Heads up, p.6
Heads Up, page 6
“Enjoy yourselves,” Alistair said, shaking his head. “I honestly hate this place and wish they would just tear it down.”
“Can’t say that I disagree,” Cavanaugh said.
Bonnie just nodded. There just wasn’t anything about this old hotel to like. It wasn’t old enough to be a real historical attraction. It just sort of reminded her of a period of downtown Las Vegas that was going to be better forgotten and as quickly as possible.
“Thanks,” Bonnie said as Alistair turned to go into the old casino area. She and Cavanaugh headed for the staircase. She was really, really glad right at this moment that she had a partner on this case. Doing this alone would have almost been too much. She could have done it, but having Cavanaugh beside her at this point felt much better.
And clearly he was thinking the exact same thing.
“Having a partner is coming in real handy right now,” he said as they started up the stairs, moving slowly to not stir up too much dust.
“How’s that?”
“I fall through the rotted floor, I got someone to pull me out.”
“I’m leaving you,” Bonnie said. “I haven’t known you long enough to stay in this place for that.”
“Now I see why you haven’t had a partner for a long time,” Cavanaugh said.
“They are scattered in old buildings all over town,” Bonnie said.
Cavanaugh laughed and they kept climbing slowly.
“Wow, this is even creepier,” Cavanaugh said as they reached the second floor landing.
They didn’t need their flashlights anymore since light streamed into the hallway from every door. Both of them clicked off their lights and tucked them in a pocket.
The hallway went off in two directions, covered with what looked like a 1960s patterned carpet, now faded and dirty. Light sconces on the walls were spaced between every door and the hallway seemed very narrow compared to modern hotel hallways.
She moved over and looked into one room without going inside.
The door had been blocked open with a chair and the drapes were open on the window, making the room light, even though outside the day was dark and cloudy.
One bed tucked against the left wall, two old and worn end tables were on either side of the bed. A small round table sat in front of the window with one chair.
Everything had a gray tint of dust.
“This might have been an expensive room in the day,” Cavanaugh said.
“Yeah, afraid I stayed in far too many just like it,” Bonnie said.
“We really are that old, aren’t we?”
“Not a nice thing to say to a woman,” Bonnie said, laughing. “But yes, we are. Annoyingly so.”
“No argument from me there.”
They both turned and, in silence, went up toward the next floor, the only sound the wind hitting the windows and the creaking of the stairs as they headed up.
“Same layout as the floor below,” Cavanaugh said.
Bonnie pointed to the sign on the wall. “Room 317 is in this direction.”
Bonnie led the way in the narrow hallway until she found the room where Myra’s clothes, and three other missing women’s clothes had been found over the years.
It looked just like any other room, only it was a corner room tucked in over the alley and had a window facing Bridger Street where they had both parked.
The bed was on the hall wall, the table was under the window, and the bathroom door was open showing an old claw-foot tub and rusted toilet and sink.
The closet door was closed, so Bonnie moved over and opened it.
It was narrow and deep.
Bonnie took out her flashlight to see the back of the closet and when she clicked it on she staggered backward.
“What?” Cavanaugh asked.
“Clothes,” she said, keeping her light on the pile of women’s clothes tucked in the back of the closet.
“Shit,” Cavanaugh said, softly.
She knew instantly what those clothes meant.
There was another missing girl somewhere.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
January 19th, 2019
Shuttered Hotel Nevada
Las Vegas, Nevada
Cavanaugh felt stunned to his core at the sight of those clothes stuffed in the back of the closet on the dark wood floor. It had been one thing to read about finding Myra’s clothes and the clothes from three other missing women, but seeing a pile of clothes there now, in this hotel that had been shuttered since 2012, felt like he had been slapped.
“Now what in the hell do we do?” Bonnie asked softly, more to herself than him.
“I’m calling Andor first off,” Cavanaugh said, pulling out his phone. “We need to know what the procedure for the task force is for something like this.”
She nodded and a moment later he had Andor on speaker so Bonnie could hear. Cavanaugh quickly explained where they were and what they had found and the circumstances of finding clothing in this same closet with other missing women.
“We might have a serial killer or worse here,” Cavanaugh said. “God only knows what is going on.”
Bonnie nodded.
“Two days together and you two are already causing a shitstorm,” Andor said. “I’ll get an active detective headed your way and I will give him your phone number.”
“Going to need a forensics team on this as well,” Bonnie said.
“That’s the active’s call. Meet the active in the alley in ten.”
Andor hung up.
“Feeling really naked right now without gloves,” Cavanaugh said. “Got some in my car.”
“And we need to tell Alistair what is happening and what we have found,” Bonnie said, staring at the pile of clothes in the closet. “Get him out of here as well.”
There was something off about the clothes and the closet, but Cavanaugh knew he didn’t dare touch any of it.
“Does that look like more than one woman’s clothes?” Cavanaugh asked, kneeling down and shining his flashlight on the pile from a lower angle.
“I was thinking the same thing,” Bonnie said from behind him, shining her light on the clothing as well. “At least two, maybe three or four.”
