Dead Hand: A Cold Poker Gang Mystery Read online

  And Sarge was smiling as he reached the table and nodded. “Detectives.”

  Robin indicated that he should join them and he did. The wonderful smile never left his face.

  “You win tonight?” Robin asked as Sarge sat down.

  All Pickett could do was just stare at him, so she was glad her partner picked up the slack for the moment.

  “Being able to work with you two is a win in my book,” Sarge said.

  “Now that’s smooth,” Pickett said, smiling.

  “Oh, I like him already,” Robin said, laughing.

  “Yup, me too,” Pickett said.

  And then Sarge looked up into her eyes and she damn near forgot to breathe. His hazel eyes just held her and she decided right at that moment all she really wanted to do was just stare into his eyes.

  He seemed frozen for a moment as well, then laughed and said, “And I won forty bucks as well.”

  And that broke the ice and the intense moment and Pickett actually managed to take a drink of water without her hands shaking. She was very proud of that fact.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  October 18th, 2016

  Las Vegas, Nevada

  SARGE WAS STUNNED at how attracted he felt instantly to Pickett. Her brown eyes had held his gaze and she seemed to see everything about him. He hadn’t had a reaction like that in memory toward a woman. Nothing that was that kind of instant and strong.

  Now he hoped he didn’t make a fool of himself working with them. She was considered the best woman detective who ever wore a badge in Las Vegas. Maybe one of the best detectives ever, period. And her partner Robin was almost as good. He was way outclassed with this partnership.

  They gave their drink orders to a kind woman with tinted blue hair and tattoos on both arms and then Sarge decided he needed to get things clear as quickly as possible.

  “I bet you are wondering why Andor suggested I work with you two on this new case.”

  “It did seem surprising,” Pickett said, nodding.

  Damn, her voice was thick and rich and had a wonderful throaty sound to it. He loved that.

  “Andor did it as a favor to me because I was coming back to the gang,” Sarge said. “The Wedding Dress Murder was my case originally. Driven me nuts for years. Haunted me, actually.”

  Robin laughed and sat back, shaking her head. Pickett just kept smiling, a smile that reached her eyes and Sarge wouldn’t mind seeing a lot more of that.

  “Wow, do we know that feeling,” Robin said.

  Pickett nodded. “I still have nightmares about a couple of our cold cases. But Andor doesn’t want us to tackle them yet.”

  “I trust Andor and Lott and Julia,” Sarge said. “That’s why when he gave you two the new case tonight, he suggested I might be able to help. I think he figured I wouldn’t get anywhere with it alone and you two could crack it.”

  “You didn’t know he was going to give that case to us?” Robin asked.

  “Not a clue,” Sarge said. “Surprised and pleased me. I thought about giving Andor a hug, but figured I would never live that down.”

  Both detectives broke into laughter and Sarge could feel the tension easing.

  “Damn,” Robin said, “I would give anything to see you hug Andor.”

  “We solve this case and you might get your wish,” Sarge said.

  “Oh, that is so a deal,” Pickett said, laughing.

  At that moment the waitress came back with their drinks and they all ordered. Sarge went with a straight cheeseburger while Pickett had a Denver Omelet and Robin had a club sandwich that she said she would take home half to her husband.

  Sarge decided he needed to figure out how he was going to fit in with a long-term working team.

  “So, how do the two of you work together?” Sarge asked. “And how can I help and stay out of the way at the same time?”

  Pickett smiled at him with that question. Clearly she appreciated it.

  “I’m the computer geek and I have a husband,” Robin said. “So I often let Pickett do the field work and I do the tracking online.”

  “And I like the field work,” Pickett said. “More than I want to admit at times.”

  “I do too,” Sarge said. “Banging on doors and face-to-face questions can sometimes work wonders.”

  “So looks like you join Pickett,” Robin said. “You got a problem with that, partner?”

  Sarge watched as Pickett smiled back at her partner, then turned to Sarge with the same smile that reached her wonderful brown eyes. “No problem at all.”

  “Perfect,” Robin said.

  Sarge nodded. “Perfect by me as well. Just don’t let me slow you down.”

  Pickett nodded. “Oh trust me, I won’t.”

  He had a hunch that was the truest statement he had heard in a long, long time. He was really, really starting to like this woman and he didn’t even know her.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  October 18th, 2016

  Las Vegas, Nevada

  “NOTEBOOK,” PICKETT SAID to Robin, signaling that they were going to get to work.

  Robin brought up onto the table from beside her a blue spiral-bound notebook and the file folder for the case.

  Pickett was excited about this new case and actually excited to get to work with Sarge. And to get to know him better. Two cops out pounding the pavement together definitely got to know each other fairly quickly.

  And he had sure said all the right things so far, telling them up front why he was with them and also asking about their methods to see how he would fit in. Both of those had impressed her.

  “We use a notebook when we are talking to try to think out our plans and leads,” Robin said.

  “Amazing how that helps us be organized,” Pickett said.

  Sarge smiled and pulled a small notebook out of his back pocket and flipped it open. “Can’t agree more. If I don’t write a thought down these days, it pretends to never have existed and goes and hides.”

