by James Swain
“I live in a small apartment,” I said. “I wouldn’t have anywhere to put something.”
Small twisted his head and spoke to Sally. “It looks like I’ve offended your friend.”
“He’s got a tough skin. He’ll get over it,” Sally said.
“I’d like to show you something,” Small said to me. “Would you mind pushing my chair to the other side of the room?”
“Not at all,” I said.
I wheeled Small across the room. He pointed at a door marked “Employees Only,” and I opened the door and pushed him into an air-conditioned garage that housed more of his collection, including an old telephone booth, a row of antique gumball machines, and practically every Wurlitzer jukebox ever made.
“Those are my babies in there,” Small said. “When I die, they’ll either be auctioned on eBay, sold at a yard sale, or thrown away. Do you know how sad that makes me feel?”
“It must be hard,” I said.
“I’d like you to have something. Please.”
The final wish of a dying man was hard to ignore. Out of respect I took my time looking around, and I found myself drawn to a wall-mounted jukebox. It was filled with 45 records by Jerry Lee Lewis, Little Richard, and dozens of other old-time rock and rollers. I punched in a selection, and we listened to Roy Orbison singing to the lonely.
“This is a nice piece,” I said.
“Would you like it?” Small asked expectantly.
“I live above a bar. The place could use some music.”
“Take it,” Small said.
“You’re sure you want to part with it?”
“Nothing would make me happier.”
A toolbox sat on the floor. I found a screwdriver and unscrewed the jukebox from the wall. There were tears in Small’s eyes as I carried the jukebox out the door.
Sally was waiting when I came back inside. She led me to a bedroom in the rear of the house, which had been set up with a hospital bed. My host was facing his computer, and I came around his wheelchair to see the photo of Sampson sitting in a dog crate on the screen, the resolution much sharper than Sally’s laptop.
“Recognize anything?” I asked.
Small nodded while staring at the screen. “The carpet and wall coverings are from a defunct hotel chain called Armwood Guest Suite Hotels. Most of their properties were located in the southern United States. Armwood tried to capitalize on the corporate business traveler and fell victim to the last recession. If I’m not mistaken, the entire company was sold off.”
“Did they have many hotels in Fort Lauderdale?” I asked.
“Yes. They were quite big in Broward County.”
Small’s voice had grown weak, and he paused to gather his strength. “Now, there are some little things that this photograph is telling me. I don’t know if they’re significant, but I’m happy to share them.”
“Please,” I said.
“The carpet is frayed, and appears to be quite old. I’m guessing it’s original, and was never replaced. That’s unusual, even more so if the property is in south Florida, where you have to replace the carpets every few years because of mold and mildew. The wall coverings are probably original as well.”
“Excuse my ignorance, but what does that mean?” I asked.
“More than likely, whoever bought the hotel in this photograph is not presently using it as a hotel. It’s too downtrodden.”
“What would it be used for?”
“It could be used for a variety of things. Perhaps to house welfare recipients, or maybe a religious organization bought it to lodge their members. It might also be empty, and your kidnapper is using a room without the owner’s knowledge.”
“Anything else jump out at you?” I asked.
“There was one other thing,” Small said. “Behind the boy there is a night table, which is next to a wall. I believe that was where the telephone in all Armwood rooms was placed. In this photograph, there is no phone.”
I looked at the screen and saw the empty night table. “Are you sure there was a phone there?” I asked.
“I believe there was. However, there’s one way to know for certain.”
“How?” I asked.
“Print the photograph, and we’ll see if there is a phone jack on the floor.”
With Small’s help, I printed the photo off his computer onto a laser copier, and we both scrutinized the spot on the floor beneath the night table. There was something there, but neither of us could be certain what it was.
“Danny, please get my magnifying glass,” Small said.
The nurse went into another room and returned with a magnifying glass. Small held the magnifying glass up to the photo with a trembling hand.
“I was right,” Small said. “Have a look.”
I took the magnifying glass and looked for myself. It was small, but I could see a phone jack screwed into the baseboard on the floor.
“Someone removed the phone,” I said.
“It certainly looks that way,” Small said.
His voice had dropped to a whisper. Sally shot me a look, and I realized it was time for us to leave. I folded the photo into a square, and put it in my pocket.
The nurse pushed Small into the foyer. Sally kissed him good-bye, and I thanked him for his help. Small looked like a mummy in his sheets and his sickly state, but when he gazed up at me, the expression on his face told me he was still very much alive.
“Good luck finding the boy,” he said.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
I followed Sally to a Cracker Barrel near the turnpike, and we got a booth. After our waitress delivered our coffee, Sally spoke up.
“I never ate at a Cracker Barrel until you told me about the waitress who helped you find that missing little girl. Then I started eating at them, and decided I like the food.”
