Finally the wind died, and I resumed my climb.
Reaching the top, I grabbed a handrail and looked around. I could see downtown's shimmering skyscrapers and rows of gritty warehouses in the Port of Tampa. Seeing me, the workers stopped what they were doing. I pointed at the devilish face on the poster.
“Tell me what he did.”
The second worker stepped forward. He was also Hispanic and looked scared out of his wits. I handed him and his partner some money, and they both relaxed.
“He did something bad,” the second worker said.
“What was that?” I asked.
The man scratched his chin.
“I think it was with a girl,” he said.
“A young girl?” I asked.
“Yeah. He did something bad on his radio show to a young girl. They ran him out of town.”
“How long ago was this?”
“Two, maybe three years ago.”
“Thank you very much,” I said.
He smiled. I'd made his day, and he'd made mine. Neil Bash was living in Tampa at the same time as Simon Skell, and he was doing something with underage girls that got him in trouble.
I'd found a link.
I climbed down and got into my car. My cell phone was stuck to a piece of Velcro on the dash, and I retrieved Ken Linderman's business card from my wallet and punched in his cell number. Getting voice mail, I told Linderman that I urgently needed to speak with him. Five minutes later, he called me back.
“I'm in Tampa, running down a lead on the Skell case,” I said. “Do you have an agent I could team up with for a few hours?”
“Of course,” Linderman said.
The drive to the FBI building on Gray Street was a short one. Although Tampa wasn't a big city, the FBI's presence was, and I waited on line at a security checkpoint for several minutes, then had a German Shepherd bomb sniff my car before I was allowed to drive onto the manicured grounds.
The three-story FBI building sat on seven pristine acres overlooking glistening Tampa Bay. It resembled the headquarters of a Fortune 500 company, and I found a shady spot beneath a mature oak tree and parked. Buster was not having fun, and he curled up into a ball and went to sleep without being told.
I walked through the building's front doors, feeling out of place in my beach-bum clothes. Having worked with the FBI many times, I knew that behind these walls were several hundred dedicated agents who did everything from finding missing children to stopping domestic terrorism.
At the reception desk I presented my driver's license to the uniformed male guard on duty. The guard kept my license and told me to have a seat. A minute later he called me back to his desk and returned my license.
“Go over to those glass doors,” the guard said. “Special Agent Saunders will be out shortly.”
I thanked him and stood by the shimmering glass doors. Thirty seconds later Saunders marched out. He wore a starched white shirt and dark blue necktie, was about thirty-five, and had a football player's broad shoulders and imposing physique. His palm swallowed mine as we shook hands.
“Ken Linderman called and said you had a lead in the Midnight Rambler case,” Saunders said when we were in his office, a tidy second-floor room with two chairs, a metal desk, and a spectacular view of the bay. “I was assigned to Skell when he lived here. I'll do whatever I can to help you.”
“What do you know about Neil Bash?” I asked.
“The shock jock?”
“Yes. What can you tell me about him?”
Saunders was animated and didn't appear to enjoy sitting down. I recognized the trait and followed him to the window. We both stared out at the bay's choppy water.
“Bash was a twisted guy,” Saunders said. “He seemed to get his kicks out of making his listeners uncomfortable. One time he had a hog castrated on his show. The station got fined two hundred grand by the FCC.”
“Was he arrested?” I asked.
“Believe it or not, he didn't break any laws. The hog was to be castrated anyway. Bash just played it on the air.”
A team of rowers with a coxswain passed by the building. When they were gone, Saunders said, “Okay, so how are Bash and Skell connected?”
“They lived in Tampa at the same time, and now Bash is promoting Skell on his radio show in Fort Lauderdale while attacking me.”
Saunders's eyebrows went up. “Sounds like you're onto something.”
“I hope so,” I said. “I heard Bash got run out of Tampa a while back. Something to do with an nderage girl. Is he a pedophile?”
“He never showed up on our radar.”
“Do you remember what the deal with the girl was?”
Saunders crossed his arms and gave it some thought.
“No, but I know someone who probably does,” he said.
Saunders picked up the phone on his desk and called a feature writer at the
“That was about three years ago,” Haber said. “If I remember correctly, one of the newscasters over at Fox broke the story.”
“What happened?” Saunders asked.
“A sixteen-year-old cheerleader at Plant High School accused her history teacher of having an affair with her,” Haber said. “Somehow, Bash got the girl to call his show, then tricked her into saying that she'd initiated the relationship and that the teacher wasn't to blame.”
“How did Bash do that?” I asked.
There was a pause as Haber dredged his memory.
“It had something to do with the equipment Bash had in his studio,” the reporter finally said. “I don't remember how, but he used a piece of equipment to get the girl to say things that she really didn't mean to say.”
“You're saying he manipulated her answers,” I said.
“That's right,” Haber replied.
“Wouldn't the girl have known what Bash was doing?”
“Somehow she didn't know. From what I remember, Bash did something that was really clever.”
“Was this a live show?” I asked.
“Yeah, it was live,” Haber said.
I thought back to Melinda's call-in performance to Bash's show the day before. Her answers had sounded strained, and there had been pregnant pauses between them. I wondered if this played into what Haber had just described.
“Who was the reporter over at Fox?” Saunders asked.
“Kathy Fountain,” Haber said.
Saunders glanced at me. “I know Kathy. Want to take a ride over to the station and have a chat with her?”
“Absolutely,” I said.
“We need to run,” Saunders told Haber. “Thanks for your help.”
“Anytime,” Haber said.
