Calling Dead: A Cold Poker Gang Mystery

by Smith, Dean Wesley

“See any signs of other problems with him?” Lott asked.

  Mitchell shook her head. “Stayed in his room all the time when not forced to come out and eat or go to school.”

  “So you have any idea where he went after here?” Julia asked.

  Mitchell kind of jerked back, then shook her head. “The doctors said they were going to keep it quiet, guess they did.”

  Lott wasn’t liking the sound of this at all. “Keep what quiet?”

  “Kirk killed himself,” Mitchell said.

  Lott could see the hurt in her eyes. This woman actually did care for the kids she was trying to help.

  “How did he do that?” Julia asked, her voice soft.

  “He stepped out in front of an empty school bus. He’s buried beside his mom and dad up in the Palm Cemetery off the beltway.”

  Lott felt like he was going to be sick. It was a school bus trip that had gone horribly wrong and killed his dad and those girls. And it had ended up killing Kirk as well.

  They thanked Mitchell and apologized for bothering her and headed back out into the heat.

  Their best lead was dead.

  And now all Lott could ask himself was what next?

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  August 7th, 2015

  4:45 P.M.

  Las Vegas

  LOTT HAD DECIDED that the news about Kirk required a fresh bucket of KFC for dinner, even though there was some cold KFC still in the fridge from last night.

  Julia liked that idea. She wasn’t sure why the news that Kirk was dead had rocked her so much. With so many women missing, she had just hoped that the answer to this craziness would be simple.

  But it now looked like it was going to be far, far from simple. They had no leads at all. None. Maybe a hundred possible suspects, but no leads.

  While Lott headed them back toward his place through downtown traffic, Julia called first Andor and then Lott’s daughter, Annie, and told them of the KFC plans at Lott’s house.

  “Perfect,” Andor had said. “I was starting to grow roots in that booth at the Bellagio.”

  Annie said she would be there, but she didn’t sound upbeat in the slightest. And Julia did not tell her or Andor about Kirk being dead.

  They desperately needed some sort of break in this case.

  Lott headed into the drive-through at the nearest KFC to his home. They hadn’t talked much during the twenty minutes it had taken them to get across town. Not much to talk about, since they were both focused on the case.

  But as they waited, Lott turned to her. “From what Mrs. Mitchell said, Kirk had a lot of doctors. I think we need to see if we can get his medical records.”

  Julia nodded. “I agree. But at this point I’m not sure what good it will do.”

  She was convinced that the records would show that Kirk was destroyed by survivor guilt and depression from what had happened to his father and those girls. She had seen survivors of some major tragedy or another kill themselves more times than she wanted to admit.

  “Those girl’s underwear being found in Kirk’s pocket bothers me,” Lott said, rolling up the window after the woman gave him his change and said it would be a minute.

  “Maybe part of the survivor guilt that killed him,” Julia said.

  “Might be,” Lott said, nodding. “Or they were planted there.”

  Julia was surprised at that statement. “Why would you say that?”

  Lott looked at her, his dark eyes clear and intense. “The eleven women we found in the cave also didn’t have underwear on. We paid little attention to that fact because of the hunks of flesh gone from the legs and butts of the women. We figured it was just part of the killer cutting them up. But maybe we should have paid attention to the missing underwear.”

  “Signs of sexual assault at all?” Julia asked, shocked.

  Lott only shrugged. “None after the woman were baked. But I was told that kind of baking and mummifying process would pretty much clean out any sign of sexual activity unless the sex was rough and caused damage.”

  Julia turned and sat back, thinking. “I wonder if the girls in that mine with Kirk were sexually assaulted before or after they died?”

  Lott shook his head. “I honestly don’t know. Annie didn’t say anything about that, but that kind of information would have been withheld.”

  “I’ll call Andor and see if he has managed to dig up the entire file on that case.” Julia said. “Every damn hidden detail of it.”

  Lott nodded and she was on the phone when Lott took the bucket from the woman in the take-out window and the wonderful smell of fresh KFC filled the car.

  Andor said he got it all, including all the autopsies of all the girls and the father. Then he asked, “Got the bucket of chicken yet?”

  “Sitting between us as I speak,” Julia said.

  “I knew I could smell something,” Andor said and hung up.

  She laughed, then glanced at Lott as he turned them toward his home about a half mile away.

  “He’s got all the files there are on the first case,” Julia said. “And he sounds hungry.”

  Lott laughed. “Haven’t you noticed he’s always hungry?”

  “This time I think we should have gotten a bigger bucket,” Julia said.

  Lott indicated the bucket of chicken between them. “I figured as much, so I got the largest one.”

  “Smart man,” she said, laughing.

  Damn that chicken smelled good. She was hungry as well. And it was everything she could do to watch the road ahead instead of digging into the bucket.

  Everything.

  And if the drive had been even a half-mile longer, her self-control would have collapsed.

  CHAPTER NINE

  August 7th, 2015

  5:30 P.M.

