The Night Stalker_ A Novel Of Suspense Part 20

"Detective Burrell is in a meeting with the mayor and cannot be disturbed," the secretary said.

"Tell her it's Jack Carpenter, and it's urgent. I'll hold."

Vorbe came out of the building with a white towel draped over his arm. I watched him climb onto the milk crate and cover Stone's face with the towel. The secretary came back on the line. "Detective Burrell says she'll call you back."

"I must speak with her," I said.

"She's with the mayor," the secretary whispered. the secretary whispered.

Back when I'd run Missing Persons, I'd come up with code words and expressions that had allowed the detectives in my unit to communicate with each other without anyone else being the wiser. I said, "I need for you to give Detective Burrell another message."

"Sir, I can't."

"Write this down. Elvis has left the building. She'll know what it means."

"But-"

"Just do it."

The secretary put me on hold. Thirty seconds later, Burrell came on the line. "Jack, I don't know what's gotten into you, but you're going to get me fired."

"Are you still with the mayor?" I asked.

"He's taking a leak. What do you want?"

"I just found Abb Grimes's defense attorney in the Dumpster where Abb put his victims. Her neck's broken."

I heard a sharp intake of breath.

"Does anyone else know about this?" Burrell asked.

"You're the first person I called."

"Give me directions to the grocery."

I had smoked on and off when I was a cop. It was the only thing that I'd found that calmed me down after finding a corpse. I was puffing on my second cigarette when Burrell's Mustang pulled up behind the grocery with a bubble flashing on its dashboard.

Burrell jumped out. I introduced her to Vorbe and escorted her to the Dumpster where I'd made the grisly discovery. Without a word, Burrell climbed onto the milk crate and looked inside.

"What's her name?" Burrell asked.

"Piper Stone," I said. "She's an attorney at Crippen and Howe and was representing Abb Grimes. She told her boss this morning that she'd found information in the transcript of Abb's trial that indicated evidence had been destroyed. She went to Memorial Hospital and spoke with Ron Cheeks, then drove to LeAnn Grimes's place, and met with Jed Grimes. Not long after that, someone who looked like Jed was spotted by the Dumpsters by a store employee, and the manager called the police."

"Are you sure that's the right chronology?"

"Yes. It's all been confirmed."

Burrell climbed off the milk crate and dusted off her palms. "And then you met with Jed Grimes, and he ran away."

"That's right," I said.

"So, do you still feel Jed is innocent?"

I heard the accusation in her voice. Burrell thought I'd screwed up, and had let a killer get away. Still, my gut was telling me that someone else had done this. And until I had cold hard proof that showed me otherwise, I was sticking with my gut.

"Yes," I said. "I still think Jed's innocent."

Burrell called for backup on her cell. In what seemed like a few minutes but was probably longer, the grounds were swarming with dozens of uniformed cops and EMS. Burrell had the uniforms go to the front of the store, and seal off the property. It was a smart move, for it kept the media at bay, and let the police do their job without interference.

I stood next to the loading dock with my dog. A pair of medics lifted the garbage bag containing Stone out of the Dumpster and laid it on the ground. They cut the bag away, and lifted Stone's body onto a gurney, and wheeled her into the back of an ambulance. Stone was not wearing any clothes, and it occurred to me that she'd died almost identically to how Abb Grimes's victims had died. Twelve years had pa.s.sed, yet it was like nothing had changed.

I felt a tap on my shoulder and turned around. A homicide detective named Chuck Cobb stood behind me. A lot of people used to think Cobb and I were brothers. Cobb was tall and had a dark complexion, swam compet.i.tively in his youth, and had a smart mouth. Personally, I didn't see the resemblance.

"Ready to get grilled?" Cobb asked.

"Sure," I said.

Cobb led me inside the supermarket to a windowless room half-filled with boxes. I sat in a chair with Buster at my feet, while Cobb leaned against a wall and faced me. Flipping open his notebook, Cobb had me recount the events that led to my finding Stone's body while carefully writing down my answers. It took a half hour.

Cobb then put away his notebook and turned on a camcorder. He repeated his questions, but this time taped my answers. Later, this tape would be compared to my written answers, in an effort to see if I was lying, or had unknowingly changed any facts about the case. This process took another half hour, and was draining.

Cobb shut off the camera. "All done. Anything else you can think of?"

"I think that's about it," I said.

"Next!" Cobb called out.

Vorbe came into the room, and took my chair. The morning's events had done a number on him, and he was visibly upset. If I'd learned anything as a cop, it was that murder left a stain that never went away.

"I'm sorry you had to go through this," I told him.

"Thank you," Vorbe replied.

I went outside and stood on the loading dock. The area around the Dumpsters was a mob scene, with a small army of crime scene investigators scouring the grounds for evidence, which included removing every garbage bag from the Dumpster in which Stone had been found, and spreading its contents on the ground. I saw Burrell talking to an investigator, and tried to get her attention. To my surprise, she turned her back on me.

"Excuse me, are you Jack Carpenter?" I heard a voice ask.

I turned to see a man climbing up the loading dock stairs. He was about six feet and well built, with silver hair offset by piercing blue eyes. Despite the heat, he wore a black leather jacket zipped to his neck, and his clothes were wrinkle-free.

"Am I that easy to spot?" I replied.

"You're the only one here with a dog," he said.

"Who said this was my dog?"

"And a sense of humor. Is he friendly?"

I shook my head.

"How about his owner?"

"Sometimes," I said.

