Calling Dead: A Cold Poker Gang Mystery Page 10

  “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.”

  “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.”

  Lott went back to studying the images of the busses, wishing he could fly in low like Google images did and see what was in those busses. He had a hunch he would see it much closer soon enough.

  “Wampler Recyling Inc. owns the property,” Fleet said.

  Lott snapped around and looked at Julia, whose eyes were wide.

  “Careful, real careful,” Lott said. “But can you get us images of Wampler?”

  “Why is that name ringing a bell?” Annie asked.

  “Kirk Wampler was the kid who survived the bus tragedy and then was killed by a bus,” Julia said.

  “These two sickos sure have a sense of irony,” Andor said.

  “Oh, shit,” Annie said.

  “We are being very careful,” Fleet said. “My people have gone to what we call Def-Con Five, meaning any hint of a search could explode everything.”

  Lott shook his head. There would be no way in hell they could solve some of these cases without Doc and Fleet and Annie and all the power they wielded with their vast money and expert teams.

  “You were right,” Fleet said. “My team is telling me that very sophisticated search alarms were set on this site. We triggered none of them.”

  “Good work,” Julia said.

  Lott made himself take a deep breath.

  “Kirk Wampler is the founder of the company,” Fleet said after a moment. “It was started in 2001 and has a dozen business locations around the area specializing in metal repurposing and recycling. I am sending an image of Kirk Wampler to all three of you now.”

  Julia quickly took her iPad and clicked it on, then got her e-mail, opening the image.

  The image was of Lynch, hair very short, large fake eyebrows, wearing a three-piece suit. She disguised perfectly as a man.

  “Let me guess,” Lott said. “Wampler is married.”

  “In 2001,” Fleet said, “to Cynthia Peters. Picture on the way.”

  Lott didn’t need to see the picture. He had no doubt it would be West.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  August 15th, 2015

  11:30 A.M.

  Las Vegas

  JULIA SAT STARING at the image of the bus graveyard on the screen. She didn’t want to even try to imagine what the inside of fourteen or so of those busses would be like. She had no intention of going and looking. She needed to sleep again at some point and her imagination was already enough to keep her awake for more nights than she wanted to think about.

  She turned to Lott and Andor, who both seemed to be lost in thought. Andor was just staring at his feet and Lott was doing the same thing she had been doing, just staring at the image of the bus graveyard.

  “We need some chicken,” she said, standing and turning for the stairs, her phone and iPad in her hand. “And then we need to figure out proof to stop these killers before that woman from Montana becomes the first victim sitting against the wall in another mine.”

  She headed up the stairs taking them two at a time to try to get some blood flowing back to her shocked brain.

  She was putting out paper plates and napkins when both Lott and Andor joined her. Lott had her iced tea glass in his hand and refilled hers and his as Andor pulled out the new bucket of chicken and grabbed himself another bottle of water.

  The smell of the chicken filled the kitchen almost instantly. No one said a word until they were all seated and had taken a few bites of the still slightly-warm chicken. To Julia, the taste overcame her desire to never eat again, and actually calmed her some. She figured that was because KFC was part of her normal life, not this insane case.

  After another bite, she pulled a spiral notebook from the counter behind her and opened it to a clean page. It was a notebook Lott used for groceries and other items he needed to pick up around town.

  “So we are going to make a list,” she said. “Of all the things we don’t yet know.”

&
nbsp; “I’d suggest you write the word ‘everything’ and be done with it,” Andor said, wiping chicken grease off his fingers. “But I don’t suppose that would help much.”

  Julia ignored him and said, “Montana woman. Missy Andrews. She’s still more than likely alive and out there.”

  “We can hope,” Andor said.

  She wrote “Montana Woman” as #1 on the list and circled it.

  “Where were all these women baked?” Lott asked.

  She wrote that down.

  “Why take the meat?” Andor asked.

  She wrote that down as well.

