Dead Hand: A Cold Poker Gang Mystery

  More than two hundred couples get married in Las Vegas every day. And some people just go missing right before their planned wedding.

  Some show up later. Some are never found.

  The Cold Poker Gang decides to look into an old cold case of a woman who went missing right before her wedding. What they dig up shocks the entire city to the core. And exposes the dirty side of an industry beyond the roses and cake and white dresses.

  Another twisted mystery from USA Today bestselling author Dean Wesley Smith.

  PART ONE

  A Wedding Dress

  PROLOGUE

  May 17th, 2010

  Las Vegas, Nevada

  TRUDY PATTERSON RAN her hand along the lace edge of her white wedding dress as it hung in her suite’s bedroom. The dress was so beautiful, with a full skirt and short train, and it fit her perfectly, almost magically, especially over her shoulders.

  She had hung it out in the open just to be able to stare at it the last few days and enjoy the wonderful future it promised. Amazing how a simple dress could mean so much.

  Outside Trudy’s top floor suite, the sun was shining and the day was promising to be warm. She had some errands to run, then she would pick up Tommy, the love of her life, at the airport and they would have dinner. So when she got back from the errands, she needed to put the dress away so he wouldn’t see it. That would be bad luck.

  She didn’t really believe in that sort of thing, but when it came to getting married, she was going to take no chances.

  But for the moment, she liked having the wonderful dress and all it offered for a future out in the open.

  The dress had been her grandmother’s on her father’s side. Her grandmother would have been proud to see Trudy wearing it, but her grandmother had died a year before Trudy met Tommy in their last years of college.

  Tommy’s parents and family and friends would arrive tomorrow from Los Angeles and Trudy’s parents and sister would fly in the following day.

  In three days, Trudy would walk down the aisle in that dress in a beautiful chapel in the rocks just outside of town and marry Tommy. They had been living together now in Denver for three years and both of them had always wanted to get married in Las Vegas. Now, it was finally going to happen, just as they had both dreamed and planned.

  She had been here for almost a week, arranging all the details for the rehearsal dinner, the wedding, the justice of the peace, the flowers, everything. Her mother had offered to get time off work and come and help her, but Trudy had wanted to do it alone. She felt that would make it even more special.

  Her hand brushed the dress again, then she checked herself in the bathroom mirror to make sure her long brown hair was still tied back and her shorts weren’t riding up on her and her light blue blouse was buttoned correctly.

  All fine. Just three last quick errands, not more than a few hours, and she would come back, shower, and change to meet Tommy.

  She took her rental car keys, her small brown purse, and a bottle of water and headed out of the suite’s door.

  The hotel’s security cameras followed her to the valet parking, where she got in her blue 2010 Ford Taurus rental car, buckled her seat belt, and pulled into traffic without a problem.

  She was never seen alive again.

  Five days after she was scheduled to be married and her frantic family and fiancé shouted at everyone they could shout at to get help, Trudy Patterson’s body was found in a white wedding dress, holding a bouquet of red, wilted flowers, sitting in her rental car, parked at the top of a slight ridge looking out over Las Vegas.

  Because she had been sitting in the hot car with the windows up for three days before being found, cause of death was never determined.

  And with her fiancé and family all having complete alibis, there were no suspects.

  None.

  Within months, her case went cold and her grandmother’s wedding dress, the one that had hung in the suite, not the one she wore in death, was put back in a box for storage.

  CHAPTER ONE

  October 18th, 2016

  Las Vegas, Nevada

  RETIRED LAS VEGAS Detective Debra Pickett locked her silver Jeep Grand Cherokee SUV on the second floor of the Golden Nugget parking garage and then, out of years of habit, checked everything around her as she started for the sky bridge.

  She walked with a long stride for her five-four size. Not quick, like would be expected, just long, which allowed her to cover more ground. At sixty-one years old, she kept her hair short and dyed her natural brown, the color it had been before it started turning gray.

  Her color of gray had been faded and ugly, not silver like her mother’s had been. So keeping it brown was her only choice.

  Many a person over the years had underestimated her thin, wiry stature and paid a price by often ending up face down on the pavement. She had a reputation around the station of being too tough to mess with and she liked that. She had played it up at times to her advantage.

  Around her, the four-story concrete parking garage was mostly quiet. A young couple headed for their car on the far side, her heels clicking on the pavement and her far-too-short mini-skirt hiking up even as she tried to keep it down. A black Ford with another couple cruised upward along the ramp looking for a place to park, its engine surprisingly silent.

  At ten in the evening, the air was starting to have a slight bite to it. She loved this time of the year in Las Vegas. Comfortable days, cool nights. Perfect.

  She was dressed in her normal jeans, a light-colored tan blouse, and a light-tan cloth jacket. She had her badge in her back pocket and her gun in her large purse. She normally liked to carry the gun in a holster under a jacket, but wearing a gun while playing cards at Lott and Julia’s place just felt odd.

