Dark Carnival Murders (9 page)

In one of the side rooms,
Lynn was listening to their conversations as they came in range of
the receiver. She nodded to me and Earl as we stood by listening.
We had arrived about a half hour prior to Buck’s entrance, waiting
for them. Penny decided to stay home; she was tired and not wanting
to get in the middle of a gun fight if things went
wrong.

~~*~~

Buck and his party came to
the door of their room and Buck knocked. The door was opened by one
of the carnies that Buck recognized, but didn’t know his name. The
man smiled and said to come in. Buck let the women go in first,
then Mac. The man identified himself as Louie, said to the women to
make themselves comfortable and then pulled Buck and Mac
aside.

"The plan has been
changed, we’re not grabbing anyone tonight."

Buck was startled when he
heard that. "Why weren’t we told about this at the carnival, would
have saved a lot of time."

"Things came up at the
last minute, no time to get word to you."

"What about these
women?"

"Hey, you got a luxury
room and four hot women, use your imagination." the greasy man
grinned, showing a mouthful of teeth that needed
pulling.

Buck was now desperate,
"Well, we could take the women to the place where they need to
go."

"Nah, everyone is going to
be busy at the jewelry store. So there won’t be anyone to take care
of the women."

"Jewelry store, what’s
up?"

"Oh yeah, you’re new, Dark
likes to hit a couple jewelry stores in the towns we’re in, helps
build our retirement funds," he laughed and walked out the
door.

"Well, fuck," Buck
exploded after Louie was gone.

Kim came over and asked,
"What’s up?"

"The snatch has been
cancelled, Dark is committing other crimes and he can’t be bothered
with us."

"There’s going to be no
kidnapping tonight?"

"That’s what I’m
told."

Buck heard a banging on
the room door, he figured it was Lynn and opened the door. He was
right.

Lynn entered and said, "I
sent a couple men to follow Louie, maybe we’ll catch Dark pulling
his crime." She wasn’t happy.

"You heard that through
the wire while Kim was across the room?" Buck asked.

"We have good equipment.
Now we need to regroup and find out what Dark is up to. This sucks
and was a total waste of resources. Weber is going to have a nut
when he sees the overtime on this."

"Well if we can find out
what jewelry store Dark is hitting, it may be a save."

"I told Warren to call
when he got a fix on the store, we’ll head out as soon as he has
something."

Lynn turned to the female
officers and said, "I’d like to thank you for coming out, but stay
prepared in case we have to go again."

The women left silently
and Kim went to the other room to have her wire removed. We just
stood in the room waiting for Warren to call.

"Wow, nice view from up
here," Earl said as he looked out the window overlooking the strip
all the way up to the Stratosphere.

"If we could open the
window you could slide down the side of the pyramid," I
joked.

"I’ve been on a real
pyramid in Egypt, on a mission to stop a terrorist. We got our man
and I got to see the top of the pyramid."

"If you want to go to the
top of this one, I won’t stop you," I said with a laugh.

Lynn said, "You two should
start your own comedy routine, I know the entertainment director
for the Golden Nugget."

"Hey, where’s Deacon? I
forgot all about him." I asked.

"He’s on a mission, to
close down an escort service operating illegally out of Circus,
Circus," Lynn said.

"Hooker clowns?" I
laughed.

"Shut up Jim, Deacon is…"
Before she finished, her cell phone buzzed. She grabbed her phone,
looked at the caller ID and smiled, then answered.

"Warren, talk to me." She
listened for a moment and hung up. She yelled to her men, now in
the hallway, to head out. Buck and Mac said they were staying in
the room for the night, it was better than the camper, so Earl and
I followed the cops. She gave the address to everyone in the
elevator on the way down.

We went to our cars and
drove up the boulevard to Flamingo Road and east to where Warren
said the jewelry store was located. We pulled into the small strip
mall and up to the store on the corner. It looked empty from the
front, and there was no alarm sounding. Warren was parked down the
lot and came up.

"Williams went around
back, I haven’t heard from him yet."

Lynn tried the door, it
was locked. She told a couple of her men to watch the front and
took the rest of us to the back. We carefully came around the side
and saw a couple cars parked in the back alley. Lynn motioned to
two of the uniforms to go around the back of a wall along the alley
and to come up from the other side. They left and Lynn turned to
Warren and asked, "Where’s Williams?"

"He said he was going back
here, God I hope they didn’t grab him."

"That would be Williams,
always a fuckup. Okay, let’s go down to the door to see what’s
up?"

Lynn, Warren and two
uniforms crept down the alley and up to the back door. Earl and I
were behind them, with our weapons drawn. We got to the door of the
jewelry store and Lynn told us to wait. She tried the door, it was
also locked. She backed up and said to wait for anyone to come
out.

We stood in the alley as
Lynn called back to the precinct to get the listing for the owner
of the jewelry store and to have them come down. I looked around
and only saw two cars, if Dark had a big hit going on here there
should be more cars parked around. I looked down the alley and
could see the two uniforms, waiting.

Suddenly the back door
opened and we all brought up our weapons, a figure came out, it was
Detective Williams.

*

Chapter 12

"Bernie! What’s going on,
who’s inside?" Lynn demanded.

"No one," he
said.

"Okay talk to me, what
happened?"

"We followed Louie, he
drove around the back and we stopped in the front. I told Greg that
I was going around the back and when I got there I found the door
wide open and Louie’s car was gone. I carefully listened but heard
nothing so went in and found the place empty. It’s a mess in there;
they must have left just before we arrived. "

Lynn went past Williams
and entered the building followed by everyone. The back room was
torn up, boxes spilled and cabinets opened. It looked like they
were in a rush to get whatever they needed.

