The Perfect Woman

by James Andrus

  The professor stood, tried to compose himself, walked stiffly back to his side of the table opposite her, and said, “No, that’s quite all right. Sorry for any misunderstanding.” He slid across a three-page stapled report and added, “My bet would be the sand came from a big distributor like Home Depot or Lowe’s.”

  Patty stood and smiled. “Thanks so much, Professor Fuller.”

  “No, it was my pleasure, really.” He started to run his fingers through his long gray hair, then stopped short, realizing how Patty viewed him.

  She said, “I’ll make sure you’re recognized for your work.”

  “Anything to assist the police.”

  Patty couldn’t help it and started to laugh out loud as she walked through the door to the front of the building. She had another lead.

  William Dremmel tried not to act any differently toward Lori while he sorted bottles of newly arrived pills, but she was clearly uncomfortable around him right now. He had made it through most of the morning when she finally appeared in the back like a ghost. No noise or warning.

  “Have you asked your waitress friend out yet?”

  He played dumb. “Who?”

  “That cute little curvy thing at the sports bar.”

  “Oh, her. I like the food at the bar, but that’s it. Why? Did you think I wanted to go out with her?”

  “Don’t treat me like an idiot, Billy. I can sense that kind of stuff. I always could. I know when people are made for each other. I know when married couples are gonna divorce. And I know you got a thing for Stacey the waitress.”

  “You even remembered her name. Good for you. But I have no intention of asking her out.” He looked up at her and missed her usual smile. “Can you tell when you’ve met the right person?”

  “No, it doesn’t work on me. I’ve made more bad choices than President Bush. But I thought…”

  “What’d you think?”

  She turned. “I got someone at my register. I gotta go.”

  He felt relief at her sudden exit because his life was complicated enough without juggling a relationship with a conscious woman.

  Twenty-one

  Stallings threw a plain, blue Windbreaker on to cover his gun and badge on his hip. He could’ve concealed them better, but he wasn’t undercover, just not advertising that he was a cop. This was where “Ernie” the prescription pusher was supposed to hang out as well as a good-sized group of street kids. In the light jacket’s pocket he had photographs of the dead girls. This was his specialty: missing girls. He’d turn up something.

  He parked his unmarked county Impala in the vast, crowded lot of the Gateway Shopping Center and started walking over to Carlton Street. Although most of the homeless people didn’t hang out on the actual street, Stallings knew there were a number of camps in the bushes and brush just off the road as well as a couple of houses in the area that attracted street people for different reasons. He knew because he had entered several of them over the past two years looking for runaways.

  A group of eight young people were gathered near the road in front of a house known for its drug traffic and high occupancy. He heard the young man closest to him say, “Look out, it’s a cop.”

  There was some movement, then a female voice said, “Don’t worry, it’s Detective Stall. He’s looking for someone and it’s none of us.”

  Stallings eased up to the crowd and smiled. “Hey, Sallie.”

  “Hey, Stall. Who you looking for?”

  “All I got is a couple of photos.” Some of the others had backed away from him. A tall, wiry youth had eased back to the house. Stallings took a moment to memorize his face and clothing. Anyone moving away from him like that needed a second look. It might even be Ernie, but he didn’t want a dustup out here, so he let the youth leave. He pulled out the photographs of Trina Ester and Lee Ann Moffitt and gave them to Sallie to pass around the crowd. A request to look at the pictures coming from her was more productive than if he had sent them around. All he needed was someone who knew them and saw them get in a car.

  After a few minutes and a decent examination by everyone, Sallie looked back up at him. The leathery skin around her eyes and neck showed how the sun had aged her the last couple of years. He had once thought she was a runaway; now the street dweller looked more like the mother of a runaway.

  Sallie said, “Nope, none of us has seen either of them. These girls look a little older than your usual runaways.”

  “I’m helping out on another case. Someone killed these two. I don’t want him to get the chance to hurt anyone else.”

