The Perfect Scream Read online

  The Tau Upsilon fraternity overall didn’t seem like a bad bunch of kids; most were focused business majors and some of the alumni had decent jobs. The gaudy, multicolor tattoos on the inside of their right ankles were the only thing they all had in common. All the tattoos were identical and showed the fraternity Greek letters set in palm trees in the back of a red pickup truck. Stallings liked the sense of Florida and the boys’ sense of humor.

  But here it was the day before Thanksgiving and he was no closer to finding Zach Halston than he had been last week. He’d made a dozen copies of the photograph of Zach and Jeanie and given them to a couple of the boys. He’d been very specific about them only showing it to other fraternity brothers and only telling him of the results. No one else.

  Stallings started to sketch out some plans to talk to fraternity brothers outside the area when Patty walked up to his desk.

  She had a bright smile when she said, “Whatcha working on?”

  “Figuring out who we might need to talk to next week. What about you?”

  “I used my feminine wiles to get the computer guys to rush the review of Zach Halston’s computer.” She plunked down a pile of paper on his desk. “List of what appears to be his customers. The list of all the fraternity brothers. Some unknown telephone numbers that look like they might be associated with his partners in the pot business and a half a dozen credit card numbers that he and other brothers were using to buy stuff online. All the cards are under other people’s names and the two people I checked with didn’t know that they had credit cards under their name. So it looks like Mr. Halston, in addition to being a college student, is a pot dealer, identity thief, and probably at the top of many people’s hit lists.”

  Stallings patted the paper and said, “Does it bother you to go outside of guidelines to have some computer nerd rush your request?”

  “You scare people, I tease people. We each have our skills, and as long as we don’t abuse them, it’s no problem. For instance, you haven’t punched anyone in front of me for several weeks. I think you’re using your scary skills reasonably. I made no promises to any of the computer nerds, but I’ll admit I unbuttoned my shirt one button and leaned in while I was talking to them. If that makes me a bad cop then I’m guilty.”

  Stallings let out a laugh and said, “You’re not a good cop, you’re great cop, and don’t forget it.”

  “Does that mean you won’t think less of me if I cut out early this afternoon and head down to my parents’ house?”

  “That where you’re having Thanksgiving dinner?”

  “Yep, what about you?”

  “I signed on for the whole deal tomorrow afternoon at my mom’s house. It’s supposed to be my dad, my kids, and Maria. My mom says my sister may even make a guest appearance, which would make it the first time we were all in the same room together in more than twenty years.”

  “It was nice seeing you and Maria out last Friday night.”

  “There wasn’t much to it, I’m afraid. But I’m working on it.” Stallings paused and smiled and said, “Your date looked like a nice young man.”

  “You think anyone that isn’t Tony Mazzetti is the perfect match for me.”

  Stallings started to argue the point, then held up his hands. “I’m just saying, Ken seemed very nice.”

  “I thought about asking him to my parents’ for Thanksgiving dinner, but I didn’t want to scare him off. I hope to hook this fish more securely before I decide to reel him in.”

  Stallings looked up and said, “Enjoy your time off and we’ll crank up again on Monday.”

  Patty gave him a dazzling smile and a quick wave and was on her way.

  Tony Mazzetti returned Patty’s wave as she hustled out the door. All morning he’d been hoping she might sit down and chat with him at his desk. He didn’t need much, just a quick whiff of her perfume or an up-close look at that beautiful smile. He knew they weren’t getting back together, but he wished she’d spend more time with him in the office.

  His cell phone rang as he watched Patty disappear out the door. He dug the phone out of his pocket and whipped it open to see Lisa Kurtz’s office number on it. He felt guilty not answering it. It had nothing to do with how he felt about Patty. He just couldn’t face the pretty Syracuse grad explaining why she was the most fascinating and intelligent woman in the world.

  She may not have been all that bad. Mazzetti had to recognize he liked being the center of attention himself and it may be that she was just too close a reflection of himself. Regardless, he had no intention of spending his Thanksgiving with her, nor did he really want to explain to her why he wouldn’t be. The easiest solution seemed to be to avoid her at all costs.

  The medical examiner and the homicide squad worked hand-in-hand, and she would know he wasn’t too busy right now. Just the thought of the tall, red-haired assistant medical examiner surprising him in the office caused him to gather up his stuff and scurry for the door right after Patty.

  Lynn gripped the Buck knife with the blade facing away from her hand. She swept past her target and then drove it in with a hammer fist. She did it two more times and watched the holes open. She stepped back switched grips, plunging the knife three times quickly into the center mass of her target. She stepped back, breathing heavy, watching the sand drip out of the large burlap bag she had strung up in a tree behind her duplex. She had studied knife fighting through YouTube videos and two books she checked out from the library. She realized she wasn’t big enough to carry a lot of power behind her strikes so she had to focus on targets. The only target everyone agreed on was a victim’s throat. She could slash it or gouge it and cause enough trauma to kill the victim.

