The Night Monster (17 page)

“Calling TirePrint?” I asked.

“Yes. Let’s hope they can tell us what these guys are driving.”

Linderman’s call went through. I heard my own cell phone ring, and stepped away to answer it. Caller ID said it was
JESSIE
.

“Hey, honey,” I said.

“Hi, Daddy. I’m sorry to be bothering you, but I need your help.”

“What’s wrong? Where are you?”

“I’m on the team bus heading back to Tallahassee. It’s an eight-hour drive, so I decided to catch up on my homework, only I realized that I didn’t have the schoolbooks I loaned Sara Long. I’ve got an exam next week, and I really need them.”

It was rare that my daughter called me with her problems, but there was something in her voice that I didn’t like.

“Did Sara bring the books on the trip?” I asked.

“Yes. Sara had them the other night. I figured the Broward police were holding them as evidence, so I called the detective in charge of the investigation, and asked her if I could have them back.”

“Detective Burrell?”

“Yes. She was very nice, and went to the evidence locker to find my books for me. So here’s the weird part. They weren’t there. Detective Burrell found a copy of the police report that listed everything in Sara’s motel room, and my schoolbooks weren’t listed.”

“So the books weren’t in Sara’s room when the police got there.”

“No. I figured maybe they fell under the bed, so I called the motel, and asked the manager if one of the cleaning people found them. No luck there either.”

There was a simple solution to Jessie’s problem, which was to go to the campus bookstore, and buy another copy of her missing books. Only there was something else going on here that I was missing. I said, “Tell me what you’re thinking, honey.”

“This is going to sound crazy …”

“Say it anyway.”

“I think the people who kidnapped Sara made it a point to take my books.”

“Why do you think that?”

“Because Sara’s other schoolbooks were left behind in the motel room. Detective Burrell told me so. They were in the evidence locker.”

I felt myself stiffen. Jessie had stumbled upon something. I said, “Well, that certainly sounds strange. The books you loaned Sara … what were they?”

“My nursing books.
Manual of Medical-Surgical Nursing Care
and
Taber’s Medical Dictionary
. Sara sometimes borrows them from me when we travel. They’re a real pain to lug around.”

“Are they big?”

“Yeah, they’re both doorstops.”

I spent a moment processing what Jessie had just told me. Sara’s abductors had purposely removed two nursing books from Sara’s motel room during her abduction. They were big books, and had been taken for a reason. I found myself thinking back to Naomi Dunn, who’d also been a college student. Dunn’s books had been scattered around her apartment, and I didn’t remember the police taking an inventory of them.

The police file of Dunn’s case was in the trunk of my car with the rest of my belongings. I decided it was time to take a look at it.

“I need to go,” I told my daughter. “Thank you for calling, and telling me this.”

“I hope it means something,” Jessie said.

“It does. You did good, honey.”

I went to my Legend and popped the trunk. The cardboard box containing all my earthly possessions stared up at me. It should have given me pause, but it didn’t. Life was too short. I pulled out Dunn’s file and slammed the trunk shut.

I got into my car for some privacy. The interior was as hot as an oven. I looked at the thermometer on the dash. The interior was
96
degrees, and I was parked in the shade.

I started up the engine. Soon cold air was blowing through the vents. Buster climbed onto the passenger seat and promptly fell asleep. I opened Dunn’s file on my lap and sifted through the pages. A list of Dunn’s classes at Broward Community College had been included as evidence, along with the names of her classmates who’d been interviewed by the police.

The list had been typed on a typewriter, the block letters badly faded. Dunn had been taking four classes at BCC. One was in contemporary American literature, the other three medicine-related. Her major was listed at the bottom of the page.

Nursing.

Thank you, Jessie
.

