Calling Dead: A Cold Poker Gang Mystery Read online

  Lott lifted one end of the gurney and then put it back down. “We should be able to get this up the stairs if we are careful.”

  “I’ll pull from the top,” Julia said.

  Andor nodded and he and Lott got around behind the gurney as Julia got up a few stairs.

  “Fleet,” she said into her phone, “I’m keeping the connection, but putting the phone in my pocket while we try to get this poor woman up these stairs.”

  “Understood,” Fleet said. “Lynch and West just got their first salad course.”

  Julia put the phone in her front pocket as Andor and Lott nudged the gurney up against the bottom of the old staircase.

  “Count of three,” Lott said.

  “Three,” Andor said.

  Andor and Lott lifted while Julia pulled up and lifted. Surprisingly the gurney went up the step easily.

  “Three,” Andor said again.

  Another step.

  They repeated that as fast as they dared, with Andor and Lott almost holding one end of the gurney up at chest level.

  Finally, they had the poor woman and the hospital gurney in the main hallway. They wheeled it quickly toward the front door just as sirens were sounding outside.

  They stopped just inside the front door. Lott and Andor were both sweating and breathing hard, but looked as if they would be all right if they got into some cool air and a bottle of water or two.

  Julia again checked to see how the woman was doing. Her heart rate was still strong.

  “Still doing fine,” Julia said.

  Lott, breathing hard, and sweating, looked at Julia and nodded and smiled.

  Julia was breathing as hard as he was, and she had no doubt her light blouse was stained through sweat and dirty from all the dust. But at this moment, she didn’t care. They had managed to rescue this poor woman from two of the worst serial killers in modern times.

  And stopping any more killing.

  And that was all that mattered.

  She pulled the phone from her pocket as Andor went out through the smashed front door and waved as the ambulance pulled up.

  “Fleet,” Julia asked, taking the phone from her pocket. “You still there?”

  “I am,” Fleet said. “Are you three all right?”

  “We needed a workout today,” Lott said.

  “And the woman?”

  “Still alive,” Julia said.

  “Great job,” Annie said.

  “Oh, thank heavens,” Fleet said.

  Julia could not have agreed more. They had gotten very lucky to be here in time.

  Barely in time.

  From just outside the front door, Andor turned back to Lott and Julia. “Chief just pulled up as well.”

  “We give him a ten minute explanation of the bus graveyard and everything Fleet and his people have found,” Lott said. “Fleet, you all right with that?”

  “I’ll put it in a presentable package as supposition and suggestions,” Fleet said, “they can research it themselves then so it can go in as evidence.”

  “Perfect,” Lott said.

  “So after we tell them everything, what next?” Julia asked.

  “We let the chief and his friends go downstairs and lose their lunches,” Lott said. “We have a couple at the Golden Nugget I want to join for a late lunch.”

  “Oh, I’m going to look forward to watching that,” Fleet said.

  Julia was as well.

  At that moment, two men dressed in medical uniforms came in and immediately started working on Missy Andrews.

  “She was exposed to high heat and is drugged,” Julia said. “So extreme heat stroke measures are in order.”

  Julia then gave the ambulance men Missy’s name and that the police would be contacting her and her family shortly. That she needed to stay away from any press until the police talked with her when she recovered.

  Both men nodded.

  The chief and two other men in suits picked their way through the rubble as the two from the ambulance changed the woman over to their gurney and headed out into the heat, covering her with a light sheet held up and off her body.

  Julia pushed the gurney they had gotten from downstairs off to one side.

  “Great job saving her,” the chief said, staring after the two ambulance drivers.

  “Please keep us out of it,” Andor said.

  Lott and Julia nodded, and the other two looked puzzled.

  Julia didn’t do this for credit and she knew that Andor and Lott wanted none either.

  The chief turned to the medium-sized man with the blue tie and no hair. “FBI Regional Director Steve Couch.”

  The man nodded.

  “And this is Chief Carl Landers with the State Police,” Chief Beason said, indicating a tall, skinny man with hard, dark eyes.

  “This is Detectives Lott, Williams, and Rogers,” Chief Beason said, finishing the introduction.

  Julia noticed that he didn’t add the word “retired” to the introduction, which was good because at the moment she felt a long ways from retired.

  “Here’s what we got, Chief,” Andor said. “This morning we started down the idea that Lynch killed just as West did. We discovered that the girl she had a crush on that died in the bus tragedy was named Cynthia Peters. She had long blonde hair at the time.”

  “West has long blonde hair,” the chief said.

  All three nodded.

  “So we had Doc and Fleet’s people do a search for missing women with long blonde hair,” Lott said.

  “Fleet,” Julia said, holding up the phone so that everyone could see it and hear Fleet clearly, “tell them what you found on that search.”

  “Chief,” Fleet said, “We found in a first-pass search the same pattern as the black-haired women. It seems that over the last fifteen years almost two hundred blonde-haired women have gone missing in the western states.”

  “Oh, shit,” FBI Director Couch said.

  Julia was glad that Andor pushed on at that point.

