The Perfect Scream (23 page)

P
atty thought John Stallings was unusually quiet. That was saying something. He wasn’t brooding. John never brooded. He was just more withdrawn than normal and was focusing on the case notes from their first interview of the day.

The mother of a nineteen-year-old son killed in a car accident said he had no connection to the fraternity. These were touchy interviews that could easily open old wounds for the families of the victims. It wasn’t until the end of the interview that the woman started to sob uncontrollably. It was moments like this that gave Patty an insight into John Stallings’s home life and the sorrow they had all gone through when Jeanie disappeared.

Now Stallings drove his county-issued Impala south on I-95 toward their next interview in Hyde Park.

Finally, Patty had to say, “I know something’s bothering you. You wanna talk about it?”

“Do I ever want to talk about anything?”

“You might be surprised to find it makes you feel better.”

“For your information, I talked my head off last night. I reached my quota and now I’m going to focus on police work for a little while.”

She took his answer as more informative than usual and noted the nice neighborhood as they got off I-95. Hyde Park was an upscale suburb of Jacksonville proper that housed attorneys and doctors. They found the house they were looking for and Patty whistled in amazement. Even by Hyde Park standards this was an opulent home. The two-story house sat far off the street with a winding, semicircular driveway covering much of the front yard. A sturdy, decorative fence ran the length of the property line and an electronic gate blocked the driveway.

Stallings didn’t hesitate to pull the Impala into the driveway and press a button on a stone pillar.

Patty noticed a camera on the opposite pillar move as someone inside the house examined the car. After a few seconds the voice came over a speaker in the stone pillar.

“May I help you?”

Stallings looked down at the sheet of paper and said, “Is Mr. or Mrs. Hickam available?”

“Please identify yourself.”

Stallings and Patty exchanged glances at the formal and direct command.

He leaned out the window closer to the pillar and said, “Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office.”

There was a long pause and the camera on the opposite pillar continued to scan the car. After almost twenty seconds another male voice came over the speaker, saying, “May I ask what this is in reference to?”

“We’re doing some follow-up on a two-year-old death investigation. We would like to speak to the Hickams. Are they at home?”

Patty always admired how Stallings could put a slight inflection in his voice that seemed to force people to do whatever he wanted without being overtly threatening. She may not have had the same level of experience as Stallings, but her instincts told her something was definitely not right about this house.

Just as the gate started to slide open, the voice came over the small speaker and said, “Drive up to the front door.”

Patty heard Stallings mumble, “Is today the day that changes the rest of my life?”

That set her on edge.

 

 

 

Emmanuel White was not as thrilled with his new job as he thought he’d be. He’d worked his ass off to get through Ohio State and worked just as hard for two years to get this job. He was so happy to be out of the Midwest and assigned to Florida that he didn’t even care that he had been sent to Jacksonville. He knew in the rest of the state, the northwest city was a little bit of a joke and so far the weather had not proved to be as sunny as he’d hoped. But he was pretty sure he’d make it through the winter without snow and none of the rivers here could catch on fire like the Cuyahoga.

He’d watched the two monitors during the twelve-hour day shift for five days in a row. He was scheduled to be off for the next two days, but on this job he never knew when he’d have free time. In fairness, his job wasn’t only to monitor the two cameras; he was expected to review recorded telephone conversations from a number of different phone lines. There still wasn’t enough to keep him occupied for twelve hours at a time.

He noticed an Impala drive up and stop at the gate. It was one of the few times there was any activity at the house. The camera he monitored was across the street from the house. Emmanuel could see the security cameras at the house scanning the car before they opened the gate and allowed it to drive in.

Emmanuel was able to copy down the tag and decided to run it instantly, rather than wait until later. He liked watching the national news at 6:30 and always tried to have his work done before Brian Williams came on TV. He turned to a small Toshiba computer, typed in his password, and ran the tag. It came back to a corporation in Jacksonville. He ran the corporation through a separate computer databank and recognized it as a company used to register cars for the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office. The practice was designed to foil drug dealers who tried to figure out who was following them. It didn’t slow him down one bit.

He hesitated, then pulled out his cell phone and dialed a supervisor to advise him about the unusual visitors. It was sad that this was the highlight of his last five days. He may have been new to the job, but he expected something different after being an Ohio State trooper for two years and then surviving the DEA training Academy in Quantico, Virginia. Somehow he thought the life of a federal narcotics agent would be more interesting than this.

