Smith's Monthly #31

by Smith, Dean Wesley

  Julia had on a light white blouse and a sports bra under it. She wore jeans and tennis shoes and a wide-brimmed white golf hat to keep the sun off her face.

  Lott had on a short-sleeved dress shirt, jeans, tennis shoes and a wide-brimmed Panama hat. They had expected to spend time in the sun in the desert to the north of Las Vegas, so they were both also smeared with sunscreen that smelled like they belonged on a beach instead of out in the desert.

  They might have looked silly and smelled funny, but he was in his mid-sixties and Julia in her late fifties and they were smart enough to take no chances. At their age, too much sun did not do well on either of them.

  The open grave in front of them was being carefully worked by a couple of Las Vegas police’s best forensic lab people. They were in white suits that had to be hot in the morning April sun in the desert. And they were being very careful to brush away sand and then shovel it into containers to be sifted.

  Lott could visualize the wonderful college graduation picture of Becky Penn. She had been a beautiful woman with a promising future. She vanished on March 3rd, 1990, on her way to a party to meet her boyfriend.

  It was her boyfriend, Paul Vaughan, that had reported to Becky’s mother three hours after they were supposed to meet that Becky had not shown up. He had called concerned that Becky had been sick or something.

  Her mother filed a missing person’s report.

  Nothing had ever come of it. The detective assigned to the case did some fine interviews, found nothing.

  Two months ago, Retired Detective Andor Williams brought the thin file on Becky Penn’s case to the weekly meeting of the Cold Poker Gang.

  Lott loved the weekly sessions in his card room in his house. Retired detectives got together, played poker, and talked about cold cases. Then during the week between games, they worked the cold cases.

  The Las Vegas Chief of Police had given the Cold Poker Gang special status to carry badges and guns because they had solved so many cold cases and wanted no credit for any of it.

  For the retired detectives, it was just the sense of feeling valued that mattered and continuing at their own pace, without paperwork, the job they had loved for decades.

  When Julia joined the group, she had retired from Reno because of a shattered bone in her leg where she had been shot. For almost two years, she was the only woman in the gang until six months ago two of Las Vegas’s best women detectives had retired. Both had taken a month vacation and then joined the group.

  Now the Cold Poker Gang often had seven or eight people at the table on a Tuesday night. There were eleven official members and every detective on the force liked helping them.

  At any given moment, the gang might have eight or nine cold cases they were working in some fashion or another.

  “Let’s sit in the car for awhile,” Julia said, turning from the grave.

  Lott agreed to that idea. The sun was getting warmer by the minute and there was absolutely nothing they could do to help in that shallow hole. Getting Becky Penn’s remains out of that hole would take time and painstaking work. Lott was just glad he wasn’t doing the work, especially in one of those white suits they wore these days.

  Lott got his white Cadillac SUV started and the air-conditioning running as Julia dug them both out a cold bottle of water from the ice chest sitting on the back seat.

  Then they just sat in silence for a moment, cooling down and watching the two men in the shallow hole work.

  Lott was always surprised at how wonderful cold water tasted after being out in the Nevada sun for a while.

  “I can’t believe we found her,” Julia said after a moment.

  “We’re still not one hundred percent it is her,” Lott said.

  And they weren’t, but that was just a technical issue now. They had figured out where she was buried exactly from notes in a journal left by her boyfriend, Paul Vaughan, when he killed himself twenty years ago.

  From what they could tell when they got the journal, still stored with Paul’s things by his sister, that he and Becky had gotten into a fight and he had killed her.

  The journal went on to give exact directions to where he had buried her and then what he had done to cover his crime.

  Lott had found the writing creepy. Impassionate while being angry. Paul blamed Becky’s death on her, taking no responsibility at all.

  Lott had been upset that the guy was dead. But if he hadn’t been dead, there was no telling if they ever would have solved Becky’s cold case. They were lucky in a couple of ways. That he was dead and that his sister had just stored what few things he owned in boxes in her basement.

  But something felt off to both Julia and Lott. And Lott couldn’t put his finger on it at all. First, they had no idea why a killer like Paul would write down what he had done, then give exact directions to the grave.

  And his sister had told them that Paul hated to write anything, let alone in a journal.

  But it seemed, at least on the surface, that Paul had started the journal when he and Becky started dating and they had confirmed with Becky’s mother some of the dates and times in the journal as best as she could remember.

  So it all seemed real enough.

  The second thing that seemed off was no one knew what had happened to Becky’s red Toyota. The car had simply vanished and Paul made no mention of it in his strange journal. And he should have. Getting rid of that car had to be a lot harder than burying her in the desert.

  Something was off on all of this, but darned if Lott could figure out what was bothering him about it all.

  Then, in front of them, one of the two men in white suits working in the shallow grave stood up, turned and waved for Lott and Julia to come over.

  Then both men climbed out of the shallow grave and one headed for their vehicle, pulling off his white suit as he went.

  “Something went wrong,” Julia said as both she and Lott climbed out of the car.

