The Perfect Prey

by James Andrus

  Donnie had been quiet, courteous, but not particularly helpful since they had arrested him outside the Bamboo Hut. They were on their way to book him in jail on a minor possession charge. Although there was always a great uproar about the number of people that went to jail for seemingly minor marijuana and other drug charges, in fact, the only time anyone was arrested in Jacksonville for marijuana was in connection with a more serious crime or if they gave the cops shit. Donnie had some meth and about half an ounce of weed. Normally that wouldn’t warrant much attention from a cop, but they needed him and wanted him a little frightened right now.

  Stallings sat with him as the drummer said for the tenth time, “I swear to God I am telling the truth.”

  Stallings said, “What’s the most time you ever spent in jail?”

  Donnie looked down at the grimy floor and said, “I did four months at a juvenile facility and a couple nights here and there for stupid things. Never anything worse than smoking pot.”

  Stallings stared at him. The hard cold stare he usually saved for the predators they caught with young girls. He didn’t say a word, make a fist, or even look angry. It was just those cold blue eyes and the sense that he was past the point in his career where he wanted to hear nonsense.

  Donnie quickly added, “Well, smoking pot and breaking into cars. But I always made sure they were tourists and not local people.”

  “Why is that important?”

  “I wouldn’t want to hurt the hardworking people who live here.” The young man seemed sincere. He had an odd, earnest, goofy appearance, his wavy brown hair flying out in wild directions. He managed a smile, showing his crooked teeth with a huge corner taken out of one of his upper front teeth.

  Stallings continued to stare without a word.

  “And the tourists tend to have more money and leave it stashed in a car.”

  Stallings said, “All I really want is information about Allie Marsh. You already admitted that you’d been talking to her.”

  “That’s not a crime.”

  “No, it’s not. But she had a lot of Ecstasy in her system, and you don’t seem like a guy who would shy away from giving someone Ecstasy. I have a way we might be able to make sure you’re telling the truth.”

  “Anything you want. Anything. I’ll do anything.”

  Stallings turned to Patty and said, “Should we set up the polygraph?”

  “Polygraph? You mean a lie-detector test?” Donnie said.

  Stallings just nodded.

  Patty heard the anxiety in Donnie’s voice and could see how nervous he’d gotten. Maybe this idea wasn’t as crazy as it seemed.

  After almost a minute Donnie finally said, “Okay, I’ll take a polygraph.”

  Stallings just looked over at Patty, who immediately turned to a gray metal box that sat in the far corner of the squad bay. It usually was just a place to stack all the files, but the detectives had kept it for sentimental reasons. It was not a polygraph. JSO rarely used polygraphs, and polygraph results weren’t admissible in any court in the United States. At best they were a tool for a good interviewer to scare someone into giving a more accurate account of events. The old polygraph schools were months long, and the equipment was expensive and constantly in need of updates. Years ago there was always a polygrapher in any big-city detective bureau, but those days had passed and most departments didn’t bother. Patty tied wires to the back of the large gray box, which was actually an old telephone trap-and-trace device that no one had used in twenty years. It was a way, before modern computers and software, to determine who was calling a telephone. All it provided was a number that called in, and then more subpoenas were required to determine who subscribed to that number. It was tedious and usually unproductive because most phones got a number of calls that had nothing to do with criminal activity. But the gray box had dials and meters that appeared important, and if they sat the suspect in the right place and he had no experience with polygraphs, it was a way to scare someone into telling the truth without actually going to the trouble of using a polygraph. Many people would argue it was just as accurate.

  Patty sat by the fake polygraph and motioned for Stallings to bring their suspect over. He uncuffed the young man, grabbed a few wires connected to pads that had been used for physical fitness evaluations and some smart-ass had saved. He made a show out of placing the pads on Donnie’s temples, inside of his upper arms, and then one around his middle and index finger of his left hand.

  Patty could see the sweat building on the young man’s forehead already. It was difficult not to chuckle. She started out slowly and let him answer his name, date of birth, and profession. He told them he’d flunked out of Jacksonville University and now all he wanted to do was play in a rock ‘n’ roll band.

  Then Patty had the first test of her impromptu polygraph. “How do you make enough money to live?” She knew his answer would determine how truthful he would be, believing he was hooked up to a polygraph.

  He mumbled something.

  Patty used a sharp voice to say, “Speak up.”

  “I sell grass to spring breakers and to the waitstaff at almost every bar downtown.”

  Patty looked over at Stallings and nodded, indicating that she felt Donnie was being truthful and the little ploy was working. It also reinforced that Donnie should tell the truth because he caught the little nod too.

  After a few more innocuous questions, Patty finally said, “Did you give Allie Marsh any Ecstasy?”

  There was no hesitation. “No, I didn’t give her anything. I just talked to her that night.”

  Stallings, who wasn’t supposed to say anything during the fake test, said, “Did you see any break runners talking to her?”

  “Any what?”

  “Break runner. You know, an older guy with money who hits on the spring break girls.”

  Donnie shook his head. “I’ve never heard that term before. But I see those kind of guys around the Wildside.”

