The Perfect Woman Read online

  “Don’t worry, Tabitha. I’m looking for someone. You’re not done for the night yet.”

  She placed her hand over her large fake breasts and smiled. “You scared the shit out of me. I thought you were a real cop.”

  Stallings smiled at the comment. Many of the young people Stallings looked for in missing persons got to know him as a person, not just a cop. He always talked to them before bringing them into a shelter or back to their parents. It was as much for him and his efforts to understand his own Jeanie as it was to help the kids. But they realized he was doing what he thought was best for them and they told their friends. After three years in the missing persons unit, he had a network in the city unlike any other cop. He may not have been able to work drug cases with informants like this, but he damn sure could find anyone that was in the city whether they wanted to be found or not.

  Stallings said, “What’re you doin’ out here anyway? I thought you were dancing over near Fernandina.”

  “I lost the gig and can’t renew my adult entertainment license yet.”

  “Why not?”

  She hesitated.

  “I won’t do anything, just curious.”

  She nodded and said, “I got paper on me.”

  “What for?”

  “Possession, failure to appear.”

  “Why didn’t you go to court, Tabby? You’re smarter than that.”

  “Just got caught up in things. I’m gonna take care of it, I swear.”

  He shook his head. “I’m out here because I’m looking for someone.”

  “Who?”

  “All I have is a name—Jamais.”

  She thought about it, her pretty face running through the database of names and aliases she’d learned while living in Jacksonville. Finally she shook her head. “Doesn’t ring a bell.”

  He made a note, then looked back at the young woman and noticed the makeup covering a mark on her neck. “What’s that from?”

  She looked at the ground.

  “Tabby, I’ve known you since you were sixteen. Tell me what happened.”

  “I was light on the take Monday night. My manager wasn’t too happy about it.”

  “Who’s your manager?”

  She looked up at him. “It’s nothing, really.”

  “Who is it?”

  “Davey Lambert.”

  Stallings knew the name and could picture the atypical pimp. He wasn’t known for his rough stuff and had some kind of computer sideline. He combined the two professions to become the wealthy king of Internet prostitution.

  “Why’s Davey got you out on the street? I thought he only worked online?”

  “He had trouble with someone and they knocked Davey off-line for a while.”

  “Knocked him off-line? How?”

  “Smashed up all his computers, tried to burn down that house he owns over on Beaver Street. He always thought it was funny selling pussy from a house on a street named Beaver.” She still had an engaging smile.

  “Hysterical.”

  “He ain’t so bad.”

  Stallings looked at her. “C’mon, Tabby. You were light, so he choked you.”

  “I’m tellin’ you, Stall, it wasn’t nothin’.”

  “Where’s he now?”

  “Why?”

  “Because I’m gonna kick his ass.”

  She smiled. “And you won’t tell him it was me?”

  “You know better than that.”

  She hesitated but not for long. Her smile spread at the thought of her pimp meeting up with someone like Stallings. “He’s at the house now trying to get the computers up and running. And he’s plenty pissed off. That’s why this happened.” She pointed to her discolored neck.

  Stallings smiled, handed her half the cash in his pocket, and said, “Take the night off, Tabby. Your manager is going on vacation.”

  William Dremmel stopped at a Wendy’s off Beaver Street after the pharmacy closed at nine. It had been a quiet night, and he’d spent the last three hours organizing one of the storerooms and tossing the newspapers and magazines that the vendors didn’t pick up after the periodicals were out of date. He liked that kind of work because it gave him a chance to acquire different pharmaceuticals for his experiments. No one noticed while he rooted around in the rear with crushed cardboard boxes. He could easily open a commercial tube of Percocet and Oxycontin while he was in the secure controlled-substance area because the fat pharmacist never bothered to lock up like he should.

  He also got his pick of three-month-old magazines, so tonight he grabbed two copies of Muscle and Fitness and a Playboy that featured the “Girls of the Southeast Conference.”

