The Perfect Prey

by James Andrus

  He called from the bushes, “Hey guys, can you help me out?”

  The heavyset young man and his pretty dark-haired girlfriend looked around to see where the voice was coming from.

  He stood, letting the bushes cover him partially. “You guys. I’ve been robbed and I need a little help.”

  This time the young man turned completely around and saw him. He left his girlfriend on the wall and stepped over toward the bushes. “Man, you naked or what?”

  “Yeah, I’m naked, and I can’t get into my Jeep.” He pointed across the lot. “I’ll make it worth your while if you give me a ride back to my apartment.”

  “I don’t know, man. My girl and me like the beach.” He glanced back over at the pretty girl and added, “Hang on for me to see what she says.”

  He waited a moment while the two conferred. They stood together and walked across the lot, ignoring him as they approached his Jeep. The young man turned, and shouted, “I can get into your Jeep.”

  He called back to the young man, “Really?”

  The man didn’t answer. Instead he bent over, picked up a large rock off the ground and smashed the passenger side window of his Jeep. He had the door open in a second and was rummaging around inside. The girl kept watch on him, giggling the whole time.

  They couldn’t do this to a predator. He darted out of the bushes, letting his natural athlete’s body drop into full long strides. He was so fast that by the time the girl could turn around to warn her boyfriend he was on top of him.

  The fat young man stepped out of the Jeep to meet him but instead was greeted with a full-body block into the side of the Jeep that snapped his head so hard he fell to the ground semiconscious. The girl screamed, but he turned and with the long arc of his left hand smacked her in the face, sending her to the ground next to the boy. Her body twisted on the impact, knocking her brown bikini top askew. She didn’t cry as she glared back at him, the wide red splotch of the strike across her cheek.

  “Don’t explain what you could do to make up for the broken window. First, you can give me a shirt and pants.”

  The young man just stared at him, not moving.

  “I mean right now.” He snarled each word carefully.

  The young man slipped off his T-shirt and tossed it to him.

  “The pants too,” he said snapping his fingers to speed things.

  The young man scurried to stand and slip off his baggy shorts and tossed them over.

  He reached in the pocket and pulled out a set of keys. “These belong to that piece a shit Toyota over there?”

  The young man nodded furiously.

  The young woman gazed at him, rubbing her cheek.

  He said, “This is what we’re gonna do. We are gonna walk back to your car. You’re gonna let me borrow it. Then I’ll it bring back to you while you wait over there in the bushes.” He paused for effect, then added, “naked.”

  The girl stood.

  “Both of you naked starting right now, and you really don’t want to piss me off again.” He had regained his stature as a predator and watched as the young man slipped off the multicolored underwear he wore and the girl first peeled off her cockeyed bikini top, then shimmied out of shorts, displaying a very attractive ass.

  He led them both back to the same bushes where they’d found him.

  “Not a peep out of you until I get back.” He could tell by the look in their eyes they understood how serious he really was.

  Forty-nine

  Stallings didn’t like being in a pursuit that wasn’t authorized and in an area decidedly unfriendly to police officers, next to a cop he would prefer not to be in the same car with. But that didn’t stop him from doing his best to close in on the stolen Crown Vic. He, like most cops, didn’t get in many chases, and the Impalas they issued the detectives weren’t designed for highspeed chases and cornering the way some of the patrol cars were. But luckily Jason Ferrell wasn’t much of a driver and he clearly had no idea of where he wanted to go. That was the case with most people fleeing the police.

  They were very close to the house where the pursuit had started, but Stallings wanted to wait until they were in an area with wider streets. He didn’t want to risk this moron losing control of the Crown Vic and driving through someone’s bedroom wall. Instead, he gave the young man space and backed off several car lengths.

  After another few minutes on the main road, Stallings saw a baseball diamond on the left, turned to Mazzetti, and said, “This is our one chance, Tony. If we miss him here we’re gonna have to call in.”

  Mazzetti nodded solemnly, understanding his fate.

