The Perfect Scream

TWELVE

It 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.