A fter five grueling hours at the Charleston Boulevard garbage dump—wearing white Tyvek jumpsuits over their clothes, painter’s masks, multiple pairs of latex gloves, and fireman boots—the graveyard CSIs dragged in to HQ for showers and to climb in their spare clothes and finish out their shift.

Warrick caught up with Nick in the Trace lab, hunkered over the MP4 camera, enlarging prints. Nick would feed these prints into the AFIS terminal on the desk, over against a side wall keeping company with a little family of filing cabinets.

The back wall was home to a refrigerator for chemicals, a work counter, and a paper-heating oven. Racks of chemicals owned the other side wall, and on a large central table sat the comparative microscope, which allowed the matching of parts of two different slides—an invaluable tool for bullet comparison.

“That was fun,” Warrick said dryly, meaning their garbage-dump duty.

Nick smirked. “Vegas is one glamorous town.”

“Who’s the AFIS candidate?” Warrick asked, at Nick’s side now.

“Suffocated naked woman, number two.”

Catherine wandered in with a newspaper folded under her arm and that devilish half-smile and single-arched eyebrow expression of hers that told Warrick she was onto something.

“Either of you guys into the local avant-garde scene?”

Nick gave her half a smile back. “I have a buddy in the National Guard.”

She dropped the folded newspaper onto the desk next to Nick—the Arts section of the Las Vegas Sun. “Lavien Rose mean anything to you, boys?”

Warrick, trying, said, “Edith Piaf song, isn’t it?”

Nick looked up at his friend. “Woah…Mr. Music. You can name that tune in how many notes?”

“Actually,” Catherine said, “he missed that question—it’s not ‘La Vie En Rose’…it’s Lavien Rose.”

She tapped a red-nailed finger next to a photograph on the folded-over Arts section. “Look familiar, fellas?”

An article on local performance artists included a sullen photograph of the spiky-haired blonde woman they had not long ago seen in the dead altogether out on Charleston Boulevard.

“Is that what that was,” Warrick asked, “back at that trash pile? Performance art?”

Nick’s eyes were large as he picked up the paper and stared at the punky blonde. “If so, it must’ve been closing night.”

Catherine was grinning almost ferally. “I knew I’d seen that face somewhere before!”

Doc Robbins’ voice came over the intercom. “Catherine, you in there?”

She stepped over to the intercom and touched the talk button. “Yeah, Doc—Trace lab, a CSI’s home away from home. What have you got for us?”

“Cause of death on your blonde Jane Doe.”

“Great,” Catherine said, “only she’s not a Jane Doe anymore—we got her IDed.”

“Well, come on down and fill out the form. But just so you know, she suffocated with the help of a plastic bag. Same heightened CO² count in her blood as Missy Sherman.”

They all traded meaningful looks.

Catherine said, “Thanks, Doc! Be down in a few, to fill out the ID.”

“Paperwork rules us all, Catherine.”

Warrick stood with hands on hips. “Another naked woman killed with a plastic bag? Tell me this isn’t a serial.”

“The similarity of MO suggests serial,” Nick said. “But the victim profile is out of whack.”

“I don’t know,” Warrick said, shaking his head. “Two attractive women, about the same age…?”

“True. But otherwise, what do a brunette middle-class housewife and a blonde starving artist have in common?”

“I don’t know if she was a starving artist, exactly,” Catherine said. “Bulimic, maybe.”

“She was a skinny thing,” Nick said.

“Easily overpowered,” Warrick said.

The computer chirped and Nick turned to see a match on the woman’s prints. He tapped the keys and was soon looking at an arrest report.

“Her name was Sharon Pope,” Nick said.

Archly, Catherine said, “You don’t suppose ‘Lavien Rose’ was a stage name, by any chance?”

“Ms. Pope was arrested two years ago September,” Nick continued, reading from the screen. “Part of a group protesting at Nellis.”

Nellis Air Force Base—northeast of the city, out Las Vegas Boulevard—frequently drew protesters of one kind or another, so a Federal record like that popping up was not a shock.

