Freezeout: A Cold Poker Gang Mystery Read online

  “So we are still about a thousand miles from the why of all this,” Pickett said.

  “A sick game to keep five women from becoming bored in life?” Robin asked.

  Sarge shrugged. It might be just that, but he had a hunch there was something more going on.

  Something much worse.

  But he had no idea why he thought that.

  ELEVEN

  November 16th, 2016

  Las Vegas, Nevada

  PICKETT FELT BETTER, more grounded after a BLT sandwich. Over their coffee, they tried to figure out a way to find the motive on all of this. And what the women were even doing.

  Robin would go back to her office and try to find out how long it took Sandy Hunter to leave the building after she vanished. And keep chasing any way of finding out how the five women might be connected.

  Pickett and Sarge would head to the hotel and see if they could get a tour of the maintenance rooms on the floor Sandy Hunter vanished from. Sarge figured that if they saw the area, it might give them some ideas and Pickett agreed.

  Then they all agreed Pickett and Sarge needed to contact and talk to the husband of Sandy Hunter, see if he has anything odd that he remembered. Pickett doubted they would get anything of value, but sometimes it was the smallest detail that broke open a case.

  It only took them ten minutes from the Bellagio parking lot to the Bennington parking garage. They went up to the front desk and asked for a manager from security. Sarge flashed his badge and three minutes later a man by the name of Stevenson appeared. He looked to be in his early forties and clearly was management. His hair was balding and he wore a dark suit with a red tie. Pickett could tell he didn’t miss a detail, the type of person who worked security in the big hotels.

  In fact, she bet Stevenson could read a person across a room and would be dangerous in a poker game.

  After introductions, Sarge detailed out what they were doing and wondering if they could see the maintenance area on the 11th floor.

  “Can’t see why not,” Stevenson said. “Always glad to help the police, but if you wanted to see our security areas, I would have needed to get higher permission.”

  “We can understand that,” Pickett said.

  Stevenson asked a few quick questions on the elevator ride about the case they were working on. Both Pickett and Sarge said nothing about any other women or regular disappearances. They just gave him the basics of the Sandy Hunter case.

  When Stevenson heard the name Sandy Hunter, he laughed. “We get a lot of people who supposedly go missing in the casino, but on that one we still have an open file. You thinking maybe she went out through the return air system?”

  “A theory,” Pickett said. “That’s why we would like to see the maintenance room.”

  “Only theory I ever had on it as well,” Stevenson said, nodding. “But it was before my time here. If you end up solving it, would you let me know so I can close that file?”

  “Glad to,” Sarge said.

  Stevenson waved to the security camera near the maintenance room door, then used a key card to unlock a blank door. It swung open and the lights came up.

  The room wasn’t that big, about the size of a small bedroom, and was mostly empty. Seven metal doors led off from the room, all closed.

  Giant ducts covered the ceiling, all going to the left of the room and vanishing.

  Each door was labeled and had no lock on them.

  “Heating and cooling there,” Stevenson said, pointing to the room where all the large ceiling ducts led. “Elevator there, plumbing stacks there.”

  He pointed at two doors across from them.

  “Mind if we take a look at the elevator shafts?” Sarge asked.

  Stevenson nodded and went and opened the door.

  Pickett could see the ten elevator shafts. There was a metal ladder on both sides of the huge open area and as they watched from the doorway an elevator flashed upwards.

  Below they could see the tops of a few elevators and below them the basement.

  “We’re thinking she climbed down to the basement and got out that way,” Sarge said.

  Stevenson nodded. “Doors locked from the outside down there but easy to go out.”

  “Any security in any of this?” Pickett asked.

  “Only on the doors coming into here,” Stevenson said.

  Stevenson closed the door as another elevator flashed past. Pickett would have been scared to death climbing down that metal ladder, but she had little doubt she could do it if she needed to.

  Stevenson went over to the other side of the room and opened a door. On the other side was a very stark room again the size of a small bedroom. From two sides massive ductwork entered the room just below the ceiling and a massive duct left the room going across the top of the maintenance room.

  “They call this a return air cache,” Stevenson said. “The air from a quarter of the rooms on this floor flow in here and then goes back to the heating system that pumps air back into the rooms. Even when no heat or air-conditioning is on, the air keeps flowing.”

  “I thought the return air grates in each room were at floor level,” Pickett said, looking up at the massive ducts above them. Ladders built into the walls led up to each one.

  “They are,” Stevenson said.

  “Ladders inside the ducts for maintenance?” Sarge asked.

  Carson nodded.

  “How often are these ducts cleaned?” Pickett asked.

  “April and October,” Stevenson said.

  “You find things in the ducts?” Sarge asked.

  “Oh, sure,” Stevenson said, laughing. “Usually money, sometimes dirty movies or sex toys people have stashed behind the grates. One time, a couple years ago, they found a wedding dress. Not at all sure what that was about. By the time the crew gets done with the entire hotel they have a lot I can tell you.”

  Pickett looked up at the ductwork. “Mind if I climb up and take a look?”

