Burn Card, page 10
“Sick stuff?” Pickett asked, afraid of the answer.
“Real sick,” Robin said. “I warned Will what might be going on. He said he thinks he can keep his people from killing anyone in the house. But after a few minutes they all have stopped watching the feed. They are just recording it.”
Pickett understood that perfectly and Sarge just nodded. Her imagination was more than enough to imagine the horror in those houses. She certainly didn’t want to see it.
“We are making progress on cracking the web side of this,” Robin said. “Pretty clear it is coming from Kevin.”
Pickett wasn’t surprised at that at all.
“So got any idea why Cavanaugh wants us on this stakeout tonight?” Sarge asked.
“Because he believes,” Robin said, “that everyone involved is about ready to cut and run since we have gotten this close. And he hopes to wrap this up before the rats scatter to the trash heaps.”
“You got both the father and son locked down, right?” Pickett said.
“They are meeting at midnight tonight.” Robin said. “We have trackers on their cars and both of their phones cloned. You shook the kid’s tree nicely this afternoon.”
Pickett smiled. “That was all Cavanaugh. He can do that to a person if he wants. And in a nice way while at it.”
Robin laughed, then went on. “We also just learned about thirty minutes ago from the lab that the guy in the basement, Kevin’s biological father, didn’t die of natural causes and dehydration. He was poisoned.”
That surprised Pickett. The guy just looked like he had sat there and died. They were such a long way in this case from how they started when they saw that body the first time.
“So they cut those early six houses and were waiting for them to be discovered is all,” Sarge said. “We just happened to stumble into it all.”
“Seems that way,” Robin said.
“What wonderful luck,” Pickett said.
“Yeah, luck,” Sarge said, shaking his head.
“But there is someone else involved, isn’t there?” Pickett asked Robin.
“We don’t know for sure,” Robin said. “But Cavanaugh is guessing that Ben and Cathy are. So he wants you three sitting on them tonight.”
Pickett glanced up at the puzzled look on Sarge’s face. Then she asked, “What makes Cavanaugh think that?”
“First off, your idea about the cars. We matched a few cash withdrawals from Ben and Cathy’s personal accounts for travel to the price of the cars when they were bought. Seems the cars were never used, just put there for show.”
“Extremely circumstantial,” Pickett said. “But makes sense.”
She didn’t like it, but it made sense to compare across like that.
“The coincidence of the new five houses being in Ben’s name,” Robin said, “is another factor. And he did another book of nudes in 2000 called Brunettes. Seems like too pat a story to not be checked out.”
“I agree,” Pickett said. “But I sure hope we are wrong.”
“I hope so too,” Sarge said. “But the cycle of abuse tends to go down through the generations until broken. We all know that.”
“Oh, god, tell me Ben and Cathy had no children,” Pickett said. “And Kevin has no children.”
“They had no children,” Robin said.
Pickett was relieved to hear that. No matter what happened tonight, that chain of sickness was broken. Now she just hoped that Cathy and Ben were not a part of all this.
But it was only a hope.
She had nothing else to go on because their story said things were one way, but the facts seemed to be pushing another.
It was going to be a long night.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
June 15th, 2017
Las Vegas, Nevada
Cavanaugh had met them in a twenty-four-hour grocery store parking lot about a block from one of the houses being staked out. It was ten in the evening and he looked actually cheerful as he got out of his car and locked it and climbed into the back of Pickett’s SUV.
Sarge glanced at Pickett, who was behind the wheel, and then turned around to Cavanaugh. “Too much caffeine?”
Cavanaugh laughed. “Nope, by tomorrow we’ll have this sick case wrapped up and I will only have fourteen days left.”
Pickett and Sarge both laughed.
“So where to?” Pickett asked.
“There is a service station about three-quarters of a mile below Cathy and Ben’s house, on that crossroads there. They are open twenty-four seven and we can park beside it without being seen much from the highway.”
“What happens if they go another way out of the house on the highway?”
“I got a guy with a scope on their garage and driveway,” Cavanaugh said. “We’ll track them if they leave.”
Pickett got the car headed out toward Ben and Cathy’s place.
“You believe they are involved?”
“I’m damn hoping not,” Cavanaugh said. “But her dad and her brother are meeting tonight at midnight in the one house that is not being used by a customer at the moment. We think this is either a normal meeting or a called meeting.”
“Robin or Will or their crew find any sign that either the father or the brother had contacted Ben or Cathy in any way?”
“No,” Cavanaugh said. “That’s what gives me hope. Unless this is just a regular meeting. On the dark web booking of this stuff, Will’s people discovered that two nights a month are left reserved in one house or another. Tonight is one of those nights.”
“So we have no idea at all if Ben and Cathy are involved,” Sarge said.
“Not a bit that will stand up in any court,” Cavanaugh said. “But no matter if Ben and Cathy come out or not, this operation stops tonight. And we toss everyone we can round up into general population and pass the word about exactly what they were doing.”
