The Perfect Prey (18 page)

She’d taken the X tab that he’d given her, and between dancing with this guy’s tight, hot body next to hers and the drug, her heart felt as if it were about to jump out of her chest. Sweat had made her hair dampen and hang down into her eyes, but she kept grinding and moving to the beat. This was why she’d come with her friends on spring break even though she wasn’t really on spring break. This was more fun because she didn’t have to worry about getting back to some dreary class on writing or mathematics. She wished she could stay longer than a week, and if she had her way, that’s exactly what this guy would ask her.

Leonard Walsh trailed Stallings, yammering in his ear, “Wait, I’ll talk, I’ll talk.”

“I know you will.”

“Then why don’t you stop walking around?”

“Because now I want to know what kind of setup you have. Might be dangerous, and I don’t want to risk you
getting hurt by substandard lab practices.” He stopped just short of the small trailer. He’d already made sure Patty was well back, ready to respond if he had to tussle with Leonard and far enough back to be safe if the little trailer blew for some reason. Meth production was a tricky, dangerous business, and more than one redneck had bought the farm trying to get rich in the competitive meth market.

He placed his hand on the trailer’s flimsy doorknob.

Leonard said, “Wait.”

Stallings paused.

“You don’t need to look in there.”

Stallings jerked open the door, and the smell, like rotten fruit, almost knocked him over. The trailer had four huge tubs and a barrel in one corner. The rear windows, open to the wide, empty field, provided rudimentary ventilation.

“Damn, Leonard, I’m impressed. This is a good setup”

The rangy redneck smiled, showing his yellowed teeth. “Thanks.”

“You don’t have any matches, do you?”

Leonard pulled out a frayed book. “Why?”

“Can’t have any possibility of an open flame.”

“Yeah right, good idea.”

Stallings turned and pushed him back outside, taking the matches out of Leonard’s hand as he did.

“Now, did Jason give you the new recipe?”

“Not yet. We were paying on installment. I still owe him sixty-five hundred bucks.”

“Do you know how to find him right now?”

Leonard shook his head. “It’s not like he owes me money. I owe him. He should be easy to find, but he ain’t.”

“Any ideas where he might be?”

“Nah. The manager of his apartment told me some black fellas was looking for him. I think he might have promised too many people things, and now he’s laying low.”

“He ever make anything else for you, like Ecstasy?”

Leonard nodded, digging into his pocket. He pulled out a small vial with three speckled tablets in it. “He tried to convince me that these were more profitable than meth. He said this X was cheap to make and easy to sell. I think that dumb-ass college boy didn’t understand that out here there ain’t no spring break partiers. Out here we need meth.”

“No idea where he might be?” Stallings said, casually collecting the vial from Leonard.

Leonard shook his head. “Said he had a girlfriend, but never said where.”

“Mention a name?”

“Called her Miss something. Baxter or Barnes. Hell, I can’t remember. All I cared about was our meth recipe.”

Stallings turned to Leonard and said, “Okay, you’ve been helpful. Now run.”

“What?”

“Run, Leonard, run.”

“Why?”

Stallings struck a match from the pack Leonard had provided. He looked over his shoulder at the meth trailer and smiled.

Leonard yelled “No!” but turned and started loping away toward his double-wide.

Stallings tossed the match inside the door, watching it ignite the cheap synthetic rug.

He jogged away; then the first of the tubs ignited.

On the ride back toward Jacksonville, Patty Levine looked across at her partner. “Why’d you light the trailer on fire?”

“Couldn’t leave an active meth lab intact.”

“But it’s Baker County. We had no jurisdiction.”

“Even if we did, we had no PC.”

“Aren’t you the least bit concerned he might make a complaint?”

“What’s he gonna do? Call in and complain someone blew up his illegal meth lab?”

Patty grunted and focused on the road.

On the drive back from blowing up the meth lab, Stallings stopped in a subdivision near Jacksonville called Normandy. He hoped to catch one of the other men in the Wildside video at home. Chad Palmer was a pharmaceutical rep who looked as if he made a lot of money. He was twenty-nine years old, appeared to be in good shape, was good looking, and shouldn’t have been hanging out at a bar that catered to college kids. That was enough to make Stallings want to talk to this guy.

