The Perfect Woman (27 page)

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.”

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 some 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’.”

Dremmel, about eight years old at the time, watched as Arthur’s head snapped up and he dove to one side, racing for the sliding glass door to the backyard. Dremmel scampered over to see what the Seiker girls were doing.

Then the story got murky for him. He’d heard a lot of speculation and stray comments from the police officers he had met over the following few days, but it was never crystal clear to him what had happened.

Officially his parents had been in a car accident that had killed his father and put his mother in a wheelchair for the rest of her life. But he knew the main flaw in the story was the accident part. His father wasn’t the kind of man who had accidents. He had increased his speed on Emerson Street, running the year-old Buick into the concrete support of the I-95 overpass, destroying the car, killing himself, but tossing his mother out to the side and into the middle of the road.

Until now Dremmel had not thought about that day and what it meant. The other lesson he learned from hearing the cops talk quietly to each other: They weren’t perfect either. They had no more idea of what had gone on and how the accident occurred than anyone else. William Dremmel learned that people could fool the police.

Tony Mazzetti scribbled furiously as he listened to Stallings on the phone, standing next to the squad’s crime analyst. Stallings checked the pharmacies that Patty had canvassed the past two days and, lucky shit like he was, turned up something.

Stallings sounded like he was jogging as he said, “I may have a name.”

Mazzetti finished writing down a list of tasks for the analyst and handed them to her. “I’m ready, what is it?”

“William Dremmel, D-r-e-m-m-e-l. White male with blond hair.” He gave the date of birth and identifiers.

Mazzetti paused, then said, “I think I know that name.”

“The pharmacist says he also works out at the community college teaching science.”

Mazzetti sprang from his seat in excitement. “I talked to him. He’s about five-seven and spends time in the gym. That means he could have known the first victim, Tawny Wallace.”

“And the pharmacy has a branch near the Wendy’s on Beaver where Trina Ester worked.”

“This could be our guy, huh, Stall?”

“More importantly, he could have Patty.”

Then Mazzetti remembered one of those little details that floats around in a cop’s head for no reason and pops up without warning. “Stall, there may be some forensic evidence, too.”

“What?”

“The orange string found near Trina Estler is industrial carpet.”

“So?”

“I remember where I saw carpet like that.”

“Where?”

“At the community college in the building where I spoke to this Dremmel character.”

“No shit?”

“There’s something else, Stall.”

“What’s that?”

“I saw him just after Trina Ester was found. She had a bruised knuckle like she’d punched someone.”

“Yeah?”

“William Dremmel had a black eye when I talked to him.”

William Dremmel carried a tray with vitamin supplements and several different narcotics on it. He had two separate, disposable cups of water to keep from cross-contaminating the subjects. He was trying to focus on the details of his delicate experiment, because his mother was in his head. Not just her but his whole, weird life seemed to have jammed itself into his conscious thought so that everything he saw reminded him of something else.

He was careful not to give any hint that sometime tonight Detective Patty Levine would be terminated from the experiment and moved out. He didn’t want to spook Stacey or give Patty any reason to act up. Both the women were alert and their eyes were on him but not with the defiance of earlier in the day. Had they accepted their role in the experiment?

He sat the tray down on the small night table positioned exactly between the two beds and smiled at each woman. “How are we tonight?” He waited for the sarcastic remark.

Detective Levine said, “My fingers are numb. Could you loosen the cuffs?”

He thought about it, noticing the conciliatory tone. He knew she’d noticed the stun gun he made certain was visible in his pocket. She knew the consequences of misbehavior. Finally he said, “After you’re out for the night, I’ll loosen them. It makes sense to reduce possible problems before they begin.”

“Thank you.”

It sounded calculated, but at least she was responding directly to him. It made him rethink his plan to terminate her participation in the experiment. It was interesting having both of them here. Maybe he was just overreacting because of the things his mother said and the memories she had brought up.

