December 7th, 2016
Las Vegas, Nevada
“Maybe if we just created a list of questions about all this,” Sarge said, “and then put them in an order of importance, we might be able to start carving at this mess.”
He really, really needed some organization at this point in time. So much information they had thought they knew and then didn’t, he wasn’t keeping some of it straight.
“Sounds like a good idea,” Pickett said. “I’ll start. Who was Darling Black and what did he or she have to do with any of this?”
All four of them wrote that down. Robin added, “Why did she stop at the same approximate time as Heather pretended to vanish for a week.”
“She didn’t,” Pickett said. “That information came from Carla. Actually her columns went to December.”
Sarge nodded on that and wrote that down.
“What was being sold to make that kind of money?” Cavanaugh asked. “The records from the files want us to believe it was cars, but I sure can’t imagine how that could have been done without a huge organization.”
“Agreed,” Sarge said. “I’m betting it was some sort of information. We need to see if we can break that deeper code on those records.”
Robin nodded. “I’ll get some computer people on it right after breakfast, now that we have all the records digitized.”
“Who was the girl in the Landmark?” Pickett asked.
Sarge wrote that down and put a star beside it in his notebook. The most important question as far as he was concerned.
“Who killed Cinda Blessing and how much did she really know?” Robin asked.
Sarge wrote both of those questions down separately.
“Why if the parents and brother, or husband, of Heather were involved, did only Heather go to the storage unit?” Sarge asked. That question had bothered him since they got the information back from the lab techs.
“Maybe,” Cavanaugh said, “she was the only one involved.”
Robin nodded. “There are a number of reasons why two couples might vanish and assume new identities.”
Sarge nodded to that. Two couples in trouble, wanting to get away, taking advantage of a tragedy of a family to do it.
“Warrants?” Pickett said. “Robin, when you get a chance have Will search for outstanding old warrants for a father-and-son combination. Bail skipped around that time.”
Sarge again just nodded. A long shot, but might give them an idea of what this group was good at.
He wrote down the question in his notebook, “Heather alone?”
Cavanaugh’s comment about maybe it was only Heather stuck with Sarge. He put a star beside that question as well.
“Maybe,” Pickett said, “there were some gems of truth in what Cinda told us about Heather.”
Sarge quickly flipped back through his notebook to his notes when they talked with her.
Pickett was doing the same. Picket said, “Cinda said Heather had made a lot of people angry by not covering losing bets on celebrity stuff.”
“Could that have been accurate?” Sarge asked.
“And it was Cinda who told us that Heather was Darling Black,” Pickett said.
“We need to pull up all of Darling Black’s columns,” Robin said, scribbling in her notebook.
“The woman, if her notebooks and files are any indication, was a master of codes,” Cavanaugh said. “Maybe she was using those Darling Black columns as a form of communication for some reason.”
“At this point,” Sarge said, writing that down in his notebook, “Anything is possible.”
“So how would we even find out if Darling Black was Heather?” Pickett asked.
Robin looked up and smiled. “How about we ask her to come talk with us?”
Sarge stared at the grin on Robin’s face.
Cavanaugh looked stunned.
Pickett just sort of laughed and said, “I know that look and it can’t be good.”
“How about we get a reporter for the Las Vegas Sun to write an article about Darling Black,” Robin said, “and how the police are looking to talk with her about a cold case. Just get some information because they feel she might be able to help solve the old murder. Promise to keep her identity secret.”
“Get the word out on the streets,” Cavanaugh said. “I can do that through the station as well.”
“If Heather was Darling Black,” Pickett said, “she’s not coming out.”
“But if Darling Black was someone else,” Sarge said, “he or she might appear after all these years. And might just have a detail we are missing.”
“Worth the shot,” Robin said. “And I got a friend at the Sun who could do it.”
Sarge nodded. An extreme long shot, just as finding the original names of these people was a long shot. But at this point, they didn’t have much more than that.