The Perfect Scream (16 page)

J
ohn Stallings sat on a picnic table in the shadow of a giant condominium across the street from the PMB. The security guard at the condominium was a retired New York City cop and left the picnic table accessible to any JSO officer who needed to get away from the office for a few minutes. It was on a manicured lawn and looked out over the St. Johns River. This time of day it was usually a refuge for a worried detective having an argument with his girlfriend that he didn’t want his wife to find out about. Patty even joked that the picnic table should be called Tiger Woods Stadium.

But Stallings liked the peaceful retreat to consider cases and, in this instance, consider his career. He was angry, but not at Rita Hester. He could see from her point of view it was the only thing to do. She was a boss now and had to make decisions that were favorable to the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office, not just her friends. But that didn’t change the fact that he was a father with a missing daughter. Like most fathers in that position, he would do anything to find her.

He had considered resigning. Although quitting would give him some level of satisfaction it would not make the job of looking for Jeanie any easier. Even if he got his private investigator’s license, that gave him no more access to police files than anyone else. It might also mean less help from the cops across the country who were doing what they could now. In general, cops viewed private investigators as a joke.

Stallings prided himself on being decisive, but at this moment he had no idea what to do. None. He knew that Zach Halston was the key not only to finding Jeanie but also to shedding light on the deaths of the other fraternity brothers. Stallings had some information from the owner of the store where Jeanie had worked, and he didn’t care what his status was with the sheriff’s office. He needed to follow up. He had an address of an apartment near the store and he intended to talk to the owner. But his overwhelming issue right now was how to clear his head and do the right thing.

He had no idea who to talk to. Maria wasn’t an option in her fragile state. He didn’t want to put Patty between him and administration. She had her own issues and someone needed to work the case with a clear head. His mom was focused on his father’s worsening Alzheimer’s and didn’t understand the politics of a large police department. Then he realized everyone he trusted in the world, everyone that he wanted to talk to about a personal problem, was female. Could that have something to do with the relationship he had with his father? Or were women just that much smarter than men?

Suddenly he realized who he could call. He dug his cell phone out of his front pocket and found the name that might be able to set him straight.

 

 

 

Patty could tell by the sergeant’s demeanor that this was not the time to ask questions. The sergeant simply said, “Stall has been reassigned. You’ll be working with Tony and Sparky. See if you can get a lead on a missing kid, Zach Halston. Otherwise, whatever Tony needs, help him out.”

Patty had to say, “John’s not in trouble, is he?” Usually the answer to that would be yes, but she would’ve heard about it by now.

Sergeant Zuni shook her head and mumbled, “He’s not suspended or anything like that. I’m sure he’ll tell you what’s going on if he wants to.”

Patty was used to the mysterious workings of the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office and didn’t worry about how things happened, only about how to work around glitches like this. She ran through her head the encounters Stallings had had with different people over the last week and couldn’t think of one where he had stepped out of line. Certainly he hadn’t punched anyone.

Patty reached for her cell phone, then hesitated, figuring that Stallings would call her if he needed to tell her what was going on. He kept very little from her and she appreciated him all the more for it.

She was worried about John, but the idea of working closely with Tony Mazzetti held some excitement.

Stallings sat along the small tributary that ran from the St. Johns River. The cozy café was built out over the water and featured fresh seafood as well as other local favorites with a strong influence of southern cooking. That usually meant everything was sautéed in butter or fried.

As soon as she entered the front door he couldn’t help but smile. She was still dressed for work but radiated warmth that affected everyone she came in contact with. Even the snooty hostess smiled and pointed to where Stallings was waiting.

He stood as she approached like you would for any woman. Those were the manners his mother had drilled into him as a child. But it was awkward as she came closer because he wasn’t sure if he should offer a hand or a hug.

Grace solved the awkward dilemma by embracing him warmly, then kissing him on the cheek. Stallings held her chair and sat across from her with a stupid grin still on his face.

They chatted for almost a half an hour, learning more about each other’s families and the sadness they’d felt as their marriages disintegrated. Grace was the one in her relationship who had taken decisive action and cut her husband loose. That gave Stallings a different perspective from which to view his own situation.

He finally explained what had happened when Lieutenant Hester had found the photograph of Jeanie with Zach Halston and how he was now in a dilemma about what to do next.

Grace calmly looked at him and said, “Do you tell the sheriff’s office everything you do while off duty?”

“No, of course not.”

