Dead Hand: A Cold Poker Gang Mystery Read online

  Pickett walked beside Sarge in silence out the door and across the parking lot. The day was warming, but not hot. It actually felt good to Pickett.

  Sarge was clearly in as much thought about all this as she was, and the silence didn’t feel uncomfortable at all. In fact, it felt as if they had been partners for years already.

  She liked that.

  And she really liked having Sarge at her side. It felt right and very comfortable. And she still hadn’t known him for a full day yet.

  As they got in and she got the SUV running and the climate controls set, she turned to him before putting on her seat belt. “Any ideas?”

  “A couple,” he said, nodding, looking straight ahead and clearly thinking.

  She waited a moment until he was ready to put the ideas into words. Robin waited for her in the same way.

  After just a few seconds, Sarge turned slightly in his seat to face her. “I’m thinking there are two areas here where we might catch a break. First are the victims’ cars. That’s been haunting me.”

  “Rental cars are tracked all the time these days,” Pickett said, nodding. “And some newer model cars as well.”

  Sarge nodded.

  That same thing had been bothering her as well, but she honestly had no idea how they could get to the data if it wasn’t already in the files for each case. And she couldn’t imagine the rape detectives not following up on that with each victim. So Robin and Will would have some answers in that area, she hoped.

  “So how do these people hide the cars from tracking?” Sarge said. “Or do they? Think Robin and Will might know that?”

  “I would think that would be a major area she and Will and her computer elves are digging into,” Pickett said. “But if not, you might be able to get Mike Dans and his people really digging behind the scenes.”

  Sarge nodded, again staring straight ahead.

  “But what about your second idea?” Pickett asked.

  Sarge again turned and looked at her. “This doesn’t feel like kidnapping for selling sex slaves overseas. But I can’t seem to let go of the fact that both men and women have vanished. Why both? That shouts to me sex trade of some sort.”

  Pickett sat back, thinking. He was right.

  But for what reason were both men and women taken?

  “If this was any kind of sex trade,” Sarge said, going on, “wouldn’t there have been some reports of sightings of the missing people at some point.”

  “Maybe there have been,” Pickett said. “I would hope those would have gotten to the files. We can check with Robin after they get more of this together.”

  “So you and Robin have any contacts that would know the sex trade in this city?” Sarge asked.

  Pickett laughed. “Actually, we do.”

  Sarge looked at her and then smiled. “Don’t tell me it’s the former wife of Elvis with hair that won’t fall down?”

  “Then I won’t tell you that,” Pickett said, laughing. “But Stein knows a ton about everything to do with weddings and the underground scene of hookers and walkers and sexual fetishes.”

  “Hand-in-hand with weddings?” Sarge asked.

  “It’s huge business in this town to help with bachelor and bachelorette parties,” Pickett said as she started up the car. “Bigger money than the weddings, actually.”

  “Of course,” Sarge said, shaking his head and laughing as he buckled his seat belt. “Just not one of those connections I would make naturally.”

  Pickett laughed. “Didn’t want to think about that part with your daughter, did you?”

  “Have I told you how happy I was that she eloped to Hawaii?”

  “You mentioned that,” Pickett said, smiling at the handsome man in the seat beside her.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  October 19th, 2016

  Las Vegas, Nevada

  SARGE SAT COMFORTABLY beside Pickett as she worked her Jeep SUV through traffic like an expert. He couldn’t remember being so comfortable riding with someone before.

  They were headed back to Stein’s old wedding chapel. Sarge didn’t consider himself a prude and after an entire career on the Las Vegas police force, he had seen most everything. But he had a hunch he just might learn a few new things this afternoon and the idea didn’t excite him in the slightest.

  About two blocks from the chapel, Robin called and Pickett put it on speaker.

  “Sarge and I are headed to talk with Stein again,” Pickett said. “What do you have?”

  “A bunch of stuff starting to shape into patterns,” Robin said.

  Sarge sat forward, feeling a flush of excitement for the first time in this case.

  “Hang on a sec,” Pickett said. She swung across two lanes of traffic and into an empty parking lot and parked.

  “I’m stopped,” Pickett said. “Fire away.”

  “We’ve been going back and digging out information from the rental car companies on the rape victims who had them,” Robin said. “The tracking all shuts off or is blocked in the same general area, a circle about ten blocks in diameter just off the Strip and to the west of the University.”

  “And turns back on?” Pickett asked a moment before Sarge could.

  “When the car leaves the circle,” Robin said.

  “Blocking frequency,” Sarge said. “That’s a lot of territory inside that circle.”

  “Works with rape victims with modern cars and OnStar as well,” Robin said.

  “What’s at the center of that circle?” Pickett asked. “Anything to do with weddings?”

  “The August Tux Shop,” Robin said.

  “Shit, shit, shit,” Sarge said. He wanted to punch something, including that bastard who owned the place.

  “Not all victims and missing persons got near the tux shop,” Robin said.

  “I’m betting you discover with enough digging,” Pickett said, “that the owner or owners of the tux shop also own other bridal and tux shops around town.”

