Demon Key

by David Brookover

  Teddi cracked open the door, leaving the brass chain in place. “Yes?” she asked gruffly.

  “Look, Miss, I’ve received several complaints about god-awful shouting and screaming in here, and I . . .”

  “It won’t happen again.”

  The manager leaned to his right and attempted to peer through the crack into the room. “I heard them myself, and they sounded like tortured screams.” He cleared his throat. “We don’t permit that sort of conduct in this establishment,” he informed her.

  “I just told you that it won’t happen again. Good night!” She eased the door shut so as not to disturb Jackson, but he was already conscious and speaking quietly with Dex. His linen shirt and slacks were drenched with perspiration and adhered to his firm, muscular body. Teddi hadn’t noticed that before.

  Jackson glanced in her direction. His face was ruddy and stressed.

  “Welcome back,” she said softly. “You gave us quite a scare there for a while.”

  He attempted a smile, but his lips remained rigid. “Ditto.”

  “Teddi, Jackson and I could both use a shower and a hot pot of coffee. Let’s reconvene here in an hour,” Dex announced.

  She nodded and checked her watch. “About two then?”

  “That’ll be fine. Thanks.”

  She heard Dex speaking to room service about that pot of coffee as she closed the door.

  Ryan returned to the Gator Creek police station after one that morning, completely exhausted and annoyed. He gnashed his teeth as he speed-dialed the FBI’s crime lab in Washington — the geek department never closed. Perry Anders answered Ryan’s call on the third ring, and Wilkerson inquired about their progress on identifying the drug used on the dead black kid last night. Anders hemmed and hawed.

  “We’ve identified nearly all of the pharmacopoeia and reagents, but there’s one ingredient that is unknown to our computers,” Anders explained, between yawns.

  “I don’t have weeks here, Perry. Lives are at stake. Can’t you make a guess?”

  “We don’t guess here,” Anders replied sharply, displeased that Wilkerson would even think that his lab would fudge results.

  “You know what I mean —give me an educated guess, dammit!”

  Anders blew his nose. “It appears,” he emphasized, “as if the purpose of this chemical is to consign a victim to a state of paralysis, while leaving the mind cognizant of all activities around it. We’ve evaluated similar drugs with those characteristics.”

  “Could the damn stuff kill someone?”

  “I don’t know, Ryan, since I don’t have a final report on the unknown toxic substance. The missing chemical component has similar properties to other toxic venoms that are in our database, but we can’t pinpoint the source. Once we determine that, I can hand you a full report, minus the educated guesses,” he said dryly.

  “Fax me a list of those chemical components so I can do some digging around here for a source,” Ryan demanded.

  “I can save you the trouble. There are only three companies that legally sell most of these highly irregular pharmacopoeia supplies, and one of them is located in Miami. Got a pencil?”

  “In my fuckin’ hand. Shoot.”

  Anders read off the address and phone numbers for AGM Chemical Supply.

  “Got it. Perry, I owe you one.”

  “Several is more accurate,” Anders reminded him, and hung up.

  Ryan smacked his palm with his note pad. The other agents glanced at him hopefully.

  “A break?” Adams ventured.

  “You bet! I know how that kidnapping prick is immobilizing his victims,” Ryan replied.

  “Gonna tell Teddi about it?” another agent asked.

  Ryan’s mouth spread into a shit-eating grin. “Sure, right after we arrest the prick.” He flipped his cell phone open again. “Gotta wake a federal judge and get us a search warrant.”

  Teddi soaked in her tub for a good half-hour, and then toweled herself dry and paced her motel room naked. She concentrated on organizing the case’s random clues, so she’d be ready for their meeting at two. Another day would be dawning soon, and that more than likely meant another abduction.

  Dex and Jackson appeared refreshed when she entered the suite, although Jackson’s complexion remained flushed. A silver tray was loaded with glazed donut holes, croissants, bagels, cream cheese, an assortment of jellies, and a massive silver coffee urn. Teddi poured herself a cup of coffee and added a healthy splash of cream.