The man had reached the top of the stairs, and paused to dust away some dirt on his pants. Then he said, "I'm Special Agent Roger Whitley, FBI."

I'd heard of Whitley. He ran the FBI's Behavioral Sciences Unit in Quantico, and specialized in catching serial killers. One of his cases had been the basis for a really bad Hollywood movie, and had turned him into a household name.

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

"I need to speak with you about Jed Grimes," Whitley said.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN.

Hollywood had a way of distorting the truth that most cops didn't like. The movie based on Whitley's exploits was a good example of that.

Whitley regularly visited federal prisons around the country and interviewed serial killers who were willing to talk about their lives. These interviews were tape-recorded, and had allowed Whitley to build profiles that helped him catch serial killers still at large.

One day Whitley had paid a visit to the Attica Correctional Facility in upstate New York to interview a serial killer named "Nasty" Nate Savage. Savage had brutally killed eight people in the Buffalo area, several of whom he'd decapitated. When he'd been caught, Savage had been carrying a head in a bowling bag.

Savage was literally a giant, and stood an inch under seven feet and weighed over three hundred pounds. Because of the threat he posed to other inmates, he was kept in solitary confinement, where he spent his days reading comic books and playing solitaire.

Whitley's interview of Savage had lasted several hours, with Savage talking freely about his killing spree. Then, in a sudden shift, Savage had begun to act out his attacks, and had demonstrated to Whitley how he'd ripped the heads off his victims' bodies. Sensing that his life might be in danger, Whitley had pressed the call b.u.t.ton for the guards.

"They're changing shifts," Savage had explained when the guards had failed to appear. "Might be a while before they come and get you. It's just you and me, pal."

Whitley had tried to shift the conversation to Savage's childhood, but the serial killer was having none of it.

"You know, I could go bats.h.i.t in here, and you'd be in trouble," Savage had said. "I could screw your head clean off your body, and put it on the table to greet the guards. Wouldn't that be fun?"

Whitley had reacted with surprising calm. He'd warned Savage that he'd be in serious trouble if he murdered a federal official. Already serving ten consecutive life sentences, Savage had burst into laughter.

"What are they gonna do, take away my cigarettes?" he'd asked.

What had followed was a contest of wills. For each of Savage's vicious taunts, Whitley had thrown up a roadblock, and used his extraordinary behavioral insight to keep the killer at bay. At one point Savage had jumped out of his chair, to which Whitley had said, "You don't think I'd meet you without some way to defend myself, do you?"

"What you got?" Savage shot back. "A nail clipper?"

"Something a little more powerful than that," Whitley had said.

Whitley had feigned reaching for a sidearm, and Savage had retreated. Moments later, two guards entered the cell and took Savage away.

That was the story Hollywood had bought. But it wasn't what had ended up on the silver screen. In the movie, Savage had been a sympathetic character filled with justifiable rage. Taking Whitley hostage, he'd escaped from Attica, and gone home and killed everyone who'd ever wronged him, including his s.a.d.i.s.tic stepfather and a local bully. For the finale, he'd jumped into Niagara Falls as the police were closing in.

I had seen the movie, and left the theater wanting my money back. The cops had been the bad guys, while Savage was the hero. Whitley's name had been in the credits as technical adviser. It had made me think the guy had sold out.

Whitley suggested getting something to eat. We went to a nearby fast-food restaurant in his rental, and ate fried chicken sandwiches in the parking lot. I bought french fries for Buster, which I fed him through the seats.

"Detective Burrell contacted me yesterday after you discovered the dead guy in the orange grove," Whitley said. "Based upon the information she shared with me, I knew I'd better come down here. Unfortunately, I wasn't in time to save Piper Stone."

I'd never heard a cop say what Whitley had just said. I put my sandwich down on the wrapper lying in my lap. "Do you think you could have saved her?"

"Yes, I do," Whitley said.

"Would you mind telling me how?"

"By having Jed Grimes arrested. Jed killed the homeless guy in the grove, and he was going to kill someone again-all the signs were there. Stone happened to be the unlucky one."

"What signs?"

"Serial killers aren't born, they're made. If you accept that theory, then you can see the signs that tell you that someone is becoming one. Jed Grimes is an evolving serial killer. A tortured childhood, a string of arrests, likes to set fires, hates his father, and has a grudge against the law. It's textbook."

I wrapped up the rest of my sandwich, and tossed it into the bag on the floor. Whitley had told me he wanted to talk about Jed Grimes, but that wasn't true. He wanted to lecture me about Jed, and tell me where I'd gone wrong. I didn't like it, and I said, "Abb Grimes received a ransom note in prison. The note told Abb to stop talking to the FBI or his grandson would die. Are you telling me Jed sent that note?"

"Yes," Whitley said.

"What the h.e.l.l for?"

"Part of Jed's evolution into a killer involves stepping free of his father's shadow. That can only happen when Abb Grimes is dead. My guess is that when Jed found out his father was trying to stall his own execution, he decided to kidnap his son."

Stall his execution. The words. .h.i.t me hard. The words. .h.i.t me hard.

"Was that Abb's motivation for talking to the FBI?" I asked.

"Yes. Death row inmates do it all the time."

"So you think Abb doesn't care about his grandson's safety?"

"I doubt he does," Whitley said.

"And that he's just a monster."

"That's right."

I stared through the sun-soaked windshield while thinking about my meeting with Abb. I'd come away believing that he cared about his grandson's welfare. So far, nothing that Whitley had said had convinced me otherwise.

"You think I got played for a fool, don't you?" I asked.

"I'm afraid so," Whitley said.