The Perfect Woman js-1

by James Andrus

  The bartender brought back his soda and made no indication he remembered Dremmel from any of his previous visits.

  After finishing his lunch and drinking three glasses of Diet Coke, Dremmel started to formulate the right question about Stacey without appearing too interested. Then he caught a break. The tall waitress leaned against the corner of the bar near him and asked the bartender, “What time does Stacey get in? I need to pick up Julie from day care by five.”

  The heavyset bartender didn’t look up from polishing glasses and said, “She won’t be here till six, but I’ll cover for the hour. It’s slow anyway.”

  “Thanks, Tank,” said the waitress. “I could call her and see if she’ll come in an hour early.”

  “Nah, it’s no problem. She was going over to the beach, and I doubt she’d be ready in time.”

  The waitress nodded and turned to get over to a table.

  Dremmel remembered his first conversation with the petite waitress from Ohio. She’d told him she liked Neptune Beach. It was the closest beach to her crappy little apartment.

  A smile crept over his face. He knew where he was heading right now, and no one would be able to link him to her.

  Stallings didn’t think the news leaks were as humorous now that he’d spent an hour in I.A. answering questions about it. Everyone on the task force had been pulled up to the Internal Affairs office and grilled about their friends in the media and if they’d been talking about the case. The S.O. was serious about the security of the leads. The main thing that bothered Stallings was the amount of time taken away from the case to answer the questions. He wanted to be out stirring things up, and instead he’d been on the fourth floor talking to two young sergeants he hardly even know. He had nothing to hide. They knew his reputation-it was apparent in the deference they showed him.

  One of the interrogators had been brand new in the homicide unit when Stallings had captured Cernick, and he mainly had questions about the arrest. Neither asked him any questions about Jeanie. At least they had some manners.

  As he was getting ready to leave the I.A. office, he almost bumped into the senior investigator.

  The tall, handsome detective with graying hair simply said, “Hey John.”

  Stallings didn’t acknowledge him.

  The detective said, “Why so rude?”

  Stallings stopped, feeling the anger rise in him. “Listen, Ron.”

  “It’s Ronald.”

  “Sorry, I forgot. Listen, Ronald, this is the second time you’ve held up an investigation that was important to me.”

  “I had nothing to do with this one. I told them you and I had history and that I shouldn’t be involved. Besides, media links are small potatoes. Suspicious circumstances of a cop’s missing kid is the kind of stuff I handle.”

  Stallings resisted the urge to punch Detective Ronald Bell right in his head. Instead he turned and forced himself to walk calmly out of the office knowing this wouldn’t be the last time he ran into the senior I.A. man.

  Ten minutes later, as Stallings sat at his desk, getting ready to leave, he heard a pissed-off Luis Martinez stomp through the squad bay bitching about I.A.

  The ex-Marine shook his head and said, “I.A. isn’t anything like the Gestapo. At least you could reason with the Gestapo.”

  Christina Hogrebe laughed from her orderly desk in the “original” homicide section of the squad bay. “Did they rough you up, Luis?”

  “Shit, you’d have thought one of us robbed a goddamn bank.”

  Hoagie said, “They didn’t break you then? You still have your media contacts?” Her smile took any edge off the comments. She had a level head and hadn’t gotten too wrapped up in the drama taking time away from the case. That was the sign of a good detective.

  Mazzetti stalked out of the conference room, where he could hear the banter between cops. “You guys think this is funny? We got a traitor among us.”

  Hoagie said, “C’mon, Tony, I don’t think anyone here is a traitor.”

  “Oh yeah, what do you call a glory hound that uses the media?”

  From the rear of the squad bay someone said, “We call him Tony Mazzetti, Prince of Homicide.”

  The chorus of laughter made Mazzetti’s face flush red. But before he could say anything, the secretary from the front office leaned in the door and said, “Stall, there’s someone downstairs says they have info on the case and wants to talk to you.”