The one-story, ranch-style house, with a perfectly manicured lawn and a load of plastic toys sitting on the front porch, wasn’t showy but seemed comfortable. He let Patty take the lead, knowing that the sight of her often set people at ease. The idea that a cop like Gary Lauer could be involved in giving drugs to young college girls gnawed at him. Stallings hoped someone like this guy Palmer might be their man.

Patty mashed the doorbell and waited. That detail demonstrated the difference between her and Stallings. He would’ve pounded on the door as he had a thousand
times before. He stepped to one side and muttered his little mantra to himself, “Is this the day that changes my life?” Patty rarely even reacted to it anymore.

The door opened a crack, and a pretty young woman with green eyes peered out at them. She was in her mid-twenties, wearing just shorts and a T-shirt. A boy, about five, peeked around one of her shapely legs, but didn’t say a word.

“Yes?” the young woman said.

Patty knew to take this one. “Mrs. Palmer, is your husband around?”

“I’m not Mrs. Palmer.”

“I’m sorry. Does a Chad Palmer live here?”

The young woman smiled. “Can I ask what this is about?”

Stallings, feeling a little impatient, said, “Ma’am, we’re with the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office. And we need to talk to Chad Palmer.”

“Oh. I’m his sister, Debbie. He actually lives over near the beach.”

Patty said in her usual calm tone, “This house is listed as one of his addresses.”

Debbie smiled. “Technically he owns this house, but I’m the only one who’s ever lived here. Well, me and the rug rat here.” She ruffled the silent little boy’s hair.

“That sounds like a good brother.”

“Yeah. He’s a pretty good guy. What’s this all about?”

“He may be a witness to something, and we need to talk to him. No big deal.”

“Where? He travels all over with his job.”

“Where’s he travel?”

“From Miami to Atlanta.”

“This has to do with Jacksonville.”

“He spends a lot of time in Daytona, but he has an office in Jacksonville too. What did he witness?”

Patty hesitated, then said, “Just a routine investigation. I’m sure we’ll get hold of him soon.”

“What kind of investigation?”

Patty looked over to Stallings, who nodded. “It’s about a Mississippi college student who died from an apparent drug overdose.”

“What kind of drug?”

“Ecstasy.”

Stallings noticed the woman relax a little, as if the fact that it wasn’t a pharmaceutical drug relieved her.

As they walked back to the car, Stallings looked over his shoulder at the cute boy staring through the window at them.

Stallings said, “A pharmaceutical rep has access to a lot of drugs.”

“So why would he need to make his own?”

“That, my young partner, is a very good question. I hope we can get an answer from Mr. Palmer in the very near future.”

Since the uncomfortable incident with Holly he’d been a little more careful. He hadn’t told Lisa where he’d be tonight because he wasn’t ready to make his move. Still, the music, the crowd, and the girls were giving him an erection that drew so much blood from his head it was making him dizzy. He knew he had to be more careful and that people were looking at Allie Marsh’s death. He didn’t know why the cute girl from Mississippi deserved so much attention, but he didn’t want to do anything stupid now.

He knew that moving too quickly with Lisa, no matter how exciting her blond hair and blue eyes were, could get him in trouble in the long run. Besides, he liked the thrill of the hunt. He almost wished she weren’t so accessible. It had been hard convincing her he couldn’t give her his cell phone number. She’d been all too quick to give up hers, but he mumbled some half-assed excuse. Now she was convinced that he was married. But she didn’t seem bothered by the excitement of an older, married man. Somehow the prospect of a guy who might have a little money, was in pretty good shape, and could dance blinded her to the problems that arose from him not giving her his phone number.

To be on the safe side, he’d called her in the afternoon and told her that he was busy tonight, but that he’d make sure that they got together tomorrow. That would give him the whole night to dream about her and what he might do to her. The image of Holly with the steel knife stuck in her head was still in his brain. The excitement and enjoyment he’d gotten out of that was on a whole new level. He wondered if that was going to be his new standard: quick, bloody, devastating. Perhaps it was a kind of evolution he was undergoing. The problem was it was so much easier for the police to detect those kinds of crimes. Another issue was that he was getting low on Ecstasy tablets. Usually his source would come by and he could pick up a couple of tablets quietly, with no one asking any questions, and usually no money changing hands. There were things he could barter. Favors, friendship, drinks. Ecstasy was a fluid currency, as well as the best hunting tool around. He paid a lot for the first, large batch, but it had proven to be worth the investment.