I was studying the door,
it didn’t look like it was forced. It was a heavy steel door with
two locks that had to be opened from the inside. I was sure the
owner didn’t forget to lock it. Lynn was now out front in the
showroom and I went out there. The glass of all the display cases
was smashed and it looked like they knew what to take, leaving the
cheaper looking jewelry.

"This sucks worse than the
cancelled kidnapping, we were too late. Damn, this is not good."
She pulled her phone and called CSI to come in. We heard a noise at
the front door and everyone jumped pulling their guns. A pasty
faced man, short, fat and in poor shape entered. He looked shocked
at the sight of all the guns pointed at him.

"Relax everyone!" Lynn
yelled. She went to the man and asked if he was the owner, he said
he was and his name was Joseph Lusk.

"What the hell happened
here!" he yelled when he saw the mess. He went to the display cases
and quickly examined the contents. "The fuckers got the good stuff.
When did this happen?"

"We figure about an hour
ago, we had a tip that this was going to go down, but we got here
just after they left," Lynn said hoping to calm the man. He
continued to rant and swear at the top of his lungs for about ten
minutes searching the cases.

"Williams, will you take
down Mr. Lusk’s accounting of what was stolen, please?" Lynn asked
the detective to get Lusk’s attention away from the mess and to
shut up his ranting.

Lynn left the showroom and
went back to the rear door. She was checking it out when I came up,
"It doesn’t looked forced, maybe Dark had someone on the inside,
who either opened it for them or left it unlocked?"

"I’m sure the employees
would have noticed an extra person in the building. Unless one of
the employees was in on it." She turned to Warren and asked, "Check
with Lusk as to who was working today and how we can reach them."
He went off as Lynn stepped into the alley. She knelt and looked
around the ground. "Too many tire marks back here and none are
distinct enough."

"Trying to take my job
now, Lynn," came a voice from the doorway. It was Larry Wayne, the
supervisor of CSI. "I’m glad you cleared the crime scene and kept
all your people from walking around on it."

Lynn stood, embarrassed,
"Sorry, we got here and it’s been a bit hectic."

"It’s all right, we’ll
work around your people," he said with a big smile.

Lynn went to the door just
as Warren was coming up, "Get everyone out of there until CSI
checks the building."

"Sure, Lusk said it was
just him and his wife working today, no one else was in the
building that he saw." He turned, went back in and chased everyone
out.

"That he saw," I repeated.
"Could Dark have gotten someone in the place to hide until after
the store closed?"

"It’s possible. We’ll have
to see if Lusk had security cameras running when he was closing up.
Hopefully he did."

"I’m sure he did, he seems
to be the nervous type about his store," Earl offered.

Lynn turned to Earl who
was standing behind us by the door, "Are you still with
us?"

"Yes I am. I once saw this
in an old movie, circus comes to town and they distract the owner
of a store while the bad guys slip a little person past the owner
and he hides in a cabinet in the back room. He disables the alarm
and opens the back door. Simple." Earl grinned like he solved the
case.

"Little person? Like a
midget?" Lynn asked.

"Can’t call them midgets
anymore, it offends them," I said.

"Geez, political
correctness is running rampant. Does Dark have a little person in
his troop of carnies?"

"It’s possible," I said
pulling my cell phone. "I’ll call Buck to see."

I went off to the side of
the alley as Buck answered. "Jimmy, this hotel room is nice. Mac is
relaxing in the whirlpool."

"I hope he’s not naked.
Tell me, is there a little person who works for Dark?"

"Little person, you mean a
midget? Yeah, Ben is a little person, stands about three-one,
why?"

"Long story, I’ll tell you
later. Thanks and don’t run up too big of a room bill, Dark might
get upset."

I hung up and went back to
Lynn, "Buck says they do have a little person in the carnival. But
it’s a stretch that he was involved."

"Hey, it’s my theory. Let
me have the glory of having figured it out," Earl said.

Lynn frowned, "Whatever,
we need to do something. If I haul Dark and his people in for
questioning because we knew he was going to pull this, that blows
Buck and Mac’s cover and we may never find the boys. We’ll have to
sit on this and make the kidnapping a priority. Buck needs to push
Dark into going again with the women. Jim, call him back and see
what he can do."

"Will do, give me a little
time to set it up with him." I went back to the side and called
Buck explaining everything that happened here and that he needed to
prod Dark into going again on the kidnapping. He agreed and I hung
up.

"He’s going to do his best
to get it going again," I said to Lynn.

"So it’s a waiting game
again, I’m so going to change occupations," Lynn moaned.

"Have you ever thought of
becoming a stripper?" Earl said.

"Just who invited you to
this party anyways?"

"Blame Jim, he brought
me."

Lynn gave me a snarl and
went back into the building. I smacked Earl on the shoulder and
called him a putz. We followed her in and found that CSI was just
finishing up. Lynn was talking to Larry Wayne and they had nothing
much to go on. Larry said they found a few fingerprints on the
alarm system but most were just smudges and the video tapes from
the cameras were taken.

"Great, we have no video
to watch now. They took care of everything. Warren, get on the
computer and see if you can find any similar robberies in cities
that Dark went through."

"Williams pulled a list of
the route taken by the carnival, through registered permits, I can
go with that," he said and started to go.

"Get on it and quickly."
She went back to Larry and asked, "What’s your expert
opinion?"