“Everything is wrapped up in St. Augustine and he’s on his way here.”
“How’d he sound?”
“Truthfully, he sounded a little shaken.”
The lieutenant nodded. “It’s the guys as tough as Stallings who take things the hardest. When I heard what happened and knew how much he had invested in finding this kid and what information the kid potentially had for him, I figured he’d be pretty upset.”
“I don’t think he got anything from Zach. He said they only talked for a few minutes before he slipped out the back of the restaurant and was struck by the SUV.”
“Any word on the search for the vehicle?”
“No luck yet.”
The lieutenant let out a long, heavy sigh. “He’s not the kind of guy you can send home to clear his head. And I don’t want him to feel like he’s being punished by being taken off the case again. I already punished him when I found out about the photo of Zach Halston and his daughter. We need something that makes him feel needed but doesn’t have much of a risk involved with it.”
Sergeant Zuni thought about it for a few moments, then said, “I’ll send him out with Patty to talk to families of accident and suicide victims. So far we haven’t gotten any leads from it, but the interviews need to be done.”
The lieutenant nodded and mumbled, “Good idea.” Then she said, “I want you to reassign four detectives to this case quietly. We need to take it seriously without causing a panic. I’ll send over two analysts from auto theft.” She turned to leave, then stopped and looked back over her shoulder. “It’s a good idea to put Stallings on the interviews. Any sergeant who can manage a resource as valuable and as volatile as John Stallings is doing something right.”
Sergeant Zuni couldn’t help but smile as the lieutenant walked away.
FORTY
Patty Levine tried to relax with her head in Ken’s lap. She was stretched out on his leather couch watching the Orlando Magic beat up on the Atlanta Hawks and trying to act interested as he yapped about the dangers of plantar fasciitis.
When he stopped to take a breath, Patty said, “I know what you mean about work being a bitch. We’re back to square one on our possible serial homicide case.”
“The one that involves the fraternity brothers?”
Patty rolled onto her back so she could look up at Ken’s face now that they were involved in an actual conversation and not just one of his monologues about how podiatrists are not given enough respect in the medical community. She said, “Yeah. A witness who ran away from my partner was killed by a hit-and-run before John could talk to him.”
“You said there was a possibility that the deaths were all a coincidence.”
“John saw the car as it drove away from hitting the witness in St. Augustine.”
“Did he see the driver intentionally run down the witness?”
Patty shook her head.
“Then this could be just one more coincidence, couldn’t it?”
“I think we’ve moved beyond the coincidence theory.”
“Why would a witness run from him anyway?”
“That’s what we’re trying to figure out.”
Ken thought for a moment, then said, “What was he doing in St. Augustine? That’s another county. That’s not even in your jurisdiction.”
“That’s not the point. The problem is a dead witness.”
“Who might not be dead if your partner hadn’t scared him into running away.”
“It’s not John’s fault.”
“It sounds like he played a role in it.”
Patty felt a knot of frustration work its way through her stomach. This guy just didn’t get it. She felt like she needed a cop to talk to, someone who would understand her and could relate to the job. Uh-oh. She felt the knot of frustration turn to anxiety. She had broken up with Tony Mazzetti because she didn’t feel like the job would ever give them a chance at a normal life. Now she was thinking she couldn’t talk to her boyfriend because he wasn’t a cop.
John Stallings felt like a homeless person. He could not face the lonely house he rented in Lakewood and he couldn’t visit his main residence because he wasn’t ready to talk to Maria after the way he had acted with Brother Frank Ellis. The combination of his confrontation with the minister, who had acted like a creep but apparently was an okay guy, and his failure to protect Zach Halston had sent him into a serious funk.
He’d gone by the office, and Sergeant Zuni’s calm and sensitive manner had unnerved him. Stallings was used to sergeants shouting at him or threatening him, not giving him a cushy assignment with his partner to interview witnesses the next day. He realized it was their way of taking him out of harm’s way without making him feel like a failure. On some level he appreciated it. But he wanted to be in the thick of things. That’s why he had become a cop in the first place.
Now he found himself at the community center where his father worked in the evenings. But he couldn’t lie to himself. Stallings had not come over here to see his father and be reminded how his failing memory might block him out altogether. He knew Grace Jackson would be over here tonight as well. There was a connection he had with the pretty black schoolteacher, who had seemed to be able to cut through all the bullshit of his job and life.
Stallings had been vague about what happened in St. Augustine and only said that a witness had been killed by a hit-and-run. He went into greater detail about bumping into Brother Frank Ellis and his wife visiting Maria and realizing that Ellis had been trying to help him when he mentioned Maria had a problem with Patty. Looking back on it, Stallings recognized that there was no way Ellis could have gotten that info unless it had come through Maria. It was an issue with Maria even if it wasn’t a real-life issue. At some point he’d have to deal with it and talk to his estranged wife about his strong, but nonsexual, feelings for his partner. He would have to talk to Patty as well. He had no idea what he’d say to either of them and right now, setting the table with Grace and looking into her pretty, dark eyes was enough of a distraction to keep him from falling over from a huge anxiety attack.
Grace gave him a warm smile after he finished the story about Frank Ellis and said, “I know this is not the right time to say anything like I told you so.”
Stallings broke out into a smile and said, “But.”
Grace continued, undaunted. “But I did say that Brother Ellis had a good reputation and you might be jumping to conclusions.” She reached across the table and grasped his hand in both of hers. “You are a very fine man, John Stallings. You’re intense but calm, you’re smart but clueless, and most of all you’re a very sweet, loyal husband.” Grace sighed and said, “And you know what I think.”
“No, but I’d like to know what you think.”
“I think you should forget the problems with your wife, Brother Frank Ellis, your dad’s Alzheimer’s, and even put me out of your mind for a little while and focus on nothing but this case. It will clear your mind, settle your spirit, and maybe keep someone else from getting killed.”
Stallings nodded slowly, seeing the perfect sense of the idea.
Grace said, “And once you finish that, you need to figure out what you want to do with the rest of your life and if Maria has a role in it. She
Stallings gave her a smile and said, “I feel another ‘but’ coming on.”
Without saying another word, Grace leaned across the table and kissed him. She let it linger so he could feel her full lips and the emotion behind the kiss. When she was done, she leaned back into her chair and said, “That was so you’d have no doubt on how I feel. And when all of this is cleared up, and I mean everything, I’ll still be
