The Perfect Woman js-1

by James Andrus

  Stallings looked at him like he expected him to finish his sentence.

  “But I fell asleep.”

  “You stood up a girl like Patty. You really are an asshole.”

  “Should we call in that she’s missing?”

  Stallings thought about it, then said, “Is she missing or just avoiding us? It can cause a lot of shit to call in a missing person if she’s not missing.”

  Mazzetti looked at Stallings and realized that was hard for him to say. For the first time he saw some of the dilemma Stallings faced the day his daughter went missing. He didn’t want to overreact either. There was no indication that anything bad had happened to Patty. Then he felt his stomach turn. That was the same thing he had told dozens of worried parents over the years, and he knew it wasn’t necessarily true.

  Stallings’s phone rang and he had it up to his ear in a flash. “Stallings. Yeah. Really? Where?” That was the only part of the short conversation that Mazzetti heard.

  “Was that Patty?”

  Stallings shook his head. “No. A dealer named Ernie who has some info on the Bag Man. I need to go talk to him.”

  “You’re not even on the case anymore.”

  “Look, Tony, I didn’t make the call to Channel Eleven. I know who did. He used my phone. But it wasn’t me.”

  “Even if I believed you, the L.T. makes those decisions.”

  “She’s not around, and I’m going to talk to this guy. Then I’m gonna find Patty.”

  Mazzetti was starting to see how this guy got so many things done.

  William Dremmel was ready to enter the lion’s den, or a least the small room where he had two wildcats chained up. He’d made sure his mother was completely involved in The Quiet Man with John Wayne and Maureen O’Hara before he prepared himself to enter his lab. He still had a butterfly in his stomach over the memory he’d been trying to pull up. He knew it had to do with his mother and him. And he knew it was wrong in some sense. But he couldn’t nail it down. He had no models to compare his relationship with his mother with, so he had to go by his gut on many issues. His gut told him that she was not a typical mom. He felt certain the memory was more dysfunctional than drugging her most nights, but now he had a different emotion brewing in him, and he had no idea what it was or how to handle it.

  He knew the old movie was one of his mother’s favorites and would keep her occupied for another hour and a half. That would give him time to deal directly with his lovely test subjects.

  At the door to the lab, he stood with his stun gun stashed in the front pocket of his baggy cargo shorts. On a tray he had two paper plates with plastic spoons. Each plate was piled high with eggs and finely chopped ham. He had two glasses of orange juice and a plastic bowl of strawberries in an effort to vary the subjects’ diets and provide nutrients other than the vitamins in the supplements and shakes he fed them.

  He unlocked the door with his single key, opened the door, then picked up the tray of food from the foyer table and entered the room casually, closing the door immediately behind him. He was shocked by the two sets of angry eyes meeting him. The detective’s stare was even more venomous than Stacey’s, and she had tried to kill him the first chance she got.

  This whole situation might be trickier than he had calculated.

  John Stallings was surprised when Mazzetti insisted on coming with him to talk to Ernie the dealer. Now, as Stallings craned his neck to locate the young man on a corner near the interstate, he had to contend with Mazzetti and his constant chatter. It had to be a New York thing.

  Mazzetti said, “This guy is a good source, huh?”

  “He knew Lee Ann Moffitt and spoke up. If he heard something else, I’m willing to listen.” Stallings looked at him. “But you’re going to have to not be you.”

  “Whaddya mean?”

  “Just don’t talk. He’s a little skittish as it is.”

  “But it’s my fucking case.”

  “That’s what I mean. All I care about is stopping the killer. You can take credit any way you want.”

  Mazzetti sat mercifully quiet for a few minutes, then said, “Look, Stall, I’m sorry if I was out of line about anything I ever said about your daughter’s disappearance.”

  Stallings didn’t answer.

  “I never realized, I mean I never saw things from the victim’s point of view. I’m sure Patty is off working things out and that’s why she hasn’t called, but it’s still nerve-racking.”

