“You can call me for any reason at all, sweetheart.”
John Stallings had rifled his desk like he was on a search warrant until he found a printout he and Patty had compiled of all of the Tau Upsilon fraternity brothers. He had to put on his reading glasses to follow the names as he placed his index finger at the top of the page and worked his way down. Finally he found an entry with the first name of Kyle. It was Kyle Lee and his cell phone number had a 407 area code. Jackpot. That was Orlando. Stallings even considered calling the boy right now but had to wonder about the wisdom of asking someone about unlawful marijuana sales and meeting other pot dealers over the phone. There was also the issue of the photograph. When all was said and done, Stallings was anxious to talk to this boy about the photograph of Jeanie, not about the missing, pot-dealing, fraternity brother.
Then another thought entered Stallings’s mind. It was really the first time he had thought about it on this case. What if Zach Halston was dead? Aside from the fact that it would be a homicide, it would, more important, be a dead end to Stallings’s inquiry about the photograph of Jeanie. He didn’t know what he’d do if that happened. It was the main reason he hadn’t even seriously considered telling Maria about the photograph.
The more Stallings pondered Zach Halston’s missing persons case, the more he had to believe the young man was dead. Often a missing young person would not contact his family, but he would call friends. Sometimes a person goes missing on purpose to avoid an uncomfortable relationship or business dealings. That was still possible with Zach, but the fact that he had not called anyone in three weeks made it seem more likely that he was unable to call anyone.
Stallings had to assume Kyle Lee had gone home for Thanksgiving, but he would check the fraternity house first. He was about to bring up a map of Florida on his computer and see how long a quick ride to Orlando would take when he took the page with Kyle Lee’s phone number and tucked it into his shirt pocket. He felt something in his pocket. His phone. He normally didn’t wear heavy, flannel shirts with pockets in odd places, so he had forgotten about his phone altogether. When he flipped it open he saw there were six messages waiting for him. What the hell?
Then he noticed the time on the face of the phone. It was 3:30. He felt sick to his stomach for just a moment. Where had the time gone? He was an hour and a half late for Thanksgiving dinner with his entire family.
THIRTEEN
Stallings entered his mother’s house without knocking. He’d made it from downtown at the Police Memorial Building in just under eleven minutes at great risk to his and other people’s lives. He thought it was best to face his family in person rather than call and give them a chance to build up their aggravation with him.
As soon as he entered the living room he caught a quick look at Maria’s murderous glare. His mother was much more direct when she said, “Look what the cat dragged in. Where the hell have you been?”
But it was the sight of his sister, Helen, chatting with his father at the edge of the living room sofa that shocked him. He stood there, ignoring Maria and his mother, staring at his sister. How could this be? Helen had always credited their father with driving her out of the house at fourteen. She’d run away and been missing for two years. When she came back she was never the same Helen. In fact, she had never moved out of the house again, aside from a brief stint living with Maria and the kids. She still lived with their mother. And she worried about every possible aspect of life. One of her biggest concerns was that somehow her running away had affected Jeanie’s disappearance. Almost like it was in their genetic code to flee their families.
Helen had disliked their father so much and for so long that when she found out he was still in their mother’s life, she would leave the house every time he came over. Now, his attractive, older sister sat in a church-style dress with her back straight and hands in her lap, talking earnestly with the father who had been gone for almost twenty years.
Stallings’s mother walked up and gave him a hug, whispering into his ear, “I know how you feel. I’m just as amazed as you are. It really is a miracle.”
Stallings just nodded. He didn’t want to interrupt their conversation. Instead, he turned just in time to catch Charlie as he barreled into him for a hug. He looked over the boy’s shoulder for Lauren and saw her in the dining room, reading a book at the already set dining table.
When Charlie wandered back over toward the TV, Maria stepped up to him and said, “What were you doing that was so important you kept us all waiting almost two hours?”
Stallings hated to lie, so he had to say, “Something came up at work.” He knew how she felt about him putting work first. This would be a prime example that she could talk over with Brother Frank Ellis about how inconsistent Stallings was with his promises.
Maria said, “Were you working with Patty?”
“No. She’s in Ocala at her parents’ house. I was on my own today.” As soon as he finished saying the words he realized the implications of what Maria was saying. She really was jealous of Patty. But if he said anything too strongly now it would look suspicious. He reached into his pocket and felt the photograph of Jeanie and Zach Halston. He wanted to show her so badly. He wanted to change the focus of her rage. It’d be the easy way to get out of the situation he found himself in right now. It might change her entire opinion about him.
Or it might break her all to pieces.
He removed his hand from his pocket and left the photograph.
This was going to be one long Thanksgiving dinner.
FOURTEEN
The Friday after Thanksgiving had always been somewhat of a letdown for John Stallings. When he was a child he looked forward to Thanksgiving as a chance to spend time with his mother’s family, who would drive down from South Carolina to visit for the long weekend. He felt like a grown-up, watching football with the men in the living room, either waiting for or recovering from a giant meal. But by the next day, he was relegated to entertaining his younger cousins and once again ignored by his father. In the past few years it had been an empty holiday, giving him more time to think about his missing daughter and less time to work on finding her or other kids. This year, being separated from his wife and living in a lonely house over in Lakewood, Stallings had no intention of spending the day at home, alone and brooding.
He had waited until midday, having made a few phone calls to make certain the people he needed to talk to were where he thought they’d be. In the case of Kyle Lee, friend and fraternity brother to the missing Zach Halston, Stallings had been able to scare one of the other fraternity brothers into silence after he told Stallings Kyle was at his parents’ house in Winter Park, a quiet, upscale suburb of Orlando.
Now Stallings found himself pulling into Gainesville after slightly more than an hour through the back roads of North Florida from Jacksonville. Stallings had always liked the atmosphere of the college town. Although the Gainesville cops told horror stories about what went on with the students at the University of Florida, the town itself always seemed pleasant and friendly. Stallings figured that any school as big as the University of Florida had problems that would scare the average parent of an incoming freshman. More and more he understood the value of a smaller school like the University of North Florida or Jacksonville University.
He pulled into a string of buildings that looked like they were part of the university even though they weren’t specifically on-campus. Part of the university’s School of Art and Art History, these offices held university personnel who didn’t officially teach classes. They were tech people and former movie business employees who knew how to work cameras and create special effects. It seemed to be the perfect haven for the artist sick of show business but still in love with his craft. It was here that Stallings had cultivated one of the oddest and most rewarding relationships of his professional career.