Midnight Rambler

CHAPTER NINETEEN

I decided to get drunk. Whatever was left of my reputation had gone up in flames, and Big Al's suggestion that I move out of the state suddenly seemed a good idea.

But before I got drunk. I wanted to look Melinda in the eye and ask her why she'd done this to me. It seemed cruel that she'd accuse me of sleeping with her when I'd spent so much energy fighting off her advances. It was also an accusation that I'd never live down. When a woman says you slept with her, there's no denying it.

I pointed the Legend toward her apartment complex. Buster had picked up on my sorry state and tried to crawl into my lap.

He wanted to comfort me, but I wasn't in the mood and made him stay on the passenger seat.

I parked a few units down from her place. At her door I knocked loudly. When she didn't answer, I pounded. Then I started to kick.

“Open up. It's Jack Carpenter.”

Sticking my face to the front window, I peered inside. Through a slit in the drapes I saw a floor plan like a cheap motel room. Everything looked in its place. A black kitty jumped at the glass, scratching at my face.

I knocked on her neighbors' doors. Melinda spent her days watching soap operas and reading romance novels. That doesn't sound like much of a life, but it was a far cry from living on the street and not knowing where her next meal was coming from.

An elderly neighbor wearing fuzzy bedroom slippers and a muumuu agreed to talk to me.

“I saw Melinda this morning,” the neighbor said, her face shrouded by a cigarette's fog. “Lent her some Sweet'N Low. You a cop?”

“A friend.”

“Boyfriend?”

“No, just a friend.”

“You look like a cop,” the neighbor said. “Act like one, too.”

“I used to be. How was Melinda's demeanor?”

“Her what?”

“Her attitude. How was she acting? Was she happy or sad? That sort of thing.”

The neighbor thought about it. “Pissed off was how I'd describe her.”

“About what?”

“Her cable TV was on the blink.”

An alarm went off inside my head.

“When did this happen?”

“This morning, I guess. Melinda got one of those plasma flat-screen TVs, and liked to watch the Discovery channel where they show those beautiful sunrises from all around the world. I've gone over to her place a couple of times and watched them with her. Ever seen the show?”

I nearly told her to drag her sorry ass out of bed some morning and come over to Dania and watch the real thing. Instead I shook my head.

“Did the cable repairman come?” I asked.

“I saw the van parked out front, so I guess they were here.”

“Was it white?”

“Come to mention it, yeah.”

“What time was this?”

“Couple hours ago.”

“So they came right away.”

She cackled. “Came like they were responding to a five-alarm fire. You ever see that girl in a bathing suit? That's all she wears in her apartment. Make your eyes pop out of your head. Even mine.”

“She's a beauty,” I said. “Can I go into your backyard, have a look around?”

“You don't think something's happened to Melinda, do you?” the neighbor asked.

“That's what I'm here to find out.”

She hesitated. A teacup-sized poodle darted out, sniffed my sandals, and started dry-humping my leg. Any other time, I would have drop-kicked the dog into the next county. Instead, I scooped it up and scratched its head.

“You got a dog?” she asked.

I pointed at Buster sitting regally in the Legend. She nodded approvingly.

“Anyone who owns a dog is okay in my book. My name is Gladys.”

“I'm Jack,” I said.

“Nice to meet you, Jack. Come on in.”

Gladys's backyard was the size of a postage stamp and surrounded by a sturdy picket fence. Hopping on the fence, I jumped onto the phone pole in the corner of the yard and started to climb. Running up the side of the pole was a black cable identical to the one I saw in Julie Lopez's backyard. Fifteen feet up, I stopped. The cable was cut right above the metal staple, same as Julie's pole. I climbed down.

“Find anything?” Gladys asked.

“The line's been cut.”

“You think someone cut Melinda's cable on purpose?”

“Could be.”

I hopped over the fence into Melinda's backyard and looked around. Through a glass slider I was able to peer into Melinda's kitchen. Everything looked normal except for a chair sitting upended on the floor. Taking out my cell phone, I called my police buddy Claude Cheever.

“I'm at Melinda Peters's place,” I said. “Something's happened.”

“I'll be right over,” Cheever said.

Cheever pulled into the parking lot driving a filthy Pontiac Firebird. Besides the grime and dirt caked to the vehicle, an assortment of dead palmetto bugs, moths, and lovebugs was prominently displayed on the bumper and headlights. Claude's success as a cop did not come from his superior intellect or astonishing investigative technique. His gift was the ability to look like a lowlife. The fact that this came naturally simply made him that much more effective at what he did. I led him around to the back of Melinda's place.

“I heard what Melinda said on the radio,” Claude said, his face pressed to the slider.

“Bad news sure travels fast.”

“Did you fuck her?”

“No.”

“Not even once?”

“No, not even once.”

“Think someone forced her to do that interview?”

Claude was looking at me in the slider's reflection, and I nodded.

“I once called into Neil Bash's show when he was talking about gun control,” Cheever said. “The show's broadcast live, you know.”

It took me a moment to get his drift. If Melinda had been forced to call Bash's show, her abductors were taking a risk, since she could have blurted out the truth. Yet, it wasn't something that I saw Melinda doing on her own.

“Someone made Melinda say those lies,” I said.

“That's good enough for me,” Cheever said.

Cheever found the complex's superintendent and got him to unlock Melinda's front door. Cheever told the super to hang around, then went inside. I followed him and walked down a narrow hallway to the kitchen.

Everything looked normal except the upturned chair. I covered my hand with a paper towel and righted it, then studied the scratches running along one side. The marks were fresh, and I envisioned Melinda's kidnappers dragging her across the floor while she was still in it. I slid the chair back into its spot at the table.

