Blood Quantum Page 4

  Brass gave a low whistle. "That would buy a couple bottles of Taittinger."

  "I'm still just getting started processing him," Ray said. "I should get back to it but wanted to let you know that."

  "Thanks, Ray. I'll check into it."

  Ray ended the call and dropped the phone back into his jacket pocket. He bagged the receipt and wrote the pertinent details on the plastic, then added it to the trove he was developing. Domingo's pockets had contained keys, a wallet, the Fracas receipt, a couple of Mont Blanc pens, and a partial roll of mints.

  On Domingo's clothing, Ray found a couple of short orange hairs – they stood out like neon against the shiny black of his silk shirt – and three pieces of some dry plant fiber he couldn't identify. He bagged those, too.

  "How's it going, Ray?" Nick asked, coming back in through the open front door.

  "It's going." He filled Nick in on what he had found so far. Nick told him he found footprints at a back door, leading by a roundabout route out to the street a couple hundred feet from the house, but no finger-ridge impressions on the doorknobs and no signs of entry at any other doors or windows. Then he left Ray to his work and went back out to process the Escalade with the broken window.

  Ray took samples of the blood on the floor, the blood on the lighter, and the blood on the wall. It was probably all the same blood, but until it was tested, that was no certainty. He didn't want to dust the lighter for prints here, although he had become much more proficient at the process than he had been when he'd started on the job. But he saw no patent prints, even in the blood, and he wondered if the lighter had been wiped and then dropped into the pooling blood, instead of having been dropped immediately after it struck Domingo. There didn't seem to be any good way to transport the thing to the lab without further smearing the blood, and he finally decided to set it aside until he was finished, hoping the blood would have dried on the metal, then carry it in a paper bag.

  He had been surprised at first to learn that damp or wet items were put into paper bags rather than plastic. But once it was explained that in the more airtight confines of a plastic bag, moisture could cause bacterial growth or molds that would then contaminate precisely what the investigator was trying to preserve, he understood why. Paper wasn't airtight, and that was exactly the point. Even if the blood on the lighter seemed dry to the touch by the time he was ready to go, he would bag it in paper, just in case.

  With the body as closely examined as he could manage in that setting – soon the coroner's crew would arrive to take custody of it, and they would do the more detailed examination back at the morgue – he shifted his attention back to the rest of the room. There was a black leather sofa, with highly polished black steel end tables flanking it. On the right-hand table were a couple of business magazines and an ashtray with a cigar butt in it. The furniture was reasonably clean, but a thin layer of dust coated the table, and a dust-free spot showed where the lighter probably ordinarily rested. Next to the magazines was a cut-glass tumbler with about an eighth of an inch of some pale amber liquid left inside. Ray sniffed the glass. Scotch, watery. There had probably been ice cubes in it when he started drinking it. Condensation had made a ring in the tabletop dust. He would collect the liquid and get it to the tox lab to check for poison.

  So Domingo spent his evening at a nightclub, leaving there a little after midnight, having racked up an eleven-hundred-dollar bill. He came home. At some point, somebody – maybe he himself – smashed the window of his SUV. Where was that – at the club? In the parking lot? On the way home? Or right there, where it was parked in front of the garage? At any rate, Domingo probably knew about it. They would have to check his phone records to see if he called in a criminal complaint.

  Once he got home, he took off his shoes, sat on the couch, smoked a cigar, and drank some scotch on the rocks. Maybe he flipped through the magazines. He kept his house clean, even leaving his shoes by the door so he didn't track anything on the floors. He was, by all available evidence, a fairly meticulous guy.

  But at some point, his late-night relaxation was interrupted by… well, that was the million-dollar question, wasn't it? Someone came inside. There was, Ray guessed, an argument. While Domingo's back was turned, the other person snatched up the nearest heavy object and bashed Domingo over the head with it. Still holding the lighter, he – or she, no telling yet, although the person was probably at least as tall as Domingo and strong enough to kill with a single blow – wiped his fingerprints off it. He wrote the word QUANTUM on the wall, presumably using a tool and not his finger, since he was obviously careful not to leave fingerprints anywhere else, and then he took his leave.

