The Night Stalker_ A Novel of Suspense - James Swain [3]
I pulled into town. Although Starke was in north Florida, it was truly a Southern town, with a Wal-Mart-sized Baptist church on its main drag, and pickup trucks covered in NASCAR bumper stickers and Confederate flags. I drove around until I found a copy store, and went inside with my dog.
The owner was a possum-shaped man with straw-colored hair and blotchy skin—what locals call a cracker. I asked if he had a computer that I could send an e-mail from, and a scanner.
“You came to the right place,” the owner said.
He led me to the back room. His computer may have been the first one ever made, and was bigger than most TVs. He booted it up, and went into his Hotmail account. Then he showed me how to work the scanner, which sat on the desk beside it.
“I’d like to pay you for this,” I said.
“Doesn’t cost anything to send an e-mail,” he replied. “That’s a fine dog you’ve got. Does he hunt?”
“Just people,” I said.
He smiled, thinking I was joking.
“I’ll be out front if you need me,” he said.
He walked out of the room. I sat down at the desk, and removed the kidnap photo and ransom note from my pocket. I placed both into the scanner, and scanned them into the computer. Then I composed a letter explaining how I’d come into their possession, and the things that Abb Grimes had told me.
When I was finished with my letter, I took out my cell phone, which, along with allowing me to take pictures and send e-mails, contained a memory bank of e-mail addresses important to me.
Opening the e-mail memory bank, I typed into the computer the e-mail address of every law enforcement agency in Florida that I worked with. This included the FBI, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, the U.S. Marshals, and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. I also included Detective Ron Cheeks, who now ran the Broward County Sheriff’s Department’s Missing Persons unit. Rescuing kidnap victims wasn’t easy, and I was going to need all the help I could get.
When I was done, I hit send, and everything on the computer screen disappeared. The store owner had been more than helpful, and I removed a ten-dollar bill from my wallet, and stuck it beneath the coffee cup on his desk.
I grabbed my dog, and went to the front of the store where the owner sat behind the counter reading a newspaper. I thanked him again.
“Come back anytime,” he said.
Starke had every fast-food restaurant you could name. I bought two value meals at Burger King, and ate lunch with my dog. Buster had lousy table manners, but I put up with them. I didn’t like eating alone.
We were splitting an oatmeal cookie when my cell phone rang. I pulled the phone off the Velcro patch on the dashboard hoping it was someone responding to my e-mail.
Caller ID said ANDY VITA. Vita was the Florida point man with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. I gave Buster the rest of my cookie, and answered the call.
“Carpenter here.”
“Hey, Jack, it’s Andy Vita. You busy?”
“Just finishing my lunch. What’s up?”
“I just got off the phone with the principal of Oakwood Elementary School in Ocala. A four-year-old Honduran girl named Angelica Suarez disappeared from Oakwood this morning, and the cops are pulling their hair out trying to find her. The principal said you helped them with their abduction prevention program, and I was wondering if you remember the setup.”
Back when I was a cop, I’d traveled around Florida and helped dozens of elementary schools establish procedures to protect them from child abductors.
“I remember Oakwood,” I said. “It was tight as a drum.”
“I think we’re dealing with a pro,” Vita said.
“Why do you think that?”
“Because the kid vanished without a trace. One minute she was sitting in the reception area