Sarge really liked that idea.
Pickett just laughed, and Sarge could tell she liked it as well.
Thirty minutes later Pickett got the SUV backed into a place in the shadows of the service station lighting, against one side of the building and to the back. They had a clear view of the highway in both directions from there, but Sarge was pretty sure the car didn’t look obvious in any way.
“This is stakeout heaven,” Pickett said. “Hot coffee in there, bathrooms on the other side of the building.”
“We are too damned old to do a regular stakeout,” Cavanaugh said.
“I thought you said you weren’t old yet,” Sarge said.
Cavanaugh waved his hand in dismissal. “I’m just watching out for my senior friends is all.”
Pickett actually laughed and Sarge just shook his head. Actually, in real age, Pickett was younger than both he and Cavanaugh.
“I’m going to go tell the guy behind the counter we are here,” Cavanaugh said, “so we don’t spook him.”
“What’s the cover story?” Sarge asked.
“Watching for a truckload of stolen watches coming down from the north,” Cavanaugh said.
Sarge laughed at that. Maybe this wasn’t going to be such a long night after all.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
June 15th, 2017
Las Vegas, Nevada
All three of them were munching on some rather tasty fresh donuts that had just been delivered to the service station. Pickett had her favorite, a maple bar, covered completely in maple and still slightly warm, with the maple frosting running so that she had more of it on her face than in her mouth after the first bite.
But she didn’t care. It tasted heavenly.
Fresh donuts on a stakeout always did.
It was eleven thirty and they had been there for over an hour and were just getting settled in. They had all decided that the outcome they wanted was to sit there until just before dawn and then go in and help in the raid on those homes.
They had all clearly liked Cathy and Ben.
Suddenly the two-way radio Cavanaugh had with him crackled to life.
“White Lexus SUV pulling out of the garage and heading down the driveway.”
“Shit, shit, shit,” Cavanaugh said.
Pickett felt exactly the same way.
Sarge just sat shaking his head.
“Tell us which way it turns on the main highway,” Cavanaugh said to his spotter.
“Copy,” the spotter said.
“And stay in place until dawn, make sure a second car doesn’t leave.”
“Understood,” the cop on the other side said.
Pickett had so hoped that Ben and Cathy were not involved. But it was looking like they were. Or at least Ben was.
She cleaned up her hands and face and put what was left of her maple bar in a bag with Sarge’s half-eaten glazed donut.
Sarge put the bag on the floor at his feet.
“Turning toward you on the highway,” the spotter said. “White Lexus and I only see one person inside.”
“Understood,” Cavanaugh said. “We’ll pick it up from here.”
He then radioed into dispatch that he was going to need some backup on a tail of a white Lexus.
Then they sat in silence, waiting.
“Here it comes,” Sarge said.
As the Lexus went by in front of them in the lights from the service station, it was clear who was driving.
Cathy.
Not Ben.
Cathy.
And from what Pickett could tell, it didn’t look like Ben was in the car with her.
“Well ain’t that a kick,” Cavanaugh said as Pickett waited a moment for Cathy to get far enough past, then started up her car and pulled out on the highway.
Pickett wasn’t sure what she thought. One thing was for sure, that was not what she had hoped for.
But she knew, knowing just a little of the abuse that Cathy had suffered, it was what she should have expected.
PART FIVE
Unexpected But No Surprise
CHAPTER THIRTY
June 15th, 2017
Las Vegas, Nevada
Sarge sat in the passenger seat, helping Pickett keep an eye on the white Lexus a quarter mile in front of them.
Two other unmarked police spotters were leapfrogging them, keeping them informed on a private channel of the location of the Lexus.
They rode in a heavy quiet, almost like it was a funeral. Sarge knew they were all hoping that Cathy would just pull into a grocery store, get some medicine or food and head home.
Sarge knew that was what he was hoping for at least.
None of them wanted her to go to that house with the dead girls on the beds and two buried in the basement.
But after all the years on the force, his detective mind told him he was just kidding himself. Cathy was going right where they knew she was going.
It was clear now that almost from the start in 1977 as a young girl, she had played Ben and helped her father and her brother’s father get rich off of not cremating dead people. Then, in 1981, they had killed those girls and set up an entire new business.
And then killed another group in 2001.
Clearly tonight was not a special meeting, but a normal one of the three of them.
“Both men are en route,” a dispatcher said to Cavanaugh.
“Make sure all surveillance vehicles on the house are pulled back and out of sight,” Cavanaugh said.
“So what’s the plan?” Pickett asked of Cavanaugh as Cathy turned toward the house.
“We let all three get inside,” Cavanaugh said. “We have the house completely monitored, so as soon as we get enough information from them, we go in and shut it down.”
“You have teams on the other four houses?” Sarge asked.
Cavanaugh nodded. “Ready for my signal. In three of them there is a single guy, in another there is a couple from Indiana.”
“A couple?” Pickett asked, glancing back at Cavanaugh.
