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.
E
LEVEN
J
ohn 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.
First, he made sure there were no motion-sensor devices or tripwires run through the fence. Then he pulled a pair of heavy wire cutters from his shirt’s lower pocket. He kneeled down next to the nearest metal support pole and snapped the wire straps holding the fence to it. Then it was just a matter of pushing the fence away from the post and rolling underneath. He stepped into the corn and within ten feet found his first row of four-foot-high marijuana plants. At least these weren’t stupid rednecks. Since most of the marijuana eradication efforts by the state and federal government were done through helicopter survey of wide areas, it was smart to hide the pot within the rows of corn. Stallings could tell by the way the corn drooped over the lower pot plants that they’d be very difficult to see from the air. Every three or four rows of corn another row of pot sprang up.
Finally he found the inner row, with three trailers set up corner to corner to form a U with the driveway in front of them. He could see the driveway was built in a series of twists so no one from the road could look down the driveway and see anything but corn. Again, a bright move. Now that Stallings was here he didn’t want to startle anyone. He had to make it clear all he wanted to know was where Zach Halston was and if anyone here recognized the girl from the photo.
Stallings was hoping he’d see someone walk from one trailer to another. But the longer he sat there the more he wondered if anyone was even present. There was a new Ford F-150 in front of the center trailer and a beat-up, older Chevy pickup on the side of the far trailer. It was a cool morning so it didn’t surprise him that none of the air conditioners were running.
As he stepped back farther into the corn to move around closer to the trailers, Stallings bumped his head on something metallic. When he turned he was looking into the barrel of a shotgun and the angry face of a young man behind it, who said, “You better start talking quick and hope I don’t have a reason to pull the trigger.”
Tony Mazzetti sat in front of his fifty-two-inch Samsung flat-screen TV in the most comfortable La-Z-Boy recliner ever made with a Swanson’s extra-large, microwavable turkey dinner with peas and yellow corn. He never took moments like this for granted. This was a guy’s nirvana. On the giant TV, the CBS pregame show appeared on screen, with Dan Marino giving insights as to how the Detroit Lions were going to blow another Thanksgiving Day game.
He had already made the obligatory call to his mom and his sister. They were both insisting he start using the computer for video calls. Jesus Christ, it wasn’t like he was eight years old. He was thirty-nine and his looks didn’t change that much between visits back to Brooklyn. His sister didn’t make the trip from Westchester County down to see his mother much more often than he made the flight up to see her. Sure, his sister was a judge and had a family and claimed that her time was already tight. But she was only thirty miles from the house they had both grown up in. Besides, his mother loved seeing her grandchildren. He understood that. He also understood that she expected him to start producing his own crop of children soon. That was one of the reasons he had yet to tell her that he’d broken up with Patty. He wouldn’t lie to her, but he avoided the subject. Today when she’d asked about Patty, Mazzetti had mumbled something about her eating at her parents’ house down in Ocala. As far as he knew that was true.
There was a rap at his front door. It was strong and steady, almost like an official police knock. He sighed and carefully set the plate full of food on the arm of his La-Z-Boy. He padded through the living room, glancing out the window to see if he noticed a car in the driveway. He had no idea who’d be knocking on his door in the middle of the day on Thanksgiving.
He twisted the dead bolts and opened the door and was surprised to see Lisa Kurtz standing there with her arms folded and her red hair in a ponytail flipped over her shoulder and running down to her chest. She had on an all-weather coat that went all the way to her knees, almost like a trench coat. She was tapping her right foot impatiently.
Mazzetti stared at her silently for a moment, then said, “Ah, Lisa, um, everything okay?”
“Are you trying to avoid me?”
He thought about his policy of not lying to people and decided silence was the best choice in this case.
Lisa didn’t wait for an answer anyway. “Do you like me?”
“Of course I like you.”
“Are you certain you like me?”
He wasn’t lying. He did like her. He just wasn’t sure he liked being around her. But he didn’t feel like getting into this right now. Not before an afternoon football game. He said, “I think you’re terrific.”
A broad smile spread across her face. She opened her coat to reveal nothing but some very sheer lingerie, silk stockings, and lacy garters. Before Mazzetti could say anything or react, she stepped inside and enveloped him so quickly with her arms and legs that it felt like she was an octopus and he was the octopus’s next meal, but somehow he didn’t mind one bit.
One of the first things Stallings learned in the police academy was
never give up your gun
. No matter what. He looked up the barrel of a shotgun and tried to assess the young man behind it. This was no stoner. This was a businessman protecting his merchandise.
Stallings did his best to keep calm and said, “Don’t get worked up, son. I’m not here to cause any trouble.”
“You’re on private property, which is completely surrounded by a six-foot-high fence, and you just walked through a million bucks of marijuana. I think you are here to cause trouble and I can’t let that happen.”
“I guess this is the wrong time to mention I’m a cop, huh?”
This caught the man by surprise and he took a second to swivel his head in each direction to make sure Stallings was alone. “You got a warrant, cop?”
“I don’t need a warrant. I’m not here to arrest you or disrupt your business in any way. I just want to ask you about a young man who’s missing in Jacksonville.”
“Bullshit.”
“Come on, you’re not an idiot. Why would I make something like that up? Of everything I’ve just said, what sounds like a lie? I just want to talk.”
“Who’s the boy you’re looking for?” Stallings could see the young man’s finger slip off the trigger slightly.
“Zach Halston.” The effect on the man was immediate. He knew Zach.
“What made you come here to ask about Zach?”
“His cell phone records showed he made a call here not long before he disappeared. I figured out the number he called belonged to J. L. Winter. Can I assume you’re J.L.?”
The man stepped away from Stallings and motioned with the shotgun for him to step out into the open driveway. “Raise both of your hands and if I see either drop to your waist, I pull this trigger and all the buckshot rounds will pass right through you. Understand?”
“Like God himself were explaining it to me.” He stepped out of the corn and into the driveway.
The man said, “Over towards the F-150.”
Stallings wasn’t in the mood to push the surly man with a shotgun. He started to walk quickly toward the new pickup truck with his hands up and out so there would be no mistake he was listening to commands.
He paused at the pickup truck and the man barked, “Walk up to the trailer.”
Stallings complied and paused at the foot of the stairs leading to the clean double-wide, professionally set up on four-foot-high supports.
The young man shouted, “J.L., I found someone trespassing. He wants to talk to you.”
Stallings watched as a curtain moved at the front window. A few moments later the door to the trailer opened and a woman about thirty, in jeans that accentuated her perfect curves and a low top that showed off her other assets, stepped onto the wooden stairs. She had a beautiful face with long, straight black hair. Her dark eyes looked from Stallings to the man with the shotgun.
The woman said, “Who are you?”
Stallings was so stunned all he could say was, “Are you J. L. Winter?”
“I am. And if you don’t tell me your name I’m going to have Junior here blow your motherfucking balls off.”
He couldn’t say it fast enough. “John Stallings. Nice to meet you.”