Kitty was happy to see me, and I filled a bowl with crunchies and put it on the floor. Then I checked the countertops and table. Nothing looked out of place. Picking up a pencil, I used the eraser to press a button on the answering machine and check for messages. There were none.

Beside the phone was a notepad filled with cartoonlike drawings. I peeled the pages back with the tip of the pencil and saw pictures of cats, horses, and other domestic animals. The drawing on the last page caught my eye. It contained a pair of stick figures standing in front of a two-story house with lollipop trees and smoke billowing from its chimney. The figures were holding hands and sporting big smiles. They were a man and a woman, and the man wore a badge.

I gave the room another sweep. Beneath the table lay a book bag, which I pulled out and opened. It contained a GED prep book and a laminated badge for Broward Community College with Melinda's picture on it. She looked different from the woman I knew; her hair was pulled back in a ponytail, her face without makeup.

“Hey, Jack, come here,” Cheever called out.

Closing the bag, I walked down the hallway and entered the bedroom. Cheever sat on a water bed with a collection of Winnie the Pooh teddy bears at its head. A suitcase lay on the floor, stuffed with winter clothes. Cheever was going through the suitcase and glanced suspiciously at me.

“Looks like Melinda was planning to take a trip,” he said.

“She was going to Aspen,” I said.

“She tell you that?”

“I arranged for her to stay at a house there. She was afraid of Skell coming after her once he got released.”

“Were you going with her?”

“No, I wasn't going with her.”

“You sure you're not fucking her, Jack?”

“Positive, Claude.”

He patted the bed for me to sit down. The expression on his face was no longer that of a friend. He was wearing his cop face, and it was cold and unflinchingly hard.

As I sat the water bed shifted beneath me. It was an unsettling feeling, as were the words that next came out of Cheever's mouth.

“My guess is, you are fucking her, Jack, and don't have the courage to admit it. The two of you were going to leave town, only Melinda got cold feet, and she went on Neal Bash's show and spilled her guts. Then she split, and now you can't find her.

So you called me, hoping I'd run her down. Well, I'm not going to do that. In fact, I'm not going to do another fucking thing until you come clean with me.”

I was down for the count. I needed Cheever in my corner or I was finished.

“I'm not doing her, Claude,” I said. “But she is my friend, just like plenty of other women I've helped who were living on the street.”

“Ever fuck one of them?”

“Not a one.”

“How about Joy Chambers? Melinda said you were seeing her on the side.”

“For the love of Christ.”

“Answer me.”

“I never fucked Joy Chambers.”

“You're a better man than me,” he said.

I wasn't going to argue with Cheever there. Married with two kids, he had engaged in more cheap affairs than anyone I knew. It was astonishing that he was grilling me about adultery, but he was wearing the badge.

“You've got to help me find Melinda,” I said. “Her testimony is the only thing that will keep Skell in prison. With her gone, the state has no case.”

Cheever pulled at his walrus mustache.

“What do you think happened to her?” he asked.

“She was abducted by a pair of cable repairmen. They cut the cable outside her house, and she called for it to be repaired. They came this morning and took her. These same cable guys cut the cable outside Julie Lopez's house, and when they were called in for a repair, they dug a grave in the backyard and put Carmella Lopez's body in it. I saw these guys this morning and chased them on 595. They pumped three bullets into my car and tried to kill me.”

“Where did you first see these guys?”

“On the street outside of Julie Lopez's house.”

“She's a hooker, isn't she?”

“That's right.”

“Were you fucking her, too?”

My eyes fell to the floor. Cops get a lot of free tail thrown at them, and many take advantage of it. But my conscience never let me. I rose from the water bed, and Cheever sank. It was as if we'd been riding a seesaw, and I'd decided to get off.

“I'll take that as a yes,” Cheever said.

There was nothing left to say. We left the apartment. The super was waiting outside, and locked the door after we came out. Gladys stood at her front door, biting her nails.

“Is Melinda okay?” she asked.

“Melinda Peters isn't here,” Cheever said.

“Oh, no,” she said.

We went to my car. Cheever peered through the glass at the bullet holes in the upholstery, and I could almost hear the gears shifting in his head. I wanted to grab him by the shoulders and beg him to reconsider, but I was afraid he'd take it the wrong way. There was no trust left between us.

“How close were they when they shot your car?” he asked.

“Five or six feet. They were in another car.”

“That's awfully close.”

“Meaning what?”

“Meaning they might have been trying to warn you to stay away from Julie Lopez's house. Her boyfriend is also her pimp, right?”

“That's right,” I said.

“Think he has friends?”

“I'm sure he does.”

“Maybe he asked his buddies to watch Julie's house and make sure she didn't bang anyone on the side while he was cooling his heels in jail. And when they saw you, they decided to send you a little message.”

“That's not what happened.”

“I'm just looking at the evidence, Jack.”

“Do you think I'm lying?”

“You're telling me one story, and the evidence is telling me another.” Lying to a cop was a crime, and Cheever had every right to arrest me. I decided to test him and got behind the wheel of my car. As I started the ignition he knelt down, and I lowered my window. His eyes locked on to my face.

“I need to ask you something, Jack.”

“Fire away,” I said.

“When you resigned from the force, whose side did you go on?”

The question stunned me.

“What is that supposed to mean?” I asked.

“You don't act like a cop anymore, and if your lifestyle is any indication, you're not a crook,” Cheever said. “You're living in some gray area, making up the rules as you go along. I can't make heads or tails of it, and neither can anyone else on the force.”

I wanted to yell at him at the top of my lungs. Eight women were dead and another one was missing, but no one seemed concerned about anything except my fucking behavior.

“I'm on my side, Claude,” I said, throwing the car into reverse. “It's the only one that makes sense anymore.”