The Night Stalker_ A Novel Of Suspense Part 40

"Ron Cheeks is dirty. Pa.s.s it on," I said.

I was driven to the station house and booked. My clothes and possessions were confiscated, and my body cavities were checked for hidden drugs and weapons. The booking procedure was designed to strip people of their dignity, and I dealt with the humiliation by cracking jokes that no one laughed at.

Next stop was the bas.e.m.e.nt. Instead of being put in a holding pen with a bunch of lowlifes and psychopaths, I was shuttled to an interrogation room, and left by myself. The room had two plastic chairs that were hex-bolted to the floor, and a large mirror covering the wall. It smelled like someone had taken a p.i.s.s in it.

I went to the mirror and stared at my reflection. My lower lip was b.l.o.o.d.y, my nose swollen and bruised, and my eyes had a trapped look that I didn't like. The mirror was two-way, and I wondered who was on the other side watching me. Probably the chief, trying to figure out what he was going to do with me.

"I know my rights. I want to make my phone call," I said.

I folded my arms and waited. Whoever was on the other side could hear me. There were hidden microphones in the ceiling that were sensitive enough to hear a person's stomach growl. When no one came into the room, I raised my voice.

"Come on. Let's get this show on the road."

I waited another couple of minutes. The cops were trying to intimidate me. It worked on most suspects they brought in, and knocked them down a few pegs. But it didn't work on me.

Peeling off my s.h.i.+rt, I threw it into the corner, then undid the drawstring in my prison jammies, and let them drop. Wearing nothing but my boxers, I got down on the floor, and started doing push-ups.

Five minutes and a hundred push-ups later, I was sitting in the chief's office on the top floor, staring at the man himself behind his desk. The chief's navy suit looked like he'd slept in it, and clumps of gray whiskers were sprouting out of his face like weeds. Burrell flanked him, and made brief eye contact with me.

"G.o.dd.a.m.n it, Carpenter," the chief swore. "The department has more problems than it can handle, and you're running around town beating up my men."

"Cheeks is dirty," I said. "You should have arrested him, not me."

The chief picked up a spiral notebook lying on his desk. It looked like the same notebook the uniform had used when interrogating me outside of Cheeks's house. He waved it in front of my face. "I read your allegations, and they're totally false. Cheeks didn't destroy evidence in the Abb Grimes case. It got lost. Cheeks didn't frame Jed Grimes for his son's abduction. Jed was the logical suspect, and still is our only suspect. And Cheeks didn't threaten the grocery store manager. He may have leaned on him a little bit, but he didn't threaten him."

"The manager told me he threatened him," I said.

"I don't care what the manager said," the chief snapped. "Cheeks knew we were shorthanded, and spoke to the manager as a favor to me. He's trying to help us find Heather Rinker and her son, which is more than I can say for you right now."

The chief was giving me the company line. He wasn't going to haul Cheeks in and question him, but he was willing to humiliate me. I folded my hands in my lap, and waited him out.

"Look, Jack, I need help, help," the chief said. "Heather Rinker and her son are gone, and I don't have a single clue as to where they might be. You're the expert at finding missing people. Help us find them, will you?"

"I can't," I heard myself say.

"Why not?"

"Because I'm under arrest."

"Cheeks has said he doesn't want to press charges. I'm willing to give you a pa.s.s. In return, you'll help us. Do we have a deal?"

I'd broken enough laws to have myself put away for a long time. The chief had to be pretty desperate to let me skate. I glanced at Burrell, then back at him.

"Deal."

"Good." The chief leaned forward in his chair, and clasped his hands in front of his face. "Let's play pretend for a minute. If this was your investigation, what would you do?"

I stared down at my jailhouse flip-flops, and gave it some thought. Jed had spoken to Heather right before she had disappeared. According to LeAnn, her son had asked Heather to get something for him to eat, and probably knew where Heather had gone.

"I'd do everything possible to make Jed talk," I said.

"We tried that," the chief said. "Our best interrogators have worked him over, along with an interrogator from the FBI. Jed won't say a word."

"Jed hates cops. You need someone who isn't a cop," I said.

"Any suggestions?"

"How about his mother?"

"LeAnn Grimes left town, and her cell phone is turned off."

"Any other relatives?"

"They're all dead."

The room fell silent. Jed Grimes didn't have many fans, except for one. I pointed at the phone sitting on the chief's desk.

"Let me make a phone call," I said.

"To who?" the chief asked.

"His priest."

CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE.

Dialing information, I obtained Father Kelly's phone number in Starke. I called the number, and a woman answered who identified herself as his wife. She was polite, and gave me the number of his parish office in town. I called it, and let the phone ring a dozen times. Father Kelly answered sounding out of breath.

"I was just leaving for the prison to be with Abb," Father Kelly said. "What can I do for you?"

