The Perfect Woman (13 page)

He heard Rita Hester say, “Stall, we got another body.”

Stallings heard Patty say, “Holy shit, look at the news trucks. How’d they get here so fast?”

His throat went dry at the sight of the media vehicles. This wouldn’t help the investigation, and he knew from experience that it could make some of the detectives crazy and competitive for attention. The whole idea of a goat-fuck like this made his anxiety over finding Peep Morans move to the back of his mind.

“Someone probably put it out over the radio and it was a slow news day. What else are they gonna cover? The missile frigate docked at Mayport?”

“You think they’ve linked the bodies yet?”

“If they haven’t, they will, or someone’ll leak it.” Stallings pulled the Impala into the lot across from the wooded park. Yellow crime scene tape blocked the entrance and patrol units were parked at the corners of the woods to discourage anyone interested in a closer look. For now the reporters were behaving, crammed together in the designated media area roped off near the main road. Two helicopters circled overhead, giving the scene more of a Francis Ford Coppola feel.

He could see Rita Hester and Tony Mazzetti talking to a group of the task force detectives within the crime scene tape. It was a staged move to give the media some decent video and make the Sheriff’s Office look like they were throwing a lot of effort into the problem. Keep the soccer moms calm and give the realtors something good to say about the area. They used phrases like, “Our police force is outstanding and jumps on any problem that arises.”

Stallings was already in a bad mood from his encounter with Tawny Wallace’s Uncle Earl. His own childhood memories didn’t help things today. He had a job to do and had to move past his own issues. The idea that this creep had killed again made him realize how he’d blown his desire to stop the asshole before some other poor girl paid the price. Now this scene looked like a zoo, some family would be heartbroken, and Stallings felt like shit.

Patty looked around like a kid at the fair. “Wow, you ever see anything like this?”

“Yeah,” was all he said as he ducked under the tape and nodded to a patrolman, who almost saluted the senior detective. It reminded him of the circus he had endured after capturing Carl Cernick. Even his family got dragged into it as reporters hounded him for information.

Mazzetti looked up and motioned the two detectives over to his group. “I was about to go over what we’ve got so far.” He waited as they all crowded in, so he didn’t broadcast sensitive information across the crime scene to the media outside the tape. “We’ve got a young, white female, nude, in a suitcase.”

Stallings felt himself sag. He had hoped, by some wild chance, that maybe, just maybe, this wasn’t their killer.

Mazzetti added, “This one’s been stabbed.”

Stallings head jerked up, but he didn’t say anything because someone else said it for him. “A copycat killer?”

Mazzetti looked down and said, “Christ, I hope we don’t end up with two of these creeps running around. The body is already over at the M.E.’s office, and they know what to look for. But I gotta say my first gut reaction is it’s our man. She’s short, barely five feet, same age range and method of disposal. The media hasn’t caught on about the first two deaths. No chance someone just happened to kill a short woman and stuffed her in a suitcase.”

Patty said, “Why the change in method of death? This is more violent than the others.”

Mazzetti nodded. “That’s what we been talkin’ about. Right now I wouldn’t want to guess. There are two visible wounds. One in the upper abdomen and one deep one all the way through the neck from back to front.” He used his right hand on the rear of his neck to emphasize the angle of attack.

Stallings caught Patty processing the death and shuddering. All he could think was,
Welcome to homicide, kid
.

Mazzetti cleared his throat and stood a little taller. “The good news is that this girl might have gotten in a shot of her own.”

“How’s one punch good news?” asked one of the older detectives.

“There’s a cut on her knuckles and some blood and skin under her fingernails. We got some decent DNA samples and maybe even some marks on the killer. At least for a few days.” He sounded proud of the girl.

Stallings agreed. Maybe she was dead, but she gave them something to look for. He hoped whoever she was, they could identify her and bring some closure to her family.