  Stallings mashed the gas, closed in on the Crown Vic, and pulled to the left. Now he could see the scared driver was definitely Jason Ferrell. His hair was shaggier than in the photos, but he was basically an easy spot. As they reached the edge of the baseball field, Stallings swerved toward the Crown Vic and watched as Ferrell instinctively swerved away from him, caught the curb, and spun the Crown Vic out on the wide infield of the first baseball diamond.

  Both detectives were out of the car with their guns drawn and in Jason Ferrell’s face before he recovered enough to try to pull away.

  Mazzetti said, “Now you’re in one shit pot of trouble.”

  He had left the shitty Toyota running while he ran into his apartment, changed clothes, grabbed his spare keys, and, to be on the safe side, picked up a long, razor-sharp combat knife he had bought at a gun show last year. His mind was still swirling as he thought about Ann and her despicable behavior.

  The drive back to the beach was fast, and he pulled up next to his Jeep. No one was visible, but he knew the two naked people were in the bushes and yelled over to them. “Come and get your car and clothes.”

  At first there was no movement, but after a few seconds the girl stood tall and walked across the lot as if she was in a beauty contest, not ashamed of one inch of her lean body. She had real grace and some indescribable quality, which radiated beauty. Then the fat schlump popped up and scurried after her like a frightened dog. How had these two ended up together?

  He had the knife tucked under his shirt as he casually leaned against his Jeep.

  The girl stopped in front of him, making no attempt to cover herself. The fat guy bumped up next to her with his hands over his genitals. She looked at him for a moment. “Now what?”

  He took the key to the Toyota, slid it into the car’s door lock, and snapped it off in the lock. He smiled at the girl. “Now, I’ll give you a ride anywhere you want, and he can fend for himself.”

  Without hesitation, the girl accepted her bundled clothes, slipped them on, and climbed into the Jeep, ignoring all comments from her boyfriend.

  He didn’t offer the boyfriend his clothes. He drove off with the pretty girl and left the chubby naked man whimpering by his disabled car.

  Back at Miss Brison’s house, Stallings sat directly in front of Jason Ferrell as the young man trembled and his eyes darted around the room to the other detectives. The first thing Stallings said to him was, “Your mom is worried sick about you.”

  “Huh?”

  “You disappeared, you idiot, and your mom hasn’t heard from you in three weeks.” Looking at the scared, meek man, Stallings lost a lot of his anger. He decided it might not be a bad idea to listen to him before jumping to any conclusions.

  Understanding slowly dawned on the young chemical engineer. “You mean the only reason you were looking for me was my mom was worried?”

  From across a room, Mazzetti said, “I got a few questions about the shooting across the street.”

  Stallings added, “And I have a few questions about the Ecstasy you made and who you sold it to.”

  “So I’m not really in trouble?”

  Mazzetti stomped across the room shouting as he came closer. “Oh no, you’re in trouble, dipshit. You can’t steal a police car and drive around Jacksonville without being in trouble. In fact, you ran from me twice.” Mazzetti balled a fist when he was rig
ht next to him. “I oughta kick your ass.”

  Stallings snapped his finger to get the young man’s attention. “There’s only one way to keep this madman from killing you. You have to help us out with a few things.”

  Ferrell glanced around the room and said, “When did my mom call?”

  Stallings thought about it and said, “Two weeks ago last Monday.”

  “What day is it now?”

  “Thursday.”

  “Is it still February?” Ferrell’s red eyes scanned the room again, and the shakes that had been confined to his hand spread through his whole body. “I kinda lost track of time. But I’ll help out any way you want. Just tell my mom I’m okay.”

  Her name was Sharee, and her light brown hair flowed behind her as the wind whipped in from the missing window. She had not said one word about the fat guy they’d left at the beach.

  “You got any weed?” she asked after a few minutes of driving west.

  “Bad for you. You look too fit to smoke grass.”

  “Got anything?”

