The Perfect Woman (7 page)

It was early, too damn early for a meeting, but this was what he wanted. At least he thought this was what he wanted. Shit.

Detective John Stallings sat in front of the lieutenant’s desk with his mouth shut and his eyes on the senior officer in the room. He didn’t like the idea of Tony Mazzetti and a young female homicide detective sitting out of his line of sight, but that’s how it shook out when he walked into Lieutenant Hester’s plush office with a view of a new condo going up across the street. One of the detective sergeants sat next to him. The regular homicide sergeant, a stand-up guy named McAfee, had just retired, and this was a nervous temporary admin sergeant from computer crime. Rita Hester stepped from behind her wide oak desk and sat on it directly in front of Stallings, folded her considerable arms, and leveled a gaze at him.

“This is what you wanted, Stall. You’re on the case. In fact, we’re setting up a task force to find this killer.”

“A task force for a single homicide? Why the fire-power?”

The lieutenant’s eyes flicked over to the sergeant, then back to Stallings. “It may not be so simple.” Her voice steady and calm.

“How so?”

“This is the second victim in a suitcase in thirty-five days.”

“What? I never even heard about the other one.”

The fact that no one in the room said anything told Stallings that someone had fucked up. From behind him, Mazzetti chimed in. “We thought the first one was an overdose. No big deal. You know how it is.”

Stallings didn’t bother turning to face him. “You claimed a body inside a suitcase was an accidental overdose? No, Tony, I don’t have any idea how something like that is. I know that helps the clearance rate, but it sure fucks up everything else.”

The pudgy computer crime sergeant turned and said, “Stall, she was naked with no ID. We honestly thought she had overdosed in a drug house and someone decided to dispose of her in the bag. There was no sign of trauma, and she had Oxycontin in her system. A lot of it.”

“What about Lee Ann Moffit?”

“We’re waiting on the toxicology, but it looks like the exact same thing.”

Stallings started to stand. “Are you fucking kidding me? We gotta get on this before this asshole kills someone else.”

The lieutenant held up her hand. “Not so fast, Stall.”

He eased back down into the chair, waiting to hear that other shoe that always seemed to drop. But after hearing that the same killer had struck twice he doubted she could say anything that would be more fucked up than that.

The lieutenant considered her words, then nodded. Her pretty face hid the fact that on the street she was known as the “Brown Bomber” for her devastating strikes with her baton. “You’re on the case, but this is Mazzetti’s show. You’re gonna look at leads related to the runaway culture and use your contacts there. You will assist Detective Mazzetti on leads as he sees fit. You will not give Mazzetti any shit in front of the other detectives. And you will keep your mouth shut about the how the first homicide was initially handled.”

“You mean how it was fucked up?”

“I mean that if I have to waste time explaining how to act for one more second you can go back to the ‘runaway roundup’ and we’ll somehow manage to carry on without your help.” She stared him down. “Do you understand everything I just said?”

Stallings swallowed hard. “Yes, ma’am, I understand.” It was hard to argue with a good cop.

The lieutenant cracked a brief smile. “Good to hear.”

Now that all issues were settled, Stallings leaned forward in his chair to leave, but as he started to stand up the lieutenant placed a hand on his shoulder to have him wait.

Mazzetti hesitated when he saw Stallings was sticking around, but a glare from the lieutenant chased him out the door.

The lieutenant waited a moment as the door clicked closed, then looked down at Stallings. “We need to talk privately for a minute. Just Stall and Rita, not detective and big-black-bitch-who-can-bust-him-back-to-patrol-if-she-needs-to.”

She was still funny. “Sure, Rita, anything you need.”

“The girl you found with the predator yesterday. I know you popped a crack dealer from Houston Street and then sent him on his way with no official action. But just like every other time you kicked someone’s ass, you said or did something that kept it quiet. You’ve never had a serious complaint against you. You get results. That’s what we need on this case—results.”

“So you want me to break the rules?”

“I want you to find this killer. Talk to all your snitches, scare the street dealers, I don’t care. Mazzetti will do most of the investigative work, find where the luggage was bought, see if some pharmacy is missing Oxycontin, find forensic links between victims. But you’re going to be doing your thing too.”

“What about following the book?”

“We will follow the book. But John Stallings is going to be John Stallings no matter what any book says. That’s what I need.”

Stallings wasn’t certain, but it felt like the first time anyone in command had ever told him it was time to kick ass and take names.

By the time John Stallings marched into the homicide squad bay in the detective bureau, Patty had already grabbed her computer and the metal pad case where she stored everything. The dented and scratched case said a lot about Stallings’s partner; she was practical, didn’t care what others thought, and was tough as nails, just like the case. The back of it had the indentation of a smart-ass pimp’s forehead for suggesting Patty would be a good addition to his stable. Luckily the man didn’t want his reputation to suffer because a petite, pretty, female cop had knocked him unconscious, and he never said a word about it. But everyone knew after that not to smart off to the diminutive detective from Crimes/Persons.

