I was down to less than half a box of files to go and wanted to finish before figuring out where I was going to sleep. These were all thin files, the most recent additions to McCaleb's collection, and I could tell most of them contained little more than a newspaper clip and maybe a few notes on the flap.

I reached in and picked one out at random. I should have been in Vegas throwing dice. Because the file I picked turned out to be a long-shot winner. It was the file that gave my investigation focus. It put me on the road.

The file tab simply said 6 missing. It contained a single clipping from the Los Angeles Times and several dated notes and names and phone numbers handwritten on the inside flap, as was McCaleb's routine. I sensed that the file was important before I even read the story or understood the meaning of some of the notes. It was the dating on the flap that triggered this response. McCaleb had jotted his thoughts down on the file four different times, beginning on January 7 and ending on February 28 of this year. He would be dead a month later on March 31. Those notes and those dates were the most recent found in any of the files I had reviewed. I knew I was looking at what might have been Terry's last work. His last case and obsession. There were still files to look at but this one gave me the vibe and I went with it

A reporter I knew wrote the story. Keisha Russell had been working the cop beat at the Times at least ten years and was good at it She was also accurate and fair. She had lived up to every deal I had ever made with her in the years I was on the job, and she had gone out of her way to play fair with me the year before, when I was no longer on the job and things turned bad on my first private case. The bottom line was that I felt comfortable taking anything she wrote as fact. I started to read.

SEARCH FOR A MISSING LINK

ARE NEVADA DISAPPEARANCES OF

2 L.A. MEN, 4 OTHERS CONNECTED?

by Keisha Russell

Times Staff Writer

The mysterious disappearances of at least six men, including two from Los Angeles, from gambling centers in Nevada have got investigators searching for a missing link among the men.

Detectives with the Las Vegas Metro Police said Tuesday that while the men did not know each other and came from widely disparate hometowns and backgrounds, there still may be a commonality among them that could be the key to the mystery.

The men, ranging in age from 29 to 61, were reported missing by their families during the past three years. Four were last known to be in Las Vegas, where police are heading the investigation, and two disappeared while on trips to Laughlin and Primm. None of the men left any indication in then-hotel rooms or vehicles or homes as to where they were going or what became of them.

"At this point it is a stone-cold mystery," said Detective Todd Ritz of Vegas Metro's Missing Persons unit. "People disappear from here or anywhere all the time. But they usually show up later, dead or alive. And there's usually an explanation. With these guys there's nothing. It's a thin air case."

But Ritz and other detectives are sure there is an explanation and they are enlisting the public's help in finding it Last week detectives from Las Vegas, Laughlin and Primm gathered at the Vegas Metro offices to compare notes and set an investigative strategy. They also went public with the case, hoping photographs of the men and their stories would spark new information from the public. On Tuesday, a week later, Ritz reported that not much in the way of usable information had come in.

"There has got to be someone who knows something or saw something or heard something," said Ritz in a telephone interview. "Six guys just don't get up and disappear without somebody knowing something. We need that somebody to come forward."

As Ritz said, missing persons cases are numerous. The fact that these six men came to Nevada for business or pleasure and never went home is what makes this case different.

The publicity comes at a time Las Vegas is once again redefining its image. Gone is the marketing strategy that billed the neon city as a family destination. Sin is back in. In the past three years numerous clubs featuring nude or partially nude dancers have been licensed, and many of the casi- nos on the fabled strip have produced shows featuring nudity and strictly adult subject matter. Billboards featuring nudity in their advertisements have been erected and drawn the ire of some community activists. It has all helped change the complexion of the city. Once again it is being marketed as a leave-the-kids-at-home adult playground.

As the recent billboard skirmishes suggest, the change hasn't played well with everyone and many speculate that the disappearances of these six travelers may in some indirect way be linked to the region's return to an anything-goes atmosphere.

"Let's face it," said Ernie Gelson, a columnist for the Las Vegas Sun, "they tried the family fun thing and it didn't play. The town is going back to what plays. And what plays is what pays. Now, is that the missing link that connects these six guys? I don't know. Maybe we never will."

Still, Gelson is uneasy about jumping to any conclusions that would link the missing men to the changing image of Las Vegas.

"First of all, remember, they didn't all disappear from Las Vegas," he said. "And second to that, there are not enough facts to substantiate any theory at the moment. I think we have to sit back and let the mystery resolve itself before we jump on any bandwagons."

The missing men are:

– Gordon Stansley, 41, of Los Angeles, missing since May 17,2001. He checked into the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino in Las Vegas but his bed was never slept in and his suitcase never unpacked. He is married and has two children.

– John Edward Dunn, 39, of Ottawa, Canada, who was driving from his home to Los Angeles on a vacation. He never made it to his intended destination, his brother's home in Granada Hills. Dunn's 30-foot recreational vehicle was found Dec. 29,2001, at an RV park in Laughlin. That was 20 days after his expected arrival in Granada Hills.

– Lloyd Rockland, 61, disappeared from Las Vegas on June 17,2002. His plane from Atlanta arrived at 11 a.m. at McCarran International Airport. He picked up a Hertz rental car, but he never checked in to the MGM Grand, where he had a reservation. His car was returned to the Hertz rental car center at the airport at 2 p.m. the next day but nobody seems to remember the father of four and grandfather of three being the one who returned it.

– Fenton Weeks, 29, of Dallas, TX, was reported missing Jan. 25, 2003, after he did not return from a business trip to Las Vegas. Police determined he had checked in to the Golden Nugget in downtown Las Vegas and attended the first day of an electronics exposition held at the Las Vegas Convention Center but was not in attendance on the second and third days. His wife reported him missing. He has no children.

– Joseph O'Leary, 55, of Berwyn, PA, disappeared May 15 of last year from the Bellagio where he was staying with his wife. Alice O'Leary left her husband in the casino playing blackjack while she went to spend the day at the resort's spa. Several hours later her husband failed to return to their suite. O'Leary, a stockbroker, was reported missing the next day.

– Rogers Eberle, 40, of Los Angeles, disappeared Nov. 1 while on a day off from his work as a graphic designer at the Disney Studios in Burbank. His car was found parked in the lot outside the Buffalo Bill's Casino in Primm, NV, just across the California border on the Interstate 15 freeway.

Investigators say there are few leads in the investigation. They point to Rockland 's rental car as possibly being the best clue they have. The car was returned 27 hours after it was picked up by Rockland. It had been driven 328 miles during that period, according to Hertz records. Whoever returned it to the Hertz airport center dropped it off without waiting for a receipt or to speak to a Hertz clerk.