Still, someone had to ask; and it was Catherine: “Arrested for?”

“Trespassing,” Nick said, “failure to disperse, interfering with an officer.”

Catherine lifted her eyebrows. “Well, she hit the trifecta.”

“Touched all the bases at the base, yes,” Nick said. “A fine but no jail time.”

“Address?”

Nick read it aloud, then added, “But we better check it—this arrest is a couple of years old. She could’ve moved by now.” His forehead furrowed. “You know, I’ve heard that name somewhere before.”

“Lavien Rose?” Catherine asked.

“No. Sharon Pope…. ”

Nick mulled that over as his fingers danced on the keyboard, checking out the Pope woman’s address—and another red flag came up.

“Well,” Nick said, “and the hits just keep on comin’…. ”

“What song is Lavien Rose singing now?” Warrick asked.

Frowning suspiciously, Nick turned toward Warrick and Catherine and gestured to the monitor screen. “See for yourself—her current address is the same as two years ago, but when I typed in her performance-artist alias, a different address came up.”

Catherine and Warrick leaned in on either side of Nick and read over his shoulder.

Nick asked, “Why is our bulimic artist keeping two cribs under two names?”

“We need to check them both,” Catherine said.

Warrick’s expression was doubtful as he pointed out, “It’s almost end of shift.”

“This is a fresh murder case.” Catherine’s features were firmly set. “We need to stay on it.”

Nick said, “Brass sent a memo around saying the Missy Sherman case is on the approved-for-OT list…and the two murders may be connected. MO indicates it.”

Warrick shrugged. “Good enough for me.”

“All right!” Catherine said, eyes bright. “We’ll split up…. I’ll see if I can round up Brass and check the Pope address. O’Riley’s back on graveyard rotation—you guys grab him and head over to Edith Piaf’s.”

“Don’t forget to give that ID to Robbins,” Nick reminded her.

“On my way out,” Catherine assured him.

Twenty minutes later, Warrick and Nick stood outside apartment 217H in The Palms, a vaguely seedy two-story apartment complex on heavily traveled Paradise Road. Six-thirty in the morning was a little early to be bothering the super, but Sergeant O’Riley was off doing just that.

The morning had a tentative quality, dawn not quite finished with the sky, and the temperature still hung around the freezing mark. Warrick had thrown his good leather jacket over his running togs; hands in his jacket pockets, he bounced foot to foot, staying warm while they waited on the second-floor concrete walkway.

Finally, O’Riley appeared, coming up the steps. A stubby Hispanic man, the super presumably, trailed behind him in flip-flops, cut-off denim shorts, and a threadbare Santana T-shirt, and didn’t seem to notice it was colder out than the inside of a Kenmore freezer.

As the detective and super drew closer, Warrick got a better look at the super—unruly black hair over a wide forehead, red-rimmed brown eyes, and a frequently broken nose that meant either an ex-boxer or street fighter.

“This couldn’t wait till after my damn breakfast?” the man was saying.

“No,” O’Riley said gruffly. “Just open the door, then we’ll be out of your way in no time, and you can get back to your bacon and eggs.”

“They’re probably already cold,” the super protested.

“Then it’s a moot frickin’ point,” O’Riley said. To Warrick and Nick, he said, “Meet the super, Hector Ortiz.”

Nods were exchanged as the super riffled through a ring of keys. “Miz Rose, she in trouble?”

Ignoring Ortiz’ question, Warrick gestured toward the door with his chin. “What kind of tenant?”

“Best kind—quiet as a church mouse. Always pays the rent on time, pays in cash—what’s not to like?”

“Pays in cash…Is that typical around here?”

Shrugging, the super asked, “Who knows what’s typical these days. Who am I to argue with money? And hers is always on time.”

“What’s she pay?”

Ortiz gave Warrick a sideways look. “I’m not sure I have to answer that.”

Warrick sighed. “You have any openings, here at the beautiful Palms?”

“Maybe. Why?”

“In case I wanna move. If I do, what kind of rent am I lookin’ at?”

“One bedroom?”

“I guess. Something like Ms. Rose has.”

