The Night Stalker jc-2

by James Swain

  “I am?”

  “Yes. Now get your gear.”

  Burrell started to protest. I stepped off the porch and began walking down the sidewalk with my head bowed and my dog by my side.

  Burrell caught up to me moments later. She had thrown on a bulletproof vest that was a size too big for her, and was cradling a shotgun between her arms.

  “Slow down,” she said.

  I slowed my pace. “You need to lose the shotgun.”

  “Why should I do that?”

  “Because we’re going into a hole in the ground. You can’t turn around in a confined space with a shotgun. Sidearms only.”

  Burrell’s jaw clenched, and I saw her blink.

  “Anything else you’d like to share with me?” she asked.

  “Yes,” I said. “LeAnn told me when Heather left the house, she went to get something for Jed. I’m guessing it was food.”

  “So?”

  “Yesterday I spoke with the father of Mary McClary, one of the victims at the landfill. He told me his daughter was looking for work, and had worked as a waitress.”

  “I’m still not reading you.”

  We came to the corner and both stopped. I was going to make Burrell understand if it was the last thing I did, and I turned so I was facing her.

  “Our killer works in a restaurant,” I said.

  The Dodds lived in a tiny bungalow made of cinder blocks. The front yard was a jungle, the grass knee-high. I banged on the front door, and, when no one came out, checked the mailbox. It was filled with promotional flyers.

  “Looks like they’re away,” I said.

  I led Burrell to the back of the property. The lot was long and narrow, and had several ripening citrus trees. I picked up a stick and began poking at the soggy ground.

  “What are we looking for?” Burrell asked.

  “A septic tank,” I replied.

  We searched the property. Several times, I saw Burrell drop to her knees and dig in the earth, only to turn up a water sprinkler, or something hidden in the dirt. Soon we were done.

  “Are you sure this is the place?” Burrell asked.

  “Yes,” I said. “Keep looking.”

  There was an art to finding a concealed space, and even the best searchers missed things. I retraced my steps while tuning out the storm. Buster was lying beneath a lemon tree, and raised his head each time I passed him.

  “Some help you are,” I said.

  My dog let out a whine, and began to dig with his front paws. Etched in the dirt beneath the tree was the faint outline of a small door. I’d passed the spot several times, yet somehow missed it. Kneeling, I dug my fingers into the dirt, and the door came free.

  “Over here,” I said.

  Burrell came over, and stared into the hole with her flashlight. She pulled out her cell phone.

  “I’m calling Whitley,” she announced.

  “Why?” I asked.

  “Because he’s in charge.”

  “Are you afraid of bringing Jed in yourself?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Then call Whitley when you’re done,” I said.

  Burrell acted like I’d slapped her across the face.

  “You’re out of line, Jack,” she said.

  She started to make the call. I picked Buster up in my arms, and held him over the opening. The drop looked about five feet. I lowered him as far as I could without falling in, then released him. He landed on all fours, and took off running.

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

  I followed my dog down the hole. I was inside an empty septic tank. The air was toxic, and I tried not to puke.

  “Wait!” she said.

  Burrell jumped down the hole so she was standing beside me.

  “Don’t do that again,” she said.

  I pointed at the passageway on the other side of the tank.

  “That way,” I said.

  “Jack, I’m warning you. Don’t do that again,” she said.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  We went down the passageway. The ceiling was low, and we both walked like crabs. It led to another septic tank with bleached walls and breathable air. A Coleman lantern hung from the wall; beneath it several pieces of mismatched furniture were arranged like a living room. Hanging from the walls were posters of James Dean and Kurt Cobain, and I spied an old bong on the coffee table with cobwebs on it.

  Burrell pointed at a black door on the other end of the tank. It had a half moon painted on it, and appeared to be a bathroom. She drew her weapon, and aimed at the door.

  “Don’t shoot him,” I whispered.

  “Don’t tell me what to do,” she whispered back.

