The Perfect Woman

by James Andrus

  Forty-seven

  Dremmel acted as if he was watching Jeopardy! but, like most nights, there were no questions that could really stump him. This country was once called Ceylon. What is Sri Lanka. This compound is present in all life on Earth. What is carbon. The science questions tended to be downright insulting. His mother beamed with every right answer, justifying every act of parenting she had ever advocated. But he was only thinking about one right now.

  Finally, at a commercial, he said, “Mom, we gotta talk.”

  “I’d love to chat with you, William.”

  “Mom, you really screwed me up with some of the things you did.”

  “You mean the drugs or fucking a teenage yard boy?”

  He flinched and shifted on the couch. “Mom, don’t talk like that, please.” He shuddered.

  “Whatever you want, dear.”

  “You don’t understand what it did to me. What I’ve done because of it. I never had a normal girlfriend.”

  “I thought you had girlfriends. What about Lee Ann?”

  He hesitated. “She wasn’t really a girlfriend.”

  “Then what about the girl in the front room now? Isn’t she a girlfriend?”

  He stared at his mother, not sure what to say or how the hell she knew about Stacey. “Mom, um, how…”

  She smiled, a light in her eyes he had not seen for years, then leaned up out of the chair, stood, supporting herself on the chair arms like it was a walker. “I can pull this thing over any of the stairs in the house. I have plenty of time during the day when you’re out and about and you leave the key to the room in the front room cabinet.”

  Dremmel stared in shocked silence as his orderly world was shown to be a complete sham. “Did you talk to her?”

  “Oh no. That’s your business. I just checked in on her as she slept. She’s very pretty.”

  The calculating, scientific part of his brain realized that his mom had grown tolerant to the Ambien he’d been feeding her like candy. He also didn’t realize her desire to overcome her lonely existence and see the world. That gave him a pang of guilt too.

  Finally, Dremmel had recovered enough to ask, “You get up in the middle of the day and cruise around the house?”

  “Some days. Not too often.”

  “Do you want to hear about why there’s a girl in my darkroom?”

  She was about to answer when he heard a loud thump, then a crash near the front of the house. He sprang to his feet and reached for his stun gun in his pocket as he darted to the other room, his mother turning to follow him in walker mode.

  Once she was up and around, Patty Levine immediately went to Stacey and broke her leg shackles the same way she broke her own. The handcuffs were a bigger problem until she let her engineering class she took her junior year come back to her. The professor drilled into them to think outside the normal parameters of a problem. Basically, think outside the box. Patty saw the answer almost immediately. She used the open cuff arm on her left wrist as a lever to start to twist the eye-bolt in the wall.

  She looked back to Stacey and said, “Roll with the turn so I can get this thing out of the wall.”

  After two minutes they were both out of bed, naked, scared, and ready to kick some ass. Patty closed the open cuff so both of them were around her right wrist and not swinging awkwardly free. She had a separate shackle cuff with a short length of chain on each ankle.

  Stacey still had her hands in cuffs in front of her, but they were ready to make their move.

  Patty quietly tried the door handle. Locked. The door was thin, but sturdy. Now she had to decide if she should wait and try to surprise, then overpower Dremmel, or knock down the door and run. She wanted the confrontation, but wasn’t sure what her reaction time was like because of the drugs and her depleted state. Her first responsibility was to ensure Stacey was safe and got away. Then she could worry about what she’d do to William Dremmel.

  She looked at Stacey. “We’ll be out of here in just a minute. Once we’re out, run for the front door. If you can’t get to the front easily, just run to the rear of the house. No matter what happens don’t stop.”

  “I’ll follow you.”

  “No, you have to find the right door yourself.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I’m staying.” Then she turned and kicked the door as hard as she could.

  Stacey was terrified as she stood behind Patty when she kicked the door once, twice, three times. It cracked, then she put her muscular shoulder into it and knocked the door all the way open. She followed the gutsy detective out the door but froze when William Dremmel stood right in front of the door with that scary electric shock thing in his hand.

