Shock Treatment (11 page)

Was this just an act? Ray's gut told him that Marshall Segura was innocent, but he had been fooled before . . . badly. Years ago, long before he became a CSI, he had worked at a hospital much like this one. A killer had also worked there, a self-appointed “angel of death” who had put multiple patients out of their misery before he was caught. The fact that the killer had operated right under Ray's nose for so long still haunted him, and had taught Ray a bitter lesson: Murder often lurked right where you least expected it.

Perhaps even in the heart of a weeping husband?

“Rita and the other jury members found the defendant guilty,” Segura continued after he had composed himself. “As well they should have. I'll never forget the way that animal glared at Rita when the verdict was read. She had nightmares about it for weeks.” A bony fist clenched at his side. “That criminal must be responsible for this, or one of his scumbag friends!”

“I see,” Ray said diplomatically. He wasn't entirely sure how an imprisoned drug dealer could arrange to have Rita attacked by a snake at a spa, or even whether she was actually the intended victim, but stranger things had happened. It was definitely worth looking into. “Do you recall the name of the defendant?”

“I'm afraid not. Sorry,” Segura apologized. “But I'll tell you what I do remember. The no-good son of a bitch had a tattoo on his neck.” He paused to make sure he had Ray's full attention. “A tattoo of a
snake.
”

“M
R.
B
OGGS
, I presume?”

Their next witness flinched at the name. “Yeah, that was my character tonight. My real name's Hamilton, though. Bill Hamilton.”

The makeup trailer being perfectly good for him, the middle-aged thespian occupied the same stool formerly graced by Jill Wooten and Debra Lusky. Catherine and Brass had relocated back to the dressing room after vacating Roger Park's roomier digs. Hamilton didn't seem to mind being interviewed here. Catherine guessed it was more comfortable than an iron maiden.

“Sorry to keep you waiting,” she said. “Thank you for your patience.”

“No problem,” he rasped. “Believe me, I needed some time to recover.”

He had the unglamourous, everyman features of a born character actor. He was short and pudgy, with thinning gray hair and a ruddy face. Stubble
dotted his cheeks. Lurid red splotches stained his wrinkled business shirt. A blood spatter specialist, Catherine knew stage blood when she saw it. No way was it real; not only was it the wrong shade of red, but real blood would have turned brown by now.

Guess it fooled Jill Wooten, though.

Brass began by flipping open his notebook. “Sounds like you had a front-row seat for tonight's show.”

“More like a supporting role,” Hamilton grumped. He fished a pack of cigarettes from his shirt pocket, revealing the origin of his gravelly voice. Nicotine stained his fingertips. “Do you mind if I smoke? I'm still pretty rattled.”

“Not in here,” Catherine said. She didn't want to risk contaminating any evidence, let alone endure the secondhand fumes. “Sorry.”

“Figures,” he said sourly, putting the cancer sticks away. “Yeah, I saw the whole thing. Unfortunately.”

“Tell us about it,” Brass prompted.

He eyed the exit longingly, no doubt still hoping for a cigarette break. “I'm sure you've already heard the whole story.”

“We need your version,” Brass said. “For the record.”

“Sure. I get it.” He took a deep breath and began. “Everything was going according to the script at first. I was trussed up in the iron maiden, playing the part of the trapped club owner, when this week's vic tiptoed in, just like we planned. I put on my act, pretending to be scared shitless, ad-libbing beneath my gag. The girl fell for it, hook, line, and
sinker. She looked absolutely petrified even before Matt charged in with the chainsaw.” He sighed and shook his head. “Hell, you know what happened next.”

Brass didn't force him to describe the shooting. “How many shots were fired?”

“One, I think.” He sagged against the makeup table, momentarily overcome by the memory. “Oh man. I still can't believe that Matt is really dead. We've been doing this show for years now, and nothing like this has ever happened before.”

“So they keep telling us,” Catherine said.

“It's true,” he insisted. “I swear to God, nobody's ever been hurt or injured before.”

“Any close calls?” Brass asked.

Hamilton hesitated. “Well . . .”

This sounds promising,
Catherine thought. “We'd appreciate anything you could tell us.”