Emmanuel White advised his supervisor what was going on. All the supervisor wanted to know was if he had finished reviewing the recorded telephone calls from the day before.

Emmanuel wondered if life was any different with the other federal agencies.

 

 

 

John Stallings kept alert and remained very aware of his surroundings as he and Patty followed Mrs. Hickam through the house to a den that overlooked a sprawling backyard and small lake. Several things had caught Stallings’s attention during the stroll through the house. It had a surprisingly homey atmosphere with a number of photos of the family. He recognized one of the kids as the victim of the alcohol poisoning case that Stallings had come to investigate. His name was Josh Hickam and he’d been a sophomore at the University of North Florida when he had died in early November, two years ago.

Mrs. Hickam was an ordinary-looking woman of about fifty-five, who had a muted personality that reminded Stallings of Maria when she was using heavy doses of prescription drugs. Aside from introducing herself and asking them to follow her, she had not said a word during the walk through the house.

Mr. Hickam met them in the den and Stallings could tell by the man’s darting eyes that he was nervous and making a detailed assessment of him and Patty. The walls of the den were lined with books and framed photographs of the family. One section of the south wall contained a locked, glass display case with more than thirty handguns on various racks and pedestals. This house was secure if Mr. Hickam felt comfortable displaying so many guns so prominently.

Patty and Stallings sat across from the Hickams on two small couches. The older couple held each other’s hands tightly, and Mr. Hickam assumed the role of communicator.

Stallings had been careful to advise them right from the start that they had no new information and were simply doing follow-up on a number of deaths in the county over the past two years.

Mr. Hickam said, “We never really thought Josh had died of anything other than alcohol poisoning. We knew the college life could get wild, but we assumed that since he was so close, he was safe.”

Patty said, “Did he live here with you?”

“No, we wanted him to have the full college experience even if he was only a few miles away. He lived in the apartment complex that houses the fraternity.”

Stallings tried to hide his surprise and calmly asked, “What fraternity was he in?”

“Tau Upsilon.”

 

 

 

Tony Mazzetti sat in the corner of the detective bureau with Sparky Taylor, going through reports and other documents relating to their case. The new information, that Stallings had seen a blue SUV driving away from the scene of a hit-and-run in St. Augustine, provided dozens of more leads to follow up.

The cheapskate lieutenant avoided overtime by reassigning four detectives and an analyst to help him cope with the growing investigation, but he knew the break in the case would lie with him or Sparky or one of the full-time detectives on the squad. Experience counted for more than anything else in homicide. He felt like he’d seen just about everything that could be thrown at him, and if you saw something once it was easier to spot a second time.

Sparky was reading reports from other cities, including Atlanta, Daytona, Gainesville, and Orlando. Scanning through hundreds of documents hoping to find a link to this case that could be used to find the killer. As much as he hated to admit it, Mazzetti now realized the deaths of the Tau Upsilon fraternity members had not been accidents. The lieutenant was even now conferring with officials from other cities to decide how they should notify the members of the fraternity that they could be in danger. The way Mazzetti saw it, if the fraternity brothers couldn’t figure out something was wrong by the fact that they each knew several dead men, it wouldn’t change much when the cops told them they had linked all the deaths. No one ever thinks it will happen to them.

Sparky looked up from a faxed police report and said, “I just found a report from a witness in Daytona regarding the hit-and-run of a fraternity member. The traffic investigator had asked several local witnesses if they had seen any vehicles in the area. Five witnesses listed five completely different vehicles.”

Mazzetti said, “So?”

“So one of the vehicles listed was a blue SUV.”

That caught Mazzetti’s attention. On its own, with no license tag information, the report was useless, but coupled with what a reliable witness like John Stallings had seen, it could be the link they’d been looking for.

“Do we have the list of license plates that start with A?”

“It’s two hundred and three vehicles long just for Duval County.” Sparky moved some papers around the long table and pick up another print. “Three hundred and sixteen if we include adjacent counties. The number climbs to five hundred and two if we include Volusia County. That’s a lot of vehicles to look at. Stallings had the same report run after the hit-and-run.”

Mazzetti leaned back in his chair in a sign of frustration. At what point was it useless? These were the kinds of things that the press could use to crucify him later. The reporters had the luxury of time and perspective to look at information. After the dust had settled, they loved to point the finger at detectives who tried to be efficient and prioritize investigative tasks.

