S eated on a stool in a musical equipment shop on Tropicana Avenue, Warrick Brown strummed the C.F. Martin DSR guitar, forming a mellow C major 7 chord.

“Sweet,” Warrick said. “How much you say, again?”

Sitting on a Peavey amplifier nearby in a MUSIC GO ROUND T-shirt, Mark Ruebling stroked his chin thoughtfully. “They’re going for $2,499 new…I can let you have that beauty for $1,400.”

The shop had opened a little over four months ago, and Warrick had been one of the first customers through the door. Always on the lookout for good musical gear, he’d liked how Ruebling, the owner, gave him fair value for trade-ins and didn’t try to gouge on new items.

Like the DSR Sugar Ray, for example, a solid-body mahogany; Warrick knew—having been to the Martin company’s website—that the store owner spoke the truth about the retail price. Still, nobody sold anything full retail these days, and fourteen hundred was a lot of green.

Warrick had been getting heavier and heavier into his music, partly because what had been the other great passion of his life—gambling—he now knew was a sickness. He already had an acoustic guitar, a decent, funky old Gibson he’d picked up in a pawnshop; but not one anywhere near as fine as this Martin.

“That’s a tempting offer, Mark.”

The store owner nodded, his chin still in his hand.

“But,” Warrick said, “you know I been trying to deal with my temptations.”

Ruebling smiled slyly. “Not all temptations lead to sin, my friend.”

“True. But even at that price, it’s a sinful lot of money for a public servant…How about I think on it, get back to you?”

“No problem. I’ll hold it for you, few days. Just let me know what you want to do.”

Now it was Warrick’s turn to nod, playing it coy and low-key, when both of them knew damn well he’d end up taking the guitar. But maybe Mark would carve off another C note or so….

And in the meantime Warrick could work on convincing himself that spending that much money wouldn’t break him. Funny thing was, Warrick had never worried about having enough money back when he gambled. Like all degenerate gamblers, he always figured he’d win and then there would be plenty to spread around.

Reading his customer’s mind, Ruebling said, “Seems to me, Warrick, cleaning up and livin’ the straight life has turned you kinda conservative.”

“Gotta be, with you so liberal with my money.”

The two men exchanged smiles, as Warrick handed the guitar back to Ruebling, then checked his watch—time to head in.

Warrick liked how late the stores stayed open in this town—even a graveyard shift zombie like him could do a little shopping on the way to work. Growing up in Vegas made him prejudiced, Warrick knew, but there was nowhere else in the world he would rather live…even though with his gambling jones, no other place could be worse for him.

Generally Warrick showed up at CSI a half-hour early, with Nick maybe five or six minutes behind him. He went straight to the break room, poured himself a cup of coffee and strode to the locker room to change. The leather jacket he wore into work would never see a crime scene. He changed pullover sweaters as well, trading this month’s tan one for last year’s gray one.

Locker closed, he plopped onto the bench, sipped from his coffee and imagined himself in his living room playing that Martin acoustic. The thought gave him a warm feeling—like hitting twenty-one at blackjack. He closed his eyes and leaned back, his head resting against the cool metal of his locker.

“Asleep on the job already?” Nick’s voice.

Keeping his eyes closed, Warrick said, “Let a man daydream.”

“Is that possible on night shift?…What’s she look like?”

“You must know, I’m playing my new guitar I haven’t bought yet.”

“Oh boy—the Lenny Kravitz fantasy again?”

Warrick opened one eye and looked up at Nick, who stood over him with a smile on half of his face. “Now, Nick, don’t be dissin’ Lenny.”

“I wasn’t dissin’ Lenny. I would never diss Lenny…. You, maybe. But not Lenny.”

Warrick opened the other eye and couldn’t stop from smiling. “You’re gettin’ an early start…. Seen Catherine yet?”

Nick shook his head, going to his own locker. “I came straight in here.” He quickly changed shirts, then the two of them went off in search of Catherine Willows, currently their acting boss.

They spotted her moving briskly down the corridor just outside the layout room. Warrick took one look at her and thought, If she can afford that wardrobe, I can swing that Martin. Today—tonight—fashionplate Catherine wore an oxblood leather jacket with a silk scarf of white, gold and maroon flowers. Nick fell in on one side of her, Warrick the other.

“Where we headed?” Warrick asked.

“Where is it always lively around here?” Catherine asked rhetorically.

“The morgue,” Nick said.

“Right you are, Nick,” Catherine said. “Our vic is still the only body of evidence we have…though that’s about to change.”

“I like change,” Warrick said. “I’m in favor of change.”

