17

Ray didn't like the idea of Nick processing such a complicated scene on his own, out there on the Grey Rock reservation. Not that CSIs didn't have to work alone sometimes, but a multiple-shooting scene was always a big job. And if there was the possibility that the shooters might come back, then a difficult job became a nightmare.

He wanted to get out there, to lend a hand if he could. He wrapped up what needed to be done in his office and started to head out, then remembered he wanted to check on progress in the trace lab before he went to the reservation. One never knew when the most seemingly insignificant fact would turn out to be the key to the whole case.

Then again, insignificant facts were often, in fact, insignificant.

Hodges was in the lab, peering into a comparison microscope, when Ray entered. "Excuse me, David?"

With a dramatic flourish and a rustle of fabric, Hodges whipped his right hand into the air, holding up his index finger. Ray got the message – one second.

As the seconds trailed on and Hodges kept staring into the binocular lens unit, Ray thought maybe he had meant one minute. He hoped it wasn't one hour. He had no intention of staying that long. But it didn't look as if Hodges had any intention of addressing him until he was good and ready. He just kept that finger in the air, as if he was testing the wind.

Finally, Hodges raised his head from the scope and turned to face Ray. He still didn't speak, simply fixed what Ray supposed was meant to be an expectant look on his face and waited.

"Hello, David," Ray said, determined to be polite. "I was wondering if you've made any headway on the materials from the Domingo scene."

"Actually, I have," Hodges replied. "I'm not through all of it yet, but I have some results for you."

"Excellent," Ray said. Hodges stood there for a moment, his expression unchanged. "May I know what they are?"

"Oh," Hodges said, blinking as if his mind had been somewhere else entirely and he had just remembered whom he was talking to. "Sure." He flipped open a folder and glanced at some papers inside. "There was some plant matter found on the body. I've determined that it's from a soaptree yucca plant. Possibly more than one plant. I haven't gone so far as to have Wendy run a DNA comparison on the individual fragments, but I can if you need me to."

"That shouldn't be necessary. Soaptree yucca – that's a pretty common plant in Nevada."

"As common as slot machines."

"Right," Ray said. "Anything else?"

"You brought in some hairs that were found on or near the body."

"Short orange ones, yes."

"Cat."

"Excuse me?"

"Those hairs were from a cat, not a human. An orange cat. I did you the favor of making a couple of phone calls. Robert Domingo's next-door neighbors have an orange cat. The cat is outside at night, and it loves to visit Domingo's place. They're pretty sure he feeds it sometimes, although they've tried to discourage that. They said it came home with something brown and sticky on one of its paws this morning, and they washed it off. I told them it was probably blood."

"So chances are, the cat went inside because the door was open, wandered around, rubbed against Domingo, shed some hairs, and left."

"Unless you're planning to revise your theory about the murder weapon and suggest that maybe the victim was bludgeoned with a cat."

"I don't think so. Thanks for making those phone calls."

"Don't mention it. Seriously. It was a whim – I don't want everybody thinking I'll go that far for them."

"My lips are sealed, David. Is that it?"

"It just so happens that I was talking to Mandy about the cat thing, and she told me she hadn't been able to raise any finger impressions off the lighter. She got a partial palm print, but that's all. She can't match it to anybody yet, but if you come up with a suspect, there's a chance that it can be confirmatory."

"Best we can hope for, I suppose. Thanks, David. I'm on my way to the Grey Rock reservation to join Nick."

"Okay," Hodges said. "One thing, though. When you get back? Don't look for me. If there's any mercy in the world, I'll be home in bed."

"Catherine asked me to give you a call, Greg," Wendy said.

"That was good of her," Greg answered. "It's a little lonely out here."

"I think she had something more specific in mind than just checking in. Where are you?"

"Hang on," Greg said, scanning out the Yukon's windshield. At the next corner was a sign he could barely make out from here. "West Warm Springs."

"Where is that?"

"It's off South Rainbow."

"You mean five ninety-five?'

"The guy who wrote these directions knew it as Rainbow. At least, that's what I'm counting on. I spent about twenty minutes looking for something that could be described as a rainbow before I realized that, for a change, he had used an actual street name. I'm really only guessing about Warm Springs. On the directions, he wrote that there were bulldozers and noise. I'm guessing he meant construction, and there are a bunch of relatively new houses down here. New since he wrote this, anyway. But I could be wrong. There's so much here that's just wide open to interpretation. Whoever this guy was, he was kind of… kind of crazy."

"That's actually why Catherine asked me to call you," Wendy said.

"To tell me he's crazy?"

"No, to tell you who he is."

"We know?"

"We do now. Isn't DNA a wonderful tool?"

"So who is he?"

"He's Troy Cameron. The one and only son of Bix and Helena Cameron."

Greg had been ready to hear almost anything, since he really had no idea who the John Doe was. But that… that took him off guard. "He is?"

"He definitely is. Not only that, but those hairs and fingernail pieces you found in his tent? They belong to his sister, Daria."

"The one who's missing?"

"The very same."

"Wow. Small world, I guess."

"I guess so."

"Listen, Wendy," Greg said. "I have to cover a few more blocks here, then I'll have to get out and hike, so I should go."

"Hike? Like, in the desert?"

"Looks that way."

"Carry water," she said. "Plenty of it. And Greg?"

"Yes?"

"Are you talking while you're driving?"

"I pulled over when the phone rang." he said. "But I need to drive now."

"That's good. Don't be a dope, okay?"

"Always an admirable goal," Greg said, but she had already hung up.

He had, over the course of the past few hours, often had to park and walk around, searching for anything that looked like it might have ten years ago and could potentially correspond to the notes Troy Cameron had scribbled down over and over again.

Some of it was virtually impossible. At one point, he had written, "Left at laundrymat." There was no Laundromat anywhere in the vicinity. Greg had gone into some of the shops that were there, in a strip mall that had probably not existed a decade ago, and asked if anyone remembered a Laundromat in the area. An elderly woman working in a card shop said that she did and spent fifteen minutes telling Greg about the surly man who ran the place and about the mouse she saw run underneath the dryers once. He was sure she would have told him precisely how many items she had washed there if he gave her enough time, but he had finally managed to extricate himself and continued on his way.

Some of Troy's landmark descriptions had been surprisingly astute, in their own strange way. Greg had spent several minutes at one point looking for a half-moon, wondering if the guy had first written out these directions at night and how that would affect the attempt to follow them, before noticing an old iron manhole cover in the middle of the street with a smiling crescent moon on it – a little less than half a moon, to be precise, but close enough. At another point, Troy had written, "Left by woof woof woof." Greg wondered how in the world he was supposed to turn at a decade-old sound, but after a few minutes, he spotted an old chain-link dog run behind a ramshackle house, with the remains of a couple of wooden doghouses inside it. The fence drooped now, and the house was vacant, its windows boarded over. It didn't appear that any dogs had used it in ages, but they certainly had at some point. He made the left and found the next landmark shortly thereafter.