The Perfect Woman Read online

  Right now there were no customers in the pharmacy area and he was using the free time to straighten up. He grabbed a commercial container of Vytorin and tucked it back onto the narrow shelf where the big sellers were stored. The whole time his eyes scanned the area picking up information he might be able to use in the future. That was the way his mind worked. It had earned him a 4.0 at the University of North Florida and a master’s degree eighteen months later from the University of Florida. That had been a rough year and a half, driving back and forth to Gainesville three days a week to cram in classes from early in the day until late afternoon. He still had to help his mother every evening and never felt like he was part of the “Gator Nation.” Just like he never felt like one of the group at the pharmacy.

  He picked up an information flyer on a new muscle relaxer to see how it interacted with serotonin reuptake inhibitors. He’d seen the big commercial container of them in the back but hadn’t noticed any prescriptions come across the counter yet. He tucked the flyer into his back pocket so he could study it better at home. He knew no one here was going to bother to read it.

  The tubby old pharmacist looked down from his perch to a young, well-dressed woman who he guessed was a “Chi-Chi,” which was the store slang for paying customer from the phrase “cash in hand with insurance.” He didn’t know how they got the longer “Chi-Chi” from that, but everyone used it to be cool. Besides, “Chi-Chis” weren’t something they saw very often in the small pharmacy. The woman listened as the old pharmacist used his condescending tone almost as much as he did on the free clinic patients.

  “Look, sweetheart,” said the man in the coffee-stained white smock. “This is a twenty-five milligram tablet. That’s low for Elavil, but you should start seeing the effects in a couple of days. Okay?”

  He stepped closer to the pharmacist and tapped the flabby man on the shoulder.

  The older pharmacist turned and glared at him. “What the fuck is it, Billy? Can’t you see I’m busy?” His red face almost glowed.

  Although it was a slightly lower tone than the pharmacist’s normal voice, William Dremmel cringed, knowing the customer could hear him just like the cashier and anyone else in the rear half of the store.

  Dremmel cleared his throat and whispered. “That blouse makes me think this woman might be pregnant.”

  “So?”

  “Elavil can’t be used by women in their first trimester.”

  The pharmacist turned his ruddy face to look at the woman, then looked back at Dremmel. “She’s probably just fat.”

  The woman looked past the pharmacist and said to Dremmel, “What did you say about pregnancy?”

  The pharmacist said, “Don’t worry about what he says. He’s just a stock boy.” He turned to Dremmel and said, “Get back to cleaning up.”

  Dremmel hesitated, but the woman turned and marched out of the store, so he had accomplished his goal. The pharmacist wouldn’t complain about losing a customer, because he’d eventually realize Dremmel was right. This wasn’t the first time Dremmel had kept him from making a potentially fatal error. He’d go back to cleaning up, but the psychological wound that porky pharmacist had inflicted sapped his energy. When would the other employees see this was just a part-time job for him? It meant nothing. If the community college would let him put his mother on the insurance, he wouldn’t worry about the little extra cash and cheap prescriptions he got from here. It sounded better to be a science teacher than a clerk at a second-rate, family-run, nine-store chain of pharmacies. But he’d been there ten years, since he graduated from UNF. At thirty-two he felt he should have more responsibility. At the community college he was considered young for a professor, even a part-time, contract instructor who usually ran the lab classes.

  He slinked back to the stock area and finished straightening up.

  The cashier, Lori, strolled past him and whispered, “He’s just a dumb old fart.” She smiled and winked. Her brown skin set off her white teeth in the most complementary way. She also stood in perfect contrast to his pale complexion and wispy, blond hair. Rogaine had helped him but not as much as he wanted. Lori added, “That lady is lucky you were around.”

  That made Dremmel smile too. Lori had taken one of his classes on Earth Science last year and knew his real profession. She was lithe and graceful at five foot seven, just about his height. She said she was twenty-three, but he had gotten into the company records and saw she was really thirty-one. Women and their vanity made him shake his head. It was this little secret he had that made him feel superior. He loved finding out information and hoarding it for himself. Secret things that took effort to find on a computer or by following a woman around. The only thing he had found that was better than hoarding the secrets was telling the woman everything he knew about her when she couldn’t do anything about it.

  He was still high from his last “girlfriend,” who he had finally discovered couldn’t last a full three days with all the different drugs he had pumped into her. She’d seemed hardier than that with her good biceps and healthy hair. He had traveled all the way to Jax Beach to drop her off. He knew how things worked. The Sheriff’s Office found the first body in their jurisdiction, now the Jax Beach police would be responsible for Lee Ann. That would screw things up, and he’d take his time to find just the right girl to take as his next “girlfriend.”

  He couldn’t resist putting the bodies in luggage as a nod to the cops that only one person was doing this. It wasn’t smart, but he recognized that and accepted it for the little grin it gave him from time to time. He was careful and knew they wouldn’t find anything that led to him. Still, he had a procedure for the girls and their disposal, and showing off to the cops wasn’t part of the equation. It was just something he felt like doing. So he kept looking for the right woman.

