Burn Card, page 5
“And…?” Pickett asked.
“I traced it all the way to 1975,” Robin said. “When he first took the name Ben January and came into town and enrolled in high school, he was actually twenty-three years old, but looked much younger.”
“You find his real name?”
“Benjamin Ronald States,” she said, nodding.
That surprised Sarge. Robin was good, but how had she done that so fast?
“Originally from New York,” Robin said. “Parents killed when he was seventeen and a junior in high school. He was an only child and his parents were very rich.”
Sarge watched as Robin pulled out some notes. “He was dating a blonde girl by the name of Mindy when his parents died. She dropped him.”
“Lost his parents, lost his girlfriend,” Sarge said. “Ugly.”
“How did you find all this out?” Pickett asked.
“Yeah, I am stunned,” Sarge said.
Robin beamed. “Extreme high-tech facial recognition that Will uses for security, combined with high school yearbooks that are online. I wrote a program to scan all high school yearbooks for Ben, cutting down the points of similarity. Found three hundred on the first pass, then actually did a full facial recognition scan of those three hundred and got him. Took some high-speed processing and about six hours. Once I found him, I made a couple phone calls to old classmates.”
Sarge was very glad all this technology was on the side of good at this point.
“Brilliant,” Pickett said.
“Thanks,” she said, smiling.
“So did he have a house here under his real name?” Sarge asked.
“He does,” Robin said. “A beautiful mansion out to the north of town on a ridge. He owed a land development firm for the last thirty years and made himself even richer than he was when he got here. His hobby was nude photography. In fact, over the last three decades he has won awards for his nudes and his pictures are shown in galleries all over the country. He’s that good.”
Sarge just nodded and pushed his plate away. Pieces were coming together thanks to Robin, but they still had so many unanswered question.
And they still had five houses, more than likely with bodies in them.
“One thing I find interesting,” Robin said. “There are no houses for January and February. March was the first one.”
“One more thing,” Robin said. “Benjamin Ronald States was married, still is married, for the last thirty-eight years, to a woman whose maiden name was Cathy Wendt.”
“Still is married?” Sarge asked. He must have heard Robin wrong.
Robin nodded. “They are both still alive.”
All Sarge and Pickett could do was just stare at Robin.
And Sarge knew instantly, from the look on Robin’s face, that she wasn’t kidding.
CHAPTER TWELVE
June 12th, 2017
Las Vegas, Nevada
Pickett damned near fell over backward when Robin said that Ben and Cathy were still alive. How in the world could Cathy Wendt still be alive? And if this Benjamin Ronald States was the same Ben, what in the world was going on?
“Are you sure?”
Robin nodded. “But remember, I tracked him from his pictures, so there is a chance I am wrong on this.”
Pickett nodded, reminding herself that there could be no assumptions.
“So now what do we do?” Sarge asked.
“We tell Cavanaugh,” Pickett said. “This is an active case, so we tell him what we have found and get some police watching that Ben as we dig for evidence to put the guy away, if he really did all this.”
“My gut tells me he didn’t,” Robin said. “Something is still off on the money trail and those six houses. I’ll keep digging.”
“And if Ben from the Cathy Wendt case is still alive,” Sarge said, “who the hell was in that rocking chair in the basement?”
“And who are all the girls,” Pickett asked, “both the dead ones and the ones in the pictures?”
Only the sounds of the early morning customers in the buffet answered those questions.
At that moment Robin’s phone beeped and she said, “Cavanaugh.”
“Morning, Detective,” she said. “I’m with Pickett and Sarge and they are about to head your way.”
She listened for a moment, then sat back, clearly stunned.
“I’ll tell them, and they have some news for you as well when they see you.”
She laughed, then said, “Sorry, but yes, more houses.”
She nodded. “They will see you soon.”
She hung up and smiled. “He hasn’t had his first cup of coffee yet.”
Pickett smiled. No detective after a long night should ever be talked to before a first cup of coffee.
“So what shocked you?” Sarge said.
“He called to tell me that all four bodies at the March house had been embalmed. And preliminary findings on the three in the beds at the April house are the same. They were embalmed a long time ago.”
“Seriously?” Sarge said.
Robin nodded. “That’s what he said.”
“Well, that explains why no neighbors caught any smell,” Pickett said.
“There would still be some,” Robin said, “but if the bodies were left out to dry in the hot air and good ventilation, they would mummify very quickly in this dry air after being embalmed.”
“Lott and Julia and Ander dealt with a millionaire serial killer,” Sarge said, “who was embalming bodies and dumping them in a lake up in Idaho.”
“They did?” Robin asked.
“I remember hearing about it,” Pickett said, nodding. Lott and Julia and Ander were the three retired detectives who started the Cold Poker Gang task force. “Right before we joined the Gang.”
