Beside him Annie was almost bouncing.
“We need to get access to the casino’s security systems,” Fleet said, grabbing his phone.
Lott didn’t want to know how Fleet planned to do that. Casino security systems were more protected than any bank by a long, long ways.
“Would Lynch and West be that stupid?” Julia asked. “They would know about that software as well.”
“It’s worth a shot,” Doc said. “A fake nose or a change in eyebrows and cheek bones made to look higher would fool the system. But still worth the shot.”
“It is,” Lott said. Then before Fleet could start talking, Lott said to Fleet. “Set the search to find women of Lynch’s and West’s age who can’t be recognized due to one factor or another.”
Fleet nodded and turned slightly to give instructions to his computer people while Lott dug into his waffle.
Maybe, just maybe, they might get lucky.
He doubted it would be that easy. And so far, they hadn’t caught much of a break on this case.
Luck was going to have nothing to do with capturing those two murdering women. It was going to take some skill and planning and a bunch of work, of that he had no doubt.
PART FOUR
All-In Call
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
August 15th, 2015
9:00 A.M.
Las Vegas
EVEN THOUGH THEY had just had breakfast, Lott and Julia stopped for a bucket of KFC on the way back to Lott’s home. The plan was to go down to the poker room and watch the television coverage break. The two of them just couldn’t think of anything else to do at the moment.
And for Lott, feeling helpless and useless was something he didn’t much like at all.
Doc and Annie and Fleet had all headed off to their Las Vegas corporate office to help coordinate the casino’s facial recognition search. Doc and Fleet were pulling in a lot of favors to have the casinos do this for them, but at this moment, every casino in town was all on the same side.
Finding this many kidnapped dead women around the town was bad for business and this needed to be put to rest quickly.
Very quickly. Because it was very, very bad for tourism.
Andor had headed back for headquarters, to, as he said, “stick his nose into places it didn’t belong.”
Lott had no doubt that if anyone in that madhouse could come up with information, it would be Andor.
Lott poured him and Julia a glass of iced tea and they headed downstairs, leaving the bucket of chicken in the fridge.
The custom-made poker table sat to the left of the stairs with a five-bulb light fixture made of wood over it. When that fixture was on, even the oldest of eyes could see cards clearly and read old police files.
A polished oak bar ran down the left wall with black-and-white pictures of old poker masters on the wall behind it, plus a few stacks of different types of glasses and a row of bottles of premium bourbon, scotch, and liquor, most of which had never been opened.
The bar looked impressive, but most of the Cold Poker Gang didn’t drink that much, if at all. Lott figured it was too many years on the force watching what booze did to people sort of cut the enjoyment.
Five file folders of varied colors sat on one end of the bar. Those were the cold cases the gang hadn’t figured out a way to close yet. Lott sure hoped this ugly mess wouldn’t end up on the end of the bar.
A large leather couch filled the wall beyond the bar and two large recliners on either side of it, with an oak coffee table that matched the bar in front of the couch. A large screen television with complete surround sound filled the right wall facing the couch.
Lott flat loved this room, more than any room in the house. It felt totally comfortable and was all his. He had brought nothing of his wife Carol down here. He was so glad that Annie had pushed him to remodel this basement into this wonderful space.
And not only had the Cold Poker Gang met down here for the last couple of years, but Lott and Julia had spent many a wonderful evening on the couch watching movies.
Lott turned on the television to a local channel and a woman news reporter looking young and slightly panicked was talking, going on about a massive breaking murder story.
Lott glanced at his watch. It surprised him when he realized it was still only a little after nine in the morning. It had already seemed like a long day. No wonder the woman on the screen looked panicked. She wasn’t the main news anchor.
He and Julia sat on the couch, sipping iced tea and listening until the woman started to repeat herself. Then Lott muted the television sound.
“Nothing until a press conference at one in the afternoon,” Julia said, nodding. “Makes sense. The chief and the other agencies need to get this all under control before they brief the public.”
Lott could only nod.
They sat there in silence for a short time, both half-staring at the “Breaking News” banner over the poor young announcer’s head. He didn’t envy the chief’s job of trying to explain what filled the old mines around Las Vegas.
Then Julia turned to Lott. “You think I’m right about the women being here?”
“I do,” Lott said.
And he did. But again that nagging feeling came up that they were missing something and damned if he could figure out what.
“So let’s back up and see if we can figure out when they started to plan this escape,” Julia said. “Maybe then we can get a hint as to the plan.”
“I know exactly when,” Lott said. “When Andor and I found that mine fifteen years ago. We must have scared them to death.”
“So they have had fifteen years to plan this exactly,” Julia said, sounding as dejected as Lott felt.
“All this time to plan disguises,” Lott said, “get fake names, stash away more money than I want to think about under those fake names.”
Nothing at all Julia could say to that, so she said nothing.
