Murder at the Edge of the Desert

By Xlibris US

Jack Dugan, a Gaming Enforcement Agent in Nevada, finds a severed foot on an island in Lake Mead. This begins a journey of discovering to whom the foot belongs and the why of its being on that island. Along the way, he must untangle a complicated plot of murder involving a major casino in Las Vegas and a secret river of gold in the desert.
How does the notorious serial killer, the Son of Las Vegas, figure into this devastating scenario, and who may be next on the serial killers list of victims? Will it be Jack Dugan, his wife Jennifer, one or more of his friends, or perhaps his cousin, homicide detective Mal Doss?
Come along on this fascinating ride toward the truth and find out who is behind this nefarious plot to possess the soul of Las Vegas.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Apr 17, 2014
• ISBN: 9781493130184

Book preview

CHAPTER ONE

It all started again the day Jack Dugan found the woman’s severed foot out at Lake Mead. ‘It’ of course were the killings. No one at that time associated the finding of the woman’s foot with the serial killings—that wouldn’t come until later. After all, it had been eight years since the last killing and life had moved on. People forgot about the serial killer, someone who had terrified the city of Las Vegas for a year and a half and had killed nine people, leaving only one survivor. When the killings had stopped suddenly, people, including the police, had assumed the killer had moved on to another city, or had gone to prison on some other charge, or had died. They were wrong.

Nine years earlier Neil Wiley didn’t know anything about the Son of Las Vegas serial killer. He was thought to be the first of this killer’s victims; he and Cindy Tanya Adams, a prostitute he had picked up in his Ford pickup truck less than an hour before.

Neil had finished his work that day at a local construction site, where he was a finishing carpenter, at around five in the afternoon. Neil was not a good looking man by most people’s standards; his head was too small compared to the rest of his body. He was five foot nine inches tall, but weighed two hundred and thirty five pounds, most of which was beginning to shift from his barrel chest to his burgeoning belly. It was his head though that made him appear grotesque. His head was more the size of a child’s head, too small to fit the rapidly growing vehicle below it. And he was nearly bald in an unfortunate way. The very top of his head was free of hair but was surrounded by a thick growth of unnatural thatch that grew in many directions at once. This made his head appear to be a wide path cut through a thicket of scraggly bushes.

That day in late February was like many other days for Neil. He finished his work, which usually began in the still-dark hours of the morning and ended between two and five in the afternoon, depending on the time of the year. The earlier hours were to accommodate the incredible heat of the Las Vegas summers by finishing his work prior to the hottest part of the day. Neil stopped in front of a store-front bar on Las Vegas Boulevard South, just north of Bonneville Street. There was an adult arcade just down the street and prostitutes commonly trolled Las Vegas Boulevard on the sidewalk in front of the bar.

Neil liked using prostitutes but couldn’t afford their services every day. Perhaps once or twice a week he would leave the bar and look for an available street-walker to take to his pickup truck with its darkly tinted windows. Sometimes he would negotiate for a blow-job, which he could get in the parking lot behind the bar, by putting a folding sun block in his windshield and relying on his blackened side and back windows to shield him from prying eyes. If he wanted more, he would drive with the prostitute to a more secluded place, perhaps in several industrial areas that he was familiar with.

On this day, Neil Wiley wanted more than a blow-job. He had saved up money that week, slowed his gambling addiction slightly to afford the twenty or thirty dollars more that intercourse would cost him on the street. Neil felt that this was the only avenue open to him to get what he wanted, sex with no strings attached. He couldn’t afford to drive out to Pahrump where he could go to one of the legal brothels. They charged too much money, although, to be honest, Neil had never been to a brothel. He assumed that he could not afford their charges, having been told by several other construction workers how expensive they were.