  “Does this look like a killer’s lair?” I asked.

  Burrell glanced around the tank. “No.”

  “Let me open the door.”

  “Go ahead.”

  I went to the door and jerked it open. The bathroom was empty.

  “Where the hell is he?” Burrell asked.

  I looked around the tank. There had to be another way out, only I wasn’t seeing it. Then I realized that I didn’t know where Buster was.

  “Where’s my dog?” I asked.

  “He was ahead of me, then disappeared,” Burrell said.

  I let out a shrill whistle. Through the walls I heard a sound that was half whine, half dying breath. I tore through the living room, and did not stop until I found a secret door hidden behind a piece of cloth painted to resemble the wall. Tearing the cloth back, I stared down another passageway, and made out two forms at the other end: Jed Grimes, dressed in a pair of blue jeans and nothing else, and Buster. Jed had gotten a chain around my dog’s neck, and was strangling him. Buster’s tongue was sticking out of his mouth, his body hanging limply by Jed’s side. My head scraped the ceiling as I ran toward them. “Let him go!” I shouted.

  Jed released my dog, and scurried up a ladder against the wall. Reaching him, I grabbed his bare foot, which was dangling above me.

  “He’s here!” I yelled.

  Jed kicked me in the face. I heard my nose break and saw pools of black before my eyes. I fell onto my dog, and tried to regain my senses. Buster lay beneath me, his body limp. I found his face in the dark, and ran my hand across it.

  He was dead.

  Burrell’s voice brought me back to reality.

  “He’s getting away!”

  I forced myself to stand. My head felt like a balloon, and I was having a hard time seeing clearly. Burrell stood in the passageway with her weapon drawn. There was not enough room for her to pass, and she grabbed my shoulder and shook me.

  “Wake up, Jack!” she said.

  I filled my lungs with air. A ladder was attached to the wall, and I grabbed a rung and started climbing until I was standing in an unfamiliar backyard. The rain was coming down in sheets, and I spotted Jed scaling a picket fence. I took off after him.

  “Jed! Stop!” I shouted.

  He looked over his shoulder at me, then disappeared. I hurled my body over the fence, and landed in a flower bed. Jed was twenty feet ahead of me, and running for a gate that led to the front of the property. I yelled for him to stop, and he ignored me.

  I came through the gate running as fast as my legs would go, and found Jed standing on the front lawn of the house, surrounded by five FBI agents. The agents were pointing their weapons at him, which consisted of three rifles, one shotgun, and one pistol. Jed was dancing around like a boxer, trying to find an opening to escape through.

  “No!” I screamed.

  One of the agents’ heads snapped in my direction. It was Whitley. He was holding the automatic pistol, and had his free hand stuck in the air. When he dropped his hand, the agents were going to fire. His eyes met mine, and I saw him squint.

  Whitley’s arm came down as I jumped. I tackled Jed directly above the knees, and brought him down hard. Jed grunted, and I felt his body go still. I hugged the ground as bullets flew around me.

  “Get up,” Whitle
y shouted.

  My ears were ringing as I rose to my feet. Whitley pulled me to the side while two of his men frisked and handcuffed Jed, who remained facedown on the ground. The air was thick with gunpowder, and I was having difficulty breathing.

  “You’re a stupid son-of-a-bitch,” Whitley said.

  I tasted blood, and brought my hand up to my face. It was trickling out of my left nostril. I’d gotten my nose busted a few times as a kid, and it hadn’t killed me.

  “Do you have anything to say for yourself?” Whitley asked.

  I shook my head. The agents pulled Jed to his feet, and walked him to the curb.

  A black SUV pulled up, and Jed was hustled into the backseat. As the door was closed, his eyes met mine. He looked terrified. I hadn’t wanted Jed to get shot, and although the price had been more than I’d bargained for, I’d succeeded.

  “Did you find his wife or son?” Whitley asked.

  I shook my head. Whitley climbed into the passenger seat of the SUV. Its tires squealed as it pulled away from the curb.

