The Night Stalker_ A Novel of Suspense - James Swain [51]
“I need to speak with Detective Burrell,” I said.
“Detective Burrell is in a meeting with the mayor and cannot be disturbed,” the secretary said.
“Tell her it’s Jack Carpenter, and it’s urgent. I’ll hold.”
Vorbe came out of the building with a white towel draped over his arm. I watched him climb onto the milk crate and cover Stone’s face with the towel. The secretary came back on the line. “Detective Burrell says she’ll call you back.”
“I must speak with her,” I said.
“She’s with the mayor,” the secretary whispered.
Back when I’d run Missing Persons, I’d come up with code words and expressions that had allowed the detectives in my unit to communicate with each other without anyone else being the wiser. I said, “I need for you to give Detective Burrell another message.”
“Sir, I can’t.”
“Write this down. Elvis has left the building. She’ll know what it means.”
“But—”
“Just do it.”
The secretary put me on hold. Thirty seconds later, Burrell came on the line. “Jack, I don’t know what’s gotten into you, but you’re going to get me fired.”
“Are you still with the mayor?” I asked.
“He’s taking a leak. What do you want?”
“I just found Abb Grimes’s defense attorney in the Dumpster where Abb put his victims. Her neck’s broken.”
I heard a sharp intake of breath.
“Does anyone else know about this?” Burrell asked.
“You’re the first person I called.”
“Give me directions to the grocery.”
I had smoked on and off when I was a cop. It was the only thing that I’d found that calmed me down after finding a corpse. I was puffing on my second cigarette when Burrell’s Mustang pulled up behind the grocery with a bubble flashing on its dashboard.
Burrell jumped out. I introduced her to Vorbe and escorted her to the Dumpster where I’d made the grisly discovery. Without a word, Burrell climbed onto the milk crate and looked inside.
“What’s her name?” Burrell asked.
“Piper Stone,” I said. “She’s an attorney at Crippen and Howe and was representing Abb Grimes. She told her boss this morning that she’d found information in the transcript of Abb’s trial that indicated evidence had been destroyed. She went to Memorial Hospital and spoke with Ron Cheeks, then drove to LeAnn Grimes’s place, and met with Jed Grimes. Not long after that, someone who looked like Jed was spotted by the Dumpsters by a store employee, and the manager called the police.”
“Are you sure that’s the right chronology?”
“Yes. It’s all been confirmed.”
Burrell climbed off the milk crate and dusted off her palms. “And then you met with Jed Grimes, and he ran away.”
“That’s right,” I said.
“So, do you still feel Jed is innocent?”
I heard the accusation in her voice. Burrell thought I’d screwed up, and had let a killer get away. Still, my gut was telling me that someone else had done this. And until I had cold hard proof that showed me otherwise, I was sticking with my gut.
“Yes,” I said. “I still think Jed’s innocent.”
Burrell called for backup on her cell. In what seemed like a few minutes but was probably longer, the grounds were swarming with dozens of uniformed cops and EMS. Burrell had the uniforms go to the front of the store, and seal off the property. It was a smart move, for it kept the media at bay, and let the police do their job without interference.
I stood next to the loading dock with my dog. A pair of medics lifted the garbage bag containing Stone out of the Dumpster and laid it on the ground. They cut the bag away, and lifted Stone’s body onto a gurney, and wheeled her into the back of an ambulance. Stone was not wearing any clothes, and it occurred to me that she’d died almost identically to how Abb Grimes’s victims had died. Twelve years had passed, yet it was like nothing had changed.
I felt a tap on my shoulder and turned around. A homicide detective named Chuck Cobb stood behind me. A lot of people used to think Cobb and I were brothers. Cobb was tall and had a dark