  “You got it in one,” Robin said. “But all cars vanish into that circle around the August Tux Shop. The missing people’s cars never reappear.”

  “They don’t?” Sarge asked. “There a garage near there?”

  “Nothing at all close by,” Robin said.

  Sarge just shook his head. How in the world did fifteen hundred or more modern cars go missing in this new world?

  “Well,” Pickett said, “that’s a ton more than we had before.”

  Sarge could only agree with that. This felt like a major step forward, all because of good computer work.

  “We’re still digging,” Robin said. “Very, very carefully. The information on the hack on the clerk records really clamped a lid on our security and slowed us down a bunch.”

  “For the better,” Pickett said.

  “I agree,” Sarge said. “Robin, on the missing persons cases, have there been sightings reported?”

  “A couple dozen in the records is all,” Robin said. “All in sex tapes that might have been done before the person vanished for all the detectives knew.”

  “Overseas type of stuff?” Pickett asked.

  “No,” Robin said. “All peeping tom voyeur crap. Hidden cameras. Faces not shown or blurred, but the people reporting them didn’t want to say where they supposedly saw the person. You know the type. A friend of a friend saw this but there is no record and no one would admit to going to one of the porn sites.”

  Sarge looked at Robin who was looking puzzled.

  “All the reports were like that?” Sarge asked.

  “All the ones we have found so far that the detectives put into files,” Robin said.

  Sarge had a very large hunch that was a key, but damned if he knew how they could even begin to trace that. The underground porn world was huge and very secretive in the fetish areas. He knew that much.

  “Keep looking in on that, would you?” Pickett said. “We’ll ask Stein about it in a few minutes.”

  Robin laughed. “Anyone know about that kind of shit it w
ould be Stein, the queen of the porn wedding photographers. Let me know if you learn anything.”

  And then Robin clicked off.

  “Porn wedding photographers?” Sarge asked Pickett as she got the car going again.

  “This is Vegas,” Robin said, laughing. “An amazing number of newlyweds want their first night recorded as well. Maybe show their kids or something when the couple gets fat and old.”

  Sarge just sat there looking at the traffic around him. He had been right. By the time this case was over, he was going to learn stuff he didn’t really want to know.

  Too much stuff.

  PART FOUR

  Nothing is as It Seems

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  October 19th, 2016

  Las Vegas, Nevada

  PICKETT THANKED SARGE for holding open the large front door to Stein’s chapel. Over the years, since Stein’s husband had died, nothing had changed at all in here, except for the fact that once in a while someone emptied the ashtrays on the coffee tables. But it still smelled of old cigarettes and a faint smell of lilacs.

  Stein came out of the back room, smiling as she always did. Her hair hadn’t changed at all in years and Pickett couldn’t imagine the work it took to keep that massive beehive on her head and in place. Either that or the beehive was fake, but Pickett and Robin over the years could never spot any sign of that. And they had both looked.

  And neither of them had had the courage to ask.

  “Detectives,” Stein said. “Back so soon.”

  “Third time’s the charm,” Sarge said, smiling at Stein who just sort of beamed at the handsome detective.

  “We’re digging up more and more dirt,” Pickett said. “Can you keep what we are about to talk about among the three of us?”

  “Sure can,” Stein said, and indicated that they should follow her.

  She led them through a second room that clearly had been the wedding chapel at one point, but had now fallen into dust-covered relics. Clearly no customer came back this way and Pickett had never been in this area either in all the years of knowing Stein.

  Stein led them into the back into a large office that was clean and well-organized. She indicated chairs and then closed the door behind them. A number of monitors showed that the entire building was under surveillance and Stein could see everything going on around the building from her office.

  “I record everything in this building except what goes on in this office,” Stein said, indicating the monitors as she closed the door and moved around behind her desk.

  “Clients wanting to skip on agreements, huh?”

  “That,” Stein said, nodding, “and asking for things illegal that I don’t provide. I don’t mind a few kinks in the wedding planning, but I draw the line at illegal.”

  Pickett nodded and she could see out of the corner of her eye that Sarge was nodding as well.

  “You’re going to ask me to keep some secrets,” Stein said. “I need you to keep one as well.”

  “No problem,” Pickett said.

  “Thanks,” Stein said. “This damn thing is killing me today for some reason. Just couldn’t get it to settle into place this morning.”

  With that she reached up and using both hands she pulled off all the hair on her head and set the beehive and the hair that looked like it had been on her scalp on the corner of her desk like a trophy.

  Stein was impressed that it didn’t move or fall over or even jiggle like a bowl of jelly.

  Stein was completely bald and it actually looked good on her. She looked twenty years younger and far more alive, which surprised Pickett. She never would have recognized Stein on the street without the hair.

  Stein then quickly took off the three pieces of tape that were stuck to her scalp and sighed. “That’s better.”

  Sarge laughed and said, “I was wondering how you managed that miracle.”

  “As with most things in Vegas,” Stein said, smiling at Sarge, “things are not always what they appear.”

