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 planning 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