  Now he lingered over a Wendy’s spicy chicken sandwich hoping his mother would be fast asleep by the time he got home. Sitting in the grubby fast-food joint, watching the diverse parade of humanity stroll through, gave Dremmel a sense of his own accomplishments. These poor slobs would never get the chance for a decent education or to advance science like him.

  Outside the wide glass window he watched a roach scurry along the metal frame. This was not the part of town where the nicer restaurants stayed open long or the young business crowds gathered for a drink after work. This was the kind of area he would find a test subject some day. But it was someone inside that caught his attention. One of the workers had slipped out from the back with a burger and fries, eating quietly in the corner. She looked up and caught him staring. Even in the frumpy uniform he saw her perfect, small frame and cute, wide face. She had brown eyes with thick brows, and her hair had six or seven different colors dyed into it. On one side were patches of blue and pink and the other had white, red, and yellow. A rat-tail–like length in the back was pure black.

  Instead of looking away when she saw him or ignoring him like most women would, she smiled, displaying the line of bright, if not completely straight, teeth. Dimples formed at each corner of her mouth. Then she said, “You work over at the pharmacy, right?”

  Dremmel was surprised and just nodded. “I work at different branches on different days.” How had this girl slipped into his store and he not have noticed her?

  She picked up her tray and ambled over to him, plopping in the other seat at the tiny tabletop. “I’ve seen you behind the counter a couple of times when I’m checking out up front.”

  “So you’ve never come back to the pharmacy section.”

  “Never had to, yet.”

  She shot him a smile that showed a lot of intelligence and something else. Maybe a brashness he wasn’t used to. His thoughts of Stacey Hines faded for a brief moment as he looked into this girl’s face.

  She said, “I’m Trina.”

  “I’m, uh, Bill.”

  “You don’t sound so sure.”

  He forced a smile. “I’m sure.” Dremmel let his gaze turn toward the window and watched a black Impala slow down and pull into the lot.

  Trina leaned across the table toward him and whispered, “So, Bill, can you get any drug you want?”

  It was a question that threw all his carefully laid plans for Stacey Hines into a holding pattern.

  Ten

  John Stallings pulled his county-issued black Impala into the Wendy’s parking lot. His stomach had been rumbling for more than an hour, but he wasn’t sure the effect a Wendy’s burger would have on him. This stretch of Beaver Street had only a few restaurants, and Wendy’s was the best choice of the bunch.

  He pulled into an empty spot near the big bay window and glanced inside to see how busy the place was at this hour. One man stood in line and a few people sat at tables in the main dining area.

  A girl in the window right in front of him munched on a sandwich as her head bobbed in response to a question from her companion. Her multicolored hair swayed in every direction as she nodded. She smiled and her whole face lit up, reminding Stallings exactly why he was out here at this hour. He felt guilty detouring off the main case to seek retribution on a pimp for hurting one of his girls. But in the big scheme of thing
s Stallings really felt he was on this job to help people, and those he felt were most at risk were younger women working the streets in some way. Spending a few minutes scaring a pimp would help some women but wouldn’t necessarily stop the killer.

  Looking back up into the Wendy’s, Stallings watched the young lady finish her sandwich. The concrete pillar blocked his view of the other person at the table, but from her gestures and posture he guessed it was a young man.

  Moments like this made him wonder what it would have been like to see Jeanie in social situations. Dating, bringing boys by the house, growing up in front of his eyes. He knew not to dwell on those kinds of ideas, because they would crush him if he let them. He appreciated the smile on the girl’s face and then decided if he was going to take a few minutes away from the case to frighten a pimp, he better skip dinner to make up for it.

  Besides, hunger put him in a nastier mood to deal with Davey Lambert, the pimp who went too far.