  Patty didn’t hesitate to swing at him, connecting with his face. Then she heard the ugly chatter of the device and Patty yelped and jumped away from Dremmel.

  Stacey kept her head down and turned toward the back of the house, ready to sprint. But two steps into it she almost fell over an old woman in a wheelchair.

  The woman screeched, “William. William.” Then she wrapped surprisingly strong arms around Stacey’s legs. It was like being caught in quicksand. She struggled but it made no difference. The old lady held on tight and Stacey fell over, pulling her out of her wheelchair onto the floor.

  Stacey started to break free of the screaming old lady when she heard another blast of the stun gun and then Patty was flopping around on the cold terrazzo floor.

  The old lady’s arms weakened and released as Stacey stood up into a crouch like a sprinter on starting blocks. She was going to make it.

  Then she felt a strong hand on her ankle and looked back just as the stun gun made contact and the pain she’d felt before started crackling through her body.

  John Stallings saw motion in the front room. There was a flash and he heard faint screams from inside the house. That was all he needed to push him into cold, calculated action. He looked over his shoulder to Tony Mazzetti at the other corner of the house attempting to make a phone call. “Tony, something’s happening. We gotta move.”

  Mazzetti scurried up to Stallings for a look just as Stallings drew his Glock, stood up, and started sprinting across the empty street. He slowed as he approached the door but not much. He tried the front door handle. Locked. Now he could clearly hear yelling from inside as well as another sound that was familiar but he couldn’t place. Then he heard it again and realized what it was: a stun gun.

  Dremmel already had the detective flopping on the floor from a blast of the stun gun. Now he had the weapon firmly on Stacey’s naked thigh, delivering 400,000 volts of incapacitating energy. The struggling girl immediately went limp under the power of the gun. But his mother was still screaming like an air raid siren.

  “Get her, William, get her,” she shrieked. Then she started yelling nonsense. The noise was so loud and shrill it disoriented him.

  “Mom, quiet down.” He doubted that he penetrated the wall of noise. He raised his voice, “Mom, shut up.” Still no effect.

  Finally, trying to keep track of the two stunned, nude women, regain his own composure, and deal with his mother’s wailing became too much. He put the nodes of the stun gun to her neck and let a charge of electricity fly.

  Before he could appreciate the silence for a moment he heard someone at the front door. First trying the handle, then kicking it. Hard.

  Dremmel stood, then raced toward the rear of the house, the stun gun still in his hand. He had no idea where to go.

  Stallings was surprised how strong the door to the older house was, withstanding his first kick easily. He looked over his shoulder to see Mazzetti running toward the house, apparently not as sure hitting the front door was the right move. Stallings stepped back and delivered another kick just above the door handle and dead bolt. This time the door gave a little. Then, with all his power he splintered the door with a final kick.

  Mazzetti timed it and ran through the open doorway without breaking his stride.

  Stallings ent
ered the house and froze at the sight of three bodies on the ground. Two naked women and an older women in a wheelchair were sprawled across the floor.

  Then one of the naked women moved. Stallings kneeled to her and realized it was Patty. She let out a squeak and groan, then her whole body flexed.

  He cradled her head. “Patty, can you hear me? Patty.” He looked into her eyes and saw some recognition.

  Mazzetti was helping the other woman on the floor. He turned and said, “How is she?”

  “She’s coming around. What about her? Is it Stacey Hines?”

  “Yeah, and she’s in shock.”

  “I think it was a stun gun or Taser.”

  Mazzetti joined him next to Patty and said, “I got her, Stall. Go get that son of a bitch.”

  Stallings saw that the woman in the wheelchair was stirring, so he turned and headed toward the back of the house, his gun up, ready to kill the first person he saw. He was a little surprised Mazzetti would give up the chance to catch the Bag Man himself. Maybe he wasn’t the tool Stallings thought he was.

