The Perfect Scream

by James Andrus

  He had waited until midday, having made a few phone calls to make certain the people he needed to talk to were where he thought they’d be. In the case of Kyle Lee, friend and fraternity brother to the missing Zach Halston, Stallings had been able to scare one of the other fraternity brothers into silence after he told Stallings Kyle was at his parents’ house in Winter Park, a quiet, upscale suburb of Orlando.

  Now Stallings found himself pulling into Gainesville after slightly more than an hour through the back roads of North Florida from Jacksonville. Stallings had always liked the atmosphere of the college town. Although the Gainesville cops told horror stories about what went on with the students at the University of Florida, the town itself always seemed pleasant and friendly. Stallings figured that any school as big as the University of Florida had problems that would scare the average parent of an incoming freshman. More and more he understood the value of a smaller school like the University of North Florida or Jacksonville University.

  He pulled into a string of buildings that looked like they were part of the university even though they weren’t specifically on-campus. Part of the university’s School of Art and Art History, these offices held university personnel who didn’t officially teach classes. They were tech people and former movie business employees who knew how to work cameras and create special effects. It seemed to be the perfect haven for the artist sick of show business but still in love with his craft. It was here that Stallings had cultivated one of the oddest and most rewarding relationships of his professional career.

  He saw the older Toyota Tercel, covered in bumper stickers to hide scratches and holes, directly in front of the main entrance to the last building. It was the only vehicle in the entire lot. A smile spread across Stallings’s face. He could relate to being the only one who worked on a holiday. The front door was unlocked and he knew his way down the long hallway to the small office crammed with old photographs and newspapers that had to be digitized, examined, and sometimes disseminated. To Stallings this was a very special place.

  He paused at the open door and gazed in at the woman, in her early sixties, who peered through thick eyeglasses at a photo that looked like it was from the 1940s. She sat forward in her chair almost like it was a stool as a way to help support the massive weight of her hips.

  After a moment her eyes moved from the photo to Stallings and a broad smile stretched across her pretty face. “You should call before you come over. How did you even know I’d come in today?”

  Stallings smiled and shook his head, saying, “I could tell you I was psychic because I know you really like that kind of stuff. But actually I called the house and Louise told me you had some project you’re working on here at the office.”

  The woman held up a stack of old photographs and said, “I promised the dean I’d preserve the photographs of his parents’ wedding. I put it off for more than three months and it’s their anniversary on Sunday. Besides, if I had to sit around and listen to Louise bitch about the cats or why we’re stuck in a shitty little town like Gainesville, I’d have to call you to come over and shoot me.” She set down the photographs and pulled off her magnifying eyeglasses. “Come over here and give Sonia a hug.” She held out her hands like a baby asking to be plucked out of her crib.

  Stallings crossed the small room and gave his friend a long, comfortable embrace. He sat on a stool next to her desk as they caught up with each other’s lives from the past eight months. Sonia had a talent for identifying people from photographs and enhancing the photographs to get the best results when the photos were published in public. Her work had been recognized across the country when missing children, as well as ailing elderly people who had disappeared, were recognized from photos she prepared for publication. More than once she’d helped Stallings on his quiet quest to find his daughter. She’d used university resources without documenting what they were used for and she had never asked for anything in return.

  She was the model of a good friend.

  After they had chatted for almost an hour, Sonia said, “I know you didn’t come by to listen to an old lesbian’s complaints about living in a Bible Belt college town. Now what you got for me?”

  Stallings slowly pulled the photograph of Zach Halston and Jeanie from his notebook. This was the original photo he’d taken off the missing boy’s wall. As he handed it over to Sonia, he saw the tremor in his hand exaggerated by the photograph.

  Sonia carefully took the photo, laid it flat on her desk, picked up her glasses, and adjusted the lamp on her desk. She studied the photo for a full minute without saying a word.

  Then she sat up straight, took off her glasses, and faced Stallings. “I know who the girl is in the photo. Who is the boy?”

  Stallings took a moment to gather his thoughts and said, “He’s the focus of my missing persons investigation. I just happened to find this photo while searching his apartment.”

  “This was taken after Jeanie disappeared, wasn’t it?”

  “Yes, it was.”

  “My, my, that’s a twist. What did you want from me, exactly?”

  “First, I wanted someone to verify that I was actually looking at a photograph of my daughter. Second, I was wondering, with your connections in the missing child world, if you could circulate her photograph. If the photo came from me, my bosses might take me off the case altogether.”

  “I think they would have to take you off the case. Ethically speaking.”

  Stallings stomach tightened as he wondered if he had overstepped the bounds of their friendship and forced her to make a choice between ethics and helping a friend. He tried to get a fix on her until she said, “Luckily, since I am not a member of the law enforcement community directly, I have no ethical issue. I’m assuming you don’t want me to bill JSO for any of this?” She smiled and suddenly Stallings felt a tremendous wave of relief.

  Sonia said, “If all guys were like you, decent, funny, and cute, I probably would’ve given men more of a chance when I was younger. But as you know, most men are pigs. So I’m quite happy with my life. I would dearly love to see you happy with yours.”

