“Ma’am,” started Stallings slowly. “I’m John Stallings. Can I help you?”
She turned in her seat, looked up and said, “Oh thank God. I didn’t know who to talk to, but I’ve seen you on TV.”
“What’s the problem, ma’am?” He didn’t want Mazzetti being rude to this lady, so he stepped in front of him as he spoke, then crouched down to eye level with the woman.
She appreciated the manners and looked over her shoulder at Mazzetti to see if he was going to bend down too. When he made no movement, other than one of impatience, she turned her full attention back to Stallings and said, “We have to hurry. He’s got a girl in the house.”
Stallings patted her arm softly and said, “Who has a girl?”
She didn’t seem to hear. “A young girl. I know who he really is.”
“Ma’am, who are you talking about.”
She looked at him, then up to Mazzetti and said, “I know who the Bag Man is.”
Twenty-five
John Stallings steadied himself as Tony Mazzetti pushed his Crown Vic around a corner too hard. He wasn’t used to sitting in the backseat of a speeding police car, but there was no time to argue once they had the tip. The old lady had too many details for them not to take her seriously. She said the man lived alone with a cat, acted oddly, and she saw him usher a young girl she described as “petite” into the house a couple of hours earlier. She had also seen him with a small woman Saturday night, the night Trina Ester said good-bye to her coworkers for the last time.
Mazzetti had moved quickly and been decisive. Patty and Stallings jumped into the car with Mazzetti. Luis Martinez and Christina Hogrebe were in a county Crown Vic somewhere behind them.
Stallings’s pulse had cranked up the moment he realized the lady might have a real tip and not the usual stuff that rolled across his desk during a case like this. Now with some time to think about stopping this creep he felt the rush of exhilaration he had as a rookie.
Mazzetti’s phone rang, and Stallings caught his side of the conversation. The homicide detective’s clipped voice saying, “Yeah, yeah, got it. No shit? Got it.” Then he slammed the small phone shut.
Stallings couldn’t wait. “What’d we got?”
“The guy was at the community college, which puts him near at least one victim, the Tawny Wallace chick.” He looked over his shoulder at Stallings. “No arrests, but he’s been questioned for loitering near a school. Could be our guy.”
Stallings nodded, “Could be.”
Patty remained silent up in the front passenger seat. Stallings had detected a strained vibe between her and Mazzetti earlier in the day but didn’t want to stir anything up, so he decided to wait to ask her if everything was all right.
The handheld radio on the front seat crackled as Luis Martinez reached out for Mazzetti.
Mazzetti snatched up the radio and called out a little loudly, “Stay off the radio. Call me on the phone.” The call was short, then Mazzetti tossed the phone on the seat.
“Luis thinks we need some uniformed cops. I’m trying to keep the media out of this by staying off the radio and not involving everyone and his brother.”
Stallings said, “I could call up some uniform help on the phone quietly.”
“Who?”
“Ellis and his traffic guys.”
“That’s perfect, Stall. He’s a good guy and will keep his yap shut.”
Stallings looked up Ellis on his contact list and was talking to him a few seconds later. “Rick, you said you could help if we needed something.”
“You bet.”
“We’re headed over to the seven hundred block of Forrest Street, you close by?”
“The Forrest down south or off the Bridge?”
“Down south.”
“See you in ten minutes on the next block.”
“I’m with Mazzetti in his blue Crown Vic.” He cut the connection and told Mazzetti not to worry.
The briefing was quick and to the point, just the way Stallings liked police work. The fear of endless lawsuits had slowed the process of investigation by several magnitudes. This was important enough that everyone was willing to move fast.
Then Mazzetti pulled him off to the side.
“Stall, I think we need to slow this train down. We got enough people to watch the house while someone gets a search warrant.”
Stallings shook his head. “We got exigent circumstances. The witness says there’s a girl inside.”
“But we gotta make this case airtight. I’d rather err on the side of caution.”
Stallings felt his blood rise. “And what do we tell that girl’s mother if she’s killed in the time it takes us to get a goddamn warrant?”
Mazzetti looked away, obviously weighing the options. Finally he looked at Stallings and said, “Okay, but if this is a fuck-up it’s on you.”
Stallings nodded. He didn’t know why it would be his fault, but he knew he had to get this operation moving. They watched as three marked patrol cars rolled up and Sergeant Rick Ellis popped out with a shotgun in his hand.
The big uniformed sergeant grinned and bellowed, “Real police work. I love it.”
A few minutes later the five detectives and three uniformed cops crowded around Mazzetti’s car’s hood looking at a rough sketch of the house in relation to the other houses on the block.
Mazzetti said, “We all stay off the radio. I don’t want some reporter with a police scanner catching on to what’s going on. We’re gonna cover the back and hit the front. No one in the back comes inside. I don’t want a cross fire and one of us getting hit.” He looked at all the faces, spending an extra second on the two young uniformed guys he didn’t know. “Everyone understand?”
Everyone nodded.
“All we got is a tip, but it may involve a young girl in the house. We know this guy was at the community college. No record, just a field ID card by one of the sex predator detectives a few years ago.”
Ellis looked up and said, “Where do you want us?”
“Sarge, you, one of your guys and Stall will cover the back. Hoagie and one uniform will cover the front. Luis”-he pointed at a the biggest uniformed officer-“you and me and Patty will hit the door.” He looked around. “Any questions?”
Stallings didn’t like the idea of staying in the back, but there was nothing to argue. That was his assignment.
Ellis’s radio beeped and a male voice asked for him by his radio number. When the big man answered the voice said, “What’s going on out there? Brief me.”
Mazzetti said, “Not over the radio.”
Ellis clicked the broadcast button and said, “I’ll call you, Captain. Stand by.” He reached for his belt, then cursed and turned to Stallings. “Stall, let me use your phone. In the excitement I left mine in the car.”
Stallings handed over his phone and turned back to the hood of the car as Ellis walked off with the phone glued to his ear.
Mazzetti said, “You cool with this, Stall? We’re going in without a warrant at your insistence.”
He nodded. “It’s the right thing to do.”
Ten minutes later Stallings stood behind the small, single-family house with the two uniformed cops. They had crept into the yard with a few scraggly bushes and weeds instead of grass. No one had noticed the cops as they cut between neighbors’ houses and now stood at each corner of the suspect’s square house. Rick Ellis was right behind him on one side and a young patrolman on the other. Stallings looked down at his watch. Any second now the other team would hit the front. His heart pumped hard, forcing blood into his eardrums like thunder.
Stallings put his hand on the grip of his pistol, waiting for the expected pounding on the front door or, if things didn’t go well, the sound of the door being knocked in. He tensed and waited. Still nothing, and it started to spook him. He drew his pistol, and Ellis, behind him, held his Remington shotgun up to his shoulder, then the officer on the other corner drew his service pistol. Stallings didn’t know if they had their own gut feeling or if he had started the trend.