by James Andrus
Zach shook his head, feeling his stomach turn. “Who died?”
“Connor Tate and Kyle Lee.”
He could barely squeak out, “How?”
“Connor overdosed and Kyle, well, he had a boating accident.”
The news was like a hammer into Zach’s heart. His two most trusted friends. There was no doubt now. Maybe he needed this cop. Zach wondered if he should tell the truth. Admit everything and let the legal system handle his problems. He’d do some time. But then it’d be over. Or would it? What if things didn’t change and he just had to spend time in jail? He started to sweat and slid away from the bar, saying to the big cop, “I gotta use the restroom real quick and wash my hands. Can we pick this up again when I get back?” He noticed the cop’s eyes dart to the rear of the pub, where the restrooms were located, then toward the front door. Zach knew he was calculating how hard it would be for Zach to escape. Now he knew this was serious.
The cop nodded his head silently.
Zach tried to smile, then forced himself to slowly walk to the restroom. He knew he couldn’t bolt for the open front door, but he had also been in the pub’s restroom enough to know he had one other chance. There was no way he wanted to leave the Ponce de Leon Pub with this cop. If he got away and called his parents—if that was really why the cop was after him—his parents could call off the search. Then he’d deal with his problems one at a time. But if the cop had other things on his mind, Zach knew he didn’t want to be anywhere near him.
Once inside the tiny bathroom, he really did use it, then washed his hands, before cranking open the small, frosted glass window and shoving out the screen with one hand. It was a tight fit, but he could make it. He needed to hit the ground running to put some distance between him and the JSO detective.
Lynn had pulled around the corner and parked, then got anxious and started to drive around the block, passing the Ponce de Leon Pub about once every ninety seconds. The rain had stopped, but the road was still slick. Almost no one was on the uneven sidewalks. As she came up the street on the east side of the pub, Lynn saw someone on foot come out of the narrow alleyway between the buildings. He glanced toward her but turned and kept up his fast pace on the sidewalk. It took her a moment to realize it was Zach. Why had he come out the back? The street was empty beyond her and there were no cars parked next to the sidewalk. She slowed the Suburban and saw Zach glance over his right shoulder before he took a step into the road. She punched the gas and felt the big vehicle lurch forward.
Almost like it had happened with Alan Cole, Zach froze midstride and looked up at the fast-moving SUV. She couldn’t keep the smile from spreading across her face. She just wanted to hear the scream.
Stallings sat at the bar looking down at the photograph he had carried and shown to so many people. He wondered what Rita Hester would think of his first questions to Zach Halston being about Jeanie and not about the Tau Upsilon fraternity brothers. He’d have time to go over everything that had happened as soon as the young man returned from the bathroom.
After two minutes the bartender walked back and sat down four Budweisers. Two in front of Stallings and two where Zach had been sitting. She had taken a decidedly cooler stance toward Stallings once she realized he was associated with Zach Halston.
Now he was worried. Zach had been gone longer than he should. Even taking his nervousness into consideration, the young man should’ve finished up in the bathroom by now.
Stallings stood and walked toward the restroom. The door was locked, so he tapped lightly and called on Zach’s name. When he got no response, he jerked on the handle harder, then used a shoulder to force the door open.
The small bathroom was empty. The only thing he noticed was the open window with no screen.
Zach had scraped his hip when he tumbled out of the window. He’d also bruised his forehead landing on the hard asphalt of the alleyway. But he was out and that was all that mattered. He stood up and took a second to brush off the gravel stuck to his side and hip. He wanted to sprint but realized his leg was sore, so he jogged toward the street.
He took a left on the sidewalk. There was no one around. There was only one blue SUV coming up the street slowly. Before he reached the corner, he glanced over his shoulder and decided to cross. The sound of the SUV’s engine didn’t register with him until he looked up and saw the vehicle barreling toward him. With everything that had happened, his mind locked up and he couldn’t decide if he wanted to stop or shoot forward. By the time his mind said, Start running, it felt like the SUV was on top of him. He opened his mouth and was surprised to hear the scream come out. It sounded like a little girl frightened by a spider.
He thought he’d made it past the big vehicle, but it turned into his run and caught him squarely in the leg and hips. He felt himself kicked up in the air and briefly wondered how badly his leg would be injured. Before he had any other thoughts everything went black.
Running someone down in the Thomas Brothers SUV was easier the second time she did it. Practice makes perfect. She knew to turn the wheel in the direction he was running but was surprised how quickly he crossed the street. The bumper of the SUV caught his rear leg and hip. But she heard the scream. It was a good solid, if a little feminine, squeal. A satisfying result to her long endeavor.
He flew almost straight up into the air and made one rotation until his head struck the pole of the stop sign and he crumpled onto the ground like a rag doll. She took only a moment to look out the windshield and see the blood starting to pool around his head. She looked each way, then hit the gas, making the tires squeal and slide on the slick pavement.
Lynn looked in her rearview mirror once as she pulled away. She saw someone running down the street toward Zach’s body. But there was no way they would ever catch her.
She’d done it again. The thrill raced through her and seemed to satisfy her need for justice.
