The Perfect Woman (4 page)

Now Mazzetti took in the lobby as he nodded to the various crime scene investigators, making them feel special and not just like nerds here to get in the way. Two uniformed Jax Beach cops had secured the perimeter, and he was pleased to see one of them was smart enough to start a log of who had entered the scene. The Indian hotel manager sat quietly behind the main counter, hypnotized by the activity as if he were watching an episode of
Law and Order
. All these little hotels were owned by dot-heads named Patel or Singh. All the politically correct types down here called them middle easterners. Mazzetti didn’t buy into shit like that.

When Tony Mazzetti got accepted to Flagler College in St. Augustine, he never considered he’d go into police work; he just wanted to live in Florida for a while. As a kid he dreamed about it, but the idea of a cop running on stick figure legs made him cry up in his room until his P.E. coach, Mr. Shepard, introduced him to weight training. Once in school he never thought he’d stay down here in this fake, Southern shithole. Quiet St. Augustine was a far cry from his native Brooklyn, and Jacksonville hadn’t been any improvement. But he had gotten hooked on the idea of being a cop, and the Jacksonville S.O., despite being stuck in the middle of this swamp of rednecks, was a good, well-paid department. And Mazzetti knew he was the smartest of the entire detective corps. East or West zone.

Mazzetti had risen through the ranks at the Sheriff’s Office by taking every assignment he’d ever been given seriously. Whether it was community relations as a patrolman in the upscale tract of Mandarin or narcotics in the downtown slums or crack-devastated Justina Street, Tony Mazzetti treated every case like it was the biggest one he ever handled. Until it was cleared. He cleared ten burglaries on one guy caught in a similar crime. He once closed out five robberies with one mope holding a gun in the same neighborhood. He was a master of clearance rate and the only way to do that was to work hard and use your head. When the national average for solving burglaries was 25 percent he was clearing simple B&Es at almost 80 percent.

Sure he liked arresting the actual perpetrator of a crime. It was satisfying every time he put a killer behind bars. But he didn’t want any unsolved cases either. That was why he drove the forensic people so hard on a scene. He wanted nothing left to chance. He was known as the “King of Homicide.” A royal title that befitted him. Royalty at thirty-eight, not bad.

Now, after assessing the room, Mazzetti cleared his throat and called out in his fast, sharp Brooklyn accent, “All right, folks, we got everything in place, let’s get to work.” He looked at the photographer. “Wally, start your survey out here. Tina, do a video from the outside all the way up to the storage room door.” He paused to see who moved first. “We’re gonna need fibers from the room and body, and”—he looked at the hotel manager—“I’m gonna want to talk to you personally.” He couldn’t count the number of things he’d ask this little guy; Security video, strange guests, records for everyone checking in the last two weeks, access to the storage room, who the other clerk was. The list went on, and he wouldn’t miss any of it.

Satisfied he’d made the appropriate impression with the crime scene geeks, Mazzetti strutted toward the door marked off with bright yellow crime scene tape, slipping on a pair of surgical gloves without losing a step, waiting to see what they had before donning a full white biohazard suit. He pushed the door inward, then froze when he saw the small, feminine face staring up from the opening in the zippered duffel bag. The L.T. had said it was a body in the storage room of the hotel, not one inside a suitcase in the storage room. This changed everything. Immediately Mazzetti realized the implications for the case of a body they’d found in a suitcase last month. The brass had kept that one quiet, and now Mazzetti saw how badly he’d screwed up by clearing the case as an overdose. This body made it obvious he had written off the last case too quickly. A screwup that could haunt him. This could potentially change his career if he didn’t handle it right. Holy shit, this was why the lieutenant asked how he wanted to handle it.

Mazzetti stepped out of the room to catch his breath. Knowing all eyes were on him, the senior homicide detective reached for a notepad as he returned to the lobby and took his time flipping through the pages. The first six sheets were notes on an article about the British defeat at Yorktown. At this moment his writing hobby seemed much more promising than his career as a homicide detective.