 

 

 

As soon as Stallings heard the fraternity mentioned, he couldn’t keep from turning and looking at Patty, who gave him a quiet, professional nod and wrote a few more notes on her pad.

Mrs. Hickam said, “They were nice boys. You should’ve seen the crowd that came to Josh’s funeral. Each of them dressed up in a nice suit and they greeted all of the family members, making us feel like one of their own.”

Stallings asked a few more questions and discovered that Josh studied business, but the most important thing was they had another body to tie into this conspiracy. It wasn’t the right time to explain what was going on to the Hickams, but it could be that their son was the first known victim.

Stallings said, “I have one more question.”

Mr. Hickam said, “Sure, anything you want to know.”

“Did your son have a job?”

Now the Hickams exchanged glances and after a short pause Mr. Hickam said, “He made a little money doing different things, but he wasn’t employed by anyone specific.”

Stallings nodded, slowly stood, taking a closer look at photographs on the wall. He said, “You have an attractive family.”

“Thank you. We tried to stay very close.”

Stallings noticed the Hickams’ daughter in some kind of clinical setting. “Is your daughter a nurse?”

Mr. Hickam shook his head and said, “She works part-time at a veterinarian’s office, keeping the books.”

Stallings moved to the gun collection, noting the man’s love of Smith & Wesson revolvers. One entire row of eight handguns were Smith & Wessons from the ancient model 10 to the much newer 686.

Stallings turned to Mr. Hickam and said, “If we have any more questions, can we come by and talk to you?”

Mr. Hickam nodded his head and said, “You just have to call ahead of time. You can see that we cherish our privacy.”

Stallings was beginning to wonder about that privacy and if the reasons for it had led to their son’s death. Something wasn’t right about this house.

I
t’d been two hours since their interview at the Hickam house and still it was all Stallings could think about. They’d talked to the father of a young man who’d drowned while partying with some former high school friends. The man seemed very matter-of-fact and calm about the whole incident and had never suspected any type of conspiracy. He had accepted his son’s death and moved on with his life. Although they hadn’t been extraordinarily close, the father knew his son had never been involved with the fraternity and all details of the accident had made sense when the friends talked to the police.

Now Stallings and Patty were just finishing a sandwich at a Firehouse Subs off I-95. Patty looked up and said, “Are you still thinking about the Hickam interview too?”

Stallings nodded.

Patty continued. “It was just weird from start to finish. All that security. And the guns. It looked like the armory of midsized police department. Who has that many guns? Who puts them on display like that?”

Stallings nodded as he said, “I’m going over the same details in my head. This kid is definitely part of whatever is going on at the fraternity. He may have been the start of it.”

“What’s our next move?”

“Something tells me the first one of these fraternity brats we talked to, who was also the last one we talked to at the house, is holding out on us.”

“Bobby Hollis?”

Stallings snapped his fingers. “That’s his name. Bobby fucking Hollis. This time we talk to him my way.”

“And if he was telling us the truth?”

“I’ll apologize.”

“That’s quite a promise coming from you.” Patty nodded her head as if she was resolving herself. “I agree, this is too important to let some snot nose from the fraternity throw us further off track. But this time we’re in it together. And don’t you try to protect me from command staff if something goes wrong.”

Stallings’s phone rang and he dug it out of his pocket and flipped it open without looking to see who it was. He heard Sergeant Zuni’s voice say, “You guys need to come back to the D-bureau.”

“Why?”

“Something to do with IA.”

“Did they say what it was?”

Sergeant Zuni said, “No. Is there something you want to tell me about now?”

“Not that I can think of, but you never know how people take different comments.” He closed his phone and turned to Patty, saying, “We’ve got to get back to the office.”

“Why?”

Stallings just shrugged and said, “The usual.”

 

 

 

Lynn sat at an outdoor break area behind the main building of the Thomas Brothers supply company. She’d been on her cell phone for almost twenty minutes as she chatted with the nurse she’d befriended from the hospital in Daytona where Alan Cole was being treated. She didn’t rush the conversation and listened as the nurse told Lynn about her own family problems involving a teenage daughter who was smoking pot and skipping school. Lynn wasn’t so cold as to not care about the nurse’s problems. But the reason she’d spent so much time talking to her was she was the only one who ever gave her any information about Alan’s condition.

Lynn had explained that she was Alan’s pregnant girlfriend and that his parents didn’t approve of her. She didn’t want to cause drama and avoided coming to the hospital. She had just enough detail to make it sound right and had caught just the right nurse with a story.

