Ace High

by Dean Wesley Smith

  “Agreed,” Sarge said. “I’m betting it was some sort of information. We need to see if we can break that deeper code on those records.”

  Robin nodded. “I’ll get some computer people on it right after breakfast, now that we have all the records digitized.”

  “Who was the girl in the Landmark?” Pickett asked.

  Sarge wrote that down and put a star beside it in his notebook. The most important question as far as he was concerned.

  “Who killed Cinda Blessing and how much did she really know?” Robin asked.

  Sarge wrote both of those questions down separately.

  “Why if the parents and brother, or husband, of Heather were involved, did only Heather go to the storage unit?” Sarge asked. That question had bothered him since they got the information back from the lab techs.

  “Maybe,” Cavanaugh said, “she was the only one involved.”

  Robin nodded. “There are a number of reasons why two couples might vanish and assume new identities.”

  Sarge nodded to that. Two couples in trouble, wanting to get away, taking advantage of a tragedy of a family to do it.

  “Warrants?” Pickett said. “Robin, when you get a chance have Will search for outstanding old warrants for a father-and-son combination. Bail skipped around that time.”

  Sarge again just nodded. A long shot, but might give them an idea of what this group was good at.

  He wrote down the question in his notebook, “Heather alone?”

  Cavanaugh’s comment about maybe it was only Heather stuck with Sarge. He put a star beside that question as well.

  “Maybe,” Pickett said, “there were some gems of truth in what Cinda told us about Heather.”

  Sarge quickly flipped back through his notebook to his notes when they talked with her.

  Pickett was doing the same. Picket said, “Cinda said Heather had made a lot of people angry by not covering losing bets on celebrity stuff.”

  “Could that have been accurate?” Sarge asked.

  “And it was Cinda who told us that Heather was Darling Black,” Pickett said.

  “We need to pull up all of Darling Black’s columns,” Robin said, scribbling in her notebook.

  “The woman, if her notebooks and files are any indication, was a master of codes,” Cavanaugh said. “Maybe she was using those Darling Black columns as a form of communication for some reason.”

  “At this point,” Sarge said, writing that down in his notebook, “Anything is possible.”

  “So how would we even find out if Darling Black was Heather?” Pickett asked.

  Robin looked up and smiled. “How about we ask her to come talk with us?”

  Sarge stared at the grin on Robin’s face.

  Cavanaugh looked stunned.

  Pickett just sort of laughed and said, “I know that look and it can’t be good.”

  “How about we get a reporter for the Las Vegas Sun to write an article about Darling Black,” Robin said, “and how the police are looking to talk with her about a cold case. Just get some information because they feel she might be able to help solve the old murder. Promise to keep her identity secret.”

  “Get the word out on the streets,” Cavanaugh said. “I can do that through the station as well.”

  “If Heather was Darling Black,” Pickett said, “she’s not coming out.”

  “But if Darling Black was someone else,” Sarge said, “he or she might appear after all these years. And might just have a detail we are missing.”

  “Worth the shot,” Robin said. “And I got a friend at the Sun who could do it.”

  Sarge nodded. An extreme long shot, just as finding the original names of these people was a long shot. But at this point, they didn’t have much more than that.

  Part VI

  Cold, Then Hot

  33

  December 10th, 2016

  Las Vegas, Nevada

  * * *

  Pickett was slowly getting frustrated at the complete lack of progress. For three days now nothing at all had changed, no matter how many questions they asked or what they did.

  She and Sarge had settled into a routine again. Mike had his people still on guard and close at all times. Pickett didn’t want to know what that was costing Sarge, but he told her he would tell her later, that right now safety was far more important than money.

  Robin and her computer people had figured out that the cars mentioned on the records were actually all cars sold, and the money in the storage unit had nothing to do with the sales of the cars. The real money from the sales went through normal channels both with the dealer purchasing the cars and the banks financing the cars for the end buyers.

  But Heather had used those car sales, that she somehow had gotten information about, as a way of tracking some other money flowing into the storage unit.

  But not a clue as to where the money was coming from.

  For three days an interstate search had been in full swing for Bob Steven Winston and his wife, otherwise known as Heather. But it was as if they had simply just vanished off the face of the planet.

  Their two adult kids were both worried to death about their parents and seemed to have no idea what had happened.

  Both adult children had offered their DNA and a family history had appeared. Bob Steven and Heather had not been related, but were actually married in Illinois the year before they moved to Las Vegas.

  They had been reported missing in Illinois three months after the wedding and no sign of them had ever surfaced until now. Their adult children suddenly found out they had real family in the Midwest. Pickett could only imagine how that was making them feel.

  There was no clue as to the real identity of the fake parents, but no one was taking any bets that they had actually died in that car wreck.

  Now Pickett and Robin and Sarge were again meeting for breakfast to try to come up with anything they could dig at for the day. Pickett didn’t feel good about their chances.