“Damn it all to hell,” Cavanaugh said.
Cavanaugh used his phone to get a bunch of pictures of the room, the clothes, the hallway, the room number, everything.
Bonnie did the same.
Cavanaugh figured it would never hurt to have duel sets of images on this mess.
Then they headed back down to the darkness of the main floor.
“Alistair!” Cavanaugh shouted when they reached the bottom of the stairs. Dust was still swirling lightly in the air in the flashlight beams from when they had been down here before.
“Back here,” came the answer from behind the main desk.
Feeling like he was in a cave, Cavanaugh followed the sound until they found Alistair inspecting some pipes that ran through the ceiling in an office area behind the old front desk.
“Seen any signs of break-ins?” Bonnie asked him. “Now or over the last few years?”
“Nothing at all,” he said. “This place is sealed up as tight as it comes and the Golden Nugget security patrol the outside so no one would have time to break in even if they tried. Why?”
“We found some women’s clothes in the back of that same closet on the third floor where other women’s clothes had been found,” Cavanaugh said.
“Shit,” Alistair said. “Just shit. I was with Sheck when we found the ones as the place was being shuttered. How the hell did someone get in here?”
“We were hoping you had an idea on that,” Bonnie said.
Alistair just shook his head.
Around them the dust from the three of them moving around was swirling and Cavanaugh felt like he was starting to breath more dirt than air.
“Active detective on the way,” Cavanaugh said. “He might order in a forensics unit as well. Better tell the Golden Nugget security what is happening.”
“I’ll do it,” Alistair said. “Done here anyway.”
The three of them headed back through the lobby and then out through the storage area to the door on the alley. Outside the wind and the biting cold air hit them as Alistair turned toward the Golden Nugget.
“I’ll stay here by the door,” Bonnie said. “You get us some gloves. You have evidence bags as well?”
Cavanaugh nodded and headed for his car. He wasn’t sure if he was feeling numb from the cold or from what they had found. He couldn’t wrap his mind around what it meant just yet.
Or more likely he didn’t want to think about what it might mean, that a lot of women were missing and likely dead.
And besides those clothes in that empty room upstairs, he and Bonnie didn’t have one idea where to even start looking.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
January 19th, 2019
Shuttered Hotel Nevada
Las Vegas, Nevada
Bonnie stood against the block wall near the back door to the old Hotel Nevada, facing the Golden Nugget parking garage, waiting and trying to think through what they had just found.
More than one woman’s clothes, stashed in the back of a shuttered hotel room’s closet. A hotel that very, very few people had access to.
And more than likely there wasn’t a thing she or Cavanaugh could do about it since they were retired and an active detective had been called in, as should have happened.
Even if they were allowed to continue, she had no idea how, besides finding out who had keys to the old hotel. That would be step one, but with nothing else, that would end up a dead end very, very quickly.
And for some reason she didn’t think anyone with official access would be the person leaving those clothes.
And what had happened to the women?
Why that room?
Cavanaugh came back down the alley from his car and handed her three pair of evidence gloves that she stuffed in her pocket.
“Got some evidence bags in my pocket,” he said.
She nodded.
At that moment a blue Jeep SUV pulled up near the mouth of the alley without blocking it with a dash flasher on.
Bonnie breathed a sigh of relief. She knew that SUV. It belonged to Detective Isadora Fawn. Like Cavanaugh, she only went by her last name with friends.
She was a five-two red-haired powerhouse who tended to talk fast and laugh a lot. She had worked alone since her last partner retired four years ago. Bonnie and Fawn had talked a few times about teaming up, but never got around to it before Bonnie retired.
Fawn climbed out of her SUV and started toward them with a smile on her face. She had on jeans, tennis shoes, and a ski parka and looked closer to a college student going skiing than a fifty-year-old detective.
“So Andor stuck you with this lug,” Fawn said, coming up and giving Bonnie a hug.
Fawn then hugged Cavanaugh, who was laughing.
“I see she hasn’t done obvious damage yet.”
“Why is everyone so worried about my health around Bonnie?” Cavanaugh asked.
“They know me,” Bonnie said.
“Got that in one,” Fawn said. “So Andor told me it is both of your second days on the task force and you are already causing troubles.”
“Andor’s fault,” Bonnie said. “He gave us the Myra Stemple missing person’s case.”
“The one with the brother checking in regularly?” Fawn asked.
“That’s the one,” Bonnie said. “When they were shuttering this place back in 2012, they found her clothes in the back of a closet on the third floor three years after she vanished.”
“Well that’s flat creepy,” Fawn said.
“It gets worse,” Cavanaugh said. “We had Bonnie’s son Jacob pulling missing person’s files and three other women’s clothes were found in the same closet over a five-year period before this place got shut down. The cases never got connected until Jacob did it.”
“All from missing women?”
Bonnie nodded. “And all in the same closet in room 317. She pointed up. “That room right there on the Bridger Street side.”
“Well shit,” Fawn said.
