Midnight Rambler

by James Swain

  I couldn't believe this was happening. I was a cop. I should know better.

  “Daddy!”

  I ran to the sound of her voice. Twenty yards away, Jessie sat in the tall grass, crying and clutching herself. I gathered her into my arms.

  “Make him go away,” she sobbed. “Make him go away!”

  “Who, honey? Make who go away?”

  “The man in the grass!”

  “What man?”

  “The naked man! He said he wanted to play with me. Make him go away!”

  I clutched my daughter against my chest. My heart was pounding out of control, and I could not stop blaming myself for what had happened. Rose appeared, looking shaken, and I handed my daughter to her.

  “Don't let her out of your sight,” I said.

  Then I ran down the beach as fast as my legs would carry me and searched for the man who'd tried to molest my daughter.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  A pounding on my door awakened me the next morning. Pulling the sheet over my bare torso, I grabbed Buster by the collar.

  “We're all friends here,” I said.

  Sonny entered my rented room wearing black jeans, a Black Sabbath T-shirt with holes in the armpits, and a black crucifix—a dark messenger if there ever was one.

  “Hey, Sleeping Beauty, you need to see this,” he said.

  I threw on yesterday's clothes and followed him downstairs. A steaming cup of coffee awaited me in the bar. I sipped my drink and watched Bobby Russo on the TV. Russo was holding a news conference at police headquarters and fielding questions from a handful of reporters. He was dressed up and had traded his trademark fish tie for a more respectable solid blue one.

  “How did the police confirm that the body found in Julie Lopez's backyard was her sister Carmella's?” a reporter asked.

  “Dental records,” Russo said.

  “How long was the body there?”

  “There's no way for us to know. The rain washed away a great deal of evidence.”

  “Have the police confirmed she was murdered?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you know the cause of death?”

  “Strangulation.”

  “Do you have a suspect?” another reporter asked.

  “We do,” Russo said. “Ernesto Sanchez.”

  “Can you tell us what evidence you have against him?”

  “Mr. Sanchez was an acquaintance of Carmella Lopez and lives in the same house with her sister,” Russo said. “We also found an item of Mr. Sanchez's clutched in the victim's hands.”

  “Can you tell us what the item was?”

  “A gold crucifix.”

  “Has the suspect been charged?”

  “The suspect has not been arraigned,” Russo said.

  “When will that happen?”

  “I can't comment at this time.”

  The news conference ended. Russo was stalling Ernesto's arraignment to give his detectives more time to study the Skell file. It was a smart tactic, but he was only delaying the inevitable. I finished my coffee and told myself that I had done everything I could. I'd fought the good fight, and tomorrow would be another day. The words were hollow, but they were all I had left.

  A perky female newscaster came on the screen. Imposed on a screen behind her was a photo of Simon Skell with a banner that read Hollywood Calling?

  “The Simon Skell case is attracting attention in Hollywood,” she said cheerfully. “According to Variety, Paramount Studios is purchasing the rights to Skell's life story from Skell's wife, Lorna Sue Mutter. Possible stars being considered to play Skell are Brad Pitt, Tom Cruise, and Russell Crowe. No word on who might play Jack Carpenter, the Broward County detective who Lorna Sue claims tortured and framed her husband.”

  I cursed like someone with Tourette's syndrome. On the TV, a blow-dried male newscaster appeared beside his perky colleague.

  “How about Vince Vaughn?” the male newscaster suggested.

  “You mean to play Jack Carpenter?” the female newscaster said.

  “Absolutely. I saw him play a sociopathic killer in a movie called Domestic Disturbance with John Travolta,” the male newscaster said. “He was terrific.”

  “I saw that movie, too. Good choice!”

  I picked up the napkin dispenser on the bar. Sonny yelled “No!” but it was too late. The dispenser left my hand and shattered the TV screen. Glass rained down on the bar. Sonny said something about history, then got a broom and started cleaning up.