  The other man who had waved them over had pulled off the top of his white suit as well and was working on a bottle of water. His face was covered in sweat.

  “What did you find?” Lott asked.

  The guy just pointed for them to look into the grave and kept drinking.

  It took a moment for Lott to see it, but then he did.

  Nowhere in any report did it say that Becky had three arms.

  “There’s another body with her,” Julia said softly.

  “Shit,” Lott said. “Just shit.”

  TWO

  April 12th, 2020

  Las Vegas, Nevada

  Lott set the bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken on his kitchen table while Julia pulled out three bottles of water from the fridge. Andor had just parked outside in the driveway and was going to join them for lunch.

  The smell of the chicken filled Lott’s remodeled kitchen. In the remodel two years ago, he had put in the best counters, all new cabinets and flooring, and new appliances. But the floor plan of the kitchen was exactly as it had been when he and his wife had lived here.

  His wife of thirty years had died of cancer almost five years before and it wasn’t until Julia walked into his life that he could ever imagine enjoying the company of another woman. But now he did.

  So now he and Julia and Andor, Lott’s former partner back on the force before they both had retired to take care of sick wives, formed a team.

  And outside of the nights with the Cold Poker Gang playing cards, the three of them often met over KFC in Lott’s kitchen to talk over cases.

  But Lott had a hunch today wasn’t going to be much of a good lunch, no matter how wonderful the bucket of KFC smelled. The topic was Becky Penn’s case.

  Lott spread around three paper plates and Julia got some forks for pulling the hot chicken apart and some spoons for the sides that came with the bucket. They didn’t often eat much of the sides. All three of them just loved the fresh chicken.

  Lott came in the back door, his solid frame and balding head moving like a bull. He had a cold
towel around his neck and was sweating.

  Julia handed him a fresh towel to wipe off his face and head and neck, then she sat next to Lott at the table.

  Andor dropped some files at the back of the table and all three of them dug into the chicken.

  Finally, after pretty much demolishing his first piece and starting on a second, Lott couldn’t take it any longer.

  He looked at Andor. “Well, was one of them Becky Penn?”

  When the other body was found in Becky’s grave, the case had reverted back to the regular younger detectives. By the end of the day, the techs doing the digging had found a total of four bodies in that grave, all stacked on one another with a very thin layer of dirt between them.

  From what Lott had heard, they were now doing ground radar sweeps around the grave to see if others were buried close by.

  Paul Vaughan’s journal had led them to the location, but he had said nothing about killing and burying other women.

  Andor nodded, wiping chicken grease off his mouth with a paper towel. “It was Becky on top,” Andor said. “Confirmed by remnants of what she was wearing, hair color, and the remains of her id buried with her. They will run some DNA tests, but no one is doubting it is her.”

  “And the other three?” Julia asked.

  “They don’t have a clue,” Andor said. “But they are treating all three as live murder cases at the moment.”

  “Three?” Lott asked.

  Again Andor nodded. “They are closing Becky’s case. Seems we solved another cold case.”

  Lott glanced at Julia who was shaking her head. He felt the same way. Becky’s case was far, far from closed.

  Andor just looked at them. “We’re out of this one for now. You both know that, don’t you?”

  Lott knew they were. As long as the younger detectives considered the three other bodies open and live murder cases, there was nothing anyone retired in the Cold Poker Gang could do.

  And actually, by doing anything, they might jeopardize the entire existence of the Cold Poker Gang.

  They worked cold cases. Period.

  That was the firm rule the Chief of Police had put on them.

  Becky’s case was officially closed and the other three were live murder cases.

  The Cold Poker Gang was done with them.

  Julia was nodding, and not looking happy.

  Lott just sat there, not even interested in another piece of cold chicken.

  “This day just sucks,” Lott said.

  “Yeah, it does,” Andor said. “But we have to give the hotshot young detectives a crack at this first. Remember, we were young once as well.”

  “Speak for yourself,” Julia said. “I’m still young, thank you very much.”

  Lott and Andor both laughed.

  Julia smiled. “Not sure how I should take that laughing.”

  “Oh, oh,” Andor said, winking at Lott.

  “So what are the files?” Julia asked, indicating the folding files that Andor had at the top of the table.

  “I brought them for storage here,” he said, starting into another piece of chicken.

  Lott laughed at that. He knew what they were without even asking. After the decades of the two of them working together, Lott knew how his partner thought.

  Lott had Julia hand them to him and then without looking at their contents, he stood and put them in an empty cabinet above the fridge.

  Storage.

  “All four files for the bodies in the grave?” Julia asked, starting to catch on.

  Andor nodded. “I’ll get more from downtown and update them as the young hotshots find information.”

  Lott laughed and sat down and took another piece of chicken.

  “And if they solve the cases?” Julia asked.

  Lott laughed. “If they solve them like they think we solved Becky’s murder, then we go to work on all four of the cases.”