“Five bills—five-fifty, you want a garage.”

“Pretty reasonable, considering,” Warrick admitted.

“I know, everybody else around here’s twenty percent over that, easy. But the landlord’s a nice guy, and ’cause of that, we tend to hang on to tenants.”

“Ms. Rose have a garage?” asked Nick.

“No.”

Finally the super opened the place up, and they peered in at an empty living room—not a stick of furniture, as if the renter had moved out in the night, or burglars had made a hell of a haul.

The super, astounded, blurted, “What the hell?”

As they stepped into the living room, O’Riley asked Ortiz, “When was the last time you were in here?”

“I guess, lemme think—not since Ms. Rose signed the lease. She never had any complaints, and nothin’ went wrong, no plumbing trouble or nothing. She shows up at my door with the envelope of money…. What reason did I have to come in?”

Not even the impressions of furniture could be seen on the well-worn wall-to-wall carpet; no one had lived here for some time. Some cheap but heavy curtains blotted out the window. Warrick opened the front closet door—not even a wire hanger.

A doorless doorway at the right led to the kitchen, where several appliances waited—a stove, a refrigerator. Warrick followed Nick, who opened the fridge, checked the cupboards.

Nick looked back at Warrick, eyes tight. “Got a box of cinch-top bags and a roll of duct tape,” he said.

Warrick grunted noncommittally, then wandered back into the living room, where the super stood in the middle, arms folded, rocking on his heels, bored to death. O’Riley was poised before two closed doors that faced each other in a tiny alcove at the rear of the living room.

Frowning in thought, Warrick said, “Why rent an empty apartment?”

Opening the alcove’s right-hand door, O’Riley said, “Bathroom!…Not much, pretty stripped. Empty squirt bottle on the sink, is about all.”

“What?” Warrick asked, coming over.

The big man shrugged. “You know—like to water plants.”

“Shit,” Warrick said.

O’Riley turned. “What?”

“I think I know why we’re standin’ in an empty apartment…. Do not touch anything else!”

O’Riley, eyes wide, held his hands up in surrender. “Okay, okay…”

“We’re in a crime scene,” Warrick said. “Nick!”

“What?” Nick asked, coming from the kitchen, a wary expression around his eyes.

Warrick said, “The only thing in this apartment is a squirt bottle, some duct tape, and tie-bags…. You wanna guess what’s behind door number two?”

Nick paled. Somber, businesslike, he said, “Detective O’Riley, you escort Mr. Ortiz out, now—don’t touch anything.” Nick got latex gloves out of his jacket pocket, and started snugging them on. “I’ll get the door for you…. ”

The burly cop took Ortiz by the arm and said, “We need to leave.”

“Well, don’t get rough about it! Are you arresting me or what? I didn’t do nothin’!”

Nick was already at the door; he carefully opened it with a gloved hand. “Sir, we’ve stumbled into a probable crime scene. Just our presence potentially contaminates evidence. Please step outside and we’ll explain.”

Once the four of them were back on the concrete walkway, O’Riley asked, “What did you see that I didn’t see?”

While Nick went off to gather their equipment from the Tahoe, Warrick filled the detective in. “Didn’t you read Doc Robbins’s report? He said Missy Sherman was frozen, and had to be wetted down in order to avoid freezer burn.”

O’Riley’s eyes widened and he nodded, getting it. “I remember—the doc said it could have been accomplished with somethin’ as simple as a…squirt bottle.”

Ortiz stepped closer to Warrick. “What does all this mean?”

“We’re going to be investigating in there.”

Ortiz frowned, shaking his head as if warding off flying insects. “Don’t you people need a warrant or something?”

“Not for a probable crime scene, sir.”

“But…how long you gonna be around?”

“Long as it takes.”

Nick came up the stairs with their field kits in his hands, and started by unpacking his camera.

The super looked stricken. “The landlord might not like this.”

“I thought you said he was a nice guy.”

