Smith's Monthly #24 Read online

  The chief looked stunned for a moment, then nodded.

  “Dinner will be slightly delayed, however,” Andor said.

  Lott laughed and the chief actually smiled.

  And then they just all waited.

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  September 26th, 2016

  Las Vegas, Nevada

  JULIA WAS SURPRISED at how short of a time it was before they were safe, but it felt much, much longer.

  It was almost exactly thirty minutes before Mike came walking into the house. Mike nodded to the chief, then turned to Lott.

  “All secure, no one around at all. And we have Annie and Doc and Fleet and their people contained and secure as well. And my computer people are standing by to help on the research.”

  “Perfect,” Lott said. “Thank you. Can you hold this for a few hours and give us some time here?”

  “We have it for as long as you need us,” Mike said.

  At that he turned and left and Julia glanced down at where Paul sat under the table and indicated he should get up. He did slowly, clearly showing his age.

  At that moment Lott’s phone rang. “It’s Annie,” Lott said and turned to talk with her and set up the research they were about to do and explain what Paul Vaughan/Walter had said so far.

  Julia suggested they all go into the kitchen and see how cold that chicken was getting.

  They pulled two more chairs up to the kitchen table and Paul sat to one side and to the back against the window where all of them could watch him. Her gut told her he was telling the truth, what he had said so far, but so many things had been false leads on this case before now, she wouldn’t trust a word he said about anyone until they could verify it.

  After everyone had a piece of the fantastic-smelling chicken, Julia said to Paul, “Do you mind if I open a line to our computer research people to check on some things you tell us?”

  “Please,” Paul said, wiping his fingers on a napkin. “But tell them to be extra careful. The families have a couple of pretty good computer people.”

  Lott laughed and said, “Thanks. We have already seen that. But the people working on this for us are far, far better.”

  “Good,” Paul said, nodding.

  Julia called Annie and quickly told her what they were doing and that they were planning on asking Paul a lot of questions, so it might be logical that she have an open line and be able to hear the answers directly to do the research and pass on what was needed to Mike and his people as well.

  Annie thought that was a good idea, so Julia put her on speaker and set the phone down between her and Paul.

  “Can you explain the history of the families one more time to Annie and our computer people,” Lott asked Paul.

  He did, giving more details than he had the first time about locations in Massachusetts and in Florida.

  “We’re digging into that,” Annie said over the speaker phone.

  “Give some to Mike’s people as well,” Lott said. “They are standing ready.”

  “Already have them in the loop,” Annie said.

  Julia was very pleased at how well this machine that Annie and Doc and Fleet had worked. They just shifted into high gear on a moment’s notice.

  The chief nodded to that as well. Most police districts loved working with Doc and Annie and Fleet because of the fire-power and sophistication they brought to any case.

  “So what made the families move to Nevada?” Andor asked.

  “One of the burial sites in Florida was found and the pressure was getting too much,” Paul said. “They first moved, however, to Los Angeles, where I was born. The families stayed there until the 1970s and then right before my parents were killed moved to Nevada, splitting to both Reno and Las Vegas.”

  Julia didn’t want to ask this next question, but she did. “Have the murders been happening through the entire century?”

  Paul nodded. “No one in the family knows about that side of things until they reach twenty-one and are deep in the rest of the beliefs and sexual freedoms.”

  Julia just sat back.

  “We’re talking thousands of deaths,” the chief said.

  “I’m afraid so, sir,” Paul said. “The family keeps exact records on every sacrifice, as they call their victims. Since the turn of the century the family has kept pictures and names and details of every sacrifice in their main temple, which is actually nothing more than a compound.”

  “What kind of compound?” Andor asked.

  “Defensible,” Paul said. “The families are far from stupid. More than likely they are already planning on vanishing and moving. And if attacked in their compound, they can defend it.”

  “How much time do you think we have?” Andor asked.

  “They have set up elaborate details about me being a mass murderer,” Paul said. “I learned this from a few old friends still inside the families, I think, on a ruse to pull me and my wife back inside.”

  “That was the trail we have been following,” Lott said.

  Paul nodded. “Which is why I am sitting here now,” he said. “But once they realize their ruse has been broken, they will kill their current sacrifices and vanish to the winds. They have spent many, many thousands of hours on such a plan and constantly upgrade it.”

  “Does everyone know where they are going?” Julia asked.

  Paul shook his head. “Everyone has been given very tight false identities that are updated annually. Instructions are to just go and find another safe place to live and the families will be in contact when a new location is set.”

  “And the killings would start again at that point,” Lott said.

  Paul nodded.

  “So the only way to stop this cult is to take out all its leaders so they can’t start a new place?” Andor said.

  “That might work,” Paul said. “But it would be better to get all of the active members at once.”

  Julia just felt sick to her stomach.

