James Andrus: The Perfect Prey

“Your first statement said it was an SUV and you couldn’t see who was inside.”

“I started remembering I seen a white arm holding one of those big black guns.” She lifted a hand to play with the same piece of hair she always did. The red highlights swirled to make one red spoke out of her unruly head.

“Would you mind coming back to the house with us?”

“Why?”

“So we can see which window you looked out of and what you saw.”

The girl said, “Can you protect me from the white people?”

Mazzetti thought, We’re the only white people you need to worry about now.

John Stallings met Patty Levine and a surprisingly coherent Jason Ferrell at the office where he used to work deep inside the Maxwell House complex. They’d been met by the same manager with the same attitude from their last visit, during which they’d said they were going to get a subpoena but never actually bothered after the man told them what they needed to know and let Stallings glance through Jason’s address book.

The manager pointed at Jason and said, “That man no longer works here and has no right to be here.” He looked at Stallings, adjusted his gaze for the height difference, smiled, and added, “I’d be happy to talk to you, Detective, once you got a subpoena.”

Stallings said, “I’m sorry about the misunderstanding last time we met.”

“It wasn’t a misunderstanding. You lied to me. I have since been in close contact with our legal department and know I need a subpoena from the state attorney’s office, compelling me to talk to you, before I say anything else.”

“We don’t actually need to talk to you. We just need to let Jason get some information from his laptop computer.”

“That computer is the property of this company. Neither you nor Mr. Ferrell can have access to it.” The manager picked up a single sheet of paper with typewritten instructions printed on. “For something of that nature I would require a court order or search warrant. I’m sorry it has to be this way, Detective, but you left me with no alternative after our last encounter.”

Stallings knew pricks like him got off on the minor power that occasionally came their way, and everyone loved telling the cops to go to hell when they were in no danger of going to jail. He knew better than to waste time arguing with the man and instead grabbed his cell phone and explained the situation to Yvonne Zuni. He knew she’d get someone right to work on a search warrant. He gave a description of the building and what they were looking for.

The manager said, “I’ll be happy to talk to you when you have the appropriate legal documents.” His smile was his version of a bitch slap. He started to turn to walk back to his office, obviously expecting Stallings to leave.

“Hold on, cowboy.”

The man turned back slowly to face Stallings.

“Based on the importance of the information we’re looking for and the ability for you or anyone else in this office to erase data from the laptop computer, I’m afraid I’m going to have to secure your office to keep anyone from fooling around with the computer.”

“You can’t be serious.”

Stallings leveled a stare at him and said, “Do I look like I’m joking?”

Tony Mazzetti knew this girl was about to break. His partner, Christina Hogrebe, had masterfully pushed her into changing her statement several times and now was closing the deal by getting her to see the inconsistencies. It had taken almost the entire ride from the downtown hotel back into this shitty neighborhood west of the stadium.

Now the girl was getting a look at her house for the first time in daylight. Christina paused and let the girl see the random bullet holes in the front of the house, but that wasn’t what they were counting on. They opened the front door and ducked under the crime scene tape still secured across the entrance. He flicked on the light, and immediately the dank, musty smell of blood mixed with marijuana smoke assaulted his system. The house was clearly no palace even before more than a gallon of blood was spilled on the old cement floor. No one had been back in to clean the house, and he doubted the place was valuable enough to pay the exorbitant fees professional cleaners required for messy crime scenes like this.

Christina was a pro, so she waited while the girl got a good whiff of the smell and had a moment to study the bloodstains on the floor with one bloody handprint on the wall where a young man apparently tried to sit upright.

Christina said, “So your mama and your baby sister were two houses away at your auntie’s house?”

The skinny girl nodded her head as her eyes continued to focus on the bloody corner in the room.

“And you never saw the men when they entered the house?”

This time she shook her head, still staring at the blood.

“Why didn’t your brother or his friends try to defend themselves?”

The girl shook her head.

Christina let out a long, audible sigh. This was sort of her telegraph to Mazzetti she was about to spring a trap, or at least ask a hard question. She said, “Tosha, we know what happened. We’ve got too much evidence not to come up with a clear picture of how things went down. All I need to know is why. You tell us why, and I’m sure you had your reasons, it can really help me out. Haven’t we treated you real well this whole week?”

The young girl slowly nodded her head.

Christina knew not to interrupt or hit her with another question just yet. She wanted to let what she said sink in and the girl think about it. In fact, the forensics analysis had been very contradictory. The only thing she knew was the three men were shot in the head. It had to be three quick shots because there were no signs of resistance or defensive wounds. The theory was the shooter then walked outside and sprayed the house as he left.

Now the girl shifted her gaze first to Mazzetti, then to Christina. In a very low voice she said, “It wasn’t right how they treated me. Then they started looking at my baby sister the same way. I couldn’t let that happen to her. She’s a sweet girl and she ain’t never given it up for nobody. At least I wasn’t no virgin the first time they did it to me.”

Christina looked over to Mazzetti slowly and then back to the girl. “Did they rape you?”

She shook her head. “I never told them no or nothing like that. But I didn’t want to do it either. It’s been going on three years. Since I was fourteen. And nobody done nothing about it. They didn’t even think anything about it. If one of them got horny they jus come looking for me. Even my own brother.”

Mazzetti knew they had to get her on tape and video as soon as possible. But he also wanted to let her tell the whole story and maybe even lead them to the guns.

Christina wrapped an arm around her shoulder as the girl started to sob. “It’s okay. They were wrong doing that to you.” Then Christina showed why she deserved to be in the homicide unit. Without missing a beat, still in the tone of a concerned parent, she said, “Where’d you hide the gun? We gotta find it before some kid gets hurt by accident.” She kept her arm around the girl, murmuring, “It’s okay, it’s okay.”

After a minute of crying and wiping her face on Christina’s pretty blouse, the girl looked up and said, “I buried two guns and some cash in the backyard.”

In the office of the small waste-management company housed in the Maxwell House building, John Stallings looked across at Patty Levine and Jason Ferrell sitting quietly in the corner of the reception area. He and the manager had come to an agreement that no one would enter Ferrell’s former office until the search warrant arrived. Sergeant Zuni had grabbed a couple of detectives, written a quick warrant, and was getting it signed by a judge now. The delay annoyed Stallings, but he didn’t think he’d get much more information than he already had.