The Night Stalker_ A Novel of Suspense - James Swain [52]
“Ready to get grilled?” Cobb asked.
“Sure,” I said.
Cobb led me inside the supermarket to a windowless room half-filled with boxes. I sat in a chair with Buster at my feet, while Cobb leaned against a wall and faced me. Flipping open his notebook, Cobb had me recount the events that led to my finding Stone’s body while carefully writing down my answers. It took a half hour.
Cobb then put away his notebook and turned on a camcorder. He repeated his questions, but this time taped my answers. Later, this tape would be compared to my written answers, in an effort to see if I was lying, or had unknowingly changed any facts about the case. This process took another half hour, and was draining.
Cobb shut off the camera. “All done. Anything else you can think of?”
“I think that’s about it,” I said.
“Next!” Cobb called out.
Vorbe came into the room, and took my chair. The morning’s events had done a number on him, and he was visibly upset. If I’d learned anything as a cop, it was that murder left a stain that never went away.
“I’m sorry you had to go through this,” I told him.
“Thank you,” Vorbe replied.
I went outside and stood on the loading dock. The area around the Dumpsters was a mob scene, with a small army of crime scene investigators scouring the grounds for evidence, which included removing every garbage bag from the Dumpster in which Stone had been found, and spreading its contents on the ground. I saw Burrell talking to an investigator, and tried to get her attention. To my surprise, she turned her back on me.
“Excuse me, are you Jack Carpenter?” I heard a voice ask.
I turned to see a man climbing up the loading dock stairs. He was about six feet and well built, with silver hair offset by piercing blue eyes. Despite the heat, he wore a black leather jacket zipped to his neck, and his clothes were wrinkle-free.
“Am I that easy to spot?” I replied.
“You’re the only one here with a dog,” he said.
“Who said this was my dog?”
“And a sense of humor. Is he friendly?”
I shook my head.
“How about his owner?”
“Sometimes,” I said.
The man had reached the top of the stairs, and paused to dust away some dirt on his pants. Then he said, “I’m Special Agent Roger Whitley, FBI.”
I’d heard of Whitley. He ran the FBI’s Behavioral Sciences Unit in Quantico, and specialized in catching serial killers. One of his cases had been the basis for a really bad Hollywood movie, and had turned him into a household name.
“What can I do for you?” I asked.
“I need to speak with you about Jed Grimes,” Whitley said.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Hollywood had a way of distorting the truth that most cops didn’t like. The movie based on Whitley’s exploits was a good example of that.
Whitley regularly visited federal prisons around the country and interviewed serial killers who were willing to talk about their lives. These interviews were tape-recorded, and had allowed Whitley to build profiles that helped him catch serial killers still at large.
One day Whitley had paid a visit to the Attica Correctional Facility in upstate New York to interview a serial killer named “Nasty” Nate Savage. Savage had brutally killed eight people in the Buffalo area, several of whom he’d decapitated. When he’d been caught, Savage had been carrying a head in a bowling bag.
Savage was literally a giant, and stood an inch under seven feet and weighed over three hundred pounds. Because of the threat he posed to other inmates, he was kept in solitary confinement, where he spent his days reading comic books and playing solitaire.
Whitley’s interview of Savage had lasted several hours, with Savage talking freely about his killing spree. Then, in a sudden shift, Savage had begun to act out his attacks, and had demonstrated to Whitley how he’d ripped the heads off his victims’ bodies. Sensing that his life might be in danger, Whitley had pressed the call button for the guards.
“They’re changing shifts,” Savage had explained when the guards had failed