The Perfect Woman js-1

by James Andrus

  Fourteen

  John Stallings felt rested after a day off. He’d spent Saturday talking to various prescription drug dealers in the downtown area and looking for Peep Morans without success, but he would keep the little shit on his radar until he found him. The other dealers would’ve given up anyone to keep from losing their freedom. Stallings had only used the threat of arrest to scare each of the bloodsuckers, but they had all been specific about who they dealt to, and none of them recognized the photos of either of the girls.

  Stallings spent Sunday with the kids, shooting hoops with both of them, kicking the soccer ball with Charlie, and watching in stunned silence as Lauren displayed her gymnastic talent at flipping, tumbling, and stopping his heart all at the same time. Patty Levine had gotten her interested in the sport, and the girl had shown a real knack for it. He wasn’t sure he was happy about it considering the danger in some of the stunts, but she was happy, even if a backflip took two days and three hours off his life.

  Now, at seven in the morning on a Monday, he thought his early entrance would give him a jump on any leads they might have developed on his brief time off. Rita Hester had ordered a general shutdown of the investigation for the mental well-being of the detectives involved. That was the kind of thing an administrator did-assign two people to cover leads for one day while everyone else, including Tony Mazzetti, recharged their batteries. It made sense, but the Rita Hester he knew as a regular officer would’ve bitched and moaned as much as he did when he was told to take a day off.

  Now, he had to give her credit. He did feel better and energized, and he still wanted this guy so badly his stomach had burned the whole day he was off trying to be the father he never had. Even Maria had interacted with the family, briefly leaving her computer to watch Lauren’s tumbling display.

  He’d barely made it through the door when he noticed Patty Levine hunched over something on her desk.

  “You’re in early,” he said, slowing at her desk.

  “Catalogs, catalogs, catalogs.” She slapped a pile on the side of her desk. “The search for luggage never ends.”

  “You are dedicated. I like that. Anything new?”

  “I’m not sure. Mazzetti and the L.T. have been huddling in the conference room for the last ten minutes.” She looked down the main squad bay of the Land That Time Forgot to the only room big enough for a table and ten chairs. By default it became the conference room.

  “Ten minutes. What time did you guys get here? I thought I was early.”

  “They were here when I walked in at six-thirty.”

  Stallings nodded and padded on toward his desk. He had his own notes to go over and see where he should look next. First he’d like to find Peep Morans and see where that led. Then he would carefully canvass the city neighborhood by neighborhood, talking to former runaways he knew. Once they figured out he wasn’t trying to find new runaways, they opened up and helped him as best they could. So far it hadn’t led to anything significant. But Jacksonville was a big city. In fact, it was the biggest in square miles in the entire United States thanks to some consolidation of government in the sixties when the city and county merged.

  He intended to try a couple of unofficial safe houses in the north part of town. He’d work his way out to the outlying communities as he needed to, but he felt he’d find a lead closer to the center of J-Ville.

  As he was starting to look up info about Peep Morans on the ancient computer at the edge of his scarred, stained desk, Rita Hester popped her head out of the conference room and motioned him in.

  Stallings felt the other detectives watching him as he slowly walked down the center of the room, his shoes sliding on the cheap, thin carpet. Every cop wants to know what’s going on and who knows what, that’s part of their curious nature. They couldn’t hide their jealousy that Stallings was about to find out something they didn’t already know.

  Involuntarily, he straightened his shirt and adjusted the pistol he wore exposed on his belt just to annoy Tony Mazzetti. He stepped into the conference room and saw Mazzetti sitting at the lone, long table with photographs of the first victim spread out in front of him.

  “Sit down, Stall,” Rita Hester nodded to the seat across from Mazzetti.

  “What’s up?”

  Mazzetti wiped his bloodshot eyes-apparently he hadn’t taken yesterday off-and said, “I think we’ve identified the first victim. A tip from the TV sketch. We need you to drive down to Bunnell and talk to her aunt to make positive ID.”

