“Save your breath.” Jill didn’t even look back. Instead she quickened her pace.
Pushing her luck, Debra started to hurry after her. “Jill, wait! We need to talk about this!”
“Excuse me, Ms. Lusky.” Brass intercepted her before she got too far. He laid a restraining hand on her shoulder. “You’re going to have to talk to Jill later, if she’s so inclined. Right now I’m afraid you and I need to have a little chat.”
“What?” she said, still distracted by Jill’s icy exit. Her shoulders sagged in defeat as she watched the patrol car carry Jill away. Damp eyes remained fixed on retreating taillights until they finally disappeared into the late-night traffic. She whispered softly to herself. “I’m sorry, Jill. Please forgive me.”
Brass tried again to get her attention. “Ms. Lusky?”
“Yes?” She finally remembered Brass was there. “Oh, right.” She turned to face him. Her bland, nondescript face looked a few years older than Jill’s. Sparkly white teeth, her most attractive feature, were ready for their close-up. “My apologies, Captain. This has been very traumatic for all of us. I’m sorry you had to see that.”
I’m not, Brass thought. He felt like he’d learned a lot, even if he didn’t entirely know about what. He indicated the trailer. “Please step inside. We have some questions for you.”
“Of course,” she said, more cooperative now that Jill was gone. “I understand.”
He followed her into the trailer, where he introduced her to Catherine, who was placing the bloodstained sweater and skirt into a labeled brown paper bag. They escorted her back to the makeup station, where she plopped down on the same stool Jill had used before. Judging from that shouting match outside, the seat might be the last thing they would share for awhile.
“Jill’s right hand tested positive for GSR,” Catherine updated him. “No surprise there.”
“Good,” Brass said. Surprises were overrated, especially in murder investigations. So far everyone agreed that Jill Wooten was the shooter.
I can live with that.
Debra was still apologizing for the ugly incident in the parking lot. “Just so you know, we’re not usually like that. Jill is just overwrought. Small wonder, after what she just went through.” She shivered from head to toe. “What we all went through.”
“Uh-huh.” Brass maintained a neutral tone. “And how exactly do you and Jill know each other?”
“We used to be roommates,” Debra answered. “Until about a year ago. We’ve been friends, on and off, ever since.”
Brass wondered about that “on and off.” He’d gotten the impression that there had been some bad blood between them at some point. Jill had been kicking herself for making friends with Debra again. What’s that all about?
“Do you think she’ll ever forgive me?” Debra fretted. Their falling-out appeared to be preying on her mind. She chewed on her nails. “Is that even possible?”
“I couldn’t say.” He got down to the business at hand. “How do you figure into what happened here, Ms. Lusky?”
Debra slumped upon the stool, unable to meet his eyes. “It’s true. I set her up for the show. Told her I had a line on a job opportunity for her. I’m a copywriter at the local ad firm. I claimed our company was handling the promotion for the club’s opening.” She looked up, seeking understanding. “But it was just supposed to be a harmless TV stunt. I mean, you’ve seen the show, right?”
“I can’t say I’ve had the pleasure,” he said dryly.
“Well, that’s how it works,” she explained. “Friends or family members set up their loved ones to get ‘Shock Treatment’ every week. And everybody has a big laugh afterward. No one’s ever gotten hurt before. Honestly, I thought Jill would find the whole thing fun and exciting, and that the TV exposure might even help her modeling career.” A bitter smile lifted her lips. “I thought I was doing her a favor.”
Ironic, Brass thought. If she’s telling the truth. “Guess it didn’t work out that way.”
“No,” Debra admitted. “But how was I supposed to know that she’d be carrying a gun?”
Catherine raised an eyebrow. “You didn’t know about the threatening calls she’d been receiving?”
“Calls?” Debra looked confused. “What calls? From whom?”
Brass noted her blank expression. If she really didn’t know about the calls, then maybe the two women weren’t really as close as Debra seemed to believe. You’d think Jill would confide in her friends about something like that.
“That remains to be determined.” He consulted his notebook. “Are you familiar with her ex-boyfriend? Craig Gonch?”
