Tony Mazzetti had a lot going on in his life. The serial killer case should’ve been the most important. The goddamn shooting should’ve been up there too. But somehow all he found himself thinking about was Patty Levine. If he closed his eyes he could picture her perfect, naked body, taut and tan. When she walked by, he smelled her perfume. All he could think about was Patty and his dick. Holy crap, what had happened last night? He thought he’d fixed the problem. That was his first chance in a long time to test it out and it should’ve worked. He used the mental tricks the psychologist had taught him and still it was a dud. And Patty seemed irritated by the whole adventure. He’d definitely picked up a weird vibe from her in the morning. Since Luis Martinez capped the pot dealer it was a different situation, but he worried about her early reaction to his failure to launch.

It was troubling, but who could he talk to? His mom supported him on everything, but her overriding goal in life was grandchildren. Lots of them. She’d tapered off on her inquiries the last few years, but he knew how she felt. He couldn’t talk to any of the guys at work. Someone would leak it as surely as they leaked details on the Bag Man case. It would only be a matter of time before he was a laughingstock at the Sheriff’s Office. No, this was an issue he had to deal with himself. He had to tell Patty the truth.

Now, Tony Mazzetti sat in the “hot seat” between the two internal affairs detectives. He knew both of them from their days in homicide. To be on the Sheriff’s Office shooting investigation team or, as everyone called it, “the shoot squad,” you had to have put in a few years in homicide. The shoot squad was housed in the Internal Affairs Unit on the third floor in surroundings that made Crimes/Persons look like a forgotten village in Somalia. The regular officers and detectives avoided the third floor as if it contained an infectious disease ward. No one wanted anything to do with the unit. It could be the route an ambitious detective took for promotion. It also gave the detectives a chance of promoting to sergeant without going back onto the road for a few years on midnights. In Mazzetti’s opinion that was a shortcoming of most police forces. They put their smartest people in the detective bureau, encouraged them to try for sergeant, then, if they were successful, they threw them back out into road patrol to look after a bunch of rookies too scared to step out of their cruisers.

Taking the Internal Affairs or I.A. career route meant that sometimes you could get promoted in the same unit. Since there wasn’t a long line of really competent people to join Internal Affairs, if the S.O. found someone bright, they could move up the ladder without risking uniformed duty.

The shooting squad looked at any officer-involved shooting and tried to be impartial, even though more often than not they knew the cop involved in the incident. These two pricks were no different. They were jealous of Mazzetti’s clearance rate and begging not to go back to patrol. If a boss had it in for any of the crimes/persons detectives, handing them up for something would go a long way toward securing a promotion.

The questions were pretty standard at first.

“Who gave the tip? Why no warrant? Did they know about the pot? Did they see a gun before Martinez shot?”

The senior of the two detectives leaned in close and said, “C’mon, Tony, you can tell me. Would you have shot?”

It was an old trick question designed to get someone to open up. Mazzetti looked at him and told the truth. “In a fucking heartbeat. That scumbag was going to shoot us.” He thought about how Stallings worded the need to move without a warrant. “The girl’s life was in danger too.”

The detectives conferred for a few minutes, then the older one looked at him and said, “Who called the TV station?”

That was a new wrinkle, and he knew they thought it was him because he bitched about not getting enough attention, and the news had a long shot of him walking out of the house. What a time to get a little attention.

William Dremmel felt his pulse quicken as the clock edged closer to five. He’d told Stacey that he’d get her to work by six, which meant they’d have to leave by five to avoid her getting suspicious. She had a knapsack full of clothes and a pair of Skechers to wear.

Right at this moment she sat on his couch with a brownie she had taken one bite out of. She was small, but he doubted the combination of Valium and Nembutal would be enough to knock her completely unconscious unless she ate the whole thing. He’d been stalling her with the excuse that his mother was asleep but always awoke about four-thirty to clean up for dinner. In fact, he had fed his mom an extra one of her Seconals and watched as she slipped into a deep sleep.

He’d offered Stacey a variety of snacks and beer, which she refused. This was so much easier when the girls liked taking pills and capsules and expected to feel something from them. Stacey showed no interest in his efforts to introduce drugs into her system. She was also starting to show some impatience at not having met his mother yet and knowing she had to be at work.

Then she looked up at Dremmel and said, “Wow, the sun must’ve taken it out of me. I feel really tired. Do you have a Coke?”

He nodded absently from the kitchen, where he’d been waiting, and opened the refrigerator to grab a can of Coke. He was careful to only buy caffeine-free Coke since he rarely wanted someone with extra energy around the house. As he poured it, he found a bottle of Ambien he used for his mother’s meals in the cabinet. He took one and used a spoon to mash the little blue pill, then scooped the fine dust into the drink. He let it dissolve completely while he pretended to straighten up the kitchen.

As he approached Stacey with the drink, he noticed her take another bite of the brownie. Excellent. But she looked more alert than he’d hoped. When he handed her the soda she took it and drank more than half immediately.

He sat down next to her on the couch, and she said, “I better get going.”

He nodded. “Yeah, I guess. Sorry you didn’t meet my mom.” He stood slowly and said, “Let me just change so I don’t feel so grubby when I eat.”

“You’re gonna eat at the Fountain of Youth?”

“Oh yeah. I probably would even if you weren’t working.”

“But isn’t it kind of far for a good burger? I thought it was convenient to work.”

“It is, but it’s hard to find a good place to eat anymore.” He smiled and wandered into the kitchen to get a look at her from a distance. She still looked alert. Then he saw her head bob. She drank some more Coke, and he felt confident his plan was working.

Just in case, he had his knife tucked in his front pocket. He’d even moved the TV back so it rested against the wall, out of the way, and he had Mr. Whiskers IV locked in his bedroom. He didn’t want to repeat the same mistake, but he didn’t want to act rashly either. He knew everything there was to know about Stacey Hines and needed her for his research. She didn’t smoke, use drugs, had no medical conditions, and fit into his size parameters for a test subject.

She really could be the perfect woman.