The Perfect Death Page 12

  But this guy really did seem nice as he drove her to the long-term parking lot near the airport. She’d already decided to do something special to show her appreciation. But it also gave her a chance to see that lovely smile with the cute dimples. She couldn’t decide if she had gone into dental hygiene because she liked teeth or if she noticed teeth because she was a dental hygienist. Either way this guy had a great smile.

  She hadn’t dated a guy she’d wanted to sleep with in months. Her last boyfriend, Troy, showed up occasionally to keep her satisfied. She knew he told his friends it was just a booty call, but it worked both ways. The problem with Troy was he was only twenty-three years old and not mature enough to realize how great he’d had it when he was with her. She missed those washboard abs as well as some of his grander attributes. But tonight she was going to let loose with someone else. She hoped he felt the same way. The same fire. She recognized this as one of the special nights in her life as she started an exciting vacation by having a rendezvous with a man she thought might be something exceptional. She loved to look at her life that way.

  He had a quiet, calm quality she found irresistible. Too many guys wanted to sit around and talk about themselves or sports or the damn Jaguars. He seemed much deeper than all that. And she had a scary thought. What if she didn’t like his art he’d been talking about? She knew she’d suck it up and play along. She’d tell him it was so beautiful she wished she’d inspired it. Or some kind of shit like that.

  Tony Mazzetti had already visited the first construction site and talked to two of the names Joey Big Balls had given him. One of the men had given him the names of two others. But Mazzetti had questioned him ruthlessly about his whereabouts the night Kathy Mizell was killed. He had a foolproof alibi. He’d been in jail for the night after being arrested that afternoon on a probation violation. The arrests and even the probation had not made their way through the computer yet to show up on his criminal history. Such was the life of a cop in modern times. Mazzetti tended to depend on computer printouts so much that he was surprised when someone had an excuse not shown on one.

  The other man had been much tougher to talk to. Sour and holding a serious chip on his shoulder, the convicted car thief had felt as if he was being harassed for a crime he had already served two years in prison for. Now he worked as a carpenter and kept pretty steady hours. Mazzetti didn’t want the guy to feel persecuted, but he needed some questions answered and it took a little pressure to get the guy to talk. All Mazzetti did was mention that he could be forced to look into the disappearance of two trucks near the worksite. He had no idea whether this guy was involved in the theft of the trucks, but there were reports in the system and it seemed to make him much more talkative. He claimed he’d been at home and his wife and at least one neighbor could verify his story. But Mazzetti really didn’t even need to talk to the wife because he could read people pretty well and this guy wasn’t pulling his chain.

  So now he was at the last site and had forty minutes to find his man, talk to him, and drive the 3.2 miles to the restaurant to meet Patty about eight o’clock. It seemed like a good plan and a decent end to a hard week. He hoped to take tomorrow off to recharge his batteries and maybe even Sunday too. The sergeant had been very easy about the progress of the case. She knew all the detectives were working as hard as they could and they really needed a break in the case and in their workweek. That was a good fucking sergeant.

  Mazzetti calmly walked onto the construction site and looked at the five-story building, which only had the walls and bare cement floors built. There were wide, gaping holes for the windows and doors. Joey Big Balls had said the crew was behind schedule on this building and worked two full shifts from 6 A.M. until 10 P.M. This seemed like the perfect time to catch as many workers as possible at the site.

  He knew he stood out in his Brooks Brothers suit and silk striped tie, but this wasn’t a mission of secrecy. He paused in the dusty gravel in front of the main open door to the building and cringed as he looked down at the dust on his new leather shoes. He looked up and mumbled, “Motherfucker.” As his eyes scanned the building he saw a man lean out one of the windows and look down at him. It was only a short glance, but he recognized the man as Eldon Kozer. To be sure, he looked back down at his info sheet with Kozer’s driver’s license photo, identifiers, and criminal history. This was his man, there was no doubt.

