I finished dressing and headed for the door. A doctor came into my room holding a clipboard. He had me sign a form, and handed me a vial of pills to deal with the pain. The label on the vial said May cause drowsiness. I tossed them into the trash.
In the hall I found Jessie slumped in a chair, fast asleep. I woke her up and explained that I was leaving with the detectives.
“Don’t you have practice this morning?” I asked.
“I was going to skip it,” my daughter said.
“You need to go. It will take your mind off things.”
“Okay. Can you lend me some money for a cab? I’m kind of broke.”
“Not a problem.”
Jessie called for a cab. Ten minutes later, it pulled up in front of the hospital. Before climbing in, my daughter hugged me, and I felt her heart pounding against my chest. She was like me, and tended to hold things in. I could only imagine what all this was doing to her.
The cab drove away. Detectives Boone and Weaver stepped out from the side of the building. They’d been smoking cigarettes, waiting for me.
“Ready when you are,” Boone said.
– – They drove me to the Days Inn. My Legend was still parked in the back. I’d had the car for sixteen years and had almost forgotten what the original color was. But it still drove, and that’s all I cared about.
I followed the detectives to the county jail on SE 1st Avenue, which everyone called the Inn on the River because of its proximity to the New River. While Boone arranged to have Tyrone Biggs put in a lineup, I chatted with Captain Mike, who’d been processing criminals into the jail for as long as I’d been a cop.
“Who are you here to see?” Captain Mike asked.
“A suspect named Tyrone Biggs,” I replied.
“The basketball player? I processed him through this morning.”
“What’s he like?”
“He’s one of those white guys who thinks he’s a black gangsta. I told him I had Florida State in the office college basketball pool this year, and he growled at me.”
“Mister Personality.”
“He’s an asshole, if you ask me.”
Boone appeared and had me follow him. We walked down a hallway to a small room with a two-way mirror. We went inside and Boone shut the door. I stood next to the mirror, my breath fogging the glass.
Standing in a lineup in the next room were seven white males. Each was extremely tall, and ranged in height between six-five and six-ten. I recognized several as longtime perps, and I guessed Boone had pulled them out of the lockup.
Tyrone Biggs stood in the center of the line wearing a sleeveless black athletic shirt-what cops called a “wife-beater”-and ragged blue jeans with a gaping hole in each leg. His arms were covered in tattoos, one of which snaked up his neck and stopped just below his ear. I’d admired his play on the basketball court, but I didn’t like what I was seeing now. Biggs’s eyes glinted with hostility and both hands were clenched into fists. I understood why Boone and Weaver were so certain he’d abducted Sara Long. His body language suggested he was guilty of something.
“What do you think?” Boone asked.
“The guy I saw was more muscular,” I said.
Boone let out an exasperated breath.
“I’m just telling you what I saw.”
“You got knocked out,” Boone said. “Did it ever occur to you that your imagination might have distorted what you saw?”
“My imagination didn’t distort anything.”
“But it could have.”
“Not here.”
“You suffered a concussion and were unconscious for most of the night. What if your imagination turned Tyrone Biggs into someone else, and substituted him into your memory? Stranger things have happened.”
I wasn’t changing my story. Boone needed to see the light.
“Here’s an idea,” I said. “Grill Biggs, and let me be in the room with you. See how Biggs reacts when he sees me. If he’s guilty, you’ll know it soon enough.”
“I can’t do that.”
“Why not?”
“It’s against procedure.”
“Come on. I was a detective for sixteen years.”
“So what?”
“There is no procedure.”
Boone looked at the lineup. The seven men were growing uneasy, their bodies slick and shiny with sweat. Of the group, Biggs looked the most uncomfortable.
“What the hell,” Boone said.
The interrogation cells were in the basement of the jail. Each was small and windowless, with sophisticated eavesdropping equipment wired into the ceiling light fixtures. Boone led me into one and had me stand in the corner.
A few minutes later, Tyrone Biggs was brought into the cell by a pair of guards. Biggs was tall and rangy, but the body mass wasn’t there. This wasn’t the same person who’d snatched Sara and beaten me up.
Boone had Biggs sit in a plastic chair that was bolted to the floor. Biggs dropped his huge frame into the chair and nearly broke it. Boone pointed at me.
“Recognize him?” Boone asked.
Biggs glanced at me. “No. Should I?”
“This is Jack Carpenter,” Boone said. “Jack used to be a detective. You beat him up when you were abducting Sara Long at the Day’s Inn last night.”
“That’s bullshit.”
“Watch your language,” Boone snapped.
“If he says I beat him up, he’s lying.”
“He’s not lying,” Boone said. “You’re lying.”
Biggs fell silent and stared at the floor. He wasn’t acting the way innocent people acted. I pushed myself off the wall.
“What are you doing in Fort Lauderdale?” I asked.
“I drove down to see Sara play,” Biggs replied.
“Are you two back together?”
“We’re working on it.”
“Did you see the whole game?”
“Most of it.”
I’d been sitting in the Florida State rooting section during the game, and had not seen Biggs in the stands. I could have missed him, only he was too big to miss.
“Where did you watch the game from?” I asked.
Biggs hesitated, and I knew I’d caught him.
“A bar?” I asked.
His mouth tightened.
“Or did you go to a strip club?”
His face reddened. Busted.
“Here’s what I’m guessing,” I said. “You came to see Sara, only temptation got the better of you, and you went to a strip club instead of the game. Things must have gotten out of hand, because now you don’t want to talk about it. And because you won’t talk, you’re screwing up the police’s ability to find Sara.”
Biggs leaned back in his chair, looked at the ceiling and blew out his lungs. “I went to a tittie bar, and a chick gave me a hand job in the VIP lounge for fifty bucks.”
“What was her name?”
“Sky.”
“Why didn’t you tell the police?”
“I didn’t want it making the newspapers.”
“Afraid it would ruin your NBA chances?”
“Fuck you.”
“Watch it!” Boone cautioned.
There was a sweet smell coming off Biggs that I’d thought was aftershave, but now realized was cheap perfume from the stripper who’d jerked him off. Sara Long deserved better than this loser.
“Did you call Sara after the game?” I asked.
“Yeah, I called her,” Biggs replied.
“What did you say?”
“I told her I’d come by, and we’d go out and celebrate.”
“Did she agree?”
“Yes.”
“You were going to pick her up at the motel?”
“That’s right.”
Now I understood what had happened. Sara had been expecting Biggs to pick her up. She had looked through the peephole and seen a giant figure standing outside in the dark; she’d assumed it was Biggs and unlocked the door.
Now I was pissed. Biggs had unwittingly aided in Sara’s abduction. I pointed my finger at him and saw him squirm in his chair.
“What?” Biggs said.
“You know what,” I said.
“No, I don’t.”
“It’s time for you to come clean. Otherwise, the police will continue to think that you did this, and not focus on catching the real abductors.”
“Come clean how?”
“I want you to tell us everything that happened at the strip club, starting with the time you got there, till the time you left.”
A line of sweat appeared above Biggs’s upper lip. Liar’s sweat. Biggs had gotten more than a hand job from Sky. If it came out, his career would be finished. No NBA contract, or lucrative sneaker endorsements, or beautiful girls waiting in every town he played in. He wasn’t prepared for that, even if it meant harming Sara. He was a selfish prick, and nothing I could say was going to change him.
“I want to talk to my lawyer,” Biggs said.