Neil settled for Cindy Tanya Adams, who was walking north on Las Vegas Boulevard just down the street from the bar. He had passed her in his pick-up, having watched her from behind, and checked out her face and breasts from his rear view mirror after passing her. She looked good to him. She was not young, perhaps in her early thirties, although in that trade, with the normal extended drug use and street abuse, it was hard to tell. One woman that Neil had picked up, whom he thought to be in her forties, turned out to be in her middle twenties, if she had told him the truth.

Cindy Adams was indeed in her thirties, her early thirties, and was hooking to provide for a raging methamphetamine addiction. Her addiction had started slowly, using the drug recreationally with her then boyfriend, who was far more addicted than Cindy had realized. Her use escalated over time and she had lost her job as a cashier for Albertson’s supermarket when she had gotten caught taking money from the register at the end of her shift. She had gotten several other short term jobs after that, at a convenience store and several gas stations, but her growing addiction had prevented her maintaining any kind of serious employment.

At her last job, a gas station, the manager had fired her for three days of no-call-no-show, but had offered her money if she would have sex with him in the storage room of the gas station before she left. She accepted, for the money would buy her two rocks of Meth and would keep her high for two days if she didn’t share with another addict. That was the beginning of her career in prostitution and what had led her to that day, the last day of her life.

I’m Tanya. Cindy had said to Neil Wiley, as she slid into the passenger seat of his 1989 Ford pickup.

How much? Neil asked without bothering to introduce himself as he put the truck in gear and moved into traffic from the curb.

Tanya gave Neil a good look up and down and picked his occupation very quickly as a construction worker. His clothes were soiled in a labor sort of way with construction debris still caught in the fibers of his shirt and there was wood dust on his well-used denim jeans. His boots were worn and a steel toe could be seen poking out from a gash in his right boot, the one on the gas pedal.

Twenty for a blow job; fifty for everything. Cindy hurriedly assessed.

I got forty. Neil lied. But I do want everything.

Can you do forty five? Cindy weighed in after a moment of thought. The idea of going down on this guy was repulsive to Cindy and if she could do straight sex without the blow job, it would be worth the negotiation. She could smell his body odor from across the cab of the pickup and could imagine what his cock and groin area would smell like. But she desperately needed to get high and this was not a new situation for her.

Neil shook his head. Forty’s all I got! He lied again.

How about forty for straight up only? Cindy countered. No blow job.

Neil considered this, for although he loved looking down at a woman sucking his dick, he really wanted sex today and had saved over sixty dollars for it.

Alright. He acquiesced. Do you have a place?

Cindy shook her head. She lived with two other prostitutes in a rundown one bedroom apartment on Third Street, within walking distance of where Neil had picked her up.

Anywhere’s fine. She stated simply.

Neil drove north on Las Vegas Boulevard, passed under the I-95 freeway, then turned right on Bonanza and right again at the next street. This put them under the I-95 freeway where there was a parking area under the freeway. He pulled the pickup to the back of this parking lot, slid the seat back as far as it would go, and undid the zipper of his jeans.

We’re gonna have to switch seats! Neil declared matter-of-factly. Otherwise you’re gonna get stuck on the steering wheel!

Take down your pants first. Cindy suggested. Slide over here and I’ll just sit on top of you.

They managed to accomplish this maneuver and Cindy was pleased to notice that Neil already had a hard-on. This would negate any reason for her to have to give him a blow job to get him hard, as sometimes her ‘johns’ would demand. Cindy lifted up her short skirt to reveal that she had on no underwear, a fact that made Neil’s hard-on even more erect, and slid delicately onto Neil’s extended penis.

Neil and Cindy had barely begun the act of coitus when an explosion occurred right next to the passenger side window, bursting the window, shattering it into a hundred shards of cutlery. Cindy’s head seemed to come apart in pieces which hurtled toward the driver’s side window, spraying blood and brain matter over the interior of the pickup and onto the other window. Neil was instantly both shocked and disgusted. It was as if some alien creature had finally released itself from Cindy’s head, and in Neil’s confused mind, it would attack him next.