“That jerk? Sure. We were still roommates when they broke up. He didn’t take it very well, to say the least.” She gave Brass a puzzled look. “But what’s that got to do with anything? As far as I know, he’s been out of the picture for awhile.”
Brown eyes widened as she put the pieces together.
“Oh my God. You think she had the gun because Craig’s been stalking her again?” She sighed and shook her head. “Oh, poor Jill. I had no idea.” She stared bleakly at the floor. “I still can’t believe she really shot someone!”
Brass shrugged. “Guess you didn’t know her as well as you thought.”
5
THE SPA WAS located on North Durango Drive, near Summerlin. A pricy neighborhood, Dr. Ray Langston noted. It made a pleasant change from the skid row motels and filthy alleys his career change as a CSI often brought him to. The Nile appeared to be the last place one would expect to find a crime scene, although Ray had come to learn that murder could be found almost anywhere. Even better than the sanitary surroundings, however, was the conspicuous absence of the coroner’s wagon. David Phillips was nowhere to be seen. Instead Ray spotted a van belonging to the Las Vegas Department of Animal Control.
“No body?” Sara Sidle asked. Obviously, she had noticed David’s absence as well.
“The victim was still breathing, barely, when the EMTs arrived,” Detective Vartann informed them. The veteran cop met them in the salon’s elegant lobby, wearing a dark suit, hawkish features, and a characteristically grim expression; Langston wasn’t sure he had ever seen Vartann smile. “She was rushed to Desert Palm Hospital.”
A former physician, Ray was relieved to hear that the patient was still alive. A distinguished-looking African-American male in his late forties, he wore a neatly pressed sports jacket with no tie. A professorial air betrayed his past as both an MD and college instructor. Short black hair was showing traces of gray. He took off his sunglasses. “What’s her prognosis?”
“Not sure,” Vartann said. He was only a few years younger than Ray. “We’re still waiting to hear back from the hospital.”
“Beats waiting to hear from the morgue,” Sara commented. The thirty-something brunette had left the crime lab a few years before Ray had joined the team, but had recently returned to help out on a temporary basis. Ray appreciated the chance to learn from her experience. Only a level-2 CSI at the moment, he was eager to advance to the next level. Sara was already a level-3, like Catherine, Nick, and Greg. After two years on the job, Ray didn’t feel like the new guy anymore, but he knew he still had a lot to learn. Sara looked over the lobby. “So where’s our crime scene?”
“This way,” Vartann said. “If there actually was a crime. We’re still trying to work that out.” He led them down a hallway profligately decorated in pseudo-Egyptian kitsch. Shouts and heavy footsteps escaped a closed wooden door. A painted profile of a regal Egyptian beauty, sporting an asp-crowned beaded headdress, and embossed gold type identified the chamber beyond as the Cleopatra Room.
Sara raised an eyebrow. “Cleopatra? Wasn’t she killed by a snake?”
“An asp,” Ray confirmed. “In retrospect, perhaps not the most auspicious of names.”
“Or too auspicious,” Sara said.
Vartann ignored their banter. “Careful,” he warned. “It’s a zoo in there . . . literally.” He rapped on the door. ?
??All clear?”
“Okay,” a female voice called out from inside. “But make it snappy!”
The detective cautiously opened the door, just enough to slide through sideways, then beckoned for the CSIs to follow him. “Step lively. Some of our ‘suspects’ are still trying to stage a getaway.”
They entered to find a scene of slithery pandemonium. A pair of sweaty Animal Control officers, in blue uniforms, were busy rounding up what appeared to be several runaway snakes, who were scrambling all over the floor. A glass vivarium atop a low wooden cabinet appeared to be the original source of the infestation. The officers chased the snakes around an empty massage table.
Ray quickly pulled the door shut behind him. He backed up against the door to keep out of the way of the outnumbered snake wranglers. He glanced at Sara. “Hope you don’t have a problem with snakes.”
She scoffed at the notion. “I’m married to Gil Grissom. I’m used to all sorts of creepy-crawlies.”
Good point, Ray thought. He recalled her husband’s extensive collection of ants, spiders, cockroaches, and other insects, which Ray had taken the opportunity to inspect prior to Grissom’s departure.
