December 6th, 2016
Las Vegas, Nevada
They were both up at about their normal time. Pickett felt exhausted, both emotionally and mentally.
The kittens were already done with their racing around and were camped out in the living room, solidly in their bath and nap part of their routines.
She had the coffee made and was sipping on a cup when Sarge joined her.
“Well that was a night to remember,” he said, kissing her good morning and taking the coffee she offered.
“That’s an understatement,” she said. “But a bunch of it I wish I could forget.”
“No argument there,” Sarge said.
“So how about we call Robin to see how that side of things is going, then head for breakfast with our notebooks to see if we can make some sort of sense out of all this.”
“A perfect plan,” she said.
She got her phone and called Robin, putting it on speaker.
“Thought you two would be sleeping later,” Robin said as she answered.
“The power of a schedule,” Pickett said.
“Well, this morning we made a little progress,” Robin said. “Mike and his crew and Cavanaugh and a half-dozen uniformed officers got the files and desk and everything out of the storage unit and moved to Mike’s safe house. Mike has the place secure and guarded.”
“Are we going to be able to go through the papers?” Sarge asked a fraction of a second before Pickett was about to ask the same question.
“The three of us and Cavanaugh are the only ones with permission from the chief to go through it,” Robin said. “The chief has been right on top of all this since early.”
“Wow,” Pickett said. “Great to hear.”
“The chief moved Cavanaugh off his other cases until this is put to bed,” Robin said, “so he’s joining the gang a little early in spirit. And the chief assigned him help on the paperwork which has Cavanaugh smiling.”
“What about Mike’s guy?” Robin asked.
“District attorney is calling it an open and shut case of self-defense and isn’t going to bother to do anything. In fact the DA thanked the guy for saving lives and stopping what might have been a larger disaster.”
Pickett just smiled at that. Mike had been doing them a favor coming in so fast and she hated that he and his people had been exposed like that. But who knows how that would have turned out without Mike there last night. Pickett didn’t want to even think about that.
“Any identification on any of the crew or the sniper?” Sarge asked.
“Cinda’s men were all hired thugs,” Robin said. “All had records. Cinda had been a suspect in a number of illegal gambling and robbery operations over the years, but had never been arrested for anything. What was amazing is that they had a tap on her phone for one of the investigations and they heard her hire the thugs and tell them she had a dirty job for them to do, but it would be worth millions of they pulled it off.”
“Wow,” Pickett said, suddenly feeling a lot better. “That’s going to help put her crew away for some time.”
“Death in the commission of a felony will make it certain they are all going away for a very long time. And two of them are talking like kids on candy, so we’re closing a bunch of cases this morning.”
Pickett just laughed and smiled at Sarge, who was also smiling and shaking his head.
“The sniper?” Pickett asked.
“A ghost so far,” Robin said. “No I.D. on him. Will has his prints and both his people and the city are doing searches. The guy’s DNA will be processed by this evening by Will’s people and we should have that into the search system as well.”
“To make that shot from that distance,” Sarge said, “he had to be trained somewhere.”
“Mike thinks the guy had to be ex-military,” Robin said, “which is why we think either the prints or the DNA will bring up an answer. Who he was working for is another question completely.”
“Got a hunch some of that information will be in the old files in the safe house,” Pickett said.
“Betting the same thing,” Robin said.
“You coming to breakfast?” Sarge asked.
“Had that two hours ago,” Robin said. “But I’ll bring us all lunch later on at the safe house.”
She then gave them the address and hung up.
“Well, the morning is going better than I feared,” Sarge said, finishing his coffee and turning to get his coat.
“A lot better,” Pickett said.
Thankfully. Finally something was going right.