  “Can we trace the school clothes and where they were bought?” Lott asked. “A lot of years of buying clothes.”

  Julia doubted that would be possible, but she wrote it down anyway. But it caused her to think of something else as Lott and Andor sat staring at their chicken.

  “They are using two names now from the bus tragedy,” Julia said. “Are they using others?”

  “Oh, shit!” Andor said, standing and moving to where they had left the folder with the information and names from the bus tragedy.

  Julia grabbed the phone and called Annie, who answered almost at once.

  “You have the file on the bus tragedy and the victims?” Julia asked.

  Across the table, Andor was flipping through the old file and Lott was staring at her, nodding.

  “We got them all,” Annie said.

  “We’re betting Lynch and West are using all the names in one way or another that were associated with that bus tragedy, including the teacher,” Julia said. “Can you have Fleet and his people do the super-careful searches on all the names?”

  “Damn, great idea,” Annie said. “We should have thought of that. Back with you shortly.” She hung up.

  Julia put the phone down beside the list, trying to decide if she wanted to try to eat another piece of chicken.

  Lott was nodding. “Really good idea.”

  “I have an even sicker idea,” Andor said.

  Julia wasn’t sure she could imagine a sicker idea in this case.

  Andor had taken the file folder from the case 15 years ago and was looking at an autopsy photograph of one of the women.

  Julia caught a glance at the picture and instantly looked away. Nothing about a baked and carved up human body that was appealing.

  Andor looked up from the file at both of them and closed the folder over the autopsy photographs. He seemed to have a haunted look in his eyes. Julia had never seen Andor look that way before.

  He then pointed to the folder of the bus tragedy victims.

  “I think we need to quietly dig up a few of these graves,” he said.

  Julia just stared at Andor, as did Lott. For the life of her she couldn’t imagine why they would need to do that, or what it would help.

  Finally Lott asked bluntly, “And why would we do that?”

  “When I asked about why they take the meat,” Andor said, “it dinged me. We have always assumed they took it for eating, standing jokes around headquarters and all. But what happens if that assumption has been flat wrong for all these years.”

  “What else are you thinking they would take it for?” Julia asked, just about as puzzled as she had been in a long time.

  “They take the women’s butts, top back of their legs, and underwear,” Andor said, pointing to the autopsy file.

  Lott and Julia both nodded.

  Then she understood where Andor was going.

  Silence filled the kitchen like a heavy weight. All Julia could do was blink as she imagined a woman’s butt, legs, and underwear mounted on some sort of surface. And over a hundred of them stretching off into the distance.

  Nightmare didn’t begin to describe that image.

  The chicken she had eaten now threatened to make a second showing.

  Lott shoved his plate away and stood, clearly angry. He paced over to the counter, then came back.

  Julia didn’t look up at him. She was afraid to. It was everything she could do to clear the image and keep her lunch down.

  “You thinking they went back and got trophies from their first kills?” Lott asked Andor.

  Andor nodded.

  Lott again paced over to the counter and then came back.

  “When you bake a human like that,” Lott said, “As I discovered with my long bake of a roast, the flesh becomes easier to cut precisely with very sharp knives.”

  “Exactly,” Andor said. “They could then add moisture back into the skin and then coat it with an epoxy or something else like is done with those parts of human bodies in museums.”

  Lott nodded. “We have seen sicker trophies taken by killers.”

  Julia had as well, but not on this scale.

  “Looks like both women have a thing for women’s butts,” Andor said, shaking his head.

  “Not both women,” Julia said, trying her best to not imagine what they might find in those busses. “We haven’t seen the busses. We don’t know which part Lynch is cutting off to use as a trophy.”

  Again the silence just slammed into the kitchen like a hammer, pounding at a headache that was threatening Julia. She forced herself to take long, deep breaths and move her shoulders around and the headache faded back a little. She doubted it would leave until this was all over.

  Finally, Lott said, “you are right, we need to dig up a few graves.”