After the nurse had finished telling her about her daughter’s most recent incident, Lynn said, “I had a few issues in high school too. It’s probably just a phase she’ll grow out of. My biggest problem now is the fact that Alan’s parents think I’m some kind of slut.”

The nurse said, “Don’t worry, sweetheart. They’ll warm up to you. Once they have a grandchild on the scene there’s no way they’ll be able to stay away. I’m just sorry you and I haven’t been able to talk in person.”

“You weren’t on duty the couple times I’ve been down there.”

“I’m sorry. I would love to sit and talk with you.”

Lynn said, “How was Alan today?”

“The doctor sees more activity. He’s conscious but not completely responsive yet.”

“I’ll come down closer to the weekend.”

The nurse said, “I’m off on Saturday so try to come either Friday or Sunday.”

Lynn thanked her and they said the usual good-byes. As she closed her cell phone, Lynn realized she had to avoid the nurse at all costs, which meant she’d be driving down to Daytona on Saturday. She had plenty to do to keep her busy until then.

 

 

 

Before Stallings had reached the main doors to Professional Standards, or, as most cops called it, Internal Affairs, he and Patty had been met by Senior IA Investigator Ronald Bell. As usual, he was dressed in some expensive suit and looked more like a maître d’ than a working detective. That wasn’t the only thing that bothered Stallings about the fifty-year-old investigator. They had a long history. Stallings recognized that Bell had a job to do, but he didn’t like the way he went about it. When Jeanie disappeared three years ago, Bell had thought the circumstances of her disappearance were suspicious. In a way he was correct. But it was actually only the reporting of her disappearance that was suspicious. Stallings had been late reporting the missing teenager because Maria’s drug habit had gotten seriously out of control. By the time he was able to cope with his near-catatonic wife, almost a full day had passed before he realized Jeanie wasn’t around the house.

Bell had also been a little too zealous in his efforts to find some missing prescription drugs from the office. He had put Patty under the spotlight, and that had not sat well with Stallings. To his credit, Bell had apologized when the drugs showed up in an undocumented evidence locker, but Stallings still thought he was a prick.

Bell smiled and held out his hand like a slimy used-car salesman. “It’s nice to see both of you appear when you’re not under the gun for something.”

Both Stallings and Patty ignored his offered hand. Stallings said, “Cut the bullshit, Ron. We got things to do, and once again you’re wasting our time.”

“It’s Ronald.”

“Whatever. Why are you bothering us now?”

Bell let a sly smile slip over his face and said, “It’s not me this time. I have a visitor in my office who’d like to talk to you both. This time I don’t think you did anything wrong except being oblivious.” He turned and the two detectives followed him back through the offices of Internal Affairs into a rear conference room.

When Bill opened the door, Stallings saw a casually dressed man with a lean, hard look sitting on the far side of the table.

Bell said, “John Stallings and Patty Levine, this is Ed Wiley with the DEA.”

 

 

 

Lynn listened intently as her mother sniffled on the other end of the phone line. The first few minutes of the call had been very disconcerting as Lynn tried to understand exactly what had happened. Finally Lynn’s mother had calmed down enough to say that two detectives from the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office had visited the house. That made her even more nervous until her mother explained that it had to do with her brother Josh’s death.

Lynn said, “Did they give you any other reason for the visit?”

“No. Just follow-up on Josh. Why, are you worried they had a hidden reason?”

Lynn knew her mother’s concerns about the police and her own were two entirely separate things. Then Lynn said, “So they have no new leads on the incident? I mean, no new information.”

“No. Why? Do you think it was something besides alcohol poisoning?”

Lynn sure as hell
did
think it was something besides an accidental alcohol poisoning, but she couldn’t say anything to her mother. She couldn’t risk throwing her back into the emotional abyss that had almost destroyed both her and Lynn’s dad.

Lynn’s mother said, “They did ask a few questions about the Tau Upsilon fraternity.”

This time Lynn felt like the phone had literally shocked her. She tried to regain her composure but realized whatever she was going to do she had to do it fast. She still had time to finish her mission and return to a normal life.

 

 

 

Ed Wiley looked like the typical DEA supervisor, dressed in jeans and an untucked, button-down, long-sleeved shirt. He was about Stallings’s age but had more of a weathered appearance to him. Stallings guessed the guy had spent some time down on the Mexican border and the sun had taken its toll. He had a lot more gray in his short cropped hair than Stallings.