  Mazzetti stepped into the building, moving quickly to avoid a man with a wheelbarrow full of jagged metal debris. He saw several ladders strapped to the ironwork inside the building and one set of temporary stairs. He took a deep breath to cleanse his lungs before tromping up the stairs. So far no one had even bothered to ask him who he was or what he was doing on the site, and that was fine with him.

  About halfway up the stairs, Mazzetti glanced to his right and saw someone easing down the ladder secured to the next wall. His eyes met the man coming down the ladder. It was Eldon Kozer. Kozer looked Mazzetti up and down but didn’t move.

  Mazzetti said, “I need to talk to you for a minute.”

  “Me?”

  “You’re Eldon Kozer, aren’t you?”

  The man scowled and said, “Who are you?”

  “JSO.”

  Without another word Kozer pulled his feet out of the rungs of the ladder and clamped them on to the outside edge and used his heavily gloved hands to slide down the ladder like it was amusement ride.

  Mazzetti could hear Kozer shouting something to his buddies as he smacked the ground and started to run. Mazzetti turned to race down the stairs.

  The chase was on.

  TWENTY-ONE

  He couldn’t believe how lucky he’d gotten convincing Mary to leave her car at the airport parking tonight. He’d said it’d be easier to drop her off directly at the terminal. When she’d asked why she couldn’t leave her car at his place for the week she was gone, he’d told her he wasn’t going to be around to pick her up and he didn’t think it was a safe enough neighborhood. She’d bought it. And now he had no worries whatsoever.

  He’d spent a few minutes showing her his ware-house before they walked up the loud wooden stairs to his apartment. Over the years he’d put in nice hardwood floors and tile and bought decent furniture so the apartment didn’t feel like a place above a dingy workspace. The two bedrooms were for him and guests, which he had never hosted. The main living room had a big-screen TV and a leather sectional couch. The kitchen was attached to the living room and at the far end, past the hallway to the bedrooms, he had his private workshop with his main work of art hidden under a clean padded moving blanket. He knew once he showed it to her she’d be in such awe of his talent that he could probably tell her what was going to happen and she wouldn’t be upset.

  As soon as they walked in the door Mary wrapped a hand around his neck and pulled him in for a long, deep kiss. She’d done this a couple times and it made him a little uncomfortable. Her soft lips did feel like satin against his. It was her long, probing tongue that startled him.

  She said, “I hope you don’t have a water bed because the way I feel tonight I might cause a tsunami.”

  He looked at her, thinking how a comment like that was not the way he’d pictured her. Not with the angelic face and wholesome smile.

  Then she said, “I got some decent grass with me if you want to get high.”

  What’d she say? Drugs? Angels didn’t use drugs.

  As she flopped onto the corner of the couch, he started to realize she had some serious flaws. He looked closely and realized for the first time how much eyeliner she had on. She had a lot of makeup on in general. Maybe her dazzling smile had blinded him or maybe he was seeing her in a new light.

  As he stepped closer she leaned forward and acted like she was going to playfully bite at his crotch. He jumped back partially out of reflex but mainly from repulsion. Who was this? Is this the kind of behavior that should be rewarded with eternal remembrance?

  He wondered if he shouldn’t move forward qui
ckly before he changed his mind; otherwise he might be stuck with her for the night. He watched as she nestled herself on the couch and he mumbled he needed a second. He knew what he wanted to use, a heavy braided cord from a shipment of cut glass. He had taken the storage hooks off each end of the cord and tested it several times for strength and elasticity. He retrieved it from the drawer near his work of art.

  He heard her belch from the couch and turned to see she’d unbuckled her pants and unbuttoned the last three buttons of her blouse. She looked at him and smiled, saying, “I might’ve had too much to eat.” She belched again and giggled.

  He turned away from her, wrapped the ends of the strap in each hand, and pulled out one last time to make sure it was strong.

