Ace High

by Dean Wesley Smith

  “I’ll get her people in,” Mike said, moving away and leaving Cinda with them.

  “You knew this place was trapped, didn’t you?” Sarge asked.

  “Of course I did,” Cinda said, glaring at Sarge, any sign of the happy accountant long gone.

  “And that the money was in the safe,” Pickett said.

  At that moment there was a sickening thud followed a moment later by the sound of a gunshot echoing over the city.

  A hole appeared in Cinda’s chest and she slumped to the ground out of Cavanaugh’s hand.

  “Mike! Sniper!” Sarge yelled as loud as he could as he grabbed Pickett and yanked her into the open storage unit.

  “Building to the west!” Pickett shouted.

  The shot had come from the dark building she had been worried about a few minutes earlier.

  Robin grabbed the shocked Cavanaugh and got him safely into the small place as well, leaving the body of Cinda in the open. She was clearly dead. She had gone down face first and there was a massive hole in the back of her chest where the bullet had come out.

  Another shot rang out, but this time it sounded different. Pickett just hoped that hadn’t been targeting one of Mike’s men, or Mike himself.

  “All clear!” The sound of Mike’s voice echoed over the complex.

  “Get an ambulance on the way,” Sarge said, moving quickly back to Cinda’s body.

  Cavanaugh had his phone out. “Shots fired. One down.”

  At that moment Mike and another man with a rifle came around the corner. Mike took one look at Cinda’s body on the ground and just swore.

  “One of my men is staying with the body of the man who fired this shot,” Mike said. “This is Craig, the guy who took him out.”

  Craig handed Mike his rifle.

  Robin turned and started quickly talking with Will on the phone telling him what happened and that Mike was going to need some help with clearing one of his men.

  Pickett just stood there above the dead body of Cinda Blessing, wondering who she really had been, and how she fit into all this.

  And why she had been worth killing.

  Part V

  Unscrambling The Mess

  22

  December 6th, 2016

  Las Vegas, Nevada

  * * *

  Sarge couldn’t believe how tired he was by the time he and Pickett got back to the complex at three in the morning. The entire evening and night had turned into a disaster.

  Everyone involved had given statements; the money had been moved to safety; the unit locked up and guarded until its contents could be cleared to a safe house as well tomorrow.

  The police took everyone’s story and arrested the four men that Mike’s people had captured. They were not talking.

  The body of the sniper and his gun in the apartment construction had been recovered and Mike’s man who had shot the sniper was questioned and his rifle taken, but he had been released. It was a clear case of self-defense. No one was doubting that at all. There was no telling how many others that sniper might have killed.

  Will had two of the top lawyers in town with Mike and his people and they all walked after giving statements.

  Cavanaugh was clearly shaken by the entire thing, but was clearly directing traffic through the entire mess, not letting anyone get off course or question Mike’s actions in any way.

  Sarge had been impressed with that.

  Sarge went into the kitchen and got out a bowl of cut-up melon and put down some toast, then poured them both a small glass of orange juice. They needed a little something to eat before going to bed. They hadn’t eaten since the hamburgers earlier.

  Pickett had gone over to her old place to use the bathroom and just as the toast popped up she came back, dressed in a bathrobe and in her slippers.

  To Sarge she looked wonderful, even as tired as she was.

  She came into the kitchen and just hugged him, finally letting him go after she kissed him.

  “That could have gone better tonight,” he said as he turned to put some butter on their toast.

  “It could have ended up so much worse,” Pickett said.

  Sarge laughed. “Yeah, between the bomb and the sniper, I guess it could have.”

  She took the knife from his hands, kissed him, and then said, “I’ll finish getting this ready. You go change clothes and wash up.”

  She pushed him toward their bedroom and he did as she suggested, coming back five minutes later after getting out of the clothes stained with Cinda’s blood and splashing water on his face.

  He’d had some rough nights as a cop over the years, but this one ranked right up near the top of that list.

  Pickett was sitting at the counter munching on the toast. She looked a little like she was in shock and Sarge had no doubt that he was as well.

  He moved to stand across the counter from Picket. As he did, he realized that only Nose had appeared in the kitchen, looking tired and clearly wondering what was happening.

  They ate in silence until Pickett finally said, “What the hell is going on? Heather was only in college and whatever is in those files is twenty-five years old at least.”

  “Nothing is connecting,” Sarge said, nodding. “No idea why Cinda would send us to that storage unit except to have us open it so she could get to the money.”

  “But if she knew about the money, did she know about the fake Heather and the real Heather’s death?”

  Sarge shrugged. “I’m betting she might have had a hand in putting Heather in that room.”

  “Too bad she’s dead,” Pickett said.

  “Maybe not,” Sarge said. “She might do more talking dead than alive. And it clearly wasn’t one of her people who killed her. So we have an even bigger player in this game at the moment.”

  Pickett nodded and they sat there in silence and ate.

