The Perfect Woman (14 page)

He turned to Lori, who was organizing the filled prescriptions and said, “You got a long shift today. Let me take you to a good lunch. You have a full hour break, and it’s a little bit of a ride, but they have great burgers.”

“Do they have fish too? Because I haven’t been eating anything with legs.”

“A vegetarian? I didn’t know.”

“I eat seafood too. I just saw a special on the Discovery Channel about slaughterhouses and decided I didn’t need the bad karma.”

“I saw fish on the menu, so you’re safe.”

“Wow, that’s really nice of you, Billy.” She turned and touched his arm. “You are a good guy.” Her smile gave him ideas better left alone.

Peep Morans’s real name was Walter Moranski and he’d lived in Jacksonville for nineteen of his thirty-nine years. He’d moved here from Detroit after a misunderstanding looked like it would turn into a rape charge. He thought a change of scenery and different name may throw off the cops long enough for the whole case to just fade away. He actually only shortened his last name; he got his nickname “Peep” for his unquenchable thirst to watch women urinate. Since he mostly lived on the streets, he knew women who lived on the streets and had no choice but to relieve themselves wherever they thought they had privacy. Peep had figured out where those spots were likely to be and set up covert vantage points all over the downtown area.

Sure he’d been caught over the years, that’s how people knew to call him Peep, but he’d never been arrested for it. He had a rap sheet for minor drug violations and loitering but not for spying on women. During his first arrest in Jacksonville he gave the name of Walt Morans. He had a fake Georgia ID card in that name. Since he’d never been arrested or fingerprinted back home in Detroit, this was the only record of him. So now the whole world knew him as Peep Morans, and he liked it just fine.

He enjoyed Jacksonville, with its mild climate and friendly people. He liked being a small-time pharmaceutical drug salesman. He got most of his stash from a guy who could buy it wholesale from a relative in the pharmaceutical business and then marked it up accordingly. What he liked best about his specialized role in the drug market was that the cops didn’t really care much about him. They focused on crack dealers and would thump them on a regular basis. Peep had been stopped with twenty or so pills and the cop would just make him throw them down the sewer rather than go to the trouble of determining what the chemical in the drug was or if he had a script for them. It was a sweet setup. For now Peep lived in a little apartment in Arlington that was nice enough to bring the kind of women he desired home. He ate okay and didn’t worry too much about going to jail.

His clientele had changed over the years. For a while he catered to suburban moms who liked their Percocet and Vicodin without having to fake an injury for a doctor. Now young people liked the pharmaceuticals too. He adjusted his marketing plan and was doing fine as long as he got to see a lady pee every couple of days.

On this clear day he was waiting on a corner he’d staked out for himself near Union Street, a few blocks from the big Shands Medical Center, enjoying the sunshine and the cooler breeze off the Atlantic, when his world took a sudden turn for the worse.

As he leaned back on a decorative cement corner piece of an older office building, his eyes closed while he felt the sun warm his face, he heard a man’s voice say, “Hello, Peep, how’s business?”

Peep’s eyes popped open to the scariest possible sight: JSO Detective John Stallings in his black Impala with the window down. He looked as calm as if he were ordering a McDonald’s double cheeseburger from the drive-thru, but Peep knew that guy was no ordinary cop. He’d discovered that the hard way a couple of years ago, and that was why he felt like he might shit in his own pants and every fiber of his muscles told him to run as fast as he could. He’d rather be arrested than face this crazy fucker again.

He rolled to the side and started to run. No one knew the downtown like him, and he had plenty of hiding places. He’d gladly turn himself in at the jail if it meant he could avoid a confrontation with Stallings. He cut between buildings where the Impala couldn’t fit, looking over his shoulder as he did. Peep didn’t see the car or any sign of the detective. Just the thought of the tough cop made the arm that he broke three years ago start to ache. The first time he’d met Stallings he didn’t know who he was but found out quickly when the detective learned that Peep was selling Vicodin to his wife. She had a secret habit, and Peep happily sold her ten pills. Then, a few days later, he sold her twenty. The next day this dude who was built for the corner-back position, lean and fast but strong, stepped up to him in the middle of the day right on the street. All he said was, “Sell to Maria Stallings again and this will happen to the other arm.” Then he grabbed Peep’s left arm, twisted it behind him, and slammed an elbow into it, snapping both of his forearm bones cleanly.

