“I don’t believe he is, Ms. Jordanson. And that’s why I’m here-to ask you to postpone your show.”
“Postpone my show?” She frowned. “I can’t do that, Mr. Grissom. Contracts work both ways-I squeezed this hotel for all I could, and in return they want their money’s worth. I try to back out now, I’ll spend the next ten years in court instead of on the stage.”
“I’m not asking you to cancel-just push it back.”
“Why? You think you’ll find something the second time you didn’t the first?” She turned back to the mirror. “I appreciate you trying to cover all the bases, but it’s just not gonna happen. I mean, can you give me any solid proof that the person who killed Paul is still alive and trying to sabotage my show?”
Grissom hesitated. “No.”
“Then I can’t disappoint my fans or the people who sign my paycheck. Sorry, Mr. Grissom.”
“So am I,” said Grissom. “Thank you for your time.”
The guards escorted him back to the elevator and down. He walked out through the lobby, then turned around and surveyed the front of the hotel. It was a massiv e structure, curving like a sine wave, and the front of the property was dominated by a series of stepped waterfalls surrounding a huge reflecting pool. The dancing fountains were as good as those in front of the Bellagio-some said even better.
Water, Grissom thought. In the middle of the desert, water is more than just life-it’s gold. And in Vegas, the more water you can waste on sheer spectacle, the more gold you obviously have. We treat the Strip more like a river than a street; we build bridges over it rather than disrupt the flow of tourists in their cars.
He walked toward the parking lot and his own vehicle, then stopped and turned around. On an impulse, he took the escalator up to where the nearest pedway crossed over the street.
No, these aren’t bridges. They’re aqueducts, piping visitors from hotels and casinos on one side of Las Vegas Boulevard to the other. In a town so dry we build escalators outside, water is a metaphor for wealth-but the real wealth is still in people’s pockets. Until, dazzled by the sights and sounds and carefully created atmosphere, they make their contribution to the local aquifer.
He stopped in the middle of the pedway. A homeless man was slumped against the wall at the halfway point, a han d-lettered cardboard sign propped up on his lap. It read WHY LIE? I NEED A BEER.
In another town people would have ignored him as an alcoholic. Here, he was just trying to join the party.
An image popped into Grissom’s head. When ants traveled in large numbers and needed to cross a stream, they formed a living bridge by holding on to each other’s bodies with their jaws. Once the rest of the group had crossed, they would let go, dissolving into individual drowning units. Their society had sacrificed them for its own needs, throwing them away once their usefulness had expired.
It was that image, of an ant bridge eroding under the relentless pressure of water, that somehow seemed important.
But he didn’t know why.
14
CATHERINE AND GREG STARED up at Mount Pele. Impassive, it ignored them, burbling away to itself softly.
They went back to work.
They were still searching for obsidian. They scoured the floor, the interior and exterior of the artificial mountain, the gantry. When nothing turned up, they disconnected the pumps and hoses that the wax flowed through and checked them.
They came up empty.
“Let’s rethink this,” said Catherine as they took a break. They sat on the couch in the lounging area, eating cold pizza that Greg had brought along and drinking coffee from a thermos. “We know Kanamu was here; we know he was high. We know that the chunk of obsidian that knocked him out was hot, but we don’t know why.”
Greg chewed and swallowed. “Right. And none of our suspects has burns on his hands, so the killer used gloves or something else to pick up the obsidian.”
“We’ve found work gloves, but nothing charred or singed.” She finished her piece of pizza and washed it down with some coffee. “Maybe gloves weren’t necessary. What if the obsidian was in some kind of clamp or vise-something to let the person handle it without getting burned?”
“Like tongs or vise grips?”
“Yeah. The killer grabs the tool and smacks Kanamu in the head with it, and the impact drives the shard into his skull.”
Greg nodded. “ T hat could work. Then Kanamu either topples over into the volcano and asphyxiates, or he gets dumped in by someone trying to make it look like an accident.”
“We can take a closer look at all the tools we found on-site.”
They finished their lunch and went back to work. Vise grips, tongs, monkey wrenches-anything that might have been used to grip the obsidian was collected. Some showed indications of having been exposed to intense heat, some didn’t. They tested all of them for blood, hoping there might have been some spatter, but didn’t find any.
“Back to the lab,” Catherine sighed. “We’re going to have to examine these a little closer-maybe one of them has some trace at a microscopic level.”
They found no trace of obsidian on any of the tools.
Catherine looked up from the microscope. “So no murder weapon-except for the volcano itself.”
“Maybe that’s who we should be considering,” said Greg. He leaned back against a stainless steel counter and crossed his arms. “Pele, the volcano goddess. She got angry at Kanamu for creating a mockery of her natural glory and decided to punish him for it.”
Catherine arched an eyebrow. “Uh-huh. And I suppose she magically transported a shard of obsidian all the way from Hawaii to do it, too.”
Greg shrugged. “I’m just saying that a red-hot shard of volcanic rock isn’t fake lava-it’s pretty close to the real thing.”
“And I think you’ve seen that special episode of The Brady Bunch too many times.”
He grinned. “Okay, okay, I’m not serious. But if there is a bigger chunk of obsidian involved, I don’t think it’s in that warehouse-we’ve been over the whole thing. Which means the killer took it with him and got rid of it someplace else.”
“Thereby getting rid of our best chance of discovering his identity.” She frowned. “You know, that’s not the only thing missing from this puzzle. There’s also Kanamu’s fingers.”
“Well, at least we know who to ask about that…”
“Mr. Wornow,” said Catherine, taking her seat on the other side of the interview table, “how are they treating you at County?”
Wornow, dressed in a standard-issue orange jumpsuit, shrugged. “Okay, I guess. My lawyer tells me he’ll have me out on bail soon, and I can probably plea-bargain down to community service.”
“Maybe you’ll get to go to Burning Man this year after all,” said Greg. “Of course, any recommendation we make to the judge will be part of your sentencing. You might get house arrest, which would severely limit your traveling options.”
Wornow looked glum. “Great.”
“But that doesn’t have to happen,” said Catherine. “Cooperate with us, and we’ll put in a good word for you.”
“What do you mean, cooperate? I already told you everything.”
“Not quite,” said Greg. “You admitted to cutting off Kanamu’s fingers, but you didn’t tell us what you did with them afterward.”
Wornow looked uncomfortable. “Oh. Is that, you know, really important?”
“It might be,” said Catherine.
“Well, I, um, kind of got rid of them.”
“How?” asked Greg.
“I stuck them in a container full of acid. Then I buried the container.”
“Belt and suspenders, huh?” said Catherine. “Where did you bury the container?”
“Out in the desert. I can give you directions, though.”
“All right,” said Greg. “Now, here’s the really important question: what kind of acid?”