onto I-95 southbound, Patty let Stallings take over and follow him onto the interstate. She hit the gas and raced along the surface streets to keep pace with the motorcycle. Most people on the streets had no concept of all the surveillances that went on with unmarked police cars. Patty’s father always said he could pick out the unmarked police cars, but he meant the ones that looked like police cars. The Ford Crown Victorias or Dodge Chargers. He had no idea about all the other cars that were thrown into a modern police department’s fleet, specifically for these types of operations. To the average person on the street she looked like a frantic housewife rushing home at 11:30 at night.
Stallings came on the radio and said, “He’s getting off the interstate and we’re close to his apartment. I bet that’s where he’s headed.”
Patty had the address on an information sheet and knew the area well. Mazzetti came on the radio, “I’m on my way over there now.”
By the time Patty pulled past the apartment building, Byrd was walking in the front door and the motorcycle was parked on the sidewalk a few feet away. Stallings had called it right.
You couldn’t buy that kind of experience.
John Stallings didn’t use the radio. Instead he pulled alongside Tony Mazzetti’s Crown Vic a block away from the apartment building. They had things to discuss that didn’t need to be put out over the radio no matter how rarely the frequency was monitored.
Stallings rolled down his window so they were almost face-to-face, saying, “You think we need help on this?”
Mazzetti shook his head. “Fuck no.”
“Sounds like the SWAT thing is resolved and there’ll be a lot of cops on the street.”
“And what do we say? We really need to talk to this guy? Or maybe we have the SWAT team hit his apartment for stealing a motorcycle.”
“Then the question is: do you want to wait or go in?”
Mazzetti said, “We gotta wait. He could barricade himself inside and then we would really need to call the SWAT team. If Patty stays where she is and we stay on this end we can cover that front door easy. That’s the only way in or out of the building and the way he parked the bike means he’s not staying too long.”
Stallings nodded and pulled his car to the other side of the street. He settled in to watch the motorcycle. He glanced at his watch; nearly midnight and he was exhausted.
This could be the big break in the case. He couldn’t think of another reason why this guy would run from them so hard. They had to get him in custody and interviewed as quickly as possible. There was no way Stallings was leaving this neighborhood without Daniel Byrd.
FORTY-TWO
John Stallings rubbed his eyes hard and shook his head, trying to wake himself up. It was after 2 A.M. and he was wondering when Daniel Byrd would be out of the apartment and back on the bike. Mazzetti had been stealthy and walked along the sidewalk to yank the spark plug wire loose on the Honda. It would only take Byrd a second to figure out what the problem was, but that would give them enough time to grab him.
Stallings had used all the veteran police tricks to stay awake over the years. He ate sunflower seeds one at a time, knowing that the activity of pulling them apart and eating them would occupy his mind enough to stay awake. He had gone the caffeine route, first with coffee then the various energy drinks, but he never cared for them much. He tried the old trick of drinking water constantly so he had to pee relentlessly and therefore couldn’t doze off. The downside of that was he kept filling and emptying a Gatorade bottle he kept in the car. Tonight he was using an old standard. He would hold his breath for as long as he possibly could, sometimes as much as a minute and thirty seconds. That kept him awake and supercharged his heart rate; it took ten minutes to recover completely before he’d do it again.
As he was about to measure another breath on his Timex Ironman watch, the radio crackled and he heard Patty Levine say, “Someone is at the front door.”
A few seconds later Mazzetti said, “Gotta be him. As soon as he goes to the bike let’s grab him.”
Stallings was close to the bike. All he had to do was pop out of his car, and with a sprint, be on top of Byrd before the shithead ran. Stallings mumbled, “Is today the day that changes my life?”
Patty came on the radio again. “I don’t think it’s him. It looks like a female. She stepped outside for a moment and then stepped back into the lobby. It’s a white female in a yellow dress with the flower pattern on it.”
Stallings was one step ahead and slipped out of his car with the radio in his hand. He crept along the sidewalk, sticking close to the scraggly bushes and occasional garbage can. Then he heard Patty say the woman was out of the building. A moment later he saw the yellow dress and was surprised to see the woman walk directly to the motorcycle.
Stallings paused a few feet away looking through an untrimmed ficus hedge. After a moment he realized what was happening. Daniel Byrd had slipped on one of the dresses they’d seen in his closet. He had a small satchel slung over his shoulder and was wearing a baseball cap. From a distance he would look like a woman.
Patty realized it at the same time and said over the radio, “That’s him, that’s him. Byrd is wearing the yellow dress.”
Stallings had the radio low and close to his ear so Byrd wouldn’t hear. But he couldn’t help but notice Mazzetti’s car roar to life as he mashed the gas and raced down the street toward him.
Byrd’s head snapped as he held on to the satchel tight and started to sprint like only lean ex-cons could sprint. He was like a rocket as he started down the sidewalk. He was smart enough to wear tennis shoes instead of high heels with the dress, which barely slowed him at all.
Luckily for Stallings all he had to do was step out from behind a hedge and swing his arm in a classic clothesline move. He caught the fleeing felon at the top of his chest and the momentum carried Stallings’s arm into his chin, not only upending Byrd, but damn near knocking him unconscious as well.
Stallings looked down at the moaning man, and all he could say was, “Sweet.”
FORTY-THREE
An hour after capturing Daniel Byrd, Stallings sat across from him in an interview room in the Land That Time Forgot. Stallings liked the way Mazzetti was playing this slow and cool. He had purposely left the room to allow Byrd to stew in his own paranoia. He was letting the wily suspect imagine the worst. Stallings knew to just sit there and look mean.
Mazzetti hated calling so late to advise Sergeant Zuni that they were interviewing someone. He told her not to rush down to the PMB and he’d let her know if something came of it.
For Byrd’s part, once he was caught he’d offered no more resistance. He was still in the patterned yellow dress and had a red mark across his cheek where Stallings’s arm had ridden up his chest during the clothesline. Byrd was putting on a cocky act, but Stallings knew jerks like this started to crumble as soon as they realized they were going back to jail. The key was finding what Byrd wanted. If they had a carrot, they didn’t need to use the stick.
Mazzetti came back in, settled into the empty chair, and stared hard at Daniel Byrd. Byrd leaned back in his chair, but there was only so much coolness you could have with your hands cuffed behind your back while you were wearing a dress.
Mazzetti said, “Anything you want to talk to us about, Daniel?”
“Not a thing.”
Stallings could hear the North Florida twang in those few words. He had known several families named Byrd in the Jacksonville area. One of them over in Baker County. These Byrds had a similar accent but a different outlook