They started to assemble teams to comb the woods for any possible evidence. Stallings knew how important tasks like this could be to a big case, but he still felt the urge to get out onto the street and turn up some kind of information that would end this quickly. He wanted the killer stopped. Making a case was secondary.

His stomach growled, but he knew he couldn’t eat.

Tony Mazzetti squatted to take a look at the pine needles on the edge of a trail where he believed the killer had dragged the body. Of course it had been trampled, but not too badly. After a jogger had noticed the suitcase and opened it, he turned on the afterburners back to the street and just happened to flag down a JSO cruiser. By the time the fat patrolman had crunched through the trail and then his sergeant and two other patrolmen who wanted to see what the fuss was all about, the scene had some contamination. Mazzetti shook his head.

It was a senior sergeant named Ellis who was smart enough to chase everyone out and wait for crime scene and homicide. Mazzetti thought the big sergeant was going to punch someone the way he was laying into the patrolmen for not being more careful. The Sheriff’s Office needed more hardasses like that. Christ, it seemed like they had been hiring social workers for so long that no one knew how to do police work anymore.

As Mazzetti looked at some orange string or carpet fiber near the suitcase, he sensed someone behind him. Looking over his shoulder he saw the extremely cute Patty Levine gazing out toward the news crews.

Mazzetti said, “Like vultures around a dead antelope.”

Patty jerked her head at the sound of his voice, her blond hair flipping like a model’s at a photoshoot. “Huh?”

“The media types love juicy crime scenes.”

“Yeah, I guess. I was just watching how all the cameras followed John as he walked across the lot. You think they realize he’s the guy that caught Cernick?”

Mazzetti sprang to his feet and stepped closer to Patty for a better vantage point. Sure enough, three camera crews were following Stallings as he ignored them and made his way toward his car.
Son of a bitch
, Mazzetti almost said out loud.
That guy gets all the attention, and it’s not right
. He’d worked too hard to let a lucky stiff like Stallings steal all the glory. He’d find this crazy-assed killer first if it took a twenty-four-hour-a-day effort.

He looked back at Patty to see if she noticed his aggravation and realized: she really was a knockout.

After he’d heard the news report, William Dremmel made a little detour to drive past the park where he had left poor, loud, obnoxious Trina two nights ago. He knew by the slow procession of traffic that there were other rubberneckers, and that would cover him well enough. He smiled at his realization that the old adage, “The killer always returns to the scene of the crime,” was apparently true.

He could only see a couple of uniformed cops from the road, but he noticed the news vans parked along the edge of the woods and it made his smile broader. He didn’t know why, but the whole idea of this much effort caused by his experiments made him feel special.

With a day’s worth of reflection, he was starting to believe he’d learned something during the whole Trina fiasco. One thing that he needed to correct was his knowledge of the brain and anatomy of the spinal cord. He’d spent his academic career dissecting cats, frogs, and snakes but hadn’t spent much time on human anatomy. The kind of labs and classes he taught revolved around basic biology, which treated humans as only one of the many species inhabiting the Earth. A very egalitarian, but not necessarily effective way to teach.

Although not as interesting or useful as holding a girl as she silently expired from one of his drug cocktails, Trina’s sudden death held an interest of its own. The way his knife blow to her neck just shut off all brain function instantly gave him other ideas for future research. But that would happen after he perfected the drug regimen.

He drove his drab, common minivan past the scene, unnoticed by everyone, then proceeded to the restaurant where Stacey Hines worked. By now either her roommate had gone back to Ohio or he’d have to look for a new subject. He wasn’t so desperate to risk being caught over a simple error like a roommate knowing his name or description.

Trina was a fluke, but he had gotten away with it. He’d worked hard to overcome his impulsiveness on the matter. Thank God his mother hadn’t rolled into the kitchen, where she could see the living room. No excuse in the world would’ve explained the blood smeared across the floor. He was also lucky no one from the Wendy’s had noticed them together.