“Oh, he is…but this is private property, and—”

“Sir,” Nick said, his camera out, “we’re going back inside. If we don’t find what we expect in there, we’ll be out in fifteen minutes. If we do find what we expect, we’re going to be here for…a while. Let us go in and find out—if we need to stay longer, you can call the landlord, and we’ll talk to him, personally.”

“Maybe I should call him now.”

With a boyish grin, Nick said, “That’s your choice, sir. But be sure to mention that you’ve already given us access, voluntarily.”

Ortiz’ face took on a sick look; he hung his head and leaned heavily against the wrought-iron rail of the walkway.

Warrick nodded to O’Riley, who nodded back—an exchange that meant, Stay with this guy and keep an eye on him.

Nick and Warrick went back inside.

While Nick snapped some pictures of the squirt bottle in the bathroom, Warrick faced the closed door that might lead to a bedroom. Touching as little of the knob as possible, he turned it and allowed the door to swing open, mostly under its own power.

Like the living room, this room was empty. It too had old carpeting, and cheap heavy curtains; but stretching from an outlet on the wall opposite him, a long orange extension cord snaked away to slip under the closet door at right. The closet was formidable—three sliding doors, each almost thirty inches wide.

“Nick!” Warrick called. “Looks like we were right!”

Nick joined him in the bedroom as Warrick slid the far door to the left. Filling most of the closet was a large white Kenmore chest freezer, a padlock joining lid to chassis.

Warrick said, “That’s the model Catherine came up with.”

“Oh yeah.”

Warrick inspected the lock, and said, “We’re going to need a cutter and goggles. I left the tool bag on the walkway. I’ll go get the stuff; you’re the man with the camera.”

“Go,” Nick said.

Outside, Warrick found O’Riley and the super leaning against the rail.

“What’s the verdict?” the detective asked.

“ ‘Guilty,’ eventually—we have what appears to be the murder site.”

“Holy mother of shit,” blurted the super. “Should I call the landlord now?”

“I wish you would,” Warrick said. “We’re going to be here a while.”

Warrick bent down, sorting through his bag to get out the electric cutter.

O’Riley, taking notes, was asking Ortiz, “What’s your landlord’s name?”

“Sherman,” the super said, who had calmed down. “Nice guy. He won’t give you any trouble.”

On his feet now, cutter in hand, Warrick froze. “Sherman? Alex Sherman?”

“Yeah! You know him? Him and his wife bought this place, couple of years ago. She’s the lady that disappeared. Since she vanished, he hasn’t been around much. Leaves most of the maintenance work for me to do…. It’s a little much for me, really. We’re gettin’ kinda run-down.”

Warrick said, “Well, he needs to come around now—in person.”

O’Riley said, “Where’s your office, Mr. Ortiz? I’ll help you call him.”

Warrick’s cell phone trilled. He pulled it off his belt and punched the button. “Warrick Brown.”

“Catherine,” the familiar voice said. “At the Sharon Pope residence. Nothing to write home about here.”

“Well, you might want to stop by over here,” Warrick said. “There’s plenty of subject matter at the Rose crib.”

He quickly filled her in.

“Blink and I’m there,” she said and hung up.

With the cutter and two pairs of goggles in hand, Warrick went back where Nick was snapping pictures of the plug snaking across the carpet.

“You ready for this?” Warrick asked, hands on hips. “You want to take a flyin’ stab at who owns this lavish apartment complex?”

Nick shrugged. “Alex Sherman?”

Warrick frowned. “Now how the hell did you figure that?”

“Catherine mentioned that Sherman and his wife had real estate and you just made it clear somebody tied to the case owns this place. Had to be Alex Sherman.”

“You been reading Gris’s Sherlock Holmes books?”

“No. But I was raised on Encyclopedia Brown.”

Warrick smirked. “I was a kid strictly into John Shaft.”

“Shut your mouth…and pop that freezer. And don’t pout, Richard Roundtree—you were the one who figured out the Kenmore’d be in here.”

“I was, wasn’t I?”

Warrick tossed Nick one pair of the goggles while he put on the other, then plugged the cutter in and turned it on, small blade whizzing back and forth at 20,000 rpm. Leaning in, he touched the tool to the hasp and sparks flew. He was through the cheese-ball lock in less than a minute, the smell of burning metal leaving its industrial bouquet hanging in the air.