Then he spun Peep around and looked at him. “You know who I mean? Maria.”

Peep knew the hot-looking Spanish chick. He nodded vigorously.

“You gonna sell to her again?”

He shook his head.

“I’m her husband. My name is John Stallings, and I’m a detective with JSO. You wanna complain, call it in. But I want you to know how serious I am. Are you convinced?”

Peep nodded his head as he fought the vomit wanting to spew out everywhere. He’d never had something hurt so bad it made him want to puke. Peep knew serious when he saw it, and this crazy dude was serious.

Over the last couple of years he’d heard more and more about Stallings. People either loved him or hated him. As long as you didn’t mess with the runaways he treated you okay. Peep didn’t bother runaways, but his history with the detective told him he was doing the right thing running until he wanted to puke from exhaustion instead of pain.

He made it to the edge of the Trinity Rescue Mission and started to slow down as he approached a little hutch in the bushes he used to spy on women across the street who couldn’t work up the courage to enter the mission. He took one more look around, then ducked into the bushes, plopped onto the hard clay ground, and took a deep breath.

Just as he was thinking,
that was close
, he heard a man’s voice almost next to him. He snapped his head to see John Stallings lounging in the corner of the wide space under the bushes.

Stallings made no move toward him but said, “You can run as fast as you want, Peep. All it means is that you’ll be tired when I break your leg. Or you can sit still a moment and listen to what I have to say. I’m just looking for information.”

Peep knew the man kept his word, and if he said he wasn’t going to hurt him at that moment he felt pretty safe.

Peep managed to squeak out, “What do you wanna know?”

“Anyone buying a lot of Oxy or have any Seconal?”

“Why?”

“It’s a homicide investigation.”

“Thought you were in Missing Persons.”

Stallings smiled and said, “It doesn’t matter if I’m in sex crimes, I need the info, and you’re gonna give it to me.”

Peep knew the man well enough not to ask, “Or what?”

William Dremmel had a plan, but it required some luck. He’d driven Lori from the pharmacy to the Fountain of Youth sports bar at noon and made it in under fifteen minutes. He had to get her back to the store by one o’clock. The next lucky break was that Stacey Hines was working, and they were seated in her area. Unlike his other visits, the restaurant had a crowd today at lunch. Having Lori with him made it less likely people would single him out if the cops asked questions after he took Stacey as a test subject. He also hoped that allowing Stacey to see him with an attractive young black woman would ease her mind about him when it came time to ask her over to his house. He’d make it clear that they were just coworkers, but he knew how women thought, and seeing him with someone would give her the signal that he wasn’t a lonely, creepy single guy even if that was the truth.

Now Stacey was walking toward them, a sway in her hips that made him smile. She saw him, and her face brightened until she noticed Lori. She still had a perky grin as she walked up and said, “Hey there.”

“Hi, Stacey. I liked your food so much I brought my friend from work, Lori.”

Lori just gave her a quick smile and nod.

Dremmel quickly picked up an odd vibe from his coworker. Had he misjudged their relationship?

Stacey leaned in closer to Dremmel. “So you two work at the community college together?”

He was happy she had bothered to remember the facts of his life. “No, at the pharmacy.”

Lori had lost her smile and looked Stacey directly in the eye and said, “And I’m in a hurry. Could you just bring me a grouper sandwich?”

Stacey wrote it down and turned to Dremmel.

Maybe this hadn’t worked out the way he had wanted. And now he looked at Lori in an entirely different light.

Earlier in the day Tony Mazzetti had been frustrated. He’d taken his usual partner, Christina “Hoagie” Hogrebe, with him to talk to the manager at the Beaver Street Wendy’s. Not only could the guy identify the girl from the photo the M.E. had provided, he told Mazzetti she’d been an employee and hadn’t shown back up to work. He didn’t report her absence because he thought she just quit and didn’t say anything.

Mazzetti had taken Detective Hogrebe with him because he wanted another permanent homicide detective to be in on what might be a huge break on the case. Stallings may have been lucky seeing the girl, but it would be the follow-up that helped the investigation. Instead, they found the girl had filled out the application using a fake name and social security number. She was trying to stay under someone’s radar.

