by James Andrus
“A family is gettin’ ready for a trip to the pool. Looks like an Asian family with three little kids.” He checked again and saw one small girl holding a bright pink plastic tube as her mother bent to adjust her tiny suit.
“Who’d go swimming in this weather?”
“Let’s wait a minute. I don’t want to ruin these kids’ vacation if this is the only place their parents could afford.”
Finally, after several minutes of waiting, the little troupe moved down the walkway toward the pool at the rear of the building, and Stallings watched as Patty slipped down onto the beach across the street to approach from another direction.
Stallings crossed the two-lane road and then started strolling toward the hotel and the giant sentry out front. He didn’t hurry; that way Patty had time to set up. He also didn’t want this monster to have any reason to suspect that Five-0 was in the area. This wasn’t downtown; he probably expected a more polite police force. That assumption would be shattered in the next minute.
Stallings wasn’t cocky. He knew he could be the one on the wrong end of a fist or a cheap pistol, but he had surprise on his side. He focused on the academy mantra: “Is this the day that changes my life?” It really was something he’d said his whole career. The hell of it was now he really did need a change. He needed a miracle to get back all he had lost.
There were cops he knew who were quick to mix it up with a suspect. They liked the thrill and violence. Violence accomplished a goal, whether it was an arrest or a lesson; physical aggression was just another tool in a good cop’s bag of tricks. If you took it too far you had to be prepared to explain yourself. He could admit, at least to himself, that he enjoyed confrontation with the right thug. Bullies, pimps, and predators often didn’t understand anything but a good thumping. And sometimes he didn’t know how to deal with them except with a good thumping.
A Ping-Pong ball bounced around inside his stomach as he got closer to the hotel. He drifted to the inside of the sidewalk so the bulky dealer wouldn’t see him until he was at the next building. His heart picked up a few beats as he nudged his pistol under his shirt and hoped he didn’t have to use it. Through this entire ritual of checking his gear and his attitude he didn’t lose sight of the mission: save the girl. He knew if he could grab her before anything serious happened up in the room, he might not have to look for her as a runaway later. That was the key, identifying a problem early and acting. He only wished he’d been that smart for his own daughter’s sake.
Now he was near the hotel and visible. A small smile crept across his face when he saw Patty step up next to the skinny lookout near the stairs. The dumbass didn’t even know she was behind him. Patty was letting him focus totally on the giant man leaning on the battered and rusting chain-link fence. He was younger than Stallings, maybe thirty-five, and taller by at least five inches. The monster had to go six-five and over two-fifty without as much fat as Stallings had originally thought.
Stallings gave him a casual nod as he came closer but kept looking down the street like his destination was another cheap-ass hotel or maybe one of the ancient, beat-up condos that mostly housed aging snow-birds. That little maneuver allowed him to walk right past the man without telegraphing his intentions. Just in front of the giant man, he spun and threw an elbow under a prominent chin, then a knee into the side of his leg. The man crumpled as Stallings’s knee connected with the common peroneal nerve.
Stallings turned toward the stairway as the surprised lookout stood, prepared to rocket up the stairs and sound the alarm. Instead, Patty popped open her ASP with a flick of her wrist and tripped him as he started to take flight. She had a size-six Rockport boot on his chest before he knew what had happened. The twenty-eight-year-old detective looked like a big game hunter posing with an unfortunate antelope.
Stallings wasted no time with his man on the street, thumping his head against a metal fence post, then reaching to his waistband to retrieve a Taurus nine-millimeter from the dazed man.
The dealer gasped, “I ain’t holding. You got nothing on me.”
“I got this gun, you dumb shit.” He tucked the cheap pistol in his belt, then shook the man by the collar to make sure he had his full attention. “This is just a warning. Leave this hotel alone and head back over to Phoenix Avenue or this shit will happen to you every fucking day.” He wrapped his hand in the front of the crack dealer’s shirt and jerked the man’s face up to him. “Are we clear?”
