Midnight Rambler_ A Novel of Suspense - James Swain [93]
Claude paused to compose himself.
“Jack, I want you to help me rescue her.”
“How do you plan to do that?” I asked.
“I'm going to pay Bash a visit and make him tell me where she's being held.”
“What about the police? Or the FBI?” I asked.
“They'll only slow us down,” Cheever said.
I knew exactly how Cheever felt. Had I visited Trojan Communications without the FBI breathing down my neck, I could have made Coffen cough up Jonny Perez's address. It wouldn't have been pretty, but I could have done it.
“Count me in,” I said.
CHAPTER FORTY
Neil Bash's radio station was in a semirural community called Davie in the center of Broward County. I agreed to meet Cheever there in thirty minutes. As I backed my car out, Linderman emerged from Trojan Communications. I lowered my window.
“The police want to talk with you,” Linderman said.
I glanced at the street. While I'd been talking with Cheever, a pair of police cruisers had pulled in the front of the building, and several sheriffs had gone inside.
“I thought you had the police covered,” I said.
“They're picking apart my story,” Linderman said. “Coffen is a big mover and shaker in town, and the police want to know why I shot him when he was unarmed.”
“Have Theis show them the photos of the victims on his computer,” I suggested.
“Theis did. The police are saying the photos don't mean squat. They're saying we can't even prove those women are dead. You need to straighten them out, Jack.”
“Me?”
“Yes, you.”
I threw the car into drive. I couldn't see myself explaining how I knew eight women were dead to a legal system that had let their killer walk free.
“Fuck 'em,” I said.
I drove to Davie, listening to Bash's talk show on my radio.
Bash was ripping me apart and making me the poster boy for everything wrong with the criminal justice system. He recited every injury I had inflicted upon Skell, without mentioning the crime for which Skell had been sent to prison. He was brainwashing his listeners, one moron at a time.
Every few minutes, Bash took a call-in. As the Davie exit appeared in my windshield a caller came on whose voice was instantly familiar.
“Hey, Neil, it's your old buddy Sex Hound,” Cheever said brightly.
“Sex Hound,” Bash said. “You always lighten up my day. What's up?”
“You going to bring her back on?”
“Who's that?”
“Melinda Peters.”
“Ah, yes, the lovely Melinda Peters, star of your friendly neighborhood strip club. Melinda has promised that she'll be calling again. Believe it or not, she actually has more dirt on our favorite cop, Jack Carpenter.”
“What kind of dirt?” Cheever asked.
“She's going to tell us what Carpenter was really up to,” Bash said.
“You mean there's more to the story?” Cheever said.
“Lots more,” Bash said. “But to tell any more would be cheating.”
“I'll be waiting,” Cheever said. “Oh, and Neil? Love your show.”
“Thanks, Sex Hound. And now it's time for a word from one of our sponsors.”
I took the exit and headed south. Davie was a blue-collar area, and I drove down a two-lane road with trailer parks hugging each side. Two miles later, I spotted a cluster of trailers with large antennas on their roofs. Above the trailers hung an elevated billboard with the station's call letters and Bash's round, devilish face.
I'd found him.
Trailer parks were as much a part of Florida as alligators and Mickey Mouse. They sat on land scraped clean of trees and were usually the first casualties of hurricanes and electrical storms. Low-income families flocked to them, as did the retired. They were their own worlds, and could be good or bad places to live. I'd known many cops who refused to answer a call from one on a Saturday night.
Bash's radio station was inside a trailer park called Tropical Estates. It was a cheapo operation, the main building a series of double-wides attached by flimsy covered walkways. Cheever's car was parked by the entrance. I parked beside him.
We got out and faced each