She brandished a file thicker than a Russian novel. “We’ve ID’ed our vic,” she said, flashing a triumphant smile. “And you’re never going to guess who she is.”

“Gris doesn’t let me guess,” Nick said.

Warrick said, “Amelia Earhart?”

“Not that big a media star,” Catherine admitted, as they walked along. “Does the name Missy Sherman ring any bells?”

“One or two,” Nick said. “Missing housewife, right?”

“Had her fifteen minutes of infamy, a year or so ago,” Warrick added. “She our ice queen?”

“She is indeed,” Catherine said. “Missing Persons database coughed up her prints, this afternoon.”

They stopped and she showed them a photo of the Sherman woman—it was their frozen victim, all right, and she was warmly beautiful, dark bright eyes flashing, pert-nosed, with a vivacious smile. Warrick had the sick feeling he often had, toward the start of a murder investigation, as he registered the reality of the human life, lost.

“So, then, day shift told the husband?” Nick asked.

“No,” Catherine said, and put the picture away. She started walking again and Warrick and Nick fell in like nerds in a high school hallway tagging after the prom queen. “They’re under the same OT restrictions we are—if it’s night shift’s case, it can wait till night shift.”

“Jesus,” Warrick breathed. “Guy’s sitting at home, his wife’s dead and nobody tells him ’cause of budget cuts?”

“We have to specifically request day shift help—in triplicate,” Catherine said, with a humorless smile.

“I don’t want to tell the husband,” Nick said. “It’s not CSIs’ job to tell the husband.”

Catherine nodded and her reddish-blonde hair shimmered. “I have a call in to Brass—we want to be there for that, though. Anyway, I want to go through the file one more time, before we have a look at Mr. Sherman.”

They stepped into the anteroom of the morgue, the area where the CSIs would wash up and get into their scrubs, if an autopsy were going on. Warrick said, “You know the case, Cath? All I remember is, housewife evaporates, details at eleven.”

“You’re fuzzy on it,” Catherine said, “ ’cause Ecklie’s people worked that one—Melissa ‘Missy’ Sherman, married, white female, thirty-three, no children. She and her husband, Alex, lived in one of those new housing developments south of the airport.”

“Which one?” Nick asked.

“Silverado Development.” She thumbed quickly to a page in the file. “Nine six one three Sky Hollow Drive.”

“I lived in Vegas all my life,” Warrick said, “and I have no idea where that is.”

“Across from Charles Silvestri Junior High,” Catherine said.

“Home of the Sharks,” Nick put in.

Warrick and Catherine just looked at him.

“Football,” Nick said, as if that explained it all.

“That’s twisted, man,” Warrick said, then asked Catherine, “was hubby ever a serious suspect in her disappearance?”

“Well, you know he was a suspect,” Catherine said.

The spouse always was.

“But,” she continued, “serious? Let’s just say Ecklie and the day shift detectives didn’t find anything.”

Warrick smirked humorlessly. “Ecklie couldn’t find the hole in the doughnut he’s eating.”

“No argument,” Catherine said, “but apparently this was a fairly mysterious missing persons case. That was part of why the media was attracted to the story—June Cleaver vanishes.”

Warrick frowned. “And nothing at all on Ward?”

“They were college sweethearts at Michigan State, got married and moved out here when Alex Sherman graduated from college. Missy finished her finance degree at UNLV.”

“Maybe they’re not Ward and June,” Nick said. “Maybe they’re Barbie and Ken.”

Catherine shrugged. “Looks like a perfect life, till the day she and her girlfriend went out shopping and for lunch, after which Missy was expected to drive straight home.”

“Instead, she drove into the Bermuda Triangle,” Warrick said.

Nick asked, “Wasn’t the car found?”

Catherine nodded. “In the parking lot at Mandalay Bay, a 2000 Lexus RX300. That’s an SUV. She and her friend ate at the China Grill…then poof.”

Nick’s eyes narrowed. “You mean, she never even made it to the car?”

“Oh she got that far. Ecklie’s people found a doggy bag in the Lexus. But after that…” Catherine held her hands up in a who-knows gesture.

The trio found Dr. Robbins behind his desk, where he was jotting some notes; he looked up as they neared.

“Hey Doc,” Catherine said. “Got ya an ID on Jane Doe.”

Robbins gave her a satisfied smile. “Melissa Sherman. We’ve met.”

Catherine frowned. “Did somebody call you with the missing persons info?”

The coroner’s smile expanded. “No. Some of us are just good detectives.”

“You figured out this was Missy Sherman?” Warrick asked. “Where do you keep the Ouija board?”