  Pickett laughed. “Damn, do I know that feeling.”

  “So what can you tell us about this case?” Robin asked.

  “Damn near nothing that’s not in the file there,” Sarge said, shaking his head. “And it’s a thin file I’m afraid.”

  Pickett could see that really, really bothered him. He actually cared about cases like she did. Another thing she liked about him already.

  “The victim’s name was Trudy Patterson,” Sarge said without looking at the file that Robin had opened. “She was twenty-five and from Denver.”

  He took a sip of water and then went on.

  “She was in Vegas by herself for three days planning a wedding and on May 17th, 2010, she left her suite in the MGM Grand to run a few errands and was never seen alive again.”

  “Did you find her?” Pickett asked.

  Sarge nodded. “Five days later her body was found in her rental car sitting on a bluff overlooking Vegas to the west. She was wearing a wedding dress, but not the one she planned on wearing for her wedding.”

  “I don’t see a cause of death,” Robin said, glancing at the file.

  “Impossible to determine,” Sarge said. “We ruled out all the normal causes such as blunt force trauma and obvious wounds. She had been sitting in the closed-up car, in the heat, dead for days. It wasn’t a pretty sight. But there didn’t seem to be any obvious injuries to her or any sign of sexual activity, from what could be figured out from the decomposing body. In fact, it’s not even officially a murder.”

  Pickett knew for certain now this was a case that had haunted Sarge. He hadn’t even glanced at the file and yet remembered all the details after six years. She had a couple cases that ate at her like that as well.

  “Family all clear?” Robin asked, still glancing at the file.

  “Completely,” Sarge said. “They were the ones that insisted to me, sometimes at the top of their voices, that this wasn’t just a woman who got cold feet and ran away from a wedding. That something horrid had happened to her.”


  “But you checked all of them anyway?” Pickett asked, smiling at Sarge.

  He smiled back. “I would have found a flea on one of them if it was there. Nothing. They all loved her and she seemed to have no other enemies at all.”

  “Wedding dress?” Pickett asked, staring at Sarge. He must have gone down that road as well.

  “She was about to be married and we found her in a wedding dress,” Sarge said. “So I chased that down as much as I could. The dress she was found in was a standard one that could be bought in a hundred stores and nothing in her planning seemed to connect in any way to anyone of interest. And nothing in her financial records showed that she bought the dress she was wearing when we found her.”

  “But that’s where we start digging,” Robin said, writing in her notebook.

  “Agreed,” Sarge said. “I kept feeling I was missing something in her wedding planning, but could never put my finger on it.”

  Pickett watched as Sarge seemed to vanish into his own thoughts for a moment, his handsome face very serious.

  “So why did this case become the one that haunted you?” Pickett asked.

  “I have a daughter named Steph who lives in New York,” Sarge said. “Steph was talking about getting married and was only two years younger than Trudy Patterson at the time of the murder.”

  Pickett sat back, nodding.

  “So how did the wedding go?” Robin asked.

  “Thankfully, they eloped to Hawaii,” Sarge said.

  Pickett laughed and then leaned forward. “With a little financial help from Dad I bet?”

  He just lit up smiling and shaking his head. “I must plead the fifth on that.”

  Pickett laughed and at that moment the food came and let Sarge off the hook.

  CHAPTER SIX

  October 18th, 2016

  Las Vegas, Nevada

  AS THEY ATE and talked about different things, Sarge found himself relaxing more and more with Pickett and Robin. Both were smart, funny, and focused.

  It was about halfway through the meal that the conversation turned back to the case at hand. He decided he needed to give them the questions that had puzzled him from the start.

  “So my biggest question about this case has always been why the dress?” Sarge said. “Did the killer, if she was actually killed, know she was going to be married and did the killer find her through something she did in the marriage preparation?”

  Robin nodded and wrote all that down.

  “No traction on those questions I assume?” Pickett asked.

  “Nothing,” Pickett said. “And right up until I retired I was still trying to retrace some of Trudy’s movements in the three days ahead of her disappearance and murder. Nothing. I have my notebook full of all that at home. I would have brought it, but didn’t realize I would be working on this case tonight.”

  Pickett smiled. “Glad we are.”

  “So am I,” Sarge said, smiling back at her.

  For a moment they stared at each other. Sarge felt as if Pickett was looking into his every secret. And he honestly didn’t mind.

  “Why did it take her so long to be found?” Robin asked, breaking the moment between him and Pickett. “Makes no sense if she was sitting up there in the car for days. I’m familiar with that bluff area and it gets a lot of traffic because of the view.”

  “She was strapped in and upright in the car in the driver’s seat,” Sarge said, remembering clearly the image of Trudy’s body in that hot, hot car. “So we think no one thought anything was wrong. It wasn’t until a couple on foot walked past the car that they noticed she was dead and called it in and we connected the car to the missing person’s case.”

  “Similar cases?” Pickett asked.

  “I had a couple people try to dig up what they could,” Sarge said, “but I honestly don’t think we covered that very well.”

  “That’s going to change,” Robin said, writing in the notebook.

