Dead Hand: A Cold Poker Gang Mystery Read online

  Pickett was stunned at the very idea. “Are you thinking that maybe if the victim was driving a rental car, they were raped and put back in their car, but if driving an owned car, they were taken?”

  “Grasping at straws,” he said, shaking his head. “Said out loud like that, it sounds even crazier than it sounded in my head.”

  “This might be more like a fire hose if you are right,” Pickett said, grabbing her phone and calling Robin.

  “Sarge has an idea,” Pickett said before Robin could even say hello. “Can you check and see if only the rape victims had rental cars and the missing people had regular cars when they were taken?”

  “Shit,” Robin said. “Give me thirty minutes. My husband has given me two more people to help on the computers on this. He thinks we may be on to something huge here and wants his best helping us nail it down.”

  “Wonderful,” Pickett said.

  That made her feel even better about the assumption this was tied together if Will and Robin both had the same feeling.

  Robin hung up and Picket clicked off her phone and smiled at Sarge. “Thirty minutes.”

  Sarge indicated to a passing waitress that they both needed fresh coffee. Then he said, “Now this is the kind of detective work I like. Sitting and drinking coffee and coming up with ideas while others do the work.”

  Pickett laughed and let the waitress fill her cup. She had no doubt this was about as far from standard detective work that Sarge got. But she had to admit, for the moment this did feel great.

  Especially sitting beside him.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  October 19th, 2016

  Las Vegas, Nevada

  MIKE CALLED SARGE back after a couple more minutes and about half-a-cup of coffee.

  “It’s hacked,” Mike said without even a hello. “A good one, downloading full data twice a month in a flash grab. It had alarms all over it to go off and erase itself if found.”

  “Shit,” Sarge said. “I was afraid of that. Traceable?”

  “We’re working on that,” Mike said, “but chances are, from the level of the sophistication on this, it’s going to a dark web location, not traceable and not in existence for more than a few seconds that this hack takes every couple of weeks.”

  “How long has it been going on?” Sarge asked. He didn’t really want to know the answer, but he had to.

  “Best we can figure, it started in early 2008.”

  Sarge felt his stomach just tighten into a knot. Over eight years this had been going on without anyone having a clue. How was that possible?

  “Thanks, Mike. I owe you,” Sarge said. “Now at least we know how these sickos are finding the victims.”

  “I’ll keep my people on this and see if we can trace it and feed them old data on the next hack, which will be in ten days. You still need the data from the tux place?”

  “Skip it,” Sarge said. “I think we got enough.”

  “Figured,” Mike said. “I’ll be back to you when I got more.”

  Mike clicked off and Sarge slowly lowered his phone and put it on the table in front of him.

  “That bad, huh?” Pickett asked.

  Sarge glanced at her very worried face. Her eyes seemed to be almost slits and her mouth was tight and firm.

  Sarge nodded. “Mike found a very sophisticated hack on the County Clerk’s records for marriage certificates.”

  Pickett sat back, clearly stunned.

  “The records are hacked twice a month and it has been going on since early 2008. He’s trying to trace it, but doubt it will work. We got ten days until the next one and Mike’s going to try to feed the hack false data at that point.”

  “We need to extend back the search two years ahead of Trudy Patterson,” Pickett said, her voice hushed and soft. “That’s a lot of people.”

  All Sarge could do was nod. His nightmare case had turned into a complete horror, not only for poor Trudy Patterson, but for a lot of other men and women.

  Pickett quickly called Robin and told her what they had discovered and to extend the pattern searches back to 2008.

  “We need to keep this to ourselves for the moment,” Pickett said to Robin. “Swear your husband to secrecy even with top officials, because if this gets leaked, it might spook these sickos. We don’t know who they are and we only have ten days until the next hack.”

  Pickett nodded for a moment, then said, “Will do.”

  After she clicked off her phone, Sarge asked, “Will do what?”

  “Be careful,” Pickett said. “This is a lot bigger than one cold case.”

  Sarge could only nod at that.

  They sat, not talking, both thinking, as the happy, real world of the surface of Las Vegas went on around them. Dishes clicking, people laughing, the sounds of slot machines announcing a winner.

  But there was so much more under the surface in this town.

  So much happened the tourists here for a good time just didn’t see. He always knew that as a detective, but something about the size, scale, and focus on the happy moments of a wedding really made him even more disgusted at his own city.

  But as long as the tourists didn’t know or care, things were fine.

  And that was just better for everyone concerned.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  October 19th, 2016

  Las Vegas, Nevada

  PICKETT WAS NOW certain that all the disappearances and rapes were tied together. And she was betting there were very few homicides besides Trudy Patterson’s death attached. She just had that feeling.

  So now they had options. None of them good, but they had options.

  “So let’s say over the last six years,” Pickett said to Sarge, “since Trudy Patterson was taken, about two thousand others were taken and fifteen hundred of them disappeared completely while five hundred of the women were raped and released. How is something like that possible in a town with a million security cameras?”

  Sarge turned to face her, nodding. “We have in the file security footage of Trudy Patterson leaving the parking garage of her hotel but nothing after that.”

