“For Burning Man,” said Greg. “Yo u were actually going to take this whole thing out to Black Rock?”

Wornow tossed the rag back on the table. “Still am. Totally modular, you know? Heavy-duty pumps to move the wax, built-in subsurface generator to power the pumps and lighting system, propane jets for heat and flame-and the whole structure will come apart and go back together in a day. Mount Pele is going to kick ass. I’m just sorry Kahuna Man isn’t going to be there to see it.”

“You’re not worried about paying for all this?” asked Catherine. “August is still a long way away, and, well…”

“Hal’s dead? Don’t worry about it. Most of the stuff’s already paid for, and I’m seeing about getting a grant from the Black Rock Arts Council for the rest. We’ll get her there one way or another.”

A metal gantry stood beside the volcano, topped by a metal platform that extended out to the edge of the cone. The platform was large enough for a folding chair, a card table, and several pieces of equipment-a welding torch with tanks, a grinder, a mobile tool cabinet on wheels chained to the railing. There was no railing on the side next to the cone, presumably to give better access to the volcano itself.

“Quite the project,” said Catherine. “You build this yourself, or did Hal help?”

“Oh, he liked to be involved. It was his vision, after all. But he wasn’t an artist or an engineer, so he mainly stuck to helping out with grunt work.”

“Grunt worke r and financier,” said Greg. “Kind of a strange combination.”

Wornow walked over to a beat-up fridge against the wall and pulled it open. “I guess. You guys want a beer?”

“We’re working, thanks,” said Greg. “When was the last time you saw Hal?”

“Not for a couple days. I was out of town, picking up some supplies in Portland. Got back the day after Hal turned up dead.”

“Can you prove that?” asked Greg.

“I don’t know. Do I have to?”

“You might,” said Catherine. “What kind of vehicle do you drive?”

“I don’t. I borrowed an old friend’s truck.”

“Would that be a ’94 Ford F150?” asked Greg.

“I don’t know. It’s a Ford; I don’t know the year or model.”

“What’s your friend’s name?”

“I just know him by his Burner name-Cricket. He just left on a road trip- Seattle, I think, I’m not sure.”

“With his truck, of course,” said Greg. “You mind if we take a sample of this wax?”

Wornow didn’t say anything for a moment.

“We can get a search warrant if we have to,” said Catherine.

“No, that’s-I don’t understand. I mean, you don’t think I had anything to do with Hal’s death, right?”

“Should we?” asked Greg.

“No! Jesus, I just assumed he ODed. I mean, everyone knew he was using, that stuff’ll kill you sooner or later-”

“Didn’t stop you from hanging out with him,” said Greg.

“Hey, it wasn’t li ke he was dangerous or anything.”

“But he was rich,” said Catherine.

“Okay, yeah, he was paying for the volcano. Making art costs money, you know? He wants to spend his cash on supporting creativity, what’s wrong with that?”

Catherine put down her CSI kit on a table and opened it. “Nothing. But any time two or more people come together to build something, there are always creative differences. That happen here?”

Wornow shook his head vehemently. “No. I mean, yeah, we didn’t agree on everything, but that’s natural, right? It never turned into any kind of serious disagreement. We kicked around a bunch of different ideas before we came up with Mount Pele, and then we were totally committed. Same artistic vision, I’m telling you. Hal was always coming up with crazy ideas and stuff, trying to make it better, but I kept him reined in. He listened to me, he trusted my judgment.”

Catherine gazed up at the metal gantry. “I don’t know. Riding herd on a guy smoking ice all day long? Sounds pretty close to impossible to me.”

“Frustrating, too,” said Greg. “I mean, you’re the artist, right? You do this for a living. If Pele here is the star, you’re the director. Hal would have been more like a producer-he controlled the purse strings, which meant you had to spend half your time listening to every crazy, stoned idea he had and the other half explaining why they wouldn’t work. Doesn’t leave a lot of time to create.”

“Okay, okay. You’re right about the drugs. He was waaaay out of control. That was one of the reasons I drove up to Portland, just to get away from him for a while. But if you’re looking for someone responsible for his death, you don’t have to go any farther than the guys he was getting his drugs from. I only met them once, but they were hard-core, man. Put a bullet in your head for just looking at ’em wrong.”

“One of these guys named Boz?” asked Catherine. “Or maybe Diego and Aaron?”

“Yeah, that’s them. Me, I’m just a welder with delusions of grandeur, man. I make stuff, I don’t kill people.”

Catherine picked up an evidence vial from her kit. “Then you won’t mind if we take a sample of this wax?”

He hesitated, then shrugged. “Sure. Go ahead.”

“I sold the gun to a guy named Gus,” Richard Waltham told Grissom. “Don’t ask me what his last name is, ’cause I don’t know. Gus is a pretty sketchy guy-got himself a pretty bad cocaine habit, and he prefers needles to smoking it or putting it up his nose. Used to hang around this place, but I haven’t seen him in here in a while; I got the impression the phrase ‘no fixed address’ could be used to describe his usual living situation.”

“How long ago was this?” asked Grissom.

“Six weeks or so, I guess. He’d acquired a little spending cash and a little more paranoia; since I was short on both, we worked out a trade.”

Grissom nodded. “Any idea where his windfall came from?”

Waltham thought about it for a moment. “Couldn’t say for sure, but I got the feeling it had something to do with drugs. Could be he was working as a mule, taking stuff across from Mexico-whatever he was doing, it was making him nervous. With good reason, maybe; like I said, I haven’t seen him around in a while.”

“Can you tell me anything else about this Gus-height, weight, approximate age?”

“’Bout five-ten, I suppose. Kinda thin. Long, greasy brown hair, scruffy beard the same color. Kinda Eastern European looking, if you know what I mean. I’d say he was in his fifties, but who knows? The street can add twenty years to your face, and not the easy kind.”

“Distinguishing marks, tattoos?”

“Nothing I noticed, but I never took a steam bath with the guy.”

There was no database for plastic bottles, so Riley was forced to do her research in a more roundabout way. She started by searching online for any kind of link to insects and found plenty to look through; spiders and scorpions were a popular theme for brands of hot sauce, energy drinks, and various types of alcohol.

She finally got a match with an energy drink called Parading Mantis, produced in Illinois. She printed a list of distributors in Vegas, mostly mom-and-pop corner stores, and hit the street.

Riley had no problem with legwork. She’d been a street cop before moving to Vegas, and she didn’t think she’d ever want to completely give up the field for the lab; as much as she enjoyed the intellectual challenge of solving a case by analyzing data, there was still a certain charge she got from being out in the world, collecting that data.

She did, however, have a problem with being sidelined.

She hoped that wasn’t happening. She hadn’t worked with Grissom for long, but he didn’t seem like the type to play favorites; she thought she’d been given the grunt work because she was the new kid, not because Grissom didn’t like her-and that was a pattern that probably went all the way back to the Stone Age and the first rookie to be picked to clean up the cave and throw out the old mastodon bones.