  The noise from the bands over on the Fremont Street Experience was faint in the garage. It was still too early for most people to be leaving the casino and Fremont Street and too late for many new arrivals.

  Pickett lived only a few blocks away to the east at the Ogden Condos, but since parking here was easier than the walk along the Fremont Street Experience this time of the night, she figured there was no point in parking at home.

  For the last six months, after the Cold Poker Gang poker games at Lott and Julia’s home, Pickett and her partner, Robin Sprague, had come here for a late dinner. It had become a tradition for them and they both liked the time to unwind and talk about the cold case they were working on.

  During the week between games they often spent every day tracking down leads. Robin was an expert with computers, so she took that end while Pickett took the lead on the real-world stuff.

  Besides, the footwork took more time and since Pickett was single and Robin married, Pickett didn’t mind picking up some of that slack at all. Least she could do for her best friend who had actually managed to hold a marriage and a police career together at the same time.

  That was a feat not duplicated by many.

  Last week they had cleared a tough old missing person’s case from the 1970s and both felt great about that. Even that old of a case gave families some closure.

  And the Cold Poker Gang last week had given them a round of applause, a tradition she liked when someone closed a case. Having other detectives she admired and respected applaud her work never got old.

  At this point, there were fourteen retired detectives in the Cold Poker Gang, but only about ten showed up on any given Tuesday. She and Robin had decided they wouldn’t miss a night, they loved it that much.

  And they loved working the cold cases. Before they retired, they never seemed to have enough time for many cold cases. That’s why the Las Vegas Police Chief had gi
ven the Cold Poker Gang special status to work on cold cases. They could all still carry their guns and their badges. They just didn’t get paid.

  Having an unpaid group of experienced detectives volunteering to work cold cases freed up the on-duty detectives to do the more pressing work and allowed Las Vegas to now have one of the top-rated levels of closing cold cases in the entire country.

  Besides that, no member of the gang had to do any paperwork. Pickett considered that the best of both worlds. She could work at her own pace, do the job she still loved, and not have to do paperwork.

  She had retired and gone to police heaven, as far as she was concerned.

  This week, Retired Detective Andor Williams, the Cold Poker Gang’s official contact with the Chief of Police, had given her and Robin a cold murder from 2010 as their next focus case.

  And Andor had suggested that Retired Detective Ben “Sarge” Carson join them on the case.

  That had surprised her. Neither Pickett or Robin had met Sarge before tonight, but Pickett remembered seeing him around the main police headquarters at times over the years. And she had heard how good he was, often working alone to solve cases.

  Sarge had been stationed out of the university area headquarters, out the Strip toward the airport, and she and Robin had worked out of the Sunnerlin Station to the west of downtown.

  It seemed that Sarge had been an early member of the Cold Poker Gang and had been pulled away by some family crisis for a couple years, but as of tonight he was back.

  Pickett had been surprised at how handsome Sarge was. He had thick, gray hair, a square jaw that looked like it had never been punched, and was solid and very much in-shape. He looked to be about her age, but she couldn’t tell for sure.

  Plus he had a smile that seemed natural and hit his hazel eyes every time.

  And he had smiled at her when he shook her hand. For a moment she hadn’t wanted to let his hand go. She hadn’t felt that way about a man since long before her cheating bastard of a husband moved with his thirty-year-old secretary to Los Angeles ten years ago in a mid-life crisis that could be described as only a laughing cliché.

  The bastard had paid the price. She had gotten her wonderful three-bedroom penthouse condo in The Ogden and more than enough money to not have to work again.

  So the sudden attraction to Sarge sort of flustered Pickett. He had been playing on another table. When the games broke at ten as they always did, Pickett noticed he had more chips than he started with. So he was a poker player to watch out for. She liked that.

  So now he was going to join her and Robin here at the Golden Nugget for dinner to talk about their new case.

  It seemed that for one case, for the first time in years, she and Robin would have a third member on their team.

  And Pickett decided she didn’t mind at all, if he just kept smiling and looking handsome.

  CHAPTER TWO

  October 18th, 2016

  Las Vegas, Nevada

  RETIRED DETECTIVE BEN “Sarge” Carson headed across the street from the first floor of the Golden Nugget parking garage and in through the main doors by the Starbucks. He was whistling softly to himself and walking lighter than he had in years. It felt great to be back working again.

  He liked the Golden Nugget more than he wanted to admit and had made it a four-times-a-week habit of coming here for the buffet at breakfast. It was an easy walk from his condo, which also helped him get out and get a little exercise as well.

  The buffet had great food, reasonable prices, and friendly people. And that breakfast routine had given him some structure in his days. For the last two years, structure was what he had missed the most.

  He would get up in the morning and wonder what to do with his day.

  He had spent some time traveling, a long cruise, and two trips a year to New York City to see his daughter, Steph, who worked there for a magazine.

  But since Andrea had divorced him five years ago and moved to Chicago with a guy she had met from work, finding some sort of structure had been an everyday project.