  The first few days she had practiced so hard with a knife that her hand had bled in several places. Lately she had started to realize how tough she was. A few scratches or blisters on her hand weren’t going to keep her from completing her mission. When she’d first started dealing out her own kind of justice, she’d been a mild-mannered bookkeeper no one took seriously. But she had proven herself to be dangerous and, over the course of her mission, grown confident and efficient. If she had regretted any of her actions, that was behind her now. She looked forward to dealing with her next obstacle. It made her feel like she mattered. She wasn’t a mousy coed. She was in charge. She was in charge of life and death. Justice had failed her and her family, and it made her feel sort of like a superhero to be handling matters herself.

  Her next plan was more complicated than the others. It involved waiting for one of the creeps near his parents’ house in Orlando. College kids always headed home for Thanksgiving dinner. That was a no-brainer. She also knew none of these fraternity assholes could resist going to a bar at night. That’s where she’d make her move. By doing it in Orlando she added one more jurisdiction that wouldn’t be able to figure out why a nice young man had been killed for no apparent reason.

  She closed her sharp Buck knife and took one more look at the sad and ripped burlap bag in front of her. This was a skill that could last for her whole life.

  John Stallings had a list of nine phone numbers in the Jacksonville area from Zach Halston’s computer. Usually Patty handled jobs like this. It wasn’t that he was anti-technology or unable to figure out how to track down information, but everyone recognized Stallings’s strength lay in talking to people. And that was the strength he was going to use right now. He thought about what Patty had said earlier. She really could get help from people in the building who barely acknowledged his existence. So now he swallowed hard and thought about Jeanie as he approached one of the squad analysts. She was the last analyst on duty before the Thanksgiving break. Alice, the analyst, had made it clear to Stallings on several occasions that she’d like to take him out for dinner and possibly other things whenever he felt he was past the breakup of his marriage. It didn’t matter how many times he explained to Alice that he was only separated and hoping to reconcile with Maria, she still probed and questioned him about when they might
meet after work.

  Stallings approached her with a single sheet of paper in his hand. He had handwritten the nine different phone numbers, four with 904 area codes, two with 386 area codes, and two more with 850 area codes. All the numbers were either in Central or North Florida and they had all been called by Zach Halston within five days of his disappearance. The phone records that Patty had retrieved on his cell phone had not shown any calls since the last day anyone had seen him almost three weeks before.

  Before he had even reached her workstation, Alice glanced up and a smile spread across her pretty face. She brushed her bleach-blond hair out of her eyes and turned to meet Stallings, who slipped into the chair on the other side of her desk.

  Alice said, “Does this mean you’ve finally come to your senses?”

  Normally, at this point, Stallings would set her absolutely straight. Instead, he tried to work it, handing her the sheet of paper and saying, “I’m sorry, Alice. I’ve just got too much going on right now to think about my private life.”

  “Even with the long weekend coming up?” She winked at him. Alice was in her mid-thirties and very attractive. She was not known as a flirt around the sheriff’s office and Stallings couldn’t understand why she was fixated on him.

  “Especially with the long weekend coming up. I need to get a fix on these numbers as soon as possible. Any ideas?” He leaned in and gave her the best smile he could come up with. He had to think about Charlie and him kicking the soccer ball and Lauren laughing at one of his stupid jokes.

  Alice looked at the numbers and said, “Wait right there and I’ll run these through our intelligence database and see if it ever came up in any other investigations. Otherwise we’ll have to get a subpoena from the state attorney to figure out who owns the phones.” She didn’t wait for a reply; instead she used her mouse to click through a few screens on her computer and then typed furiously for about thirty seconds. Then she looked back up at Stallings, making sure her eyes met his. “One of these numbers in the 386 area code came up in a narcotics case earlier in the year.”

  “Can you see what it was about and who owns the number?”

  After a minute of typing and reading, Alice said, “Looks like it’s a number from northwestern Volusia County. All it says here is that it belongs to a J. L. Winter, who was supplying pot to a couple of low-level dealers here in Jacksonville.”

  “That’s it!” Stallings didn’t mean to shout, but it came out a little too loud. His intuition told him this was the guy supplying Zach Halston with the pot he, in turn, supplied to the youth of Jacksonville. He was so happy he wanted to jump up and kiss Alice, but the look on her face told him she might not let it stop at that. He understood what Patty was talking about. It was fun to use every possible skill to get the job done. He stood and said, “Alice, you’re a lifesaver.” Because he didn’t feel right about leading anyone on, he said, “I couldn’t do my job without you.”

  Now he had a lead.

  ELEVEN

  John Stallings drove slowly down US 17 near the town of Seville, Florida. He had lived in North Florida his entire life and he’d never been to Seville. The town literally had one stoplight and three Baptist churches. About three miles north of the town limits, a mailbox without a name or number sat in front of an entrance to a farm. It was a familiar enough sight in rural North Florida. Except Stallings paid attention to details. Most cops did. The first hint was high corn blocking a view to any part of the farm. Corn? Really? Florida could grow so many profitable crops. The demand for citrus grew annually. Nebraska could grow corn. Ohio could grow corn. But only Florida and California grew much citrus.