They sat in silence, watching the poor reporter cut to different reporters around town, clearly not getting any kind of information.
All Lott could think about was the victims.
So many victims.
If somehow he and Andor could have broken this case fifteen years ago, it would have saved so many lives.
Suddenly, Lott turned to Julia. “Did anyone say anything about the woman from Montana? Missy Andrews? Has she been found yet?”
Julia shook her head. Then she quickly pulled out her phone and called Annie.
Lott could hear his daughter’s distinctive voice come over Julia’s phone.
“Any recovery yet of the woman from Montana?” Julia asked.
“I’ll have Fleet do a search of police records and get back to you,” Annie said and hung up.
Julia clicked off her phone and put it on the coffee table in front of her. “You think I’m wrong about the woman being left and not killed?”
Lott shook his head. “Honestly, I don’t think you are wrong.”
He didn’t like at all what he was thinking.
“But…?” Julia asked.
Lott took a deep breath and looked into the eyes of the woman he had come to love.
“Andor and I made the assumption that us finding the mine fifteen years ago might have stopped the killer or killers. We could never catch any lead or even a hint that they continued.”
Julia nodded, her face now pale. “You think these two might just continue on?”
Suddenly Lott understood what had been nagging at him.
“What happens if they took turns?”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
August 15th, 2015
9:45 A.M.
Las Vegas
JULIA JUST LOOKED at Lott, the odd question not making any sense at all.
“Took turns?” she asked.
He nodded, clearly not happy. “We know that West took a leave of absence every month for a week.”
Julia nodded.
“What if Lynch did the same thing on a different week?
”
Julia felt she might just be sick. In all her years of working as a detective, she had never imagined anything like this even being possible, let alone for this many years in a row.
“If Andor and I spooked Lynch and West fifteen years ago,” Lott said, “what happens if they set up their cover identities then and a parallel operation under one of those cover identities? So Lynch could have some fun as well.”
“I hope you are wrong,” Julia said, grabbing her phone from the coffee table.
“I hope like hell I am as well,” Lott said, sitting back to stare at the poor reporter on the screen doing the best she could with no information.
Julia dialed Annie and quickly put the phone on speaker.
Annie picked up the phone and said simply, “The woman from Montana has not yet been found.”
Julia glanced at Lott, who was nodding that he had heard.
“You father has come up with a horrid theory,” Julia said. “And I need you and Doc and Fleet to disprove it.”
“Go ahead,” Annie said, clearly hesitant.
“Your father thinks that when he and Andor found the mine fifteen years ago, they spooked Lynch and West into setting up a parallel system under fake names. Fake everything. And Lynch went out every two weeks to get a victim just as West did.”
“Oh, shit,” Annie said.
“Search the region for missing women with different hair color,” Lott said. “Maybe Lynch had a crush on another girl on that bus. Clearly West was into black hair and had a crush on one of the two girls with black hair who died on the bus. Lynch might have been into a blonde or redhead or brunette.”
“Got it,” Annie said.
“Prove me wrong,” Lott said. “Please?”
“We’re going to do our best,” Annie said and clicked off the phone.
Julia put the phone down between them on the couch.
“You don’t think you are wrong, do you?” Julia asked, looking at Lott, a man she had grown to love and admire over the last year. He was one of the smartest people she knew when it came to putting together crime pieces.
“I hope I am wrong,” Lott said. “But if I am right, where would they hide even more bodies?”
“Everything comes back to old mines,” Julia said.
“Or old school busses,” Lott said, holding up a second finger. “What happens if Lynch is putting her victims, if there are any, in old school busses?”
“Oh, no,” Julia said, her heart racing. She knew instantly Lott might be right. And all she could do was sit there and be silent and hope like hell he was wrong.
After what seemed like an eternity of silence, the phone rang, jarring her from horrid and sick thoughts of women being baked alive in school busses. She nodded to Lott and reached down and hit the speaker button.
“Got us both here,” Julia said.
“A fourth friend that ran with Lynch and West and the black-haired girl when they were in school was named Cynthia Peters,” Annie said. “She had blonde hair, kept her hair long, and she also died on the bus.”
Julia didn’t like at all where this was going.
Beside her on the couch, Lott was just shaking his head.
Annie went on. “Fleet dropped everything and did a preliminary search of the western states through all the missing person databases, same as he did before, and again he and his people found almost three hundred missing women that matched that very general description of long blonde hair and age range that have gone missing in the last fifteen years. There were almost none before that.”
“Shit,” Lott said softly. “Just shit, shit, shit.”
Annie ignored him. “We are pulling up records of when Lynch was in town now from her business,” Annie said. “And Fleet is going to start a search of more mines in the area.”
“Tell him not to bother,” Lott said.
“Why?” Annie asked. Then she said, “Hang on, let me put Fleet on speaker.”
“No need for more mine searches because I’m betting we need to look for a bus graveyard,” Lott said when it was clear that Fleet could hear him as well.
