"In a bad marriage," Warrick said, "you won't have to look very hard."
"But we haven't looked yet," Grissom reminded them. "And the DA isn't going to want to even talk to us, if we don't find something better than what we have now."
"That's a crime scene," Nick said, frustrated. "Broken glass, blood spatter…"
Warrick was nodding, punctuating his colleague's points. "Nick's right, Gris."
Grissom said, "I'll go along with you on that, Nick-that's a crime scene…but what's the crime? Who's the victim? Isn't it also possible that the short dark hair and the fingerprints belong to a victim who isn't Lynn Pierce?"
Warrick rolled his eyes and asked, "Who else could it be?"
"Or maybe it's not a victim at all. Maybe it's the daughter-maybe she or her mom had a nosebleed."
"Ah, man," Nick groused, "you don't believe that!"
"I don't believe anything yet, Nick. The evidence will show us the way-we just need more of it."
Warrick leaned a hand on the desk. "Odds are the blood is Mrs. Pierce's, Gris. I mean, we can't find her, she doesn't seem to be using any of her credit cards or her phone card-the blood's in her car…"
"The odds say it's her," Grissom agreed. "But we don't play the odds. We put all our money on science…. Now, we start with the Pierce house again and find out the truth. You two go on out there. I'll call Brass and meet you there-we don't have enough for an arrest…yet…but I know just the judge to give us a search warrant."
An hour later, as dawn was breaking, Captain Jim Brass parked his Taurus behind the black Tahoe in the Pierces' driveway. "I don't see your people," Brass said.
"Maybe they're already inside," Grissom said.
"Without a warrant."
Grissom gestured with open palms. "Maybe-Pierce has cooperated so far."
"I don't like him-he's an arrogant prick."
"You have some evidence, Jim, that led you to that conclusion?"
The detective gave the criminalist a tired smile and pointed to his own gut. "Yeah, this-it's my prick detector."
Grissom's smile was skeptical. "A judge and jury may want more."
Brass summoned half a smirk. "That's what's wrong with our judicial system."
The two men climbed out of the car and walked up the sidewalk to the front door. Grissom was about to ring the bell when Warrick pulled the door open.
"He let us in," Warrick whispered, stepping out onto the stoop. "He didn't even bitch about getting woken up."
Grissom asked, also sotto voce, "What have you told him?"
"Nada," Warrick said, doing the umpire "you're out" gesture. "Not even that we found the car. Just that his wife was officially missing now, and we needed to step up the investigation…apologized for the early hour."
Brass was impressed. "Nice work, Brown."
Warrick ignored the compliment, saying to Grissom, "You can give him the warrant, though-he's in the living room."
His voice still low, Grissom asked, "Find anything?"
"No…. Either this guy is really good, or there's nothing to find."
"Stick with it."
Warrick headed in and disappeared down the hall to the left, as Grissom and Brass walked into the living room where Owen Pierce stood in fresh blue jeans and tasseled loafers, a blue Polo shirt open at the neck; he was unshaven, and sipping a cup of coffee.
"Morning," Pierce said. "Can I get you guys some coffee?"
"No thanks," Brass said, though the smell of it was tempting. He handed Pierce the warrant, who accepted it without looking at it.
"May I ask why you believe you need a search warrant?" He seemed more hurt than indignant. "Haven't I made my home available to you, in every way?"
Brass gave Grissom a look and the CSI supervisor stepped forward. "We've located your wife's car, Mr. Pierce."
"You…the Avalon, you mean?" He sounded genuinely surprised, his expression hopeful.
"Yes, sir," Brass said. "A few hours ago at McCarran."
Pierce tried out a smile, looking from the detective to the criminalist. "Well, that's a break for our side, isn't it?"
Brass wasn't sure who exactly was on "our side," as Pierce defined it. "It's a break in the case, Mr. Pierce. But I'm afraid the situation has taken a serious turn."
Grissom, flatly, declared, "We found blood on the driver's seat of your wife's car."
"The driver's seat was…there was blood?" His hopeful expression vanished, but nothing replaced it-an alert sort of blankness remained. He set his cup down on a nearby coffee table.
"Actually, the car was clean, sir." Grissom shrugged. "Well, except for a drop of blood on the headrest."
Pierce's face remained impassive as he stared Grissom down. "One drop?"
"One drop-but that was to enough to indicate we should look…closer."
Curiosity filled the void of his expression. "And how did you do that?"
"We peeled off the seat covers. Those can be cleaned, but underneath? Practically impossible. And we discovered a large quantity of blood on the seat's cushions."
Now confusion colored Pierce's face. "Under the seat covers? What the hell does that mean?"
"The amount of blood indicates the probability of something violent happening in the car…. The absence of blood on the seat covers indicates someone covering up that violence."
Shaking his head, seemingly feeling helpless, Pierce said, "I don't know what to say, Mr. Grissom…Detective Brass. Other than, I hope to God Lynn's all right."
God again,Brass thought. He's all over this god-damned case.
Grissom was asking, "Have you had an automobile accident, in the Avalon? Was it necessary to repair the driver's-side window of your wife's car recently?"
"No-why?"
"We also found glass in the car…and we believe it came from the driver's-side window."
Pierce began to pace a small area. "I don't know how that could be possible…" His eyes were wide, a frown screwing up his face. "That window's never been broken."
Grissom changed direction. "Do you own a gun?"
"What? No. Of course not."
"Never? With all these outdoorsman prints, ducks and geese and deer, I thought maybe you were a hunter."
"No. Not since I was a kid, with my dad…. I just like looking at a landscape that isn't desert, once in a while. Where are you going with this, Mr. Grissom?" Then a mental light bulb seemed to go on for Pierce, his eyes flaring. "You're here looking for a gun…. You think I killed my wife!"
Brass stepped forward. "We're not making any accusations, Mr. Pierce."
Pierce was shaking his head, his eyes wild now. "There's blood on the seat of my wife's car…so that means I killed her? This is absurd-you should be out looking for her! She's alive, I'm sure! You don't have any evidence."
Grissom said, pleasantly, "That's why we brought the search warrant, Mr. Pierce."
Warrick stepped into the living room and said, "Gris? A word?"
Grissom turned to Pierce. "May we use your kitchen, to confer?"
"Oh," Pierce said with a sarcastic wave, "be my guest! By all means!"
Other than not bothering the sleeping Lori Pierce, Nick and Warrick had searched the house from top to bottom, giving the home a much more thorough going over than the first time.
"No gun," Nick told Grissom and Brass, leaning against the kitchen counter. "No bullets, either-nothing to indicate that there's ever been a gun in the house."
"No significant new evidence?" Grissom asked glumly.
"Not of murder," Warrick said, and gave them a cat-that-ate-the-canary grin.
Grissom and Brass just looked at him.
Warrick milked it for a few seconds, then he spilled: "I found this little darling in a vent in the basement…"