Sin City Homicide (19 page)

“My mom always pushed me to become a nurse. She thought that
being a cop was only for men. She was really one of those people who thought men do some things, women do others, and that’s the way we’re born. I hated that because she would never come to my baseball games or wrestling matches.”

“You wrestled?”

“Hell yes, I wrestled. I kicked ass at it, too. If they had a women’s wrestling team at UNLV, I would’ve definitely been on it.” She suddenly looked disturbed, as though an unwanted thought had pushed its way into her mind. “You seem like a really nice guy, Jon. I wish—”

“Officer Jon.”

Stanton looked up and saw Tyler walking toward them. He looked worse than he had yesterday, as if he’d already aged. His skin was green and sagging, and he had dark circles under his eyes. He sat down at the booth without being invited to do so and leaned his head back against the cushions.

“Do you want something to eat?” Stanton asked.

“Yeah, man. Definitely. I’ll take a burger, some tacos, and fries.”

Stanton called the waiter over and ordered. After the waiter left
, Stanton waited a few moments before speaking again. “What was it you wanted to talk to me about, Tyler?”

“Freddy. First off, man, you can’t bring my name into this. I’m fuckin’ serious. They will cut off my balls and feed
’em to me.”

“We never met. I promise you.”

“Brody and them, they was the ones that did Freddy.”

“They killed Fredrick Steed?” Mindi chimed in. “Why?”

“They was paid to do it. A lotta money, I guess.”

“Who paid them?” Stanton asked.

“I don’t know. Brody talked to ’em. They didn’t tell me until they was gonna do it ’cause they knew we was tight. When you spend time in a cell, you grow tight like we was. Freddy wasn’t bad. He didn’t deserve to go out like that. Check this out, though—they made me record it.”

“On what?”

“My cell phone.”

“Do you have it here?”

“Yeah.” He pulled out his phone and fiddled with it for a few seconds. He turned it toward Stanton.

The screen was dark at first. An interior light came on
, revealing a figure in the driver’s seat of a car. His hands were tied to the steering wheel with a thin rope, and a piece went around his neck and wrapped around the car seat. Even though his eyes were bulging from being choked and his cheeks were puffy and red, Stanton could see the countenance of the little boy from the video he had watched.

Brody came into view. “You see what happens when you fuck with the Brotherhood?”

He poured lighter fluid over Freddie’s face then emptied a gas can over him. Freddie was suffocating from the fumes and coughing violently. Brody threw the can into the passenger seat and pulled out a book of matches. Freddie pleaded through his coughs and wheezing. Brody grinned and threw a lighted match into the car.

The
intense light from the flames made the screen go white. Freddie’s muffled screams were audible. Stanton could hear Tyler swearing, yelling, and crying. The video ended.

“You stood by and watched while they did that to your friend?” Mindi
asked.

“There was like twenty people there
, and everybody’s got guns. What was I supposed to do?”

“You were supposed to stop them. You’re a coward.”

“Mindi,” Stanton said softly. His eyes locked on hers briefly; she exhaled loudly and sat back in her seat, folding her arms. “Tyler,” he said turning toward the young man, “I need your phone.”

“What for?”

“I need to authenticate the video and make copies. I’ll get it back to you as soon as possible.”

“What am I gonna do without a phone? I need my phone.”

Stanton pulled the phone out of his reach. “I’ll pay you for it. Enough to get a new phone, but I need to take this one with me. It’s evidence.”

“Well, I ain’t gonna be in trouble, right? I mean, I came to you guys and brought you the video and everything.”

“I’ll do everything I can to protect you.”

“That don’t sound like I’m not getting in trouble. You promised you’d keep my name out of it.”

“No prosecutor is going to pursue a case against you for—”

“Pursue a case against me!” he shouted. “Fuck you. You fucking said you wouldn’t say my name.”

“I will do everything—
we
will do everything we can to protect you.
If I have to, I’ll find another way. I keep my promises
.”

Tyler stood up and pushed his middle finger into Stanton’s face. “Fuck you!” He stormed out of the restaurant just as his food arrived.

“That went pretty well,” Mindi said.

Stanton tucked the phone into his pocket. “He’s going to have to testify in court against Brody. They’ll need him to lay the foundation for the video.”

“He’s not going to like that.”

“If they’re smart, they’ll give the case to the Feds to prosecute under RICO. I’ll bet Tyler knows everything about their drug trafficking and prostitution rings. The Feds’ll give him immunity and a new life somewhere else. He can start over.”

“There’s no starting over for them, Jon. He can be a meth addict in Billings, Montana
, as easily as Las Vegas.”

“It’ll at least give him a chance.”

She shrugged and took a bite of Tyler’s burger. “So, what next?”

