James Andrus: The Perfect Woman

John Stallings sat in the low early morning light from the solitary clean window in the Land That Time Forgot. He was wide awake after his odd sleeping pattern. He’d spent most of the day finding a place to live while Maria and he worked out their problems. He couldn’t face moving in with his mother; in fact he hoped to resolve his marital issues before his mother even found out. But now, in the empty, silent Crimes/Persons squad bay he looked up at the nineteen-inch screen of the analyst’s computer. It was the fastest machine in the unit, and he’d been viewing photographs and drawings posted by everyone from cops in Seattle to child advocates in Maine.

Three drawings had been of middle teens and from the time shortly after Jeanie’s disappearance. They were all of bodies that had been discovered. He made note of the investigating officers or tip line and knew he’d have to wait a few hours before calling. He hated these kinds of leads because they could only lead in one direction.

He also had the number of a teen rescue house in Dallas, where the woman who ran it, Rhonda Boyette, kept a constant eye out for him. She was representative of the kindhearted people Stallings had run across in his endless search for his oldest daughter.

Working on this kept his mind off his most recent problems and somehow made him feel like he had a purpose. He just couldn’t believe that he’d never see her again. Something inside him, a hunch or sixth sense, whatever it could be called, told him that this chapter in his life was not over.

After a couple of minutes he clicked a Web address that took him to a local TV station’s Web site and read a news blurb on William Dremmel. There was nothing new in the short story. Just that the Bag Man was in solitary at the Goode Pretrial Detention Facility on East Adams Street. The judge had issued no bond and ordered an array of psychiatric evaluations. All standard in a case of this nature. William Dremmel’s mother was at a hospital and resting comfortably.

Stallings read the rest but didn’t worry about it. William Dremmel’s days of terrorizing Jacksonville were over, and Stallings doubted he’d ever have to worry too much about the killer again. The trial would be simple, and Mazzetti would handle most of it.

Stallings felt a twinge of satisfaction that he had accomplished what he had set out to do.

He stood, stretched, and walked back over to his own desk. He looked down at the seven framed photographs on his ancient wooden desk and picked up a five-by-seven color shot of Jeanie posing with several of the lacrosse players and her coach. Instead of focusing on Jeanie’s smiling face like he usually did, he drifted over two girls to the smaller form of Lee Ann Moffit.

Somewhere, somehow, he knew there was a cop working just as hard for his Jeanie.