He drove along, enjoying his feeling of power and satisfaction, then saw the little sports bar optimistically named The Fountain of Youth, even though the real fountain was supposed to be in St. Augustine, forty-five miles away. He turned a block early so he could come up from behind and see the lot where Stacey usually parked her ratty, rusted Ford Escort. He felt himself hold his breath as he took one corner, then another. He hadn’t realized how much he wanted her to be there. When he turned onto the street he could see the little car wedged in next to an overflowing Dumpster.

Dremmel parked a block away and made it look like he was going into a clothing store, then slipped back out and hustled down the empty street to the sports bar. He caught himself a half a block away and slowed down, because he didn’t want to seem too anxious even though Stacey was the only thing on his mind at the moment.

He paused inside the door and scanned the small restaurant. Two men sat at the bar watching a rerun of the Giants-Patriots Superbowl on the NFL channel. No one this side of Boston ever seemed to get tired of seeing the game over and over. Dremmel wasn’t even a big sports fan and he knew the details of the legendary contest where basic football skills beat arrogance and entitlement. At least that was the most poetic way he’d heard it described.

A young couple sat on the same side of a booth, shared some fries, and snuggled. In the far corner, the beautiful Stacey Hines stood in front of a table occupied by one old man with a comb-over that made Rudy Giuliani look like he had an Afro. He just watched her from a distance, her cute smile and lovely, graceful neck, the curves of her breasts and hips all contained in the little package that fit so nicely into his experiments.

He stepped in, nodded to the bartender, trying not to be too memorable. There was no other choice; he’d have to be incredibly lucky to catch her alone in the front of the restaurant. The first time had to have been a fluke. He wasn’t sure how to get around a potential witness other than to be calm and play it slow. Dremmel just prayed the man didn’t step out from the bar to take his order. He stole a glance at Stacey as she patted the old man on the shoulder, laughing with him as she took his order. Then he noticed the heavy man from the bar start to walk toward the open end of the counter. Was he coming to Dremmel to take his order? Jesus, no, prayed William Dremmel, as it seemed more and more obvious.

He looked back over at Stacey, who seemed to be finishing up her order. “C’mon, come on,” he mumbled under his breath.

The heavy bartender cleared the end of the bar, glanced over at Dremmel, and nodded.

“Shit,” whispered Dremmel.

The bartender leaned over the bar and said, “Stacey.”

She turned and looked at the bartender as he pointed her in Dremmel’s direction. She just nodded.

Maybe she doesn’t even remember me, thought Dremmel. Then, as she started his way, a smile broke across her cute face. The smile had a crooked quality to it, dipping on the right side, but that just made her more attractive.

She said, “Hey, you came back. I knew you’d like our hamburgers.”

He wanted to just jump in and ask if her roommate had really moved. It took all his concentration to say, “Yeah, it was great. How about the same thing?”

She paused and asked, “Which burger did you have?”

“I don’t remember.”

“How ’bout the blue cheese burger?”

“Perfect.”

She made a note of his Diet Pepsi order and then looked down at him and smiled. “What happened to your eye?”

He hesitated for an instant and then said, “Basketball. Took an elbow.”

“Looks like it was a rough game. Someone scratched you too.”

“Same play. He was trying to keep me from falling.”

“Does it hurt?”

“Not now.”

“I’m glad you came back.”

“Yeah, me too. Hey, didn’t you say your roommate was moving?”

“Yeah, she left Saturday.”

“You doing okay?”

“I guess. It’s a little lonely. You know how it is.”

He just nodded. He really did know exactly how it was. But maybe for not too much longer.

John Stallings had been home for less than five minutes when the news came on. Chicken with black beans and rice and a decorative ceramic bowl of steamed asparagus sat on the table, but no one had come into the dining room yet. The way he felt he couldn’t eat anything, no matter how wonderful it smelled. The image of Tawny Wallace and her uncle stuck in his head and mixed with his guilt over the new victim. It was guys like Tawny’s uncle and his own father that kept him from ever really drinking. Later tonight he planned to slip out to look for Peep Morans even if he was a long shot. He was meeting Mazzetti at the M.E.’s office in the morning to get a better idea of what happened to this new victim.