  Someone muttered, “Bullshit.”

  Sallie got right in the pudgy young man’s pimply face. “Back off, Kyle. Stall says he’s trying to help, he’s trying to help.”

  “Thanks, Sallie.” He looked toward the small, flat-roofed house. “Who’s inside?”

  “Just a few of the boys. They don’t get out much.”

  “I better say ‘hey’ anyway.” He had started toward the house when Sallie called to him.

  “Darryl Paluk is in there.”

  He waved and nodded, appreciating the heads-up, but kept his steady pace to the front door. At the door he paused and mumbled, “Is this the day that changes my life?” Stallings knocked, then turned the handle and immediately opened the door and stepped in. The smell of pot smoke almost knocked him off his feet. The haze was so thick that sunlight coming in behind him barely made it to the nasty Oriental-style rug in the front room.

  Darryl Paluk sprang up from a La-Z-Boy with surprising speed for such a muscular man. Then, as soon as he was standing, he relaxed.

  “It’s just Stall. You said a cop was out front.”

  Stallings looked over at the person Darryl was talking to. It was the same guy who’d slipped away. Stallings handed the photographs to Darryl, but kept his eyes on the young man. “You seen either of these girls?”

  Darryl took the photos and studied them before handing them to a near-comatose Latin man sitting on the couch next to him.

  Stallings pointed to the man he was interested in. “What’s your name, son?”

  “Me?”

  “Yeah, you.” He stepped closer.

  “Ernie.”

  “Ernie what?”

  Ernie stood up from the couch. “Why?”

  Stallings looked at him. He wasn’t used to queries like “why,” and he didn’t want to give up that Peep Morans had identified him.

  Darryl shot Ernie a glare and said, “Chill out, man. He’d have already popped you if he was gonna.”

  Stallings nodded to the big, dark-skinned man. “How’s the nose, anyway, Darryl?”

  “Feels okay, but now I snore. You think if you hit me just the right way you’d set it back the way it was?”

  “Hate to risk making it worse.”

  “I guess.” The big man rubbed his nose. “Taught me to hide a runaway. Never do it again, I swear.”

  Stallings turned back to Ernie, but before he could say anything, the trim, young man bolted to the back of the small house.

  By the time Stallings rushed to see where he was headed, all that pointed to the man’s exit was the open rear door swaying in the breeze and more sunshine cutting through the smoke.

  Tony Mazzetti fumed as he sorted through a stack of leads that had come into the office since the news had started covering the killings. His anger stemmed from that news coverage. Not that there was coverage, but that they said John Stallings was the lead on the case. Then to have that asshole deny it and the L.T. let him slide. No one ever called that guy on his bullshit. From kicking someone’s ass on the road to the disappearance of his daughter, there were questions that hung over him like storm clouds, but no one ever came down on him. It couldn’t be just that everyone liked him. Mazzetti knew he wasn’t too well liked, but that’s because he put the job first. Someone had to. But what kind of magic did Stallings have that kept him safe?

  He took a moment to catch his breath. One of the problems was that he hadn’
t gone to the gym this morning. He had steam he hadn’t blown off. Since he’d stopped using muscle-building supplements, he had hit the gym twice as hard. He didn’t want anyone to notice him shrinking. He didn’t want to end up looking like his uncle Vinnie, all hunched over and frail.

  His mind was usually on work. This was a change. Everyone had problems. For the first time in a couple of years Mazzetti worried about one of his personal problems and he knew the role his sexual history had played in his predicament. His anger was only partly due to Stallings’s grab for glory.

  He snatched his cell phone from the holder on his shiny leather belt and flipped through until he saw Patty Levine’s number. He felt a lift just looking at her name. Last night was the first night in a long time that he didn’t want to be so exhausted all he could do was fall asleep. Holding Patty in his arms, feeling her hard, small body against his, even if it was only outside her door, made him forget about work for a few minutes and gave him a glimpse of what other guys search for so desperately.