Stallings trudged down the hall nodding to several of the detectives already in place. Tony Mazzetti intercepted him at the doorway.

“There’s a dress code here, Stall. This is homicide.” His smirk would’ve earned him a punch on the street. His trimmed mustache and perfect hair moved in unison as he broke into a full smile.

Stallings gave him a smile as he shook his head. “A suit like you? Too hot outside.” He started to push past.

“C’mon, Stall, we got an image. Your pullover and the whole exposed badge and gun on the belt thing doesn’t fit in.” He straightened Stallings’s collar. “Maybe just a shirt and tie would be okay.”

Stallings stared at him. “Where do I sit, asshole?”

Mazzetti just pointed to a desk stuffed all the way inside the old, unused holding cell that was a remnant of the building before the jail was built next door with booking areas and interview rooms. A gray computer monitor took up an entire side of the desk.

He ignored the ancient, lingering urine smell and then scooted the desk out into the squad bay, careful to balance the gigantic monitor as he did. He didn’t look up to see who was laughing or who was in on the little joke. When he sat at the desk with his files on top, he noticed most of the detectives were watching him. There was another joke on its way. He opened the bottom drawer to put his files in order and saw it immediately. Sand. All the drawers were filled with fine, white sand. Someone had carted up bags of the stuff to dump in his desk.

He knew how to play it off. He’d pulled the same prank on rookies coming in the bureau before. Stallings rolled back his chair, left the files where they were, and headed out the door.

On his way he looked over at Mazzetti. “I got a lead on the case. I’ll call you if I make an arrest.” He knew the vague hint at a break in the case would eat at the lead detective.

A smile crept across his face as he walked out of the D-bureau. Behind him he heard Mazzetti calling, but he kept walking right into the open elevator door. What timing!

Patty Levine wasted no time grabbing the two thin case files on the previously unrelated deaths and started to do her thing. She was an organizer, a task-oriented, detailed, precise investigator who often found things in records that other detectives missed. She’d located more than one runaway by painstakingly looking through e-mail records the family had provided, then determining who might hold the key to the missing child’s whereabouts. She’d used bank records to help uncover a drug suspect when she was pulled out of patrol for a temporary duty assignment, or TDY, in vice and narcotics.

It was that kind of investigation that fit her pack rat mentality. It also fed into her mildly compulsive personality. It made her a standout cop in a profession where men liked to stand out.

Now she looked at the reports, the early lab results, and the pile of photographs, to see if the connection was obvious beyond both victims being found inside luggage. Immediately she saw it. Both dead women, more like girls, were short. As a gymnast, Patty had been small for her age until a growth spurt shot her to a towering five foot five. She had still managed a scholarship to the University of Florida for her ability on the open floor exercises but she just didn’t have the drive to go any further. The pressure of the competitions had also worn on her. Her second year was the first time she learned about the relief the right pharmaceutical could provide. After she suffered back spasms, a doctor prescribed the muscle relaxer diazepam, under the name of Valium, and the effect on her anxiety was stronger than the effect on her tight back. She lost her fear of competition but also lost any edge she had, which, added to her height, meant she quickly fell off the list of potential champions. The photos of the dead girls reminded her of teammates.

Just thinking about her past and competitions made her reach into her knockoff Coach purse for her tiny travel carrier of Xanax. She popped one and swallowed it dry, her eyes dancing around the crowded squad bay quickly to make sure no one noticed.

She’d seen Stallings come in and set up shop at a nasty old desk on the inside of the bay. The whole room looked like a set out of a 1960s TV police show with thin, ratty carpet running down the center of the room and cheap linoleum near the old holding cells that were now filled with ancient files and rotting boxes of records. Why was the sheriff punishing the detectives in Crimes/Persons when the rest of the building looked like a modern, clean, efficient office complex? Patty didn’t get it.

Focusing again, Patty laid out the photos of the two dead women and stared down at them, wondering how something like this really affected John Stallings. Although he didn’t talk much about his missing daughter, he had to wonder if Jeanie’s photo was on some cop’s desk, dead, discolored, and unidentified. She hadn’t known Stallings three years ago when his daughter’s disappearance was a major news story and the S.O. did everything possible to find her. She had heard the rumors that the girl had been gone quite a while when they finally reported it, and some of the officers, the ones who didn’t really know Stall, speculated that there was something fishy about it. She knew it was all bullshit, and she knew that one of the things that drove a guy like Stallings was his sorrow over losing Jeanie.

A voice snapped her out of her tunnel vision.

“I’m glad you got assigned to the case.” It was Tony Mazzetti, and the cute smile seemed at odds with his reputation or even the way his Brooklyn accent changed from funny to harsh.

Most people raised in the South didn’t view an obvious accent from north of Maryland as friendly and inviting. She smiled back. “Thanks.”

“You’ll see how things run pretty quick, but keep an eye out for practical jokes. The guys pull ’em on everyone who joins us.”

