The Perfect Scream

FORTY-SEVEN

Lynn sat at the desk in her small, cluttered office at the Thomas Brothers supply company gazing over a stack of forms explaining why products had gone bad before delivery. She’d noticed an increase in spoilage since Dale had been arrested and fired from the loading dock. That went hand in hand with the current disorganization. She couldn’t believe the big, slow-witted redneck had been so competent and so essential to the company. The first report showed that a load of dairy products had not been refrigerated properly. The next report was just a case of holding eggs past the expiration date. These were simple errors that didn’t often occur when Dale was in charge.

She heard a light rap on her doorframe and looked up to see the lean figure of Leon smiling at her. “What’s going on?”

Lynn sighed and said, “Since you managed to get Dale arrested, the company has gone to hell.”

Leon quickly stepped inside the office and held up his hands. “Hey, girl, don’t say shit like that. Even joking.”

She saw how serious he was, and in a way that made her feel more confident. This was a man who had spent his adult life in a business that demanded secrecy. Lynn mumbled, “Sorry, you’re right.”

Leon smiled as he sat down and rubbed his hands together. “Now, what’s our next move?”

“You’ve already helped me enough.”

“Nonsense, I was just getting into it. My life is so boring now compared to what it used to be, I want to rob a bank just to see what it’s like. At least with you I’m helping an old friend’s daughter. Even if I don’t know exactly what you’re doing.”

“And going by your secrecy rule, it’s best that you don’t.”

“I understand. But that doesn’t change the fact that that I’m going to help you whether you want it or not. The alternative for either of us is not pleasant.”

Lynn could also see how this man would have been subtly threatening in his former career. Finally she nodded slowly and said, “I was going to drive down to Daytona Saturday.”

Leon smiled and said, “I’ll check out the Suburban from the fleet.”

“I was just gonna drive my personal car down there.”

“Why? I work till two on Saturday and have to go down to one of the warehouses in New Smyrna to pick up some paint and fencing material stored down there. It’ll all fit in the back of the Suburban.” He gave her a sly smile and said, “I’ll even drive you like I was a chauffeur.”

Lynn shook her head and said, “I still don’t get it. Why do you care what I’m doing?”

“I’m no idiot. The time will come one day when Bill Hickam repays favors. I know the man. I want to stay on his good side. The only question now is, what should I bring on Saturday?”

“What do you mean?”

“Knife, gun. Your call.”

Lynn rolled her eyes. “It’s not like that. I’m just going to the hospital.”

Leon snorted like he didn’t believe her. “You’re going to have to learn, girl, you always need something as backup. Something more than the person you’re going to talk to. Maybe we could get by with just a baseball bat or a Taser.”

“You own a Taser?”

“Technically, by law, I don’t own any weapons. But there’s nothing I can’t get ahold of on a moment’s notice.”

“Fine. Bring a pistol. Just don’t let me or anyone else see it.” Lynn didn’t mind having Leon come with her as a security blanket. Alan Cole was a loose end she couldn’t ignore. Looking up at Leon’s smiling face in her own office, she wondered if he wasn’t a worse loose end.

The doctor barked at the nurse when she bumped Alan Cole’s bed as she replaced an IV bag.

The doctor worked hard to suppress his slight Indian accent because he’d heard some of the rednecks in the hospital imitate him. “He’s very unstable. That’s why we have him in the ICU. If it was safe, I’d have him transported up to Shands in Gainesville, where he might stand a chance.”

The nurse said, “He seems like he’s been more responsive in the last few days.”

“He wants to say something. I’ve heard him mumble the same thing two or three times. But aside from his injuries, we’re dealing with a serious infection now.” He flashed dark eyes at the nurse and said, “From now on only you or the nurse who replaces you on shift are to be in here. Take every precaution to keep from exposing him to anything unusual. I’ll check back every three hours. The next three days are critical. We must keep him stable with no excitement. He’s conscious enough now that he would react.”

The nurse said, “I understand.”

The doctor nodded, thinking the nurse wasn’t a local. She didn’t have the annoying twang many of the nurses raised in Daytona or its suburbs had. He felt confident she was the right nurse to look after the most challenging case he had had since he arrived in purgatory.

Sparky Taylor had to admit he enjoyed working with the intel detective. Lonnie Freed shared his love of computers and even knew his policy pretty well. They started by sorting the names of associates provided by the DEA. The federal agencies had always been quite secretive about how they obtained information. Of course the FBI was the worst. An informant could provide them with hearsay about one person talking about another person and both of the people would end up as criminal associates to some known terrorist or fraud kingpin.