  “We figured,” Andor said, “that if West was hiding the bodies in mines, Lynch had to be hiding the bodies she took in another way.”

  Before the chief could ask a question, Lott kept the story going. “We then figured out that all the names of the kids in the original bus tragedy were all being used.”

  “And we had the idea to look for bus graveyards,” Julia said, “since that tragedy happened in a bus and these two seemed to be duplicating so much from that tragedy.”

  The chief and the other two men just nodded. All three of them were sweating in the heat of the hallway. The chief had pulled off his suit jacket and had it over his shoulder.

  “We found a bus graveyard,” Andor said, “owned by Wampler Industries, heavily protected outside of the city in a hidden valley.”

  “We didn’t go near it because we knew, just as with the mines, it would be watched,” Julia said.

  “Wampler?” the chief asked.

  “Kirk Wampler was the son of the bus driver in the original tragedy,” Lott said. “He was the only one who survived and then supposedly committed suicide by stepping in front of a school bus.”

  “Under a shell company,” Fleet said, from the phone, “the old school and some of the homes around the school are owned by Wampler and his wife, Cynthia Peters.”

  The chief nodded. “Let me guess. Cynthia Peters is West, Wampler is Lynch pretending to be a guy.”

  “Exactly,” Andor said. “Next we worked on why there was no human jerky out there. It seems that assumption we all made fifteen years ago was wrong. They didn’t take the body parts as food, they took them as a trophy.”

  “A woman’s butt, underwear, and back of her legs?” Director Couch asked.

  “Cut off after baking,” Lott said, “then brought back and preserved like they do the skin and muscles in those museum shows on human bodies.”

  “Oh, shit,” Couch said again.

  “You found that woman in the oven baking, didn’t you?” the chief as
ked.

  Andor nodded.

  The chief just shook his head. “Thank heavens you three and Doc and Annie and Fleet and his people never seem to rest.”

  No one said anything to that, but Julia was glad the chief noticed at least, especially the incredible work that Doc and Annie and Fleet were doing.

  “So did Lynch and West leave evidence this time?” FBI Director Couch asked.

  “I think in this old school,” Julia said, “and that home connected by a tunnel next door, you are going to find all the evidence you will ever need on these two.”

  Both Lott and Andor nodded to that.

  “You said you had them wrapped up?” FBI Director Couch asked.

  Julia was starting to like the bald guy. He was direct and seemed to keep on focus.

  “We do,” Andor said. “They don’t know it yet and Lott and I want to pay them a short visit first before you take them.”

  The chief looked puzzled.

  “We have been living with this nightmare for fifteen years,” Lott said. “Since that first step into that mine. We just ask for a minute. Trust us, we won’t hurt the case in any way.”

  “Besides,” Andor said. “All three of you are going to need to be there with some press to record the capture, and we want no part of that. But first, you need to see what those two women did.”

  Andor pointed to the staircase leading down. “When you have this place secured and are ready for the photo arrests, call me and we’ll let you know where we are at. But don’t take longer than fifteen minutes.”

  The chief nodded and the three men started for the stairs.

  “Gentlemen,” Julia said. “I would suggest you leave your coats and ties on the gurney there.”

  “That bad?” the chief said, taking off his tie and putting it with his coat.

  “Your worst nightmare,” Andor said. “But you all need to see it to understand everything about this case and what kind of monsters you are dealing with.”

  With that, Julia led the way out the shadows of the hallway and through the front door of the old girls school, picking her way through the rubble to finally be in the hot, blazing sun of a Las Vegas afternoon.

  It felt wonderful.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  August 15th, 2015

  2:20 P.M.

  Las Vegas

  LOTT GOT THE air-conditioning blowing hard and the Cadillac headed toward town on the Old Boulder Highway. It felt great to just have that much be normal for a moment.

  None of them said a word as he drove, being careful.

  Finally, after a few minutes, Fleet spoke from the phone Julia still held in her hand.

  “Update on the Missy Andrews’ condition,” Fleet said. “She’s going to make a full recovery and she has some relatives who are local who are headed to the hospital now.”

  “Wonderful,” Lott said.

  Julia beamed at him and he smiled back. That felt flat out wonderful.

  They hadn’t been able to save all the other lives, but one was enough for the day. And now they were going to stop any more killing from happening.

  “Thanks, Fleet,” Lott said. “For everything. We wouldn’t have saved her without you.”

  Nothing from the other side of the phone this time.

  “So how are the two monsters?” Andor asked.

  “Just finishing their main course,” Fleet said. “Doc and Annie are sitting about five tables away. Casino security has the entire place secured down.”

  “Have them keep an opening for three right beside Lynch and West.”

  “Will do,” Fleet said. “But something you should know.”

  “Go ahead,” Lott said, suddenly being worried again.

  “Security scans show they are both carrying concealed weapons. Small pistols.”

  Lott glanced at Julia, then back at Andor, who just nodded.

  “Thanks, Fleet,” Lott said. “We’ll keep that in mind.”

  Ten minutes later, Fleet handed a five-dollar tip to the parking valet at the Golden Nugget Rush Tower entrance and the three of them headed inside.

