by James Andrus
Mazzetti had to admit he didn’t have the contacts or way with people that John Stallings did. He compensated by being thorough and putting in hours no one with a family could. When all was said and done he didn’t have anything in his life but homicide and the recognition he got for his work.
For now that was enough for him.
John Stallings followed the medical examiner’s comments, but his brain was hazy. That was the only way to explain it after staying up with Maria until the early morning hours, holding her as she swung through a spectrum of emotions that all led to a four-hour crying jag. He had even put off looking for Peep Morans, realizing how important this was. He tried to explain his new assignment and to put into words why he was doing it, even though he wasn’t completely certain himself. He would’ve said anything to keep her safe and at home last night. He would’ve said almost anything to just make her happy again. Anything except, “I’ll pull out of the Bag Man investigation.” He was hooked, and he knew it.
Now a smart-looking woman about his age with rimless glasses and blue eyes that caught the overhead lights like a mirror explained what the autopsies of the three victims had found in common.
She stood erect like a Marine and looked at each person present directly in the eye, then moved on to the next. “The first two victims had similar levels of pharmaceutical drugs in their system. But this latest one had a lot more of everything, including marijuana, traces of ecstasy, and even Seconal.”
“Who uses Seconal?” asked Mazzetti.
“Usually it’s closely regulated. It’s a heavy-duty sedative. Older patients with chronic problems might be prescribed it. But you don’t see it in common street use. I’d say that the killer has access to a source and knows what he’s doing. That’s not the kind of drug you just try out.”
“What about the stab wounds?”
“Very precise and with a great deal of power behind them. The marks around the wounds indicate that the killer drove in the knife with enough force to damage the tissue around the wound with his hand.”
Rita Hester looked at the M.E. and said, “Any theories?”
“On the knife? That’s your department. I would say the wound to the neck was probably unnecessary. The one in the abdomen came up and damaged the heart. She was high, which warded off shock, so she probably moved around but she wouldn’t have survived. I have no idea why he switched from drugs to a knife.”
Stallings said, “I think he just screwed up. She started to scream, and he stabbed her. Killing them isn’t his main objective. He’s got some other plan or else he wouldn’t go to the trouble of luring the girls away from where he meets them.”
“That another lucky guess?” asked Mazzetti.
The lieutenant’s hard look shut up Mazzetti and kept Stallings from making a comeback.
The M.E. nodded and said, “That makes sense, because the first two victims lived for some time with the drugs in their systems. I’d really try and find his drug source if possible.”
Stallings listened and took a few notes, but the discussion was unsettling to him. Besides Mazzetti, the M.E., the chief forensic scientist, and Rita Hester were in the small room. Rita looked imposing in a brown pantsuit and her pistol on her belt by her hip with a badge exposed next to it. He didn’t know if it was a subtle message to the M.E. that she was a working boss who was in charge or if she just decided to wear it like that.
Mazzetti looked at the forensic scientist, a stubby man everyone just called “Bud.” “What do you guys have, Bud?”
He cleared his throat and somehow just that action telegraphed his Southern drawl. “It’s too early on the DNA scrapings. We’re rushing it, but it’ll still be a week. We have a flake of skin from the wheel of the suitcase used in the first incident and the scrapings from this girl’s fingernails. We might get lucky with a match.”
“But there’s nothing in CODIS?” CODIS was the FBI’s database on DNA, the combined DNA index system. Like all police agencies the feds wanted a cool name for the toy.
“No, we checked. We’re also hooked up with the FDLE on it. They have the best DNA database in the country. If the killer has been looked at and a sample turned in, they’ll match it.” He cleared his throat again, then took an old handkerchief from his tight rear pocket and wiped his lips. “We got a few things you might want to follow up on.”
“Go on,” said Mazzetti, the impatience evident in his voice.
“The killer is smart. He sprayed WD-40 on the inside of the suitcase so we couldn’t lift any fingerprints if he left them. The only fiber evidence is the long orange string you found in the woods near where he left the body. We’re going to see what we can figure out about it and let you know. Also, the last two victims had decorative sand on their bodies. The one from last week had a few grains on her feet like she stepped on a path barefoot, and the newest victim had a little ingrained in her elbow as if she fell. The sand matches and you might, with some help from a geologist, figure out where it came from.”
Mazzetti looked at the squat man. “Anything else?”
“Cat hair, black cat hair was on all three victims.”
“He’s a smart killer, but he leaves cat hair on the victims? That seems sorta slipshod to me,” said Mazzetti.
“Not really. Cat hair is insidious. It creeps into everything. Usually no one notices, but when we’re combing through hair and searching armpits we tend to find everything.”
Mazzetti said, “So we got a guy with a black cat and fancy walkway that likes to see girls die slowly on drugs, but is now about a violent stabbing too. Great, just fucking great.”