“Happened while I was away from the Gang for a short time,” Sarge said. “The killer was just using the embalming and a chain of mortuaries to kill his victims and make them disappear after he got done with them. Very different than leaving them in a bed or buried in a basement.”
They sat in silence for a few moments letting the sounds of the morning buffet wash over them. Pickett was pretty sure she didn’t want to know anything more about that case, especially after dealing right now with this one.
“Any idea how the girls all died in that first house?” Sarge asked after a moment.
“Blunt force trauma on the one, the first one they dug up,” Robin said. “Nothing else, but the medical folks are just getting started and that will take a few days, including DNA, even rushed.”
Pickett just sat there staring at the remains of the omelet on her plate, then pushed it away. She was no longer hungry at all.
“I’ll get digging on those houses and the money trails from Benjamin States,” Robin said. “See if I can connect him to those houses today. And see if I can connect an embalmer anywhere along the history of this mess.”
“Those houses really are memorial tombs,” Sarge said.
Pickett only nodded to that. And there were still four more they hadn’t looked into yet.
And she wasn’t going to.
Those could be left to the active detectives. She already had enough nightmares after two.
More than enough.
And they still had the first one to finish searching today.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
June 12th, 2017
Las Vegas, Nevada
Sarge stared at the March house as Pickett drove up and parked. It now had crime scene tape around it and a guard sitting in a marked car out front. The poor guy had clearly been there all night.
Sarge remembered that kind of duty when he was first getting started on the force. Guarding a crime scene all night. Nothing got more boring.
Nothing.
At that moment Cavanaugh pulled up and again parked in the driveway behind the old car in the carport. Sarge wondered if anyone had searched that car yet. He doubted it. That was what they were here for today.
Cavanaugh, a massive cup of coffee in one hand, climbed out of the car, waved at them, and went to the patrol car to send the poor cop on his way home.
Pickett shut off her car and they climbed out, carrying bottles of water from the cooler they had strapped by a seatbelt on the back seat.
The sun was just breaking over the hills, giving the air a fresh, bright look to it. The temperature was still comfortable with a slight breeze, so with luck they could open up the house and get some air flowing through it before it got too hot.
“Just got active detectives headed to the other four house addresses I got from Robin,” Cavanaugh said.
“I don’t think I could take searching another one of these horror places,” Pickett said.
“I’m feeling the exact same way,” Cavanaugh said.
They went to the front door and Cavanaugh moved the tape and they opened the place up.
It smelled of dry dust and age and was far warmer than it was outside.
“Lab folks have been all over the place already,” Cavanaugh said, “but let’s still wear gloves in case they want to come back. But first we open up the doors and windows.”
It took them just a moment to get all the blinds lifted and windows open throughout the place. A bunch of the pictures of naked girls had been taken by the lab techs, but not all of them by a long ways.
“Looks like there are five different girls’ pictures on these walls,” Cavanaugh said. “The ones in the bedroom on the right seem to be of a girl that isn’t here.”
Sarge glanced at Pickett and she nodded.
“Let’s go out front where it’s cooler to talk,” Sarge said. “Give this place a chance to cool down.”
Cavanaugh in his oversized jacket led the way, going to his car and taking it off and tossing it across the front seat. He had on suspenders holding up his pants and a shoulder holster for his gun and his badge on his belt.
Sarge took off his light jacket that hid his gun and badge as well and Pickett did the same with her jacket, taking them both to her car and coming back with their bottles of water.
Cavanaugh was still working on his coffee.
“Robin has done her magic again,” Pickett said. “She managed to find the real name of this Ben person.”
Cavanaugh looked surprised.
They told him how she had done it with facial recognition and high school yearbooks and who his name was.
“And he’s still alive,” Sarge said, “and supposedly married to Cathy Wendt, the girl that started all this.”
Cavanaugh damned near dropped his coffee, which would have been a critical emergency for any detective this early in the morning.
“They are both still alive,” Pickett said, “living in a big estate out north of town. Robin doesn’t think he knows anything about all of this, even though she has traced the money and buying these homes to him.”
Cavanaugh just shook his head. “We got no proof on anyone on this. Except circumstantial with that dead guy in the basement. And we have no idea who he is.”
“Think we need some officers sitting on the guy?” Sarge asked.
“Can Robin do that electronically for now?” Cavanaugh asked.
“Let me find out,” Pickett said.
She quickly called Robin and asked.
Then Pickett laughed and hung up, smiling. “She’s already doing that. She will know when they sleep, flush the toilet, and what they are eating. They won’t move without her tracing them. But officially she is not doing that, of course.”
“Of course,” Cavanaugh said, laughing. “Tell her unofficially thanks. Saved a couple cops some nasty duty for a while.”
“I will,” Pickett said.
“Embalmed, huh?” Sarge said.