It took me a moment to realize what Father Kelly meant. He was Abb Grimes's priest, and was going to be at Starke Prison when Abb was put to death.

"I'm calling about Jed," I said. "I think he might be able to lead the police to his missing wife and son, but he's refusing to talk to anyone."

"Do you want me to talk with him?"

"Yes."

"Consider it done."

I asked Kelly to stay by his phone at the parish, and told him someone would call back soon. Kelly promised to be there and hung up. I handed the chief the phone.

"Put Jed into a room with a telephone, and leave the rest to me," I said.

I went downstairs to the booking area and retrieved my clothes and personal items. A long line of perps was waiting to be processed. Looking in their faces, I saw the same desperate look I'd seen in my own reflection a short while ago.

I changed clothes in a bathroom and dried my gun with the hand dryer. I came out to find Burrell in the hallway. She led me outside the building to the smoking area. It was free of smokers, but she still spoke in a whisper.

"Listen, Jack," she said. "I spoke to a couple of older detectives who work in Homicide. Evidence in murder cases just doesn't disappear. If Cheeks destroyed those slippers and sleeping medication, other detectives in the department knew about it."

"You think there was a conspiracy?" I asked.

"Call it an agreement to look the other way."

"Why?"

"Maybe they wanted to make sure Abb Grimes got the death penalty. Didn't you?"

I would have been lying if I'd said that I hadn't wanted Abb to be put to death for the crimes he'd committed. But wanting an evil person to die, and destroying evidence that proved he was crazy, were two entirely different things.

"Not that badly," I said.

We went inside and headed to the bas.e.m.e.nt. While one of the interrogation rooms was being outfitted with a phone, Burrell and I sat in the adjacent room along with the chief, and watched through the two-way mirror as a technician ran a line into the room, then stapled the line to the carpet in the floor.

"Here he comes," Burrell said.

Jed entered the interrogation room wearing a pale blue jumpsuit. His handcuffs and leg irons were connected to a chain that was padlocked to a metal belly band encircling his waist. Seeing the mirror, he shook his handcuffs defiantly.

"Crummy cops!" he shouted.

His escorts were two muscular guards. One pushed him into a chair.

"Sit down, and shut up," the guard said.

The guard looked at the mirror and raised his eyebrows. The chief pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket, and handed it to me. Typed on it was a phone number.

"That's the number for the phone in the room," the chief explained.

I took out my cell phone, and called Father Kelly at his parish. This time, he answered on the first ring.

"Jed is sitting in an interrogation room at police headquarters," I said. "I'm going to give you a number for a phone in that room. I want you to call Jed, and see if you can get him to talk."

"I'll do my best," Father Kelly said.

I gave him the number and hung up. Ten seconds later, the phone in the interrogation room rang. A guard put the call on speaker phone, and Father Kelly's voice came out of the speaker.

"h.e.l.lo, Jed? This is Father Kelly calling."

Jed twitched like he'd been hit by a cattle prod. Bending his body at the waist, he brought his mouth down closer to the phone.

"Hey, Father Kelly," he whispered.

"I need to talk to you, Jed," the priest said.

"Okay," he replied.

Jed knew we were eavesdropping.

Each time Father Kelly asked him a question, Jed dropped his voice, and mumbled a one-syllable response, while his eyes s.h.i.+fted suspiciously around the interrogation room. I had known hardened criminals who were not as distrustful of the police as he was.

Father Kelly didn't give up. The questions kept coming, and little by little, I saw Jed's chin drop, and the steely look in his eyes begin to fade. Father Kelly was playing on his conscience, and gradually wearing him down.

"You love Heather and your son, don't you?" Father Kelly asked.

"Yeah," Jed mumbled.

"Love them with all your heart, and all your soul?"

"Yeah."

"They're in trouble, you realize that?"

"Uh-huh."

"We have to help them. You must talk to the police."

"No."

"Why won't you talk to the police, Jed?"

"Because the police lie. lie."

It was the first time he'd uttered a real sentence.

"You must work with the police," Father Kelly said emphatically. "They need to eliminate you as a suspect, so they can find the person who's behind this. I know this is hard to believe, but the police are your friends."

Jed jumped up from his chair. "Why don't you tell that to my daddy, Father Kelly? Tell him what great friends the police are when they stick a needle in his arm tomorrow morning. I'm sure he'd love to hear that."

I rose from my chair. Jed's hatred for the police was too great for him to willingly help us. But that didn't mean I couldn't get to the truth. I quietly left the room.

Burrell and the chief must have thought I was going to the bathroom, because they didn't follow me. I went next door, and entered the interrogation room. Both guards looked at me, and a.s.suming I was a detective, let me enter.

I stood in front of Jed's chair. "Remember me?"

Jed stared at me with hatred in his eyes. "Yeah."