The forensic scientist tossed an envelope onto the table next to him. “I had plenty of photos made up of each victim for your detectives in case they want to show them around or see if we’re missing something when we compared them.”
Stallings watched as Mazzetti pulled one photo of each victim out and stared at the three of them together. His stomach tightened when he saw the photo of the last, unidentified victim with colors dyed in her hair.
He said out loud, “I’ve seen her.”
Everyone else turned their attention to Stallings.
“She was eating at a Wendy’s the other night. I remember her hair.”
Mazzetti said, “Which Wendy’s?”
“Over on Beaver Street. I can go talk to them right now.”
Mazzetti held up a hand and said, “Not so fast, hotshot. I’m on this one.”
Suddenly it hit Stallings that the girl was eating with someone. He’d almost seen the Bag Man. Fuck! He’d been a few feet away from seeing this asshole’s face. Stallings felt a little light-headed as the idea wrapped itself through his mind. He hadn’t paid too much attention at the time, and Beaver is a busy street. What were the odds? But when he considered that both he and the killer were probably working the same areas of the city, the odds didn’t seem so great. He knew Mazzetti realized it as soon as Stallings had spoken up.
Mazzetti said, “Go look for another lucky lead.”
That was okay with Stallings. He needed something to occupy his mind and get the idea that he had let the killer slip by out of his head. He’d find his next witness today if he had to threaten every pimp and dealer in downtown Jacksonville. Someone would know where Peep Morans was hiding.
William Dremmel opened the store in Arlington so he could get in four hours before rushing over to the community college for his official office hours, then teach his Earth Science class. The one thing that cheered him about the change in routine was that Lori had also grabbed the early shift at the store. She was working from eight in the morning until close at nine that evening. He knew it was a tiring shift, but her graceful, slender body seemed to move with much less effort than most people.
“At least I have you to talk to for a few hours.” She smiled after the comment, and it made his whole body swell. She was a really nice girl.
“I’d stay for the double shift, but I have to get over to the college.”
“Did you see the police identified a victim of that killer as a student at your school?”
“No, I haven’t seen that yet.”
“There’ll be a whole lot coming out about the killings. One of the cable channels is starting to pick up on it. That prosecutor lady from Atlanta might even come down here. Could you imagine a big star like that right here in J-Ville?”
“Yeah, she’s big.” At first he liked the idea of the attention, but he had to be careful that it didn’t somehow interrupt his research. For the first time he wondered how it might affect potential subjects like Stacey Hines. Would she be worried about getting to know someone like him now that the whole world was learning about the Bag Man? He was a problem solver, and this was just one more hurdle to overcome. Then he had a great idea.
He turned to Lori, who was organizing the filled prescriptions and said, “You got a long shift today. Let me take you to a good lunch. You have a full hour break, and it’s a little bit of a ride, but they have great burgers.”
“Do they have fish too? Because I haven’t been eating anything with legs.”
“A vegetarian? I didn’t know.”
“I eat seafood too. I just saw a special on the Discovery Channel about slaughterhouses and decided I didn’t need the bad karma.”
“I saw fish on the menu, so you’re safe.”
“Wow, that’s really nice of you, Billy.” She turned and touched his arm. “You are a good guy.” Her smile gave him ideas better left alone.
Seventeen
Peep Morans’s real name was Walter Moranski and he’d lived in Jacksonville for nineteen of his thirty-nine years. He’d moved here from Detroit after a misunderstanding looked like it would turn into a rape charge. He thought a change of scenery and different name may throw off the cops long enough for the whole case to just fade away. He actually only shortened his last name; he got his nickname “Peep” for his unquenchable thirst to watch women urinate. Since he mostly lived on the streets, he knew women who lived on the streets and had no choice but to relieve themselves wherever they thought they had privacy. Peep had figured out where those spots were likely to be and set up covert vantage points all over the downtown area.
Sure he’d been caught over the years, that’s how people knew to call him Peep, but he’d never been arrested for it. He had a rap sheet for minor drug violations and loitering but not for spying on women. During his first arrest in Jacksonville he gave the name of Walt Morans. He had a fake Georgia ID card in that name. Since he’d never been arrested or fingerprinted back home in Detroit, this was the only record of him. So now the whole world knew him as Peep Morans, and he liked it just fine.
He enjoyed Jacksonville, with its mild climate and friendly people. He liked being a small-time pharmaceutical drug salesman. He got most of his stash from a guy who could buy it wholesale from a relative in the pharmaceutical business and then marked it up accordingly. What he liked best about his specialized role in the drug market was that the cops didn’t really care much about him. They focused on crack dealers and would thump them on a regular basis. Peep had been stopped with twenty or so pills and the cop would just make him throw them down the sewer rather than go to the trouble of determining what the chemical in the drug was or if he had a script for them. It was a sweet setup. For now Peep lived in a little apartment in Arlington that was nice enough to bring the kind of women he desired home. He ate okay and didn’t worry too much about going to jail.