  Sarge had retired from the force just after Andrea left and for a short time worked casino security at the MGM Grand. Also, during that year he had been a member of the Cold Poker Gang.

  But even on that he couldn’t keep his mind focused. There was just something about a woman he trusted and loved and lived with for over thirty years suddenly just saying she was leaving and moving in with another man.

  In hindsight, he could see all the signs. He had worked more and more, stayed away from home more and more, because it just wasn’t pleasant to be home once Steph had gone off to college.

  And Andrea had worked more and more and they barely saw each other the last few years. He knew, in his heart, the marriage was over. He just hadn’t wanted to admit it.

  He admired Andrea for taking the step to clear things out. He wasn’t angry at her and actually liked the guy she moved with to Chicago. She wasn’t the problem.

  He was the problem. He just couldn’t figure out what to do with his life at sixty-two years of age. So he had sold their family home, given half of the proceeds to Andrea, then bought a penthouse condo in the Ogden using just a tiny, tiny bit of his inheritance money from his father who had died the year before. Sarge loved the condo, but still needed a great deal more in his life.

  Tonight, being back with the detectives of the Cold Poker Gang and talking solving crimes had felt wonderful. He knew he had found at least a part of what he had been looking for.

  As Lott had said to him when they talked about Sarge rejoining the Cold Poker Gang, “It gives life a purpose.”

  Sarge could feel that clearly tonight.

  And then Andor had suggested he join up with Pickett and Sprague, the two best women detectives ever to work the Las Vegas streets. Sarge had been surprised at that, but when Sarge heard what the case was, he had almost hugged Andor.

  Andor had known Sarge was coming back, so he had pulled a cold case that Andor knew Sarge had a personal connection with.

  The “Wedding Dress Murder” as it had been called, had been Sarge’s case originally. And not solving that poor girl’s murder had bothered him more than he wanted to admit over the years.

  Now, with two of the best detectives the city had to offer, just recently retired, he was finally going to have the time to run at the “Wedding Dress Murder” as it should have been.

  And that just had him whistling and smiling.

  It was time to get back to work, time to do what he had loved once again.

  CHAPTER THREE

  October 18th, 2016

  Las Vegas, Nevada

  WHEN PICKETT GOT to the restaurant, Robin was already sitting at their favorite booth in the back of the twenty-four hour café on the main floor of the hotel. The restaurant, in the last remodel, had gone from being open with hundreds of tables to being smaller, but much nicer.

  Now the booth was cloth-covered brown tones with nice wood tabletop and plants between the booths giving a feeling of privacy. The restaurant staff were always friendly, and at ten in the evening they had switched over to their late-night menu which was mostly sandwiches, desserts, a few steaks, and breakfasts of all kinds. All of it good.

  Usually Robin sat on one side of the booth with her back to a kitchen door and Pickett sat on the other, but tonight Robin had scooted around to the back of the booth to give Sarge one side when he arrived.

  Retired Detective Robin Sprague was about as tough a cop as there was, and Pickett had zero doubt Robin was a lot smarter than she was.

  Robin was square and solid, with arms and shoulders of a swimmer even at sixty. She often spent time swimming as exercise and had competed in some senior’s events. She kept her gray hair cut short and often wore a wide-billed baseball cap to keep the sun off her face.

  Pickett burned easily in the sun, while Robin seldom seemed to use suntan lotion and just seemed to tan evenly as the summer went on. They had been partners for over twenty years since bot
h were promoted to detective at the same time.

  Robin had one kid, now back east working in Washington. And her husband, Will, still ran one of Las Vegas’s top security firms. He managed to keep safe some of the most powerful and famous people on the planet every day.

  Besides that, he was one of the nicest men Pickett had ever had the pleasure to meet. After Pickett’s divorce, Robin and Will had almost adopted her, asking her over for all kinds of things to keep her mind occupied.

  Wonderful friends that didn’t come any better.

  “So what do you think of working with Sarge?” Robin asked as Pickett slid into her normal side of the booth and took a sip from the glass of ice water already there.

  “I think it’s going to be fun, actually,” Pickett said. And she did think that.

  “Because he’s a hunk?” Robin asked, smiling.

  Pickett knew that smile and that evil grin from her partner.

  Pickett laughed. “There’s that. But if I remember right, he’s married.”

  “Nope,” Robin said, still holding that evil grin. “Divorced right before he retired five years ago.”

  Now that sat Pickett back in her seat. She had been instantly attracted to Sarge tonight. And he was available.

  “Seriously?” Pickett asked.

  “You can ask him yourself,” Robin said, indicating the entrance to the restaurant.

  Sarge had just come in and spotted them in the back. Pickett watched him weave through the tables, his solid form moving with an ease that you didn’t often see in someone at his age. He seemed completely in control of himself and his movements.

  Pickett could feel her stomach clamp up at watching him. Damn, he had to be the most handsome man in downtown Las Vegas. How the hell was it possible she was even attracted to him? She had figured that part of her life was done. It certainly had been shut off for a lot of years.