Midnight Rambler

CHAPTER THIRTY

“Jack Carpenter, I can't believe you talked me into doing this,” Sally scolded me a half hour later.

“Believe it,” I replied, my eyes glued to the road.

“But this is wrong. We're breaking the law.”

“What law is that?” I asked. “I just want to look inside Cecil Cooper's motel room before the police do. I won't touch anything or remove anything. I just want to see what the guy was up to. How is that breaking the law?”

“If the police find out, we're both screwed, and you know it.”

“I thought Disney owned the police.”

“That's not funny,” Sally said.

We were driving down motel row in Kissimmee, staring at god-awful billboards and elevated signs. There were more motels, putt-putt golf courses, and cheap family restaurants on this nine-mile strip of highway than anyplace else on earth. We were looking for the motel whose name was printed on the plastic room key that Sally had found tucked inside Cecil's billfold. The motel was called Sleep amp; Save, its logo a cartoon of a man lying in bed, dreaming of dollar signs. Bonnie had told me that she'd seen computer equipment in the room when she'd met up with Cecil that morning, and I wanted to examine the equipment before the police did.

A mile later, Sally spotted the motel and jumped in her seat. “There it is. Sandwiched between the IHOP and the Big Boy.”

I tapped my brakes while glancing in my mirror. A tourist driving a minivan was hugging my bumper, and I didn't want to get rear-ended. Seeing him slow down, I made my turn, parked in front of the Sleep amp; Save's main office, and killed the engine.

“Speaking of big boys, how's that guy you've been dating?” I asked.

“You mean Russ? Oh shit, I don't know.”

Back when Sally lived in Fort Lauderdale, she had a slew of boyfriends, each one a bigger loser than the last. After she moved to Orlando, I started hearing about a subcontractor named Russ, and I'd been rooting for it to work out.

“What's wrong?” I asked.

She gave me a sly look out of the corner of her eye. Guys wouldn't admit this, but it was those little looks from women that turned them on more than anything else. Sally had always turned me on, and always would.

“Sure you want to hear?” she asked.

“Yes. Russ sounded like a good guy.”

“He is a good guy. But I found out he's got a record, and did time.”

“What for?”

“Possession of narcotics.”

“Sorry to hear that.”

“Can I ask you a personal question, Jack?”

I didn't like talking about my personal life, for no other reason than it's such a mess. I nodded reluctantly.

“Do you believe that criminals can be reformed?” Sally asked. “Is it possible for people to truly change their behavior?”

I leaned back in my seat, the sound making a soft whoosh. Buster looked up from the back. He was acting great around Sally, and I was beginning to wonder if my wife's comment about his behavior being tied to my acquaintances in Fort Lauderdale was true.

“I'd have to say no to both questions,” I answered.

Sally fell back in her seat as well.

“Well, that's a definitive answer.”

“Criminals don't reform,” I explained. “At least, not any I've encountered. They always walk around with larceny in their hearts. They might get scared into going straight, but they don't change. Now, let me ask you a question.”

“Shoot.”

“Is Russ really a criminal?”

“I told you, he's got a record and did time.”

“But is he a criminal? Does he walk around every day with bad intentions and evil thoughts? That's a criminal. Or is Russ a decent guy who did something dumb and has paid his debt to society? If that's the case, you ought to give him a break.”

“Aren't we being generous?” Sally said.

I turned and faced her. “I drove to Tampa this morning to apologize to my wife for fucking up our twenty-year marriage.

She forgave me. It was one of the nicest things anyone's ever done for me.”

“You're getting back together with Rose?”

I nodded, and Sally leaned across the seats and hugged me.

“Oh, Jack, I'm so happy for you.”

Sleep amp; Save was part of a nationwide chain, if the sign by the front desk was to be believed. In reality, it was a world-class dump, with rooms going for $29.99 a night and a bank of vending machines that sold soft drinks and candy in the main office.

The manager was a smiling Pakistani with two rows of perfect white teeth. He stood behind the counter, tapping the keyboard to a computer. Sally and I had worked several cases together, and I knew her well enough to let her take the lead. Pressing her stomach to the counter, she batted her eyelashes.

“Hi,” she said.

“Good afternoon,” the manager said brightly.

“Can you help me?”

“I will certainly try.”

“My brother is staying here, and we're supposed to be meeting him outside his room, only like a dummy I didn't write down the number when he gave it to me this morning. Can you help me?”

The manager stared at the Disney logo on Sally's shirt. Despite what Sally had said earlier, Disney ran Orlando and practically everything around it, and it wasn't uncommon for people to bend over backwards to help Disney employees. The manager flipped open the registration log lying on the desk.

“What is your brother's name?”

“Cecil Cooper.”

The manager ran his finger down the page. “Here it is. C. Cooper. Room 42. Your brother is staying on the second floor.”

“Oh, thank you so much. You're so sweet!”

Outside, we took a set of stairs to the second floor. The motel was beside the highway, and the endless drone of passing cars was giving me a headache. We found Room 42 at the end of the building, a do not disturb sign hanging from the knob. Sally extracted Cecil's room key from her purse, then grabbed my wrist with her other hand.

“You've been working out, haven't you?” I said.

“Promise me you won't take anything, Jack.”

“Didn't you believe me the first time?”

“No, I have trust issues with men.”

“I won't take anything,” I promised.

Cecil's room was about what you'd expect for $29.99 a night. Rickety furniture, threadbare carpet, smoky mirrored walls that desperately needed a shot of Windex, a slab for a bed. Sally shut the door behind us, and we were thrown into darkness. I heard her hand scrape the wall, then the lights came on.