Neil tried desperately to push Cindy from on top of him but her leg was trapped between his leg and the door frame. He only managed to help her slump sideways to fall prone onto the seat next to him, her trapped leg pinioned awkwardly, impossibly at a crooked angle against the door. Neil was a strong man but all he could do was shove Cindy’s body to the floor, still trapped inside the pickup by Cindy’s useless appendage.

He looked toward the now open window, from where the breeze was emanating, and could see the odd, cylindrical shape of the barrel of a handgun reflected in the pale light from a distant street lamp. He saw nothing more, but may have heard the report of the shot that blew his head nearly apart.

Malvern Doss was a homicide detective with the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department and was called from his supper, a late one at that because he had been watching Monday Night Football. His wife simply shrugged and handed him the phone as she took away his plate from where it sat on the arm of his recliner, everything eaten but the lima beans. It was nearly eight o’clock on that late February evening and was already dark outside. It had been dark for over two hours.

Malvern wrote down the instructions from dispatch, got out of his chair and began putting on his equipment that had been sitting on the sideboard in the dining room. His equipment was minimal and all the holsters were paddle backed, which allowed him to simply drop them into place behind his belt. He wore an undercover carry holster for his Glock 27, which enabled him to carry the semi-automatic pistol close to his body. His handcuffs and extra magazine were side by side in another paddle back holster and he carried a key holder that snapped in front, silencing the jangling of his keys. These were the extent of his tools for this kind of call, other than the police radio that he slipped into the inside pocket of his sport coat.

Malvern appreciated his job. He liked not having to wear a uniform except on formal dress-up days like officer funerals or extra duty assignments. He didn’t have set hours like cops outside the detective bureau. He and five other cops in his squad worked four days a week on call and then had three days off. There was a one-day overlap with the other squad. When he was on call he didn’t know when the call would come to begin a homicide investigation, but found that they usually occurred during the night time hours. He had learned how to sleep during the day and night in snatches.

Malvern Doss parked his unmarked police vehicle, a white Ford sedan, next to the other unmarked Ford sedan in the parking lot under the I-95 freeway in downtown Las Vegas. The other unmarked Ford belonged to his partner, Mark Shatner, who obviously had beaten him to the crime scene. The police tape surrounding the scene, a motley red Ford pickup, older, probably 1988 or 89 thought Malvern, was secured to portable stanchions placed in a square around the truck.

Malvern lifted the tape and ducked under to walk the extra feet to the truck. He walked around to the passenger’s side where he could see Mark talking to a uniformed officer, one of four or five standing around in a small group on that side of the truck. No press had arrived yet; that was a lucky break.

What’s the deal? Malvern asked Mark, who was several years younger than Malvern and had been paired with Malvern to be mentored in the process of a homicide investigation.

Hey, Mal. Mark seemed to chirp, way too eager for Malvern’s taste that evening. Surely Mark had been watching the football game as well and had to leave right at the vital moments. He should be grumpy like Malvern.

What happened here? Malvern impatiently repeated.

Mark pointed to the interior of the pickup through the passenger door which was now wide open. The opening was obscured by two white suited crime scene specialists who were busy taking swabs and fingerprint markings on the interior of the door and the dashboard. The driver’s side door was open as well with two more technicians taking blood swabs and looking for trace evidence that could be catalogued before the Medical Examiner arrived to release the bodies. One of the technicians on the driver’s side was taking photographs of the bodies and their positions as well as the general crime scene. The pickup truck would be gone over in earnest back at Metro’s evidence lab once the bodies were removed.

It looks like these two were in the middle of fucking when somebody plugged them through the closed window here. The window shattered with the impact of the bullet, which probably hit the woman first and lodged in the door panel over there on the driver’s side.

Malvern listened to Mark’s explanation, following the directions that Mark pointed out with his finger.

