“Jon Stanton might actually solve this fucking thing. If he does, it’s gonna make us look like monkeys. Make sure he doesn’t.”
16
Stanton walked down to the Sunday morning buffet. The food was laid out nicely, and the dishes were freshly washed. He piled eggs and watermelon onto his plate before grabbing a Diet Coke and sitting down at a table by the window.
He’d spent the previous day doing little. Most of the Robbery-Homicide division, as well as Marty and Mindi, were off, and little work was expected from anyone there. He had met resistance at the Flamingo while trying to get a record of the crimes reported on June twelfth, and he didn’t want to pull out a badge from San Diego. He had left a message for Marty, asking him to go down there and get it.
Stanton’s cell phone buzzed. It was Mindi.
“Hey,” he said.
“Hey.”
“How was your day off?”
“Sorry about that. That’s, like, my only day off the whole week, and I didn’t want to-”
“No, I was genuinely asking. It’s all right.”
“Oh, it was good. I spent time with my mom and went shopping. She lives in Portland but gets down here every couple o’ months. What’d you do?”
“I watched the Beatles Love show. It was really good. Other than that, I just walked around. Went to the mall and bought a few things for my boys.”
“Aw, cute. Do you miss them?”
“I do. I haven’t been able to spend as much time with them since the divorce.” Stanton dipped some eggs in ketchup and took a bite. “So, what’s going on?”
“I was just calling to see if you wanted to go see Fredrick Steed today.”
“Not today.”
“Why not?”
“It’s Sunday.”
“Yeah, and?”
“It’s the Sabbath.”
There was a pause on the other line. “You’re kidding, right?”
“No, I don’t work on the Sabbath.”
“Wow. Never heard that in this town before. So what’re you gonna do?”
“I’m going to church.”
“What church?”
“There’s one nearby on North Hollywood. Why? Do you want to join me?”
She hesitated. “Sure.”
“I was kind of kidding. There’s no pressure.”
“No, maybe I can talk you into speaking about the case. What time?”
“Half an hour.”
“I’ll pick you up.”
Stanton hung up and finished his eggs. Perhaps he’d been wrong about Mindi. She seemed genuinely interested in solving this case and offered little of the duplicitous behavior he’d seen with people trying to rise in government careers.
Before leaving, he put his plate in a bin by the garbage and thanked the two Hispanic men who were serving. He walked once around the casino in a slow, purposeful manner. For some reason he couldn’t identify, he was fascinated with the gamblers. It was early in the morning, but they were still here. Stanton stopped at a table and stood alongside a group of them, watching their movements, their eyes, and their facial expressions. They took deep drags off cigarettes and snuffed them out prematurely, only to light more. They sipped their beers if they were losing then guzzled them if they were winning.
An older man with a graying wisp of a beard held a lit cigarette between his fingers and another in his mouth. He forgot the one in his mouth was there and took a sip of a cocktail, dipping the cigarette into it. He didn’t notice until the dealer said something. The man swore, placed the cigarette on an ashtray, and finished the drink.
Working memory, which is the memory a person is using at any given time, could only hold half a dozen objects. When a new object or information presents itself, such as a dangling cigarette, it pushes another object out of the working memory. The gamblers had such focus, were so completely engrossed in the games that their brains were literally not functioning normally. Their amygdala could not bring a new object into the working memory. They were more or less zombies.
Stanton walked outside and felt the sunshine on his face. The balminess from the pavement wafted up and warmed him. He saw Mindi sitting in a Jeep Wrangler, waiting for him. As he approached, she leaned over and opened the door.
“I like the Jeep,” he said.
“Thanks. It’s my baby. I’ve had it since college.”
Stanton went to strap in and found there wasn’t a seatbelt. “Not the safest car.”
“No, but that’s not why people get Jeeps.” She pulled out of the Mirage and onto Las Vegas Boulevard. “Never been to a Mormon church before.”
“Almost the same as anywhere else. There’s one session at the very end where we split up and the men go into one class and the women into another, but I’m sure everyone will be really friendly. You have nothing to be nervous about.”
“I’m not nervous.”
“You’re clicking the nails on your thumb and pointer finger. I can hear it from here.”
She stopped. “You don’t miss anything, do you?”
They drove in silence for a few minutes then flipped the radio to a classic rock station. Elton John was playing, and when the song ended, the DJ discussed his bowel movement that morning.
“Sorry,” she said, changing the station.
“It’s fine. It was kind of funny.”
“Can I ask you something personal, Jon?”
“Sure.”
“Why did you come out here? It seems like this is the last place someone like you would want to be.”
“Someone like me?”
“That came out wrong. But you know what I mean. This place… even the cops…”
“I know. But I had a feeling I should come out here. A prompting.”
“Prompting? From what? Like, angels?”
“Something like that.”
“No, don’t brush me off. I’m serious.”
“My religion believes that the Holy Ghost can guide us if we’re faithful and live a good life.”
“So, you think the Holy Ghost brought you out to Vegas?”
“Yeah, actually, I do.”
“I mean, in this day and age, you really believe in all that stuff about a deity and his crucified son and all that?”
“Yes.”
“It’s so illogical, though. There’s no evidence for it. The followers are usually crazy. How do you justify it? Where’s the proof?”
Stanton looked out the window as Mindi drove up a ramp onto the freeway. “I was investigating a case once, like, fifteen years ago. I’d only been on the force a couple of years and was basically doing DUIs and traffic tickets like everybody else. I’d gotten some reports of a drunk driver hitting a lamppost and taking off, so I went down there. I got a call from someone at the precinct, letting me know they’d stopped the guy three miles from where I was, and they were transporting him back for interrogation and booking.
“So, I spoke to a couple of witnesses and got statements and headed back to the precinct. We had this interrogation room that was really more like a closet that we’d taken over ’cause we ran out of room. You had to go through two doors to go into it. They told me where he was, to go interview him, and to ask for his consent to take his blood. I went through the first door… and I stopped. I just completely stopped and couldn’t move. It felt cold, and there was this gnawing in my gut. It felt tight, like I’d eaten something bad and was about to vomit. And this feeling just came over me about this guy. I’d never met him, never talked to him, but I had this feeling about him.
“I went in, and he seemed like a normal guy. Had an Eastern European accent. He consented to the blood draw, so I took his statement and sent in a phlebotomist and didn’t think about him again. About a month later, I found out from one of the other detectives that he’d been arrested on a warrant out of Los Angeles that was issued by proxy for the International Criminal Court. He had been a soldier during the Bosnian War, stationed at a camp in Foca, where his job, his literal job, was to rape young girls and women every day. He was extradited and convicted. The court found that he was responsible for at least four hundred rapes and over a dozen murders.