Sally checked the bathroom while I looked around the bedroom. Except for an ashtray overflowing with cigarette butts and several dead soldiers in the trash, the room was clean. Next to the telephone was a notepad with deep indentations in the top page, indicating that someone had recently written on it. Holding the notepad beneath the light, I attempted to read the indentations, only they were too faint.

“Have a pencil?” I asked Sally.

“There's a mechanical one in my purse,” she said.

Sally's purse was on the bed. I removed the mechanical pencil from a side pocket and extended the lead. Holding the lead sideways, I used it to shade the top page of the notepad. Before my eyes, the indentations turned into words.

P: Tram, Peggy Sue

K: Shannon (age 3)

C: Ford Pickup

L: BSX 4V6

P: Magic Kingdom

KID LOVES MICKEY

Cecil hadn't impressed me as a detail guy, yet the notepad indicated otherwise. Cecil knew exactly who he was tracking, right down to which theme park the Dockerys were planning to visit, and Shannon's fascination with Mickey Mouse. Sally came out of the bathroom, and I showed her the notepad. Her eyes grew wide.

“Wow. How did he get all that information?”

“That's what I need to find out.”

“Think he was stalking them?”

“Could be.”

“Did you check beneath the bed?”

“Not yet.”

Kneeling, Sally stuck her hands beneath the bed and pulled out a cracked leather satchel. I knelt down beside her, and our heads nearly knocked. She opened the satchel and dumped its contents onto the bed. It contained a thin Dell notebook computer, a portable HP printer, and four grainy eight-by-ten photographs.

“Aren't you glad I talked you into this?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said.

Sally spread the photographs on the bed. The first three showed Tram Dockery behind the wheel of his pickup truck with a six-pack of Old Milwaukee in his lap. There was a baby seat in back, and Shannon was strapped in. Tram had told me he'd gotten drunk that morning, but he'd never mentioned his daughter was with him. The fourth photograph showed the rear of the pickup, the license plate plainly visible.

“Cecil must have snapped these pictures,” Sally said.

I stared at the six-pack in the photo. There were five unopened cans in the pack. Tram wasn't drunk when the photographs were taken.

“Tram would have seen him,” I said.

“Maybe Cecil used a telescopic lens.”

I took one of the photographs off the bed and held it up to the light. It was printed on cheap paper, and I shook my head.

“Cecil didn't take these photographs. He printed them off his computer.”

We both studied the photographs some more.

“You think someone e-mailed the photos to him on his computer?” Sally asked.

I nodded.

“What about the information on the pad? Did someone send him that as well?”

I nodded again.

“So there's a third person involved?”

I thought back to the photograph of Simon Skell's gang I'd seen at the Fox TV station. Skell was the mastermind, Bash the front man, the Hispanic the abductor, and the blond-haired mystery man the information-gatherer. If this was indeed an organized gang of abductors working together, then the mystery man was doing more than just gathering information. He was also forming profiles of victims for his gang, and possibly other gangs as well.

“Yes,” I said.

“Do you think he's driving around and randomly photographing people?”

I studied the pad with the notations. “That wouldn't explain how's he getting the rest of the information.”

“I don't know, Jack. I'm just stabbing in the dark.”

I picked up the other three photographs from the bed. “I need to show these to Tram Dockery. He'll know where they were taken.”

Sally snatched the photographs out of my hand.

“No, you don't,” she said.

“What do you mean?”

“You're not taking the photographs to show Tram.”

“Then just give me one. That's all I'll need to jar his memory.”

“God damn it, Jack, you promised me.”

I looked into her eyes. I had crossed over the fragile line of our friendship.

“Give me one, and tell the police you found three photographs in the satchel,” I said. “What harm will that do?”

“They're evidence.”

“I need to show one of the photographs to Tram. Come on, Sally, don't you want me to crack this thing?”

“You promised me. Isn't your word worth anything, Jack?”

I blew out my cheeks. A little voice inside my head was telling me to snatch one of the photographs out of Sally's hand and run for the door. Even if Sally caught up to me, she wasn't strong enough to make me give it back.

Only another little voice-perhaps my conscience-was telling me not to think these dangerous thoughts. Sally was my friend and confidante, and I'd given her my word. Once upon a time, my word had actually meant something.

So what had happened? I guess I'd changed. Now I was willing to make promises that I didn't intend to keep, and do things I've never done before. I'd been pulled to the dark side. Yet, I didn't know what else to do.

“Think about it,” I heard myself say. “Shannon Dockery was the perfect victim for an abduction. Someone secretly gathered that information and sent it to Cecil on his computer. A profiler.”

Sally held the photographs protectively against her chest.

“No,” she added for emphasis.

I couldn't be in the same room with Sally anymore. I went to the door, jerked it open, and stepped outside. The sky had blackened with storm clouds, and a stiff wind was shooting garbage around the parking lot. The day my sister died, she looked out her hospital room window at a storm similar to this one and told me how beautiful it looked. I was not born with my sister's optimism, and now I saw only bleakness and despair in the murderous clouds.

Inside the room, I heard Sally call the Orange County Sheriff's Department on her cell and ask for a certain detective by name.

She told the detective everything that had happened in the past two hours, including Cecil's room number at the Sleep amp; Save. Hanging up, she came outside, and took my hand.

“You okay?” she asked.

“I'll live,” I said.

“Are we still friends?”

“I sure hope so.”

“You are so pitiful when you pout,” she said.

“You think so?”

“Yes. Most men are.”

“And I thought I was special.”

Sally led me downstairs. At the motel's front desk she sweet-talked the manager into making copies of the photographs on his copier. I hugged her fiercely when we were outside, holding the copies in my hand.

“Now go figure this thing out,” she said.