At least for now.
THIRTY-NINE
Stallings leaned against the St. Augustine police cruiser, telling the traffic homicide investigator any detail he could think of. All he’d seen was a blue Suburban and the first letter on the plate was an A. Not much to go on.
He had waited while they took Zach’s body from the scene. There was nothing he could do when he found the boy half on the sidewalk and half on the street. The stop sign he had knocked into was bent at a sickening angle. Blood stained the sidewalk a dark brown and a paramedic was pouring a bucket of bleach and water over it to wash it into the gutter.
Stallings had already called Sergeant Zuni and told her he’d found Zach Halston, but that he had been hit by a car. Her first question was whether it was an accident. Stallings could categorically say it was not. The SUV had driven away too quickly and the blow had been too direct. He was surprised the St. Augustine cops had not sent someone out on the main road to look for the Suburban trying to get on the interstate, but he understood it took time to control the scene and get people moving. Now he was stuck with just one more dead fraternity brother. There was no question they were looking for a serial killer.
Stallings had no idea what his status on the case would be after this, so he wasted no time calling an analyst in the Land That Time Forgot and having her run a report through the Department of Highway Safety to get a list of all the Suburbans with the tag starting with the letter A. He narrowed it down to St. Johns, Duval, Volusia, and Baker counties. With any luck the list in Duval would not be too long. It was the only lead he had right now.
Nothing like this had ever happened to him on the job before. He leaned against the patrol car, unable to focus on what he needed to do next. He realized the thing that had hit him the hardest was that his one known link to Jeanie was now broken.
Lynn calmly drove into the winding rear lot of the Thomas Brothers supply company. It may have been in her head, but it felt like the Suburban was pulling to the right. Could a human body do so much damage to a giant vehicle like this that it made it drift? She doubted it. The grill
e was intact this time and there was only the slight damage near the headlight.
She drove past a little Hispanic man washing one of the step vans and rolled forward until she could see Leon coming out from the shed that held all the cleaning material and car maintenance equipment. She eased to a stop next to the shed and slipped down from the high seat of the Suburban.
Leon started to walk toward her and then immediately turned toward the damaged front of the car and leaned down to inspect it closely. His weather-beaten face screwed into a puzzle as he turned toward her, not saying a word.
Lynn put on her best innocent act and shrugged, saying, “Just a minor accident.”
Leon ran a finger down the front of the car and then under the bumper by the headlight. He lifted his hand, stared at it for a moment, and showed his finger to Lynn.
She immediately noticed the blood, but kept her cool. “Would it be a problem to give it a quick wash and keep the little damage quiet?”
Leon didn’t look as eager to help as he had earlier. It took a moment as his brown eyes scanned the parking lot, then fell on Lynn. Finally he nodded slowly and mumbled, “For a price.”
“What price?”
“I want in.”
“On what?”
“Whatever you’re doing.”
Lynn felt her face flush as anxiety flooded through her. She tried to come up with a cover story, but Leon was too shrewd. He’d see through any lie she created on the spot. She simply said, “I’m not doing anything.”
Leon said, “Then I guess I’ll have to report this damage. I signed for the truck. I’m responsible.” He turned and started to walk toward the main office building.
Lynn tried to let him play out his bluff, but after he walked about ten feet she called out, “Wait.” She watched as he stopped walking but didn’t turn around. She said, “There’s no money involved in what I’m doing.”
Now Leon turned slowly and said, “I don’t need any money. I didn’t go to prison for free. I only got this job to satisfy my parole officer.”
“Then what are you looking for?”
“Some excitement.”
“Give me a few days. I’ll see what we can work out.”
A smile spread across Leon’s face. “I’ll sign the car back in and see if I can’t knock some of this dent out. No one will know a thing.”
Lynn wasn’t sure she had just made a smart deal.
Yvonne Zuni sat in her office even though the rest of the Land That Time Forgot was empty. She was just waiting for John Stallings to get back. He took things so personally and had been through so much, the sergeant wanted to make sure he was okay. Maybe she’d even get some insight to his marital problems. Any information about the detectives that worked for her was usually helpful. A lot of times detectives did things that didn’t make sense on the job. And that was all supervisors focused on. It was almost like nothing existed outside the job and that was where problems occurred. Yvonne Zuni prided herself on recognizing that most of her life took place outside the confines of the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office and she also tried to look at each detective’s actions in light of their personal lives.
Not all sergeants and lieutenants felt the same way. Most patrol sergeants only wanted to know what the patrolmen directly under their command were doing during the eight-hour shift they had on the road. One of her friends who ran the squad in the north end of the county always said, “What happens at home stays at home.” She understood that mentality, but it didn’t make any sense when you were dealing with human beings.
The sergeant could see Lieutenant Rita Hester walking through the squad bay long before she reached the sergeant’s office. That gave Sergeant Zuni a few moments to gather herself and wonder what the lieutenant was upset about now. The lieutenant rarely came into the detective bureau unless there was a problem. And it seemed like usually those problems revolved around something John Stallings had done.
The lieutenant paused at the door to the small office and said, “You hear anything more from Stall?”
