“Sex Hound,” he yelled through the glass. “You bring candy?”
Cheever held the box of goodies up to the glass. Bash pushed himself out of his chair and emerged from the studio. He was about five-six and tipped the scales near three hundred pounds. I had expected the Devil incarnate, but he was nothing more than a sad little man. Cheever gave him the fudge, and Bash started shoving pieces into his mouth. He paid no attention to me or my dog.
“How's the fudge?” Cheever asked.
“Delicious,” Bash said through a mouthful.
Cheever punched Bash in the stomach. Bash spit up the candy and fell backwards onto the floor. Cheever shoved his detective's badge in Bash's face.
“You're under arrest, asshole,” he said.
Some cops will tell you that ethics are situational and that there is a time and a place for just about anything. I kept my mouth shut as Cheever silenced Bash's screams with several well-placed kicks to the ribs.
Buster seemed perplexed by the whole scene. I made him sit in the corner and removed his leash. If anyone walked into the studio unannounced, I was hoping his presence would slow them down.
“You going to cooperate?” Cheever asked.
Lying on the floor, Bash groaned in the affirmative.
“Good,” Cheever said. “Now get up.”
Bash pulled himself off the floor. His lips were smeared with fudge, and he was gasping for breath. Cheever pushed him into the studio and threw him into his chair. ZZ Top's “Sharp Dressed Man” was playing over the room's speakers.
I followed them in, shut the door, and removed my disguise. Bash stared at me.
“You're Jack Carpenter,” he said.
“That's right,” I said. “I just came from seeing a friend of yours.”
“Who's that?”
“Paul Coffen. He told us about the girls you and Skell and Jonny Perez molested in Tampa, and how you came down here and set up shop. He's selling you down the river.”
Bash squirmed in his chair. “Paul wouldn't do that.”
“He showed us the surveillance photographs of Skell's victims he kept stored on his hard drive,” I went on. “We've also connected him to a child abduction case at Disney World. He named you and Perez and Skell as his co-conspirators.”
“What?” Bash said.
“There's enough evidence to have all of you put to death,” I said. “Think about it, Neil. Fifteen years on death row, waiting on appeals, then one day they march you into the death chamber and it's lights out.”
The song ended, and silence filled the studio. Bash reflexively pressed a button on the master console, and another song came on: George Thorogood's “Bad to the Bone.”
Cheever was standing behind the chair and dropped his hand on Bash's shoulder. “Tell us where Jonny Perez is keeping Melinda, and we'll help you.”
Bash looked up beseechingly into Cheever's face.
“Help me how?”
“We'll tell the district attorney that you pulled through for us,” Cheever said. “We'll say that without your help, we couldn't have solved the case.”
“You mean you'll cut me a deal?”
“That's right,” Cheever said.
Swiveling in his chair, Bash looked at me.
“Is he telling the truth?”
“Yes,” I said. “Help us find Melinda, and you won't go down.”
“You mean I won't die?”
We both nodded.
Bash covered his face and began to weep. I believe that evil people all think about the day when they will be held accountable for the things they've done. It's called Judgment Day, and there's no escaping it. Bash was living that day.
“Jonny Perez lives with his brother Paco in a rented house a few miles west of here,” Bash said. “He's keeping Melinda there. That's where he kept all the girls.”
I leaned closer.
“What's the address?”
“It's written down in my trailer.”
“Is your trailer here?”
“Yeah. It's part of my deal with the station.”
I glanced up at Cheever to gauge his reaction. He nodded grimly.
“Take us there,” I said.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
Before we left the studio, Bash slipped a tape of an old show into a player on the console. He hit the Play button, and his abrasive voice filled the trailer.
“Won't your listeners notice it's a repeat?” Cheever asked.
“Who cares?” the DJ said.
We left the studio through a back door and walked down a dusty road into the bowels of the trailer park. Each trailer in the park sat on a tiny sliver of land. Many were sinking into the ground, their roofs patched with asphalt shingles and plywood. On screened porches sat shapeless women fanning themselves while shirtless men sucked cans of beer. No one said hello.
Bash's footsteps were measured, his hands gripping his gut. Turning down a street called Majesty Lane, he went to the last trailer. It was newer, with bright aluminum siding and a giant satellite dish on the roof. He unlocked the front door, then faced us.
“I need to tell you guys something,” Bash said.
We waited, the midday sun burning our faces.
“I was never there when the girls died,” he said emphatically.
“Where were you?” I asked.
“I was here, in my trailer,” Bash said.
“So what's your point?” Cheever asked.
“I never laid a finger on any of them, or did anything horrible to them, or made them suffer or cry,” Bash said. “I just watched.”
“Is that your thing?” Cheever asked.
“Yeah,” Bash said. “I like to watch. My heart don't work so good anymore, so I never went down on them like Coffen and Jonny and Skell did. I didn't hurt them, either. I just stayed in my trailer and watched.”
His words sounded like a confession. Only something was missing. Guilt. His eyes were empty and soulless, and I wondered what event in his life had caused him to participate in the deaths of so many innocent young woman and not regret it.
“Did you watch them die?” I asked.
Bash stared down at his scuffed shoes.
“Most of them,” he said quietly.
“Not all?”
“I missed a couple,” he admitted.
“What happened?”
“Skell killed them when I was on the air doing my show.”
“Which ones did you miss?” Cheever asked.
“I don't know,” Bash said.
“What do you mean, you don't know?” Cheever said.
“I never knew the girls' names,” he said.
Cheever threw a right hand into Bash's face. The DJ let out a muffled yell and tumbled backwards into the trailer. Cheever looked around to make sure no one was watching, then followed him inside.
I glanced down at Buster, who was glued to my leg. My dog wanted no part of this. I made him go inside anyway.
The interior of Bash's trailer was like a cave. The walls and ceiling were painted black, the curtains tightly drawn. Natural light was not welcome here. An oversized leather chair with a TV remote on its cushion sat in the room's center. On the floor in front of the chair was a plastic bowl half filled with buttered popcorn.
Bash's throne.
Across from the chair, a wide-screen plasma TV was mounted on the wall. I stared at the TV, slack-jawed. On its screen, a bikini-clad Melinda Peters hung by her wrists inside someone's closet, her manicured toes scraping the floor. A cell phone lay by her feet, and I thought back to last night's call.
Bash staggered around the trailer, clutching his face. Cheever grabbed him by the shoulders and threw him into the leather chair.
“Please don't hit me again,” the DJ begged.
“You gonna behave?” Cheever asked.
“I didn't do anything.”
“Answer me, asshole.”
“Yeah, I'll behave.”