  Sarge looked at her and then at Pickett, who was smiling.

  “Robin’s husband is Will Sprague,” Pickett said.

  “Oh,” Sarge said. He knew of Will Sprague, the head of Sprague Securities, the best security agency in the city. He ran an entire force of retired Special Forces men and women to protect the rich and famous. He did everything aboveboard and worked closely with the police at times for major events.

  Plus Sarge knew that Sprague had more money than almost anyone in this city, and that was going some.

  “We have an entire office suite full of the best computer people on the planet,” Robin said. “If this case hooks up at all to any other, we’ll find the connection.”

  Sarge laughed. “I sure got with the right team here.”

  “We like solving cases,” Pickett said.

  “Damn right we do,” Robin said. “So a couple more questions I’m not seeing here in the report. Was Trudy fully dressed under the wedding dress?”

  “No,” Sarge said. “And no sign of the clothes she was wearing when she left the hotel either.”

  “It says here she had on a wedding ring,” Robin said.

  “She did?” Pickett asked, leaning forward.

  “She did,” Sarge said, nodding. “And her family insisted they had never seen the ring before. All it had was a number two-seventy-three etched inside.”

  The two women looked at each other and Sarge watched the clear communication of years of being partners.

  “What are you thinking?” he asked.

  “The killer married Trudy,” Pickett said. “Before killing her.”

  Robin nodded.

  Sarge sat back. He had always wondered if it was something like that, but having Pickett and Robin both jump instantly to that conclusion confirmed his suspicions.

  He turned to Robin. “That’s the link to other cases you want to search for.”

  “Damn, you’re right,” Robin said, writing in her notebook.

  Sarge glanced at Pickett who was smiling at him.

  And he liked that smile more than he wanted to admit, even to himself.

  PART TWO

  The Trail Explodes

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  October 19th, 2016

  Las Vegas, Nevada

  PICKETT WAS SURPRISED at how comfortable the Golden Nugget Buffet was, and how wonderful it smelled at ten in the morning. Eggs, bacon, with a background smell of waffles and maple syrup. She got instantly hungry just getting near the place.

  Sarge said he ate here four mornings a week and just approaching the place gave her an idea why. The buffet was up an escalator away from the casino and then surrounded by planters with tall green plants under the high ceiling.

  The far wall was all windows that looked out over the large main-floor pool and shark tank below. Those windows really made the entire place feel almost like sitting on a balcony instead of in a dark casino.

  Everything was oak and brown-toned cloth and there were more than enough tables to hold a fairly large crowd. At this point, there weren’t more than thirty people scattered around the restaurant and Sarge sat at a table off to one side, reading the morning newspaper.

  He had a cup of coffee in front of him, but no food.

  She read the same paper, but always on her iPad in the mornings. She smiled at how handsome he looked sitting there, clearly absorbed in the reading.

  As she neared the front desk, he glanced up and waved to her over the planter that she should just come in. She did, going past the cash register and a smiling woman hostess who just nodded to her.

  He stood as she approached, the smile reaching his eyes.

  Again, she was struck at how really, really handsome he was and how attracted to him she had become in just one day. And he had manners. She couldn’t remember the last time a person had stood for her when she approached a table.

  “You didn’t need to buy me breakfast,” she said, smiling at him as she sat down and he sat back down as well. “But thank you.”

  He laughed. “I didn’t. But ma
ybe I should take the credit.”

  “Do I need to go pay?” She glanced back at the cashiers who didn’t seem to even notice she was sitting down.

  “Nope,” he said, holding up what looked like a ticket to a show on the Strip. “I eat here so often, they keep giving me two-for-one coupons, but until today I never had a chance to use one.”

  “Glad I could be of service,” she said, laughing.

  “Then let’s eat,” he said, standing.

  Ten minutes later they were back at the table. Both had personally-made ham-and-cheese omelets and she had some fruit and a small slice of a waffle. He had gone for a slice of ham and two strips of bacon with his omelet.

  “I can see why you like this place,” she said. “Lots of choices of food, comfortable place with lots of light, and friendly people.”

  “I have a hunch I would eat here seven mornings a week if I let myself,” he said, shaking his head.

  “And what would be wrong with that?” she asked, biting in to the fantastic omelet and savoring the taste.

  “Just never imagined myself in my early sixties being in a rut like this,” he said.

  “Honestly,” she said, smiling at the slight look of worry in his eyes. “I like morning routines. With all the craziness of being a cop during the day, my only sane time was mornings.”

  “Yeah,” he said, nodding. “That I agree with. Just feels wrong doing it alone I guess.”

  Pickett understood that as well. She wanted to get to know this man better and she was known for being blunt, so no time to fade on that now.

  “So divorced, huh?” Picket asked. “Do you have more than one daughter?”

  “Just the one,” Sarge said, the grin returning to his face as he said that. “She’s amazing.”

  “Tough divorce?” Pickett asked.

  Sarge shook his head as he kept eating. “Actually, no. Andrea and I had drifted apart as this job tends to do to people. She met a nice guy and decided she wanted to start over just as I retired. I like the guy she met and she and I are still friends. They live in Chicago.”