The Night Stalker — a book by James Swain
Names and dates and ugly epithets were carved into every inch of wood. One name stood out over the others.
Abb Grimes
I had been involved in Abb’s case, and I knew his story. A Fort Lauderdale native, he’d quit high school at seventeen, done a stint in the navy, gotten married and had a kid, and gone to work driving a newspaper delivery truck—an ordinary guy, except that he liked to kill young women.
Abb’s killings followed a pattern. Late at night, he left his house, and walked to the neighborhood grocery. There, he’d hidden behind the Dumpsters. When a young homeless woman would show up looking for food, he’d drag her into the woods, rape and strangle her, then stuff her body in a large garbage bag, tossing her into a Dumpster.
As mass murders went, it was nearly perfect. The victims were women no one cared about, and the bodies were disposed of for him. It might have gone on forever, only one night a surveillance camera filmed Abb with the body of a victim draped in his arms. As was his custom, the store manager viewed the tape the next morning. Seeing Abb, he called 911.
The police found the woman’s body in the Dumpster. They got a search warrant for Abb’s home and in his garage they found a cardboard box containing women’s underpants. Each of the pairs was different.
Their next stop was the Pompano Beach landfill, where trash in Broward County was taken. Using earth movers and cadaver dogs, they’d moved several acres of trash, digging up the bodies of seventeen strangled women.
Eleven of the women were carrying ID. As head of the Broward County Sheriff’s Department’s Missing Persons unit, it had been my job to contact their families. It had been one of the hardest things I’d ever done.
The remaining six women were still Jane Does. I had hoped to identify them one day, and put their memories to rest. Only I’d lost my job after beating up a suspect, and never gotten it done.
It ate at me.
Hearing footsteps, I went to the cell door. Wearing leg irons and handcuffs and flanked by two guards, Abb shuffled down the hall. Tall and powerfully built, he had an angular jaw and dark, deeply set eyes. During his trial, the prosecution had called him “The Night Stalker,” which had been a TV show that had lasted one season. It had scared the hell out of everyone who’d seen it. The nickname fit.
“Stand back,” a guard ordered.
I retreated, and the three men entered. Abb dropped down on the opposing bench and looked at the floor, while the two guards remained standing.
An attractive brunette clutching a leather briefcase came in next. She was young and looked a little scared, and I found myself admiring her. It took guts for a woman to enter a prison filled with a thousand hardened criminals.
“I’m Piper Stone, Abb’s attorney,” she said.
“Jack Carpenter,” I said.
“Thank you for coming.”
We sat on the bench, and faced Abb. As strange as it sounded, he was my client, so I waited for him to start. Abb cleared his throat. He had a voice like gravel, and I guessed he didn’t use it much.
“I’m going to die soon,” Abb said. “Did my lawyer tell you that?”
“No, she didn’t,” I said.
“They’re going to execute me in four days,” Abb said. “Think you can find my grandson before then?”
Abb’s grandson, three-year-old Sampson Grimes, had disappeared from his bedroom three nights ago. I’d read about it in the Fort Lauderdale newspapers, and knew that the police had been stymied in their efforts to locate him.
“I’m going to try,” I said. “Now, why don’t you tell me what happened.”
“I get an hour each day to exercise in the yard,” Abb said. “Two days ago, a photograph of my grandson and a ransom note got slipped into my back pocket. I didn’t see who did it.”
“Do you still have the note and photo?” I asked.
“I gave them to Ms. Stone.”
I looked at Stone. “I’d like to see them.”
Stone unclasped her briefcase and handed me the items. The photo showed a tow-headed little boy with a face like the Gerber baby lying on a blanket. His clothes looked clean, as did his face and hands, and his eyes showed no sign of fear. I took these as a sign that his captor was not abusing him. Lying on the blanket was a copy of the Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel with the date prominently displayed. It was a trick used by kidnappers to show that their victims were still alive.
I shifted my attention to the ransom note. Written in pencil, it said, “Stop talking to the FBI or Sampson will die.” The handwriting surprised me.
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About the book:
Hard-edged, evocative, brilliantly paced, James Swain’s novels of crime and punishment in South Florida delve into a shadowy realm where criminals, victims, and cops share the same truths, the same lies, and sometimes even the same nightmares. Abb Grimes is famous. Just ask the ghoulish tourists who flock to his former home to take photographs. Years ago, Grimes killed eighteen women, some never found. As the head of the Broward County Missing Persons Unit, Jack Carpenter was intimately involved in the Grimes case. Now, days away from execution, the notorious serial killer reaches out to ex-cop Carpenter with a surprising request. Abb Grimes’ grandson was lured from his home. The cops are convinced the boy’s father–Abb’s troubled son, Jed–is behind the boy’ s disappearance, but Jack’s not so sure. With a personal connection to the kidnapped child, Carpenter takes the case, and that’s when the situation goes from terrifying to fatal. There’s another gruesome murder, and once again the evidence points straight to Jed. Have the unspeakable sins of his father taken root within this troubled young man? Carpenter races against time and a police department that wants his help but rejects his aggressive style as he searches through an underworld of predators, assembling the jagged pieces of a depraved puzzle, desperate to put an end to a murderous stalker’ s blood-soaked rampage. With unremitting action and skillfully polished prose, bestselling author James Swain has written his most riveting thriller yet, delving even deeper into the fascinating psyche of misbehaving crusader Jack Carpenter. A hero immersed in the evil that is his prey, Carpenter battles a stunning betrayal–and a horrendous danger no one saw coming.
Genres: Detective, Thriller
