Ace High

by Dean Wesley Smith

  The woman returned a moment later with her driver’s license and Picket made a production of writing it all down, then they thanked the woman and apologized for interrupting her.

  “No problem,” she said.

  They started to turn away, but as they did the woman closed the door solidly behind them.

  “Got it,” Pickett said.

  Sarge watched as she took out a pair of tweezers from her small purse and picked up the still smoking cigarette. Then the two of them moved to the far side of the car where they couldn’t be watched from any window, even if the fake Heather could see out of those dirt-covered windows.

  Pickett put the cigarette out completely, then she climbed into the Jeep and opened the cigarette ashtray built into the Jeep’s dash and put the cigarette in there carefully.

  Fifteen minutes later they had dropped it off with Robin and were headed back to their complex to get some lunch and take naps. Both of them loved naps.

  Both of them considered naps as one of the major benefits of retirement. And already they had gotten into a habit of napping in different places in the complex. They slept together at night, but napped apart during the day.

  Both of them found that funny, but neither had suggested a change.

  Sarge had no doubt that after this morning he was going to need a nap. Chances are his mind wouldn’t let him sleep, but that didn’t matter, he needed to try anyway.

  9

  December 4th, 2016

  Las Vegas, Nevada

  * * *

  Pickett actually managed to sleep for thirty minutes before coming awake thinking about the case and that poor girl in that hot room. What a horrid way to die, literally baked to death.

  She headed into what they were calling their main kitchen, which was the kitchen in Sarge’s condo. They had started to use her kitchen as a sort of large pantry and storage, which worked great.

  She had just poured herself a glass of orange juice when Sarge came down the hall, yawning. His gray hair was sticking up in a few places as it sometimes did after he napped and he still looked handsome to her.

  “Anything from Robin?” he asked as he too got a glass of orange juice from the fridge.

  “About to call her,” Pickett said.

  At that moment the phone rang and Pickett laughed. “Great minds all on the same page.”

  Pickett clicked the phone on speaker. “We’re both here. Any luck?”

  “Well, not sure what we found would be considered lucky or not,” Robin said. “First off, Will pulled about a hundred strings and we did an emergency push on the DNA off that cigarette. We should have enough preliminary results tomorrow to run it against some data bases.”

  “Light speed,” Sarge said.

  “Yeah,” Robin said. “Not sure what kind of favors he now owes people.”

  Pickett laughed. Robin’s husband Will was just amazing. He and Robin had been there for her through her messy divorce. Two better friends couldn’t be found.

  “Got you a name and address for one of the contractors who did the shuttering of the Landmark,” Robin said, “and another name of the security firm who guarded the place.”

  “That will give us a start,” Sarge said.

  Pickett agreed.

  “Also did some research into the wreck that killed the Winstons up near Big Bear,” Robin said. “Missed a corner and rolled their pick-up down a slight bank and into a tree. Both died of broken necks.”

  Pickett glanced at Sarge who was frowning.

  “Let me guess, a straight road leading down into that corner,” Sarge said. “And no autopsy done.”

  “Got it in one,” Robin said.

  Pickett just shook her head. The Winstons might have actually died in that wreck, and without anything else suspicious, no one would have thought to look beyond the tragic event. Now, after this long, proving otherwise was going to be damn near impossible.

  “Any kind of inheritance?” Sarge asked.

  “A big one. Both the kids got five million each.”

  Pickett was shocked at that. “The house we found the fake sister in sure wasn’t a five-million-dollar home.”

  “Drugs,” Robin said, “plus two abusive ex-husbands and then time in and out of jail for drugs and DUI. As far as we can tell, she blew through the money in five years.”

  “Wow,” Pickett said and Sarge whistled softly.

  But Pickett knew that wasn’t unusual for people who came into money suddenly and didn’t know how to handle it. Most lottery winners were broke within years as well.

  “So where do we push at this afternoon?” Sarge asked. “I’m thinking the security end of things.”

  “I agree,” Pickett said. “Somehow Heather Winston and maybe a number of other people got in there through the security firm.”

  Robin gave the name and number of the security firm and a man by the name of Crowly who had been with the firm since it did the security on the Landmark.

  “Will says the firm is solid, keeps good records, and he has called the boss to ask them to help you,” Robin said.

  “Thanks,” Pickett said. “We’ll call him now.”

  “One more thing,” Sarge said. “Would it be possible to do a search over the last few decades of people found dead in shuttered hotels and motels?”

  “Sure, should be a simple task to run,” Robin said.

  “And would it be simple to add in other various reports around shuttered hotels and motels?”

  Robin laughed. “That would be a ton of cases. But I should be able to put some order on it all. What are you thinking?”

  Pickett was wondering the same thing.

  “Something about this just feels off,” Sarge said. “Like we are missing something. I feel like we are looking at a tree and not seeing a forest, but darned if I can figure out why I am feeling that way.”

  “Sounds logical to me,” Robin said. “I’ll see what I can pull together.”

