FOUR

 

 

September 16th, 2016

Las Vegas, Nevada

 

THE BACKGROUND SOUNDS of the casino floated around them from the distance, most blocked by the walls of plants. Julia felt both excited and worried about now taking over the Becky Penn cold cases.

It had been a long time since Becky vanished and was killed. And clearly the other three under her in the grave had died before her. Leads often went very cold in that amount of time.

Very, very cold.

But she and Lott and Andor had been waiting for over a year to get these cases back. They knew the active detectives had made no headway. But that they had all expected, since brand new daily cases took most of the active detectives’ time.

But for the three of them, these cases would be all they would do. And that excited her more than she wanted to admit.

No wonder Andor had called this meeting. He was excited as well.

They gave the waiter their dinner orders and then Julia pulled out her notebook and opened it to a clean page and looked first at Lott and then Andor.

Both were smiling.

The notebook was a symbol of starting a case for them.

“So where do we start with this monster elephant of a problem?” Julia asked.

“We start with what we know,” Lott said.

Andor nodded.

So Julia started to write and talk. “First, we know Becky vanished without a trace headed to meet her boyfriend, Paul Vaughan. She was in a red Toyota which was never found.”

“Right,” Lott said. “And Paul Vaughan killed himself ten years later.”

“Supposedly,” Andor said.

Julia looked up at Andor and nodded. She had not thought to even question that when they caught this cold case the first time.

“Marking that down as the first unknown,” she said. “Did he really kill himself? And if he didn’t, who died and who killed them?”

“And he supposedly kept a journal of the dates with him and Becky,” Lott said, “even though his sister said he hated to write.”

Julia wrote all that down.

“Can we trust his sister on any of that?” Andor asked.

Julia wrote that down.

“He kept no other journal,” Andor said, “even though we found three other women’s bodies under Becky’s body in the grave his journal led us to.”

“I’ve always thought someone else planted that journal,” Lott said.

Julia agreed completely and wrote that down as a second major unknown.

“Did they even come up with any names of the other three women in the grave?” Lott asked Andor.

Julia watched as Andor shook his head.

“They know they were killed before Becky,” Andor said, “but not much before. The woman on the bottom was killed less than a year ahead of Becky, if that much. That’s all we know.”

“Did the active detectives check out other missing women from the same time?” Lott asked.

“Not well,” Andor said. “Too many missing and not enough time for them.”

Julia nodded and wrote that on her notes as well under unknown questions.

“The Toyota?” Lott said. “Where did it go?”

“That’s always bothered me as well,” Julia said as she wrote that under the unknown question area.

At that point dinner arrived, but Lott stood and pointed to his food. “Don’t touch that. I’m going to see if Annie and Doc are in the poker room. We could use their computer people’s help on some of this. Especially trying to track that car.”

Julia smiled and put her notebook on the seat beside her to make room for her wonderful-smelling chicken fried steak. She had ordered corn on the cob with the steak and white gravy. Looking at the large plate of food, she realized she was really hungry.

So as Lott vanished, both she and Andor dug into their dinners.

It felt great to have this case back in their hands again.

Unfinished business they were all focused on finishing.