  The next clue was the motorized, chain-link gate that was reinforced and spotless. A security gate like that cost at least ten grand. That was a lot of fucking corn. In addition, two security cameras scanned the entrance from concealed boxes on either side of the gate. Stallings couldn’t believe an industrious sheriff’s deputy hadn’t looked into the suspicious farm yet. But he wasn’t here to bust pot growers; he had much more important questions on his mind.

  He pulled his car to the far side of the road a third of a mile from the entrance to the farm. He waited there fifteen minutes to get a feel for the traffic at ten o’clock in the morning on Thanksgiving Day. There wasn’t much visiting going on in this part of the state today. In the back of his mind he was cognizant of his need to make the hour-and-fifteen-minute ride back to Jacksonville in time to be at his mother’s by two o’clock. He had assured Maria last night he would not be late for dinner. He knew she was uncomfortable waiting at his mother’s house without him. It felt as if he was on thin ice since the short conversation with Brother Frank Ellis and then the awkward meeting with Patty Levine and her new boyfriend. Stallings had hoped that seeing Patty with a good-looking, younger man would eliminate any fears Maria had about the relationship between Stallings and Patty. Instead, once again, Maria had turned inward and silent. So far it had been a shitty week.

  Stallings slipped out of his Impala, crossed the empty two-lane road, and walked along the edge of the property until he found where the chain-link fence stopped and turned inward at a right angle. The property next door to the farm was abandoned and easy to access to follow the fence protecting the priceless corn. Stallings worked his way through the tree stumps and lawn trash until he was about a hundred yards off the road and facing the six-foot-high chain-link fence. Experience had taught him a number of things. One was that it was always easier to go under a chain-link fence than over. Even in his jeans and heavy flannel shirt with his Glock tucked in his waistband, Stallings knew he could sneak under the fence easily.

  He made sure his gun was secure, put his cell phone on silent, and stuffed it in his lower left shirt pocket. This shirt had the two cargo pockets low that held a bunch of stuff. He liked the style. Too bad there were only a few days he could wear a shirt like this. Then he got to work.

  First, he made sure there were no motion-sensor devices or tripwires run through the fence. Then he pulled a pair of heavy wire cutters from his shirt’s lower pocket. He kneeled down next to the nearest metal support pole and snapped the wire straps holding the fence to it. Then it was just a matter of pushing the fence away from the post and rolling underneath. He stepped into the corn and within ten feet found his first row of four-foot-high marijuana plants. At least these weren’t stupid rednecks. Since most of the marijuana eradication efforts by the state and federal government were done through helicopter survey of wide areas, it was smart to hide the pot within the rows of corn. Stallings could tell by the way the corn drooped over the lower pot plants that they’d be very difficult to see from the air. Every three or four rows of corn another row of pot sprang up.

  Finally he found the inner row, with three trailers set up corner to corner to form a U with the driveway in front of them. He could see the driveway was built in a series of twists so no one from the road could look down the driveway and see anything but corn. Again, a bright move. Now that Stallings was here he didn’t want to startle anyone. He had to make it clear all he wanted to know was where Zach Halston was and if anyone here recognized the girl from the photo.

  Stallings was hoping he’d see someone walk from one trailer to another. But the longer he sat there the more he wondered if anyone was even present. There was a new Ford F-150 in front of the center trailer and a beat-up, older Chevy pickup on the side of the far trailer. It was a cool morning so it didn’t surprise him that none of the air conditioners were running.

  As he stepped back farther into the corn to move around closer to the trailers, Stallings bumped his head on something metallic. When he turned he was looking into the barrel of a shotgun and the angry face of a young man behind it, who said, “You better start talking quick and hope I don’t have a reason to pull the trigger.”

  Tony Mazzetti sat in front of his fifty-two-inch Samsung flat-screen TV in the most comfortable La-Z-Boy recliner ever made with a Swanson’s extra-large, microwavable turkey
dinner with peas and yellow corn. He never took moments like this for granted. This was a guy’s nirvana. On the giant TV, the CBS pregame show appeared on screen, with Dan Marino giving insights as to how the Detroit Lions were going to blow another Thanksgiving Day game.

  He had already made the obligatory call to his mom and his sister. They were both insisting he start using the computer for video calls. Jesus Christ, it wasn’t like he was eight years old. He was thirty-nine and his looks didn’t change that much between visits back to Brooklyn. His sister didn’t make the trip from Westchester County down to see his mother much more often than he made the flight up to see her. Sure, his sister was a judge and had a family and claimed that her time was already tight. But she was only thirty miles from the house they had both grown up in. Besides, his mother loved seeing her grandchildren. He understood that. He also understood that she expected him to start producing his own crop of children soon. That was one of the reasons he had yet to tell her that he’d broken up with Patty. He wouldn’t lie to her, but he avoided the subject. Today when she’d asked about Patty, Mazzetti had mumbled something about her eating at her parents’ house down in Ocala. As far as he knew that was true.

  There was a rap at his front door. It was strong and steady, almost like an official police knock. He sighed and carefully set the plate full of food on the arm of his La-Z-Boy. He padded through the living room, glancing out the window to see if he noticed a car in the driveway. He had no idea who’d be knocking on his door in the middle of the day on Thanksgiving.