With the lock out of the way, they each carefully took a corner of the lid and raised it—the best way not to disturb any fingerprints where people might typically lift the lid.

The freezer was about a quarter full of water, with a short, slotted metal shelf at one end and a little blue nipple on the back wall that—when ice-covered—was a manufacturer’s signal for time to defrost.

“Killer’s trying to clean up after himself,” Nick said, “with this defrosting. Get the water out, get the evidence out.”

“Trouble is, we got the water first…which means we have the evidence.”

“See, we do like it to be easy,” Nick said.

Warrick pointed at the blue tip on the freezer’s back wall. “That look like a match to the mark on Missy’s cheek?”

Nick studied it for a second. “Sure does. Slots on the shelf should match up to the marks on her arm, too.”

“I’ll work the freezer, and find O’Riley and give him the good news that he’s gotta get us a truck to haul this bad boy back to the lab.”

“Sounds good. Then I’ll take another look around—never hurts to look twice.”

“Never hurts to look three times.”

Warrick was just finishing lifting fingerprints off the lid when Nick returned holding a clear oversize plastic bag with two large shopping bags inside. The bags within the evidence bag—one white and one red—were from boutiques in Caesar’s Palace. One of them looked to be stuffed with clothes.

“Where’d you find those?” Warrick asked.

“Under the sink in the bathroom. Nobody’d got to that yet, when we shooed O’Riley and Ortiz out.” Nick hefted the bag. “When Brass and I talked to the Mortensons, Missy’s friend Regan Mortenson said Missy bought some clothes at the Caesar’s mall, day she disappeared.”

Warrick shook his head, gave Nick a wry half-grin. “You may be right about this ‘easy’ theory.”

Nick opened the evidence pouch and withdrew a pair of jeans from one of the shopping bags. Nick pointed to a silver stripe several inches wide, near the cuff. “Looks like the killer duct-taped the victim, while she was dressed.”

“Which is why no duct tape residue was found on the body—Missy was stripped naked after the killing.”

“And that’s why there’s no signs of struggle, even though the killer killed Missy by holding a plastic bag over her head.”

Warrick sighed, sourly. “Trussed up like that, woman never had a chance. Killer ties a bag over the victim’s head, sits back, and just watches while she dies.”

“Smoke ’em if you got him,” Nick said.

“We have one cold killer here, Nick. We been up against our share of evil ones, but this…”

“Let’s see if we can’t hold this to two kills. I don’t want to do any more crime scenes where women die like this.”

“Good plan.”

Catherine and Brass arrived at the Palms apartment complex after a ride during which the detective had continually pissed and moaned about not being able to use the siren because it wasn’t an “emergency.”

“What’s the point of being a cop if you can’t use the siren once in a while?” he griped.

“Life just isn’t fair,” Catherine said, and he looked at her, searching for sarcasm, but apparently wasn’t a good enough detective to find it.

Catherine, in latex gloves, her own silver field kit in hand, entered the apartment, took in the empty landscape, then went into the bedroom to help Nick and Warrick secure the freezer. They bagged and packed the squirt bottle, the cinch-top bags, the duct tape, the extension cord, the old padlock, and the boutique bags with the clothes, all of which Nick hauled down to the Tahoe.

Catherine slapped a new combination padlock onto the freezer, saying to Warrick, “We don’t want this popping open on the ride back to HQ.”

Waiting for the truck to arrive and haul the freezer away, the CSIs and the two detectives stood outside in the early morning sunshine. Bone-tired from the extended shift, they were nonetheless basking in the overtime they were squeezing out of Sheriff Mobley, as well as enjoying the thought of the progress they’d made on what had been until now a stubborn, frustrating investigation.

They were still waiting for the PD truck when Alex Sherman rolled in, in his Jaguar. Dressed business-casual, the dark-haired Sherman looked as though he’d taken his time getting ready.