His clientele had changed over the years. For a while he catered to suburban moms who liked their Percocet and Vicodin without having to fake an injury for a doctor. Now young people liked the pharmaceuticals too. He adjusted his marketing plan and was doing fine as long as he got to see a lady pee every couple of days.
On this clear day he was waiting on a corner he’d staked out for himself near Union Street, a few blocks from the big Shands Medical Center, enjoying the sunshine and the cooler breeze off the Atlantic, when his world took a sudden turn for the worse.
As he leaned back on a decorative cement corner piece of an older office building, his eyes closed while he felt the sun warm his face, he heard a man’s voice say, “Hello, Peep, how’s business?”
Peep’s eyes popped open to the scariest possible sight: JSO Detective John Stallings in his black Impala with the window down. He looked as calm as if he were ordering a McDonald’s double cheeseburger from the drive-thru, but Peep knew that guy was no ordinary cop. He’d discovered that the hard way a couple of years ago, and that was why he felt like he might shit in his own pants and every fiber of his muscles told him to run as fast as he could. He’d rather be arrested than face this crazy fucker again.
He rolled to the side and started to run. No one knew the downtown like him, and he had plenty of hiding places. He’d gladly turn himself in at the jail if it meant he could avoid a confrontation with Stallings. He cut between buildings where the Impala couldn’t fit, looking over his shoulder as he did. Peep didn’t see the car or any sign of the detective. Just the thought of the tough cop made the arm that he broke three years ago start to ache. The first time he’d met Stallings he didn’t know who he was but found out quickly when the detective learned that Peep was selling Vicodin to his wife. She had a secret habit, and Peep happily sold her ten pills. Then, a few days later, he sold her twenty. The next day this dude who was built for the corner-back position, lean and fast but strong, stepped up to him in the middle of the day right on the street. All he said was, “Sell to Maria Stallings again and this will happen to the other arm.” Then he grabbed Peep’s left arm, twisted it behind him, and slammed an elbow into it, snapping both of his forearm bones cleanly.
Then he spun Peep around and looked at him. “You know who I mean? Maria.”
Peep knew the hot-looking Spanish chick. He nodded vigorously.
“You gonna sell to her again?”
He shook his head.
“I’m her husband. My name is John Stallings, and I’m a detective with JSO. You wanna complain, call it in. But I want you to know how serious I am. Are you convinced?”
Peep nodded his head as he fought the vomit wanting to spew out everywhere. He’d never had something hurt so bad it made him want to puke. Peep knew serious when he saw it, and this crazy dude was serious.
Over the last couple of years he’d heard more and more about Stallings. People either loved him or hated him. As long as you didn’t mess with the runaways he treated you okay. Peep didn’t bother runaways, but his history with the detective told him he was doing the right thing running until he wanted to puke from exhaustion instead of pain.
He made it to the edge of the Trinity Rescue Mission and started to slow down as he approached a little hutch in the bushes he used to spy on women across the street who couldn’t work up the courage to enter the mission. He took one more look around, then ducked into the bushes, plopped onto the hard clay ground, and took a deep breath.
Just as he was thinking, that was close, he heard a man’s voice almost next to him. He snapped his head to see John Stallings lounging in the corner of the wide space under the bushes.
Stallings made no move toward him but said, “You can run as fast as you want, Peep. All it means is that you’ll be tired when I break your leg. Or you can sit still a moment and listen to what I have to say. I’m just looking for information.”
Peep knew the man kept his word, and if he said he wasn’t going to hurt him at that moment he felt pretty safe.
Peep managed to squeak out, “What do you wanna know?”
“Anyone buying a lot of Oxy or have any Seconal?”
“Why?”
“It’s a homicide investigation.”
“Thought you were in Missing Persons.”
Stallings smiled and said, “It doesn’t matter if I’m in sex crimes, I need the info, and you’re gonna give it to me.”
Peep knew the man well enough not to ask, “Or what?”
William Dremmel had a pla
n, but it required some luck. He’d driven Lori from the pharmacy to the Fountain of Youth sports bar at noon and made it in under fifteen minutes. He had to get her back to the store by one o’clock. The next lucky break was that Stacey Hines was working, and they were seated in her area. Unlike his other visits, the restaurant had a crowd today at lunch. Having Lori with him made it less likely people would single him out if the cops asked questions after he took Stacey as a test subject. He also hoped that allowing Stacey to see him with an attractive young black woman would ease her mind about him when it came time to ask her over to his house. He’d make it clear that they were just coworkers, but he knew how women thought, and seeing him with someone would give her the signal that he wasn’t a lonely, creepy single guy even if that was the truth.
Now Stacey was walking toward them, a sway in her hips that made him smile. She saw him, and her face brightened until she noticed Lori. She still had a perky grin as she walked up and said, “Hey there.”
“Hi, Stacey. I liked your food so much I brought my friend from work, Lori.”