Body of Evidence by Max Allan Collins

Author:Max Allan Collins [Collins, Max Allan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster

8

FOR THE FIRST TWENTY-FOUR HOURS AND THEN SOME, THE “Want” on the radio for the white Chevy had been a bigger bust than the car’s broken taillight.

And then a prowl car reported a white Monte Carlo with a broken tail near the New York New York casino resort. The patrolman said the Monte was headed into the hotel parking ramp and that he would follow, but by the time Warrick Brown and Captain Jim Brass arrived, both the patrolman and the Monte were gone.

Livid, Brass radioed dispatch and was told that 2Paul34—the patrol car in question—had responded to a 444…“officer needs help—emergency”…on Russell Road, where a drunken motorist had taken a potshot at another officer during a routine traffic stop.

“Talk about good excuse,” Warrick said. This was midmorning—Warrick already several hours into a double shift—so the drunk was either getting an early start or heading home way late.

Brass nonetheless looked pissed-off, though Warrick knew damn well the detective would have done the same as the patrolman—the urge to help a brother officer ran deep. Brass pushed the button on the radio and said, “Dispatch—did 2Paul34 report a license number?”

The female dispatcher’s voice crackled: “1Zebra10, that’s affirmative. It was a match for your partial.”

“Dispatch, you have the whole number?”

“Affirmative.”

“Run that for me, will you?”

While they waited, Warrick talked Brass into driving up and down every row in the parking building to search for the vehicle; there were lots of white cars, several Chevys, even a few Monte Carlos, but none the right year, nor with a broken taillight.

Soon Brass was pulling out onto Las Vegas Boulevard, where he glided aimlessly, both the detective and CSI searching for the white-car needle in the traffic haystack of the Strip, really just killing time until a computer coughed up the name and address of their suspect.

After an endless wait—about four minutes—the dispatcher came back on. “1Zebra10, that car, a white 1998 Chevrolet Monte Carlo is registered to Kyle A. Hamilton.”

“Address?”

The dispatcher told him.

“Ten-four,” Brass told the mike. “1Zebra10 will be 423 at that address.”

“Ten-four,” the dispatcher replied.

A 423 radio call meant they’d be seeing a person for information—not usually the business of a CSI, but both Warrick and Brass knew they might well be going to the home of a killer. That meant possible evidence, even—considering the nature of Candace Lewis’s apparent extended stay with the killer—a crime scene.

Anyway, two heads were better than one in such a situation; also, two guns….

The address was way up north, Cotton Gum Court, above Craig and off Lone Mountain Road and Spruce Oak Drive. From the Strip, even in relatively light midmorning traffic, the trip took the better part of an hour and, when they finally pulled up to the house, the distinct signs of nobody-home awaited them.

The two-story stucco with two-car garage had one of those new xeriscape yards. With the drought oppressing the area for the last two years, ripping up and replacing lawns with low-moisture plants—xeriscaping—had become more than a fad, including a way

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