“Hey, Patty, how’re you?” His brown eyes big with excitement and face flushed enough to hide some of his acne.
“Good, Lee. Sorry I’m so early.”
“Are you kidding? When you texted me last night I was thrilled to be able to start my day by seeing you.”
“That’s sweet, Lee. Did you have any luck?”
The tall young man in casual clothes was the only one in the wide, clean lab deep inside the Police Memorial Building. She didn’t expect anyone else to be there at seven-thirty in the morning. Even Patty was dragging at that hour, the effects of the late-night Ambien hanging on a little longer than usual.
Lee scurried around, collecting files and reports for Patty. She knew his efforts were based on her looks and flirting more than anything else. All she heard from most of the detectives was how long it took for lab results to come back, but she’d befriended this young man with a degree in forensic science from the University of Central Florida, and he’d been remarkably helpful for the past two years. She tried not to lead him on but worried about the day when he finally screwed up enough courage to ask her out for lunch. Until that day she gladly accepted the fact that she could work a little more efficiently than others. It made up a little for her not being part of the good old boys network that often cut through bureaucratic bullshit and got reports or other kinds of help for the seasoned male detectives. She didn’t begrudge them the shortcut. Patty was in favor of anything that sped along justice and helped people. She just wished everyone had access to it. At least that was the justification she used to get her lab results much faster than anyone else.
In this case, Mazzetti had submitted the request as part of the autopsies of the two spring breakers. The idea that there would be links between them set off an alarm in Patty’s head and made her push the limits of her flirting to find out the answers fast. Patty had added to the young lab tech’s workload by providing him the three pills found in Kathleen Harding’s purse. Two were obviously prescription pills, but the third was a curious speckled pill she thought had to be X.
He photographed each pill through a magnifying glass and gave her a good copy of each. The speckled pill had J2A stamped into it.
Lee stepped back to her as he studied the pages. “What exactly are you looking for?”
“There was a chemical residue found on both bodies that indicated the possibility of sex with a condom before death.”
Lee nodded. “Polyethylene glycol. I see the note here.”
“What about drugs?”
“Ecstasy. Looks like at least some of it was from the same source.”
“What’d you mean?”
“There’re a couple of ways to make X. No recipe is quite the same. Both these girls took some of the same batch, but the second one, Allie Marsh, also had some other X in her. Probably what killed her.”
“Could it have been intentional?”
“You mean did she know she was taking it?”
Patty said, “I mean if someone wanted to kill her, he could keep giving her the drug.”
“I suppose.”
Patty looked at him and said, “Okay, Lee, why the big, shit-eating grin?”
“I got the results of the yellow liquid you submitted.”
“From our missing persons case?”
“The same.”
“And?”
“Safrole oil.”
“What’s that?”
He just kept grinning.
John Stallings sat across from Sergeant Yvonne Zuni in the conference room. He was a little uncomfortable without Patty next to him, and he’d expected her. Since her run-in with the serial killer known as the Bag Man a few months back, Stallings had become a little over-protective of his partner and started to panic if he couldn’t reach her. But this morning she had sent him a text message, which he hated, that said she was busy in the building and would be up shortly.
He looked at the new sergeant, trying to get a fix on her. Despite her reputation as a tough veteran, he didn’t think she could be much older than thirty. But there was nothing soft in that pretty face. She didn’t shy away from his gaze.
“Stall, you and Patty will have to handle the death investigations Mazzetti and Hoagie had before they caught the triple.”
“Anything new on the triple?”
“Just that it was gang related. Rumor is that it might have a racial undertone, and that means there’s gonna be retaliation. You know how when someone starts saying they saw a carload of white kids it morphs into being a truckload of Klansmen. Just like a lone black kid in a white neighborhood gets called in as a gang. I swear street rumors waste more of our time than anything else. That’s why the administration wants every effort put into it.” She paused and added, “Every effort that doesn’t require a lot of overtime.”
Stallings nodded, knowing that meant virtually every other victim in the city would be ignored for a while until the news media backed off the triple murder near the stadium.
“I have Allie’s mother calling me every hour about the case.” The sergeant started to say something, then looked at Stallings and stifled it. Cops often made callous comments to vent their frustration. Stallings sometimes overheard cops make comments about runaways or young female deaths, then realize his situation and get embarrassed. He was getting used to it, but the new sergeant obviously wasn’t. She just said, “Anything new on her?”
He looked down, unsatisfied with their progress. “The drummer we chased is still in the can. We talked to the cop, Gary Lauer, and he was less than helpful, but I still wouldn’t call him a suspect. Just an asshole.”
He caught an odd expression on the sergeant’s face.
“Am I missing something?”
Sergeant Zuni hesitated, then said, “This is not official. Just you and me.”
He nodded.
“I know Lauer pretty well.”
Stallings still kept quiet.
“I don’t want to go into detail, but he’s got issues.”
“You think he could be a suspect?”
“I’m saying that with a young pretty girl in the mix and knowing him, I wouldn’t rule anything out.”
He finished his Chick-Fil-A sandwich in the food court of the small mall. After a brief post-activity letdown he had found his groove and his predatory instincts returned. He had real power. He hadn’t stopped smiling since he’d placed Holly’s nose stud in his souvenir box. The surprise on her face for that instant after he shoved the knife into her brainpan had been the sweetest surprise of his whole life. He’d thought that Allie from Mississippi squealing under him as her heart exploded was one of the most exciting things he had experienced. But now he had to put Holly’s expression at the top of the list.
He leaned back, satisfied. No one could connect him to anything here in Jacksonville. He was originally reticent to hunt in his own valley. In the past, he liked to travel and carve the occasional weak one out of the spring break herd in other cities but not here where people knew him.
His hunting season would draw to a close soon. The girls of the cheaper southeastern schools would start heading back home in beat-up cars with bad sunburns and lasting hangovers. He felt confident he could score a few more kills. Just something to last him until next year. He had no idea where to hunt for the moment. The beach made him a little skittish after Holly. The Wildside was done, at least for a while. He had to work this problem out in his head.
His eyes drifted up until they caught the blue eyes of a young woman sitting with two friends, eating a salad. She smiled and flipped her blond hair.
He smiled back, realizing his problem had just been solved.
John Stallings gawked at the lab results spread over Patty’s desk.