  “You got the secretary figuring out what she was working on last?”

  “Yeah, she’s been canvassing drugstores in the southeast part of the city. I got Hoagie backtracking who she talked to. We knew she made it home last night.”

  “And you were too lazy to show her the respect she deserves.”

  Mazzetti just looked down at the dash.

  Stallings saw Ernie and pulled into a Shell station on the corner. The young drug dealer hustled over to them, then hesitated when he saw Mazzetti sitting in the passenger seat.

  Stallings got out of the Impala and motioned Mazzetti to stay put. He led the nervous young man away from the car.

  Ernie said, “Who’s that?”

  “No one, just an idiot who jumped in my car. Ignore him.” When they were under the shade of the canopy covering the gas pumps, he said, “Now, what do you got for me?”

  “I met the guy who used to sell to Lee Ann.”

  “Where is he?”

  “He left the city last night. Everyone’s scared the way the cops are coming down on people. He needed cash, so he was going to Atlanta for a few weeks.”

  “What’d he say?”

  “He said Lee Ann stopped buying from him right before she was found dead, because she’d met a guy who worked at a pharmacy and she thought he might become a good source for her and for the dealer. She never got back to him.”

  “Did she say anything about the pharmacy guy?”

  “He’s a blond guy. That’s it. I asked him a lot of questions. Just like a cop.”

  “What’s your dealer friend’s name?”

  Ernie just gave him a look. “He goes by the name ‘Malachi,’ but I don’t use last names. You know that.”

  “If I get the Atlanta cops to find him you think he’ll talk to me?”

  “He didn’t really know Lee Ann that well except he sold to her a few times. He said she worked at Kinko’s.”

  “Yeah, that’s right. Sounds like she had a connection with someone at a pharmacy too. I’ll start checking the pharmacies near the Kinko’s.” He put his arm around Ernie. “You’re a good kid. You need to try and find a real job.”

  “I just applied for one.”

  “Really. Doing what?”

  He broke out in a broad smile. “I want to be a fireman.”

  Stallings laughed, slapped him on the back, and said, “Good for you.”

  At the PMB, in the Land That Time Forgot, Stallings and Mazzetti sat at the conference room table looking at a list of stores Patty had visited in the last few days. They had already talked to the stores she canvassed yesterday to see if there was any connection or any strange blond employee. Nothing.

  Tony Mazzetti appreciated the odd looks everyone gave him when he walked in with Stallings. The lieutenant wasn’t around, so he didn’t have to explain himself to anyone. He believed Stallings now when he said he didn’t call the media, but he wouldn’t say who did. Stallings obviously knew who had used his phone and said he handled it, but Mazzetti’s curious nature made it hard to let go.

  Stallings shook his head. “Beats me where she is. I say we call in the cavalry.”

  “Is this why it took so long for you to call in your daughter’s disappearance? Not sure she was really missing?”

  Stallings looked at him like he was trying to decide how trustworthy Mazzetti was. “Just between us, Tony?”

  “I swear.” He raised his right hand to emphasize his sincerity.

  “I been over this with I.A. With that dickhead, Ronald Bell, specif
ically.”

  “What happened?” He was interested and concerned for the first time.

  “The main delay in calling it in was that my wife was high at the time. I mean out of her mind on Oxy and Percocets. She couldn’t have been more incoherent if she was mainlining heroin. I had to deal with her, thinking she knew where Jeanie was, keep the whole mess away from the other kids, then, by the time I knew something was wrong she was so unhinged that I couldn’t let the detectives talk to her.”

  Mazzetti just stared, never realizing something like that could’ve happened but seeing it for the truth right off the bat. He felt like a shithead for the things he thought and the way he’d treated this poor guy. Jesus.

  “To this day Maria is confused about the whole thing. Jeanie’s disappearance nearly knocked her over the edge, but we’ve been bringing her back little by little.”

  “She doin’ okay now?”

