The Perfect Prey

by James Andrus

  Stallings picked up his desktop phone and dialed the Daytona Beach Police Department. His friend, Detective Hugh O’Connor, often worked on Saturdays, so he would have more time in the evenings to coach his daughter’s softball team.

  The phone in the Daytona Detective Bureau rang once, and then he smiled as he recognized his friend’s voice.

  “Detective Bureau, Hugh O’Connor.”

  “Hugh, John Stallings, at JSO.”

  “Stall, how’s life in Missing Persons?”

  “Not bad, not bad. Working a couple different things right now. I was wondering if I could run a name past you. A musician.”

  “Fire away.”

  “A drummer named Donnie Eliot.”

  O’Connor laughed. “A drummer? I thought you said he was a musician.”

  “Do you have anything in your local database?” Stallings searched through a few notes as his friend worked the computer on the other end of the phone line. The usual curse words that every cop who’s ever had to type away on an ancient computer mutters came over the phone. He checked back with Stallings twice to make sure he had the right spelling. Finally he said no, there was nothing in the computer about a drummer named Donnie Eliot.

  Stallings said, “I just wanted to see if he’s been passing Ecstasy out at any of your clubs.”

  “Is he a spring break guy? Does he follow the crowd from city to city and hang out with the young girls? Or is he more like one of the flat breakers?”

  “I even know what a flat breaker is now.”

  O’Connor laughed. “Welcome to my world. Five weeks every year, everything gets put on hold while we have to deal with all this bullshit. We had three deaths last year during spring break. One drowning, one suicide, and one still listed as open, all with X in their systems.”

  “What about this year?”

  “We were lucky this year. No deaths. It seems to run in spurts. A few years ago, we had an out-and-out murder. Someone choked the shit out of a girl. We never did solve it. But the Ecstasy, that never goes away. Kids find a way to mix it up, buy it–there’s even a bunch of Dutch kids that seem to have an endless supply.”

  “We have two dead up here in Jacksonville. One suicide and one OD. It’s a shame.”

  O’Connor said, “Yeah. All three of the girls last year were cute blond things. Made me think of my own daughter and what I would do if some knucklehead gave her some X.”

  Stallings thought for a minute about what his friend just told him. Both his deaths were blond too. For no obvious reason he said, “Hugh, you think you could send me up what you have on those deaths?”

  “Sure, Stall, whatever you need. Is there something I need to know about?”

  “No, just trying to be thorough. You know how it is when you’re an old cop. You can’t let anything go easy.”

  “Stall, you never let anything go easy. Even when you were young.”

  Even as the two men laughed, Stallings had an uneasy feeling. He had a lot of work to do.

  He was satisfied with the situation. There were a couple of weeks left in the spring break season, and he had two possibilities on his plate. The last girl he’d seen, Ann, had a cool demeanor but perfectly straight, natural blond hair that fell across her shoulders like a golden blanket. She had light blue eyes and high cheekbones that accentuated her classic beauty. But she always had friends around, and that was a drawback. He’d get his chance if he was patient.

  But now he was dancing with Lisa, the girl he’d met in the food court. She had more meat on her bones, real Southern curves. And he liked it. Most men did, even if the image of a supermodel was rail thin with hollow cheeks. He liked the way she showed off her form and swayed to the music. He did the usual male shuffle, just providing a backdrop for her to dance. But then she moved closer and wrapped an arm around his back, pulling in tight. It made him uncomfortable on a number of levels. He didn’t want people to remember the two of them together even if no one in here knew him. And this wasn’t the way that prey acted. He was the aggressor. He was the predator.

  He wandered back to the bar as soon as the music stopped, and she fell in line with him, taking the stool to his right. She started to lean over to kiss him, but he held up his left hand to hold her in place. She giggled, leaned around the hand, and tickled his ear with her tongue.

  He snapped, “Don’t do that.”

  “Most guys love that.” Her words were slurring from too many cheap beers and a hit of X.

