John Stallings sat on the couch in his mother’s living room while his father straightened up the kitchen. It had been an odd experience chatting with both of them for the last twenty minutes. He didn’t come to terms with it immediately because it was something that had never happened, not even once, during his childhood.
Stallings looked at his mother said, “It creeps me out a little bit you guys are here in the same house.”
“I told you that I saw your father occasionally.”
“You made it sound much more casual and you didn’t tell me until recently.”
His mother smiled, making him realize that even at sixty-two years old, she was a very attractive woman. “If you think you’re freaked out by it, imagine how your sister felt. When he showed up yesterday, confused, she refused to stay in the same house with him.”
“I’m surprised that she didn’t call me. It would have saved me a lot of worry and time yesterday.”
“She went up to Fernandina Beach to see her friend Mario.”
Stallings raised an eyebrow in mock outrage.
But his mother seemed more disappointed as she shook her head and said, “He’s just a friend. I’ve met the young man and I doubt that Helen will be able to convince him he has mistakenly believed he’s a homosexual. My hopes for her providing me with any grandchildren are fading faster than your father’s memory.”
“So you’ve noticed it too?”
“Noticed it? I’ve documented it over the past two years. But he manages his bus schedules okay and rarely confuses anything important. For a long time I thought it was a side effect of his alcohol use. I did notice that he started to refer to Jeanie as Kelly when he talked about her. For a while he even thought that she had visited him on occasion. I have no idea where he got that from.”
Stallings looked over his mother’s shoulder at his father, who seemed to be happy scrubbing a pan and whistling some unknown tune. “I didn’t realize he thought she had visited him.”
“He was never clear about it and I’m afraid I just dismissed the whole idea as part of his memory problem.”
“Is he always like this?”
“Keep in mind our visits could be sporadic. I dated on and off when he first tried to get back in touch with me and I had a regular boyfriend for a while last year. You remember Ralph. Your father didn’t come by at all when he was here. Unfortunately I haven’t had a chance at many dates recently so your father’s visits have been more welcomed.”
“What are you talking about?”
She gave him a look. “Your need for sex doesn’t diminish with age. And it’s hard for me to find a man able to participate at the level I want.”
“C’mon, Mom.” He cringed and couldn’t look at her for a moment.
“Just because I’m a mother doesn’t mean I don’t need sex.”
“But because you’re my mother, I don’t need to hear about it.”
“I guess we should have your father evaluated by a doctor.”
“That would probably be a good idea.”
“I didn’t like the way your sister stormed out of here when he showed up.”
Stallings was starting to feel like he was living his childhood all over again.
It was a beautiful Saturday afternoon, and already Buddy had heard more on the news that interested him than he had in the past year. There had been several blurbs on the radio and TV about a body being found buried in Pine Forest Park. That would be Jessie. He’d hoped she wouldn’t be discovered for several more weeks, if at all. He’d chosen that spot because he was able to park his van without anyone noticing it and the whole playground area was soft sand. It’d only taken him about ten minutes to dig what he’d thought was a good, deep hole and dump the warm body of the cute girl from Ocala into it. His reasoning also included a sort of “hide in plain sight” mentality. He thought because of the public nature of the park, there would be no reason for anyone to search for her there. But it didn’t matter because there was nothing to tie him to her.
About an hour later he heard the first report of a body being found in the parking garage of Jacksonville Landing. That was the report he had been waiting for. The big news there was not necessarily the body but the fact that the police had shut down the entire parking garage and commercial tenants of Jacksonville Landing were screaming for them to reopen. Bars and restaurants remained open, but empty, on what should be the busiest day of the week.
The only thing he regretted about his busy Friday night was that he was forced to expend the effort to get rid of two bodies but was unable to advance his project in any way. Mary was the one who was a real disappointment. Considering the way she had died, he wouldn’t have been able to capture her last breath anyway.
During his restless fit of sleep he dreamed of plunging the knife over and over again into Cheryl’s heart. In his dream, a little like in real life, she just wouldn’t die. But now, in the light of day, he felt a certain satisfaction and excitement at the thought of eliminating one of the big pains in his ass. But he had his story straight in his head for when cops came to ask when the last time he’d seen her was. He’d even practiced acting surprised, but not too surprised. He knew the cops were pretty sharp when interviewing people so he was prepared not to be shaken.
Right now he was in the northern part of the city, where a row of small cafes offered privacy and intimacy. He even had a small bouquet of flowers in his hand as he slipped into the front courtyard of the modest cafe. He saw her sitting under an umbrella waving to him.
He appreciated the beautiful smile and bright eyes as he said, “Hello, Lexie.”
TWENTY-EIGHT
Tony Mazzetti was afraid he’d missed something by moving at such a fast pace, but the sergeant had only approved a half day for this Sunday and he wanted to use it wisely. In this case she wasn’t being cheap and withholding overtime. She was actually showing some supervisory sense and encouraging him to get some rest and clear his head for the busy week ahead. She even told him she wanted him home and in bed by nine o’clock. Imagine someone imposing a curfew on a thirty-nine-year-old cop. Normally, he’d have balked at an order like that, but she scared the holy shit out of him and he had no doubt she’d kick his ass if he wasn’t in bed by nine. That was truly the mark of an outstanding sergeant.
He’d told Sparky Taylor to spend some time with his kids today and had a hard time telling Patty Levine to take the day off as well. She even told him she wanted to come as his girlfriend, not as another detective on the squad, while he went into the office and organized the most important tasks, then went to the medical examiner’s office to witness the autopsy. Mazzetti really did want Patty to rest, but some part of him didn’t want her in the same room with the cute, female medical examiner who’d asked him about working out earlier in the week. He knew it wasn’t right and it didn’t make him feel good, but it did keep him thinking about the medical examiner’s offer.
It was going to be a hell of a week.
Lauren Stallings loved these Sunday afternoon lunches with her grandfather. Not that she’d ever admit it. She liked playing the role of super-cool teenager. Today was even better because her grandmother sat next to her grandfather at the long table in the Pizza Kitchen on Atlantic Boulevard near the beach. She’d never seen her grandparents together and it felt like a party.
The shocking thing was that her mother had joined them and sat silently at the end of the table with Charlie on one side of her and Grandmother on the other side. Lauren’s father sat next to her and didn’t say much either.
Her grandfather was in the middle of one of his stories about life in the Navy. She studied his face, noting the small blemishes and scars. She knew he was an alcoholic and had spent a long time living in homeless shelters. The issue of alcohol and drug abuse on both her mother’s and father’s sides of the family made her worry about herself and her sister Jeanie. Were they genetically disposed to abuse issues? She missed her sister, especially on days like this when everyone was together. The gathered family made her loss more acute, as if Jeanie had disappeared last week instead of three years ago.