difficult.
He made the wide loop of the parking lot and street, then ran back down onto the hard packed sand of the beach. He kept a measured pace, his eyes sifting through the throngs of women on the beach. The ones with dark hair were easy to pass by, but the blondes made him slow down. On this pass he saw five good possibilities. All blond hair and blue eyes. Size and shape were secondary. On his next pass he’d assess possible witnesses. Were they with groups or boyfriends? Were they with one or two girlfriends? He had his prey picked out for the next loop.
He was breathing hard by the time he reached the north end of the beach again. He slowed to a near walk as he approached the first girl he’d singled out on his last pass-through. She was sprawled on a bright green blanket and turned on her side as he approached. She had bright blue eyes, short blond hair, a fairly serious acne problem, and cellulite on her hips. But the reason he kept running was her boyfriend on the towel next to her. The boyfriend placed a hand on her back, and he could tell they weren’t in a platonic relationship.
The next three girls were all surrounded by hordes of sorority sisters or cheerleaders or some other chattering, perky group.
Finally, he spied one girl reading a paperback book about three quarters of the way down the beach. She appeared to be alone on a single towel. She wore cute black-framed glasses that seemed to accentuate her blue eyes, and she absently fingered her wavy blond hair draped over her right shoulder. She wore a one-piece bathing suit, but she had a muscular body. Something a predator like himself could admire. He slowed to a trot, then a walk, making a show out of checking his pulse by placing two fingers on his neck and looking at his watch, carefully stopping well before his intended target.
He continued to check the immediate vicinity to make sure she was alone and no one was paying any attention. It seemed clear as he eased up the beach slightly from the waterline.
He stopped a few yards from her and sat down to stretch in the sand. As he turned toward her, she looked up and smiled. It filled him with excitement. She had a great smile, and he knew he’d taken the first step.
“Whatcha reading?”
She glanced down at the cover as if she couldn’t remember. “Patricia Cornwell.” She made a face, but he wasn’t sure if she liked the book or it was a little gross.
He said, “I read a lot of history.”
“Like who?”
In fact he’d only read one book recently and it was about Iwo Jima. He remembered the author. “James Bradley.”
“Flags of our Fathers.”
“I’m impressed.”
“I’m a little bit of a bookworm.”
He cut loose with a big smile. She had a cute silver nose stud. “What’s your name?”
“Holly.”
“Where are you from?”
“Right here. I go to North Florida.” The University of North Florida sat in the southeast section of the city of Jacksonville.
He started to focus on the tiny nose stud, thinking what a great memento it would make. Then he said, “You don’t have to come far for spring break.”
“But it’s more fun to travel.”
“Do bookworms like to travel?”
She had a sly smile when she said, “Bookworms like a lot of things.”
He had found his prey.
Fifteen
John Stallings knew this was a big deal because the meeting was held in the lieutenant’s plush office. Although Rita Hester supervised the detective bureau, among other things, her office was not in the Land That Time Forgot. She did not have a shitty linoleum floor or scuffed beige walls, nor did she have thin, industrial carpet.
Today she sat at the head of the conference table opposite her wide oak desk. The sergeant sat immediately to her right and Mazzetti to her left with Stallings, Christina Hogrebe, Patty Levine, and an assistant to the sheriff filling the rest of the table. This was either something big or someone had fucked up in a big way.
The lieutenant looked down the long table at the sheriff’s assistant, then cast a broader glance across the table and said, “This comes from the colonel, who got it from the sheriff, who got an earful from the state attorney. We will treat the overdose of the girl from Mississippi'-she looked down at the notepad in front of her-'Allie Marsh, as a homicide. We will find out who gave her the Ecstasy and what led to her death. And even though we’re flooded with robberies, shootings, fatal domestics, and all other kinds of fire-and-brimstone shit, we’ll work this overdose until we have found her supplier.” Lieutenant Rita Hester was never particularly good at hiding her true feelings about certain things. She was political as anyone else in a command position at the sheriff’s office, but at heart she was still a street cop who wanted to put people in jail. She stared down the sheriff’s assistant until the thin man nodded his approval.
Of course no one was going to argue with her, but she continued. “We don’t need the negative media about any deaths, accidental or otherwise, while Jacksonville is trying to build a reputation as a spring break destination. Daytona and Fort Lauderdale can handle the occasional jumping off a balcony, but we can’t risk even a simple overdose. This girl’s family has money and clout and so we will treat this like it’s the fucking Lindbergh kidnapping case.” She glared up and down the table, then said, “Are there any questions or comments?”
Every detective at the table knew that meant, “Shut up and get to work.”
And that was just fine with John Stallings. He had already decided he’d find out who would leave a girl like that in the field without even a call to fire rescue. He didn’t think he’d ever get away from being drawn into cases like this.
Tony Mazzetti fidgeted during the final minutes of the autopsy. The procedure didn’t bother him-he’d seen hundreds performed on everyone from shot-up drug dealers to babies that had been shaken too hard. At this point it was just business. It had to be. If he looked at each body that rolled through these doors as a person with family and hopes, he’d have gone crazy years ago. Instead he observed and provided any pertinent information the medical examiner wanted, like surroundings where the body was found, theory of how the victim died, and history that might have contributed to the death. It was this kind of relationship between a veteran homicide detective and a good ME that led to the quick, successful clearance of most deaths.
He liked the young assistant medical examiner who was currently examining the remains of Allison Marsh. Mazzetti hated to think of the names attached to the bodies while they were on the table because once again that made them more real to him. It felt like an invasion of privacy. He not only saw the dead people naked, but past that into their innermost places. Physically. As layers of skin were peeled back and organs removed and examined, he learned things that no one knew about themselves, like the weight of their livers, the degree of plaque built up in their arteries, and if tumors were growing deep inside their seemingly healthy bodies.
The assistant ME said, “Look at this.”
Mazzetti didn’t see anything unusual; he never did at these things. Sometimes he felt as if these pathologists were just showing off. He said, “What are you looking at?”
“She had a belly-button ring.” He pointed at her pale stomach. “See the discoloration around the edges?”
Mazzetti looked closely and nodded. He made a note in the file.
The young assistant ME looked up from the body and said, “Tony, she seemed pretty healthy except her heart is shredded. Just blown out.”
“Ecstasy?”
“We have to wait for toxicology, but that would be my guess.”
“We have a witness who said she had a source and had recently tried it.”
“What spring breaker doesn’t?”