  But now he didn’t want to look weak and annoying, so he set the phone back on the table. A few minutes later when it rang, he pounced, hoping that Patty had made the call to him. He could picture her on her way to UF to talk to the geologist. It may not be the lead that broke the case but neither would the stack of leads he held in his hands right now. Like any huge case with public interest they’d have to cover everything.

  With so many real police stories on every channel from truTV to Bravo, juries expected all sorts of investigative tasks completed. It was no longer enough to follow the good leads. You had to follow up on the weak ones as well. Not only did a cop have to prove a suspect was guilty, but he had to prove no one else is guilty too. It had become a game of being able to say that no one suspect was looked at too hard until there was evidence. This was a catch-22, because it was hard to develop evidence without looking at a suspect really hard.

  He slapped his hand onto the pile of lead sheets and sighed. No one was around the Land That Time Forgot right now because he had them out on all kinds of tips. No matter how fast things were rolling or how much praise he was getting from the bosses, he couldn’t shake his jealousy, and he knew that’s what it was, of John Stallings.

  If only he could catch the guy passing on info to the media. Then he’d get the credit he deserved.

  Stallings didn’t chase people on foot anymore. He preferred to use his car and head them off like he had Peep Morans. It was unseemly for a detective of his age and experience to run. But it was more than that. It used to be suspects stopped when confronted by a police officer. Now people acted edgier. He didn’t know if the street cops were tougher on people or the courts easier. Either way he hadn’t had two people run from him in the same week in years.

  He’d caught a glimpse of Ernie as he cut through the scraggly bushes in the rear of the house. It’d be a matter of time before Ernie returned to the house, but Stallings didn’t have that kind of time.

  He walked back to the shopping center and picked up his car, then headed east to the last remaining topless bar on the road. Pulling into the Venus Fly Trap, he parked directly in front of the door, then popped out as the top-heavy doorman rumbled off his stool to challenge him.

  “This ain’t no valet, Holmes.” The giant black man stopped short and said, “Hey Detective, what’re you doing here?”

  “Relax, Terry,” said Stallings, walking toward the door. “I’m not here for an underaged dancer. I’m looking for a guy that just ran from me.”

  The big man backed away and opened the door for him.

  Stallings patted him on the arm and said, “Did a tall, thin fella come in here in the last ten minutes?”

  “Yes sir. He’s in there now.”

  “Thanks, Terry. Just wait here. I won’t be too long.”

  The doorman nodded and quickly slipped back onto his stool by the front door.

  Inside, Stallings paused a minute by the front door so his eyes could adjust to the dark room with lights above the two small stages. The bartender looked up and smiled. “Hey, Stall.”

  He nodded to the older, topless woman all the girls called “Auntie Lynn.”

  On stage an agile young lady held herself upside down on the pole. She saw him, smiled, and waved from her awkward angle. He could see three heads in the audience. Two were small Latin men, but the third looked around nervously. As soon as he saw Stallings, Ernie sprang up and headed for the rear of the building.

  Stallings darted toward the exit to cut him off, but before he could reach the man, a large round tray flew from behind the bar and struck the fleeing man in the head, knocking him onto the hard cement floor.

  Stallings stopped, looked over at the bar, and said, “Thanks, Auntie Lynn.”

  “If you were chasing him, he must be an asshole.”

  Twenty-two

  Handcuffs bit into Ernie’s wrists in the front seat of the county-issued Impala. Stallings wanted to be sure they were in a secluded, quiet place. This time of day Brentwood Park was perfect for an impromptu interview. He turned to face the younger man.

  “Ernie, why’d you run?”

  The man’s eyes flicked back and forth as sweat beaded on his forehead. His greasy brown hair dipped between his eyes.

  Stallings said, “I just want to talk. I don’t care if you’re holding. I need help on a case, and I want to know why you ran.”

  After a few seconds he said, “I’m holding.”

  “What are you holding?”

  “Pills.”

  “What kind?”

