Dead Man's Hand (29 page)

He
closed the report and removed the coroner report folders from
a
drawer.

A single powerful slice from a strong killer, maybe known to the victim, had killed Pitt in seconds, just like Grant. No damage had been done to Pitt’s front-door lock, so either the door was unlocked or the killer had a key. But when Dale had arrived at the scene, all the doors had been locked.

This
still didn
’
t rule out Watters, an employee, who
could
have had a key. Sanders could also have had a key
if he and Pitt were such tight associates
.

Why would Wat
ters kill his boss? T
o cover up the Grant murder, o
r, if Dale
’
s assumption was correct
,
the fact
that Pitt h
ad framed Watters? M
aybe it was payback.

Dale still wondered about the anonymous phone call. The detective couldn
’
t figure
out who would call or why
.
W
hy
was some of the information right and some wrong? Misinformation to hide the source?
Who could have known so much about exactly what Watters was doing that morning, disguised and on his way to Grant
’
s private office?

He
had already
found nothing in the office or business paper trail. That had only worn down Dale and his team
.

How much was he being played by the department
heads
, who only seemed interested in Watters? Who did Grant, or Sanders, have in
his
pocket?

He move
d on to the death of the prostitute. Her street name was Amber, real name
unknown. They had searched the database but no description on an active missing person case had been found.
No one seemed to want her—living or dead—except for sex. She was not the killer
’
s target.

Wait
.

The slice on Amber
’
s throat had come from right to left. The predator had been behind the victim. That would mean that the killer had held the weapon in his left hand. But Pitt
’
s throat slash had come from left to right, same as Grant
’
s
. That
killer had been right handed.

Dale
call
ed
Edgar Perkin
s at
home.

When the
medical examiner answered his phone, Dale spoke.
“
Hey, Edgar, it
’
s Dale. I need some information.
”

“
You want to know about your DOAs from the bookie
’
s shop?
”

“
Tell me about the throat slash on Amber.
”

Perkins had been the
chief pathologist for the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department and Crime Lab for over
twenty-five
years.

“
Well, since we determined there was only one killer, I originally thought that the murderer had been left handed, because of the direction of the wound on Amber
’
s throat. But after a second
check on
Pitt
’
s wound and substantial consideration, I
’
d say that the killer is ambidextrous. The slash
on
Pitt
’
s neck
, like Grant
’
s,
almost
decapitated
both victims
. But the other one, the woman
’
s wound, was a little more sloppy. The woman had considerable bruising and an abrasion from the pressure of being held
,
which indicated that the man
’
s right arm was his strong
er
side. The knife was held in the left hand, but the killer could be trying to throw us off. In my opinion, this attacker can use his left and right hand
with the same
degree
of accuracy
.
”

“
Thanks, Edgar.
”

“
No problem, Dale. How
’
s you
r—
”

Dale hun
g up before Perkins could keep him long.
An ambidextrous killer, that had to narrow down the field.
He
turned the page and read on.

Pitt and Grant were
killed with the right hand b
ut the prostitute was not. Dale suspect
ed
the rear angle of
the
attack made i
t difficult for the killer
to cont
rol the woman with his left arm
and kill with his r
ight, as he
’
d done twice before
.
S
he
wa
s weaker than either man, so the killer did
n
’
t need the same
strength. He controlled her with his right arm
,
w
hich is why he was scratched.

He assumed that if it had not been for the happenstance of the prostitute, the killer would have slashed both times with his right hand and all the evidence would indicate that the killer was right-handed. But as life happens, she was there and that revealed the ambidexterity of the killer.

They already knew that skin under the prostitute
’
s nails, from fighting her killer, was Caucasian and
therefore
not from Watters.
Even though there had been no scratch marks on Pitt, the trace
was still being compared with his DNA.

Dale slid the two medical reports to the side of his desk. He opened up Grant
’
s file and set the report beside the other folders.
It made no sense to have more than one killer with wounds this similar.

Sanders
was so obviously the person with
the strength and will to kill all three.
He killed Grant for
t
he Greek.
He
killed Pitt
for cover up
. But Dale
’
s sergeant had already put Sanders
“
off limits
.
”
The casino owner
wa
s
practically
untouchable.

Dale compared the wounds. The MO was the same for all three murders, even though two different knives had been used
.
A
ny smart killer would change weapons after each killing and destroy the ones used.

Craig
’
s death, shot in the head,
was the only wild card. There was a second killer who used a gun.

He
did one more search of national and local killings with the same MO, but no dice—nothing to do with this pattern that could not be explained by chance.

