“Shooting. Perp held a young girl and her baby hostage. I got off one round that hit him in the throat but caught her shoulder.”
Jay shook his head. “Fuckin’ bastards. That’s why they’re in internal affairs, you know. They can’t hack it anywhere else. Any monkey can push papers behind a desk.”
Javier added, “They had a file on me last year.”
“Oh yeah? For what?”
“Conduct unbecoming.”
Jay smirked. “He threatened some fucker who drove into a crowd crossing the street out on the strip. Hit and run. He searched the guy’s house without a warrant. The dude confessed in, like, a second.”
“No law against a threat like that,” Stanton said.
“Nah, but it don’t look good,” Javier said, wiping the grease off his lips with the back of his hand. He turned to the television. “Lemme switch it. Hang on.” He swapped some wires in the back then inserted a DVD. “This is the video.”
A still photo on the television showed an empty portion of what looked like a subway, train, or bus. The camera was positioned on the roof, capturing about ten square feet of space.
“I gotta warn you, Jon, this ain’t pretty.”
“I’m ready.”
“This is the tram up there on the strip.”
The video began to play. There was a timestamp in the corner: June 12. 10:12 pm. There was no sound, but the images were clear. It was the car at the end of the tram. A few people piled on, and the tram raced across the Las Vegas strip, twenty feet above the ground. Three people got off at one of the stops, and a couple came into view. They were middle-aged, perhaps in their fifties. The male had a fake tan and was wearing a tuxedo. The female was blonde, with her hair pulled up, wearing a red jacket over a black evening gown. They were kissing and joking around. From their mannerisms, Stanton could tell they were thoroughly drunk.
Then, just as the tram started moving, the woman’s face contorted with fear, and she screamed. The man jumped to his feet then held up his hands as if he were surrendering. Another person came into view from the bottom of the screen. He was wearing a green jacket and had a ski mask over his head. He pointed a handgun at the man’s head.
The man in the ski mask grabbed the woman by her hair, nearly lifting her off her feet. He threw her against one of the seats while keeping the gun aimed steadily at the man’s head. He bent her over, lifted her dress, pulled down his pants, and began to rape her.
The man in the tuxedo watched and yelled, but he didn’t intervene. Stanton kept his eyes on the screen. The video pained him deeply, but he could shut down the human part of him that told him to turn off the video, quit his job, and go back to being a psychology professor. When he shut that off, he could function. He could watch the video and keep going.
Finally, the man in the tux had seen enough, and he lunged at the other man, who shot him twice in the head. The man then pressed the gun to the back of the woman’s head and pulled the trigger just as the tram came to a stop. He pulled up his pants and moved out of view.
Javier turned off the video. “The fucking cojones on this guy. That was the Flamingo and Caesar’s Palace stop, right in the middle of the line. He could’ve been seen by a hundred people, and he didn’t give a shit.”
“Did anybody see anything?”
“Not a one,” Jay said. “Haven’t found a single witness.”
“Did you go to the media?”
“Posted some of the video, and they played it on all four major stations. Nothing.”
“Who were they?”
Javier got another slice of pizza. “Daniel and Emily Steed. Residents of Vegas.”
“Any reason why a guy in a tuxedo is riding the tram?”
Jay shrugged. “People get wasted all the time and take the tram home to avoid driving.”
Stanton glanced back at the video. Jay had misunderstood the question. A man who could afford a tuxedo like that could easily hire a limousine or a cab. He didn’t need to ride the tram with the public.
“Do you need to watch it again?” Javier asked.
“Not right now. Would you guys mind if I got a copy of the file to take to my hotel room?”
The two detectives looked at each other. Then Javier said, “I guess that’s okay. I was just gonna let you look at it here.”
“I would appreciate that. I’ll get everything back to you as soon as I’m done.” Stanton rose. “It was nice meeting you guys.”
Javier nodded, but Jay turned back to the video without saying a word. As Stanton walked out, he knew instinctively that the file would be missing the most important details. His finding the perp would be the worst-case scenario for those two. They would always be reminded of it, and they would never receive the respect that police officers’ egos sometimes required.
Stanton knew they would do everything in their power to stop him from finding the man who’d killed those two people.
7
Stanton found Marty near the entrance of police headquarters, sipping a Coke and reading a magazine about car repair.
“Hey,” he said.
“Hey, are you done?” Marty asked.
“Yeah. Mind giving me a lift back to the hotel?”
“The car is yours.” He pulled out the keys and handed them to Stanton. “It’s a rental.”
“Thanks. Marty, I need the file on the Steed murders. Any way you could get that to me without having to go through Jay and Javier?”
“No way. Parr would have my ass. They’re the assigned detectives, so no one looks at the file without their permission.”
“I could get it for you,” a voice behind him said.
Stanton turned to see a young woman in a police uniform, with straight red hair that came down to her shoulders.
“Hi,” she said, holding out her hand. “I’m Mindi Morgan. I’m the assistant assigned to you.”
“I thought Marty was.”
“He is. I guess I meant I’m also your assistant. Sheriff Hall thought you might need both of us, since Marty isn’t in top form nowadays.”
Marty looked at the ground and was quiet a moment before saying, “I’m a little slow, Jon. I forget things sometimes.”
“I don’t find you slow at all.” He turned to Mindi. “Tell the Sheriff I’m fine with Marty.”
Marty perked up, a grin on his face. Stanton thanked Mindi again for her offer, then left the building with Marty.
“Marty, I need that file. I know Jay and Javier are your friends, but-”
“They’re not my friends. My mom used to say you don’t know what people really think of you until you hear them behind your back. I heard them once. They’re not my friends. I’ll see if I can get you that file.”
“Thanks, Marty. I’m over at the Mirage.” He took out one of his cards and wrote his cell number on it. “Call me when you find anything out.”
“Okay.” Stanton turned to leave.
“Jon, thanks,” Marty blurted out.
“It’s okay, Marty. Just get me that file.”
Stanton used the valet at the Mirage. Since he’d been there last, the casino had set up a new street display for the throngs of tourists going past. It was something about volcanoes. Surrounded by lush vegetation, it appeared like an oasis among the crowded streets of the Vegas strip.
He walked through the lobby and over a small bridge connecting the hotel to the casino. The smell of liquor and smoke was strong, and there were no windows or clocks. This was to trick the gamblers so that they wouldn’t know the time and would gamble freely without worrying about anything outside the casino.
During his time as a graduate student of psychology, Stanton had researched the tactics used by casinos to optimize gambling for a class on limbic system manipulation in marketing. The goal of the casino was to literally recreate the womb, a place of comfort on a primitive level. The colors of the room were always red or soft orange, and mild music was always on a continuous loop, rather than individual songs, to maintain the constant rhythm. During the ’80s and ’90s, casinos released pheromones through the air conditioning systems to encourage aggressive gambling. When a group of Brigham Young University sociology students discovered the tactic, the casinos stopped it immediately and denied ever doing it.