December 6th, 2016
Las Vegas, Nevada
Pickett and Sarge were met outside the front door of the safe house by Mike. The house was in a new subdivision looking down over the valley and the city beyond. To Pickett it looked like it would be fairly easy to defend.
“Thank you for everything, Mike,” Sarge said.
“Yes, thank you,” Pickett said.
Mike shrugged. “It’s what I do and I’m really honored that Will and his people came to help so much last night at the station and that the chief of police was clearing the path as well. The gang sure holds some sway in this city.”
“I think the chief understands completely what you and your team did down in those tunnels a few months back,” Pickett said. “He’s not one to forget that you more than likely saved some cops’ lives, and more than likely did it again last night.”
“Well,” Mike said, nodding. “It was nice and allows me and my men to keep doing our jobs.”
“Which I plan to pay you handsomely for,” Sarge said.
Mike laughed. “Oh, you’ll get my bill when this is done.”
“So where did all the files end up and any surprises in the moving?” Pickett asked.
“No surprises,” Mike said. “All the file cabinets are set up like they were in the unit against one wall near the dining room and the desk is just off the dining room in a small nook. The safe is in the garage and empty. Turned out there was sixteen-point-five million in the safe, all bills older than twenty-five years, so more than likely it had just sat there all that time.”
“Another question we missed this morning,” Sarge said, taking out his notebook. “Where did the money come from?”
Pickett nodded to that. With luck, they would find the answer to that in those files in there.
“Anyone else here?” Sarge asked.
“Cavanaugh said he was going to take a nap and would be back after lunch,” Mike said.
“Robin is bringing lunch about then,” Pickett said. “Want me to bring something for you and your men?”
“Thanks,” Mike said. “We’re fine. Have fun in all that paperwork.”
With that he turned and headed up the sidewalk.
Sarge led the way into the modern home. It was nicely furnished with brown cloth and oak furniture. It had light walls decorated in some sort of Native American style art and dark hardwood floors.
Light poured in from all the open windows and the ceilings were high in the living room and dining room area. Very nice and modern. Pickett could see a large kitchen to one side and to the back.
The old file cabinets looked completely out of place next to a massive oak table in the dining room.
“At least we’re going to have room to spread out and look at stuff,” Sarge said.
Pickett and Sarge both took off their jackets and left them over the back of a chair near the front door, then they both went to the file cabinets.
Sarge walked right up to the first one and pulled open the top drawer.
Then he shook his head and let out a breath. “Somehow still afraid it was going to explode.”
“I was thinking the same thing,” Pickett said.
Pickett moved up beside him and studied the numbering on the files. None of it seemed to be in any kind of order, almost random numbers, but Pickett had a hunch that was far from the case.
“We’re going to need to find the key to the organization for all of these files, or at least work it out somehow,” Sarge said.
He opened the first file and they both looked at the contents. Pickett was surprised. The folder held an accounting ledger, detailed handwritten notes, what looked to be contracts, and a couple bills of sale that seemed to have been notarized.
Sarge closed that file and picked another about three-quarters of the way back into the drawer. Same thing exactly. Accounting ledger, notes, contracts, and bills of sale for something.
Pickett wasn’t sure what she was expecting, but it sure wasn’t anything like that.
There were different names on the bills of sale, different names on the contracts, and different names on the accounting ledger. Only the odd number on the file seemed to hold any meaning as to why these files were in the same folder.
“We got to find the master list for these numbers if there is one,” Pickett said, turning to go look in the big desk tucked in an alcove off to one side of the dining area.
She opened the big drawer with the ledgers and took out the top one.
Inside it looked more like a diary instead of a ledger. It was going to take them some time to read them all.
So she and Sarge moved them from the desk to the big oak dining table, making sure to keep them in the same order they were stacked in the drawer.
There was nothing else in that drawer.
They went through the other desk drawers, carefully putting the contents in places on the table.
No sign of any kind of numbering system at all.
Pickett glanced back at the files. “That numbering system had to be easy to remember, yet hide the true nature of the files from anyone who got in.”
Sarge nodded. “But with something like that, even when young, I would have been deathly afraid of forgetting the system.”
“So there has to be something to tell us what the numbers mean,” Pickett said.
They went back to the desk and completely pulled out each drawer, making sure there was nothing taped to the bottom of the drawer or that the drawer had a false bottom in it.
Nothing.
Sarge picked up the wooden chair that had been in front of the desk in the storage unit and made sure nothing was taped under the seat. Then he tested the wood in the legs to make sure nothing was hollow there. Solid.
Then Sarge got down on his back and using his phone as a flashlight, slid in under the desk, looking for anything there.
“Nothing,” he said as Pickett helped him back to his feet.
She was disappointed that the solution hadn’t come easy. Nothing about this case seemed to be coming easy or straightforward.
Pickett turned with Sarge to look at the piles of stuff on the table and the file cabinets that were all full.
Pickett knew the organizing system had to be detailed out in all that stuff somewhere.
But where? At that moment it seemed like they were looking for a needle in a very large haystack.
And there was no doubt in Pickett’s mind they were going to need help.