The Night Monster_ A Novel of Suspense - James Swain [77]
“We stepped in horseshit on that one. Any luck finding Sara Long?”
“I got close, but no cigar. I need a favor.”
“Name it.”
“I don’t want to ask you this over the phone.”
“Where then?”
“I’m parked just outside.”
“Give me a minute.”
Sixty seconds later, Burrell emerged from the police station and slipped into my car. Her clothes were starting to look like she’d slept in them. I rolled up the windows.
“Why the secrecy?” Burrell asked.
“I want you to weasel your way into the police department stockade. There’s a section that houses the department records archive. Each year has its own box of records. Take out the box for 1990.”
“What am I looking for?”
“A file on a mental health facility called Daybreak.”
“Why do you want to see that?”
“The two guys who abducted Sara Long were patients there. The giant is named Lonnie. He’s six-foot-ten, and one of the scariest people I’ve ever seen. Yet somehow no one I spoke to would admit to knowing him.”
“Why would they lie?” Burrell asked.
“I’m guessing a superior told them to.”
“You make that sound routine.”
“That sort of thing used to be routine. My rookie year, the chief sent out a ‘No one dies during spring break’ memo. He ordered the cops and the coroner not to report any student deaths to the media until after spring break was over. And we didn’t.”
“Did any kids die?”
“A couple did. They got drunk and fell off hotel balconies.”
Burrell stared at the empty building and didn’t speak for a while. She came from a family of cops, and liked to think that cops were different.
“Okay,” she finally said. “I’ll go to the stockade, and get the box. You want to come by, and look through the files with me?”
“I have to go to Broward General and check up on Karl Long,” I said. “I’ll call you when I’m done. Maybe we can hook up then.”
“Dinner’s on you,” she said.
CHAPTER 38
entered Broward General Hospital through the main lobby. I had visited here enough times to be on a first-name basis with most of the staff and doctors. The receptionist was a tanned woman in her late-thirties named Dextra.
“Hello, Detective Carpenter, how have you been?” Dextra asked.
It had been a long time since anyone had called me detective. I didn’t see any point in correcting her. “I’ve been fine. I’m here to see a patient named Karl Long. He was flown in by chopper a few hours ago.”
Dextra tapped her keyboard and stared at her computer screen. “Let’s see. He’s not showing up on the new patient registry. Do you know what happened to him?”
“Gunshot wound.”
“Oh. Did you nail another bad guy?”
“I didn’t shoot him. Really.”
Dextra gave me a sly wink, and made a call on her phone. I drummed my fingers on the countertop and avoided her stare. Flirting with Dextra was the last thing I wanted to be doing right now. Hanging up, she said, “Karl Long is still down in the emergency room. You can go see him, if you’d like.”
“Thank you. Take care.”
I started to back away, and Dextra held up a manicured finger.
“I get off at eight,” she said. “Maybe we could go out, get something to eat.”
I swallowed the rising lump in my throat.
“Or maybe you could invite me over to your place,” she said.
I could tell that Dextra liked to fantasize about cops. I’d met women like her over the years. I’d never understood what the attraction was, and I decided to level with her. “I don’t have a place. I got thrown off the police force last year, and I just got evicted from my apartment. All I’ve got is my fifteen-year-old car, a mean dog, and a trunk full of old clothes. Still interested in going out with me?”
Dextra shrank in her chair, her bubble burst.
“No thanks,” she managed to say.
“Have a nice night.”
I found Karl Long lying on a bed in the emergency ward. He was hooked up to every machine in the place, plus an IV drip. A cutie a few years older than his daughter sat in a chair beside his bed, holding his hand. The glazed look in Long’s eyes told me that the nurses had given him a strong narcotic to ease the pain of his wound.
“Jack …” he muttered.
I knelt down so our faces