The crack dealer’s shiny head bobbed as he caught his breath and tried to regain some composure. The thug may have weighed more than 250 pounds, but right now he was looking up into blue eyes that conveyed the threat of violent injury better than any pistol ever made by Smith & Wesson.
Patty led the other young man over, tugging him by his ear, then thrusting him into his cohort. She said to them both, “Give up your cell phones.” Her voice left no room for argument.
“What?” asked the skinny lookout.
She snapped her fingers. “Phones, hotshot. Then you can scurry off.” She paused and added, “If you behave.” She took the BlackBerries from the men, then casually dropped them onto the asphalt and crushed them under the heel of her boot.
There was no protest.
A few minutes later, Stallings and Patty were on the stairs ready to go into room 2-B. They had allowed the dealer to call his partner in the stash room to clear out. Stallings thought it was a good idea so they wouldn’t bother the hotel owner later. He knew the dopers had flushed a good part of their profits before they had piled into a tricked-out Escalade and fled back to Jacksonville proper. He didn’t give a shit about the dope.
Patty leaned in close and said, “If there’s a man with her up there you can’t hurt him.”
He just stared at her.
“That’s not Jeanie up there. Nothing you do will change the past. We’re cops, not vigilantes. We need to hear the whole story.”
“Whole story! If there’s an adult male with a fourteen-year-old up there it’s a crime. He can’t even try the Roman Polanski excuse. Those days are past.” He dialed it down before his voice carried up the stairs and across the open hallway. Patty had a point. She always did. But in cases like this she really didn’t understand. He would save the girl, but if he got the chance to teach this pervert a lesson he’d do it for every father in the country.
As they eased up the stairs, Patty stooped down and picked up two towels in front of 2-A. She just looked at him and smiled, then motioned him to the side of the door with a nod of her head.
He knew she was street-smart, so he stepped to the far side of the door to 2-B, where he’d been told the girl was staying, and let his partner do her thing. She stood directly in front of the door so anyone inside would see her standing there, holding towels like a hotel employee, then knocked on the door firmly.
From inside he heard shuffling, then a man’s voice said, “What? Who is it?”
Patty calmly added a slight, Latin-flared accent and called back, “I got towels and a new TV remote for you.”
There was a pause. Patty turned and whispered, “No man will turn down a new remote.”
Sure enough the door moved with a chain keeping it from opening all the way. Once the man got a look at Patty by herself, he shut the door, removed the chain, and then opened it wide with a predatory grin still on his round face.
Stallings stepped from around the corner and shoved the man hard, back into the room.
“What the hell?” shouted the man as he steadied himself against the cheap dresser. He wore only a stained, white towel around his waist and looked like he was in his early thirties. His chubby body and touch of gray made it hard for Stallings to guess his exact age other than it was old enough to get his ass kicked.
He looked around the room quickly, but didn’t see anyone else. He nodded for Patty to check the bathroom as he stepped up next to the startled occupant.
Stallings smiled and said, “Nice day, huh?”
“What the hell
is going on?”
“C’mon, you’re not an idiot.” He lifted his shirt, exposing the gun and badge. “You know why we’re here.” An old trick, but one that worked. Usually people started jabbering about what they were doing. Not this guy. He clammed up immediately.
Patty tried the door then knocked softly. “Hello?”
No answer.
The man in the towel said, “I don’t know why you’re here. Why don’t you explain yourself, Officer?”
“It’s Detective, and I’d rather have your guest explain it.”
Patty jiggled the doorknob again and tried to force the door.
The man said, “I have no idea what you’re talking about. You just violated my civil rights.”
Stallings kept his cool and started to ease toward Patty. If this guy was alone he had some ass-kissing to do and he wanted Patty out before the guy got her name at least. He stood next to Patty and tried the door. He thought he heard a faint noise from the other side and slammed his shoulder into the old, hollow wooden door. It popped past the lock and opened into the empty bathroom. Uh-oh.