“Captain Brass,” Sherman said. “I’m surprised to see you—I spoke to a Detective O’Riley, on the phone. He said we had some kind of crime scene here…. ”

“Mr. Sherman,” Brass said, “we believe we’ve found the place where your wife may have been murdered.”

Understandably, Sherman paled at the mention of his wife in those terms, but quickly he asked, “You did? Where?”

“Here.” Brass pointed up toward the second-floor apartments.

“Oh, my God! Right in one of our own apartments?”

Brass nodded. “217H.”

Sherman’s eyes flicked to Ortiz, who shrugged. Then Sherman said, “I don’t even know what to say…. Can I see…?”

“No. It’s a crime scene. I will tell you that the apartment was in the name of a woman named Lavien Rose.”

“Never heard of her.”

Brass arched an eyebrow. “She was your tenant.”

“That’s Mr. Ortiz’ job. What does she have to say?”

“Nothing. The apartment is empty except for a chest freezer.”

“Oh, Christ…”

“And as for Ms. Rose, she and your wife actually have something in common.”

“What’s that?”

“They’re both murder victims.”

“Oh…oh hell…”

“Both suffocated with a plastic bag over the head.”

Sherman stumbled over to the cement steps and sat heavily. He looked dejected, haunted; but he did not cry.

“I didn’t kill my wife,” he said. “I didn’t even know this…Rose person.”

Brass went to him. “Mr. Sherman, we need to move this talk to the station.”

“…police station?”

“Yes, sir.”

Sherman took a long breath and let it out slowly. Then his face turned to stone, the color draining out of it. Was he going to throw up? Catherine wondered. Clearly the man was fighting hard to maintain control.

His voice hard, Sherman asked, “Do I need a lawyer?”

The detective shrugged. “That’s your decision. You don’t have to make it now. We’ll provide you with a phone.”

“Oh, is that right?” he asked bitterly. “My ‘one phone call’?”

“You can make all the calls you want, Mr. Sherman. But you need to come with us.”

“Should I…leave my car?”

“Why don’t you? We’ll give you a ride back.”

Brass and Catherine accompanied Sherman, while Warrick and Nick piled their tools into the Tahoe. O’Riley and the super were left to wait for the truck that would carry the freezer back to CSI. O’Riley would bring Ortiz in, too, though the super was clearly not as strong a suspect as Sherman now seemed.

When they got back to HQ, the first thing the CSIs did was fingerprint Sherman. The computer-whiz-cum-landlord had been reluctant to allow them to do it, but once Catherine assured him it was the fastest way to prove his innocence, and get them back on the trail of the real killer, he’d complied. Ortiz, on the other hand, allowed his prints to be taken without question, with the air of a man accepting his role in a system vastly larger than himself.

In the Trace lab, as Warrick and Catherine tested the prints of the men—she through AFIS, he using the comparison microscope on prints lifted from the apartment—Warrick said, “That was smooth in there with Sherman, Cath.”

“Thanks.”

“You really think he’s innocent?”

She shrugged, laughed humorlessly. “I can’t seem to tell, anymore. I used to think I had good instincts with people, and you’d think that would only sharpen and improve, after years on the job…but the longer I stay at this, the less I feel I know anything about people. They are always a surprise.”

“And so seldom a good surprise.” Warrick got back to his work, then added, “Ortiz seems like a dead end.”

“I agree. A harmless nobody. And next thing you know, we’ll find a freezer in every Palms apartment with a dead plastic-bagged-suffocated girl in it and his fingerprints all over.”

Warrick let out a nasty laugh. “Gacy the Chamber of Commerce guy, Ed Gein the shy, quiet farmer, Bundy the nice helpful dude wantin’ to give you a lift…”

Catherine grunted a sigh. “There’s only one thing that keeps me going.”

“Which is?”

“The victims.”

They kept at it.

Finally, Catherine said, “Nothing from AFIS. Far as it goes, Sherman’s clean.” A minute later, she said, “Ortiz is clean too.”

She pitched in to help Warrick as he went through every print they’d gathered in the apartment, doorknobs, appliances, toilet handle, and most significantly, the freezer. Not a single print matched Sherman and only the front doorknob had a print from Ortiz.

