Freezeout: A Cold Poker Gang Mystery Read online

  At that moment Sarge joined them and Robin had to get an update on the kittens. A detailed update, which allowed all three of them to get through most of the first round of their breakfasts.

  Then Robin handed the first five pages of the report to Pickett and went back to reading.

  Pickett read the first page and slid it to Sarge.

  As Robin said, this case had been cold from the start.

  A stable, happy woman named Sandy Hunter one morning doesn’t show up for work. She is seen on security cameras entering the Bennington Hotel from the parking garage. She is then seen using a key card to get into a hotel room. No way of knowing how she got the card since she did not go to the front desk to get it.

  Yet she had it.

  She vanished the moment she entered the room and the door closed.

  No security coverage showed anyone going or coming from the room except maid service earlier in the morning three hours before she arrived.

  After Sandy Hunter, the next time that door was opened was when a detective named Carl Bower from the University Station showed up at the door with a manager. They opened the door and there was no sign the woman had been in the room.

  The room was checked for blood and fingerprints and everything came up negative. And no way she could have gone out a window. The room was on the seventh floor and there was no ledge outside the window and the window had a secure feature on it that wouldn’t allow it to open very wide.

  Security showed Sandy Hunter clearly going into that room.

  Every minute of every security footage from every camera of the hotel was scanned looking for her after that. No security tapes were tampered with either. Police and security checked and double-checked that.

  It was impossible, but Sandy Hunter never left the building.

  She vanished from a locked room without a trace.

  When Pickett finished reading the report, she looked up at Robin who was sitting staring off into space.

  They were supposed to solve cold cases, but this one was so cold, it had ice caked on it.

  Layers and layers of ice.

  FOUR

  November 16th, 2016

  Las Vegas, Nevada

  SARGE WAS THE last one to finish reading the report. When he did, he sat back, feeling sort of stunned. Around them the normal sounds of the buffet went on. People talking, a group laughing, and plates and silverware clattering. He loved this place. And he loved the food even more.

  He remembered Detective Bower and his partner going round and round about this case. In the file it detailed out everything about Rich Hunter, the husband, Sandy’s job, and Rich’s family. They got Sandy’s email files from both home and work.

  They came up with a big fat nothing.

  There was no reason that Sandy Hunter, on her way to work for an important meeting, would stop at a hotel, use a key card no one knows how she got, and go into a room simply to vanish into thin air. No signs she was having an affair, no signs that she was unhappy in her marriage or her job.

  And no signs at all of her in the fourteen years since she vanished.

  “So what the hell happened to her?” Sarge asked, looking up at Pickett and then at Robin.

  “I bet dead,” Robin said. “But damned if I know why or how.”

  “Maybe kidnapped for sex trade,” Pickett said. “She was good-looking enough from the pictures in the file. But how, no idea.”

  Sarge nodded. “I can see why Bower banged his head against the wall on this one.”

  “You know Bower?” Pickett asked.

  Sarge nodded. “Nice guy, lost his partner about a year after this and decided to stay at a desk until retirement. Gained a lot of weight I hear. Retiring next year.”

  Robin pulled out a notebook and so did Pickett. Sarge took his from his inside jacket pocket. He used a small flip-page notebook, Pickett used a similar style with a stiffer cover, and Robin had a full spiral-bound notebook.

  “So you two get to talk with Bower, see if there’s more that’s not in the report,” Robin said.

  Sarge nodded, but he doubted there would be. Bower had been one of the most organized detectives Sarge had ever met, which is why Bower could leave the streets without a problem. He liked the paperwork and every report he ever did was complete.

  But Bower might have an opinion and that would be worth the time to talk.

  Pickett glanced at Sarge, then turned to Robin. “Why do I have a hunch this isn’t an isolated incident?”

  “Just one that was caught quickly,” Sarge said nodding. “If the police hadn’t been ahead of normal procedure on this, someone would have already checked into that room the next day.”

  “I’ll see what I can come up with about people vanishing out of hotel rooms,” Robin said, making notes. “But we all know the hotels are extremely private about this sort of thing. Hell, if someone dies in one of their top suites, they move the body so as to not lose the room rental.”

  Sarge nodded and managed not to smile at how angry Robin sounded about that. Clearly she and Pickett had run into that a few times over the years. Every Las Vegas detective had.

  “So we find and talk with the husband and the coworkers,” Pickett said, taking the names and old contact information from the file and writing it in her notebook.

  “Robin,” Sarge asked, “would it be possible to track missing person cases through the police files with references to last time seen in a hotel? Just general.”

  “There will be a lot of those,” Robin said, nodding and writing. “But we can figure out ways to narrow it down later. See if we have a pattern.”

  Sarge nodded. This was going to be the best they could do. A lot of this was going to be going back over ground already covered by Bower. But just maybe, with a little time, they might find something different.

  Maybe.

  He didn’t hold out much hope on this case. On the small bar in Lott and Julia’s basement where the Cold Poker Gang met and played cards once a week, there were four files. All still unsolved.