  “Thanks,” Sarge said.

  “Yes, thanks. I’ll call you after we talk to the security guy,” Pickett said.

  She hung up the phone and turned to the man she was deeply in love with. “You think we’re stumbling into something larger again?”

  “I hope not,” Sarge said, laughing. “Just like you, though, I have learned to listen to that little voice nagging me.”

  She laughed at that. Every good detective she knew trusted their little voice.

  They finished off their juice and headed for the door. She didn’t notice until they were almost to the front door that there wasn’t a kitten in sight. More than likely all curled up together on a bed somewhere.

  10

  December 4th, 2016

  Las Vegas, Nevada

  * * *

  Sarge held open the glass front door to the security firm’s office for Pickett to go through. There was no name on the door or the front of the building at all. It was just after two in the afternoon and Crowly had agreed to meet them in his office where he could access all the old files.

  The weather had become even nicer if that was possible, with bright blue sky and yet no heat, something you didn’t often see in Las Vegas. Sarge wished he and Pickett were just out walking instead of working, the day was that nice.

  Crowly met them just inside the front door and shook both their hands. There was no receptionist, but a desk for one looked used.

  Crowly was a short man, more round than anything, but he dressed in clothes that fit his shape and his sports jacket was tasteful. He looked to be around sixty, maybe slightly older, but Sarge couldn’t tell for sure.

  Crowly was mostly bald and had piercing dark eyes and a booming voice. There was no doubt to Sarge that if this guy wanted, he could blend in completely with the Las Vegas tourist crowd.

  And Sarge also had no doubt that this guy didn’t miss many details.

  Crowly’s office was impressive in its own functional way. He had a massive computer with three screens on his huge wooden desk, a draft board
covered with blueprints against one wall, and a large worktable in the middle with six chairs around it. The table was also covered with building blueprints.

  A massive area in one corner was filled with tubes of blueprints.

  Crowly indicated Sarge and Pickett grab chairs and pull them around behind his desk so they could see his screens. Then Crowly sat in his desk chair and brought up his computer.

  “Will tells me you are interested in the security we did for the Landmark after it was shuttered.”

  “Please,” Pickett said. “We’re working on the cold case of that girl’s body that was found in the building by the furniture inventory crew.”

  “Yeah,” Crowly said, shaking his head. “A hard one to forget and I have no clue how she got in there. That’s bothered me for twenty some years now.”

  Sarge could tell Crowly wasn’t lying about that.

  “So could you run us through your setup for that building, as much as you remember, and the time frame of your security.”

  “Don’t need to remember it,” Crowly said, opening a file on his screen showing a ledger of dates, blueprints of the Landmark property, and other details. “We scanned in all the old jobs before storing everything. Comes in more handy than I imagined it would when I was spending the money to have it done.”

  “Glad you did,” Pickett said.

  “We can now certainly pull all the different files of every job together easily,” Crowly said. “I have no idea how I did anything without computers now.”

  Sarge laughed. “We’ve wondered the same thing at times.”

  “So here’s what we did,” Crowly said, expanding the size of the ledger on one screen so they could read it clearly. “We set up the exterior and building cameras and fences as they were working on shuttering the place. We were fully tested and up and running when the last member of the crew boarded up the last door and left.”

  “Anyone on site or just all recorded monitoring?” Pickett asked.

  “Two guards on site at all times,” Crowly said, “twenty-four-seven. One stayed with the monitors and another did rounds every hour. Everything recorded and logged in. Considering what I was getting paid to guard that place, I didn’t cut corners at all.”

  Sarge was impressed.

  “Anything unusual happen in the first week or so?” Sarge asked.

  Crowly brought up another file that was clearly an hourly log of the guards. He quickly scanned through the log entries for the first two weeks, well past the time that Sarge and Pickett knew that Heather Winston had gone missing and the fake Heather came back.

  “Nothing,” Crowly said. “In fact, in my final notes, except for finding that girl’s body in there, nothing at all unusual happened during that entire time. And we guarded that building from the time it was shuttered to the time they blew up the tower for those movie people.”

  “Who paid for all that?” Pickett asked.

  “Bank’s insurance company,” Crowly said. “Far cheaper for them to pay us for years and cover their asses than to pay out if some kid got in there and got hurt.”

  Sarge had to agree with that as well.

  “Is there any chance you managed to save the security footage from that time?”

  Crowly smiled. “You know that was twenty-five years ago.”

  Sarge knew from the smile that Crowly had them.

  “I know,” Pickett said, smiling back. “Figured it couldn’t hurt to ask.”

  “Yeah, we got them all,” Crowly said. “I had everything digitized.”

  “I think I could hug you,” Pickett said.

  “Thanks, but my wife and your boyfriend here might object,” Crowly said, winking at Sarge

  Sarge was right. Crowly didn’t miss a detail.

  “But you can tell Will to send some more work my way at times,” Crowly said.

  “Be glad to,” Pickett said, smiling at Crowly.

