The Perfect Scream (7 page)

I
t was early afternoon when Lynn sat down to Thanksgiving dinner with her entire family, including her father’s two brothers, who were in business with him, and their five children. It was quite a crowd, but her mother’s silent toil over two gigantic turkeys kept her from feeling too festive.

Before dinner she noticed her father calling her cousins by the wrong names and forgetting where he had placed his scotch and water. Considering the high-pressure business he had spent a lifetime building, it was hard to imagine that he had become absentminded. Lynn had been so concerned that she and her older brother had taken him to a neurologist. The diagnosis was simply stress and exhaustion. There wasn’t even a hint of Alzheimer’s or some other neurological disease. As soon as she heard the young doctor explain it was stress and exhaustion, Lynn understood exactly how it could happen.

Her mother had taken another track. She was not nearly as expressive and vivacious as she had been Lynn’s whole life. Her mom had been the den mother for Cub Scouts, the team mom for soccer, and the organizer for Lynn’s twirling team, as well as being involved in the Chamber of Commerce and City Council. Now she seemed to read a lot and cook extravagant meals that she and Lynn’s father just picked at.

Her father’s lack of drive had caused the business to suffer greatly. She suspected that was one of the reasons her uncles had come to Thanksgiving dinner. Neither of them had her father’s international vision or genius for transportation, but they had supported two families riding on his coattails.

Of her own siblings only her younger brother Josh had shown any interest at all in her father’s business. And he didn’t have the contacts to complete the transportation needs if her father could no longer do it. Josh was a salesman. He didn’t think globally, he only thought locally. He liked being close to Mom. He’d even gone to the University of North Florida so that he could still be within arm’s reach of Mom.

Even thinking about Josh focused her attention on the task ahead of her. Tomorrow afternoon she’d leave for Orlando.

 

 

 

Stallings sat on the nice leather couch next to the beautiful J. L. Winter in the double-wide trailer that felt more like a luxury suite at the Four Seasons on the inside. A big-screen TV with a dozen speakers placed around the room sat at one end and a wet bar stocked with every imaginable high-end alcohol sat at the other. He noticed two safes bolted to the floor next to the wet bar. He wondered why someone would go to the trouble of securing expensive, heavy safes to the floor of a building that could be driven away. A loveseat was tipped backwards and designed to sit over the safes, hiding them from view. Stallings wondered if J.L. had tried to stash something in the safes when he walked up. It didn’t matter now. The moron with the shotgun had been sent away and he still had his gun and badge. If they were going to pull any shit, they would’ve pulled it by now.

Junior popped his head in the door and asked in his heavy, North Florida twang, “This old man behaving himself, J.L.?”

J.L. let a sly smile slide across her face. Her teeth, jawline, and cheekbones were flawless. She had a twinkle in her brown eyes as she slowly turned her head to her associate and said, “No man who looks like this would harm a woman who looks like me.”

It wasn’t a boast. Not the way she said it. Or the way she looked. It was a fact. The only word Stallings could come up with was
stunning
. He had a million questions about how she’d ended up running a marijuana farm in the middle of fucking nowhere. They were obviously turning a profit and she wasn’t ashamed of her occupation.

J.L. turned and looked him directly in the eye, leaned in close, placed a hand on his knee, and said, “Your eyes tell me you really are looking for someone. I can see the truth in people’s eyes. That’s my gift. It’s one of the reasons I’m successful in a business like this.” She let her hand linger. Finally she said, “How can I help you, John?”

Stallings tried to act casual as he reached into the breast pocket of his flannel shirt and pulled out one of the photographs of Jeanie and Zach Halston. He handed it to J.L., who took her time examining the photo. She looked back at him and said, “Are you looking for Zach or the girl?”

Just the way she said it cut through Stallings like a knife. She was damn near psychic. He cleared his throat and said, “Both.”