  Las Vegas

  LOTT SAT THE large and very warm bucket of KFC on the table and turned to help Julia dig out napkins and paper plates. The wonderful scent from the chicken filled the kitchen like a soft padding, making it feel even more like a home.

  He had also gotten some mashed potatoes and some corn for all of them, so he also got out forks.

  Julia got them both a bottle of water from the fridge, then poured them both a glass of iced tea as well from a pitcher of tea he had made the day before.

  This remodeled kitchen felt wonderful to Lott. It made him feel almost rich with the granite counters and new cabinets and brand new fridge and stove. Carol would have loved what he had done with the place.

  They had the table set when Annie came in carrying a small file and headed for the fridge to get a bottle of water. She grabbed a second one and held it up as Andor followed her in the back door.

  He took it from her without a word, dropped a large file on the table out of the way of the chicken, and took his normal place with his back to the front door.

  Andor had sat in that same chair when Annie was a baby in a high chair and Lott and Carol had first bought this place. Now the kitchen was remodeled, Annie was an adult, Carol was gone, and Julia sat in Carol’s spot. All the while Andor remained in his same place and Lott remained in his same chair. Strange how things changed, and yet remained the same in so many ways.

  They made small talk about the heat and the smell of the chicken as they dug in and got through their first pieces. For some reason, that first piece of KFC just calmed him down, made him feel like he was on track, no matter what was going on in the world. That response had only happened since Carol’s death, and he had no intention of trying to change it or cut back on the chicken.

  After finishing the first leg, Lott decided it was time to tell Andor and his daughter about Kirk.

  He and Julia explained what Mitchell’s home looked like and what she was like, then told them that Kirk was dead.

  “Seriously?” Andor asked, stopping halfway through a bite of his second piece of chicken. “Can we be sure of that?”

  “He’s dead,” Annie said, nodding. “Fleet and his people discovered that about two hours ago and doub
le-checked everything. Ruled a suicide. Photos of his body and everything in there if you want to check them out.”

  She pointed to the folder she had brought, but didn’t pull it closer. Lott sure didn’t care to look and no one else asked for the file either.

  Kirk was just a tragic kid, swept up by a horrible accident. It was amazing he lived as long as he did after the events in the cave and on the bus.

  Lott also wasn’t surprised that Annie had come up with the same information he and Julia had found. Doc and Fleet and their crew were really amazingly efficient.

  “So our one suspect was dead before someone murdered the women we found in the cave,” Andor said, shaking his head. “This damn case is something.”

  Lott had to agree with that.

  “The kid has no relatives that we could find in any record,” Annie said, “so that side of things is a complete dead-end.”

  “What about all the abductions?” Julia asked. “Anything coming together from all of them?”

  “Fleet and his people are eliminating numbers of the ones we found in the first pass,” Annie said.

  “That’s good,” Julia said.

  Lott could only agree with that.

  “Down to just under two hundred black-haired women who have gone missing over the last seventeen years in the western part of the United States.”

  Two hundred! That number still felt like a kick in the stomach to Lott. An impossible number of women vanished and families destroyed.

  Annie went on. “The only detail that is standing out as slightly similar on a number of missing person’s cases is a brown panel van seen near where some of the women were before their disappearances. No license plate was ever taken, or description of any driver.”

  “And the news just gets better,” Andor said, wiping off his hands from the chicken grease. “So why, if Kirk is dead, were you wanting every detail of the school bus tragedy?”

  Julia took another piece of chicken and nodded for Lott to tell his former partner his idea.

  “The underwear off those girls,” Lott said. “I’m betting Kirk claimed he didn’t do that.”

  Andor nodded. “He continuously claimed that, over and over in the records I got here.” Andor pointed to the thick file.

  “So the eleven abducted women in our mine were not wearing underwear either,” Lott said.

  “Because the meat on their butts and legs had been trimmed away,” Andor said. “But I see where you are going with this. Someone else got into that cave with those girls and Kirk, more than likely before the rescue, but after he was passed out.”

  “Maybe after the girls were already dead,” Lott said. “So do any of those reports from the detectives or doctors have Kirk claiming he had visions of ghosts in that cave?”

  “Visions that would have been discounted as heat stroke,” Julia said.

  “Exactly,” Lott said. “And since that was just a massive tragedy with no crime involved, no one would be thinking someone else might have been in there and not reported it at once.”

  “Never looked for that,” Andor said, pulling the file closer and opening it. He quickly divided the large stack of papers into four piles and they all went to reading, trying not to get too much chicken grease on the papers as they went.

  Finally, Lott decided he just didn’t have the room and stood and picked up the bucket of chicken and moved it to the countertop. He didn’t feel like he was finished eating yet, but they could finish later.

  Julia and Annie handed him their plates and he took Andor’s and dumped them all in the garbage.

  Then he sat back down and kept reading, letting the silence fill the kitchen.

  “Got it!” Annie said after just a minute. “Kirk told one doctor he was sure he had seen someone in the mine as well. He says the kid gave him a sip of water, said help was on the way, and then left.”

  “So that’s why Kirk survived and the girls didn’t,” Andor said. “Did Kirk identify the kid?”

