The Night Stalker_ A Novel of Suspense - James Swain [24]
“My boss knows about this, doesn’t she?” Lowman asked.
“Afraid so,” I said, trying to control my temper. “If you cooperate, we’ll tell her you’re square, and there will be no harm done.”
I felt Lowman sizing me up. It was like being watched by an un-trustworthy dog. I continued to work my gum.
“All right, ask your questions,” Lowman said.
“Do you go by the name Teen Angel on the Internet?” Cheeks began.
Lowman’s face turned so red it looked like he had hives. “Who told you that?”
“Vonell Cook,” Cheeks said.
“Never heard of him.”
“He’s into molesting underage girls. You talk to him on a chat room called the Conspiracy Club,” Cheeks said.
Lowman stared at Cheeks, and said nothing.
“We had a chat with Vonell this morning at police department headquarters,” Cheeks went on. “Vonell shared with us your insights into the Sampson Grimes kidnapping. They were so interesting, we decided we wanted to meet you.”
Lowman twisted uncomfortably in his chair. “I had nothing to do with that. I’ll take a polygraph if you want me to. I didn’t steal that little boy.”
“Any idea who did?” I asked.
Lowman violently shook his head.
“You didn’t talk to him, and give him tips?” I said.
“No!”
“You don’t expect us to believe that, do you?”
“Look. I did a bad thing a few years ago in Seattle,” Lowman said. “But I did my time and paid my debt to society. I’ve changed. What I told Vonell and the other members of the Conspiracy Club were idle ramblings, nothing more.”
Sexual predators didn’t change. They could be scared straight or sent into hiding, but you couldn’t change them. Lowman was lying.
“You called Sampson’s abduction a game,” I said. “What did you mean by that?”
Lowman took off his glasses and shoved them into his shirt pocket. It was a bad move, for it showed how scared he was. “The boy was persuaded to leave his bedroom during the night, and to climb through a slit screen. He wasn’t taken. He was removed.”
“Meaning what?” I asked.
“Sampson was playing a game with his abductor,” Lowman said.
“Do you think it might have been one of Sampson’s parents?” I asked.
“No. Parents enforce the law. This game was an act of defiance. That was where the cut in the screen came in.”
I glanced at Cheeks out of the corner of my eye. He had gone white.
“But it was someone who knew Sampson,” I said.
“Knew him well,” Lowman said.
“You told Vonell that Milk Duds were involved in Sampson’s abduction,” I said. “How did you know that?”
Lowman looked furtively at the floor. I heard the uptick in his breathing, the air moving rapidly through his nostrils and pouring from his mouth. He almost sounded like he was running.
“I just guessed,” he said.
I grabbed the arms of his chair and shook it. Lowman’s head snapped up.
“Quit lying,” I said.
“I’m not lying,” he protested.
“Yes, you are. Keep it up, and Detective Cheeks will arrest you.”
Many criminals scoff at being arrested. Sexual predators do not. Going to jail is often the equivalent of a death sentence, and they will do anything to avoid it.
“Milk Duds are a favorite enticement among child abductors,” he said quietly. “Children like them, and they’re larger than most candy.”
“So?”
“A child can’t yell for help with a Milk Dud in his mouth. He has to spit it out first. That gives the abductor time to clamp his hand around the child’s mouth, and subdue him. It’s an old trick.”
“Did you tell Sampson Grimes’s abductor that?” I asked.
“I told you, I don’t know who abducted the Grimes boy.”
“How about Ray Hicks?”
Lowman jerked up in his chair.
“You know Ray?” he squeaked.
“We met yesterday,” I said.
The blood drained from Lowman’s face. Before my eyes, a metamorphosis took place, and the respectable citizen that Lowman was pretending to be disappeared, while the monster lurking below surfaced. His pretty eyes shrunk into slits, and his nostrils flared. A guttural sound came out of his throat that reminded me of a dog choking on a bone. He shoved me, and spun around in his chair.
A laptop computer sat next to the console.