The Night Stalker

by James Swain

  “Put me in charge of the investigation.”

  “That’s out of the question. I can’t have you running things.”

  I’d fallen on hard times since leaving the force, yet I’d never regretted the decision. It had allowed me to listen to my conscience. I stood up.

  “Have a nice day,” I said.

  “You’re being unreasonable,” Moody said.

  “Cheeks put you in a tough spot. He botched the investigation, then ignored evidence that it was an abduction. How’s that going to look when it hits the news?”

  “Jack, sit down.”

  “It’s going to look horrible. Only Cheeks is sick, so he won’t get blamed. You’ll get blamed. Your only salvation is finding Sampson Grimes. Put me in charge.”

  “I can’t do that. But I will offer you a compromise.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Do you remember Candice Burrell?”

  “Sure, I trained her.”

  “I’m putting Burrell in charge of the investigation.”

  Burrell was one of the smartest detectives on the force. So smart that she’d been passed over for countless promotions, while lesser lights had risen to the top. If anyone could clean up Ron Cheeks’s mess, it was Candy.

  “I’ll work with Burrell on one condition,” I said.

  “Name it.”

  “I want access to the crime scene and the investigation’s case file.”

  “Done. Now let’s talk about your fee.”

  “I’m already being paid by the Grimes family.”

  Moody rose from his desk. “I’m glad we’ve reached this decision.”

  Sometimes bullshit gets in the way of what’s important. I removed the photo of Sampson that I’d printed off Lowman’s computer, and dropped it on Moody’s desk.

  “This photo was taken in a Fort Lauderdale hotel,” I said. “The interior looks like it’s a chain hotel. The guys need to examine it.”

  Moody’s face lit up. “I’ll put them right on it. Anything else?”

  I started to say no, then remembered Lowman. I wrote his address on a slip of paper, and gave it to Moody. “There’s a pervert in the lockup named Lonnie Lowman,” I said. “I cut a deal with him, and destroyed a DVD of him confessing to a bunch of crimes. I ran the DVD on his computer, so there’s a copy on the hard drive. You need to send someone over to Lowman’s house to retrieve it.”

  Moody stared at the address and nodded.

  “I’ll put an officer right on it,” he said.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Redemption.

  It was just a word until you experienced it; then it was like no other feeling in the world. I was working with the Broward cops again, and I was doing it on my terms. It didn’t get any sweeter than that.

  I was sitting in traffic on 595, listening to Boston’s “More Than a Feeling” on the car stereo while smelling the salty ocean breeze through my open window. My wife believed that everything in the world happened for a reason, and I thought about all the good things that had happened to me since my fight with Cheeks in the grove. I decided to call her, and as I punched her number into my cell phone, it began to ring.

  Not many people had my cell number. I stared at my cell phone’s face. Caller ID said UNKNOWN.

  “Carpenter here,” I answered.

  “Is this the Jack Carpenter, the ex-cop who finds missing kids?” a man asked.

  “You got him. Who’s this?”

  “Call me Pepe. One of your pals at the police station gave me your number. I’ve got someone here who wants to speak to you.”

  “Put him on,” I said.

  The cars in front of me started to move, and I goosed the accelerator.

  “This is Sampson,” a tiny voice said.

  I lowered the volume on my tape deck. “Sampson Grimes?”

  “Yeah,” the boy said.

  “Are you all right?”

  “No!” Sampson began to wail.

  I pressed the cell phone to my ear. It was broiling hot, along with everything else inside my car. “Please talk to me,” I said.

  Sampson continued to cry. I tried to determine what the background noises were, and thought I heard a plane passing overhead. Finally, Sampson stopped crying.

  “I need to tell you something,” the boy said.

  “I’m listening,” I said.

  “Tell Grandpa…”

  “Yes?”

  “…to stop talking to the FBI.”

  “You want me to tell your grandfather to stop talking to the FBI?” I repeated.

  There was a pause, and I heard a man in the background mumble softly.

