by James Andrus
This was a day of firsts. His mother was alert and connected to reality, and he had not one, but two test subjects. He hoped to keep them in the trial for a very long and interesting time. And he had called in sick for the first time in his entire life. He let the manager at the pharmacy think he was upset by Lori’s death and told the head of the science department at the community college that his back had gone out and hinted that it might be the result of teaching too many labs on the hard floors. Just the idea of a worker’s comp issue made the professor encourage Dremmel to take off as long as he needed.
Now he was doing exactly what he wanted—running a serious experiment with two beautiful women and nothing connecting him to any of the recent crimes. He had slipped Patty Levine away from her complex after he put up her groceries, fed the cat, and moved her personal Jeep to a Walmart lot three blocks away. It was a risk to leave the unconscious detective for the few minutes it took to move the Jeep, but he thought it would pay dividends in confusing the cops when they tried to figure out where she was or what had happened. She didn’t regain consciousness until she was secured. He used a lot less of his homemade chloroform a few hours ago when he dosed her again. He wanted her up and awake soon.
He looked at the clipboard that held the data sheets for both women. Stacey was becoming quite regular in her habits based on the dosages he had been administering. Patty’s chart was blank, but he intended to start her on the heavy, powered Ambien with some hydrocodone this evening. He wanted both the women on different drugs to see the effects. He didn’t have the time or resources to test each drug on each subject.
His mother appeared in the doorway but was unable to roll up the steps.
“What are you looking at, William?”
“Data on an experiment I’m running.”
She beamed. “How interesting. You’ll have to tell me all about it.”
“I will, Mom, after we eat.”
“You’ve made a lot of eggs and pancakes for just the two of us.”
“I’m trying to bulk up a little, so I’m gonna eat all day long while I work in the darkroom. If I let you stay up and in the family room, will you promise to let me work?”
“I promise. Will you spend a little time with me later?”
“We can watch Jeopardy!”
She clasped her hands. “Just like we used to. That’s great.”
He smiled back at her, but something about her voice and her manner made an ancient memory flash through his brain. It felt like a faded image reflected in a mirror. It made no sense, but he felt its power over him.
His stomach turned as he stared at his mother, smiling contently in her chair.
John Stallings was a little worried about Patty when he couldn’t get her on the cell phone and the secretary at the D-Bureau told him she hadn’t been in yet. He didn’t want to be seen in the office yet as he considered how best to explain what had happened. He had a couple of leads he could work without being officially back on the Bag Man case anyway. He hoped that Rick Ellis would come forward and explain everything himself.
Now Stallings was at Patty’s little condo in the southeast part of the city, where a lot of the college students lived. The neighborhood had an arty vibe to it as he imagined Greenwich Village did or some sections of New Orleans. Her modern, plain condo building seemed out of place among the older, Southern-style houses with porches and tin roofs. As he pulled into the small lot he immediately noticed Patty’s county-issued Freestyle in a spot closest to her door. He didn’t see her Jeep anywhere.
Stallings slowly marched up the walkway, looking to see if there was any activity around any of the other condo units. He knocked on Patty’s door and waited, then knocked again and called out, “Patty, it’s John.” Then he called her again, but the phone went directly to voice mail. That was odd for Patty, who always wanted to stay in contact and was too conscientious about work to just ignore calls.
He turned to leave, dialing the office again to see if the secretary could reach her. He couldn’t think why she’d be ignoring his calls, but anything was possible. As he reached his car he stopped, looked up, and was surprised to see Tony Mazzetti getting out of his county Crown Vic.
Mazzetti said, “What’s wrong, Stall, need another source of info for your TV pals?”
Then without consciously knowing he would do it, Stallings punched Tony Mazzetti in the face so hard it knocked the larger man off his feet and onto the sidewalk.
Forty-two
Tony Mazzetti held his eye with his left hand, even though it didn’t ease the pain in any way. “What the fuck, Stall?”
“You run that mouth of yours and don’t expect to get hit?”
“Not a sucker punch.”
“I was standing in front of you and hit you in the face. That’s not a sucker punch.” Stallings offered a hand to help Mazzetti to his feet.
Mazzetti grunted as he took it and slowly rose. Blood pulsed through his head and seemed to circle his left eye, where the blow had struck hardest.
Stallings said, “What the hell are you doing here?”
“Looking for Patty.”
“Why?”
“Whaddya mean ‘why’? I just am.”
Stallings looked him up and down, then said, “Are you two a couple?”
Mazzetti hesitated on his answer mainly because he had no idea how Patty felt about it.
Stallings turned away and said, “Aw shit. I think I’m gonna be sick.”
“I was worried because I couldn’t get ahold of her.”
“I couldn’t either.”
“And the office hasn’t heard from her, so I came over to check. We were supposed to see each other last night. But…”
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.<
br />
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, specifically.”
“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, sitti
ng 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.