He paused in front of the forty-two-inch Samsung and watched as the news teaser came on. A long-range camera shot zoomed in, and the image was unexpected—his face at the crime scene. The announcer then said, “Is there a serial killer stalking the streets of Jacksonville?” The show’s opening music and credits rolled by.

Stallings stood frozen in shock. Why did they care about him out of all the people at the scene today?

Charlie yelled into the kitchen, “Dad’s on TV.”

Stallings turned to shush the young boy, but it was too late. Maria was hurrying out of the kitchen and Lauren was rushing down the stairs.

Maria said, “Why, what happened?” There was an edge of panic in her voice.

“Just a case I’m working on.”

Maria let out her breath and made Stallings realize she thought it might have something to do with Jeanie. She had almost turned to go back into the kitchen when the newscaster opened with, “Jacksonville homicide detective John Stallings has been called in to help on a possible serial killer who has emerged in recent months. The third body of a young woman was found in a park off Terrace Road in eastern Duval County earlier today. Reliable sources have told the Eleven News Team that all the bodies have been disposed of inside suitcases or duffel bags, earning this killer the nickname ‘The Bag Man.’”

Stallings snatched up the remote and shut off the TV before Maria heard anything else that might upset her.

From the stairs Lauren said, “The Bag Man,” out loud but to no one. It wasn’t with a sense of cool, it was just a statement of a new fact. She was old enough to understand what could’ve happened to her sister and that killers like this prey on runaways and the isolated.

Maria turned to him and said, “When did you go back into homicide?” Her tone said it all. She may not have paid much attention, but she knew an assignment like that would keep him at work longer and more erratic hours. The idea of him feeling a compulsion to stop the killer would play no role in her resentment for losing him to the job again.

“It’s temporary. Just for this case.”

“Is this why you’ve been gone so much?”

He nodded, not bothering to explain that he’d been trying to tell her for days now, and she hadn’t really acknowledged his odd schedule. Was she coming back to full reality and joining the family? He didn’t care if it took anger for her to connect again, he just wanted her back with them.

She steadied herself on the back of the couch and he knew what she was thinking. He knew the look. She wanted something. Drugs, booze, she was reverting to old habits that had helped her cope with life. Now was not the time to pick a fight with her over why he needed to be working in homicide.

She looked up at him and said, “I need to make a call.” She rushed past him and up the stairs, almost knocking Lauren out of her way.

Charlie said, “Where’s Mom going? I’m hungry.”

Lauren’s face told Stallings she knew exactly who Mom was calling and that it could be a rough evening around the Stallings house.

This wasn’t how he wanted her to find out about his assignment. Maria had blamed his long hours in homicide as a contributing factor to Jeanie’s disappearance. She never used specific words like “kidnapping” or “runaway” she always called it a “disappearance.” She also looked for the first, most obvious excuse, which was his job. Now, after so much healing, he was worried the effect working homicide again might have on his wife. Maybe the AA sponsor she was calling right now would be able to talk her down. He knew his family needed him right now, but what they didn’t realize is that he needed them even more.

He plopped down at the dinner table and tried to put on a smile for the kids. Inside all he could do was imagine what it would be like to corner this Bag Man and work out his anger issues once and for all.

Tony Mazzetti stood alone in the shadows of the trees near where the body of the girl had been discovered that morning. It was after ten, and no one had been around for hours. In the spooky stillness of the park, broken only by the occasional car passing slowly on Terrace Road, Mazzetti tried to imagine the killer dragging the heavy suitcase across the pine needles in the dark. Did someone see him late? Did he do it in the middle of the night? What was he driving to transport her? These were the easier questions and the ones he preferred to ask himself. Other questions such as, was she scared before she died or was it a surprise? Did she have dreams for the future? Does her family realize she’s missing yet? Those things could distract him from his duties on the case, so he tried to guide his thoughts away from issues like that. Instead, his mind had filed away things like the tangible evidence found at the scene. The orange string, the simple black suitcase that had to be twenty years old, the single footprint in the dirt that didn’t belong to an arriving cop, the possible DNA material, and a host of other physical clues.

