“We move on,” Julia said, nodding and biting into 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 as she chewed.
“Amen to that,” Lott said.
Julia knew that was the truth. But she just hated failing, hated having a case taken from her, 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.
She 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 all over again.
And when that happened, they would be ready.
THREE
One year and six months later…
September 16th, 2016
Las Vegas, Nevada
LOTT FOUND IT still too hot out to park his car and walk to the entrance of the Bellagio Hotel and Casino. His car said it was a couple degrees over a hundred. So once again he used valet parking. He had more than enough money to not have to walk through heat if he didn’t have to. A simple pleasure in life.
Andor had called this dinner meeting for the team at the Bellagio Café, one of their favorite places. The café had just about anything a person could want at any time of the day or night. And it had plant-surrounded booths and tables that allowed for privacy.
On top of that, it was far enough from the casino that all the noise there was just background. Yet it felt alive and at his age, Lott liked feeling alive.
As Lott handed the valet a tip and started toward the hotel entrance, Julia pulled up in her SUV. He waved and pointed that he would be just inside the door and she nodded.
He had no doubt that over the last few years he had fallen in love with Julia, something he never thought possible after his wife’s death. And Julia was in love with him as well. He just couldn’t imagine why anyone who looked as good as she did with her bright green eyes, long brown hair, and incredible brain would find an older guy like him attractive. But thankfully, she did.
And most nights they stayed in her wonderful condo. They had talked about her moving in with him. And Annie, his daughter, had thought that would be a wonderful idea, but so far nothing had pushed them to that.
As Julia came though the door, he gave her a kiss. She had her hair pulled back and tied and wore a light blouse with a sports bra under it and tan slacks and sandals. She smelled wonderful. She always did.
“Good workout?” Lott asked.
“Still taking it a little easy because of the heat outside,” Julia said. “I’ll ramp it up more as we go into the cooler season.”
Lott nodded. Julia belonged to a gym a few blocks off the strip and unless they were busy, she always found time to workout, usually running on the treadmill.
He did some exercise, but not as much as she did. Mostly he walked when the heat allowed and did standard sit-ups and push-ups every morning, same as he had been doing for over forty years.
It made him feel like his day was starting if he kept that routine up.
They headed through the sounds of the bells from slot machines and the low hum of talking from the people flowing toward one part or another of the vast casino and hotel. Even late at night this place never seemed to be short of visitors. But now, around the dinner hour, the place was almost jammed.
Lott enjoyed that as well. He enjoyed people and being around people, he had come to realize.
“Any chance we might run into Annie and Doc here tonight?” Julia asked.
“Possible,” Lott said. “I could check the poker room to let them know we are here after we get settled.”
Annie and Doc often played in the larger nightly tournaments here when in town. But Lott couldn’t honestly remember if they were scheduled to be in town or not right now. Doc and his business partner, Fleet, had a private jet that took them all over the country to major tournaments. So Lott never knew for sure if his daughter was in town or not.
Lott had asked Fleet once if Doc made enough to justify flying to poker tournaments in a private jet. Fleet had just laughed and said that Doc and Annie made enough on most tournaments and ring games to pay for three jets to get there and back.
Sometimes it was hard for Lott to get it through his head that his retired detective daughter was now a jetsetter in the professional poker world. But Lott sure enjoyed the help Doc and Annie and Fleet gave them on some cases. Having those sorts of resources behind solving a cold case never hurt.
And from what Annie and Doc and Fleet often said to him, they loved helping out. They also had their own network where they worked with police and the FBI on different crimes at times. Having vast sums of money and the willingness to throw it at a case often made friends with budget-constrained law enforcement agencies.
He and Julia had just gotten settled in a large booth near the back of the café when Andor came toward them. He was wearing his normal dress shirt, sleeves rolled up, and he was sweating. Lott just shook his head, since Andor also had more than enough money to valet park his car, but refused to do so, no matter how hot it was. Instead he chose to hike from the parking lot.
Julia handed him a glass of cold water and a few napkins as he slid into the booth across from them.
“Thanks,” he said, then downed half the glass of water before dipping one of the napkins in the rest to wipe down his face with cold water.
A nice waiter named Stan got their drink orders and vanished.
“So what’s the reason for this surprise dinner?” Julia asked a half second before Lott could.
They often came here when a case was active, or for late-night food after a Cold Poker Gang night. But at the moment they had no really active cases.
“We’re back in the game,” Andor said, smiling before finishing off his water.
Lott looked at his partner. He had no idea what game Andor was talking about.
Julia was looking as puzzled as he felt.
Andor just laughed. “Becky Penn. That name ring a bell?”
