The Perfect Prey

Five

The Police Memorial Building, or PMB, sat on Bay Street looking out toward the St. Johns with ugly new condos blocking what was once a good view. John Stallings and Patty Levine trudged up the inside stairs to the second floor where the Land That Time Forgot, or the detective bureau, was located.

Stallings marveled at how fast Patty could walk with her petite frame. Without ever telling him, Patty had conveyed that if he ever slowed down for her or showed her any preference because she happened to be female, she’d beat his ass. As far as he was concerned, she never had to prove anything to anyone. He’d seen her use good judgment, be decisive, and be brutal when needed. She backed him up and kept her mouth shut about their own business. That made her a great partner. He dreaded the day she made sergeant and they moved her to the road on midnights in some lonely section of Duval County. For now he was happy things were going so well at work.

His mother used to say, “It’s always something,” and now it was his family life that had gone to shit. It felt as if he couldn’t have both work and home life going well at the same time. He hadn’t accepted it either, and that’s what hurt. He spent as little time as possible alone at night in the little duplex he had rented a few miles from his family. He tended to stay at the house as if he still lived there, helping the kids with homework and practicing soccer with Charlie until he felt Maria had seen enough of him. Then he’d excuse himself and dread the rest of the evening watching baseball on the Sun Channel or NFL Replay on the NFL network.

As they crossed the threshold between crimes/property and crimes/persons he heard Lieutenant Rita Hester’s voice from across the squad bay.

“I’ll be damned, John Stallings is early for a meeting. I should play the lotto tonight.”

He had a long history with the tall, large-framed lieutenant. She’d been another good partner on the road and now did a decent job as an administrator. He was pretty sure that once they had a permanent sergeant she’d be like every other lieutenant in the agency and feel like a ghost. She’d show up when you didn’t expect her, but no one would able to find her most of the time.

Stallings smiled as he walked toward her. His eyes scanned the immediate area so he knew who was around. Just before he was about to address her by her former nickname, the Brown Bomber, he noticed a staff assistant working at the end of the conference table behind her. He just nodded and said, “I hate to hold things up.”

The lieutenant smiled. “What’s the spring break patrol look like?”

“Dammit, that name is catching on.”

“What can you do, even Mazzetti comes up with a good one once in a while.”

“We cleared three of the missing college kids. The kid from Boston College is in the can for possession of alcohol by a minor, then taking a swing at a cop.”

Lieutenant Hester shook her head. “Bad judgment.”

“The young man from Auburn found true love with a forty-year-old secretary from Fernandina Beach until her husband came home early from a fishing trip.”

“Any casualties?”

“Nope. He called his parents, who had the sense to call us. He’s not even coming back through J-Ville.” He thought about the other student and lost any good humor he had talking with an old friend. “The last missing kid was the girl Mazzetti is working over in Brackridge Park.”

The lieutenant looked down. “The suicide. That’s a tough one to tell the family about. The Columbia, South Carolina, cops are going to make the notification. Still gonna be tough. The report of her missing came in before we found the body. I’d hate to hear news like that.”

Stallings knew that was true. Even worse than him hearing that there were no leads on his missing daughter three years ago. He still hadn’t recovered from it.

He remembered that Friday afternoon. It was one of those days that stood out in his life. Everyone had those days. Most adults have four or five days that stick out in their minds and maybe affect how they live the rest of their lives. Some are good, like hitting your first home run or your first serious kiss. Some are traumatic, like a car accident or a parent’s death. Those days fuel most people. But Stallings’s day, the day his life took a serious turn off the path he’d been traveling, ground down his heart and soul every day. It was about three years ago, coming home after a long day stuck on a drug homicide with no witnesses who were talking and no administrator who really cared if he solved it or not, finding Maria passed out on the couch and Charlie playing quietly in his room completely unsupervised. All of that wasn’t even the problem. It hadn’t even dawned on him that Jeanie was missing.