  “Yeah,” Sampson said.

  “I want to talk to the man you’re with,” I said.

  A car horn honked in the background, followed by the sound of another airplane. I guessed they were calling from a pay phone near the Hollywood/Fort Lauderdale airport. The airport was isolated, and did not have many retail stores nearby.

  “I’m back,” Pepe said.

  “I want you to release the boy,” I said.

  “Fat chance, brother.”

  “You’re getting paid to hold the boy by his kidnapper,” I said. “Let him go, and I’ll pay you more.”

  Pepe laughed derisively. “I’ve heard about your deals. No thanks.”

  Pepe dropped the phone, and I heard it bang against a wall. Then I heard a car pull away, its muffler rattling loudly. There was a convenience store on Griffin Road by the airport that had a bank of pay phones outside the store. It was only a minute away. I pulled onto the highway’s shoulder and hit the gas. Pepe sounded smart, and I didn’t think he’d speed away, arousing suspicion. With any luck, I’d catch him.

  I drove with my eyes peeled to the oncoming traffic, looking for a car with a dying muffler. At the convenience store on Griffin Road I slowed to stare at the pay phones on the side of the building. One was off the hook.

  I raced down Griffin Road toward I-95. I’ve always been good at putting myself in a criminal’s shoes, and anticipating how they were going to act. I decided that Pepe had gotten onto I-95, and headed north into Fort Lauderdale.

  Traffic on I-95 was the usual mix of blue hairs doing thirty and crazy Cubans trying to break the sound barrier. I got into the left lane, and pushed the Legend up to ninety. Soon I saw a tail of black exhaust ahead of me. I stuck my head out my window, and heard Pepe’s car.

  I drew my Colt from my pocket, and laid it on my lap. The car was a few hundred yards ahead, a black Chevy Impala with no plates driving in the center lane. In most parts of the state, driving without license plates would get you pulled over. In South Florida, it was a way of life.

  I got behind the car and slowed down. Two men occupied the front seat. Lonnie Lowman had said that Sampson was being held by a pair of drug enforcers. I didn’t see Sampson, and guessed he was either strapped down in the backseat or stowed in the trunk.

  I dialed 911. My call was answered by an automated police operator. I saw the Chevy speed up, and I got back into the left lane. I needed to get a good look at the driver, and pass his description to the police.

  As I got close to the Chevy, the driver jerked his head. Young, Hispanic, and missing several front teeth. His eyes grew wide, and I realized I’d been made.

  The driver shouted to his partner. His partner grabbed a handgun off the floor, and climbed into the driver’s lap. I wasn’t going to get into a shooting match with him, and risk harming Sampson. I hit my brakes, and let the Chevy get ahead of me.

  I stayed a hundred yards back. The guy with the gun lowered the passenger window, and stuck his weapon out. Overweight and in his forties, he was the opposite of his partner. I thought he was going to shoot at me, but that wasn’t what he had in mind.

  Instead, he aimed at the minivan in the lane next to him. It was filled with kids, the woman driver on her cell phone, oblivious to what was going on.

  Then he looked at me.

  I instantly understood. If I didn’t ba
ck off, he was going to shoot the woman and kill her, and probably all the kids as well. I couldn’t be responsible for so many innocent people dying, and flashed my brights while slowing my car. He grinned.

  The Chevy speeded up, and was soon a memory. I heard a voice on my cell phone.

  “Broward County police. Do you have an emergency?”

  I told the operator what had happened while getting off the interstate.

  I pulled into the convenience store on Griffin Road and went inside. It was a squat, one-story building, the windows plastered with ads for the Florida Lottery. A surveillance camera hung over the door. I asked the manager if it worked.

  “Naw.”

  I inspected the bank of pay phones outside. The middle phone was off the hook. I knelt down, and looked at the plastic handle. Pepe’s fingerprints were all over it.

