The Night Monster (20 page)

I heard a crash that sounded like glass being broken, followed by a yell that shattered the still air. Buster dashed out of the barn with me holding his leash.

“Is everything all right in there?” I called out.

I halted at the back stoop, and made my dog do the same. There was no response. Sexual predators were dangerous when cornered, and have been known to attack the police when threatened with arrest. I didn’t want Burrell to get hurt, but at the same time, I wasn’t going to stick my nose where it didn’t belong. Burrell was already angry with me, and there was no point in making it worse.

“Hey! What’s going on?” I called out.

Still nothing. Buster was straining at his leash. The back door slammed open, and Snook staggered outside. His thousand-dollar suit was ripped at the shoulder, and his mouth was spitting blood. Snook took a few uncertain steps, and promptly fell down the stairs.

I might have broken his fall, but stepped back instead. Snook hit
the ground, and my dog lunged at him. I loosened the leash just enough to scare Snook half to death.

“Get that beast away from me!” the defense attorney bellowed.

“He’s really a nice dog, once you get to know him.”

“Away!”

I reined Buster in. Snook was a real mess. His upper front tooth was busted, and there was a purple swelling above his upper lip.

“Who gave you the knuckle sandwich?” I asked.

Snook started to reply, but then he realized who he was speaking to.

“Carpenter! You son-of-a-bitch!”

“It’s been great catching up.”

Hurrying past him, I entered the house. A cyclone had swept through the kitchen, with pots and pans and broken dishes scattered across the floor. Men who molested kids tended to be cowards, and I envisioned Richard Knockman throwing the items at everyone in the room, and running for his life.

I ran down the hallway to the front of the house, and found Burrell consoling Rebecca Knockman in the living room.

“I’m sorry things turned out this way, Mrs. Knockman,” Burrell said.

“He
hit
me with a sauce pan,” Rebecca Knockman said under her breath.

“I know. You need to call your daughter, and tell her to come home.”

“How could Richard do this?”

“Mrs. Knockman, listen to me. You have to call Suzie. It’s important that we get her home right away. Please.”

Rebecca Knockman pulled out her cell phone.

“Of course,” she said.

The front door was wide open. Outside I found Snook’s chauffeur sitting on the lawn.

“Is my boss okay?” the chauffeur asked.

“He’s just dandy,” I said. “Where’s Richard Knockman?”

“Mr. Knockman came outside waving his arms, and told me that Mr. Snook had a heart attack,” the chauffeur said. “I got out of the car, and Mr. Knockman jumped behind the wheel, and took off.”

I went back inside. “Richard Knockman’s stolen a car,” I said.

“He won’t get far,” Burrell said. “I posted patrol cars at both ends of the block.”

Back when I’d run Missing Persons, I’d always had a cruiser parked a block away from a crime scene, just in case. Burrell had done me one better, and used two cruisers. Back outside, I cornered the chauffeur, who’d thrown his hat on the ground in disgust.

“Which way did he go?” I asked.

The chauffeur pointed west, and that was the way Buster and I headed.

I don’t know why I ran down the street. It wasn’t my case, and I was probably never going to see Rebecca Knockman again.

I’d arrested many men like Richard Knockman, and I knew the damage they were capable of causing. Not just to their victims, but also to every living soul around them. They were human cancers, not fit to be loose in society.

The block was long and the air was hot. Soon I was drenched in sweat. On the next block a cruiser was parked on the grass, its bubble light flashing. I picked up speed, and soon was staring Richard Knockman in the face. He was tall and rather thin, and wore his hair stylishly long. He’d driven Snook’s town car off the road, and into a cluster of royal palm trees on someone’s front yard. The hood was crushed, and the engine was spewing black smoke. The car was a goner.

A pair of uniforms had handcuffed Richard Knockman’s hands behind his back and were reading him his rights. His face was covered in bright red cuts and he looked dazed. It was impolite to stare, but I did anyway.

“Jack Carpenter,” I said to the uniforms. “I’m working with Detective Burrell.”

One of the uniforms called Burrell on his walkie-talkie and confirmed my identity. The uniform handed me the walkie-talkie.

“Detective Burrell would like to speak with you,” the uniform said.

“Your boys got him,” I said into the walkie-talkie.

“Great,” Burrell said. “Keep your eye out for Suzie Knockman. She’s holed up in an abandoned house in the neighborhood. Her mother called her, and she’s walking home.”

“Will do.” I handed the walkie-talkie back to the uniform. “Detective Burrell said that it would be okay for me to shoot your suspect.”

“Want me to take the cuffs off?” the uniform asked.

“That’s probably a good idea.”

Richard Knockman’s head snapped so hard that I thought he had broken his neck. The uniforms held their stomachs and laughed.

Buster saw her first; the wisp of a girl standing across the street, hidden in the shadows. I crossed to get a better look at her, and saw her back away.

“You must be Suzie Knockman,” I said. “My name is Jack. I’m working with the police.”

Suzie eyed me suspiciously. She wore the uniform of girls her age: pink shorts, a colorful T-shirt, tanned arms and legs. She carried a backpack loaded with stuff and a pillow popping out of the top. I guessed she’d planned to stay away from home for a while.

“Is my stepfather going to jail?” she asked.

I glanced over my shoulder. Richard Knockman was being put into the back of a cruiser, the uniform holding his head down. I turned back to her.

“Yes. He’s going to jail.”

“They won’t let him out on bail, will they?”

I shook my head. If I’d left any legacy as a detective, it was that every judge in the county had gotten an education about child molesters, and never let them post bail.

“He’s going away for a long time,” I said.

“Good. What’s your name again?” Suzie asked.

“It’s Jack.”

A cell phone appeared in Suzie’s hand. She said her mother’s name and the phone dialed itself. She lifted the phone to her face.