  He thought about his final X tab leaving with Ann. He shook his head. “Sorry, I’m dry.”

  “Somehow you seemed like a guy who would have something. You were pretty cool back there. You weren’t really robbed, were you?”

  He smiled and shook his head.

  “A girl?”

  He nodded.

  “Your girlfriend?”

  “Not even close.”

  She reached across and rubbed his shoulder, then let her hand drift down his body until it rested in his lap. After a few seconds of massaging, she looked at him with those big, dark eyes and said, “What’s a matter? You a fag?”

  He shook his head. “You’re not my type.”

  He dropped her at her father’s house a few miles later.

  It had taken a few minutes to calm Tony Mazzetti down and keep him from physically assaulting the bewildered Jason Ferrell. But now John Stallings had the young chemical engineer in the kitchen alone. He didn’t seem like a jerk or uncooperative in any way; he was just sort of out of it. He had moments when he was lucid, but more often than not he stared off in space and mumbled long, incoherent sentences.

  Stallings scooted a chair directly in front of him and sat down so he could look at the young man eye to eye. He noticed Patty Levine slip in from the other room and lean against the kitchen counter. A standard practice the partners used. When one person interviewed a subject, the other hung back and took notes. That allowed the interviewer to focus on the subtle nonverbal cues given off by a witness or suspect.

  Stallings said, “We know about Leonard Walsh and the meth recipe you were making for him.”

  “Who’s Leonard Walsh?”

  “You don’t know a guy with a meth lab over in Baker County?”

  Jason’s eyes focused for a moment as he looked at Stallings and said, “You mean the guy by the national forest? Redneck with all the trailers?”

  “Yeah, that’s him. He says you were going to use your abilities as a chemical engineer to create a new meth recipe. He said you tried to get him to sell Ecstasy instead. He gave us the Ecstasy tabs you gave him.”

  Jason was nodding slowly in agreement with everything Stallings said. “I really hadn’t started on his meth recipe. I don’t think meth is good for all of the rednecks west of Jacksonville. X is much safer.”

  “Tell me about the X. Who did you sell it to?” Stallings couldn’t control his impatience to know which of the suspects was a client of the chemical engineer.

  “I sold to a whole bunch of people. Mostly the people I met in bars. It’s not like I handed it out like candy. I sold bigger lots so I only had to deal with twenty people or so. Nothing serious, I liked the extra income.”

  “You didn’t make enough from your regular job?”

  “I had a lot of expenses.”

  “Like what?”

  Jason just looked around at the kitchen.

  Stallings said, “You finance Miss Brison’s life here, don’t you?”

  “Everything was for her. I started making the X as a way to get her off heroin. Then she got hooked on the X. So I had to start making special batches for her that were less and less potent. Now I’ve got her almost back to reality.”

  From the other side of the kitchen, Patty said, “That explains why the Ecstasy tab Tony sent to the lab was so much weaker than the others.”

  Jason twisted in his seat, nodding. “Exactly. She’s hardly even noticed, and soon she’ll be able to deal with the world drug-free.”

  The young chemical engineer had answered a lot of questions in Stallings’s mind, but he still had the most important one yet to ask. “Did you ever sell any Ecstasy to a guy named Chad Palmer or Gary Lauer?” Stallings truly didn’t know if he wanted Palmer to be the man or Lauer.

  Jason scratched his head, concentrating hard on the question. He looked back at Stallings and said, “Dude, I don’t keep track of names. I’m a strictly first-name-and-short-description kind of guy. Like Joe, the truck driver, or Tom, the garbageman.”

  “Then it would be Chad, the pharmaceutical rep, or Gary, the cop.”

  Jason perked up and said, “A cop? I sold to an undercover cop?”

  “Don’t worry about that. All I need is information. Do either of those guys sound familiar? They’re both about your age, athletic, dark hair.”

  Slowly Jason shook his head. “I think a pharmaceutical rep would have access to a lot better shit than my Ecstasy. And I’d know if I was dealing with a cop. I’m pretty smart that way.”

