James Swain - The Night Stalker

P lantation was in the northwest section of the county, and was still green. Horses galloped behind three-board wood fences, and red-roofed barns towered behind elegant ranch houses. Someday it would be paved over like the rest of south Florida, but for now it was still country.

Finding Cheeks’s place took awhile. I’d gone there once for a Super Bowl party, but I’d forgotten how similar the houses in his neighborhood looked. Luckily, his SUV was parked in his driveway, the same one we’d driven around in a few days ago.

I parked on the street and killed the engine. My daddy had been fond of saying that any argument between two men could end in death. I drew my Colt and checked the clip, then returned it to the holster in my pants pocket.

My heart was pounding as I walked up the front path. Putting my ear to the door, I heard loud music coming from the back of the house. I guessed Cheeks was on the lanai, recuperating from his fake heart attack. I decided to surprise him.

I walked around the side of the house to the backyard. The music was loud enough to cover my footsteps. Eric Clapton’s Miami album, 418 Ocean Boulevard. The cut was one of my favorites. “Motherless Children.”

The lanai was attached to the back of the house, and contained an eating area, a barbecue, and a swimming pool. I pressed my face to the screen. Cheeks sat with his back to me on a reclining beach chair. On his lap was a blond woman wearing a teardrop bikini. She had fake stripper tits and platinum stripper hair and was coming on to him the way only a stripper can. Seeing me playing peek-a-boo, she let out a shriek, and hopped off Cheeks’s lap.

“Ronnie, there’s someone here!”

Cheeks tried to jump out of the chair, only his erection wouldn’t let him. He was wearing a flimsy pair of shorts, and they were popping out in the wrong places. The stripper ran into the house, and slammed the slider behind her.

“Get out of here,” Cheeks growled.

I found the screen door in the lanai and went inside. Cheeks came forward with his fists cocked. He was big and hairy and looked like something that had washed up on the beach. I wasn’t going to beat him in a fight, only fighting wasn’t what I had in mind.

“You heard me,” Cheeks said. “Get off my property.”

“First you’re going to answer some questions.”

Cheeks started to circle me, and I pointed an accusing finger at him.

“Why did you destroy evidence that proved Abb Grimes was insane?” I asked.

“I told you, those slippers were lost,” Cheeks said.

“What about Abb’s sleeping medication? Was that lost, too?”

Cheeks’s eyes narrowed and his jaw clenched. It was the look of a trapped animal. I went in for the kill.

“Jed Grimes knew what you did to his father, and has been haunting you for twelve years, hasn’t he?” I asked. “Jed knew you were a dirty cop, and kept telling everyone who would listen. It scared you, and you wanted to shut him up. Then his little boy got abducted, and you decided to frame him to get Jed off your back, once and for all.”

“That’s bullshit.”

“That’s why you kept ignoring evidence in the case, and why you faked a heart attack when it became apparent that Jed wasn’t the kidnapper. You had your doubts about Jed, but you refused to tell anyone else. You wanted the kid to go down.”

“No!”

“I’m taking it all to the police. You’ve got a lot of explaining to do, Ron.”

With a roar Cheeks charged across the lanai like a mad bull. I adroitly stepped to the side, stuck out my leg, and sent him headfirst into the pool. As he flew past, his arm shot out.

Before I knew it, I was underwater with him.

I landed upside down in the deep end of the pool, and stared into watery space. The water was overly chlorinated, and made my nose and eyes burn. Cheeks was beside me, standing upright on the pool floor.

I righted myself in the water. Through a torrent of air bubbles I saw Cheeks’s face. His eyes were popping out of his head, and made him look rabid. He grabbed my throat, and began to strangle me.

I brought my arms up and broke his grip around my neck. Then I grabbed his forearms and held him. He outweighed me by at least fifty pounds, and was probably a lot stronger than I was. On land, he had the advantage, but underwater I was the better man. Through years of swimming, I could hold my breath for a minute at a time, something that I doubted he could do.

I waited him out.

Cheeks tried to wrestle with me, and we moved back and forth across the pool floor. I could feel his arms growing weak as the oxygen in his lungs burned up. Each time he tried to move toward the shallow end of the pool, I pushed him back into the deep end. Fear spread across his eyes as he realized what I was doing. The look turned to desperation, then one begging forgiveness.

I was having none of it.

His mouth opened, and he began to suck down water. A single word came out. It was loud enough for me to hear.

Help.

I did not let him go.

Before my eyes, he began to die, his gaze fixed on some faraway place that only the departed know. His body went slack, his arms fell away, and he turned as limp as a rag doll in my hands. He was a dirty cop, and I told myself that the world was a better place without him. I let him go, and watched him start to float.

A numbing sensation coursed through my body. I’d never let anyone die before. The sensation was unlike any I’d ever felt. It was cold and utterly brutal. I was stepping over to the dark side, to a place that once I ventured, I knew I could never return from.

I was many things, but a cold-blooded killer was not one of them. Sticking my hands beneath his armpits, I pulled Cheeks to the surface.

I dragged him to the shallow end of the pool, threw his body against the stairs, and whacked him on the back. Moments later, he was retching up pool water.

Movement inside the house caught my eye. His stripper girlfriend was standing in the kitchen, yelling into a cordless phone. I didn’t think she was ordering takeout, and I guessed the police would be arriving soon.

“I want you to answer my questions,” I said.

Cheeks nodded violently.

“You destroyed Abb Grimes’s slippers and his sleeping medication. Why?”

“Didn’t want them coming up at trial,” he gasped.

“Because they showed he was crazy?”

“Yeah. Didn’t want him copping an insanity plea.”

“Why did that matter?”

Cheeks rolled on his back, and stared at the revolving ceiling fan above his head. “If a jury saw those slippers, and knew he was taking some crazy drug, they’d pity him. I wasn’t going to let that happen.”

“You wanted him to die.”

“Damn straight. I saw what he did to those girls.”

“What was the sleeping medication called?”

“I don’t remember.”

“Stop lying.”

More water came up, and Cheeks puked it across the pool. The sliding door opened, and the stripper clopped out in her plastic high heels.

“You okay, sweetie?” she asked.

Cheeks fell back on the stairs. “Just having a chat with my friend.”

The stripper looked at me, then back at him. “You know this guy?”

“We used to work together.”

“I called the police,” she said.

“Fuck,” he said under his breath. Then in a normal voice, “Thanks, honey. Now go back inside so we can finish our talk.”

The stripper clopped inside, and the slider closed behind her. I didn’t have much time, and I grabbed his arm. “I want to know the name of that drug.”

“I told you, I don’t remember.”

“Want to go for another swim?”

Cheeks stared at me, and saw I wasn’t kidding. He gave it some thought.