J.L. nodded and said, “Of course I know Zach. You know I know Zach. But I’ve never seen this girl. We always met Zach up around Blanding Boulevard and handed off a couple of pounds of product at a time. He was just a small-time distributor for us, but he didn’t argue or steal, so we kept a pleasant arrangement with him for about two years.” Now she leaned back, crossed her legs, and said, “You didn’t think I would be this open and honest, did you?”

“Not on my drive down. Once I met you I knew that you were a model citizen who wouldn’t try and hide things from the police.”

She smiled at his deadpan comment. “Will my honesty keep you from informing the local cops about my little business venture?”

“You give me something that helps me find Zach Halston and I’ll forget I ever came south of Flagler Beach.”

“What if I gave you something you might enjoy more than information?”

“I doubt my wife would enjoy me enjoying anything other than information.”

J.L. let out a chuckle and said, “A married cop who doesn’t wear a wedding ring. Your eyes tell me there’s more going on in your marriage than you care to admit.”

“Then why would I admit it?”

“Well played.”

“Do you have any idea where Zach might be?”

“He called Junior a few weeks ago and said he was in trouble with some other dealers. We’re purely a production facility and don’t know anything about disputes between distributors or street justice. Junior told him it had nothing to do with us. We haven’t heard anything else from any of our distributors about a problem. But Zach hasn’t called us back. He hasn’t been answering his phone either. If he was in that much trouble with another dealer someone would’ve heard about it and told us. That’s why we never took him seriously. We just figured it was amateur jitters. These kids like the extra money, but they get paranoid about other dealers and cops.”

Stallings wrote down a few quick notes.

J.L. leaned forward again and said, “Do you think he’s all right?”

“To tell you the truth, I don’t know. But I’m trying as hard as I can to find someone who knows what happened to him.”

“I’m surprised a cop is out working on Thanksgiving.”

“You guys are working on Thanksgiving.”

“The pot business never takes a break.”

“Neither does crime.”

J.L. started to laugh. When she had finished and wiped her eyes with her French manicured fingertips she said, “Zach used a couple of his fraternity brothers to help him. I met two of them when I delivered some product. One was his roommate named Connor. The other kid was younger and very thin as I recall. His name was Kyle something and he was from Orlando. He was cute as a button and very preppy. Did you talk to him yet?”

Stallings shook his head as he scribbled down the name and description. He decided not to mention Connor’s unfortunate overdose. He looked up to see J.L. staring at him. Stallings said, “I appreciate the help. Can I call you if I need more information?”

“You can call me for any reason at all, sweetheart.”

 

 

 

John Stallings had rifled his desk like he was on a search warrant until he found a printout he and Patty had compiled of all of the Tau Upsilon fraternity brothers. He had to put on his reading glasses to follow the names as he placed his index finger at the top of the page and worked his way down. Finally he found an entry with the first name of Kyle. It was Kyle Lee and his cell phone number had a 407 area code. Jackpot. That was Orlando. Stallings even considered calling the boy right now but had to wonder about the wisdom of asking someone about unlawful marijuana sales and meeting other pot dealers over the phone. There was also the issue of the photograph. When all was said and done, Stallings was anxious to talk to this boy about the photograph of Jeanie, not about the missing, pot-dealing, fraternity brother.

Then another thought entered Stallings’s mind. It was really the first time he had thought about it on this case. What if Zach Halston was dead? Aside from the fact that it would be a homicide, it would, more important, be a dead end to Stallings’s inquiry about the photograph of Jeanie. He didn’t know what he’d do if that happened. It was the main reason he hadn’t even seriously considered telling Maria about the photograph.

The more Stallings pondered Zach Halston’s missing persons case, the more he had to believe the young man was dead. Often a missing young person would not contact his family, but he would call friends. Sometimes a person goes missing on purpose to avoid an uncomfortable relationship or business dealings. That was still possible with Zach, but the fact that he had not called anyone in three weeks made it seem more likely that he was
unable
to call anyone.