  Tony Mazzetti had never been much for foot chases. Of course as a uniformed officer with the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office he’d been in several. One fact he tried to forget and certainly never mentioned to anyone was that in his entire law-enforcement career he’d never actually caught someone by running after them. That’s not to say he’d never made an arrest of someone running from him. Once, the year he started with JSO, he’d chased a burglar on foot behind a row of houses for more than ten minutes. He remembered gasping for breath as he shouted into his handheld radio for help. He’d lost the fleet runner and walked back to his car feeling like a failure. As he drove away from the scene, just before he went ten-eight, or in-service, on the radio, Mazzetti had taken one last look over his shoulder to the area where he’d lost the runner, taking his eyes off the road. In that instant he’d felt a sickening thud of a body crumple against his hood. He’d popped out of his cruiser, sick to his stomach with fear, and been shocked to see he had hit the man he’d been chasing. Two months later he’d received a commendation for not giving up the chase. He’d never told anyone exactly what had happened.

  His last foot chase had been two years ago during a homicide investigation involving gang members. The suspect had run from Mazzetti, who lost him in two blocks. Luckily for Mazzetti but not so lucky for the suspect, he’d run into a rival gang area and been gunned down twenty minutes later.

  Mazzetti’s wide body was built for lifting weights, not running after criminals.

  He kept all that in mind as he raced down the stairs and landed on the cement floor with an ungraceful thud. All he caught was a glimpse of the man’s white T-shirt and fast-moving legs racing through one of the interior doors of the unfinished building. Mazzetti stayed on the trail and caught several more quick looks at the man, who seemed to be running in a circle around the construction site. Then he raced out the rear door to the building with Mazzetti relatively close behind him.

  Mazzetti was constrained by a suit and hadn’t reached for his gun yet. As he popped through the doorway, he took about ten steps before he froze. He felt his arms seized from both sides. Someone said, “No one chases down a worker on this crew. You must be crazy.”

  Mazzetti realized the grip on him was too strong to struggle out of so he let his eyes track the voice that had spoken to him. It was Eldon Kozer. He had the thin, hard look of a local redneck who’d done time.

  Kozer said, “Out in the world you may be important, but here on our work site you’re just a visitor and we don’t like how you’re behaving.” He had a twang from Southern Georgia. Mazzetti had heard the accent all over town.

  “I’m a cop. All I need is to talk to you.”

  That brought the stubby redneck up short. But he looked to each of his friends for support and maintained a tough attitude. “What if I don’t wanna talk?” He slapped his lean, hard fist into his left hand.

  Mazzetti knew he was in a tight spot.

  Mary wanted to make sure she got her message across. She was ready. She unbuttoned her jeans and lifted the bottom of her blouse to show off her solid abs, which had taken her hours in the gym and a two-month contract at the Quick Weight Loss clinic that cost her almost eleven hundred dollars. It would’ve been more, but she had agreed to give the three saleswomen free cleanings after hours at the dentist’s office.

  But this guy seemed preoccupied and wasn’t even facing her. He hadn’t liked her little playful act either. Mary wasn’t used to working this hard. She may not have been a tight teenager anymore, but she was hardly past her expiration date. Besides, now she knew what she was doing and enjoyed it rather than enduring it like she had for over a year after she started having sex.

  And this guy had a quality she loved: he was shy. Didn’t say much, didn’t show off, and now he was avoiding her obvious advances.

  Mary had already done a good scan of the apartment. On their way up the wooden stairs she’d been disappointed. The idea of an apartment above a warehouse was romantic in New York but a little on the redneck side in Jacksonville. The glass company looked prosperous enough, but the stairs gave the living area a second-rate vibe. She was pleasantly surprised when she finally saw the inside. Granite countertops in the kitchen. Hardwood flooring with nice, contemporary furniture. This guy might well be one to bring over for her parents’ inspection. At least it might shut them up for a while. She didn’t know how much longer she could take the third degree about when her mom could expect grandchildren.