  Sarge bet this one would be the fifth.

  FIVE

  November 16th, 2016

  Las Vegas, Nevada

  PICKETT LIKED DETECTIVE Bower almost instantly. He had his own office that looked out over a parking lot, which in Vegas was a normal view. His office was fairly large and clean and organized. He had family pictures of his wife, kids, and grandkids hanging on the wall.

  He was a heavyset man as Sarge had said, going toward round. But his smile reached his dark eyes and he had a laugh that made people around him want to laugh along. He had on a white dress shirt and no tie and had his suit jacket hanging on a tree-stand near the door.

  Pickett would have never figured him for a detective. More like an accountant.

  Sarge introduced her and Bower and Sarge exchanged a few old laughs, then Bower indicated they should take a seat in front of his metal desk and he went around behind it and settled into an oversized leather chair that clearly wasn’t department issue, but fit his large frame.

  “So you two working a cold case for the Cold Poker Gang, huh?” Bower asked, smiling.

  “We are,” Sarge said.

  “If I wasn’t going to be so happy to get out of this job next year, I might think about joining the gang. That would be if they needed someone to do some behind the scenes stuff. Not much good out on the streets these days.”

  He laughed and patted his rounded stomach barely held in by his white dress shirt.

  “The gang can use all the help it can get,” Sarge said. “In all ways.”

  Pickett just nodded.

  Bower smiled at that and nodded. “So I assume it’s one of my old cases you’re working on.”

  “The Sandy Hunter disappearance.”

  Pickett was surprised at Bower’s reaction. He actually laughed.

  “You folks take the hard ones, huh?” Bower asked, shaking his head. “That might be the quickest cold case I ever got. She vanished, but she couldn’t.
She was there but she shouldn’t have been. No family problems, no issues at work. Nice woman, actually happy in life from what we could tell.”

  “Yet she was there and she did somehow get out of that room,” Pickett said. “Got any theories how?”

  Bower laughed again. “That kept me awake at nights. I have no flipping idea what happened in there. If I believed in aliens, I would say they beamed her up.”

  “Room was that clean?” Sarge asked.

  “Completely,” Bower said. “She walked in that door and didn’t touch a thing. Nothing. I’m not kidding. Aliens or Captain Kirk beamed her into orbit.”

  They sat there in silence for a moment, then Pickett grabbed her notebook. “I got an idea who we might talk with.”

  Both Sarge and Bower looked at her.

  “We need to talk with a hotel architect,” she said, “get the plans for that floor and have an expert go over them.”

  Bower nodded. “Good idea. We didn’t do that.”

  Sarge was sitting staring just over Bower’s head at the wall.

  After a moment Bower smiled at Pickett. “Does he do this a lot?”

  Before Pickett could answer, Sarge came back into his eyes, then said, “Bower, you said that Hunter was there, but she shouldn’t have been. Could that have been someone else?”

  “The woman getting out of Hunter’s car in the hotel parking garage was wearing the same clothes Hunter had on when leaving home,” Bower said. “Same hairstyle, same height, same weight. So it if wasn’t her it would have to be a pretty amazingly close double.”

  “But it would be possible?” Pickett asked.

  Bower again laughed. “I think aliens might be possible. Double or not, she didn’t walk out of that room.”

  “And she didn’t fly,” Sarge said.

  “She didn’t walk, she didn’t fly,” Pickett said, “but maybe she crawled. Through a vent or something.”

  Pickett wished at that moment she had a picture of the look on the two men’s faces as they sat there thinking.

  Priceless.

  SIX

  November 16th, 2016

  Las Vegas, Nevada

  SARGE HAD ENJOYED seeing Bower and some of the others around his old headquarters. But he didn’t miss being there at all. They all looked too busy and far too stressed. And he remembered that feeling well.

  He didn’t miss it.

  He liked what he was doing now and he really loved being with Pickett. Her idea of someone crawling out a vent in that hotel was stunning. A long-shot, but stunning.

  When they got back to her Grand Cherokee SUV, she didn’t even have to start it to turn on the air-conditioning. The slight warmth inside felt good against the chill of the morning air.

  She took out her phone and called Robin.

  Sarge got out his notebook again so he could write down thoughts and notes they would need.

  Pickett put her phone on speaker and Robin answered by asking, “You get anything from Bower?”

  “Nothing solid,” Pickett said. “But Sarge came up with an idea while talking with him. Can you get the security footage of Hunter leaving her apartment and compare it with the security footage of her going into the hotel?”

  Silence for a second on the other end, then Robin said, “Think it might be an imposter?”

  “We have the equipment now to find that out,” Pickett said, “unlike what they had fourteen years ago.”

  Sarge nodded to that. It was stunning the advancement in computers in the last fourteen years when it came to facial recognition and everything. And casinos had some of the best technology in the world in those areas to stop known cheaters and criminals.

  And it was the casinos that had paid for and updated the police along the way with the same technology. One of the many things not publicized about the casinos helping the city and police.

  “I’ll get one of Will’s experts right on that,” Robin said. “Walk patterns, everything, we should know for sure in a couple of hours.”