  “Shall we get started?” Dex asked, sounding like a kid on Christmas morning who was dying to steal a peek under the tree. His long-repressed curiosity concerning Jackson’s psychic adventure had swept away his fatigue.

  Teddi and Jackson joined Dex at the table.

  “Let me describe what I saw in my visions without interruptions,” Jackson said.

  “Fair enough,” Dex agreed readily.

  “First, Dex’s shooter and the kidnapper are one and the same. I watched him set up the laser pen distraction at Dex’s house, but before I could see more, I was whisked away to an old foggy cemetery. Sitting at the top of the cemetery hill, I saw a brick mausoleum. I have never felt so detached from the world as I was there.

  “I witnessed our perp pushing a wheelbarrow to the mausoleum entrance, and let me tell you, he’s a big man. His load was covered with a tarp, but when he opened the door, the wind blew away the tarp.” Jackson closed his eyes and massaged his brows. “There was a naked woman inside, and she was painted with her own blood.”

  Teddi and Dex exchanged troubled glances.

  “I couldn’t determine if she was dead or alive at that point, because she wasn’t moving,” Jackson continued. The emotional strain of reliving his nightmare was slowly eroding his remaining energy. “The kidnapper shoved the wheelbarrow into the mausoleum and closed the door behind them. I was effectively shielded from his subsequent activities. I might add, I’m glad.” He wiped budding perspiration from his forehead with a napkin.

  “Then, I heard a woman’s cries for help, but her voice was so weak, I wasn’t sure if they were real. Suddenly, I just knew they were, and that she was very much alive.”

  How awful! Teddi thought.

  “I was abruptly transported from the dark cemetery to a high school.”

  Dex’s eyes lit up, but he remained tight-lipped.

  “I tried in vain to identify the name of the high school, but the damn vision dumped me in a bad spot and wouldn’t let me roam the campus.” He paused and sipped his coffee. It was tepid. “Time wise, I think the cemetery visit occurred in the past, but I’m not certain when the school vision took place — my guess would be the future, but I’m not sure why. Call it a hunch,” he said. “That’s about it.”

  Teddi eyed him suspiciously. “What happened to the painted woman?”

  “I don’t know,” he lied, not wanting to revisit the orange eyes and his impending demise. “I was at the high school before I could . . . see.”

  Dex looked at Teddi. He wasn’t buying Jackson’s last answer, either. “Then what in the Sam Hill were you carryin’ on about?” he pressed.

  Jackson played ignorant. “I was? I . . . don’t recall.”

  “Screaming, sweating, flailing your arms — the whole nine nightmare yards,” Teddi added.

  “I don’t remember,” he countered firmly.

  “Maybe it’ll come to you later,” Teddi said flatly. Jackson was a strange and secretive man. What was he refusing to tell them? And why? She trusted that his silence wouldn’t jeopardize all three of their lives.

  But she was having trouble believing that at the moment.

  Chapter 27

  “Would you recognize the high school in your vision if you saw it?” Teddi asked.

  Jackson frowned. “Maybe . . .”

  Teddi retreated downstairs to her motel room, grabbed her notebook computer, and made it back to the suite inside four minutes. She plugged the computer into the suite’s Internet connection and type
d in Florida, Broward County High Schools.

  “You’re certain it was a high school, right?” she asked.

  “I think so, yes. The kids were older.”

  “Sure it wasn’t a college or community college?”

  “The kids weren’t that old or mature,” Jackson replied wearily. His voice had a biting edge to it. He was still shaken from his psychic experiences.

  Teddi typed in several more commands until she achieved the desired results: a picture tour through Broward County’s high schools.

  “Take a look, Jackson,” she said. “I’ll only scroll through the exterior shots, because that’s what you saw.”

  He scooted his chair alongside her, while Dex leaned over her opposite shoulder.

  “I’m ready. Go ahead,” Jackson said.

  Several schools scrolled past without recognition. Dex yawned. His childish anticipation had crashed, and his bullet wound began throbbing again. Teddi remained nonplussed. They had to find the school. It must be important, somehow, to their investigation.

  “Didn’t know Broward had so many high schools,” Jackson complained.

