by James Andrus
Stallings realized Helen was saving him.
He’d spent the day thinking of something clever to say. Holly had surprised him, and that was a fact. Who would’ve thought that cute little towhead was a member of some kind of cannibal cult? He never would’ve imagined there was any such thing in Jacksonville. Maybe that was their first attempt, because they sure didn’t seem to know what they were doing.
His effort to keep distance between his victims and himself had backfired because after last night he had no way of finding Holly again. No cell, no address, nothing. But now he realized she had played the same game and kept her information from him. She didn’t want any links either. It was a little spooky.
He’d been by the old “sorority” house. It was just an abandoned building on a block with a lot of abandoned buildings. It was late in the day when he had the idea that he thought might work. He’d driven to the garage where they’d left her little Toyota the night before, when they were on a date, before she tried to eat him or he attempted to kill her. It was still up on the third floor of the garage near the Modis Tower.
He sat back in an unlocked Mustang, two rows over and a few spaces down. There was no trace he had entered the parking garage. The lone camera on this floor pointed only at the elevator. If she came from that direction all the cops would have is a time she arrived. No one had seen him. Like any good predator he was stealthy as well as deadly.
It was dark now, and he didn’t know how long he’d have to wait. But the idea of surprising this girl excited him enough to give him patience and stamina. When he felt like this, he didn’t get tired or hungry. He could sometimes go for days just on this kind of thrill.
He didn’t have to wait for days. About an hour later he saw the door to the outer stairwell open, and to his surprise out walked little Holly all by herself. She wore a yellow sundress as if she had been used as bait in some other area. She had a small leather purse and looked older and more sophisticated in high heels.
Slipping out of the Mustang he stayed low behind the few cars that were still there. She whistled a song he recognized. It was an airy whistle with a weak sound but cute coming from Holly. As he crept along he drew the long knife he had been saving for an occasion just like this. It was solid with a nine-inch blade and solid hilt like a medieval dagger. It felt like his claw instead of a tool.
He made it all the way to the rear of Holly’s little blue Toyota before she even turned. Her bright eyes widened at the sight of him, and her song trailed off uneasily.
He didn’t say a word. Just stepped up to her and thrust the knife straight up, catching her under her chin and driving the steel pike up into her brain. The entire blade disappeared into her soft flesh, and he felt the tip of it ping off bones and cavities inside her skull.
Her eyes remained open as a short breath of air spurted out of her. Then her legs just gave out and she started to fall.
He reached up with two fingers and managed to grasp the edges of her tiny nose stud as she started to drop. The miniscule diamond came out, and he had his coveted souvenir that easy. A broad smile spread across his face. This was the harshest, quickest kill he had ever made.
And he liked it.
Twenty-two
John Stallings felt as if he had an open wound in his chest as he tried to regain a professional perspective after watching his daughter leave with his sister. Her friend, Angie, who had driven, said that her parents didn’t mind the seventeen-year-old coming to a bar as long as she didn’t drink alcohol. What were parents thinking these days?
Patty looked over and said, “Do you need to go? I can handle this.”
He shook his head. “I don’t think it’s a good idea to check on Lauren just now.”
“Helen has her safe for the night. I’d tell most fathers not to worry about it, but with you I’ll advise you to calm down for the evening and talk to her in the light of day. We can look for this mope tomorrow if you want.”
“Let’s grab him tonight. If he knows something or supplied Allie Marsh the X, then we can take it from there. We might have a hard time finding him tomorrow.”
Outside the club they could hear the band play, with bass pulsing through the walls. Stallings rolled his eyes at Patty.
She reached over and patted his arm. “It’s okay, grandpa. I’ll go in and tell those kids to keep the racket down.”
“Funny,” he muttered and stepped out of the car.
Curtis the doorman was nowhere in sight. Inside the low-ceilinged, musty club, bright lights shined on the three-piece band crammed on the tiny stage at the front of the club. Maybe twenty people listened as they pounded out a heavy-metal anthem. All Stallings cared about was the drummer stuck in the rear between a bassist and a tall guitarist. The drummer’s long, dirty hair, matted from sweat and sticking to his bare shoulders, dipped onto a stained white undershirt. A “wife beater” shirt is what everyone called them now because it seemed as if every mope in a domestic dispute walked out to meet the cops wearing one of the Walmart specials. The TV show Cops was an advertisement for the simple, white undershirt.
No one approached to see if they wanted a drink, but he realized every person in the place knew two cops had walked in the front door. They might have assumed he had come in earlier just to get an underage drinker, not realizing Lauren wasn’t drinking and was his daughter. A few furtive glances and hurried movements told Stallings that this place was like most little bars where all kinds of shit went down. The JSO could spend every night just in places like this and make plenty of arrests. It still wouldn’t put a dent in the crime rate or drug use. He knew all cops did anymore was keep a lid on a pressure cooker. Any little incident could be blown out of proportion, and any group of thugs could push a crime spree and turn it into a new media focus that would terrify the city.
But for right now all he wanted to do was focus on the asshole who gave Allie Marsh the drugs that killed her.
