Emmanuel wondered if life was any different with the other federal agencies.
John Stallings kept alert and remained very aware of his surroundings as he and Patty followed Mrs. Hickam through the house to a den that overlooked a sprawling backyard and small lake. Several things had caught Stallings’s attention during the stroll through the house. It had a surprisingly homey atmosphere with a number of photos of the family. He recognized one of the kids as the victim of the alcohol poisoning case that Stallings had come to investigate. His name was Josh Hickam and he’d been a sophomore at the University of North Florida when he had died in early November, two years ago.
Mrs. Hickam was an ordinary-looking woman of about fifty-five, who had a muted personality that reminded Stallings of Maria when she was using heavy doses of prescription drugs. Aside from introducing herself and asking them to follow her, she had not said a word during the walk through the house.
Mr. Hickam met them in the den and Stallings could tell by the man’s darting eyes that he was nervous and making a detailed assessment of him and Patty. The walls of the den were lined with books and framed photographs of the family. One section of the south wall contained a locked, glass display case with more than thirty handguns on various racks and pedestals. This house was secure if Mr. Hickam felt comfortable displaying so many guns so prominently.
Patty and Stallings sat across from the Hickams on two small couches. The older couple held each other’s hands tightly, and Mr. Hickam assumed the role of communicator.
Stallings had been careful to advise them right from the start that they had no new information and were simply doing follow-up on a number of deaths in the county over the past two years.
Mr. Hickam said, “We never really thought Josh had died of anything other than alcohol poisoning. We knew the college life could get wild, but we assumed that since he was so close, he was safe.”
Patty said, “Did he live here with you?”
“No, we wanted him to have the full college experience even if he was only a few miles away. He lived in the apartment complex that houses the fraternity.”
Stallings tried to hide his surprise and calmly asked, “What fraternity was he in?”
“Tau Upsilon.”
Tony Mazzetti sat in the corner of the detective bureau with Sparky Taylor, going through reports and other documents relating to their case. The new information, that Stallings had seen a blue SUV driving away from the scene of a hit-and-run in St. Augustine, provided dozens of more leads to follow up.
The cheapskate lieutenant avoided overtime by reassigning four detectives and an analyst to help him cope with the growing investigation, but he knew the break in the case would lie with him or Sparky or one of the full- time detectives on the squad. Experience counted for more than anything else in homicide. He felt like he’d seen just about everything that could be thrown at him, and if you saw something once it was easier to spot a second time.
Sparky was reading reports from other cities, including Atlanta, Daytona, Gainesville, and Orlando. Scanning through hundreds of documents hoping to find a link to this case that could be used to find the killer. As much as he hated to admit it, Mazzetti now realized the deaths of the Tau Upsilon fraternity members had not been accidents. The lieutenant was even now conferring with officials from other cities to decide how they should notify the members of the fraternity that they could be in danger. The way Mazzetti saw it, if the fraternity brothers couldn’t figure out something was wrong by the fact that they each knew several dead men, it wouldn’t change much when the cops told them they had linked all the deaths. No one ever thinks it will happen to them.
Sparky looked up from a faxed police report and said, “I just found a report from a witness in Daytona regarding the hit-and-run of a fraternity member. The traffic investigator had asked several local witnesses if they had seen any vehicles in the area. Five witnesses listed five completely different vehicles.”
Mazzetti said, “So?”
“So one of the vehicles listed was a blue SUV.”
That caught Mazzetti’s attention. On its own, with no license tag information, the report was useless, but coupled with what a reliable witness like John Stallings had seen, it could be the link they’d been looking for.
“Do we have the list of license plates that start with A?”
“It’s two hundred and three vehicles long just for Duval County.” Sparky moved some papers around the long table and pick up another print. “Three hundred and sixteen if we include adjacent counties. The number climbs to five hundred and two if we include Volusia County. That’s a lot of vehicles to look at. Stallings had the same report run after the hit-and-run.”
Mazzetti leaned back in his chair in a sign of frustration. At what point was it useless? These were the kinds of things that the press could use to crucify him later. The reporters had the luxury of time and perspective to look at information. After the dust had settled, they loved to point the finger at detectives who tried to be efficient and prioritize investigative tasks.
As soon as Stallings heard the fraternity mentioned, he couldn’t keep from turning and looking at Patty, who gave him a quiet, professional nod and wrote a few more notes on her pad.
Mrs. Hickam said, “They were nice boys. You should’ve seen the crowd that came to Josh’s funeral. Each of them dressed up in a nice suit and they greeted all of the family members, making us feel like one of their own.”
Stallings asked a few more questions and discovered that Josh studied business, but the most important thing was they had another body to tie into this conspiracy. It wasn’t the right time to explain what was going on to the Hickams, but it could be that their son was the first known victim.
Stallings said, “I have one more question.”
Mr. Hickam said, “Sure, anything you want to know.”
“Did your son have a job?”
Now the Hickams exchanged glances and after a short pause Mr. Hickam said, “He made a little money doing different things, but he wasn’t employed by anyone specific.”
Stallings nodded, slowly stood, taking a closer look at photographs on the wall. He said, “You have an attractive family.”
“Thank you. We tried to stay very close.”
Stallings noticed the Hickams’ daughter in some kind of clinical setting. “Is your daughter a nurse?”
Mr. Hickam shook his head and said, “She works part-time at a veterinarian’s office, keeping the books.”
Stallings moved to the gun collection, noting the man’s love of Smith amp; Wesson revolvers. One entire row of eight handguns were Smith amp; Wessons from the ancient model 10 to the much newer 686.
Stallings turned to Mr. Hickam and said, “If we have any more questions, can we come by and talk to you?”
Mr. Hickam nodded his head and said, “You just have to call ahead of time. You can see that we cherish our privacy.”
Stallings was beginning to wonder about that privacy and if the reasons for it had led to their son’s death. Something wasn’t right about this house.
FORTY-TWO
It’d been two hours since their interview at the Hickam house and still it was all Stallings could think about. They’d talked to the father of a young man who’d drowned while partying with some former high school friends. The man seemed very matter-of-fact and calm about the whole incident and had never suspected any type of conspiracy. He had accepted his son’s death and moved on with his life. Although they hadn’t been extraordinarily close, the father knew his son had never been involved with the fraternity and all details of the accident had made sense when the friends talked to the police.
Now Stallings and Patty were just finishing a sandwich at a Firehouse Subs off I-95. Patty looked up and said, “Are you still thinking about the Hickam interview too?”