  “I’m sorry–I’m just not a big fan of public displays of affection.”

  “That’s okay. I know a lot of guys who don’t like PDA.”

  He stared at her, trying to figure out what PDA meant.

  She wasn’t that drunk, because she caught on and said, “Public displays of affection.” Lisa smiled at him, looking deep into his eyes, and said, “So do you want to go back to your place?”

  He hadn’t expected things to move this quickly. He hadn’t planned it as clearly as he wanted to, not even knowing how she was going to die. But they were at a bar in central Jacksonville, and no one would notice him slip out with her. He could always move her car to another lot too.

  Finally he said, “Why don’t we go down to the beach? I know a nice quiet, private beach where we could have a lot of fun.”

  “You want to fuck in the sand? Do you have any idea how uncomfortable that could be?” She shook her head as if it was on a wobbly pole. “What’s wrong, do you still live with your parents or something?”

  He shook his head, realizing how little he liked this girl as a person.

  “Then why can’t we just go back to your place?”

  He was about to answer her when he noticed a blond head a little taller than everyone around her. He took a closer look and realized it was Ann. Immediately he knew he wouldn’t be taking either of them home tonight.

  Lisa had been putting on the drunk act so she’d have some cover if she did something embarrassing. It was weird because he didn’t like her kissing on him and sticking her tongue in his ears like most guys did. She was frustrated because all she wanted was a quiet room where she could do this guy and then sleep peacefully without five college girls screaming and giggling in the next bed. This was all minor. There was only one thing she could never tolerate–not being the center of someone’s attention–and right now he was not paying enough attention to her. Then she saw him look over her shoulder, so she followed his eyes to see the pretty blond girl at the end of the bar staring back.

  She sat up straight, resisting the urge to slap him hard across his face.

  Lisa said, “Who the hell is that?”

  “Just a girl I talked to one night.”

  Lisa looked over and saw the girl smiling at him. That tore it. It was bad enough he wasn’t paying complete attention to her but to look up at that whore right in front of her–she couldn’t let it slide. If she was back home in Georgia, she’d have that bitch by her dyed hair and would be jerking her ass out the door right now. But in a fancy city like Jacksonville, she had to act a little more carefully.

  She noticed other girls around her at the bar and calculated how many of them she might have to take out before she could deal with this bitch. She left her bar stool and started to march to the other side of the bar.

  He reached out and grabbed her by the arm, saying, “What are you doing?”

  “Protecting my territory.”

  “Are you insane? Don’t draw any attention to us.”

  She was surprised how panicked he sounded. It was the first real emotion she’d sensed in him. And it was as close to pleading as she thought she’d ever hear from a guy like this. But she still ripped her arm out of his grip and continued on her single-minded mission. When she was only a couple steps away the girl from the bar looked up and their eyes met.

  Lisa said, “Just what do you think you’re doin’ flirting with my man?”

  The girl said, “You’d know if I was flirting with him because he would’ve left you
r fat ass at the bar.”

  The guy ran over from the dance floor and said, “Lisa, would you cut this shit out?” Then his eyes shifted to the girl, and he said, “I’m sorry, Ann. She’s had a little too much to drink.”

  So that was his bitch’s name: Ann. Lisa didn’t bother to look back at him; instead she focused her full fury on Ann standing so calmly and quietly at the bar as if there wasn’t a girl from Georgia about to whip her ass. “Don’t be too sure I’m drunk, Ann. I’ve done a lot of things a lot more drunk. Now you back off or we’re gonna have a big problem.”

  Ann did the worst thing she could do. She ignored Lisa. She stepped away from the bar and took a wide step around Lisa, then said to the guy, “Not very impressive. I thought you’d aim higher.” She continued on a slow, steady trek across the dance floor and right out the door.

  Lisa felt that she’d won this round. Then she felt as if there was a fish or something swimming in her belly. She looked up to see the guy checking around the bar to make sure no one had noticed the confrontation. But it was too late. The fish in her belly had kicked up the tacos she ate for lunch, and now they wanted to come up.