“Everything is wrapped up in St. Augustine and he’s on his way here.”
“How’d he sound?”
“Truthfully, he sounded a little shaken.”
The lieutenant nodded. “It’s the guys as tough as Stallings who take things the hardest. When I heard what happened and knew how much he had invested in finding this kid and what information the kid potentially had for him, I figured he’d be pretty upset.”
“I don’t think he got anything from Zach. He said they only talked for a few minutes before he slipped out the back of the restaurant and was struck by the SUV.”
“Any word on the search for the vehicle?”
“No luck yet.”
The lieutenant let out a long, heavy sigh. “He’s not the kind of guy you can send home to clear his head. And I don’t want him to feel like he’s being punished by being taken off the case again. I already punished him when I found out about the photo of Zach Halston and his daughter. We need something that makes him feel needed but doesn’t have much of a risk involved with it.”
Sergeant Zuni thought about it for a few moments, then said, “I’ll send him out with Patty to talk to families of accident and suicide victims. So far we haven’t gotten any leads from it, but the interviews need to be done.”
The lieutenant nodded and mumbled, “Good idea.” Then she said, “I want you to reassign four detectives to this case quietly. We need to take it seriously without causing a panic. I’ll send over two analysts from auto theft.” She turned to leave, then stopped and looked back over her shoulder. “It’s a good idea to put Stallings on the interviews. Any sergeant who can manage a resource as valuable and as volatile as John Stallings is doing something right.”
Sergeant Zuni couldn’t help but smile as the lieutenant walked away.
FORTY
Patty Levine tried to relax with her head in Ken’s lap. She was stretched out on his leather couch watching the Orlando Magic beat up on the Atlanta Hawks and trying to act interested as he yapped about the dangers of plantar fasciitis.
When he stopped to take a breath, Patty said, “I know what you mean about work being a bitch. We’re back to square one on our possible serial homicide case.”
“The one that involves the fraternity brothers?”
Patty rolled onto her back so she could look up at Ken’s face now that they were involved in an actual conversation and not just one of his monologues about how podiatrists are not given enough respect in the medical community. She said, “Yeah. A witness who ran away from my partner was killed by a hit-and-run before John could talk to him.”
“You said there was a possibility that the deaths were all a coincidence.”
“John saw the car as it drove away from hitting the witness in St. Augustine.”
“Did he see the driver intentionally run down the witness?”
Patty shook her head.
“Then this could be just one more coincidence, couldn’t it?”
“I think we’ve moved beyond the coincidence theory.”
“Why would a witness run from him anyway?”
“That’s what we’re trying to figure out.”
Ken thought for a moment, then said, “What was he doing in St. Augustine? That’s another county. That’s not even in your jurisdiction.”
“That’s not the point. The problem is a dead witness.”
“Who might not be dead if your partner hadn’t scared him into running away.”
“It’s not John’s fault.”
“It sounds like he played a role in it.”
Patty felt a knot of frustration work its way through her stomach. This guy just didn’t get it. She felt like she needed a cop to talk to, someone who would understand her and could relate to the job. Uh-oh. She felt the knot of frustration turn to anxiety. She had broken up with Tony Mazzetti because she didn’t feel like the job would ever give them a chance at a normal life. Now she was thinking she couldn�
��t talk to her boyfriend because he wasn’t a cop.
Oh shit.
John Stallings felt like a homeless person. He could not face the lonely house he rented in Lakewood and he couldn’t visit his main residence because he wasn’t ready to talk to Maria after the way he had acted with Brother Frank Ellis. The combination of his confrontation with the minister, who had acted like a creep but apparently was an okay guy, and his failure to protect Zach Halston had sent him into a serious funk.
He’d gone by the office, and Sergeant Zuni’s calm and sensitive manner had unnerved him. Stallings was used to sergeants shouting at him or threatening him, not giving him a cushy assignment with his partner to interview witnesses the next day. He realized it was their way of taking him out of harm’s way without making him feel like a failure. On some level he appreciated it. But he wanted to be in the thick of things. That’s why he had become a cop in the first place.
Now he found himself at the community center where his father worked in the evenings. But he couldn’t lie to himself. Stallings had not come over here to see his father and be reminded how his failing memory might block him out altogether. He knew Grace Jackson would be over here tonight as well. There was a connection he had with the pretty black schoolteacher, who had seemed to be able to cut through all the bullshit of his job and life.
Stallings had been vague about what happened in St. Augustine and only said that a witness had been killed by a hit-and-run. He went into greater detail about bumping into Brother Frank Ellis and his wife visiting Maria and realizing that Ellis had been trying to help him when he mentioned Maria had a problem with Patty. Looking back on it, Stallings recognized that there was no way Ellis could have gotten that info unless it had come through Maria. It was an issue with Maria even if it wasn’t a real-life issue. At some point he’d have to deal with it and talk to his estranged wife about his strong, but nonsexual, feelings for his partner. He would have to talk to Patty as well. He had no idea what he’d say to either of them and right now, setting the table with Grace and looking into her pretty, dark eyes was enough of a distraction to keep him from falling over from a huge anxiety attack.
