Sparky’s face softened and he finally said, “Okay. You can help.”
Stallings felt like a matchmaker as he watched the two eccentric detectives walk off together. Their body types reminded him of Laurel and Hardy. Before he could race off to meet Patty, Stallings couldn’t resist taking a moment to thumb through the photographs of the young man Lonnie had given him. Had Jeanie really ran off with one of them?
He moved from leaning on his desk to sitting in his chair as he thumbed through report after report. His cell phone rang. When he picked it up, Patty said, “I thought you were meeting me in the parking lot?”
“I am. I’ll be there in a minute.”
“That’s what you said over an hour ago.”
Stallings looked at the time on a cell phone and saw that he had been sitting at his desk for more than an hour. He’d have to be more careful to keep leads on Gator from distracting him on big cases like this.
FORTY-SEVEN
Lynn sat at the desk in her small, cluttered office at the Thomas Brothers supply company gazing over a stack of forms explaining why products had gone bad before delivery. She’d noticed an increase in spoilage since Dale had been arrested and fired from the loading dock. That went hand in hand with the current disorganization. She couldn’t believe the big, slow-witted redneck had been so competent and so essential to the company. The first report showed that a load of dairy products had not been refrigerated properly. The next report was just a case of holding eggs past the expiration date. These were simple errors that didn’t often occur when Dale was in charge.
She heard a light rap on her doorframe and looked up to see the lean figure of Leon smiling at her. “What’s going on?”
Lynn sighed and said, “Since you managed to get Dale arrested, the company has gone to hell.”
Leon quickly stepped inside the office and held up his hands. “Hey, girl, don’t say shit like that. Even joking.”
She saw how serious he was, and in a way that made her feel more confident. This was a man who had spent his adult life in a business that demanded secrecy. Lynn mumbled, “Sorry, you’re right.”
Leon smiled as he sat down and rubbed his hands together. “Now, what’s our next move?”
“You’ve already helped me enough.”
“Nonsense, I was just getting into it. My life is so boring now compared to what it used to be, I want to rob a bank just to see what it’s like. At least with you I’m helping an old friend’s daughter. Even if I don’t know exactly what you’re doing.”
“And going by your secrecy rule, it’s best that you don’t.”
“I understand. But that doesn’t change the fact that that I’m going to help you whether you want it or not. The alternative for either of us is not pleasant.”
Lynn could also see how this man would have been subtly threatening in his former career. Finally she nodded slowly and said, “I was going to drive down to Daytona Saturday.”
Leon smiled and said, “I’ll check out the Suburban from the fleet.”
“I was just gonna drive my personal car down there.”
“Why? I work till two on Saturday and have to go down to one of the warehouses in New Smyrna to pick up some paint and fencing material stored down there. It’ll all fit in the back of the Suburban.” He gave her a sly smile and said, “I’ll even drive you like I was a chauffeur.”
Lynn shook her head and said, “I still don’t get it. Why do you care what I’m doing?”
“I’m no idiot. The time will come one day when Bill Hickam repays favors. I know the man. I want to stay on his good side. The only question now is, what should I bring on Saturday?”
“What do you mean?”
“Knife, gun. Your call.”
Lynn rolled her eyes. “It’s not like that. I’m just going to the hospital.”
Leon snorted like he didn’t believe her. “You’re going to have to learn, girl, you always need something as backup. Something more than the person you’re going to talk to. Maybe we could get by with just a baseball bat or a Taser.”
“You own a Taser?”
“Technically, by law, I don’t own any weapons. But there’s nothing I can’t get ahold of on a moment’s notice.”
“Fine. Bring a pistol. Just don’t let me or anyone else see it.” Lynn didn’t mind having Leon come with her as a security blanket. Alan Cole was a loose end she couldn’t ignore. Looking up at Leon’s smiling face in her own office, she wondered if he wasn’t a worse loose end.
The doctor barked at the nurse when she bumped Alan Cole’s bed as she replaced an IV bag.
The doctor worked hard to suppress his slight Indian accent because he’d heard some of the rednecks in the hospital imitate him. “He’s very unstable. That’s why we have him in the ICU. If it was safe, I’d have him transported up to Shands in Gainesville, where he might stand a chance.”
The nurse said, “He seems like he’s been more responsive in the last few days.”
“He wants to say something. I’ve heard him mumble the same thing two or three times. But aside from his injuries, we’re dealing with a serious infection now.” He flashed dark eyes at the nurse and said, “From now on only you or the nurse who replaces you on shift are to be in here. Take every precaution to keep from exposing him to anything unusual. I’ll check back every three hours. The next three days are critical. We must keep him stable with no excitement. He’s conscious enough now that he would react.”
The nurse said, “I understand.”
The doctor nodded, thinking the nurse wasn’t a local. She didn’t have the annoying twang many of the nurses raised in Daytona or its suburbs had. He felt confident she was the right nurse to look after the most challenging case he had had since he arrived in purgatory.
Sparky Taylor had to admit he enjoyed working with the intel detective. Lonnie Freed shared his love of computers and even knew his policy pretty well. They started by sorting the names of associates provided by the DEA. The federal agencies had always been quite secretive about how they obtained information. Of course the FBI was the worst. An informant could provide them with hearsay about one person talking about another person and both of the people would end up as criminal associates to some known terrorist or fraud kingpin.
The world of narcotics was even more nebulous. Names were batted about by informants and over wiretaps and entered into DEA reports, making them each become an associate of a known drug dealer. At least the DEA attempted to rate the reliability of information. They had a proprietary database that no other agency could access. But this report the local DEA supervisor had given John Stallings detailed the reason each name was on the list.
Sparky noted how efficient Lonnie was in determining who was a viable suspect based on if they were in jail or living in some distant area. He had managed to narrow the list to eleven names.
Now Sparky was separating the various owners of Suburbans into three separate piles. Each pile represented a geographic area with the largest one being Jacksonville.
Lonnie pointed to a stack of five registrations and said, “What’s that fourth pile?”
“Those are vehicles registered to businesses. We may not have to worry about them.”
Lonnie said, “Why don’t you give them to me and I’ll see if anything matches up.”
Sparky smiled and nodded at the efficient, intelligent idea. He wished this guy worked in crimes/persons.
Patty Levine and John Stallings had already cleared three Suburban owners off their list simply by driving by the vehicles. One was white and two were red. Stallings had insisted they stop and inspect one of the red Suburbans to ensure it hadn’t recently been painted.