  Without even realizing he was saying it, Stallings mumbled, “Me too.”

  Tony Mazzetti had never stayed in bed past noon in his entire life. When he was a kid, his mom would yell at him to be up before eight o’clock even on the weekends. After years of shift work and investigations, he had made it a habit, even if he worked all night, to be up by eleven. But somehow lying naked under his cool sheets with Lisa Kurtz giggling next to him, he didn’t feel like he was wasting a day off.

  Aside from a couple of trips to the bathroom and grabbing all the fresh fruit and orange juice in his kitchen, he had not left his bed since yesterday afternoon. The way they had been going he wondered if he might need to invest in a heart rate monitor if he intended to continue dating the assistant medical examiner. She was all energy, enthusiasm, wavy red hair, and soft white skin. It was a cliché, but this thirty-year-old made him feel young too.

  She snuggled in next to him and he wrapped his arm around her shoulder. She said, “I wish you had a TV in here so we could watch the college football games on today.”

  “There’s no decent games the day after Thanksgiving. But there’s Florida–Florida State tomorrow.”

  “Are you planning for us to stay in bed until tomorrow?”

  “I could plan it, but I wouldn’t survive it.”

  Lisa giggled. She turned her head and stared up at the ceiling and said, “Practically all I watch on TV anymore is sports and comedies. God, those TV police shows . . .”

  “I know what you mean. If our CSI guys talked to me like that I’d have to crack one of their heads open with my ASP.”

  “I know, right? I love how the crime scene guys get in more shoot-outs than the narcotics guys on that show.”

  Mazzetti realized that even though Patty Levine was a couple of years younger than Lisa, she was more mature in her attitude and speech. Lisa sounded like a college
student more than a college grad. But right now, when she wasn’t yakking about medical school or the medical examiner’s office, and he felt her warm, soft body against his, he didn’t care one bit. Maybe she wasn’t too bad. He couldn’t compare everyone to Patty Levine. If he did, he was afraid he’d be disappointed the rest of his life.

  They lay there comfortably for a few more minutes before Lisa said, “I forgot I traded weekends and have to work tomorrow anyway. As slow as it’s been, it’s not going to be a big deal.”

  “That’s the way it is in homicide. It’s like a roller-coaster ride with a lot of ups and a few downs. We call it the feast-or-famine syndrome and we’re definitely in a famine right now. That’s why I’m so frustrated I still can’t solve the shooting of the auto parts manager from a few months ago.”

  “I’m sure something will break on it soon. I saw something that reminded me of the victim earlier in the week.”

  “What’s that?”

  “We had an UNF student who died of an overdose over the weekend.”

  “The one Luis Martinez is working?”

  “Yeah. It looks like a simple overdose. The kid was a known drug user and big drinker. We’re just waiting for toxicology. Anyway, he had the same funky tattoo on his right ankle as the victim from your shooting.”

  “The one with the Greek letters from a fraternity in the bed of a red pickup truck?”

  “The exact same one.”

  “No shit?” He started to calculate the odds of two fraternity brothers dying, when he was distracted by Lisa starting to kiss his chest, then his stomach.

  Lisa said, “Now I think I need some more protein.”

  Mazzetti felt himself respond but not like he had yesterday. He might need some protein himself. If this kept up he might need a regimen of vitamins.

  Or something stronger.

  FIFTEEN

  A quiet, rational conversation with a woman like Sonia always put Stallings in a positive frame of mind. He felt like he had accomplished something and he was doing his best to find his daughter and piece his life back together. He knew it was a tremendous long shot, but it was better than brooding at home.

  Now he raced down Interstate 75 toward Orlando and his surprise interview with Kyle Lee of Winter Park. As he came through Ocala, Stallings had to pull off to grab something to eat. He slipped into a Firehouse Subs shop and ordered the first thing on the menu board with a Coke and took the whole meal out to his car. He ate the sandwich as he continued south on the interstate. His car looked like it had been attacked by terrorists. This was not like him. He liked order and cleanliness. There were food receipts and discarded wrappers across the passenger seat and floor. He started to wonder if he was losing his grip on reality. Maybe Maria was right and he had his priorities all mixed up. He didn’t want to worry about it right now; instead, he wanted to get down to Kyle Lee’s house and find out what the University of North Florida student knew about Zach Halston’s disappearance and if he recognized Jeanie from the photograph.

  He found the house easily enough. It was an upscale, two-story house in an upscale neighborhood of an upscale town. Winter Park had essentially been established by a wealthy northern industrialist as a southern getaway more than a century ago. Now it had a nice, calm, artsy feel to it.

  Grabbing his notebook and keeping his ID visible, Stallings walked past a new pickup truck in the driveway and knocked on the front door. A pleasant-looking, plump woman in her early fifties answered the door. Her eyes popped slightly at the sight of his badge, a common response of suburbanites dealing with law enforcement officers.

  The woman said, “Oh my, is everything all right, officer?”

