by James Swain
LeAnn backed down the driveway. The tailpipe was making horrible sounds that disrupted the quiet morning. She braked before reaching the street, and motioned to me. I hustled over to her open window.
“Would you like to know what I think?” she asked.
I said that I did.
“Detective Cheeks railroaded my husband, and now he’s railroading my son,” she said. “If you don’t believe me, ask the manager of the Smart Buy.”
“You mean Mr. Vorbe,” I said.
“Yes. He told me so this morning while delivering my groceries. Detective Cheeks came to his store, and tried to coerce him into saying untrue things about Jed. Ask him if you don’t believe me.”
Her car rattled and clanked as she drove away. The noise it was making was loud, but not nearly as loud as the alarm going off inside my head. Cheeks had destroyed evidence in one murder investigation, and now he was coercing witnesses in another.
I ran to my car.
The Smart Buy was open for business, and I went inside to the help desk. The young lady manning the desk was the same one who’d assisted me the other day. I asked for Jean-Baptiste Vorbe, and she made a call to his office.
“I think Mr. Vorbe is outside with the police,” she said.
I thanked her, and went outside the store. There weren’t any cops in the front of the building, and I walked around to the back. A police cruiser was parked by the Dumpsters, and I saw two cops standing on ladders, poking through the garbage with long sticks. Several torn bags lay on the ground. I looked for Vorbe, but didn’t see him.
“She isn’t here, and neither’s her kid,” one of the uniforms said.
“Keep looking,” the other said.
“We should have brought some fly spray.”
“Tell me about it.”
I climbed the stairs to the loading dock, and found Vorbe standing next to the building. He wore a white shirt and black tie, and was leaning on his cane. His brow glistened with sweat, and his graying hair looked electrified in the midday sun.
“Mr. Carpenter,” Vorbe said.
“I need to speak with you,” I said.
“Of course.”
“I hear Detective Cheeks came to see you yesterday.”
Vorbe looked at me in alarm. “Who told you this?”
“LeAnn Grimes. She said that Detective Cheeks tried to coerce you into saying untrue things about her son. Is that true?”
Vorbe glanced at the cops picking through the Dumpster, and lowered his voice. “Detective Cheeks was acting very ugly, very crude. He peppered me with questions about Jed Grimes-Did I remember how many times he’d visited my store? Had I ever seen him with a woman named Piper Stone? Did I know where he might have hidden his wife and son?-and then asked me if I’d testify against him at his trial. When I hesitated, Detective Cheeks yelled at me. I felt like…”
His voice trailed off and I pressed him. “Like what?”
“I do not feel comfortable saying this.”
“Say it anyway.”
“I felt he was trying to intimidate me.”
Vorbe lowered his eyes. My gut told me that he wasn’t telling me everything that had happened. I put my hand on his sleeve, and felt his body tense up.
“What else happened?” I asked.
“Else?” he said.
“The rest of it.”
Vorbe hesitated, then the words poured out. “Detective Cheeks said that I should not talk to any other police officers about the case. He was emphatic about this. He said that if I did, I would pay. Then he told me he would be back.”
“Was his tone threatening?”
“Very.”
Down below, the cops had finished their search and had climbed off their ladders. They retied the torn bags of garbage lying on the ground and hoisted them back into the Dumpster. Then they came over to the loading dock, and thanked Vorbe for his help. Their cruiser kicked up loose gravel as it drove away.
I faced Vorbe. He was still sweating, and his eyes were glassy. Cheeks had done a real number on him. The police were supposed to protect the weak and the innocent, and Cheeks was threatening them instead. I decided it was time to find out why.
“I’m sorry Cheeks put you through this,” I said.
“I don’t want any more trouble,” Vorbe said. “Especially from Detective Cheeks.”
“I’ll take care of Cheeks,” I said.
