Conroy shook her head. "All couples don't include a partner with a restraining order on them…like the one the court issued on you, to keep you away from where Jenna worked-right?"
"Oh Christ," Lipton said, all the air rushing out of him. Catherine and Sara watched as, before their eyes, sorrow turned to despair. "You…you think I killed her!"
"I didn't say that, Mr. Lipton."
"Do I…need a lawyer?"
Conroy ducked that. "No accusations have been made. I simply asked if there isn't an in-force restraining order against you."
"You must know there is," he said, sullenly. Now his voice grew agitated: "I loved Jenna, but I hated her job-everybody knew that. But that doesn't mean I killed her. Jesus, she was going to quit! We were going to be married."
"Where did you meet Jenna?"
"At…Dream Dolls."
"You were a customer."
"At first, but…." His look was more pleading than angry now.
"How do you explain being in Dream Dolls tonight?" Conroy asked. "Considering the restraining order."
Now he sat up, alert suddenly. "Dream Dolls? I wasn't in Dream Dolls! You think I want to go to jail?"
Conroy didn't answer that.
"Lady, I was home all night."
"That's not what everyone at the club says."
"What do you mean by 'everyone'? Who says I was there?"
"Just the owner, the girls, and the DJ."
"What the hell…" Lipton's voice was incredulous; he shook his head, desperately. "Well, they're mistaken. They're wrong! Or maybe lying!"
"All of them? Wrong? Or lying?"
"That fucking Kapelos, he hates me. He's the one took out the restraining order! He'd say anything. Where was he when Jenna was…was…"
He couldn't seem to say it.
Conroy said, "And the rest of them? Lying? Wrong?"
He sighed, shrugged. "I don't know what else to say-I was home all night. Honest to God. I swear."
"Anybody to verify that?"
"I live alone, except…when Jenna stays over."
And he began to cry. To sob, burying his face in his hands.
Catherine left the observation room, circled to the other door, and strode in. Lipton jumped in his seat, looking up, though Conroy didn't even turn.
"Who…who are you?" Lipton asked, face a wet smear, eyelashes pearled.
"Crime scene investigator, Mr. Lipton. Catherine Willows." She came around and sat opposite him. "Would you like to know how I've been spending the night?"
He swallowed thickly, shrugging as if nothing could rock him now-he'd been through it all. But he hadn't.
Catherine said, "I've been watching videotape of you at Dream Dolls-videotape captured on security cameras…tonight."
His eyes widened, lashes glistening. "What? But that's…that's just not possible." His voice had a tremor, as if he was about to break down, utterly.
Still Catherine pressed, gesturing to his jacket. "I saw Jenna going into one of the back rooms, with a man about your size, wearing your jacket."
"My jacket?"
"The jacket had your Lipton Construction logo on the back. Denim with tan sleeves-just like that one."
Something close to relief softened his face. "Oh, well shit. I had those made up for all my guys, and even a few of our better customers."
Conroy, poised to write in her notepad, asked, "How many jackets like this exist?"
Another shrug. "Twenty-five…maybe thirty."
"Could you be more exact?"
"Not off the top of my head. Probably my secretary could. At work."
A bad feeling in the pit of her stomach started to talk to Catherine, and she wished those security cams had caught a better face shot of the person wearing the jacket in the bar. Was it Lipton or not?
Catherine asked, "Have you ever worn a beard, Mr. Lipton?"
"What? Yeah…yes."
"Recently?"
"No. That was last year."
"You didn't shave off your beard, this evening."
"No! Hell no."
Catherine studied the man. Then she said, "I'll need your jacket, Mr. Lipton."
"Sure. But I'm tellin' you-I wasn't there."
"Jenna was strangled with an electrical tie."
Lipton flinched, then shook his head. He could obviously see where this was going.
She said, "And when I search your truck, I'm going to find electrical ties in the back, aren't I?"
"You…you could search a lot of trucks and find that."
Catherine could tell Conroy was starting to have her doubts about the suspect, too, particularly when the detective tried another tack.
"While you were home alone tonight, Mr. Lipton, did you call anybody?" Conroy asked. "Anybody call you?"
He thought for a moment, then shook his head.
"D'you order pizza or something?"
This required no thought: "No."
"What did you do this evening?"
Lipton lifted his hands, palms up, and shrugged. "I watched TV-that's it."
"What did you watch?"
"Was it…a football game?"
Conroy leaned forward now. "What, you're asking me?"
"No, no, I know! Yeah, I watched a football game."
"What game, what network, what time?"
He collected his thoughts. "I didn't see the whole thing-I came in during the third quarter. Indianapolis Colts against the Kansas City Chiefs."
Conroy was writing that down.
Lipton went on: "Just as I sat down, Peterson kicks a field goal for the Chiefs…then on the kickoff, some guy I never heard of ran it back for a touchdown."
"That was the very first thing you saw?" Conroy asked.
"Yeah. Very first. Field goal. Peterson."
"We'll check that out, Mr. Lipton," Catherine said. "If you're innocent, we'll prove it. But if you're guilty…"
His eyes met hers.
"…we'll prove that too."
"I'm not worried," he said.
But he sure as hell looked it.
5
AMID PINE TREES IN A DECEPTIVELY PEACEFUL SETTING, A low-slung nondescript modern building played host to a maze of hallways connecting the conference rooms, labs, offices, locker room and lounge of the Las Vegas Police Department's criminalistics division. A sterile, institutional ambience was to be expected, but the blue-tinged fluorescent lighting and preponderance of mostly glass walls gave CSI HQ an aquarium-like feel that Nick Stokes, at times, felt he was swimming through.
In one of these hallways, Nick rounded a corner and all but bumped into Grissom, who had just returned from the interview with the Blairs.
Grissom paused, as if it took him a moment to register and recognize his colleague, who had also paused, flashing his ready smile.
The CSI supervisor did not smile, nor did he bother with a hello. "Nick, Sara's teamed with Catherine on the stripper case-I need you to take over the search of the Pierce records."
Nick shrugged. "No problem."
"It's all in Sara's office-work there…she won't mind. Look at the Pierce woman's computer, her bank accounts, ATM, calling card, the works. Find us something."
"How far has Sara gotten?"
"Start over. Fresh eye."
"Okay." Nick risked half a smirk. "I don't suppose you considered assigning me to that exotic dancer case."
Grissom's bland baby-faced countenance remained expressionless. "No. Not for a second. Warrick, either. He's on the Pierce case, too."
"You gotta admit, this doesn't sound like as much fun as interviewing nude girls."
Now, finally, Grissom smiled a little. "But you're like me, Nick-only interested in truth and justice, right?"
Then Grissom was gone, leaving Nick to wonder if that had been sarcasm…. Sometimes it was damn tough to tell, with that guy.
Nick set himself up in Sara's office-she was out in the field with Catherine, but Grissom was probably right, she wouldn't mind. Sara was that rare individualist who relished being a team player. Though his specialty was hair and fiber analysis, Nick-like all the CSIs Grissom had assembled-was versatile enough to step in and take over any other criminalist's job. And a video game buff like Nick was hardly a stranger to computers.