The Perfect Woman

by James Andrus

  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.

  Patty Levine had spent more than an hour breathing deeply and steadily, hoping to clear her mind so she could think her way out of the deep shit she was in. She had to stay calm not just for herself, but for the other prisoner, Stacey Hines. The younger woman, really just a girl, had talked nonstop after their captor had left, leaving them both conscious. Now Patty realized she wasn’t sure how long he’d be away. It was hard to imagine what this girl had gone through at the hands of this creep. It made Patty angry.

  Patty knew the effort going into finding the missing Stacey. She’d been unaware anyone knew she was gone and cried when Patty told her that her father had been on the news appealing for the return of the young woman. Now the detective wondered if anyone had noticed she was missing. She wished she had more of a social life, and that was the irony. She was finally starting to get a life together and met someone who may be special. Did Tony Mazzetti figure out she was gone? Who knew how men thought? She hadn’t spoken to John Stallings, which was unusual, because for so long he had been the only person she spoke to every day.

  She could only assume that between John and Tony someone had missed her and they were looking for her now. If John Stallings was on the case she had a better chance of being found. Once he got rolling there was no hope of stopping him. But she had learned over the years from both competition in gymnastics and police work that ultimately one could only depend on oneself. She had to act as if she were alone and had to do everything possible to protect Stacey and escape. Patty was no damsel in distress, and this creep would find that out when she got the chance.

  She looked across the small room, taking in details. The terrazzo floor was clean but indicated an older home. The window had been bricked up by an amateur, displayed in the shoddy consistency and uneven nature of the mortar and crooked brick near the bottom left corner. The eyebolts in the wall were well secured, and Patty could tell she wouldn’t be able to shake either her hands or feet loose by unseating the steel bolts.

  Patty said, “Stacey, has he ever slept in here with you?”

  “I don’t think so. Once I’m out, I’m out.”

  “Do you know what drugs he gives you to sleep?” />
  “He changes them up. He said he intends to find the perfect drug cocktail to keep me happy but sedated and docile.”

  “Let’s not give him a reason to stop that experiment. As long as we’re in the experiment he won’t hurt us.”

  “That’s what I thought too.”

  “He’s in some odd fantasy of conducting an experiment. We’re part of that fantasy.”

  “He’s so crazy he seems normal.”

  Patty agreed with that assessment, but it didn’t make her happy. There would be no way to reason with Dremmel. She shuddered at the thought of him using a stun gun on her. She just had to find a path, a chance to surprise this son of a bitch.

  Stacey turned her head and said, “I think one of the drugs he uses is Ambien. Do you know what that is?”

  Patty said, “Oh yeah, I know it.” And she saw a possible path to escape.

  Forty-four

  Thinking about his childhood had sapped William Dremmel of his energy. He could only flop on the couch next to his mother’s wheelchair with another black-and-white movie on the TV. He thought he recognized Errol Flynn but couldn’t be sure because his brain was on overload. Sweat poured from his face as he tried to suck in enough air to live but not be too obvious to his mother. He wiped his face with the tail of his untucked shirt, staining the bottom as if it had been dipped in a pool. He tried to clear his head as memories kept flooding back. His heart ticked along like a two-cylinder engine. Then he felt as if he had a grip. A tenuous one, but a grip on reality.

  He turned away slightly from his mother and looked at the clean, off-white wall with the window set in it. His eye was drawn toward the floorboard where a floor lamp stood and he noticed a design. That was exactly what he needed. Something to focus on. Something to drawn his concentration.

  The circle and lines meant something, but he couldn’t dig the meaning out of his confused thoughts. Then he realized what he was looking at: a blood spatter from the unfortunate incident with Trina. Somehow he’d missed a spot of blood that was obvious. Obvious enough to ruin everything and send him to jail for the rest of his life. How could this have happened? He was careful. He was smart. This opened a new line of questions in him. Has he made other mistakes? Did he take on too much by trying to keep the lovely Detective Levine for his experiments?

  He made a quick decision. She had to go. He sat up on the couch, thinking where he had a suitcase large enough for her. She was taller than any of his previous subjects. Then he saw where he’d made his mistake. Pride. One of the sins. He didn’t have to get rid of her in a suitcase. In fact, that would offer too much to the cops. Instead he’d find a place to leave her body where no one would ever find it. A Jimmy Hoffa, that’s what he’d pull.

  This would take a little planning and maybe a trip to scout out the location. He didn’t want to frighten Stacey, so he’d use a strong dose of an Ambien-based cocktail tonight and by the time Stacey awoke tomorrow she’d be back in a single room.

  He had started to push himself off of the couch, when his mother turned to him and said, “I don’t want to go back to being drugged all the time.”

  John Stallings’s conversation with his sister had shaken him. He wasn’t being a good husband or father by working so much. The result wasn’t much different than his father; they just arrived there by different routes. It killed him that Maria needed him at this very moment and so did Patty. This wasn’t a normal investigation. His partner was missing. Now he’d made his choice and decided to go full throttle.

