by James Swain
“I need to ask you a question,” I said.
Heather lowered her hands.
“The detective handling the investigation thinks Jed did this,” I said.
“He’s wrong,” Heather said.
“You’re sure about that.”
Heather nodded. “Jed had a rough time growing up. But he’s changed. He was trying to do right by Sampson. He wouldn’t do this to him. Or to me.”
“Where is he?”
“Jed’s staying at his mom’s place. So am I. The police wanted us nearby, and I just couldn’t stay here.”
“Are you two back together?”
Heather smiled faintly. “We’re trying.”
I walked Heather to her car. She drove an aging Toyota Camry with a baby seat strapped in the backseat, and bumper stickers with Sampson’s photograph and the word MISSING! plastered to the front and back bumpers of her car.
“I’d like a bumper sticker for my car,” I said.
Heather opened the trunk. It contained a cardboard box filled with bumper stickers, and signs with Sampson’s photo and a number to call that could be stuck in people’s yards. She pulled a bumper sticker and a DVD from the box, and stuck them into my hands.
“I recorded this DVD at Sampson’s third birthday party,” she said. “I took it around to the TV stations, and asked them to show it on the news.”
“That was very smart of you,” I said.
I opened the driver’s door for her. Heather started to climb in, then paused to look at me with her sad eyes. “Please find my baby, Mr. Carpenter. I can’t live without him.”
I never made promises when I was looking for missing kids. They only filled people with false hope, and that was not the business I was in.
“I’ll try, Heather.”
She nodded woodenly, and left without saying good-bye.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Heather’s taillights hung like an afterimage in the darkness. I stuck the bumper sticker to the trunk of my car, and tossed the DVD onto the passenger seat. Then I clapped my hands for my dog. Buster exploded out of the bushes around Jed’s house.
“Time to go to work,” I said.
I started to climb over the police tape, and glanced at the OC trailer. Normally, I would have told the detectives inside the trailer that I was here. But Cheek’s threat had changed my mind. I wasn’t going to talk to anyone with the sheriff’s department unless it was absolutely necessary.
I walked around the side of Jed’s house to the backyard. The backyard was like most in Broward County, and the size of a postage stamp. Kids’ toys were scattered around, including an expensive-looking tricycle and a plastic swimming pool. Jed had obviously indulged his son.
I shined my flashlight at the house. Three windows on the house faced the backyard, all of them screened. The screen on the corner window looked damaged, and was flapping in the breeze. I approached for a closer look.
The screen had been sliced horizontally, the cut about three feet wide. I shined my flashlight through the window, and found myself looking at Sampson’s bedroom. A Spiderman mobile hung from the ceiling, and the walls were papered in cartoon characters. Like the backyard, there were toys everywhere. Throughout the room I could see traces of white powder from where a police technician had dusted for fingerprints.
I found the bed with my flashlight. It was built to resemble a miniature race car. The bed was unmade, and the impression of Sampson’s body was still in the sheets.
A tiny light beside the bed caught my eye. It was faint, and difficult to see. I shut off my flashlight, and tried to determine what it was.
I realized it was a night-light. Then I saw the second one by the door. A lot of children slept with night-lights, but two was unusual.
Sampson was afraid of the dark.
That bothered me. Most children who were afraid of the dark were also light sleepers. I wondered how Sampson’s kidnapper had entered his bedroom without the boy hearing him, and yelling for help.
I was missing something. I stepped back, and started over.
The damaged screen: I had assumed that the kidnapper had popped it out, and stolen into Sampson’s bedroom. But I didn’t know that for a fact. I decided to see how difficult it would be, and I put my hands through the slice, and attempted to remove the screen. It refused to budge.
“What the hell,” I said under my breath.
I inspected the screen’s metal frame with my flashlight. It was held down by four screws covered in rust. This screen hadn’t been removed for a long time.
I stepped back into the yard. The kidnapper hadn’t gone into the bedroom. The boy had come to him and climbed through the slit. That was why no one had heard him leave. The boy had been an accomplice in his own kidnapping.