Cavanaugh nodded and finished off his coffee, putting the cup on the roof of his car. “So, ready to see if we can find anything that will help us in that horror house?”
“No,” Pickett said.
“We’ll just stand out here and cheer you on,” Sarge said.
Cavanaugh looked at both of them. “Not damned funny.”
“Yes it was,” Pickett said, smiling and turning Cavanaugh toward the house and walking with him.
“It was,” Sarge said, laughing as he followed them back into a place he really had no desire to ever go again.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
June 12th, 2017
Las Vegas, Nevada
Two hours later the air was starting to heat up and Pickett was covered in dust and sweat. They had carefully looked at every surface through the entire place and found nothing, not even a stray old receipt.
They had moved out into the carport and checked out the car. Pickett stood back and to one side as Cavanaugh popped the trunk. It would not have surprised her that a body was in there, but thankfully just a spare and a jack and nothing under any of it.
There wasn’t even anything in the glove box or down under the seats. The car was dirty, but not one detail of who actually had operated it. The owner of record on the books was Ben March. But they had been hoping for more.
As they were standing in the carport, Pickett noticed a wooden ladder leaning against the side of the house under the carport. And that reminded her of one thing they had all forgotten.
“Don’t these old homes have small attics?”
Sarge looked at her and Cavanaugh just shook his head.
“I seem to remember an opening in the ceiling of the closet on the left side of the hallway,” she said. She had noticed it in the search, but hadn’t thought anything about it.
Sarge walked out onto the driveway and studied the roofline. Then he came back nodding. “A person couldn’t stand up, but a lot of room up there.”
“Ladder is what made me think of it,” Pickett said, pointing to the ladder sitting against the wall.
“Last place we check,” Sarge said, going over and grabbing the eight-foot tall ladder.
He looked at Cavanaugh. “I’ll carry, you climb.”
“Just because I am younger than you, right?” Cavanaugh asked as they went back inside and to the bedroom.
“Yeah,” Sarge said. “That’s it.”
When they got to the closet, Pickett pointed out the ladder marks on the wall up high.
“Didn’t even notice those,” Cavanaugh said, shaking his head. “Maybe I really do need to retire.”
“Eighteen more days,” Pickett said.
“Who’s counting?” Cavanaugh said.
Sarge got the ladder in place and Cavanaugh went up a couple steps, making sure each step was solid, then he pushed open the piece of wood blocking the hole, shoving it to one side.
Sarge handed him a flashlight and Cavanaugh went up two more steps and shined his light around.
Then he said softly, “This can’t be happening.”
He came down and handed Sarge the flashlight and indicated he should look. “I got some phone calls to make.”
He headed out of the bedroom.
Pickett watched him go, then looked back at Sarge. “Do we really want to see what is up there?”
“No,” Sarge said. “But after that reaction, I can’t not look.”
She agreed. She couldn’t not look either.
Sarge climbed the ladder in the closet while Pickett held it steady.
Pickett watched from below as Sarge shined the powerful flashlight around.
All Pickett could see was him shaking his head.
Then he came down and handed the flashlight to her. “Not pretty and not something you are going to see every day.”
She took the light and went up the ladder, convinced she shouldn’t.
She had to go another two steps higher than Sarge or Cavanaugh before she got into the attic enough to see.
It felt hot already up here. She could only imagine how hot it got during the summer days.
There were pieces of plywood covering over the ceiling joists so a person could walk down the middle bent over. She was short enough, she might be able to stand almost upright without banging her head on a roof joist.
But not a chance in hell was she climbing up in there.
She could see the length of the house and on both sides of the middle walkway were bodies stacked on top of one another. All fully dressed, all mummified.
More accurately, baked to a strange, sickly brown color.
And all different ages and races, from what she could tell. Young, old, men, women. All were dressed, at least from the waist up, in dress clothes. At one point they had been in caskets, from the looks of them.
They were stacked like cordwood along both sides. Some face up, some face down into the person below them.
She was numb.
There had to be a hundred bodies up here. And from the looks of it, they had all been here a very, very long time, baking in the summer heat. More than likely for decades.
She had been calling this a house of horrors before now.
The place had now officially earned its name twice over.
She climbed down slowly, handed Sarge the light, and asked, “Can we now get out of this place and never come back?”
“Please,” Sarge said.
She led the way down the hall and out the front door.
Cavanaugh was standing beside his car, talking on the phone. She could only imagine the ground-shaking movement this discovery was making in the chief’s office.
And there were five more houses that could possibly be just like this one.
This one was bad enough.
And she had a hunch that right now, as of this discovery, the Cold Poker Gang task force was officially off this case. They only dealt with cold cases.
Finding a hundred-plus bodies in one house was now far from cold, even though every person in the house had been dead and roasting in that attic a very long time.
PART THREE
Not Dead Yet
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