“In her stomach,” Robbins said. “That is, the clue was in her stomach. And what’s interesting is, it gives us a more reasonable window for time of death. Freezing or no freezing.”

Catherine was nodding, half-smiling, as she said, “Let me guess—Chinese food.”

Robbins tapped the tip of his nose with his index finger. “Undigested beef and rice in her stomach. When she was killed, the body stopped working and the freezing kept the contents from decomposing.”

“And the Chinese food led you to Missy Sherman how?” asked Warrick, not sure whether he was annoyed or impressed.

“It reminded me of the doggy bag they found in her car when the Sherman woman went missing. I checked the original evidence report and it stated Missy Sherman’s doggy bag contained Mongolian beef and rice. That, in turn, prompted me to recall we’d gotten a copy of her dental records when she first disappeared…just in case, you know, a body turned up, as it too often does in these cases…and I just finished matching those dental records to the body you brought in yesterday.”

“Wow,” Nick said. “Good catch, Doc.”

“You are the man,” Warrick admitted. “And now nobody can say we don’t have a homicide.”

Catherine already had her cell phone in her hand. She punched the speed dial and waited. After a few seconds, she said, “Jim, it’s Catherine. We’ve ID’ed the body from Lake Mead: Missy Sherman—that missing persons case from—”

She waited while Brass spoke, then looked at her watch, and said, “You want to go at this hour?”

Brass said something else, then Catherine said, “All right—we’ll meet you there.”

Punching the END button on her phone, she turned to Warrick and Nick. “Brass was out on a call. He’ll meet us at the Sherman place.”

Before long, they were turning right off Maryland Parkway onto Silverado Ranch Boulevard; then the Tahoe swung into the Silverado Development and followed a maze of smaller streets back to Sky Hollow Drive, a neighborhood peaceful under a starry sky with a sliver of moon, asleep but for a few windows flickering with TV watching, and Warrick could’ve sworn he could hear the muffled laughter from the Conan O’Brien show audience.

A handsome mission-style stucco, 9613 was a tall, wide two story with a tile roof that seemed more pink than orange under the mercury-vapor streetlights. Large inset windows were at either end of the second floor with a smaller window, a bathroom maybe, in the center. A two-car garage was at left, flush with the double archways of a porch at right, leaving the dark-green front door in shadows.

For so nice a home, the lawn was modest—true of all the houses in the development—and had turned brown for the season, though evergreens along the porch provided splashes of green while blocking the view of the front-room picture window, whose drapes were shut, though light edged through. An upper-floor window, with closed curtains, also glowed.

The temperature again hovered around the forty-degree mark, just crisp enough to justify Warrick and Nick putting on CSI jackets. Brass, in his sportscoat, didn’t seem to notice the chill; this was typical of the detective, Warrick knew, as the man had spent a large chunk of his life in New Jersey, where a winter like this would rate as tropical.

They did not go up to the front door immediately. Instead, the detective and the three CSIs stood in the street next to the black Tahoe parked behind Brass’s Taurus, and got their act together.

“What do we know about this guy?” Nick asked.

“I remember this case,” Brass said. “I wasn’t on it, but I sat and talked to the guys working it, often enough.”

“What did they say about Sherman?” Warrick asked.

Brass shrugged. “Guy did all the right things—full cooperation, went on TV, begged for his wife to contact him or, if she was kidnapped, for the kidnappers to send a ransom demand. You probably saw some of that.”

Nick was nodding.

With a shake of the head, Brass said, “They say Sherman seemed genuinely broken up.”

“What does your gut say?” Warrick asked the detective.

“Just wasn’t close enough to it to have a gut reaction. But in the car, on the way out here, I called Sam Vega—he caught the case, was lead investigator.”

They had all worked with Detective Sam Vega when he did graveyard rotation. He was a smart, honest cop.

Catherine asked, “What did Sam have to say?”

“Well,” Brass said, “at first, as convincing as Sherman seemed, Sam figured this was a kidnapping…but then when no ransom demand came in, he started looking at the husband again.”

“Was Mrs. Sherman unhappy in her marriage?” Nick asked. “Could she have just run off, to start over someplace?”

Brass shook his head. “By all accounts she was a happy woman with a happy life, and if she was going to run off, why leave a doggy bag in the car?”

“People rarely carry leftovers into their new life,” Catherine said.

Brass went on: “If she did run off, consider this: Missy Sherman took no money, no clothes, never called anyone from her cell phone, never e-mailed anybody—this woman just flat out disappeared, and didn’t even bother with the puff of smoke.”

“So she didn’t run off,” Warrick said.

“Anyway,” Brass went on, “the longer this case dragged on, the harder Vega looked at the husband. This guy came up so clean, water beaded off him.”