“So we wanted to take a look at the room,” Bonnie said. “So we got Sheck to send Alistair to do a fire inspection and let us look around while he was at it.”
“And…” Fawn said. “Oh, shit, don’t tell me.”
Fawn’s face went pure white, which made her red hair stand out even more.
Bonnie and Cavanaugh both nodded. “More clothes tossed in the same closet. Looks like there might be enough there for three women, maybe more.”
“Andor never should have let you two near each other,” Fawn said.
She reached inside her coat and pulled out her radio. “Dispatch, I need a forensic team to the old Hotel Nevada, on the alley side. Stat. And five or six uniforms to help with a search.”
She nodded, clearly listening on the earpiece in her right ear, then said, “Copy that.”
She put the radio back inside her jacket.
At that point Alistair and two Golden Nugget security officers were headed up the alley toward them. One was tall, in a suit, and clearly in charge.
Fawn waited for them and flashed her badge. “Make sure no one goes in or out of this place without my permission, or the permission of one of these detectives. Understood? And Alistair and both of you, if you were ever in this building, I’m going to need your prints to clear you.”
“What happened?” the tall guy in a suit asked.
“We’ll brief you when we figure that out,” Fawn said. “I have uniformed officers on the way. Have them wait here for our return. But while that is happening, one of you can get me a list of every employee with a key and access to this old place.”
Then she turned to Bonnie and Cavanaugh. “Want to show me what you found.
Bonnie nodded and handed Fawn an extra flashlight.
“Oh, this will be fun from the looks of the dust already covering you two,” Fawn said, shaking her head as she clicked on the flashlight.
“Fun if you like horror mansions at a carnival,” Cavanaugh said.
“Amazing Bonnie hasn’t killed you yet,” Fawn said as Bonnie held open the door for Fawn, smiling at Cavanaugh.
“The day is young,” Cavanaugh said, winking at Bonnie and following Fawn inside.
“Got that right, Detective,” Bonnie said.
From just inside the old hotel, Fawn snorted and then laughed.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
January 19th, 2019
Shuttered Hotel Nevada
Las Vegas, Nevada
Cavanaugh was impressed at how Detective Fawn just took control of the situation. She should have, but with two other long-term detectives already on the scene, she might not have. But she understood at a deep level the place of the Cold Poker Gang task force and realized almost instantly that she might be dealing with an active crime scene that he and Bonnie could do nothing with.
Not sure what crime yet, but better to treat the scene correctly right from the start and Fawn had realized that instantly.
It took them a long minute in the dark to reach the staircase and a short time to climb to the third floor and make it down the hall to room 317. Dust still swirled in the air and Cavanaugh had no doubt that once a forensics team and a bunch of uniforms got in here to work and search, the air would be more dirt than breathable.
“We better have everyone searching put on masks,” Cavanaugh said.
Fawn nodded. “Going to need a shower after this one.”
She quickly inspected the hallway, then went into the room. Bonnie and Cavanaugh followed.
“You touch anything in here?” Fawn asked.
“I opened the closet door with bare hands,” Bonnie said.
Fawn nodded.
Cavanaugh had zero hope that any kind of fingerprints would be found that would help them in here. But better to take them all and eliminate the prints like Bonnie’s just to be sure.
Now all three of them had on gloves.
Cavanaugh and Bonnie had just not thought that this room would be any more than a place clothes were found years ago when they first came in. How wrong was that assumption? Wow.
Fawn went to the closet and shined her light into the back of the closet at the pile of clothes.
Cavanaugh stood back by the bed, just trying to take in the entire thing.
Bonnie stood near Fawn, watching and ready to help with anything Fawn might need.
From where Cavanaugh was standing, he could see that the closet was deep. A long-gone hanger bar had clearly been across the front. There was a light fixture on the ceiling of the closet, but the bulb was missing.
On the right, beside the closet, was a bathroom with a tub/shower, an old porcelain sink, and a stained toilet. No shower curtain remained and from the looks of some of the old linoleum on the floor, there was rot under the sink and near the tub.
Then Cavanaugh noticed something. Both the bathroom and closet back walls were on the alley side of the building. Both should have been even with the other. But the bathroom was deeper.
Significantly deeper.
He went into the bathroom and tapped on the wall between the bathroom and the closet. It was covered with faded old flower-print wallpaper that had peeled in a couple of places showing the boards under it. In the back corner, beyond the back of the closet, it sounded as hollow as it did when he knocked on the closet wall area.
“What are you doing?” Bonnie asked, looking in at Cavanaugh. “We thought we had a woodpecker in here.”
“Bathroom’s deeper than the closet, yet both back walls are on the alley wall.”
“Plumbing stack maybe?” Fawn said from the closet side, her voice an echo.
“Too much extra for that alone,” Cavanaugh said.
Bonnie stood back into the middle of the room and Fawn joined her, both studying the depth of the closet, then the bathroom. Cavanaugh stepped back out of their line of sight to give them a clear look, making sure as he did that he didn’t step on any area of the bathroom where the floor might be rotted through.
