Stallings was aware that patrol officers were often the only contact the general public had with police. Often the public’s view of police work was shaped by TV and they couldn’t understand when the officer who pulled him over was short or irritable, as if they weren’t allowed to have a bad day. No one ever cut a surly patrol officer slack. And no one who was stopped speeding ever thought they deserved the ticket, only that they had been singled out.
After Stallings had passed the busy patrol officer he decided to skip the fishing docks and go directly to the ocean to fill his lungs with the clean, salt air. It was one of the few things he knew he didn’t do enough. He lived a mere fifteen minutes from the ocean but saw it fewer than five times a year.
As he zipped east on the highway, a patrol car with its lights on roared past him, followed by two fire rescue vehicles. He briefly considered following them to see if he could help but realized they didn’t need an older, plainclothes detective interfering with their duties.
Before he could even see the ocean, he rolled down the windows and felt the breeze and smelled the salt air.
This had not been a bad evening at all.
Lynn let her hand slip down around the handle of the knife as the patrolman walked along the side of the road from his car to hers. She wasn’t sure exactly what she intended to do, but knew that it wasn’t a good idea to get a ticket so close to the site of the murder. When the cop spoke to her, all she could do was give him a good smile and hope he leaned down closer.
What surprised her was the response to her simple smile. As soon as he leaned closer, showing off muscular arms and a handsome face, the young man returned her smile and somehow conveyed to her that she wasn’t going to get a ticket. Instead he said, “You were going a little fast, weren’t you, ma’am?”
Lynn nodded her head. “I’m sorry.” She patted his hand, which was now resting on her car door.
The cop said, “That’s okay, everyone makes mistakes sometimes.” He looked up and down the highway. Then he smiled and said, “My name’s Martin.”
His friendly manner took her by surprise and she blurted out, “I’m Lynn.”
“Well, Lynn, would you consider letting me take you out to dinner one night and explain the dangers of speeding to you? We could avoid a lot of messy court time.”
He said it as a joke and not as any kind of threat. Lynn was stuck in a tricky position. Right now he didn’t know her last name. But if she refused dinner there was no guarantee he wouldn’t write her an official ticket or at least copy down her tag. She decided to give him her business card instead. All it had was the Thomas Brothers Supply number and not her personal cell.
The young cop looked at the card and said, “Thomas Brothers, that’s a big operation.”
“Biggest in Northeast Florida.” She’d learned to recite the line after the eldest Thomas brother decided to start saying it whether it was true or not.
The young cop was about to say something else when his radio flared to life. Lynn could only catch a few words but recognized “marina” and “fatality.”
The cop stood up and said, “I’ll call you soon, but I’ve got to go to this accident. There’s never a fireman around when you need one.” He hustled back to his car and made a quick U-turn onto the road.
Lynn that let out a long sigh of relief as she saw his taillights fade into the darkness. Just from that brief encounter she knew that the cops already thought Kyle’s death was an accident. She also saw how susceptible they were to flirting.
She would never be caught. Just the idea made her smile.
TWENTY-THREE
Tony Mazzetti felt antsy as he entered the small white administrative building of the Duval County Medical Examiner’s Office. He still wasn’t sure what he was going to say or how he would to say it. The last thing he wanted to do was to hurt Lisa Kurtz’s feelings. That wasn’t entirely accurate. The last thing he wanted to do was be lonely again, but the concept of having to hide from your girlfriend did not make for a particularly positive relationship. He realized it late Sunday night when his ears were ringing slightly from the constant chatter of his new girlfriend. That was reinforced last night when he’d spent the evening alone and decided he preferred it that way.
He nodded to a couple of the administrators and the operations officer, a tall gregarious fellow who never let an opportunity pass to tell Mazzetti he did not hold detectives in high esteem. Maybe that was because the lanky former investigator taught a class on what cops shouldn’t do when they happen on to the scene of a homicide. He’d seen all the mistakes that could be made from trampling evidence to moving the body. He’d even yelled at a young JSO patrolman for placing a blanket over a nude women’s body in her own apartment, thinking that it was a sign of respect. The medical examiners’ operations officer pointed out to him that she had lost her modesty and the most important thing was finding out who’d killed her and left her nude in the middle of her living room.
Mazzetti was certain the operations officer didn’t like the prospect of a homicide detective dating one of the assistant medical examiners. He’d probably like it even less when he found out Mazzetti intended to break up with Lisa.
He followed the instructions of several assistants and administrative people who kept directing him farther back down the hall toward Lisa until he found himself in the procedure room at the back of the building. Things had been so slow around the squad that he had not been in the room for some time. He could remember when things were rocking and rolling in homicide, coming to the ME’s office four times a week. In the last month he had come far more times on personal, social business than on official business. Hell, that’s what this visit was all about.
As he entered the room he was glad he was still wearing his suit. The room was kept at a constant fifty-eight degrees and could be a little overwhelming if you weren’t prepared for it. Lisa gave a quick wave and bright smile as she scurried around the room, placing instruments where she would need them for an autopsy.
She said, “What a nice surprise.”
Mazzetti just grunted.
“I hope you don’t mind if we chat while I work on an accident victim from last night.”
“No, not at all.” He waited while she walked to the rear of the room and rolled a gurney up into the position she had prepared with a bright overhead light and a recorder for her notes. Mazzetti could remember the first time he had seen a circular saw and drill laid out on the table and made the connection to what they would be used for. At that time, as a new homicide detective, it had made him queasy. He’d never admitted it to anyone, especially his partner at the time, but after they had left the procedure room and he’d claimed to have needed to use the bathroom, he’d thrown up instead of peeing. No one had ever found out, but he was sure they all suspected. Now the sight of the tools was as mundane as seeing a computer on someone’s desk. Even the sight of the black plastic body bag on the gurney didn’t cause him any concern.
Lisa fumbled with the awkward bag, always preferring to work by herself rather than with an assistant. She said, “This is the accident victim from the marina last night.”