The Night Stalker_ A Novel of Suspense - James Swain [92]
“Then who is?”
“A consultant the police hired to work the case.”
“A consultant?” the reporter asked.
Cheeks raised his hands in mock surrender. “It wasn’t my idea.”
“Can you tell us who this consultant was?”
“It was a former detective named Jack Carpenter,” Cheeks said. “Carpenter was hired by the family to find the boy, then hired by the police department as well.”
“So there was a conflict of interest,” the reporter said.
“I would say so,” Cheeks said.
“Do you blame Jack Carpenter for what went wrong?”
“He let the case drag on, and now Sampson Grimes and his mother are missing. Yes, I blame him.”
I looked for something to throw at the screen.
“Temper, temper,” Sonny said.
The interview ended. Sonny took the remote out of my hand and killed the picture.
“How’s your nose?” he asked.
“It’s starting to hurt again,” I said.
Sonny fed me two more pills. I swallowed them while looking into the future. Cheeks was campaigning to get his old job back. Considering how badly the case had gone, it just might happen. I could not imagine a more cruel injustice, and punched the bar.
I went outside and stood by the shoreline. The lightning made it dangerous, but I didn’t care. My cell phone rang, and I answered it hoping it was Burrell.
“Carpenter here,” I said.
“Mr. Carpenter, my name is Father Tom Kelly,” the caller said. “I’m a priest at Starke prison.”
The wind was blowing in my face, and I moved inside the bar’s open doorway, and sat at the bottom of the stairwell.
“Let me explain why I’m calling,” Father Kelly said. “I counsel death row inmates at the prison. One of those inmates is Abb Grimes. I was watching the news, and saw that Abb’s son, Jed, had been arrested for murdering his father’s lawyer, along with many other crimes. I called LeAnn Grimes, and she told me to call you.”
“What can I do for you?” I said.
“I wanted to tell you that I think Jed is innocent.”
“You do?”
“Yes. I was there when Jed was saved.”
I thought back to the photograph of the elderly priest I’d seen in Jed’s album, and realized this was the same man.
“Saved how?” I asked.
“Let me tell you what happened. A year ago, Abb told me that he wanted to see Jed before he died. I called Jed, and arranged a meeting. Jed came to the prison, and the warden let us meet in a cell, and eat a meal. Abb had asked me to wear my prayer shawl, which was given to me when I became a priest.
“When our meal was over, Abb held my prayer shawl, and told Jed he was ready to meet his maker. Abb asked Jed to hold the shawl, and forgive him for his sins. It was hard, but Jed did it. He forgave his father. Then we prayed.
“God was with us that day. Abb invited God into that cell by accepting his sins, and Jed accepted God by holding the shawl, and telling Abb he forgave him. God was there. I felt his presence.
“Jed changed after that. He started giving his wife money, and got shared custody of his son. The transformation was real. Jed’s not a killer.”
The rain blew through the open doorway onto my face, and a crash of lightning shook the building.
“I know, Father,” I said.
“Then you must prove that Jed is innocent. Based upon what I saw on the news, the evidence against Jed is circumstantial. Yet, the police are making Jed out to be a criminal, and saying he was breaking laws before this happened. You need to set the record straight.”
“How am I going to do that?”
“There is a detective named Ron Cheeks. Start with him. Cheeks destroyed a piece of evidence in Abb’s case.”
“You mean the missing slippers,” I said.
“Yes, the slippers. Jed found out, and confronted Cheeks. Ever since, Cheeks has been on a mission to destroy Jed. He pulled Jed into the police station fifty times, and arrested him for crimes he never committed.”
“You think Cheeks is trying to frame Jed?”
“Yes,” the priest said.
I rose from the stairwell. Something had happened twelve years ago that had caused Cheeks to destroy evidence, and he’d been covering it up ever since. If I could find out why, perhaps it would lead me to the person behind these crimes.
“I’ll