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
P lantation was in the northwest section of the county, and was still green. Horses galloped behind three-board wood fences, and red-roofed barns towered behind elegant ranch houses. Someday it would be paved over like the rest of south Florida, but for now it was still country.
Finding Cheeks’s place took awhile. I’d gone there once for a Super Bowl party, but I’d forgotten how similar the houses in his neighborhood looked. Luckily, his SUV was parked in his driveway, the same one we’d driven around in a few days ago.
I parked on the street and killed the engine. My daddy had been fond of saying that any argument between two men could end in death. I drew my Colt and checked the clip, then returned it to the holster in my pants pocket.
My heart was pounding as I walked up the front path. Putting my ear to the door, I heard loud music coming from the back of the house. I guessed Cheeks was on the lanai, recuperating from his fake heart attack. I decided to surprise him.
I walked around the side of the house to the backyard. The music was loud enough to cover my footsteps. Eric Clapton’s Miami album, 418 Ocean Boulevard. The cut was one of my favorites. “Motherless Children.”
The lanai was attached to the back of the house, and contained an eating area, a barbecue, and a swimming pool. I pressed my face to the screen. Cheeks sat with his back to me on a reclining beach chair. On his lap was a blond woman wearing a teardrop bikini. She had fake stripper tits and platinum stripper hair and was coming on to him the way only a stripper can. Seeing me playing peek-a-boo, she let out a shriek, and hopped off Cheeks’s lap.
“Ronnie, there’s someone here!”
Cheeks tried to jump out of the chair, only his erection wouldn’t let him. He was wearing a flimsy pair of shorts, and they were popping out in the wrong places. The stripper ran into the house, and slammed the slider behind her.
“Get out of here,” Cheeks growled.
I found the screen door in the lanai and went inside. Cheeks came forward with his fists cocked. He was big and hairy and looked like something that had washed up on the beach. I wasn’t going to beat him in a fight, only fighting wasn’t what I had in mind.
“You heard me,” Cheeks said. “Get off my property.”
“First you’re going to answer some questions.”
Cheeks started to circle me, and I pointed an accusing finger at him.
“Why did you destroy evidence that proved Abb Grimes was insane?” I asked.
“I told you, those slippers were lost,” Cheeks said.
“What about Abb’s sleeping medication? Was that lost, too?”
Cheeks’s eyes narrowed and his jaw clenched. It was the look of a trapped animal. I went in for the kill.
“Jed Grimes knew what you did to his father, and has been haunting you for twelve years, hasn’t he?” I asked. “Jed knew you were a dirty cop, and kept telling everyone who would listen. It scared you, and you wanted to shut him up. Then his little boy got abducted, and you decided to frame him to get Jed off your back, once and for all.”
“That’s bullshit.”
“That’s why you kept ignoring evidence in the case, and why you faked a heart attack when it became apparent that Jed wasn’t the kidnapper. You had your doubts about Jed, but you refused to tell anyone else. You wanted the kid to go down.”
“No!”
“I’m taking it all to the police. You’ve got a lot of explaining to do, Ron.”
With a roar Cheeks charged across the lanai like a mad bull. I adroitly stepped to the side, stuck out my leg, and sent him headfirst i
nto the pool. As he flew past, his arm shot out.
Before I knew it, I was underwater with him.
I landed upside down in the deep end of the pool, and stared into watery space. The water was overly chlorinated, and made my nose and eyes burn. Cheeks was beside me, standing upright on the pool floor.
I righted myself in the water. Through a torrent of air bubbles I saw Cheeks’s face. His eyes were popping out of his head, and made him look rabid. He grabbed my throat, and began to strangle me.
I brought my arms up and broke his grip around my neck. Then I grabbed his forearms and held him. He outweighed me by at least fifty pounds, and was probably a lot stronger than I was. On land, he had the advantage, but underwater I was the better man. Through years of swimming, I could hold my breath for a minute at a time, something that I doubted he could do.
I waited him out.