I flipped to the evidence log. Forty-eight items had been removed from Dunn’s apartment and cataloged by the police, including her clothes, toiletries, jewelry, a tennis racket, several pieces of expensive camera equipment, and a stack of novels written by Ayn Rand, Norman Mailer, and Saul Bellow. It was heavy reading, and no doubt part of her American literature class. Yet her nursing books, which was her major, were nowhere to be found.

I combed through the report. If I remembered correctly, the police had searched Dunn’s car, an old Mazda that she parked outside her apartment. Perhaps her nursing books had been found inside the trunk.

The car’s items were buried in the back of the file. The police had found five items in the trunk. Two beach blankets, a tube of suntan lotion, a straw hat, and a portable radio. Dunn’s nursing books weren’t there either.

I slapped the file shut and cursed. I’d been looking at Dunn’s file for eighteen years, yet somehow I’d failed to see the discrepancy. Dunn’s abductors had taken her nursing books, just like they’d taken Sara’s nursing books.

I’m sorry, Naomi
.

Linderman materialized beside my car. He’d undone the knot in his tie, and giant drops of sweat dotted his brow. The look on his face was anything but happy.

I lowered my window. “What’s up?”

“Good news, and bad news,” Linderman said.

“Why don’t you climb in? It’s nice and cool.”

“Don’t mind if I do.”

I made Buster get into the back, and Linderman took his place. I let him enjoy the cool air for a few moments, then said, “What’s the good news?”

“TirePrint just made the vehicle. Sara’s abductors are driving a 2006 Jeep Cherokee with Goodrich tires. I called the Miami and Broward cops to see if any Jeep Cherokees have been stolen in the past week, and none have been reported.”

“Do you think it’s their car?”

“Yes. I’m guessing they kept it parked here, and used stolen vehicles to move around town. I’ve alerted the police and Highway Patrol to be on the lookout for the vehicle, not that I think they’re going to find it.”

“Is that the bad news?”

“Yes. Jeep Cherokees are one of the most popular makes on the road. There are literally thousands of them. Since we don’t know the color of the Cherokee they’re driving, our chances of spotting them are slim.”

I stared at the file lying in my lap, my mind racing.

“I think I know how to find these guys,” I said.

Linderman’s head snapped, and he stared at me.

“Then what the hell are we sitting here for?”

needed a computer. Since my office in Dania was closer than Linderman’s office in North Miami Beach, we’d caravan there. Linderman opened the door and started to get out of my car. I stopped him.

“I’ve figured out what these guys’ motivation is.” I tapped the file. “The evidence is right here.”

Linderman pulled his leg back in and shut the door. He was sweating profusely, even though the car’s temperature was comfortable.

“Go ahead,” the FBI agent said.

“They’re abducting nursing students.”

His face clouded. He shifted his gaze and stared out the windshield.

“My daughter was a nursing student,” he said quietly.

“I remember you telling me that.”

Linderman looked back at me. The pain had disappeared from his face. I’d seen this happen before. One minute he was a grieving parent, the next an unflappable FBI agent. I didn’t know how he did it. I know I couldn’t.

“Time’s a-wasting,” Linderman said. “Let’s go.”

———

I drove to my office with Linderman riding my bumper. I ran my business above a restaurant called Tugboat Louie’s in Dania. Louie’s boasted a good-time bar, dockside dining, and a busy marina. Not many respectable businesses would operate out of a place where drunkenness and all-night partying were considered appropriate behavior, but I wasn’t one of them. Louie’s owner, my friend Kumar, didn’t charge me rent, and that made the place perfect in my book.

The Rolling Stones’ “Can’t You Hear Me Knocking?” was blaring out of Louie’s outdoor loudspeakers as Linderman and I entered the building. Kumar sat on a stool by the front door, wearing his traditional white Egyptian cotton shirt and oversized black bow tie. Next to him was a blackboard with the day’s lunch specials. Cheeseburger, grouper sandwich, conch fritters, Key lime pie. I’d been frequenting Louie’s for years, and the specials never changed. Seeing me, Kumar exclaimed “Hello, Jack! Hello, Buster! Hello, Jack’s friend!” He clapped his hands. “There is always excitement when you’re around, Jack. How about some lunch? I can heartily recommend the cheeseburgers. They are
very
good!”

