Sin City Homicide Read Online Free PDF Page B

as loudly as any bold actions. He had noticed those sorts of things since childhood.
    “What’re they on your ass for?” Jay asked.
    “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