Ashes to Dust (Las Vegas Mystery)

pushed her really hard into some lockers. The girl hit her head and cut it a little.”
    “Was anything done about it?” Alice asked.
    “One of the teachers who saw it happen took her by the arm and escorted her to the principal’s office. He gave her a lecture and let her go back to class.
    “The next incident was a little worse. This was in the hallway again. A couple of girls were running. One of them slipped and ran into Crystal. Knocked her over. She got back up and punched the girl in the eye. It swelled up quite a bit. So, back up to the principal’s office with her again. Another lecture, and back to class. The girl got home, and her parents saw her swollen eye and called the police. They came out and talked to Crystal, but there were no charges because the other girl ran into her first. And they were just in high school.
    “And the other time I remember, we were playing our toughest rival. There was a lot of bad blood between our schools. Not just in softball, but all sports. Crystal was batting. The pitcher threw one inside right at her. Hit her on the shoulder. Crystal got up with her bat and started walking toward the pitcher with it. She got halfway to the mound and threw the bat at her. It just barely missed the girl’s head. She got suspended for a couple of games for unsportsmanlike conduct. But nobody even counseled her about it.”
    “What did you think about that?” Alice said.
    “At that point,” Holly said, “I thought she seriously needed to talk to somebody. I told her that. I told her parents that. She needed counseling. But they wouldn’t listen to me. I mean, after that thing with the bat—I was afraid she was going to kill somebody someday.”

“These aren’t bad,” Snow said. “It’s amazing that they got the entire print of the shoe for all three photos. Pretty good detail on the tread pattern.”
    Snow was sitting in his swivel chair next to Alice. They were staring at one of the shoe print photos from the crime scene on Alice’s notebook computer.
    “Who sent you these photos?” Snow asked.
    “Mary from the lab.”
    “How much did that set us back?”
    “Nothing,” Alice said. “She’s a friend of mine.”
    “It’s incredible,” Snow said, “the amount of information you get out of Metro. How many contacts do you have there, all total?”
    “They’re not contacts, Jim,” Alice said. “They’re friends. I have three in the crime lab, one at the coroner’s office, two in Robbery, four in Homicide, one in Vice, one in Violent Crimes. And a few others scattered about in administrative jobs. How many do you have, Jim?”
    “Maybe four and a half total,” Snow said. “But I can’t be sure. It’s been a while. A lot of the people I worked with quit the force.”
    “You don’t stay in touch?”
    “Sure,” Snow said. “But you know how it is—time marches past you. By the time you get around to giving them a call, some other person answers the phone—and they don’t speak English. That’s a pretty good indication they’ve moved.”
    “Or maybe they hired servants?” Alice said.
    “Yeah,” Snow said. “That’ll be the day.” He turned his eyes back to the monitor. “You just have the photos of the shoe prints?”
    “No,” Alice said. “Mary sent me the entire set from the crime scene.”
    “Anything worth looking at?”
    “Other than the shoe prints, just the gas can.”
    “What was so special about the gas can?”
    She closed the photo and brought up another photo. It showed the blackened corpse, with a stump of a baseball bat on top of the torso. Lying beside the body was a small rectangular can. Snow moved his head closer. Alice zoomed in on it.
    “Hmm,” Snow said. “That’s not what I was expecting. When Mel told us it was a gas can, I thought it was the kind you use to fill a lawn mower.”
    “Right.”
    “But this looks like one of those quart-size cans that are used to fill camping lanterns and stoves. What do they call that fuel?”
    “White gas,” Alice said.
    “Yeah, that’s the stuff,” Snow said. “Tell you what—why don’t you print out the pictures. We can take them with us. I think we should take a run out to the crime scene. If those shoe prints are still visible, I’d like to take a look at them close up—in daylight.”

    A warm front had been moving into southern Nevada, driving the temperature higher. At shortly after nine a.m. as Snow pulled the Sonata onto the gravel shoulder of Stober