Body of Evidence

Chapter One A sense of frustration rarely registered on the personal radar of Catherine Willows. Frustrating situations were so much a part of the fabric of her life by now that she could have long since gone mad had she let such things get to her. But at the moment, the sensation was registering, all right. In fact, she felt herself growing quietly pissed.This was the tail end of yet another shift, and she and fellow Las Vegas Metro P.D. crime scene investigator Nick Stokes, who was at the wheel of the Tahoe, had been dispatched to take a 404 call -- unknown trouble -- at a business past the south end of the Strip. Unknown trouble could mean just about anything from petty theft to multiple homicides.But what it definitely meant was another Monday morning where Mrs. Goodwin, the sitter, would have to get Lindsey up and off to school. Catherine's own childhood had often been spent waiting for her mother to come home, and she had hoped to do better for her own daughter. But she was a woman with many responsibilities. Once again, she would just have to tough it out. And be quietly pissed.The Newcombe-Gold Advertising Agency, their destination, occupied a two-story, mostly glass building on West Robindale just off Las Vegas Boulevard, a couple miles south of the Mandalay Bay and the unofficial end of the Strip.Newcombe-Gold had joined the new construction craze hitting that part of the city and even though the agency had been a fixture on the ad scene since the seventies, the building was a recent addition to that expanding urban landscape. Tinted windows gave the building a blackness in the morning sun, imparting a vaguely ominous vibe to Catherine, as she and Nick pulled into the gray-white welcome mat of a concrete parking lot, stretching across the building's blank black facade.The small lot had room for between twenty and thirty cars, but aside from a dark blue Taurus (which Catherine recognized as a LVMPD detective's unmarked car), two patrol cars, and their own CSI Tahoe, only three other cars took up parking spaces.Nick Stokes parked the Tahoe in a visitor's space near the front entry and Catherine crawled down while her partner hopped out on his side -- Nick was young enough, she guessed, not to feel the long night they'd just finished.The tan and brown silk scarf -- a Mother's Day present last year from Lindsey -- flipped momentarily into her face, as if the breeze couldn't resist laying on another guilt pang. Her shoulder-length strawberry blonde hair whipped in the wind and she grimaced, wishing she were home. She stood nearby as Nick opened up the rear doors of the Tahoe.Tall, muscular in a fashion befitting the ex-jock he was, Nick Stokes smiled over his shoulder at her, for no particular reason. His short black hair barely moved in the wind and the eagerness in his face made him look like a happy puppy. Catherine sometimes wondered if maybe he liked his job a little too much."Too early for admen to be at work?" Catherine said, casting her gaze around the mostly empty lot."Not even eight yet," Nick said, glancing at his watch. "Big shots'll be at least another hour -- rest should be filtering in, any time.""What kind of trouble, I wonder," Catherine sighed."Unknown trouble," Nick said, a smile in his eyes."Don't tease me at the end of shift.""I would never tease you, Catherine. I have too much respect for you.""Kiss my..." Catherine began, but she found herself almost smiling -- damn him.She grabbed the tool-kit-like stainless steel case containing her crime-scene gear, and led the way to the entry. A painfully young-looking patrolman, whose nametag identified him as McDonald, opened the door for her. The uniform man was tall and broad-shouldered, and you could smell recent-police-academy-grad on him like a new car. His brown hair was clipped high and tight and his smile also seemed a little excessive, considering the hour."MorningCollins, Max Allan is the author of 'Body of Evidence' with ISBN 9780743455824 and ISBN 0743455827.