James Andrus - The Perfect Death

As Stallings pushed away from his desk, ready to rush over and help, he saw Patty Levine weigh in from the side, all elbows and knees, cracking one of the prisoners three or four times with effective blows and knocking him out of the fight instantly.

Two other crimes/persons detectives were slow to react. These were non-uniformed detectives and no one carried a Taser. For years the public had cried out about police punching suspects who acted up; then, with the introduction of the Taser it seemed the controversy would die down. Now the public, uneducated in the use of the Taser, viewed it as a near torture device. Stallings wasn’t fond of the small devices that delivered electronic shocks-just more equipment to keep track of. He’d punched enough people in his career to know how effective a right cross could be. And that’s what he intended to use right now as the last prisoner was able to shake off the detectives holding him.

Stallings crossed the room, raising his hand ready to strike. He looked the prisoner right in the face, giving him a chance to surrender. He saw no surrender in the man’s eyes and prepared to strike hard across his face when another detective popped out from behind the door and swung an ASP, missing the prisoner with the metal expandable baton but striking Stallings hard in his left arm.

The blow knocked Stallings to the side. He immediately reached for his arm, feeling the pain shoot through his shoulder. It worked exactly like every training class had ever taught him. The fluid shock of the ASP strike had traveled up his nerves in his arm and felt as if someone had slammed his hand in a car door.

The detective swung the metal ASP again, striking the prisoner in the arm and, after a full backswing, struck him in the leg, dropping the young thug to the ground.

As quickly as it started it was over. Whew. Stallings looked around the room at the various groaning and moaning men on the floor. The only one who seemed to be seriously injured was Sparky Taylor’s friend from the tech division. Patty knelt beside him trying to stop the bleeding from his forehead. Evidence was scattered everywhere, and a new form of chaos descended in the room as everyone tried to separate the prisoners, the wounded, and the evidence.

The fight at the office had disrupted everyone’s day. Unlike the way many TV shows portray police departments, any kind of a scuffle outside the booking area or jail facility is rare. Stallings once explained it to one of his neighbors by saying it would be like having several stockbrokers get into a fight at the Charles Schwab office. It happens, but those in the area are always surprised. Heading north of the city to the Thomas School was an excellent way to break up the day and step away from the chaos of the fight. Not only was Dwight, the nerdy detective, rushed to the hospital with a serious head wound, two of the three prisoners had to be hospitalized. It had been an all-out brawl and injuries happen, but he was sure some reporter trying to make a name would focus on the broken wrist of a prisoner or the fact that they had been handcuffed at the time of the fight. Someone who’d never been hit had no idea how distracting it could be.

The school sat back from the road with a pattern of soccer and baseball fields adding to the stately feel of the buildings. It looked more like a small college than an exclusive, private prep school. Stallings had heard tuition topped thirty thousand dollars a year and it looked as if they had put a fair amount of that money back into the school.

Stallings had let Patty work her magic to get them set up in an administrator’s office near the front entrance. It wasn’t only her professional manner; he had to admit she could deal with regular people much better than he could. He liked to think he was learning from her. Then they’d get behind on a missing person investigation, and he’d lose his patience and deal with people too bluntly. And like an epileptic seizure creeping into the consciousness, he could feel his patience ebbing away as they made no progress toward finding Leah Tischler. Although there was the strong possibility she’d been a victim of whoever strangled Kathy Mizell, there was no absolute proof she was dead. Either way he felt a burning drive to discover what had happened to her. The rational side of his mind told him there was no greater chance of him finding out what had happened to his own Jeanie by finding out what had happened to Leah, but he recognized he wasn’t always rational and sometimes it was an irrational hunch that solved the case. If nothing else, he wanted to give the Tischlers some sense of closure. Something he and Maria had never felt.

With a great deal of assistance from some Thomas School administrators, Stallings and Patty were able to see, in quick succession, a slew of snooty girls all wearing the same uniform as Leah Tischler wore in her final photo. The school had agreed to help in exchange for the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office being clear Leah had not disappeared from school and the school had no liability in the matter. Stallings agreed, knowing it was someone higher than him who would make the call at a news conference and decide whom to throw under the bus. His guess was that if the school had any responsibility at all, they’d be mentioned prominently in the news. But that wasn’t his concern. He had one goal. Maybe one of these girls would help him achieve it.

The sixth girl to walk through the door of the small office sighed loudly as she stood there waiting for the detectives to acknowledge her. Stallings looked up from his notes and was surprised to see a girl with piercings all along her ear and the tip of a tattoo on her neck coming out of her collar.

Patty said, “Are you Marcie?”

The girl nodded her head, causing her stringy hair to flop across her forehead as she stepped forward and plopped into the hard wooden chair. Her plaid skirt puffed out as she hit the chair.

Patty said, “I like your piercings.”

The girl perked up, shifted from a suspicious glare at Stallings to a more attentive expression toward Patty. “The ears are the only thing that can be pierced around this place. They made me pull out my nose ring and lip stud. I just put them in again as soon as I walked out that stupid gate.”

Stallings sat back and let Patty chat with the girl, putting her at ease before turning to the questions they needed answered.

Patty asked about running away, and the girl said, “We all think about it. It’s a nice change, a way to get away from our shitty lives.”

Stallings had to ask, “What’s shitty about your life?” He wasn’t judging her, but he really felt he needed to know the answer. He wondered if Jeanie had had the same conversation with someone else before she disappeared.

The girl said, “You know, our parents don’t get us. This is a boring backwater of a town. Jesus, this is the best school in North Florida and even it sucks.”

Stallings was surprised when Patty scowled and leaned forward. “What’s your father do?”

“He owns a Cadillac dealership north of here.

“So you have your own car?”

The girl nodded and mumbled, “A CTX.”

“You ever miss a meal?”

“What’d you mean?”

Patty’s normally pleasant blue eyes flashed fire, and she said, “Look around you. Look beyond this school and you’ll see people are barely getting by. There’s real suffering, not the imaginary shit you and your friends dream of.”

The girl looked shocked.

“You guys think running away is some kind of romantic escape. Leah Tischler’s parents are beside themselves with grief. There is a very real chance Leah has suffered some traumatic shit. We’re working our asses off to try and find her and to help her parents get through a rough time. All I’ve heard from you girls so far is how tough life is. I think you’re as disconnected and screwed up as you think this school is. Now cut the shit, Marcie. You know anything that might help us find Leah Tischler?”