T he chief pulled me into the hall and slammed the door. His eyes were on fire, his body tensed like a clenched fist. He jabbed me in the chest so hard it made me wince.
“You crummy bastard,” the chief said.
“What did I do?” I asked.
“Don’t play games with me. You know the interrogation room is wired, and your conversation was being recorded.”
“So?”
“The district attorney will listen to those tapes when he prepares his case, and hear you say that Cheeks destroyed evidence. He’ll want to start an inquiry. You just opened Pandora’s box, and there is not a goddamn way I can close it.”
I stood my ground. I wasn’t going to hide the truth. The chief jabbed me again.
“Say something for yourself, Carpenter,” he said.
“I was trying to get Jed to open up.”
“It didn’t work.”
“Yes, it did. Jed told us that Heather went to buy food in his mother’s neighborhood. That should help us find her, and her son.”
“You believed him?”
“Yes. Strap Jed into a polygraph if you think he’s lying.”
“The kid’s a sociopath. Polygraphs don’t work on sociopaths.”
I started to argue, but the chief cut me off. “I gave you a get-out-of-jail-free card earlier, and now I’m taking it back,” he said. “I’m giving you two days to prove that Ron Cheeks purposely destroyed evidence in Abb Grimes’s case. If you can’t, I’m going to charge you with assaulting a police officer, and throw your ass in the county lockup.”
My mouth had gotten me into more trouble than anything I’d ever done. Without thinking I said, “Two whole days? That’s awfully generous of you.”
He gave me another jab in the chest.
“Make that one day,” the chief said.
He stormed into the stairwell. For the first time, I noticed Burrell standing at the end of the hall. She was slouched against the wall, and staring dejectedly at the floor.
“What did he do to you?” I asked.
“He’s putting me on paid leave,” she said.
“Why?”
“He thinks we’re in this together.”
I didn’t know what to say, and we walked up the stairs in silence. The first floor was a whirlwind of activity, and Burrell pulled me to one side, and lowered her voice. There was an intensity to her eyes that I didn’t remember seeing before.
“We need to prove our case,” she said.
“I’m with you,” I said.
“I’m having the detectives in Missing Persons call every restaurant in LeAnn’s neighborhood, and collect the names of each employee, along with their Social Security numbers,” she said. “I’m going to run background checks on them, and see who has a criminal record. I’ll e-mail you the ones I think might be our killer.”
I’d always been good at making creeps, and I said, “You want me to see if I can pick him out?”
“Yes.”
Burrell was directly violating the chief’s orders, an act that could lead to her being fired. She could have been content to let things play themselves out, only that wasn’t who she was. I said, “Call me once you have something.”
She nodded stiffly and went to the elevators.
I was blinded by the afternoon sunshine as I walked through the front doors of the station house. There was a reason I was no longer a cop, and I got reminded of it every time I came here. I started across the lot toward the pickup truck, which the cops who’d arrested me had driven to the station and, at my suggestion, left the keys beneath the floor mat.
“Hey, Jack! Hold on a minute.”
Chuck Cobb, the smart-mouthed detective everyone thought was my brother, was smoking a cigarette by the front door. He came over and whacked my arm good-naturedly.
“Just the man I was looking for,” Cobb said. “I need you to review the Piper Stone murder report.”
It was common practice during homicide investigations to have witnesses reread their own accounts of murder scenes. This allowed the detectives working the case to iron out inconsistencies, while letting witnesses get their facts straight.
“Sure,” I said.
“The report’s in my computer. Do you mind coming upstairs so I can print it out?”
“I don’t think that’s such a good idea,” I said. “I’m on the chief’s shit list.”
“Whoops. Well, how about I print it out, and bring it to you?”
“I can wait,” I said.
Cobb went inside, and a motorcycle cop came outside.
“Are you Carpenter?” the motorcycle cop asked.
“Yes,” I said.
“I’m your escort,” the motorcycle cop said.
“I don’t need an escort,” I replied.
“The chief thinks you do.”
I felt like I’d been kicked in the teeth. The chief had assigned a cop to watch me, and make sure I didn’t stick my nose where it didn’t belong. I glanced up at the building, and found the chief’s office on the top floor. Something told me he was up there, watching this.