Stallings had to assume Kyle Lee had gone home for Thanksgiving, but he would check the fraternity house first. He was about to bring up a map of Florida on his computer and see how long a quick ride to Orlando would take when he took the page with Kyle Lee’s phone number and tucked it into his shirt pocket. He felt something in his pocket. His phone. He normally didn’t wear heavy, flannel shirts with pockets in odd places, so he had forgotten about his phone altogether. When he flipped it open he saw there were six messages waiting for him. What the hell?

Then he noticed the time on the face of the phone. It was 3:30. He felt sick to his stomach for just a moment. Where had the time gone? He was an hour and a half late for Thanksgiving dinner with his entire family.

S
tallings entered his mother’s house without knocking. He’d made it from downtown at the Police Memorial Building in just under eleven minutes at great risk to his and other people’s lives. He thought it was best to face his family in person rather than call and give them a chance to build up their aggravation with him.

As soon as he entered the living room he caught a quick look at Maria’s murderous glare. His mother was much more direct when she said, “Look what the cat dragged in. Where the hell have you been?”

But it was the sight of his sister, Helen, chatting with his father at the edge of the living room sofa that shocked him. He stood there, ignoring Maria and his mother, staring at his sister. How could this be? Helen had always credited their father with driving her out of the house at fourteen. She’d run away and been missing for two years. When she came back she was never the same Helen. In fact, she had never moved out of the house again, aside from a brief stint living with Maria and the kids. She still lived with their mother. And she worried about every possible aspect of life. One of her biggest concerns was that somehow her running away had affected Jeanie’s disappearance. Almost like it was in their genetic code to flee their families.

Helen had disliked their father so much and for so long that when she found out he was still in their mother’s life, she would leave the house every time he came over. Now, his attractive, older sister sat in a church-style dress with her back straight and hands in her lap, talking earnestly with the father who had been gone for almost twenty years.

Stallings’s mother walked up and gave him a hug, whispering into his ear, “I know how you feel. I’m just as amazed as you are. It really is a miracle.”

Stallings just nodded. He didn’t want to interrupt their conversation. Instead, he turned just in time to catch Charlie as he barreled into him for a hug. He looked over the boy’s shoulder for Lauren and saw her in the dining room, reading a book at the already set dining table.

When Charlie wandered back over toward the TV, Maria stepped up to him and said, “What were you doing that was so important you kept us all waiting almost two hours?”

Stallings hated to lie, so he had to say, “Something came up at work.” He knew how she felt about him putting work first. This would be a prime example that she could talk over with Brother Frank Ellis about how inconsistent Stallings was with his promises.

Maria said, “Were you working with Patty?”

“No. She’s in Ocala at her parents’ house. I was on my own today.” As soon as he finished saying the words he realized the implications of what Maria was saying. She really was jealous of Patty. But if he said anything too strongly now it would look suspicious. He reached into his pocket and felt the photograph of Jeanie and Zach Halston. He wanted to show her so badly. He wanted to change the focus of her rage. It’d be the easy way to get out of the situation he found himself in right now. It might change her entire opinion about him.

Or it might break her all to pieces.

He removed his hand from his pocket and left the photograph.

This was going to be one long Thanksgiving dinner.

T
he Friday after Thanksgiving had always been somewhat of a letdown for John Stallings. When he was a child he looked forward to Thanksgiving as a chance to spend time with his mother’s family, who would drive down from South Carolina to visit for the long weekend. He felt like a grown-up, watching football with the men in the living room, either waiting for or recovering from a giant meal. But by the next day, he was relegated to entertaining his younger cousins and once again ignored by his father. In the past few years it had been an empty holiday, giving him more time to think about his missing daughter and less time to work on finding her or other kids. This year, being separated from his wife and living in a lonely house over in Lakewood, Stallings had no intention of spending the day at home, alone and brooding.

He had waited until midday, having made a few phone calls to make certain the people he needed to talk to were where he thought they’d be. In the case of Kyle Lee, friend and fraternity brother to the missing Zach Halston, Stallings had been able to scare one of the other fraternity brothers into silence after he told Stallings Kyle was at his parents’ house in Winter Park, a quiet, upscale suburb of Orlando.