  Sirens wailed in the distance. I had asked the police operator to send a cruiser to the convenience store. I went to the sidewalk to meet the cruiser, and heard a car start up. Across the street a souped-up Camaro was parked in the front of a storage facility. Two young white males were inside, shooting me mean looks. I crossed the road at a trot.

  “I need to speak to you for a minute,” I called to them.

  The Camaro backed out with a squeal of rubber. I drew my Colt and pointed it at his windshield.

  “Get out,” I said.

  They got out. Low-slung pants, lots of jewelry and tattoos. I made them for gang members, and had them stand with their hands on the roof and their legs spread wide, and patted them down. Both were carrying heat, and I slipped their pieces into my pants pockets. Then I popped the trunk. It was loaded with stereo equipment.

  “You boys work for Circuit City?” I asked.

  Neither replied.

  “I want you to help me,” I said. “There were two guys standing outside the convenience store making a phone call. They had a little boy with them. Did you see them?”

  The driver glanced at me. He had a tattoo on his neck that said Born Loser. “What if we did?”

  “What can you tell me about them?”

  “Couple of spics.”

  “Did you hear anything they said to each other?”

  The driver shook his head.

  “Tell me about the boy who was with them,” I said.

  “He was a little guy with blond hair,” the driver said. “One of the spics was holding him up to the pay phone, and the kid was going nuts.”

  “Was the man hurting him?”

  “He slapped him a couple of times,” the driver said.

  “Why didn’t you do something?” I asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Why didn’t you stop him from hurting the boy?”

  The driver and his partner looked at each other, and started laughing.

  A wailing police cruiser braked in front of the convenience store, and a pair of uniformed cops jumped out with their weapons drawn. As they crossed the street, I grabbed the gang members’ heads, and banged them together.

  PART TWO

  THE OLD NEIGHBORHOOD

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Buster was lying beneath a table as I entered the Sunset. He refused to make eye contact, no doubt still angry that I’d left him. Australian Shepherds were great dogs until you left them alone. Then they destroyed furniture and caused all sorts of problems.

  “How’s he been?” I asked Sonny.

  “He tried to bite the mailman and pissed on the floor,” Sonny said. “Outside of that, he’s been fine.”

  I crawled under the table and scratched Buster’s head. Soon his tiny tail started to wag, and we were friends again. Then my cell phone rang. I was not normally this popular. I took it out of my pocket, and saw the caller ID—CANDY.

  “Hello, Detective Burrell,” I answered.

  “Hello, Jack,” Burrell said.

  “I hear you’ve been given the Grimes case.”

  “Good news sure travels fast. I just got off the phone with Chief Moody. He said you were involved in a car chase on I-95, and nearly rescued the boy.”

  “I got close.”

  “I want to hear more. I’m in the orange grove across the street from Jed Grimes’s house. How soon can you get over here and give me an update?”

  “I’m leaving right now,” I said.

  RichJo Lane looked different in the harsh daylight, the yards downtrodden, the houses dirty and small. It was easy to call the owners lazy, but I’d been broke long enough to recognize when people were just getting by.

  The street was blocked by TV news vans. I parked on a side street, and walked to Jed Grimes’s house with my dog. A mob of reporters stood on the lawn, hurling questions at four uniformed cops standing behind a police barricade with their arms crossed. When children went missing, the media cheered law enforcement at the start of the investigation, then jeered them if the case stalled. If this scene was any indication, the police department’s honeymoon with the Broward media was over.

  I pushed my way through the crowd, and showed my driver’s license to the uniforms. “Detective Burrell is expecting me.”

  One of the uniforms took my license, and made a call on his cell. I felt someone bump me from behind, but I didn’t turn around.

  “Isn’t that Jack Carpenter?” a male voice asked.

  “I think it is,” a female voice said.

  “Jack, it’s Chip Wells, with Action Eleven Eyewitness News,” the first voice said. “Can you tell us why you’re here? Are the police using you to find Sampson Grimes?”