  “What did you say?” I asked.

  “You're history if you don't replace the TV.”

  “You're going to throw me out?”

  “I will if you don't replace the TV.”

  “Can you lend me the money?”

  He swept around my chair. “No.”

  “Come on, just for a couple of days,” I said. “I'll pay you back. You know I'm good for it.”

  Going behind the bar, Sonny removed a black box from behind the register, pulled out a card, and showed it to me. It contained my two tabs. The little tab had caught up to the big tab, and I owed the bar nearly five hundred bucks.

  “Replace the TV and pay your tabs and your rent, or you're history.”

  “You're serious.”

  “Damn straight.”

  He retrieved the napkin dispenser and replaced it on the bar, then resumed his sweeping. I felt as if I'd lost my last friend in the world.

  I turned on my stool and looked out the window at the bright blue ocean. Should I just go take a swim and not come back?

  The thought had crossed my mind before, but never seriously. This time, it was serious.

  The bar phone rang. Sonny answered it, then handed me the receiver.

  “It's your girlfriend.”

  I figured it was Melinda accepting my offer from last night, but I was wrong. It was Julie Lopez.

  “I know who put my sister's body in my backyard,” Julie said.

  I drove past Julie Lopez's house a couple of times, not wanting to run into any cops or reporters who might be hanging around. The place was quiet, but I still looked over my shoulder when I knocked on her front door.

  Julie ushered me into the living room and bolted the door behind me. Her eyes were ringed from lack of sleep, her puffy face void of makeup. Her dirty short-sleeved shirt and faded cutoffs only hardened the picture.

  There was no real furniture in the living room, just three folding metal chairs and a card table with a greasy bag from McDonald's in its center. The last time Julie saw her sister it was over breakfast at McDonald's, and I was surprised that she still ate their food. We sat on two of the chairs and faced each other.

  “Who put your sister's body in your backyard?” I asked.

  Julie looked around the room before answering me. The look in her face was best described as paranoid. I looked around the room as well. There were no wall hangings, unless you considered mold art.

  “Are you afraid of something?” I asked.

  She nodded. She was a big woman, with large breasts and curvaceous hips, and was considered a hot number with the older Hispanic men who enjoyed her services. In a whisper she said, “It was the cable TV guys. They put Carmella in the backyard.”

  “The cable guys?” I repeated.

  “Yeah.”

  “Is that why you called me over here?”

  “Yeah, Jack.”

  I felt the strength leave my body. Opening the McDonald's bag, I removed a large order of french fries and helped myself. Julie threw me a wicked stare.

  “That's my breakfast,” she said angrily.

  “You get any for me?”

  Julie didn't understand the question. I was pissed off and not ashamed to show it. I had important things to do. Like replace the TV in the Sunset and figure out what I was going to do with the rest of my life. She grabbed the fries out of my hands with a catlike quickness and shoved several into her mouth.

  “I can prove it,” she said.

  “All right, prove it.�
�

  “Last week the cable on the TV stopped working. Ernesto called the cable company, and two repairmen came out that afternoon. They said the wire in the backyard was old. They dug a trench and laid a new wire. But guess what?”

  I had no idea where this was heading, and shook my head.

  “The cable don't come back on. Ernesto looked at the work they did. Then he climbed up on the pole. When he came back in the house, he called them dumb fucks. I ask him why, and he said the problem was on the pole. That was why we weren't getting HBO. The problem was on the pole.”

  “So?”

  “Don't you get it?”

  “No.”

  “What you acting so pissed off about, Jack?”

  “I'm sorry, Julie, but you're wasting my time.”

  She threw the french fries and hit me in the head. I jumped out of my chair.

  “I don't have time for this,” I said angrily.

  She wagged her finger in my face. “Listen to me. The cable guys didn't have to dig in the yard. The problem was on the pole.”

  “So?”

  “The cable guys knocked the cable out on purpose. Then they dug a hole when me and Ernesto were sleeping, and put my sister's body in it. Get it?”

