CHAPTER NINE

 

 

August 7th, 2015

5:30 P.M.

Las Vegas

 

LOTT SAT THE large and very warm bucket of KFC on the table and turned to help Julia dig out napkins and paper plates. The wonderful scent from the chicken filled the kitchen like a soft padding, making it feel even more like a home.

He had also gotten some mashed potatoes and some corn for all of them, so he also got out forks.

Julia got them both a bottle of water from the fridge, then poured them both a glass of iced tea as well from a pitcher of tea he had made the day before.

This remodeled kitchen felt wonderful to Lott. It made him feel almost rich with the granite counters and new cabinets and brand new fridge and stove. Carol would have loved what he had done with the place.

They had the table set when Annie came in carrying a small file and headed for the fridge to get a bottle of water. She grabbed a second one and held it up as Andor followed her in the back door.

He took it from her without a word, dropped a large file on the table out of the way of the chicken, and took his normal place with his back to the front door.

Andor had sat in that same chair when Annie was a baby in a high chair and Lott and Carol had first bought this place. Now the kitchen was remodeled, Annie was an adult, Carol was gone, and Julia sat in Carol’s spot. All the while Andor remained in his same place and Lott remained in his same chair. Strange how things changed, and yet remained the same in so many ways.

They made small talk about the heat and the smell of the chicken as they dug in and got through their first pieces. For some reason, that first piece of KFC just calmed him down, made him feel like he was on track, no matter what was going on in the world. That response had only happened since Carol’s death, and he had no intention of trying to change it or cut back on the chicken.

After finishing the first leg, Lott decided it was time to tell Andor and his daughter about Kirk.

He and Julia explained what Mitchell’s home looked like and what she was like, then told them that Kirk was dead.

“Seriously?” Andor asked, stopping halfway through a bite of his second piece of chicken. “Can we be sure of that?”

“He’s dead,” Annie said, nodding. “Fleet and his people discovered that about two hours ago and double-checked everything. Ruled a suicide. Photos of his body and everything in there if you want to check them out.”

She pointed to the folder she had brought, but didn’t pull it closer. Lott sure didn’t care to look and no one else asked for the file either.

Kirk was just a tragic kid, swept up by a horrible accident. It was amazing he lived as long as he did after the events in the cave and on the bus.

Lott also wasn’t surprised that Annie had come up with the same information he and Julia had found. Doc and Fleet and their crew were really amazingly efficient.

“So our one suspect was dead before someone murdered the women we found in the cave,” Andor said, shaking his head. “This damn case is something.”

Lott had to agree with that.

“The kid has no relatives that we could find in any record,” Annie said, “so that side of things is a complete dead-end.”

“What about all the abductions?” Julia asked. “Anything coming together from all of them?”

“Fleet and his people are eliminating numbers of the ones we found in the first pass,” Annie said.

“That’s good,” Julia said.

Lott could only agree with that.

“Down to just under two hundred black-haired women who have gone missing over the last seventeen years in the western part of the United States.”

Two hundred! That number still felt like a kick in the stomach to Lott. An impossible number of women vanished and families destroyed.

Annie went on. “The only detail that is standing out as slightly similar on a number of missing person’s cases is a brown panel van seen near where some of the women were before their disappearances. No license plate was ever taken, or description of any driver.”

“And the news just gets better,” Andor said, wiping off his hands from the chicken grease. “So why, if Kirk is dead, were you wanting every detail of the school bus tragedy?”

Julia took another piece of chicken and nodded for Lott to tell his former partner his idea.

“The underwear off those girls,” Lott said. “I’m betting Kirk claimed he didn’t do that.”

Andor nodded. “He continuously claimed that, over and over in the records I got here.” Andor pointed to the thick file.

“So the eleven abducted women in our mine were not wearing underwear either,” Lott said.

“Because the meat on their butts and legs had been trimmed away,” Andor said. “But I see where you are going with this. Someone else got into that cave with those girls and Kirk, more than likely before the rescue, but after he was passed out.”

“Maybe after the girls were already dead,” Lott said. “So do any of those reports from the detectives or doctors have Kirk claiming he had visions of ghosts in that cave?”

“Visions that would have been discounted as heat stroke,” Julia said.

“Exactly,” Lott said. “And since that was just a massive tragedy with no crime involved, no one would be thinking someone else might have been in there and not reported it at once.”

“Never looked for that,” Andor said, pulling the file closer and opening it. He quickly divided the large stack of papers into four piles and they all went to reading, trying not to get too much chicken grease on the papers as they went.

Finally, Lott decided he just didn’t have the room and stood and picked up the bucket of chicken and moved it to the countertop. He didn’t feel like he was finished eating yet, but they could finish later.

Julia and Annie handed him their plates and he took Andor’s and dumped them all in the garbage.

Then he sat back down and kept reading, letting the silence fill the kitchen.

“Got it!” Annie said after just a minute. “Kirk told one doctor he was sure he had seen someone in the mine as well. He says the kid gave him a sip of water, said help was on the way, and then left.”

“So that’s why Kirk survived and the girls didn’t,” Andor said. “Did Kirk identify the kid?”

Annie shook her head. “Kirk said here he didn’t know who it was. The doctors didn’t believe Kirk. Chalked it up to the heat since no one came forward and reported being in there.”

Suddenly, Lott had a horrid thought. “We need to find out if Kirk went back to the same high school while staying with the Mitchells. And we need to really look at the file on Kirk’s death. What time of the day and was he alone?”

“Oh, shit,” Andor said. “You think?”

All Lott could do was shrug. “If the guy that took those girl’s underwear off suddenly realized Kirk would recognize him, I wouldn’t put anything past him.”

Annie grabbed the file on Kirk’s suicide by bus that had been ignored and opened it.

“Ten at night,” she read. “A dark stretch of Tropicana. Bus driver was a woman who said she never even saw Kirk until he was suddenly in front of her bus and she hit him.”

Lott watched as Annie read on silently, then shook her head. “No one else was with him, supposedly. And there were no witnesses at all.”

“Which means our perp might have been there,” Andor said, “and just took care of the only surviving witness to the first panty raid.”

“Very possible,” Lott said.

And he had a hunch they had just gotten a lead. Not much of one, but a start.

And right about this point, they needed a start.