Bu
t he cross-referenced all of tho
se cases anyway. At the national level, as he suspected because the knife-to-throat
MO wasn
’
t unique, he found a total of
124 cases
over the las
t year. But when he dug deeper the suspects were all ruled
out for various reasons—they
we
re dead, serving life sentences, paroled or disappeared.
The very few
who
didn
’
t get crossed off and potentially
could
be
Dale
’
s killer
were very unlikely because the murders happened in Vegas.

H
e threw the files into his desk and
shut down
the computer
. He was at an investigative dead end.

He looked around the office. The lighting was dim and only a handful of officers remained.
He wondered how many o
f those officers also had empty
homes to go to.
The d
ivorce rate was high on the force
and
he didn
’
t want to be just another statistic. But would he ever be able to make it up to Betty and Sammie?

One last thought
about the case
struck him. He wandered over to his partner
’
s messy desk. He found a DVD
resting on top of a bundle of files. The label read,
“
Sugar Bowl
.
”
He
popped it into the video player.

He
remembered Watters on the foot
ball field—graceful and unstoppable
. His large
frame and long, smooth
s
trides made him the model running back
headed for big
-
league glory. From Jimmy
’
s notes, Dale read that Watters had run the ball
sixty-one
times that game for the Trojan
s, a new NCAA record. S
o finding a sequence of Watters
’
carries wasn
’
t a challenge.

After the first carry, Dale thought he had picked something out. After the second,
he
knew for certain. After seven straight carries,
it was irrefutable
—
Watters receiv
ed
the ball from his quarterback the same way each time, cradling the ball with his right arm and using his left t
o stiff-arm his way through
tackles, no matter which
side the play was called to run.
Watters
was as right-handed as right-handed ever got. Someone ambidextrous, at that level of play, would have used that to their advantage.

Why was
this
department determined to pin this on an innocent man?

Chapter
29

Dale took a few more minutes for another search—until he found an article about Sanders in his baseball days
at UNLV
.
Sanders had been an elite pitcher
and
had to have a
glove
made just for him
because he was an extreme variety: an ambidextrous pitcher who switched arms when he pitched.
Dale saved the article and added it to the file.

He
was going to nail Sanders somehow without losing his own job and pension.

As he finally strapped hi
s weapon on and turned to
go home
,
he thought he
’
d grab one more thing, the tape of Linda Grant
’
s phone calls.

A few minutes later, he steered the slow
-
moving vehicle
toward
his house
. As usual on the ride home, he could feel himself starting to crash after an exhausting investigative day. He
summed up where he was with the investigation.

Other than Watters, there were three potential suspects.

Dale thought about the explicit photographs of Linda Grant and Ace Sanders. He put that together with the Grant prenup as well as Linda Grant
’
s
twelve-
percent portion of the estate that had now been sold to Sanders
.
Dale knew Linda had
a
motive
to kill her husband.

He
cut the headlights and let his car roll into the dri
veway
.
He sat and stared at his modest
but well
-
maintained home. His wife had spent hours fussing over the flowers.
Would he ever see that again?
The yard smelled of fres
h
-
cut grass.

He stepped inside, where the only sounds were his footsteps and breathing. The sights and sounds had changed. No more of Sammie
’
s soft moans on the
baby monitor,
o
r
Betty
o
n the loveseat
, screaming out answers at the TV during Wheel of Fortune
.
He
might never
again
hear Casper
the
Dachshund
snoring
as he
slept comfortably
on the arm of the couch.

The sounds he had grown accustomed to, that he
had taken
for granted and had ignored,
he might never get back. Those we
re the things he truly missed,
the things that
made his house a home.

He flicked on the front hall light
, hoping to see Betty standing there, but all that welcomed him was an unfurnished hallway.

Even though his stomach grumbled, he didn
’
t feel like fixing a late
-
night dinner.
He removed his jacket and threw
it on the back of the couch.

He used the bathroom sink to rinse the remains
of
his last pull of tobacco fro
m his mouth and retreated to the living room couch, where he
’
d been sleeping since Betty had left. He just couldn
’
t sleep in their bed, where so many memories lay
—
the passio
nate lovemaking, the meaningful
pillow talk
,
the giggling and playing. Those were happy times early in their relationship, so long ago.

He lay
down and closed his eyes, repl
a
ying the last argument he
’
d had with Betty, the conversation that had occurred
the last time he
’
d come home this late.

He had come home late, real late, expecting Bett
y to be sleeping. He had
unlocked the front door and hear
d
his little
d
achshund growl and bark.

“
Shut up, Casper
,
”
h
e whispered, listening for the sounds of footsteps.

He flicked on the front hall light and Betty was standing in the hallway, in her bathrobe, holding the dog.

“
Where
’
s Sammy?
”
h
e whispered.

“
Sleeping,
like
everyone should be at this time of night. Where have you been?
”
s
he said in a clipped tone.