  She raced out of the club in time to throw up all over the bouncer.

  Thirty

  It was humid and hot even though it wasn’t yet nine o’clock on Sunday morning. Patty Levine may have been shorter than her boyfriend, Tony Mazzetti, but she was a much more efficient runner. She had an easy stride and years of aerobic training behind her. Mazzetti, for all his time in the gym, had not spent a lot of time on the treadmill. And it showed. All she could think about was an African rhino chugging along the plains. He kept up with her, but it was out of sheer will. He held his side, he coughed, he hacked, and his thick legs moved his wide shoulders and broad chest like a ship coming into port. But she appreciated his effort, and it showed he wanted to do things with her. She ran every Sunday morning. Sometimes up to fifteen miles, but today, she was going to take it easy on her boyfriend and only do about five.

  At first she couldn’t believe that he’d take a day off during the middle of an investigation like the triple shooting. It was only after talking with Mazzetti’s partner, Christina Hogrebe, that she realized they’d both been told to take the day off and let the weekend detectives cover any leads that came in. Patty didn’t care that it was a cost-cutting measure; she was just glad to spend a few hours with her boyfriend away from work.

  She liked being in command during the run and peppered him with questions. All the effort he needed just to stay up with her kept him from coming up with his usual mantra of bullshit that he tended to hide behind. She got a little more insight into his childhood. How his mother raised him and was overprotective. How he still felt insecure about his physical fitness. Why he always dressed as if he was going to be on TV. All the little things that made him who he was. Then she said, “You’d rather be out on a homicide right now, wouldn’t you?”

  “No, baby, this is exactly where I want to be.” He gulped some air. “And this is exactly what I want to be doing.”

  She rolled her eyes and mumbled, “Bullshit”

  “No, baby, I swear.”

  She picked up the pace and pulled away from him. It’d do him some good to get a dose of humility. She put about one hundred yards between them, enough distance down the winding path in the park near At-lan tic Beach that she couldn’t hear him wheeze or breathe hard anymore. She passed several walkers, a couple of joggers, and one older man with his granddaughter on a bicycle and then took a turn onto a path that climbed toward the beach.

  She saw a runner cross the path in front of her. Shirtless and sleek and very, very fast, he looked like an agile animal. But there was something familiar about him. She just couldn’t put her finger on it. She sped up and took the same path as the fleet runner, but he’d already turned another corner and was moving too fast to catch.

  She had an odd urge to chase him down and see who he was. It wasn’t that she thought he was cute, even though she thought he probably was. It was something else. Something she couldn’t form clearly in her head.

  Instead she slowed, taking a second to stretch her legs as her pet rhino slowly rumbled up behind her.

  The idea of two of his targets meeting at first struck him as dangerous; then an element of excitement crept into the equation. He would have worked something out with Lisa last night had Ann not walked into the bar. Conversely, had he not been with Lisa, he would’ve approached Ann. Instead it’d been a quiet night, relatively speaking.

  He’d started out on a hard run to clear his head. The park near Atlantic Beach was one of his favorite places to run. He occasionally discovered prey in the park. But today, with the image of both of his new girls floating in his head, prey was the last thing he wanted to bump into. He just wanted his heart to beat hard and the sun to bake him and make him sweat. In running shorts and new ASICS shoes, he felt efficient, loose, and good.

  He still couldn’t help turning his head and looking at the cute blond woman with the graceful stride coming toward him on another trail. He didn’t get a good look at her face, but some instinct told him to keep running. When she took the same trail, he decided to really turn it on and put some distance between them.

  Maybe it was his animal instincts that made him want to escape the woman. Or maybe it was something else. But with Ann and Lisa already on his plate, he didn’t want to risk finding another target. It seemed easier to run fast and get on with his day. He was supposed to call Lisa but hadn’t had time yet. She’d wait. He thought about asking her out to dinner. And as long as she showed up alone and didn’t expect him to be part of the main course, she was a big step up from Holly.