Cheeks tried to wrestle with me, and we moved back and forth across the pool floor. I could feel his arms growing weak as the oxygen in his lungs burned up. Each time he tried to move toward the shallow end of the pool, I pushed him back into the deep end. Fear spread across his eyes as he realized what I was doing. The look turned to desperation, then one begging forgiveness.
I was having none of it.
His mouth opened, and he began to suck down water. A single word came out. It was loud enough for me to hear.
Help.
I did not let him go.
Before my eyes, he began to die, his gaze fixed on some faraway place that only the departed know. His body went slack, his arms fell away, and he turned as limp as a rag doll in my hands. He was a dirty cop, and I told myself that the world was a better place without him. I let him go, and watched him start to float.
A numbing sensation coursed through my body. I’d never let anyone die before. The sensation was unlike any I’d ever felt. It was cold and utterly brutal. I was stepping over to the dark side, to a place that once I ventured, I knew I could never return from.
I was many things, but a cold-blooded killer was not one of them. Sticking my hands beneath his armpits, I pulled Cheeks to the surface.
I dragged him to the shallow end of the pool, threw his body against the stairs, and whacked him on the back. Moments later, he was retching up pool water.
Movement inside the house caught my eye. His stripper girlfriend was standing in the kitchen, yelling into a cordless phone. I didn’t think she was ordering takeout, and I guessed the police would be arriving soon.
“I want you to answer my questions,” I said.
Cheeks nodded violently.
“You destroyed Abb Grimes’s slippers and his sleeping medication. Why?”
“Didn’t want them coming up at trial,” he gasped.
“Because they showed he was crazy?”
“Yeah. Didn’t want him copping an insanity plea.”
“Why did that matter?”
Cheeks rolled on his back, and stared at the revolving ceiling fan above his head. “If a jury saw those slippers, and knew he was taking some crazy drug, they’d pity him. I wasn’t going to let that happen.”
“You wanted him to die.”
“Damn straight. I saw what he did to those girls.”
“What was the sleeping medication called?”
“I don’t remember.”
“Stop lying.”
More water came up, and Cheeks puked it across the pool. The sliding door opened, and the stripper clopped out in her plastic high heels.
“You okay, sweetie?” she asked.
Cheeks fell back on the stairs. “Just having a chat with my friend.”
The stripper looked at me, then back at him. “You know this guy?”
“We used to work together.”
“I called the police,” she said.
“Fuck,” he said under his breath. Then in a normal voice, “Thanks, honey. Now go back inside so we can finish our talk.”
The stripper clopped inside, and the slider closed behind her. I didn’t have much time, and I grabbed his arm. “I want to know the name of that drug.”
“I told you, I don’t remember.”
“Want to go for another swim?”
Cheeks stared at me, and saw I wasn’t kidding. He gave it some thought.
“It was some experimental drug that was being used for people with insomnia,” he said. “Some weird name beginning with a Z. I asked a doctor I knew about it. He said it produced a hypnotic effect in some patients, and gave them delusions.”
“Piper Stone figured this out, didn’t she?”
“Yeah. She confronted me when I was in the hospital. She was a smart kid.”
“Last question. Why did you frame Jed with his son’s abduction?”
“It didn’t start out that way,” Cheeks said. “When we got the call that Sampson was missing, everything pointed to Jed. So that was the direction I went.”
“It was the wrong direction. Someone else snatched that kid.”
“I know,” he mumbled.
I pulled myself out of the pool. I was going to meet the cops outside, and let them hear my side of the story first. A guy I’d once busted had told me this was your best chance to get the cops to believe you. Cheeks looked at me as I started to walk away.
“We need to get our stories straight,” he said.
“Our stories?” I said.
“Yeah. You know what I mean.”
“You think I’m going to lie for you?”
“Why not? I’ll tell them we were having a disagreement, and I don’t want to press charges. In return, you don’t mention what I did.”