  I found Burrell in the backyard next door. She was sitting on the ground and had something furry clutched in her arms that looked like a giant teddy bear.

  “The FBI has Jed,” I told her.

  “Is he alive?” she asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Good. Now help me.”

  I got up next to her, and saw that she was holding my dog.

  “He’s still got a pulse,” she explained.

  CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

  I gathered up Buster in my arms, and carried him down the street. He was out cold, his breathing faint. Burrell made a call on her cell, and a police cruiser appeared. I loaded Buster into the backseat.

  “Where do you want me to take him?” the driver asked.

  As a cop, I’d taken injured animals to different clinics around the county, and one clinic had stood out above the others for the care it had shown.

  “Hollywood Animal Clinic on Hollywood Boulevard,” I said.

  “Will do,” the driver said.

  I watched the cruiser drive away. I’d always ridiculed people who were overly attached to their pets, but now that I was close to losing mine, I wanted to crawl into a hole and die. Burrell edged up beside me.

  “I won’t be offended if you leave,” she said.

  I loved Buster, but I also had a job to do, and it wasn’t finished.

  “I’m not going anywhere,” I said.

  Bowing my head to the rain, I followed Burrell back to Jed’s hideout.

  We took our time, and searched the hideout thoroughly. Every piece of furniture and accessory felt like something a nineteen-year-old boy would own. Nothing we found indicated that Heather or Sampson had recently been there. Nor was there any evidence of Jed having killed anyone. Serial killers were notorious for keeping trophies of their victims, and we didn’t find a single item that looked suspicious.

  “Jack, look at this,” Burrell said.

  I stopped what I was doing. Burrell sat on the couch with an old book in her lap.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “Take a look.”

  She handed me the book. It was falling apart, and I carefully opened it. It was a Bible, and on the first page I saw the names of every member of the Grimes family who had owned it over the past hundred years. At the bottom of the page was Jed’s name.

  “Not the kind of thing you expect to find in a serial killer’s hideout, is it?” I said.

  “No, it isn’t,” Burrell said.

  I noticed something stuck in the Bible’s pages, and pulled it out. It was a photograph of Jed standing next to a priest with a turned collar. The priest was bowed over from age, with wisps of silver hair that danced on his head. The priest had his hand on Jed’s shoulder, and they were both smiling.

  I flipped the photo over. There was a date written on the back. It had been taken a year ago. I showed it to Burrell.

  “Jed’s priest,” I said.

  Burrell studied the photograph, and shook her head. “Have you ever heard of a serial killer having a priest?”

  “No,” I said.

  “Whitley needs to see this, and the Bible.”

  “Yes, he does.”

  Burrell’s cell phone rang. She answered it, then looked at me.

  “Buster’s going to live,” she said.

  I pulled out my keys. My job was done here.

  “Let me know how it goes,” I said.

  I drove to the Hollywood Animal Clinic in the pouring rain. A receptionist with silver thunderbolts painted on her fingernails greeted me from behind a Plexiglas panel.

  “Can I help you?” the receptionist asked.

  “I own a dog that was brought in earlier,” I said.

  “The Australian Shepherd that was involved in the manhunt?”

  “That’s right.”

  She led me to an examination room, and told me the vet would be in shortly. While I waited, I looked at the horse photographs hanging on the walls. They showed a pretty woman with short spiked hair sitting on a chestnut stallion with ribbons hanging around its neck. The horse’s name was Charley Horse, which brought a smile to my face.

  The vet came in wearing a white lab coat. It was the same woman from the photos. Her name tag said Dr. Chris Owens.

  “The police tell me your dog’s a hero,” Dr. Owens said.

  No one had ever called Buster that before, much less anything nice.

  “How’s he doing?” I asked.

  “He regained consciousness a short while ago, but is still groggy,” Dr. Owens said. “He seems to be all right, but I’m concerned about his skull. I don’t think it’s cracked, but I won’t know for certain until I run a series of X-rays.”