He had to get his shit together and start these humps moving on the scene. He stood up and carefully said, “I want fibers from that duffel bag too.” Mazzetti gulped a breath, clapped his hands. “C’mon, people, let’s get moving.”

Mazzetti hoped this wasn’t the last time he got to handle a scene like this.

William Dremmel sat in a booth at a little sports bar named the Fountain of Youth, ignoring his dry burger and greasy fries as he daydreamed about his former girlfriend, Lee Ann. That was one fine girl. Not to mention how far she advanced his research. He felt as if he were on the brink of discovering the perfect combination of drugs to hold a woman in stasis indefinitely. Just the thought of it made him smile. Then he heard a voice say, “You doin’ okay?”

The waitress’ bright, pretty smile made his troubles melt away as he gazed at the young woman for a moment, soaking up the light she gave off, or at least the light he saw. He could always spot the right woman.

“Just thinking about everything I have to do.” He smiled, knowing his Ralph Lauren shirt, a size too small for him, showed off his biceps.

She smiled again, her white teeth and pink gums radiating health. He’d never see a girl like her in his pharmacy. As he studied her, he saw no physical attributes that would throw off his dosages.

She said, “Well, I’m right here if you want more to drink or something else off the menu.”

William glanced around the quiet bar area to make sure no one noticed him talking to her. “What’s your name?”

“Stacey. What’s yours?”

“William. How long have you worked here?”

“About two weeks.”

He leaned toward her slightly and said, “Why don’t you tell me about yourself?” He already saw the important stuff, like she was only five foot one, clean, curvy, and pretty.

She glanced at her other occupied table, saw the elderly couple happily chatting over their New England clam chowders, and took the stool next to him.

Her voice had a youthful tinge of excitement. “I just moved down here from Ohio and fell in love with the ocean. I’ve been going over there every day.”

“Which beach?”

“Neptune Beach.”

He nodded, “I like that one too. How do your parents feel about you living all the way down here? How do they know you’re okay?”

She looked down, her face clouded for a moment. “That’s one of the reasons I stayed. They’re way too protective and I mean, I
am
twenty-one. I call them once a week, but if they knew exactly where I was they’d be down here bugging me to come home.”

“You’re here all alone?”

“I had my girlfriend Marcie with me, but she’s homesick and is gonna move back this weekend.” She paused, then added, “But I’m staying for the sun and beach.”

He processed the information, careful not to say too much yet. He didn’t want her blabbing to Marcie. Instead, he decided to wait until Monday to really start working her. She was definite girlfriend material as well as a perfect research specimen.

John Stallings had seen it all in the course of his career, and like all major crime scenes, this one spiraled into an organized chaos quickly. Of course in the early days of his career they didn’t worry so much about the high-tech biohazard suits and other protection from blood-borne pathogens. Now there was a separate class on it for his refresher training every year. A new cute crime scene tech carefully sketched out the lobby for future use in court. He noticed the young, uniformed, Jax Beach cop stare at the pretty crime scene tech’s face. As she concentrated on her work, her tongue stuck out the side of her mouth like it held her lips in place. A tall, skeletal photographer named Wally, wearing a full biohazard suit, snapped digital photos near the storage room. Stallings knew the majority of photos were of Lee Ann Moffit in the bag. He knew the enterprising crime scene photographer moonlighted shooting weddings and birthdays, because he had once seen him at his cousin’s wedding using a slick digital with a “JSO” property sticker on the side. The photographer’s secret was safe.

This was the first time Stallings had ever looked at a corpse of someone he knew. The young woman had played lacrosse in the same league as Jeanie four years ago, and when Stallings had found her as a runaway he had bonded with the girl’s mother. It wasn’t too long after Jeanie had disappeared, and it felt satisfying to use his experience to help someone else.

He missed those warm Sunday afternoon games, when problems seemed so far away. He’d sit in a folding chair while Lauren and Charlie romped around the edges of the field and Jeanie drove for a score. Lacrosse was a good outlet for his oldest child’s determination and energy. Maria called it stubbornness. That was about the time Jeanie started showing how entrenched she could be. The threat of punishment had little effect on her. Privileges like TV and telephone meant nothing to her. She would sit out groundings silently. After his own childhood, Stallings would never have considered physical punishment.