  The killer had not, at a glance, left any signposts pointing to his identity. Unless the mystery word was somehow one. If so, it was as vague a signpost as Ray could imagine.

  Ray had not been at the job for as long as his colleagues, but he understood the fundamental principles underlying it. All people left traces of themselves on those with whom they came in contact. Maybe it was the orange hairs, maybe the bits of plant fiber, maybe fingerprints he had not yet located, but somewhere in this house was the key, the signpost Ray needed.

  He would keep looking until he found it.

  He knew when he took the job that it wouldn't be easy. The hours, Grissom had promised, were terrible, and the pay was lousy. Gil was true to his word. Ray thought with a wry grin.

  But the rewards – well, they were beyond measure. So far, Ray had found it absolutely worthwhile, in every conceivable way.

  4

  Fracas was still open when Brass got there. Doesn't anyone in Las Vegas ever sleep? he wondered. Besides me? He knew cops who moonlighted as security at places like this, sometimes making more money in a single late-night shift than they did in a week in uniform. He couldn't begrudge a working person the extra dough, but he hoped his life never depended on the shooting ability of a police officer who'd had only eight hours of sleep in the last seventy-two.

  The parking lot wasn't as full as it would have been earlier in the evening – well, morning – but there were still vehicles scattered about, and the valet parking area held its share of BMWs, Mercedes-Benzes, and Jaguars and even a few American luxury cars, Caddys and Lincolns, mostly of the SUV variety. The valets wore black shirts, maroon bow ties, white and gold vests, and black pants with maroon stripes up the side – kind of an old-fashioned look, half-mobster, maybe, but at least it made a statement.

  The building looked smallish from the parking lot, a concrete-block rectangle with the name in red neon letters on the wall. But small neon. Discreet, if such an adjective could ever be applied to red neon. Just inside the door – no rope line to handle, not this time of night – stood a human-shaped mountain with a bald head and thick-framed black plastic glasses. Not a cop; Brass doubted if the uniform existed that could have fit the man. The specs were a nice touch, giving the bouncer a kind of egghead quality, but from the size of his shoulders and mitts, you wouldn't want to cross him. Behind him was a second door, and Brass could feel bass notes from behind it rattling his teeth.

  Brass was reaching for his jacket, to draw it back and badge the guy, when the bouncer smiled and said, "'Morning, Detective."

  "It's that obvious?"

  "You might as well wear a uniform. To be fair, I've been doing this a long time."

  "Glad I could still maybe fool a newbie," Brass said.

  "Maybe. If he had vision problems."

  Brass paused next to the big man. "You know Robert Domingo?"

  The bouncer shrugged. "You'd have to ask inside. I don't know names."

  "You don't know names?"

  "Why would I? I let people in the door. Sometimes I throw them out. I don't need to know their names to do either one."

  "But you expect me to believe that if some sweet blonde with a tight butt and a short skirt gave you the eye and then asked you to call her after you got off your shift, you wouldn't want to know her name?"

  "Detectiv
e, this is Las Vegas, and we're the flavor of the month. I don't need to know her name, because someone else just like her will be along in ten minutes."

  Brass nodded sagely. "That's a tough life you have."

  The guy shrugged once more. "Someone's gotta live it. Might as well be me."

  "You mind?" Brass asked, gesturing toward the inner door.

  "Be my guest. Enjoy yourself."

  "It's not that kind of visit."