  THIRTY-NINE

  September 26th, 2016

  Las Vegas, Nevada

  LOTT SAT AT the kitchen table, just thinking. Around him everyone had a half-eaten piece of chicken on their plate and no one, not even Andor, seemed to be wanting to eat more.

  “Can I ask a question?” Annie said over Julia’s phone.

  “Please,” Paul said.

  “Do you think this escape plan would be on a computer somewhere?” Annie asked.

  “More than likely yes,” Paul said. “Maybe on two. One in the compound in Reno and one in the compound here.”

  Lott suddenly saw where his daughter was going. If the escape plans and names and such were generated on one or two computers, she and her people could hack them and get that information.

  “Can you give us locations of the compounds?” Annie asked.

  “I’ve never been to either,” Paul said, “but both properties would have been secured under my great-grandmother’s maiden name of Westerfield. Gloria Westerfield. Both would be acreages outside of both towns. But careful on the searches.”

  “We’re careful,” Annie said.

  Lott glanced at Paul. “Got any idea how many main members there are of the families, ones participating in the rituals and beliefs?”

  “Over thirty,” Paul said, shrugging, “not counting spouses.”

  “We’re going to need half an army to go in after that many people at the same time,” the chief said.

  Lott agreed to that.

  “Paul, can you help us with the names on the boards, so we can start clearing detectives to help in this?”

  “Glad to,” Paul said. “The sooner this is over, the sooner my wife and I can live our first day together not in fear for our lives.”

  Lott could understand that. If you were born into a family that worshipped killing and thought life was cheap, that would be a logical fear.

  They headed back into the dining room with Julia carrying the phone and Annie still on the line. Lott decided there were things he needed to clear up sooner rather
than later.

  “So let’s start back quickly with how we got into this. Becky Penn and the other three women under her body in that desert grave. And why did you stage a suicide and who actually died?”

  “I had nothing to do with anything around those women’s deaths,” Paul said. “In fact, when those bodies were first uncovered and Becky was identified, my wife and I realized that the families had been setting me up for years and had kept that as a piece of insurance. Of course, I never would have lived long enough to go to trial. And even if accused, who would believe a serial killer’s word about a strange cult full of reputable people.”

  Lott nodded to that.

  “So what about the suicide?”

  “I didn’t know about it until after it had happened,” Paul said. “I was already married to my wife and living under the Walter name. I have no idea why they did that or who that poor soul was who died.”

  “And the person who pretended to be your sister?”

  Paul shrugged. “One of the family members. Again, my wife and I knew nothing about anything.”

  “That finally makes sense out of that fake diary,” Andor said. “And your sister just happening to find it all these years later. But got any idea why the families decided to turn it in and expose those murders?”

  “Cleaning up,” Paul said. “It is very important to the families to bury all their sacrifices in a sanctioned graveyard on family property. That had happened back in the fight with me to pull me into the families and it needed to be cleaned up. Typical family thinking.”

  “And you never sold cars to Maxwell or bought the land outside of town used as a burial ground?” Julia asked.

  “I haven’t talked with Maxwell since my first wife died. When we turned twenty-one, he went full into the families and their beliefs and I went the other direction.”

  Andor nodded and Lott could tell he was satisfied. Finally, some of this was starting to make sense.

  After that, they turned back to the boards and started another board of names that were all major family members in the two cities.

  And twenty minutes later Annie broke into the conversation.

  “We got in,” she said.

  “In where?” Lott asked before anyone else could. Julia had put the phone on the table so Annie could hear all the discussions and send the names on to her people and Mike’s people.

  “We found both compounds,” Annie said. “We hacked into both compound’s computers and have all their plans of escape and all the fake names of every member and so on. They might run, but none of them will be able to hide when we kick this anthill over.”

  “Fantastic!” Lott said and everyone cheered.

  Lott glanced at Paul. He had dropped into a chair and it looked like he might actually start crying, the relief was so intense.

  A lifetime of relief.

  FORTY

  September 26th, 2016

  Las Vegas, Nevada

  JULIA FELT EXHAUSTED after three hours of working with everyone to clear names, to make sure the chief had detectives he could trust, and so on. Actually, there were only two family members in the Las Vegas police force and both were beat cops.

  They had no overall plan yet, and she was starting to feel like there needed to be one. It was Annie who started that rolling when she came on over the phone and said simply, “We have all the victims’ records as well.”

  “What?” Lott asked, glancing back at the phone on the table where it had sat with an open line for three hours on speaker phone. At one point Julia had run an extension cord to it to keep it powered up.

  “Our hacks into the two compounds have retrieved every victim the family has killed since their days in Florida,” Annie said, her voice soft. “It’s a lot of people, more than I can grasp.”

  “Oh, god,” Paul said, his head down and his hands covering his face. “I was born in a family of monsters.”

  Julia didn’t argue at all with that.

  “Do I want to know how many?” the chief asked.