Stanton took out some cash and left it on the table. “Take it with us. I need to see your captain.”

35

Parr was sitting at his desk, filling out a report, when Jay knocked on the door.

“Come in,” he shouted. No one came into his office without asking first.
He had established that rule the day he’d been made captain.

“Cap, we got a hit on the home invasion in Cal’s case.” Jay sat down across from him and flipped through a file until he found the document he was looking for. “Seryoga Melikov. Thirty-three, a Russian immigrant with a rap sheet longer than my cock.”

“That wouldn’t take more than a couple charges.”

Jay smirked and went on. “Lives in Trenton, New Jersey, and
—get this—flew out to Las Vegas the day before he broke into Cal’s house. We got him on a Delta flight. There’s even a video of him almost punching out one of the female desk attendants at the terminal because they bumped his flight a few times and were rude to him. He got cited for disorderly conduct and threw the citation in the trash before boarding his plane.”

“Sounds like a peach. What else?”

“Got a few strong-arm robberies. We talked to his girlfriend—well, his ex-girlfriend. He put her head through a glass door, and she dumped him after that. She said he’s an asshole with a gun. Apparently, he slept with the thing.”

“
Did she say why he came to Vegas?”

“He wasn’t talking to her at the time
, but she’d heard from someone else that he was pulling a robbery job out here.”

Parr leaned back in his chair and put his feet up on the desk. “Did you call the PD over in Trenton?”

“Yeah, no ties to the Russian mob. They basically said he was a low-level hood known for break-ins.”

“That doesn’t sound like a pro at all. That sounds like someone making their bones for the first time.”

“Who would hire an amateur to take out someone like Cal Robertson?”

“Someone who’s never hired a gun before or hasn’t done it in a long time. What about his bank accounts?”

“I was gonna follow up on that now. I wanted to see you about this first.”

“Make sure to look for any large
, recent deposits. I’m not expecting a check, but maybe we can trace some of those bills if the bank’s got numbers.”

“I’m on it,” Jay said before he got to his feet and left.

Parr was about to return to his reports when his door opened again, and Jon Stanton walked in. Mindi was behind him, saying something about knocking.

“What the fuck do you want?” Parr
asked.

“You need to see this.” Stanton
pulled out a phone and played a video.

Parr watched it for a few seconds
then jumped to his feet, pulled his firearm, and pointed it at Stanton’s head. “Get the fuck on the ground, now!”

“Alma!” Mindi yelled.

“Hands up and on the ground, cocksucker!”

“He got the phone from someone who filmed it. I was there. That guy on the video is the one you want. It’s the Aryan Brotherhood. Jon had nothing to do with it.”

Alma didn’t move or say anything.

Mindi stepped forward and put her hand on the gun, lowering it. “Alma, I was there. He had nothing to do with it. You were wrong.”

Parr felt his face twinge with anger. “He’s playing you, Mindi.”

“No, he’s not. I know you got it in your head that he’s your guy
, but whoever told you that was lying. Watch the video again and turn up the sound. You’ll hear the guy’s voice on the camera. It’s his phone. His name is Tyler.”

Stanton said, “And I just handed you all his text messages and contacts. The man on the video is named Brody. If you’re gonna go after him
, you’ll need SWAT. They got a compound, and they’re heavily armed. Most of them didn’t look like they’d hesitate to shoot at cops.”

Parr replaced his firearm and sat down, taking a deep breath. “Get out of my office.”

“Alma, what the hell is the matter with you?”

“It’s fine,” Stanton said. He started to walk out the door but turned at the last second
. “The guy who made that, Tyler—he’s not a bad person. And you wouldn’t have closed this without him.”

“I would’a found him eventually,” Parr said.

Stanton watched him for a moment then said, “Anger’s a poison. It only hurts you. You want to hurt the world, or me, or whatever, but you’re only hurting yourself by drinking poison.”

After Stanton left, Mindi stared down at
Parr.

“What?” he
asked.

She shook her head and made a sound as if she were disgusted
then followed Stanton.

As the door shut, Parr played the video again. He sighed
then picked up the phone and dialed the number for tactical to arrange for SWAT.

Stanton was silent as they rode to the laboratories of Constance Digital, which were in a secluded business park located on over an acre of property. Complete with trees, two basketball courts, statues of people Stanton didn’t recognize, and a Pizza Hut on the first floor, it looked like something a college student would design. After Mindi had parked, she and Stanton went to the main entrance, where someone at the front desk buzzed them in. A large man in a wrinkled shirt and a dirty tie handed them a clipboard, and they signed in before the interior door clicked and opened.