He still searched for her, or even a hint of her. He had to keep his efforts quiet, because he could never be assigned to his own family’s case. But he knew a boatload of other missing persons cops around the country, and they all tried to help. They ran down silly leads he heard on the streets, checked regularly in homeless hangouts, and had her photo up in every police station from Miami to Seattle. Stallings even watched every documentary on runaways in the slight chance he might notice Jeanie in the background of one of the scenes. He had been more overt just after she disappeared but quickly realized he was alienating investigators and screwing up the search more than helping. What was he expected to do? He was a father.

But those warm Sunday lacrosse games and the terror of Jeanie’s disappearance were a long time ago. Stallings’s main interest now was getting involved in this homicide case. Not like a lapdog or some rookie errand boy, but as a real part of the investigative team. The regular homicide detectives got the real assignments. He’d given up his slot in the unit and now had to find a way to worm his way back in. He knew to get ingrained in the case right now so he couldn’t be denied when he asked to work it with homicide.

Patty had written the probable-cause affidavit for the creep now only known as “Joe Smith” who had checked in with the girl. He’d used every tired excuse Stallings had heard before. “I thought she was eighteen. It was consensual. She doesn’t look like a little girl.” Fuck him and all the predators that look for these girls that get turned around or have to leave home for some reason. This wasn’t even his own personal bias, it was the common view of cops who saw it day in and day out. Just the thought of a middle-aged guy and a thirteen-or fourteen-year-old made him sick to his stomach as he thought about Jeanie and where she might be.

The public had shown an odd interest in predators with the TV show where a reporter lured them into stings. Somehow the show didn’t convey the true creepiness of these lowlifes. People even laughed at the antics of some of the numb nuts on the show: one man stripping down in the kitchen, another returning even after being stung already. Stallings saw no humor in it. This was an epidemic as far as he was concerned, and he wished justice could be both harsher and swifter on these pusbags.

Looking out into the lobby, Stallings saw the lead detective, Tony Mazzetti, standing on a chair to be seen and heard by everyone. He stated a few obvious concerns, in his Brooklyn buzz saw of an accent. He didn’t want anyone inside the tape that didn’t sign the log. So what? He wanted the crime scene guys to take their time with the bag and the room. Anyone would’ve known that. Finally, no one could talk to the media. That meant no one except him. In fact, that was really why he was on the chair in his fancy suit and monogrammed shirt; he was giving the TV cameras a chance to shoot some interesting B-roll before he got sweaty and had to take off his expensive coat. He was such a media hound the other homicide guys called him the “King of Homicide.” Everyone got a nickname. But this jackass didn’t realize everyone was goofing on him with his title. His tailored suits and time in the gym building his arms and chest made him look like an extra in a Martin Scorsese film each time he shoved his way in front of a camera.

Mazzetti was a good detective even if Stallings hated to admit it. He was good for the opposite reason that Stallings was. He didn’t care about people. They were either victims or perps or witnesses, not mothers or sisters or uncles. Guys like Mazzetti looked at the family of homicide victims as not much more than a bundle of DNA to supply samples so some lab tech could advance a case. It wasn’t even like the bullshit that TV shows peddled. All the DNA evidence in the world didn’t help in a murder if you didn’t have a suspect. Most cases were broken by detectives who knew how to interview and could sift facts from crap in an instant. Mazzetti could interview, interpret what lab reports might mean to a case, and get his face in the newspaper, but he didn’t know shit about life. He had no idea what it felt like to lose a loved one or see what one act of violence could do to a whole family. Mazzetti was out to solve the case, no doubt about it, but he missed out on the real value of it, the satisfaction a cop could find by knowing that someone might rest a little easier because of what they did. He was the kind of cop who kept score and rubbed it in people’s faces. He was a glory hound.

Stallings knew this asshole would resist assistance on a homicide, and his history with the well-dressed detective wouldn’t help. But Stallings could work a room and knew there had to be a way to slip in on the case. Mazzetti just had to think it was his idea, or someone above him in the chain.