  “Great,” Pickett said. “Can you access the plans to the hotel area she disappeared in? We’re going to go talk with James.”

  Sarge had no idea who James was, but clearly James and Pickett and Robin were on a first-name basis.

  “Think she crawled out, huh?” Robin asked. “I’ll dig up the plans.”

  “I’ll call James and see if he is available to meet us, then let you know to send the plans to him.”

  “Will do,” Robin said. “Good ideas.”

  And she hung up.

  Pickett clicked off the phone, then dialed another number.

  “James,” she said. “It’s Debra.”

  “Wonderful,” Pickett said after a moment. “Loving the condo. Got an official job-favor to ask of you.”

  She waited for a second, then smiled at Sarge and said, “Yeah, Cold Poker Gang business.”

  Sarge was enjoying watching Pickett. One of the many things he really was coming to love about her was how animated she was when she talked. She talked with her hands and head and body movements, even when on the phone. He had no doubt he could just sit and watch her for hours on end.

  “Would you take a look at some hotel plans for us?” Pickett asked. “We got a person who vanished out of a hotel room without a trace.”

  Pickett sat quiet for a moment, her eyes getting bigger and bigger.

  “Didn’t know that,” she said.

  Sarge wanted to ask What? What? What? like a little kid, but said nothing.

  She nodded a few times. “Thanks, we appreciate it. I’ll have Robin send the plans. We’ll see you in about twenty minutes.”

  She clicked off her phone, dialed Robin, said, “Send them.” And then hung up again, putting the phone in her pocket.

  “Didn’t know what?” Sarge asked.

  “James said that kids are lost out of locked hotel rooms all the time,” she said. “Often never found, sometimes found dead in ducts and plumbing areas and elevator shafts in large hotels. They go in, get lost, and can’t get out and no one thinks to look for them inside the walls and ceilings.”

  Sarge just shook his head. Over the years he had heard about a few cases like that, but always thought it something unusual, not common.

  “James said it’s almost impossible, however, for a full-sized adult to get into those areas. Accesses are too small for the most part.”

  Sarge glanced down at his notes. “Sandy Hunter was only just over five feet tall.”

  Pickett started the car and headed out of the parking lot. For the next minute they both rode in silence.

  They might have figured out how Hunter got out of the hotel room. But that was a long, long way from answering why?

  And what happened to her?

  SEVEN

  November 16th, 2016

  Las Vegas, Nevada

  PICKETT REALLY LIKED James Newell and his wife Patty. Two of the nicer people who had ever lived as far as Pickett was concerned.

  James had been the major partner of an international architecture firm based in Las Vegas. He had retired ten years before, but had helped Pickett and Robin on numbers of cases over the years. Pickett and Robin had had many wonderful dinners with him and Patty, as well as the fact that he had helped them solve three cases along the way.

  His home was on a seven-acre estate sitting on a rock knoll outside of Vegas, completely protected by a tall decorative fence. The house looked like it fit near the peak of the hill, tucked in and among the huge desert rocks like it had grown there, not been built.

  The natural wood and brown tones also helped it fit in. Huge windows looked back out over the valley and the city.

  “Wow, this is something,” Sarge said as Pickett got them through the gate and headed up the narrow, winding brown-paved road toward the house. The road wound around large rocks and brush like a stream flowing down a narrow canyon.

  On the way to the house, she had told Sarge about James and Patty, about how they were good friends, and about how his
firm had designed some of the major hotels and buildings around the world.

  James greeted them at the large wooden front door with a smile. It had been months since Pickett had seen him and she gave him a big hug before introducing him to Sarge.

  James stood tall and distinguished, with a full head of gray hair, long by anyone’s standards. His face was full of wrinkles, but mostly from smiling Pickett was sure. The man loved to smile and laugh at most anything.

  He had on his normal tan cloth slacks, a tan golf shirt, and tan socks without his normal loafers. Pickett couldn’t remember ever seeing him in anything else. Even at major charity events. Patty would dress up, but he would wear the same thing, only adding a tan sweater at times.

  When you were that rich and that successful, Pickett figured he could do anything he wanted. He once told her that everyone thought architects were strange, so he just played the part.

  “Patty sends her regrets that she missed you,” James said as he led them through the fantastic home to an office in the back. The home was made of all natural stone and wood and even though slightly bare, felt welcoming.

  Sarge was just sort of staring at things as they walked, his mouth open slightly.

  “I just looked at what Robin sent a moment before you got here,” James said, indicating that they should watch a white wall. “So we can go over it together.”

  He clicked a couple keys on a computer terminal and the plans of the hotel came up on a large, blank wall. It was clearly projected on the wall by a projector hidden above it in the ceiling.

  It made every room on the hotel plan large and the hallways look huge. Fantastic detail for looking at a plan.

  “This is the floor Robin said the woman vanished from in 2002,” James said. “Let me highlight the room in green that Robin said she went into.”

  A moment later one room turned green.

  At that moment Pickett’s cell rang. It was Robin.