Catherine asked, “What was Sam Vega’s bottom line on the husband?”

“Sam says Sherman seems like a right guy, who hasn’t done anything weird or different or outa line, since Scotty beamed the poor bastard’s wife to nowhere. No new girlfriend, no attempt to collect on the wife’s life insurance policy, which wasn’t that substantial, anyway—nothing.”

“How’d he pay for that hacienda?” Warrick asked, with a nod toward the formidable stucco house.

“Very successful computer consultant,” the detective said. “He’s got some real estate too.”

Nick asked, “What kinda real estate?”

“Apartments. Sherman makes good money. Pretty much pool the four of our salaries, and you got his annual income.”

They stood there, contemplating that.

Then Catherine said, “Maybe we better stop loitering in the street before somebody in this nice quiet neighborhood calls the cops about the riffraff.”

They followed Brass to the dark-green front door of the Sherman home; the four of them barely fit on the shallow porch. From the living room, they could hear voices—loud, animated.

“Movie,” Nick said.

“Sounds like Bad Boys,” Warrick said.

“Bad what?” asked Brass, wincing.

“Bad Boys,” Nick said. “You know, Will Smith, Martin Lawrence—they’re cops…”

“If they’re cops,” Brass said, “I’m a police dog.”

Warrick and Nick exchanged he-said-it-not-us glances.

Smirking sourly, Brass turned back to the door.

Warrick was listening to the sounds from within. “That’s a high-end sound system. He’s watching a DVD.”

“I’ll be sure to put that in my report,” Brass said, and rang the doorbell.

They waited. The loud movie voices ceased, then a few seconds later the door cracked open; one brown eye behind one wire-framed lens peeked cautiously out. “Yes?”

Brass held up his badge on its necklace. “Mr. Alex Sherman?”

The eye narrowed, examining the badge; then the door swung open wide, revealing another eye and the rest of his wire-framed glasses, and the rest of him.

Alex Sherman—six-two, easily, and in his midthirties—wore his black hair short, razor cut, and with his high cheekbones, dark brown eyes and straight nose he had a vaguely Indian look, though he was only moderately tanned. In his stocking feet, he wore gray sweatpants and a green tee shirt with a white Michigan State logo; his build said he worked out.

“What can I do for you, Detective?”

“May we come in?”

Sherman motioned for them to enter, eagerly, saying, “It’s about Missy, isn’t it? Is it about Missy?”

They stepped into a foyer with a small, round table next to the door and a framed black-and-white photo of Missy Sherman on top of it.

“Is there somewhere we can sit down, Mr. Sherman?” Brass asked evasively.

Anxious, Sherman led them to the right into a living room smaller than the Bellagio casino, though Warrick would’ve needed a tape measure to be sure. A massive wide-screen plasma TV monitor hung on the far wall; beneath it a small cabinet held stereo and video components with speakers scattered strategically around the room. A tan leather sofa ran under the picture window, its matching chair and hassock angled toward the television; to the right of the sofa was an easy chair in rough fabric with a faux Navajo design.

Sherman sat on the sofa, Brass next to him, while the others fanned out in front of them. Brass quickly identified himself and the CSIs by name.

“This is about Missy,” Sherman said, “isn’t it?”

“I’m afraid so,” Brass said. “We saw a light on upstairs—is someone here with you?”

“No—I turn that light on so I don’t have to walk up to the bedroom in the dark. Now, what news do you have about my wife?”

Brass paused; he swallowed. “I’m sorry, sir. Your wife was found—”

“You’ve found her?” Sherman said, jumping in, dark eyes wide.

“Her body was found, Mr. Sherman. Early this morning by a park ranger at Lake Mead.”

“She’s dead,” he said incredulously, clearly not wanting to believe it.

“She’s dead, yes.”

Sherman covered his mouth with a hand, and then the tears began. And then he flung his glasses to the end table beside him, hunkered over and began to sob.

Warrick looked at the floor.

Catherine handed the man a small packet of tissues. Warrick could only admire her—she was always prepared, wasn’t she?

After perhaps thirty seconds, Sherman said, “Missy can’t be…why, after all this time…? I thought…I hoped…you hear about amnesia, and…”

More comments, only semicoherent, tumbled from him, but within another thirty seconds, the sobbing had ceased, and he seemed to have hold of himself.

Brass asked gently, “Is there someone you’d like us to call for you? You probably shouldn’t be alone now.”

Sherman’s reply had building anger in it. “I shouldn’t be alone now? I shouldn’t have had to be alone for all these months, but I was! Why didn’t you find her last year? Maybe she’d be alive! She would be here, with me…. Missy’s everything to me. You people, you people…!”

