Midnight Rambler: A Novel of Suspense

During the trial, Simon Skell's defense attorney had tried to paint Ernesto as Carmella's real killer. Ernesto was no angel, but I'd never pegged him for a killer, and neither had any of the homicide detectives who'd worked the case.

“I don't know,” I told her.

“Please come inside and talk to me,” she said.

“I can't.”

“You don't want to talk to me?”

I showed her my cuffed wrists.

“I'm under arrest.”

“What did you do?”

I took a deep breath. My brain was on overdrive trying to come up with a way to tie the body in Julie's backyard to Simon Skell. Only I couldn't make the connection. My case against Skell had just gone up in flames.

“I fucked up,” I replied.

Julie shut the garage door in my face. My shoulders sagged. As a cop I had never left a stone unturned. When I was hunting for Carmella, I had the sheriff 's office search Julie's property. The backyard was searched several times, including after Simon Skell was arrested. There had been no body.

The uniform climbed out of the cruiser and shoved my wallet into my hip pocket. The look on his face said I checked out. I showed him my handcuffs.

“Let me go, will you?”

“I need to get permission from Russo,” the uniform said.

“Come on. I'm going to get struck by lightning.”

“It's Russo's call,” he said.

“That's horseshit and you know it.”

“Sorry,” he said.

A CSI van appeared on the street and parked behind the cable truck. A two-man forensic crew got out, griping about the weather. The uniform escorted them past me and into the backyard.

I'd reached my boiling point. I opened the driver's door of my car, and Buster stuck his head out and licked my fingers.

“Get the keys,” I told him.

Buster's previous owners had done a helluva job training him.

He pulled the keys out of the ignition with his teeth and dropped them on my palm. I carried a cigar punch on the ring, which was the same size as a handcuff key. I quickly freed myself.

If there's one thing that's gotten me in trouble, it's my temper. I walked down to the street and located Russo's car, a black Suburban. I tossed the cuffs onto the hood, causing a sizeable dent. Russo would go ballistic when he saw it.

Climbing into my car, I hugged my dog and drove away.

CHAPTER SEVEN

I didn't go far.

My head was filled with contradictions that needed sorting out. At a convenience store near Julie's house I purchased a sixteen-ounce coffee and a package of Slim Jims for Buster. The cashier stared at my wet clothes but said nothing.

I drank the coffee in my car while listening to the rain. Back when I was a kid, I was afraid of lightning storms. Sometimes my older sister, Donna, would invite me to her room, and we'd sit on her bed and listen to record albums. One album in particular still stands out: Everything You Know Is Wrong, by a comedy troupe called The Firesign Theatre. I blew steam off my drink thinking of that album.

Everything I knew was wrong.

I was not a new age cop. Forensics were great for solving tough cases, but they never stopped anyone from committing a crime. It took instincts to stop crimes. My instincts led me to Simon Skell, and I arrested him before he could kill any more young women. The fact that a piece of evidence had turned up that said I was wrong about how Carmella Lopez's body was disposed of didn't mean Skell wasn't guilty. He was guilty; I just couldn't prove it anymore.

My thoughts shifted to Bobby Russo. Russo was going to do everything in his power to divert blame from himself and his department over what had happened. Which meant I'd get the blame, whether I deserved it or not. My reputation had taken a pounding during Skell's trial, and I sensed another beating coming on.

Now the rain was coming down sideways. Jessie was always telling me to look on the bright side of things. Well, the bright side was that my wife and daughter no longer lived in Fort Lauderdale, and they wouldn't have to endure the shit storm I was about to go through.

I got on 595 and headed east. A part of me wanted to drink cold beer at the Sunset until I passed out, but my conscience wouldn't allow it. There were other people to think about.Namely Melinda Peters.

Melinda had been the prosecution's key witness at Skell's trial. I'd discovered her name in an old file in the National Runaway Switchboard's computer database that linked her to Skell. She'd been a reluctant witness, and it had taken every trick I knew to get her to testify. On the witness stand, Melinda had told in chilling detail how Skell picked her up when she was a sixteen-year-old runaway, drugged her, and kept her locked inside a dog crate in his house with a spiked collar on. He tortured her when the mood struck him and played rock 'n' roll music to drown out her cries for help. Skell was partial to the Rolling Stones, and he played one song repeatedly, “Midnight Rambler,” a tune about a sicko breaking into women's homes and brutally murdering them. Out of desperation, Melinda talked Skell into having sex with her, and when he let her out of her cage, she jumped through a window. Instead of calling the police, she ran to a homeless shelter and went into hiding. She told another runaway at the shelter her story, and that girl told a phone counselor at the National Runaway Switchboard, who wrote up the incident and filed it in the computer. During my investigation I stumbled across the file and tracked Melinda down.

That was our history. Melinda had helped me, and it was my responsibility to tell her about the body in Julie Lopez's backyard. I didn't want her hearing about it on the TV and freaking out. I owed her the decency of a face- to-face.

The hard part was going to be finding her. Melinda was a stripper and bounced between clubs. I didn't have her address, and the phone number she'd given me was an answering service.Then I had an idea.

Since resigning, I'd stayed friendly with a handful of cops. One was a redneck named Claude Cheever. Although Cheever and I were on opposite sides of the spectrum on every issue you could name, he had come forward at my hearing and testified that every move I'd made during the Skell investigation was by the book. None of my friends had stuck up for me like that. Not a single one.

Cheever was also a sex hound, and on a first-name basis with every stripper in town. Pulling up his cell number, I called him.

“Cheever here,” he answered.

Blaring disco music in the background made me guess he was at a club.

“Carpenter here,” I said. “Can you talk?”

“As good as the next guy,” Cheever said. “How you been?”

“I'm hanging in there. You?”

“Loving life. What's up?”

“I'm looking for Melinda Peters. Any idea where she's working these days?”

“About three feet from my drooling face.” His voice changed. “Ooh, baby, you are so damn beautiful. Come over here and make me smile.”

“You talking to her right now?” I asked.

“No, this is another hottie,” he said.