The Night Monster_ A Novel of Suspense - James Swain [46]
I followed Linderman west on Hallandale Beach Boulevard, then south on South Federal Highway to a deserted strip mall inside Bluesten Park. Hallandale was a town of retirees, and the traffic moved in slow motion.
The strip mall had seen better days, the shops lifeless and empty. Linderman drove around the building, and parked beside a Dumpster overflowing with garbage. Parking beside him, I stared at a line of police cruisers. Everywhere I looked, uniformed cops were traipsing around, poking their noses where they didn’t belong. Police departments in south Florida were revolving doors, and most cops didn’t know the first thing about preserving a crime scene. I leashed Buster and got out.
A large dirt lot sat behind the strip center. The lot was flat and dusty and filled with tire rims and torn bags of garbage. It backed up onto a large warehouse whose walls were painted white and without graffiti. Only in a retirement area did you see that.
The van sat in the lot’s center, a plume of gray smoke still billowing from its hood. The gas tank had ignited, causing the van’s roof to melt down and disappear. The smell of gasoline and burnt upholstery hung in the air like a toxic bouquet.
Linderman stood beside me, his badge pinned to his lapel. Although he’d never expressed it in words, he had a low tolerance for the local cops.
“Do you think there are any clues these guys haven’t trampled on?” he asked.
A baby-faced cop stood a dozen yards away from us. As we watched, he picked up an empty soda can with his bare hand, and dropped it into an evidence bag.
“Probably not,” I said.
Linderman shook his head, clearly disgusted.
“Sara’s abductors didn’t pick this place randomly,” I said. “They’d been here before, and knew that it was deserted. I’m guessing they had another escape vehicle parked nearby, in case of an emergency. They came here, burned the van they were driving to destroy any clues, then transported Sara to the other vehicle, and bolted.”
“That was smart.”
“Yes, it was. I originally thought these guys were both nutcases, but now I’m not so sure. The big guy is definitely off his rocker, but I think his partner is cagey, and might be calling the shots.”
“One is the brains, the other the brawn.”
I pointed at the burned-out van. “That’s another important clue.”
“How so?”
“Sara’s abductors used a stolen minivan as their first getaway vehicle,” I said. “The Fort Lauderdale cops found it in a parking garage across the street from the Broward Library. The van had been wiped clean.”
Linderman gave me a puzzled look. He was one of the few law enforcement agents I knew who didn’t get offended when he was in the dark.
“Why is that important?” he asked.
“They wiped the painter’s van down because they didn’t want their fingerprints getting lifted,” I said. “They would have wiped this van down as well, only there wasn’t enough time, so they burned it instead. But the end result was the same: Their fingerprints were destroyed.”
“So one of these guys has a criminal record and doesn’t want his fingerprints being found,” Linderman said. “Which one do you think it is?”
“It’s Mouse. The Broward cops checked the police databases for the big guy, and he didn’t turn up. If we can identify Mouse, we’ll have a much better chance of finding Sara. If we can’t, we’re in for the long haul.”
Linderman shot me a look that said he understood. Catching criminals was a numbers game. We’d had our chance to catch Mouse and his partner, and they’d slipped through our fingers. Our odds were getting worse by the minute.
Buster pulled at his leash. I looked down at him, and saw that his hackles stood straight up. He had locked onto a scent.
“I’m going to let Buster sniff around and see what he can find,” I said.
“And I’ll talk to the Keystone Kops,” Linderman said.
I walked toward the smoldering van. One of the cops working the scene stopped me, and asked me what the hell I was doing. I pointed at Linderman, who was talking to the officer in charge on the other side of the lot.
“I’m working with the FBI,” I explained.
The cop let me