  I’d been to enough emergency clinics to know how they operated.

  “How much are we talking about?” I asked.

  Dr. Owens worked up the cost on a pocket calculator, and showed me the figure. Three hundred and twenty bucks for a lousy pound mutt.

  “Run the X-rays,” I said.

  “I’ll need you to sign a form agreeing to the procedure,” Dr. Owens said.

  I removed the money from my wallet, and stuffed it into her hand.

  “Right now,” I said.

  “He’s a special dog, isn’t he?” she asked.

  No one had ever called Buster that before, either.

  Dr. Owens returned to the examination room holding a handful of X-rays, which she held up to the overhead light for me to see. “Your dog has suffered a mild concussion. It could have been worse, but he’s got a thick skull.”

  “Can I take him home?” I asked.

  “I don’t see why not.”

  I followed her down the hall to the X-ray room, where Buster lay on a table. His eyes were at half-mast, and I saw his tiny tail wag.

  “You need to keep him quiet for a few days,” Dr. Owens said. “I know that’s hard with an Aussie, but you don’t want him running around. I’m giving you some pain pills. Give him two every four hours until they run out.”

  I carried out Buster with his cold nose pressed against my neck. The waiting area was filled with people with ailing pets, and a woman stroking a Siamese cat spoke to me.

  “Is it true what the receptionist said about your dog?” the woman asked.

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  “That he helped the police catch that horrible serial killer Jed Grimes?”

  I hadn’t mentioned Jed’s name to the receptionist, and I wondered how the woman had made the connection. Then I spied a TV in the corner of the room. Whitley was on, and was wearing fresh clothes, and had slicked back his hair. He was holding a press conference for the local media, and talking about Jed’s apprehension. People accused of crimes were supposed to be innocent until proven guilty, only Whitley was calling Jed a killer, and giving himself and his agents the credit for apprehending him.

  I walked out of the clinic without replying.

  CHAPTER FIFTY

 
I found Burrell standing in the clinic parking lot. She asked after my heroic dog.

  “He’s going to be okay.”

  “I’m glad. We need to talk,” she said.

  Burrell offered to drive me home in my pickup, with a police cruiser following us. I agreed, and climbed into the passenger seat with Buster in my arms. He was coming around, and seemed to be enjoying all the attention I was giving him.

  It was still raining like it was the end of the world. Burrell crawled through a tricky roundabout in the center of town, then turned her head to look at me. “You told me something the first day I came to work for you,” she said. “You said, ‘Listen to your brain, but follow your heart.’ I’ve never forgotten that.”

  “Is your heart telling you something now?” I asked.

  “Yes. I think we arrested the wrong person.”

  “Did you talk to Whitley?”

  “I called him, and told him about finding the Bible and photo of the priest in Jed’s hideout. Whitley said it was meaningless. He blew me off.”

  Burrell didn’t try to hide the anger in her voice.

  “What’s the deal between you two?” I asked.

  “I thought we were in love,” she said.

  “Thought?”

  “Whitley and I have been seeing each other for about a year. He told me he was leaving his wife. The story changed a few hours ago.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be.”

  We crossed the Hollywood Bridge, and took A1A north to the Sunset. The streets were deserted, the bars and restaurants empty. I had Burrell pull into the Sunset’s parking lot, and park by the entrance. The cruiser did the same.

  “Earlier you told me that you thought someone who worked in a restaurant was our killer,” Burrell said. “Do you have a profile?”

  Buster was whining to get out of the car. Opening my door, I laid him onto the pavement, and watched him teeter down to the shoreline and relieve himself.

  “Our killer works in a restaurant,” I said, closing my door. “He might be the night manager, or maybe even the owner. He’s a loner, and has lived in LeAnn’s neighborhood for many years. He also has a connection to Abb Grimes, although I haven’t figured out what it is. He’s smart, but impulsive.”