James Andrus: The Perfect Woman

Mazzetti looked over his shoulder at the crime scene techs and a couple of detectives, then turned back to Stallings. “Don’t you worry about it. Homicide has got this covered. You can make notification, but remember to tell me if the mom can add anything.” He stood up.

Stallings nodded to Patty and stood up too. The start of a migraine blossomed somewhere deep inside his brain. It was getting late and he felt the need to check in at the house. God knows what could happen if he were too late. That’s why he preferred working the seven to three shift; sometimes he’d go 10-8, or in-service, on the radio right from his house and could manage to be home before either of the kids rolled in from school. Today wouldn’t be one of those days.

Mazzetti said, “Go find those runaways.” His stupid way of making a joke. It was childish, but so were a lot of cops.

“Tony, you don’t need to be a dick. I like the assignment.”

The homicide detective looked away, stroking his trimmed mustache, “That what happens when your homicide career is based on one lucky grab?”

Stallings smiled. “That may be true, but I’m still the only one in the room with a medal of valor.” He didn’t wait to see the effect of his response.

John Stallings pulled his county-issued Impala into the driveway of his Cedar Hills home, southwest of the city, took three long, deep breaths, secured his pistol in a metal box under the driver’s seat of the car, then consciously put on his “home face.” This was the same ritual he had completed after a day at work for many years. It sunk in that he needed two separate personalities when his three-year-old daughter had called someone a “jerk-off.” It wasn’t even funny to him now thinking back on it.

His comfortable, two-story house was ten minutes from his mom’s house if he needed her or his sister, Helen, to come by and help out with the kids, or on occasion with his wife, Maria. They both lived in the house that he grew up in. His dad had spent the final eights years of his career in the Navy at Mayport and grabbed the house a block from the St. Johns River from a chaplain who was getting shipped out to San Diego. The old man had been a hard-ass who wouldn’t listen when everyone said he was losing sight of what was important. After Stallings had left for his baseball scholarship at the University of South Florida, his mother made a stand and the old drunken bully moved out. As far as Stallings was concerned it was seventeen years too late. He’d seen his father twice in twenty years. Once at his uncle’s funeral and once when the asshole was in the drunk tank at the city jail. At least he had had enough class not to ask for any help when he saw his son in his new blue JSO uniform with a patch that said BOLD NEW CITY OF THE SOUTH on his shoulder.

Stallings helped the old man anyway. He got one of the booking officers to lose his paperwork, and the senior Stallings never had to answer for the drunken punch he threw at some other rummy at a bar off Arlington Avenue.

Stallings had stuck out the beatings and drunken fits, but his older sister, Helen, made her escape at fourteen only to show up a couple years later. She never talked about her time away from the family, but the fact that she still lived quietly with their mom at forty-three spoke volumes about what had happened to her on the street. She never drank, smoked, used drugs, or even dated. He knew she felt guilty about Jeanie’s disappearance, like it was some kind of genetic code that had passed to her niece. Secretly, Stallings himself wondered if somehow his sister had influenced events. Either way it was just one more fucked-up aspect of his personal life that he had to keep a lid on for the sake of the family.

The late afternoon sun peeked between low clouds as he prepared to enter his other world. He slid out of the car, nodded to his neighbor like he always did, and headed into the house, hoping for the best, but prepared for the worst. Like he always did.

He let out a quick sigh of relief when he saw Lauren helping Charlie with his homework as soon as he walked in the door. His eight-year-old son’s dark hair hung down in front of his face as he looked at the page and listened to his thirteen-year-old sister. Looking at them made any of the shit he saw during the day seem petty and filled him with a sense of purpose like nothing else. He never did understand how parents couldn’t do everything in their power to make the best life possible for their kids.

His daughter looked up. “Hey, Dad. You’re late today.”

“Sorry guys, got hung up at work.”

Charlie looked up and grinned. “Hey, Dad.”

Stallings walked over and ruffled the boy’s hair. “Hey there, Charlie-boy.”

“How’s the homework going?”

“It’s so easy tonight a firefighter could do it.” He smiled at the proper use of the joke.

Stallings laughed out loud. Like most cops he had a slight pang of jealousy toward firefighters. Everyone loved firefighters, because they didn’t write speeding tickets or arrest people. Cops joked about how their brother public servants got to work out and sleep on duty, and every firefighter he knew had a second business. So jokes at firefighters’ expense were common.

Charlie smiled and said, “Can we kick?”

He hesitated. Kicking the soccer ball with his son was one of the things that kept him sane. He had preferred baseball, at least he had some talent there, but his son loved the soccer field, so Stallings adjusted to the new generation’s sport of choice. The athletic boy could already outrun him. “I have to head back out in a little bit, pal. We might need to kick twice as long tomorrow.”

“Gotta catch a bad guy?”

Stallings laughed out loud, amazed at how his son had a way of pulling him out of a funk. “No, nothing so exciting. I have to talk to the lieutenant, then see a lady about something. I should be back before bedtime.” He caught the look on Lauren’s face and shook his head slightly so she knew not to worry. This was business, nothing to do with Mom.

He kissed his daughter on the forehead and looked up at the bookcase holding family photos. Every time he walked in the room he looked up at the last photo with all five of them in it. His oldest daughter, Jeanie, smiled back at him, and he closed his eyes for a quick prayer that she was safe. The support groups all said it was important to remember a missing child and have positive feelings about him or her. Stallings did his best.

Now, three years later, he tried to focus on the family as best he could and these two seemed happy. It had taken counseling, anger, frustration, and time. His quiet search continued as he worked closely with the National Missing Children’s Clearinghouse in Washington. They were a smart group that did good work even if most people were ignorant of their efforts. He had computer databases at work he checked once a month or so. Unidentified bodies of young females, a mental patient who wouldn’t speak, usually called Jane Doe by the facility, bulletins about any possible connection to his daughter, but nothing had panned out. He needed to show the kids that he had not given up on Jeanie.

He knew that if his wife wasn’t out here in the living room, she was on the computer or phone, and he found her in the bedroom, where she tapped away at a black Dell keyboard.

He took a deep breath and felt able to face Maria.

“Hey, dear.” He always stayed upbeat until it was clear he couldn’t anymore.

She glanced up from an instant message she was composing. “Just finishing up. This poor woman from St. Joe, Missouri, has a daughter who’s been missing eight months. I’m just giving her a few ideas for support.”

He leaned down to kiss her forehead. It was also a way to sniff her breath.