  All three of them stopped at a rest room to splash water on their faces and Lott had never felt anything so wonderful as the handfuls of cold water.

  Andor took some wet paper towels and just wiped off the back of his neck. Then they went back out and joined Julia, whose face looked flushed as well from the cold water.

  “Our trapped mice are starting into their desserts,” Fleet said.

  “Thanks, Fleet,” Julia said. “I’m leaving the connection, but putting the phone in my pocket again.”

  “I’ll be watching,” Fleet said. “But just remember, they are trapped and therefore dangerous.”

  “Copy that,” Lott said.

  At that moment, Andor’s phone rang. He listened for a moment, then said, “They are in the buffet at the Golden Nugget. I would come in with only you three and cameras and a few arresting officers. We’ll sit on them until you get here.”

  Then he put his phone away and smiled at Lott and Julia. “Seems we are about to wrap this up after fifteen years.”

  “And close a lot of cases and save a lot of lives,” Julia said.

  Andor nodded to that and turned and headed for the escalator that led up to the buffet.

  Julia took Lott’s hand and he squeezed her hand in appreciation. He couldn’t imagine going through all this with anyone else. They made an amazing team.

  As they walked around the planter that divided the buffet from the lobby area, Lott was surprised at how simply normal the two looked.

  Lynch made a decent man in looks, and wore a light blue sports coat that clearly screamed money.

  West had her long blonde hair pulled back and had on a light blue blouse with pearls around her neck and pearl earrings.

  How could two of the worst serial killers in history look so plain and normal?

  Doc and Annie sat two tables over to the left of the killers, with an empty table between them and the killers.

  Andor led over to the table on the other side of the two killers and sat down.

  Julia sat the farthest from the two, while Lott sat across from Andor.

  Both of them were close and could move quickly. Lott was almost right beside Lynch.

  “Something to drink?” A waitress asked as they were being seated.

  “Two glasses of water each,” Lott said. “Climbing around inside an old school building is thirsty work.”

  Both Lynch and West glanced at them, then West did a double-take.

  Lott was surprised that she recognized them. He wasn’t sure what he thought of that.

  “You know,” Andor said, “for being dead, Kirk, you are looking pretty nice. A real girly-man if you get my meaning.”

  “Cynthia here looks much better than she did after being baked on that bus,” Lott said. “She has recovered so well.”

  Both Lynch and West just stared at their half-finished desserts, their hands on the table in front of them. Lynch had been eating apple pie with a slight bit of ice cream. West had been working on a Key lime pie.

  Lott didn’t much like how they were acting. They had the look of desperation which could mean they would go for their guns at any moment.

  Lott glanced at Andor, then at Julia.

  Both were clearly seeing the same warning signs.

  “You had to assume that someday your killing spree would be over,” Andor said, continuing to poke at the two killers. “But I bet you didn’t expect two old detectives to be the ones to stop you, now did you?”

  “You are right, Detective Williams,” West said. “We did expect this to come to an end.

  “And you planned for it, right?” Lott said. “All sorts of ways of escape.”

  “We planned for every contingency,” Lynch said, looking at West. “Didn’t we, my love.”

  “We did,” West said, nodding.

  Lott’s alarm bells went off inside his head as he suddenly realized the two of them were
planning a mutual suicide, more than likely right here in the casino. And those were their key words to do it.

  He jumped at Lynch at the same time as Andor jumped at West.

  Lynch’s hand was on a gun, and Lott wrestled with her until suddenly Doc and Annie were there as well.

  Lott got the gun away and put it on the table where he had been sitting.

  Then he made sure Lynch was sitting back in front of her dessert.

  Andor and Julia had gotten the gun from West and had done the same thing.

  Casino security had materialized all around the buffet, but when Doc waved them away, none of them came in.

  “Just stay seated,” Lott said to the two killers. “You have some fine folks to meet in a few minutes. Trust me, you do not want to miss this by doing something silly like killing yourselves.”

  Around them, the buffet was buzzing with noise as both women adjusted where they sat, both looking shocked that their suicide plan had failed so quickly.

  Doc and Annie took the two guns and tucked them away and then moved back toward the cashier, but didn’t go back to their table.

  Lott and Andor sat back down, as did Julia.

  Lott glanced at the two killers. “You know why we didn’t let you two just save the state a ton of money and kill yourselves?”

  Neither woman moved.

  “Because there are upwards of three hundred families out there that need closure on the family members you killed,” Andor said.

  “And we want your two faces to be known as the ugliest killers in modern times,” Lott said.

  “There will be no escape for either of you,” Andor said.

  Both women said nothing, simply stared at their hands in front of them.

  “Cavalry,” Julia said, softly.

  Lott glanced around and saw the chief and the director of the FBI coming up the escalator.

  Lott and Andor and Julia all stood.

  “We needed this little time as well for some closure for us,” Lott said.

  Andor pointed to the half-eaten desserts. “Might want to finish those. Might be the last dessert either of you see in a very long time.”

  Then, as Lott turned away, he decided to ask just one question.