“Whether he did or didn’t, this might be the time to question him. Because with the two dead spring break girls someone could’ve tried to hide a murder behind a suicide and an overdose.”
Instantly Stallings thought of the string of girls from Daytona and Panama City.
Tony Mazzetti knocked on the hotel room door three times, balancing Dunkin’ Donuts coffee and a mixed dozen donuts in one hand. He was a little earlier than his scheduled eight o’clock arrival, but he didn’t know how well Patty was doing. On the few occasions he spent the whole night at her house she either tossed and turned or slept like a log. No one considered Jason Ferrell any kind of a threat, and Patty really knew how to take care of herself, so that wasn’t a concern. They’d already broken all kinds of official rules by holding the chemical engineer in a hotel overnight, but if he really was going to be of any use as a drug informant it’d be hard to keep it quiet that he’d spent the night in jail. This was an old trick, not officially sanctioned by the sheriff’s office or especially the state attorney’s office, but it was used on occasion not only to give someone a break but to take a shot at the big case cops always wanted to make. The guy had been too screwed up on God knows what for Mazzetti to get any straight answers out of him. Today he planned to ask him about his own case, the triple shooting near Market Street.
Patty had a bright smile on her face when she opened the door, and Mazzetti was surprised to see Jason Ferrell sitting at the cheap table in the corner of the hotel room. His eyes seemed clearer this morning, but he still had the disheveled appearance of an absent-minded professor or street person.
He resisted giving Patty a kiss on the cheek as he entered the hotel room but did make a show out of presenting her with the donuts and coffee. She accepted them with a nod that sent her pretty hair across her face.
Mazzetti said, “Anything new with your car thief here?”
Jason said, “I’m sorry I took your car. I guess I panicked.” He grabbed two donuts from the box and devoured one in a single bite. “When can I get back to see Marie? She doesn’t do well on her own.”
Mazzetti shook his head as he plopped in the chair across the table from Jason. “We’ve been cutting you a break so you could get a decent night’s sleep here, but you’re not free to go yet.”
“Why?” He looked at Patty with big puppy-dog eyes.
Mazzetti kept talking. “You got until five o’clock today to come up with something good. Someone had better go to jail based on information you provide or at five o’clock you get booked for making your Ecstasy.”
“But I thought you guys liked me. Patty and I bonded.”
“You’re not our fucking mascot. Make a case, or you’ll have a new permanent address.”
“I already told you guys I have the list of my clients on my laptop.”
Mazzetti opened his notepad he carried everywhere with him. “I’m much more interested in a bigger crime. One that happened very close to your love nest.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“The triple shooting right across the street. You were there at Marie Brison’s house. I know because that was the first night you ran from me. You had to have seen something.”
“You mean that was real?”
Now he had Mazzetti’s attention. “You did see something. I knew it.”
“It was during a time when the X was still pretty strong, and I might’ve been using a homemade sleeping pill as well. I couldn’t tell you what day it was, and I thought I had dreamed it, but I did see someone shooting up the house across the street.” He slapped his forehead and added, “That’s why all the police were there afterward. Of course it had to be real.”
“Yes, it was all real. Three dope dealers are dead. I’ve got a mother and her two terrified daughters stashed at a hotel for safety. Now what exactly did you see?”
Jason stared off into space, his eyes not clearly focused on anything as he slowly and carefully said, “I cannot believe it was real. The way the girl with the red highlights in her hair stepped out of the front door with the gun in her hand. I thought I’d heard a few firecrackers, so I had looked out the window and I saw her step out and pull the trigger. She wasn’t aiming at anything. She held the gun and let it stitch the windows and one of the cars in the driveway.”
“Then what happened?”
“She sort of strolled back into the house. I think I might’ve dozed back off on the couch in the living room, and when I woke up I had assumed I dreamed the whole thing. I mean, I had seen the girl before. She lives there. Why would she shoot up her own house?”
Mazzetti wrote notes furiously as a lot of things started to make sense now. It was weird that this spaced- out druggie had been able to put all of the pieces of the puzzle into place for him.
Jason watched Mazzetti and said, “Does that help you at all, Detective?”
Mazzetti cut his eyes to Jason, then over to Patty sitting on the edge of the bed. “Think about what you just told me. Go over it in your head carefully. I want you to make sure this is exactly what you saw. Take your time.” Mazzetti knew how crucial this testimony would be. He also knew the slim chances of keeping an X-head like this lucid, let alone alive, until this case could go to trial in a year or more. He was glad Patty was here to witness the testimony, and he intended to get it on video later in the day. But first he wanted to make sure this airhead had it right and clear in his mind. Mazzetti was patient; all good homicide detectives were. He could wait for an hour while this guy sorted out what he had seen. But after about a minute and a half, once Mazzetti stood up again, he realized Jason Ferrell had dozed off with a donut’s powdered sugar trailing down his chin to his chest.
Mazzetti looked over at Patty. “Oh, he’ll make a bang-up witness.”
“Does what he says make any sense?”
“Perfect sense. The girl with the red highlights in her hair is one of the victim’s sisters. She was the only witness, and her statement has changed a couple of times.”
“You don’t think she shot her own brother, do you?”
“One thing homicide has taught me is never be surprised.” He stood and said, “Are you doing okay? Because I really need to grab Hoagie and haul ass over to the hotel where we put the mother and daughters from the shooting. I need to talk to the girl right now.”
Patty looked over at the snoozing Jason Ferrell. “I think I’ll be safe until someone else can come relieve me.”
This time Mazzetti did give her a kiss and darted out the door to take a shot at closing this homicide.
Fifty-one
Stallings had never been comfortable in the IA division, at least not since he’d been questioned after Jeanie’s disappearance. He understood the concerns about why he and Maria had waited so long to report their oldest daughter missing, and he’d been elusive in many of his answers, but it was only to protect Maria and the fact that she’d been whacked out of her head on prescription painkillers at the time. Now he was watching his chief tormentor, Ronald Bell, talk to a clearly agitated Gary Lauer. Mazzetti, Yvonne Zuni, and Ronald Bell’s partner were all in a small chamber attached to the interview room watching the proceedings through thick, mirrored glass.
Lauer fidgeted in his hard seat, repeatedly cracked his knuckles, and twisted his head to crack his neck too. He blurted out curt answers to any questions and made comments on the uselessness of IA.
As much as he hated to admit it, even to himself, Stallings had been very impressed with Ronald Bell’s hardball tactics. He knew what the crimes/persons unit wanted to pin on the motorcycle patrolman, and he was asking all the right questions to try and trip him up. First he covered Gary Lauer’s relationship with his girlfriend who had slit her wrists. Then he masterfully walked the conversation toward his habit of visiting dance clubs and his efforts to meet women there. Now the senior IA investigator was asking him about his girlfriend’s drug habits.
Ron Bell said, “Was she a drug user of any kind?”
“Not around me. She knew I couldn’t tolerate that kind of activity.”
“Cut the shit, Lauer. I know you have no problem with drug use, and I know you stepped out on her all the time. Why don’t you take this opportunity to come clean and maybe save yourself from going crazy?”
“I don’t even know what you’re talking about. She was a casual thing on the side and knew I hit the clubs. And I don’t know where you get the idea I’m okay with drug use.”