“Afraid so,” Cavanaugh said, clearly sounding disgusted.
“How in the hell does a couple bond over sexually abusing long-dead corpses?” Sarge asked, feeling like he wanted to be just sick.
“They met at a funeral?” Pickett asked. “Standing over the corpse viewing. A real romance meet cute if you ask me.”
Sarge shook his head and smiled.
Cavanaugh chuckled.
“Maybe they both like to pretend to be vampires,” Cavanaugh said. “I hear kids like that sort of thing these days.”
“Pretty sure mummified dead bodies don’t have blood,” Pickett said, laughing.
“Can you imagine the dinner conversations?” Sarge asked. “Honey, you up for some necrophilia this weekend?”
Cavanaugh snorted.
“What would foreplay be like?” Pickett asked. “You play dead so I can get warmed up?”
All three of them laughed and Sarge waved his hand to stop the conversation.
At that point Pickett pulled over into a driveway of a neighbor’s house about a block away and shut off the car and lights.
“Suspect you were following is entering the building,” Cavanaugh’s radio reported.
“Both other suspects have just pulled up in front.”
A minute later the report came in. “All three suspects are in the building.”
“Shall we go to the surveillance van?” Sarge said.
Sarge was not at all sure he wanted to and he could see that Pickett didn’t want to either.
He was about to say no when the spotter on the States’ home said, “Cavanaugh, another car is leaving the garage. A second white Lexus SUV.”
“What the hell is Ben doing?” Sarge asked.
“Damn it,” Cavanaugh said.
“We’ll go back and pick him up,” Pickett said. “You take care of this mess here.”
Cavanaugh reported back to the spotter that he needed to report which way the Lexus was headed out of the driveway. Then he called in to headquarters the situation and that they had undercover officers who would be tailing the Lexus and who would need help.
Headquarters responded back in the affirmative and Cavanaugh handed Sarge his radio. “I’ll be monitoring the situation from here.”
He climbed out and Pickett got the car headed back toward the States’ house.
“What in the world is Ben doing?” Pickett asked.
“Maybe they both are involved,” Sarge said. “No way of knowing.”
“Get Robin on the phone, tell her what is happening,” Pickett said. “We might need her to track Ben’s car if we lose him.”
Sarge nodded, put Cavanaugh’s radio between his legs and called Robin on the phone. He put her on speakerphone and they filled her in on what was happening.
“Nothing is going on at the moment in the house,” Robin said. “I am getting the live feed just as the police are. They are all sitting in the living room talking. Like a board of director’s meeting or something.”
Sarge just shook his head. In that house there were three girls in three beds, all dead since 2001. The mummified bodies embalmed and adjusted for sex. And two other girls were buried in the basement, ready to be dug up for sex. And those three just sat in the living room talking.
“Can you hear what they are saying?”
“She is telling them about your visit,” Robin said. “She is laughing at you guys for being fooled.”
Sarge looked at Pickett as she was driving. The woman he loved looked angry.
Very angry.
And he felt the same way.
“Detectives,” the spotter Cavanaugh had watching the States’ home said.
“Go ahead,” Sarge said.
“The second Lexus turned toward town as well. One person inside.”
“Thank you,” Sarge said. “Stay in position.”
“Understand, sir,” the spotter said.
Sarge then said, “Cavanaugh.”
“Go ahead,” Cavanaugh said.
“We’re going to try to intercept the second Lexus about three miles in on the highway and will follow it.”
“Understood,” Cavanaugh said.
“First time in a long time that I wished I had police lights on this thing,” Pickett said.
Sarge laughed. “Chief gave us our guns and badges. Let’s don’t go hoping for too much.”
She laughed, but never took her eyes off the road as she expertly worked her way through traffic, not even really speeding.
She was a great driver. Of that there was no doubt.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
June 16th, 2017
Las Vegas, Nevada
It was only a few minutes after midnight as Pickett swung across the highway into a convenience store parking lot and turned the car quickly around.
If she had timed it right and the second Lexus hadn’t turned off, it would be passing this point in about one minute.
If he had turned off, it was going to take luck and some of Robin’s skills to find it.
While they had been driving, Robin had been not only reporting a little on the meeting in the house over Sarge’s phone, but had been trying to hack a GPS system to track the second Lexus.
“Got it,” Robin said after a moment. “Coming at your position in thirty seconds.”
“Thanks,” Pickett said. “Stick with us, we’re going to hang back some and try to not spook the driver.”
At that moment a white Lexus SUV went past in front of them.
Ben was driving.
Pickett took her time pulling into traffic behind him. Since Robin had him tracking on GPS, they could take a few more chances. And that was a relief.
“Cavanaugh,” Sarge said into the radio.
“Go ahead,” Cavanaugh said.
“We have picked up Ben driving the second car, heading into town.”
“Good work,” Cavanaugh said. “Stay on him. Let us know if he is coming this way.”
“Understood,” Sarge said.
