As she made her way through the concourse, Catherine struggled to put a face with the name of the man she was picking up. They had met only once, briefly, about six months ago. Her memory was finally jogged, when the tall, fortyish man-glasses riding a pug nose, straight dark hair parted on the left, graying at the temples, his light gray suit looking suitably slept in-recognized her instantly, and strode up to her with a wide smile and a hand outstretched.
"Ms. Willows," he said, in a nasal but not unpleasant twang that indicated Chicago somewhere in his background, "good to see you again."
"Mr. Helpingstine," she said, smiling and allowing him to pump her hand, "you're very kind to come at such short notice, and so quickly."
He raised a gently scolding finger. "It's Dan, remember?"
"And Catherine," she said, falling in alongside him as he walked.
"Afraid we'll have to go to baggage claim to pick up the Tektive. They're understandably fussy about carry-ons."
Helpingstine's luggage consisted of a nylon gear bag with a Lakers insignia on it, and a square silver flight case on wheels that Catherine assumed contained the Tektive.
She led the way back to the Tahoe, with the salesman's small talk running to how well the Tektive was going over with various major metro police departments. But when Catherine tried to turn the conversation to the Jenna Patrick case, the manufacturer's rep waved a meaty hand. "Let's wait till I've had a chance to look at the tape."
"Fair enough, Dan. We'll follow your lead."
"I do have one other request."
"Name it."
"They didn't feed us anything on the flight. Can we go through a drive-thru or something?"
Suddenly she remembered her popcorn snack with Sara, a hundred years ago; her stomach growled its opinion. "I think I can manage that request."
They got McDonald's breakfasts, went back to headquarters and ate in the break room.
Sara ducked her head in. "I smell something very nearly like real food…What'd you bring me?"
Catherine handed her a breakfast burrito-vegetarian, of course-and Sara pulled up a chair and soon was digging in like she hadn't seen food since the Reagan administration.
"Dan, the dainty flower to your left is Sara Sidle."
Sara nodded and kept chewing.
"Dan Helpingstine," he said. "Tektive Interactive."
"Heard all about you, Dan-can't wait for you to work your magic." Between burrito bites, Sara said to Catherine, "Lots of footprints in the lap-dance room, and in the hall."
"Yeah, dozens," Catherine said between bites of a bagel sandwich. "Lots and lots of high heels. I remember."
"But just the one pair of work boots."
"I remember that, too."
Sara shook her head, shrugged, started a second burrito. "I haven't compared them up close yet, nothing Grissom-scientific yet…but the eyeball test says the boots we brought in tonight, from Lipton's, are larger than the prints we lifted at the strip club."
Catherine said, "We'll check that out more thoroughly, as soon as we're finished with the video."
Setting up in Catherine's office, they got Helpingstine settled at a work station and lined up with the Dream Doll security tapes.
"First we'll digitize them," he said, working in his shirtsleeves, "then we shall see what we shall see."
"How long's the digitizing take?" Catherine asked.
"How long are the tapes?"
Catherine explained what they had, what they wanted, and why, for now, they were going to concentrate on just small segments representing two cameras: the one from behind the bar and the one from the end of the hallway.
Leaving the Tektive rep to his work, they went back to the footprints. Working in the layout room, they took prints from Lipton's boots and compared them to the one they got from the strip club.
"This print," Sara said, meaning what they'd just created, "is definitely shorter than the lap-dance boot."
"Are we sure Lipton had the boots on that night?" Catherine asked. "Is it possible that it's somebody else's boot, and we missed Lipton's print? Maybe he's one of the running shoes we found."
Sara shook her head. "The tennie he was arrested in's been ruled out…and the boot print was the oddest we got at the strip club, as well as the freshest, I mean it was on top…so we assumed it had to be the killer's."
Catherine wasn't sure whether to feel good or bad about this indication of Lipton's innocence; Grissom would advise her not to "feel" anything.
So she calmly said, "We'll check the videotape first, then if we get nothing, we head back to Lipton's to bring in all his shoes."
"It's a plan."
They returned to Catherine's office to find Helpingstine hunkered over his black box with its keyboard and built-in monitor screen.
"You ready for us?" Catherine asked.
The tech nodded. "These tapes are for shit, of course. Not exactly broadcast quality."
Catherine leaned in and patted his shoulder. "Which is why you're here, Dan, right?"
He gave the two women a little sideways half-smile. "You came to the right man…. I've cleaned up the images some, already, and I can isolate your guy in a couple of them."
"Any shots of his shoes?"
He returned his attention to his machine. "Let's see."
Catherine and Sara sat down on either side of him, facing the Tektive monitor, Helpingstine stationed at the keyboard. He punched some keys and the screen came to life, the angle on the tape playing from high behind the bar.
"That looks just the same to me," Sara said. "No offense."
"None taken," Helpingstine said. "Just wait." He tapped some more keys and the picture improved, sharpening, the video garbage clearing somewhat.
But it was still disappointing, and Catherine groaned, "Dan, I was hoping for better…"
"Hey hey hey," the tech said, sounding mildly offended. "A mini-miracle I can do on the spot. You want an act of God, it's gonna take some time."
"Okay, show us a mini-miracle."
With a few keystrokes, Helpingstine outlined Lipton in the frame. Then the screen went blackly blank, except for the figure of the killer center screen.
"Now that is interesting," Sara said.
The murderer had no legs below the level of where the bar would have been, but was intact from the waist up except for a spot on his shoulder where a customer's head had been between him and the lens. They could barely make out the Las Vegas Stars logo on the ball cap, and the large dark glasses gave him the appearance of an oversized insect.
"Can you give us better detail on his face?" Catherine asked.
More work on the keys and the picture became slightly less blurry. "Quick fix," Helpingstine said, "that's what you get."
Catherine leaned forward in her chair. "That is a fake beard, isn't it?"
"Yeah," Sara said. She jabbed at the monitor screen. "And a mustache too…. Could be what you found at Lipton's."
Catherine asked the rep, "Any other quick tricks for us?"
Using a mouse, Helpingstine moved the killer's image into a corner. Then, fingers flying over the keys, he brought up another still, this one showing the killer from behind as he towed Jenna Patrick down the hallway, toward the private dance room where she was killed. A few more clacks from the keyboard and everything in the bar disappeared except for Lipton and Jenna.
A few keystrokes later, the grainy image sharpened further, the Lipton Construction lettering on the back of the jacket springing into sharp relief. From this angle, just barely able to see one side of the killer's partially turned head, they could clearly discern the fake beard.
"Is that a shoe?" Catherine asked, pointing at a dark spot at the end of the killer's leg.
Helpingstine said, "It would appear to be the toe of some kind of boot."