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.