Orleans. Her modern, plain condo building seemed out of place among the older, Southern-style houses with porches and tin roofs. As he pulled into the small lot he immediately noticed Patty’s county-issued Freestyle in a spot closest to her door. He didn’t see her Jeep anywhere.
Stallings slowly marched up the walkway, looking to see if there was any activity around any of the other condo units. He knocked on Patty’s door and waited, then knocked again and called out, “Patty, it’s John.” Then he called her again, but the phone went directly to voice mail. That was odd for Patty, who always wanted to stay in contact and was too conscientious about work to just ignore calls.
He turned to leave, dialing the office again to see if the secretary could reach her. He couldn’t think why she’d be ignoring his calls, but anything was possible. As he reached his car he stopped, looked up, and was surprised to see Tony Mazzetti getting out of his county Crown Vic.
Mazzetti said, “What’s wrong, Stall, need another source of info for your TV pals?”
Then without consciously knowing he would do it, Stallings punched Tony Mazzetti in the face so hard it knocked the larger man off his feet and onto the sidewalk.
Forty-two
Tony Mazzetti held his eye with his left hand, even though it didn’t ease the pain in any way. “What the fuck, Stall?”
“You run that mouth of yours and don’t expect to get hit?”
“Not a sucker punch.”
“I was standing in front of you and hit you in the face. That’s not a sucker punch.” Stallings offered a hand to help Mazzetti to his feet.
Mazzetti grunted as he took it and slowly rose. Blood pulsed through his head and seemed to circle his left eye, where the blow had struck hardest.
Stallings said, “What the hell are you doing here?”
“Looking for Patty.”
“Why?”
“Whaddya mean ‘why’? I just am.”
Stallings looked him up and down, then said, “Are you two a couple?”
Mazzetti hesitated on his answer mainly because he had no idea how Patty felt about it.
Stallings turned away and said, “Aw shit. I think I’m gonna be sick.”
“I was worried because I couldn’t get ahold of her.”
“I couldn’t either.”
“And the office hasn’t heard from her, so I came over to check. We were supposed to see each other last night. But…”
Stallings looked at him like he expected him to finish his sentence.
“But I fell asleep.”
“You stood up a girl like Patty. You really are an asshole.”
“Should we call in that she’s missing?”
Stallings thought about it, then said, “Is she missing or just avoiding us? It can cause a lot of shit to call in a missing person if she’s not missing.”
Mazzetti looked at Stallings and realized that was hard for him to say. For the first time he saw some of the dilemma Stallings faced the day his daughter went missing. He didn’t want to overreact either. There was no indication that anything bad had happened to Patty. Then he felt his stomach turn. That was the same thing he had told dozens of worried parents over the years, and he knew it wasn’t necessarily true.
Stallings’s phone rang and he had it up to his ear in a flash. “Stallings. Yeah. Really? Where?” That was the only part of the short conversation that Mazzetti heard.
“Was that Patty?”
Stallings shook his head. “No. A dealer named Ernie who has some info on the Bag Man. I need to go talk to him.”
“You’re not even on the case anymore.”
“Look, Tony, I didn’t make the call to Channel Eleven. I know who did. He used my phone. But it wasn’t me.”
“Even if I believed you, the L.T. makes those decisions.”
“She’s not around, and I’m going to talk to this guy. Then I’m gonna find Patty.”
Mazzetti was starting to see how this guy got so many things done.
William Dremmel was ready to enter the lion’s den, or a least the small room where he had two wildcats chained up. He’d made sure his mother was completely involved in The Quiet Man with John Wayne and Maureen O’Hara before he prepared himself to enter his lab. He still had a butterfly in his stomach over the memory he’d been trying to pull up. He knew it had to do with his mother and him. And he knew it was wrong in some sense. But he couldn’t nail it down. He had no models to compare his relationship with his mother with, so he had to go by his gut on many issues. His gut told him that she was not a typical mom. He felt certain the memory was more dysfunctional than drugging her most nights, but now he had a different emotion brewing in him, and he had no idea what it was or how to handle it.
He knew the old movie was one of his mother’s favorites and would keep her occupied for another hour and a half. That would give him time to deal directly with his lovely test subjects.
At the door to the lab, he stood with his stun gun stashed in the front pocket of his baggy cargo shorts. On a tray he had two paper plates with plastic spoons. Each plate was piled high with eggs and finely chopped ham. He had two glasses of orange juice and a plastic bowl of strawberries in an effort to vary the subjects’ diets and provide nutrients other than the vitamins in the supplements and shakes he fed them.
He unlocked the door with his single key, opened the door, then picked up the tray of food from the foyer table and entered the room casually, closing the door immediately behind him. He was shocked by the two sets of angry eyes meeting him. The detective’s stare was even more venomous than Stacey’s, and she had tried to kill him the first chance she got.
This whole situation might be trickier than he had calculated.
John Stallings was surprised when Mazzetti insisted on coming with him to talk to Ernie the dealer. Now, as Stallings craned his neck to locate the young man on a corner near the interstate, he had to contend with Mazzetti and his constant chatter. It had to be a New York thing.
Mazzetti said, “This guy is a good source, huh?”
“He knew Lee Ann Moffitt and spoke up. If he heard something else, I’m willing to listen.” Stallings looked at him. “But you’re going to have to not be you.”
“Whaddya mean?”
“Just don’t talk. He’s a little skittish as it is.”
“But it’s my fucking case.”
“That’s what I mean. All I care about is stopping the killer. You can take credit any way you want.”
Mazzetti sat mercifully quiet for a few minutes, then said, “Look, Stall, I’m sorry if I was out of line about anything I ever said about your daughter’s disappearance.”
Stallings didn’t answer.
“I never realized, I mean I never saw things from the victim’s point of view. I’m sure Patty is off working things out and that’s why she hasn’t called, but it’s still nerve-racking.”
“You got the secretary figuring out what she was working on last?”
“Yeah, she’s been canvassing drugstores in the southeast part of the city. I got Hoagie backtracking who she talked to. We knew she made it home last night.”
“And you were too lazy to show her the respect she deserves.”
Mazzetti just looked down at the dash.
Stallings saw Ernie and pulled into a Shell station on the corner. The young drug dealer hustled over to them, then hesitated when he saw Mazzetti sitting in the passenger seat.