  Stallings looked over at Patty, knowing they’d hit another dead end in the case. Now the question was what to do with the spacey adult runaway.

  Fifty

  It was dawn, and Patty Levine felt herself dozing in a comfortable chair in the corner of the hotel room where they’d stashed Jason Ferrell for the night. It was Sergeant Zuni’s idea to keep track of the wily chemical engineer without booking him in case narcotics could use him as a snitch. It was her background in narcotics that gave her the idea, and it seemed reasonable last night. Patty had volunteered to take the first shift of watching him because she knew she wouldn’t sleep much anyway.

  Listening to the lovesick chemical engineer talk about how he changed his whole life to help Marie Brison, including making his own Ecstasy with decreasing potency, had brought Patty’s own drug use into the light. She always had some excuse to keep using her regular regimen of Xanax, painkillers, and Ambien. For several years she’d used the excuse of being a female in a male-dominated profession as a way to keep taking the anxiety drug. But she knew she was more capable than most cops and more physical than most cops. Now she had to analyze why she should keep taking the Xanax.

  The Ambien was a more obvious issue. She couldn’t sleep at night. The fact that she stayed awake the entire night while Jason Ferrell snored on the bed across the room showed that her insomnia was still going strong. Sure, she nodded off, but it was only for a few minutes.

  The final leg of her pharmaceutical trinity was the various painkillers she’d been prescribed for numerous injuries and strains she had received while involved in competitive gymnastics. Now she wasn’t sure the scholarship to the University of Florida had been worth the years of discomfort. This seemed to be the easiest habit to kick of the three kinds of drugs she took. Today would be her test. She would tough out any pain she felt. It didn’t matter if her hip throbbed like a bass speaker at a rap concert or her back radiated pain all day. She would not pop a Vicodin or Percocet no matter how badly the pain affected her.

  Her experience in police work taught her not to try to kick all three drugs at once. She’d focus on the pain pills first. Then deal with her anxiety and insomnia as her life started to adjust.

  As close as Patty was to John Stallings and as serious as she was getting about Tony Mazzetti, she’d never told either of them anything about her drug use. She was pretty sure neither of them had any idea.

  Jason stirred and
sat up quickly in the bed. He was still in the clothes he’d been wearing when they found him. He stared at Patty for a moment, shook his head, and blinked his eyes. “Where am I, jail?”

  Patty had to smile. “Do you remember anything about last night?”

  “I know you’re a cop named Patty, even if you don’t look like it. And you work with a scary guy named Stallings. I may do X at night, but it clears out pretty quick.”

  “You ever wonder if you’re wasting your talent as a chemical engineer?”

  “You mean by finding ways of getting rid of the Maxwell House waste products? Because I think I helped at least one person by making the Ecstasy.”

  Patty shook her head. “We’ve got two dead girls with Ecstasy in their systems. One of them overdosed on it, and her heart exploded in her chest.”

  The color drained out of Jason’s face. He clutched his stomach and scooted to the edge of the bed, looking over at Patty in the chair. “You think it was my Ecstasy that killed her? I never meant for anything like that to happen. That’s why I was making such weak tablets.” He paused, gathered his thoughts, and took several deep breaths. “What can I do to help? I have the recipe on my computer.”

  “I don’t know what good the recipe will do. What we really needed was who you sold it to. And not just first names and job descriptions. Besides, you could only remember three or four clients last night.”

  “But I have a full list on my computer.”

  That caught Patty’s attention. “You really are more lucid this morning. Where’s your computer?”

  “I don’t have any idea.”

  The phone startled John Stallings first thing in the morning. He’d already tossed and turned most of the night, worried about Patty at the hotel room with Jason Ferrell. Not that he didn’t think his partner could handle herself–she was tougher than any cop he knew. He just hated when someone got stuck on a shitty detail.

  He fumbled with his cell phone as he glanced at the clock and saw that it was seven in the morning. He popped it open and mumbled, “Stallings.”