Smith's Monthly #22 Page 15

  And I certainly didn’t want to be standing in the middle of it all.

  Fleet started turning chairs back upright, working to straighten out the place. I stood there for a moment, watching, then without a word, joined him. Cleaning the place up was as good as any way to do what I needed to do.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Las Vegas, Nevada. August 22

  WE WORKED OUR way through the living room, picking up furniture, then the dining room, putting pictures back on walls, closing cabinet doors, putting any cash we found on the dining room table.

  “Wow,” Fleet said at one point as he picked up a painting that had the back paper ripped open. “Carson sure had great taste in art. There are some originals in here that are worth a fortune.”

  “More estate troubles?” I asked.

  Fleet just laughed. “Yeah, but nothing I can’t deal with.”

  “Have I said thanks yet?” I asked as I turned over an arm chair and slid it back into its old position near the wall, where the dents in the carpet showed that it used to be.

  “A couple dozen times,” Fleet said. “It’s my job, remember. It’s my half of this partnership.”

  “Yeah, but thanks anyway.”

  Fleet smiled. “You’re welcome.”

  I stared at the ripped back of another picture as I picked it up. “At least we know two things about the person who did this.”

  “Not interested in money,” Fleet said.

  “That’s one,” I said. “And what he was looking for is small.” I pointed to the back of the picture.

  “Good point. I wonder what could be so important as to not be worth even taking the money out of here?”

  “And killing Carson,” I said.

  “Yeah, that too,” Fleet said.

  We left the kitchen, with all the broken dishes and spilled food, for a professional cleaning service, and worked our way through a small office Carson had in one room, then down the hall and into the master bedroom.

  I had been doing fine right up until the moment we stepped into that room. Then the urge to run for the hot afternoon sunshine grabbed hold of my stomach again. I didn’t want to be in Carson’s house, let alone his bedroom. That was just a little too close to a man I hated.

  “Oh, my,” Fleet said, stopping and staring.

  It was a huge room, with a large king bed against one wall. There had to be a half dozen dressers, all with the contents opened and spilled on the floor. The center of the floor looked like the back room of a thrift store, the clothes were piled so high. Two large walk-in closets were also emptied and stacked onto the pile of clothes. It looked like each item had been carefully gone through. So, no doubt the object of desire was small. Small enough to fit into a pocket.

  And a lot of the clothing was for a woman. In fact, it looked like one entire closet had been women’s clothes. So Carson did have someone else in his life. That was something I was certain I wouldn’t tell my mother any time soon.

  “Shall we leave this for the cleaning service?” I asked.

  Fleet shook his head. “Too much money in here. We need to go through this and stack the clothes back in the closets and drawers.”

  I nodded and dug in, trying not to think about the clothes being Carson’s. Every few minutes, either Fleet or I would take a stash of bills to the dining room table. On my last trip out, I figured the table now held almost a million. And we hadn’t even gotten to the floor safe in one closet yet.

  I was standing beside the dining table, just finishing stacking about sixty thousand, when Fleet shouted.

  “Doc, you had better come take a look at this.”

  I went back into the bedroom. Fleet was standing near one dresser, across from the bed. A half dozen or so framed pictures had been on the wall, and were now on the floor leaning against the edge of the dresser. And Fleet was holding another.

  He turned it around as I came in. My college graduation photo, the one that my mother insisted that I have done. It was framed with some photos taken by someone in the crowd as I crossed the stage.

  What the hell was it doing in Carson’s bedroom?

  Fleet placed it back on one of the hooks on the wall, then picked up another. It consisted of three matted pictures of my high school graduation. My official class picture, plus two others from the back of the auditorium.

  I was so stunned, I didn’t know what to say as Fleet hung the picture back up, then picked up another of my mother, my father, and me as a child. I have no memory of the picture being taken, but it looked like a happy time just before my father had left.

  Fleet hung that up as well. The next framed picture was of me winning my first World Series of Poker bracelet. The last one was a picture I had given my mother of me standing beside a raft on the Middle Fork of the Salmon. How the hell had Carson gotten it?

  My head was spinning as pictures of me filled more of the wall in Carson’s bedroom.

  Fleet hung the rafting picture with the others, then picked up the last one, a picture of my mother and Carson, smiling, sitting in some show on the strip, taken by one of the professional photographers that always go around at those events taking pictures of couples.

  It was dated May 22 of the previous year. Their wedding anniversary.

  Fleet put it in the middle slot on the wall and stepped back, not saying a word.

  All I could do was stare.

  Every belief I had held about my father, about my mother, about what had happened when I was six, had just been shattered.

  It was clear that Carson had been at both my high school and my college graduation ceremonies.

  I wanted to take the pictures off the wall and smash them into a hundred pieces, but just like in a tournament, when the cards didn’t work, I somehow kept my balance.

  Fleet backed up and sat down on the edge of the bed, staring at the wall. Then he said softly, and with great understatement. “Well, this is a stunner.”