  Twenty minutes and eleven schools later, Jackson stiffened and tapped the screen.

  “That’s the one,” he exclaimed, exhilaration displacing his weariness. “Let’s take a look farther left,” he instructed.

  Teddi scrolled left, and Jackson’s index finger stabbed the screen again. “There it is — the football stadium! The parking lot’s over there — good — and the oak trees border the lots here. Now we’re getting somewhere. Good work, Teddi!”

  “Crystal River High School,” Teddi read the caption beneath the panoramic view.

  Dex straightened and rapidly dialed a number. Teddi shot him a “what’s up?” glance.

  “Rousing Sheriff Stark from his royal slumber.” Dex grinned. “Hey, James, it’s me, Dex.”

  James Stark’s thick voice muttered a greeting. “This better be friggin’ important, Dex. I had a late night and just got to bed.”

  “Who was the lucky lady?”

  He responded with a hoarse laugh. “You know me too well. Now what the hell’s going on?”

  Dex described Jackson’s psychic trance and received a skeptical clucking from Stark. Dex ignored it and added that Jackson had positively identified the high school where the kidnapper might strike next.

  “Don’t keep in me suspense, Dex. Which school was it?”

  “Crystal River High School.”

  “Shit. Our new one out in Tamarac.”

  Dex raised his fist triumphantly and nodded toward the others. “That’s out in our kidnapper’s neck of the woods by the Sawgrass Expressway.”

  “No shit, Sherlock. So what do you want me to do?”

  Dex sighed. “You tell me. It’s your ballpark.”

  “All right, I’ll dispatch a squad of undercover cops to infiltrate the school and have SWAT standing by a few miles away so they won’t spook the kidnapper. You want in on this, Dex?”

  “Me and the FBI.”

  “Not that jerk-off Wilkerson?”

  “No. Special Agent Teddi McCoy and her team.”

  “How many’s on her team, bro?”

  “How many on your team, without Wilkerson?” Dex asked Teddi.

  “A dozen, ready to roll on my command.”

  “She says about a dozen.”

  “The dirty dozen, eh?” He chuckled. “With you, that makes a baker’s dozen — bad luck, buddy,” Stark ribbed his old friend.

  “I’ve lived with worse.”

  “Like your ex-old lady.” He laughed.

  Dex shook his head. “It doesn’t get much worse than that, James.”

  “Amen. Let’s meet in my office in an hour to fix any snafus that might develop.”

  “We’ll be there.”

  “Oh, Dex.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Bring the psychic. If this operation goes bust, I want the scapegoat’s ass right beside me so I can feed it to the media sharks.”

  Chapter 28

  Wilkerson woke a federal judge at his home in Miami and asked him to issue a search warrant for AGM Chemical Supply. The drowsy judge swore thickly in Spanish, but listened to the agent’s evidence for the search. Finally, he agreed to fax a signed federal warrant to the Gator Creek Sheriff’s Station. Afterward, Agent Mack Jensen, a tall thirty-something with his muddy brown hair neatly parted and combed, phoned the surprised and anxious president of the chemical supply company and arranged to meet him at his corporate office within the hour.

  AGM Chemical Supply was tucked into an industrial park, a block from the beach. Sixty-four-year-old Len Goldstein waited for them beneath an umbrella in the empty parking spaces fronting his business. His anxious eyes stared out from sun-etched wrinkles when the two black Suburbans jounced to abrupt stops on either side of his Cadillac Escalade.

  Wilkerson slid from his shotgun seat in the first Suburban, introduced himself, and shoved the warrant into Goldstein’s quivering hand.

  “What’s this all about, Special Agent Wilkerson?” he asked.

  “I’ll explain on the way inside.”

  Moments later, Goldstein turned off the security alarm and unlocked his office door. “Please, come in and we’ll search for the buyer of these chemicals.” He switched on his computer, waited for it to boot, and then typed in the chemical names.

  Goldstein’s office was cheaply decorated with a cluttered metal desk, six four-drawer cabinets, a half-dozen cheap prints hanging askew on the white plastered walls, a beveled-glass wall mirror above the water cooler, and a faded and distressed coat tree in the corner behind the office door.

