The clerk, Manny, looked at him with eyes a little too bloodshot to be attributed to the late hour. “He was just this guy. I think he was black, or maybe Hispanic. Or he could have just had a good tan.”

“Well, that narrows things down. You sure he wasn’t Chinese?”

Manny thoug ht about it. “I guess, maybe.”

“Thanks for your help. I’ll let you get back to your eagle-eyed observation of the immediate environment.”

Brass left the motel office and climbed the stairs to the second level. The crime scene was in room 219, now guarded by a uniformed officer. As a homicide detective, Brass was usually the second official to arrive on the scene, after the beat cops who originally investigated the call but before the medical examiner. This led to Brass sometimes saying he was middle management in the death business, but nobody ever seemed to laugh.

The ME had arrived while he was talking to Manny. Doctor Albert Robbins stood just inside the doorway to the room, leaning against the arm crutch he used to help him get around.

“Hey, Doc. How are you doing?”

“Damn stairs,” Doc Robbins grumbled. “I hate these two-level motels. They never have an elevator.”

“Yeah, too bad the vic didn’t have the consideration to die on the first floor. You open the bag?”

“No. And I’m not going to, either. I’ll let Grissom do it.”

“Grissom can’t make it,” Nick Stokes said, walking up with Riley Adams at his side. “He’s at a conference.”

“Where’s he gone this time?” Brass asked. “The wilds of Duluth again?”

Nic k shook his head. “No, this time it’s right here in town. Some big bug expert thing. He’s pretty pumped up about it.”

“Well, he’s going to be sorry he missed this,” said Brass.

“What have we got?” Riley asked. She was a slender, pretty blonde with her hair tied back in a ponytail.

“Well,” Robbins said, “at first glance I thought it might be a suicide.” He moved aside to let Nick and Riley get a better look.

The body on the motel bed was that of a young, well-built white male, wearing only a pair of boxer shorts. His arms were spread, wrists handcuffed to the bedposts, and his head was covered with a white plastic bag secured around his neck with a plastic zap strap.

“Suicide?” said Riley. She adjusted the focus on the camera she held and started taking photos. “With his hands cuffed like that?”

“Oh, sure,” said Robbins. “A lot of suicides are afraid they’re going to lose their nerve at the last minute, so they try to impose a point of no return. I call it hesitation insurance.”

“Can’t back out once that cuff locks into place,” Nick murmured. “But you said ‘at first,’ Doc?”

“Yes. I was going to remove the bag from his head, get a look at his face-”

“But you didn’t,” Riley said. “Why not?”

“Poke the bag, ” Brass said. “You’ll see.”

“Gil Grissom,” Roberto Quadros said, “I’d like you to meet Professor Nathan Vanderhoff.”

Grissom shook the hand that was offered. Vanderhoff was a slender man with coffee-hued skin, his curly hair cut short against an elegant skull. He wore an expensive-looking pale green suit that looked far too warm for Vegas in the summer, and a bright yellow tie.

“A pleasure, Mr. Grissom,” Vanderhoff said. His accent was Dutch Afrikaans. “I see you have one of my countrymen with you.”

“Countrywomen, actually,” Grissom said with a nod at the cage. “Her name is Elizabeth.”

“A fine name for a king baboon spider,” Vanderhoff said, chuckling. “Or perhaps I should say a queen?”

“I don’t name my specimens,” Quadros said. “They’re not pets.”

“Mine is,” Grissom said mildly. “I’m quite fond of her.”

“Come now, Roberto,” Vanderhoff said. “Don’t tell me you’ve never named a subject you’ve been studying-we’ve all done it, especially in the wild. If nothing else, it makes them easier to differentiate.”

“I find numbers work just fine,” Quadros said. “Objectivity must be upheld.”

“Objectivity is for physicists,” Vanderhoff insisted. “We deal in the study of life; surely a little subjectivity is allowable, even desirable, in our field. A biologist should never forget he is a biological organism himself-don’t you agree, Mr. Grissom?”

Grissom blinked. “I think,” he said carefully, “that all science stems from a desire for knowledge. And that’s a very… human characteristic.”

Quadros shook his head vehemently. “I can’t believe I’m hearing this. We study arthropods, do we not? The biological equivalent of machines. They have no psychology, no culture, no advanced cognitive functions. Seeing them through the filter of human experience does nothing but distort data.”

Vanderhoff grinned, clearly enjoying himself. “You are even more passionate in person than online, Dr. Quadros. Quite the contradiction, considering that what you’re arguing for is the cool, detached perspective of objectivity.”

Quadros’s scowl deepened, then broke into a grudging smile. “Hah! You’re right, Nathan. Damn it, you can always get me going.”

“And speaking of going,” Grissom said, checking his watch, “it’s getting late. Shall we?”

“You two go ahead,” Vanderhoff said. “I’ve got a few things to do.”

“Never could resist a dare,” Nick said. He took out a penlight and prodded the bag with one end.

The bag moved.

Nick jumped and Ril ey took a step back. It wasn’t so much the suddenness of the movement as the quality; the bag squirmed.

“What the hell?” Nick said. “What’s in there, a snake?”

“No way,” said Riley. “I saw the outline of legs. Lots of tiny little legs.”

“Cockroaches, maybe?” said Brass. “Though the way it’s moving does seem kind of snake-like.”

“You’re right, Grissom is gonna hate missing this,” said Nick. “Okay, whatever’s in there, we’ve got to get it or them out. I’ve got an idea.”

Nick fitted a large clear evidence bag over the first one and sealed it with duct tape. He made a small incision in the top of the second bag with a scalpel, then inserted the scalpel through the hole and used it to slash an opening in the bag beneath. He pulled the scalpel out quickly and slapped a duct tape patch over the hole in the outer bag. “Come out, come out, whatever you are,” Nick muttered.

A second later, something did.

Two long feelers attached to a black head the size of a pea tested the air. A second later, a segmented black body fringed with orange legs flowed out of the hole, followed a second later by another. And another. And another.

“Centipedes?” Riley said.

“Millipedes, I think,” Nick said. “Grissom would know for sure.” He sniffed the air. “You smell that? Almonds.”

“Cyanide?” Riley sa id. “So our suicide poisoned himself, sealed a bag full of bugs around his head, then cuffed himself to the bed?”

“Whatever this is,” Nick said, “it’s no suicide.” He pulled out his cell phone and hit a button.

“Who you calling?” Brass asked.

“Who do you think?” Nick said. “If I didn’t let him know about this he’d bust me back down to a level one. Hello, Grissom? Yeah, I thought you’d be up. Listen, there’s something you’re gonna want to see…”

“Really?” Grissom said. “Can you describe them?” He listened for a moment, then said, “Yes, you’re right, it’s probably best if I see for myself. Thanks, Nick. I’ll be there shortly.” He closed his cell phone and put it back in his pocket.

“It sounds as if you’re leaving us,” Nathan Vanderhoff said. He, Grissom, and Jake Soames sat at a table in one of Vegas’s quieter lounges, the torch singer having just finished her set and left the small stage. Grissom didn’t generally avail himself of such places, but he’d heard good things about the performer-plus, his colleagues had pestered him to take them out and show them around his town. Being wide awake despite the hour-one of the perils of night-shift work-Grissom had given in. He was actually enjoying himself; he didn’t get the chance to talk shop with fellow entomologists face-to-face very often.