Ace High

by Dean Wesley Smith

  Light poured in from all the open windows and the ceilings were high in the living room and dining room area. Very nice and modern. Pickett could see a large kitchen to one side and to the back.

  The old file cabinets looked completely out of place next to a massive oak table in the dining room.

  “At least we’re going to have room to spread out and look at stuff,” Sarge said.

  Pickett and Sarge both took off their jackets and left them over the back of a chair near the front door, then they both went to the file cabinets.

  Sarge walked right up to the first one and pulled open the top drawer.

  Then he shook his head and let out a breath. “Somehow still afraid it was going to explode.”

  “I was thinking the same thing,” Pickett said.

  Pickett moved up beside him and studied the numbering on the files. None of it seemed to be in any kind of order, almost random numbers, but Pickett had a hunch that was far from the case.

  “We’re going to need to find the key to the organization for all of these files, or at least work it out somehow,” Sarge said.

  He opened the first file and they both looked at the contents. Pickett was surprised. The folder held an accounting ledger, detailed handwritten notes, what looked to be contracts, and a couple bills of sale that seemed to have been notarized.

  Sarge closed that file and picked another about three-quarters of the way back into the drawer. Same thing exactly. Accounting ledger, notes, contracts, and bills of sale for something.

  Pickett wasn’t sure what she was expecting, but it sure wasn’t anything like that.

  There were different names on the bills of sale, different names on the contracts, and different names on the accounting ledger. Only the odd number on the file seemed to hold any meaning as to why these files were in the same folder.

  “We got to find the master list for these numbers if there is one,” Pickett said, turning to go look in the big desk tucked in an alcove off to one side of the dining area.

  She opened the big drawer with the ledgers and took out the top one.

  Inside it looked more like a diary instead of a ledger. It was going to take them some time to read them all.

  So she and Sarge moved them from the desk to the big oak dining table, making sure to keep them in the same order they were stacked in the drawer.

  There was nothing else in that drawer.

  They went through the other desk drawers, carefully putting the contents in places on the table.

  No sign of any kind of numbering system at all.

  Pickett glanced back at the files. “That numbering system had to be easy to remember, yet hide the true nature of the files from anyone who got in.”

  Sarge nodded. “But with something like that, even when young, I would have been deathly afraid of forgetting the system.”

  “So there has to be something to tell us what the numbers mean,” Pickett said.

  They went back to the desk and completely pulled out each drawer, making sure there was nothing taped to the bottom of the drawer or that the drawer had a false bottom in it.

  Nothing.

  Sarge picked up the wooden chair that had been in front of the desk in the storage unit and made sure nothing was taped under the seat. Then he tested the wood in the legs to make sure nothing was hollow there. Solid.

  Then Sarge got down on his back and using his phone as a flashlight, slid in under the desk, looking for anything there.

  “Nothing,” he said as Pickett helped him back to his feet.

  She was disappointed that the solution hadn’t come easy. Nothing about this case seemed to be coming easy or straightforward.

  Pickett turned with Sarge to look at the piles of stuff on the table and the file cabinets that were all full.

  Pickett knew the organizing system had to be detailed out in all that stuff somewhere.

  But where? At that moment it seemed like they were looking for a needle in a very large haystack.

  And there was no doubt in Pickett’s mind they were going to need help.

  26

  December 6th, 2016

  Las Vegas, Nevada

  * * *

  Sarge felt disappointment that they hadn’t found the key to the strange file numbering system in the desk. It had to be somewhere, but the question was where.

  He and Pickett went over and each picked up a journal. The journals looked like they had come out of a stationery store, with green cloth cardboard covers.

  At the top of the inside cover the person writing in the journal had put a number and it was circled. And the pages were all numbered.

  Sarge sort of leafed through the book, not really reading, but noticing that some entries were only one page and other entries went on for a while. And the dates seemed to jump all over the place.

  Suddenly it dawned on him what he was seeing.

  He was holding journal number two and an entry about a purchase of a car started on page forty-seven.

  “What journal number do you have?” he asked Pickett.

  “This has a five inside the front cover.

  “Go to a page where an entry starts,” Sarge said.

  She flipped quickly a ways into the journal and stopped.

  “Page thirty-two,” she said.

  Sarge stood and moved over to the first file cabinet and opened the top drawer. The hanging files seemed to be numbered randomly in two, three, or four digit numbers.

  “Still missing something,” Sarge said. He went back over and picked up the journal numbered with a one and looked at the first entry. It was dated September, 1989. Just under a year from the time Heather was locked in that room. She would have been just starting her first year in college.

  He went back over to the first file cabinet and Pickett stood and followed him. He opened the top drawer and looked at the first file.

  921.

  “Got it,” he said. “The ledgers are the key. He pulled out the file labeled 921 and motioned that Picket should join him back at the table.

