The Night Stalker

CHAPTER TWENTY

C rippen amp; Howe had been advertising on billboards throughout the county since I was a kid. The ads showed two men. Charles Crippen, the firm’s elder statesman, wore a neatly trimmed goatee and a yachtsman’s deep tan, while his partner, Bernie Howe, was a bulldog with a bad hair replacement job. Their law firm occupied a two-story Spanish colonial on Broward Boulevard surrounded by an imposing wrought-iron fence.

I parked in the private lot behind the building, grabbed my dog, and walked down a sidewalk to the front entrance. The gate was locked, and I pressed the buzzer while looking into the lens of a boxy security camera.

“May I help you?” a woman’s voice said over the intercom.

“Jack Carpenter for Charles Crippen.”

“Is he expecting you?”

“I’m here about Piper Stone.”

“Stay right there.”

I waited. The sun was shining and sweat poured down my back. Finally, the receptionist returned. “Mr. Crippen will see you now.”

She buzzed me in, and I walked up the brick path and entered the building. The reception area was no more than an alcove. Behind a desk sat a woman with a hairdo that looked like a Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade float. She came out of her chair like she’d been hit with a cattle prod. “Sir, no dogs are allowed in the building.”

“You let criminals in here every day,” I said. “Drug dealers, murderers, rapists. But you’re telling me dogs aren’t allowed. How does that work?”

Before she could respond, Charles Crippen entered the alcove. He was tall, and wore a dark pin-striped suit and blazing red tie. He asked me to follow him.

Crippen’s office was on the second floor of the building. It was enormous, with furnishings befitting a king. Once the door was closed, he sat at his desk and undid his necktie. He started to speak, then noticed Buster standing by my side.

“Is he with you?” Crippen asked.

“Never seen him before,” I replied.

“I heard you were a character. Please have a seat.”

I pulled up a chair and sat down while Buster lay dutifully beside me.

“It all started last night,” Crippen said. “I came back from a client meeting, and found Piper in her office. It was about nine-thirty. I assumed she was preparing for her murder trial today. Then I glanced at the pages on her desk, and saw the transcript from Abb Grimes’s murder trial. I asked her what she was doing, and Piper told me she’d found something very disturbing.

“I left shortly after that. Piper’s a bright lady, and I knew she was on to something. When I came in this morning, she was still here, and was all fired up. She said she’d found a basis for a new appeal, and was going to investigate it further.”

“Did she say what it was?” I asked.

“It was something to do with slippers.”

“Men’s or women’s?”

“She didn’t say. Piper was supposed to be at the courthouse at eleven o’clock for the opening arguments in another trial. She told me she was going to stop at Memorial Hospital first, and talk to someone regarding these slippers.”

“Did she say who?”

“Some detective who’s been ill.”

“Was it Ron Cheeks?”

Crippen plumbed his memory. “Yes, that was the name. Piper left after we spoke, and hasn’t been seen since. She was a no-show at the courthouse, and hasn’t called in. That’s when I called the police.”

“What have the police done?”

“They went to Piper’s apartment and got the superintendent to let them in. There was no evidence of foul play. They also put out an APB on her car. As you know, that’s about all they can do.”

“Did they search her office?”

Crippen lowered his hands. “They wanted to, but I was fearful that they’d see her files. She’s working on several important cases right now, and they’re spread across her office.”

“Can I take a look?”

“Certainly.”

Crippen led me down a hallway lined with polished wooden doors. Stone’s office sat next to the copy room, and screamed new hire. Metal desk, a laptop, a couple of old chairs, and a diploma from the University of Miami Law School hanging on the wall. There were no personal items, save for a framed photo of Stone cuddling a Lab puppy.

“May I?” I asked.

“Of course,” Crippen replied.

I sat at Stone’s desk. It was covered with the transcript from Abb Grimes’s trial along with a number of police reports. Stone had brightened the lines on several pages with a yellow highlighter, and I read those sections first. What I saw made my eyes pop.

Ron Cheeks’s name was everywhere. He’d been the first detective to arrive at the Smart Buy, and had also handled the subsequent investigation. While it was his partner who’d arrested Abb and testified at his trial, it was Cheeks who’d run the show.

I pored through the transcript. Toward the back was an evidence log showing the various items that were taken from Abb’s home after his arrest. Stone had highlighted the word slippers, and written something in cryptic scrawl beside it. I showed the writing to Crippen.

“This make any sense to you?” I asked.

Crippen slipped on a pair of bifocals and studied the writing. “It says, ‘Where did they go?’ I assume she’s referring to the slippers.”

“That’s what she went to see Cheeks about. Abb Grimes’s slippers.”

“That would be a fair assumption.”

“And no one’s heard from her since.”

“That’s correct.”

The phone on Stone’s desk rang. Crippen snatched it up and said hello. Then he looked at me and shook his head. He hung up.

“Has anyone bothered to check Stone’s voice mail?” I asked.

“I did,” Crippen replied.

“Recently?”

“Several hours ago.”

“Let’s check it again.”

Crippen punched a code into the phone, and put it on speaker. There were six messages stored in Stone’s voice mail. We listened to several seconds of each before Crippen saved them. Each was from a client, until the very last. The last message sounded like a crank call, with music by Gloria Estefan and the Miami Sound Machine pouring out of the speaker. It lasted for about ten seconds, then abruptly stopped.

“Did you hear that sound in the background?” I asked.

Crippen had brought his ear a few inches from the speaker. “No, but I’m half deaf. What did you hear?”

“It sounded like a voice. Play it again.”

Crippen replayed the message. The sound was too faint to be discernible. Crippen said, “Let me get a better phone,” and went to the office next door to get a newer phone, which he put on the desk. Over this phone, the message was much clearer.

“It is a voice,” Crippen said.

“I think it’s a woman.”

“What is she saying?”

“I’m not sure. We need more volume.”

Crippen cranked up the phone’s volume and replayed the message. We both leaned in to listen. The voice was a woman’s, and she sounded as if she was at the bottom of a deep hole.

“Somebody help me!”

“Is that her?” I asked.

Crippen opened his mouth, but no words came out. It was all the answer I needed.