  “Can we go take a shower together,” Pickett asked, “then crawl into bed together and just hold each other?”

  Sarge looked at the woman he had come to love more than anything and said simply, “I would really like that.”

  He came around the counter, took her by the hand, and led her toward the bedroom, leaving the dishes on the counter, the lights on, and a very confused kitten in the kitchen.

  23

  December 6th, 2016

  Las Vegas, Nevada

  * * *

  They were both up at about their normal time. Pickett felt exhausted, both emotionally and mentally.

  The kittens were already done with their racing around and were camped out in the living room, solidly in their bath and nap part of their routines.

  She had the coffee made and was sipping on a cup when Sarge joined her.

  “Well that was a night to remember,” he said, kissing her good morning and taking the coffee she offered.

  “That’s an understatement,” she said. “But a bunch of it I wish I could forget.”

  “No argument there,” Sarge said.

  “So how about we call Robin to see how that side of things is going, then head for breakfast with our notebooks to see if we can make some sort of sense out of all this.”

  “A perfect plan,” she said.

  She got her phone and called Robin, putting it on speaker.

  “Thought you two would be sleeping later,” Robin said as she answered.

  “The power of a schedule,” Pickett said.

  “Well, this morning we made a little progress,” Robin said. “Mike and his crew and Cavanaugh and a half-dozen uniformed officers got the files and desk and everything out of the storage unit and moved to Mike’s safe house. Mike has the place secure and guarded.”

  “Are we going to be able to go through the papers?” Sarge asked a fraction of a second before Pickett was about to ask the same question.

  “The three of us and Cavanaugh are the only ones with permission from the chief to go through it,” Robin said. “The chief has been right on top of all this since early.”

  “Wow,�
�� Pickett said. “Great to hear.”

  “The chief moved Cavanaugh off his other cases until this is put to bed,” Robin said, “so he’s joining the gang a little early in spirit. And the chief assigned him help on the paperwork which has Cavanaugh smiling.”

  “What about Mike’s guy?” Robin asked.

  “District attorney is calling it an open and shut case of self-defense and isn’t going to bother to do anything. In fact the DA thanked the guy for saving lives and stopping what might have been a larger disaster.”

  Pickett just smiled at that. Mike had been doing them a favor coming in so fast and she hated that he and his people had been exposed like that. But who knows how that would have turned out without Mike there last night. Pickett didn’t want to even think about that.

  “Any identification on any of the crew or the sniper?” Sarge asked.

  “Cinda’s men were all hired thugs,” Robin said. “All had records. Cinda had been a suspect in a number of illegal gambling and robbery operations over the years, but had never been arrested for anything. What was amazing is that they had a tap on her phone for one of the investigations and they heard her hire the thugs and tell them she had a dirty job for them to do, but it would be worth millions of they pulled it off.”

  “Wow,” Pickett said, suddenly feeling a lot better. “That’s going to help put her crew away for some time.”

  “Death in the commission of a felony will make it certain they are all going away for a very long time. And two of them are talking like kids on candy, so we’re closing a bunch of cases this morning.”

  Pickett just laughed and smiled at Sarge, who was also smiling and shaking his head.

  “The sniper?” Pickett asked.

  “A ghost so far,” Robin said. “No I.D. on him. Will has his prints and both his people and the city are doing searches. The guy’s DNA will be processed by this evening by Will’s people and we should have that into the search system as well.”

  “To make that shot from that distance,” Sarge said, “he had to be trained somewhere.”

  “Mike thinks the guy had to be ex-military,” Robin said, “which is why we think either the prints or the DNA will bring up an answer. Who he was working for is another question completely.”

  “Got a hunch some of that information will be in the old files in the safe house,” Pickett said.

  “Betting the same thing,” Robin said.

  “You coming to breakfast?” Sarge asked.

  “Had that two hours ago,” Robin said. “But I’ll bring us all lunch later on at the safe house.”

  She then gave them the address and hung up.

  “Well, the morning is going better than I feared,” Sarge said, finishing his coffee and turning to get his coat.

  “A lot better,” Pickett said.

  Thankfully. Finally something was going right.

  24

  December 6th, 2016

  Las Vegas, Nevada

  * * *

  Sarge had just finished his ham and cheese omelet when Pickett pulled out her notebook and said, “I want to start this from the beginning.”

  “Make sense of what seems crazy?” Sarge asked, laughing.

  “With luck,” Pickett said.

  He could tell she was feeling better after a couple cups of coffee and breakfast and he most definitely was.

  He took out his flip notebook and pen and said, “Fire away.”

  “We have a young college girl by the name of Heather Winston who died locked in a room in August of 1990,” Pickett said. “Best guess at cause of death is heat.”

  “Check,” Sarge said. “And we figured out how she and whoever locked her in there got into the shuttered hotel.”

  “We know a week later Connie Downs returned,” Robin said, “claiming to be Heather and has lived as Heather for twenty-five years now.”