“It sounds like you just added another task to your busy personal life. Don’t forget you’ve got two kids at home.”

It was pretty simple and direct advice. He liked it. “I have a strong drive to find Jeanie, really it’s an obsession. And I know it’s hard on my relationship with Lauren and Charlie.”

Grace gave him a smile. “What man of you, having an hundred sheep, if he lose one of them, doth not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness, and go after that which is lost, until he find it?” She paused a moment and added, “Luke, chapter fifteen.”

“What you’re saying is I’m not unique in my issue.”

“I’m saying any man would do it, but I’m cautioning you to not forget you’ve got kids who need you.”

Stallings mumbled, “And a wife.”

Grace said clearly, “Who better start to appreciate you.”

 

 

 

Tony Mazzetti had been talking for a few minutes about all the possibilities related to the deaths of the fraternity members when he realized he didn’t know if he was trying to convince Patty or himself that the deaths could be accidents.

Patty gave him a suspicious look and said, “You sure you’re not just protecting your clearance rate?”

Mazzetti gave her a look back and said, “We’re not sleeping together anymore. I don’t have to take any shit.”

Patty smiled and said, “Like you ever did. I was just wondering and asking questions. You don’t have to be an ass about it.”

Mazzetti decided to let the whole matter slide. It was awkward enough working with his former girlfriend; he didn’t need to fan the flames. He changed the subject completely. “So what did Stall do to get you assigned to me?”

Patty shrugged. “Just got reassigned. I can’t read the sergeant’s mind.”

Mazzetti laughed. “Must’ve something pretty big to have the LT do anything to her buddy.”

“You sound jealous.”

“Wish I had a rabbi up the chain. No telling where I’d be now.”

“You’d want to do something other than homicide?”

The question took Mazzetti by surprise, and his honest answer surprised him even more. “I guess not.” He looked off in space and added, “Thanks, you made me appreciate what I have.” When he looked up into her pretty face, he also realized what he had lost.

J
ohn Stallings tried to slip into the office like a ninja. He did not feel like speaking to anyone about his troubles. He wanted a couple of files to cover him in case someone asked what he was doing. Grace had set his head straight and he figured six o’clock was late enough to be off duty. Stallings knew exactly where he was headed. But of course even though it was late, Sergeant Zuni was still in her office.

As he walked past he knew she’d look up and see him, so he took the offensive. He stopped in her doorway and looked in.

Sergeant Zuni looked up from the report she was reading and simply said, “I didn’t know.”

“I didn’t mean to put you in an awkward position.”

“Instead you made me look like a moron.”

“Sorry.”

Sergeant Zuni stood up and stepped around her desk. “I’m not a machine. I know what it is to have personal issues. You can talk to me off the record now and then.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

“Zach Halston is important to you for personal reasons, but he’s also important to our investigation.”

Stallings waited for her to finish, but she just stood there until he said, “Yes?”

Sergeant Zuni cleared her throat. “Lieutenant Hester won’t check too closely when you’re out on the street. She knows you’re a hard worker and I don’t have to justify what you’re doing to anyone.” She looked down at two older missing persons files in his hand. “I like that you’re smart enough to keep up a façade.”

This new sergeant was more complicated than anyone he had ever worked for. And Stallings was starting to like it.

 

 

 

Duval County Assistant Medical Examiner Lisa Kurtz was feeling pretty good about herself as she rushed up the stairs to the second floor of the Police Memorial Building. She had a report from the lab and a photograph that showed she could come up with forensic clues with the best of them. Her instincts about the stain on Connor Tate’s shirt had proved to be right on the money. A chemical spectrum analysis of the stain showed it to contain a number of chemicals including ecstasy, strong depressants typically found in sleep aids, and painkillers, in this case a generic form of hydrocodone. In addition, she had a magnified photograph clearly showing a chunk of a ground-up blue Ambien pill.

Lisa waved hello to the secretary, then was brought up short as she opened the door marked CRIME/PERSONS and nearly ran into Patty Levine. The two women had a passing acquaintance and each knew they had one big thing in common: Tony Mazzetti.

Lisa wasn’t sure what to say or do so she just smiled and nodded hello.

Patty, always so calm and collected, was able to get out a “Hey, Lisa, what’s up?”

Lisa wanted to show the detective the report and what she had discovered, but knew that Tony was the one who needed to see it. She signaled Patty to follow her over to Mazzetti’s desk.