I drove to the Sunset with Cobb’s murder report lying on the passenger seat and the motorcycle cop riding my bumper. I pulled into the lot, and the motorcycle cop parked beside me. He lowered the visor on his helmet, and eyed me suspiciously. As I started to get out, my cell phone rang. It was Rose. I rolled up my window before answering.
“Do you still need me to bail you out of jail?” my wife asked.
“Not today,” I replied.
“Are you still in trouble?”
“Yes.”
“There must be something I can do.”
I hesitated. I didn’t like pulling my family into cases, but there was something that Rose could do. She could help prove that Cheeks destroyed evidence, while I spent my time looking for the killer, and hopefully finding Sampson.
“There is,” I said. “A serial killer named Abb Grimes was given an experimental sleeping drug in the mid-1990s by a clinic in Broward, which later shut down. The drug begins with the letter Z, and made him hallucinate. I need you to find those records.”
“That shouldn’t be too hard.”
“No?”
“Not when you know how to use the Internet.”
I heard my wife’s fingers typing on a keyboard.
“I’m on one of the pharmaceutical websites,” Rose said. “I’ll look at the popular drugs beginning with Z first. Okay. It’s not Zantac, or Zaroxolyn, or Zestril, or Ziac. Wait a minute. How about zolpidem tartrate?”
“What’s that?”
“It’s a sleeping drug to treat insomnia. According to the site, it was tested in the United States in the mid-1990s, then issued a patent, and is now being sold as Ambien. The site says that some patients exhibit odd behavior, including delusions and sleepwalking. How was Abb Grimes acting when he took it?”
“His wife said the drug made him crazy.”
“Sounds like a match. I’ll ask our records department to find out which clinics in Broward were involved in the trials, and do a trace on where they keep their records.”
“You should have been a detective,” I said.
“I did the next best thing,” my wife said.
“What’s that?”
“I married one.”
I told Rose that I loved her, and then she was gone.
I found Buster sleeping on the floor as I entered the Sunset. I scratched behind his ears, and his eyes popped open, and his tiny tail began to wag.
“I think he’s feeling better,” Sonny said from behind the bar.
“How can you tell?” I asked.
“He growled at the postman. You want a beer?”
“Espresso if you have it.”
“What does this look like? A fern bar?”
“Give me a pot of coffee, then.”
Sonny served me a pot of coffee, and I asked him if I could use his computer.
“I’m sure not using it,” Sonny said.
I headed into the back room, which contained a small desk with a computer, and cartons of Budweiser stacked to the ceiling. The Internet access was dial-up, and I sucked down two cups of coffee while waiting for it to connect. Soon I was online, and I called Burrell’s cell phone.
“I was just punching in your number,” Burrell said. “You wouldn’t believe how many restaurant employees in LeAnn’s neighborhood have broken the law. I’ve pulled out records of thirty of the really bad ones.”
“Can you e-mail them to me?” I asked.
“I’ll send them right now. Give me your e-mail address.”
The bar’s e-mail address was taped to the frame of the computer. I read off the address, and a minute later, the records appeared as an attachment to an e-mail. I clicked on the attachment with the mouse, and they appeared on the screen.
I have a nose for sniffing out creeps that’s been developed from dealing with the worst scum that society has to offer. I used that instinct as I pored through the records. Each contained the suspect’s name, last-known address, mug shot, and criminal history. It was a true rogue’s gallery, with crimes that included rape, murder, aggravated assault, and kidnapping. Looking at each record, I asked myself if this was our killer.
Thirty minutes later, I was done.
I had eliminated twenty-eight of the suspects for reasons ranging from being too young, to living in another state until a few years ago. The remaining two suspects were better fits. Both were in their mid-thirties, and had done time in prison for kidnapping and violent sexual assault. Each man had been given a psychological evaluation in prison, and deemed sociopathic. Both were also Broward natives. I called Burrell on my cell.
“I’m down to two,” I told her.
“Which ones?”
“Johnnie Lee Edwards and Thaddaeus Prosper. You need to have both pulled in for questioning. I’d also have their homes searched.”
“Anything else?”
I stared at each man’s mug shot. “Can I be there when you question them?”
“I can’t get you into the building, Jack. Hell, I’m not even supposed to be here.”
“Can I listen in? I just want to hear how they answer the questions.”
“That’s doable. Don’t turn your cell phone off.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it,” I said.