James Andrus - The Perfect Scream

The man Dale had shoved off the edge of the dock was climbing up the stairs, apparently uninjured but eager to get a shot in on the big man who had pushed him down. They rolled Dale on his side like a beached whale until they were able to handcuff his massive hands behind his back.

Lynn heard a voice in her left ear say, “Now you don’t have to worry about your date.” She snapped her head to see Leon standing right next to her.

Lynn said, “I don’t understand.”

“One call, a few grams of crack, and a bad attitude will manage to keep him occupied for the next couple of years. Best of all, old man Thomas will can his ass before lunch.”

“But how?”

“There’s nothing a narcotics agent likes more than a reformed smuggler. Half the numbers in my cell phone are for DEA agents and local narcs looking to make a case. This was so easy I’m embarrassed.”

Lynn tried not to smile as the three police officers led Dale away while he was still complaining about his face burning. No one on the dock looked too upset to see the big man leave.

Now Lynn could focus on her real issues.

It’d only taken Patty Levine a few hours to track down three different coeds who had attended a Halloween party two years earlier at the Tau Upsilon fraternity house. She worked alone because she wanted the girls to open up to her and having Sparky Taylor with her would’ve been just as bad as bringing along John Stallings even if he hadn’t been taken off the case.

Sitting in a small sandwich shop on University Boulevard near the University of North Florida, Patty looked across the table at the young lady whose name she had gotten from one of the fraternity brothers in town. The young man had provided a list of as many of the attendees to the Halloween party as he could remember. Not counting the fraternity members, the list had more than seventy names.

Patty had already established that this girl had had a very similar experience to the first two girls she had spoken to.

The girl said, “That fraternity is nothing but a bunch of assholes.”

“What makes you say that?”

“I woke up in the bushes after that party. There are girls that found themselves in other cities after that party. We have to have a designated sober girl if we ever go to a Tau Upsilon party. That’s why they’re assholes.”

“You think someone slipped you a roofie that night?”

“Who knows? I take responsibility for drinking too much, but the frat boys have so much alcohol on hand. The whole fraternity is known for its wild parties and disappearing the next day.”

Patty looked at the pretty blond-haired girl and said, “Are they known for anything else?”

“Just one thing.”

“What’s that?”

“Pot.”

As much as he hated to admit it, Tony Mazzetti knew he was looking at a string of killings. After talking with Patty Levine and Sparky Taylor and seeing the mounting evidence, he and Sergeant Zuni had concluded that the chances were remote that all of the deaths of the fraternity members were accidents. He wasn’t absolutely convinced they were all connected. Someone who used drugs on one victim wouldn’t be likely to use a gun at close range on another. Just as it seemed unlikely the same person would burn someone alive. There was no pattern. Mazzetti knew that killers loved patterns and hated change.

Now he was over at the medical examiner’s office searching previous deaths ruled accidental or otherwise to see if there were others that could be thrown into the mix. They were starting at October from two years earlier to be on the safe side. Mazzetti and Lisa Kurtz sat at a table in the administration building of the medical examiner’s office and carefully looked at each file of any male under the age of thirty who had died in the last two years in Duval County.

The whole squad came up with a number of variables like male victims, within the last two years, between the ages of eighteen and thirty, with any association to the college. These included the numerous deaths that were attributed to drug overdoses, and even suspicious car accidents.

Lisa sat next to him and had been nothing but professional the past two hours. He had wondered if it would be awkward working so closely with the young woman he knew was a freak in the bedroom. So far it was not. He was careful not to call her his girlfriend, especially out loud, because he still wasn’t sure how he felt.

Lisa slid an open file across the table to Mazzetti and said, “Here’s another one.”

Mazzetti looked at the photos of the young man laid out on the procedure table of the medical examiner’s office and saw the listed cause of death as “a hunting accident.” He placed the file with the other three files they had already pulled for closer examination.

On the very next file, Lisa said, “Here’s another one. An alcohol poisoning case two days after the party.”

She slid the file to Mazzetti, who looked down and noticed the victim’s name was Josh Hickam. The file went on the stack with the others.

Lynn sat at the end of the long table in the lunchroom of the Thomas Brothers supply company. She had takeout from Wendy’s, but had just picked at her spicy chicken sandwich and allowed all of her French fries to go cold.

Materializing from the side door, Leon slid onto the seat across from her. He had not spoken directly to her about Dale’s arrest since the big man had been carted off, but now he gave her a sly smile and a wink. It made her realize he was younger than she’d originally thought. That weathered skin, the outdoorsy look so many boaters in North Florida developed, made him appear to be fifty when she now thought he was probably not forty.

After a few moments of silence, without any preface or reason, Leon said, “I did all my time in federal prison.”

Lynn wondered where this was going and simply said, “Uh-huh.”

“State time is tough. No rehab, nothing but lock-up and bullshit. But the federal holding center in Atlanta and my last two years at Eglin gave me a chance to take classes and learn from some of the big-time fraud guys. So now I can read people really well.”

“So what?”

“So I can tell you have a secret. A big one.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

Leon looked both ways to ensure no one was nearby. “Coming from someone else I might believe you, but knowing your family I’m pretty sure I’m right.”

Lynn was silent.

Leon said, “And I can help.”

“Help with what?”

“Whatever you’re doing.”

Lynn just held eye contact but didn’t say anything.

“Look, I need to do something or I’m gonna go crazy. This lack of excitement is killing me.”

Without meaning to, Lynn said, “I don’t know.”

Leon smiled and said, “Trust me. Besides, I never let things go. Now you’re stuck with me.”

Sergeant Yvonne Zuni felt a hint of claustrophobia with all the blinds drawn and the door closed to her office in the Land That Time Forgot.

Sergeant Zuni had briefed Lieutenant Hester on all the information they had concerning the death of the fraternity brothers. But as she looked across her desk at Lieutenant Hester, crammed into a simple wooden chair, Sergeant Zuni had a sickening feeling in the base of her stomach that the lieutenant was looking at political issues as much as investigative issues.

The lieutenant said, “You understand that the city has worked very hard to attract young people to the universities and events like our growing spring break.”

“I’m not sure I see why that’s relevant to this investigation.”

“Let’s just assume that all the information you have is accurate. Let’s assume that these deaths were intentional. And that’s a big assumption. One death occurred in Atlanta and another in Daytona.”