  “Why me? I thought you guys wanted me talking to runaways.”

  Mazzetti looked at him and said slowly and flatly, “You’re good at talking to people. This will be a death notification, and God knows what could happen.”

  The lieutenant added, “Take Patty with you. It’ll be good experience. I’ll turn you loose on the city later in the day. The pimps could use a break.” She smiled, but he heard the subtle warning: Don’t take things too far.

  William Dremmel had spent the weekend getting his life back in order. Now, as he sat at his Walmart pressboard desk, crammed in what used to be a utility closet at the community college, he felt like things might be back on track. He had no students scheduled to meet with him today, and that was just as well. His right eye had turned from a dark blue to a splotchy yellow from Trina’s well-placed punch. All he had to do was get through today and tomorrow at the school; then he’d have a few days for his face to heal up. The scratches on the left side of his face were mere red lines now, barely visible. He had a good story made up about playing basketball if anyone asked.

  He pulled out the thick textbook he used to teach his Biology One class in case someone wandered in his office, but the second book was what he was really studying. It was a compilation of white papers on prescription drugs published by Johns Hopkins University. He also had his own journal out, making notations on his findings so far. He really needed to figure out the right drug combination, available in the pharmacy, that allowed more conscious thought and wakefulness but less activity. He wanted a more listless subject who could still be awake much of the time. Once he had them in the right stasis, he could work on the formula for a maintenance dosage.

  Young, wild-looking Trina was a real disappointment. Not only had she behaved like a spoiled child, cost him a night’s worth of sleep, and wrecked his plans for a decent test run, he had a lot of cleaning up to do. He had mopped the floor in the living room, where it looked like she had lost a gallon of blood. Then he wiped down the floor, TV, and table surfaces with Clorox to cover any specks of blood he had missed.

  He stuffed Trina into an expandable nylon suitcase with no manufacturer’s name in it. He’d paid cash for the black suitcase at the giant flea market down in Daytona. In case there were any prints on it, he’d sprayed the inside and outside with WD-40. Of course he wore surgical gloves when he loaded the bodies, but he was so flustered after Trina’s fit that he wanted to make certain he didn’t slip up.

  That night he drove her to a wooded area next to a park and left her about a hundred yards into the dark, spooky forest. His biggest concern was someone noticing the van, but he had made a calculation comparing driving during the day when people were out, or driving at night when there would be fewer vehicles to notice. He decided night was the right time and tried to stay calm as he parked, then dragged the bag through the sand and pine needles until he felt it was safe to leave her. He knew she’d be found but not for a while. Then she’d have to be identified. He thought he was in the clear on Trina even though she added nothing to his research.

  Stacey Hines would fill the gap, and he wouldn’t rush her. He’d done his research. Her car was still parked at the little apartment she rented. Tonight he’d have an early dinner at the restaurant where she worked and see if her roommate had, in fact, left for Ohio and if young Stacey liked the idea of someone to confide in.

  In his journal he started a whole new page that had Stacey’s name and vital statistics at the top.

&
nbsp; John Stallings sat on the plastic-covered couch with Patty Levine next to him, both caught in that horrible, endless silence that always seemed to come after notifying someone that a loved one had died.

  They had driven to the little town of Bunnell, about an hour south of downtown Jacksonville, and found the house, really more of a compound of trailers, of the aunt of the first victim, Tawny Wallace. She was a pleasant, tired-looking woman of fifty who lived on the three-acre lot with her retired Marine husband. Now she sat across from them quietly wiping tears from her pretty blue eyes while her husband had said he needed a beer, stood up, and disappeared into another room. The aunt and uncle had already identified the dead girl from two photographs from the medical examiner’s office, so now there was no doubt what had happened to their missing niece.

  Patty reached across and placed her hand on the aunt’s and said, “Is there anything we can do for you?”

