wounded, and the evidence.
THIRTEEN
The fight at the office had disrupted everyone’s day. Unlike the way many TV shows portray police departments, any kind of a scuffle outside the booking area or jail facility is rare. Stallings once explained it to one of his neighbors by saying it would be like having several stockbrokers get into a fight at the Charles Schwab office. It happens, but those in the area are always surprised. Heading north of the city to the Thomas School was an excellent way to break up the day and step away from the chaos of the fight. Not only was Dwight, the nerdy detective, rushed to the hospital with a serious head wound, two of the three prisoners had to be hospitalized. It had been an all-out brawl and injuries happen, but he was sure some reporter trying to make a name would focus on the broken wrist of a prisoner or the fact that they had been handcuffed at the time of the fight. Someone who’d never been hit had no idea how distracting it could be.
The school sat back from the road with a pattern of soccer and baseball fields adding to the stately feel of the buildings. It looked more like a small college than an exclusive, private prep school. Stallings had heard tuition topped thirty thousand dollars a year and it looked as if they had put a fair amount of that money back into the school.
Stallings had let Patty work her magic to get them set up in an administrator’s office near the front entrance. It wasn’t only her professional manner; he had to admit she could deal with regular people much better than he could. He liked to think he was learning from her. Then they’d get behind on a missing person investigation, and he’d lose his patience and deal with people too bluntly. And like an epileptic seizure creeping into the consciousness, he could feel his patience ebbing away as they made no progress toward finding Leah Tischler. Although there was the strong possibility she’d been a victim of whoever strangled Kathy Mizell, there was no absolute proof she was dead. Either way he felt a burning drive to discover what had happened to her. The rational side of his mind told him there was no greater chance of him finding out what had happened to his own Jeanie by finding out what had happened to Leah, but he recognized he wasn’t always rational and sometimes it was an irrational hunch that solved the case. If nothing else, he wanted to give the Tischlers some sense of closure. Something he and Maria had never felt.
With a great deal of assistance from some Thomas School administrators, Stallings and Patty were able to see, in quick succession, a slew of snooty girls all wearing the same uniform as Leah Tischler wore in her final photo. The school had agreed to help in exchange for the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office being clear Leah had not disappeared from school and the school had no liability in the matter. Stallings agreed, knowing it was someone higher than him who would make the call at a news conference and decide whom to throw under the bus. His guess was that if the school had any responsibility at all, they’d be mentioned prominently in the news. But that wasn’t his concern. He had one goal. Maybe one of these girls would help him achieve it.
The sixth girl to walk through the door of the small office sighed loudly as she stood there waiting for the detectives to acknowledge her. Stallings looked up from his notes and was surprised to see a girl with piercings all along her ear and the tip of a tattoo on her neck coming out of her collar.
Patty said, “Are you Marcie?”
The girl nodded her head, causing her stringy hair to flop across her forehead as she stepped forward and plopped into the hard wooden chair. Her plaid skirt puffed out as she hit the chair.
Patty said, “I like your piercings.”
The girl perked up, shifted from a suspicious glare at Stallings to a more attentive expression toward Patty. “The ears are the only thing that can be pierced around this place. They made me pull out my nose ring and lip stud. I just put them in again as soon as I walked out that stupid gate.”
Stallings sat back and let Patty chat with the girl, putting her at ease before turning to the questions they needed answered.
Patty asked about running away, and the girl said, “We all think about it. It’s a nice change, a way to get away from our shitty lives.”
Stallings had to ask, “What’s shitty about your life?” He wasn’t judging her, but he really felt he needed to know the answer. He wondered if Jeanie had had the same conversation with someone else before she disappeared.
The girl said, “You know, our parents don’t get us. This is a boring backwater of a town. Jesus, this is the best school in North Florida and even it sucks.”
Stallings was surprised when Patty scowled and leaned forward. “What’s your father do?”
“He owns a Cadillac dealership north of here.
“So you have your own car?”
The girl nodded and mumbled, “A CTX.”
“You ever miss a meal?”
“What’d you mean?”
Patty’s normally pleasant blue eyes flashed fire, and she said, “Look around you. Look beyond this school and you’ll see people are barely getting by. There’s real suffering, not the imaginary shit you and your friends dream of.”
The girl looked shocked.
“You guys think running away is some kind of romantic escape. Leah Tischler’s parents are beside themselves with grief. There is a very real chance Leah has suffered some traumatic shit. We’re working our asses off to try and find her and to help her parents get through a rough time. All I’ve heard from you girls so far is how tough life is. I think you’re as disconnected and screwed up as you think this school is. Now cut the shit, Marcie. You know anything that might help us find Leah Tischler?”
The girl looked like she might cry and was fighting to hold it back.
Stallings stared at the girl and noticed the hole for her lip stud on the right side of her wide mouth. But he could see in her face that Patty had struck a chord.
The girl said, “I might know why Leah ran away and maybe even where she ran to.”
The way the girl said it made Stallings hope, just for a second, that this meant Leah had discarded her uniform and a killer had found the belt. He leaned forward. “Where is she?”
The girl said, “Ask Tonya Hazell.”
It was another lead, and Stallings intended to run with it.
FOURTEEN
Sergeant Yvonne Zuni sat at her desk after having made more than twenty phone calls regarding the fight in the squad bay. Her only real concern was the condition of the injured detective, Dwight. She’d worked with him in narcotics and despite his odd appearance and goofy nature, he was one of the best detectives she’d ever supervised. She was starting to see that the detectives who’d worked in the tech unit all shared the similar attributes of being extremely smart, working hard, staying diligent in their paperwork and steering clear of trouble off-duty. Usually detectives had three of these four attributes. Every detective had a different three. Some were smart and hardworking but ignored paperwork. Some were smart, stayed out of trouble off-duty, were current on their paperwork but also avoided work at all costs. The tech guys seemed to be the only ones who were reliably stable in all departments. She knew even though Sparky Taylor had some odd habits, he fell into that exact mold, spending every night with his family, giving the job everything he had while he was on duty, and definitely staying clear on policy, procedure, and paperwork.
About every fourth call the sergeant made was to find out if there was any new information about the injured detective. Head injuries were a tricky business and could leave lingering issues. Right now all she knew was he was being evaluated at the hospital and had drifted in and out of consciousness since the paramedics took him from the squad room. Sergeant Zuni knew that Dwight had two young girls at home and his wife was a teacher. She