  Stallings laid down the two photographs of Chad Palmer and Gary Lauer.

  Donnie studied the photographs and said, “Yeah, I seen both of those guys around the club. The one guy might even be a cop or something. He comes to hear me play at the Bamboo Hut sometimes.”

  Patty cut her eyes up to Stallings and could read that he believed the drummer too. But she knew they still had to book him until things were cleared up.

  It was late and he was tired. He had his apartment dark except one dim desk light to illuminate the small box full of his mementos. He could play with each loose piece of jewelry and remember the girl and how he took it with crystal clarity. And it was times like this that he sat and gazed at them. He was a little down. Sort of a post-activity dip in enthusiasm. Holly had been an unexpected pleasure, but he couldn’t count her as one of his normal spring break kills. In fact, if he hadn’t been quick, it would’ve been the other way around.

  Now he had the small emerald earring that had belonged to Kathleen, the cute girl from South Carolina who was studying English literature. He had met her at a small café in the trendy part of southern Jacksonville. He had enjoyed listening to her light Southern accent and her cute giggle. She was the first one of the season, and she was also the safest he had ever taken. He’d met her once at the café and convinced her to meet him for a drink late. None of the friends she’d come down from South Carolina with had seen him and Kathleen had told him she had a boyfriend and that they had to keep things secret. That was fine with him.

  They had ended up at Brackridge Park after he’d slipped her one of his Ecstasy tabs. She never suspected anything other than a strong rumrunner had made her feel so loopy. She’d been wild on the park bench, and when he was close to a climax, he leaned her over the bench, and mounted her like a real animal until he was about to come. Then he looped a rope around her neck, just as he’d planned. She offered surprisingly little resistance.

  From there it was easy to hoist her body into the tree and make it look as if she jumped with a rope aroun
d her neck. Just another depressed college student away from home and disappointed in life.

  Sometimes he wondered how he’d slipped into this lifestyle. He knew that he’d been promoted to the top of the food chain by God himself, but he still remembered his mother’s reaction to his behavior as a child. Even before his father had split there had been issues. In fact, he was pretty certain his dad left because there was nothing he could do to change what his son really was.

  He remembered overhearing a psychiatrist talking to his mother after he’d been sent for in an evaluation when he was seven. He’d been teased at school and retaliated by laying sharpened sticks in the ground. He lured the bigger boy into a confrontation and then shoved the bully backward onto the sticks. The bully only suffered minor scrapes and punctures, but the story had taken on epic proportions by the time it reached the principal and he’d been called in to the office.

  His mother had taken him to a county psychiatrist, who had asked him stupid questions and treated them as if they were morons during most of the evaluation. The psychiatrist had left him in the small room next to his office. It was easy to lay his ear against the wall and hear the psychiatrist explaining to his mother the difference between a psychopath, who had no conscience, and a sociopath, who had a conscience but still acted out. But the psychiatrist was quick to say he didn’t like to label kids that young, and all he would write in the file was that he had severe behavioral problems with aggressive overtones.

  He knew he had shown little reaction to most of the discipline his parents had laid down. He could sit out groundings quietly in his own room, pretending to be a tiger or a leopard with his sister’s stuffed animals as his victims. He could withstand any beating his father would dish out. Something inside always told him that in time everything got better. It was this calm reaction to discipline that had spooked his mother in the first place.

  This psychiatrist said he couldn’t comprehend the consequences of his actions and that he had no empathy toward other people. That he was cool and calculating and lived in a very rich fantasy world. That was all just more bullshit. But it was valuable to hear. Because after that he concealed his efforts much better and faked emotional reactions to punishment. He could command tears at the mention of groundings and squeal like a wounded pig at a spanking. That relieved a lot of the concerns of his mother, and to this day he didn’t think she had a clue of what he was really like.

  Tony Mazzetti was so tired he could hardly focus. That was one of the reasons he hadn’t chased the man who had jumped out the window. He knew it was more likely a marital infidelity than anything to do with crime. But Pudge was probably right: A guy like that might not be afraid of retaliation, but he would be afraid of his wife.

  Now, sitting on the edge of the couch with Miss Brison in a conservative bathrobe Christina had found, he got out his notepad.

  “You don’t want to tell us who jumped out your window?”

  She shook her head. “Just some dude I like.”

  “What’s his name?” Mazzetti found himself speaking slowly and loudly.

  Miss Brison turned her pretty face up to his and said, “I call him Chuck.”

  “Chuck what?”

  She shook her head. “His name isn’t even Chuck. That’s just what I call him.”

  “Why?”

  “Because he looks like a Chuck to me.” As she spoke, she leaned forward and the robe opened, exposing the sexy white nightgown, only now her right breast had fallen loose.

  Christina reached over and closed up the bathrobe and tied the belt in a tight bow. “There you go, dear.” She waited until Miss Brison slowly turned her way.

  “Did you or Chuck see the shooters?”

  “What shooters?”

  “The ones that shot up the house across the street.”

  “The house across the street was shot up?”

  “You didn’t hear it?”