  The music smacked into Brass like a falling wall when he went inside. The lights were low, and around the perimeter of the place were large booths that were almost completely lost in shadow. Anything could have been going on in those. Brass decided not to try to see through the shadow, because he didn't want to have to have Vice raid the place – not unless he couldn't get the cooperation he wanted from the management. Dim colored lights flitted rapidly across the floor, as if operated by someone in the midst of a seizure, picking up people dancing to a loud, pulsating beat. Most of the dancers were moving languidly, and he figured that by this point in the festivities, the ones still on their feet were either completely smashed on booze and/or drugs of some kind. Even the Ecstasy users were starting to crash.

  He worked his way across the edge of the floor, between the dancers and the booths. At the back of the room, which was far larger inside than it had appeared from the parking lot, a bartender worked at a tall, sleek metallic bar. Behind him were glass shelves, lit from underneath to throw colorful reflections on the mirrored surface backing it. The bartender was short and lithe, wearing a dark shirt with three buttons open and the sleeves rolled back over his forearms, and he moved with economical precision. He looked as if he had been doing this job for a hundred years, although he couldn't have been older than thirty.

  He greeted Brass with a friendly grin. "What's shakin', boss?"

  Brass badged him. "You probably knew that already, though."

  "Had a feeling," the guy said. He was toweling off glasses he had already washed.

  "Apparently, I give off a vibe."

  "Lots of people do. Some are worse than others. At least you don't give off a creepy vibe or a sicko one."

  "You get a lot of those in here?"

  "Get all kinds in here. I've worked at some other places in town, too. Lot of nice people in Vegas, lot of decent tourists, and then there are those people that you just know you're gonna see turn up on one of those true-crime shows."

  "I meet my share of those," Brass admitted. So far, except for the music and the possibly unsavory activity that could have been taking place in those dark booths, he liked the place. Or he liked the people working there, which basically came down to the same thing. Every joint played the same music and served the same drinks; it was the people who created an atmosphere that was either welcoming or off-putting. These folks seemed as if they'd be entertaining to hang out with for an hour or two.

  "What can I get you?" the bartender asked.

  "Just a tall cool glass of information."

  The bartender put down his towel, placed his hands on the back edge of the bar, and leaned forward a little so Brass wouldn't have to shout over the music. "Yeah? What do you need?"

  "Robert Domingo. You know him?"

  "He comes in sometimes."

  "How well do you know him?"

  "Well enough not to expect to retire on his tips."

  "That's probably handy information to have."

  "It is when you live on tips."

  "He was here tonight," Brass said. He didn't phrase it as a question, but the bartender answered anyway.

  "Yeah, he was in earlier. For a while."

  "Ran up a big tab."

  "I guess, yeah. Big for some people. Not for others."

  "Seemed like he tipped all right."

  "The dollar amount was decent," the bartender said. "But it was almost exactly fifteen percent."

  "But that's standard, right?"

  "You don't retire on standard. In this town, one high roller who has a good night can give you a good month. But a few guys like Domingo can make you have to choose between rent and groceries."

  "At least he didn't stiff you."

  The bartender grinned again. "There's that."

  "So who did he spend this money on?"

  "He bought some bottles of champagne. A couple rounds for everyone at the bar, although he bought those when there weren't a lot of people at the bar. He took a booth for a while, and people sat with him as long as he was buying. That kind hang around every club – they can sniff out who's spreading the booze around, and they'll be your best friend until you close out your tab. It doesn't take long to rack up a thousand-dollar tab if you have expensive tastes."

  "And he did?"

  "Always."

  "He's a regular, I take it?"

  "Like I said, he comes in sometimes. And he may not be a great tipper, but he also might not appreciate me talking about his personal habits with the cops."

  "I think he's beyond caring about that."

  The bartender's face went dark. "No shit? What happened?"

  "He might not appreciate me talking about his personal situation with a bartender."

  "I gotcha," the man said.

  "Point is, he isn't going to be a good tipper or a bad tipper anymore. So feel free to talk about him as much as you want."

  "Okay, what else do you want to know?"

  "Anybody in particular who spent time with him tonight who comes to mind? Did he get into any altercations, disagreements? Anybody threaten him?"