  At that moment the phone rang.

  “It’s Annie,” Julia said, picking up her phone. “Let’s hope we don’t have to, because now, if we find their trophy room, we can stop these two cold. We will have the evidence.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  August 15th, 2015

  12:30 P.M.

  Las Vegas

  LOTT LISTENED OVER the speakerphone and was stunned when Annie and Fleet told them that not only were a few of the names from the bus tragedy being used, but that all of them were active. Including the teacher’s name.

  “At first glance,” Fleet said, “the names all have property and accounts and cash in six western states. All of it started a couple of years after Kirk died. We are digging carefully to not set off any alarms and will be back with you with results in an hour.”

  “Can you also check in those accounts if one of them bought a lot of clear epoxy-like material,” Lott had said.

  “The stuff used to seal human flesh like in the museum shows of exposed human skin and muscles,” Andor said.

  “Something you haven’t told us yet?” Annie asked.

  “Just see if you can find any reference to that,” Lott said, not really wanting to explain any more to his daughter at this point. “Or any kind of taxidermy products that could be used to preserve human muscle and skin.”

  “Oh, shit,” Annie said. “You are kidding.”

  “A theory is all,” Julia said.

  “I may never eat again,” Fleet said.

  Annie hung up.

  “So we have another thing to add to our list,” Julia said. “Where would they display that many trophies?”

  Lott watched as she added that to their list of questions. Then she looked up. “What other details are we missing? Let’s start with the bus crash because it seems everything else does.”

  “Did these two have other friends in school at the time of the accident?” Andor asked.

  Lott nodded. Good question and he watched as Julia wrote it down.

  They sat there for a short time in silence, thinking. Then Lott realized the one large thing they were missing.

  “The school itself,” Lott said. “Is it still in operation and if not, who owns it now?”

  “Great question,” Julia said, and wrote that down as well.

  “How about we take a drive past it,” Andor said. “I got the address and I need to move around some to let this chicken find a place a little lower than my throat.”

  Lott could only agree to that.

  He grabbed all three of them fresh bottles of water as Julia put the tub of chic
ken back into the fridge and tossed the paper plates into the garbage.

  Andor took a dishtowel, soaked it in cold water, and put it over his neck. Then they headed out the back door and into the afternoon August heat.

  It was like stepping into a blast furnace, but at the moment, just the change felt good as far as Lott was concerned. It cleared his mind.

  He climbed into his Cadillac SUV and got it started, letting the air-conditioning run at full blast.

  Andor got into the back seat and Julia climbed into the passenger seat. She had her phone and his grocery notebook. After this, Lott had no doubt he was going to need a new notebook.

  Lott worked his way through traffic out the old Boulder Highway. The ten-minute drive was done in silence. They all needed a change of scenery more than anything else at this point.

  From the backseat, Andor said, “Turn right off the highway up here. Three blocks down. If these two killers own this place as well, they will have it monitored, so stay back and don’t stop.”

  “Good thinking,” Lott said. He had no doubt that if the school was involved, they would have it monitored.

  The neighborhood had long ago seen better days. Most of the homes were built in the 1960s and many of them looked like they hadn’t had a coat of paint since they were built. Standard trash neighborhood with junked cars in front yards and no hint at all of landscaping besides rows of tires melting in the sun.

  “Go right! Quick,” Julia shouted.

  Without question, Lott swung the big white SUV down the street to the right. He had just caught a glimpse of the old school ahead of them. It was surrounded by two layers of tall fence with many “No Trespassing” signs. From what he could see, it looked like it had once been under construction, but that had long ago stopped.

  The school must have been something nice back in the 1950s. Brick, with tall windows and a wide porch out front. It seemed to be two stories tall and had a bell tower of some sort. No wonder someone had wanted to fix it up at one point.

  He had no idea what Julia had seen, but there had been something that had alerted her.

  “Why right?” Andor asked just a second before Lott did.