  Here was this nice, cute, employed guy who happened to be a little shy.

  She started to think of ways to bring him out of his shell.

  John Stallings felt slightly drained from his day. The one bright spot was the lead that someone had seen Leah Tischler get into a white, unmarked van downtown near the hotel where she’d looked for a room. Clearly the big anchor around his neck today was his conversation with Maria. It wasn’t that she’d seen him having coffee with another woman. What bothered Stallings most was Maria didn’t care one bit. He knew if she’d given him the chance he could explain everything and he hoped his years of predictable behavior would back up the veracity of his claim, but she never really asked for any explanation. In fact, she had specifically told him she didn’t have to explain herself and he didn’t have to explain himself. That was the knife stuck in his heart right now.

  He acknowledged, at least to himself, that Liz Dubeck fascinated him. She was attractive and had ideas about helping people that were very similar to his. Her pretty face stuck in his mind and he’d definitely enjoyed their time chatting over coffee this morning. But he had no plans other than coffee. Despite what Maria had told him, he still considered himself married and had not given up on the chance he might move back into the house one day. Family was the most important thing to him. He was sorry it’d taken Jeanie leaving the family for him to realize it. But now he was trying to make up for the time he had spent away from Maria and the kids. He was even extending his family by reconnecting with his father.

  He parked his county-issued Impala in front of the rooming house where his father lived. He was concerned about the confusion his father had displayed over the past weeks and wanted to keep a closer eye on the elder Stallings.

  He walked along the brick walkway, looking up at the porch as he approached the building. Two elderly men played backgammon at the far end of the porch and the woman who ran the place sat in a rocking chair near the front door.

  She smiled at him as Stallings climbed the front stairs and said, “Johnny Stallings, what a pleasant surprise.”

  Stallings nodded. “How are you, Ms. Williams?”

  “I’m fine, sweetheart. Are you looking for your father?”

  “Thought I’d surprise him. Maybe take him out to dinner.”

  “You’re a thoughtful son. But I haven’t seen your dad since early this morning when he left to help out at the community center. I hadn’t really noticed until now. He usually comes back a couple times during the day.”

  Stallings’s police sense tingled, and he didn’t like it one bit.

  TWENTY-TWO

  He stood facing away from Mary with the cord in his hand when he smelled an odd odor. He turned quickly to see Mary puffing on a marijuana cigarette. He stared at her, shocked, and
watched as she held her breath and offered the joint to him.

  He shook his head as she let out a long exhalation and smoke filled the room.

  Mary said, “Come on, don’t be a pussy. Come take a hit.” When he didn’t move she turned on the sofa, her pants still unbuttoned, patted the cushion next to her, and said, “Come over here and relax, take a toke, while I give you the best blow job you ever had.”

  He felt the muscles in his arm tighten as he pulled the cord once more. But did he really want to infect his work of art with something short of perfection? Did he want to taint it with a drug like marijuana throughout eternity? This was a turn of events he never would’ve imagined. He hadn’t even realized there were women who could look like Mary and act the way she was acting. This was no angel. As he stood there trying to decide what course of action to take, he heard something. It took him a second to recognize the familiar sound. He froze and felt his stomach turn as he realized someone was coming up the rickety wooden stairs leading to his front door.

  Mazzetti tried to stay calm in the face of the threat. The last thing he wanted to do was have to arrest some of these assholes for obstruction. He really did just want to talk. An arrest had not been in the front of his mind. He didn’t want to divulge where he’d gotten Kozer’s name. He’d promised Joey Big Balls he wouldn’t give him up and he intended to keep that promise.

  Mazzetti said in a low voice, trying to avoid any sort of menacing tone, “Let me go right now and there won’t be an issue. I’m a detective with the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office. I want to ask you some questions.” He couldn’t help adding, “You fucking dipshit.”