The Night Stalker (24 page)

CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

W
ith 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
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 documentaries. 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.

I walked down the hall to Kumar’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. Kumar 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?”

Kumar 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.”

Kumar 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.

Kumar 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?” Kumar 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 Kumar froze the frame. The picture was much sharper on Kumar’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.

Kumar typed a command on his keyboard, and blew up the image. Then he fitted on his reading glasses 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,” Kumar said.

“I need a copy of this,” I said.

Kumar 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. Kumar was right; the image on Abb’s slipper resembled a cartoon.

“I need to blow this up,” I said.

“Not a problem,” Kumar said.

Kumar 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.

Kumar 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.

CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

I
drove to LeAnn Grimes’s neighborhood with my mind reeling. Abb Grimes had been wearing a pair of kid’s cartoon slippers the night he’d murdered his last victim, which was a clear indicator that something was wrong with him. Yet no evidence about his mental state had ever been presented at trial. I had to find out why.

The storm had passed, and the sun was shining. I parked in front of LeAnn’s house. Now that Jed had been captured, the FBI had pulled up stakes, and I spotted a lone police cruiser with two officers parked a few houses away. My windows were rolled down, and I could hear the officers discussing the police’s ongoing search for Heather and Sampson. The tenor of their voices told me that they didn’t expect to find either of them alive.

I knocked on the front door. It swung open, and I found myself standing face-to-face with LeAnn. She wore a somber black dress, and was dragging a suitcase.

“May I come in?” I asked.

LeAnn stepped onto the front stoop. Her eyes were ringed from lack of sleep, and her movements were slow and painful.

“Please get out of my way,” she said.

“I need to speak with you. It will only take a minute.”

“I have to go see Abb,” she said.

Then I understood the suitcase. She was driving to Starke to see Abb get strapped on a gurney and have a needle filled with a powerful cocktail of narcotics and life-ending drugs pumped into his veins. She was going to say good-bye to her husband.

“I need to speak with you about the evidence that was destroyed in your husband’s case,” I said. “It will only take a few minutes.”

A flicker of life came into her otherwise lifeless eyes. She dropped her suitcase in the doorway, then turned around and went into the house. I picked up the suitcase and put it in the foyer, then followed her inside.

She dropped onto the couch in the living room. The bun in her hair had come undone, and as her hair fell onto her shoulders, I glimpsed the woman she’d once been.

“What do you want to know?” she asked.

I pulled up a chair. In my pocket was the photo of Abb’s slipper with the cartoon of Fred Flintstone I’d printed off Kumar’s computer. It was folded into a square, and I smoothed out the creases before showing it to her.

“Your husband was wearing these slippers the night he was filmed in the grocery store parking lot,” I said. “Do you recognize them?”

LeAnn’s eyes briefly studied the page. Then they locked onto me.

“Let me tell you something about those slippers,” she said. “They were a birthday present from Jed to his daddy. Abb adored them, and wore them whenever he was home. After my husband was arrested, those slippers were taken and destroyed by Detective Cheeks, the man who arrested my husband.”

“Why would Cheeks do that?”

“Because he knew something was wrong with Abb. We all did.”

“We?”

“Me, the neighbors, even Jed—and he was just a little boy back then.”

“How old was Jed?”

“Seven.”

“But he understood what was going on.”

“Yes. You see, Abb suffered from insomnia. It got so bad that I took him to a clinic, where the doctor prescribed a new experimental drug. The drug let Abb sleep, but bad things started to happen. I’d wake up at night, and hear Abb banging around the house. One night I went into the kitchen, and all the chairs were turned upside down. I tried to get him back to bed, and he nearly took my head off. The next morning, I talked to him about it over breakfast, and Abb acted like it hadn’t happened.”

“You said the neighbors knew something was wrong with Abb,” I said. “How did they know?”

“Abb left the house at night and strolled around the neighborhood. One of my neighbors caught him peeking in their windows; another found him sitting in their car. He was scaring the daylights out of them.”

Her voice had grown weak, the memories draining her. I didn’t want to make her suffering any worse, but I had to get to the truth.

“What was the drug?” I asked.

“I don’t remember.”

“Did you contact Abb’s doctor to find out?”

“The clinic went out of business. I tried to track the doctor down, but never found him. It was another dead end.”

“Did you tell Abb’s defense attorney this?”

“His attorney knew everything. He was appointed by the court because we didn’t have any money to hire a lawyer. He seemed resigned to my husband losing in court.”

I thought back to the evidence log from the trial. It had contained everything that the police had taken from the Grimes’s house.

“Did the police take the drug as evidence?” I asked.

“Yes. It disappeared with the slippers.”

“Do you think Detective Cheeks destroyed it?”

LeAnn laughed under her breath, giving me my answer.