Mazzetti had to admit he didn’t have the contacts or way with people that John Stallings did. He compensated by being thorough and putting in hours no one with a family could. When all was said and done he didn’t have anything in his life but homicide and the recognition he got for his work.

For now that was enough for him.

John Stallings followed the medical examiner’s comments, but his brain was hazy. That was the only way to explain it after staying up with Maria until the early morning hours, holding her as she swung through a spectrum of emotions that all led to a four-hour crying jag. He had even put off looking for Peep Morans, realizing how important this was. He tried to explain his new assignment and to put into words why he was doing it, even though he wasn’t completely certain himself. He would’ve said anything to keep her safe and at home last night. He would’ve said almost anything to just make her happy again. Anything except, “I’ll pull out of the Bag Man investigation.” He was hooked, and he knew it.

Now a smart-looking woman about his age with rimless glasses and blue eyes that caught the overhead lights like a mirror explained what the autopsies of the three victims had found in common.

She stood erect like a Marine and looked at each person present directly in the eye, then moved on to the next. “The first two victims had similar levels of pharmaceutical drugs in their system. But this latest one had a lot more of everything, including marijuana, traces of ecstasy, and even Seconal.”

“Who uses Seconal?” asked Mazzetti.

“Usually it’s closely regulated. It’s a heavy-duty sedative. Older patients with chronic problems might be prescribed it. But you don’t see it in common street use. I’d say that the killer has access to a source and knows what he’s doing. That’s not the kind of drug you just try out.”

“What about the stab wounds?”

“Very precise and with a great deal of power behind them. The marks around the wounds indicate that the killer drove in the knife with enough force to damage the tissue around the wound with his hand.”

Rita Hester looked at the M.E. and said, “Any theories?”

“On the knife? That’s your department. I would say the wound to the neck was probably unnecessary. The one in the abdomen came up and damaged the heart. She was high, which warded off shock, so she probably moved around but she wouldn’t have survived. I have no idea why he switched from drugs to a knife.”

Stallings said, “I think he just screwed up. She started to scream, and he stabbed her. Killing them isn’t his main objective. He’s got some other plan or else he wouldn’t go to the trouble of luring the girls away from where he meets them.”

“That another lucky guess?” asked Mazzetti.

The lieutenant’s hard look shut up Mazzetti and kept Stallings from making a comeback.

The M.E. nodded and said, “That makes sense, because the first two victims lived for some time with the drugs in their systems. I’d really try and find his drug source if possible.”

Stallings listened and took a few notes, but the discussion was unsettling to him. Besides Mazzetti, the M.E., the chief forensic scientist, and Rita Hester were in the small room. Rita looked imposing in a brown pantsuit and her pistol on her belt by her hip with a badge exposed next to it. He didn’t know if it was a subtle message to the M.E. that she was a working boss who was in charge or if she just decided to wear it like that.

Mazzetti looked at the forensic scientist, a stubby man everyone just called “Bud.” “What do you guys have, Bud?”

He cleared his throat and somehow just that action telegraphed his Southern drawl. “It’s too early on the DNA scrapings. We’re rushing it, but it’ll still be a week. We have a flake of skin from the wheel of the suitcase used in the first incident and the scrapings from this girl’s fingernails. We might get lucky with a match.”

“But there’s nothing in CODIS?” CODIS was the FBI’s database on DNA, the combined DNA index system. Like all police agencies the feds wanted a cool name for the toy.