“
Work
.
”

“
This late?
”

Dale let out his breath.
“
Betty, we
’
ve been over this. You know my job isn
’
t
nine to five.
I
’
m a
Las Vegas detective
.
”

“
So you were at the office?
”

“
Yes, I was at the office.
”

“
Who were you with?
”

Dale shook his head. He s
lid his shoes off and
hung
his jacket in the closet.

She stepped close to him, stopping him, invading his personal space
with a subtle sniff of
the air. He was insulted, but
he
knew what she was smelling for.

“
Were you with her?
”

“
Betty, don
’
t. You know I wasn
’
t. That was a
long time ago. I thought we
’
d
moved past this?
”
For the first
time
he
noticed the lines at the corner of her eyes. The exhaustion set in her expression.

She sighed.
“
I thought so too.
”
She set the dog on the floor and turned away.

The dog began sniffing at Dale
’
s feet, wagging his tail until Dale scooped him up.

Dale said,
“
Betty, wait.
”

But when she turned back, Sammie
’
s cry erupted on the baby monitor.

“
Great!
”
Betty said.

“
I
’
ll get him.
”

Betty put out her hand.
“
Stop, you
’
ve done enough.
”
She walked down the hall
toward
the baby
’
s room.
“
And you can sleep on the couch.
”

He
slumped his shoulders. He
knew he should go after her
, apologize, make it right, but he was too tired and she was in no mood for conversation.

Dale opened his eyes. If he
’
d only gone after her that night, would it have mattered? Wo
uld it have changed things? He
didn
’
t think so
or at least he told himself that.

Betty
’
s accusations had cut deep.

He closed his eyes
again
and thought about that one moment in time, that one moment of vulnerability when he had let his guard down and had given in to temptation. That one impulsive, split-second decision
had ruined
his marriage.

It had been a long time ago—back in his rookie year on the force. Dale and Betty
had
just been married, already
i
n rocky waters, but that seemed to be the case from day one.
Marriage had changed everything.

His first partner, Josie Walker. She had been Dale
’
s vice.

They
’
d been on a
s
ting, following a load of
c
ocaine flown into the city from Panama. They had the private airfield staked out, awaiting the cargo. But somehow the dealers had been tipped off and were waiting.

All hell broke loose. Lives were lost
and
more should have been.

Dale and Josie had been taken hostage inside the tiny private jet. If it hadn
’
t been for some quick-thinking and swift-acting SWAT members, Dale and Josie would never have
made it out
.

After the dust had cleared, rather than going home to his new wife, Dale had gone to the bar with his team to celebrate the arrest. A total of $50 million in cocaine had been confiscated, the largest drug bust in LVMPD history.

Dale
still
remembered shaking so much
that he could barely hold his glass. He and Josie had come that close to death
.
T
hey
’
d looked it in the eye and had walked away unscathed. In that moment he had felt a deep connection with his partner—more than just professional.

The sexual tension between them was palpable.

She was a beautiful woman, with all the right curves and a cocky go-get attitude. He knew it was wrong, but Dale rode the moment. He had given in and for that he would be forever regretful. Or was he really?

Josie
had felt it too, because she had suggested
the motel room.

As much as Dale didn
’
t want to admit it, in hi
s heart he knew that it hadn
’
t been just a one-night stand of meaningless sex
with a stranger
. It was a night of passionate lovemaking. A deep, heartfelt ride shared between two people who really cared for each other.

The next day he
had felt sick at what he
’
d done. He told Josie they had made a mistake, he could never leave Betty
and
that he wanted to make it right with his wife. Betty was the one he truly loved.
Had that been a lie?

Josie said she could no longer be h
is partner. She had
requested a transfer from the department, claiming mental anguish from the experience
Dale
and
she
had been through. Dale never saw Josie again.

He told Betty what had happened, not just t
o appease his guilty conscience
but because he knew it was the right thing to do. Betty didn
’
t deserve that deception.

There were only three people who knew about the incident—Dale, Betty
and
Jo. Dale
had
thought that night had been dead and buried,
that
he and Betty had moved on, but you can
’
t outrun your past.

Dale sat back up
and shook his head
. Over the last two days, except for her original call to Sanders, Linda had only spoken to her mother
and
her attorney. She
’
d followed Sanders
’
orders and not talked to him.

Dale inserted the first tape. He set the headphones over his ears, lay back on the sofa and pressed play.

He couldn
’
t le
t
the
past slow down his inve
stigation.

“
Do you see anything?
”

Calvin was startled by Rachel
’
s voice coming from the doorway behind him. He turned and looked at her.

He shook his head.
“
Nothing,
”
he said, looking back at the computer monitor.

“
Do you think someone is really out there, hunting us like animals?
”