scar through his left eyebrow and leveled a flat stare at him. “What do you want, Gary?”
“I wanted to tell you that I know your man Stallings has been looking through my records.”
“All part of an official investigation.”
“I never had any doubt that you were all business. I just wanted to tell you I never gave a girl any kind of drug and I don’t know why you guys are even looking at me. I think it’s because your detectives think I have some kind of negative attitude about chicks. I haven’t broken any laws.”
Yvonne started to turn away, saying, “If you did nothing wrong, then you have nothing to worry about.”
“I’ve heard that one before, and we both know how that turned out. I’m just asking you as a friend to give me some consideration.”
“First of all, this is Stallings’s case and I’m letting him run with it, and second of all, we’re not friends.” She bumped open the door and headed to the gym.
It had only taken Stallings a few seconds to regain his composure and know enough to get Diane Marsh out of the last place her daughter had been seen alive. Now a few blocks away at a little mom-and-pop coffee shop, they sat across a small table as she sipped the huge latte, then dabbed her eyes with a tissue. In jeans and a casual top she didn’t seem as formal or intimidating as she had at the sheriff’s office. She also looked too young to have college-age kids. Her blond hair spread over her shoulders, and her blue eyes gazed at Stallings through intermittent tears.
She said, “I’ve gone into the Wildside a couple of times since we found Allie’s body. I really couldn’t tell you why I’ve gone in there other than to find some kind of connection with Allie. We lost our connection a long time ago. She was a good girl. I knew what she was up to most of the time. But we hadn’t been close like we had been most of her life. I think any parent would do anything they had to do to establish that connection with their child. You know I mean?”
Stallings nodded. Words couldn’t express how much he understood what she was talking about.
Diane Marsh said, “My husband and I are not close. The boys always seemed to gravitate toward him. Going out on the boat, camping, all the sports that men like to play. But Allie was mine. Since she’d been at Southern Miss, we drifted apart. Nothing blatant or overt. No big fights or drama. We just hadn’t talked like we used to. And it took her disappearance to make me realize it.” She put both elbows on the small table and started to cry with her hands over her face.
Stallings let her go for as long as she wanted. He reflected on his own life and the connection he’d lost with Jeanie. There had been fights and drama before she disappeared. And a lot since she disappeared. But he missed interaction with his oldest daughter. Missed her more than he could express. He wished he could talk about it as Diane Marsh talked about her own anguish right now. Maybe that would’ve made things easier on Maria and the kids. Maybe he’d even still be at home if he’d talked about things instead of burying himself in work.
Finally, Diane Marsh looked up, her eyes ringed in red, and said, “Have you ever known any parent that didn’t search for some way to connect with her kid?”
Stallings thought about his own father and remembered, just barely, how they would play catch in the tiny front yard of the Jacksonville home. It was a memory he hadn’t recalled in decades. His father coaching and encouraging him with every toss. Telling the young boy he had a gift and he’d be able to do anything he wanted with it.
Stallings shook his head, saying, “No, I really can’t think of a parent that didn’t want to connect with their kid.”
Patty Levine had told Stallings she was going to have dinner with Tony Mazzetti tonight. The only reason she said that was because Stallings insisted that she not go with him to the Wildside. He used some bullshit excuse that he didn’t want her to make the same mistakes in her personal life that he’d made in his. But Tony was busy on his own triple homicide and she knew there was a lot to do on their case, so she had gone for a run earlier in the afternoon than usual, then cleaned up and come back to the office just after seven.
There was a lot more to this case than anyone wanted to admit. On one hand, if a cop like Gary Lauer had handed out Ecstasy, there was a huge problem. On the other hand, if someone else was systematically handing out Ecstasy to spring breakers, that was another huge problem. This was not a simple case of a girl who overdosed on drugs. The case may have initially gotten so much of their attention because the family was wealthy and the mother insistent, but now there were other elements that overshadowed all that.
Now Patty had records in front of her, solid evidence of the suspect’s activity. It was the sort of thing that she was good at, and everyone knew it. Some detectives interviewed endless numbers of suspects. Some detectives sat on surveillance for days on end. Some detectives were so lucky that they just rode whatever lead came along. But Patty Levine was meticulous and had the sharpest memory of any detective in the unit. She remembered names and dates from cases that were long closed. She could make sense of bank records, phone calls, class rolls, and even convoluted Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office personnel records.
She had two piles of records in front of her right now. One of the stacks contained American Express records she had subpoenaed for Chad Palmer. The other, copies of everything from Gary Lauer’s JSO personnel file including assignments, complaints, and vacations.
The personnel records were easy to get once they had classified Lauer as a “person of interest.” At Stallings’s request, they had not called in Internal Affairs. Stallings said it was because he didn’t want to ruin Lauer’s career if there was nothing to the allegation. But Patty knew it had just as much to do with Stallings’s dislike for Ronald Bell, one of the chief investigators in IA.
Usually subpoenas for financial records took weeks or even months to arrive. But as usual, Stallings knew someone, and now she had eight inches of detailed American Express records in only two days.
The office was empty and quiet, but she was far from lonely. This was exactly the kind of police work she enjoyed, and this was exactly the kind the case that she wanted solved.
She got to work.
John Stallings sat in his issued Impala watching the dark rooming house west of the stadium. He’d been there about an hour and hoped he might see his father stroll in or out of the two-story house. There had been almost no traffic on the street since he arrived, and only two lights in the house had been on.
He couldn’t explain what had driven him to come all the way over here after speaking with Diane Marsh, but it was an urge he couldn’t resist. Maybe somewhere in the back of his head, he hoped that there was a connection strong enough between him and his father to create an opportunity.
He had always liked the solitude of surveillance in his county car. That’s what this felt like. Waiting quietly, watching the door to a house. It used to make him anxious because it meant he didn’t know when he was getting home to his family. But now they didn’t seem to need him nearly as much, and on surveillance he felt needed. He also knew that they were going to have to get much more active on this case. Talking with Diane Marsh had intensified his fire to resolve the case. And that could mean long hours of surveillance.
He waited until just after three. He never saw his dad that night.
He liked the atmosphere of this club on the southeastern side of the city, near the University of North Florida. He could appreciate how hard it was to maintain the beach theme in a dingy little warehouse ten miles from the ocean with the interstate virtually overhead. The staff was very professional as well.
He had already danced once with Ann, but he didn’t want to be seen with her too much because she had four friends in the club. It would’ve been easy to ask her to leave with him, and he thought she’d say yes. But he couldn’t risk being identified later. So the stalking of his cute little antelope would continue, and he didn’t mind that one bit.
He sat at the end of the bar and sipped a beer as he watched Ann and her friends laugh around the high top near the dance floor. It was an odd position to be in because she knew he was interested in her and she had made it clear she was interested in him, but he couldn’t make a move right now. He couldn’t even hang out chatting with her and her friends. It was too big of a risk.
These were all tactics he’d developed over the last few years. Two years ago, in Panama City, he’d been questioned by a detective who was looking into the suicide of a coed. It was a very informal and casual interview, but the reason they even knew to talk to him was because he had spent too much time with her in public the night before. When they had sneaked out onto the roof of the nine-story hotel, using an old maintenance ladder that hung down near the window of the girl’s hotel room, he knew exactly how things would end up. The one hit of Ecstasy had loosened her up, but she’d refused to take off her pants. It didn’t really bother him as he watched her blond head bob up and down on him. When she was finished she tried to kiss him, but he fended her off, as most men