  “Check again,” Sarge said. “We do not know why or if she or someone else killed Heather’s parents when they started to get suspicious. Or if that was an accident.”

  “From there we have almost no information that is not tainted completely,” Robin said. “We think there might have been a party there the night Heather disappeared, but we have nothing but the dead Cinda’s word for that, who more than likely was lying to us.”

  Sarge nodded to that. Pickett was right, they needed to toss out completely every lead that Cinda had told them, including the idea that Heather had been Darling Black, the bookie and columnist.

  “We do know, for a fact, that there was an office in a well-protected storage unit with millions in a safe and a lot of files,” Pickett said.

  “And we know that someone rented the storage unit in Heather’s name,” Sarge said, “about a year before she vanished. It might have been Heather, it might have been someone else.”

  “We should know that when DNA and fingerprints come back from the storage unit,” Pickett said.

  Sarge nodded and wrote that down in his notebook as a reminder to check later in the day if Robin didn’t bring that information to lunch later.

  “We also know that Cinda wanted what was in the storage unit enough to let us go in and open it and take that risk and then attack police with a gang of thugs.”

  Sarge nodded. “And we know that someone else wanted to stop her enough to kill her.”

  Pickett stared at her notes. “Let me see if I can express what is not making sense to me at all.”

  “Fire away,” Sarge said.

  “I do not believe that Heather Winston had the ability to run a major gambling operation, do a major column, and build bombs to protect her stuff all while going to college and getting perfect grades without help. In fact, I’m betting she was only a front, if even that, for an operation run by someone called Darling Black.”

  “I agree with that,” Sarge said. He was bothered by exactly the same thing. It wasn’t that Heather might not have been a capable person, but over the decades he had learned to trust his instincts and everything they had learned for sure pointed to a far more experienced person than Heather.

  “We do not know Cinda’s part in any of this,” Pickett said, “including if she had a hand in killing Heather, which I have a hunch she did.”

  “Agreed,” Sarge said. “Do we know anything about her husband?”

  “Nothing,” Pickett said.

  Sarge wrote that in his notebook as a reminder to find out information about Cinda’ husband, if she had one.

  “So somewhere out there, clearly still living to this day as evidenced by the sniper,” Pickett said, “are the person or people responsible for the bomb, Heather’s death, and who know how much more.”

  Sarge nodded.

  “Did I hit the high points?” Pickett asked, looking up from her notebook and smiling.

  “You did,” Sarge said. “And I wouldn’t have the foggiest idea where to start with all this.”

  “The files,” Pickett said. “We start there and we might at least figure out what this is all about.”

  “I sure hope so,” Sarge said, “but first I’m going for some bread pudding.”

  “A serving for me as well, please,” Pickett said. “I’ll call Robin and tell her we are heading to the safe house in thirty minutes, see if Cavanaugh is there to meet us.”

  “Sounds perfect,” Sarge said.

  And then, not surprisingly after a couple near death experiences yesterday, the bread pudding tasted even better this morning.

  25

  December 6th, 2016

  Las Vegas, Nevada

  * * *

  Pickett and Sarge were met outside the front door of the safe house by Mike. The house was in a new subdivision looking down over the valley and the city beyond. To Pickett it looked like it would be fairly easy to defend.

  “Thank you for everything, Mike,” Sarge said.

  “Yes, thank you,” Pickett said.

  Mike shrugged. “It’s what I do and I’m really honored that Will and his people came to help so much
last night at the station and that the chief of police was clearing the path as well. The gang sure holds some sway in this city.”

  “I think the chief understands completely what you and your team did down in those tunnels a few months back,” Pickett said. “He’s not one to forget that you more than likely saved some cops’ lives, and more than likely did it again last night.”

  “Well,” Mike said, nodding. “It was nice and allows me and my men to keep doing our jobs.”

  “Which I plan to pay you handsomely for,” Sarge said.

  Mike laughed. “Oh, you’ll get my bill when this is done.”

  “So where did all the files end up and any surprises in the moving?” Pickett asked.

  “No surprises,” Mike said. “All the file cabinets are set up like they were in the unit against one wall near the dining room and the desk is just off the dining room in a small nook. The safe is in the garage and empty. Turned out there was sixteen-point-five million in the safe, all bills older than twenty-five years, so more than likely it had just sat there all that time.”

  “Another question we missed this morning,” Sarge said, taking out his notebook. “Where did the money come from?”

  Pickett nodded to that. With luck, they would find the answer to that in those files in there.

  “Anyone else here?” Sarge asked.

  “Cavanaugh said he was going to take a nap and would be back after lunch,” Mike said.

  “Robin is bringing lunch about then,” Pickett said. “Want me to bring something for you and your men?”

  “Thanks,” Mike said. “We’re fine. Have fun in all that paperwork.”

  With that he turned and headed up the sidewalk.

  Sarge led the way into the modern home. It was nicely furnished with brown cloth and oak furniture. It had light walls decorated in some sort of Native American style art and dark hardwood floors.