There were fifty-four Cracker Barrel restaurants in Florida, and all of them were located near major highways. Whenever a child had gone missing in Broward and a vehicle had been involved, I’d sent a Be on the Lookout e-mail to every Cracker Barrel. The BOLO had included the child’s photo and physical description, plus a description of the abductor if one was available. The waiters and waitresses had spotted so many missing kids in their restaurants that it had become standard procedure.
“Are you still seeing Ralph?” I asked.
Sally rolled her eyes. “What day is it? Friday? Yes, I’m still seeing Ralph. Ask me tomorrow, and you’ll probably get a different answer.”
“The last time we talked, it sounded like you guys were getting serious.”
“That’s an understatement. Ralph asked me to marry him.”
When Sally had lived in Fort Lauderdale, she’d dated an assortment of guys, with each one being a bigger loser than the last. I’d been hearing about Ralph the subcontractor for a while, and had been rooting for it to work out.
“So what are you going to do?” I asked.
“I told him I wasn’t ready for marriage.”
“How did he take it?”
“About as well as you are. Stop looking at me like that.”
“How am I looking at you?”
“Like I’m the Wicked Witch of the West. His proposal took me by surprise. I told him I wanted to think about it. We didn’t have a fight.”
I blew on my coffee. “Did he give you a ring?”
“I don’t want to talk about this anymore, okay?”
“Did he?”
Sally balled up her napkin and threw it at my head. “Damn it, Jack, you’re like a flipping dog with a bone. Let it go. Okay?”
It was well known that men didn’t understand women. What wasn’t as well known was that women didn’t understand men. I leaned across the table and lowered my voice. “The hardest thing I ever did was ask Rose to marry me. It took me an entire week to gather up the nerve. When I gave her the ring, she started crying. I thought she was upset with me, and I nearly threw up. Thank God she said yes.”
Sally drew back in her seat. “What
are you telling me? That I wounded Ralph, and destroyed our relationship?”
“I’m just telling you how he feels. How you deal with it is up to you.”
We finished our drinks and settled the check. I followed Sally to the parking lot and watched her smoke a cigarette.
“So what should I do?” she asked. “Cook him a fabulous dinner and sleep with him?”
I put my hand over my mouth to stop the laughter. Sally punched me in the shoulder so hard I nearly hit the pavement.
“It’s not funny, Jack. What should I do?”
“Go home, go to bed, turn off the lights, stare into the darkness, and listen to your heart,” I said.
“Where did that come from?”
“My grandmother told me that. It was her solution to all of life’s great problems.”
“Does it work?”
“It works better than anything else I’ve tried.”
Sally ground her cigarette into the pavement. I wasn’t ready for the long embrace, or the smooch that came with it.
“Sometimes the strangest things come out of your mouth,” she said.
I drove south on the turnpike while punching Burrell’s number into my cell phone. Burrell hadn’t had much to cheer about lately, and I wanted to share the lead I’d gotten from Tim Small.
“Hello, Jack.” Her voice was flat and dead.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“I’m having the day from hell,” Burrell said. “A sick newborn was abducted from Broward General Medical Center this morning. Chip Wells with Action Eleven News found out, and got on the air and called Fort Lauderdale the missing kids capital of the United States. The chief has made me drop everything to find this baby. Every detective in Missing Persons is looking for him.”
“Who’s handling the excavation at the landfill?” I asked.
“Whitley has taken over.”
“Who’s looking for Sampson Grimes?”
Burrell paused. “No one right now. I’m sorry, Jack, but you know how things work.”
I punched the dashboard in anger. Chip Wells was one of the reasons I was no longer on the force. He’d written untrue things about me that had helped destroy my career while advancing his own, and I could see him doing the same thing to Burrell.
“I can find your sick baby,” I said.
“You can?”
“Yes. I handled three sick baby abductions when I ran Missing Persons. The abductors were identical. I’m willing to bet yours is as well.”
“You think so? Describe the abductor.”
“Your abductor is female, between the ages of twenty and forty-five, overweight, and was posing in the maternity ward as a nurse.”
Burrell gasped. “Jesus Christ. You just described our prime suspect.”
“Thank you very much.”
“Stop being a jerk. Is she violent?”
“No, but she is delusional. This is not your normal child abduction.”
“How do you know that, Jack? How can you be so certain?”
“Because the baby was sick,” I said.
“Is that the clincher?”
“Yes. It tells you everything you need to know. I’ll help you find the baby, but I want something in return.”
“Name it.”
“Sally Haskell’s guy pulled through. The drug enforcers who are holding Sampson Grimes are keeping him in an Armwood Guest Suite Hotel in Fort Lauderdale. The hotel is old and run-down, and probably isn’t being used as a hotel anymore. If you’ll assign the detectives from Missing Persons to track down all the Armwood hotels, I’ll find this kid.”
I heard Burrell breathing heavily into the phone.
“Why do I feel like I’m being blackmailed?” she asked.
“Because you are,” I said.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
I knew the Broward General Medical Center like the back of my hand. Jessie had been born there, and I’d spent an unplanned vacation in its IC unit after being stabbed in the leg by a suspect. Because of its proximity to busy downtown Fort Lauderdale, its maternity ward was a target for people looking to steal babies, and I’d spent many hours training the nursing staff and doctors on how to thwart abductions.