  The woman looked up sniffling and shaking her head. “No, no, we hadn’t heard anything from Tawny in a while, and I was worried something had happened.” She looked up into the detectives’ faces. “We had her since her mom died of breast cancer when she was fourteen. Earl wanted to try and, um, correct, some of the habits she’d been raised with. They just never got along well.”

  Stallings waited with his official questions to just let this poor woman speak. Patty showed her competence as a cop and a decent human being by talking to the woman as a person and not just a witness. She knew cops who used the term “citizen” instead of person missed out on a lot of the rewards of being a cop. He appreciated her professionalism as well as her humanity.

  He looked around the walls of the clean, orderly living room. A Marine poster on one wall read, “USMC, Providing enemies of America the opportunity to die for their countries since 1775.” On the opposite wall another framed poster read, “Patriotic dissent is a luxury provided by men better than they.” The guy loved the Corps, and that usually meant he was a decent guy but not necessarily someone who could relate to a teenager.

  Then he noticed the recycling bin near the kitchen door filled to overflowing with empty cans of Busch, and Stallings made a snap judgment about Tawny’s uncle Earl, which wasn’t favorable. He knew from his own experience being raised by a strict Navy man who drank that life was probably not much fun for her around this desperate little town. Especially if Earl thought he could “correct” the habits of a fourteen-year-old girl who had just lost her mother.

  Just then the retired Marine stalked back into the room and sat, with his back straight as a board, next to his grieving wife. A can of Busch was in his left hand and another piece of the puzzle fell into place for Stallings. The man made no effort to comfort his wife.

  Stallings just stared at the man in his late fifties and all he could picture was his father on a Saturday afternoon, shitfaced, after he had screamed at his sister for some inane issue, feeling bad for Helen and terrified of his father at the same time. Anger rose inside Stallings as Uncle Earl appeared unfazed by the news of his niece’s death. He just took another sip of his beer and sat silently.

  Stallings felt his right fist ball as the idea of clobbering this jackass flashed through his brain with a stronger signal every second. He felt his heartbeat in his neck and knew his face had turned beet red.

  Tawny’s aunt continued to sniffle into a Kleenex over a missed opportunity to do the right thing because this asshole had no more idea how to handle a teenager than he knew how to do brain surgery. To him life was good guys and bad guys and knowing how to work an artillery piece or fire an M-16 could solve any problem. Most military men could separate their personal and professional lives. They were good fathers who missed their kids. Uncle wasn’t one of those guys.

  Stallings took a deep breath hoping to relieve the growing desire to show this guy just how useless violence was to solve domestic situations by kicking his ass.

  Patty, sensing a problem, reached across him and patted the aunt on the arm. “Do you think you could answer a few questions for us?”

  The woman nodded quietly, but Uncle Earl still held that look of annoyed satisfaction, like he knew the girl wouldn’t amount to anything. Asshole.

  Since he couldn’t do anything to stop creeps like this from driving teenaged girls from their homes, he felt the need to at least stop a killer like the one who killed her. His own daughter could be out on a street somewhere. He might have inadvertently driven her off. He hated to even consider that, but it was still possible. The emotions from his childhood flooded back as he looked at Uncle Earl. The beatings his drunken father laid on him and his sister. The crazy demands made in the middle of a drinking jag that sometimes lasted an entire weekend. His father’s dead certain attitude that serving in the Navy gave him the right to say and do anything he wanted to in his own house.

  He had plenty of reasons to feel the way he did. He wanted this killer so badly he was starting to lose focus on other parts of his life. It wasn’t just Lee Ann Moffit that drove him. It was his own daughter, Jeanie, and his sister Helen’s secret trauma from running away from their bullying, drunken father.

  Now Stallings was just pissed off.

  As they pulled away from the set of trailers, Patty looked over at Stallings behind the wheel of his Impala.

  “You gonna tell me what that was all about?”

  “What?”

  “You and the uncle. You wanted to kill him. Why?”