  They had all gone through the buffet for the first time and were eating when a middle-aged woman with a wide smile and a tourist look about her walked over to their table. The woman had short brown and gray hair and wore no makeup. She had on a multi-colored blouse, a suit-like pink jacket over the shirt, and dark slacks. She had a dark tone to her smooth skin that gave her a look of ageless beauty.

  Pickett saw her coming first and cleared her throat, a signal she and Robin had used as a “heads-up” signal for decades.

  Robin glanced up, saw the woman and even though she didn’t seem to tense, Pickett saw her gun hand move down to her lap.

  Pickett was ready to go for her gun as well if the woman tried anything.

  Sarge just kept eating, since the woman had walked up to their table from behind him.

  The woman just smiled and said, “I understand you detectives are looking for me.”

  Sarge jerked and glanced around.

  “Depends on who you are,” Pickett said.

  As Pickett got over her surprise, she realized the woman looked vaguely familiar.

  “One of my pen names when I was younger, now back a ways I must admit, was Darling Black,” the woman said. “Always loved that name.”

  Pickett just sort of nodded and indicated the woman take the empty chair at the four-chair table.

  “We are looking to talk with you,” Robin said. “Thanks for stopping by.”

  “You had breakfast yet?” Sarge asked as the woman sat down as if what was happening happened every day. Pickett just shook her head. The man was unflappable.

  “Actually,” the woman said, “already eaten. Sitting over there with my husband and son and his wife. My real name is Melita Henson. That’s my husband Al and my son Ben and his wife Toni.”

  “Great to finally meet you,” Sarge said, smiling.

  “We really appreciate the new remodeling you are funding,” Melita said.

  “Least I can do,” Sarge said, shrugging, “to keep our building up.”

 
; Sarge then introduced Pickett and Robin with their full detective names, then said simply, “Melita and her husband have a condo in the Ogden.”

  “Yup, we come down from Portland for the late fall through early spring,” Melita said.

  Pickett just shook her head. Darling Black lived in the same building as they did.

  Robin just laughed.

  “So how did you hear we were looking to talk with the Darling Black part of you?” Sarge asked.

  “I write novels under a number of pen names,” Melita said, “and the reporter who did the story in the Sun is a friend of mine. I called her when I read the article and she told me who you three were. I was going to call you later today when I saw you here.”

  Again Pickett just shook her head.

  “So what exactly can I do to help in some murder case?” Melita asked. “Can’t imagine what Darling Black might know. I was pretty young back then.”

  Pickett glanced at Robin who just shrugged.

  “Do you remember,” Pickett said, “back after you stopped using that pen name that a body was found in the Landmark Hotel?”

  Melita shook her head. “Afraid I don’t.”

  Pickett could tell she wasn’t lying or hiding anything.

  “Can you tell us why you stopped your column so abruptly?” Robin asked.

  “Enrolled in the University of Washington English program to get an MFA in creative writing. Got a full ride, actually. Got kind of too busy that fall to keep doing that silly column.”

  “When was this exactly?” Pickett asked.

  “I went to Seattle in late August of 1990,” Melita said.

  Pickett nodded. The same point the woman supposedly was locked in that room to die.

  “Did you ever know a Heather Winston?” Sarge asked.

  “Name sounds familiar,” Melita said, nodding. “I think she was a year ahead of me in school. Blonde popular type.”

  Pickett nodded. “That describes her.”

  “So what exactly does any of this have to do with my Darling Black columns?” Melita asked. “They were mean and sort of stupid, but not much else. But they did cause a stir, which for a high-school girl was fun and exciting.”

  “We had a very unreliable source that said Heather Winston was Darling Black,” Sarge said.

  Melita laughed and shook her head. “Not unless Heather Winston was my ‘Deep Throat’ source. I wrote all those columns.”

  “Source?” Pickett asked.

  “Sure,” Melita said. “I was a high school girl buried in getting the best grades I could for that scholarship. I couldn’t have gotten into some of those clubs if I had wanted, so I had a source for what I wrote.”

  “Ever meet this source?” Sarge asked.

  “Nope,” Melita said, smiling. “But it was great cloak-and-dagger fun. Twice a week I got an envelope without a return address on it, mailed from the University Station post office. It had pictures, dates, and names. The only deal I had with the unknown person was that I would use all the information they sent in my column and not change a thing. I couldn’t have done that column without all that information. But some weeks it was difficult to fit it all in.”

  Pickett couldn’t believe it. Could Heather have been sending some sort of signals for something through Melita’s column? What might that have been?

  “I know this is going some,” Robin asked Melita, “but any chance you might have saved all those envelopes and letters?”

  “My husband hates it,” Melita said, smiling, “but I save everything. It’s all in storage here along with my parents’ stuff in my old family home. My nephew and his wife live there while going to college, but I doubt they would mind a visit.”

  “Please,” Sarge said.

  Pickett and Robin both nodded.

  “Glad to help if I can,” Melita said. “As long as you promise me the full story when you are done. What little bit I have gathered sounds like it would be great material for my Stripe mystery novels.”

  Now it was Pickett’s turn to be shocked again.

  “You write the Randy Stripe novels?” Pickett asked. “I love those books.”