  Patty Levine’s head started to clear. She’d thought Stallings was with her. A blanket covered her on the soft couch, and she saw Stacey Hines sitting up in a chair across the room with a blanket wrapped around her. Tony Mazzetti gently patted an elderly woman sitting in a wheelchair.

  She cleared her throat and croaked, “Tony.”

  He turned, then rushed to her side. He held her hand and smiled at her before she knew it. It felt natural. Mazzetti said, “Help is on the way.”

  “I’m okay. How’s Stacey?”

  “She’s scared but all right. I think he didn’t have time to hit her with the stun gun as long as you.”

  “Where is he? Tony, that’s the Bag Man. Did you get him?” She felt her words rush out as her brain tried to catch up.

  “Stall is after him.”

  “You need to go with him.”

  He smiled, patted her hand, and said, “I’m right where I’m supposed to be.”

  Forty-eight

  William Dremmel was starting to calm down and think clearly as he drove the Honda Accord he had stolen two streets north of his house. He came out from between two houses and saw the Accord with the engine running and door open, then just jumped in. He needed to get away from the cops kicking in his door and then he’d decide where to go.

  How had they found him? He hadn’t even seen anything about Detective Levine on the TV yet. Somehow he’d left a clue pointing in his direction. It was maddening to think some flunky cop had figured out who he was and where he lived.

  He fumbled with the radio dial but heard only music this time of night, no news. Traffic was light as he cruised the streets of Jacksonville keeping an eye out for police cars. He made an assessment of what resources he had with him. He had credit cards in his wallet, but using them would mean he could be traced. That left him with just over ninety dollars in cash. He might risk a stop at the ATM later, maybe throwing a misdirection at the cops by getting cash from a ATM machine south of the city, then driving north.

  When he saw the sign for Denny’s, the idea of some food and coffee to perk him up overwhelmed any instinct to just run blindly. The fact that the parking lot was empty and it might give him a chance to see the lovely little Maggie Gilson once more aided his decision.

  As he walked into the restaurant, Maggie greeted him with a smile as he took one of the empty stools at the counter. There were no other customers.

  Maggie smiled. “Hey there, where you been?”

  “Just crazy at work. How are you Maggie?”

  “Good.” She studied him. “You okay? You look tired.”

  He thought about the question for a second and said, “A pipe broke in my house, so I have to spend the night out and see about it tomorrow.”

  “Hungry?”

  “I am.”

  Maggie smiled and said, “Let’s feed you, then we’ll find a place for you to stay.”

  William Dremmel managed to smile at the young woman’s perky attitude.

  John Stallings felt his body sag as the events of the last few days caught up with him. William Dremmel’s home was a beehive of activity as more cops arrived and neighbors came out on the street of the quiet neighborhood.

  Patty Levine had insisted on staying while both Stacey Hines and Dremmel’s mother were transported to the hospital. Patty wore her own clothes they’d found in the closet of the little dungeon. They were probably evidence, but at this point no one cared and it made Patty smile.

  Outside the house, Lieutenant Rita Hester was already talking to a few reporters to get out the word about the man they were looking for and warn anyone else out there to steer clear of William Dremmel. The TV stations were going to flash both his driver’s license photo and one found here at the house.

  Stallings joined Patty and Mazzetti as the paramedics prepared to move her.

  Mazzetti said, “Anything?”

  He shook his head. “A kid a few blocks over reported a stolen Honda. It’s out over the radio. Every cop in the city is looking to be a hero tonight.” He turned to Patty. “How’r you feeling?”

  “Like a truck hit me.” Her smile told him all he needed to know about her chances for recovery.

  Stallings said, “You’re a real hero. Stacey is telling a great story.”

  She shook her head. “If you guys hadn’t arrived…”

  “You got out of his dungeon and made enough noise that we found you. You did great.” He smiled.