  Patty Levine had lost track of time as she made call after call into every time zone in the country and pored over online catalogs of luggage and duffel bags. She had no idea how many companies made similar looking bags and that the number of outlets was in the thousands. She had narrowed the initial focus of stores that sold large bags to a small geographic area of Jacksonville and the surrounding area. She had a small map and marked from the Georgia border south to Flagler Beach and from the coast inland to Macclenny off Interstate 10. She liked this kind of work but more importantly realized no one else would put as much energy into it and might miss something.

  Just as she felt her stomach growl someone said, “You’re here late.”

  She turned to see Tony Mazzetti leaning in the doorway. His tie was loosened and his sleeves were rolled up almost to his toned biceps. This was the most casual she’d ever seen him.

  She scooted her chair all the way around to see him. “You should talk.”

  He smiled and said, “I’m used to it. I’m a homicide detective.”

  She let out a snort, even though she tried to control that sort of thing in front of good-looking men. “C’mon, Tony, don’t give me that shit. We’re all detectives.” To her surprise he gave her a cute, sly smile. Maybe he wasn’t the asshole everyone thought he was.

  “Really, you can pick that stuff up in the morning. You should get some rest. See your family.”

  “First, I can outlast you or any other homicide dick, and second, I have an automatic feeder for my cat. My responsibilities at home are met for the evening.”

  Mazzetti set his intense, dark eyes on her and said, “In that case, fill me in on what you’ve found so far.”

  John Stallings cruised the area near the house Tabitha had told him about. His stomach rumbled with hunger, but he was glad he’d skipped a Wendy’s burger. The house on Beaver Street was what Stall would consider a “sleeper” and proved just how crafty this Davey Lambert really was. But to a cop who had worked the street and paid attention, little things gave it away. It was a lot like when a cop tried to go undercover as a street person, but their shoes always gave them away. Cops could wear old, unwashed shirts from the Salvation Army, ripped off-brand jeans, lay next to the smelliest pile of trash this side of the Mississippi, but they loved their good running shoes. A pair of expensive Nike Air Pegasus or Asics Air Cumulus shoes would tip off street people as fast as driving up in a patrol car. This house was a lot like that.

  Set off the road, it gave the impression of being run-down, with high weeds in the unkempt front yard, paint flaking off the cheap siding, and a front door with the screen drooping down from one corner like a puppy’s ear.

  Stallings noticed the run-down house also had a new, interlocking roof that could withstand a category-five hurricane and still not leak a drop inside. The reinforced storm windows were tinted tempered glass, and the door behind the screen was reinforced to discourage home invasions and withstand storm winds whipping off the Atlantic.

  A surveillance system of linked cameras covered the front door all the way to the end of the driveway and a trip line ran along each side of the yard. A dark green H3 Hummer was partially hidden behind the house. Someone had invested a lot of cash to keep this house safe, dry, and very low key.

  Stallings didn’t try to hide his approach; he didn’t have time. He needed information, but he also needed to let this asshole know it wasn’t cool to choke women. It would only take him a few minutes out of his way. He whispered to himself, “Is this the day that changes my life?” He checked his pistol in a sturdy polymer holster on his right hip, then headed for the front door.

  As he started up the five wooden stairs to the porch, the inner door opened and a white guy wearing a bathrobe, with thinning blond hair, a goatee, and glasses stood in the doorway with the fake rickety screen door between them. He had the look of a college professor in his midthirties and was about six foot one with a little beef on him.

  Stallings said, “You Davey?”

  “Yep,” was all the man got out before Stallings threw a straight right punch through the screen and into Davey’s face, knocking the clunky man backward into the house.

  Stallings didn’t hesitate to jerk the screen door open and follow the dizzy man into the house.

  Davey was on his back trying to sit up when Stallings offered him a hand. Davey accepted without thinking and as he rose to his feet, Stallings head-butted him, knocking him into a sitting position on a small, expensive leather couch against the wall.

  “What the hell, man,” cried out Davey, checking his nose for blood. “This is very uncool. You don’t know the fucking week I’ve had.” He took a moment, then said in a quieter voice, “Who the hell are you?”