Lost in his thoughts, he didn’t notice as the young woman approached him. She said, “Excuse me.”

He gazed up into perfectly clear, blue eyes. A wisp of blond hair hung over a cute face. His heart raced as he tried to answer her.

As far as he was concerned it would be spring break for another couple of weeks. And he had at least two targets to focus on. Lisa and this girl.

He straightened up and smiled. “Hey, what’s your name?”

She focused her blue eyes on his and said, “Ann–why?”

“Because I want to ask you out on a date, Ann.”

The hunt was on.

It was Saturday morning, and John Stallings was alone in the crimes/persons office. Budget cutbacks and tax shortfalls had reduced the detectives’ overtime budget to almost nothing. That wasn’t why Stallings sat here alone; this case had started to eat at him. And he had nothing else to do. Maria had taken Charlie and Lauren to visit her sister in Orlando for the day. Stallings had scheduled an outing with them in the morning. It was almost as if he and Maria had already gotten a divorce.

In front of him, he held the glass tube with three Ecstasy tablets that Leonard Walsh had given him. Somehow he felt Jason Ferrell could be a link in this case, but he had to consider the suspects for now. Gary Lauer and Chad Palmer were high on his list. Donnie Eliot had all but convinced him that he had no part in Allie Marsh’s death. It seemed prudent to let him rot in jail a while longer and focus on suspects he thought were viable. One thing he wanted to do was make certain the goofy drummer wasn’t known in other spring break towns as a serious troublemaker who distributed Ecstasy
on a large scale. There were hundreds of different police databases, but the best way to find out things like this was through contacts. Usually cops from local jurisdictions who could talk to people and know what the word on the street was.

Stallings picked up his desktop phone and dialed the Daytona Beach Police Department. His friend, Detective Hugh O’Connor, often worked on Saturdays, so he would have more time in the evenings to coach his daughter’s softball team.

The phone in the Daytona Detective Bureau rang once, and then he smiled as he recognized his friend’s voice.

“Detective Bureau, Hugh O’Connor.”

“Hugh, John Stallings, at JSO.”

“Stall, how’s life in Missing Persons?”

“Not bad, not bad. Working a couple different things right now. I was wondering if I could run a name past you. A musician.”

“Fire away.”

“A drummer named Donnie Eliot.”

O’Connor laughed. “A drummer? I thought you said he was a musician.”

“Do you have anything in your local database?” Stallings searched through a few notes as his friend worked the computer on the other end of the phone line. The usual curse words that every cop who’s ever had to type away on an ancient computer mutters came over the phone. He checked back with Stallings twice to make sure he had the right spelling. Finally he said no, there was nothing in the computer about a drummer named Donnie Eliot.

Stallings said, “I just wanted to see if he’s been passing Ecstasy out at any of your clubs.”

“Is he a spring break guy? Does he follow the crowd from city to city and hang out with the young girls? Or is he more like one of the flat breakers?”

“I even know what a flat breaker is now.”

O’Connor laughed. “Welcome to my world. Five weeks every year, everything gets put on hold while we have to deal with all this bullshit. We had three deaths last year during spring break. One drowning, one suicide, and one still listed as open, all with X in their systems.”

“What about this year?”

“We were lucky this year. No deaths. It seems to run in spurts. A few years ago, we had an out-and-out murder. Someone choked the shit out of a girl. We never did solve it. But the Ecstasy, that never goes away. Kids find a way to mix it up, buy it–there’s even a bunch of Dutch kids that seem to have an endless supply.”

“We have two dead up here in Jacksonville. One suicide and one OD. It’s a shame.”

O’Connor said, “Yeah. All three of the girls last year were cute blond things. Made me think of my own daughter and what I would do if some knucklehead gave her some X.”

Stallings thought for a minute about what his friend just told him. Both his deaths were blond too. For no obvious reason he said, “Hugh, you think you could send me up what you have on those deaths?”