  She shook her head. “We was in the back, and we didn’t hear nothing.”

  Christina said, “What are you using, Miss Brison?”

  “What’d you mean?”

  “Please, we’ve been polite and you’re not in trouble, but I’m worried about you. What drugs are you on?”

  Miss Brison smiled and reached up to touch Christina’s face softly. “You’re nice. I like you.”

  “What are you using?”

  “I took a tab.”

  “A tab of what?”

  She just pointed to a little dish on a bookshelf.

  Mazzetti stood up and checked in the dish. There were a dozen little speckled pills that seemed familiar. “What is it?”

  “I don’t know. Chuck gave ‘em to me. I like them.”

  He looked at Christina, who shrugged. He took the dish and stepped into the bathroom. He took one tablet as a sample but dumped the rest down the toilet. He wasn’t about to arrest this woman, no cop would, but he didn’t want her to overdose, and they were clearly contraband. Toilets served as the biggest evidence receptacles in the whole city.

  Twenty-five

  Patty Levine was not only exhausted, she had just taken two Ambien, knowing that this big lump that was her boyfriend, Tony Mazzetti, would either slide off her couch and trudge to bed or slide off the couch and drive home to sleep. She realized soon after they met that after long days at work neither of them was in any mood to make love. She also knew she was in no mood to stare up at the ceiling of her bedroom wishing she could fall asleep. The Ambien was her insurance against that.

  She liked just sitting there on the couch with Tony’s head in her lap, fiddling with his hair. It seemed normal for a couple to do something like that. She wasn’t used to normal. Her life had been interesting, exciting, tiring, and unconventional, but never too normal. Meeting so late for a quick meal was one measure of her odd hours.

  She said, “What are you thinking about?”

  “Nothing.”

  “You have to be thinking about something.”

  He sighed.

  “You’re thinking about work, right?”

  “I’m sorry, baby, but that’s years of habit. I think about work every night. It might take a while to change.”

  She smiled. “Don’t sweat it, Tony. I think about work too. I just don’t want us to only talk about work at night.”

  He sat up to look at her. “I know, and I agree.”

  “How’s your triple shooting going?”

  “If not for your invitation for a late dinner and my biological need for food and sleep, I’d be out there right now. No way can I have a triple murder unsolved on my watch.”

  “You’ll find a way to clear it.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It means you’ll catch the shooters.”

  “Hope so, but a witness or two would be helpful.”

  “Anyone talking?”

  “No one. Even had one guy run from me.”

  “Why’d he run?”

  “Who knows. Married, at a girlfriend’s. Drug dealer. White guy in that neighborhood.”

  “It’s not against the law.”

  “No, but it’s suspicious.”

  Patty sighed and changed the subject. “Anything I should know about the two files John and I took from you?”

  He paused.

  Patty said, “What, you worried about Stall trying to steal something?”

  “No, not at all. I’m worried about him turning a simple suicide or OD into some wild-ass conspiracy.”

  “What are you talking about, Tony?”

  “The lab results aren’t in yet, but there are a couple of links between the two girls.”

  “Like what?”

  “The X in their systems and polyethylene glycol.”

  “What’s polyethylene glycol?

  “The chemical on Durex condoms.”

  “So spring breakers had sex and did drugs.”

  “Exactly.”

  “But something made you notice it, so we can’t ignore it.”

>   Mazzetti said, “I’d like a better idea about the X. If it was from the same source.”

  “We don’t have any of the actual tabs, do we?”

  Mazzetti mumbled. “We might.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  “The suicide, Kathleen Harding, had a couple of unidentified pills in her purse.”

  Patty said, “Please tell me you didn’t toss them out.”

  “Oh, hell no.”

  She relaxed slightly. “What did the lab say they were?”

  “I didn’t turn them over to the lab. She was a suicide. I didn’t see the point. I just stuck them in evidence.”

  “The lab would be the smart move.”

  “But the fucking lab takes forever.”

  She smiled. “I have a way to speed things up sometimes.”

  “How?”

  “Sweetheart, you don’t want to know.” She ruffled his thinning black hair and shoved him off the couch.

  The sun had just popped over the horizon. John Stallings had several files he’d grabbed off Mazzetti’s desk stacked on the front seat of his county-issued Impala. He was still troubled by the idea that a cop could be shady enough to give drugs to anyone. Gary Lauer had some issues, but Stallings hoped this wasn’t one of them.

  The Impala was parked in the driveway of his house. Or at least the house his wife and kids lived in. He tried to clear his head of all the work clutter before he went inside. Even when she was using, Maria was an early riser, and sometimes this time of the morning was the only chance he had at a few lucid moments with her. He knocked and waited for someone to answer. After a moment the door cracked open and Maria’s dark, haunting eyes looked up at him. She stepped back and silently let him in.

  Stallings didn’t say anything either. She looked good. Beyond good. Almost forty, his wife could pass for her late twenties with a firm, curvy body, lush skin, and eyes that showed her intelligence. She didn’t seem much different from the first day he had seen her on the campus of the University of South Florida.

  Finally he said, “Is Lauren upset?”