Kill Game: A Cold Poker Gang Mystery

by Smith, Dean Wesley

  It was almost six in the evening and the sun was low in the sky by the time she finished out along the highway. Most of the gas stations and grocery stores on the receipts were gone or replaced by newer stations. But the addresses kept everything in a pattern about a mile long.

  Clearly he had mostly stayed in this area while here in Las Vegas, but there was little near the area except older subdivisions and a few small casinos and old highway motels that she doubted looked much better in 1992.

  And since there were no receipts for a hotel, she didn’t bother with them.

  But she did cruise a few of the streets of the subdivisions in her Jeep SUV, just looking for anything that might strike her. All the homes were clearly already old in 1992. And there were also a number of older apartment buildings. Most of the neighborhood just looked tired and rundown.

  Maybe Stan had family here?

  Or a girlfriend?

  At the time, Julia had no idea her husband had even came to Las Vegas. And he claimed he hated gambling. But right now she didn’t trust anything he had told her.

  Or her memory for that matter.

  At six, she headed for the Bellagio and the café there to meet Lott for dinner. She really liked talking with him and he seemed to enjoy her company as well.

  There was clearly a connection between them and she had no plans on trying to stop that connection. In fact, she wanted to spend even more time with him as this went along.

  It took her almost a half hour to get from the Boulder Highway to The Strip and parked and into the Café Bellagio. She was stunned as she walked in that Lott was already there sitting with his daughter, Annie, and Doc Hill, Annie’s boyfriend.

  Doc and Annie had clearly already eaten, but Lott was just sipping on an iced tea.

  As she approached, Annie looked up and smiled. “Detective Rogers,” she said.

  Doc stood up and shook her hand, smiling. Julia wasn’t sure exactly what to say other than “Just Julia.”

  These two were two of the best poker players in the world and she had watched them on television and studied their games before even deciding to move to Las Vegas.

  They both were tanned from all the time on the river in central Idaho this summer, and Doc was about as handsome as they came. Together, Doc and Annie made a striking couple. Both tall, young, and in great physical shape. They both seemed to just radiate youth and attractiveness, even though neither of them tried for that effect at all.

  Julia suddenly felt like a little girl in front of two major movie stars, even though she had talked to them before and Annie had told her about the Cold Poker Gang and introduced Julia to Lott. It was one thing to talk with a person while sitting next to them in a poker game, another to talk with them away from the game.

  Annie gave her a quick hug and then she took Doc’s hand and said, “Time to go.”

  “Don’t rush off on my account,” Julia said.

  “Dinner break on the tournament is almost over,” Annie said. “I’m short-stacked so I might be back sooner than not.”

  Now Julia realized what they were doing. It was the regular weekly thousand-dollar buy-in hold’em tournament. She hadn’t yet played in it because the entrance fee was still a little high for her budget. And with the focus on the case, she hadn’t played any poker besides with the Cold Poker Gang for almost a week.

  “We’ll be here for a while,” Lott said, smiling at his daughter. “Have fun.”

  “Will do,” Annie said.

  “Detectives,” Doc said, nodding to both of them as he turned and went with his girlfriend back toward the casino and the poker room beyond.

  “Those two are really something,” Julia said as she settled into a chair facing across the table from Lott.

  “And rich,” Lott said, laughing. “They fly all over the world in a private jet and you ought to see the home they are building to the north of town. Plus they have a home up in Boise and Doc’s father’s home here in town.”

  “Yeah, I heard Doc’s father was killed a year or so ago,” Julia said.

  Lott nodded. “Annie hadn’t gone full-time poker yet and was still working part-time as a detective. That case is the reason they met. It was her last official case. Although, the two of them do some freelance work for the police at times.”

  “We’ll, I’m glad she introduced me to you,” Julia said, smiling at Lott.

  He smiled back. “I’m glad she did as well.”

  They might have sat there just smiling at each other like a couple of kids for the next half hour, but the waiter broke the moment by starting to clean up Doc and Annie’s dishes and asked Julia if she wanted something to drink.

  She hoped to have more of those moments with Lott in the near future. She was really, really attracted to him.

  And for the first time in a very long time, that felt wonderful.

  CHAPTER NINE

  September, 2014

  Bellagio Hotel and Casino

  Las Vegas, Nevada

  “SO, ANY LUCK?” Rogers asked him after the waiter had taken her drink order and left with Annie and Doc’s dishes. She seemed to be in complete detective mode, leaving the personal out of this case for the moment.

  “There were a lot of dark-green 1989 Dodge Caravans in Nevada in 1992,” he said, shaking his head. “And none registered to a Rocha.”

  “So who owned the car?” she asked.

  He sighed. “Damn good question. They are sending me a list tomorrow of names of people who owned that kind of van in 1992. I limited the results to the Las Vegas area, which will cut it down a lot to start, but it might not help.”

  “I have a hunch we can limit it even more,” she said, smiling at him.

  He loved her smile, but this time it seemed she had some real information she very much wanted to tell him.

  “Those receipts were all around a few subdivision and apartment complexes out on the Boulder Highway. Unless Andor comes up with a van that was impounded, my gut sense is the van never moved from that neighborhood after Stan’s death.”