Briefly, Stallings considered what would happen to his family if he got involved in homicide again. Although his wife didn’t openly blame his long hours for Jeanie’s disappearance, he felt her contempt in between rehab stops or when sorrow just overtook her. He didn’t like the idea of missing Charlie’s soccer practices either, but he knew himself, and this wasn’t something he could forget about and move on. Now, more than ever, crimes against young women hit him like a truck. He settled down at a table knowing that sooner or later Mazzetti would have to come to him. The question was whether to let the detective in on his plans to join the case or wait until after he could call in a few favors.

Ten minutes later Stallings watched Mazzetti strut toward him, saying, “Another lucky break for Detective Stallings.”

Stallings knew his big arrest of serial killer Carl Cernick years earlier bugged the King of Homicide, so he didn’t bother to take the bait.

Stallings said, “Just good police work, Tony.” That would bug Mazzetti more than anything else. He hated that Stallings was a local celebrity because of the case.

“You got anything to add, other than you smelled her, then checked the duffel bag?” He rolled his brown eyes to indicate that it wasn’t really police work that led Stallings to the body.

Stallings had a lot to add, but for now he said, “I’ll write up a report on it. I know her.”

“What? How?” The cool detective couldn’t hide his surprise. He tried to cover it by smoothing his thin mustache, then pulling the cuffs of his expensive shirt.

“First, I knew her from my daughter’s lacrosse league a few years ago.” He had to take a second to swallow, then said, “She was a runaway after that, and I found her.” He paused and added, “Twice.” He kept his eyes on the dapper detective, looking for any hint of what he was thinking. Mazzetti ignored the work going on behind him as he locked gazes with Stallings.

Finally Mazzetti said, “So the last time you saw her was working the ‘runaway roundup’?”

Stallings nodded, still trying to get a fix on what this guy was thinking.

“She a hooker?”

Stallings resisted the urge to punch him. “She did what she had to, but I had heard she was clean the last few months. She even had a job at a copy place.” He purposely didn’t offer more.

“You know her boyfriends or anything?”

He shook his head. “No, I hadn’t seen her in a while. She turned eighteen last year, and her mom stopped filing the missing persons reports.”

“You talk to the mother since?” Mazzetti managed to make it sound like an accusation.

Stallings waited as Mazzetti stopped to take some notes. There was a rough sketch of the floor with a few dimensions, list of potential witnesses, and five lines of scribbled words. When the homicide detective looked up again Stallings knew what he was going to ask. It was perfect for his goal.

“You wanna make notification?”

Stallings didn’t want to seem eager. No cop wanted to tell the family one of their kids was just found dead, especially if the parent couldn’t add anything to a death investigation. Every cop learned that two areas could get you in real trouble real fast: death notifications and missing kids. You never put off either task.

Finally, after making Mazzetti twist in the wind a while, he said, “Yeah, I could tell Lee Ann’s mom. Probably better coming from me anyway.”

Mazzetti relaxed slightly, sucked in a breath, and said, “Thanks, Stall. I’ll be busy here for a long time anyway.”

“Who’s helping you on this?”

Mazzetti looked over his shoulder at the crime scene techs and a couple of detectives, then turned back to Stallings. “Don’t you worry about it. Homicide has got this covered. You can make notification, but remember to tell me if the mom can add anything.” He stood up.

Stallings nodded to Patty and stood up too. The start of a migraine blossomed somewhere deep inside his brain. It was getting late and he felt the need to check in at the house. God knows what could happen if he were too late. That’s why he preferred working the seven to three shift; sometimes he’d go 10-8, or in-service, on the radio right from his house and could manage to be home before either of the kids rolled in from school. Today wouldn’t be one of those days.

Mazzetti said, “Go find those runaways.” His stupid way of making a joke. It was childish, but so were a lot of cops.

“Tony, you don’t need to be a dick. I like the assignment.”

The homicide detective looked away, stroking his trimmed mustache, “That what happens when your homicide career is based on one lucky grab?”

Stallings smiled. “That may be true, but I’m still the only one in the room with a medal of valor.” He didn’t wait to see the effect of his response.