Smith's Monthly #22 Read online

  The four hit and completed the straight for me to end the tournament.

  I was one-hundred and fifty-six thousand dollars richer.

  Annie and my mother were standing and cheering in the bleachers.

  I had to admit, it had been a really great planning session.

  I might have to try that more often.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  Las Vegas, Nevada. August 25

  STEVEN GLANCED AT his watch. Four a.m.

  Using his night-vision goggles, he stared down the faintly lit suburban street at Aaron Bell’s home. This area was close to the university and was an older Vegas neighborhood, with lots of tall trees and green grass. Why anyone wasted the water to keep them green in the heat of August was beyond him.

  There were lots of shadows and dark areas. Perfect for him to move around in.

  The night had cooled a little, down to just under ninety. It felt almost chilly compared to the daytime temperatures.

  Someone was watching Bell’s home from a sedan just down the road. And the two were sloppy. Real sloppy. They had let Steven get close to them, within less than thirty feet, to take a look. They didn’t seem like Las Vegas’s best, more like government types. One was dozing, the other drinking coffee.

  Even in the middle of the night, they still had their suit coats on and often had to run the air-conditioning. What idiots.

  They were there because Steven had been careless and Verne had been lucky enough to survive. From now on out, there would be no attempt at covering the murders.

  No point now. Besides, not covering them was a lot more fun.

  Steven studied the sedan. Maybe they were FBI, he couldn’t be sure, but it didn’t matter, really. They wouldn’t stop him or catch him.

  The chances were they had bugged the home as well. They were sitting out here thinking that was enough, but that wouldn’t matter either. It just made getting inside a slightly more challenging task.

  Steven moved through a yard and into the back alley. He moved along the alley, making sure to not wake the big, friendly-but-noisy dog that lived on the other side of the alley.

  He moved silently, like a shadow, staying to the blackest areas of deep shadow. He was dressed in all black, wore black gloves, and had black paint on his face. In the Army, he had been trained to move like this, with the night vision goggles. And to do so many other things. It was nice the training was finally coming in so handy.

  He worked his way slowly into Aaron Bell’s neighbor’s backyard that bordered the Bell’s suburban home on the right. The two families had been close over the years and had installed a joint barbecue pit that they shared between the houses. The area was fenced off from the street.

  And the two idiots in the car.

  Steven moved silently through the barbecue area.

  The Bells had never bothered with a security alarm, but they did have a motion sensor light in the backyard that he didn’t want to trigger. Staying low and against the wall, he moved under the light and to the back door, easily unlocking it and getting inside.

  He moved slowly, staying where he had practiced moving a few times when the Bells were out late to a show. He knew the creaks in their floor and where to step to avoid them.

  It took him less than five minutes to get silently through the house to the bedroom.

  Aaron and his wife, Cindy, were sleeping right where they were supposed to be.

  Steven moved to Aaron’s side of the bed and then carefully put a gloved hand over the old man’s mouth. He jerked awake.

  Steven showed him the gun in the faint light.

  Cindy was snoring lightly, her mouth open, facing away from her husband.

  Steven leaned down and whispered in Aaron’s ear, softly enough that the men outside wouldn’t hear. “You want your wife and grandchildren to live, you’ll tell me where your key is.”

  Aaron nodded under Steven’s gloved hand.

  Steven pulled his hand back just enough to allow the nose of his gun to take its place in front of Aaron’s mouth.

  “Softly,” Steven whispered.

  “Jewelry case in my wife’s closet,” Aaron whispered, glancing at his still-sleeping wife. “Top shelf, hidden pocket in the lid.”

  “Get it,” Steven whispered. “Silently. You wake her up and you both die. And your grandchildren right behind you.”

  Aaron nodded, then climbed out of bed. He was wearing pajama bottoms and no top and had more hair than any man should ever have on his chest and back.

  Aaron carefully opened the closet, took out the jewelry box, placed it on the floor, then opened it.

  From a slit in the cloth lining, he took out the key and handed it to Steven.

  Steven glanced at it, enjoying the thrill of yet another success, then tucked it safely in a pocket.

  Four down. Five to go.

  “Now, back in bed and just pretend this didn’t happen,” Steven whispered.

  Aaron nodded and did as he was told.

  “Thanks,” Steven whispered. “And next time, don’t cover up a murder.”

  He quickly shot Aaron in the head, then killed Aaron’s still-sleeping wife. The sound must have made the agent with the earphones out in the car wet his pants.

  Steven placed the gun on the nightstand. He wouldn’t need that one anymore, and no one could trace it to him.

  Then he quickly pulled out a device to disguise his voice as he headed for the door.

  Trying to keep from laughing, he said into the device as loud as he could, “Hey, fellows, wake up. There be dead people.”

  Steven was in the alley before the men in the sedan even managed to get to the front of the house with their guns drawn.