  "No and no. He was Mr. Happy tonight. All smiles and big laughs and 'Pour my friends another drink!' He had plenty of friends tonight, let me tell you."

  "As long as he was buying."

  "He was buying almost up until he left. I guess at the end, the last forty minutes or so, the last champagne bottle ran out and the crowd dissipated. Then it was just him and this one girl."

  "Who was she?"

  "I didn't know her."

  "Did he leave with her?"

  "I wasn't really paying attention. But now that you mention it, I think he did. You think she…?" The bartender made a slicing motion across his throat.

  "You never know," Brass replied.

  "Dude, that's messed up."

  "It's not considered the ideal way to end a pleasant evening."

  "Not at all."

  "Can you describe the girl?"

  "Pretty. Black hair, dark eyes. She wore black, I think."

  " Lot of that going around."

  "Yeah, it's kind of the uniform. I guess I can't describe her that well, but you can see the video if you want."

  "There's video?"

  "Seven cameras."

  Brass liked the sound of that. "Show me."

  The bartender picked up a phone. "I need someone to cover me here for a minute," he said. He spoke briefly into the receiver, then hung up. "Just a sec."

  "So you have no idea who this girl might have been?" Brass asked while they waited.

  "Not a clue. She looked Native American to me. Straight hair, darker skin. But I'm no expert. I can tell you one thing."

  "What's that?"

  "Man, was she a hottie. I never saw her before, but I wouldn't mind seeing her again."

  5

  Conrad Ecklie was an extremely ambitious guy.

  Catherine didn't have a problem with ambition. She had plenty of that herself. But she wasn't in his league, not in that regard.

  When she had first known him, he was a day-shift supervisor at the Las Vegas Police Department Crime Lab, the counterpart to the job she held now as night-shift supervisor. She didn't know if he would move up from there or not, although she suspected he had his eyes on the commissioner's job. A guy like him, driven, she wouldn't put a run for the mayor's office past him one of these days, even if the lab was hardly a common stepping-stone to that position.

  Gil Grissom hadn't used his supervisor's job as a rung on any career ladder. He had become night-shift supervisor and
stayed in the position until he left. But there had been extenuating circumstances in his departure, most notably an unfinished relationship with former CSI Sara Sidle, which had driven Gil out of the lab and out of Las Vegas. Catherine didn't expect to leave the city, and as long as she lived there, she had to work, at least until she had put in enough years to get full retirement bennies. So there might come a day, she reasoned, when she would try to follow Ecklie's career path. At least to some extent. She'd had enough headaches in her life, especially as the single mother of a teenage daughter, to know she didn't ever want to be the mayor of Las Vegas. Talk about headaches…

  So she accepted Ecklie at face value. That didn't mean she liked the guy. She just didn't judge his ambitions, the way Gil sometimes had.

  No, any problem she had with Conrad Ecklie was because she often found him judgmental and sometimes brusque, even rude when it didn't seem to serve his goals but just allowed him to feel superior to those he barked at. And if his promotion out of the lab into the position of undersheriff still rankled sometimes, that was because the position was open only because its previous holder, Jeffrey McKeen, had murdered her friend and fellow CSI Warrick Brown. Warrick's death certainly wasn't Ecklie's fault; the whole affair just left a bad taste in her mouth, and there was something unseemly about benefiting from it, even by default.

  Gil had often thought that Ecklie put his career ahead of his work. He hadn't complained about it much, because that wasn't the kind of man Gil was. But Catherine could read between the lines with Gil, and she knew how he felt. Still, Ecklie had been a damn good CSI once upon a time – even Gil admitted that – and Catherine liked to try to keep that in mind when she had to deal with him.

  Especially when, as in this case, he was doing everything in his power to remind her who called the shots.

  "People upstairs are very concerned about this case, Catherine," he said. "And you know as well as I do, when those people take an interest in a case, things can go ugly fast. If the crap rains down on me over this, you can expect showers coming down on you."