  “9th month, page two, first journal,” Sarge said.

  He opened the file, then opened the journal. The entry in the journal matched the names in the paperwork in the file.

  Pickett kissed him on the cheek. “Damn, what’s it like to be so smart.”

  “Not smart,” Sarge said, “just lucky. Especially finding you.”

  She kissed him again and laughed. “That was pretty lame, but I loved it.”

  “Good,” he said, smiling at her. “Got lucky again.”

  She laughed and they set about testing his labeling theory. It seemed that the person who had done the journal always went through the entire cycle of nineteen journals with an entry before starting over.

  So the second file was the day after the first file, but the journal entry was in the second journal, second page. And so on until the 20th entry was the second entry in the first journal.

  They tested that with about a dozen files and the system held.

  So Sarge wanted to see now what the last entry said, the last file said, right before she went to that hotel. Assuming, of course, that it really was Heather Winston who had done the journals.

  It took them a moment to find, but the last dated entry was not in August when Heather was locked in that hotel room, but on December 20th of the same year.

  The entry gave the date and then simply said, “New car smell turning rancid. Took twenty-five of the forty-one. Shutting down for now.”

  Either Heather hadn’t been locked in that hotel in August when she vanished and was replaced by Connie, but instead went into the shuttered hotel after December twentieth, or these journals had been done by someone else.

  All Sarge could do was stare at the entry and wonder exactly what it meant. Like everything in this case, nothing was making sense.

  27

  December 6th, 2016

  Las Vegas, Nevada

  * * *

  Pickett couldn’t believe that la
st entry and when it was done. Something was very off here, of that there was no doubt.

  “We need to start over and check everything,” Pickett said after a moment of silence while they both thought about what that last entry could mean.

  “I agree,” Sarge said. “Everything. Every detail, right from the first missing person’s report on down.”

  “So we start where we should have started,” Pickett said, “right now before we go into these files. Who was the detective on the missing person’s case for Heather Winston and why didn’t it get closed?”

  “And who was the detective on the Connie Downs missing person case,” Sarge said. “And the detective on the mummified body in the hotel. Let’s find that out and go talk with them.”

  Pickett nodded. “Not sure why we missed that step on these cases.”

  “We don’t miss any step now,” Sarge said.

  Pickett felt right about that. They had built all of this on misinformation and bad data. That just made her angry at herself.

  They now needed to correct some of the bad information and get on a track to solving all this. And maybe then they could dig into those files.

  Sarge picked up the phone and called Andor who could get to all the original files at headquarters quickly. Sarge put the phone on speaker.

  Andor answered without a hello. Instead he said, “You guys had some fun last night I hear.”

  “Just testing out the possible new recruit,” Sarge said. “Cavanaugh did fine. A little training and he might be able to keep up with us.”

  Both Andor and Pickett laughed.

  “Just glad you guys are all right,” Andor said.

  “Thanks, we are too,” Sarge said. “But this case has gotten so twisted, we figured we would get back to the beginning on this. Could you get us the names of the different detectives who handled the Heather Winston disappearance in August of 1990, the Connie Downs disappearance in August of 1990, and the discovery of the body in the Landmark in the spring of 1991.”

  “I was headed down to headquarters in thirty minutes,” Andor said. “I’ll look it up first and call you back.”

  “Also check if you wouldn’t mind,” Pickett said, “how they got the DNA from the mummified body and also what they did with the body and the personal stuff. And also why they even bothered getting DNA at that point in time.”

  “No problem,” Andor said. “Watch your backs on this one.”

  “Mike and his team already are,” Sarge said.

  “Good,” Andor said.

  Then he clicked off.

  At that moment Robin came in carrying three bags of wonderfully smelling hamburgers and fries. Pickett realized she was hungry.

  “Making progress?”

  “Actually yes,” Sarge said.

  Robin quickly put the food in the kitchen and came back out.

  Sarge explained to Robin what they had discovered about the numbering system.

  “Wow, simple but effective,” Robin said. “Especially if those journals and most of the stuff in those files had been blown up. The remaining stuff would be useless without the entire picture.”

  “Exactly,” Sarge said.

  “So you got any news?” Pickett asked. “And if so, can you tell us about it over lunch. My stomach just decided to start rumbling.”

  “I got news and I got lunch,” Robin said.

  The kitchen in the modern house was just off the dining area and it had a large table looking out over a garden. Picket said she didn’t feel comfortable at the moment just sitting in the window like that, so they moved to the counter and sat on the stools there.

  “So what’s the news?” Pickett asked after they each got started eating the fantastic burgers and fries. If Cavanaugh didn’t hurry up, one of them might eat his as well.

  “Got back all the preliminary results on the fingerprints and DNA in the storage unit,” Robin said. “It all belongs to Heather Winston.”

  Pickett just stopped eating and stared at Sarge, who had a burger halfway to his mouth, frozen in front of him.