They watched as a snake catcher extracted a writhing eight-inch corn snake from behind a radiator. Long metal tongs extended the woman’s reach, allowing her to safely grasp the snake a few inches behind its neck. She pulled it from its hiding place, then grabbed onto its tail with her free hand before depositing it back into the vivarium, which had a sliding glass lid. A yard away, on the other side of the massage table, her partner used his own tongs to prod a recalcitrant black kingsnake into an overturned plastic bin. Once he had the snake fully inside, he swiftly snapped on a ventilated lid. Trapped, the snake hissed unhappily inside its prison. Several more snakes, hoping to escape their comrades’ fate, slithered for cover.
Ray winced inwardly at all the activity messing up their crime scene, but acknowledged that it was unavoidable in this instance. They could hardly work the site with a lively passel of snakes swarming underfoot. He surveyed the room from against the wall. His gaze zoomed in on the massage table and vivarium. Discarded towels littered the floor. Specks of blood could be spotted upon the rumpled white fabric.
Sara was already thinking ahead, too. “We’re going to need those snakes,” she informed the Animal Control team.
“All of them?” a stocky Asian woman asked. A shield-shaped badge identified her as BROOKSTON.
“I’m afraid so,” Sara said. When collecting evidence, it was always better to have too much than too little; you never knew what inconspicuous detail could break a case wide open. She peered at the tangle of reptiles in the vivarium. “Do we know which snake is our perp?”
Brookston shook her head. “Sorry. We’ve been too busy rounding them up to try to sort them out.” She helped her partner, whose name was SWEED, dump the contents of his bin into the tank, before looking around for her next scaly target. “And the masseuse who witnessed the attack is long gone.”
“How is that?” Ray asked, surprised to hear it. “Don’t we need to question him or her?”
“Her.” Vartann scowled at his notepad. “One Heather Gilroy. She ran off before we got here. Hasn’t been seen or heard from since.”
“Well, that’s suspicious,” Sara observed. “She got something to hide?”
Ray was wondering the same thing. “What exactly happened here?”
Vartann crisply brought them up to speed. “Our vic, Rita Segura, a local who lives in Summerlin, showed up this morning for a ‘routine’ snake massage, only to receive a nasty bite on her neck. She had a severe reaction, the owner called 911, and here we are.”
“Snake massages.” Sara rolled her eyes. “Now I’ve heard everything.”
“I thought you didn’t mind snakes,” Ray reminded her.
“I don’t,” she insisted. “But that doesn’t mean I want them crawling over me.” Her face wrinkled in disgust. “I think I’ll stick with shiatsu.”
Ray couldn’t argue with that. Watching his step, he wandered over to inspect the snakes in the vivarium. He was no herpetologist, but his medical training and practice had familiarized him with most of the venomous snakes native to North America. Looking over the undulating contents of the tank, he didn’t spot anything that resembled a rattler. Makes sense, he thought. He couldn’t imagine anyone volunteering to have a rattlesnake applied to their bare skin. “I’m guessing our culprit is some variety of coral snake,” he theorized. “Which can be easily mistaken for more harmless species.”
A quick scan of the tank’s contents revealed a couple of banded red snakes that bore a resemblance to more venomous species. A coral snake would have blended right in, unless you knew what you were looking for.
He addressed the snake wranglers. “You folks seen a coral snake yet?”
“Don’t know,” Brookston said. “Like I said before, we’ve mostly just been chasing them. We haven’t really had the chance to give any of them a once-over.” She cursed under her breath as a small, striped garter snake eluded her. “Plus, to be honest, we don’t deal a lot with reptiles. Stray cats and bad-tempered dogs make up most of our calls. Not sure I’d recognize a coral snake if I saw one.”
“Understood.” Ray appreciated her honesty. As he recalled, the coral snake was notoriously reclusive, accounting for less than one percent of reported snakebites in any given year. He couldn’t recall ever actually treating a case before. He figured they would have to examine the snakes more thoroughly back at the lab. “We should notify the hospital that we believe their patient was bitten by a coral snake.”