The band finished to a round of mild applause. Then, without consulting with his bandmates, the drummer stood up and stepped behind a thick, velvet curtain surrounding the stage.
Patty immediately stepped forward, and Stallings took the route to the opposite side of the curtain. As they stepped behind it at the same time a man in the small room looked up and said, “Employees only back here.”
“Where’d the drummer go?”
The man ignored the question. Then Stallings stepped up to him and growled, “Where’d the drummer go?”
The man nodded toward the rear of the building. “Think he stepped out for a smoke or something. Can I help you?”
But Stallings and Patty knew when they had been given the slip and headed for the rear door. It opened into a narrow alley crammed with overflowing garbage cans and old pallets stacked next to each door. They caught a glimpse of the fast drummer as he skittered around the corner onto the next street.
Stallings looked at his partner. “Why do you think he did that?”
“No idea, but I know he’ll come back.”
“How’d you know something like that?”
“His drums are still inside.”
Tony Mazzetti couldn’t even get a name from this guy.
“C’mon, just a street name so I can call you something.”
The black man had a deep yellow tinge to his eyes and a vacant gaze. He turned his wide head stacked on a wider, flabby body and scowled at Mazzetti, who was sitting on the edge of a low wall, his jacket off and gun exposed on his hip.
“Some of the folks down here call me"–he paused for dramatic effect–"Pudge.”
Mazzetti nodded. “Now there’s a shocker. Why would people call you Pudge?”
“Because I am somewhat corpulent.”
Mazzetti just stared at him.
“Because I eat and drink a little too much.”
Mazzetti was still quiet.
“So, rather like Friar Tuck from the beloved Robin Hood fable, I am a portly prophet in this land of constant dismay.”
“I am a wandering prophet who has nested here in this lovely jewel of the South for almost six years.”
“Have you seen anyone shot in those six years?”
“I have.”
“Any of them in the last three hours?”
“Perhaps, but I would be a stupid prophet to admit it.”
“We could protect you.”
“Like Germans protected the Jews.”
“Look, I can see you’re a smart man. Don’t you want to help clean up the streets?”
“I would if I could do it at a cost less than a painful death.”
“So whoever did this was tough?”
“I have no idea who did it, but the victims are badasses. I’d hate to get on the wrong side of the killers.”
Mazzetti scribbled a few notes, wondering if pulling this guy in as a witness and throwing him in front of a grand jury would do any good. Would they compel him to testify? Could they? Mazzetti didn’t even have his real name yet. Did he know anything of value?
Pudge leaned in and said, “Might could give you the name of a witness who may not be as invested in the local neighborhood and therefore feel free to speak.”
“Who?”
“A white man who is currently shacked up with the lovely Miss Brison in the yellow house across the street.”
Mazzetti followed the man’s crooked finger to a small yellow house, built up on blocks to avoid flooding and leaning ever so slightly to the left. The windows all had curtains, but one was pulled to the side. It flopped closed as soon as Mazzetti’s eyes scanned the house.
Maybe there was someone inside who could help.
Twenty-three
Stallings kept the binoculars on the front door of the Bamboo Hut from almost four blocks away. This was Police Work 101. They needed to talk to the drummer. He ran from them. A common occurrence on the streets of Jacksonville. The difference was that this wiry drummer was more important to them than the average crack dealer hoping to evade arrest until he can sell off enough of his stock to make bail.
Patty said, “What do you think?”
Stallings didn’t lower his field glasses. “He’ll be back pretty soon. That’s the beauty of cell phones and dumb-asses in the same room.” He had purposely said to Patty, as they walked back through the club after losing the drummer, that they would get him another night and that it was late. He knew a couple of the staff had heard his supposedly offhand remark and that the cell phones would start to burn up before too long.
Patty said, “How long you figure? Couple hours?”
“Not that long. He wants his drums. He’ll be back in less than an hour.” Before he could say anything else, a figure hustled down the sidewalk to the front door of the club and paused, then ducked inside. Stallings said, “Make that less than a minute. It’s showtime.”
A minute later Stallings pulled open the door to the little club, only to have someone stand up and block his way. It was the tall guitarist he’d seen earlier.
The young man with long, spindly arms said, “Sorry, dude, we’re closed.”
Stallings held up his ID and said, “JSO.” He started to step around the guitarist.
The man stepped to the side and blocked him. “Got a warrant, dude?”
“Don’t need one, dude. I’m in pursuit. But nice try.” He stepped the other way, but the man matched him. That was a mistake. Stallings shoved him to one side and had started marching to the rear of the club when he felt a strong hand on his shoulder.
Without hesitation, Stallings’s training took over and he reached up and grabbed the fingers of the strong hand and squeezed. He spun, pulling the man close to him with the hand firmly in his grasp.
Stallings said, “Wrong move there, dude.”
The guitarist swung his free fist at Stallings’s face.
Stallings cranked down on the attacker’s fingers, feeling the small bones crunch. “I tried to be nice.” He released the man’s hand and let him crumple, whimpering, onto the ground. No one else dared step forward.