I turned off my flashlight. There was a picnic table in the backyard. I sat down on one of the benches. I had dealt with hundreds of child abductions and never encountered anything like this.
Little kids who were afraid of the dark didn’t climb through windows at night, even if someone they knew was coaxing them. It was too scary. Yet that was exactly what Sampson had done. Whoever had stolen the boy had worked some special magic on him.
I looked around the yard. I had no witnesses to talk to, no clues to work with. Unless some piece of evidence fell out of the sky, I was in trouble.
Buster ran around in circles, sniffing the ground. It gave me an idea. If I could determine the escape route the kidnapper had taken, it might lead to new evidence like a tire track or a witness. I knew the police had already done this, but I would try it again.
I turned my flashlight back on. The fenced backyard had a small gate at the rear. I went to the gate and unlatched it.
The gate led onto a deeply rutted alley. One end of the alley was a dead end, the other end led to the street. I envisioned Sampson’s kidnapper going that way during his escape.
Buster appeared by my side. I leashed him, and walked to the street. As I stepped out of the alley, I was bathed in bright streetlight. Cars were parked by the curb, and a dozen pedestrians lingered on the sidewalk. It looked like a gathering spot.
I approached an older couple. They said hello, and inquired about my dog.
“He’s an Australian Shepherd,” I said.
“He’s very unusual looking,” the wife said.
“Do you walk here often?”
“Every night,” the husband replied.
“Is it always this busy?”
“Usually,” she said.
“Were you here three nights ago?”
“Is that when the little boy was kidnapped?” the husband asked.
“Yes.”
“We were here,” she said. “But like we told the police, we didn’t see a thing.”
The couple said good night. I walked back to Jed’s house feeling stymied. People didn’t vanish into thin air. How had Sampson’s kidnapper gotten the boy away without being seen?
I came to Jed’s property and halted. I hadn’t paid much attention to the property directly across the alley from Jed’s because it was so well-fortified. Now I gave it a closer look.
The property was several acres in size. There was no house, just an orange grove filled with ripening trees. The grove looked too small to turn a profit, and I guessed it was being maintained to give the owners a tax break.
The grove was surrounded by a seven-foot chain-link fence, with razor wire running across the top. I ran my flashlight over the chain link and looked for an opening. There wasn’t one. Another dead end. I started to leave, but Buster remained by the fence, pawing feverishly at the ground. He wanted to go through. I knelt beside him.
“Is that where they went, boy? In there?”
His tail wagged furiously, and his tongue hung out of his mouth. Of course they did, you idiot, he seemed to be saying. I put my hands on the chain link and pushed. To my surprise, it gave several inches. Someone had tampered with it.
I ran my flashlight up the metal poles the f
ence was attached to. On the pole to my right, a piece of wire caught my eye.
I pressed my face to the pole. So did my dog.
It was a twist tie, attached to the pole at waist height. There was another at the bottom, a third near the top. The twist ties held the fence together, which had been cut the length of the pole. It was a masterful job, right down to the ends being snipped to avoid detection.
I have carried a pocketknife since I was a kid. Pulling it out, I cut away the twist ties, and started to pull back the fence. I stopped myself. The grove was part of the crime scene, and had not yet been searched by the police. I needed to alert Cheeks, and tell him what I’d found. If I didn’t, he could have me arrested for tampering with evidence.
I took out my cell phone, and dialed the sheriff’s department’s main number. The call went through, and an operator picked up.
“Broward County Sheriff’s Department.”
I killed the call.
Cheeks had botched this investigation from the start. He had locked onto Jed Grimes, and had refused to broaden his investigation. As a result, Sampson had spent three days with his kidnapper when he might have been safely at home with his mother.
I slipped my cell phone into my pocket. I needed to search the grove and draw my own conclusions. Then I’d call Cheeks and tell him what I’d found.
And not a moment before.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Leashing my dog, I pulled back the cut fence and entered the grove.
