Midnight Rambler: A Novel of Suspense

The owner agreed to match Kinko's quote and said the job would take at least twenty minutes. I handed him the box containing the file and walked out. Claire's Sub Shop was across the street, and I decided to grab lunch. As I entered the restaurant an athletic-looking woman with a radioactive tan greeted me.

“Hey, mister, can't you read the sign? No dogs.”

I bellied up to the counter. “I don't see very well.”

“You see well enough to cross the street.”

Lifting my arms, I knocked over several condiment dispensers sitting on the counter.

“Oh, great, a smart-ass,” she said. “What do you want?”

“Two chicken sandwiches on lightly toasted rye bread with lettuce, tomato, and mayo. On one of the sandwiches, hold the bread and the other stuff.”

Her face turned mean. “You going to feed the dog in here?”

“Wouldn't dream of it.”

“Ten minutes. The cook's kinda busy.”

I took a table with a view of the street. Although there was plenty to look at, I focused on the copy shop. The building was easily fifty years old, with spaghetti wires running from a transformer on a pole to a black box on the roof. The place was a firetrap, and I imagined it burning to the ground, and the Skell file destroyed.

The thought unsettled me. What would I do if that happened? Get a new job? Go back to Rose? Or would I move somewhere else and start over? It should have been easy to make an imaginary decision, only I couldn't. For the time being, that file was my life. I couldn't let go of it, and it wouldn't let go of me.

Claire slapped a plate down on the counter and rang a bell. As I paid up the abrasive voice of Neil Bash came over a radio in the kitchen. The shock jock was talking about me, and it wasn't pretty.

“Detective Carpenter tortured your husband after he arrested him,” Bash said.

“He most certainly did,” a woman's static-filled voice replied.

“In his cell?”

“Yes, in his cell.”

“This man is a menace.”

“He most certainly is.”

I made the voice. It was Lorna Sue Mutter, calling in the interview. I gripped the counter edge.

“How did Detective Carpenter torture your husband?” Bash asked.

“With a lit cigarette,” Lorna Sue said. “He burned my husband and tried to make him confess to a crime he didn't commit.”

“The murder of Carmella Lopez,” Bash said.

“My husband did not kill that woman or anyone else.”

“Your husband is not the Midnight Rambler who the police have linked to the disappearances of eight young women?”

“No! My husband is a professional photographer and an artist. He's a warm, sensitive man.”

“Getting back to the alleged torture,” Bash said. “I followed your husband's trial. A doctor testified about the beating that Detective Carpenter inflicted upon your husband, but never mentioned any cigarette burns.”

“That's because my husband didn't show them to the doctor,” she said.

“Why not?”

“Because he was afraid of what Detective Carpenter would do to him.”

“Which is what?”

“Kill him.”

“Did you see the cigarette burns?”

There was a pause. Then a little pathetic sob. Lorna Sue was crying.

Bash repeated himself. “Did you?”

“Yes,” she whispered.

“Where?”

“In prison when I went to visit him.”

“I mean on his body.”

Another pause, this one a little longer.

“On his genitals,” Lorna Sue said.

Bash said something that sounded like Jesus. It was the only part of the conversation that didn't feel scripted. I felt Buster against my leg and released the counter edge.

“Detective Carpenter burned your husband's genitals with a cigarette to make him confess to a crime that he didn't commit?” Bash asked.

“He most certainly did,” Lorna Sue whispered.

“Folks, we need to hear from one of our sponsors. We'll be back in sixty.”

I felt like I'd been kicked. Lorna Sue was lying through her teeth. But until someone disputed her claims, they'd stick. And I didn't see Bobby Russo or the district attorney jumping in to defend me.

Buster let out a whine. I slipped him a piece of chicken while thinking about the timing of Lorna Sue's appearance on Court TV and now Bash's show. She was trying to publicly assassinate me, and I wondered who was pushing her. Was it Leonard Snook, or was Skell manipulating her from behind bars?

“I saw that!” Claire said.

I snapped back to the present. Claire stood behind the counter, glaring at me. Her husband, a skinny guy with a mullet cut morphing into a ponytail, hovered behind her.

“Saw what?” I asked innocently.

“You fed your dog in my restaurant.”

No clever retort came to mind. Guilty as charged.

“Sorry, I wasn't thinking,” I said.

“Leave,” Claire demanded.

“Excuse me?”

“And never come back.”

“I didn't mean any harm.”

“You heard me. We know who you are.”

“You do?”

Her husband piped up. “Yeah, you're that stinking cop with the sadistic temper. Everyone knows what you did, buddy.”

I blew out my cheeks. Busted.

“Get out, or we'll call the police,” Claire threatened.

I've never been thrown out of a place before. It made me feel lower than a snake's belly. I grabbed my order off the counter and left with my dog.

CHAPTER ELEVEN