She let out a laugh and said, “Doesn’t every unit?”

He nodded, his brown eyes focused and clear. She’d seen him directing most of the detectives and looking over at the material that was starting to flow into the bureau. Mazzetti had pulled all the reports of drug thefts for the past three months, the missing persons reports for young women, any reports of assaults where a man approached a young woman and tried to get her to leave a public place with him. She was fascinated at how much raw data had to be sifted and how this one guy seemed to be doing it all.

She gestured to the photos on her desk. “I’m just getting familiar with the case and looking for a pattern.”

“We’ll have a meeting later with specific assignments. Then you’ll have plenty to do.”

“Will I be working with my partner, Stallings?”

His face darkened. “No, he’s been told to run some specific leads alone. We have a mountain of things that need to be done. I doubt we’ll see much of the master detective.”

Just by the phrase “master detective,” Patty sensed there was a bigger problem than she thought between John Stallings and Tony Mazzetti.

William Dremmel drove over the Fuller Warren Bridge to his Tuesday morning biology lab class at the community college. He bumped along in his tan Nissan Quest. It gave him the appearance of a family man, but the missing middle seats gave him plenty of storage room, and the minivan never seemed to have any mechanical problems. It was as invisible a vehicle as there was. No one noticed a bland minivan tooling along at the speed limit. In a sense the van was like him, unnoticed by almost everyone. It could hold a suitcase or a pallet of decorative sand from Home Depot with equal ease. Easy to vacuum out and wash down, it was the perfect vehicle for him.

At the school he automatically set up the frog sections so students could prepare slides for the microscope. He was distracted by the image of the cute Stacey Hines, the waitress from Ohio who didn’t want to go back. The hours he’d spent on the computer discovering the little mysteries of the girl had been so satisfying that he’d experienced a near-constant erection since he first learned just how alone the young woman really was. Soon, after her roommate had returned to Ohio, he would step in and show her the attention she deserved. Just the idea of her living so quietly in his special darkroom made him grin from ear to ear.

He’d done some research on men who had been successful in endeavors similar to his own. Ted Bundy had escaped detection several times by cleaning his VW bug with chlorine on a regular basis. Of course forensics were a lot less sophisticated in the 1970s, but the theory was sound. Bundy went on to become a legend of American killers.

Dremmel knew that few people learned the lessons of today from studying history. That was what he tried to get across to his students; by studying the past you can avoid the same mistakes again. No one followed this concept: not presidents, not generals, and apparently not serial killers.

He’d been reading up on Jacksonville’s most recent serial killers. One of the killers, Paul Durousseau, had broken a simple rule: don’t let anyone see you with a victim. As a taxi driver, Durousseau had access to a number of victims, but one concerned family tracked their missing daughter to him. Jovanna Jefferson’s body had been found in early 2003, and the fact that she had ridden in his cab was the break the Sheriff’s Office needed to direct their attention to the former soldier. It was his troubled time in the army and violent disputes with his wife that convinced the detectives he was their man.

Dremmel had no criminal record. There was hardly any record of him at all, anywhere. He was truly the invisible man, and he had something else Mr. Durousseau didn’t: brains. He could outwit anyone looking into the disappearance of a couple of petite girls. Hell, he hadn’t even heard anything about Tawny Wallace since he dumped her over in Springfield. It was as if she had never existed.

The other local killer he had read about was Carl Cernick. The crazy Czech upholsterer had strangled four women over nine months when a cop named Stallings, who at the time was investigating some other crime, had found him. That was a huge element of luck, but Cernick could’ve survived it if he’d been prepared with a story and nothing to link him to the victims. Instead he had kept mementos, in this case, a finger from one of the victims. But that had more to do with being a psychotic than it did with being smart. Dremmel would avoid that problem, because he knew he wasn’t crazy.

He was a scientist.

Tony Mazzetti had tried to focus on assigning duties to the other detectives, but he kept wondering what John Stallings was doing and if he was more than just lucky. Stallings’s capture of Carl Cernick had seemed like the luckiest break any cop had ever had. That was the kind of arrest Mazzetti had always dreamed about making. Glory, news coverage, citation. Damn it, Stallings even got the medal of valor for making the arrest by himself. That’s the kind of thing that Mazzetti needed.

He knew these rednecks didn’t necessarily appreciate a New Yorker in their midst. But no one, not the lowest crime scene weenie, all the way up to and including the all-powerful sheriff, could say he wasn’t a great detective. No one had his clearance rates. No one spent more time keeping his shit straight. All he needed was a big, flashy arrest like the one Stallings had made. With something like that no one would care if he was from New York or a goddamn Arab. He’d just be the best fucking detective anyone knew.

He decided to test Stallings right away on his willingness to be a team player. He had the secretary call everyone involved in the case to be at a meeting right after lunch in the homicide squad bay. That way he could see what the detective was up to, show him who was in charge, and set the right example for all the lesser detectives who’d been sent to help on this case.