  Stallings just looked at him but didn’t answer. Then he said, “We gotta find Patty.”

  “Let’s get to work.”

  Stallings said, “I’ll go by the next set of pharmacies. You go through her notes and desk, talk to the other detectives, and let the L.T. know that we’re concerned but not panicked.” Then he added, “Yet.”

  William Dremmel had been staring at the information he’d found on Maggie Gilson and wondered if there was room for three in that little lab of his. Was he getting out of control? From one test subject every couple of weeks to two at once seemed bad enough but then to think that a third would make things even more interesting scared him a little. Maybe he was misguided on his research and treatment of his subjects. Maybe his mother had unbalanced him more than he thought.

  It was easier to be abstract away from the test subjects, whom he had allowed to stay conscious as long as they were quiet. The only thing that Detective Levine had said to him was, “These cuffs are cutting off my circulation. You need to loosen them.” It wasn’t a question or request, it was an order. He hadn’t been offended by it either. She was an expert in the use of handcuffs and she felt this set was too tight. He’d decided that after he dosed them and they were out cold, he’d loosen both sets of cuffs. It made sense. He didn’t want unnecessary pain and medical issues that might infringe on his findings.

  Now, sitting in the family room, watching Casablanca with his mother, Dremmel shifted uncomfortably on the sofa with his mother’s wheelchair parked next to it.

  “What’s wrong, sweetheart? You can tell me.” His mother put a small hand on his broad shoulder and started to knead the thick band of muscle. “C’mon, you used to share everything with me.”

  “I’m fine, Mom.”

  “I can see in your eyes that something is bothering you.”

  He shook his head. “I don’t know, something is stuck in my head.”

  “What?”

  “It’s some kind of memory or nightmare from my childhood.”

  “Can you recall any details, dear?”

  “It involves you and maybe a man.”

  She smiled as she looked off.

  Dremmel said, “It’s not a dream, is it?” It started to become clearer in his mind.

  “What does the man look like?”

  He hesitated. “A young black man?”

  Now she was grinning. “Arthur. Such a sweet young man.”

  “It’s true. You and him. In the…” He remembered it all and how it had ruined his life.

  Forty-three

  Tony Mazzetti had never experienced emotions like this. He was scared. Not the way he was scared of cockroaches or scared of the dentist; this feeling was on an entirely different level. Now, for the first time, he understood why families were so freaked out when someone was missing even if his experience told him they would turn up soon enough.

  John Stallings had kept him calm when they were together, but now Stallings was out retracing her steps and Mazzetti was feeling the creep of panic rise in his throat with every phone call he made. He’d talked to Patty’s mother and tried not to alarm her; he told her he was a coworker of Patty’s. He doubted she’d been told of any real relationship between her daughter and him, but he sure as shit intended to start one up once he found her.

  He focused on using his considerable experience and training to figure out who might know where Patty was. Whom she might have talked to. What she might have done. Somehow this was easier when he didn’t know the missing person and had no personal stake.

  Lieutenant Hester was calling up some help right now to see if more people looking for her would make a difference as the command staff weighed the value of going to the media.

  His phone’s ring made him jump as he racked his brain for ideas.

  “Mazzetti, here.”

  “Tony, it’s Hoagie.”

  “Whaddya got?”

  “We found her car at a Walmart a couple of blocks from her house.”

  “Let’s get crime scene over there right now to see what we can find.”

  “They’re here. Once they learned it had to do with a missing cop they got off their asses and were here at the same time as me.”

  “Anything?” He wasn’t sure he wanted to hear about blood or anything else that would indicate she was hurt.

  “Nothing.”

  He relaxed, and, at the same time, was disappointed they didn’t have a lead to find her.

  Christina Hogrebe said, “Tony, I mean nothing at all. Someone wiped down the steering wheel and driver’s door. There are no prints of value. We’re checking the store video now, but so far it doesn’t look as if she came inside.”

  “Any outside cameras?”

  “Not in the area where her Jeep was left.”