  “And if they don’t solve them, then we go to work on the cases,” Andor said, smiling. “But that’s going to be years down the road I’m afraid.”

  Lott nodded. “So the day officially sucks. We are officially fired from these cases.”

  “We move on,” Julia said, nodding and taking another piece of chicken.

  “We move on,” Andor said, wiping chicken juice from his face again.

  “There are no shortages of cold cases for us to solve,” Julia said.

  “Amen to that,” Andor said.

  Lott knew that was the truth. But he just hated failing, hated having a case taken from him, hated everything about this.

  The Cold Poker Gang hadn’t really solved a cold case. They had just found more murders that, more than likely, would turn into cold cases in a year or two.

  Lott knew that all three of them hated failing. They didn’t volunteer their time in their retirement to fail.

  But sometimes it happened. Sometimes even the Cold Poker Gang failed.

  Or, as they say in poker, you can’t win every hand, even on good nights.

  But down the road, way down the road, they just might get to play this hand again.

  Sometimes a lost gold mine offers up more than just gold.

  And sometimes a secret should remain a secret.

  A science fiction short story that ranges from early Idaho to the future, telling the story of family and a lost gold mine.

  A version of this story first appeared in The Secret Prophecies of Nostradamus, edited by Cynthia Sternau and Martin H. Greenberg.

  PLAYING IN THE STREET

  ONE

  Moscow, Idaho

  July, 2030

  A fine layer of gray dust covered everything. Old cars, rusted, tires flat, lined the street like a huge metal fence. Every car coated with the dust. No animal footprints, not even that of a cat crawling on the hood and sleeping in the sun. Nothing since the gray dust fell.

  Litter had spilled out of a garbage can in front of one house and was now glued in place by the dust. The trees were dead, black skeletons, making the street appear to be in the grip of winter all year long. A stop light at the street’s end, three dark round eyes in the sky, watched the complete lack of movement on the quiet suburban scene. It watched the mailboxes and the child’s bike. It watched the basketball hoop above the garage door of the split-level and the bare areas that had once been green yards.

  Before. The evidence of before was all along the street. It lined the street. It was the street. There had been a time of life here before the dust had settled over it. The dust had fallen at night, then it had rained and the dust had become hard, like a child’s clay exposed to the air too long. It still looked mostly like a layer of gray dust, but it never altered. Not even the winter snows and spring melts could move or change it. And there was nothing anyone could do to clean it up. The dust was there to stay for centuries to come, of that there was no doubt.

  The unblinking glass eyes of the old, rusted cars watched silently as the dust held its stranglehold on the neighborhood.

  Now there was only silence.

  Now there was only now.

  And dust.

  I am always careful to walk in my own footsteps. The boots of my protective suit leave large, patterned prints in the top thin layer of dust and I am careful on this street to match those prints step for step. Not doing so would feel as if I was tearing up a piece of my own history.

  I always park my government van near the old grocery store and start down the street under the stoplight, keeping to the inside of the sidewalk. Seven houses down from the light is a light blue, two-story house, with a two-car garage. An average house for this neighborhood and this part of the little city.

  But this house is special.

  Through the door is an open wood foyer. Beyond that a plush living room and then beyond that a dining room with oak tables, dishes in glass cabinets, and an empty fruit bowl in the middle of the table. Everything looks so dated, yet so familiar, as if I have just stepped into a time machine and gone back twenty years.

&nb
sp; The rugs are rotted, the drapes hang partially ripped from the hooks by age and their own weight, and the normal dust of the years gives everything a washed out look. But the living room is still a beautiful sight to me; comfortable and yet elegant.

  There is a brick fireplace against the wall opposite the front door. On the mantel of that fireplace is a picture, faded slightly, but still clear under the glass of its frame.

  It is a picture of three children playing in the street in front of the house. Playing a game of catch with a football between the rows of parked cars and in the small green front yards. In the background beyond the stoplight a car is caught in the frozen motion of the now of the picture. There is no dust, so the colors of the picture are bright, vibrant in their life.

  The three children are smiling and the cars are mostly clean. It is a picture of a street that feels like home. The children feel comfortable playing there. I remember, since I am in that picture. I am the one with the football. I was twelve. I was comfortable and happy and alive, even though at the time I never thought of it in those terms.

  The picture was taken many summers before Grandpa died and everything changed.

  But I remember the time when the picture was taken, everything about life seemed enjoyable along that street. I give the street far more good times than bad. But that too may be nothing more than my memory coloring and adding to the scene in the picture. Sometimes I wonder.

  Beside that picture on the fireplace mantel is another picture. This picture is an older one, more faded, of a young couple standing on the steps in front of the same house. She is dressed as a bride. He a groom.

  Both are smiling and his arm is around her waist, holding her while she holds a large bouquet of flowers. In the reflection of the picture window behind and to the right of them is a clear picture of the street. People are standing in the driveway and on the sidewalk beside the unplanted yard. There are two empty fields across the street where houses are not yet built. The street and the neighborhood are both very young, almost as young as the smiling couple.