by James Swain
“What kind?”
“Chocolate swirl.”
“Is that your favorite?”
“Yes!”
Sally had pulled Shannon's parents away from the turnstiles to avoid a free-for-all.
Holding their daughter in my arms, I walked over to them. Seeing a look of disbelief in Tram's and Peggy Sue's faces, I realized they didn't recognize their own daughter.
But they did recognize me, and I flashed my best smile. Slowly their worried looks disappeared. Peggy Sue knelt down and spread her arms wide.
“Shannon, baby, come to me!”
I put Shannon down and let the little girl run into her mother's arms. Peggy Sue hugged her child while mouthing a silent prayer. Then she looked at me. In her face I saw a promise. She was never letting this child out of her sight again.
Tram came up to me. He wanted to say something, but the words had escaped him. Instead, he gave me a bear hug, the top of his head barely reaching my chin.
“You like barbecue?” he asked.
“Love it,” I said.
“Good, because I'm sending you barbecue for the rest of my life.”
I said good-bye to the Dockerys and went looking for Sally. With the crisis averted, families were being allowed to exit the park normally, and I became engulfed in the loud boisterous crowd. I found Sally standing by the golf carts talking on her cell phone.
“You know, you look cute with those mouse ears on,” she said.
“I need to talk to you,” I said.
“Go ahead. The Orange County Sheriff's Department has me on hold.”
“Hang up on them.”
Sally shot me a concerned look. “Why should I do that, Jack?”
“Because I want to talk with these two slimeballs without the police or lawyers in the room,” I said.
Her face turned ice cold. “Jack, I'm in charge here, remember?”
“Didn't I just drop everything I was doing, run over here from Tampa, and save your ass?”
“Jack, what's come over you?”
“Didn't I?”
“Yes, you did.”
“I just want to question them without some goddamn lawyers in the room or some cops reading them their rights.”
“You going to beat them up?”
She had struck a nerve, and I nearly told her to go to hell.
“They've done this before,” I said instead. “Look at the preparation they went through, dressing the boys in red and white clothing so they could make Shannon fit in by dressing her in blue. I'm convinced this couple used the same trick to snatch a little girl out of a park in Fort Lauderdale. Let me talk with them, Sally.”
Sally chewed on a fingernail and considered my request.
“You sure about this, Jack?”
I had no proof of what I'd just said, just what my gut told me.
“Yes,” I said emphatically.
She closed the phone and slipped it into her pocket. “I'll give you one hour with them, but you have to promise me you won't lay a finger on either one.”
“I won't touch them.”
“Is that a promise?”
I again suppressed the urge to curse her. I'd pushed her but tons plenty of times when she'd worked for me, and now she was pushing mine.
“Yes, it's a promise.”
“Okay, they're yours.”
We got into a golf cart, and Sally drove down a winding concrete path that led to the security building. Halfway there, we came upon another golf cart that contained three security guards and Dad. Dad was handcuffed and riding shotgun, with two guards sitting behind him while the third guard drove. The cart wasn't moving too fast, and Sally beeped her electric horn.
“Everything okay?” she called out.
The driver slowed even more and turned to look at us.
“Just a little problem with the brakes,” he said.
“Need some help?”
“No, we'll be fine.”
“Nice job back there,” Sally said.
“Thank you, Ms. McDermitt,” the driver replied.
As the cart pulled away, Dad jerked his head around and looked our way. His face was flushed, and he was sweating as if he were going to the electric chair. Our eyes locked, and I sensed he was trying to place me. For the hell of it, I removed the mouse ears. Cold hard fear spread across his face.
“Jesus,” Sally said. “He knows you.”
“Yes, I believe he does,” I said.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
In my next life, I want to be a dog. Not just any dog, but my dog. Pulling into the security parking area, I checked on Buster and found him lying on the backseat of the Legend cutting zzzs, his hind legs running in place as he chased an imaginary car.
Sally took me to the basement interrogation room. On the other side of the one-way mirror I saw Mom sitting in a plastic chair. She was talking out loud, threatening to sue the park for false arrest, her true character on full display.
Still handcuffed, Dad was dragged into the room and made to sit in another chair. His shirt and pants were covered in dirt, and his face was dripping with sweat. The guards left and shut the door behind them.
A standard procedure in interrogating suspects was to put them together and listen to them talk. Most of the time, nothing of value was gained. But every once in a while, a pearl of information slipped out of someone's mouth.
We watched Mom and Dad for several minutes but didn't learn much. There was a knock on the door. A guard entered our viewing room and handed Sally the couple's driver's licenses. Sally read them both, then passed them to me.
Their names were Cecil Cooper and Bonnie Sizemore. Cecil lived in Jacksonville on the east coast, while Bonnie resided in Lakeland, a sleepy town about thirty minutes away. Sally addressed the guard.
“Either one of them say anything during the drive over?”
“The woman cussed up a storm,” the guard said. “The guy demanded that we let him call some hotshot lawyer in Miami.”
My head snapped. “You sure it was Miami?”
“Positive,” the guard said.
“Did he give you the lawyer's name?”
“Yes, sir. I've got it written down in the other room.”