Stallings raced to the back of the club. Nothing. He hit the back door hard, then froze as a smile spread across his face.
Patty stood over the bleeding drummer. She was ready to kneel down and slap on a pair of handcuffs. “You were right. He’d have run right into me if I waited by the back door.”
Stallings shook his head and mumbled, “Dumb-ass.”
Mazzetti had let Pudge slink away with that funny, half-leaning gait. He almost looked like one of the assistants to a mad scientist in an old horror movie. He eyed the yellow house and considered who was holed up there. No one had come out since the po-po had been on the scene, and that was a little odd, because the rest of the neighborhood couldn’t wait to see all the commotion. They may not have been talking to the police about the shooting that left three dead on their block, but they were certainly out and about, gawking at all the emergency workers.
He waited as Christina Hogrebe eased over from the other corner.
“Got anything, Tony?”
“Maybe.” He cut his eyes to the yellow house. “In a second, take a glance over there and see if there’s any movement. Just had someone tell me a white man is inside with a Miss Brison.”
“You think he might’ve been some kind of lookout or spy?”
“It’s just weird that a white guy is right in the middle of this neighborhood and a shooting occurs within viewing distance.”
Christina shrugged as they walked over toward the yellow house’s front door. He’d worked with the young detective long enough for her to know when to argue and when to just back him up. He liked the arrangement.
He paused on the poured-cement porch of the house. Deep fissures ran from one side of the porch to the other, and it felt unsteady in a way he couldn’t quite pinpoint. The door rattled as he knocked. He heard someone inside and glanced over his shoulder to see Christina standing to the side of the window but still looking in as much as she could. He stepped to the side of the door and brought his hand up to the Glock on his right hip. Someone paused on the other side of the door, the door handle moving just enough for him to notice.
Mazzetti’s heart rate picked up as he sensed something odd about the house and its occupants. Suddenly he wondered if the shots could’ve come from here. No one in the neighborhood had actually said they saw a car.
As he was about to call out to Christina, the door handle twisted and someone fought with the door, jiggling it to come open. He turned his full attention to the door.
Patty liked that Stallings let her conduct interviews without any interference. Sometimes a senior partner wanted to handle everything. Some male cops wanted to do everything, but Stallings had never shown any kind of prejudice against a female coworker. He treated everyone exactly how he felt they needed to be treated based on their behavior. If they were asses he treated them like asses. If they tried, but weren’t too sharp, he tried to help and support them. If you’d proven yourself, he trusted you completely.
They had the drummer, Donnie Eliot, in the backseat of her car with his hands cuffed behind him. A small pile of money, assorted baggies, a toothpick, and nail clippers that had come from his pockets sat inside a clear plastic evidence bag next to her in the front seat.
She turned around to face the scared young man. A trickle of blood still seeped from his nose where she had cracked him with a palm-heel strike as he ran right at her from the rear of the club.
Patty said, “Why’d you run in the first place, Donnie?”
“You know why.” He kept his eyes down on the seat.
“Why don’t you tell us?”
“I’m holding,” he mumbled.
She held up the evidence bag. “Something in here? That’s not why we were looking for you.”
“Then I’m free to go?”
“Not a chance.”
Mazzetti let his hand slip off his gun when he saw the young black woman who o
pened the door. Her green, oval eyes and perfect complexion and white, frilly nightgown gave her an angelic appearance. Until he glanced farther down and realized her white nightgown was some kind of incredible Victoria’s Secret special, cut for maximum exposure of her tight stomach, firm round breasts, and shapely hips.
She focused those lovely eyes on Mazzetti, who took a second to bring his up. “Hi,” was all she said.
“Hi, ma’am. I, um, I’m Tony Mazzetti from Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office, and this is Christina Hogrebe. Can we come in a talk to you for a second?”
The woman gawked at Christina and said, “She’s pretty.” The listlessness to her voice and the way her eyes tracked slowly told them she was high.
Mazzetti took a closer look and noticed her pupils were barely pinpricks.
Christina said, “What’s your name, dear?” She sounded like a mother, even though she was about the same age as this woman. Christina had a way of talking to certain people.
“Miss Brison,” the woman mumbled. “But you can call me Miss Brison.”
“Can we talk to you inside, Miss Brison?” Christina was already at the door, pulling Miss Brison along.
As soon as he crossed the threshold, Mazzetti sensed someone else was in the house. He turned and said, “Who’s here, Miss Brison?”
“Jus’ me and my cat.”
He heard a thump in the rear of the house and rushed down a narrow hallway to see an open window. He stuck his head out just enough to see a flash of a man’s face as he disappeared around the next house. There was no reason to chase the man, especially in this neighborhood. But he made note of his face. A thin white man with dark hair.
He had a few questions to ask Miss Brison.
Twenty-four
Patty Levine had never used this interview technique before. She had heard some of the older detectives talk about it in the past, but none of them ever made it sound like anything other than a practical joke. But now that she and Stallings were alone in the Land That Time Forgot, on the second floor of the PMB, with the drummer in handcuffs sitting quietly at Stallings’s desk she realized her partner was serious and thought this might work.