James Andrus: The Perfect Scream

All that seemed unimportant right now as he stared at the photo he’d taken from Zach Halston’s apartment. He had examined every detail again and knew it was his daughter after she’d disappeared. The photo, coupled with his father’s vague, Alzheimer’s-confused recollection that Jeanie had visited him after she disappeared, was proof she was still alive.

But what to do with it now? That was the question that roared in his brain and threatened to tear his heart apart. He couldn’t risk mentioning this to anyone at JSO for fear of being removed from the case. It was too personal and he could not be objective. All the same reasons they’d used to keep them from looking for Jeanie when she disappeared. Sure, he had slipped back onto the case. But it took time and emotional capital to keep all of his activities secret from his coworkers. He didn’t care if it clouded his judgment. He just wanted to find his daughter-and to do that he had to find Zach Halston to learn more about this photo.

Patty Levine felt her lungs burn as she picked up the speed of her nightly run. With a slower pace around the office she’d started to exercise much more regularly. Although she felt better aerobically and had lost weight, the pounding of running tended to aggravate her back pain and caused her to use more painkillers than she should. It all seemed to be a cycle. She’d work herself off the Ambien, then get so exhausted from no sleep she’d hit it twice as hard for a few days. She would cut out painkillers altogether, then double her dosage of Xanax. She just couldn’t get out from under the cloud of prescription drugs. She’d hoped the lull in cases, part of the common roller coaster of police work, would allow her some perspective. She thought it might be a chance to work on her drug use. She’d been wrong. It felt like she needed the pills just to make it through the day.

Her biggest regret was breaking up with Tony Mazzetti because of her drug use and her concern that she’d always be second to homicide investigations with him. Anyone she met in the sheriff’s office would be tough to date. Police work did not lend itself to smooth relationship building.

She glanced at her watch and realized she’d already gone forty-five minutes and needed a few minutes to cool down and stretch. She stopped at her favorite park bench, which overlooked a small pond and had shade from the late afternoon sun. This was where a lot of runners ended up because of the workout area with bars for pull-ups and grass for abdominal exercises.

As Patty leaned forward with her foot on the back of the bench, she made a wide sweep of her arm like she was a ballerina stretching before a recital. It was a goofy ritual she’d done since her early days in gymnastics. It made her feel more graceful and feminine while fulfilling an important fitness requirement. She noticed the guy in the grass to her right finishing up a set of crunches. She’d seen him in the park before and smiled as he stood up and started to stretch his back. He was about her age and awfully cute. She’d seen his long strides and knew he was serious about his afternoon runs.

Patty took a moment to gather her courage and finally said, “How far today?”

He smiled and said, “Four miles. You?”

“I go by time. I did forty-five minutes.” She took her foot off the park bench and stepped toward the man. She held out her hand and said, “I’m Patty.”

Stallings had agonized about what to do with the photograph of Jeanie. He wanted to rush over and show Maria, but the longer he considered it, the worse idea it appeared. He had no idea what the photograph meant or how it might affect Maria and her fragile recovery. As much as it hurt, he’d have to keep the photo from her for now.

The one person he could show it to, the one person whose memory it might help, was his father. Stallings had been surprised how quickly he had gotten past twenty years of estrangement from the man who had bullied and terrified him in an alcoholic haze for most of his childhood. These days, James Stallings was a fixture in the Jacksonville homeless scene. Since going on the wagon he’d done all the things any twelve-step program could ask. And that included starting up and moderating a number of support groups for alcoholics and addicts.

But in the past six months Stallings had reestablished contact with his father and found the old man was worth the effort. He had immediately dazzled Stallings’s children, who were thrilled to meet their long-lost grandpa. Without even trying, he’d helped Stallings with his own issues of anger and sorrow over his missing daughter. The biggest surprise by far was an off-the-cuff comment his father had made at lunch one Sunday afternoon in front of the entire family. This was about the time they realized he had a serious memory issue, which was diagnosed as Alzheimer’s disease. Over pizza, his father commented that Jeanie had visited him twice. Under questioning, the old man came up with enough details to make it sound plausible, and the next week Maria had found Jeanie’s old diary in which she’d written that she knew her grandfather lived in downtown Jacksonville based on comments she’d overheard between her mom and dad.

But James’s faulty memory kept him from providing any useful information. The old man had babbled something about her name being Jeanie and then later said she liked to be called Kelly . She’d told him not to tell anyone she had visited or she’d never come back. When the old man remembered brief snippets of the meeting, he knew the pain he had caused his son. It racked him so badly that Stallings hated to bring it up. But today, armed with a more recent photo of Jeanie, he hoped to pry more details from his father’s defective brain.

Stallings chatted briefly with the priest who ran the community center where James Stallings volunteered. The short, pudgy priest never seemed to do anything but watch the various tables of adults talking about their problems on one side of the giant room and the boys playing basketball on the other. But he liked Stallings’s father and seemed to keep a pretty good eye on the old man.

Stallings said, “Notice any changes in my dad?”

“I’m sorry to say I do. If you listen to him he doesn’t call a lot of people by name. He uses names like Sport or Bud .” The priest took a second to clear his throat and wipe his eyes. “He doesn’t even call me Doug anymore, just Father.”

“Thanks for letting him keep working with his groups. It means a lot to him.”

“It means a lot to everyone in the groups too. I think they’d continue to meet only if to keep your father’s mind occupied. He really did a lot for them the last few years.”

Stallings couldn’t answer because of a catch in his throat. Instead he saw the group start to disperse from around the table and walked toward his father, the photograph of Jeanie in his right hand. He felt his whole body tense as he got closer and tried to work out the small talk with his father before hitting him with hard questions.

He stopped a few feet away from the table and waited until his father looked up and saw him. When James Stallings looked up and smiled, he had a strange expression on his face.

Stallings was about to ask his father what was wrong when the old man said, “Hello there, young fella. What can I do for you?”

He just stared at his father for a moment trying to think what to say and figure out if the old man was trying to be funny. He got his answer when his father said, “Don’t be shy. It’s tough to meet new people.”

Right then Stallings realized he wouldn’t be asking any hard questions of his father tonight.

Lynn concentrated on the accounting program Thomas Brothers Supply had apparently purchased before there were actual computers. Although it was frustratingly slow, she couldn’t say she did not understand the software or how it worked. The company made a great profit and the Thomas family had become wealthy and well-known in the area. They had used some of their money to start a private school in the northern part of Duval County. It had started out as a place to send their own children and friends to get a good education, but, as is always the case, the rich get richer. Now the school cost more than thirty thousand dollars a year in tuition and had a waiting list to get in.