  “No trouble,” Stevenson said, pulling a tiny flashlight out of his pocket. “You’ll need this to see much.”

  Pickett could tell that Sarge wasn’t really pleased with that, but instead of saying anything, he moved to spot her as she climbed quickly up the ladder.

  At the top she could sit up easily without bending over, the duct was that large. And she could feel a pretty good breeze blowing on her from the rooms.

  She shined her light down the large duct and she could see where there was a hole going down and part of the large main duct turned in both directions.

  “It’s not all this big beside every room is it?” Pickett asked, looking down at Stevenson and the worried expression on Sarge’s face.

  “Oh, no,” Stevenson said. “On the other side of that it branches and dozens and dozens of narrow ducts drop down to floor level along the hallway. It’s an amazing maze.”

  “Too small for me to get through?” Pickett asked.

  “Afraid so, Detective,” Stevenson said. “The maintenance people who do those ducts can’t be more than five feet tall. They are all women, actually.”

  “Your staff doesn’t do the cleaning?” Sarge asked.

  “Nope. But I can give you the company’s name that does. They service a number of hotels around town.”

  Sarge glanced up at Pickett who just smiled. Then she said, “Coming down.”

  She turned back around and found the ladder rung and went carefully down with Sarge on one side and Stevenson on the other.

  About as safe as a person could get on a ladder.

  TWELVE

  November 16th, 2016

  Las Vegas, Nevada

  SARGE AND PICKETT thanked Stevenson for the tour and the name of the cleaning service and headed down to the parking garage for her car. Once in the car, Sarge glanced at Pickett. He held up the name of the service. “You think these folks might have something to do with all this?”

  Pickett laughed and took out her phone. “I sure think we should get Robin and Will’s people
looking into the business, don’t you?”

  She glanced at it, then said, “No reception.”

  She handed it to Sarge and got the SUV headed up and out of the parking garage. Once out of the garage, Robin drove for about a block before finding a spot to pull over near a construction site.

  She called Robin and told her what they had found. Sarge listened but didn’t add anything in. None of this was making sense to him still. Not a bit of it. They were looking at a few puzzle pieces and trying to get a large picture. Wasn’t happening.

  After Pickett got off the phone with Robin, she got them moving again toward an office at the University of Nevada Las Vegas. Sandy Hunter’s husband, Rich, taught there and was more than willing to talk with them about his missing wife.

  About eight years ago he had had her declared dead and had gotten remarried. He now had two kids and from what Robin could find, seemed to be doing fine.

  Sarge had suggested they not tell him anything about what they had found so far, just explain they were working on the case again because of the Cold Poker Gang.

  The university area was full of large trees and shaded. Many of the trees hadn’t lost their fall leaves yet so it still seemed lush, something Sarge enjoyed in the spring, summer, and fall. But today the shade made everything feel colder.

  Professor Hunter’s office was in an older brick building that had the feeling of an old library. His office was on the second floor and the wooden staircase in the building was wide and the wood smoothed almost white in the center of the stairs by so much traffic.

  They knocked on the old wooden office door and a bald man with a wide smile greeted them, inviting them in and offering them chairs in front of his desk. Sarge wondered how many students over the last decade had sat in exactly those chairs.

  Hunter was clearly a smart man who seemed, at least outwardly, happy. Kind of sad that a nice guy like him had been taken by whatever scam the five women were pulling.

  “So you are looking into Sandy’s disappearance after all these years,” Hunter said as he sat down. “Can I ask why, detectives?”

  Pickett explained how they were basically retired and on a special task force trying to solve old cold cases. Sandy’s case had just come up.

  “Not at all sure what I can add,” Hunter said, “that I didn’t already tell Detective Bower and his partner.”

  “We just want to look at everything again,” Sarge said. “Sometimes time can bring up all sorts of things that seemed normal but through the perspective of time now seem odd. Anything like that?”

  Hunter seemed to think for a moment, slowly shaking his head.

  “When did you first meet Sandy?” Pickett asked.

  Hunter shrugged. “About two years before she disappeared.”

  Sarge sat back, stunned at that.

  Picket glanced at Sarge, then followed up her question before Hunter could tell anything seemed odd. “Were you dating that first year?”

  “Oh, heavens, no,” Hunter said. “I would just run into her on campus, usually about once or twice a month and we would talk. She didn’t give me her address and phone number until about a year before she vanished and we were married eight months later.”

  Sarge slowly let out the breath he had been holding. These women found and set up their next relationships before vanishing from the previous one. Amazing.

  Simply amazing.

  And very damned cold-blooded.

  “So did you ever meet any of Sandy’s family?”

  “All dead,” Hunter said. “Back when she was a kid. She was raised in the system back east in Boston.”

  “She have friends?” Pickett asked.

  “A few close friends from college and a few at work,” Hunter said. “Everyone liked her. I loved her.”

  Sarge leaned forward slightly. “You ever meet the friends from college?”

  Hunter shook his head. “They were scattered around the country, so never did even though she said she wanted me to meet them. I e-mailed them to let them know she was missing. Got a few e-mails back, but I kind of had the feeling they blamed me.”