  Hookers work at night, sleep during the day. Someone could have come into Julie's backyard and dug a grave while she and Ernesto were sleeping.

  “What about the gold crucifix that was in your sister's hand?” I asked. “It was identified as Ernesto's.”

  Julie dragged me into the kitchen and pointed at a bookshelf beside the rattling fridge. Two gold crucifixes stood upright in a display meant to hold three. The middle crucifix was missing.

  “One of the cable guys came inside to get a glass of water, and he stole one,” Julie said.

  I stared at the display. Two days earlier, when I'd stood in the driveway in handcuffs, there was a truck on the street with a trenching machine and two guys inside. Cable guys.

  “Show me the pole,” I said.

  We went outside to the backyard. Carmella's grave was still open, and it gave me goose bumps. Julie pointed at the telephone pole in the corner of her property.

  “That one,” she said.

  I borrowed a ladder from the garage, put it on the pole, and climbed up. The cable had been stapled to the pole, and halfway up I found where it had been cut. The cut was right above a staple, which minimized the chance that anyone might see it from the ground. I looked down at Julie, who had her arms crossed.

  “See?” she said.

  “Yeah, I see.” My eyes drifted to the open grave. “Who called the police and told them about the skeleton?”

  “The cable guys. They were trenching and said they found pieces of jewelry in the yard. They started digging and found Carmella's body.”

  “Or so they said.”

  “You finally believe me?”

  I nodded.

  “It's about fucking time.”

  I started to climb down, then froze. I could see over Julie's house to the street. A white van with two Hispanic guys was parked behind my Legend. The guy in the passenger seat got out and approached my car. He was husky and wore a red bandanna around his head. He got on his knees and began looking beneath my car. It took a moment before I realized what he was looking for.

  The transmitter.

  Buster was asleep on the backseat. Waking up, he began barking through the half-closed window. The Hispanic guy jumped to his feet and saw me perched on the ladder. He got into the van, and it pulled away with a squeal.

  I scurried down the ladder. I wanted to tell Julie I was sorry, but there was no time. Instead, I told her to go inside, and lock the doors.

  “And call the police,” I said.

  As I started my car I made a decision. If I were running from someone, where would I go? I decided on the interstate.

  Within minutes I reached 595. Traffic was heavy heading into Fort Lauderdale, and I guessed this was the way the van had gone. Soon I was heading east doing ninety, the wind punishing my face through my open window.

  A lone white van occupied the left lane. I pulled up alongside it and made eye contact with a thirtyish male talking on a cell phone. He winked flirtatiously, and I roared past him.

  Hope is something I never give up on. Several exits later, I spotted another white van hurtling down the interstate like a stock car. I floored my accelerator and got behind its bumper. The license plate was from Broward and was caked with mud. Three digits were visible. I memorized them.

  Getting in the right lane, I eased up to the van's passenger side. The Hispanic with the bandanna was leaning out the passenger window, smoking a cigarette. He was in his forties and had a pirate's scar running down the side of his face. Something told me he was a Mariel refugee, the most notorious group of criminals ever to invade south Florida. He tossed his cigarette, then saw me.

  The Hispanic scrunched up his face as if trying to place me. Then he spotted Buster, and panic set in. Ducking down, he grabbed something off the floor.

  I knew I was in trouble, but I didn't think my car was powerful enough to pass him. I tried to slow down, only a delivery truck was riding my bumper. I was stuck.

  The Hispanic leaned out his window. In his hand was a steel pipe, which he threw at me. The pipe hit my windshield lengthwise, and a thousand spiderwebs appeared in the glass. Unable to see, I banged out the broken glass with my fist.

  My car was like a wind tunnel without a windshield. I tried to watch the road, but a popping sound that reminded me of firecrackers made me look at the van. The Hispanic was holding a shiny revolver and taking target practice at my car.