  Stallings calmly sat down across from him in a leather chair. “My name is John Stallings, and I’m a detective with JSO.” He crossed his legs like he was doing a TV talk show.

  Davey said, “You’re Stall? I don’t work with underaged girls or runaways. I swear it, man.” The pattern of the screen was embedded into his face where Stallings had punched him. It already looked like it might bruise in that odd, woven pattern. “Why’d you punch me?”

  “I don’t like pimps.”

  “I don’t like cops, but I don’t go around smacking them.”

  Stallings was sure he’d never met the man but was happy to know he had that kind of reputation on the street.

  The pimp said, “Tabby told me all about you and what you did over on North Broad Street last year when they had a sixteen-year-old girl working there.” Davey shuddered. “I run a different, respectable operation, mainly over the Internet.”

  “But you got girls walking the streets right now.”

  “I have to so I can make the bills. Some asshole knocked me off-line for a few days.”

  Stallings turned his head and looked in to the larger living room and saw six computers in various states of disassembly. He stood up to take a closer look. Davey followed him in.

  “You’re not busting me for prostitution, are you? I thought you had better things to worry about.”

  Stallings turned and made a fist. “This is an unofficial visit to make sure you don’t mistreat any of your employees again.”

  Davey held up his hands in surrender. “I know I’ve been a dick this week. It’s a reaction to having my home dissed and shit trashed. I swear it won’t happen again.” He looked around the room at smashed computers and lines ripped from the wall. “This cat from over near Springfield accused me of violating the first law of pimping.”

  “You stole one of his girls?”

  “He thought I did. I never even heard of no one named Lee Ann, and I told him just that. He and his buddies still wrecked the place.” He pointed to a corner that was singed black where a fire had started.

  Stallings placed a hand on his forearms to shut him up. “Whoa, whoa, did you say ‘Lee Ann’?”

  “Yeah, he went off on me about her.”

  “Lee Ann Moffitt?”

  “Man, we don’t use no la
st names, you know that. This dude said she worked for him part time and since she worked part time at a Kinko’s near here and he saw me in there, he thought I stole her.”

  Now Stallings knew that fate or karma or whatever you wanted to call it had brought him to this nerdy pimp’s house. “What’s the name of the guy who did all this?”

  “Franklin Hall.”

  “Describe him to me.”

  “Black gentleman, he could be governor of California with arms as big as my legs and short hair. Always acts pissed off.” He looked at Stallings. “A little like you.”

  “Where would I find Mr. Hall?”

  “Shit, man, I don’t know. He doesn’t check in with me.” Davey snapped his fingers. “He’s a freak for breakfast. Eats it every meal. Eggs, bacon, pancakes. He’s probably at some Denny’s or IHOP. Guy like that usually runs his business from a booth where no one bothers him.”

  “What’s he drive?”

  “Full-sized Hummer. Jet black.”

  Stallings looked at Davey. “Are Hummers the new Cadillacs for pimps?”

  “They show some class and power. And I can drive around three or four girls at a time for parties and special events.”

  Stallings headed for the door, then turned. “Remember what I said. No more rough stuff.”

  “I understand, sir. I swear it won’t happen again.”

  Stallings turned, satisfied he had made the world a little safer for at least a couple of girls. You had to pick your fights and measure your wins carefully in this business, and he had just been rewarded with a lucky lead on the only suspect they had right now.

  He looked up at the dark Jacksonville sky and whispered, “Thank you.”

  William Dremmel opened the door to his house as quietly as possible, hoping with all his heart that mother was asleep. Sound asleep. He should have realized when the woozy girl, Trina, flopped down onto the path next to the walkway in a fit of laughter that silence would not be accomplished without pharmaceutical help. He shushed her as best he could as he helped her to her feet. She was absolute dead weight as he yanked her arm.