  I glanced at the women’s clothes, then back at the pictures. And suddenly some things fell into place. The clicks on the phone when I sometimes called my mother. More than likely the calls had been forwarded here. And her lame excuses at times about not being home when I would tell here I was going back to Boise for a few days without warning. More than likely, she had been here.

  It was clear that Carson had really never left my mother.

  Just me.

  At the age of six.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Las Vegas, Nevada. August 22

  DETECTIVE ANNIE LOTT pushed the Jeff Taylor pictures and evidence reports away on the oak kitchen table and sat back in frustration. She really wanted to just toss it all against a wall. Three days on this case and she wasn’t one step closer to an answer than the moment she started. It felt like she was walking into dead end after dead end. Nothing made sense.

  With its bay window looking out over her backyard, and her mother’s big oak table, the kitchen was the most comfortable place in the house besides her big, pillow-top bed. She often sat at the table, staring out at the rock and desert flowers in her yard, thinking over cases or reading the most recent poker book or Card Player Magazine.

  This kitchen was her favorite place. She had installed the best appliances and a top notch coffee maker. She had a state-of-the-art freezer and every dish and tool needed to cook any meal, all stashed in the beautiful oak and glass cabinets. She didn’t use the dishes and pans that often, but just having everything here and ready was enough.

  The window, the great recessed lighting, and the soft oak tones made the room her retreat from the real worlds of police work and professional poker. And she used it every day, at least to have her morning coffee.

  Behind her, the timer dinged. The roast she had in the oven was fifteen minutes from being done. She had to get the potatoes going. She pushed herself to her feet and turned her back on the case papers.

  It wasn’t often these days that she cooked anything beyond a quick hot dish. She was just too busy, e
ither with an investigation or playing poker. But she had wanted to tonight, since her dad was coming over. And right now, she had to admit, the roast smelled damned good. With the rich aroma of beef simmering in mushrooms and onions, her house actually felt like someone lived in it. Someday, it would be nice to get out of police work and just play cards for a living. Then maybe she’d have more time for cooking.

  Of course, it would be nice to meet someone worth cooking for besides her retired-detective father. She and her last serious boyfriend had just drifted apart, mostly from her not having time for him. She couldn’t really blame him for moving on. He had wanted someone to settle down with and have kids. That was never happening as far as she was concerned. She really didn’t miss him, but she sure missed the sex.

  She stacked the papers off to one side of the kitchen table, photos down, and set two places for dinner, using actual cloth napkins instead of her standard paper towels. She needed a favor from her father tonight, so she might as well treat him to a great dinner before she asked.

  He had been one of the detectives on the Jeff Taylor murder before he retired. Maybe, if he was willing to talk about it, he could give her a few ideas, something she had missed in all the reports, or something that wasn’t in the reports.

  She spent the next fifteen minutes on the potatoes and salad before a knock sounded on her front door, and then the door opened.

  “Decent?” her father shouted, just like he did every time he came over, his deep and powerful voice echoing through the house.

  “In the kitchen,” she shouted back.

  A few moments later, her silver-haired father, retired Detective Bayard Lott, appeared beside where she was working and gave her a peck on the cheek. “Cloth napkins and a roast? This must be one damn big favor you need from me.”

  “What?” Annie said, trying not to laugh. “I can’t just cook you a nice dinner without wanting something in return?”

  “Oh, you could,” her father said. “But it has never happened so far.”

  “Well, not a first tonight either,” she said, laughing and turning to give him a big hug.

  Her father, in his best years, stood no more than five-six. With no socks, she topped five-ten. Her mother had been shorter than her father, so she had no idea where she got the height. He had kept himself in top shape for his sixty-two years. Even while on the force, he had never let himself go as some detectives did. She admired that and a lot of other things about her father.

  “So, this part of the favor?” he asked, pointing to the pile of papers as he moved toward the table to take his normal seat.

  “Need some talking help on a case is all,” she said, working over the salad one more time before putting it on the table between their two places.

  “Jeff Taylor?” he asked, looking up at her. He hadn’t touched the papers.

  She smiled at him. “You reading my mind again, or did someone downtown tell you I had caught the case?”

  “Just logical,” he said. “I was lead on the Taylor murder case, and with your poker experience, I figured they’d toss you the grave robbery aspect of it.”

  “On the money,” Annie said, turning back to drain the potatoes as the timer dinged once again to let her know the roast was finished.

  “Mind if I look?” he asked.

  “As long as it won’t spoil your appetite, go ahead.”

  “I used to eat lunch through autopsies,” he said.

  As he flipped through the file, she took the roast out, letting the thick odor swirl hotly around her.

  She slid the roast onto a serving platter, put the potatoes around it, spooned the cooked onions and mushrooms from the roast pan over the meat, then put the broth into a bowl.

  As she put the roast on the table and sat down, her father, as she had seen him do so many times before, was studying the papers with an intensity that felt like he was trying to burn holes through the paper.