  Buster yelped in fear as I swerved off the interstate.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  I stood on the shoulder of 595 with Buster pressed to my side, the white van long gone.

  My Legend sat twenty feet away. The windshield was a memory, and there were smoldering bullet holes in the passenger seat and both backseats. One bullet had missed my head by less than six inches. I should have been grateful that I was still breathing, but all I wanted to do was run those bastards down.

  Cars roared past, but no one stopped. Their drivers stared through me as if I were invisible. Next to a deserted island, there was no lonelier place than the shoulder of a highway. I called 911, and an automated answering service put me on hold.

  Buster barked at the cars. I had leashed him out of fear that he might step into traffic and add an exclamation point to my already miserable day. I went to the Legend and turned the radio to my favorite FM station. They were playing a song by the Fine Young Cannibals called “She Drives Me Crazy.” Once upon a time they were my favorite band; then they suddenly disappeared. It seemed like a metaphor for my own sorry situation, and I leaned against my car and sang along.

  I should have been dead. Three shots and you're usually out. I got spared, except now I didn't have wheels. I was one step closer to becoming a homeless person. I imagined myself pushing a shopping cart filled with garbage through Dania, a beaten and forgotten man.

  A female dispatcher came on the line. I gave her my name and explained what had happened. She asked if I was hurt. I knew that if I said yes, a cruiser would be here in a New York minute.

  “I'm okay,” I said.

  “Hold tight,” the dispatcher said. “I'll get a car out there soon.”

  I folded my phone. A tow truck was barreling down the interstate toward me. I'd been saved.

  The tow truck parked, and an enterprising young guy hopped out. He gave my car a cursory inspection, then shoved a business card into my hand. It had his smiling picture on it and embossed lettering. larry littlejohn's 24-hour towing. i tow, you go!

  “What the heck happened?” Larry asked.

  “I ran into some old friends. Can you tow me to Dania?”

  “What's the address?”

  “Sunset Bar and Grille. It's over on the beach.”

  He scratched his chin. “Yeah. I can do that.”

&
nbsp; “Second question. Do you take IOUs?”

  As the tow truck drove away I tore up Larry's card. The radio was playing another song from a vanished band. This time, I didn't sing along.

  Fifteen minutes later a cruiser appeared with Bobby Russo at the wheel. He parked on the shoulder in front of my car and got out. He was wearing his suit from the news conference and steel-framed aviator's glasses turned to mirrors by the blinding Florida sun. He halted six feet from where I stood.

  “Keep that monster back,” Russo said.

  “He's a nice dog once you get to know him.”

  “I heard he took a piece out of a guy's ass in the Grove.”

  “You talk to Tommy Gonzalez?”

  “Yeah,” Russo said. “He said you were a star.”

  It was the nicest thing anyone had said to me in a while.

  “How did you know where to find me?” I asked.

  “The dispatcher recognized your name and gave me a call. Mind if I examine your car?”

  “Be my guest.”

  While Russo fly-specked my car, I told him what happened at Julie Lopez's house and gave him the numbers I'd memorized off the van's license along with a description of the vehicle. Without a word, he went to the cruiser and climbed in. I felt invisible again and knelt beside his open window.

  “Are you going to help me, or not?” I asked.

  “What do you want me to do, Jack?” Russo said, staring straight ahead. “Kill my day figuring out which white van in Broward belongs to the guys who potshotted you?”

  “You could run a partial license check.”

  “Those are expensive.”

  “That never stopped you before.”

  “In case you hadn't heard, we have a budget freeze. I now need authorization to run partial license checks. If I tell my boss you're involved, he'll say no.”

  “Tell him it's connected to the Skell case,” I said.

  “You don't know that for a fact.”

  “Yes, I do. These guys bugged my car. They also put Carmella Lopez's body in her sister's backyard. For Christ's sake, Bobby, they're involved. You need to drag them in and put their feet to the fire. You don't want to see Skell released from prison, do you?”