Midnight Rambler

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

We limped down the sidewalk back to Trojan Communications.

“What's wrong with your dog?” Linderman asked.

Buster walked with his nose glued to the ground. The shooting had done a number on his head, and I promised myself to later take him running on Dania Beach. It was his favorite thing to do and would bring him around.

“He'll be okay,” I said. “What did Theis find on Coffen's computer?”

“Hundreds of photographs are stored on the hard drive,” Linderman said. “The memory's overloaded, which is why it froze on him. There's also a database. Theis is hoping it will lead us to the other members of the gang.”

And Melinda Peters, I hoped but would not say aloud, as if uttering her name might jinx our ability to rescue her. We reached the parking lot, and I put my dog into my car. Then we went inside.

Heidi the receptionist was still at her desk. Seeing Linderman, she slammed her fists on her desk and flew into a rage.

“My friend at the Riverview Hotel called and said you killed Mr. Coffen!”

Linderman put his palms on her desk as if he were doing a push-up.

“Calm down, or I'll arrest you,” he said.

“Why did you have to kill him?” she said.

“Let's see. For starters, he shot me.”

“Couldn't you have just wounded him?”

“Your boss had his chance.”

“You bastard!”

I walked around Heidi's desk and down the hallway to Coffen's office. Despite what had happened, it was business as usual, and through the walls came voices of faceless operators taking orders from around the state. They reminded me of Skell's victims, and how their voices were yet to be heard.

I stopped at the hallway's end and stuck my head into Coffen's office. Special Agent Theis sat at Coffen's desk, working the computer. He motioned me inside.

I stood behind Theis's chair. My eyes fell on the computer screen.

“How did you get it unfrozen?”

“I tried the idiot approach,” Theis said. “I turned off the power, then rebooted it. I needed a password to gain entry and found it on a business card in Coffen's briefcase. There's a ton of stuff on the hard drive, including a file that has pictures of you.”

“Let me see it,” I said.

Theis opened up a file called ENEMY. It contained a photograph of me taken from a newspaper article along with a short biography. There were also photographs and bios of Tommy Gonzalez, Sally McDermitt, and dozens of other Florida law enforcement agents who specialized in finding missing people.

“What about Coffen's database?” I asked.

“Who are you looking for?”

“Jonny Perez. Jonny's spelled without the h.”

Theis searched the database for Jonny Perez. Finding nothing, I suggested he try Ajony Perez. The results were the same.

“Try Neil Bash and Simon Skell,” I said.

Theis did and found nothing. On a hunch, he exited the database and checked Coffen's e-mail, first looking at his address book, then his sent e-mail folder and deleted bin. Everything he came across was business related and worthless to our search.

I shut my eyes and took a deep breath. Each road in my investigation had taken me to a dead end, and only an act of luck or God had let me progress. How the hell was I going to save Melinda if I couldn't locate Jonny Perez?

“Want to look at his photograph collection?” Theis asked.

“Sure,” I said quietly.

Theis exited the database and clicked on the My Pictures icon. It opened to reveal dozens of different folders. The ones at the top were labeled by city-Orlando, Miami, Tampa-while the ones on the bottom had cryptic notations. One file caught my eye:

MIDRAMB

“Open this one,” I said.

Theis opened MIDRAMB, and a page containing eight JPEG files filled the screen. Each JPEG had a date attached to it, spanning the past two and a half years.

I gripped the back of Theis's chair. I knew what the JPEGs contained without having to look at them. They were electronic snapshots of Skell's victims taken at McDonald's drive-throughs. I was one step closer to learning their fate.

I had dreamed of this moment. I was finally going to find out what had happened to Skell's victims. Yet, I was also filled with dread. Throughout the investigation, I'd continued to hope that I'd get a phone call from each of them, saying they were okay. It was what every person who lost someone told themselves.

Theis opened the first JPEG. The picture was of Chantel, an African American girl who got tossed out of her home at fourteen. She'd lived near the beach, where she did her hooking. The picture showed her in a car with a white-haired guy chomping on a cigar. Chantel's hand was in his lap, the guy all smiles. Coffen had caught her servicing a john.

“Know her?” Theis asked.

“She was Skell's first victim,” I said.

The next JPEG was of Maggie. Maggie worked for a Fort Lauderdale escort service, a fair-haired Irish girl whose stepfather had married her mother in order to sleep with Maggie. She worked the local hotels and was on a first-name basis with the concierges. In the picture, Maggie was on her cell while applying lipstick. Her face was all business, and I imagined Coffen overheard her getting a call for a job.

“What about her?” Theis asked.

“She was number two.”

“You knew all of the victims, didn't you?”

“Yes.”

“Want something to drink?”

“No thanks.”

“Want my chair?”

“I'm fine, really.”

Theis opened the rest of the JPEGs and let me study them. Had I not stuck the victims' photographs on the walls of my office, I wouldn't have recognized them so quickly. But I did, and their faces evoked a sharp pang of delayed grief.

In each photograph I searched for what Coffen saw, or heard, that alerted him to the potential for victimization. Most of the time it was obvious. Either the victim was talking on her cell, or she was talking to a passenger in the car. Some snippet of conversation must have tipped Coffen off to the type of person he was dealing with.

But in three of the photographs-those of Carmen, Lola, and Brie-there was no telltale clue. The women were in their cars, staring absently into space. They were all victims of family abuse, their faces hauntingly sad. I studied their photographs but learned nothing. Perhaps I would never know what Coffen had seen. Or perhaps he'd seen the same thing I just had. Three young women with faces like refugees. Maybe that was all he needed.

The office had a small refrigerator. Theis removed two bottles of Perrier and handed me one. Brie's picture was still on the screen. I drank while staring at her.

I'd stayed in contact with Brie for over ten years. Every few months we'd meet for a pancake breakfast, and she'd show me her most recent bank statement. She was saving up so that on her thirtieth birthday she could quit hooking and open a nail salon. She already had the location picked out, and the name: New Beginnings.

I pitched my empty bottle into the trash and headed for the door.