Midnight Rambler: A Novel of Suspense

The uniform patted me down and handcuffed me. Together we walked down the driveway. He pulled my wallet from my hip pocket, then got into a cruiser and called in my driver's license on his radio. He knew I wasn't wanted for anything, just as Russo knew. They just wanted to harass me. Another crash of lightning shook the ground.

“I'm going to get killed out here,” I yelled.

The uniform's face appeared in the driver's window. His eyes were lifeless, his face the same. I cursed, and saw him flash a smile.

The rain continued to drench me. I had planned to go swimming later, and I told myself that standing in a downpour accomplished the same thing. This was another of my daughter's maxims. I'm supposed to look on the bright side of things.

The uniform took his sweet time, and I let my eyes roam. A cable company repair truck sat on the street with two workers inside. Trenching equipment was in the truck, and I imagined the workers running a line across the backyard and happening upon Carmella's grave.

“Jack, is that you?” Julie Lopez stood inside the open garage, her face ravaged from crying. Shaped like an hourglass, she wore ragged cutoffs and a Miami Heat athletic shirt.

“Hey, Julie,” I said.

“It's Carmella's body, isn't it?” she asked.

I nodded, and Julie stifled a sob. She had clung to the hope that her sister Carmella would turn up alive one day, even though Skell had been put away for her murder. A false hope, but sometimes those are the ones that keep us going.

“They took Ernesto away,” Julie said. “What am I going to do, Jack? Will you tell me what I'm going to do?”

During the trial, Simon Skell's defense attorney had tried to paint Ernesto as Carmella's real killer. Ernesto was no angel, but I'd never pegged him for a killer, and neither had any of the homicide detectives who'd worked the case.

“I don't know,” I told her.

“Please come inside and talk to me,” she said.

“I can't.”

“You don't want to talk to me?”

I showed her my cuffed wrists.

“I'm under arrest.”

“What did you do?”

I took a deep breath. My brain was on overdrive trying to come up with a way to tie the body in Julie's backyard to Simon Skell. Only I couldn't make the connection. My case against Skell had just gone up in flames.

“I fucked up,” I replied.

Julie shut the garage door in my face. My shoulders sagged. As a cop I had never left a stone unturned. When I was hunting for Carmella, I had the sheriff 's office search Julie's property. The backyard was searched several times, including after Simon Skell was arrested. There had been no body.

The uniform climbed out of the cruiser and shoved my wallet into my hip pocket. The look on his face said I checked out. I showed him my handcuffs.

“Let me go, will you?”

“I need to get permission from Russo,” the uniform said.

“Come on. I'm going to get struck by lightning.”

“It's Russo's call,” he said.

“That's horseshit and you know it.”

“Sorry,” he said.

A CSI van appeared on the street and parked behind the cable truck. A two-man forensic crew got out, griping about the weather. The uniform escorted them past me and into the backyard.

I'd reached my boiling point. I opened the driver's door of my car, and Buster stuck his head out and licked my fingers.

“Get the keys,” I told him.

Buster's previous owners had done a helluva job training him.

He pulled the keys out of the ignition with his teeth and dropped them on my palm. I carried a cigar punch on the ring, which was the same size as a handcuff key. I quickly freed myself.

If there's one thing that's gotten me in trouble, it's my temper. I walked down to the street and located Russo's car, a black Suburban. I tossed the cuffs onto the hood, causing a sizeable dent. Russo would go ballistic when he saw it.

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.