The Perfect Scream (22 page)

S
tallings leaned against the St. Augustine police cruiser, telling the traffic homicide investigator any detail he could think of. All he’d seen was a blue Suburban and the first letter on the plate was an A. Not much to go on.

He had waited while they took Zach’s body from the scene. There was nothing he could do when he found the boy half on the sidewalk and half on the street. The stop sign he had knocked into was bent at a sickening angle. Blood stained the sidewalk a dark brown and a paramedic was pouring a bucket of bleach and water over it to wash it into the gutter.

Stallings had already called Sergeant Zuni and told her he’d found Zach Halston, but that he had been hit by a car. Her first question was whether it was an accident. Stallings could categorically say it was not. The SUV had driven away too quickly and the blow had been too direct. He was surprised the St. Augustine cops had not sent someone out on the main road to look for the Suburban trying to get on the interstate, but he understood it took time to control the scene and get people moving. Now he was stuck with just one more dead fraternity brother. There was no question they were looking for a serial killer.

Stallings had no idea what his status on the case would be after this, so he wasted no time calling an analyst in the Land That Time Forgot and having her run a report through the Department of Highway Safety to get a list of all the Suburbans with the tag starting with the letter A. He narrowed it down to St. Johns, Duval, Volusia, and Baker counties. With any luck the list in Duval would not be too long. It was the only lead he had right now.

Nothing like this had ever happened to him on the job before. He leaned against the patrol car, unable to focus on what he needed to do next. He realized the thing that had hit him the hardest was that his one known link to Jeanie was now broken.

 

 

 

Lynn calmly drove into the winding rear lot of the Thomas Brothers supply company. It may have been in her head, but it felt like the Suburban was pulling to the right. Could a human body do so much damage to a giant vehicle like this that it made it drift? She doubted it. The grille was intact this time and there was only the slight damage near the headlight.

She drove past a little Hispanic man washing one of the step vans and rolled forward until she could see Leon coming out from the shed that held all the cleaning material and car maintenance equipment. She eased to a stop next to the shed and slipped down from the high seat of the Suburban.

Leon started to walk toward her and then immediately turned toward the damaged front of the car and leaned down to inspect it closely. His weather-beaten face screwed into a puzzle as he turned toward her, not saying a word.

Lynn put on her best innocent act and shrugged, saying, “Just a minor accident.”

Leon ran a finger down the front of the car and then under the bumper by the headlight. He lifted his hand, stared at it for a moment, and showed his finger to Lynn.

She immediately noticed the blood, but kept her cool. “Would it be a problem to give it a quick wash and keep the little damage quiet?”

Leon didn’t look as eager to help as he had earlier. It took a moment as his brown eyes scanned the parking lot, then fell on Lynn. Finally he nodded slowly and mumbled, “For a price.”

“What price?”

“I want in.”

“On what?”

“Whatever you’re doing.”

Lynn felt her face flush as anxiety flooded through her. She tried to come up with a cover story, but Leon was too shrewd. He’d see through any lie she created on the spot. She simply said, “I’m not doing anything.”

Leon said, “Then I guess I’ll have to report this damage. I signed for the truck. I’m responsible.” He turned and started to walk toward the main office building.

Lynn tried to let him play out his bluff, but after he walked about ten feet she called out, “Wait.” She watched as he stopped walking but didn’t turn around. She said, “There’s no money involved in what I’m doing.”

Now Leon turned slowly and said, “I don’t need any money. I didn’t go to prison for free. I only got this job to satisfy my parole officer.”

“Then what are you looking for?”

“Some excitement.”

“Give me a few days. I’ll see what we can work out.”

A smile spread across Leon’s face. “I’ll sign the car back in and see if I can’t knock some of this dent out. No one will know a thing.”

Lynn wasn’t sure she had just made a smart deal.

 

 

 

Yvonne Zuni sat in her office even though the rest of the Land That Time Forgot was empty. She was just waiting for John Stallings to get back. He took things so personally and had been through so much, the sergeant wanted to make sure he was okay. Maybe she’d even get some insight to his marital problems. Any information about the detectives that worked for her was usually helpful. A lot of times detectives did things that didn’t make sense on the job. And that was all supervisors focused on. It was almost like nothing existed outside the job and that was where problems occurred. Yvonne Zuni prided herself on recognizing that most of her life took place outside the confines of the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office and she also tried to look at each detective’s actions in light of their personal lives.

Not all sergeants and lieutenants felt the same way. Most patrol sergeants only wanted to know what the patrolmen directly under their command were doing during the eight-hour shift they had on the road. One of her friends who ran the squad in the north end of the county always said, “What happens at home stays at home.” She understood that mentality, but it didn’t make any sense when you were dealing with human beings.