Catherine stepped forward, hands raised before her. “Mr. Sherman—we’re very sorry for your loss. It’s not good for someone who’s had a blow like this to be alone.”

Sherman appeared startled that someone had interrupted his tirade, and in such a compassionate manner; and that brought him back.

In a low, trembling voice, he said, “I’m sorry…I’m really sorry. I shouldn’t be angry with you. I’m sure you did everything you could…. Where’s Detective Vega?”

“We’re with the night shift,” Warrick said. “Detective Vega works days, right now. He’ll be informed, and I know he’ll be concerned. I’m sure he’ll talk to you.”

Nodding, lip trembling, Sherman said, “He…He tried…tried very hard.”

Then Sherman just sat there, collapsed in on himself, like a child trying not to cry.

How Warrick hated this part of the job. But he knew that Gris would only remind him that the CSIs worked not just for the victims, but for their loved ones. Warrick and his associates couldn’t make the pain of losing a wife or a sister or a friend go away; but at least they could try to provide some answers and—when the system worked the way it was supposed to—a modicum of justice.

Nick appeared from somewhere with a glass of water and handed it to Sherman, who took a short sip, then a longer drink. Hand shaking, he set the glass on the end table. “Thank you, Officer.”

Nick just nodded.

“I love my wife very much,” Sherman finally said. His voice had a quaver, but he had regained some composure. “And for a whole year I’ve had only questions with no answers. I just wanted Missy back alive. I should have known that after this long…Ever see that movie, with John Cleese?”

Brass frowned at the seeming non sequitur. “Sir?”

“He’s trying to get somewhere and can’t make it on time, just one damn thing after another…”

“Clockwise,” Catherine said.

“Is that what it’s called? Well, in that movie, John Cleese, he says, ‘It’s not the despair…I can handle the despair. It’s the hope!’ ”

And Sherman began to laugh, only the laughter turned to tears again. But briefly, this time. “Like the big dope I am, I just kept hoping.”

“In your position, we all would, Mr. Sherman,” Catherine said. “We all would.”

“And sir?” Warrick said. “You’ll have plenty of time now, to come to grips with this. Don’t beat yourself up.”

Catherine glanced at Warrick, a bit of surprise in her expression, then said to Sherman, “You will make it through this. And, for what it’s worth, we will be working very hard to find out who did this.”

Sherman looked up at her, his forehead tightening. “You make it sound…She was killed?”

Brass said, “Yes, sir.”

“Oh my God…oh my God…”

They let him cry. Warrick watched Catherine and Brass exchanging a series of looks that were a silent conversation about whether they should press on with any questioning, or if Sherman’s grief made that impossible.

Brass seemed to want to stay at it. To give the man a chance to get himself together.

The tears slowed, then stopped. Sherman dried his face with some of Catherine’s tissues. “There was a time when I…I can’t believe I’m admitting this, but there was a time I actually wanted her to be dead.”

Catherine said, “Mr. Sherman, you should—”

“If her body was found, that at least would mean the end of wondering. I sit here, sometimes all night, watching mindless movies, trying not to think where she might be. The later it was at night, the more horrible the possibilities. Now…now, that it’s finally happened, I have a thousand questions, a million questions. Who would do this to Missy? Why?”

“This investigation is just starting,” Brass said.

“It’s not—You don’t consider it just an old case that…”

“No. It’s very much on the front burner. We hope to be able to answer some of your questions soon.”

Swallowing hard, turning sideways toward the homicide cop, Sherman asked, “Was she…? Did someone…? Was…?”

Brass didn’t seem sure what Sherman meant, but Catherine said, “She was not sexually assaulted, Mr. Sherman. She died of suffocation.”

“Suffocation…Missy?” Leaning forward and grasping Brass’s hands, startling the detective, Sherman implored, “Jesus Christ man, what can you tell me? Where has she been for the last year? Who had her?”

“She wasn’t strangled, sir,” Catherine said. “We’re not sure of the circumstances, where her suffocation is concerned. But she was not strangled.”

“And we can’t tell you where she’s been all this time,” the detective said. “But she appears to have been killed shortly after she disappeared.”

“You said…Lake Mead. A ranger found her?”

Brass nodded.

“But that’s…such a public place!” Sherman was growing outraged again. “How could she not be found, in over a year?”

Catherine stepped forward, crouched in front of the man and touched one of his hands, as if he were a small child she were comforting. “We understand how difficult this is for you, Mr. Sherman. But even though your wife was killed over a year ago, the person who committed that crime—or some associate of the murderer—only this morning placed her body in the park. That makes this a very new, active case…and we need to get right to work.”