Now Stallings found himself pulling into Gainesville after slightly more than an hour through the back roads of North Florida from Jacksonville. Stallings had always liked the atmosphere of the college town. Although the Gainesville cops told horror stories about what went on with the students at the University of Florida, the town itself always seemed pleasant and friendly. Stallings figured that any school as big as the University of Florida had problems that would scare the average parent of an incoming freshman. More and more he understood the value of a smaller school like the University of North Florida or Jacksonville University.

He pulled into a string of buildings that looked like they were part of the university even though they weren’t specifically on-campus. Part of the university’s School of Art and Art History, these offices held university personnel who didn’t officially teach classes. They were tech people and former movie business employees who knew how to work cameras and create special effects. It seemed to be the perfect haven for the artist sick of show business but still in love with his craft. It was here that Stallings had cultivated one of the oddest and most rewarding relationships of his professional career.

He saw the older Toyota Tercel, covered in bumper stickers to hide scratches and holes, directly in front of the main entrance to the last building. It was the only vehicle in the entire lot. A smile spread across Stallings’s face. He could relate to being the only one who worked on a holiday. The front door was unlocked and he knew his way down the long hallway to the small office crammed with old photographs and newspapers that had to be digitized, examined, and sometimes disseminated. To Stallings this was a very special place.

He paused at the open door and gazed in at the woman, in her early sixties, who peered through thick eyeglasses at a photo that looked like it was from the 1940s. She sat forward in her chair almost like it was a stool as a way to help support the massive weight of her hips.

After a moment her eyes moved from the photo to Stallings and a broad smile stretched across her pretty face. “You should call before you come over. How did you even know I’d come in today?”

Stallings smiled and shook his head, saying, “I could tell you I was psychic because I know you really like that kind of stuff. But actually I called the house and Louise told me you had some project you’re working on here at the office.”

The woman held up a stack of old photographs and said, “I promised the dean I’d preserve the photographs of his parents’ wedding. I put it off for more than three months and it’s their anniversary on Sunday. Besides, if I had to sit around and listen to Louise bitch about the cats or why we’re stuck in a shitty little town like Gainesville, I’d have to call you to come over and shoot me.” She set down the photographs and pulled off her magnifying eyeglasses. “Come over here and give Sonia a hug.” She held out her hands like a baby asking to be plucked out of her crib.

Stallings crossed the small room and gave his friend a long, comfortable embrace. He sat on a stool next to her desk as they caught up with each other’s lives from the past eight months. Sonia had a talent for identifying people from photographs and enhancing the photographs to get the best results when the photos were published in public. Her work had been recognized across the country when missing children, as well as ailing elderly people who had disappeared, were recognized from photos she prepared for publication. More than once she’d helped Stallings on his quiet quest to find his daughter. She’d used university resources without documenting what they were used for and she had never asked for anything in return.

She was the model of a good friend.

After they had chatted for almost an hour, Sonia said, “I know you didn’t come by to listen to an old lesbian’s complaints about living in a Bible Belt college town. Now what you got for me?”

Stallings slowly pulled the photograph of Zach Halston and Jeanie from his notebook. This was the original photo he’d taken off the missing boy’s wall. As he handed it over to Sonia, he saw the tremor in his hand exaggerated by the photograph.

Sonia carefully took the photo, laid it flat on her desk, picked up her glasses, and adjusted the lamp on her desk. She studied the photo for a full minute without saying a word.

Then she sat up straight, took off her glasses, and faced Stallings. “I know who the girl is in the photo. Who is the boy?”

Stallings took a moment to gather his thoughts and said, “He’s the focus of my missing persons investigation. I just happened to find this photo while searching his apartment.”

“This was taken after Jeanie disappeared, wasn’t it?”

“Yes, it was.”

“My, my, that’s a twist. What did you want from me, exactly?”

“First, I wanted someone to verify that I was actually looking at a photograph of my daughter. Second, I was wondering, with your connections in the missing child world, if you could circulate her photograph. If the photo came from me, my bosses might take me off the case altogether.”