“Sure. I’ll take a cheeseburger, medium rare,” I said.

“Well done,” Linderman said.

“And Buster?” Kumar asked.

“He would like the usual,” I said.

Kumar hopped off his stool. “Coming right up, gentlemen.”

I entered the restaurant and walked behind the noisy bar. Unhooking the chain in front of a narrow stairwell, I climbed the stairs to my office, Linderman behind me.

The second floor contained two offices: mine and Kumar’s. My office was long and narrow, and contained a desk, an ancient PC, two folding chairs, a rusted file cabinet picked up at a yard sale, and a wall containing the photographs of a dozen missing children I looked for but never found. Sitting at my desk, I booted up my computer and opened my e-mail.

Typing with two fingers, I composed a letter that I planned to send to every law enforcement agency in the state, asking them to search their databases for young women who’d gone missing in the past eighteen years who were nursing students.

Linderman stood behind my chair as I typed, staring at the computer. In the screen’s reflection I saw him shake his head.

“Something wrong?” I asked.

“How many police departments are there in Florida? Sixty-six?” he asked.

“Sixty-seven,” I said.

“How many of them are going to drop whatever they’re doing to help you? Based upon my experience, they’ll pass the request down the line, and it will end up in the hands of a secretary, who may or may not look through the files.”

“Do you want to write it?”

“I won’t get any better response. The FBI isn’t liked by most cops.”

Our food came. Two cheeseburgers swimming in french fries, and a bowl of ground beef for Buster. Linderman pulled up one of the folding chairs, and we ate our lunches.

I couldn’t taste the food. Sometimes that happened to me when I was on a search. My appetite disappeared and nothing tasted particularly good. I had lost weight since leaving the force, and didn’t want to lose any more.

I forced the food down, then got up from my chair and went to the window. Parting the blind with my finger, I stared down at Louie’s dock and watched a teenage girl wait on a table of drunk guys with sunburns and loud shirts. The waitress didn’t look like she was more than sixteen years old. Staring at her gave me a thought.

“I’ll talk the Broward cops into helping us,” I said. “They can get the cops in the other counties to respond to my request.”

Linderman put his burger down. “And how would the Broward PD do that?”

“Fort Lauderdale is a magnet for teenage runaways. I can’t name a county that hasn’t had to send a cop down here and retrieve a kid who’s run away from home. The Broward cops always treat the visiting cops nice, and make sure the kids get home safe.”

I returned to my computer and redid my letter. I addressed it to Candy Burrell, marked the e-mail urgent, and hit Send. There were several stray french fries left on my plate. I started tossing them to Buster when my phone rang.

“Carpenter here.”

“Burrell here,” Candy said. “I just picked up your e-mail on my BlackBerry.”

“I need your help.”

“Back at ya, pal. I’m sort of up to my eyeballs right now.”

“What’s going on?”

“A thirteen-year-old girl named Suzie Knockman didn’t come home from school yesterday, and no one knows where she is. One of her classmates said she was having problems at home. Suzie has a large extended family—two sets of grandparents, an uncle and his wife, two older male cousins, and her parents. We interviewed the family and got all sorts of conflicting information. When we tried to reinterview them, they lawyered up, which is really weird. This girl’s in trouble, Jack.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“There was a photograph of Suzie in the house. She was all dolled up and looked like she was going on twenty-one.”

“Girls do that sometimes,” I said.

“The photo was taken last year. Looking at it gave me the creeps. Take my word for it, the kid’s in trouble.”

Burrell had to make her own priorities. Right now, Suzie Knockman was at the top of her list and nothing I was going to say would change that.

“Who’s the lawyer they’re using?” I asked.