  The young man shrugged and said, “Every kind.”

  “Where?”

  “My shoe, my pockets, a pouch under my shirt.” He leaned back and wiggled his left foot. “Only this shoe.”

  Stallings bent down, slipped off the young man’s smelly Top-Sider, and retrieved a plastic bag with sixty dark blue pills. He cut his eyes up to Ernie.

  “Ambien.”

  Stallings reached carefully into the young man’s front pockets and pulled out two more bags.

  Ernie said, “Oxy and assorted painkillers like Percocets and Vicodin.”

  Stallings shook his head, then patted Ernie’s midsection until he felt the bag of pills. He reached under the shirt and pulled out the bag with odd-looking and unevenly colored pills. “Okay Ernie, what the fuck are these?”

  “Those are all combinations. I know a fella who can melt shit and recast it. Most of it is Oxy with Ambien mixed in. The kids think they’re getting Oxy, but Ambien is a lot cheaper, and once they fall asleep they don’t care. When they wake up they only remember the short high they had first.” He shrugged again. “Just good capitalistic business.”

  Without saying a word Stallings opened the car door, took the pills, and dumped them all down a storm drain on the curb. When he came back to the car, he said, “There, you satisfied I’m not trying to make a cheap drug case?”

  The young man visibly relaxed.

  “Do a lot of dealers mix the two drugs like you?”

  “Every single pharmaceutical dealer in the city does it.”

  Then it made more sense to Stallings. Trina had been doing the same thing. The Bag Man had tried to drug her but she had built up a half-assed resistance from using this shitty, homemade Oxy-Ambien. The knife wounds were an emergency measure.

  Then Ernie said, “I know the girl in the photograph.”

  “You saw the photo when Sallie passed it around?”

  He nodded.

  “Know the girl’s name?”

  “Lee Ann.”

  “Lee Ann Moffitt?”

  “I try not to use last names.”

  “How’d you know her?”

  He hesitated, then finally said, “She hung out with us sometimes. Nice girl. I think she worked at a copy place.”

  “You know if she had any boyfriends?”

  The young man shook his head.

  “She buy from anyone else?”

  “Everyone does, that’s
why it’s such a tough business.”

  “It’s no picnic being a consumer either.” He hoped Ernie understood his meaning.

  The drug dealer snapped his fingers. “She did mention a guy she was close with who supplied her. I even saw him once. He picked her up from a little party.”

  “What’d he look like? What’d he drive? You remember a name?”

  Ernie shook his head. “It’s fuzzy in here.” He tapped his temple. “I meet a lot of people and sometimes use my own stuff to keep mellow.”

  Stallings quizzed him a while longer until he realized he wouldn’t get anywhere. The young man was cooperating as best he could. He gave the young drug dealer his cell phone number with the instructions to start looking for this mystery dealer and to call him if he found him.

  Stallings felt that he might be getting closer as he started questioning the enterprising young drug dealer about anyone else who might be buying a lot of Oxy.

  Tony Mazzetti had tagged along with Patty Levine to the Home Depot across I-95 near the PMB. He liked the way she thought and made decisions, both as a person and a cop. She’d tracked down the info on the report from the UF geologist, contacted the manufacturer, and discovered the sole distributor was the largest home-improvement chain in the country. That wouldn’t narrow down things much, but it was a start. Now she just wanted to see how Home Depot maintained their inventory and if tracking the purchasers would be feasible.

  Mazzetti liked how she had the huge manager of the store crammed in his minuscule office behind kitchen and bath remodeling going over possible lines of investigation while not scaring the guy into thinking she was a bully. This was the mark of a good cop. He realized he often came off as a bully even when he was trying to be pleasant.

  Patty said, “You have to understand, Larry, that this is confidential and no one can know why we’re looking at this line of sand.”

  He shook his massive bald head. His drawl was more central Georgia than Florida. It’d taken almost twenty years, but Mazzetti was finally getting his accents and drawls down here straight.