Climbing into my car, I hugged my dog and drove away.
CHAPTER SEVEN
I didn't go far.
My head was filled with contradictions that needed sorting out. At a convenience store near Julie's house I purchased a sixteen-ounce coffee and a package of Slim Jims for Buster. The cashier stared at my wet clothes but said nothing.
I drank the coffee in my car while listening to the rain. Back when I was a kid, I was afraid of lightning storms. Sometimes my older sister, Donna, would invite me to her room, and we'd sit on her bed and listen to record albums. One album in particular still stands out: Everything You Know Is Wrong, by a comedy troupe called The Firesign Theatre. I blew steam off my drink thinking of that album.
Everything I knew was wrong.
I was not a new age cop. Forensics were great for solving tough cases, but they never stopped anyone from committing a crime. It took instincts to stop crimes. My instincts led me to Simon Skell, and I arrested him before he could kill any more young women. The fact that a piece of evidence had turned up that said I was wrong about how Carmella Lopez's body was disposed of didn't mean Skell wasn't guilty. He was guilty; I just couldn't prove it anymore.
My thoughts shifted to Bobby Russo. Russo was going to do everything in his power to divert blame from himself and his department over what had happened. Which meant I'd get the blame, whether I deserved it or not. My reputation had taken a pounding during Skell's trial, and I sensed another beating coming on.
Now the rain was coming down sideways. Jessie was always telling me to look on the bright side of things. Well, the bright side was that my wife and daughter no longer lived in Fort Lauderdale, and they wouldn't have to endure the shit storm I was about to go through.
I got on 595 and headed east. A part of me wanted to drink cold beer at the Sunset until I passed out, but my conscience wouldn't allow it. There were other people to think about.Namely Melinda Peters.
Melinda had been the prosecution's key witness at Skell's trial. I'd discovered her name in an old file in the National Runaway Switchboard's computer database that linked her to Skell. She'd been a reluctant witness, and it had taken every trick I knew to get her to testify. On the witness stand, Melinda had told in chilling detail how Skell picked her up when she was a sixteen-year-old runaway, drugged her, and kept her locked inside a dog crate in his house with a spiked collar on. He tortured her when the mood struck him and played rock 'n' roll music to drown out her cries for help. Skell was partial to the Rolling Stones, and he played one song repeatedly, “Midnight Rambler,” a tune about a sicko breaking into women's homes and brutally murdering them. Out of desperation, Melinda talked Skell into having sex with her, and when he let her out of her cage, she jumped through a window. Instead of calling the police, she ran to a homeless shelter and went into hiding. She told another runaway at the shelter her story, and that girl told a phone counselor at the National Runaway Switchboard, who wrote up the incident and filed it in the computer. During my investigation I stumbled across the file and tracked Melinda down.
That was our history. Melinda had helped me, and it was my responsibility to tell her about the body in Julie Lopez's backyard. I didn't want her hearing about it on the TV and freaking out. I owed her the decency of a face-to-face.
The hard part was going to be finding her. Melinda was a stripper and bounced between clubs. I didn't have her address, and the phone number she'd given me was an answering service.Then I had an idea.
Since resigning, I'd stayed friendly with a handful of cops. One was a redneck named Claude Cheever. Although Cheever and I were on opposite sides of the spectrum on every issue you could name, he had come forward at my hearing and testified that every move I'd made during the Skell investigation was by the book. None of my friends had stuck up for me like that. Not a single one.
Cheever was also a sex hound, and on a first-name basis with every stripper in town. Pulling up his cell number, I called him.
“Cheever here,” he answered.
Blaring disco music in the background made me guess he was at a club.
“Carpenter here,” I said. “Can you talk?”
“As good as the next guy,” Cheever said. “How you been?”
“I'm hanging in there. You?”
“Loving life. What's up?”
“I'm looking for Melinda Peters. Any idea where she's working these days?”
“About three feet from my drooling face.” His voice changed. “Ooh, baby, you are so damn beautiful. Come over here and make me smile.”
“You talking to her right now?” I asked.
“No, this is another hottie,” he said.
“Is Melinda really there?”
“Of course she's here. She just went on break.”
“Which dollar store are you at?”
“The Body Shot on State Road 80,” Cheever said. “I'll hold you a seat.”
If there was one business that flourished in Broward County, it was strip clubs. There were so many that several glossy magazines were published each month to highlight the girls who danced in them. The clubs near the ocean attracted tourists and were high priced, while those out west were dives catering to locals. The Body Shot was out west, the parking lot filled with cars in worse shape than mine.
The club smelled of cheap beer and failed deodorant. Up on the oval stage, three women in G-strings danced to Santana's “Everybody's Everything” beneath a pulsating strobe light. As I crossed the room the strobe's clockwise rotation made me feel as if I were circling a giant drain.
Cheever was at the bar. With Claude, “cop” was never the first word that came to mind. In his mid-forties, he had a droopy mustache, a hard-looking belly, and a short choppy haircut that was the worst I'd seen on a grown man. He pumped my hand.
“You look good,” I shouted over the music.
“Liar,” he said.
I caught the bartender's eye and ordered two beers. Moments later, she slapped down two bottles and said, “Sixteen bucks” as if expecting a fight. I paid up, and we clinked bottles.
“Didn't anyone ever tell you not to shower with your clothes on?” Cheever asked.
I was still soaking wet. These clothes were my last link to my old life, and I didn't know if I should feel sad or elated. Taking a swig of beer, I decided on elation.
“Did you tell Melinda I was coming?” I asked.
“No. Was I supposed to?”
I threw a five at the bartender and asked her to find Melinda. The bartender disappeared, and Cheever nudged me in the ribs with his elbow.
“This little old lady in Fort Lauderdale goes to the supermarket to buy groceries,” he said. “When she comes out, she finds two guys stealing her car. She whips out a handgun and screams, ‘Out of the car, mother-fuckers. I have a gun, and I know how to use it.’
“The guys run like hell. The old lady loads her groceries and gets behind the wheel. Then she sees a football and a twelve-pack of beer on the front seat. She gets out of the car and sees her own car, same model and color, parked four spots away.
“She loads her groceries into her own car and drives to the police station to report her mistake. The sergeant on duty bursts out laughing when he hears her story, and points to the other end of the counter, where two guys are reporting a carjacking by a mad old woman. So what's the moral of the story?”
I shook my head and killed my beer.
“If you're having a senior moment, make it special.”
Cheever snorted with laughter. I felt a tap on my shoulder and turned. Melinda stood behind me, her long blond hair resting seductively on her shoulder, her gorgeous bikini-clad body visible through black fishnet. In high heels, she was nearly as tall as me. She offered me her hand like a princess.