  Within a minute, his face relaxed. “I’ve located the customer. Oh, it’s him.”

  “Him?”

  “Yes, the buyer. It’s Bo Swinson from Demon Key. A very unpleasant man, and that’s putting it mildly.”

  “How so?”

  “He’s rude, belligerent, and always cruising for a fight. If you just look at that man the wrong way, he wants to knock your block off.”

  Wilkerson knew the type, and he would be more than happy to kick that chicken-shit kidnapper’s ass before cuffing him. “Got an address on your happy camper?”

  Goldstein printed out the entire sales entry, which included Swinson’s address, and gave it to Wilkerson.

  The agent summarized the information aloud to his companions. “Swinson purchased these items a year ago, ostensibly for treating animals. He paid cash.”

  “Let’s go get him,” Agent Adams urged, raring to go.

  “We will, but we’re going to do it by the book.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Wilkerson looked askance at the bottom of the page and glared at Goldstein.

  “What the hell kind of address is this?” he barked at the cowed business owner.

  Goldstein stuck his hand across the Steelcase desk. “Let me see.” The old man perused Bo Swinson’s address. “Demon Key. Hmmm.”

  Wilkerson waited impatiently.

  “It’s a small island in the Everglades, just west of Gator Creek and the Sawgrass Parkway.” Goldstein opened a desk drawer and rummaged through it. “I’ve got a map here somewhere.”

  Wilkerson stood. “Thanks, but we’ll check it out.” With that, he turned and led the three agents outside into the drizzling rain. “Jensen, get the Broward County sheriff on the phone.”

  “At this hour?”

  Wilkerson glowered at him. “Just do it.”

  Jensen dialed the number from inside the Suburban and handed the phone to his boss.

  The sheriff picked up the phone on the first ring. “Stark here.”

  Wilkerson was surprised that Stark was so alert for three in the fuckin’ morning.

  “Special Agent Wilkerson here. I’ve got the name of our kidnapping suspect, and out of courtesy, I’m inviting you along for the arrest,” he explained.

  “I see,” Stark replied vaguely, playing his cards close to the vest. No use
mentioning the Crystal River High School operation to the creep. “Who’s your suspect?”

  “Bo Swinson. The guy lives on some small-ass Everglades island.”

  Stark’s mouth dropped open. “Yeah, on Demon Key.”

  “You know it?”

  “Damn right I do.” He paused. “Bo Swinson. I can believe it.”

  “You know him?”

  “Yeah, sort of. His family’s notorious for their weird behavior, but Bo’s just an out-and-out bully. Has been since elementary school.”

  “You went to school with the guy?”

  “My younger brother did, a long time ago. The bastard’s a racist pig. Beat up my brother and sent him to the hospital for accidentally bumping him in the school hallway,” Stark explained, the old anger rising. “Said niggers should watch where they’re going.”

  “Sounds like a real humanitarian.”

  “Oh yeah.”

  “We’re making the bust at dawn. If you and your SWAT team want to tag along, meet us out at the edge of the Everglades by five-thirty.”

  Stark doubled his free hand into a fist. “We’ll be there.”

  “Hey, I never said the kidnapping would take place this morning. Hell, it could be a month from now, for all I know,” Jackson protested.

  Dex winked at him. “Have a little faith, huh? I have a hunch it’ll be this morning, and if I’m wrong . . .”

  Dex’s cell phone vibrated in his pocket before he could finish, and he quickly answered it. It was James Stark.

  “Yeah, James?”

  “I’m afraid we’ve got to cancel our meeting.”

  “You’re kidding?”

  “Afraid not. I just got off the horn with that SOB Wilkerson, and he’s identified our perp.”

  “How?”

  “He didn’t volunteer the information, and I didn’t ask. Frankly, it’s the FBI’s ass if they screw up the arrest, so I’ll play it by ear. If it’s a good bust, then I’ll insist on the particulars.”

  “But what about our Crystal River High School lead?”

  “Looks like the bastard’ll be arrested before the students even arrive at school. The students will be safe. That’s my only real concern.”