CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

 

 

May 16, 2015

7 A.M.

A home across the lake from the Tamarack Ski Resort,

Near Cascade, Idaho

 

Lott felt almost human after a nap, a fantastic dinner with Annie and Doc and Fleet and Julia, and then a long night’s sleep. The image of that dead woman in that car hadn’t really haunted him much, but Lott had no doubt that once they got Williams put away, the image would come back when Lott least expected it.

He had that problem over the years with different cases and often woke up Carol in the middle of the night shouting. She always managed to calm him down and get him back to sleep after a short cup of hot chocolate.

And she never asked what had given him the nightmare. And he had never shared. There was no way he had ever wanted to bring the horror he saw on the streets into his home.

Julia was already sitting at the dining room table talking with Annie and Doc when Lott managed to get showered and downstairs. Julia looked radiant and smiled at him when she saw him coming down the stairs. He wouldn’t mind seeing that smile a lot more in the mornings, of that there was no doubt.

Julia was dressed in jeans, a dress blouse, and a thin gold necklace. She had her hair pulled back off her face.

Annie was in her standard blouse and dress slacks, and had a suit jacket hung over the back of her chair. Doc just looked like Doc, with jeans and a dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up.

The sun hadn’t hit the mountains across the lake from them, making it seem like it was still dark outside. The smell of coffee filling the wonderful home was like a welcome glove around him.

Annie got up from the table and kissed him on the cheek as he came toward the table, then pointed to the chair next to Julia. “Sit. I’ll get you a cup of coffee the way you like it. Breakfast will be as soon as Fleet gets back from picking up Agent Munn at the airport.”

Lott went over and sat down next to Julia. She touched his arm and said, “Good morning. Feeling better?”

“I’ll let you know after the first cup of coffee,” Lott said. “But I think so.”

She laughed as Annie slid the cup in front of him and sat down.

The coffee smelled even better coming right off the cup and he sipped at the hot liquid, letting the taste just flow through him.

“Doc and Annie were just telling me their history,” Julia said, “and how Doc and Fleet made so much money.”

“I honestly don’t know how we got so rich,” Doc said. “That was Fleet’s doing. I just played poker.”

“But I didn’t know you were involved with capturing the White House Chief of Staff’s killer,” Julia said. “And it was on that case that you two met?”

“It was,” Annie said, leaning over and kissing Doc.

Lott had been on the edges of that investigation as well. It had been a traumatic time, especially since the guy had also killed Doc’s father.

Before Julia could ask another question, there was the sound of footsteps on the porch and Fleet and Agent Munn came in, bringing with them a bitingly cold draft of air from the still mostly-dark morning outside.

Fleet looked to be his normal self, with a silk business suit and an open collared dress shirt under it. But Agent Munn looked exhausted and slightly rumpled in her black slacks and dress blouse and FBI dark jacket.

“Coffee?” Annie asked.

“Please,” Agent Munn said, sitting at the kitchen table where Annie told her to sit.

Julia got up and went into the kitchen area clearly to help Annie with breakfast. Lott loved the fact that those two liked each other so much. And that Annie was encouraging him to move on after the years of being alone.

“Okay,” Annie said as she worked on cracking some eggs, clearly running the show as she tended to do. “We all need details. Who wants to go first? Fleet?”

Lott watched as Fleet nodded, giving Agent Munn some time to sip the coffee Julia had brought her.

“My people looked into all the phone calls Williams made near ten different women’s disappearances. Not once did he call his car man in Las Vegas. So we’re clear to get that guy stopped.”

Lott nodded. Last night he had talked with Andor and got him all prepared and how no one, not even the Chief, could know what he and the rest of the Cold Poker Gang were going to do.

Andor guaranteed that no one would know until it was all clear. Then they would haul the car man’s ass down to the station. They all should be in position now.

“Let me take care of this before the guy hits the road and we lose him,” Lott said.

Everyone nodded and Lott took his cell phone and called Andor.

“Yeah,” Andor said, his voice gruff, exactly how he always answered the phone.

“Detain the bastard,” Fleet said. “Williams made no contact with him before every murder, so he is just a part of the puzzle. Keep that part in Vegas.”

“We’re set,” Andor said. “He doesn’t know it, but his room reservation has just been extended.”

“Perfect,” Lott said. “Thanks. Just make sure that bastard makes no calls to anyone. I’ll call you when we have Williams contained.”

“You got it,” Andor said and hung up.

Lott hung up and nodded to the group that had been listening to the call. “One piece down.”

“Second part,” Fleet said. “The driver bringing the casket in from Seattle. It seems there is no regular driver, so my sense is this is just a regular delivery. There are two other caskets besides the transport casket in the delivery order.”

“We’ll contain him anyway after the delivery,” Agent Munn said. “Without anyone seeing it happen.”

Lott nodded. “Two pieces down.”

“We are going to have to detain the mortician at about the same time the driver arrives,” Doc said. “We can’t take a chance on the guy opening the casket and finding a dummy in there.”

“We checked all phone records over the past year,” Fleet said. “Including outgoing calls from towers that might have been made on a burner phone. No outgoing calls to Williams have ever been made from that mortuary. It seems this system just functions without communications between the parts.”

Lott nodded. That made sense.

All the women Williams had taken had just vanished without a trace or a crime scene or any evidence in the slightest. Now Lott was starting to see why.

Agent Munn nodded to Doc’s statement about needing to take the mortuary right after the truck driver left. “Here’s what I think we should do,” she said. “We have eyes on the truck and when it approaches the mortuary, we’ll need people inside to hold the guy.”

“His name is Wade Andrews,” Fleet said. “He has run the Lakeside Mortuary for over fifteen years. He gets some very large amounts of money from varied sources that all looked legal on the surface, but led back to Williams when we dug.”

“Perfect,” Agent Munn said, nodding. “My people will be able to find all that when we have the right warrants, correct?”

“Easily,” Fleet said, smiling.

“I’d like to be one of those to go in,” Julia said. “More than likely Andrews was one of the sickos who hurt my friend. I would love to be a part of that takedown.”

“As would I,” Lott said. “We can go in just ahead of the truck arriving, posing as a couple thinking about making arrangements.”

“I’ll go in as their daughter,” Annie said. “That way you don’t have to have so many agents out in the open.”

Agent Lott nodded. “Doc, you and I can be surveillance, making sure no one else goes in while that truck is there.”

“And no one sneaks out, either,” Doc said, smiling.

Agent Munn nodded. “We detain the mortician in his own building until after we take Williams. That way no one sees anything suspicious.

“You going to need us to stay in there?” Lott asked.

Agent Munn shook her head. “I have two men I can trust to sit on him. We’ll do official arrests on all of these pieces of the Williams puzzle at once. We have more than enough to do that now.”

Lott liked the idea of that a great deal.

“So how bad is it at the lake?” Doc asked.

Agent Munn’s eyes got distant. “We have pulled twenty-eight women from the cars so far, all embalmed and naked and strapped into the driver’s seat. It’s taking time to get the rest because cars are piled on one another down there and we have to pull them aside. We think the total, counting your friend, will reach just under fifty.”

Lott was stunned. That was more than anyone thought. They were shutting down a major serial killer.

If they did this right.

And didn’t get killed in the process.