The Night Stalker_ A Novel of Suspense - James Swain [99]
“I need to go now,” I said. “What’s the best number for me to reach you at?”
“Call my cell. I’ll leave it on.”
“Here they come. I’ll call you later.”
“I love you,” my wife said.
“I love you, too.”
A pair of cruisers turned down the street with their bubble lights flashing, and came hurtling toward me like a pair of rockets. My world was about to turn ugly, and I slipped my cell phone into my pocket, and stuck my arms into the air.
The cruisers braked on the street in a perfect V, and four uniformed cops jumped out. Two went inside to check on Cheeks, while the other two arrested me. I was frisked and cuffed and made to stand on the hot macadam while I was read my rights. As I gave my version of what had happened, the uniform who was taking my statement shut his notepad, and glared at me.
“Don’t make allegations you can’t prove,” the uniform said.
“Ron Cheeks is dirty. Pass it on,” I said.
I was driven to the station house and booked. My clothes and possessions were confiscated, and my body cavities were checked for hidden drugs and weapons. The booking procedure was designed to strip people of their dignity, and I dealt with the humiliation by cracking jokes that no one laughed at.
Next stop was the basement. Instead of being put in a holding pen with a bunch of lowlifes and psychopaths, I was shuttled to an interrogation room, and left by myself. The room had two plastic chairs that were hex-bolted to the floor, and a large mirror covering the wall. It smelled like someone had taken a piss in it.
I went to the mirror and stared at my reflection. My lower lip was bloody, my nose swollen and bruised, and my eyes had a trapped look that I didn’t like. The mirror was two-way, and I wondered who was on the other side watching me. Probably the chief, trying to figure out what he was going to do with me.
“I know my rights. I want to make my phone call,” I said.
I folded my arms and waited. Whoever was on the other side could hear me. There were hidden microphones in the ceiling that were sensitive enough to hear a person’s stomach growl. When no one came into the room, I raised my voice.
“Come on. Let’s get this show on the road.”
I waited another couple of minutes. The cops were trying to intimidate me. It worked on most suspects they brought in, and knocked them down a few pegs. But it didn’t work on me.
Peeling off my shirt, I threw it into the corner, then undid the drawstring in my prison jammies, and let them drop. Wearing nothing but my boxers, I got down on the floor, and started doing push-ups.
Five minutes and a hundred push-ups later, I was sitting in the chief’s office on the top floor, staring at the man himself behind his desk. The chief’s navy suit looked like he’d slept in it, and clumps of gray whiskers were sprouting out of his face like weeds. Burrell flanked him, and made brief eye contact with me.
“Goddamn it, Carpenter,” the chief swore. “The department has more problems than it can handle, and you’re running around town beating up my men.”
“Cheeks is dirty,” I said. “You should have arrested him, not me.”
The chief picked up a spiral notebook lying on his desk. It looked like the same notebook the uniform had used when interrogating me outside of Cheeks’s house. He waved it in front of my face. “I read your allegations, and they’re totally false. Cheeks didn’t destroy evidence in the Abb Grimes case. It got lost. Cheeks didn’t frame Jed Grimes for his son’s abduction. Jed was the logical suspect, and still is our only suspect. And Cheeks didn’t threaten the grocery store manager. He may have leaned on him a little bit, but he didn’t threaten him.”
“The manager told me he threatened him,” I said.
“I don’t care what the manager said,” the chief snapped. “Cheeks knew we were shorthanded, and spoke to the manager as a favor to me. He’s trying to help us find Heather Rinker and her son, which is more than I can say for