The Night Stalker_ A Novel of Suspense - James Swain [103]
“Yes.”
Burrell was directly violating the chief’s orders, an act that could lead to her being fired. She could have been content to let things play themselves out, only that wasn’t who she was. I said, “Call me once you have something.”
She nodded stiffly and went to the elevators.
I was blinded by the afternoon sunshine as I walked through the front doors of the station house. There was a reason I was no longer a cop, and I got reminded of it every time I came here. I started across the lot toward the pickup truck, which the cops who’d arrested me had driven to the station and, at my suggestion, left the keys beneath the floor mat.
“Hey, Jack! Hold on a minute.”
Chuck Cobb, the smart-mouthed detective everyone thought was my brother, was smoking a cigarette by the front door. He came over and whacked my arm good-naturedly.
“Just the man I was looking for,” Cobb said. “I need you to review the Piper Stone murder report.”
It was common practice during homicide investigations to have witnesses reread their own accounts of murder scenes. This allowed the detectives working the case to iron out inconsistencies, while letting witnesses get their facts straight.
“Sure,” I said.
“The report’s in my computer. Do you mind coming upstairs so I can print it out?”
“I don’t think that’s such a good idea,” I said. “I’m on the chief’s shit list.”
“Whoops. Well, how about I print it out, and bring it to you?”
“I can wait,” I said.
Cobb went inside, and a motorcycle cop came outside.
“Are you Carpenter?” the motorcycle cop asked.
“Yes,” I said.
“I’m your escort,” the motorcycle cop said.
“I don’t need an escort,” I replied.
“The chief thinks you do.”
I felt like I’d been kicked in the teeth. The chief had assigned a cop to watch me, and make sure I didn’t stick my nose where it didn’t belong. I glanced up at the building, and found the chief’s office on the top floor. Something told me he was up there, watching this.
I drove to the Sunset with Cobb’s murder report lying on the passenger seat and the motorcycle cop riding my bumper. I pulled into the lot, and the motorcycle cop parked beside me. He lowered the visor on his helmet, and eyed me suspiciously. As I started to get out, my cell phone rang. It was Rose. I rolled up my window before answering.
“Do you still need me to bail you out of jail?” my wife asked.
“Not today,” I replied.
“Are you still in trouble?”
“Yes.”
“There must be something I can do.”
I hesitated. I didn’t like pulling my family into cases, but there was something that Rose could do. She could help prove that Cheeks destroyed evidence, while I spent my time looking for the killer, and hopefully finding Sampson.
“There is,” I said. “A serial killer named Abb Grimes was given an experimental sleeping drug in the mid-1990s by a clinic in Broward, which later shut down. The drug begins with the letter Z, and made him hallucinate. I need you to find those records.”
“That shouldn’t be too hard.”
“No?”
“Not when you know how to use the Internet.”
I heard my wife’s fingers typing on a keyboard.
“I’m on one of the pharmaceutical websites,” Rose said. “I’ll look at the popular drugs beginning with Z first. Okay. It’s not Zantac, or Zaroxolyn, or Zestril, or Ziac. Wait a minute. How about zolpidem tartrate?”
“What’s that?”
“It’s a sleeping drug to treat insomnia. According to the site, it was tested in the United States in the mid-1990s, then issued a patent, and is now being sold as Ambien. The site says that some patients exhibit odd behavior, including delusions and sleepwalking. How was Abb Grimes acting when he took it?”
“His wife said the drug made him crazy.”
“Sounds like a match. I’ll ask our records department to find out which clinics in Broward were involved in the trials, and do a trace on where they keep their records.”
“You should have been a detective,” I said.
“I did the next best thing,” my wife said.
“What’s that?”
“I married one.”
I told Rose that I loved her, and then she was gone.