The Night Monster_ A Novel of Suspense - James Swain [87]
“You just made my day,” I said. “Let me ask you something. Did the report mention Mouse’s hometown?”
“Hold on, let me take a look.”
Valentine put me on hold. I rolled down my windows, and let the hot air invade my car. Every tired bone in my body felt refreshed. I’d found the bastard.
Valentine came back on the line. “Your friend is from a small Florida town called Chatham. I just looked it up on my computer. Chatham is about ten miles north of St. John’s River, in the central part of the state.”
Mouse had boasted to Ray Hinst that the police in his hometown wouldn’t arrest him. What better place for Mouse and Lonnie to hide than Chatham?
CHAPTER 43
left Daybreak feeling better than I had in a long time. I knew the name of one of Sara Long’s abductors as well as the name of the town he and his partner were hiding in. Mouse and Lonnie were in my sights.
But rescuing abduction victims was never easy. And there was the matter of dealing with the sheriff of Chatham. Before I went charging in with guns blazing, I needed to figure out what his deal was.
It took an hour to reach my office. During the drive, my cell phone rang several times. I kept my phone on a Velcro strip attached to my dash, letting me see who was calling without taking my hands off the wheel. Burrell was trying to track me down.
I thought I knew what Candy wanted. She’d caught wind that I’d unearthed another corpse and wanted to know how it fit into my search for Sara Long. Being the lead investigator on Sara’s case, Burrell had a right to know everything I knew. Not telling her what I’d learned was against the law and could land me in real trouble. Only right now, the last person I wanted to be talking to was a cop.
I didn’t take her call.
———
Tugboat Louie’s parking lot was jammed, and I parked on the road. Kumar was checking IDs at the front door when I entered. Inside the bar, wild women were dancing on tables while drunk men stood and cheered. Party time had begun.
“A police detective has been calling for you,” Kumar said.
“Detective Burrell,” I said.
“Yes. She asked me to give you a message.”
“Just pretend you didn’t see me come in,” I said.
Kumar’s eyebrows went up in alarm.
“I hope you’re not in trouble,” he said.
Back when I was a detective, I’d learned that you weren’t doing your job right if you weren’t causing trouble. The trick was learning how to deal with it.
“Don’t worry about it,” I said.
Kumar covered his eyes with his hands. “Very well. You were never here.”
I went upstairs to my office. The commotion from the bar was so loud that my office furniture was vibrating. I sat at my desk and tried to block out the noise.
I booted up my computer and logged onto the Internet. It was hard to remember what detective work was like before high-speed computers. A great deal of time had been spent on the phone, trying to track down leads and information. Now most of what I needed was a few clicks away.
On Google, I did a search of Chatham. I was not familiar with the town where Mouse was from, but that didn’t mean much. There were thousands of small towns in Florida, many not big enough to be included on a map.
Chatham didn’t warrant a lot of ink. Fifteen miles north of the Ocala National Forest, the town did not have a website, nor was it included in the website of any of the neighboring towns. Outside of a few cheap motels that catered to hunters and fishermen, there was no real information about the place. In the infinite world of cyberspace, Chatham hardly existed.
I did a public records search of Chatham on a county website, and got a better feel for the place. The town was incorporated, and boasted eight hundred residents. There was a mayor, a town clerk, and a sheriff, all of whom were elected officials.
The sheriff was the person I was most interested in. His name was Homer Morcroft. I did a search of his name, and discovered a newspaper