Gregg Hurwitz - Troubleshooter

A court security officer yelled over the commotion. "CSI line four."

Tim pointed and mouthed, "Other room." He pulled Bear-who was relishing the confrontation-toward the door. On his way past the marshal, Tim leaned over and said, "He also took Goat to an undisclosed location. We have no access to our prisoner. Take that up with his supervisor, too, please."

They could hear Tannino's shouts all the way down the hall. They ducked into an empty conference room, and Bear knuckled the blinking light, then the speakerphone button.

Aaronson's voice came through. As usual he was distracted, speaking slowly. "I was processing the embalming table, right? And I picked up this hair tangled in the gutter drain. It was black, not dyed orange like the others, so I ran the follicle-short tandem repeats to check the DNA. We got these new kits from Cofiler, they're much faster-"

"Aaronson," Bear said. "The DNA."

"Well, it doesn't belong to Marisol Juarez. It belongs to another woman who recently died. Jennifer Villarosa."

"Why's Villarosa's DNA on record?" Bear asked. "She a felon?"

"A soldier. They got her DNA in the system before Iraq, the optimists."

"How'd she die? And when?"

"Accidental, two months ago. But the really weird thing is…"

"Yeah?" Tim and Bear asked together.

"She died in Mexico."

Guerrera was sitting cross-legged in the unlit basement, little more than a round shadow against the dark workout mats. He was hunched over, as if in prayer, his fingertips rimming his forehead at the hairline.

His eyes were focused on the rubber; he hadn't raised his head at Tim and Bear's entrance.

"We need you to take point upstairs. Let's go-we'll ride up with you, fill you in." Guerrera stayed motionless, so Tim repeated, "Let's go."

Guerrera's voice came low. "Maybe I could've just wounded him. Maybe I didn't have to kill him."

"I was there," Bear said. "You had to kill him."

"No one has to do anything."

Bear raised his eyebrows in exasperation and looked to Tim-too philosophical for his blood.

"You're right," Tim said, "You wanted this, Rey. And you got it. And it doesn't feel like you thought it would."

Guerrera kept staring off into the dark corners, his eyes distant.

"But we're in the thick of it right now," Tim said. "I'm sorry, but you don't come, this case leaves without you."

A long pause. Tim looked at Bear. Bear grimaced, then ambled over, pausing above Guerrera. He offered his hand. It hung in the air for a while.

Guerrera took it, pulled himself to his feet, and followed them out.

She survives thirteen months in Iraq, dies snorkeling in Cabo." Mr. Villarosa, a distinguished man with graying sideburns and erect posture, smoothed his sleek mustache with his thumb and fore-finger. "We dropped her off at LAX smiling, beautiful. She came back three days later in a casket."

His wife's delicate blue eyes leaked at the corners; she'd had tissue in hand even when she answered the door. Mr. Villarosa was more stoic-he had a profile cut from stone-but the pain still showed in the creases in his upper cheeks, the rigidity of his carriage. The suffering couldn't penetrate his facade, so it had worked on him from the inside. Tim wondered if his own erosion was as evident to a practiced eye.

Focus on them, Timothy. You owe them that.

Both parents, speaking nearly perfect, unaccented English, had been gracious when Tim and Bear had apologized for interrupting their Christmas afternoon. Cinnamon candles enlivened the air, and a bird was roasting deliciously in the oven, but the holiday embellishments seemed added by rote. The house was still suffused with grief. Jennifer had died October 29, less than two months ago.

Wicker-and-glass cabinets displayed gold-rimmed china and a few pieces of dubious crystal. The carpet was plush-too plush-and bore vacuum-cleaner stripes. Porcelain sylvan figurines were arranged on doilies with great pride. When Mr. Villarosa offered that he'd run a household-appliance repair business for twenty-five years, his hand pulled toward his pocket, an instinctive move for his business card. Tim watched the impulse extinguished, brutally, the moment Villarosa recalled the meeting's purpose.

A glass-framed photo of Jennifer and a carefully constructed wreath decorated the lid of an off-white upright piano. A tough-looking, hefty woman with a bull neck, muscular shoulders, and shorn hair, she wore a stern face, peering out from beneath her ROTC cadet dress hat.

"Why was she in Mexico?"

"She won a trip there," Mrs. Villarosa said softly. "She went with her…friend."

Mr. Villarosa handed them some papers with GOOD MORNING VACATIONS cheerily lettered across the top in predictable yellow. Congratulations, Ms. Villarosa, you've won an all-expenses-paid trip to Cabo San Lucas!!

"Where's her friend now?" Bear asked.

"Back in Iraq."

"Were you apprised of the circumstances of her death?"

"Yes, the army aided us in looking into it. They poked around with the hotel and the detectives down there. We were spared the details, but we were told there wasn't anything to find out. A-what did they call it?"

His wife answered quietly, "Shallow-water blackout."

Tim folded the papers into his pocket. "This is an awkward question, Mr. and Mrs. Villarosa, and I apologize, but we need to know if Jennifer ever rode with or had any relationships with bikers."

The man's laugh took Tim by surprise. "No way. She was a school nerd-very straitlaced. A good, good kid." He looked down, studying his thumbnail. Mrs. Villarosa pulled a tissue from her shirtsleeve and dabbed her eyes. "The travel company was very honorable, thank God. They got us our Jennifer delivered right to the funeral home up here. We gave her a good Catholic burial."

"I wish there was something better I could say," Tim said, "but I'd like to offer my condolences. Jennifer seems like she was a lovely person."

Mrs. Villarosa turned her face and wept silently into her tissue. Her husband nodded. "Thank you for using her name."

Tim and Bear rose to leave, standing awkwardly to see if Mrs. Villarosa was going to look up so they could say good-bye.

"Can I ask what this is about?" Mr. Villarosa asked. "It was an accidental death, that's all."

Bear said gently, "I'm afraid we can't-"

"A girl was killed last night," Tim said.

"And you think it's somehow related?"

"We don't know at this point. We really don't."

Mr. Villarosa's face stiffened, anguish pulling his skin taut. "If there's anything we can do, please give us the opportunity."

His handshake was desperate, as if he couldn't make himself let go.

"We will," Tim said.

The Impala's steering wheel looked tiny in Bear's grip. The marshal had been beating the drum on agency image, and after the FBI's maneuver this morning, Bear wasn't about to inherit his excess wrath for taking his beat-to-hell Dodge Ram to question a bereaved family. He and Tim had their windows down, letting the cool air clear their thoughts.

Tim watched Guerrera's St. Michael medallion sway from the rearview. "They'd just accepted it was a freak accident. Then we come in…"

"There's no connection." Bear forged ahead. "None." For a reason Tim had yet to grasp, Bear liked to get angry when he thought through a case. "We have a broke girl from Chatsworth and a first lieutenant from Sylmar. One was murdered in Simi, one was an accidental death in Mexico."

"So how do you explain them sharing trace evidence on the embalming table?"

"Could be anything. I know you have an undying respect for the men and women who wear our proud uniform, but who knows what the girl did when she was home on leave? Maybe she doesn't live up to her dad's image. The Sinners run those clubhouses as fuckshacks. Maybe she takes a walk on the wild side, leaves a stray hair in Goat's underwear that hitchhikes around town, winds up in the wrong place."