“Did Jed know about the drug?” I asked.

“Oh, Jed knew. It was so painful for him. He used to walk up to police officers when he was a little boy and say, ‘My daddy isn’t a bad man! He isn’t bad!’ When he grew older, the reality of what Detective Cheeks had done hit him, and Jed tried to confront Detective Cheeks. That’s when Detective Cheeks started to haul him in, and accuse him of crimes he hadn’t committed.”

I leaned back in my chair. Everything Father Kelly had told me was true. Jed had been painted as a monster by Cheeks, and all because he knew the truth about his father.

“Now, if you’ll excuse me, I must go,” LeAnn said.

She went into the hallway to retrieve her suitcase. I tried to carry it outside for her, and she wrestled it from my grasp.

“No, thank you,” she said.

I watched her throw the suitcase into an old Chevy parked in the driveway beside the house. It was an eight-hour drive to the prison, and I found myself wishing she didn’t have to go it alone.

LeAnn backed down the driveway. The tailpipe was making horrible sounds that disrupted the quiet morning. She braked before reaching the street, and motioned to me. I hustled over to her open window.

“Would you like to know what
I
think?” she asked.

I said that I did.

“Detective Cheeks railroaded my husband, and now he’s railroading my son,” she said. “If you don’t believe me, ask the manager of the Smart Buy.”

“You mean Mr. Vorbe,” I said.

“Yes. He told me so this morning while delivering my groceries. Detective Cheeks came to his store, and tried to coerce him into saying untrue things about Jed. Ask him if you don’t believe me.”

Her car rattled and clanked as she drove away. The noise it was making was loud, but not nearly as loud as the alarm going off inside my head. Cheeks had destroyed evidence in one murder investigation, and now he was coercing witnesses in another.

I ran to my car.

The Smart Buy was open for business, and I went inside to the help desk. The young lady manning the desk was the same one who’d assisted me the other day. I asked for Jean-Baptiste Vorbe, and she made a call to his office.

“I think Mr. Vorbe is outside with the police,” she said.

I thanked her, and went outside the store. There weren’t any cops in the front of the building, and I walked around to the back. A police cruiser was parked by the Dumpsters, and I saw two cops standing on ladders, poking through the garbage with long sticks. Several torn bags lay on the ground. I looked for Vorbe, but didn’t see him.

“She isn’t here, and neither’s her kid,” one of the uniforms said.

“Keep looking,” the other said.

“We should have brought some fly spray.”

“Tell me about it.”

I climbed the stairs to the loading dock, and found Vorbe standing next to the building. He wore a white shirt and black tie, and was leaning on his cane. His brow glistened with sweat, and his graying hair looked electrified in the midday sun.

“Mr. Carpenter,” Vorbe said.

“I need to speak with you,” I said.

“Of course.”

“I hear Detective Cheeks came to see you yesterday.”

Vorbe looked at me in alarm. “Who told you this?”

“LeAnn Grimes. She said that Detective Cheeks tried to coerce you into saying untrue things about her son. Is that true?”

Vorbe glanced at the cops picking through the Dumpster, and lowered his voice. “Detective Cheeks was acting very ugly, very crude. He peppered me with questions about Jed Grimes—Did I remember how many times he’d visited my store? Had I ever seen him with a woman named Piper Stone? Did I know where he might have hidden his wife and son?—and then asked me if I’d testify against him at his trial. When I hesitated, Detective Cheeks yelled at me. I felt like…”

His voice trailed off and I pressed him. “Like what?”

“I do not feel comfortable saying this.”

“Say it anyway.”

“I felt he was trying to intimidate me.”

Vorbe lowered his eyes. My gut told me that he wasn’t telling me everything that had happened. I put my hand on his sleeve, and felt his body tense up.

“What else happened?” I asked.

“Else?” he said.

“The rest of it.”

Vorbe hesitated, then the words poured out. “Detective Cheeks said that I should not talk to any other police officers about the case. He was emphatic about this. He said that if I did, I would pay. Then he told me he would be back.”

“Was his tone threatening?”

“Very.”

Down below, the cops had finished their search and had climbed off their ladders. They retied the torn bags of garbage lying on the ground and hoisted them back into the Dumpster. Then they came over to the loading dock, and thanked Vorbe for his help. Their cruiser kicked up loose gravel as it drove away.

I faced Vorbe. He was still sweating, and his eyes were glassy. Cheeks had done a real number on him. The police were supposed to protect the weak and the innocent, and Cheeks was threatening them instead. I decided it was time to find out why.

“I’m sorry Cheeks put you through this,” I said.

“I don’t want any more trouble,” Vorbe said. “Especially from Detective Cheeks.”

“I’ll take care of Cheeks,” I said.