  Pickett glanced at Sarge. He had a hunch they were both thinking the same thing, that her friends from college were the other four women.

  “And you had no indication anything was wrong the day she vanished, or the weeks leading up to it?” Sarge asked.

  “Nothing at all,” Hunter said. “Everything was exactly as it had been those three months of marriage. She seemed happy, actually.”

  “And nothing vanished with her?” Pickett asked.

  Hunter shook his head. “Just her clothes and her engagement and wedding ring is all, and whatever else she had in her purse. She seldom carried much money, liked to use her debit card for things.”

  “We talked with Detective Bower,” Sarge said, “who said that her cards were never used. That right?”

  Hunter nodded. “She vanished without a trace.”

  “You ever think you see her again around town?” Pickett asked.

  Hunter laughed. “Oh, sure, for the first year or so I thought I saw her everywhere. But I was wrong every time. A counselor told me that was normal for people in my position.”

  Sarge didn’t want to tell him that he might have been right a few of those times.

  “So was she ever gone in the year you knew her?” Pickett asked.

  Hunter sat back for a moment, clearly thinking back over time. “Yeah, she went to visit two of her college friends for five days a month after we met. Then in the fall she took another trip up to Seattle, I think she said to stay with another friend there for five days, a month before our wedding. Said she was trying to convince her friend to come down and stand up for her in the wedding.”

  “She didn’t, I assume,” Pickett asked.

  “Gloria, a friend from work, did the honors,” Pickett said. “Might want to talk with Gloria if you can find her. She and Sandy seemed to have gotten very close. She might know more than I do.”

  They thanked Professor Hunter after a couple more questions and headed back out to Pickett’s car without talking.

  When Pickett closed her door, Sarge turned to her and asked, “Where do you think Sandy went on those two vacations?”

  Pickett shrugged. “Not a clue. But I wouldn’t bet against the timing being the same timing as that cleaning company cleaning out the vents in those two hotels.”

  Sarge just looked at her, surprised. “Why?”

  Pickett shrugged as she got the car started. “No idea why. Not a damn bit of this is making any sense.”

  “Now that I agree with,” Sarge said.

  THIRTEEN

  November 16th, 2016

  Las Vegas, Nevada

  PICKETT CALLED ROBIN from the car and she didn’t have much yet, but would meet them for dinner at the buffet at Golden Nugget. The only time the three of them went there was while they were on a case. It felt almost like an office to them.

  Sarge and Pickett spent the next hour talking with Gloria, Sandy’s friend. Gloria had not aged well which had to do with the almost two hundred pounds she had gained since she knew Sandy.

  And Gloria knew even less than Rich had known about Sandy.

  So Pickett took them back to the Ogden and parked in her spot, then they walked down Fremont Street to the Golden Nugget. It was still a nice evening, but they both took jackets because they knew the walk back would be chilly.

  Pickett felt frustrated by this entire thing. They had made a lot of progress in one day, going from a woman vanishing into a hotel room to understanding how she got out and that five women were doing this regularly.

  But they had no idea why, or how to find the woman that for one year called herself Sandy.

  The smell of pizza and prime rib in the buffet made Pickett realize just how hungry she was. It had only been four hours since lunch, but a draining four hours talking with the husband and old friend.

  Robin wasn’t there yet, so Sarge paid for all three of them sinc
e it was his turn. Since all three of them didn’t have any issue with money, they had decided a few weeks back to just alternate paying for dinners and lunches. Just easier that way.

  Then he and Pickett left their jackets at their normal table and went to get food.

  Ten minutes later Robin joined them and within fifteen minutes they were all eating.

  Pickett had gone for some prime rib, some breaded shrimp, and a pretty large salad with eggs. Sarge had his normal prime rib, ham, and potatoes. Robin always started with just a salad, fairly plain.

  “So,” Sarge said after a few minutes to Robin, “Any luck on trying to find out a connection between the five women?”

  “Nothing yet,” Robin said, shaking her head. “We are pretty convinced that this started for all of them in 1998. And that they were all in their early twenties. But their original identities seem to be very, very well hidden.”

  “So five women,” Pickett said, “suddenly decide to become other women, marry or get into relationships, and then just vanish every year?”

  “Pretty much,” Robin said, finishing her salad and standing and heading for her main course.

  “So back there in 1998 we have five women who knew each other,” Sarge said, shaking his head as he cut at his prime rib, “suddenly vanish from their lives and start new lives, strings of new lives.”

  “Think we need to look for some event that had five friends involved?” Pickett asked. “Something that would have triggered whatever they are doing now.”

  “It would sure help if we could figure out why they were pulling the vanishing act every year,” Sarge said.

  Robin came back as they sat there eating and thinking. Around them the noise of the buffet felt like a welcoming background sound. There was just something about people laughing and enjoying themselves that made an atmosphere comfortable.

  “I do have some news about the cleaning service,” Robin said as she worked to put some sour cream on a baked potato. “There is no connection at all to any of the women and the company cleans all the time and has upwards of fifty hotels as clients. All their cleaners are from twenty to twenty-five. None older.”