said Riley. She noticed the look on his face and added, “You okay?”
“Fine.” Nick shook his head, forced a smile. “Just thinking about another case.”
“Bad one?”
“Yeah,” said Nick. “About as bad as it gets.”
Grissom studied the twelve letters laid out before him on the light table. According to Stancroft, they had arrived over the last two months, one a week at first and then two.
The envelopes and the stationery the letters were printed on were all identical. Each had been mailed from within Las Vegas itself. Each letter was a single page, double-spaced and printed by an inkjet. The content was an almost mathematical progression of obsession, the first only hinting at it and the last practically raving. Despite that, there was a uniformity to them that was chilling-each was almost exactly the same length, each was folded at exactly the same p lace.
He had lifted numerous fingerprints from the envelopes, several of which were unknown-most likely those of postal employees. Fingerprints on the letters themselves were those of Henry Stancroft and Paul Fairwick, the only two people to have read them; it was Fairwick’s job to read the mail, and he apparently passed the letters directly to Stancroft.
The letters made frequent disparaging remarks about the hotel itself and how Athena Jordanson deserved better. The writer insinuated that her safety was at risk and directed blame, again, at the hotel. The logic was faulty, but the intention was clear: if anything bad were to befall Athena Jordanson, it would ultimately be the hotel that was at fault.
One passage in particular, from the very latest letter, Grissom found especially disturbing: I pity you, in your glass castle in the sky. You think yourself immune to all the ills that befall us ordinary drones, toiling in our endless busywork while you play and sing. I used to think that you were a goddess, that the divinity of your voice was there to lift us up; but now it only serves to remind me of everything we’ll never have, of just how special you are and how unremarkable the rest of us will always be. Living in that penthouse, looking down upon all of us, we must see m no more than scurrying insects to you…”
Scurrying insects was underlined. It was the only phrase in any of the letters that was.
When they got Paul Fairwick’s car back to the lab, Nick processed the inside of the car, while Riley did the outside.