  “Me? Why me?”

  “It’s an elderly lady, and she says she’ll only talk to the hero-cop that caught Cernick.” She saw the expression on his face and added, “I swear to God that’s what she said.”

  Stallings stood up as Mazzetti marched toward the door. “I’m going too. This is still my fucking case.”

  Stallings walked in silence with Mazzetti out of the Land That Time Forgot, down the main stairs, and into the lobby of the Police Memorial Building. He checked with a receptionist and found a small, frail-looking woman, wrapped up against Jacksonville’s occasionally cold winds and frequently cold rain.

  “Ma’am,” started Stallings slowly. “I’m John Stallings. Can I help you?”

  She turned in her seat, looked up and said, “Oh thank God. I didn’t know who to talk to, but I’ve seen you on TV.”

  “What’s the problem, ma’am?” He didn’t want Mazzetti being rude to this lady, so he stepped in front of him as he spoke, then crouched down to eye level with the woman.

  She appreciated the manners and looked over her shoulder at Mazzetti to see if he was going to bend down too. When he made no movement, other than one of impatience, she turned her full attention back to Stallings and said, “We have to hurry. He’s got a girl in the house.”

  Stallings patted her arm softly and said, “Who has a girl?”

  She didn’t seem to hear. “A young girl. I know who he really is.”

  “Ma’am, who are you talking about.”

  She looked at him, then up to Mazzetti and said, “I know who the Bag Man is.”

  Twenty-five

  John Stallings steadied himself as Tony Mazzetti pushed his Crown Vic around a corner too hard. He wasn’t used to sitting in the backseat of a speeding police car, but there was no time to argue once they had the tip. The old lady had too many details for them not to take her seriously. She said the man lived alone with a cat, acted oddly, and she saw him usher a young girl she described as “petite” into the house a couple of hours earlier. She had also seen him with a small woman Saturday night, the night Trina Ester said good-bye to her coworkers for the last time.

  Mazzetti had moved quickly and been decisive. Patty and Stallings jumped into the car with Mazzetti. Luis Martinez and Christina Hogrebe were in a county Crown Vic somewhere behind them.

  Stallings’s pulse had cranked up the moment he realized the lady might have a real tip and not the usual stuff that rolled across his desk during a case like this. Now with some time to think about stopping this creep he felt the rush of exhilaration he had as a rookie.

  Mazzetti’s phone rang, and Stallings caught his side of the conversation. The homicide detective’s clipped voice saying, “Yeah, yeah, got it. No shit? Got it.” Then he slammed the small phone shut.

  Stallings couldn’t wait. “What’d we got?”

  “The guy was at the community college, which puts him near at least one victim, the Tawny Wallace chick.” He looked over his shoulder at Stallings. “No arrests, but he’s been questioned for loitering near a school. Could be our guy.”

  Stallings nodded, “Could be.”

  Patty remained silent up in the front passenger seat. Stallings had detected a strained vibe between her and Mazzetti earlier in the day but didn’t want to stir anything up, so he decided to wait to ask her if everything was all right.

  The handheld radio on the front seat crackled as Luis Martinez reached out for Mazzetti.

  Mazzetti snatched up the radio and called out a little loudly, “Stay off the radio. Call me on the phone.” The cal
l was short, then Mazzetti tossed the phone on the seat.

  “Luis thinks we need some uniformed cops. I’m trying to keep the media out of this by staying off the radio and not involving everyone and his brother.”

  Stallings said, “I could call up some uniform help on the phone quietly.”

  “Who?”

  “Ellis and his traffic guys.”

  “That’s perfect, Stall. He’s a good guy and will keep his yap shut.”

  Stallings looked up Ellis on his contact list and was talking to him a few seconds later. “Rick, you said you could help if we needed something.”

  “You bet.”

  “We’re headed over to the seven hundred block of Forrest Street, you close by?”

  “The Forrest down south or off the Bridge?”

  “Down south.”