He stepped inside and then over to the tiny open window. Glancing out he saw a young girl, wrapped in a towel, on the lower roof of the office below.
Patty slid in next to him and they both said, “Shit.” Then they sprang into action. But once he had gotten back to the main room he froze, because it was empty too. He turned and said, “You get the girl, and I’ll go after the man.”
Patty darted out of the room at least knowing the last location of the runaway. Stallings shot down the closest stairway into the trash-strewn parking lot. Nothing. His head swiveled in every direction as he dashed toward the street. He looked in both directions on the main street but only saw a few pedestrians and a couple of cars. The panic of a parent who’d lost their child at the mall built inside him. He didn’t want this scared runaway to screw up her life. He raced back toward the hotel and down the hallway between the one-story office and two-story hotel. As he crossed a doorway to the covered parking area he slammed into someone like two trucks on a highway.
Stallings dropped backward onto the ground, already apologizing and trying to see who he’d run into. Then he froze as a smile washed over him. On the ground next to him was the pudgy man from upstairs, his towel unwrapped and blood dripping from his cut lip.
Stallings sprang to a crouch, but the man didn’t move. He stood slowly, making sure none of his middle-aged bones were broken, then looked down at the unconscious man.
From the end of the hallway Patty called out.
He looked up and breathed a sigh of relief when he saw her with the girl, unharmed and crying like she had just found her older sister. Patty wrapped an arm around her and said, “Let’s go get you some clothes.” She had worked in the unit long enough to realize how confused this girl was and the fear of being caught with an older man. It was not the typical detective’s assignment. Not cut and dried, guilty or innocent, but layered like a counselor’s job, with several sides to every story. For every kid that ran from abuse and neglect there was another who left for reasons no one could ever explain.
A few minutes later, Stallings sat with the motel manager, a neat Pakistani man with a name tag that said WOODY. He had asked for all the registration slips from the hotel and Woody had pleasantly complied.
He waited while the little Asian family, who had rushed in from the pool after the excitement, checked at the desk to make sure everything was all right.
Stallings stood next to the manager like another employee and said to the father, “We’re sorry for the inconvenience. We’ll be happy to give you your room free for three nights.”
This caused Woody to turn and stare at him in shock.
The Asian man beamed and thanked them as he turned with his kids in tow and headed out the door. The little girl turned and smiled at Stallings, who returned it. That felt good.
Now Stallings looked at the manager and said, “Relax, I’ll pay for the room.”
Woody said, “Forget it. Chasing away the drug dealers will help me more than milking that guy for a few nights. Besides I charge sixteen dollars a day to park.” He winked at Stallings, but saw the look on the detective’s face and tore up the parking card as well.
“How long have those jerk-offs been bothering you?”
“Maybe a month now. They came over two days a week, threw some cash at me and said they’d burn the place down if I called the cops.”
Stallings nodded as he went through the registration slips Woody had provided.
Patty sat in the car out front with the girl leaning on the hood, sobbing softly. The creep, who had checked in under the name “Joe Smith,” sat in the backseat in cuffs, still only wearing a towel.
Stallings thumbed through the flimsy sheets of paper, then paused, reached into his shirt pocket, popped out the cheap reading glasses he had picked up at Walmart, and resumed his search with more clarity. He had resisted the glasses until last year, when his arms no longer reached the distance he needed. His youngest daughter, Lauren, told him the glasses made him look smart, so he didn’t mind. He doubted many smart people had scarred eyebrows from fistfights or a knife wound just under their left armpit, but he liked the illusion anyway.
After he had established a signed slip as the only record for Mr. Smith, Stallings handed the registration slips back, thanked the manager, and started to turn away when he caught a whiff of something that stopped him. He turned and said, “What’s that smell?”
Woody shrugged and said, “I’ve been smelling it too. But I checked. No gas leaks. Nothing unusual.”
Stallings stepped one way then the other, trying to find the source of the odor, following it toward a narrow hallway with several closets. “What’s in here?”