  He had already hit three of the pharmacies that Patty had visited two days ago, spending almost no time at any of them. He asked a few questions, then moved on. He wasn’t trying to build a case, he was trying to find another woman who had disappeared. No matter what he did it seemed like he spent a lot of time looking for people. This time he knew Patty wasn’t the type to just run off. At first he suspected that she and Mazzetti had argued and she was just pissed off. Now, as the hours had passed and there was no sign of her, he suspected something more sinister. Had she crossed the killer somehow? He’d find out.

  The pharmacy Stallings was in now had several locations all across the city. He quickstepped to the rear of the store, where the pharmacy counter was set into a solid frame behind glass to discourage robbers. He eyed each employee to see if any matched the description of the blond man given by Ernie the dealer. So far he hadn’t come close to finding any employee that drew his interest except one pharmacist earlier in the day. He had looked at the blond man’s personnel file and asked him a few questions about his personal life, but he didn’t come close to the profile of the killer. He was married, owned a dog, not a cat, and had two teenage kids. Stallings could tell pretty quickly this wasn’t the guy.

  Now, in the back of the store, he noticed several customers waiting at the register and two more at the pickup line. Stallings stepped off to the side and waited until the young pharmacist in a white smock looked up. Stallings held up his credential holder so he saw the gold JSO detective shield on the outside of the holder.

  The younger man looked around nervously and hesitated like he was considering making Stallings wait. To ensure that wouldn’t happen he tapped the badge on the glass and signaled for the pharmacist to come over to him right now.

  The man scampered up to the glass, then turned toward the rear wooden door entrance and opened the door a crack like he thought Stallings might be a robber. To satisfy the man he opened up the credentials to show the pharmacist his photo and name.

  “What can I do for you, Detective?”

  “First of all, you can open the door so we can talk in private.”

  “I’m sorry, but we’re pretty busy now. Can it wait?”

  “No.”

  “Look, I’m trying to be polite.”

  “So am I. Now let’s go in back and talk.” He pushed the door open and forced the younger man to back off, then turned and led him to a messy stockroom.

  The pharmacist faced the detective, putting on his best arrogant, impatient act, when Stallings clearly read him as scared. He wore a University of Florida Alumni pin on his collar, his hair was neat with a little too much hair gel, and his smock and shirt underneath were pressed and clean. This guy wanted to project a certain image.

  “Now, Detective, what’s this all about?”

  “Did a female JSO detective come by here yesterday?”

  The smirk on the man’s face told Stallings the answer was yes before he said a word.

  “You her badass cop boyfriend?”

  “What? No. Did she talk to anyone besides you?”

  “Why?”

  “Look, pal, I wish I had time to explain, but right now I need to know if she talked to anyone beside you.”

  “Hey, I don’t appreciate your tone.”

  Stallings grabbed his smock, wadding it in his hand and pulling him right next to his face. “This better?” He flicked the man back as he released his grip.

  The pharmacist lost his arrogance as he carefully smoothed out his smock with both hands and tried to compose himself.

  Stallings said in a low, calm voice, “Now, did she fucking talk to anyone else?”

  “I, um, I don’t know. She sat in here and looked over records for a while. When she left she said good-bye. When she first arrived we chatted about UF and her boyfriend.”

  Stallings knew that meant the pharmacist had hit on Patty. He looked him over, getting a sense of him. He had dark hair and seemed too button-down and straitlaced to ever sell drugs under the counter.

  The pharmacist snapped his fingers. “I just remembered.”

  “Remembered what?”

  “I think our clerk walked back here and stayed a few minutes.”

  “What’s the clerk’s name?”

  “William Dremmel.”

  Forty-five

  William Dremmel was shocked to learn his mother knew what he had been doing to keep her quiet for so long.

  His mother said, “I know I made som
e mistakes as a mother, but I shouldn’t have to have been in a coma the rest of my life. Just because I used some of my sleeping pills and muscle relaxers on you as a child doesn’t mean you have to pay me back.”

  “What on earth do you mean, Mom?”

  “To keep you quiet and give me some time I used to give you something to take a little nap once in a while.”

  “You drugged me?”

  “Only a couple of days a week.”

  “Why?”

  She leveled a stare at him. “Please, William. You know I had a few liaisons. I’m not perfect.”

  “More than just Arthur Whitley?”

  “A few.” She sounded almost proud.

  “Wait a minute, you said I had mono one summer and had to sleep a lot. Did I really?”

  She paused. “You were a growing boy and you needed your rest.”

  “You drugged me for a whole summer.”

  “Of course not, sweetheart. Only July and a few weeks in August.”

  He considered all this as the pieces of his life, his choices, his desires, all started to make sense. Perhaps the toughest thing was realizing his mom was a slut.

  She still had a nice smile on her smooth, pretty face. Her blouse hung low, like she’d pulled it down, showing the pleasant curve of her breasts.

  He looked at her. “Goddamn, Mom, you screwed me up bad.”

  “Nonsense. I had a young woman’s healthy appetites. I attended to your needs as a child and never left your father unsatisfied. It wasn’t my affairs that hurt you, it was your father’s reaction to them.”

  Dremmel stared at her, not moving, not daring to move. He thought about his young, beautiful mom all those years ago caressing the handsome young black man.

  Then his father caught them and said in that even but terrifying tone of his, “William, go play next door at the Seikers’.”