“I think they would have to take you off the case. Ethically speaking.”

Stallings stomach tightened as he wondered if he had overstepped the bounds of their friendship and forced her to make a choice between ethics and helping a friend. He tried to get a fix on her until she said, “Luckily, since I am not a member of the law enforcement community directly, I have no ethical issue. I’m assuming you don’t want me to bill JSO for any of this?” She smiled and suddenly Stallings felt a tremendous wave of relief.

Sonia said, “If all guys were like you, decent, funny, and cute, I probably would’ve given men more of a chance when I was younger. But as you know, most men are pigs. So I’m quite happy with my life. I would dearly love to see you happy with yours.”

Without even realizing he was saying it, Stallings mumbled, “Me too.”

Tony Mazzetti had never stayed in bed past noon in his entire life. When he was a kid, his mom would yell at him to be up before eight o’clock even on the weekends. After years of shift work and investigations, he had made it a habit, even if he worked all night, to be up by eleven. But somehow lying naked under his cool sheets with Lisa Kurtz giggling next to him, he didn’t feel like he was wasting a day off.

Aside from a couple of trips to the bathroom and grabbing all the fresh fruit and orange juice in his kitchen, he had not left his bed since yesterday afternoon. The way they had been going he wondered if he might need to invest in a heart rate monitor if he intended to continue dating the assistant medical examiner. She was all energy, enthusiasm, wavy red hair, and soft white skin. It was a cliché, but this thirty-year-old made him feel young too.

She snuggled in next to him and he wrapped his arm around her shoulder. She said, “I wish you had a TV in here so we could watch the college football games on today.”

“There’s no decent games the day after Thanksgiving. But there’s Florida–Florida State tomorrow.”

“Are you planning for us to stay in bed until tomorrow?”

“I could plan it, but I wouldn’t survive it.”

Lisa giggled. She turned her head and stared up at the ceiling and said, “Practically all I watch on TV anymore is sports and comedies. God, those TV police shows . . .”

“I know what you mean. If our CSI guys talked to me like that I’d have to crack one of their heads open with my ASP.”

“I know, right? I love how the crime scene guys get in more shoot-outs than the narcotics guys on that show.”

Mazzetti realized that even though Patty Levine was a couple of years younger than Lisa, she was more mature in her attitude and speech. Lisa sounded like a college student more than a college grad. But right now, when she wasn’t yakking about medical school or the medical examiner’s office, and he felt her warm, soft body against his, he didn’t care one bit. Maybe she wasn’t too bad. He couldn’t compare everyone to Patty Levine. If he did, he was afraid he’d be disappointed the rest of his life.

They lay there comfortably for a few more minutes before Lisa said, “I forgot I traded weekends and have to work tomorrow anyway. As slow as it’s been, it’s not going to be a big deal.”

“That’s the way it is in homicide. It’s like a roller-coaster ride with a lot of ups and a few downs. We call it the feast-or-famine syndrome and we’re definitely in a famine right now. That’s why I’m so frustrated I still can’t solve the shooting of the auto parts manager from a few months ago.”

“I’m sure something will break on it soon. I saw something that reminded me of the victim earlier in the week.”

“What’s that?”

“We had an UNF student who died of an overdose over the weekend.”

“The one Luis Martinez is working?”

“Yeah. It looks like a simple overdose. The kid was a known drug user and big drinker. We’re just waiting for toxicology. Anyway, he had the same funky tattoo on his right ankle as the victim from your shooting.”

“The one with the Greek letters from a fraternity in the bed of a red pickup truck?”

“The exact same one.”

“No shit?” He started to calculate the odds of two fraternity brothers dying, when he was distracted by Lisa starting to kiss his chest, then his stomach.

Lisa said, “Now I think I need some more protein.”

Mazzetti felt himself respond but not like he had yesterday. He might need some protein himself. If this kept up he might need a regimen of vitamins.

Or something stronger.