William Dremmel felt as if he might be a little paranoid when he saw a man in a black Impala give his van a good long look as he pulled away from the intersection. But there was no reason to believe anyone suspected him of any crime. Even with the news stories and volunteers, no one was looking in Grove Park or anywhere close by.
His stomach growled as he headed for the pharmacy. He rarely ate as well as he wanted while at home feeding two separate but disabled women. His mother had been quiet the last few days, and he was pleased with Stacey’s health too. She’d settled into the long periods of rest and didn’t seem to be having any immediate health issues. His notes reflected that she had maintained her weight and had regular bowel movements, and her attitude, while still defiant, signified that she was not suffering strong psychological effects of the drugs.
He’d been very careful allowing her to move around since the night when she attacked him. He let her see the stun gun and once had even hit the trigger to see her flinch at the dreadful electronic chatter. Fear was a wonderful motivator.
He pulled into a Denny’s for some good old-fashioned protein and fat. This Denny’s generally serviced the string of independent hotels along U.S. 1 and out to the Interstate. He stopped, because all Denny’s food was the same and there were no cars in the parking lot.
He hurried inside, sat at the counter, and was ready to order from memory when he was surprised by the pretty waitress who gave him a bright smile. She had clear, healthy skin and dark eyes that showed an open innocence that completely disarmed Dremmel.
“Hi, want some coffee?” She kept her perfect smile.
He eased onto the stool and shook his head. “Grand Slam, scrambled with O.J.” He didn’t take his eyes off her. She made him forget his worries about Lori, his issues with his mom, and even his status with Stacey.
The waitress said, “Need anything else?”
He glanced to each side of the empty counter and noticed the cook was busy on the far side of the kitchen.
Dremmel gave her his own smile. “Could you answer a question?”
“Sure, what’s that?”
“How tall are you?”
Her smile stayed firm as she said, “Five feet even.”
William Dremmel’s mind started to race.
Patty Levine had been swept up in the concern for the missing girl like everyone on the task force. The main difference was that she didn’t want to waste time on leads or investigative activities with little chance of success. She watched as other detectives rushed out the door to question random street people, surfers who might have been at the beach, even a sampling of sexual predators who lived on the east side of the county. These were all long shots to find the missing young woman. Patty intended to follow a deliberate investigative plan to catch the Bag Man. That way she would make her best effort to find Stacey Hines while she tried to identify the killer.
Today she had started a comprehensive canvass of pharmacies to see if any had been missing Oxy and if there were any insights pharmacists could give her. It was a duplicate of a quick check completed the first week of the investigation, but now the lieutenant wanted detectives checking out the whole pharmacy from employees to records. She had the southwest section of the city, and three other detectives were handling the other sections.
As she entered the fifth store of the day, feeling confident as a cop and as a woman for the first time in quite a while, she noted the traffic in the store. It looked like they catered to the free clinic and Medicare clients.
She’d already developed a shorthand for which pharmacies ran a tight ship and which ones didn’t care what inventory looked like. If the manager was also the pharmacist and had to watch the cashiers up front too, the drug records were shitty. If the store hired a separate manager and had the pharmacist only worried about running the pharmacy section, then things were usually in order. The chain stores had a handle on things like this. It was the family-run stores that scared her.
Now she was in a family-run store that had several locations.
She identified herself and spoke to a cute thirty-year-old pharmacist who tried to make it clear this little store was just a blip on his career path.
He invited her back behind the counter, then into a small room with a TV, and scooted two chairs so they faced each other.
She eased into one chair as he plopped into another directly across from her. “When I graduated from UF, I had a lot of offers with the big chemical firms, but I wanted some experience in a neighborhood pharmacy like this.”
Patty went right into her questions: Missing any Oxy? Ever hear anyone talk about mixing drugs? Ever overhear a customer talk about a source for Oxy outside the pharmacy? All the usual stuff.
The young pharmacist offered some professional advice. “From what you’ve explained to me and the type of drugs used by the killer, I’d say the Bag Man has a professional knowledge of drug interactions. He’d have to be someone trained in the area or else some kind of genius who can learn things on the fly.”
