Book Four: All Bets are Down
Chapter 30
There hadn’t been much on the phone taps. Linda Grant had made one call to her mother to argue family matters and then had a lengthy conversation with her attorney to discuss the sale of her share of the casino. The talk was for the most part about numbers and there was no mention of Sanders.
Early on Friday morning, Dale’s investigative squad of the homicide division gathered around the detective’s desk. The conversation was minimal.
They had exhausted every possible clue and lead and had come up empty. Dale was out of answers and options. He had a lot of motive for Sanders and Linda Grant and a stack of circumstantial evidence, but nothing solid that would stand up in court. That made this current impasse even more frustrating.
The only ghost of a lead was that Pitt’s killer had been searching for something in the office and hadn’t had time to find it. Perhaps he’d found it, however, and taken it with him.
For Watters, he didn’t have motive that made sense for Grant’s killing. If Watters hadn’t killed Grant, then he had no apparent reason to kill Pitt. All he knew for sure about Watters was that he’d been in Grant’s office, but with no body and nothing missing.
Dale was running Craig’s murder as a separate investigation. In every case there was a sacred bond between victim and cop and with Craig, it was even more than that.
He still suspected that two different killers were involved, but he couldn’t be sure about that either. Even though Grant’s death was his major case, finding the killer of his fellow officer was a personal crusade.
If he had nothing more, he could only keep the team doing busy work for a few more hours before they’d be pulled for other things, probably all put on catching Watters.
Jimmy sat down on the edge of Dale’s desk. He read from his notepad. “I just got off the phone with a member from the Investigations Unit of the Nevada Gaming Commissions. She said the deal Sanders signed for the Greek was legit. They investigated it thoroughly and found no illegal evidence to deny the agreement.”
Dale slapped his partner on the shoulder and got up. His bones felt like they’d aged since the investigation had started. On his way to the break room for a cup of coffee, he was pulled aside by one of his officers.
“Hey, Dale. Dean and I went to Cruiser’s Bar last night and questioned the employees and a few patrons. Nobody gave us anything. They like Watters much more than they did us.”
“Thanks, Carl.” Another dead end. Watters wouldn’t show his face.
He got back to his office and saw his partner waiting. He sat back in his seat, took a sip of the strong coffee and immediately felt better, but only a little.
Jimmy frowned. “I found out that a first-class assassin flew in on a red-eye Monday.”
Dale sat up. “Got a description?”
“That’s why he’s top shelf. Never uses the same ID twice. No meetings—all email and cash payment at drop points.”
“Great.” Dale thought of at least three people who could hire the mystery man to kill Watters.
At least he now knew that there was a hit man in Vegas and he was probably after Watters. But Dale had no idea what the killer looked like or who he was working for. There were too many suspects in this case with legitimate money to afford a high-priced hit man.
“Jimmy, find me anything on Sanders. With the sergeant restricting access, all we can do is go ‘under’ the law, not break it, but utilize what’s down there.”
Dale got up. Time to update the sergeant—with nothing. He entered the office where his impatient boss waited.
“Any word on Watters?” The sergeant still had a hard-on for Watters for all four murders.
Dale shook his head.
“Maybe we should change our strategy.”
That was the opening that Dale had been waiting for. “That’s what I was thinking. I need Watters’ participation to help nail Sanders.”
“I’m listening.”
Dale was taken off guard, but he didn’t hesitate. He told his sergeant his new findings: the casino sale and how everything supported his original suspicions. He also told about his suspicions of Sanders hiring an assassin. The sergeant listened, reviewing the mountain of circumstantial evidence they had against Sanders. To Dale, the sergeant seemed to put aside their differences and deliberate.
When Dale stopped, the sergeant spoke. “Take it upstairs to Flannery. See what he says about Sanders. If he says it’s a go, make the move.”
Dale grabbed Jimmy’s arm and said, “We’re going upstairs to the DA.”
Robert Flannery sat at his desk and read over the case file, shaking his head and mumbling. He was a fashion plate who could be mistaken for a trainer at the gym, even though he had a Harvard Law degree.
With his feet resting on the top of his desk, Flannery chewed the end of a pencil. A 55-inch Panasonic TC- PVT50 television and DVD player were set up in the corner. A blackboard behind Flannery’s head showed a pyramid of circled names, with arrows and lines to connect them.
Dale and Jimmy waited anxiously, fidgeting in annoyance in the high-back wooden chairs.
When the DA had finished, he slammed the folder shut and tossed it on his desk. He picked up his cardboard coffee cup—a caramel latte, Dale guessed from the scent which made the whole office smell like Starbucks—and sipped at it like a kid with a hot chocolate. Flannery set it back down, sat back in his seat and steepled his fingers.
“I’m sorry, gentlemen.” Flannery scowled and opened the file back up. “But everything that you have brought me is tangential. The casino chip—circumstantial. The photographs—sure, they fucked, but did they kill? The documents—circumstantial. Even the sale of the casino is a tangent. What holds it together? Where’s the crime?”
Dale had already known that everything the DA said was true, but he had been hoping that Flannery himself might propose a scenario, because he brought a different and expert perspective. At least point to what they needed to make a case.
Flannery closed the file and handed it to Dale. “This is Ace Sanders we’re talking about.”
“So what do we do about this?”
“Is this your first day on the job? I need a weapon, a witness, or a fact that connects killer and victim.”
“We’re working on it.”
Flannery looked disgusted, rose and slipped into a jacket that looked as though it had just been removed from the press. “I have a meeting to get to. Good luck, gentlemen.”
Dale and Jimmy let themselves out and at their own pace, took the stairs back to the office. When they pushed through the door, Dale heard his name being called. “Dale, phone call. Line one.”
He sat at his desk and picked up the phone.
“Detective Dayton, this is Senior Special Agent Stanley Marks from FBI Headquarters in Washington.” The man spoke at an auctioneer’s pace. “I wanted to update you on your request in the search for one Calvin Watters.”
Dale sat up. “Yes.”
“Although we don’t have a direct line on him, we see no signs that Watters has left Vegas.”
The words stunned Dale. Why would Watters, a number-one murder suspect, be hanging around the city? But Dale realized that as good as the FBI’s resources were, Watters could have slipped under their radar. Watters had the connections, smarts and money to do it.
“Thank you, Agent Marks.”
Watters was still in town, but Dale felt the chances of finding him were even smaller.
Why would a giant, tattooed black man, who was well known throughout the city, state and region as either a notorious bill collector, a former football star, or both, take the risk of staying in the city where he allegedly killed a man and was wanted by the law?