The application said she was Tina Marshall of Jacksonville, who was twenty-two years old, and provided the social security number of a girl who died at sixteen in 1977. The same number had been used on several employment applications at the store. The manager just needed warm bodies to work and didn’t much care about references or backgrounds. He also didn’t seem too surprised she’d been killed. He knew she stayed wherever she could each night. The manager pretty much felt it was none of his business. They had questioned him and everyone in the store about who she had eaten with the night she disappeared, but no one remembered her eating or talking to anyone. The one security camera hadn’t worked in over a year, and trying to find her real name was a dead end.

Now, a few hours later, Tony Mazzetti felt much better, because he liked being in charge. It wasn’t a power thing. He just liked getting things done, and no one knew how to cut through all the bullshit like him. The lieutenant had given him five detectives to head over to the community college and see what they could find out about the first victim, Tawny Wallace. He’d sent two of the auto theft guys to the registrar to see about her schedule and get a list of classmates. Two other detectives were interviewing her teachers and any friends they could find on campus to see if she associated with anyone in particular, and he had asked Patty Levine to come with him as he got a feel for the place and see if he could stumble across anything of value. It also gave him a chance to chat with her without that ass Stallings or any of the other dumb shits working temporarily up in the unit.

After a few minutes of wandering, Patty looked at him and said, “What are we looking for, Tony?”

“I’m trying to get a feel for the foot traffic through the different departments so when we start talking to witnesses we know our way around campus and know if it’s reasonable that someone might notice a stranger.” That was all true and he’d been doing exactly that, but this diversion to the science building gave him some time with her. He had a feeling that maybe Patty Levine could be good for him. It’d been a long time since he’d tried to hook up with a woman.

He held the glass door for Patty as they entered the long, wide science building.

Patty looked down and said, “Looks like they got a deal on part of a University of Florida rug.”

Mazzetti noted the orange rug and nodded. All it would take was an equal length of blue carpet and it would look like a hall in Gainesville. They checked two offices, but there was no one around. The classes looked about half full and the building seemed to have regular traffic. Seeing the young girls in their tight blouses and capris made him think about his own age. When did college students start to look so young? He felt out of place and uneasy here.

Then a blond man in his early thirties nodded and smiled as he walked past and turned down a narrow corridor. Patty said, “I’ll see if there’s an office this way.” She turned and walked the opposite direction.

Mazzetti nodded, then caught up to the blond man and said, “Excuse me.”

The man turned. He was about five seven and built with thick shoulders and biceps that taxed his button-down shirt. “May I help you?”

“Are you a teacher in this department?”

“I am.”

“My name is Tony Mazzetti,” he said as he reached back and pulled his badge and ID from his rear pocket. He’d done it so many times he had it timed to coincide with his saying, “From the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office.”

The man stared at them and said, “What’s this about?”

Mazzetti thought his tone was a little odd and paused before saying, “I couldn’t find anyone in the office down the hall.”

The man nodded and said, “We’re a little shorthanded and everyone has a class right now. Is there something I could help you with?”

“Not really anything specific. We identified a student as the victim in a homicide.”

“Oh dear Lord.”

“Tawny Wallace. Did you happen to know her?”

He thought about it, then slowly shook his head. “No, not off the top of my head. I only teach part time. This semester I have two classes, so I don’t see everyone on a regular basis.”

“Who would?”

“Professor Sporano is the head of the department. He practically lives here.”

Mazzetti nodded as he wrote down the name. He liked seeing an Italian in charge. It seemed like that was the only way to keep things running smoothly down here in the South. Then he asked, “What do you teach?”

“I mostly run labs for biology and teach classes on natural and earth sciences.”

Before he could ask anything relevant to the case, a bell rang and the classes let out. Crowds of young people and a surprising number of older ones flowed into the main hallway.

The man said, “Sorry, I have to go now.”

Mazzetti said, “I understand.” Then he looked at the man. “What happened to your eye?”

“Basketball.”

“Rough game.” It was a black eye turning to yellow.

“Especially here. The students don’t cut me any slack.” He smiled and turned toward his office.