  Sarge could tell Pickett really liked Crowly. Sarge liked the guy as well.

  “So what time period are you looking at? The time before they found the girl?”

  “No,” Sarge said. “Basically the second week after you started the security. We think she went in there that week.”

  “Not possible,” Crowly said, shaking his head. “But I’ll give you the files and the blueprints of our security system and monitors and you can see for yourself.”

  “And the names and contact information you might have of the guards on during that week as well,” Pickett said. “If you wouldn’t mind.”

  Crowly shrugged and in five minutes he handed them two thumb drives with all the videos on it and the guard logs and the names of the guards and the blueprint layouts of the security cameras.

  “Get a couple bags of popcorn,” Crowly said. “Watching an empty building is some damn boring movie time.”

  Sarge laughed. “Spent a bunch of my life on stakeouts watching empty buildings. I know the feeling.”

  “I bet you would,” Crowly said. “Anything more, just call me. And if you figure out what happened to that girl, please let me know. I would love to clear that from the old memories.”

  Sarge didn’t blame him at all.

  11

  December 4th, 2016

  Las Vegas, Nevada

  * * *

  Pickett called Robin and told her how helpful Crowly had been. And what they had from him.

  Then she and Sarge stopped at a grocery store on the way back home and got some great steaks and fresh vegetables for dinner. They already had enough popcorn.

  They went into Sarge’s big computer room and loaded up all the data to his system, checking it for bugs as they went.

  Then they spent the next hour in there with the blueprints of the exterior of the building on the screen, studying the entrances, the camera angles, everything.

  Crowly and his team had been amazingly effective. They covered every boarded up door or window on one camera or another, and the entire four sides of the fenced-in property was covered as well with cameras.

  Pickett was getting a sinking feeling they weren’t going to find anything at all, but they needed to look. Somehow, Heather Winston went missing and got into that building during the week they had recorded in front of them.

  After an hour, they went back into the kitchen. There were still no kittens in sight, but Pickett had a hunch they would be showing up as soon as she and Sarge started making noise in the kitchen.

  Pickett started working on the salad while Sarge got the steaks ready to grill. After the steaks came off he would get them a bottle of wine from his fantastic wine room.

  He had just put the steaks on when he said, “Think there might have been another way into that old hotel?”

  “From where?” she asked. “Sewers, electrical, something like that?”

  “Anything like that,” Sarge said, nodding.

  Picket had just finished the salad so she grabbed her phone. “I’ll get Robin to send us all the construction details of the Landmark. Construction started in 1961, but the place didn’t open until July of 1969. Who knows what might have been built during those years.”

  Robin answered and Pickett quickly explained what they were thinking and what they needed.

  “Should all be public records,” Robin said. “I’ll get it all to you in the next hour or so.”

  “Thanks,” Pickett said. “You might save us endless hours of staring at a video of an empty building.”

  Robin laughed. “I’ll see what I can do for the cause.”

  As Pickett hung up, Nose came slowly down the stairs, clearly just waking up.

  Shortly behind her were two yellow kittens, also half-asleep. Again cute didn’t begin to describe those three.

  Sarge laughed. “I see the smell of steak finally reached the upstairs area.”

  “It’s reached my stomach as well,” Pickett said, taking the salad over to the small dining table between the living room and the kitchen. “The steaks smell wonderful.”

  The kit
tens gathered in the kitchen as Sarge put the steaks on two plates and then with cloth napkins and silverware, carried it all to the table as well, making sure he didn’t step on a kitten on the way.

  “Want me to pick the wine?” Pickett asked.

  “Please,” Sarge said and he moved back through the herd of cats to get two glasses of water.

  Pickett got out a wonderful red pinot and took it back to the kitchen and Sarge opened it as she put two wine glasses on the table.

  The three cats just watched the entire process, not really knowing what to make if it.

  And when she and Sarge finally sat down at the table, the cats went to the living room and spread out.

  Thirty minutes later, she and Sarge had just finished the wonderful steak dinner and Sarge was starting to clear the dishes into the dishwasher when Robin called back, all excited.

  “There was a utility tunnel built from a building near the back of the south parking lot,” Robin said. “The parking lot and that block building was never fenced off when the hotel was shuttered because no one realized that tunnel was even there, since it didn’t appear on any of the final plans in 1969. In the final plans the electrical was brought in from a different side and the water and sewer were hooked into the city in a different direction. The old tunnel was just left and taken off the final construction plans.”

  “Big enough for someone to walk through?” Pickett asked.

  Sarge turned from the sink with that statement, staring at her.

  “More than big enough,” Robin said. “Originally it ran all electrical, water, and sewage pipes on and off the property, so it had to be large.”

  “So who would have known it was there?” Pickett asked.

  “We find the answer to that question and we might just find our killer,” Robin said.

  “Thanks,” Pickett said and hung up.

  “So?” Sarge said.

  Pickett just smiled. “What movie would you like to watch tonight?”