The Night Stalker_ A Novel Of Suspense Part 37

I went upstairs and found my detective's badge. The department had let me keep my badge after I'd quit. You could say it was one of the few decent things they'd done. I went downstairs and pulled the girls off the floor. Going outside, I made them stand in the pouring rain while I read them the riot act. By the time I was done, the makeup had washed off their faces, and they'd promised to stay out of bars until they were legal.

"Spoilsport," Sonny said when I returned.

"You have any pain pills?" I asked.

Sonny fed me some Advil. I drank coffee, and waited for them to kick in. It took awhile, but I finally started to feel normal.

The local news came on. The lead story was about Jed's capture, and showed him doing a perp walk outside the police station. The images faded into a blaring headline. WHAT WENT WRONG WHAT WENT WRONG?

On the screen a familiar face appeared. It was Ron Cheeks, wearing his best suit and a smug look on his face. The pills churned in my stomach, and I grabbed the remote off the bar. Cheeks's voice came booming out of the TV.

"Jed Grimes was our number one suspect from the start," Cheeks said. "All the evidence pointed to him. He abducted his son, and we knew it."

"Why didn't the police arrest him before now?" a female reporter asked.

Cheeks did a slow burn. "I was going to. Unfortunately, a medical condition forced me off the case, and another detective took over."

"Who was that?"

"Detective Candice Burrell."

"Is she to blame?"

"Detective Burrell is a fine police officer, and in no way is responsible for what has happened with this investigation," Cheeks replied.

"Then who is?"

"A consultant the police hired to work the case."

"A consultant?" the reporter asked.

Cheeks raised his hands in mock surrender. "It wasn't my idea."

"Can you tell us who this consultant was?"

"It was a former detective named Jack Carpenter," Cheeks said. "Carpenter was hired by the family to find the boy, then hired by the police department as well."

"So there was a conflict of interest," the reporter said.

"I would say so," Cheeks said.

"Do you blame Jack Carpenter for what went wrong?"

"He let the case drag on, and now Sampson Grimes and and his mother are missing. Yes, I blame him." his mother are missing. Yes, I blame him."

I looked for something to throw at the screen.

"Temper, temper," Sonny said.

The interview ended. Sonny took the remote out of my hand and killed the picture.

"How's your nose?" he asked.

"It's starting to hurt again," I said.

Sonny fed me two more pills. I swallowed them while looking into the future. Cheeks was campaigning to get his old job back. Considering how badly the case had gone, it just might happen. I could not imagine a more cruel injustice, and punched the bar.

I went outside and stood by the sh.o.r.eline. The lightning made it dangerous, but I didn't care. My cell phone rang, and I answered it hoping it was Burrell.

"Carpenter here," I said.

"Mr. Carpenter, my name is Father Tom Kelly," the caller said. "I'm a priest at Starke prison."

The wind was blowing in my face, and I moved inside the bar's open doorway, and sat at the bottom of the stairwell.

"Let me explain why I'm calling," Father Kelly said. "I counsel death row inmates at the prison. One of those inmates is Abb Grimes. I was watching the news, and saw that Abb's son, Jed, had been arrested for murdering his father's lawyer, along with many other crimes. I called LeAnn Grimes, and she told me to call you."

"What can I do for you?" I said.

"I wanted to tell you that I think Jed is innocent."

"You do?"

"Yes. I was there when Jed was saved."

I thought back to the photograph of the elderly priest I'd seen in Jed's alb.u.m, and realized this was the same man.

"Saved how?" I asked.

"Let me tell you what happened. A year ago, Abb told me that he wanted to see Jed before he died. I called Jed, and arranged a meeting. Jed came to the prison, and the warden let us meet in a cell, and eat a meal. Abb had asked me to wear my prayer shawl, which was given to me when I became a priest.

"When our meal was over, Abb held my prayer shawl, and told Jed he was ready to meet his maker. Abb asked Jed to hold the shawl, and forgive him for his sins. It was hard, but Jed did it. He forgave his father. Then we prayed.

"G.o.d was with us that day. Abb invited G.o.d into that cell by accepting his sins, and Jed accepted G.o.d by holding the shawl, and telling Abb he forgave him. G.o.d was there. I felt his presence.

"Jed changed after that. He started giving his wife money, and got shared custody of his son. The transformation was real. Jed's not a killer."

The rain blew through the open doorway onto my face, and a crash of lightning shook the building.

"I know, Father," I said.

"Then you must prove that Jed is innocent. Based upon what I saw on the news, the evidence against Jed is circ.u.mstantial. Yet, the police are making Jed out to be a criminal, and saying he was breaking laws before this happened. You need to set the record straight."

"How am I going to do that?"

"There is a detective named Ron Cheeks. Start with him. Cheeks destroyed a piece of evidence in Abb's case."

"You mean the missing slippers," I said.