  “No sir, you don’t,” Annie said. “But these family members are so egotistical after not getting caught for so long, they kept perfect records of everything.”

  “What kind of records?” Julia asked.

  “Records that show every detail of which family member took part in the kidnapping, which took part in the sex with the victims and when, who was in the room for the final beating rituals, who delivered the final, death blow, and who had sex with the victim in the first few hours after death.”

  Silence filled the dining room.

  Julia just wanted to be sick.

  Annie went on. “They kept records of it all as a form of status and advancement in the families. The more you did, the more you advanced into the good graces of their god they called the great one. As far as we can tell, every living member older than 21 years of age in the Reno and Las Vegas area took part in the kidnappings and killings in one way or another except for Paul, his wife, and two other couples.”

  Julia glanced at Paul who still sat with his head down, then she looked up at the board. The names underlined who lived in Vegas and Reno seemed to fill the boards.

  “How many total?” Lott asked, his voice softer than Julia had heard in a long time.

  “Sixty-seven,” Annie said. “Some are couples, but we have all their names and addresses and so on. And the locations of the other three graveyards for this area, two graveyards for the Los Angeles area, and the graveyards in Florida that were not found.”

  Julia looked at the chief and he just shook his head.

  “We’re going to need to get all this evidence with real search warrants,” Andor said.

  The chief nodded. “Critical. Or these sickos walk free.”

  “These people are very, very egotistical,” Annie said. “They have backups of the family records in the cloud and on hard drives in safe deposit boxes, as well as on the computers in the compounds. I think Paul’s statements will be more than enough to get the warrants to make all this information legal when you get to it.”

  Paul looked up and said, “I’ll help any way I can. Dear god, please let me help.”

  Julia could tell he had been crying. She couldn’t imagine what he was going through. His first wife murdered, his fiancé killed by them as well, and he and his wife living every day in fear of death. Now all that seemed to be near an end.

  Seemed.

  Julia wanted to make no assumptions yet.

  “Chief,” Lott said, “what can we do to help?”

  The chief nodded, knowing Lott was passing the entire mess over to him at that moment.

  The chief took a deep breath. Up until that moment he had just been another older detective like the rest of them. But with that deep breath, he stepped back into the strong Chief of Police Julia knew and liked.

  The chief turned to Paul. “I need you to stay here and sign some documents in an hour or so. I need to get this in front of a judge by midnight.”

  “Moving tonight on all this?” Lott asked.

  Julia seemed surprised as well. It was almost ten in the evening.

  “I sure see no choice,” the chief said. “We don’t dare hold a day and take a chance on any of this leaking to them.”

  The chief turned to the phone on the table. “Annie, can you deliver to me in my office ten sets of all these data for both Reno and Las Vegas. Everything since the families moved here, and all the addresses and such of each family member involved. And have Mike and Heather and Doc and Fleet join me there with you. I need Heather’s and Doc’s connections to the FBI in San Francisco and Reno to round them up there.”

  “We’ll all be there in one hour,” Annie said.

  Lott spoke up. “Annie, make sure Mike keeps the guards up on this house. Paul is going to be here with us.”

  “Will do, Dad,” Annie said.

  “I assume the raid is going to happen on the Las Vegas compound tonight?” Paul asked, standing to face the chief. “May I be there
, under arrest or guard, I don’t care. I just want to see this end with my own eyes.”

  Julia nodded. “Sir, we would like to be there as well. Not on the front-line, but seeing this end, since we dug up this mess.”

  The chief laughed. “On two conditions. First, you keep him alive.”

  He pointed to Paul.

  “Second, you stay out of the press and next time you invite me for chicken, make sure it’s not to talk about a mass murder.”

  “Deal,” Lott said.

  FORTY-ONE

  September 27th, 2016

  Las Vegas, Nevada

  LOTT HADN’T BEEN this tired in a long time. It was almost three in the morning. He hadn’t stayed up until this hour for a very, very long time. And it had been a very long day as well. But at the same time, excitement was coursing through him.

  He had had far too much caffeine and he felt slightly jittery.

  The streets of Las Vegas still had traffic, but it mostly seemed like support trucks and vans. Very few tourists were out and about and all the lights of the entire city still lit up the night sky as they did all night long.

  The compound for the families was located on a hill to the north of town in a very nice area of homes.

  He and Julia sat in the front seat of his Cadillac and Andor and Paul sat in the back seat. They were two blocks down the road from a large, gated complex of buildings that looked like regular two-story suburban homes.

  The night air was still warm, but not the blistering heat of earlier in the day. It actually felt comfortable and had a light smell of sagebrush.

  Julia had her phone on her lap open to Annie.

  Annie was also nearby in another car with Doc and Mike and Heather. Lott knew a dozen squad cars were standing by farther down the hill behind them.

  From the outside, the family compound looked like a gated subdivision, but all the buildings inside were owned by one person, and two dozen family members lived in the homes inside the complex.