The DEA always worried more about being effective and less about being formal and official than many of the other federal agencies. The agents tended to work long hours and bonded closely with the local cops in every area. Every cop agreed that they enjoyed working with both the DEA and the ATF. They never really had anything particularly positive to say about the FBI. Stallings chalked it up to the fact that most of the DEA and ATF agents had been street cops at one time in their career. They understood how dangerous and difficult the job could be. They hadn’t lost touch with what was important about law enforcement. And certainly one of the things that wasn’t important to this DEA agent was how nicely he dressed when talking to the local cops. Stallings appreciated that kind of attitude.

Stallings sat directly across from the silent DEA agent. No one at the table spoke. Stallings had a slight smile because he knew he could win at this game.

Finally the DEA agent said, “Can I ask why you visited the residence in Hyde Park today?”

Stallings gave Patty a quick glance that told her not to answer. He intended to have a little fun in the IA offices for a change. He tapped his forehead and said, “We did a lot of interviews in the last week. Maybe if you told me what the house looked like I’d have an idea of where you were talking about.”

The DEA agent was not amused. But he didn’t have to cut his eyes over to Ronald Bell for assistance. This was a tough guy who dealt with tough people. He said, “Okay, then I guess I won’t be able to help you on your investigation with everything I know about the Hickams.” He scooted his chair back and stood.

Stallings raised his hands in surrender and smiled. “Okay, okay. You win.” He waited for the stern agent to take a seat again.

“We’re in the middle of a possible serial killer investigation and part of it involves looking at deaths previously ruled accidental. The Hickams’ son, Josh, died a couple of years ago from alcohol poisoning. We were doing follow-up on that.”

The DEA agent nodded slowly and said, “I remember when the son died. Tragic.”

Stallings could tell by the way the man said it, he didn’t mean it. One of the problems with working narcotics was you developed a battle-like attitude toward the dealers. There was no middle ground where some people were right and some people were wrong. It was just good guys and bad guys. Stallings could tell the DEA agent thought Mr. Hickam was a bad guy.

The DEA agent said, “The whole Hickam family are big-time marijuana smugglers. Bill Hickam and his brother are responsible for almost thirty percent of the marijuana that enters the United States along the south-east seaboard. We’ve had cameras up on the house for months as we put together a major RICO case. You can imagine our surprise when an unmarked JSO car rolled into the family’s driveway.”

Stallings said, “Was the son, Josh, ever involved in the family business?”

“It looks like the father wanted to keep that entire generation out of the family business. I know the boy was suspected of selling some pot on the side while he was at the University of North Florida. I don’t think he ever progressed further than that.”

Just that piece of information, the fact that Josh Hickam could’ve been a minor pot dealer, made Stallings look at the case from an entirely different perspective.

The DEA agent said, “Is there anything that we can help you with?”

Stallings shook his head while he still looked off in space and said, “I’m not sure, but it’s given me some ideas to look into.”

 

 

 

The young doctor looked down at his watch and realized he should’ve eaten dinner by now. That explained his headache. At least today he had a reason to feel lousy. When he’d accepted this job right out of the University of Southern California, he’d had no idea what a shit hole Daytona was. He’d pictured it like Southern California. Now he thought of it as more a waterside Western Appalachian community. Nothing but bikers and rednecks and no chance to study the diseases of the brain he had hoped to. Plenty of trauma from motorcycle accidents and fistfights and the occasional boating accident, but nothing any ordinary doctor couldn’t handle. And the fucking University of Florida. The graduates from UF medical school were like the stormtroopers from
Star Wars
. They were everywhere and they never shut up about the fucking Gators.

He paused in one room and sat down to write a few notes. Then he looked up at the patient who had been brought in almost a month earlier. When the doctor stood, he noticed the patient’s eyes move toward him. He stepped closer and said, “Can you hear me, Mr. Cole?”

The doctor noticed him nod his head ever so slightly. He’d been able to do some math the last few days. Yesterday, Mr. Cole had cleared his throat and tried to speak for a moment. This was both encouraging and scary. A series of infections had inhibited the accident victim’s recovery. He was still in terrible danger. But his brain function seemed to be improving. That’s what the young doctor felt positive about. At least he was making progress. All the doctor could hope for was to help the few patients he could while he was stuck in this backwater hellhole. In the past months he’d lamented several times that he had never been on spring break here. If he had, he never would’ve accepted this job. He should have known when they were so thrilled to get a USC grad that there wouldn’t be much here for him to do.