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

  Las Vegas, Nevada. August 25

  THE NEXT MORNING, Annie was in the best mood she had been in since her mother’s death, even with only a half night’s sleep. She just couldn’t stop whistling, and every time a song came on the radio that even had half a beat, she found herself dancing around the kitchen while she got breakfast ready.

  This morning she was treating herself to something more than her standard breakfast bar and a go-cup of coffee. Scrambled eggs with ham and green peppers, toast, and fresh ground coffee. She figured she deserved it.

  Having Doc Hill believe in her skill and talent, and then coming through for him, broke down the final doubts in her mind. She would still go at it slowly and carefully, but at least now she knew, deep down inside, that she could make a living playing professional poker given enough time.

  When she finished eating, she went to work on what Doc had asked her to do. She had waited around after he won, watching him go through the paperwork and the photographs with his winning hand and all the money.

  She very much wanted to be in that position shortly.

  Then, after he put all the money in a safe-deposit box in the Bellagio cage, he had walked her toward her car, asking her to meet him in the morning, after he called, and in the meantime, look up some names for him.

  Kevin DeFoe, Benson James, and Aaron Bell. He had said he thought they were involved with the keys. And he would tell her more in the morning, get the police, through her, involved.

  “Everything?” she had asked him.

  “As much as I know so far,” he had said. “I promise.”

  She was going to hold him to that.

  She desperately wanted to know why the FBI was guarding Verne Adkins, among many other questions.

  She decided to first try to track down Kevin DeFoe.

  She quickly discovered in one phone call to police records that DeFoe had been reported missing back in 1982 by a girlfriend. The report had never been cleared. With no leads, no body, no real relatives demanding work on the case, the report had been filed and not even noticed again. Luckily, it had been added into the computer files, or she never would have gotten the information.

  Then she discovered, with a call to a friend in the State Police records, that Kevin DeFoe had live
d in Laughlin and had been banned from two different casinos for vague reasons in the early eighties. He hadn’t shown up on any police records or even renewed a driver’s license since 1982.

  There were no records at all of the other two names besides driver’s licenses, Benson James in Medford, Oregon, and Aaron Bell in Las Vegas.

  She got on the internet to look up any reference to the other two names. It didn’t take her long to find Benson James.

  He had been killed with his wife four days before in Medford, Oregon.

  She sat back, stunned, staring at the computer screen.

  “Oh, man,” she said to herself, “the pile of bodies on this is getting deeper by the moment.”

  Her good mood about the tournament was now replaced with the focus of a very nasty case swirling around her.

  She called the Medford police department.

  A detective there named Ott told her that the double murder had been in cold blood, for no apparent reason. The murderer had left a gun that was untraceable and without any prints. There were no other clues, no suspects, nothing.

  “Not even a motive,” Ott said. “The Jameses were wonderful people. Retired, owned a small antique shop. Everyone loved them.”

  “No robbery?” Annie asked.

  “Nothing that we can tell,” Ott said. “No leads at all until you called asking about it. So, you want to tell me why you called, detective?”

  “Just doing some basic research on a case,” she said. “If I can tie this with your case, I’ll call you.”

  “Please,” Ott said. “We could use all the help we can get on this.”

  She promised she would, then hung up and called in downtown to tell her captain what was going on, but before she got a word out, he stopped her.

  “We might need to call you back in to work, pull you off the Jeff Taylor case.”

  “Why?” Annie asked.

  “Double homicide last night. Right under the nose of the FBI.”

  “Not Verne Adkins.” The wonderful breakfast now felt like a hard ball in her stomach.

  “No, he’s doing fine, and still under heavy guard in the hospital. And I wish like hell someone would tell me why the FBI is there. No, this was a poker player named Aaron Bell and his wife, Cindy.”

  “Oh, no,” she said.

  “You know these people?” he demanded.

  “No, but I’m already working on the case. And I’m on it full-time. All this somehow ties to Jeff Taylor’s grave robbery.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding.”

  “I wish I was,” Annie said. “And there are other possible murders, including two in Medford, Oregon a few days ago and a staged plane crash in Idaho.”

  “Oh, shit,” the Captain said.

  Annie went on. “And don’t ask me how it’s all tied together. I don’t know yet, but I’m hoping to get more information this afternoon. I’ll report in as soon as I have a little more.”

  She hung up before he could ask her any other questions, almost all of which she was sure she couldn’t answer.

  She grabbed her gun and badge and jacket and headed for the front door. No way was she waiting around now for Doc to call. She was going to him, and fast.

  He had a lot of explaining to do, and he needed to do it quickly.

  There were just too damn many people getting killed.

  CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

  Las Vegas, Nevada. August 25

  I WAS BACK up and working with Fleet in his suite at eight.

  It had been a while since I had gone with only a few hours’ sleep, but at this point, sleep wasn’t that easy to get anyway. And when I did manage to doze off, all I dreamed about was a combination of that tattooed goon with the big gun and Verne being forced to shoot himself in the head, all mixed in with images of Carson and the President.

  Not great dreams.