The actor wrestled briefly with his conscience. “Okay, once in a while, a vic freaks out and goes for the bad guy before he can reveal himself, but usually there's a supporting character or two, like me, who can jump in to restrain the vic before anybody gets hurt.” He chuckled mordantly. “I remember this one time. A college quarterback went nuts and tackled Matt, knocked him flat on his butt. I had to break character and pull the guy off Matt. Things got pretty crazy there for a few moments, but it all turned out okay. I bought the guy a beer later on. It was no big deal.”

“Unlike this time,” Catherine observed.

“Well, I was bound and gagged, you know.” He sounded like he had been replaying the incident
over and over again in his mind. “There was nothing I could do to stop that girl once she pulled out her gun. I couldn't even call out to her, tell her it was just a gag. Not that she would have heard me, over the chainsaw.” He reached automatically for a cigarette to steady his nerves, then remembered they were off-limits. “Looking back, we screwed up big time. We should have staged things differently.”

“You think?” Brass said.

“Hey, it wasn't my idea,” Hamilton protested. “I don't dream up these stunts. I just do what I'm told. Don't try to pin this on me!”

“Nobody's accusing you of anything,” Catherine assured him, playing the good cop. There was nothing but sympathy in her voice. “Sounds like you've been with the show for awhile.”

He relaxed a little. “Since the beginning, pretty much. I usually do the setup, play the worried school principal or park ranger or whoever, whatever it takes to set up the scenario. Nobody ever recognizes me or guesses that I'm an actor. I suppose I just have one of those faces. People accept me as an ordinary guy. Poor old Mister Boggs, trapped in the iron maiden. That's my forte. I don't often play the bear.”

“The bear?” Catherine asked.

“That's what we call the monster of the week,” he explained. “The Bigfoot, the serial killer, the crazy Satanist. The bear is usually an actor in costume, but sometimes it's just a prop. Like a ticking bomb or a phony spray of toxic waste. Once we even faked a terrorist attack.”

Just good, clean fun,
Catherine thought sarcastically.
She had to work hard to keep her disgust in check. “Did Matt often play the bear?”

“Yeah. All the time. Park and Matt go way back. Matt was the stuntman on Park's first low-budget slasher flick, back in the day. They were old drinking buddies, although maybe less so these days, now that's Park's hit the big time and married to that big kahuna at Constellation. Tell you the truth, Park outgrew Matt, but still threw some work his way for old time's sake.”

Catherine got the picture. “So Park was doing an old crony a favor, which ended up getting him killed.”

“Yeah, how's that for a kicker?” Hamilton started to loosen up, becoming more gossipy. “Jesus, what a stupid way to go. I wouldn't wish that on anybody, not even Matt Novak.”

Brass picked up on the put-down. “You had a problem with Novak?”

Hamilton shrugged, backpedaling a little. “It was no big deal. Matt just had a bit of an attitude lately. He'd started acting like a diva on the set, like he thought he was the star of the show or something.”

“I take it that wasn't the case,” Catherine said.

“Hardly,” the actor scoffed. “If you ask me, he had the easy part. Anyone can put on a fright mask and say ‘boo!' The hard part is convincing some poor vic of the reality of the situation, creating a context in which the shock makes sense. That's where I came in. I was the one that was really selling the scenarios. By the time I was done with them, the vics were already primed to jump out of their skins. I made it easy for Matt, not that he'd ever admit it.”

Catherine detected a bit of professional rivalry. “He thought it was all about him, huh?”

“His ego was out of control,” Hamilton said. “He thought he was a shoo-in for the lead in the new
Zombie Heat
series, even though he'd only played a bit part in the feature version.”

“What happened to the original actor?” Catherine asked.

“That guy?” Hamilton snorted. “He and Park had a falling-out over the merchandising; the idiot wanted a cut on every toy and T-shirt using his image, even though he was buried under a ton of monster makeup at the time. Moron. He'll never work for Park again. Last I heard, he was in Bulgaria doing some straight-to-DVD schlock. But that didn't mean Matt was going to get the gig.”

“Well, he's not getting the part now,” Brass pointed out. “Unless he really can rise from the grave.”

“Ain't that the truth.” Hamilton fumbled for smokes again. “Unlucky bastard.”

The actor was turning out to be a font of behind-the-scenes gossip. Catherine pressed him for more. “So how did Novak's new attitude go over on the set?”