“I agree,” Julia said. “It would need to be very isolated, yet not a huge distance from Las Vegas. In the desert and the heat, yet well protected.”
She didn’t like at all what she was thinking, but now that she knew it was possible, and that many women had gone missing, they had to keep working to disprove it.
“I’ll get some satellite images coming to you at once,” Fleet said. “And we’ll work over them here as well.”
“Thanks,” Julia said as Annie hung up.
“Can this get any worse?” Lott asked, shaking his head.
Julia didn’t know what to say.
Then Lott laughed, but without humor. “You know, I remember Andor and me asking ourselves that very same question fifteen years ago.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
August 15th, 2015
11:00 A.M.
Las Vegas
LOTT HAD CALLED Andor right after hanging up from Annie and said simply, “Get over here. This has gotten worse. We’re downstairs. And don’t touch the chicken in the fridge when you come in. Trust me, you won’t have the stomach for it.”
Then he hung up.
Andor had arrived just as the satellite images arrived from Fleet. Annie had told him that they were digging into where old busses went to be recycled or sold. So far no luck, since it was August and a lot of the school districts’ personnel were on vacation.
Each satellite image covered about six square miles of desert and there were hundreds of images, at least.
Lott put the images all on a memory stick and then plugged the stick into his television, hooking up his computer keyboard as well so the big screen worked as a computer screen.
Then he and Julia and Andor all pulled chairs from the poker table over to the big screen so they could get moderately close to it.
“So you want to tell me what the hell we’re looking for?” Andor asked, sipping on a bottle of water and patting his neck with a wet towel.
“Bus graveyard,” Julia said.
“A what?” Andor asked.
“Your partner here believes Lynch went out every month to get a victim just as West did,” Julia said.
“Serious?” Andor asked.
“Over three hundred women with long blonde hair missing since we spooked these two monsters fifteen years ago,” Lott said.
“So you think they set up their backup and escape plan then?” Andor asked.
“I’m guessing that’s exactly what happened,” Lott said, glancing at the white face of his partner.
“So we’re looking for a bus graveyard in the desert,” Julia said, “well-protected and more than likely hidden from normal view.”
“Think the busses will be buried?”
“No,” Lott said. He just knew they wouldn’t be. Again, these women were recreating in a very sick fashion that bus accident over and over and over. Lynch on the bus side, West on the mine side.
“Before we start into this,” Julia said, “Any news from headquarters?”
Andor shook his head. “Nothing but the fact that none of the jerky in any of the Lynch shops was made of human flesh.”
That jarred Lott. He had expected them to find some, at least behind the counter in some special reserve.
“So where did all that human flesh go?” Julia asked.
Lott just shook his head. “We’re missing something there as well.”
“We’re missing an entire case,” Andor said. “We got bodies, but not one lick of evidence. Nothing, and that’s driving the chief and the fine people from the FBI nuts.”
“Nothing?” Julia said.
“Nothing,” Andor said, clearly angry. “Even if we caught these two women, they couldn’t be charged with anything. They own mines. So what? West takes a vacation every month? So what? The murders pattern some tragic deaths in their own pasts. So what? No evidence, not a lick of proof so far.”
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“Is the chief even going to mention them as persons of interest?” Julia asked.
“And get sued from here to Canada and back?” Andor asked. “Their lawyers are already fighting every search warrant. So not a chance.”
Lott agreed completely. He had hoped that the human jerky would be the real link. Maybe fifteen years ago, it might have been. But fifteen years ago, he and Lott put these two monsters on notice that they might get caught and the monsters learned.
“So we find their mistake,” Lott said, pointing to the screen.
They all turned to stare at the image of the Nevada desert taken from a satellite shot far overhead. The date on the image said it was taken five days before. Newer than Lott would have expected.
On the big screen, they could see almost each individual sagebrush. A large faded-yellow school bus was going to jump off the image like a bad pimple on clear skin.
Lott quickly got them through forty of the images when they found it. Sixty or more school busses filled a corner of the image, most faded to almost white, many parked within feet of each other in rows. A single dirt road led into the compound that was surrounded by what looked like a very high fence.
Julia grabbed the phone and called Annie as Lott leaned in closer, studying the area around the busses. It appeared to be in a shallow rock valley with walls on three sides. It would be impossible to see from any distance at all.
“We found it,” Julia said, putting the phone on speaker again so Lott and Andor could hear.
Julia quickly gave the picture image number.
“Tell Fleet to tread lightly with the computer searches on this property,” Lott said. “Expect the two killers to have high level warning systems on any search of this property.”
“Good thinking, Dad,” Annie said. Then, from the sounds of it, she turned slightly away from the phone. “Did you get that, Fleet?”
“Got it,” Fleet said from the background. “They will never know anyone looked, I promise. Give me just one minute, so hold on.”
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