Sherman swallowed, nodded. “Anything you need. Anything.”

“Well…to begin with, we must ask you to go over this one more time. It’s been a long time since anyone looked at your wife’s case with fresh eyes. And since we didn’t work the case before, maybe we can find something that got overlooked the first time.”

Gazing at her, his eyes still damp, Sherman nodded that he understood. “Where do we start?”

Catherine rose and backed up a little, giving Brass some room as the detective took over again. “From the beginning,” he said. He withdrew the small tape recorder from his sportscoat pocket, adding, “And with your permission, we’ll record this interview.”

Turning sideways again, to look right at the detective, Sherman said, “No problem, Detective uh—what was your name, sir?”

“Brass.”

Sherman took several deep breaths; he had another long drink of water. Then he said, “Whatever you need. Ask whatever you need to.”

“All right. You last saw your wife when?”

“Thursday, December 6, 2001. That morning, before I went to work.”

“Was everything all right that morning?”

Shrugging as he said it, Sherman said, “Fine. Great. We were a happy couple, Detective Brass.”

“Tell us about that morning.”

“Well…Missy was going shopping with her friend Regan Mortenson; then they were supposed to finalize plans for the four of us to have dinner and a movie Saturday night.”

“The four of you?”

“Missy and me…Regan and her husband, Brian.”

“You two couples socialized frequently?”

Sherman nodded. “They’ve been our best friends for, oh…years. I don’t think I would have made it through the last year without them. Regan’s always stopping by to check on me, Brian and I have lunch, oh, twice a week, anyway.”

“How and when did you meet them?”

“Missy and Regan went way back. Hell, they were sorority sisters at Michigan State—Tri Delts.”

Warrick repressed a smile, reflexively remembering the old joke from his days at UNLV. Don’t have a date? Tri Delt.

“After we moved out here,” Sherman was saying, “Regan came out a year later. They weren’t just sorority sisters, Missy and Regan, they really were like sister sisters. Anyway, Regan met Brian out here, and they got married.”

“Brian Mortenson,” Brass said, more for his own benefit than Sherman’s.

“Yes. Great guy. Wonderful guy.”

“And what does he do?”

“He’s Events Coordinator for the Las Vegas Convention Center, sets up their programs and conventions…”

Heavy-duty job, Warrick thought.

Brass nodded. “And his wife?”

“Regan? She solicits funding for Las Vegas Arts.”

“Is that a job, or volunteer work?”

“Volunteer.”

“How long have you known Mr. Mortenson?”

“Oh, ten years, easily…. We met not long after Missy and I moved to Vegas. In fact, we introduced them, Regan and Brian. He and I were playing basketball at the health club we both belonged to; still do. He was sixth man at Bradley, Brian was.”

Brass shifted on the couch. “Back to the day in question. You say Missy was here when you left for work.”

“That’s right.”

“Presumably, then she went shopping with Regan.”

“No presumably about it. Ask Regan—they went shopping, and had lunch together.”

“And when did you first suspect something was wrong?”

“Almost immediately. From when I got home from work, I mean. If Missy wasn’t planning to have supper, she’d have said something. And if there’d been a change of plan, she’d have called on the cell, or at least left me a note.”

“So you were concerned.”

“Well…not overly. Didn’t get too worried at first. Her car wasn’t here, I figured she ran up to Albertson’s for something.”

That was a local grocery chain.

“Or maybe ran out to get some carry-out,” Sherman was saying. “If she got too busy to fix supper, she’d sometimes stop for Chinese or Italian.”

Brass nodded. “How long before you started to worry?”

Sherman considered that. “I waited…maybe an hour. Then I called Regan. She said she hadn’t seen Missy since lunch. I couldn’t think of where she might be.”

“Then what?”

“I called our usual take-out places—they hadn’t seen her. I started in on all of her friends that I could think of, and none of them had seen her, either.”

“Is that when you called the police?”

“No. I called Regan again, to see what kind of mood Missy’d been in. Regan said normal, fine, real good spirits. And then the paranoia set in…I mean, we were happy, but we had our arguments.”

“Such as?”

“Well, I’d been on her about credit cards; she was buying a lot of clothes. I handle the finances, and she was kind of, you know, irresponsible at times. I told all this to Detective Vega.”

“You’d had words about it recently?”

“Not…words. We bickered about it, not the night before she disappeared, but the night before that. Still, that was enough to get me stewing. I even went upstairs to see if her clothes were still in the closet. You know, thinking maybe she’d left me or something—not for real, just ran to her mom’s or one of her sister’s in a huff maybe. But everything was there.”