In a case of snakebite, knowing which antivenin to administer could often be the difference between life and death. He just hoped that Desert Palm had an adequate supply of the correct serum, or Rita Segura could be in serious trouble. And, of course, there was always the danger of an allergic reaction to the antivenin itself. . . .
“I can do that,” Vartann volunteered. He took out his cell phone and immediately dialed the hospital.
“So how dangerous are coral snakes?” Sara asked.
Ray searched his memory. “Bites are uncommon, but potentially life-threatening. Their fangs deliver a potent neurotoxin which, left untreated, can paralyze the breathing muscles and also lead to cardiac arrest. The venom often takes several hours to take effect, but our vic appears to have been unusually susceptible to the venom. The fact that she was bitten on the neck, as the initial reports suggest, probably contributed to the rapidity of her reaction. Bites to the face and trunk are the most dangerous. In this case, the venom might have gone straight into her jugular.”
“Lucky her,” Sara said.
Vartann put away his phone. “Okay, I informed the docs at the hospital of your suspicions.” He watched the Animal Control team continue their wild snake hunt; it looked like they weren’t going to be finished anytime soon. Vartann glanced at his watch, then nodded at the CSIs. “While these guys finish up, I’m going to interview the owner of this illustrious establishment. Either of you interested in taking part?”
“Sure,” Ray said. Meeting an interesting assortment of people was one of the perks of the job, and a frequent source of valuable information. Besides, he was just getting in the way here. He glanced at his cohort. “Sara?”
“You go.” She pulled on a pair of latex gloves and gestured at the vivarium, whose cold-blooded population was steadily growing, thanks to the persistent efforts of Brookston and her partner. “I want to check that tank for fingerprints. See if anyone has been tampering with the snakes who shouldn’t have been.”
“Good idea,” Ray said. Chances were, a coral snake had ended up in the spa’s supply by mistake, but they couldn’t rule out the possibility that someone might have added a venomous snake to the mix on purpose. In which case, he thought, we could be talking attempted homicide—or worse if the victim doesn’t survive.
Sara waved him away. “Have fun talking to the snake lady.”
; “I’ll try not to make an asp of myself,” he replied with a grin. He and Vartann exited the room, being careful not to let any stray serpents out. An amused chuckle escaped his lips. This was probably the first time his prime suspects had ever tried to flee the scene without benefit of legs, let alone been literally cold-blooded. Although, come to think of it, he had investigated at least one case of death by falling turtle. . . .
They found the spa’s owner in her office at the other end of the hall. A police officer stood by to make sure she didn’t get a chance to coach her employees on what to say. Ray assumed that the rest of the staff were being kept isolated as well. Aside from the runaway masseuse, of course. Tracking Heather Gilroy down and getting a statement from her was obviously going to be a priority.
Alexandra turned out to be a middle-aged woman of somewhat exotic appearance. Jet-black hair matched the kohl highlighting her eyes. Crystal and turquoise adorned her ears, neck, and wrists. She sat behind an antique bamboo desk. Shaking hands held on to a steaming cup of herbal tea.
Her office was equally colorful. A potted papyrus plant sprouted in the corner behind her. An eclectic collection of crystals, idols, and amulets crowded her shelves. The sacred Eye of Horus was painted over the door, watching protectively over the office. A polished quartz scarab served as a paperweight. A small ceramic statue of Hathor, the Egyptian goddess of beauty, blessed the proceedings from her perch on to the windowsill. A filing cabinet, personal planner, and in-box served more prosaic functions. A scented candle perfumed the air.
Vartann took care of the introductions. “This is Dr. Langston from the crime lab. He’ll be assisting in our investigation.”
“Crime lab?” Kohl-lined eyes widened in dismay. A quasi-British accent sounded more affected than genuine. “But there’s been no crime here. This is all some sort of terrible mistake!”
Ray didn’t blame her for being upset. According to Nevada law, the owners of dangerous animals could be held legally liable for any serious injuries resulting from bites or other mischief. One way or another, she could be facing criminal and civil penalties. Not to mention a lawsuit of catastrophic proportions.