Like so many hospitals in south Florida, the parking lot was half the size it needed to be. I trolled the aisles until I spied someone leaving, then fought another car for the spot. My snarling dog convinced the competing driver to retreat, and I parked.
I leashed Buster and we headed across the baking macadam. Standing beneath a green canopy by the back entrance I spotted Burrell, talking on her cell. The expression on her face was best described as frozen dread. She folded the phone as I got close.
“Getting browbeaten by the mayor?” I asked.
“How did you guess?”
“You look ready to throw up.”
We went inside to the admissions area. The atmosphere was zoo-like, with a mob of ailing people besieging a pair of frantic receptionists. I didn’t see any reporters, and guessed that Burrell had decided to freeze out the media for the time being.
Burrell showed her badge, and we were allowed to pass. Our footsteps followed us down a long corridor to Obstetrics.
“Have you been able to maintain the crime scene?” I asked.
“Barely,” Burrell said.
Crimes in hospitals always posed problems for the police. If the crimes took place inside high-traffic areas like emergency rooms or maternity wards, it was impossible to keep staff and patients from trespassing on the crime scene.
“How about witnesses?” I asked.
“We’ve got a candy striper who thinks she saw the abductor, and the mother, who handed her child off to a woman posing as a nurse early this morning. The mother’s name is Lonna Wakefield. Her son’s named Martin.”
“What’s wrong with the boy?”
“He was born three weeks premature, and was put in the neonatal intensive care unit. This morning he was cleared to leave NICU, and brought to see his mother.”
“His mother’s still a patient in the hospital?”
“Yes. She had complications giving birth.”
“How’s the mother taking it?”
“Not well. She started screaming when she heard the news. The father was in the room, and he started punching the walls. We almost had to arrest him.”
“Have you ruled the parents out as suspects?”
We had reached the maternity ward, and I put my face inches from the thick glass and stared at the newborns lying in bassinets. Burrell slapped her hand on my shoulder, and I turned and looked into her tired face.
“How long did I work for you, Jack?” she asked sternly.
“Six years,” I replied.
“Did I learn anything in all that time?”
“You learned plenty.”
“Glad to hear it. Yes, I’ve ruled the parents out as suspects. They didn’t sell their baby or decide to get rid of him. They’re innocent young kids. Now, let’s get this show on the road.”
Burrell started walking toward a room down from the ward. I gave the newborns a final glance, and saw a tiny guy in the front raise his clenched hand like he was saluting me. I couldn’t help myself, and waved back.
Lonna Wakefield and her husband were having a good cry when we entered the room. Lonna was sitting up in bed, a petite, fair-skinned young woman with wide, childlike eyes, while hubby sat beside her, a husky, corn-fed guy with a face as round as a barn owl. The wall beside the bed looked bruised.
Burrell introduced me to the couple. They both looked at me suspiciously, then did the same to my dog. Burrell picked up on their apprehension.
“Jack is an expert at finding abducted children,” she explained. “He’s offered to help us find your son.”
The husband frowned. “No offense, Detective, but we don’t have money to pay for this guy.”
“Jack won’t charge you,” Burrell said.
The couple’s faces lit up. I made Buster lie down, then crouched besid
e the bed so I was looking into Lonna’s face. Burrell was an excellent judge of character, but I still had to be sure that the Wakefields weren’t trying to pull the wool over our eyes. More than one sobbing couple had been responsible for selling their kid to pay off a debt, and I had to be certain these two were being honest.
“I’d like to ask you some questions about the woman who took your son,” I said. “Take your time with your answers. The more you can remember, the easier it will be for me to find your baby.”
Lonna rested her hand on her husband’s wrist. “I’ll do whatever you want, mister.”
“Let’s start from the beginning. How many days have you been here?”
“Three,” Lonna said. “I started having my contractions early, and Jimmie rushed me to the hospital on Tuesday night.”
“Detective Burrell told me that a woman came into your room this morning, and you gave her your son,” I said. “Why did you do that?”
Lonna winced, and I thought her husband was going to come out of his chair.
“She didn’t do it on purpose,” Jimmie Wakefield said angrily.
I ignored him, and continued staring into his wife’s eyes.
“I thought she was a nurse,” Lonna replied softly.
“Was she wearing a nurse’s uniform?” I asked.
Lonna’s eyes flickered as she brought up the memory. “Yeah, but she wasn’t wearing a nurse’s badge around her neck. I should have noticed that.”
“You had other things on your mind. Had you seen this woman before?”
“I saw her hanging around the maternity ward. I really didn’t notice her, not right away. There are so many people, between the doctors and nurses and volunteers and visitors. There was even a newborn class one day. She sort of blended in.”
“Had she visited your room before?”
“Yes. She popped in after Martin was born to see how I was doing.”
“Can you describe her?”