I considered dragging Cheeks back into the water, only I was too damn tired. Instead, I walked outside to the front yard, and waited for the police to come and arrest me.
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
T he police sirens were faraway and sounded like a baby’s cry. I took out my Colt, and laid it onto the roof of my car. I’d never gone swimming with my gun before, and had no idea how much damage the water had caused. Seeing that my gun was about to be taken away from me, I supposed it didn’t really matter.
I got my cell phone from the car and punched in my wife’s number at work. Even though Rose was in Tampa, she was still the most dependable person in my life, and I was relieved when I heard her pick up the phone.
“Rose Carpenter,” she answered.
“Hey, honey,” I said.
“I was just thinking about you.”
“I’m in trouble and need your help.”
“What’s wrong?”
“The police are going to haul me in, and I may need to post bail. I hate to ask you this-”
“Of course I’ll bail you out of jail. What happened?”
“I got into a brawl with a dirty cop.”
“Are you all right?”
“Never felt better in my life.”
“What will you be charged with?”
“Assaulting a police officer, possibly breaking and entering.”
“Oh, Jack, this sounds serious.”
The sirens were getting closer. I stepped away from my car, and stood in a neutral pose on Cheeks’s front lawn. I needed to put away my cell phone so the cops didn’t think I was brandishing a weapon. More than one suspect had gotten shot for clutching a cell phone the wrong way.
“I need to go now,” I said. “What’s the best number for me to reach you at?”
“Call my cell. I’ll leave it on.”
“Here they come. I’ll call you later.”
“I love you,” my wife said.
“I love you, too.”
A pair of cruisers turned down the street with their bubble lights flashing, and came hurtling toward me like a pair of rockets. My world was about to turn ugly, and I slipped my cell phone into my pocket, and stuck my arms into the air.
The cruisers braked on the street in a perfect V, and four uniformed cops jumped out. Two went inside to check on Cheeks, while the other two arrested me. I was frisked and cuffed and m
ade to stand on the hot macadam while I was read my rights. As I gave my version of what had happened, the uniform who was taking my statement shut his notepad, and glared at me.
“Don’t make allegations you can’t prove,” the uniform said.
“Ron Cheeks is dirty. Pass it on,” I said.
I was driven to the station house and booked. My clothes and possessions were confiscated, and my body cavities were checked for hidden drugs and weapons. The booking procedure was designed to strip people of their dignity, and I dealt with the humiliation by cracking jokes that no one laughed at.
Next stop was the basement. Instead of being put in a holding pen with a bunch of lowlifes and psychopaths, I was shuttled to an interrogation room, and left by myself. The room had two plastic chairs that were hex-bolted to the floor, and a large mirror covering the wall. It smelled like someone had taken a piss in it.
I went to the mirror and stared at my reflection. My lower lip was bloody, my nose swollen and bruised, and my eyes had a trapped look that I didn’t like. The mirror was two-way, and I wondered who was on the other side watching me. Probably the chief, trying to figure out what he was going to do with me.
“I know my rights. I want to make my phone call,” I said.
I folded my arms and waited. Whoever was on the other side could hear me. There were hidden microphones in the ceiling that were sensitive enough to hear a person’s stomach growl. When no one came into the room, I raised my voice.
“Come on. Let’s get this show on the road.”
I waited another couple of minutes. The cops were trying to intimidate me. It worked on most suspects they brought in, and knocked them down a few pegs. But it didn’t work on me.
Peeling off my shirt, I threw it into the corner, then undid the drawstring in my prison jammies, and let them drop. Wearing nothing but my boxers, I got down on the floor, and started doing push-ups.
Five minutes and a hundred push-ups later, I was sitting in the chief’s office on the top floor, staring at the man himself behind his desk. The chief’s navy suit looked like he’d slept in it, and clumps of gray whiskers were sprouting out of his face like weeds. Burrell flanked him, and made brief eye contact with me.
