“In Jacksonville? Why?”
“Very funny. Are you done yet?”
“Seriously, is it a lot cheaper to stay over there now? Because on my last visit it seemed like the hotels were expensive, it rained all the time, and your beach communities weren’t set up to handle big spring break crowds.”
“You know how it is, Doug-our city commission is looking for their share of tourist dollars.”
“Sometimes I wonder if the money these kids bring in is worth the hassle. You get a group of flat breakers in here and they cram six into one room, each eat one giant meal at Golden Corral, and buy two beers at night. By my calculations that’s about fifteen bucks a day into the local economy. I don’t think they’re worth the trouble.”
“You sound like you’re a little tired of the spring break crowd.”
“That’s like saying black people are little tired of the Klan. I wish they’d just wipe out the whole idea of a vacation in the middle of the semester.”
“Are you guys at least making a little overtime?” Stallings knew by the silence it was time to push on. “For a change this isn’t about Jeanie or any of my personal problems. I was just wondering how closely you guys watched drug use during spring break.”
“Hell, Stall, I watch it all the time. I watch it on the beach, I watch it at the clubs, and I even have to watch it at the movie theater with my kids sometimes. Watching it is no problem. Being able to do something about it in times like this is what is hard.”
“Do you have a lot of overdoses?”
“Not many, that’s why it’s not a priority for us to stop the drug use. I think we had one heroin overdose this year and one cocaine overdose last year. We also had a drowning this year, but drugs weren’t a factor. The boy was from Kansas State, and I guess there’s no reason to learn how to swim out there.”
“Any Ecstasy overdoses that were deaths?”
There was silence on the line for a moment, and then detective McKay said, “Now that you mention it, not for a couple years. Two years ago we had two dead girls with Ecstasy in their system, but they weren’t overdoses. One was a hit-and-run and the other was a suicide. She jumped off the top of one of the beach hotels and caused quite a ruckus when she destroyed some rap star’s tricked-out Suburban.”
“Can I ask a weird question, John?”
“Fire away.”
“Were both of your deaths two years ago blond girls?”
After a brief pause the detective said, “As a matter of fact they were. How’d you know that?”
Thirty-eight
Stallings took a few moments to assess the mood of his all-female audience. Sergeant Zuni, Patty Levine, and lieutenant Rita Hester sat staring at him. It was the first time he’d seen the lieutenant in the D-bureau since Sergeant Zuni had arrived.
As usual, based on rank and years of friendship, the lieutenant jumped straight to the point. “All right, Stall. You got two minutes to convince me why we need to put so much more manpower into an overdose case that I didn’t want to take in the first place.” She folded her formidable arms in front of her and gave him the glower that had made many a street thug cry.
Stallings wasted no time. He laid out the photographs of the three spring break deaths from Daytona the year before, then the two Panama City deaths from the year before that. All blond. He didn’t have to state the obvious.
After a moment he said, “All five had Ecstasy in their systems at the times of the death. All five died during the traditional spring break period of March to April.” He laid down the photographs of Kathleen Harding and Allie Marsh. “Two deaths with Ecstasy and residue from Durex condoms this year here in Jacksonville.” Then he laid down the photograph of Chad Palmer and Gary Lauer. “Two viable suspects.”
The sergeant and Patty knew where he was going, but the lieutenant took a moment to study all the photographs. She surveyed the others in the room quietly, then said, “What are you asking for, Stall?”
“We need a couple more detectives for surveillance. Maybe a tracker or two that we can slap on their vehicles. We need to take this seriously.”
Rita Hester said to Patty and Sergeant Zuni, “Could you ladies give us a moment alone?” She waited until she and Stallings were alone in the small room and said, “Stall, you can’t turn the death of every young girl into some kind of conspiracy. Sometimes kids overdose, or they drown, and sometimes they even run away. But not everything has some sinister meaning. Wrap up this overdose. Keep this girl’s mother quiet. And move on. We have real homicides stacking up in the unit. They just found a girl in a parking garage who had been stabbed through her chin to the top of her head. We don’t even have a case open on it yet.” She looked down and shook her head. “I’m sorry, old friend, but I’m going to have to turn you down on this one.”
Stallings drew in a long breath and said, “I can see your point, Rita. But with all due respect, that’s bullshit.”
“Just because I’m an administrator now doesn’t mean I can’t smack you, one old street cop to another.”
“Then as an administrator, can you really risk the liability of ignoring something like this? Think of the financial shock to the city if there is a serial killer preying on spring breakers and we just let it slide.”
He could see the lieutenant working over the problem in her head, the back of her jaw grinding. Her eyebrows furrowed. Finally, after almost a full minute, she faced him and said, “I’ll tell you what, against my better judgment, I’ll give you and Patty the leeway to check out your suspects. I don’t want Lauer’s reputation trashed if there’s nothing there, and I don’t want us facing a lawsuit from Mr. Palmer. You and Patty could have a little overtime and a little discretion, but I want this shit cleared up soon.”
Tony Mazzetti cruised the streets at the site of the triple shooting. Life in the neighborhood had quickly gotten back to the usual ebb and flow of commerce, comedy, and connection. Because in this neighborhood if you weren’t connected, you did very little commerce and saw very little comedy from day to day. He knew that when people saw a lone white guy in a Crown Vic, they assumed he was a cop. And that usually garnered extra attention from everyone, especially the crack dealers on the corner. But the crack dealers had to realize he wasn’t a narcotics detective or he wouldn’t be in such an obvious car and wearing a shirt and tie. The most courtesy extended to him was not offering to sell him drugs.
He’d passed Marie Brison’s house several times, but there were no cars and no activity around the little clapboard house. The next time he met this white guy-and there would be a next time-there was no way he was gonna let him get away without a long talk. But now his goal was to find the only person who had spoken to him the night of the shooting. That was Pudge, the street prophet. A portly little man didn’t stick out on the streets at all, and Mazzetti wanted to be subtle when he approached him. That ruled out rumbling into the bars or pool halls and asking a lot of questions.
Like a lot of police work, it involved time and patience. There was nothing for him to do around the office. Christina Hogrebe had a handle on the backgrounds of the victims and suspects. The little nerd Lonnie Freed from intelligence was trying to scrounge up a snitch who knew anything at all about the Hess Party.
Without saying a word or even knowing he possessed it, Patty had shamed him into submitting the suspected Ecstasy to the lab. The young female lab tech had muttered, “Seems like we’re taking in a lot of Ecstasy lately.”
Mazzetti just nodded, leaving her to work her magic. Not that he expected anything from the results, at least nothing that would help his murder investigation. But now he could look Patty in the eye and she couldn’t say that he wasn’t thorough.
After more than an hour of searching for Pudge, Mazzetti’s stomach growled, so he pulled into a Church’s Fried Chicken. There was no line this time of the day and the pretty young cashier looked surprised to see a large white man walking alone. He ordered a two-piece dinner and the Diet Coke, then plopped on the bench next to his car to enjoy the cool spring day. As he was about to take his first bite of a leg, he heard someone chuckle at the corner of the building. He turned as the short, squat figure emerged.
“That chicken sure does smell good.”