  “See you in ten minutes on the next block.”

  “I’m with Mazzetti in his blue Crown Vic.” He cut the connection and told Mazzetti not to worry.

  The briefing was quick and to the point, just the way Stallings liked police work. The fear of endless lawsuits had slowed the process of investigation by several magnitudes. This was important enough that everyone was willing to move fast.

  Then Mazzetti pulled him off to the side.

  “Stall, I think we need to slow this train down. We got enough people to watch the house while someone gets a search warrant.”

  Stallings shook his head. “We got exigent circumstances. The witness says there’s a girl inside.”

  “But we gotta make this case airtight. I’d rather err on the side of caution.”

  Stallings felt his blood rise. “And what do we tell that girl’s mother if she’s killed in the time it takes us to get a goddamn warrant?”

  Mazzetti looked away, obviously weighing the options. Finally he looked at Stallings and said, “Okay, but if this is a fuck-up it’s on you.”

  Stallings nodded. He didn’t know why it would be his fault, but he knew he had to get this operation moving. They watched as three marked patrol cars rolled up and Sergeant Rick Ellis popped out with a shotgun in his hand.

  The big uniformed sergeant grinned and bellowed, “Real police work. I love it.”

  A few minutes later the five detectives and three uniformed cops crowded around Mazzetti’s car’s hood looking at a rough sketch of the house in relation to the other houses on the block.

  Mazzetti said, “We all stay off the radio. I don’t want some reporter with a police scanner catching on to what’s going on. We’re gonna cover the back and hit the front. No one in the back comes inside. I don’t want a cross fire and one of us getting hit.” He looked at all the faces, spending an extra second on the two young uniformed guys he didn’t know. “Everyone understand?”

  Everyone nodded.

  “All we got is a tip, but it may involve a young girl in the house. We know this guy was at the community college. No record, just a field ID card by one of the sex predator detectives a few years ago.”

  Ellis looked up and said, “Where do you want us?”

  “Sarge, you, one of your guys and Stall will cover the back. Hoagie and one uniform will cover the front. Luis”-he pointed at a the biggest uniformed officer-“you and me and Patty will hit the door.” He looked around. “Any questions?”

  Stallings didn’t like the idea of staying in the back, but there was nothing to argue. That was his assignment.

  Ellis’s radio beeped and a male voice asked for him by his radio number. When the big man answered the voice said, “What’s going on out there? Brief me.”

  Mazzetti said, “Not over the radio.”

  Ellis clicked the broadcast button and said, “I’ll call you, Captain. Stand by.” He reached for his belt, then cursed and turned to Stallings. “Stall, let me use your phone. In the excitement I left mine in the car.”

  Stallings handed over his phone and turned back to the hood of the car as Ellis walked off with the phone glued to his ear.

  Mazzetti said, “You cool with this, Stall? We’re going in without a warrant at your insistence.”

  He nodded. “It’s the right thing to do.”

  Ten minutes later Stallings stood behind the small, single-family house with the two uniformed cops. They had crept into the yard with a few scraggly bushes and weeds instead of grass. No one had noticed the cops as they cut between neighbors’ houses and now stood at each corner of the suspect’s square house. Rick Ellis was right behind him on one side and a young patrolman on the other. Stallings looked down at his watch. Any second now the other team would hit the front. His heart pumped hard, forcing blood into his eardrums like thunder.

  Stallings put his hand on the grip of his pistol, waiting for the expected pounding on the front door or, if things didn’t go well, the sound of the door being knocked in. He tensed and waited. Still nothing, and it started to spook him. He drew his pistol, and Ellis, behind him, held his Remington shotgun up to his shoulder, then the officer on the other corner drew his service pistol. Stallings didn’t know if they had their own gut feeling or if he had started the trend.

  He crept around the corner, closer to the flimsy, cracked sliding glass door that looked like it had been cut into the back wall by a third grader. The cement was unpainted and slapped around the sides to fill in the gaps. There was a chunk of wall missing near the handle, and the track looked bent.