  Lott felt a slight jolt of excitement that he always felt when there was movement on a case. There was a real chance that car might lead them right to some great leads as to what happened to Stan Rocha.

  “Let’s find out,” Lott said, grabbing his cell phone and calling Andor while smiling at Rogers.

  “Yeah,” Andor said as he picked up his phone. He never answered a phone in any other way.

  “Anything on the impound?”

  “Nada,” Andor said. “You?”

  “Nothing registered to Rocha,” Lott said, “but tomorrow I got a list of that type of van registered to others in this area coming. And the receipts led Rogers to a clear neighborhood area out on the highway.”

  “Perfect,” Andor said. “Call me in the morning if anything comes together and we’ll do a house call.”

  “Got it,” Lott said, hanging up and smiling at Rogers.

  “I assume he found nothing on the impound,” Rogers said.

  “He didn’t,” Lott said. “But he thinks we might be doing a house call tomorrow.”

  “Wouldn’t that be nice,” Rogers said, smiling a smile that Lott knew he would never tire of.

  The next two hours were wonderful, with easy talk about both of their careers, her now-deceased parents, and even how she met Rocha.

  And she got Lott talking about Connie through desserts of apple pie for him and a small bowl of vanilla ice cream with chocolate for her. It felt odd to talk about Connie to a woman he was interested in, but at the same time it felt natural. Connie had been his life for a very long time. If he and Julia had any chance of any kind of relationship, he had to be comfortable talking about Connie, and Julia had to be comfortable with that as well.

  And she seemed to be completely comfortable.

  They were still talking about Connie when Annie joined them, clearly surprised they were talking about her mother.

  “You get into the money?” Rogers asked as Annie s
at down and indicated to the nearby waiter to bring her a cup of hot black tea.

  “Got my entry fee back at tenth is all,” Annie said, shaking her head. “Doc is chewing up the tournament as he often does, huge stacks of chips. He took me out like I was so much trash.”

  “Wow,” Lott said, “that sounds harsh.”

  His daughter laughed in a way that reminded him a lot of her mother. “At a poker table, there is no such thing as being nice to another player.”

  “I’m learning that on the Tuesday night games,” Rogers said, also laughing.

  “And taking all of our money at the same time,” Lott said.

  Annie patted his hand. “Ahh, too bad, dad. She’s going to make you guys raise your game.”

  “She already has,” he said, smiling at Rogers, who smiled back.

  “So what case are you two working on that’s keeping you out so late?”

  “We’re trying to figure out who killed my ex-husband here in Vegas back in 1992,” Rogers said.

  Annie just looked at her, blinking.

  Lott laughed. It wasn’t often Annie could be surprised, but that statement had done it, especially Rogers’ matter-of-fact manner. Annie had lost her well-known poker face, not something she often let slip for any reason.

  “It was my first case as a detective,” Lott said. “You were about ten.”

  “The Rocha case?” Annie asked, glancing at Lott first, then back at Rogers.

  Annie was showing her few years as a detective and knowledge of her father’s cases. But Lott was surprised she remembered the name of the case. Granted, he had talked about it at times. But he hadn’t realized Annie knew about it as well.

  Rogers nodded. “I kept my maiden name and we were separated when he was killed. Never was much of a marriage.”

  Annie shook her head. “Didn’t realize you were that cop from Reno. I made a slight run at that case in a slow week about a year after I got my shield,” she said. “Got almost nowhere. You two having any luck?”

  “Almost nowhere?” Lott asked, glancing at Rogers who looked as puzzled as he felt.

  Annie nodded. “I went back into the evidence and pulled samples off the stuff they got from under his fingernails. It was mostly rock and dirt particles found to the north and west of the city. It was as if he had been digging out in the desert for some reason. He had the same material on his pants and shirt. All that led nowhere.”

  Lott nodded and smiled at his daughter. “Good thinking.”

  “Reports are under a separate file name, I think the file is titled Rocha two. Dated my second year.”

  “We’ll get it,” Lott said.

  “Frustrating case,” Annie said. “You guys make any headway?”

  “Looking for his van,” Rogers said.

  Annie frowned. “I checked the DMV for Nevada and California to see if he had a car. Nothing popped.”

  “Under another name, clearly,” Lott said. “We know the make of the van and we have an area off the Boulder Highway he stayed when in town. And we know he traveled from Reno to Winnemucca to Boise and then to Salt Lake and then here.”

  “But we have no idea why,” Rogers said.

  “You guys are making some progress,” Annie said, nodding. “A lot more than I managed, that’s for sure. Let me know if there’s anything Doc and I can do to help.”

  “Oh, trust me, we will,” Lott said, smiling at his daughter.

  From there Rogers asked Annie a question about her mother and Lott sat back and listened to his daughter tell a woman he was interested in about his wonderful departed wife.

  It didn’t get any weirder or more uncomfortable than that.

  CHAPTER TEN

  September, 2014

  Boulder Highway

  Las Vegas, Nevada

  AT TEN IN THE MORNING, Julia had just finished her morning workout routine, a shower and breakfast, when Lott called.