Lott felt a thrill run through his spine. “The chief released them to us?”
Andor nodded and smiled. “Officially all four murder cases have gone cold. Chief turned them over to us along with all the notes.”
“Fantastic!” Julia said, clapping her hands together.
Lott felt the same way. Those poor souls had died thirty years ago. He just hoped that now they could do something about it and find out who killed and buried them in that grave in the desert.
But thirty years was a lot of cold.
FOUR
September 16th, 2016
Las Vegas, Nevada
THE BACKGROUND SOUNDS of the casino floated around them from the distance, most blocked by the walls of plants. Julia felt both excited and worried about now taking over the Becky Penn cold cases.
It had been a long time since Becky vanished and was killed. And clearly the other three under her in the grave had died before her. Leads often went very cold in that amount of time.
Very, very cold.
But she and Lott and Andor had been waiting for over a year to get these cases back. They knew the active detectives had made no headway. But that they had all expected, since brand new daily cases took most of the active detectives’ time.
But for the three of them, these cases would be all they would do. And that excited her more than she wanted to admit.
No wonder Andor had called this meeting. He was excited as well.
They gave the waiter their dinner orders and then Julia pulled out her notebook and opened it to a clean page and looked first at Lott and then Andor.
Both
were smiling.
The notebook was a symbol of starting a case for them.
“So where do we start with this monster elephant of a problem?” Julia asked.
“We start with what we know,” Lott said.
Andor nodded.
So Julia started to write and talk. “First, we know Becky vanished without a trace headed to meet her boyfriend, Paul Vaughan. She was in a red Toyota which was never found.”
“Right,” Lott said. “And Paul Vaughan killed himself ten years later.”
“Supposedly,” Andor said.
Julia looked up at Andor and nodded. She had not thought to even question that when they caught this cold case the first time.
“Marking that down as the first unknown,” she said. “Did he really kill himself? And if he didn’t, who died and who killed them?”
“And he supposedly kept a journal of the dates with him and Becky,” Lott said, “even though his sister said he hated to write.”
Julia wrote all that down.
“Can we trust his sister on any of that?” Andor asked.
Julia wrote that down.
“He kept no other journal,” Andor said, “even though we found three other women’s bodies under Becky’s body in the grave his journal led us to.”
“I’ve always thought someone else planted that journal,” Lott said.
Julia agreed completely and wrote that down as a second major unknown.
“Did they even come up with any names of the other three women in the grave?” Lott asked Andor.
Julia watched as Andor shook his head.
“They know they were killed before Becky,” Andor said, “but not much before. The woman on the bottom was killed less than a year ahead of Becky, if that much. That’s all we know.”
“Did the active detectives check out other missing women from the same time?” Lott asked.
“Not well,” Andor said. “Too many missing and not enough time for them.”
Julia nodded and wrote that on her notes as well under unknown questions.
“The Toyota?” Lott said. “Where did it go?”
“That’s always bothered me as well,” Julia said as she wrote that under the unknown question area.
At that point dinner arrived, but Lott stood and pointed to his food. “Don’t touch that. I’m going to see if Annie and Doc are in the poker room. We could use their computer people’s help on some of this. Especially trying to track that car.”
Julia smiled and put her notebook on the seat beside her to make room for her wonderful-smelling chicken fried steak. She had ordered corn on the cob with the steak and white gravy. Looking at the large plate of food, she realized she was really hungry.
So as Lott vanished, both she and Andor dug into their dinners.
It felt great to have this case back in their hands again.
Unfinished business they were all focused on finishing.
FIVE
September 16th, 2016
Las Vegas, Nevada
LOTT WAS HAPPY to see Annie, his daughter, standing off to one side of the poker room, her arms crossed across her chest just as her mother used to stand when focused on something. He always loved to watch Carol when she stood like that, and Annie was no exception.
Somehow he wondered how he and Carol had managed to bring up such a competent and wonderful daughter. Most of it had been Carol, since he had been working so much.
Even being in love with Julia didn’t stop his missing Carol almost every day.
Doc was nowhere to be seen, but Annie found the game in front of her clearly fascinating.
Annie wore what she always wore in a poker room. A white blouse tucked into jeans. She usually had her long hair pulled back and tied away from her face and she always wore tennis shoes. She sometimes had a sweatshirt tied around her waist like a runner, in case she got stuck in a tournament sitting under an air-conditioning vent.
She was tall and thin and always looked completely in shape.
She was also now considered one of the best tournament poker players on the planet and clearly the best woman playing the game. And she was so charming and friendly, it seemed others almost loved giving her their chips.
