The Night Monster (23 page)

“Stuck in my office,” Burrell replied. “The switchboard has gotten fifty phone calls from drivers on their cells who’ve spotted suspicious
Jeep Cherokees. I’ve got half the cruisers in the county tracking them down.”

“Tell the cruisers to concentrate on the Davie area,” I said.

“Why? What did you find?”

“They were at the Happy Days motel, and took off. I’m sitting in their room. They left the ropes they used to tie Sara to the bed.”

“Do you know which way they went?”

“No.”

“How about the color of the Jeep Cherokee, or any distinguishing features, like a missing hubcap or a dent.”

“I’ll go ask the motel manager. You need to send a CSI team over here and have them check out the room they were staying in. They left lots of evidence behind.”

“Will do. Call me back once you know something.”

I hurried from the motel room. Outside, I nearly collided with an overweight Hispanic woman pushing a cleaning cart. She was heading for the room I’d just left. My wife was Mexican, and I knew enough Spanish to carry on a conversation.

“You can’t go in there,” I said in Spanish.

“Gotta clean up the room,” she replied in broken English.

“Leave it alone.”

“We got to rent it out again. Boss’s orders.”

She started to enter the room. I pulled a business card from my wallet, and shoved it into her face. Then I drew my Colt, and showed it to her in a nonthreatening way.

“I’m with the police,” I lied. “Stay out of the room.”

“Okay, okay,” she said.

She left. She would probably return once I was gone. I went into the room, and snatched up the garbage pails and the box of Animal Crackers. Walking to the front of the building, I found the slowwitted uniform sitting in his cruiser, filling out a report.

“Where’s the motel manager?” I asked.

“In his office. He decided not to file a complaint.”

“Did he tell you anything?”

“He suddenly got amnesia.”

“You need to put the heat on this guy. A woman’s life is in danger.”

The uniform continued writing his report. I’d planned to give him the evidence so he could turn it over to the CSI team when they arrived, but he impressed me as someone who might just toss the stuff away.

“Do you mind if I go talk to the manager?”I asked.

“Be my guest.”

I put everything I’d found into my Legend along with Buster. Then I entered the motel manager’s office. The room was small and stifling hot. I rang the bell hard.

The manager appeared from the back with a Scotch in his hand. He wore his hair slicked back like a mobster, and sported a pencil-thin mustache. His face was busted up, with a little purple pig below his left eye.

“I need to ask you some questions about what happened,” I said.

“I already told you—I didn’t see nothing,” the manager declared.

“You called in the make of the car they were driving, a Jeep Cherokee. Did you bother to write down the license plate?”

“Nah.”

“What color was it? You must remember that.”

The manager took a swig of his drink and wiped his mouth on his sleeve. “Look, it’s over. I don’t want any more trouble.”

“Listen to me. Those guys were holding a young woman hostage in their room.”

“It’s a sick world.”

No longer being a cop had its advantages. For one thing, I didn’t have to respect people’s rights, especially when those people had just crawled out from beneath a rock. Reaching across the counter, I grabbed the manager’s shirt and lifted him into the air. His teeth chattered in his skull as I shook him.

“You’re hurting me,” the manager cried.

“I’m just trying to jog your memory.”

“I remember now!”

I dropped him on the counter without letting go of his shirt. His drink hit the floor. “Start talking,” I said.

“I think it was black. Or maybe navy blue,” the manager said.

“Make up your mind.”

“Okay. It was navy blue with tinted windows. Hadn’t been washed in a while. The rear bumper was dented, and someone had keyed the driver’s door.”

“Which way did they go after they left your motel?”

“Right.”

“You mean west?”

“Yeah, they headed west. I ran into the street after them. I wanted my money, you know? The driver was heading toward 595.”

I released his shirt and patted him on the head.

“See how easy that was?” I said.