  I had told Fleet what Verne had said about protecting my family, but I had decided to not tell him what R.A. had said. I started to, then realized that there was a good chance that the walls had ears.

  More than likely, with the FBI roaming around, very big ears.

  I ended up just telling him there was more, but I’d tell him about that later, when we were in a little more secure place.

  Fleet had set up two internet-connected computers in his suite and I took one, sipping on an orange juice and munching on raspberry Danish. It took some real work to keep the filling off the keyboard and I only half succeeded.

  We were after as much information as we could get on R.A. Scott and Nyland Harrison. Fleet had asked why those two names, and all I had said was later. “Walls. Ears. Remember?”

  He looked worried, but nodded.

  The research didn’t take that long. As R.A. had said, they were clearly bitter enemies, missing no chance in articles or speeches over the years to poke at the other. They both had owned large competing construction companies and the battle had been pretty level, from what I could tell, right up until the Clear Creek Dam broke in 1995.

  The event ended up taking Nyland’s company into bankruptcy from all the lawsuits, and put his son in federal prison in 2002, along with a few paid-off inspectors. R.A.’s company clearly gained from Harrison’s loss, and he soon controlled a vast amount of the business, including a lot of overseas government contracts.

  From all the records, after the bankruptcy and the trial, it looked like Nyland Harrison had dropped out of sight. Neither Fleet or I could even find an address or listed phone number for the man.

  “I’ll look up the documents on the son’s case,” Fleet said. “But I can tell you this as a friend, a partner, and as your attorney, if we’re dealing with these two men, we’re in way over our heads.”

  I laughed. “I knew that the moment that Heather and the FBI showed up.”

  “Yeah, that too,” Fleet said, shaking his head. “Someday someone is going to have to explain that to me as well.”

  I smiled at my friend. “I know why, but until we get into a secure location where no one can listen in, I can’t tell you.”

  “Secrets,” Fleet said, clearly disgusted. “They are sure getting old.”

  “Couldn’t agree more,” I said.

  “I’m going to make some calls,” Fleet said. “See if I can find us a security company to help us out.”

  “If you do,” I said, “I want it done on Carson’s house.”

  Fleet turned to stare at me. “Why?”

  I started to answer, but then he waved off the question.

  “Control. I get it. Good security here in the hotel, but no control. We can control Carson’s place. I’ll get on it.”

  He turned and picked up the phone.

  I finished the Danish, then went in search of Ace and my mother. For that same reason, the meeting with them this morning was going to have to wait.

  I was still so angry at my mother that I wasn’t sure I wanted to even see her right now. I just didn’t trust myself to not explode.

  I found Ace in his suite, alone, sitting at the table reading the morning paper.

  “I’m postponing our little talk this morning.” I made a motion at the room. “Walls more than likely have ears.”

  He nodded. “I was wondering about that. You need help? It just so happens I have a good friend here who specializes in different types of security. He owes me a few favors.”

  “Of course you do,” I said, laughing. Sometimes I wondered why anything my grandfather did surprised me. I glanced at my watch. It was still over an hour before I was to call and then meet Annie in the restaurant. “Can he meet us in the restaurant for breakfast in about an hour, maybe sooner?”

  Ace just smiled. “I’m sure he can.”

  I turned and headed for the door. “I’ll stop Fleet from making any more phone calls. Tell my mother the meeting is off until later for security reasons. I’ll meet you downstairs in an hour.”

  Ace nodded. “She’ll understand.”

  “I’m sure she will,” I said, not hiding
the sarcasm and anger in my voice.

  Ace said nothing, just picked up the phone.

  CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

  Las Vegas, Nevada. August 25

  I HAD FINISHED my third cup of coffee even though Annie was early arriving at the Café Bellagio. When I called her, she had said she was already on the way. I could tell from the call, and her face as she worked their way through the tables toward me, that what she had found from the information I had given her wasn’t good. She wasn’t smiling.

  She looked very police official. Now I could see one of the reasons why she made detective at such a young age. She was a force coming at me.

  The previous hour, Ace and I and Fleet had met with Mike Dans, a security specialist that Ace knew. For some reason, I liked Mike right off, and trusted him. He was a bear of a man with a large beard and moustache. He wore a large button-down shirt, Bermuda shorts, and sneakers, an outfit that said I couldn’t give a damn what anyone thought. It also made him look a little like a tourist. A great disguise in Las Vegas.

  After I shook his hand, I rounded up my original estimate of his age from mid-forties to early fifties, and I had no doubt he would take me in a fair fight.

  After we were all introduced, and Mike and Ace spent a few minutes getting caught up like old friends did, Mike turned to me.

  “Ace tells me you need help.”

  “We all do,” I said. “Can you sweep a house to see if there are any listening devices, then set it up so that no one will be able to listen in to anything being said inside that house, including your own people?”

  “If it’s a standard house out in a subdivision, not a problem. It will take me about two hours.”

  “What kind of security can you provide for us after that?” I asked.

  “What do you need?”