  Annie shook her head. “Kirk said here he didn’t know who it was. The doctors didn’t believe Kirk. Chalked it up to the heat since no one came forward and reported being in there.”

  Suddenly, Lott had a horrid thought. “We need to find out if Kirk went back to the same high school while staying with the Mitchells. And we need to really look at the file on Kirk’s death. What time of the day and was he alone?”

  “Oh, shit,” Andor said. “You think?”

  All Lott could do was shrug. “If the guy that took those girl’s underwear off suddenly realized Kirk would recognize him, I wouldn’t put anything past him.”

  Annie grabbed the file on Kirk’s suicide by bus that had been ignored and opened it.

  “Ten at night,” she read. “A dark stretch of Tropicana. Bus driver was a woman who said she never even saw Kirk until he was suddenly in front of her bus and she hit him.”

  Lott watched as Annie read on silently, then shook her head. “No one else was with him, supposedly. And there were no witnesses at all.”

  “Which means our perp might have been there,” Andor said, “and just took care of the only surviving witness to the first panty raid.”

  “Very possible,” Lott said.

  And he had a hunch they had just gotten a lead. Not much of one, but a start.

  And right about this point, they needed a start.

  CHAPTER TEN

  August 8th, 2015

  6:30 P.M.

  Las Vegas

  JULIA SAT ACROSS the wooden table in Lott’s kitchen and watched as Annie called Fleet and Doc in Idaho.

  “We need the class list of anyone in the same high school as Kirk. His year and the two years ahead.”

  “Thanks,” she said after a moment. “Kick them through to my computer and Dad’s computer. We’ll get back to you on some search parameters as we figure it out, but in the meantime, could you also send through if each person from the classes is still alive and what they do for a living and where they live? And also a list of the other girls in the Catholic girl’s school where the victims went?”

  Again, Julia watched as Annie nodded and then said, “Thanks.”

  Annie looked at the table. “They are going to also search to see if any of them have a panel van.”

  Julia was impressed. “Great thinking.”

  Annie shook her head. “Fleet and Doc are both so upset by all this, they are going at this full tilt. That many women being missing has them both upset beyond anything I have seen in a year or more.”

  “Not exactly making us all happy,” Andor said.

  Julia laughed. “Got that right.”

  The silence filled the kitchen and Julia was about to stand to get the chicken so they could all have more when a thought crossed her mind.

  “Black hair,” she said.

  The other three turned and looked at her.

  “How long was that school bus missing?”

  “Two days,” Lott said, looking at her puzzled. “The file I read had everyone searching for it, but in the wrong area of desert.”

  Andor nodded. “The governor thought of pulling in the guard to help in the search at one point.”

  “That’s what the newspapers said as well that I read,” Annie said. “Headlines for days.”

  “What about black hair?” Lott asked, looking puzzled.

  Julia looked intensely at Annie. “What grade were the girls in?”

  “All of them, including Kirk, were sophomores at Saint Mary’s School for Girls,” Annie said.

  “They still had that kind of dress code for kids around here in 1988?” Andor asked.

  Julia was surprised at the same thing.

  “The girls all went to a small Catholic girl’s school,” Annie said. “Kirk went to just a regular public school.”

  “So what’s the connection?” Lott asked Julia, his dark eyes trying to see what she was thinking. And at times she was convinced he managed just that.

  She smiled. “Black hair. The women in y
our mine all had black hair. Which one of the girls in that first tragedy had black hair?”

  “And did she have a boyfriend?” Andor asked, smiling.

  “Exactly,” Julia said and watched Lott nod.

  “The bus and girls were missing for two days,” Annie said. “Everyone in the city would have been out searching for them, and if this ghost that Kirk saw found them first and the girls were dead, including his girlfriend, that would twist any kid up real bad.”

  Julia nodded to that. “We need to check the file on the first tragedy. How many girls’ underwear were found in Kirk’s pocket?”

  They all quickly went back to the pages on the table in front of them and it was Lott who found the reference first in his part of the report.

  “There were ten pairs there,” Lott said.

  “Eleven girls,” Annie said.

  “So our killer keeps the women’s underwear as trophies,” Andor said. “And I’m betting he was in that mine with Kirk.”

  “Sure looking that way,” Julia said. “Now all we have to do is figure out which kid in three classes of high school kids was dating a black-haired Catholic girl who died in the tragedy.”

  Andor laughed. “No footwork there at all.”

  “That’s what they pay us the big bucks to do,” Lott said.

  “Yeah, I wish,” Andor said, as everyone laughed and Julia got back up to bring the bucket of chicken back to the table with more plates. They still had a dinner to finish.

  PART TWO

  The First Hand

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  August 13th, 2015

  10:30 P.M.

  Las Vegas

  LOTT WAS NOT pleased at all that yet another poker night had come and gone and they hadn’t made much progress on the mine murders. It had been one of the longest seven days that he could remember, and he had nightmares every night, sometimes waking up Julia.

  She looked tired as well, and he offered to stay at home some night to allow her to get some sleep and all she had said was, “Don’t you dare.”