James Swain - The Night Monster

Now I was pissed. Biggs had unwittingly aided in Sara’s abduction. I pointed my finger at him and saw him squirm in his chair.

“What?” Biggs said.

“You know what,” I said.

“No, I don’t.”

“It’s time for you to come clean. Otherwise, the police will continue to think that you did this, and not focus on catching the real abductors.”

“Come clean how?”

“I want you to tell us everything that happened at the strip club, starting with the time you got there, till the time you left.”

A line of sweat appeared above Biggs’s upper lip. Liar’s sweat. Biggs had gotten more than a hand job from Sky. If it came out, his career would be finished. No NBA contract, or lucrative sneaker endorsements, or beautiful girls waiting in every town he played in. He wasn’t prepared for that, even if it meant harming Sara. He was a selfish prick, and nothing I could say was going to change him.

“I want to talk to my lawyer,” Biggs said.

I wanted to be a detective for just ten minutes. That was all the time I’d need to put the fear of God into Biggs, and make him start telling the truth. Boone pulled me into the hallway.

“So, what do you think?” Boone asked.

“Biggs is a scumbag, but he didn’t abduct Sara Long.”

“Then why won’t he talk to us?”

The hallway was filled with men wearing tailored suits and silk neckties. They looked like defense lawyers who happened to have better hearing than most dogs. I pulled Boone into a corner where no one could eavesdrop.

“Biggs had sex with a stripper and doesn’t want the NBA to find out. That’s why he’s keeping his mouth shut.”

“I think he did it,” Boone said. “I’m going to ask the DA to press charges. Are you sure you don’t want to change your story?”

Boone had made up his mind. He disliked Biggs so much that it had tainted his reasoning. Cops called it personalizing a case. It had ruined more criminal investigations than anything I knew of. Shaking my head, I watched Boone walk away.

– – I trudged up the stairwell to the main floor, turned over my visitor’s pass to the desk sergeant, and started to sign myself out.

“Not so fast,” the desk sergeant said.

“What did I do?” I asked.

“Detective Burrell wants to see you. She’s in her office on the second floor.”

I reclaimed my visitor’s pass and went upstairs. The second-floor receptionist waved me through, and I walked down the hall. Burrell occupied my old corner office with its depressing view of the employee parking lot. I’d never liked looking at the cars cops drove; they were usually aging pieces of junk and had always reminded me how poorly cops were paid. I stuck my head into Burrell’s office, and caught her gazing through the window.

“Good morning,” I said.

Burrell spun around in her chair. She still wore yesterday’s blue pantsuit, her hair disheveled, her eyes ringed from lack of sleep. I didn’t need a crystal ball to figure out what was going on. The search for Sara had gone cold.

“Have a seat,” she said.

I sat across from her. You could tell a lot about people by the photographs that sat on their desks. The photos on Burrell’s desk were of her father, her uncle, and her two brothers-all rank-and-file cops. I supposed it was in her genes to carry a shield.

“Boone let me question Tyrone Biggs,” I said. “He didn’t abduct Sara Long.”

“How can you be positive? Strange things happen to people’s memories when they get knocked out.”

I had hired and trained Burrell, and it felt strange to hear her question me. Only that was what the job required. You had to question everyone.

“And it was dark,” Burrell added.

“I know what I saw,” I said. “It wasn’t Biggs.”

“Then who was it?”

“I don’t know who he is.”

Lying on the desk was a green Pendaflex file. Burrell picked the file up and handed it to me. I opened it and started to read.

“Those are the records of eleven men of unusual height who’ve committed crimes against women in south Florida in the past five years,” she said. “Maybe one of them is the guy you saw abducting Sara Long.”

Burrell was giving me the benefit of the doubt, which was more than Boone and Weaver had done. I removed the records and spread them across her desk. The mug shots of eleven hardened criminals stared up at me. Five were white, three black, three Hispanic. I studied their faces, then put the records back into the file.

“It’s none of these guys,” I said.

“You’re sure about that?”

“Yes. I know this is going to sound strange, but I’ve seen the guy before.”

Burrell’s mouth dropped open. “You have? When?”

“Eighteen years ago. I was a patrolman, and went to an apartment complex in Fort Lauderdale on a call. A college student named Naomi Dunn was being assaulted by an unknown male. I responded and tried to get into the apartment. The guy opened a door in my face and knocked me down. I saw him leave with Dunn thrown over his shoulder. It was the same person I saw abduct Sara Long.”

“What else do you remember about him?”

“He looked crazy,” I said.

“Did you write this up in your report?”

“I did, but my supervisor made me change it.”

An uneasy silence filled the office. Burrell put her elbows on her desk and gave me a hard look.

“Why did he do that?”

“I was studying to become a detective. My supervisor said that if I wrote in my report that this guy was a crazy giant, people would think I was making excuses, and I might not get promoted. He made me change my report to say that Dunn’s abductor was a big guy who was high on something.”

“Only he wasn’t.”

I felt my face burn, and shook my head.

“You shouldn’t have done that,” Burrell said.

“I made up for it.”

“How so?”

“I had a choice of units when I became a detective. Missing Persons was brand-new, just a cubicle and a desk. I took over, and immediately started looking for Dunn. I’ve never stopped looking.”

“Where did you look?”

“I contacted every police department in the state, and every hospital. When that didn’t pan out, I contacted police departments and hospitals in other states. Nothing turned up.”

The red button on her desk phone lit up. It was the office’s private line, and only a few select people had the number. Burrell answered it.

“Excuse me, Mayor Dawson, but I have someone sitting in my office,” she said. “If you don’t mind, I’m going to put you on hold. I’ll be right back.”

Burrell put the call on hold and nestled the receiver into the cradle. Her eyes had not left my face the whole time.

“Let me see if I get this straight,” she said. “You think Sara Long’s abduction is connected to an eighteen-year-old case, and the culprit is some big guy with mental problems that there are no records of.”

“I know it sounds stupid, but yes.”

“You once told me that criminals don’t operate in vacuums. They live in regular neighborhoods and shop for groceries and do other normal stuff. If this guy has been running around for that long, how come there’s no record of him?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “He works with a partner called Mouse, so maybe Mouse is the visible one, while he stays undercover.”

“A mouse and a giant.”

“That’s right.”

Burrell drummed her desk. The sound gave a nice beat to the blinking light on her phone. I could tell she was growing exasperated with me.

“The mayor wants me to formally arrest Tyrone Biggs,” she said.

“Why is the mayor involved?”

“Because the case has become political. If I don’t make an arrest soon, the city stands to lose the women’s NCAA basketball tournament next month. We’re talking millions of dollars of tourism revenue and lots of TV exposure.”