William Dremmel tried not to act any differently toward Lori while he sorted bottles of newly arrived pills, but she was clearly uncomfortable around him right now. He had made it through most of the morning when she finally appeared in the back like a ghost. No noise or warning.
“Have you asked your waitress friend out yet?”
He played dumb. “Who?”
“That cute little curvy thing at the sports bar.”
“Oh, her. I like the food at the bar, but that’s it. Why? Did you think I wanted to go out with her?”
“Don’t treat me like an idiot, Billy. I can sense that kind of stuff. I always could. I know when people are made for each other. I know when married couples are gonna divorce. And I know you got a thing for Stacey the waitress.”
“You even remembered her name. Good for you. But I have no intention of asking her out.” He looked up at her and missed her usual smile. “Can you tell when you’ve met the right person?”
“No, it doesn’t work on me. I’ve made more bad choices than President Bush. But I thought…”
“What’d you think?”
She turned. “I got someone at my register. I gotta go.”
He felt relief at her sudden exit because his life was complicated enough without juggling a relationship with a conscious woman.
Twenty-one
Stallings threw a plain, blue Windbreaker on to cover his gun and badge on his hip. He could’ve concealed them better, but he wasn’t undercover, just not advertising that he was a cop. This was where “Ernie” the prescription pusher was supposed to hang out as well as a good-sized group of street kids. In the light jacket’s pocket he had photographs of the dead girls. This was his specialty: missing girls. He’d turn up something.
He parked his unmarked county Impala in the vast, crowded lot of the Gateway Shopping Center and started walking over to Carlton Street. Although most of the homeless people didn’t hang out on the actual street, Stallings knew there were a number of camps in the bushes and brush just off the road as well as a couple of houses in the area that attracted street people for different reasons. He knew because he had entered several of them over the past two years looking for runaways.
A group of eight young people were gathered near the road in front of a house known for its drug traffic and high occupancy. He heard the young man closest to him say, “Look out, it’s a cop.”
There was some movement, then a female voice said, “Don’t worry, it’s Detective Stall. He’s looking for someone and it’s none of us.”
Stallings eased up to the crowd and smiled. “Hey, Sallie.”
“Hey, Stall. Who you looking for?”
“All I got is a couple of photos.” Some of the others had backed away from him. A tall, wiry youth had eased back to the house. Stallings took a moment to memorize his face and clothing. Anyone moving away from him like that needed a second look. It might even be Ernie, but he didn’t want a dustup out here, so he let the youth leave. He pulled out the photographs of Trina Ester and Lee Ann Moffitt and gave them to Sallie to pass around the crowd. A request to look at the pictures coming from her was more productive than if he had sent them around. All he needed was someone who knew them and saw them get in a car.
After a few minutes and a decent examination by everyone, Sallie looked back up at him. The leathery skin around her eyes and neck showed how the sun had aged her the last couple of years. He had once thought she was a runaway; now the street dweller looked more like the mother of a runaway.
Sallie said, “Nope, none of us has seen either of them. These girls look a little older than your usual runaways.”
“I’m helping out on another case. Someone killed these two. I don’t want him to get the chance to hurt anyone else.”
Someone muttered, “Bullshit.”
Sallie got right in the pudgy young man’s pimply face. “Back off, Kyle. Stall says he’s trying to help, he’s trying to help.”
“Thanks, Sallie.” He looked toward the small, flat-roofed house. “Who’s inside?”
“Just a few of the boys. They don’t get out much.”
“I better say ‘hey’ anyway.” He had started toward the house when Sallie called to him.
“Darryl Paluk is in there.”
He waved and nodded, appreciating the heads-up, but kept his steady pace to the front door. At the door he paused and mumbled, “Is this the day that changes my life?” Stallings knocked, then turned the handle and immediately opened the door and stepped in. The smell of pot smoke almost knocked him off his feet. The haze was so thick that sunlight coming in behind him barely made it to the nasty Oriental-style rug in the front room.
Darryl Paluk sprang up from a La-Z-Boy with surprising speed for such a muscular man. Then, as soon as he was standing, he relaxed.
“It’s just Stall. You said a cop was out front.”
Stallings looked over at the person Darryl was talking to. It was the same guy who’d slipped away. Stallings handed the photographs to Darryl, but kept his eyes on the young man. “You seen either of these girls?”
Darryl took the photos and studied them before handing them to a near-comatose Latin man sitting on the couch next to him.
Stallings pointed to the man he was interested in. “What’s your name, son?”
“Me?”
“Yeah, you.” He stepped closer.
“Ernie.”
“Ernie what?”
Ernie stood up from the couch. “Why?”
Stallings looked at him. He wasn’t used to queries like “why,” and he didn’t want to give up that Peep Morans had identified him.
Darryl shot Ernie a glare and said, “Chill out, man. He’d have already popped you if he was gonna.”
Stallings nodded to the big, dark-skinned man. “How’s the nose, anyway, Darryl?”
“Feels okay, but now I snore. You think if you hit me just the right way you’d set it back the way it was?”
“Hate to risk making it worse.”
“I guess.” The big man rubbed his nose. “Taught me to hide a runaway. Never do it again, I swear.”
Stallings turned back to Ernie, but before he could say anything, the trim, young man bolted to the back of the small house.
By the time Stallings rushed to see where he was headed, all that pointed to the man’s exit was the open rear door swaying in the breeze and more sunshine cutting through the smoke.
Tony Mazzetti fumed as he sorted through a stack of leads that had come into the office since the news had started covering the killings. His anger stemmed from that news coverage. Not that there was coverage, but that they said John Stallings was the lead on the case. Then to have that asshole deny it and the L.T. let him slide. No one ever called that guy on his bullshit. From kicking someone’s ass on the road to the disappearance of his daughter, there were questions that hung over him like storm clouds, but no one ever came down on him. It couldn’t be just that everyone liked him. Mazzetti knew he wasn’t too well liked, but that’s because he put the job first. Someone had to. But what kind of magic did Stallings have that kept him safe?
He took a moment to catch his breath. One of the problems was that he hadn’t gone to the gym this morning. He had steam he hadn’t blown off. Since he’d stopped using muscle-building supplements, he had hit the gym twice as hard. He didn’t want anyone to notice him shrinking. He didn’t want to end up looking like his uncle Vinnie, all hunched over and frail.
His mind was usually on work. This was a change. Everyone had problems. For the first time in a couple of years Mazzetti worried about one of his personal problems and he knew the role his sexual history had played in his
