The Perfect Prey

Thirty-three

Stallings had driven slowly down a couple of the streets with bars where all the rummies hung out. His father’s landlady had told him more about his father in a few minutes than he’d learned on his own in almost a whole lifetime. Apparently the old man did keep track of his children and had some pride for his son’s accomplishments. That was one of the reasons that Stallings was looking for him now in a bad part of town late on a Sunday night. It was close to the scene of the triple shooting that Tony Mazzetti and Christina Hogrebe had been working on. Anything could happen in this part of town.

He slowed the car several times thinking he’d seen his father, only to attract the attention of other older men wandering the streets. He pulled into the parking lot of a pool hall near the Expressway. As he was about to get out of his car a blue Mustang rumbled in right next to him. He noticed a younger man behind the wheel of the Mustang.

Stallings and the man both stepped out of their cars at the same time. They looked at each other, and each man held the other’s gaze for just a moment. Immediately Stallings realized he knew this young man, but he couldn’t think of his name or where he’d met him. Most experienced cops immediately ran through their arrest logs in their heads. The last thing anyone wanted to do was be surprised by a criminal who still held a grudge. This man didn’t look anything like a criminal, and Stallings had the idea that he’d never arrested him.

While they were still staring at each other it hit Stallings where he knew this man from. He couldn’t keep his eyes from widening as he blurted out, “You’re Jason Ferrell.”

Without hesitation, Ferrell slipped back into his car, cranked it, and was backing out of the lot before Stallings could react.

The thrill of Lisa’s death had not worn off, but sitting naked on his hard, cold wooden floor, he turned his head, looked through his screen door, saw Lisa’s Mazda in the driveway, and realized he had a problem. He’d never had to dispose of anything like a car before. He didn’t know enough about forensics or crime scenes to eliminate all the evidence that could implicate him. All he knew was the TV show CSI was complete and total bullshit. He gazed down at Lisa’s naked body. She looked as if she were sleeping. There was no blood, and in the dim light he couldn’t tell if her neck had bruised at all. It didn’t really matter. If he got caught with her in the car, lack of blood or bruising still would not explain what he was doing with a naked dead girl.

He thought back over his career and what he’d done to cover his tracks so successfully. In most cases he’d learned to just make the death look like something other than murder. Then he recalled New Orleans and the girl he’d dumped in the pond in Louis Armstrong Park. No one had ever found her, and little had ever really been written about her. As far as anyone knew she’d just disappeared. That was the next best thing to making the death appear to be an accident. Jacksonville was full of lakes and canals deep enough to cover the dinged-up gray Mazda in his driveway now.

Stallings wanted to grab Jason Ferrell, but he’d been so stunned at seeing the young man that he’d allowed him to get a big lead in his Mustang. He had no real reason to risk lives in a high-speed pursuit. Besides, he wasn’t even certain which street the young chemist had driven down. There was no question that Ferrell didn’t want to be found.

Stallings drove the streets in a rundown area west of the river and stadium not only looking for Ferrell and his father but thinking about what he needed to do to get this case rolling.

As much as he wanted to talk to his father tonight, finding out who gave Allie Marsh the Ecstasy and was responsible for her death was more important. He felt that if he could clear this up then maybe he could focus on his own family problems.

After an hour of aimless driving and feeling the exhaustion sweep through his body, Stallings finally decided to head home.

He’d spent more than an hour checking out several bodies of water he’d found on Google Earth. The detailed satellite images had not shown certain trees, curbs, and other impediments to driving a car directly into the water.

Lisa was still naked and curled up in the trunk of the little Mazda. There was very little traffic on the road at this time of the night. He had yet to see any police cruisers and didn’t think he would draw much attention in the plain car as long as he didn’t venture into some of the areas known for selling crack.

Two of the parks that had decent bodies of water also had signs that said they closed at sunset when the gates were locked. One of the canals that he wanted to use had a very steep embankment, and he wasn’t sure he could get the car into the water by himself. Now he was at the edge of a park near an offshoot of the St. Johns River. He had a simple plan. There was a seawall here, and he knew the water immediately dropped down to at least twenty feet. He was going to shove the car off the side of the seawall and hope the murky water kept it hidden for a good, long time.

There was no moon, and the little bit of light from the city cast a haze over the open fields of the park and the trees surrounding it. He positioned the car near the seawall and was getting ready to push it when he heard a noise and noticed a funny odor. It only took a second for him to realize it was marijuana. He spun quickly toward the swing sets on one side. There, in the dim light, he saw a figure swaying slowly on one of the swings.

He called out, “Who’s there?”

“No one here but a fellow criminal.” The figure stood from the swing and walked slowly toward him. When the man had gotten within a few feet he stopped and said, “The government says I’m a criminal because I smoke weed. Why are you out here in the middle of the night about to push your car into the water?”

He didn’t know what to do. He wanted to reach back into the car and find something sharp to ram into this young man’s head. This was exactly what he didn’t need. A witness. His options ran through his head. But he didn’t answer the young man’s question.

The young man took another toke off a small roach, held the smoke in his lungs, then, in a long exhalation, looked up as the cloud of smoke drifted away. He said, “Insurance?”

He just stared at the young man. “What?”

“You got to get rid of the car for insurance money?”

It took a second; then he realized what the young man was saying. “You got me. I can’t afford the repairs on this old piece a shit. Do you mind giving me a hand?”

Without another word the young man stepped to the rear of the Mazda and shoved until the car tipped over the side of the seawall and flipped, roof first, into the water. It drifted away from the wall for several seconds and then after several loud bubbles, dropped beneath the surface. He couldn’t have planned it any better.

He turned toward the young stoner. “Thanks, dude.”

“No sweat. Now what are you gonna give me to keep quiet?”

He made a quick assessment of how hard it would be to kill the stoner with nothing but his bare hands.