  Melita just nodded thanks.

  “Deal,” Sarge said. “The full story once we figure it all out.”

  “Deal,” Melita said, standing. She handed Sarge a card. “After you are done with breakfast and back at the Ogden, call me.”

  “About an hour,” Sarge said.

  “It will be fun digging out those old files,” Melita said.

  She headed back toward her family as Pickett just sort of stared at Sarge and Robin.

  “We either caught a break,” Robin said. “Or this is just going to confuse us even more.”

  “I wouldn’t bet against the confusion,” Sarge said.

  Pickett laughed. Sadly, neither would she.

  With that Robin grabbed her phone to have Will and his people do a quick check on Melita.

  With this case, no one could be trusted.

  34

  December 10th, 2016

  Las Vegas, Nevada

  * * *

  Sarge was glad that Melita’s history and family all checked out. He and Pickett enjoyed the walk after breakfast back to the Ogden, purposely not talking about the case. Robin had decided to go back to her office to be there if they needed to check on something quickly.

  Just an hour after the conversation in the restaurant, Sarge and Pickett met Melita in the lobby of the Ogden and used Pickett’s car to get out to the Spring Valley area.

  The home had clearly been built as a nice, modern home in the eighties. It was still well-kept with what looked like a new coat of off-green paint and the trees were large and offered shade.

  Melita let them in, saying that her cousin and his wife were both at work but had said it was fine for her and two detectives to go to the basement.

  The basement was filled with a family room that not only had some kids’ toys, but a large-screen television filling one wall.

  Melita unlocked a door to one side of the family room and pushed it open, clicking on the light.

  “Since all of this is my stuff,” she said, “My husband and I are the only ones with keys.”

  Sarge was impressed that the back room of the basement was bright, with tile floors and all four walls covered in shelves. Some boxes sat up on wood pallets off the floor and boxes filled every shelf, all clearly labeled.

  An empty wooden table filled the center of the room, clearly used for sorting onto the shelves.

  “Wow, organized,” Pickett said.

  “My husband calls it obsessive.” Melita said, laughing. “But it comes in handy. I print out and bring a copy of every one of my books here, along with an electronic backup copy.”

  Melita went right to an old file box with the label DB on the side and pulled it down from the shelf, turning and placing it on a table.

  “Haven’t opened this since I put it back here and headed to college.”

  “Wow,” Pickett said. “We’re honored you are letting us look at it now.”

  Melita laughed. “Nothing to be honored about. Just old paperwork that should have been tossed decades ago.”

  “Glad you didn’t,” Sarge said.

  Melita opened the box and inside Sarge could see very organized envelopes. Each one had been sealed and then ripped open.

  “Chance of DNA?” Pickett asked, pointing to a ripped envelope.

  “A real good chance,” Sarge said, smiling.

  Sarge quickly put on some evidence gloves and opened one envelope. It had two pages of a typed letter in it with no signature. A list of details about some local bands and a stage act.

  “My columns are in the folders against the back,” Melita said.

  The letter in Sarge’s hand was carefully worded and exact. Sarge had no doubt it was a code of some sort. But it was going to take a computer expert to crack it.

  Melita shook her head. “Wow, looking back at this, I was sure stupid to use this inform
ation without ever checking any of it.”

  “High school,” Pickett said.

  “Being young doesn’t excuse everything,” Melita said.

  “Oh, it does when you get to be Pickett and my ages,” Sarge said.

  “I think you might call it envy,” Pickett said, laughing.

  Melita laughed as well.

  “Would you mind if we take these with us and have everything scanned and analyzed?” Sarge asked. “I promise we’ll return it all to you as is.”

  At that moment Sarge’s phone buzzed and he glanced down to see Mike’s number.

  Sarge answered it.

  “Board yourself in the house where you are, keep the door locked,” Mike said. “My man on you has five armed intruders working toward the house you are in. I’ll be there with reinforcements in ten minutes.”

  “Melita’s family,” Sarge said.

  “Already protected and under guard.”

  Mike clicked off.

  Sarge stuffed the phone back into his pocket. “We have company.”

  “How the hell did they know what we are doing?” Pickett asked.

  “That is a question for later,” Sarge said. He moved quickly over and closed the basement door and locked the handle. He didn’t much like the idea of being trapped in a basement room, but at this point this was their best bet of survival.

  Then he came back across the room and had Pickett help him tip the heavy wooden table over on its side facing the door. It looked to be solid oak and would give them some cover. Especially if the attackers started firing through the walls.

  He put the box with the Darling Black files behind the table as well.

  “What’s happening?” Melita said. “What about my family?”

  “It seems we have led some really bad people right to you,” Sarge said. “We have special forces protecting your family and backup coming here in ten minutes.”

  “All for those stupid columns?” Melita asked as Pickett pulled her down onto the floor behind the heavy wooden table.

  Sarge moved over and stood behind the door, his gun drawn. A brick fireplace wall there would protect him from shots coming through the door or sheetrock walls. But even so he would crouch when he heard someone coming, make himself a smaller target.