  Chip Wells was not a friend. He’d done a series of pieces about me when I’d been kicked off the force that had been less than flattering. Something about his tone of voice told me I was being recorded.

  “I’m selling Girl Scout cookies,” I said, not turning around.

  “Be straight with us,” Wells said. “People want to know what’s going on.”

  “Screw ’em,” I said.

  The uniform confirmed that I was expected. He led me around the house, and across the alley to the grove.

  “Detective Burrell’s in there,” the uniform said.

  The grove had undergone a dramatic transformation. Twelve-foot-high metal poles had been stuck around the perimeter and translucent plastic sheeting spread between them, covering everything inside. As I lifted a flap, a black guy wearing a U.S. Marshals cap came out. His shirt had a dark butterfly of sweat, and ringlets fell from his scalp.

  “Who let you back here?” he demanded.

  I told him Burrell was expecting me, and he told me not to move.

  Soon Burrell appeared. Her cheeks were windburned, making her slate blue eyes look electrified in the ruddy glow of her pretty face. She came from a family of cops; her father, two brothers, and uncle had all worn a badge. She was a tough young woman, and stubborn to a fault. In that regard, we couldn’t have been more alike.

  “That was fast,” she said.

  “Cheeks left you a real mess, didn’t he?” I said.

  “That’s an understatement. What’s with the dog?”

  “He’s my partner. He’s good at finding things.”

  “Is he friendly?”

  “Not really.”

  Burrell bravely stuck her hand beneath Buster’s snout, and to my surprise, got licked in return. “I like him,” she said.

  We entered the tentlike structure. The air was hot and sticky. As we walked, I stopped to look at eight-by-ten glossies attached to tree branches. Each glossy showed a piece of evidence that had been discovered at that spot, and taken away for examination. It was a clever way to preserve a crime scene, and typical of Burrell’s thinking.

  We came to the clearing. In its center was a fireplace ringed with darkened stones. Sitting among the stones were several charred cans, including a thirty-two-ounce can of Dinty Moore stew. The can of stew had bothered me the night before, and I used a stick to fish it out of the fireplace. Burrell edged up beside me.

  “What are you thinking?” she
asked.

  “I’m thinking that thirty-two ounces of stew is more than one person can eat,” I said.

  “Do you think Sampson’s kidnapper fed the vagrant before killing him?”

  “Yes.”

  “I think the other detectives need to hear this.”

  The other detectives were my old unit. It was going to feel strange talking to them, but I didn’t see how I had any other choice.

  Burrell clapped her hands. “Listen up, everybody. Stop what you’re doing, and come into the clearing. We have a guest.”

  Six detectives drifted into the clearing. They were all sweaty and looked drained. I shook their hands and said hello. Their collective reaction to my presence was one of shock. I’d left the force under a dark cloud, and they were surprised to see me back.

  “Jack has signed on to help with the Grimes case,” Burrell announced. “He has some insights he’d like to share with us.”

  Burrell gave me the floor. I gazed into the detectives’ faces before speaking. Several were trying not to smile, and it made me feel good.

  “I’ve been working this case for two days, and here’s what I can tell you,” I said. “Our kidnapper knew the boy and had built a relationship with him. Four nights ago, he came into this grove, had dinner with a vagrant, and killed him. Then he crossed the alley, and coaxed Sampson to climb out of his bedroom window using candy and a toy. He brought the boy back here, and altered his appearance, then left. I’m guessing some things got left behind. Did any of you find a child’s toy during your search?”

  Detective Jillian Webster spoke up. “I found a fake light-up cell phone. Still has the price sticker on it.”

  “Where was it?” I asked.

  “Beneath an orange tree on the west side of the property. I assumed it was tossed there. I bagged it, and put it in the evidence box.”

  “Was it directly beneath the tree?” I asked.

  “Yes,” Webster said. “Is that significant?”

  “Sampson wouldn’t have tossed a toy away, but his kidnapper might have. And his kidnapper wouldn’t have tossed a toy out in the open. He’s way too smart for that.”