December 4th, 2016
Las Vegas, Nevada
Pickett finally took out her notebook and opened to a fresh page. Sarge got out his small pocket-sized flip notebook, and Robin pulled out her notebook she always used. It seemed that good detectives never trusted their own memories for anything and over the years she had come to appreciate the habit of writing everything down.
And bringing out the notebooks meant it was brainstorming time, even though none of them had any ideas at all.
“So we start at where we could dig out something,” Sarge said. “Do we have DNA we could test run?”
Robin nodded. “We do, but it was run 25 years ago, which means it wasn’t compared against much of anything at the time. I’ll see if Will can push that through, looking for any kind of family hits as well.”
Pickett nodded. Having Will and his people run it against databases might actually get a hit and have it happen within a day instead of months through normal channels.
“How about we take a run at the people who discovered her body?” Sarge said.
“Two guys working the hotel furniture inventory,” Picket said.
“I checked last night.” Robin said. “One is dead, the other is still alive. I got his address and phone number.”
“That girl, from the photos, had been dead for some time, right?” Pickett asked.
“No way of really knowing how long since the mummification of the body made it almost impossible to tell,” Robin said. “But clearly longer than a month or so.”
“What happens if she was there when they shuttered and boarded up the place in August of the previous year?” Picket asked. That seemed to make sense considering what kind of heat it would take to mummify the girl.
“Possible,” Robin said. “I’ll check in on who did the shuttering and what that entailed. Someone should have some records on that.”
“Manager of the place at the time?” Sarge asked.
“I’ll find out,” Robin said, picking up her phone.
Pickett knew exactly what Robin was going to do. She was going to have Will or one of his people do some quick research and get back to her fast, so they could plan.
“I need bread pudding,” Sarge said, standing and smiling at Pickett.
“Me too,” Pickett said, standing to join him.
“Make it three,” Robin said before turning to talk with someone on the other end of her call.
The bread pudding in the Golden Nugget buffet was one of the highlights. Light, fluffy, sweet, and when the hot bourbon sauce was poured over it, an entire range of tastes came alive. One evening here, when eating alone and feeling sorry for herself, Pickett had managed four large servings of just the bread pudding. And had thought about going back for five.
That was before she had joined the Cold Poker Gang and met Sarge. She had never admitted that feat of bread pudding consumption to him.
When they got back to the table, Robin was done with her call.
“Will is finding out who was in charge of the shuttering of the Landmark and is running the DNA information.”
They all sat there in silence, eating and thinking. Finally Picket came up with another idea.
“Missing persons,” Pickett said.
“They ran it at the time,” Robin said, nodding. “But again it was 1991. Our computers might get a hit now.”
“Run it against missing girls from all over the country,” Sarge said. “We can narrow the list down from there.”
“That’s going to be a lot of girls,” Pickett said. “They weren’t even sure exactly how old our victim was.”
“I think getting the data would be worth the shot,” Sarge said.
Pickett nodded. She agreed. It would be worth the search. And at this point all they were trying to do was catch any break at all.
“Anything with her clothes or pack that I saw in that picture?” Sarge asked.
Pickett opened up the folder at the same moment as Robin. There was nothing. The detectives at the time checked into that. Clothes and pack were all standard stuff that could be bought in any department store. And the poor girl had no purse or wallet or anything else that anyone could find.
Then Pickett had another idea she was almost afraid to voice considering some of their past cases. “Should we look for anything similar? Other young girls found naked and dead and in that position?”
Robin nodded. “We should.”
“We should,” Sarge said.
“We really should,” Robin said. Then she sighed and wrote it down in her notebook.
The last thing any of them wanted was to find that pattern.
The very last thing.