December 4th, 2016
Las Vegas, Nevada
Pickett called Robin and told her how helpful Crowly had been. And what they had from him.
Then she and Sarge stopped at a grocery store on the way back home and got some great steaks and fresh vegetables for dinner. They already had enough popcorn.
They went into Sarge’s big computer room and loaded up all the data to his system, checking it for bugs as they went.
Then they spent the next hour in there with the blueprints of the exterior of the building on the screen, studying the entrances, the camera angles, everything.
Crowly and his team had been amazingly effective. They covered every boarded up door or window on one camera or another, and the entire four sides of the fenced-in property was covered as well with cameras.
Pickett was getting a sinking feeling they weren’t going to find anything at all, but they needed to look. Somehow, Heather Winston went missing and got into that building during the week they had recorded in front of them.
After an hour, they went back into the kitchen. There were still no kittens in sight, but Pickett had a hunch they would be showing up as soon as she and Sarge started making noise in the kitchen.
Pickett started working on the salad while Sarge got the steaks ready to grill. After the steaks came off he would get them a bottle of wine from his fantastic wine room.
He had just put the steaks on when he said, “Think there might have been another way into that old hotel?”
“From where?” she asked. “Sewers, electrical, something like that?”
“Anything like that,” Sarge said, nodding.
Picket had just finished the salad so she grabbed her phone. “I’ll get Robin to send us all the construction details of the Landmark. Construction started in 1961, but the place didn’t open until July of 1969. Who knows what might have been built during those years.”
Robin answered and Pickett quickly explained what they were thinking and what they needed.
“Should all be public records,” Robin said. “I’ll get it all to you in the next hour or so.”
“Thanks,” Pickett said. “You might save us endless hours of staring at a video of an empty building.”
Robin laughed. “I’ll see what I can do for the cause.”
As Pickett hung up, Nose came slowly down the stairs, clearly just waking up.
Shortly behind her were two yellow kittens, also half-asleep. Again cute didn’t begin to describe those three.
Sarge laughed. “I see the smell of steak finally reached the upstairs area.”
“It’s reached my stomach as well,” Pickett said, taking the salad over to the small dining table between the living room and the kitchen. “The steaks smell wonderful.”
The kittens gathered in the kitchen as Sarge put the steaks on two plates and then with cloth napkins and silverware, carried it all to the table as well, making sure he didn’t step on a kitten on the way.
“Want me to pick the wine?” Pickett asked.
“Please,” Sarge said and he moved back through the herd of cats to get two glasses of water.
Pickett got out a wonderful red pinot and took it back to the kitchen and Sarge opened it as she put two wine glasses on the table.
The three cats just watched the entire process, not really knowing what to make if it.
And when she and Sarge finally sat down at the table, the cats went to the living room and spread out.
Thirty minutes later, she and Sarge had just finished the wonderful steak dinner and Sarge was starting to clear the dishes into the dishwasher when Robin called back, all excited.
“There was a utility tunnel built from a building near the back of the south parking lot,” Robin said. “The parking lot and that block building was never fenced off when the hotel was shuttered because no one realized that tunnel was even there, since it didn’t appear on any of the final plans in 1969. In the final plans the electrical was brought in from a different side and the water and sewer were hooked into the city in a different direction. The old tunnel was just left and taken off the final construction plans.”
“Big enough for someone to walk through?” Pickett asked.
Sarge turned from the sink with that statement, staring at her.
“More than big enough,” Robin said. “Originally it ran all electrical, water, and sewage pipes on and off the property, so it had to be large.”
“So who would have known it was there?” Pickett asked.
“We find the answer to that question and we might just find our killer,” Robin said.
“Thanks,” Pickett said and hung up.
“So?” Sarge said.
Pickett just smiled. “What movie would you like to watch tonight?”
“Another way underground into the building, huh?”
Pickett nodded. “Not on the final construction blueprints that Crowly had, so he wouldn’t have known to watch it. Built when construction started in 1961 but then not used when the hotel was opened in 1969.”
Sarge nodded. “One mystery solved, another one created.”
“This case seems to do that, doesn’t it?” Pickett said.
She just hoped that at some point the answers would lead to an end and to who killed Heather Winston.
At least in one day they had taken an impossible cold case and opened it back up wide. That was at least a start.