They were just sitting there, a long way away from the euphoria they’d felt a short time ago, and were just wondering if they should call it a shift, when Nick entered, bright-eyed as a puppy.

“Freezer’s here,” he said. “I’m going to work on it. Anybody want to give me a hand?”

“I’m in,” Warrick said, sighing, standing. “Not doing any good in here, anyway.”

Catherine rose. “I’m gonna go eavesdrop on Brass and Sherman.”

And she did, watching through the two-way glass as the short detective managed to loom over a disheartened-looking Alex Sherman, his crisp business attire now looking as wilted as he did. Sherman sat at one of the four chairs at the table—the room’s sole furnishings—feet flat on the floor, hands folded in front of him.

Brass was saying, “You told us before that you never owned a freezer.”

“I don’t. Didn’t. Never have.”

“What about the Kenmore in apartment 217H?”

“None of our apartments have freezers, unless you count the little built-in ones that come with the refrigerators.”

“So, we just imagined that freezer in apartment 217H?”

“It must belong to the tenant.”

“Lavien Rose.”

“If you say so.”

“A dead woman.”

“Again, I only know that, Detective Brass, because you mentioned it.”

“Your wife handled the business end of your real estate holdings.”

“Mostly, yes.”

“Would she have known Lavien Rose?”

“No. Hector dealt with all of that. The name may have been written down somewhere, but we don’t deal directly with the tenants.”

“Does the name Sharon Pope mean anything to you?”

Sherman shook his head. “Never heard of her, either.”

Catherine was watching Sherman closely. Her gut told her the man was telling the truth; but then she recalled what she’d just told Warrick about trusting her instincts…. Maybe the guy was just a hell of an actor.

“Who is she?” Sherman asked, turning the tables on Brass. “I mean, who was she? My tenant?”

“Lavien Rose.”

“No, I mean—who was she? That’s an odd name. It sounds like…a stage name.”

“It is,” Brass said, obviously unnerved by the turnabout of the interrogation.

“Well, I never heard of her—what was she, an actress? A stripper?”

Catherine blinked.

“Performance artist,” Brass said.

Sherman twitched a half-smirk. “I have to admit, that’s a concept that eludes me…performance art. But Regan might know her.”

Brass sat down. “Regan?”

“Missy’s friend. She hangs out with half the artists in town, in her job. Particularly the pretentious ones.”

Catherine felt an electric tingle.

Brass was saying to the suspect, “Remind me—what’s Mrs. Mortenson do again?”

“She’s a fund raiser for Las Vegas Arts—meets with not only patrons of the arts, but also the artists…the screwballs who apply for grants.”

“Excuse me, Mr. Sherman,” Brass said, getting up. “I’ll be with you in a moment.”

Sherman was giving him a quizzical look as Brass walked out. He instructed the uniformed officer on the door to stay put.

Catherine caught up with Brass in the next interview room, where he was gazing through the two-way glass at O’Riley interrogating Hector Ortiz. Nothing of import seemed to be going down.

“I caught most of that interrogation,” Catherine said. “Come with me.”

“You got something?”

“I will have.”

They went to the break room, where Catherine had left that newspaper with the article on local performance art. Brass stood patiently while she quickly scanned it.

“Lavien Rose,” she said, looking at the article, “has been awarded numerous grants by Las Vegas Arts…. Can you wait while I check something?”

“I can keep you company.”

This time she led Brass to the computer terminal in the layout room. It took less than fifteen minutes to learn that Sharon Pope, aka Lavien Rose, had made about twelve thousand dollars last year as a performance artist.

“At least,” Catherine said, Brass next to her as she gestured to the monitor, “those were the grants she got from Las Vegas Arts. And I can’t find any other job for her. Now, we know her rent at The Palms was six thousand a year; we also know her real home across town cost her seventy-eight hundred a year. That’s almost fourteen thousand in rent alone. How do you squeeze fourteen G’s outa twelve thousand bucks?”

Brass said, “You don’t.”

