December 4th, 2016
Las Vegas, Nevada
Sarge held open the glass front door to the security firm’s office for Pickett to go through. There was no name on the door or the front of the building at all. It was just after two in the afternoon and Crowly had agreed to meet them in his office where he could access all the old files.
The weather had become even nicer if that was possible, with bright blue sky and yet no heat, something you didn’t often see in Las Vegas. Sarge wished he and Pickett were just out walking instead of working, the day was that nice.
Crowly met them just inside the front door and shook both their hands. There was no receptionist, but a desk for one looked used.
Crowly was a short man, more round than anything, but he dressed in clothes that fit his shape and his sports jacket was tasteful. He looked to be around sixty, maybe slightly older, but Sarge couldn’t tell for sure.
Crowly was mostly bald and had piercing dark eyes and a booming voice. There was no doubt to Sarge that if this guy wanted, he could blend in completely with the Las Vegas tourist crowd.
And Sarge also had no doubt that this guy didn’t miss many details.
Crowly’s office was impressive in its own functional way. He had a massive computer with three screens on his huge wooden desk, a draft board covered with blueprints against one wall, and a large worktable in the middle with six chairs around it. The table was also covered with building blueprints.
A massive area in one corner was filled with tubes of blueprints.
Crowly indicated Sarge and Pickett grab chairs and pull them around behind his desk so they could see his screens. Then Crowly sat in his desk chair and brought up his computer.
“Will tells me you are interested in the security we did for the Landmark after it was shuttered.”
“Please,” Pickett said. “We’re working on the cold case of that girl’s body that was found in the building by the furniture inventory crew.”
“Yeah,” Crowly said, shaking his head. “A hard one to forget and I have no clue how she got in there. That’s bothered me for twenty some years now.”
Sarge could tell Crowly wasn’t lying about that.
“So could you run us through your setup for that building, as much as you remember, and the time frame of your security.”
“Don’t need to remember it,” Crowly said, opening a file on his screen showing a ledger of dates, blueprints of the Landmark property, and other details. “We scanned in all the old jobs before storing everything. Comes in more handy than I imagined it would when I was spending the money to have it done.”
“Glad you did,” Pickett said.
“We can now certainly pull all the different files of every job together easily,” Crowly said. “I have no idea how I did anything without computers now.”
Sarge laughed. “We’ve wondered the same thing at times.”
“So here’s what we did,” Crowly said, expanding the size of the ledger on one screen so they could read it clearly. “We set up the exterior and building cameras and fences as they were working on shuttering the place. We were fully tested and up and running when the last member of the crew boarded up the last door and left.”
“Anyone on site or just all recorded monitoring?” Pickett asked.
“Two guards on site at all times,” Crowly said, “twenty-four-seven. One stayed with the monitors and another did rounds every hour. Everything recorded and logged in. Considering what I was getting paid to guard that place, I didn’t cut corners at all.”
Sarge was impressed.
“Anything unusual happen in the first week or so?” Sarge asked.
Crowly brought up another file that was clearly an hourly log of the guards. He quickly scanned through the log entries for the first two weeks, well past the time that Sarge and Pickett knew that Heather Winston had gone missing and the fake Heather came back.
“Nothing,” Crowly said. “In fact, in my final notes, except for finding that girl’s body in there, nothing at all unusual happened during that entire time. And we guarded that building from the time it was shuttered to the time they blew up the tower for those movie people.”
“Who paid for all that?” Pickett asked.
“Bank’s insurance company,” Crowly said. “Far cheaper for them to pay us for years and cover their asses than to pay out if some kid got in there and got hurt.”
Sarge had to agree with that as well.
“Is there any chance you managed to save the security footage from that time?”
Crowly smiled. “You know that was twenty-five years ago.”
Sarge knew from the smile that Crowly had them.
“I know,” Pickett said, smiling back. “Figured it couldn’t hurt to ask.”
“Yeah, we got them all,” Crowly said. “I had everything digitized.”
“I think I could hug you,” Pickett said.
“Thanks, but my wife and your boyfriend here might object,” Crowly said, winking at Sarge
Sarge was right. Crowly didn’t miss a detail.
“But you can tell Will to send some more work my way at times,” Crowly said.
“Be glad to,” Pickett said, smiling at Crowly.
Sarge could tell Pickett really liked Crowly. Sarge liked the guy as well.
“So what time period are you looking at? The time before they found the girl?”
“No,” Sarge said. “Basically the second week after you started the security. We think she went in there that week.”
“Not possible,” Crowly said, shaking his head. “But I’ll give you the files and the blueprints of our security system and monitors and you can see for yourself.”
“And the names and contact information you might have of the guards on during that week as well,” Pickett said. “If you wouldn’t mind.”
Crowly shrugged and in five minutes he handed them two thumb drives with all the videos on it and the guard logs and the names of the guards and the blueprint layouts of the security cameras.
“Get a couple bags of popcorn,” Crowly said. “Watching an empty building is some damn boring movie time.”
Sarge laughed. “Spent a bunch of my life on stakeouts watching empty buildings. I know the feeling.”
“I bet you would,” Crowly said. “Anything more, just call me. And if you figure out what happened to that girl, please let me know. I would love to clear that from the old memories.”
Sarge didn’t blame him at all.