The Night Stalker

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

R edemption.

It was just a word until you experienced it; then it was like no other feeling in the world. I was working with the Broward cops again, and I was doing it on my terms. It didn’t get any sweeter than that.

I was sitting in traffic on 595, listening to Boston’s “More Than a Feeling” on the car stereo while smelling the salty ocean breeze through my open window. My wife believed that everything in the world happened for a reason, and I thought about all the good things that had happened to me since my fight with Cheeks in the grove. I decided to call her, and as I punched her number into my cell phone, it began to ring.

Not many people had my cell number. I stared at my cell phone’s face. Caller ID said UNKNOWN.

“Carpenter here,” I answered.

“Is this the Jack Carpenter, the ex-cop who finds missing kids?” a man asked.

“You got him. Who’s this?”

“Call me Pepe. One of your pals at the police station gave me your number. I’ve got someone here who wants to speak to you.”

“Put him on,” I said.

The cars in front of me started to move, and I goosed the accelerator.

“This is Sampson,” a tiny voice said.

I lowered the volume on my tape deck. “Sampson Grimes?”

“Yeah,” the boy said.

“Are you all right?”

“No!” Sampson began to wail.

I pressed the cell phone to my ear. It was broiling hot, along with everything else inside my car. “Please talk to me,” I said.

Sampson continued to cry. I tried to determine what the background noises were, and thought I heard a plane passing overhead. Finally, Sampson stopped crying.

“I need to tell you something,” the boy said.

“I’m listening,” I said.

“Tell Grandpa…”

“Yes?”

“…to stop talking to the FBI.”

“You want me to tell your grandfather to stop talking to the FBI?” I repeated.

There was a pause, and I heard a man in the background mumble softly.

“Yeah,” Sampson said.

“I want to talk to the man you’re with,” I said.

A car horn honked in the background, followed by the sound of another airplane. I guessed they were calling from a pay phone near the Hollywood/Fort Lauderdale airport. The airport was isolated, and did not have many retail stores nearby.

“I’m back,” Pepe said.

“I want you to release the boy,” I said.

“Fat chance, brother.”

“You’re getting paid to hold the boy by his kidnapper,” I said. “Let him go, and I’ll pay you more.”

Pepe laughed derisively. “I’ve heard about your deals. No thanks.”

Pepe dropped the phone, and I heard it bang against a wall. Then I heard a car pull away, its muffler rattling loudly. There was a convenience store on Griffin Road by the airport that had a bank of pay phones outside the store. It was only a minute away. I pulled onto the highway’s shoulder and hit the gas. Pepe sounded smart, and I didn’t think he’d speed away, arousing suspicion. With any luck, I’d catch him.

I drove with my eyes peeled to the oncoming traffic, looking for a car with a dying muffler. At the convenience store on Griffin Road I slowed to stare at the pay phones on the side of the building. One was off the hook.

I raced down Griffin Road toward I-95. I’ve always been good at putting myself in a criminal’s shoes, and anticipating how they were going to act. I decided that Pepe had gotten onto I-95, and headed north into Fort Lauderdale.

Traffic on I-95 was the usual mix of blue hairs doing thirty and crazy Cubans trying to break the sound barrier. I got into the left lane, and pushed the Legend up to ninety. Soon I saw a tail of black exhaust ahead of me. I stuck my head out my window, and heard Pepe’s car.

I drew my Colt from my pocket, and laid it on my lap. The car was a few hundred yards ahead, a black Chevy Impala with no plates driving in the center lane. In most parts of the state, driving without license plates would get you pulled over. In South Florida, it was a way of life.

I got behind the car and slowed down. Two men occupied the front seat. Lonnie Lowman had said that Sampson was being held by a pair of drug enforcers. I didn’t see Sampson, and guessed he was either strapped down in the backseat or stowed in the trunk.

I dialed 911. My call was answered by an automated police operator. I saw the Chevy speed up, and I got back into the left lane. I needed to get a good look at the driver, and pass his description to the police.

As I got close to the Chevy, the driver jerked his head. Young, Hispanic, and missing several front teeth. His eyes grew wide, and I realized I’d been made.

The driver shouted to his partner. His partner grabbed a handgun off the floor, and climbed into the driver’s lap. I wasn’t going to get into a shooting match with him, and risk harming Sampson. I hit my brakes, and let the Chevy get ahead of me.

I stayed a hundred yards back. The guy with the gun lowered the passenger window, and stuck his weapon out. Overweight and in his forties, he was the opposite of his partner. I thought he was going to shoot at me, but that wasn’t what he had in mind.

Instead, he aimed at the minivan in the lane next to him. It was filled with kids, the woman driver on her cell phone, oblivious to what was going on.

Then he looked at me.

I instantly understood. If I didn’t back off, he was going to shoot the woman and kill her, and probably all the kids as well. I couldn’t be responsible for so many innocent people dying, and flashed my brights while slowing my car. He grinned.

The Chevy speeded up, and was soon a memory. I heard a voice on my cell phone.

“Broward County police. Do you have an emergency?”

I told the operator what had happened while getting off the interstate.

I pulled into the convenience store on Griffin Road and went inside. It was a squat, one-story building, the windows plastered with ads for the Florida Lottery. A surveillance camera hung over the door. I asked the manager if it worked.

“Naw.”

I inspected the bank of pay phones outside. The middle phone was off the hook. I knelt down, and looked at the plastic handle. Pepe’s fingerprints were all over it.

Sirens wailed in the distance. I had asked the police operator to send a cruiser to the convenience store. I went to the sidewalk to meet the cruiser, and heard a car start up. Across the street a souped-up Camaro was parked in the front of a storage facility. Two young white males were inside, shooting me mean looks. I crossed the road at a trot.

“I need to speak to you for a minute,” I called to them.

The Camaro backed out with a squeal of rubber. I drew my Colt and pointed it at his windshield.

“Get out,” I said.

They got out. Low-slung pants, lots of jewelry and tattoos. I made them for gang members, and had them stand with their hands on the roof and their legs spread wide, and patted them down. Both were carrying heat, and I slipped their pieces into my pants pockets. Then I popped the trunk. It was loaded with stereo equipment.

“You boys work for Circuit City?” I asked.

Neither replied.

“I want you to help me,” I said. “There were two guys standing outside the convenience store making a phone call. They had a little boy with them. Did you see them?”

The driver glanced at me. He had a tattoo on his neck that said Born Loser. “What if we did?”

“What can you tell me about them?”

“Couple of spics.”

“Did you hear anything they said to each other?”

The driver shook his head.

“Tell me about the boy who was with them,” I said.

“He was a little guy with blond hair,” the driver said. “One of the spics was holding him up to the pay phone, and the kid was going nuts.”

“Was the man hurting him?”

“He slapped him a couple of times,” the driver said.

“Why didn’t you do something?” I asked.

“What do you mean?”

“Why didn’t you stop him from hurting the boy?”

The driver and his partner looked at each other, and started laughing.

A wailing police cruiser braked in front of the convenience store, and a pair of uniformed cops jumped out with their weapons drawn. As they crossed the street, I grabbed the gang members’ heads, and banged them together.