Biggs glanced at me. “No. Should I?”
“This is Jack Carpenter,” Boone said. “Jack used to be a detective. You beat him up when you were abducting Sara Long at the Day’s Inn last night.”
“That’s bullshit.”
“Watch your language,” Boone snapped.
“If he says I beat him up, he’s lying.”
“He’s not lying,” Boone said. “You’re lying.”
Biggs fell silent and stared at the floor. He wasn’t acting the way innocent people acted. I pushed myself off the wall.
“What are you doing in Fort Lauderdale?” I asked.
“I drove down to see Sara play,” Biggs replied.
“Are you two back together?”
“We’re working on it.”
“Did you see the whole game?”
“Most of it.”
I’d been sitting in the Florida State rooting section during the game, and had not seen Biggs in the stands. I could have missed him, only he was too big to miss.
“Where did you watch the game from?” I asked.
Biggs hesitated, and I knew I’d caught him.
“A bar?” I asked.
His mouth tightened.
“Or did you go to a strip club?”
His face reddened. Busted.
“Here’s what I’m guessing,” I said. “You came to see Sara, only temptation got the better of you, and you went to a strip club instead of the game. Things must have gotten out of hand, because now you don’t want to talk about it. And because you won’t talk, you’re screwing up the police’s ability to find Sara.”
Biggs leaned back in his chair, looked at the ceiling and blew out his lungs. “I went to a tittie bar, and a chick gave me a hand job in the VIP lounge for fifty bucks.”
“What was her name?”
“Sky.”
“Why didn’t you tell the police?”
“I didn’t want it making the newspapers.”
“Afraid it would ruin your NBA chances?”
“Fuck you.”
“Watch it!” Boone cautioned.
There was a sweet smell coming off Biggs that I’d thought was aftershave, but now realized was cheap perfume from the stripper who’d jerked him off. Sara Long deserved better than this loser.
“Did you call Sara after the game?” I asked.
“Yeah, I called her,” Biggs replied.
“What did you say?”
“I told her I’d come by, and we’d go out and celebrate.”
“Did she agree?”
“Yes.”
“You were going to pick her up at the motel?”
“That’s right.”
Now I understood what had happened. Sara had been expecting Biggs to pick her up. She had looked through the peephole and seen a giant figure standing outside in the dark; she’d assumed it was Biggs and unlocked the door.
Now I was pissed. Biggs had unwittingly aided in Sara’s abduction. I pointed my finger at him and saw him squirm in his chair.
“What?” Biggs said.
“You know what,” I said.
“No, I don’t.”
“It’s time for you to come clean. Otherwise, the police will continue to think that you did this, and not focus on catching the real abductors.”
“Come clean how?”
“I want you to tell us everything that happened at the strip club, starting with the time you got there, till the time you left.”
A line of sweat appeared above Biggs’s upper lip. Liar’s sweat. Biggs had gotten more than a hand job from Sky. If it came out, his career would be finished. No NBA contract, or lucrative sneaker endorsements, or beautiful girls waiting in every town he played in. He wasn’t prepared for that, even if it meant harming Sara. He was a selfish prick, and nothing I could say was going to change him.
“I want to talk to my lawyer,” Biggs said.
CHAPTER 10
I wanted to be a detective for just ten minutes. That was all the time I’d need to put the fear of God into Biggs, and make him start telling the truth. Boone pulled me into the hallway.
“So, what do you think?” Boone asked.
“Biggs is a scumbag, but he didn’t abduct Sara Long.”
“Then why won’t he talk to us?”
The hallway was filled with men wearing tailored suits and silk neckties. They looked like defense lawyers who happened to have better hearing than most dogs. I pulled Boone into a corner where no one could eavesdrop.
“Biggs had sex with a stripper and doesn’t want the NBA to find out. That’s why he’s keeping his mouth shut.”
“I think he did it,” Boone said. “I’m going to ask the DA to press charges. Are you sure you don’t want to change your story?”
Boone had made up his mind. He disliked Biggs so much that it had tainted his reasoning. Cops called it personalizing a case. It had ruined more criminal investigations than anything I knew of. Shaking my head, I watched Boone walk away.
– – I trudged up the stairwell to the main floor, turned over my visitor’s pass to the desk sergeant, and started to sign myself out.
“Not so fast,” the desk sergeant said.
“What did I do?” I asked.
“Detective Burrell wants to see you. She’s in her office on the second floor.”
I reclaimed my visitor’s pass and went upstairs. The second-floor receptionist waved me through, and I walked down the hall. Burrell occupied my old corner office with its depressing view of the employee parking lot. I’d never liked looking at the cars cops drove; they were usually aging pieces of junk and had always reminded me how poorly cops were paid. I stuck my head into Burrell’s office, and caught her gazing through the window.
“Good morning,” I said.
Burrell spun around in her chair. She still wore yesterday’s blue pantsuit, her hair disheveled, her eyes ringed from lack of sleep. I didn’t need a crystal ball to figure out what was going on. The search for Sara had gone cold.
“Have a seat,” she said.
I sat across from her. You could tell a lot about people by the photographs that sat on their desks. The photos on Burrell’s desk were of her father, her uncle, and her two brothers-all rank-and-file cops. I supposed it was