The manager stepped from behind the desk, looking like an adolescent next to the taller, beefier Stallings. “All storage.”
“What kind of storage?”
“Beach chairs, suitcases, lost and found.”
Stallings stood in one spot to let the smell drift to him, then took a few steps to one side. Finally he said, “Open the middle door.”
The manager fumbled with a ring of more than fifty keys and opened the solid wood door. The stench slapped Stallings in the face.
The manager said, “You’ve got a good nose. I couldn’t tell where it was coming from.”
Now Stallings was more precise, careful not to touch the door as he flicked on the light in the long, crowded storage room. He looked down one wall and back the other until his eyes fell on a thick, black duffel bag shoved in next to the wall on the dusty cement floor. He nudged it with his finger, then stepped closer, the manager following him into the cramped room.
“Where’d this bag come from?”
The manager shrugged. “I think the other clerk slid it in here when someone forgot it in the lobby yesterday. He mentioned there was a heavy suitcase left here.”
Stallings studied the small lock on the bag, dug in his front pocket for a Leatherman tool, and used the needle-nose pliers to rip it off the bag. The manager, mesmerized by the action, didn’t protest.
Stallings hesitated with his fingers on the zipper, then yanked the tiny handle down the track of the zipper about ten inches until he saw the pale, pretty face of a young woman.
“Oh, no, no, no, this is a dreadful thing,” said the manager, his accent becoming much more pronounced. Then he was quick to add, “She wasn’t a guest. This isn’t our fault. I don’t know who she is.”
Stallings sighed. “I do. Her name is Lee Ann Moffit.”
This was a day that would change his life.
Two
Patty Levine had just handed off the runaway girl to a county social worker, who was taking her to a shelter until they worked out something with the parents. The second she looked up from her metal notebook and saw John Stallings, Patty knew that something had happened. Stallings’s handsome face was usually a mask of calm during times of stress. His cu
rly brown hair framed his blue eyes and made him look like a stylish doctor who had played rough sports as a younger man. He rarely showed any reaction, preferring, like any good cop, to keep people guessing, but now he was leaning out the front door of the motel motioning her to come in and she knew something bad had happened. She could tell their day had swung off the ordinary track. The Xanax she had sneaked at lunch kept her reactions smooth, but she popped another just to be on the safe side and swallowed it dry. She was careful never to allow any nervous tension to show at work. As one of the few female detectives, Patty felt as if she had to set an example and be twice as tough as any male cop. That only led to more stress. She didn’t drink like a lot of the cops, so this was her answer to dealing with the job. It was a decent rationalization that worked most of the time.
“What’s wrong?” she asked as she hurried toward him, her hand dropping toward the Beretta on her hip. Her Rockport boots were a little clunky, but she could hustle in them and no street thug in Arlington gave her shit once he felt her boot buried in his ribs or stuck up his ass.
Stallings leaned toward her, keeping his voice low. “We got a body zipped in a suitcase in one of the storage rooms.” He conveyed concern but not panic. She liked his professionalism.
“Is it related to the dopers we let go?”
“No, it’s one of the runaways I used to deal with. Lee Ann Moffitt.”
She saw it in his face and heard it in his voice. This poor guy didn’t need something like this right now. Not after his own daughter had disappeared.
“I’m calling it directly into our homicide unit.”
“Stall, this is Jacksonville Beach. They should catch this homicide.”
He looked up at her, his expression certain and direct. “I have to be involved in this case. I’m calling the Sheriff’s Office.”
She knew not to suggest any other course of action.
The store on Edgewood Avenue was his favorite to work in. The clinics and hospitals sent all the people who needed cheap prescriptions to this store or the one in central Jax. Both stores were in areas with a lot of homeless and street people, the safest group to look for test subjects. If they disappeared no one noticed for a long time, and if the body was found, there wasn’t a family screaming for the police to solve the crime. But he had to use his brain and be patient to find just the right one. This was still new to him.