This time the man’s nervous eyes skittered toward the photo and he picked it up with a shaky hand. He took his time looking at the glossy color photo of a dark-haired, smiling seventeen-year-old taken two months earlier at a dance recital. The Tischlers had been very helpful the night before. He and Patty had developed a detailed info sheet in time to get it out to all the road patrol officers before the day shift and to all the detectives. The sheet had Leah Tischler’s photo and description, along with photos of the clothes she was wearing and of the gaudy, silver- plated belt the Thomas School issued. The teacher Leah was close to provided a phone number Stallings had determined to be a public pay phone inside a check-cashing store one block away. Now he and Patty were checking each of the small, low-rent apartment and motel buildings in the area.
Stallings didn’t rush the manager now that he’d made his point. This guy who ran the thirty-unit building couldn’t grasp the idea that for every runaway or missing person there was someone who missed them and worried every night. Stallings didn’t have time to answer stupid questions like why he was looking for someone or what would happen to her if she were found. He’d long since abandoned any pretext of being polite to people who slowed down his efforts to find missing kids. Especially teenage runaways.
This place was the only obvious destination in the area. But she might have been looking into cheap housing. Anywhere along Davis might lead to a clue to her whereabouts. It never ended with a missing persons case. An interview could lead to five more interviews and an address could point to three different houses. The only chance an endangered teenager had was a cop who wouldn’t give up. He had to live by that code. The manager handed back the four-by-six photo and shook his head. “I haven’t seen her.” He held up his right hand like he was testifying at trial. “I swear to God.”
Stallings ignored his partner’s short snort of laughter behind him. He was on a mission and a little twerp like this wouldn’t slow him down. Stallings nodded, collected the photo, turned, and marched out of the grubby lobby of the small motel west of the St. Johns River.
As soon as he stepped out onto the cracked and uneven sidewalk of downtown Jacksonville, a dribble of rain blew onto his face. At least the heat and humidity of late summer in North Florida wasn’t making him drip with sweat; the rain kept him cool.
Patty Levine, lingering behind at the manager’s office to smooth over any hard feelings, caught up to Stallings on the sidewalk. She said, “You know you can’t really treat everyone like they’re a sexual predator or someone about to snatch a kid off the street. I appreciate the fact you’re scary and get information quickly, but sometimes it wouldn’t hurt to answer a question like why we’re looking for someone.”
He turned and looked at Patty’s bright, pretty face framed with shoulder-length blond hair and said, “Maybe I misread what Leah’s parents wanted. I thought they wanted to find their daughter. I thought you agreed with me that this was a good case because we could provide the Tischlers with an explanation of what happened to their daughter.”
“Actually, I said it would be
“Then will you humor me?”
Patty flashed a perfect smile and nodded her head. She knew what she was doing. It never hurt to avoid complaints, but she also allowed Stallings wide latitude. Maybe too wide sometimes.
Stallings knew his younger partner would like to be involved in bigger cases but was very loyal to him. He also knew she was very sensitive to the fact that one of the few things that gave him any comfort was working on cases like this. He didn’t want to take advantage of her, but he certainly didn’t want to lose her as his partner either. She could do so many things and get so many more places than he could based on her looks and personality. The world of police work was evolving and he was stuck in the Jurassic period.
Patty said, “What’s your gut say about Leah?”
“I still think she ran away, but the fact that there’s no sign of her scares me. This was her first time running away so I don’t think she’d leave J-Ville. Someone had to have seen her.”
They kept walking down North Myrtle Avenue, occasionally stopping to show the photo of Leah to different vendors or low-cost hotel operators.
Stallings said, “My father doesn’t live too far from here.”
“How’s that going?”
Stallings shrugged. “He’s got a lot to make up for and a lot to catch up on. We’ve been taking it slow, but the kids really get a kick out of seeing him. It seems like he takes their minds off my troubles with Maria. They don’t hold the resentment my sister and I did toward the old man. Shit, Helen hasn’t even spoken to him yet.”
Patty nodded, knowing not to say too much about Stallings’s screwed-up personal life.
Stallings said, “What’s your boyfriend up to?” He liked the face she made when he referred to the chief homicide detective as her boyfriend. Patty and Tony Mazzetti had worked hard to keep their relationship quiet so that no one in management would feel like they had to move either of them off the squad.
Patty said, “He’s been on the Rolling Hills homicide since last week.”
Stallings thought about the young mother who’d been strangled in her own bed in the upscale community. Thankfully the killer had not bothered her two sleeping children. The case had garnered quite a bit of media attention, which always seemed to please Tony Mazzetti. The community was always outraged when an innocent person was harmed in their own home. It struck a nerve. A primal fear everyone held. The TV stations thrived on shit like that.
Stallings said, “Any new leads?”
“No, but you know what a bulldog Tony can be.”
“Yeah, a regular Rottweiler.”
“I wish you two could learn to coexist more peacefully.”
“Tell him to stop being such an asshole.”
“He said the same thing about you last night.”
Stallings stopped and turned, making a face like he was hurt. “You don’t really care what an asshole like Tony Mazzetti thinks of me, do you?”
“He doesn’t know you well enough to realize what an asshole you can be.”
Stallings laughed as they kept walking, happy he had a partner with a decent sense of humor.
An hour later, John Stallings sat at a picnic table across the street from the Police Memorial Building or PMB. It was one of the places that many of the detectives used to get away from the office without being away from the office. He considered some of the things Patty had said about being edgy and latching on to the Leah Tischler case like a shark chomping on a chummed baitfish. He knew why he was acting like a maniac. It was the same reason Maria had been even more distant to him. The third anniversary of Jeanie’s disappearance was quickly approaching. Next Wednesday would be three long years without his oldest daughter in the house. The first year had gone by so fast it hadn’t hit him. He’d been so busy searching for his daughter and so hopeful she’d still somehow be found it didn’t seem like a big deal. By the second anniversary everything around the house had settled down and Maria had slipped into that odd, computer-support-group cocoon of hers. They were barely speaking and the daily activity of taking care of Charlie and Lauren kept him so occupied he didn’t dwell on it.
This year was another story. The kids didn’t need him as much and he wasn’t even living at home. He avoided the lonely two-bedroom house he’d rented except to sleep and occasionally eat. So he’d had time to think about his missing daughter and what it was like three years ago. The wave of fear washing through him, the devastating aftermath of the empty bedroom at the top of the stairs, the feeling of failure and despair.
The day Jeanie went missing was easily the worst day of his life. He was once stabbed in a fight with a drunken homeless man. That moment of realization when the blade seemed to appear out of nowhere and plunge into the left side of his stomach was terrifying and painful beyond words. He’d take a knife in the gut every day if he could just have Jeanie back.
He liked to focus on the good times he’d had with his daughter. Not the fights or sleepless nights after he had found a small bag of marijuana in her purse. One of his favorite memories was when she had turned twelve and joined a lacrosse club at her school. One game into the season the coach lost his job and had to move to Dallas. Stallings stepped in as the coach even though he didn’t know the rules, strategy, or goals of the game. But all the girls, especially Jeanie, appreciated his effort and he’d never forget those sunny Sunday afternoons when they had practiced until no one had the energy to run up and down the field.
His first week coaching he tried to adjust and not yell at the girls like he had the boys’ football team he