The world of narcotics was even more nebulous. Names were batted about by informants and over wiretaps and entered into DEA reports, making them each become an associate of a known drug dealer. At least the DEA attempted to rate the reliability of information. They had a proprietary database that no other agency could access. But this report the local DEA supervisor had given John Stallings detailed the reason each name was on the list.

Sparky noted how efficient Lonnie was in determining who was a viable suspect based on if they were in jail or living in some distant area. He had managed to narrow the list to eleven names.

Now Sparky was separating the various owners of Suburbans into three separate piles. Each pile represented a geographic area with the largest one being Jacksonville.

Lonnie pointed to a stack of five registrations and said, “What’s that fourth pile?”

“Those are vehicles registered to businesses. We may not have to worry about them.”

Lonnie said, “Why don’t you give them to me and I’ll see if anything matches up.”

Sparky smiled and nodded at the efficient, intelligent idea. He wished this guy worked in crimes/persons.

Patty Levine and John Stallings had already cleared three Suburban owners off their list simply by driving by the vehicles. One was white and two were red. Stallings had insisted they stop and inspect one of the red Suburbans to ensure it hadn’t recently been painted.

Now Stallings wanted to stop when he saw a blue Suburban backed into the driveway of a small house in a newer section of Jacksonville known as Argyle. Developers had put their mark of bland, identical houses across broad swaths of former ranch land. Zero lot lines made the houses look more like apartment buildings.

Even though the chances were miniscule that this was the right Suburban, Patty felt her heart rate increase with anticipation. This was the first car that was even the right color.

She stood at the end of the driveway as Stallings bent over and inspected the grille and headlight on the front. Patty saw damage on the driver-side bumper, but it looked more like he had struck a low wall.

Patty was startled by a shout from the front door of the house.

A beefy bald man in his mid-thirties yelled, “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

Stallings straightened, reached into his back pocket, and pulled out his ID, letting the man clearly see the badge.

The man said, “I don’t give a damn who you work for. This is my property. Unless you want a shit pot of trouble, you better back out of my yard and get a warrant.”

Patty saw the way Stallings stuffed his ID back into his rear pocket and started to march toward the man. She could read Stallings’s body language better than anyone else. This was about to turn ugly, and more important, cost them valuable time.

Patty stepped forward, holding her hand up to stop Stallings like she was a traffic cop and he was an approaching truck. She turned to the man and said, “We’re sorry, we didn’t mean to upset you. This is a countywide effort to identify the driver of a specific blue Suburban.”

The man the man cut his eyes from Stallings to Patty. “Why are you looking for a Suburban?”

Stallings said, “Why are you being evasive? Doesn’t matter why we’re looking for it, we just are.”

Patty turned so the man couldn’t see her expression, but she was able to convey to Stallings that she needed him to shut the hell up for a minute. As she turned back to the man, Patty put on a calm expression and stepped closer to him. “We’re looking for someone involved in a hit-and-run of a young man in St. Augustine. A witness was able to see part of the tag, which is the same as yours. If you can tell us where you were yesterday about two we can cross you off our list.”

The man relaxed slightly and said, “I was on my route in Fernandina Beach yesterday.”

“What kind of route do you have?”

“I’m an independent business machine repairman. I have the contract for Konica in North Florida.”

Stallings said, “Can you prove where you were?”

The man scowled at Stallings but stepped over to the car and opened the passenger-side door. Patty maneuvered to be able to see inside the vehicle and brought her hand to the gun on her hip covered by an open Windbreaker. She noticed Stallings step to the other side so he could look through the driver’s window.

The man came out with two sheets of paper. As he showed them to Patty he said, “This is the receipt from the office where I fixed two copiers. And this is my vehicle log that shows I left the house at eight-fifteen, made three stops, all at Fernandina Beach, and got back home at four-forty-five.”

Patty checked the paperwork and saw that it all matched up. But the paperwork gave Patty an idea. What if the Suburban was part of a fleet? It could be very hard to track down. Both Zach Halston and Alan Cole in Daytona had been struck during the middle of the day. There was the strong possibility that whoever was driving was using a vehicle from their employment.

She looked at Stallings and said, “On the next set of names we pick up, let’s take vehicles registered to businesses.”