  “Thanks, Hoagie. Keep on it.”

  “Tony, you okay? You sound funny.”

  “Just worried. We gotta find her.”

  “We’ll break something open soon.”

  He hung up without another word, hoping the young homicide detective was right.

  William Dremmel’s head spun as the impact of what his mother had told him sunk in. He had seen her and the yardman’s son, Arthur, having sex. Many times. He would hide in the wide closet and watch them through the slats in the door. Arthur’s rock-hard, trim body and the way his mother would so carefully take him in her own small hands or how he would fondle her round breasts with pink nipples.

  She was very pretty twenty-five years ago. She wore small, tight dresses and flirted with the neighbors. She even had her photo in the Times-Union once when they were all on Neptune Beach and she was in a bikini. The caption identified her as “Local beauty enjoying the sun at Neptune Beach.” She had the clipping somewhere in the house.

  One Saturday in October, Dremmel remembered it was in the fall because he’d been teased by some kids for the Halloween costume he was previewing to everyone. It was a Wolf Man mask with hairy gloves he was supposed to wear with a long-sleeved shirt. Doug Cifers, from down the street, had called him a “were-dork” and made Dremmel cry as he ran back to his house, breathless and ready to tell his mom. He had vaguely noticed the old pickup truck with a hand-scrawled sign that said, “Whitley Yard Service,” parked down the block and Mr. Whitley pruning some trees as the sun started to set.

  He rushed in the house, then toward his parent’s bedroom. The door was open just a crack and he froze, then peered around the door. His mother was on her knees, naked, and Arthur was standing in front of her.

  He was fascinated. Arthur looked so happy as his mother’s head bobbed up and down.

  Then he heard a noise, turned, and his heart almost stopped. Standing behind him also watching the show was his father.

  John Stallings impatiently flicked open his phone, not bothering to even glance at the number. “Stallings,” he barked, keeping his pace on the sidewalk toward the front door to a family-run pharmacy.

  “John, it’s Helen.”

  He paused before asking what was wrong.

  She added, “You know, your sister.”

>   “Funny, what’s up? I’m right in the middle of something.”

  “So am I, and it’s called your fucked-up life.”

  “What?”

  “Maria is still sort of catatonic, and I think you need to be here.”

  He sighed and stopped walking as he tried to think what to say and what to do.

  “John, did you hear me? Your wife needs you here at home.”

  “Are the kids okay?”

  “Yeah, I drove them over to Mom’s under the guise that she needed help around the house for which they’d be paid a high hourly rate. But I could tell Lauren didn’t buy it.”

  “Yeah, she’s smart. Nothing gets by her.”

  “So let her see her father help her mother.”

  Stallings shifted his weight from foot to foot, taking up the empty sidewalk with a nervous lateral shuffle. His mind raced through the responsibilities he had and the pressure of keeping it all together. He thought of Maria and how far she’d come. Then he imagined Patty in trouble, counting on him for a rescue. He needed a minute and took a deep breath, aware of the silence on the other end of the phone.

  He almost told Helen he’d be right there, but he looked up at the pharmacy sign and thought of Patty. “Helen, I can’t make it right now. Something’s come up. We got a missing cop.”

  “John, this is your life here. There’s always gonna be someone missing. You can’t be the only one looking.”

  “No, but I am right now, and I need to be out here.”

  “That’s one of the problems, John. You can’t see the difference between what you need to do and what you want to do.”

  “I need to find this missing cop. Can you stay with Maria a little longer? Please, Sis.”

  “You have to make a choice, John. Work or family, because I don’t think they can coexist any longer.”

  “Were you always a ball breaker, or did you develop this attitude recently?”

  “I learned it on the street when I ran away. I just never had to use it on you. You turned out to be the opposite of Dad. At least I thought you did. You need to get your shit together, little brother.”

  “I appreciate you staying with her and helping. I swear I’ll…” She’d hung up on him before he made a promise he couldn’t keep.