December 10th, 2016
Las Vegas, Nevada
Sarge was glad that Melita’s history and family all checked out. He and Pickett enjoyed the walk after breakfast back to the Ogden, purposely not talking about the case. Robin had decided to go back to her office to be there if they needed to check on something quickly.
Just an hour after the conversation in the restaurant, Sarge and Pickett met Melita in the lobby of the Ogden and used Pickett’s car to get out to the Spring Valley area.
The home had clearly been built as a nice, modern home in the eighties. It was still well-kept with what looked like a new coat of off-green paint and the trees were large and offered shade.
Melita let them in, saying that her cousin and his wife were both at work but had said it was fine for her and two detectives to go to the basement.
The basement was filled with a family room that not only had some kids’ toys, but a large-screen television filling one wall.
Melita unlocked a door to one side of the family room and pushed it open, clicking on the light.
“Since all of this is my stuff,” she said, “My husband and I are the only ones with keys.”
Sarge was impressed that the back room of the basement was bright, with tile floors and all four walls covered in shelves. Some boxes sat up on wood pallets off the floor and boxes filled every shelf, all clearly labeled.
An empty wooden table filled the center of the room, clearly used for sorting onto the shelves.
“Wow, organized,” Pickett said.
“My husband calls it obsessive.” Melita said, laughing. “But it comes in handy. I print out and bring a copy of every one of my books here, along with an electronic backup copy.”
Melita went right to an old file box with the label DB on the side and pulled it down from the shelf, turning and placing it on a table.
“Haven’t opened this since I put it back here and headed to college.”
“Wow,” Pickett said. “We’re honored you are letting us look at it now.”
Melita laughed. “Nothing to be honored about. Just old paperwork that should have been tossed decades ago.”
“Glad you didn’t,” Sarge said.
Melita opened the box and inside Sarge could see very organized envelopes. Each one had been sealed and then ripped open.
“Chance of DNA?” Pickett asked, pointing to a ripped envelope.
“A real good chance,” Sarge said, smiling.
Sarge quickly put on some evidence gloves and opened one envelope. It had two pages of a typed letter in it with no signature. A list of details about some local bands and a stage act.
“My columns are in the folders against the back,” Melita said.
The letter in Sarge’s hand was carefully worded and exact. Sarge had no doubt it was a code of some sort. But it was going to take a computer expert to crack it.
Melita shook her head. “Wow, looking back at this, I was sure stupid to use this information without ever checking any of it.”
“High school,” Pickett said.
“Being young doesn’t excuse everything,” Melita said.
“Oh, it does when you get to be Pickett and my ages,” Sarge said.
“I think you might call it envy,” Pickett said, laughing.
Melita laughed as well.
“Would you mind if we take these with us and have everything scanned and analyzed?” Sarge asked. “I promise we’ll return it all to you as is.”
At that moment Sarge’s phone buzzed and he glanced down to see Mike’s number.
Sarge answered it.
“Board yourself in the house where you are, keep the door locked,” Mike said. “My man on you has five armed intruders working toward the house you are in. I’ll be there with reinforcements in ten minutes.”
“Melita’s family,” Sarge said.
“Already protected and under guard.”
Mike clicked off.
Sarge stuffed the phone back into his pocket. “We have company.”
“How the hell did they know what we are doing?” Pickett asked.
“That is a question for later,” Sarge said. He moved quickly over and closed the basement door and locked the handle. He didn’t much like the idea of being trapped in a basement room, but at this point this was their best bet of survival.
Then he came back across the room and had Pickett help him tip the heavy wooden table over on its side facing the door. It looked to be solid oak and would give them some cover. Especially if the attackers started firing through the walls.
He put the box with the Darling Black files behind the table as well.
“What’s happening?” Melita said. “What about my family?”
“It seems we have led some really bad people right to you,” Sarge said. “We have special forces protecting your family and backup coming here in ten minutes.”
“All for those stupid columns?” Melita asked as Pickett pulled her down onto the floor behind the heavy wooden table.
Sarge moved over and stood behind the door, his gun drawn. A brick fireplace wall there would protect him from shots coming through the door or sheetrock walls. But even so he would crouch when he heard someone coming, make himself a smaller target.
“No,” Pickett whispered to Melita, just barely loud enough for Sarge to hear as well. “Not just the columns. For millions of dollars and numbers of deaths. We think those letters sent to you were a code and there are some very angry people who don’t want some secrets in that code revealed, even after all these years.”
“Oh, shit,” Melita whispered.
“That pretty much describes how we feel,” Pickett whispered.
The sounds of steps on the staircase coming down from upstairs cut through the silence.
Mike said ten minutes.
Only three had passed.
This was not looking good.
Not looking good at all.