He saw the older Toyota Tercel, covered in bumper stickers to hide scratches and holes, directly in front of the main entrance to the last building. It was the only vehicle in the entire lot. A smile spread across Stallings’s face. He could relate to being the only one who worked on a holiday. The front door was unlocked and he knew his way down the long hallway to the small office crammed with old photographs and newspapers that had to be digitized, examined, and sometimes disseminated. To Stallings this was a very special place.
He paused at the open door and gazed in at the woman, in her early sixties, who peered through thick eyeglasses at a photo that looked like it was from the 1940s. She sat forward in her chair almost like it was a stool as a way to help support the massive weight of her hips.
After a moment her eyes moved from the photo to Stallings and a broad smile stretched across her pretty face. “You should call before you come over. How did you even know I’d come in today?”
Stallings smiled and shook his head, saying, “I could tell you I was psychic because I know you really like that kind of stuff. But actually I called the house and Louise told me you had some project you’re working on here at the office.”
The woman held up a stack of old photographs and said, “I promised the dean I’d preserve the photographs of his parents’ wedding. I put it off for more than three months and it’s their anniversary on Sunday. Besides, if I had to sit around and listen to Louise bitch about the cats or why we’re stuck in a shitty little town like Gainesville, I’d have to call you to come over and shoot me.” She set down the photographs and pulled off her magnifying eyeglasses. “Come over here and give Sonia a hug.” She held out her hands like a baby asking to be plucked out of her crib.
Stallings crossed the small room and gave his friend a long, comfortable embrace. He sat on a stool next to her desk as they caught up with each other’s lives from the past eight months. Sonia had a talent for identifying people from photographs and enhancing the photographs to get the best results when the photos were published in public. Her work had been recognized across the country when missing children, as well as ailing elderly people who had disappeared, were recognized from photos she prepared for publication. More than once she’d helped Stallings on his quiet quest to find his daughter. She’d used university resources without documenting what they were used for and she had never asked for anything in return.
She was the model of a good friend.
After they had chatted for almost an hour, Sonia said, “I know you didn’t come by to listen to an old lesbian’s complaints about living in a Bible Belt college town. Now what you got for me?”
Stallings slowly pulled the photograph of Zach Halston and Jeanie from his notebook. This was the original photo he’d taken off the missing boy’s wall. As he handed it over to Sonia, he saw the tremor in his hand exaggerated by the photograph.
Sonia carefully took the photo, laid it flat on her desk, picked up her glasses, and adjusted the lamp on her desk. She studied the photo for a full minute without saying a word.
Then she sat up straight, took off her glasses, and faced Stallings. “I know who the girl is in the photo. Who is the boy?”
Stallings took a moment to gather his thoughts and said, “He’s the focus of my missing persons investigation. I just happened to find this photo while searching his apartment.”
“This was taken after Jeanie disappeared, wasn’t it?”
“Yes, it was.”
“My, my, that’s a twist. What did you want from me, exactly?”
“First, I wanted someone to verify that I was actually looking at a photograph of my daughter. Second, I was wondering, with your connections in the missing child world, if you could circulate her photograph. If the photo came from me, my bosses might take me off the case altogether.”
“I think they would have to take you off the case. Ethically speaking.”
Stallings stomach tightened as he wondered if he had overstepped the bounds of their friendship and forced her to make a choice between ethics and helping a friend. He tried to get a fix on her until she said, “Luckily, since I am not a member of the law enforcement community directly, I have no ethical issue. I’m assuming you don’t want me to bill JSO for any of this?” She smiled and suddenly Stallings felt a tremendous wave of relief.
Sonia said, “If all guys were like you, decent, funny, and cute, I probably would’ve given men more of a chance when I was younger. But as you know, most men are pigs. So I’m quite happy with my life. I would dearly love to see you happy with yours.”
Without even realizing he was saying it, Stallings mumbled, “Me too.”
Tony Mazzetti had never stayed in bed past noon in his entire life. When he was a kid, his mom would yell at him to be up before eight o’clock even on the weekends. After years of shift work and investigations, he had made it a habit, even if he worked all night, to be up by eleven. But somehow lying naked under his cool sheets with Lisa Kurtz giggling next to him, he didn’t feel like he was wasting a day off.
Aside from a couple of trips to the bathroom and grabbing all the fresh fruit and orange juice in his kitchen, he had not left his bed since yesterday afternoon. The way they had been going he wondered if he might need to invest in a heart rate monitor if he intended to continue dating the assistant medical examiner. She was all energy, enthusiasm, wavy red hair, and soft white skin. It was a cliche, but this thirty-year-old made him feel young too.
She snuggled in next to him and he wrapped his arm around her shoulder. She said, “I wish you had a TV in here so we could watch the college football games on today.”
“There’s no decent games the day after Thanksgiving. But there’s Florida-Florida State tomorrow.”
“Are you planning for us to stay in bed until tomorrow?”
“I could plan it, but I wouldn’t survive it.”
Lisa giggled. She turned her head and stared up at the ceiling and said, “Practically all I watch on TV anymore is sports and comedies. God, those TV police shows. .”
“I know what you mean. If our CSI guys talked to me like that I’d have to crack one of their heads open with my ASP.”
“I know, right? I love how the crime scene guys get in more shoot-outs than the narcotics guys on that show.”
Mazzetti realized that even though Patty Levine was a couple of years younger than Lisa, she was more mature in her attitude and speech. Lisa sounded like a college student more than a college grad. But right now, when she wasn’t yakking about medical school or the medical examiner’s office, and he felt her warm, soft body against his, he didn’t care one bit. Maybe she wasn’t too bad. He couldn’t compare everyone to Patty Levine. If he did, he was afraid he’d be disappointed the rest of his life.
They lay there comfortably for a few more minutes before Lisa said, “I forgot I traded weekends and have to work tomorrow anyway. As slow as it’s been, it’s not going to be a big deal.”
“That’s the way it is in homicide. It’s like a roller-coaster ride with a lot of ups and a few downs. We call it the feast-or-famine syndrome and we’re definitely in a famine right now. That’s why I’m so frustrated I still can’t solve the shooting of the auto parts manager from a few months ago.”
“I’m sure something will break on it soon. I saw something that reminded me of the victim earlier in the week.”
“What’s that?”
“We had an UNF student who died of an overdose over the weekend.”
“The one Luis Martinez is working?”