The trees had been planted in rows approximately fifteen feet apart. I shined my flashlight on the ground covered in sugar sand. Two sets of footprints appeared before my eyes. One belonged to a man, the other to a small, barefoot boy. I followed the footprints into the grove, careful not to disturb them.
I heard rustling. There were animals nesting in those trees, snakes and raccoons and birds. I imagined the sounds scaring the daylights out of Sampson three nights ago, and I wondered what his kidnapper had said to keep him quiet. Maybe he’d told Sampson to cover his ears, or perhaps he’d briefly picked the boy up in his arms.
Fifty feet into the grove, I came to a clearing. Orange trees have a short life span, and the clearing was filled with dead trees, their brittle trunks piled up to be burned. Buster stiffened by my leg, and began to whine.
“What’s wrong, boy?”
Then I smelled it. Strong, like a skunk.
Something dead.
I let my flashlight roam. In the center of the clearing was a campfire ringed with blackened stones, in its center several empty cans. Next to the campfire, a sleeping bag lay on the ground, behind it a shopping cart filled with old clothes and plastic bags.
A vagrant had set up house in the grove. Perhaps he’d done it on the sly. Maybe he had an agreement with the grove’s owner to keep the orange trees maintained in exchange for squatter’s rights. That wasn’t uncommon.
Buster continued to whine, and I made him lie down. Then I heard something that I hadn’t heard before: a sharp buzzing sound, like an electric saw.
Flies.
I found the swarm with my flashlight. Several hundred hovered around a tree on the other side of the clearing, their fluttering wings making them look almost supernatural in the darkness.
I searched the tree with my flashlight’s beam. A pair of brown men’s shoes were the first thing I saw, toes pointed straight down. They were a homeless person’s shoes, and were falling apart.
I slowly lifted the flashlight’s beam. Their owner was still in them. My flashlight settled on his face, and I heard myself gasp.
I have seen the dead more times than is healthy. What I saw hanging from the branches was shocking even to my jaded sensibilities: a white male, no more than five-two, dressed in tattered blue jeans and a torn flannel shirt, his wrists tied to the branches so he appeared to be crucified. His skull had been smashed with a blunt instrument, his face so lopsided that it looked melted. He had been dead for several days; whatever spirit had inhabited his body was long gone.
I drew several deep breaths, then moved closer. Lying on the ground beneath the dead man’s feet was a cheap plastic wallet. I tore a branch off a tree, and used the branch to flip the wallet open. It contained a few wrinkled dollar bills, and a welfare card. His name was Clifford Gaylord.
I tried to imagine what had happened. Sampson’s kidnapper had come into the grove three nights ago, and happened upon Gaylord. Not wanting a witness, he’d knocked Gaylord unconscious and tied him to a tree. Then he’d murdered him.
It made sense, only there were holes. Tying Gaylord would have taken both hands, as would killing him. That would have forced the kidnapper to put Sampson down. He might have tied Sampson to a tree to keep him from running away, or simply put him nearby, where he could keep an eye on the boy.
I searched the ground with my flashlight to see if I was correct. On the other side of the clearing, I found the impression of Sampson’s body in the sugar sand. It was beneath a tree, and faced away from where Gaylord had died.
Buster pawed at a spot next to the boy’s impression. I started to pull him away, then saw something appear in the sand. It was a small cardboard box.
“Good boy,” I said.
I grabbed the box’s lid, and gently pulled it free. It was an empty candy box, covered with ants. Flipping it over, I stared at the label.
Milk Duds.
An alarm went off inside my head. Angelica Suarez had been eating Milk Duds when I’d rescued her from Ray Hicks. It could have been a coincidence, only I didn’t believe in those. I left the box in the sand where I’d found it, and dragged my dog into the clearing. The moon had crept out from behind the clouds, and I shut off my flashlight.