The guy was probably shot second as it looks like he was trying to get out from under victim number one when his head was blown off. Mark continued, gesturing as he talked. That bullet lodged in the bench seat of the truck over there. He pointed to a ragged hole in the seat closer to the driver’s side of the truck. I would say that the crook stood approximately here according to the trajectory of the last bullet and the powder burns on the guy’s head—or what’s left of it!

Mark stood approximately two feet from the truck and aimed his finger into the interior of the vehicle as if he were holding a pistol.

Anybody hear or see anything? Malvern asked, pondering the scene in front of him.

Don’t know yet. Mark responded, looking around at the residential neighborhood on the other side of the parking lot and street. The uniforms are doing a door-to-door check, but nobody in the neighborhood has called in.

How did we get the call then? Malvern inquired.

Oh yah… Mark jumped in embarrassedly. The cabbie over there was driving a fare home and afterwards pulled in here to do some paperwork and saw the blood on the driver’s side window of the pickup. He checked it out and called it in.

Malvern glanced in the direction that Mark was pointing and saw a middle aged swarthy man with an almost bald pate nervously biting his fingernails. He stood inside the open door of a Scion taxicab watching the activity in front of him.

What else does he say? Malvern asked. Did he see anything suspicious on his pass by with the fare?

Nah, he didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary. He couldn’t say for certain if there was another car here or not, but he doesn’t think so. He doesn’t remember it that way anyway.

Ok. Malvern said with finality and walked back to his vehicle, Mark walking a step behind him.

As he walked, Malvern spoke over his shoulder to Mark.

I’m gonna head to the station. You stay here and finish with the ME and the crew here. Check with the uniforms if they got anything from the neighborhood. I’ll check with dispatch at the station and see if they got anything. Maybe patrol saw something suspicious in the neighborhood. I’ll check the records and see if anything like this has happened before.

Mark nodded as Malvern got into his vehicle and drove away.

In the days following, the investigation followed a normal pattern with trace evidence being processed, fingerprints being catalogued and investigated, blood being analyzed, reports being written, and a homicide book being started to hold all of the written documents and lab reports. Officers had checked for tire prints unassociated with the pickup at the scene, but, although the parking lot where the pickup was found was dirt, no distinguishable tire prints were detected. The shooter may have walked to the scene or may have parked on the street close by.

No one from the neighborhood saw or heard anything that roused their suspicions and, in that they were near the freeway, loud report-type noises were not that uncommon. They didn’t notice a gunshot, or maybe they did but thought it was a car backfire or some other noise from the freeway. Either way, no one paid any attention and knew nothing pertinent to the investigation.

The Medical Examiner’s report detailed the extent of the injuries to both victims and basically reiterated what Mark had explained at the scene. The victims were likely in the process of having sex when they were shot through the passenger’s window of the pickup by someone standing right next to the truck. Besides the single shot to the head of each victim, the victims were lacerated by flying glass, most likely the result of the blown-out window. The sex act had not been completed, although victim number one had several different specimens of semen in her vagina. None of the semen had been that of victim number two however.

The victims’ fingerprints revealed them to be Cindy Adams and Neil Wiley. Cindy had been previously fingerprinted during her several arrests for prostitution and soliciting for prostitution and Neil had been fingerprinted when he applied for a sheriff’s card to work as a bartender several years ago. Theirs were the only fingerprints found in the pickup.

The case went idle; at least for seven months until the second set of killings emerged.

Thomas Sandahl had never solicited a prostitute before. His girlfriend of two years had dumped him two days earlier, or rather he had caught her with her boss in Thomas’ bed when he came home early from work. He was a craps dealer at the Tropicana Casino and had come down with food poisoning from eating out of a vending machine at work. He didn’t have time to go to the Help’s Hall at the Tropicana to get a hot meal because he had a personal phone call he had to do on his lunch break. He had grabbed the cold sandwich from the machine as an accommodation to the shortness of his time.

When he started to get sick, he miserably complained that he had no luck without bad luck, until he got home and discovered Linda on top of Eric in