  She took his hand and gave him that motherly look she sometimes had. “Have you been at home enough? I know how important they are to you.”

  He looked down at the floor.

  “John, I hope you didn’t let this case distract you from the kids and Maria.”

  He shrugged, too embarrassed to answer. “Don’t worry about it. You’re safe now.” Then he said, “It’s almost over.” He looked at Mazzetti. “C’mon, Tony, let’s hit the street and see if we can find this creep.”

  A paramedic raised the gurney with Patty on it.

  Mazzetti looked at Stallings. “No, I’m going to the hospital with Patty.”

  Stallings smiled and slapped Mazzetti on the back. “Good for you, Tony.” He also felt a pang of guilt for not choosing Maria over the case.

  Mazzetti said, “Be careful, Stall. Catch him, but don’t do anything stupid.”

  Patty backed up that statement with a hard glare.

  Maggie Gilson knew her manager didn’t like any of the employees watching the little TV in the tiny rear office, but the manager wasn’t here at eleven at night. No one was. That was why Maggie had Cesar, the night cook, watching the counter while she sat in the swivel chair in the rear room of the Denny’s watching the twenty-inch TV.

  She liked the Friends episode that always ran from ten-thirty to eleven, then sometimes she switched over to Scrubs for a few minutes. Tonight, right at eleven o’clock she started changing the channels and stopped at the local news when she saw a big banner in red letters that said, “Breaking News.” Usually she cared little about what went on around her, but this caught her attention when she saw a photo on the screen. She thought she knew the man in the photo as the announcer said, “William Dremmel is the focus of a man-hunt for questioning in the Bag Man serial killer investigation.”

  Maggie studied the photo and realized it was the guy who had been in the restaurant earlier in the evening and said a pipe broke in his house. That was bullshit. She’d told him about the J-Ville Inn.

  She hurried to the employee lockers and grabbed her small Vera Bradley purse, then dug in it until she found her cell phone. Maggie scrolled through the numbers until she found the one person she knew she could trust. Cops could be tough, stupid, arrogant, and, occasionally helpful. But this guy understood people, and he’d know exactly what to do.

  She dialed the phone and waited until after the third ring she heard a familiar voice say, “This is John Stallings.”

  Maggie kne
w he’d fix everything, just like he always did.

  William Dremmel lay back on the hard bed in room 6 of the J-Ville Inn. The small hotel off U.S. 1 had twelve rooms with the office in the middle. Six rooms went off in one direction and six in the other. Dremmel had paid the scruffy clerk fifty bucks for the room on the end without paperwork or fuss. Dremmel promised to be out by six when the owner showed up.

  He’d changed out the tag on the Honda he had stolen, then, as added security, parked the car three blocks away. The only things in the room with him were his stun gun and the clothes on his back.

  At dawn he planned to get money from an ATM south of here, then double back and head north. He’d already screwed up his experiment and the life he had; there wasn’t much else that could go wrong except getting caught. He planned to resist that as long as humanly possible.

  With time and some ingenuity he hoped to start over again somewhere. Maybe out west or Canada. Now he just had to get away, no matter what.

  John Stallings was almost to his house when his phone rang. He flirted with the idea of just letting it ring and checking the message in the morning, but he couldn’t help himself and dug it out of his pocket. He flipped it open just as he slowed in front of his house. There was still a light on in the living room.

  “This is John Stallings,” he said as his usual greeting.

  “Hey, Stall, it’s Maggie Gilson.”

  He had to think for a moment to place the name and face. Then he remembered the cute little runaway who now worked at a Denny’s. “Hey, Maggie. What’s up?”

  “I think I might know where the guy on TV, that William Dremmel, is.”

  He paused, then said carefully, “Where’s that, Maggie?”

  “He was in my Denny’s earlier this evening, and I mentioned a motel on U.S. 1 called the J-Ville Inn.”

  “I know the place, just north of Edgewood Avenue.”