“Did you call her family? Her mother, her sisters?”

He nodded glumly. “None of them had heard from her.”

“So, Mr. Sherman—when did you call the police?”

Looking a little uncomfortable, Sherman said, “I heard that you can’t file a missing persons report until someone has been gone twenty-four hours.”

Brass shook his head. “Not always the case.”

Sherman shrugged. “Well, that’s what I believed…. So I waited all that night and didn’t call 911 until the next morning.”

Her voice low, Catherine said to Warrick, “That’s why day shift got it instead of us.”

Brass was asking, “What did you do that night, while you waited?”

Sherman sat slumping, his hands loosely clasped. “I…tried to think of where she might go and went driving around looking for her car. First, the grocery store, Albertson’s, the one over here on Maryland Parkway.” He pointed vaguely off to his right. “If she was mad at me, maybe she was driving around the city, pouting…. She could pout, at times. So I just started driving around, all over the place. The Strip. I started with Mandalay Bay where she’d last been seen.”

“That’s where officers found her car,” Nick put in, “the next day, right?”

Sherman nodded vigorously. “Yes…but I didn’t see it there. Somehow I missed it.”

Warrick noted this: the first real inconsistency, the only striking anomaly in the husband’s story, so far.

“2000 Lexus,” Brass said. “Nice car.”

“You wouldn’t think I could’ve missed it, but I did. In my defense, I was pretty worked up at this point…frantic. And it is a huge parking lot.”

Brass nodded. “So, you just drove around all night?”

“Not all night. Only till about ten…and then I came home. I suppose I hoped that she’d’ve come home while I was out…but, of course, she hadn’t.”

“So what did you do then?”

“What I always do when I want to get my mind off my troubles—put in a movie.” He sat up and a faint near-smile crossed his lips. “Missy and me, we’re kind of movie buffs…. You can see the home theater here, pretty elaborate. We watched a lot of movies.”

“So,” Warrick said, “you just popped a DVD in and waited.”

“Yes,” Sherman said, looking up at Warrick. “I didn’t want to worry—I didn’t want to be ridiculous. But I kept looking out the front window every five minutes to see if she was pulling up. At some point, I finally just dropped off to sleep. When I woke up and found she still wasn’t home, I called 911 right away.”

“Then the police took over,” Brass said.

“Yes.”

Brass said, “Thank you, Mr. Sherman,” and clicked off the recorder.

“Is…is that it? Is that all?”

“Actually, Mr. Sherman,” Brass said, “we would like to take you up on your offer to help.”

“Certainly…. Anything at all.”

“Good. Because I’d like to have our crime scene investigators take a look around.”

Warrick winced—that was a poor choice of words, considering…

Sherman flushed. “Crime scene…? Are you saying that after all I’ve been through, I’m a suspect, now? In my wife’s murder?”

Brass began, “Mr. Sherman, please…”

His spine straight, his eyes wild, Sherman almost shouted: “You come to tell me she’s dead after a year of me praying for a fucking miracle that she might be alive and I open up my heart to you and you have the goddamn audacity to accuse me?”

“Mr. Sherman, no one’s accusing you of anything—” Warrick protested.

“It sure as hell sounds like it! Crime scene my ass!”

“Sir,” Nick said, “we know it’s been a year, and that things have changed, but we have to look.”

“I don’t have to let you,” he said, almost petulantly. “You need a search warrant, don’t you?”

“You don’t have to let us,” Brass acknowledged. “But I was taking you at your word, when you said you wanted to help.”

For several long seconds, Sherman just sat there, his hands balling into fists that bounced on his knees; he was clearly struggling to decide what to do.

Catherine crouched in front of him again. “You loved your wife—we can all see that. But if there’s so much as a shred of evidence in this house that might lead us to her killer, wouldn’t you want us to find it?”

Slowly, the fists unballed. “Of…of course.”

She kept her voice low, soothing. “Then let us do our job. We want to catch your wife’s murderer as much as you want us to. But to do that, we need to examine everything pertinent to the case…and that includes this house. Unless you’ve gotten rid of her things, Missy’s home will have a lot to tell us about her.”

Sherman swallowed and sighed…and nodded. “I understand. I’m sorry I lost my temper. It’s just…”

Catherine touched his hand. “No problem.”

“And I haven’t gotten rid of her things, I could never do that. Everything’s exactly the way it was the day she left. I haven’t moved so much as her toothbrush. I always hoped the door would open and she’d walk in and we’d just pick up from where we left off…. ”

He began to cry again.