I thought about the three-ring binder I’d found in Ray Hicks’s locker. Hicks had been corresponding on the Internet with someone who called himself Teen Angel. Teen Angel had helped Hicks abduct Angelica Suarez, and Hicks had nearly succeeded. Teen Angel knew what he was doing.
I compared that case to this one. Sampson’s kidnapper had covered his tracks as well as Ray Hicks had. He’d taken Sampson from his bedroom, and had fooled the police so badly that they were pointing the finger at the boy’s father. He’d also used Milk Duds to keep the boy quiet, just as Ray Hicks had.
The cases were connected. Teen Angel had helped Ray Hicks, and I was willing to bet money he’d helped Sampson’s kidnapper as well.
Teen Angel was the link, and I needed to find him.
I called the sheriff’s department’s main number, and identified myself to the operator. I asked her to call Ron Cheeks, and have him call me.
“It’s an emergency,” I said.
Cheeks called me back a minute later.
“What do you want?” he asked.
“I’m across the alley from Jed Grimes’s house,” I said.
“Goddamn it, Carpenter, I told you not to go there!”
I looked at Clifford Gaylord hanging dead in the orange tree. I didn’t know what his story was, but I felt certain that he deserved a better ending than the one he’d gotten. Had I not happened along, he might have hung there for a long time.
“You missed something,” I said.
Cheeks appeared in the grove fifteen minutes later looking like he’d just rolled out of bed. Clutched in his hand was a large Mag-Lite. I showed him Gaylord’s body, and explained what had happened. He pointed across the clearing.
“Stand over there, and tie your dog to a tree,” Cheeks said.
I went to the spot, and wrapped Buster’s leash around the base of a tree. I watched Cheeks inspect the crime scene. Gaylord’s ravaged corpse had a similar effect on him, and Cheeks crossed himself. When he was done, Cheeks came over to me.
“I should throw your ass in jail, but I’m going to give you a break,” Cheeks said. “Get out of here, and don’t stick your nose in this investigation again.”
“Don’t you want to get a statement from me?” I asked.
“No.”
“You wan
t to pretend like I was never here?”
“That’s right. You were never here.”
Cheeks tapped the heavy Mag-Lite on my shoulder, and let me feel its weight. There was a strange look in his eyes, and I wondered if he’d been drinking. In the distance I heard the sound of sirens, followed by the mournful bay of every dog in the neighborhood. I crossed my arms in front of my chest.
“I called 911, and alerted the Broward news media,” I said.
Cheeks’s mouth dropped open.
“Why?” he gasped.
“Because you’re screwing up, and it’s putting Sampson Grimes’s life in danger. I’m not going to let it continue.”
“You’re going to talk to the press?”
“Only if you don’t play ball.”
His eyes narrowed. “What do you want me to do?”
“Sampson’s kidnapper was helped by a guy who calls himself Teen Angel,” I said. “I want you to talk to every pervert in the lockup and county jail, and tell them we’re looking for this guy. Chances are someone knows who he is.”
“What if I don’t?”
I had not forgotten Cheeks’s threat in my office.
“I’ll ruin you,” I said.
Cheeks nodded solemnly. For a moment I thought he was agreeing to my request. He lifted the Mag-Lite off my shoulder, and held it directly above my head. The strange look returned to his eyes.
“Fuck you,” he said.
I raised my arms as he brought the Mag-Lite down. The flashlight hit my forearm, and sent a shock wave through my body. I threw my shoulder into Cheeks’s chest, and sent him staggering backward. Leaping up, Buster grabbed the sleeve of Cheeks’s shirt, and shredded the fabric. Cheeks pulled his arm free, then stuck his hand into his pants pocket. I instinctively went for my Colt.
A deafening sound made us both look skyward. A police chopper had dropped out of the sky, and was shining a spotlight into the grove. Moments later, dozens of birds and other small animals exploded out of the trees.
The chopper hovered directly above us, and lit up the clearing. Cheeks glanced upward, as if willing the chopper to leave. He had lost his chance to hurt me, and brought his hand out of his pocket. I lowered my arm as well.