“Exactly. But maybe the rent for The Palms wasn’t coming out of her pocket.”

Brass had a hollow-eyed look. “Oh, shit…”

“What?”

“I missed something.”

“What?”

He was shaking his head, his expression self-recriminatory. “When I interviewed Regan Mortenson, and she said she worked for the Las Vegas Arts Council, she told me she’d had an appointment, a meeting with somebody, right after the lunch with Missy.”

“And?”

“It was with an artist…a woman. I’d have to check the notes I made from the interview tape…but I’m almost positive Regan said the woman’s name was Sharon Pope.”

Catherine’s eyes widened. “That’s who Regan claims she was spending her time with, while Missy was getting murdered?”

“I think so…. Maybe ‘Lavien Rose’ was supposed to be her alibi, and it went south on her? D’you think Regan ended up whacking her alibi?”

Catherine hadn’t processed that fully when Greg Sanders knocked on the doorjamb. The DNA tech, working on a soul patch that was not making it, carried a sheaf of papers in one hand.

Rather irritably, she said, “What, Greg?”

“Woah! Chill—I’m just lookin’ for Warrick and Nick. They brought me the hairs they found in that freezer. They told me it was a rush job, and now they’re MIA.”

“What did you find?”

“Hairs from Missy Sherman and an as-yet-unidentified person.”

Sitting up, Brass asked, “What do you know about the other person?”

“Blonde, female,” Sanders said. “All I know at this point is that her hair matches one Warrick brought me earlier.”

Getting that electric tingle again, Catherine asked, “Where did he get it?”

“Not sure—if you can find Warrick, you can ask him.”

Catherine looked at Brass, who said, “Regan Mortenson and Sharon Pope—both blonde.”

Catherine nodded. “But only one of them is still alive. We have enough to call on Regan Mortenson, wouldn’t you say?”

“Oh yeah,” Brass said.

Nick appeared in the doorway next to Sanders, putting a hand on the lab rat’s shoulder and smiling at him impatiently. “Tell me you have our results.”

Jumpily, Sanders gave up the papers like a thief caught in the act.

“Thank you,” Nick said.

“Don’t go anywhere, Greg,” Catherine said.

She convened the group in the layout room. Nick, Warrick, and Sanders sat, while an edgy Brass paced by the door.

“What good things have you been up to?” she asked the two CSIs.

“We were in the Trace lab,” Warrick said, “running prints and matching evidence.”

“I thought we were past that,” Catherine said.

“Yeah,” Warrick said, “but when prints from Sherman and Ortiz didn’t match anything, I decided to go back to try to match our freezer prints against the one I lifted from Missy’s visor mirror.”

“And?”

“Perfect match…I’m good, by the way.”

“I noticed,” Catherine said with a smile.

Nick said, “I may not be as good as John Shaft here, but I matched the duct tape adhesive we found in the apartment to the adhesive on Missy Sherman’s clothes. That do anything for you?”

“Nice,” Catherine said. “Greg—your turn.”

Sanders filled Warrick and Nick in on what he’d found; then Brass told them what he and Catherine had been discussing, including the Sharon Pope detail, an oversight he copped to.

“I missed it, too,” Nick said, through clenched teeth. “Damn—it was in your notes, Jim!…That’s why that name seemed familiar.”

“We need to go see Regan Mortenson,” Warrick said.

“Actually,” Catherine said, “Jim and I’ll handle that. You and Nick’ll gather the rest of the evidence we need…. Nick?”

“Yes?”

“Talk to the people at Las Vegas Arts and see if we can track the money.”

Nick was on his feet. “On it.”

“Warrick—run down that freezer. The Sears stores are open by now. Kenmore’s the house brand.”

“Shopping on overtime,” Warrick said, getting up. “Fine by me.”

Then they were in the hall, walking together, except for Sanders, who made his getaway back to his lab cubbyhole.

“In the meantime,” Catherine told her fellow CSIs, “Captain Brass and I will discuss the fine art of murder with Regan Mortenson.”

“Maybe you’ll get a grant,” Warrick said.