It wasn’t till later, much later, that he noticed his oldest daughter had not made contact with the family in any way for almost a whole day. Then it took time to check with everyone from his mother to all of her friends before he sounded the alarm. He still remembered it as if it was just yesterday. That shocking fear. The terror that your baby, no matter how old, was gone. Then the anger at Jeanie for being gone, the cops for not finding her, and Maria for distracting him. It was still an issue he’d never resolved. Anger. It boiled out of him at the most inappropriate times, when he wanted to remain calm or appear professional. It seemed as if Jacksonville was awash in broken noses and black eyes from Stallings’s anger issues.

Then the sorrow and despair sank in along with the realization that Jeanie might not ever come back. One of the hardest things was sitting down with Lauren and a very young Charlie to explain to them what happened. Why Mommy fell into such a deep sleep, why the police are around the house, and why Jeanie was gone. Nothing he told them was exactly true. Lauren had figured some of it out.

He felt the familiar lump in his throat as the LT brought him back to reality.

The lieutenant said, “What about the guy who works for Maxwell House?”

“He might be a real mystery. We went by his apartment, and there’s nothing suspicious there. I’ll drop by his work after the meeting. It’s not really Maxwell House, but some kind of waste-removal company that they subcontract. I’d like to spend some time on this one.”

She nodded. “Good, I’d like to see it resolved.” She paused for a moment, then, in a completely different tone, said, “What’s new at home?”

He shrugged. The universal sign for cops who are separated from their wives. The lieutenant knew not to delve any further.

Other detectives filed in, every one of them keenly aware that they’d been without a sergeant for more than five months due to personnel shifts and retirements. The right sergeant could make everyone work together well and get a lot accomplished. The wrong one could get a cop killed. The sergeant was probably the most important position in a police agency. A squad seemed to take on the personality of its leader. A cautious sergeant made for a slow, deliberate squad. A hyper one usually pushed everyone else into a frantic rush of activity. But the rare, even-tempered, fair, intelligent sergeant could positively transform any squad. From detectives to road patrol, a good sergeant made everyone shine.

Stallings waited for Patty to pad over from her desk, then take a seat around the long conference table with the other detectives. Mazzetti and his crew were still finishing up at the medical examiner’s with the body of the Brackridge Park suicide.

The lieutenant never had to raise her voice to get anyone’s attention; her physical presence and reputation were enough to quiet down any group of JSO cops.

Luis Martinez, one of the hardest-working cops in the bureau, said, “What’s the scoop, LT? We got a new sergeant on the way?”

“We do.”

“Who is it?”

The lieutenant just smiled.

Tony Mazzetti had a headache. He’d missed lunch, and the goddamn ME blabbed his ear off about a nephew who is a starting nose tackle at FSU. Southerners and their football. Growing up in Brooklyn, all he cared about in football were the Jets. He did like that a Jersey school like Rutgers was starting to field a decent football unit, but the rednecks down here lived and breathed football. His headache was proof of that.

His headache was exacerbated by thinking about Kathleen Harding from Columbia, South Carolina. He still hoped to find some of her friends to talk to and maybe attach a reason for her suicide. That usually shut the family up. At least it was cleared, and he didn’t have to worry about an unexplained death hanging over his head like a weight. If he wanted to stay as the lead detective in homicide he needed to keep his clearance rate high. Administration had overlooked what his desire to clear cases had done in the Bag Man case. He had been credited, along with Patty and John Stallings, with capturing the crazy shit. No way anyone in command staff would punish him for clearing the first victim as an overdose when the media was so positive right now.

In the squad bay he saw the looks on a couple of detectives’ faces. What was it? Had someone died? Were they cutting back the D-bureau and sending guys back out on patrol? He glanced over and saw Patty quietly working at her computer. He purposely avoided too much conversation with her at work so it wouldn’t draw any attention. He hated gossip. But this was an exception.

Mazzetti stepped over to her and kneeled so he could look her in the eye. He always took a second to appreciate just how pretty she was with blond hair framing a cute, cheerleader face and those magnificent blue eyes. He wondered how she ended up with a name like Levine, but hadn’t asked about it yet. He didn’t even know if she was Jewish.

For her part she never made a fuss about him in front of the others. She turned and said, “What’s up?”

“Why’s everyone seem so down?”

“You haven’t heard yet?”