“Honestly, I was surprised Park put up with it. Granted, they had a history, but friendships only go so far in this business. Like I said, Park had left Novak behind, career-wise. Matt should have been grateful for any crumbs his old buddy tossed at him. The last few months, though, he'd been mouthing off to Park on the set, making all sorts of ‘artistic' suggestions, and generally behaving like a first-class
pain in the ass. Park was letting him get away with murder, pardon the expression.”

Catherine wondered why. The more she heard, the more she was starting to think there was something fishy about this “accident.” The red flag was that menacing phone call Jill had received right before her bogus interview, the one that had convinced her to bring a gun to WaxWorkZ. Grissom had taught her to take “coincidences” like that with a mega-sized grain of salt. Her gut told her that someone had possibly orchestrated the shooting. But if it was a set-up, who was the target?

Novak or Jill . . . or both?

“About your shirt?” she asked. “That's not real blood, is it?”

Hamilton glanced down at his front and laughed. “No way. Just a little stage dressing.”

Knew it,
she thought.

Too bad the rest of this case wasn't as obvious.

“S
NAKE EXPRESS
,” S
ARA
called out. “Coming through.”

Clerks and lab techs darted out of the way as she wheeled the vivarium down the sterile, aquamarine walls of the crime lab. The sealed glass container and its serpentine occupants rested atop a wheeled metal gurney. A borrowed set of tongs lay beside the vivarium. The tangle of snakes attracted a wide variety of reactions, ranging from acute fascination to shocked revulsion. Wendy Simms, the night shift's current DNA specialist, came away from her test tubes and cultures to watch the snakes roll past the glass walls of her laboratory. Henry Andrews, the toxicology expert, on the other hand, took one look at the gurney coming toward him and retreated back into his lab with unseemly haste. Sara found his reaction vaguely ironic, considering his speciality.
Then again,
she thought,
who knows more about how dangerous snake venom is than a toxicologist?

“And where exactly are you going with that?”
David Hodges asked her. The trace specialist emerged from his lab. His ID badge was pinned to the lapel of his blue lab jacket. His lank brown hair was combed away from his forehead; Sara had once caught him applying dye to some gray streaks. As usual, he exuded an aura of self-satisfied snarkiness.

“The garage,” Sara answered. “Unless maybe there's room in your lab?”

“I think not.” He leaned over to inspect her scaly cargo. An indignant kingsnake hissed at him, proving it to be an excellent judge of character, as far as Sara was concerned; Hodges had a tendency to get on people's nerves. He tapped the glass. “Suspects, witnesses, or evidence?”

“All of the above, maybe.” Sara looked up and down the bustling corridor. As far as she could tell, Ray had not gotten back from the hospital yet and the other CSIs all seemed to be out on calls. No surprise there; she imagined the
Shock Treatment
case was keeping Catherine and the guys busy. That left her on her own with the snakes, unless . . . She sized up Hodges, who seemed to be her best option at the moment. “Want to lend a hand with my friends here?”

“By all means.” Hodges hurried ahead to open the door to the garage, which was located across the hall from the layout room. He puffed out his skinny little chest. “As I'm sure Grissom has told you, my usefulness extends far beyond the elusive subtleties of trace evidence.” He cast her a sideways glance. “Speaking of which, I've been meaning to ask: how is Gil doing?”

Sara suppressed a smile. Hodges's man crush on
her husband was enough to make a less secure woman jealous. “He's fine,” she answered honestly. “Holding down the fort in Paris.”

Gil was lecturing at the Sorbonne, while they waited for a crucial research grant to come through. Their long-distance marriage puzzled some people, but was working for them so far. Sara was happier now, and more at peace, than she had ever been before. When she had first left the crime lab, a few years ago, it had been because all the violent death and tragedy had finally become too much for her; it had started to feel like her whole world revolved around bloodshed and homicide. These days, however, she found the grisly realities of the job easier to cope with now that she had a life outside the crime lab. A ring of pale skin on her fourth finger marked where her wedding band usually was. She never wore the ring at work, for both practical and emotional reasons. Besides the difficulties of pulling latex gloves over it, she didn't want her wedding band immersed in the viscera of a mutilated corpse. It belonged to her other life. With Gil.