Lisa could see the surprise on Tony Mazzetti’s face when he looked up to see his current girlfriend and his most recent ex-girlfriend standing before him. His eyes cut back and forth between Lisa and Patty for a moment until Lisa pushed through the awkward moment.

She plopped the lab report and the photograph down on his desk, saying, “Connor Tate drank a potentially lethal concoction of drugs. I had the lab do an analysis of the stain on his shirt.”

Mazzetti focused on Lisa. “I know. That’s what killed him. Your office did the autopsy, remember?”

Lisa ignored this sarcastic jab and said, “Why drink an odd mixture of sleeping pills and painkillers when you pop them in plain sight of everyone? I think someone fed him the mixture secretly so it would react with all the alcohol in his system.”

“Even if it wasn’t an accident he could’ve been trying to commit suicide.”

“I looked at the crime scene photographs and noticed there were no glasses around the bed where the body was found. Also the photographs of the tiny kitchen showed three glasses that had been washed and stacked by the side of the sink. That’s not the kind of activity you do when you’ve got a blood alcohol level three times the legal limit and have ingested at least four types of prescription drugs.”

She could tell Mazzetti was considering her hypothesis. But he wasn’t convinced.

Lisa pointed at the photograph and added, “You can even see a chunk of a blue Ambien tablet on his shirt. He was lying down when he drank it. It dribbled into a puddle on his chest.”

Patty said, “C’mon, Tony, she’s got something here. That kid wasn’t the type to try and take his own life. He was too confident and cocky.”

Lisa liked Patty’s rational thought and realized the pretty detective didn’t hold any grudge about her dating Tony. She could see being friends with someone like Patty.

Mazzetti said, “Who would do something like that?”

Lisa said, “Who was with him the night before his body was found?”

Mazzetti shook his head. “No one knows.”

Patty said, “Based on everything we know about the fraternity in general and Connor in particular, it had to be a woman.”

 

 

 

Stallings took Grace’s advice and the sergeant’s coded signal as well as following his heart and sixteen years of police experience. Now he was looking at an ancient block building he remembered as a kid. It looked like an abandoned prison, but local history said it was housing for early migrant workers. When he was a boy, the building had been abandoned and run-down only to be renovated in the early 1990s on the cutting edge of the mini-boom that had gone on in the area. Now it was out of style again and just one of many cheap apartment buildings on the south side of the city.

It was four stories tall with about twenty units on each side and looked to be only about a third full. Stallings had to admit it was better maintained and considerably cleaner than most of the older apartment buildings in the area.

The sun had been down less than an hour, but the lack of outdoor lighting made it feel much later as Stallings approached the door marked OFFICE
.
He knocked once and rang the buzzer twice, then stepped away from the door, saying out loud in a low voice, “Is this the day that changes the rest of my life?”

The door to his right opened a crack and he realized it was the manager’s apartment attached to the office. A thin, elderly man in a flannel shirt peered through a crack with the chain still on the door. Once he got a look at Stallings, he unchained the door and said, “What can I do for you, officer?”

“How did you know I was a cop?”

“I’ve run this place sixteen years and anyone built like you, with no tattoos and who’s taken a bath in the last three days, is a cop. The only thing surprising is that at this time of the night it’s usually a uniformed patrolman looking for someone.”

The older man invited Stallings inside and his wife joined them as Stallings explained he was looking for two young people and laid out the photograph of Jeanie and Zach Halston.

The woman took a very close look and said, “That’s Kelly who lived up on the third floor couple of years ago. And the boy used to come around for a while.”

Stallings caught her tone and said, “You don’t sound like you thought much of him.”

“He was a little bit of an ass. Kelly liked him at first, but she had a thing for a guy named Gator. Nice young man but kinda confused. You know how women like to fix men.”

Stallings got all the information he could about Jeanie and Zach, then took the time to ask about Gator.

“I don’t know what the young man did for a living. He was tall, about six-one and lean.”

The man added, “He would’ve made an excellent baseball pitcher.”

The woman, recognizing what Stallings was looking for, added, “I don’t know where he lived, but he drove an older Chevy sedan. He had blue eyes and brown hair.”

Stallings said, “Did Jean, I mean Kelly, talk to you or tell you where she was headed once she moved out?”

The woman shook her head. “She was a polite girl and gave us two weeks’ notice but never said where she was moving. I had asked her about the one boy, Zach, and she just smiled and said he was a spoiled brat.”

Stallings had to smile at that. Some of his values had imprinted on her. He looked up at the old couple and said, “Can I look in the apartment?”