  The first hard rap at the front door made Stallings jump and freeze in his position. Another hard knock echoed through the house, and he heard Mazzetti yell, “Police, open the door.”

  Stallings fought the urge to look in the glass door. Just his head in the door could distract the cops on the entry team not to mention the possibility of drawing fire from either a desperate killer or a cop.

  He looked over his shoulder to make sure Ellis was in place and ready.

  Then he heard shouting from the front.

  Someone unlatched the slider from the inside and it creaked along its uneven tracks, wobbling like a tricycle with a crooked front wheel.

  Stallings raised his gun as a teenage girl scampered out the rear with nothing but a floral pattern towel wrapped around her.

  She turned and saw the gun, gasped, then froze right in front of the door, as the shouts inside the house grew more urgent. He heard, “Drop the gun.” Then a single gunshot.

  Instinctively he dove onto the girl to knock her out of the line of fire the door provided. They fell onto the sandy ground with a hollow thump. The uniformed cop moved past them with his pistol up to protect them in case someone came through the door.

  Stallings rolled to the side, looked at the girl, guessing her age to be about thirteen. “Are you okay?”

  She was shaking and nodded quickly.

  “You’re safe now. Everything is gonna be okay.”

  From inside he heard Patty call out, “Clear.”

  He stayed on the ground with the frightened girl as Ellis and his patrolman rushed inside.

  It didn’t sound like things had gone well, but looking at this young girl, Stallings couldn’t care less if the case was made or not. She was safe. At least he still had his priorities straight.

  Twenty-six

  Stallings turned on the ground, still shielding the girl, then sprang into a low crouch with his pistol up. After a few seconds one of the young patrolmen leaned out and motioned Stallings inside.

  Stallings stood and said in a low voice, “Stay with the girl.”

  As he stepped to the door a black cat darted out the open door and shot across the tiny yard toward the cover of a neighbor’s hedge. He recalled the M.E.’s comment about cat hair being present on the victims’ bodies. Things were adding up to look like this might be their man.

  Inside, Patty was frantically performing CPR compressions on a man with a bullet hole in his chest. Patty had carefully placed her hands over the wound to make an effort to keep the blood from pumping out onto the grimy tile floor. Mazzetti kneeled over the man and attempted rescue b
reaths after every thirty compressions Patty completed.

  It looked to Stallings as if all they had done was keep the guy alive long enough for his heart to pump a puddle of blood that had spread across the entire front room.

  In the corner, Rick Ellis had his arm around Luis Martinez’s shoulder. The big sergeant just nodded to Stallings letting him know it was okay. He knew better than to ask, “What happened?” Things would become clearer to him in the next few minutes. The important points were that the girl was safe, none of his team had been injured, and he was hoping this guy was the Bag Man and their problems were over.

  Sirens began to tweak his ear from more than a mile away and from different directions. Stallings saw a pile of clothes that looked like the girl’s from outside. He scooped them up and headed out the open slider. The uniformed cop stood next to her but obviously wanted nothing to do with her. She stood by the house holding the towel and squirming nervously.

  He didn’t want her to see the blood inside, so he led her around the front and then stood guard while she climbed in one of the police cars and got dressed. When she was ready he leaned in the window and started to chat with her.

  “You okay, sweetheart?” He had patience. She’d tell him what he needed to know soon enough.

  The girl nodded but started to sniffle.

  “What’s your name?”

  “You’re gonna call my parents.”

  “Someone will. You can’t avoid that.” He thought about it, then said, “I don’t think you realize how much danger you were in.”

  “How?”

  “That guy in there could be a killer.”

  “My boyfriend?”

  “What?”

  “My boyfriend.”

  “If he was your boyfriend why were you running out the back?”

  “Because I’m underage, and I didn’t want him to be in more trouble.”

  “More trouble? What kind of trouble was he in?”