  Pickett laughed as Sarge just shook his head and smiled.

  “So what’s going on?” Stein asked, leaning forward. “You two closing in on the Wedding Rapist?”

  “Not closing in,” Pickett said, “but finally getting a little traction. What can you tell us about the August Tux Shop?”

  Pickett thought Stein was going to spit as she sat back. “Other than to avoid them at all costs, not much. They overcharge for everything and make all sorts of reasons to not do refunds when another place would.”

  “Anything else?” Sarge asked, making a note in his notebook.

  “Family that owns the place is stupidly rich,” Stein said. “And they didn’t get it from overcharging for tuxes. Not sure where the money came from. Might be worth checking into, but careful, that family is just flat nasty.”

  Pickett nodded and waited a moment until Sarge finished writing in his small notebook, then she asked Stein the next question. “We’ve had a few reports about some missing persons who went missing right before their weddings who turned up in porn videos.”

  Stein shrugged. “No surprise. People seem to think others will find their humping attractive.”

  “These were all voyeur videos,” Pickett said.

  Stein actually showed surprise at that. “Are there enough of them to show a pattern?”

  “Working on that,” Pickett said. “Anything you can help us on that?”

  Stein shook her head. “Filming someone without their permission in a private place is very, very damn illegal. Some of the grooms want me to do that on their wedding night and when I try to get the bride’s permission, the wedding usually is suddenly called off.”

  Pickett laughed. “I wonder why?”

  Stein just shook her head. “I’ve heard of a number of houses down near campus where college kids for free room and board and a little cash every month agree to be filmed twenty-four-seven.”

  Pickett nodded and she could see Sarge nodding beside her.

  “Any money in that sort of thing?” Sarge asked.

  “Porn is a billion dollar business,” Stein said. “A lot of the money goes unreported. There is something out there catering to all kinds.”

  “Wedding porn?” Sarge asked.

  Stein nodded. “Lots of young couples are here for free, making a nice killing and getting a free trip and wedding because they agreed with some company or another to be filmed on their wedding night. Of course, they have to film some of the wedding and she has to keep the dress on for a while in bed and it has to last a certain amount of time. I stay away from the couples doing it for the money.”

  “Never see their faces?” Sarge asked, glancing at Pickett, then back at Stein.

  “Nah, never,” Stein said. “Even the ones just into it for their own viewing pleasure don’t want their faces in the mix.”

  Pickett sat back and again watched as Sarge wrote. But she had a hunch they might have just figured out why some women were married and then raped.

  It was a hell of a lot cheaper to get actors that way than paying for a vacation and wedding.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  October 19th, 2016

  Las Vegas, Nevada

  SARGE LISTENED TWENTY minutes later as they sat in Pickett’s car and she filled Robin in on what they had discovered. And their theory on why the rapes had happened.

  Sarge didn’t much like the theory, but at the moment it fit both a reason why and also what Max had said about the type of people doing these crimes being focused on sex.

  “We’ll see if we can find a money trail leading into that tux shop business,” Robin said.

  Sarge doubted that would be possible with the porn industry, but it was worth the shot. At this point, any lead was worth a shot.

  So when Pickett hung up and turned to him, he just shook his head. “So we add in more suppositions.”

  Pickett nodded. “And no real suspects on any of this.”

  “Besides the family behind the tux shop,” Sarge s
aid.

  “Besides them,” Pickett said, nodding. “More than we had I suppose.”

  They both sat quietly for a moment, then Sarge asked the question that had been bothering him from before going in to see Stein.

  “We are working on where the people are going, but where are the cars going to?”

  Pickett looked at him with those wonderful brown eyes. “You think something more is happening besides taking out the tracking and moving them?”

  “Seems that there were police reports on many of those cars fairly quickly after the kidnappings,” Sarge said, trying to make sense of what was bothering him. “It would be risky to move the cars if the person was disappearing for good.”

  “But that would mean about fifteen hundred or more cars over the years,” Pickett said. “Where would you put them? There are no warehouses or shops at all in that blank tracking area.”

  “There is nowhere to put them,” Sarge said, still not getting what his mind was trying to get to. “So they had to be moved. Maybe by truck, maybe after being painted and such.”

  “Or chopped up and sold for parts,” Pickett said.

  Sarge nodded, but he didn’t feel that was right either. A shop or warehouse of that size could be seen in that area and there just wasn’t one.

  Again they sat there in silence. It was a comfortable silence, something Sarge really enjoyed, actually. He just hadn’t felt this comfortable with another person in a very long time.

  “Any ideas on where to go next?” Pickett asked.

  “Not a one,” Sarge said.

  “So how about I drop you back at your car,” Pickett said. “I’d like to get some running in and clear my head some. I like running every afternoon in the exercise room in my building.”

  Sarge laughed. “Actually, I was thinking I could use a nap to try to clear my head a little as well, so sounds good.”

  “Don’t you love this retirement stuff?” Pickett asked, smiling, as she got the car moving and headed back onto Las Vegas Boulevard. “Naps and exercise when we want.”