The sergeant could see Lieutenant Rita Hester walking through the squad bay long before she reached the sergeant’s office. That gave Sergeant Zuni a few moments to gather herself and wonder what the lieutenant was upset about now. The lieutenant rarely came into the detective bureau unless there was a problem. And it seemed like usually those problems revolved around something John Stallings had done.

The lieutenant paused at the door to the small office and said, “You hear anything more from Stall?”

“Everything is wrapped up in St. Augustine and he’s on his way here.”

“How’d he sound?”

“Truthfully, he sounded a little shaken.”

The lieutenant nodded. “It’s the guys as tough as Stallings who take things the hardest. When I heard what happened and knew how much he had invested in finding this kid and what information the kid potentially had for him, I figured he’d be pretty upset.”

“I don’t think he got anything from Zach. He said they only talked for a few minutes before he slipped out the back of the restaurant and was struck by the SUV.”

“Any word on the search for the vehicle?”

“No luck yet.”

The lieutenant let out a long, heavy sigh. “He’s not the kind of guy you can send home to clear his head. And I don’t want him to feel like he’s being punished by being taken off the case again. I already punished him when I found out about the photo of Zach Halston and his daughter. We need something that makes him feel needed but doesn’t have much of a risk involved with it.”

Sergeant Zuni thought about it for a few moments, then said, “I’ll send him out with Patty to talk to families of accident and suicide victims. So far we haven’t gotten any leads from it, but the interviews need to be done.”

The lieutenant nodded and mumbled, “Good idea.” Then she said, “I want you to reassign four detectives to this case quietly. We need to take it seriously without causing a panic. I’ll send over two analysts from auto theft.” She turned to leave, then stopped and looked back over her shoulder. “It’s a good idea to put Stallings on the interviews. Any sergeant who can manage a resource as valuable and as volatile as John Stallings is doing something right.”

Sergeant Zuni couldn’t help but smile as the lieutenant walked away.

P
atty Levine tried to relax with her head in Ken’s lap. She was stretched out on his leather couch watching the Orlando Magic beat up on the Atlanta Hawks and trying to act interested as he yapped about the dangers of plantar fasciitis.

When he stopped to take a breath, Patty said, “I know what you mean about work being a bitch. We’re back to square one on our possible serial homicide case.”

“The one that involves the fraternity brothers?”

Patty rolled onto her back so she could look up at Ken’s face now that they were involved in an actual conversation and not just one of his monologues about how podiatrists are not given enough respect in the medical community. She said, “Yeah. A witness who ran away from my partner was killed by a hit-and-run before John could talk to him.”

“You said there was a possibility that the deaths were all a coincidence.”

“John saw the car as it drove away from hitting the witness in St. Augustine.”

“Did he see the driver intentionally run down the witness?”

Patty shook her head.

“Then this could be just one more coincidence, couldn’t it?”

“I think we’ve moved beyond the coincidence theory.”

“Why would a witness run from him anyway?”

“That’s what we’re trying to figure out.”

Ken thought for a moment, then said, “What was he doing in St. Augustine? That’s another county. That’s not even in your jurisdiction.”

“That’s not the point. The problem is a dead witness.”

“Who might not be dead if your partner hadn’t scared him into running away.”

“It’s not John’s fault.”

“It sounds like he played a role in it.”

Patty felt a knot of frustration work its way through her stomach. This guy just didn’t get it. She felt like she needed a cop to talk to, someone who would understand her and could relate to the job. Uh-oh. She felt the knot of frustration turn to anxiety. She had broken up with Tony Mazzetti because she didn’t feel like the job would ever give them a chance at a normal life. Now she was thinking she couldn’t talk to her boyfriend because he wasn’t a cop.

 

 

 

John Stallings felt like a homeless person. He could not face the lonely house he rented in Lakewood and he couldn’t visit his main residence because he wasn’t ready to talk to Maria after the way he had acted with Brother Frank Ellis. The combination of his confrontation with the minister, who had acted like a creep but apparently was an okay guy, and his failure to protect Zach Halston had sent him into a serious funk.

He’d gone by the office, and Sergeant Zuni’s calm and sensitive manner had unnerved him. Stallings was used to sergeants shouting at him or threatening him, not giving him a cushy assignment with his partner to interview witnesses the next day. He realized it was their way of taking him out of harm’s way without making him feel like a failure. On some level he appreciated it. But he wanted to be in the thick of things. That’s why he had become a cop in the first place.