  “When did rental car companies start putting in tracking devices for their cars?”

  “Worth figuring out,” Sarge said. “If we know these cases are linked, we should be able to find patterns in how the people were abducted.”

  “Exactly what I was thinking,” Pickett said. “In this case numbers work on our side. I am sure that Robin and Will and their people are already on that part of things.”

  “So how about we tackle the why?” Sarge asked.

  “Why would a group of people kidnap that many people?” Pickett asked. “First thing that springs to mind is the sex slave trade. The victims are being sold overseas.”

  She hated the idea, but it was the most logical from where they were sitting. But the wedding part made no sense at all with that.

  Sarge looked at her. “You think it is the sex slave trade?”

  “I hope not,” Pickett said.

  “Either way,” Sarge said, nodding, “You think any of these missing are still alive?”

  “I can’t imagine how or why?” Pickett said. And she couldn’t. After this many years, it would be logical that if the missing were kept alive, one or two would get away and return, even from sex slave trafficking. It did happen.

  “So we go on the theory we have a real sicko serial rapist and killer,” Sarge said. “Let’s go see if we can get some profiling help on this while Robin does her magic.”

  Pickett nodded as Sarge stood from the booth and tossed enough money on the bill to cover it and a good tip.

  “Next time my turn to buy,” Pickett said.

  He smiled. “Deal. But I didn’t tell you I have enough money to last me far longer than I’m going to live. Family inheritance four years ago. Father died, I was the only child and he was disgustingly rich.”

  Now she understood why he had quit the Cold Poker Gang the first time. He had been dealing with that.
/>   “That rich, huh?” Pickett said.

  “Triple disgustingly, actually,” Sarge said, laughing.

  At that he indicated they should head out of the restaurant and deeper into the casino. Even with the wide aisles, the number of people and families kept them both weaving in and out of tourists.

  The Bellagio poker room was a beautiful room off to one side of a slot machine area. It was decorated in ornate oak wood and rich furnishings and from what she could tell a good dozen tables were full of players.

  Sarge indicated she should stay outside for a moment and he went inside and up a few steps in the back to a slightly higher level to a game going on inside a glassed-in room off the back. Pickett bet that was a high-stakes game. The Bellagio was known for that.

  She watched as Sarge stood outside the room for a moment until a man inside smiled and stood and headed to the door. The man was about thirty and tall and rugged and had a tan that surprised Pickett even for the sun of Las Vegas. He wore a dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up and jeans and tennis shoes. She recognized him from somewhere, but she couldn’t remember where.

  Sarge and the man came across the poker room and out to where she stood to one side of the flow of tourists. Around her the sounds of the slot machines filled the air, but not so much as to make it impossible to hold a decent conversation.

  “Detective Pickett,” Sarge said, “I’d like you to meet Doc Hill.”

  Pickett shook Doc’s hand, nodding. “Annie’s boyfriend, Lott’s daughter. Right?”

  Doc smiled a smile that could melt ice from a hundred yards. “Guilty as charged.”

  “Wonderful to meet you,” Pickett said. She was now also remembering that she had seen Doc’s picture on a number of magazines over the last few years. And that he was amazingly rich and helped out Lott and Julia and Andor with cases all the time, sort of in the same way that Will helped out her and Robin with cases.

  “So what can I do for you, detectives?” Doc asked.

  “We’re working on a really ugly case that is seeming to explode in size around us,” Sarge said. “And we’re looking for some profiling help on who might be pulling the strings. Thinking maybe Mac might help, but I don’t know him well enough to ask.”

  Doc nodded and glanced around at the room behind him. Pickett had no idea who Sarge was talking about, but Doc seemed to think the idea made sense.

  “I’ll get him,” Doc said. “Looks like he could use a break.”

  Doc turned and headed back into the poker room.

  “Mac used to be an FBI profiler,” Sarge said, “one of the best in the business, before going to play poker full time. He can read a person sitting across from him with the best players in the business and has gotten rich using his skills on other poker players.”

  Pickett nodded. That sounded like the best hope they had at the moment to even start to get inside this case.

  She watched as Doc knelt down beside a guy with a gray cap clearly covering a bald head.

  The guy listened to Doc for a moment, then said something to the table and stood with Doc. Both of them turned toward the door to the room.

  Mac couldn’t have been any taller than five-five and was a distance beyond two hundred pounds. Pickett guessed him to be in his early forties. He had on dark dress slacks and a white long-sleeved shirt with the cuffs buttoned.

  Doc introduced them, then said, “I’m going to get back.”

  “Thanks, Doc,” Sarge said.

  “Thanks for the break,” Mac said to them after Doc left. “I was grinding and getting hungry, not a good state to be in while playing poker with the likes of the sharks at that table.”

  “Doc said you looked like you could use a break,” Pickett said, smiling.

  “That guy scares me sometimes,” Mac said, shaking his head.

  “Cheeseburger and fries for a half hour of your time?” Sarge asked, smiling.