Patty took notes furiously until the pharmacist said, “I bet you have some kind of big, badass cop husband.” He smiled to show he was only half serious.
Patty shook her head. “No, I have a big badass cop boyfriend.”
“And he could probably beat the shit out of me.”
Patty let out a little laugh and said, “Honey, I could beat the shit out of you.”
Twenty minutes later Patty was looking over records in the rear of the pharmacy amid discarded magazines and other trash.
She made a few notes; there didn’t appear to be any problems with the inventory. The Florida Department of Business Regulation had been inside doing an audit in the last two months, but she didn’t want that pharmacist to think she was just breezing through asking a few superficial questions.
Her metal notebook case sat on a stack of diaper boxes in the corner as she looked over the volume of inventory reports. She’d been on the move so much she had already left it at one pharmacy and had to return for it.
A blond man walked in the room, saw her, and froze. “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize anyone was in here.”
Patty knew the look of someone trying to ask who she was without actually asking.
She smiled and said, “I’m Detective Levine from JSO.” She held out her hand, asking his name without really asking.
He took it and shook it briefly, keeping eye contact with her.
She had to say, “And you are?”
“Oh, sorry, William. William Dremmel.”
“And what’s your job around here?”
“I’m a stock…I do a little of everything. If you have any questions I can probably answer them.”
“Notice any Oxycontin or other narcotics missing?”
“Not really.”
“Anyone suspicious hanging around or asking questions about drug interactions.”
He laughed and shook his head.
“Have you seen the photo of the missing girl on TV, Stacey Hines?”
He shrugged. “I guess.”
“Have you seen her in here before?”
“I’ll have to look at her photo again.”
There was something about this guy that set off an alarm deep in Patty’s head. It wasn’t his answers so much as his demeanor. He looked like a nervous guy trying to act cool. She’d make a note of him and his name later.
The man said, “I have to get a few things in here, then head back out to the floor. Do you need anything else?”
She shook her head and purposely returned her attention to the inventory sheets. She didn’t want to telegraph that he had caught her professional interest. He rummaged around on the side of the room, grabbed a box of diapers, and left without another word.
She finished up, talked to the pharmacist for a moment, got on her phone to the office, then headed back out to her car. The clerk had just jumped onto her radar. She’d check him out and see if anything moved him up the ladder to a real “person of interest.” Right now it was just a creepy feeling he gave her.
She didn’t even have to write down his name. It was lodged in her memory: William Dremmel.
William Dremmel was as excited as he’d ever been in his entire life. He’d set up a second bed in his lab. Stacey’s eyes followed him, but she never said a word as he laid a single mattress on the floor opposite her in the small room. He hastily installed eyebolts in studs in each wall, just like Stacey’s restraints. He had a second set of cuffs in his own bedroom. He gave her a smile and wink but no explanation as he left the room.
At his computer in his bedroom he looked up everything he could on the little Denny’s waitress who had said her name was Maggie Gilson. He found a Margaret Gilson with a criminal record, entered a hacker’s site, and discovered Little Miss Innocent had a past for shoplifting, but all three cases had been dismissed. Retailers never followed through if the thief paid off the bill. She was twenty years old but didn’t have any utilities in her name. He’d make her his next project. Just the idea of having someone new to learn about excited him. His erection threatened to rip his pants as he found little nuggets of information about the cute girl.
When he had searched databases enough he swiveled in his seat and picked up the three sheets of paper he had managed to slip from the battered gray metal case that Detective Patricia Levine had carried into the pharmacy. This was so easy he didn’t need to look in the computer. Her schedule, in great detail, was on one page and phone numbers and notes on the others. An envelope with an unpaid water bill was stuck to the last page. It listed her address. Sweet.
Although he didn’t have to dig too deep for information on Detective Patricia Levine, it was still exciting to learn about her without her knowledge. He’d noticed her look at him in a certain way that could mean problems. He had so much to do he wondered what to do first. Clearly he had to act if she started to investigate him. But Lori and her knowledge of Stacey Hines gave him a different worry. Either way he liked these kinds of challenges and knew he could stay one step ahead of the cops on this.