  “So who was the body in the Landmark?” he asked after a moment.

  Robin looked at him, then at Pickett.

  “I’ll get the final file,” Pickett said. She retrieved the file that was dated in December and let Robin read it.

  Robin looked at her, stunned.

  “We have a mummified body that couldn’t get fingerprints,” Sarge said, “and somehow, for some reason, someone took DNA from the mummified body in 1991. And kept that on file.”

  “And that body would have needed hot summer months to mummify like that,” Pickett said.

  “We are missing something major here,” Robin said.

  Pickett could only nod to that and go back to eating.

  And what she really wanted to know was who exactly was this Heather Winston?

  And where was she still living? Because Pickett now had no doubt that body in that hotel was not Heather Winston.

  28

  December 6th, 2016

  Las Vegas, Nevada

  * * *

  Sarge just sat eating his burger, trying to let the details of what they knew settle into his mind. He could feel that part of the solution was right in front of him, but he couldn’t spot it.

  “So what we think happened,” Robin said, pushing the remains of her hamburger and fries away, “is that Heather Wilson killed someone in that hotel room, planted her own DNA somehow, and then replaced herself at home with another girl.”

  “No way could she do it alone,” Pickett said.

  Suddenly Sarge realized where they had been making their mistake. They had never checked Heather Wilson’s real birth certificate.

  Suddenly all the pieces clicked into place. If his hunch was right, that is.

  “Robin,” Sarge said, “I need you to get some information as quickly as you can.”

  Robin shrugged and pulled out her notebook.

  “Any background information, including birth certificates and so on of all four of the Winston family, including the brother. Including where they got their money and so on.”

  She wrote that down.

  “You got an idea?” Pickett asked, smiling at him.

  “If I’m right,” Sarge said, “all four of the Winston family are part of all this.”

  “So why would anyone kill the parents?” Robin asked.

  “I’m betting they didn’t die,” Sarge said. “Either look-alikes in the car or faked deaths covered up by enough money.”

  Pickett sat back, looking stunned at what he was saying. “The brother looked much older than his age, didn’t he?”

  Sarge nodded.

  “So who planted the fake DNA on the body?” Robin asked.

  “We have Andor checking on the detectives on all three cases,” Sarge said. “When we get the names you might want to run some financials on the detectives from the time period if you can.”

  Robin nodded and picked up her phone. A moment later she was talking with Will and telling him what they needed and how fast they needed it. And to try to trace the deaths of the parents and if any bodies or another couple went missing about the same time.

  At that moment Sarge’s phone rang. It was Andor.

  “A detective by the name of Saul Sawyer was on the body and responsible for pulling the DNA,” Andor said. “He was shot and killed a year later. They never found the shooter.”

  Sarge felt his stomach twist into a knot.

  Sarge quickly told Andor what they were thinking and told him to cover his tracks carefully.

  “Had a hunch after last night that would be the case,” Andor said. “I want in and got the information without alerting anyone or even triggering any warnings. One of Doc’s computer people helped me make sure.”

  Sarge let out the breath he was holding. “Great thinking. We’ll be back with you as soon as we figure out what all these files are about.”

  “Just be damn careful,” Andor said and hung up.

 
; Sarge relayed what he had found out from Andor and Robin immediately called Will back to tell him to cover their tracks even more and look into Detective Saul Sawyer’s financials.

  “So you are thinking the entire Winston family thing was a cover?” Pickett asked.

  “Sure starting to feel that way,” Sarge said. “With only her fingerprints in that unit, that last entry, all that money, and three suspicious deaths, one that we know was covered, it sure feels that way.”

  “And if you are right,” Robin said, “there is a chance that all four of the Winstons are still alive and out there.”

  “We need to get some eyes on the brother,” Sarge said.

  Robin nodded. “Will’s people can do that. I want to keep Mike focusing on keeping this place safe for the moment.”

  “I agree,” Pickett said.

  Sarge completely agreed.

  Robin was about to call Will when he called her.

  She listened for a moment, shaking her head.

  Sarge just watched, more worried about news than he could remember being before.

  Finally Robin told Will about getting some eyes on the brother and then nodded.

  Then she hung up.

  “Will already has a team watching the brother,” Robin said. “He hasn’t surfaced yet today.”

  Sarge nodded. He had been afraid of that. This entire group or pretend family might now be so far underground as to be impossible to find.

  “The family itself didn’t exist before Heather went to her senior year of high school,” Pickett said. “Their records show them moving into town, but that was the moment all the records started. Will thinks they are all fake.”

  “So they came into town, set up whatever was going on in those file cabinets, made a ton of money fairly quickly, and then faked their deaths over the next two years.”

  “The brother didn’t,” Pickett said. “Why not?”

  Sarge knew the answer to that. “They actually didn’t leave, that’s why.”