I went outside. The uniform was long gone. I called Burrell and got voice mail. I left a message and asked her to call me back. After a few minutes had passed, I started calling the other detectives in Missing Persons whose numbers were in my address book.

On my last try, Detective Rich Dugger picked up. I had hired and trained Dugger. With his school-boy face and calm demeanor, he could extract more information out of a witness than any cop I’d ever worked with.

“Hey, Jack, what’s shaking?” Dugger asked.

“I need to speak to Burrell. Any idea where she is?”

“She’s racing down the shoulder of I-95. I’m in a car behind her.”

“What’s going on?”

“There’s a Jeep Cherokee in the median, and the driver is refusing to get out. Two highway patrol cars have the vehicle surrounded, and traffic is backed up in both directions. We think it’s Sara Long’s abductors.”

It was not uncommon for vehicles to pull into the median on I-95 when they had mechanical problems. “What’s the color of the Jeep in the median?” I asked.

“I’m driving on the shoulder, and can’t see the car yet,” Dugger said.

“The manager at the Sunny Days motel made the getaway vehicle.
Sara’s abductors are driving a navy blue Jeep Cherokee with a dented rear bumper and a scratched driver’s door.”

“Shit! Now the traffic’s stopped dead.”

“Can I make a suggestion? Climb onto the hood of your car, and try to see the Jeep that’s stuck in the median.”

“That’s not a bad idea. I’ll call you right back.”

The line went dead. I let Buster out of the car, and watched him chase his shadow. Finally my cell phone rang. It was Dugger calling me back.

“The Jeep in the median is blood red. It’s not them,” Dugger said.

“You need to turn around and get everyone back here. Sara’s abductors are heading west on 595.”

“I can’t. The highway patrol officers are pointing their guns at this guy. We’ve got to deal with this. Later.”

Again the line went dead. Sara’s abductors were in Broward, and I couldn’t get a cop to help me find them. I kicked my front tire in anger, then jumped into my car.

ven with the windows down, the interior of my car was broiling hot. I put on the air, then punched in Karl Long’s number. His secretary stuck me on hold.

“Pick up your damn phone,” I said angrily.

My heart was pounding in my ears. Mouse and the giant were on the run. They’d been waiting for two days to move Sara Long out of Broward County, and now they had no choice. If they didn’t immediately get out, they were going to get caught.

Desperation time.

I knew how to catch them. The motel manager had said they’d driven west. That meant they were either heading for the swampy Everglades, or would drift north through Palm Beach County. My guess was that they’d pick the Everglades. The back roads were desolate, and they wouldn’t have to drive fast, or risk getting stuck in traffic.

Finally, Long picked up the line.

“I’m sorry, Jack,” Long said.

“Your daughter’s abductors are making a run for it.”

“For the love of Christ. Do you know where they are?”

“I’ve got a general idea. Is your private helicopter still available?”

“It’s on the helipad behind my office. My pilot is here as well. Tell me where you are, and I’ll have him pick you up.”

I was still parked in the Sunny Days lot. The motel’s address was printed on the manager’s door. I read it to Long.

“I’m staring at the map of Broward hanging behind my desk,” Long said. “I own a ten-acre parcel of land three miles west from where you are, on the same road. Go there, and my pilot will pick you up in ten minutes.”

“Make it five minutes,” I said.

“I don’t know if he can move that fast.”

“Then kick him in the ass. This may be our last chance to find Sara.”

I dropped the phone in my lap and burned rubber leaving the motel lot.

Karl Long had to be one of the richest men in south Florida. The number of office buildings and pieces of undeveloped land that bore his name were endless. I parked in front of the parcel where I was going to meet his pilot, and leashed Buster.

The land was surrounded by a white three-board fence. I hoisted Buster over the fence, then climbed over myself. My dog quickly found a stick in the grass and offered it to me. He wanted to play. I was in no mood for games, and I pulled the stick from his mouth, and tossed it onto the other side of the fence.

“No,” I told him.