The hallways were decorated like a dorm room.
Baywatch
posters and prints of
Star Wars
were framed in cheap black frames. A few handmade drawings were posted on the walls in between the vending machines, which lurked every couple dozen feet.

Mindi led Stanton
to a room where three people were eating Chinese take-out. One of them, a thin man in wire-frame glasses, turned to them and quickly took a bite of his sweet-and-sour chicken before standing up and wiping his hands on his jeans.

“What’s up, Mindi?”

“Nothing much. This is Jon. He’s helping with the case.”

“How are ya? I’m Mike Lupford. I’m the manager here.”

The other two giggled.

“What? I am, technically.”

“We’re here about that DVD,” Mindi said.

“Oh, right. Yeah, come on back.”

They followed him to a door at the back of the room, where he used a key to unlock the door. The room beyond was dark and cluttered with electronic equipment, and four large monitors took up an entire wall. Mike sat down in front of the wall of monitors.

“Have a seat,” he said.

They sat down behind him as he queued up the video. Stanton noticed he wasn’t wearing any shoes.

“So,” Mike said, “this actually wasn’t
written over, like you thought. It was just corrupted. It looked like someone did a sloppy job of trying to erase the data on the disc.”

“Were you able to get anything?”

“Oh, yeah. This was total amateur work. They probably used some program they downloaded off the Internet. We used CNW V3 and got it back in a few minutes. Um, it’s kind’a graphic.” He pressed a button, and a video started to play on the monitors. “Here we go.”

The scene
was just a room at first, with a few items of furniture: a bed, a side table, and a lamp. Then a figure came into view. It was a woman in a see-through negligée. She was speaking to someone off camera.

“Can you get sound?” Stanton
asked.

“No, sorry. That’s pretty easy to wipe out. We couldn’t get it back.”

The woman slipped off her negligée. Her back was visible, and hands ran up and down the length of her body. She got down on her knees for a few minutes before standing up and lying down on the bed.

She
reclined flat on her back as a male came into view. He was nude, but the shot didn’t capture anything above his chest. He settled on top of her and worked himself inside her. He thrust for a solid five minutes before working himself into a frenzy and stopping. They lay with each other for a few minutes afterward, then the man stood up and turned off the camera.

Stanton recognized the
woman—it was Mrs. Steed.

Mindi looked at him
. “That looked like—”

“It was.”

“So, the Steeds had a sex tape? Kind’a kinky for a couple their age.”

“Rewind the tape please, Mike… thanks… stop it right there.” Stanton sto
od and moved closer to the screen. He pointed to the man’s hand on the bed. “When we lay our hands flat and force them to bear weight, the majority of the weight’s placed on our dominant hand. Look at the indentations on the bed. The left is much deeper. This guy’s left-handed. Daniel Steed was right-handed.”

“You think she was having an affair?”

“Can you tell how old the video is?” Stanton asked Mike.

“Yeah.” Mike typed into a keyboard in front of him
, and a window popped up over the video. It was dated November 13, 2011, months before the Steeds were killed.

Stanton turned away from the video and paced slowly before sitting down. “Why would she keep the tape in her house?”

“Maybe they were into that sort’a thing? Big swinger community in this town. I wouldn’t be surprised if they were all kinky. Or maybe she thought it was erased?”

“They were rich. They didn’t need to save pennies. It would’ve been much more secure to just throw it away.”

Mindi shrugged. “Or not. Maybe they were scared of someone finding it. Can you make us a copy, Mike?”

“Done and done.” He pulled out a copy he had already made and put it into a cover. After that
, he took out another copy, put it into a cover, and placed it on the table in front of them. From the way Mike immediately turned away from it, Stanton could tell he was saving it for himself.

“We’ll need all of the copies and the original.”

“Oh,” Mike said, “yeah, it’s just, you know… she was kind’a hot.”

Mindi punched him in the arm. “Gross.”

“What? She won’t care.”

Stanton
collected all the discs, and he and Mindi headed out of the building. When they were back in the car, Stanton held the disc between his fingers and flicked it up and down like a playing card as he stared out the window of the moving car. He wondered if Daniel Steed had ever watched the tape, and if he had… the pain he must’ve felt. A sting of empathy ran through him as he received a momentary flash of Melissa in bed with another man, groaning as he entered her, calling out a name that was not Stanton’s.

“So, how do we find this guy?”

“If they checked into any hotels, I doubt they did it under their own names. But it wouldn’t hurt to go through Emily Steed’s credit card statements and see if there’s anything on them. We could follow up on any hotels that get a hit and see if they have surveillance video from that day.”

She was silent for a long while
before she said, “So, you’re leaving soon. Do you think we should give all this stuff to Jay and Javier?”

“We will, but not yet. I’m so close. I can feel him.”