  John Stallings sat in the small booth with his kids on either side of him. A half-eaten pepperoni pizza sat on the table, along with three gigantic cokes. He’d taken the kids to an early movie and was relaxed for the first time in several weeks. Charlie and Lauren debated the merits of the movie. Lauren discussing the length, acting, and special effects, while Charlie was more interested in the possibility that humans really could mutate into new life-forms. The normally quiet boy seemed exceptionally boisterous, talking about everything from sports to school.

  Stallings was worried it was a side effect of the separation, even though he saw the boy most days. It felt as if they were trying to catch up. It wasn’t the same as when he lived at the house. He listened to Charlie go on and on about his week as class supervisor. The young man had assured his father that he had not let the power go to his head.

  “Yeah, Dad, it’s tough. Kids think they can get by with anything. If I showed one person attention, everyone else got mad at me.”

  Stallings said, “Tough to be in charge, sport.”

  “I sure did learn that, Dad.”

  The conviction in Charlie’s voice and the simple statement made Stallings think about his new supervisor, Yvonne Zuni. Maybe she wasn’t as bad as he’d initially thought. With his interest in finding who had given Allie Marsh the Ecstasy, it could be an interesting week ahead of him. He’d see what kind of support the new sergeant gave him.

  Charlie said, “I’m not sure I’m cut out to be in management. I’m like you, Dad, I’m an action kind of guy.”

  Stallings and Lauren both laughed at Charlie’s sincerity. As much as he loved hearing Charlie’s stories, seeing his teenage daughter smile made him feel just as good. There was so much the young lady had taken on in the past few years. From trying to be the lady of the house while Maria recovered, to her concern for her father’s long hours and dangerous work. It felt as if the concern he’d had for her earlier in the week when he caught her at the Bamboo Hut had just melted away. Who would’ve thought you could miss a sullen teenager this much?

  As the kids continued to debate about the movie and mutants, Stallings couldn’t get his conversation with the Daytona detective out of his head. He knew kids did stupid things during spring break, but no one should have to die for it. Maybe the same pe
rson was handing out too much Ecstasy. Maybe there was a connection between them. He had a lot of work to do to try and figure that out.

  Stallings glanced up from his pizza, laughing absently at something one of the kids said; then he saw him in the front door. Instantly he recognized the older man, and it felt like a punch in the stomach. He couldn’t take his eyes off his ruddy face and pitted nose. His face was more wrinkled, but still the same. His gauzy eyes scanned the small restaurant and fell on Stallings and the kids.

  It was obvious the old man recognized him. He hesitated at the front door, and, like Stallings, appeared uncertain what to do. Would he simply turn and step back out onto the street? Would he stay and ignore them? The questions ran through Stallings’s mind.

  The old man started toward them. Stallings didn’t know what to do. The kids didn’t even notice him. It took about five seconds for the man to shuffle across the floor to their booth.

  “Hello, Johnny.”

  The kids both looked up with no recognition whatsoever on their faces. There was an awkward silence as Stallings stared at the old man. The flood of feelings: fear, resentment, nausea, and even some love, kept him from saying anything at all. The old man stood there staring in awkward silence.

  Stallings felt Lauren nudge him under the table. She’d never met the old man. And only caught the mildest of stories about him. Charlie had no clue at all. Finally, Stallings managed to nod a curt greeting.

  The old man’s eyes flicked to each child. He wiped his face with a shaking hand and finally said, “Maybe you should come by and say hello when you have time. I’m over near Market Street.” He laid down a Post-it note with an address scribbled on it. “Bring these two with you if you think it’s been long enough.” With that, the old man turned quickly and with surprising speed shuffled out of the restaurant, onto the street, and out of sight.

  Lauren said slowly, “Who was that?”

  Stallings swallowed hard and said, “My father.”