“Was it Leonard Snook?”
The guard acted startled. “Why yeah, I think it was.”
“Would you mind checking?”
The guard went to find the lawyer's name, and returned holding a slip of paper in his hand. “Leonard Snook it is,” he said.
I thanked him, and the guard left. Sally practically jumped out of her chair.
“Jack, how did you know that?”
My blood boiled. At the mirror I stared into the next room. Bonnie was slumped dejectedly in her chair, gazing at the floor. Her mascara had run from crying, giving her hideous raccoon eyes. In a stage whisper, Cecil was trying to coach her. I'd always been good at making snap decisions, and I made one right now. Cecil was the ringleader, Bonnie the pawn.
“Earth to Jack,” Sally said.
“You sound just like my daughter.”
“What in God's name is going on? How did you know his lawyer's name?”
I took a deep breath and continued looking through the glass. “Leonard Snook represents Simon Skell, the Midnight Rambler.” “What?”
“Our friends in the next room are part of an organized group that's making people disappear. Think back to when you were a cop. How many WATs did we deal with each year?”
WATs, a police acronym for Without a Trace, stood for people who vanished without any significant clues being left behind.
“About four or five,” Sally said.
“Ever think the cases might be connected?”
“It crossed my mind, sure.”
“But because there weren't any solid leads, the police couldn't act on those suspicions, could we?”
“That's right.”
I jabbed my finger at Bonnie and Cecil. “Well, now you can. I'll bet you everything I own that they'v
e been snatching kids here, and from other theme parks in Florida as well. I'll also bet you that these abductions are linked to the eight women the Midnight Rambler made disappear.”
“Jack, look at me,” Sally said.
I turned from the glass. Putting her hands on my shoulders, Sally gave me a no-nonsense stare. Her grip was as strong as any man's.
“Where's your proof?”
“The victims are proof.”
“How so?”
“The part of the Midnight Rambler case that's so baffling is how did Skell identify his victims? How did he know which women were easy prey and wouldn't be missed when they disappeared?”
“Soft targets,” Sally said.
“Exactly. Well, we have the same thing here. How did Bonnie and Cecil know that Shannon Dockery was a soft target?”
“Maybe they got lucky.”
“Luck is the residue of design. Tram Dockery had a six-pack of beer for breakfast. He admitted it to me earlier. He's also very young and not very smart. He was the perfect parent to snatch a kid from. Bonnie and Cecil knew that, and they followed the Dockerys around the Magic Kingdom. When the opportunity presented itself, they grabbed Shannon and disguised her to look like one of their own. Remember the little girl that disappeared at the theme park in Fort Lauderdale a few years ago? The parents were just like the Dockerys.”
Sally dropped her hands and thought about it.
“You're right, they were,” she said.
Again I pointed into the next room. Bonnie had sunk farther into her chair, and was sadly shaking her head.
“Separate them, and let me have a crack at her,” I said.
“What exactly are you going to do?”
“I'm going to put the fear of God into her and make her talk.”
“Promise me you won't use any rough stuff.”
“I already did.”
“Promise again.”
My face grew hot, and so did my emotions.
“What do you think I am, some kind of crazy vigilante?”
“No, just a man on a mission,” she said, looking me straight in the eye.
I held her gaze. “All right. No rough stuff. That's a promise.”
“Thank you.”
“Do you have something I can record my interrogation with?”
“The room's already wired,” Sally said.
Bonnie and Cecil were separated.
Before I went in to speak with Bonnie, I decided I needed to look like a Disney employee if my words were going to carry any weight. Sally tried to find a Disney shirt for me to wear, but nothing close to my size was available. I settled for a hastily constructed laminated badge with my name printed on it. To add to the picture, Sally gave me a copy of the internal newsletter that Disney's forty thousand employees received each week.
“Good luck,” she said.
I entered the interrogation room with the newsletter tucked under my arm. Bonnie lifted her head but did not speak. I removed a pack of gum I'd bought from a hallway vending machine and offered her a stick. She refused with a shake of her head.
“Take one,” I said. “ It will make you feel better.”
She changed her mind and took a stick.
“Who are you?” she demanded.
“Human resources. I came about your boys. They're yours, aren't they?”
She ripped the paper off the gum and shoved the stick into her mouth.
“I want to talk to a lawyer,” she said, chewing vigorously.
“You mean Leonard Snook?”
“Whatever his name is, I want to talk to him.”
“He's Cecil's lawyer. Is he your lawyer, too?”
“Damn straight,” she said.
“Trust me, Bonnie, you don't want to talk to him,” I said, pocketing the gum.
“Why the hell not?”
“Leonard Snook won't do those boys any good. Now, whose are they?”
She crossed her arms defiantly in front of her chest. “You're violating my civil rights. I'll sue this park and Michael Eisner and Walt Disney if you don't let me talk to my lawyer. Understand that, Mr. Human Resources?”
I casually leaned against the mirror, studying her. She had a perfectly even tan that I guessed had come from a tanning salon, and her eyes were too blue to be anything but contacts. The amazing artificial woman.
“Do you know anything about Leonard Snook?” I asked.
“What's there to know?” she snapped.