“Hey, Mom. It’s me. Some surfer dude named Jack wants to escort me back to the house. He says he’s working with the police. He’s got this neat-looking dog.”

I hid a smile. I’d been called a lot of names recently—most of them unpleasant—and Suzie’s description of me and Buster told me there was still hope. Suzie said good-bye to her mother and flipped the phone shut.

“Mom says you’re okay. Let’s go.”

We started toward her house. Her movements were slow, and I sensed that she was afraid to go back to that house. I wanted to tell her that her life was about to get a lot better, but I knew that these words would have to come from her mother, or someone else she trusted. Several times she glanced yearningly at Buster.

“Do you like dogs?” I asked.

“Yeah, but my stepfather Richard wouldn’t let me get one. I think he was afraid I’d keep it in my room.”

We stopped at the corner, and Suzie leaned down to pet Buster. That was when I saw the tears pouring down her face. It made my heart ache to think that Richard Knockman had been controlling her life like this, and I handed her the leash.

“Why don’t you walk him?” I said.

“Cool,” she said, managing a half smile.

ebecca Knockman was standing on the sidewalk in front of her house with Burrell. Suzie ran to her mother, and they embraced. Looking for missing kids didn’t always have happy endings, and I probably should have been celebrating, only I was in no mood for that. Sara Long was still being held captive by a couple of sociopaths, and I needed to rescue her. Burrell came down the sidewalk toward me.

“I need to take Suzie and her mother to headquarters and get statements from them,” Burrell said. “Follow me, and I’ll get the unit started on your request.”

“Sounds good,” I said.

I pulled my keys out of my pocket. My heart was pounding the way it did when I was working a case, my radar on full alert. I was ready to slay the dragon. Burrell placed her hand on my arm.

“Hold on a second,” she said.

I gazed into her eyes. Their expression was one of concern.

“I don’t want us to be at odds, Jack,” she said.

“Nothing wrong with an argument between friends,” I said.

“It was more than that.”

I looked deeply into Burrell’s slate-blue eyes. I had
hurt
her. She was one of the best friends I had, and there was no excuse for that.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

Burrell crossed her arms in front of her chest and waited me out. I didn’t know what else to do, so I gave her a hug. She didn’t seem to mind that I was covered in sweat, and hugged me right back.

“That’s more like it,” she said.

I followed Burrell to police headquarters on Andrews Avenue. She got me a visitor’s pass at the front desk and took me upstairs to the War Room, which was used as a strategy center during emergencies like wildfires and hurricanes.

“I need to get the Knockmans squared away,” Burrell said. “Stay here, and I’ll send over the other detectives from Missing Persons so you can get started.”

Burrell left before I could thank her. I went to the window and looked out on the vast parking lot. It occurred to me that I hadn’t told Burrell what I was searching for. Nor had I mentioned that I had proof that Sara Long and Naomi Dunn’s abductions were linked. Burrell needed to know these things, and soon. Otherwise, our friendship would take another major hit.

A noise turned my head. My old unit had silently entered the War Room and lined up behind me. Their names were Tom Manning, Jillian Webster, Rich Dugger, Shane James, and Roy Wadding. I had trained each one of them to find missing people, and it made me proud to know they were still at it.

“You’re back,” Manning said.

“Just for a little while,” I replied. “I don’t know how much Burrell told you. I need for you to make phone calls to police departments around the state.”

“What are we looking for?” Webster asked.

“Missing young women who were nursing students,” I said.

“Over what period of time?” Manning asked.

“The past eighteen years. So far, we have two victims, both of
whom were tall and athletic. I’m guessing this will hold true for the others.”

“How do you know there are more victims?” Webster asked.

I hesitated. Experience came from practice, and practice made perfect. Mouse and the giant had done this many times before—that was why I was having such a hard time catching them. There were more victims, and they were hiding in musty police files across Florida.

“Trust me,” I said. “There are more.”

The War Room was outfitted with sixteen phone lines, and my old unit was soon talking to their brothers-in-arms around the state. They didn’t need me looking over their shoulders while they worked, and I crossed the room and stood at the windows.

I stared at the mind-boggling sprawl, the cookie-cutter developments and cloned shopping centers stretching as far as my eyes could see. Growing up, two hundred thousand people had lived in the county; now it was almost two million. The past was gone, and I could not look at what had replaced it without feeling regret.

“I’ve got a hit,” Manning called out ten minutes later.

I went to Manning’s desk. The detective sat with his necktie undone and a phone pressed to his ear. He cupped his hand over the mouthpiece before speaking.

“I’m talking to a detective in Alachua County,” Manning said. “Guy’s going to retire in two weeks, so he pulled out a stack of cold case files to give to the guy replacing him. He was reading them the other day, and found a case from twelve years ago where a college girl disappeared. She’d been in the nursing program at the University of Florida in Alachua.”

My hands gripped the back of Manning’s chair. “Can you get this guy to e-mail you the file?”

“He doesn’t know how to operate a scanner, so he’s going to fax the report to me.”

I went to where the fax machine sat and made sure there was paper in the tray. Sixty seconds later I grabbed the sheets as they were
printed. The typeface was faint, and I held them up to the light as I read. The missing girl’s name was Cindee Hartman, and she’d been twenty when she’d vanished. Cindee hailed from Orlando, was tall and comely, and played on the women’s field hockey team. Cindee’s apartment had been ransacked during her abduction, the furniture all but destroyed. The abduction had taken place over a holiday weekend, and there had been no witnesses. The report referenced the fact that Cindee’s complex was where Danny “The Gainesville Ripper” Rolling had butchered three students in 1990. Although the complex’s security had been updated since the killings, Cindee’s abductor had still managed to avoid detection.