"Yes, the slippers. Jed found out, and confronted Cheeks. Ever since, Cheeks has been on a mission to destroy Jed. He pulled Jed into the police station fifty times, and arrested him for crimes he never committed."

"You think Cheeks is trying to frame Jed?"

"Yes," the priest said.

I rose from the stairwell. Something had happened twelve years ago that had caused Cheeks to destroy evidence, and he'd been covering it up ever since. If I could find out why, perhaps it would lead me to the person behind these crimes.

"I'll see what I can do," I said.

CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE.

With a promise from Sonny to watch Buster, I drove to Tugboat Louie's. The pain in my nose had turned to a dull, aching throb, and I stopped by the kitchen to get an ice pack. One of the cooks made a joke about my battered state.

"You should see the other guy," I said.

I went upstairs to my office with the ice pack pressed to my face. Lying on the blotter was the transcript from Abb Grimes's trial, the word slippers slippers highlighted in bright yellow in the evidence log. Piper Stone had also tried to discover the secret behind the slippers, and now she was dead. I needed to find out why. highlighted in bright yellow in the evidence log. Piper Stone had also tried to discover the secret behind the slippers, and now she was dead. I needed to find out why.

I booted up my computer, and went online. Using Google, I typed in Abb Grimes's name, and hit Search. Within a matter of nanoseconds, the search engine had pulled up more than seventy-five thousand different websites where Abb's name was referenced.

I scrolled through the sites. I was looking for one that had the surveillance video of Abb carrying his bloodied victim in the Smart Buy parking lot. The video had become public domain, and was regularly shown on TV doc.u.mentaries. I felt certain that one of the sites would have it.

I found a site called ragingmaniacs.com, and clicked on it. The homepage was done in bloodred, and was painful to the eye. The site was devoted to famous serial killers, and included a collection of videos taken at their trials.

I quickly found the video of Abb on the site. It was simply called "The Night Stalker." I clicked on it, and Windows Media Player filled the screen.

Like most videos shot through a surveillance camera, the quality was poor. The tape showed Abb walking around the parking lot of the Smart Buy with his female victim draped in his arms. His face was masked by shadows cast off by the building, and at times he appeared to be laughing, although it was hard to tell. He walked stiffly, his arms holding the dead girl like she'd fallen out of the sky.

I put my face next to the screen, and studied Abb's footwear. As the clip ended, Abb's right shoe was briefly exposed. It was in the frame for a few seconds, then vanished. Just long enough for me to see something. something.

I walked down the hall to k.u.mar's office and knocked on the door. He'd recently bought a new computer, and the screen had a much better resolution than mine.

"It's open," he called out.

I poked my head in. k.u.mar sat at his desk, buried in spreadsheets.

"Jack, Jack! What happened to your nose?" he asked.

"I got kicked in the face," I explained.

"Does it hurt?"

"Only when I breathe. How would you like to play detective for a little while?"

k.u.mar swept the spreadsheets to the floor. "Yes!"

"First, I need you to help me burn a DVD."

"I can do that. My five-year-old daughter showed me how to burn DVDs the other night. What is it you wish to burn?"

"A tape from the Internet."

k.u.mar got on his computer, and I directed him to the raging maniacs website. Soon "The Night Stalker" video was playing on the screen.

"This is what I need burned," I said.

k.u.mar popped a fresh DVD into the computer, and typed in the instructions so the video was burned onto the DVD. I replayed the video, this time off the DVD.

"What are we watching? An old horror movie?" k.u.mar asked.

"It's a tape of a serial killer named Abb Grimes."

"How gruesome. What am I looking for?"

"I want to see what he was wearing on his feet."

We watched "The Night Stalker" video in silence. Toward the end, Abb's right foot appeared from beneath his pants, and k.u.mar froze the frame. The picture was much sharper on k.u.mar's screen, and I could see that Abb was indeed wearing a slipper. There was an image on the side of the slipper, and I strained my eyes to make it out.

"Any idea what that is?" I asked.

k.u.mar typed a command on his keyboard, and blew up the image. Then he fitted on his reading gla.s.ses and stared. "It looks like a cartoon."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes. Why are you so skeptical?"

"This guy was arrested for murdering eighteen women," I explained.

"So he must have been crazy," k.u.mar said.

"I need a copy of this," I said.

k.u.mar used the mouse to hit the print icon. Moments later, a four-color photo of Abb's right slipper spit out of the laser copier. I held the photograph beneath the light on the desk, and studied it. k.u.mar was right; the image on Abb's slipper resembled a cartoon.

"I need to blow this up," I said.

"Not a problem," k.u.mar said.

k.u.mar placed the photo into the copy machine behind his desk, then programmed the machine to blow up the image. The copy machine began to print, and I grabbed the sheet before it hit the tray.

k.u.mar came up behind me, and we both stared. The slipper now filled the page, and the cartoon was plainly visible. It was the smiling face of Fred Flintstone.