  “Look, Patty, I don’t wanna talk about it. It’s just that all any parent or guardian should want to do is make a better life for their kids. There’s just too much that could go wrong with life, so you gotta be a good parent. If you think about it, raising a kid is scarier than police work. And that asshole back there did not help that poor girl.”

  “How can you know that?”

  “I lived it.”

  He had more to say on the subject, since she’d gotten him started, when his phone rang. He dug it out of his front pocket and barked, “Stallings,” still with an edge to his voice.

  He heard Rita Hester say, “Stall, we got another body.”

  Fifteen

  Stallings heard Patty say, “Holy shit, look at the news trucks. How’d they get here so fast?”

  His throat went dry at the sight of the media vehicles. This wouldn’t help the investigation, and he knew from experience that it could make some of the detectives crazy and competitive for attention. The whole idea of a goat-fuck like this made his anxiety over finding Peep Morans move to the back of his mind.

  “Someone probably put it out over the radio and it was a slow news day. What else are they gonna cover? The missile frigate docked at Mayport?”

  “You think they’ve linked the bodies yet?”

  “If they haven’t, they will, or someone’ll leak it.” Stallings pulled the Impala into the lot across from the wooded park. Yellow crime scene tape blocked the entrance and patrol units were parked at the corners of the woods to discourage anyone interested in a closer look. For now the reporters were behaving, crammed together in the designated media area roped off near the main road. Two helicopters circled overhead, giving the scene more of a Francis Ford Coppola feel.

  He could see Rita Hester and Tony Mazzetti talking to a group of the task force detectives within the crime scene tape. It was a staged move to give the media some decent video and make the Sheriff’s Office look like they were throwing a lot of effort into the problem. Keep the soccer moms calm and give the realtors something good to say about the area. They used phrases like, “Our police force is outstanding and jumps on any problem that arises.”

  Stallings was already in a bad mood from his encounter with Tawny Wallace’s Uncle Earl. His own childhood memories didn’t help things today. He had a job to do and had to move past his own issues. The idea that this creep had killed again made him realize how he’d blown his desire to stop the asshole before some other poor girl paid the price. Now this scene looked like a zoo, some family would be heartbroken, and St
allings felt like shit.

  Patty looked around like a kid at the fair. “Wow, you ever see anything like this?”

  “Yeah,” was all he said as he ducked under the tape and nodded to a patrolman, who almost saluted the senior detective. It reminded him of the circus he had endured after capturing Carl Cernick. Even his family got dragged into it as reporters hounded him for information.

  Mazzetti looked up and motioned the two detectives over to his group. “I was about to go over what we’ve got so far.” He waited as they all crowded in, so he didn’t broadcast sensitive information across the crime scene to the media outside the tape. “We’ve got a young, white female, nude, in a suitcase.”

  Stallings felt himself sag. He had hoped, by some wild chance, that maybe, just maybe, this wasn’t their killer.

  Mazzetti added, “This one’s been stabbed.”

  Stallings head jerked up, but he didn’t say anything because someone else said it for him. “A copycat killer?”

  Mazzetti looked down and said, “Christ, I hope we don’t end up with two of these creeps running around. The body is already over at the M.E.’s office, and they know what to look for. But I gotta say my first gut reaction is it’s our man. She’s short, barely five feet, same age range and method of disposal. The media hasn’t caught on about the first two deaths. No chance someone just happened to kill a short woman and stuffed her in a suitcase.”

  Patty said, “Why the change in method of death? This is more violent than the others.”

  Mazzetti nodded. “That’s what we been talkin’ about. Right now I wouldn’t want to guess. There are two visible wounds. One in the upper abdomen and one deep one all the way through the neck from back to front.” He used his right hand on the rear of his neck to emphasize the angle of attack.

  Stallings caught Patty processing the death and shuddering. All he could think was, Welcome to homicide, kid.

  Mazzetti cleared his throat and stood a little taller. “The good news is that this girl might have gotten in a shot of her own.”