He knew that if his wife wasn’t out here in the living room, she was on the computer or phone, and he found her in the bedroom, where she tapped away at a black Dell keyboard.
He took a deep breath and felt able to face Maria.
“Hey, dear.” He always stayed upbeat until it was clear he couldn’t anymore.
She glanced up from an instant message she was composing. “Just finishing up. This poor woman from St. Joe, Missouri, has a daughter who’s been missing eight months. I’m just giving her a few ideas for support.”
He leaned down to kiss her forehead. It was also a way to sniff her breath.
She hit Send and looked up. Her dark oval eyes and high cheekbones made her look as fresh as she did on their wedding day in Las Vegas on her twentieth birthday. They had eloped without fanfare to hide the fact that she was pregnant from her Orthodox Cuban parents. By the time Jeanie came along the goodwill of the baby had distracted Maria’s father from the math.
After Stallings’s failed baseball and academic career at USF, Maria had seemed like the only thing in his life that was worthwhile. He searched everyday for that old feeling.
Maria said, “How was your day?”
“Not so good.”
She glanced back at the screen. “I have to answer this e-mail. Hold on.” She plunked back in the swivel chair.
Stallings didn’t mind. It looked like another night of peace, and he could go back out to work without distraction for a couple of hours. But he wanted to see the kids before they went to bed. That would keep him going.
Rita Hester pressed the unlock button on her key chain and heard the familiar double beep of her blue Crown Vic parked in the detective bureau lieutenant’s spot outside the main sheriff’s building on East Bay Street. Everyone knew the three-story building as the Police Memorial Building or PMB for short. The wind was just right for her to smell the coffee from the Maxwell House plant a few blocks away. That beat the shit out of the breeze carrying the acrid, rancid odor of the paper mills as it had for years. Even though the community and industry had worked hard to ease the effects of the paper mills, and the locals quickly got used to the stench, the wrong breeze would smack you in the face and make tourists gag. No one missed the mill’s departure as part of the city’s identity. Unfortunately that was just about the only thing visitors remembered from trips to the “bold new city of the south” when the mill poured out the foul-smelling byproducts of paper production. She knew that the sulfur used in the process was part of the odor equation, but later learned it was also the cooking out of the lignins and sugars in the wood. She was just glad it was gone.
From her car she could look up onto the second floor and see “The Land That Time Forgot,” as the detectives called it. The detective bureau, with its mismatched carpets, scuffed walls, and ancient equipment, was always the last unit to get upgrades. The public saw the patrol cars and marveled at the computers to get information to the patrolmen but never dealt with detectives. No one seemed to care if there was money in the budget for them. Rita never really cared until the detective bureau fell under her command. She hadn’t bothered to actually move into the bureau, deciding instead to keep her office next to the clean lab facilities, but she fought to get any scrap she could for the detectives. Just outfitting them with laptops was a monumental task but she had accomplished it. Sure, they were leftover computers from the training division, but they worked, and it was better than nothing.
As she slid the key into the lock, she sensed someone approaching her. Even in the safety of the Sheriff’s Office lot, her twenty years of police work made her reach for her purse and the small Glock model 27 inside. The nine years she spent on patrol taught her to automatically reach to her right hip, where she carried her duty weapon, but as she worked her way through the D-Bureau and up the command structure she had made it a point to retrain herself to reach for her purse.
Then she heard someone say, “Rita, got a minute?”
She relaxed as she realized it was her old road patrol zone partner John Stallings.
“Stall, what chu doin’ out so late? Mazzetti keep you on that scene all this time?”
He hesitated.
Normally, in her rushed existence, Rita would bark out a command to “get to the point,” but she let Stallings have a moment. Not just for the sake of their time on the road together, but because of the way his daughter’s disappearance had affected him. Everyone at the S.O. whispered about the way it was reported, his slow recovery, and speculation his assignment to missing persons was a way to protect him. They didn’t realize he wanted to be there and was doing a bang-up job in the unit.
Finally Stallings said, “I gotta ask a favor.”
“What’s that, Stall? I’ll do whatever I can.”
“I gotta get assigned to the homicide of the dead girl I found over on Jax Beach.”
“Why, Stall? That just doesn’t make any sense.”
“It’s a feeling I have. If we don’t find the guy who did that to her, he’ll strike again.”
That comment froze her. Did he know already? Was he that smart? She gathered her thoughts and said, “What would Maria and the kids do if you started on a case like this? You could be on it for weeks with barely enough time to eat and sleep.”
“They’d understand. Especially because Maria knew Lee Ann Moffit.”
“That’s another problem, Stall. You knew the victim.”
“That’s not a problem, it’s a benefit. I never really talked to her or the family when she played lacrosse. Mainly, I knew her professionally, no conflict there. I also know who she hung out with and the circles where she traveled. Those kids would never talk to an asshole like Mazzetti.” He paused and added. “I’m on my way over to make notification to the family now. Mazzetti needed a hand and I already knew them.” He looked at her with those blue eyes and added, “Rita, something is telling me I need to be in this case. Maybe I’m still fucked up over Jeanie, maybe it’s something else, but I have to be involved.”
Rita thought about telling him the whole story, but decided to wait until they could all sit down together. She considered the veteran detective’s request. Stallings was a passionate cop who sometimes did things she didn’t approve of. Well, didn’t approve of now, as an administrator. When they were on patrol together she supported his offbeat, sometimes unlawful actions to solve a crime by any means available. Some guys could operate like that, knowing how far to take a particular situation and then how to smooth it out afterward. Stallings was the best at that. At least he used to be.
She nodded and said, “Okay, Stall. I may regret this, but I’ll have you assigned. We could use a guy like you on this case. But Mazzetti is still the lead.”
He smiled. “Thanks, Rita.” Then he paused, looked up at her again, and said, “Any way we could bring my partner, Patty, in on this too? She wants the experience.”
“She can’t go around with you on this. I got plans for that girl, and getting a beef for being with you when you crack someone’s head won’t help her on the sergeant’s board.”
“You’re still the best.”
She wanted to hug him, but it wasn’t appropriate in her current position. She liked him. Everyone did. More importantly, she could use him. It never hurt to have a scapegoat if everything went to hell on a case that was already screwed up.
Tony Mazzetti sat in his car for a few minutes to get away from the constant noise and activity of the crime scene. He needed to make some notes and start his “book” that would document every activity related to the case. The so-called murder book was necessary, because even a simple homicide like one gang member shooting another in front of seventeen witnesses typically didn’t go to trial until two years after the incident. Even Mazzetti’s razor- sharp mind couldn’t keep facts straight that long. Not with dozens of homicides in the interim.
He’d have help on this one. The only question was how much help. Right now he and the lieutenant were the only ones familiar with the bigger picture connected to this girl’s death. By this time tomorrow or maybe the day after everyone in the department would know, and he was pretty sure he’d be blamed for the fuck-up. The fact that that asshole John Stallings found the body wouldn’t help anything. It would only remind everyone of the jerk’s lucky grab a few years ago.
Mazzetti shook his head in the silence of his brand-new Crown Vic, the royal carriage of police vehicles. No one had any idea how busy a homicide detective was on a big case like this one. Not only would he be investigating leads, but he’d have to manage other detectives, keep the Book, update command staff, be the spokesman for the media (which he actually liked quite a bit), and deal with all the crazies who would wander in with tips that he’d