  “Andor and I will meet you in the parking lot of the grocery store on the northeast corner of Tropicana and the Boulder Highway.”

  “How long?” she asked.

  “I’m leaving now,” Lott said. “Twenty minutes.”

  “Got it,” she said, and hung up.

  She had an apartment down near the university off The Strip, so she was the closest to the corner than any of the three of them.

  She strapped on her old badge and put her gun holster on and under her arm. The Cold Poker Gang had permission from the Las Vegas Police Chief, even though retired, to flash badges and carry their guns, since they were investigating murder cases for the department. That privilege came, Lott had told her, from them closing more cold cases than anyone in the history of the department. Which in turn gave the chief a good name and record.

  She reached the parking lot first and parked her Jeep SUV off to one side so she could see the others when they came in. This was the neighborhood she had investigated yesterday, so clearly they had a hit on an address for the van.

  She could feel the excitement building a little and scolded herself to remain professional. She doubted the van would be around still, but maybe they could get lucky and find someone who remembered who owned it.

  She got out into the early morning heat when she saw Lott’s Cadillac SUV pull in. It was only eighty degrees, but still felt warm to her for this early in the morning. It was going to be past ninety again today.

  She had put on her standard work clothes; dark slacks, white blouse, and business jacket. The jacket hid her gun nicely. She had her hair pulled back and tied out of the way.

  Lott pulled up beside her and motioned she should get into the back.

  Andor was already in the front seat. Lott must have picked him up on the way.

  “This the area you explored last night?” Andor asked as she closed the door.

  “Square in the center of all the receipt addresses,” she said, settling with relief into the air conditioning coolness.

  “Great,” Lott said, turning and smiling at her with that smile she was starting to like so much. “The van is registered to a Denise Miller about four blocks from here.”

  “Is registered?” Julia asked, her stomach twisting.

  “Right from 1989 onward,” Andor said as Lott took them out of the parking lot and away from the highway ‘into the very old and rough subdivision to the east.

  She forced herself to sit back and not jump to any conclusions. She focused on studying the houses. They almost all needed paint, none had any more than rocks and weeds for yards, and many of them had cars up on blocks in the driveways. A few of the homes were boarded up with sad-looking For Sale signs hanging in the front yards.

  Lott pulled up in front of one house on the left. In the driveway she could see a van identical to her husband’s. Only it needed paint badly since the dark green had turned a faded ugly and pitted olive color. It had a badly dented rear panel. And on the driver door there was a horseshoe-shaped dent that she remembered was on Stan’s van.

  Holy hell, it was his van, and even more amazingly, it looked like it was still being used. How was that even possible?

  “I’ll be go to hell,” Andor said, staring at the van.

  “That the van?” Lott asked, turning to look at Julia.

  “Looks exactly like it,” she said. “Right down to the horseshoe dent on the driver’s door.”

  “How do you want to handle this?” Andor looked at Lott.

  “We knock, flash badges, and talk,” Lott said.

  Andor nodded.

  Julia nodded.

  “No mention that you’re his wife, got it?” Lott said, looking at her with a dark seriousness to his eyes.

  “Copy that,” she said, nodding.

  She was feeling slightly in shock and was glad Lott was leading this. She couldn’t believe they had found Stan’s van. It hadn’t even occurred to her to look for it after he died, and now because of a few receipts and some legwork with the DMV, they had found it twenty-two years later.

  It didn’t
get any more amazing than that.

  They climbed out and made it up the gravel sidewalk to the front door through the warming morning air without saying a word between then.

  She forced herself to take slow, deep breaths of the warm air and stay in detective mode.

  Andor banged on the screen door that hadn’t seen a screen in a decade, let alone paint. The rest of the house looked just as bad, and the windows hadn’t been cleaned in a decade. Moisture-stained drapes hid any look at the inside the house.

  Julia stayed behind Lott, since there wasn’t room for all three of them on the small concrete slab that served for a step up into the house.

  She and Lott both scanned the front of the house in both directions. Old training kicking in, clearly.

  After a moment a young man answered, maybe college age at most, swinging the door wide open.

  “Yes?” he asked, his voice deep and exactly like Stan’s voice.

  Julia gasped and stepped back. The kid in front of them could have been Stan when she met him. Same dark hair, same dark eyes, same voice. This kid had on a UNLV tee shirt and jeans.

  He was going to the same school as Jane, his half-sister.

  Lott glanced back at her, clearly worried at the sound and more than likely the shocked look on her face.

  “Your mother or father home?” Andor asked, flashing his badge.

  Julia noticed that as Andor introduced all three of them as detectives, he made sure that he flashed his gun under his jacket in the process.

  The kid stammered for a moment, then turned and shouted, “Mom?”

  A woman about Julia’s age appeared. She had bleached-blonde hair pulled back and was wearing a MGM Grand Hotel room service uniform. She was very thin and clearly smoked, since through the open door and hole where the screen used to be, a smoke-smell wafted over them.

  Andor again introduced all three of them as she stood there, nodding.

  “Are you Denise Miller?” Lott asked.