“No, we checked. We’re also hooked up with the FDLE on it. They have the best DNA database in the country. If the killer has been looked at and a sample turned in, they’ll match it.” He cleared his throat again, then took an old handkerchief from his tight rear pocket and wiped his lips. “We got a few things you might want to follow up on.”

“Go on,” said Mazzetti, the impatience evident in his voice.

“The killer is smart. He sprayed WD-40 on the inside of the suitcase so we couldn’t lift any fingerprints if he left them. The only fiber evidence is the long orange string you found in the woods near where he left the body. We’re going to see what we can figure out about it and let you know. Also, the last two victims had decorative sand on their bodies. The one from last week had a few grains on her feet like she stepped on a path barefoot, and the newest victim had a little ingrained in her elbow as if she fell. The sand matches and you might, with some help from a geologist, figure out where it came from.”

Mazzetti looked at the squat man. “Anything else?”

“Cat hair, black cat hair was on all three victims.”

“He’s a smart killer, but he leaves cat hair on the victims? That seems sorta slipshod to me,” said Mazzetti.

“Not really. Cat hair is insidious. It creeps into everything. Usually no one notices, but when we’re combing through hair and searching armpits we tend to find everything.”

Mazzetti said, “So we got a guy with a black cat and fancy walkway that likes to see girls die slowly on drugs, but is now about a violent stabbing too. Great, just fucking great.”

The forensic scientist tossed an envelope onto the table next to him. “I had plenty of photos made up of each victim for your detectives in case they want to show them around or see if we’re missing something when we compared them.”

Stallings watched as Mazzetti pulled one photo of each victim out and stared at the three of them together. His stomach tightened when he saw the photo of the last, unidentified victim with colors dyed in her hair.

He said out loud, “I’ve seen her.”

Everyone else turned their attention to Stallings.

“She was eating at a Wendy’s the other night. I remember her hair.”

Mazzetti said, “Which Wendy’s?”

“Over on Beaver Street. I can go talk to them right now.”

Mazzetti held up a hand and said, “Not so fast, hotshot. I’m on this one.”

Suddenly it hit Stallings that the girl was eating with someone. He’d almost seen the Bag Man. Fuck! He’d been a few feet away from seeing this asshole’s face. Stallings felt a little light-headed as the idea wrapped itself through his mind. He hadn’t paid too much attention at the time, and Beaver is a busy street. What were the odds? But when he considered that both he and the killer were probably working the same areas of the city, the odds didn’t seem so great. He knew Mazzetti realized it as soon as Stallings had spoken up.

Mazzetti said, “Go look for another lucky lead.”

That was okay with Stallings. He needed something to occupy his mind and get the idea that he had let the killer slip by out of his head. He’d find his next witness today if he had to threaten every pimp and dealer in downtown Jacksonville. Someone would know where Peep Morans was hiding.

William Dremmel opened the store in Arlington so he could get in four hours before rushing over to the community college for his official office hours, then teach his Earth Science class. The one thing that cheered him about the change in routine was that Lori had also grabbed the early shift at the store. She was working from eight in the morning until close at nine that evening. He knew it was a tiring shift, but her graceful, slender body seemed to move with much less effort than most people.

“At least I have you to talk to for a few hours.” She smiled after the comment, and it made his whole body swell. She was a really nice girl.

“I’d stay for the double shift, but I have to get over to the college.”

“Did you see the police identified a victim of that killer as a student at your school?”

“No, I haven’t seen that yet.”

“There’ll be a whole lot coming out about the killings. One of the cable channels is starting to pick up on it. That prosecutor lady from Atlanta might even come down here. Could you imagine a big star like that right here in J-Ville?”

“Yeah, she’s big.” At first he liked the idea of the attention, but he had to be careful that it didn’t somehow interrupt his research. For the first time he wondered how it might affect potential subjects like Stacey Hines. Would she be worried about getting to know someone like him now that the whole world was learning about the Bag Man? He was a problem solver, and this was just one more hurdle to overcome. Then he had a great idea.