As he started toward her, she looked up and gave him a beaming smile and pointed out of the poker room.
He stopped and turned around and she followed him out into the noisier, but actually more private area of slot machines.
She gave him a hug as she always did, then got right to the point, something he loved about his daughter, and that he had loved about her mother as well.
“What are you doing down here?”
“Julia and Andor and I are having dinner in the café,” he said, smiling.
“Caught a good case, huh?” she asked, laughing.
She knew him and Julia and Andor far too well. And she loved the fact that he wasn’t “moping” around the house anymore, as she called what he did for years after Carol died. And she really liked Julia, which made him happy as well.
Lott knew Annie sometimes missed being a detective and loved to help them when she could. And Doc and Fleet never missed an opportunity to help as well. So when he nodded they had caught a good case, her eyes lit up.
“Remember the Becky Penn case we lost to the young detectives over a year ago?” he asked.
“The ones with more bodies in the grave?” she asked, her eyes getting wide.
“We got all of it back today. All four cases.”
“Oh, wow,” she said. “Mind if I join you for dinner?”
“We would love it,” Lott said. “But aren’t you playing in a tournament tonight?”
“Doc’s up in Boise helping out his grandfather and mother on something to do with family property,” Julia said. “I was thinking of playing, but my head really wasn’t in it. This sounds like a ton more fun.”
“Then join the party,” Lott said, taking his daughter by the shoulder and turning her toward the café.
“So you think Doc and my resources can help on this?” Annie asked as they walked.
Clearly she and Doc were a couple for life. They just hadn’t gotten married yet, that Lott knew about. But he wouldn’t have put it past them to have gotten married and not told anyone. They clearly worked as partners in just about everything.
“Becky Penn had a red Toyota that just vanished when she did,” Lott said. “We think that’s one place your computer people could help.”
“Any ID on the other three buried in the grave with her?”
“Nothing,” Lott said as they got close to the table. “And that’s another place I would love to have you help us. They were all women and young like Becky was. There were a lot of missing women during that time.”
“Glad to help,” she said. “If you buy me dinner.”
He laughed as Annie slid in beside Andor and Lott took his place back in front of his steak and fries.
“You help us solve this, dear daughter, and I’ll buy you dinner for six months.”
“Deal,” she said, laughing.
“I’ll chip in,” Julia said.
And with that, Lott knew their team had just gotten bigger. Annie and Doc and all their resources and computer people had just climbed on board.
And that gave them that much more chance of doing the impossible and tracking down this killer from thirty years ago.
SIX
September 16th, 2016
Las Vegas, Nevada
Julia loved the fact that Annie and Doc and all the resources they had were on board this case. It was going to make things a lot easier and allow them to investigate a lot deeper to track down this killer.
Doc’s best friend and business partner, Fleet, seemed to know computer people who could dig into things and get information Julia was pretty certain wasn’t supposed to be gotten.
And it seemed that Doc and Fleet and Annie knew someone in all levels of governments in most western states. They even had the ear of the President of the United Sta
tes thanks to their first case together. For two professional poker players and a businessman, the three of them had resources far beyond any normal police force.
And they weren’t afraid to use them when they believed in the cause or the case.
Julia really enjoyed Annie as a person as well. Annie and Julia’s daughter Jane had gotten to know each other and also liked each other. Which cleared up any family issues that Julia and Lott might have in their relationship.
Julia and Lott were both going slowly, but lately they had been talking about more. She wasn’t sure what that more would entail just yet, but she wasn’t going to go away.
And Lott wasn’t going away from her either.
And she loved waking up in the morning with him beside her. She felt that started the day perfectly, no matter what she was doing.
After twenty minutes of talking and laughing as they all finished eating and Annie got some food as well, Andor turned the conversation back to the case.
Julia brought her notebook back up to the table beside her now-empty cherry pie plate and told Annie what they had talked about so far.
Annie nodded, listening, then said when Julia had finished, “Where can we help?”
“We have the Toyota license number and vin number,” Andor said to Annie. “Can your computer people have any chance of finding out where that car ended up thirty years ago?”
“We might be able to backtrack from there,” Julia said.
“I’ll get them on it early in the morning,” Annie said. “Never know what those magicians with keyboards can find.”
She turned to Lott. “Can you send me the details on the other three bodies, approximate age, approximate time of death, hair color, height, that sort of thing?”
Lott nodded. “I’ll get it all out of the files and have it e-mailed to you before I go to bed tonight.”
“I think we should be able to cross-check with computer programs,” Annie said, “all the missing women from that time period to the details that we have and narrow it all down a great deal.”
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