Several awkward moments crawled past, as the CSIs looked at each other, wondering if they should get started or not.

Then Sherman said, “If…if it will help, take all the…all the time you need. You won’t be keeping me up. It’s not like I’ll be sleeping tonight.”

Diving right in, Warrick asked, “I have to ask this, sir. Do you own a freezer?”

“Not a stand-alone freezer. Just the little one in the top of the refrigerator.”

“Not a chest-style freezer, either?”

The man shook his head.

“Ever had one?”

“No.” He looked curious about their questions, but pale, and Catherine could almost see him deciding he didn’t want to know why they were asking.

They went out to the Tahoe and got their equipment; inside the house, they split up. Catherine took the bathroom and the master suite; they didn’t want Sherman getting upset about one of the men pawing through Mrs. Sherman’s things, so Catherine volunteered for that duty. While Brass talked informally with Sherman in the living room, Nick and Warrick divided up the rest of the house. Nick started in the kitchen, Warrick in the garage. As with most houses in Vegas, there was no basement.

Warrick didn’t expect to find anything in the garage, really, at least not as far as the freezer was concerned. Even if Sherman had at one time had a freezer, and used it to freeze his wife, it would be long gone by now. But the criminalist did check the floor for telltale marks of a freezer or any other appliance having been dragged across; nothing. A small workbench with a toolbox atop it hugged the near wall. Warrick looked it over and checked the toolbox but again came up empty.

Missy’s Lexus, returned by Ecklie’s people months ago, sat on the far side, Sherman’s Jaguar parked beside it. The garage had sheet-rock walls, a large plastic trash can and a smaller recycling receptacle in the corner nearest the double overhead door. One of those pull-down staircases led to a storage space above the false ceiling. Walking around the cars, Warrick saw some gardening tools and a lawn mower against the far wall.

The place seemed only slightly less sterile than a hospital. Shaking his head at the cleanliness, Warrick tried the door of the Lexus and found it unlocked. Even though the Chinese food had sat in the car for some time, the smell was gone. In fact, Warrick noticed, the car smelled new. Too new—it had been professionally cleaned. Looking down at the carpeting, then studying the seats closely, confirmed his diagnosis: the SUV was cleaner than the day it had left the showroom.

After closing the door, he walked around between the cars and pulled the rope for the pull-down stairs. He climbed the flimsy ladder, pulled out his mini-Mag and light-sabered it around the darkened storage space. A few cardboard boxes dotted the area, mostly close to the opening, and when Warrick touched them, they seemed empty.

Moving the beam from right to left, he paused occasionally, looked at something a little closer, then slid the light further along. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Putting the butt of the mini-Mag into his mouth, he leaned over and undid the folded flaps of the nearest cardboard box. Inside he saw the Styrofoam packing that came on either end of the DVD player he’d seen inside. The next box had held the receiver for the home theater system. It too contained only original packing. Warrick finished quickly and rejoined the others back inside.

The search had taken nearly two hours and they had nothing to show for it. As they packed up and prepared to leave, Warrick wandered into the living room where Brass and Sherman still sat. “Mr. Sherman, I take it you had your wife’s car washed?”

Sherman started. “Why, yes…yes I did. At one of those places where they really give it the works. Did I do something wrong? The other officers told me I could, they said they were finished with the Lexus and it was covered with what they said was fingerprint powder. I mean, the car was really filthy.”

Warrick nodded. “You didn’t do anything wrong, sir.”

“You guys about ready?” Brass asked.

“Catherine’s done and Nick’s just putting the drain back together in the kitchen. We’re done.”

Brass rose and shook Sherman’s hand. “I’m sorry for the intrusion, but I’m sure you understand. And we are very grateful for your cooperation.”

“Whatever you need. Whenever you need it.”

Catherine trooped in, looking beat.

Sherman sat up. “Any luck?”

Dredging up a smile, Catherine said, “Too soon to tell. Thank you again, sir.”

All of them thanked their host and paid their sympathies, then followed Brass outside onto the sidewalk. The houses around them were dark now, and silent.

“Anything?” Nick asked Catherine, his voice a strained whisper.

She shook her head and, with her eyes, posed the same question of Warrick.

“Nothing,” he whispered. “Can’t blame him for wanting to wash the fingerprint crap and luminol outa his vehicle.”

Nick was shaking his head, his expression discouraged. “A year’s a long time,” Nick said.

Brass heaved a sigh, then said, “I’ll talk to the Mortensons tomorrow—maybe they can tell us something.”

“It’s no wonder we found ice inside Missy,” Warrick said, “with a case gone this cold.”

And they got in their vehicles and drove back to HQ.