into crimes/persons. Go ahead with all of that, Detective Levine.” She looked at Mazzetti. “What are you doing here? Waiting to see if we find a body? Detective Mazzetti, if you don’t have enough to do in homicide I’m certain I could find something for you to work on.”
Mazzetti nodded and said, “Yes ma’am,” turned, and scurried to his car.
Stallings and Patty exchanged glances, but neither laughed out loud.
John Stallings stood at the rear of his Impala with a large, detailed map of the county spread out across the trunk. Patty was on the other leads with two analysts assigned by the new sergeant. They had all the high-tech avenues covered. The leads were viable, and Patty was running down more detailed cell records, checking video cameras, and staying on top of any lab developments.
Stallings was different. He had learned the basic skills of a cop before the world of high-tech had changed so many things. He knew how to talk to people or scare them if necessary. He knew luck was involved in so much of police work and he knew how to reason things out. It didn’t always work, but sometimes he surprised himself as well as others. Right now he studied the map and drew a blue circle downtown where the Wildside dance club was. He knew she’d been there at some point. He marked the Dumpster, which was where he was standing right now, on the map. Then he let his cop eyes roam up and down the map, thinking about the possible scenarios that had led to Allie Marsh’s purse being discarded in the Dumpster.
First he had to assume the person who threw it in there didn’t expect it to be found. That person thought either no one would look in a nasty Dumpster or it would be emptied soon. Next he thought of the reasons Allie left the bar with someone. He didn’t like to dwell on any of it. Finally, he searched the map for the kind of open, but private, area someone could park a car and not be bothered. Places like parks, green spaces, canals, or tributaries with wetlands around them. It was as if he was up in one of the sheriff’s office’s helicopters without the use of time or the inevitable airsickness.
He used his finger to trace the main road, starting at the Wildside and slowly moving it along the map, keeping track of the mile legend and then following it east, over the river, across the marshes and residential neighborhoods, past the municipal airport, then all the way to the ocean. He could check the beaches. Every would-be Romeo in Florida tried to impress tourists with the ocean. Many of the beaches even had webcams to show what the waves were like for surfers. That was one of the breaks he’d gotten in the last big homicide case he had worked on. But something told him they didn’t drive as far as the ocean. The couple of parks off the road were small and tended to get a lot of walkers and runners cutting through them.
Then he started tracing back from the beach, and his finger lingered on the outer edges of the municipal airport. There were trails back in there and it was secluded. He packed up the car and waited for the last crime scene tech to leave before he headed east the 2.3 miles to the airport. He drove past the main fields and found one of the dirt paths that led behind the small airport. He had purposely not mentioned his plan to Yvonne Zuni. While it was amusing to see her cut Tony Mazzetti down to size, he had no interest in experiencing it today. She must have failed to notice that he’d been on duty almost twenty-two hours now or she definitely would’ve said something. He planned a long afternoon of sleep as soon as he checked his one theory.
He found a field with mowed grass and a tree line set back fifty yards. Low-hanging branches of wide scrub brush formed a thick, green wall with the occasional southern pine that towered near the runways of the small airport. He got out and started walking the perimeter of the field, letting his eyes scan wherever something caught his attention. Stumps in the grass, unusual piles of leaves, anything that broke the straight lines of the field.
Then he noticed something all the way over in the tree line and started walking that way. He tried to continue scanning as he came closer, but whatever was on the edge of the scrub brush had captured his attention fully and he couldn’t take his eyes off it. He saw a splash of red and blue and knew whatever it was it wasn’t something from nature.
Then he slowed as a form started taking shape. He saw the blond hair and one arm splayed out to the side, and his heart sank. He slowed and noticed the shoe missing off one foot; her face was turned away from him.
He carefully stopped and eased to the side through the brush about ten feet away from her so as not to disturb the crime scene in any way. He could see her blue, bloating face and recognized it as Allie Marsh’s formerly pretty face. He stepped back out of the brush, his hand already reaching for his cell phone when he had to stop, look up at the sky, and scream as loud as he had ever screamed. “Fuck!”
James Andrus
The Perfect Prey
Thirteen
As soon as Patty Levine had gotten the call from John Stallings telling her he’d found the body she’d dropped her inquiry into cell tower hits and security cameras and raced to meet him. At some point she would have to resume that kind of work, but right now her partner had called. He sounded a little shaken. She knew it had as much to do with his own daughter as with the case itself.
She stepped into the ladies’ room at the sheriff’s office and popped a Xanax to steady herself before the ride back east to the municipal airport. As she swallowed the pill with a palm full of water from the sink, the door opened. Patty turned her head quickly, perhaps with a tinge of guilt for having almost been caught and was surprised to see her new sergeant, Yvonne Zuni, standing there.
Sergeant Zuni said, “I need to make a quick stop before heading out to the scene. How did he find her?”
Patty finished swallowing and shrugged. “That’s just John. He figures out stuff the rest of us don’t even know is important.”
“I’ve heard he has his own methods of getting information.”
Patty knew to keep her mouth shut.
Sergeant Zuni said, “I believe in letting cops work, but there are rules. Some of law, some of conduct, but I want everyone to follow the rules.”
“Don’t you think some rules are stupid?”
“Like the one about not dating someone who has the same supervisor as you?”
Patty just stared at the new boss.
Then Sergeant Zuni said, “Get your stuff together. No matter how he did it, your partner found the girl’s body. Now we all have to pitch in and help.”
Tony Mazzetti rolled up at the old municipal airport before the crime scene van. He was lucky his girlfriend was in the loop and had dropped him a line before Sergeant Zuni called to order him over to the scene. He felt a real satisfaction in telling his sergeant he was already on the way. He’d even stopped to pick up his usual partner, Christina Hogrebe, from her little house in Dames Point, then shot across the Dames Point Bridge, cutting south to the airport.
Christina was a rising star at the sheriff’s office. The youngest full-time homicide detective ever, she had the instincts of an old-time street cop wrapped up in a package few men could ignore. There was a rumor a year back that Mazzetti and she were an item. He let it slide because it kept people from guessing why he hadn’t had a date in a while. Christina heard it and didn’t care. If information wasn’t being used to put someone’s ass in jail, she barely acknowledged it. He finally had to step up and deny it because someone asked how he and Christina could date and still work in the same squad. It made him wonder if anyone would care if he went public with Patty. He doubted it. He was homicide and she was missing persons. Usually.
They were screaming south on St. John’s Bluff Road when Christina said, “Tony, either slow it down or put on the lights, but I don’t want to buy it because you’ve got a hard-on to beat the new sergeant to the scene.”
“Who says I care about shit like that?”
“Hello, I think I just did. C’mon, admit it, big guy-working for a woman intimidates you.”
“What’re you talking about? I worked for Rita Hester and still do.”
“But I hardly think of her as a woman.”
“What’s that mean?”
“Not that she’s not attractive, but she’s been a boss a long time. And you’d have to admit she could kick your ass if she wanted to.”
Mazzetti just nodded at that. Lieutenant Rita Hester could kick just about anybody’s ass.
Christina said, “But the new sarge is a little different. She’s like a china doll, all small and beautiful. And she’s hands-on. She even corrected one of my reports in red ink yesterday.”
“Sounds like you’re the one with a problem.”
Christina shook her head. “I don’t mind correction or criticism if it makes me a better cop.”