  Mac smiled at Pickett and winked. “Detectives, you toss in a milkshake and you can have thirty-five minutes.”

  “Deal,” Sarge said, laughing.

  And back they went toward the Bellagio Café.

  Pickett had no doubt she was going to spend far more time than she normally did in the café before this case was all over.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  October 19th, 2016

  Las Vegas, Nevada

  THEY GOT SETTLED back in the same booth Sarge and Pickett had just left. It had been cleaned off and Mac took Robin’s spot.

  Sarge wasn’t sure what he was going to ask Mac, but figured this was worth a shot.

  Pickett got out a notebook and Sarge took his small notebook out of his pocket as the waitress took their drink orders and the order for Mac’s meal.

  Sarge ordered himself and Pickett a basket of fries to share since it seemed wrong to not eat while Mac did.

  “You do know,” Mac said after the waitress left, “that anything I can tell you here about your case is just going to be off-the-cuff opinion. To do what I used to do right would take a lot of detail work and time and more information than you are going to be able to give me.”

  Sarge and Pickett both nodded.

  “Actually,” Sarge said, “even an opinion will put us farther along than we are.”

  “That bad, huh?” Mac asked.

  “Worse,” Pickett said.

  “So lay it out for me,” Mac said.

  He pulled out a small notebook from his back pocket and a pen from his shirt pocket and opened to a blank page.

  Sarge glanced at Pickett and she nodded that he tell Mac the case.

  In five minutes, Sarge told Mac about Trudy Patterson and how that started all this, the information about the rapes, the fact that the wedding license information was hacked twice a month with a very sophisticated hack, and that somehow over 1,500 people had vanished completely from Las Vegas without a trace right before the weddings over the last six to eight years.

  Mac wrote down notes, shaking his head at times. Finally, when Sarge was done, Mac looked up. Sarge could see the man’s eyes were haunted.

  “That bad, huh?” Sarge asked.

  “As bad as you think it is,” Mac said. “The wedding is the key. You are on the right track there, I have no doubt.”

  “We just can’t find a damn door any key fits yet,” Pickett said.

  “Weddings are a marker of a new beginning,” Mac said. “Crossing into a new life. That symbolism is powerful, if not real for the perps here.”

  Sarge sat back. “Starting over?”

  Mac nodded. “Starting over. And to the perps something is flawed with the women who are raped and released. Something about them doesn’t fit what the perps are looking for so they use them for something else.”

  “We were thinking they might have had rental cars and the others didn’t,” Sarge said.

  Mac shook his head. “It’s something far more personal than that. I would run the details about the women who were raped, see if any one thing comes up that makes them similar in some fashion and unacceptable.”

  Sarge looked at Pickett who was frowning. “We need to have Mike search the women’s medical records.”

  “Mike Dans?” Mac asked.

  Sarge nodded.

  “Mike would do it right,” Mac said. “Good idea. But also interview a few of them, look through their records, rape kits, things like that to see if you can find a pattern.”

  Sarge looked at Pickett who was writing in her notebook and nodding. That was going to be a lot more work for Robin, but Sarge had a hunch she and her husband’s team could handle it, if they weren’t already doing it.

  At that moment their food came and Mac dug into his cheeseburger.

  Sarge sort of pretended to take a fry, but he wasn’t hungry in the slightest, even though they smelled great.

  Pickett put down her pen and grabbed the salt shaker. “Mind?” she asked.

  “Please,” Sarge said and Pickett salted the fries about as much as Sarge would have.


  “So any opinions from what little we know what these sickos are like?” Pickett asked Mac.

  “Controlling,” Mac said between bites. “Of that there is no doubt. Very careful, very meticulous, very sexual focused.”

  “Slave trade?” Sarge asked.

  Mac shook his head. “I doubt it with the marriage connection. I dealt with my share of those who kidnapped for the sex trades and this doesn’t have that feel.”

  Sarge wasn’t sure if he was relieved or disappointed.

  “Marriage often has a religious element to it,” Mac said. “So chances are these people are religious which is why they are marrying the victims of the rapes before the sexual act.”

  Sarge and Pickett both nodded and Pickett wrote it down in her notebook. All of what Mac was saying made sense so far.

  “If I could make one more bet on this,” Mac said. “I would bet the people involved have a lot of money and are possibly community leaders. Going on this long without even a crack in the pattern is a sign of money, intelligence, and connections. So be careful who you talk to.”

  And with that, Mac finally said something that just scared hell out of Sarge.

  And Sarge had a hunch Mac was right.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  October 19th, 2016

  Las Vegas, Nevada

  PICKETT AND SARGE walked Mac back to the poker room and thanked him again.

  “Keep me in the loop if I can help,” Mac said.

  Pickett promised him they would, and then she and Sarge headed back for her car.

  She had no idea what they were going to do next. Not an idea, but clearly they both felt they needed to be moving doing something.

  Robin and Will were both still working at all the data, trying to pull any pattern that would help them pry open a door with this thing. And that was going to take a little more time, if not all night and into tomorrow to even dent the vast size and scope of all this.