Now he found himself at the community center where his father worked in the evenings. But he couldn’t lie to himself. Stallings had not come over here to see his father and be reminded how his failing memory might block him out altogether. He knew Grace Jackson would be over here tonight as well. There was a connection he had with the pretty black schoolteacher, who had seemed to be able to cut through all the bullshit of his job and life.

Stallings had been vague about what happened in St. Augustine and only said that a witness had been killed by a hit-and-run. He went into greater detail about bumping into Brother Frank Ellis and his wife visiting Maria and realizing that Ellis had been trying to help him when he mentioned Maria had a problem with Patty. Looking back on it, Stallings recognized that there was no way Ellis could have gotten that info unless it had come through Maria. It was an issue with Maria even if it wasn’t a real-life issue. At some point he’d have to deal with it and talk to his estranged wife about his strong, but nonsexual, feelings for his partner. He would have to talk to Patty as well. He had no idea what he’d say to either of them and right now, setting the table with Grace and looking into her pretty, dark eyes was enough of a distraction to keep him from falling over from a huge anxiety attack.

Grace gave him a warm smile after he finished the story about Frank Ellis and said, “I know this is not the right time to say anything like I told you so.”

Stallings broke out into a smile and said, “But.”

Grace continued, undaunted. “But I did say that Brother Ellis had a good reputation and you might be jumping to conclusions.” She reached across the table and grasped his hand in both of hers. “You are a very fine man, John Stallings. You’re intense but calm, you’re smart but clueless, and most of all you’re a very sweet, loyal husband.” Grace sighed and said, “And you know what I think.”

“No, but I’d like to know what you think.”

“I think you should forget the problems with your wife, Brother Frank Ellis, your dad’s Alzheimer’s, and even put me out of your mind for a little while and focus on nothing but this case. It will clear your mind, settle your spirit, and maybe keep someone else from getting killed.”

Stallings nodded slowly, seeing the perfect sense of the idea.

Grace said, “And once you finish that, you need to figure out what you want to do with the rest of your life and if Maria has a role in it. She
is
your wife in the eyes of God and the mother of your children. I’d be wrong if I advised you to do anything but try and stay with her.”

Stallings gave her a smile and said, “I feel another ‘but’ coming on.”

Without saying another word, Grace leaned across the table and kissed him. She let it linger so he could feel her full lips and the emotion behind the kiss. When she was done, she leaned back into her chair and said, “That was so you’d have no doubt on how I feel. And when all of this is cleared up, and I mean everything, I’ll still be around.”

Grace had made Stallings feel better about everything.

 

 

 

Lynn lingered at her desk, worried about Leon. How was she ever going to satisfy him? He had proved to be persistent and resilient and now he had turned his attention on her. She didn’t want to hurt him, but at some point she might have to make the choice between her mission and the former marijuana smuggler. Under those conditions Leon lost every time.

Her other concern was the lingering Alan Cole. She had checked with the hospital on and off and been able to pick up that he was still in a coma and unresponsive. For a while she considered just leaving the injured man to his shattered life, but she kept imagining him rousing from his coma, saying that he’d seen her behind the wheel of the blue Suburban. It was a dream that would wake her up at night. And he definitely had to pay the same price as the others. Now the only question was when to make the trip south to Daytona.

She had another target who lived locally. As she considered him, she realized he could be the last one. It made her think about her life after this horrible quest she’d been on. One of the first things she hoped to do was meet someone. Not just a guy in a bar or one of the doofuses from the loading dock at work but a nice, professional man. Someone like Doctor Ferrero, who didn’t care about supply delivery companies or how to effectively murder a college boy.

Lynn could envision raising kids. Sometimes her daydreams were quite specific: two boys with the girl in the middle. If the middle child was of a different gender it might shake up the old idea that the middle child would be a slacker. The oldest was always special because they are first. The youngest is always special because they’re the baby. It’s the middle kid who needs extra care. She loved the idea of taking them all to the beach or the mall or one of the amusement parks in the state.

Her parents seemed to enjoy raising kids. At least until recently. No matter how old the kids got, her parents still tried to take care of them. She knew her father had created a retirement account for her and said she had nothing to worry about after age fifty-nine. He also had a house fund for her, just like he did for her siblings. But it was understood that the fund was for a house in the Jacksonville area so they would be close to her parents. She wouldn’t leave them now anyhow. They were too fragile. It broke her heart. That made her more determined to finish her mission.

She pulled her Buck knife from her purse and stared at it. This last one would be perfect. She’d do it right and finally hear the perfect scream.