He picked up the clipboard he kept hanging on the wall near the small table and turned to the detective. “So, are you allergic to anything?”

“What if I said I was allergic to everything?”

“Then I’d test that theory tonight.”

She almost had a smirk on her face but relaxed and said, “No, no allergies.”

“Do you take any prescription drugs?”

“Birth control pills.”

“Nothing else?”

She shook her head.

“Excellent,” he mumbled as he filled in some of the columns on her page. She did look like a good candidate. He’d hate to be rash and pass up a potential test subject. He set down the clipboard and took two Ambien and an Oxy, then mashed them into a fine powder with the bottom of the one glass he used to mix all the drugs.

“What’s that?”

“Just a sleep aid. Don’t worry, I’ll change them up to be more effective and not build up a tolerance.” Dremmel pulled off the wool blanket to look at her naked body. She made no movement and didn’t try to turn or hide any part of her. “I have to make my best guess on the dosage based on your size and shape.”

“You look as if you appreciate nice shapes.”

He smiled at this woman’s wit. He scooped the powdered pills into the paper cup of water and turned toward her. He thought,
she might make a good subject after all.
He probably could keep both of them safely.

He held up her head for her to drink the drugged water and caught the slightest look from her and then saw Stacey peek across the room at them. They had a plan. They were involved in a conspiracy against him.

Right then he realized the detective couldn’t be part of the experiment.

This would be her only dosage.

It was dark by the time Mazzetti caught up to John Stallings at a deserted Chevron station a mile from William Dremmel’s address. He still felt the sting of not identifying Dremmel after he talked to him at the community college. He’d fucked up and couldn’t deny it or blame someone else. All the clues added up and he fit perfectly into them, but Mazzetti hadn’t seen it. He needed a guy like Stallings to point him out.

Before Mazzetti was completely out of his car, Stallings said, “Where the hell you been? We gotta get moving.”

“You gave me a lot of things to check, and I got ’em all right here.” He held up a manila folder crammed with papers.

“Did you tell the L.T.?”

“We got to confirm a few things before we get all the troops out here.”

“Tony, tell me this isn’t a glory grab on your part. We’re talking about Patty here.”

“Don’t pull that shit on me, Stall. You’re the one who says too many cops slow things down. Now look at what I found.” He laid the folder on the hood of his car and flipped through the first few pages. “This guy has never been arrested. Works part time at the community college and part time at this little drugstore chain.”

“Yeah, I knew all that.”

“Did you know one of his coworkers died the other night.”

“How?”

“The chick that was electrocuted over in Durkeeville. We thought it was an accident but there were some suspicious circumstances.”

“Like what?”

“She stepped in a puddle and supposedly pulled a CD player into the water at the same time.”

“And you guys closed it out without investigation. Jesus, you and your clearance rates.”

“Hold on, Stall. You’ve seen the squad. We got shit going on. There hasn’t been time to talk about murders when it looks like an accident.”

Stallings held up a hand in surrender. “You’re right, Tony. What else do we have on this guy?”

“Lives with his mother who gets disability. No police or fire service calls to the house or about the family.”

“Nothing?”

“Not even a noise complaint.”

“They’re either the perfect neighbors or someone’s keeping a low profile.”

“You been by the house?”

“Yeah, there’s a minivan in the carport and lights on in the main room.”

“Could it be the vehicle from the beach cam?”

“Looks like a million other vans.”

“You got any ideas?”

Stallings was a little surprised that the King of Homicide would ask for ideas. “It wouldn’t hurt if we got a good look at the house quietly, then decide if we need to take action.”

“Like get a warrant?”

“Tony, there won’t be time for a warrant if we see something that tells us Patty’s inside. We’ll have to act.”

“Didn’t you learn your lesson the last time we did that?”

Stallings was about to just move forward without him, then realized the homicide detective might have a point. An image of Maria flashed in his head as he was trying to decide what he should do about a warrant. He’d lost his decisive edge and did the worst thing any cop could do. He just stood there.