  “As Mom used to say, Food first, work second.”

  He laughed and slid the papers to one side, admiring the roast with an impressed nod. “Five years, and I still miss her every day,” he said.

  “Yeah, me too,” Annie said. The sudden death of her mother had taken them both by surprise. It had been everything they could do to keep each other going. It was then that Annie had decided that she wasn’t going to wait to do things in life. She was going to chase her dream of playing professional poker sooner, rather than later.

  Now, after five years, her father seemed to have settled into his new routines with his retirement. He had built a brand-new, state-of-the-art poker room in his basement, with an expensive table, a coffee bar, and wonderful, soft chairs. Once a week, he had four other retired detectives over for a game. Not only did they play cards, but each week they talked over some cold case, working to solve it between games.

  The city loved what they were doing and supported their efforts in any way legally they could, since it allowed the paid detectives to stay on current cases.

  Six months in, Annie had visited their game and called them “The Cold Poker Gang.” The name had stuck. Now they were even called that downtown. In just under a year, they had closed five cold cases, a fantastic record. And Annie had a hunch, they were just getting started. Two more active detectives were retiring next year and joining the Cold Poker Gang.

  “So, what do you want to know about Taylor?” he asked after a few bites of roast and the appropriate comments about its wonderful quality.

  “I talked to Taylor’s son, who still thinks his father was murdered because of something he knew, or was about to tell.”

  Her father shook his head. “It had all the signs of a robbery gone bad. Taylor had just taken down almost two hundred thousand that night.”

  “Wow, good night. And he had it on him, right?”

  “Yeah, and he was on the way to his car on a side street. The money was missing and Taylor was dead from a blow to the back of the head.”

  She nodded. It was the kind of case that seldom got solved. No connections to the deceased, no witnesses, just a cold murder with no reason but money. It always took a lucky break or a murderer with a conscious or a bragging mouth to actually break cases like that. And with Taylor, in over a decade, nothing had surfaced. The case was about as cold as it got.

  “So,” her father said, “you think someone taking the key from his chest gives the son’s theory some credence?”

  “Don’t you?” she asked. “Professional job all the way along, and clearly that key means something special to someone.”

  “The kid know what the key went to? Back when his father died, he didn’t tell me he’d put the key there.”

  She shook her head. “He said he told almost no one. And that Taylor had had it for years before his death, tucked away for safe keeping with his World Series bracelet.”

  “That important, huh?”

  Annie nodded and kept eating.

  “Well, her father said, “the son had to have told someone, otherwise, who would know it was there?”

  “I looked into that,” Annie said. “Even the funeral director at the time didn’t know. More than likely it’s the ex-wife who told someone, but I’m planning on checking with the son again to see if he can remember exactly who he told.”

  “The kid was a drinker back then. He might have told a hundred people in a bar one night and not even remember.”

  “Wonderful,” Annie said, shaking her head. There was nothing about this case that seemed simple. Nothing.

  “You do some modern tests on Taylor’s body, since someone did the favor of digging it up?”

  “An entire battery of them,” Annie said, “all showing nothing killed him but the blow to the back of the head. No drugs, nothing.”

  “Tough nut to crack, huh? So, what’s the next step in the plan?”

  “Poker,” Annie said, smiling at her father.

  “The big tournaments at the Bellagio?”

  She nodded. “I figured a bunch of Taylor�
��s old friends will be coming into town to play over the next two weeks. I might as well chase the idea that Taylor’s son could be right about why his father was killed. Or at least see if I can find who knows what the key is all about. Maybe it was just some dumb bet. High-stakes poker players are known for making strange wagers outside the poker rooms.”

  “Tough wager for Taylor to pay off,” her father said, shaking his head and laughing. “You need some stakes into a few of the tournaments?”

  She patted his arm and smiled. “Thanks, Dad, but my poker fund is pretty healthy at the moment and growing.”

  “How healthy, if you don’t mind my asking.”

  Annie felt embarrassed, but she told him the truth. “Over eighty thousand. Just in the poker fund, not counting my other savings. Not enough to buy me into that many of the big tournaments, but more than enough to keep me playing in the satellites to win my way into the bigger ones.”

  Her father actually whistled as he pushed his clean plate away. “That amount of money is downright living and breathing. Anyone ever tell you that you’re in the wrong business?”

  “Yeah, I’ve been thinking that.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Las Vegas, Nevada. August 23

  SLEEP DIDN’T HAPPEN much that night in my normal three-room suite at the Bellagio. And when I did doze off, I kept dreaming about Carson standing in the back of my college graduation ceremony, watching me, yet not even bothering to walk up to me and shake my hand and say congratulations.

  Not one damn word.

  The dream kept morphing him into this ghost that wouldn’t let me touch him, yet always floated around everything I was doing. That was enough to wake me up sweating every time. And I’m sure some shrink could have a blast with all the metaphors.