  Lori wouldn’t do because they worked together; she had family that would report her missing, plus she didn’t ever look down on him. That seemed so rare in a woman. Certainly his mother had pushed his father until he snapped. Man, had that fucked up his life.

  He thought about his first victim. She hadn’t reacted well to his Xanax and Percocet cocktail, just fizzling out and never really regaining anything close to consciousness, lying on the little bed like a lump. Her name was Tawny Wallace, and she had striking green eyes but not much of a figure—just a straight board with square shoulders. Her face was extraordinary, with delicate, precise features, high cheekbones, and clear skin. He’d found her at the community college but she wasn’t in either of his classes. That would have been a stupid mistake, and he didn’t make mistakes. She’d just asked his opinion of a schedule, and they started talking. No one had any idea they had even met. She was perfect from that perspective.

  Tawny told him about her family in Bunnell, an aunt and uncle she had lived with after her mom died of breast cancer when she was fourteen. Her mother’s sister had done all she could, but her uncle was an alcoholic who ran the house like his unit in the Marines. He hadn’t just retired from the service, they had asked him to leave because he was so tough. She’d moved out as soon as she turned eighteen and hadn’t spoken to her aunt or uncle in three months. Dremmel had been subtle but asked who she did talk to on a regular basis. The answer had sealed her fate: no one.

  After he took her to eat at Pollo Loco, a fast-food Latin chicken place, she had agreed to come home with him to watch his DVD of Sleepless in Seattle, her favorite flick. She didn’t even make it to the Empire State Building scene. Instead she had dropped unconscious on his couch, and the thrill to him was indescribable. To finally have a pretty girl at his absolute mercy. No comments about how much money he made or why he lived with his mother. Just blissful, beautiful silence. Then, after silence and lethargy became boring, he realized he might need to work on his drug combinations. He had access to anything he wanted. No one would ever know unless they started losing whole bottles of pills. His needs were substantially under the threshold where anyone would ever notice.

  The p
lanning he’d put into his scheme was meticulous and flawless and gave him confidence to know there was no way he could ever be caught. His years of study and natural intelligence would make it impossible for the cops to tie him to any deaths no matter how far he took it, even if he left each body in an identical American Tourister or duffel bag. He had his own methods to avoid detection beyond the simple steps of rubber gloves and a hairnet when he was dealing with the bodies. He had been careful to purchase the bags at a variety of locations using only cash. Thinking like that made him untouchable and above the law.

  The experience of holding poor, unconscious, flat-chested Tawny Wallace as she slipped from steady breathing to a slower and slower respiration until the life drained right out of her young body had changed William Dremmel forever. For the better. He now had a task to occupy his considerable intellect and needs.

  He now had goals, and all he needed were subjects.

  The cops had found Tawny in a Samsonite Jumbo Suiter more than a month ago. He had watched them take the bag after a quick survey of the area. The detective in charge, a well-built guy in a suit, rushed the crime scene people along, and they were out of the shopping center before much of a crowd had gathered. He thought that was just the way things worked in real life instead of TV.

  He wondered if he would ever hear anything about Lee Ann. She’d been a good girlfriend. She’d be hard to replace

  Lead Homicide Detective Tony Mazzetti adjusted his Joseph Abboud silk tie before stepping into the crappy little motel’s lobby. He had waited a few minutes after his lieutenant had verbally knocked the shit out of the Jax Beach assistant chief to ensure the Sheriff’s Office investigated this case. He wasn’t sure why the L.T. wanted it so badly. All she had said to him was, “Check out this body and tell me how you want to handle it.” It was an odd way to phrase a command. Usually the L.T. just said, “Keep me informed.” That was cool with him. Lieutenant Hester hadn’t worked many homicides as a detective and never told him how to do his job. She just wanted to stay up to date. That’s all any good boss wanted.

  He knew that jerk John Stallings had found the body, and Mazzetti didn’t trust that guy. Not the way his daughter’s disappearance was handled. Mazzetti never thought the circumstances or the way Stallings reported it were probed enough by the Sheriff’s Office, or as most cops just called it, the S.O. The whole fucking S.O. looked for the missing girl, but no one seemed to care about the conflicting stories or odd time line. Mazzetti could deal with him like he could any lucky schlub who seemed to stumble into one decent case after another. If Mazzetti had that kind of luck on the job he’d be a major by now.

  Mazzetti knew the importance of making an entrance. It gave the troops someone to look up to and let them know who was in charge. It made him feel like a prince walking into a royal court. He’d come a long way from skinny Anthony Mazzetti with legs like toothpicks and asthma that made him wheeze like an old vacuum cleaner. He decided a long time ago he’d overcome the puny body God had given him and excel at everything he did so no one could ever say shit about the way he looked and breathed.

  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.

  Three

  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 me
ntion 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.