The Perfect Prey

Eight

Patty Levine peered across the squad bay at John Stallings behind his bare old wooden desk, crammed over next to the unused holding cell. They had both been moved into this squad bay for a big-deal homicide a few months ago and had decided they liked being in close with crimes/persons, which included any violent crimes, homicides, and robberies. Most of the other detectives that had been brought over for the Bag Man case had gone back to their own offices in auto theft, fraud, and computer crimes. A few, like Luis Martinez and Rod Morris, stayed. No one mentioned that the squad was now four detectives bigger; it just sort of happened like a slow, unstoppable evolution. That’s the way a lot things happen around police departments. No real orders are cut, just one day you look around and there are new people or you’re in a new office.

Patty wasn’t worried things might change with a new sergeant on the way. Everyone had heard rumors about Yvonne Zuni, but Patty knew how rumors about women in public service tended to be overblown. She thought it was cool to have a female sergeant and lieutenant. It was the only unit in the SO like that. Maybe one of the only police units in Florida.

Patty crossed the cramped room and settled into the hard, wooden, straight-back chair next to Stallings’s desk.

He looked up from some notes but didn’t say anything. Typical.

“What’re you working on?”

“Jason Ferrell. We’re gonna find that guy today.”

“You make him sound like a fugitive. He’s not even wanted.”

“Except by his mother.”

“He’s thirty years old.”

“Tell that to a parent missing her child.” He sighed. “She called me first thing this morning, anxious for any news. I told her we’d do everything we could to find him.” He looked around the room. “There’s nothing else cooking. I’ve screwed up too many promises lately to let down this lady.”

Patty smiled at her partner. The guy didn’t have a fault as far as she was concerned. “I’m with you. What’s the game plan?”

“If the landlord says other guys are looking for him we might want to sit on the apartment and see if they show up. If we know what he was into, we might figure out where he’s laying up.” He looked through some notes, then back to Patty. “Did you drop off the yellow liquid we found at the lab?”

“Yeah, but it’ll be a little while. They don’t see the urgency we do.”

“Let’s save our battles for when we know who we’re fighting.”

She was about to suggest checking the local surveillance video feeds in stores and other places Ferrell might have frequented, when the lieutenant stepped in through the rear door and said, “Listen up, people. I want to introduce you to your new boss.”

Patty stared as Yvonne Zuni stepped up next to Rita Hester.

John Stallings heard someone behind him mutter, “Holy shit, I don’t remember her looking like that.” Stallings wasn’t sure he had ever met the woman standing by the door, but he’d seen her around. He felt a pang of guilt that he had assumed she was an analyst or maybe someone’s executive assistant. It was a chauvinistic prejudice that he hadn’t thought he held. But Stallings had to look at this beautiful woman with tropical dark skin and bright green eyes and wonder, How on earth did you ever get the name Yvonne the Terrible?

She stepped up next to the lieutenant and said in a clear voice, “First I’d like to see each set of partners privately in the conference room to get a handle on what you’re working on. Second, I want a written summary of each case on a single sheet of paper on my desk by noon. And finally, I’m glad to be here.” Without another word she turned and stepped into the conference room. Within twenty seconds she called out, “Well, who’s gonna be first?”

Stallings and Patty exchanged glances; then both stood at the same time. He knew putting off something unpleasant didn’t make it any more tolerable. They marched together into the conference room.

“I’m John Stallings.”

“I’m Patty Levine.”

Yvonne the Terrible stood up. She held out a delicate hand and shook his hand firmly. “I know both of you. Patty, we worked the snatch-and-run bandits a couple of years ago.”

“Good memory.”

The sergeant said, “I was just a detective then.”

Patty nodded. “But you ran that case.”

Yvonne Zuni looked toward Stallings. “And everyone knows you, John.” She motioned them to sit down. “You guys are our missing persons team, right?”

Patty added, “And backup homicide.”

“We’ll see. What are you working on?”

Stallings and Patty took turns going through their cases. Stallings finished with a detailed view and plan on finding Jason Ferrell.

Sergeant Zuni closed her notebook in which she had scribbled several comments, then looked up at Stallings. “Instead of finding this middle-aged loser, we have a new missing persons report on a student from Mississippi named Allison Marsh. I don’t want a big media drama over a missing student. Drop what you’re doing and track her down.”

Stallings said, “I didn’t even see anything on it yet.”

“I know. Consider this your assignment. The call came in upstairs.”

“That’s a little odd. Usually…”

The sergeant cut him off. “Usually there was no sergeant here. Usually hotshots like you and Tony Mazzetti did whatever you wanted to. Now, as of this minute, you better get out and find this girl.” She smiled, but somehow she’d gone from beautiful to scary. “Any questions?”

Stallings didn’t have one.