Stallings had to ask. “What pushed you to do it?”
Dremmel shrugged, showing no concern. “You tell me. Looks like we’re not that different.”
“Yes, we are.”
Fifty-two
John Stallings dozed off on the hard wooden bench and instantly started dreaming about falling asleep while on patrol. It was a common dream among cops, but this time it was closer to the truth. He was still on duty even if he hadn’t had a break in more than twenty-four hours. Now he felt the relative quiet of the room and the lack of constant motion catch up to him.
He’d avoided the crush of media, but he could hear the crowd of reporters in the outer room. He could imagine what the line of huge television cameras looked like ready to snatch any possible footage of him as he left. He just hoped none of them had managed to slide by his house and bother his family.
A hand on his back made him sit up straight and turn to see Rita Hester smiling. That wasn’t a sight he was used to, at least not since she’d gone into management. She sat next to him, bumping him over on the bench without a word.
They sat in silence until she said, “You did a great thing, Stall.”
“Woulda been better if we stopped him a few weeks ago.”
“You could look at it like that, but we did the best we could. You need to lighten up on yourself. Not everything is your fault. But you’re the one who stopped the Bag Man. That’s something to be proud of.”
He just nodded then asked, “Is Mazzetti coming?”
The lieutenant shook her head. “Detective Mazzetti has elected to stay at the hospital with Patty.”
Stallings smiled for the first time. “Good for him.”
“If it was Christmas, I’d call it a goddamn miracle.”
“Mazzetti isn’t so bad.”
“Let me tell you something no lieutenant should ever admit about one of her troops.”
“What’s that?”
“I think Tony Mazzetti is a complete asshole.”
“That’s not a secret.”
“He’s also a top-notch detective, so as a boss I need him around. Just like I need you around.”
“I wasn’t planning on leaving.”
“I mean in homicide.”
Now John Stallings stared at his boss. “I don’t know about that, Rita.”
“Maybe in a coposition with missing persons. There are a lot of cases that overlap.” She sat quietly for a minute and added, “Just think about it.”
“All I can think about now is going home.”
“You’ve earned it.”
Someone walked past them. Stallings looked up and saw it was Ronald Bell.
Bell smiled, gave him a thumbs-up, and said, “I knew you’d do it.”
Stallings didn’t even bother with a response.
Rita Hester said, “No, you didn’t, Ron. You told me three days ago he wouldn’t be any help on the case.”
He bowed his head and turned to walk away.
Rita was about to blast him verbally again when the rear door to the room opened. She snapped her head toward the back of the large room and she nudged Stallings, “There’s your man.”
He craned his neck to see William Dremmel, in an orange JSO prisoner jumpsuit, shackled at the ankle and handcuffed through a front waist chain, being led into the crowded courtroom with armed deputies on either side of him. Dremmel had no expression as a murmur rippled through the courtroom audience.
Stallings had made a lot of hard choices lately and figured he’d pay for some of them soon, but the choice to bring Dremmel in alive might pay off in positive karma in the long run. Thank God for Patty and her efforts to reform him.
He stayed just long enough to hear the judge say, “No bond.” A sympathetic bailiff let Stallings slip out through a rear door to avoid the TV cameras.
The Bag Man was all done.
Fifty-three
It was light out when John Stallings finally woke up. He’d hit the sack after court about noon. The kids were in school, and Helen had taken Maria to a doctor’s appointment. He figured it was late in the afternoon and was surprised he felt good enough to sit up and think about dinner with the family. He had no clock near his bed from his days as a patrolman. If he had to sleep during the day after a midnight shift he found he could only do it with no clock around.
He padded to the bathroom and started to clean up. After he’d washed his face and changed into shorts and a T-shirt the bedroom door opened and Maria walked in. She sat at the edge of the bed until he quietly joined her.
He said, “I guess you heard what happened.” He held a secret hope she might be experiencing something like pride.
“You’re a hero again.”
“We stopped a killer.”
She didn’t respond.
“I was just coming down to see what was for dinner.”
Maria looked at him and asked, “What time do you think it is?”
He looked to his dark alarm clock. Stallings shrugged, “Late afternoon, I guess.”
“John, you’ve been asleep for twenty-two hours. It’s ten in the morning.”
“Holy crap, that’s why I feel so good.” He didn’t think he had ever been in a bed that long, even when he was sick.
“We need to talk.”
Stallings held up a hand. “I know I’ve been gone a lot, but now things will get back to normal.”
“What’s normal? Us not talking? You working weird hours? Working for days on end, then sleeping for days?”
He felt like this could be a result of her relapse and didn’t want to argue.
Maria said, “I know I have issues, but I’m working on them. You have no idea that it’s you too. You have issues.” She started to cry softly then said, “We need a break. You need to leave.”
“What are you talking about?” She sounded coherent, but the message didn’t make sense.
“Helen is going to stay with us, and you’re going to have to move out for a while. We have too much to work out right now.”
“Maria, I think you’re a little confused right now. Think about this.” He felt his stomach tighten.
“I have thought about it, and you’re the one who’s confused. You’ve been detached from the family. Working all the time to save other kids has made you neglect us. You think I’m not involved. You’re the one who’s off trying to run from memories of Jeanie. You’ve been living in some kind of fantasy world. Helen tried to tell you, but you wouldn’t listen.” She placed her hand on his arm. “I love you, I really do, but I have to think about the kids. You have to move out and work on these problems.”
He just stared at her; perhaps clearly for the first time. Was she right? Did he have it all turned around in his head?
John Stallings didn’t answer as he considered what she had said and what she wanted. It hurt as bad as any punch he’d ever taken or any injury he’d ever suffered.
This really was the day that changed the rest of his life, and he never even saw it coming.
Fifty-four
The solitary holding tank at the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Goode Pretrial Detention Facility kept some distance between William Dremmel and some of the street thugs swept up by patrol officers and narcotics stings. But he could hear the noise. Constant yelling and hooting. Off-key rappers and the ramblings of disturbed homeless men, shuffling around the wide cells that housed thirty prisoners each. The facility had a policy of no TV sets. Somehow Dremmel didn’t think the reading material supplied by the Sheriff’s Office was utilized by most of the inmates.
Dremmel was happy to be alone in a much smaller cell with its own toilet, even if it was exposed.
He had made it through his initial hearing and realized he was done. At least for now. Even his attorney wouldn’t sit too close to him like he smelled or had lice that might jump onto the young, cocky public defender’s cheap suit. At least they had told him that his mother was safe and comfortable at a facility near their house. She had of course been sedated, but he hoped she hadn’t admitted to knowing about any of Dremmel’s activities. He didn’t want her charged as an accessory. He didn’t want her to face anymore sorrow.