TWENTY

 

 

September 18th, 2016

Outside of Las Vegas, Nevada

 

AFTER FOUR HOURS in the hot sun, they hadn’t found a thing.

Nothing.

Not one body, not one stick of reason why the wide dirt road into this area even existed.

Not one bit of the desert around that turnaround had been disturbed in any way. Ever.

There weren’t even more than small animal trails in the sagebrush and dirt.

Lott was feeling more and more frustrated by the moment.

Earlier, when Andor and the chief had arrived, Julia showed them the contents of the mailbox and the two of them had decided to take those contents back to the lab and expedite work to get into that envelope and find out what was in it. And they planned on sending out some techs to dust the mailbox for prints while the four of them searched the turnaround.

Lott had followed Mike up the hill and they parked away from the main flat area over the ridge. Mike and Heather had pulled the equipment and Lott and Julia had taken two of the cameras and started systematically taking pictures of the entire area.

Four hours of work.

Nothing to show for it.

This wasn’t a body dump.

Someone, on a regular basis, driving different cars from the looks of the different tire tracks, came up here and drove around the rock and then left.

As the four of them were siting in the air-conditioning of Lott’s Cadillac, drinking water, Lott focused on the large rock jutting up in the middle of the turnaround.

None of them were talking, the frustration was that high.

The rock had pretty steep sides and seemed to be flat on top. It was a good ten feet tall and the size of a small shed in width.

If they hadn’t been parked so far back, Lott doubted he would have even noticed the rock any more than he noticed any of the piles and mounds of rocks and boulders scattered as far as they could see.

But there was something about the flat top of that boulder that felt off.

He was sitting in the driver’s seat and turned back to Mike. “Did you check that rock in the middle of the turnaround?”

Mike nodded. “No electronics, or explosives on it or in it, if that’s what you are asking.”

Lott could tell that Mike was feeling as frustrated as he was. Four hours in the sun without results could do that to a person.

“Spot me, would you, Mike,” Lott asked and climbed out of the car and headed toward the big rock.

Julia looked at him worried, but Lott indicated she just stay in the car and cool off.

Just like he always had someone spot him these days when he got on a ladder, he didn’t want to climb a rock without someone behind him if he slipped. He used to bounce when he fell, but somewhere in his mid-fifties, he got the feeling that if he fell, he wouldn’t bounce but instead break. And that feeling gave going up ladders and climbing on chairs to change a light bulb entire new senses of caution.

Lott walked along the wide dirt road to the rock. The afternoon heat beat at him and he ignored it. He didn’t plan on being out in the heat much longer anyway. It would feel good to get home, take a shower, and just rest watching television in his cool television room. After today he and Julia deserved that kind of night.

He slowly walked on the road that circled the rock, looking for an easy way up.

On the far side, away from the Cadillac where Heather and Julia still sat, he found a way up. Nothing was worn as if anyone else had climbed it, but the ridges in the rock formed a clear series of steps upward.

Once he got up there, getting down might be another matter, but he would deal with that in a moment.

Mike came up behind him. “What are you looking for?”

“Honestly,” Lott said, “I don’t know. The reason this road exists around this rock, maybe? Maybe a path through the rocks we have missed. Anything, actually.”

Mike nodded and Lott turned and started up the rock.

Mike stayed behind him and Lott was surprised he found the climb on the hot stone easy. Even after he had spent hours in the sun.

It took only a moment and he found himself standing on top of the flat area of the tall rock. The flat area was about the size of a king bed. Mike was standing below him, looking up at him and shaking his head.

Right smack in the middle of the rock was a white mailing envelope.

It couldn’t have been out in the sun more than a day because it wasn’t yellowed or brittle from the heat. It was held in place by a fist-sized rock.

“Mike, get your camera,” Lott said. “There’s an envelope up here.”

“You have got to be kidding me,” Mike said.

He started back quickly for the car. Lott glanced up as Julia and Heather climbed out.

“Camera!” Mike shouted to them and then turned and came back to his position below where Lott went up.

Lott got on his hands and knees and studied what he could see of the envelope. It had clearly written on it “Cold Poker Gang Detectives. Enjoy the view.”

There didn’t seem to be anything inside of it, but Lott sure wasn’t going to move that rock and find out. Not without a lot of tech people checking everything first.

As Heather and Julia came running toward the rock, Lott stood and said to everyone. “It’s another envelope addressed to the Cold Poker Gang telling us to enjoy the view.”

“Shit, shit, shit,” Mike said. “Don’t move and don’t touch that letter!”

At a run Mike headed for his equipment in his car.

Lott took one step back from the letter and watched Mike run along the dirt road.

Another letter taunting them.

What the hell was going on?

Lott turned to Julia, who was standing below the rock looking worried. “Call Andor and find out now what was in that first envelope. And tell them to get a tech out here.”

Julia nodded and pulled out her phone. She didn’t go back to the car but instead moved into the shade on the side of the rock under him.

Lott made himself take a deep breath of the hot afternoon desert air and really look at the area. He had seen everything in satellite photos and on the ground now for hours.

He knew this area.

But what was he missing?

Mike slammed the door on his SUV and came back toward him, carrying a hand-held scanner. Lott knew it was to look for explosives and electronics and other things, including anything buried under the ground.

The device looked like one of those coin-finder devices that beachcombers used. But this one was a lot more sophisticated. Mike had the strap back over his shoulder.

He had worn that machine and Heather had worn another one searching this entire area. But no ground in this area around the turnaround looked disturbed and they had found nothing.

Nothing.

Their steps in the desert dirt were the only ones. Only the wide dirt road had been traveled on.

Suddenly Lott realized what he was looking at.

The road.

“Mike, there’s nothing up here but an envelope,” Lott said. “So do me a favor and turn that thing on and point it at the road under your feet.”

Mike stopped about twenty steps from the rock where the road split and went around the big rock. He looked puzzled, but did as Lott asked.

After a moment he started forward slowly, shaking his head and watching the instruments on the box machine in his hand. Lott knew that those instruments could almost give Mike a visual image of what was below the surface.

Mike started on the right edge of the road and slowly moved over to the left tire track and the left edge, the entire time shaking his head.

Both Julia and Heather were watching him from the shade.

Finally Mike looked around and finally up at Lott. Even from the distance of being on top of a ten-foot-tall rock, Lott could see the haunted look in Mike’s eyes.

“He buried them under the road,” Mike said. “Four bodies side-by-side.”

Lott looked at the road where it came over the ridge where the two cars were parked and then along and around the rock.

Thirty years of bodies, four per year, were buried under the road.

Lott glanced down at the white envelope and the words, “Enjoy the view.”

Now all he could see were women’s bodies buried under the entire width of the dirt road for as much as he could see.

This was a view that would haunt his nightmares for the rest of his life. Of that, he had no doubt.