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 amp;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 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,