“Heard what?”

“We’re getting a new sergeant?”

“Really? Who is it? Morris from traffic? O’Connor from the courthouse?”

“Yvonne Zuni.”

He swallowed hard. “Yvonne the Terrible?”

“She’s leaving narcotics and should start here anytime.”

“Holy crap, she’s a ball breaker.”

Patty smiled. “Guess I’ll be okay then.”

“Funny. I heard she doesn’t care if you got a dick or not, she’ll chew it off if she’s in a bad mood.”

“If she were a man you’d say she was just tough.”

“I heard she used to be a man.” He held his smile, but knew Patty got his humor. That was one of her strengths.

She shoved him and said, “Get back to work, you moron.”

John Stallings and Patty Levine followed the nervous little man through a string of corridors and staircases inside the Maxwell House coffee factory on Bay Street near downtown Jacksonville. Stallings had been raised in Jacksonville, but had never seen the inside of the factory. Of course it was rare for his father to take the family on any kind of outing. The career Navy man and amateur drunk spent most of his time either out at May-port or in a bar called the Blue Marlin off Blanding Boulevard. Stallings hated that place so much that he drove his patrol car over to it a few years after starting at the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office just to see the place knocked down to make way for a new shopping center. His stomach still tightened when he drove past the little strip mall.

The man turned his head on what appeared to be very little neck at all and said, “You have to understand that since we’re contractors we don’t get the nicest or most convenient offices.”

Patty said, “What exactly does your company do?”

“We ensure that the factory disposes of waste properly and efficiently. Sometimes we design systems to eliminate the waste, and sometimes it’s as easy as contracting with a collection service.” The man stopped and opened a door with a hazy glass pane and a smeared sign that was unreadable. Inside were four offices and a lobby. A large, surly-looking woman at the reception desk barely glanced up at the visitors.

The manager offered them the only two chairs; he leaned on his ancient, nicked-up wooden desk.

Stallings said, “We’re looking for Jason Ferrell. He’s not in trouble, just missing. His mother’s worried, and he doesn’t appear to have been home recently.”

The manager nodded. “He strolled in here last week for one or two days, but I haven’t seen him since. We’re processing his termination now.”

“What if he’s been hurt or has a reason?”

The manager shook his head. “He’d be gone anyway. He’s been sliding downhill for months now.”

“How do you mean, like depressed? Suicidal?”

“I’m not sure what I can say.” He looked at each detective, then over their shoulders to the reception area. “There are confidentiality issues, I’m sure.”

Patty set down her gray metal case and held up a hand. “Mr. Ferrell isn’t in trouble. He’s missing.”

“I know, but I don’t want to say something that could get me sued later.”

“Would a subpoena make you feel better? You know, legally speaking.”

The man relaxed and smiled and said, “Yes, it would.”

Patty immediately stood up and said, “Let me make a quick call and I’ll be right back.” Stallings caught her quick look at him.

Once she had left, he stood and stepped over to the man. “While we wait, tell me why you think Jason was on a slide.”

The man leaned in and said, “I think it was drugs. He got paranoid and then started coming in later and later. He was forgetful and barely completed any of the chemical work he was supposed to.”

“Chemical work?”

“He was our chemist. Quite smart actually. Went to Northwestern.”

“He have any friends here?”

The manager shook his head.

“You have his file out already, right?”

The manager turned and plucked it off the top of his messy desk. “I was just going through it.”

“Can I take a look?”

The manager handed it to Stallings, who thumbed through the few pages. He noted a couple of past addresses and several phone numbers. He didn’t want to scribble them down in front of the man, so he locked them in his head as best he could.

Stallings said, “Thanks very much.” He stood and got ready to leave.

“But I thought the lady detective was getting a subpoena to cover me?”

“I think you might have read too much into that. She said, ‘Would you feel more comfortable?’ Then she asked to make a call. The statements weren’t connected.” Stallings loved doing things like this. It made him feel smart once in a while. It also saved time because he knew he’d never have to deal with this squir-relly little man again.

He grabbed Patty’s notecase and wrote down some addresses as he left. The manager had given them a few leads to work.