  Stallings smiled in that flat, unemotional way Patty had taught him. “Yes, ma’am, everything is fine. My name is John Stallings and I’m with the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office. I was wondering if I could have a few words with Kyle if he was home.”

  The woman’s eyes cut over her left shoulder and then back to Stallings. The instinct to protect your child cut across all social barriers and cultures. He could see her calculating the risk of hiding her son from a police officer. She said, “Why’d you want to talk to Kyle?”

  “I am working on a missing-persons investigation. Zach Halston, one of Kyle’s fraternity brothers, is missing and I wanted to ask Kyle a few simple questions.”

  The woman looked visibly relieved and called over her shoulder, “Kyle, there’s someone here to see you.” She invited Stallings inside.

  He did quick assessment of the house and its furnishings. He made her husband as an upscale accountant or money manager of some kind. There was no real reason for this rush to judgment, nor did it mean anything, but it ran through his head just the same.

  A teenage girl walked through the living room and gave Stallings a fleeting smile. She reminded him a little bit of Jeanie, but nowadays almost every young woman reminded him of his missing daughter.

  A thin, average-looking young man padded in from the family room and paused for a moment when he saw Stallings and his badge. Stallings noted the apprehension about talking to a cop.

  After they had exchanged introductions and Mrs. Lee had left them alone, they sat on the ornamental couch in the living room and Kyle answered the standard questions Stallings would ask about any missing person. He had not heard from Zach, but hadn’t really been worried either. Zach was known to go on short vacations and not show up for a few weeks at a time.

  Then Stallings started getting serious with Kyle. “You knew about Zach’s off-campus apartment, right?”

  Kyle nodded. “I’ve been there a few times.”

  “Did you know how he afforded to live off-campus?”

  “I, ur, um, I thought his parents paid for it.”

  Now Stallings had the young man where he wanted him. He had caught him in a clear lie and realized this boy was concerned about something more than a missing friend. Stallings let his hard look sink in on the boy for a few moments before he said, “You think his parents didn’t mind paying for an on-campus and off-campus apartment? Cut the shit, Kyle. There’s something going on here I don’t understand and you’re going to explain it to me.” He leaned forward and grasped Kyle’s forearm and said quietly, “And I mean you’re going to explain it to me right, fucking, now.”

  Kyle swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple bouncing up and down in his scrawny neck.

  Stallings added, “This is not the time to lie to me either, Kyle.” He could tell by the look in the boy’s eyes that he was about to hear the truth. Maybe for the first time in this case.

  Lynn pulled her black Nissan Sentra to the curb at the end of the street where Kyle Lee’s parents’ house sat. She was confident no one would notice a young woman sitting in a nondescript car in a suburban neighborhood. She felt sort of like a spy watching the house of a target after finding the address through several public records websites. She recognized his Dodge Dakota pickup truck. Clearly it was another upper-middle-class white kid trying to fit into the culture of Jacksonville. The easiest way was to buy a pickup truck. She’d seen the same truck around the fraternity apartment complex several times so she knew this was the right house.

  She had arrived earlier than she had intended. It was still midafternoon, but she could always go and get something to eat and putter around downtown Winter Park. She wondered how cops were able to sit on stakeouts. She’d have to leave to pee at least once an hour, but somehow cops seem to get their job done. At least on TV. That was the extent of her involvement with the police.

  She felt a twitch of excitement in her stomach and she dug into her purse for the Buck knife she intended to use on Kyle Lee. She had changed so much since this had started. She had gone from being terrified to now being excited by the prospect of taking someone’s life. She could see how serial killers got started and couldn’t stop. The idea of using a new instrument of death, like this knife, added another element to her excitement. Until recently she had never killed anything. She wouldn
’t even fish with her father. The idea of harming innocent animals repulsed her. But these were not innocent animals. Just animals.

  Lynn had never thought of herself as cunning, but her plan to commit the murders in different jurisdictions and using different methods struck her as extremely cunning. She knew no one had a clue. So far it looked like even the fraternity members thought it was just a string of bad luck. She’d still have to head back to Daytona and handle Alan Cole. From what she had heard he was in a coma at Fish Memorial Hospital. There wasn’t much information available other than he’d been struck by a hit-and-run driver in a large, blue SUV. Perfect.

  Lynn considered how she might employ the knife when she finally met up with Kyle. She was searching for the perfect scream that had eluded her so far. A scream that would justify her actions and give her some satisfaction.

  The only problem was she’d trained to strike him in the throat. Many of the knife-fighting references on the Web said the throat was the best target. The heart was protected by the sternum and was a relatively small target after the blade plunged through skin and cartilage. The throat stood out there exposed, begging to be slashed and stabbed. At least that’s how one website described it. If Lynn followed this formula she forfeited her chance to hear Kyle scream. Scream in terror and sorrow. That’s what she wanted to hear.

  Stallings kept staring at Kyle until the young man looked up at him with a quick nod.

  Stallings said, “You know how Zach made his extra money?”

  Kyle just nodded.

  “Is he missing because of that?”