Dead center in the property was a billboard with Karl Long’s name printed on it. As Buster and I headed toward it, a chopper roared overhead.

I glanced at my watch. Four and a half minutes.

The chopper landed fifty yards from where I stood. It was a metallic blue and had the initials KL painted in gold on the wings and on the tail. Through the tinted windshield I spotted two individuals, one of whom waved to me. My jaw tightened.

“For the love of Christ,” I said.

The passenger door banged open. Long jumped out, wearing combat
fatigues and a leather holster with a sidearm. A red bandanna was tied around his forehead that made him look like a mini-Rambo. Had he not given me fifty thousand bucks to find his daughter, I would have laughed in his face. Instead, I scowled at him.

“What are you doing here?” I yelled as he came toward me.

“I’m going with you to rescue Sara,” Long replied.

“Bad idea, Karl.”

“You don’t want me along?”

“No. You’ll only be in the way.”

Long grabbed my arm and squeezed the biceps so hard it made me wince. The desperation in his face was all too real. I didn’t back down.

“Stay here,” I said.

“I can’t do that,” he yelled back at me.

“I’ll give you my car keys. You can drive back to your office. I’ll call you once I know something.”

“No! I’m coming with you.”

I would have stood there and argued with him, only Sara’s life hung in the balance. I picked up Buster and put him into the backseat of the chopper, then climbed in myself. Long climbed into the front seat, and told the pilot to take off.

People thought flying in helicopters was glamorous. My guess was none of them had ever been inside a chopper. The engine noise was deafening, the vibrations scary, and if you didn’t focus on the ground as you rose into the air, you threw up.

I buckled myself into the backseat, grabbed my dog, and braced myself for the ride. Long introduced me to the third man in the chopper, a silver-haired, retired air force chopper pilot named Steve Morris.

“Which way do you want to go?” Morris asked.

I pointed at I-595, which was off to our right.

“Follow the interstate toward the Everglades,” I shouted.

“What are we looking for?” Morris said.

“A navy Jeep Cherokee with a dented rear bumper and tinted windows.”

“Got it.”

Morris lifted the chopper into the air, steered us over I-595, and headed due west. The legal flying limit for choppers was a thousand feet. It felt like we were flying much lower, and I was able to tell the makes of the cars speeding down the highway. None matched the getaway vehicle.

Within minutes we reached the exit for U.S. 27, the last exit before the tollbooth for Alligator Alley. Traffic had thinned, and I asked Morris to lift the chopper into the air as high as the law would allow. He complied, and we hovered in the cloudless sky.

“Do you have binoculars?” I shouted.

“Sure do,” Long replied.

Long removed a pair of binoculars from a bag lying at his feet and passed them to me. Holding them up to my face, I looked down Alligator Alley. The Alley was ninety miles of four-lane highway that dissected the lower half of the state. It was ruler-straight and had no housing developments or strip centers on either side of it. If Mouse had gone this way, all we had to do was follow the Alley, and we would eventually spot him.

I lowered the binoculars into my lap. I didn’t think Mouse had gone this way. The Alley was bordered by swamps on either side, and contained only a handful of exits. It was a bad road to use as an escape route.

I looked down at State Road 27 directly beneath us. Twenty-seven ran due north, and had plenty of cut-offs. Mouse would feel safer on 27, and I envisioned him taking it north until he reached 441, where he could then easily get lost. I tapped the pilot’s shoulder.

“Let’s take Twenty-seven,” I yelled in his ear.

Morris gave me a thumbs-up. The chopper turned, and we roared north.

Broward is one of the most populous counties in America; when you head west into the swamps the population drops to nothing and vast farms spring up. If Mouse had driven this way, we would find him soon enough.

I glanced at the pilot’s instruments and found the speedometer. We were pushing a hundred twenty miles per hour, or a mile every thirty seconds. Long turned around in his seat and addressed me through cupped hands.