“Leonard Snook is a criminal defense attorney who represents serial murderers and career criminals. Call him, and you're all but admitting that you're guilty, and those two boys will get placed in a state foster home. You don't want that to happen, do you?”
“I want to speak with my lawyer.”
“I'm here for the boys' sake,” I said. “If you had an ounce of compassion for their well-being, you'd answer the question.”
Bonnie's face started to crack. Then, just as quickly, her icy demeanor returned.
“Go away,” she said.
I slammed the door behind me. The best way to deal with scum like Bonnie Sizemore was to scream at them while threatening bodily harm. It was the only way to penetrate the callous layer of skin that had wrapped itself around their hearts. But I had promised Sally I wouldn't resort to those tactics, and I was a man of my word.
I went down the hall to the room where Cecil was being held. Sally was working him over, and through the door I could hear Cecil telling her the same things Bonnie had told me. He wanted to speak to Leonard Snook, and he wanted to speak to him now.
I leaned against the wall and listened to Cecil's verbal barrage. He had his answers down pat and didn't sound intimidated by Sally's threats of a lifetime in jail. Eventually, Sally would have to turn him and Bonnie over to the Orange County Sheriff's Department or risk ruining the police's ability to prosecute.
I tore a corner off the Disney newsletter to stick my gum in. On the newsletter's cover was a photograph of a comic/ impersonator named Brian Cox. Cox was headlining at Disney's Islands of Adventure nightclub, and the newsletter urged Disney employees to come out and see the show. It gave me an idea, and I knocked on the door. Sally opened the door with an exasperated look on her face.
“Any luck?” she asked.
“No, but I've got an idea,” I said.
Sally came into the hall and shut the door. I showed her the article about Brian Cox.
“I once used an impersonator to crack a witness in Fort Lauderdale,” I said. “Maybe I can get this guy to help me crack Bonnie. Think you can track him down?”
Sally read the article while studying Cox's photo. Cox had spiked hair, a lopsided grin, and bulging eyes.
“I don't know, Jack. He looks like a lunatic.”
“The article says he does great impressions. It's worth a shot.”
She handed me the newsletter. Her eyes looked tired.
“You don't give up, do you?” she said.
“Never,” I said.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Sally made a couple of phone calls and located Brian Cox. He was staying at a hotel on International Drive. I called the hotel, and an operator put me through to his room. Cox answered and sounded dead-asleep. After some gentle persuasion he agreed to help.
Twenty minutes later, Cox pulled into the security area and got out of his rental car. He was unshaven, skinny to the point of being unhealthy, and clad in rumpled black clothes. His spiked hair was mashed to one side of his head. We shook hands.
“Thanks for coming so fast,” I said.
“I'm a comic,” he said. “What else have I got to do?”
I took him into the basement of the security building and introduced him to Sally, who'd remained outside the room Cecil Cooper was being kept in. Sally eyed Cox skeptically, then looked at me.
“Exactly what do you want to do?” she asked.
“I want Brian to listen to Cecil while you interrogate him,” I said. “Hopefully, Brian will be able to mimic Cecil's
voice, and we can trick Bonnie into confessing.”
“How good are you?” Sally asked him.
Brian's face turned semiserious, and he launched into a series of famous voices, jumping from a mean Humphrey Bogart to a boisterous John Wayne to a wimpy-voiced Mike Tyson without pausing to catch his breath.
“I'm impressed,” Sally said. “Okay, let's give it a try.”
Sally went into the room where Cecil was being kept, along with a guard who was watching him. She left the door ajar and began to question Cecil. Before she could finish her first sentence, Cecil exploded.
“I want to speak to my fucking attorney, and I want to speak to him right now,” Cecil shouted. “You fucking people don't scare me. You think because you're rich you can push everyday folks around. Well, I ain't being pushed!”
Brian stood by the door, listening hard.
“Piece of cake,” he said.
A few minutes later I entered the interrogation room where Bonnie Sizemore was sitting, and left the door open. I looked at Bonnie while sadly shaking my head.
“What do you want?” Bonnie asked.
“You had your chance, and you blew it,” I said.
“What's that supposed to mean?”
“I told you to come clean, didn't I? Now you and your boys are screwed.”
“Screwed how? What are you talking about?”
“Cecil sold you down the river.”
The blood drained from her tanned face, leaving the skin a sickly caramel color. “Cecil wouldn't do that. You're lying, mister.”
“I just heard him,” I said. “Put a pair of mouse ears on him, and he'd look like a giant rat. Come here and listen if you don't believe me.”
Bonnie joined me at the door. I glanced down the hallway at Sally, who stood inside the doorway to a vacant room where Brian was hiding. Cecil was gone, having been taken upstairs. I gave Sally the high sign.
“Listen,” I told Bonnie.
“It was Bonnie's idea to grab the kid inside the park,” Brian said in Cecil's rough voice. “I told her it was a big mistake, but she always wanted a little girl. She can be mighty demanding when she wants stuff. Fucking-A, sometimes I can't control her. So I just went along, you know what I'm saying? She grabbed the kid and cut her hair and spray-painted her sneakers blue. It was all her idea. I was just along for the ride.”