The Perfect Death Read online

  Now he was having a dream he couldn’t quite figure out when the same sound kept occurring in his head. His eyes snapped open. His cell phone was ringing on the nightstand next to Patty’s bed. He reached across and fumbled with the Nextel phone, squinting in the dim light trying to pick up the name of the caller before he flipped it open. Finally he gave up and answered with his usual abrupt greeting, “Mazzetti.”

  “Tony, it’s Francine over at the SO. We got a report of a body buried in a park east of the river. Yvonne the Terrible told me to get you moving over there as soon as possible.”

  “Have we ID’d the body? Is there someone maintaining the scene? Are there any witnesses?”

  The flat nasal voice of the dispatcher said, “All I know is what I’ve told you. Sergeant Zuni wanted me to call her back when I got you and crime scene on the phone. You want me to tell her you’re headed that way, or do you have a different message?” She explained exactly where the body was found.

  Mazzetti took a moment to clear his head and said, “I’ll be there as quick as I can. Call crime scene and get their fat asses rolling.” He slammed the phone shut and sat up in bed. Through his entire conversation, Patty had not moved one inch. He placed two fingers on her exposed throat to make sure she had a pulse. Maybe he’d been in homicide too long. Then he gently rubbed her hair trying to wake her. When that failed, he shook her head and still barely got a response.

  He climbed out of the queen-sized bed and padded to the bathroom. A few minutes later he came out, dressed in his clothes from the night before. He finally managed to get Patty to grunt in acknowledgment. When he told her what had happened she slowly sat up in bed and in a sleepy voice said, “I’ll come with you.”

  Mazzetti said, “Meet me at the park. I have to go by my house and pick some stuff up.”

  “What’d you have there, you don’t have here?”

  “Clean clothes and the gel I use on my hair. This is probably gonna attract media attention before the day is over.”

  A few minutes later, as he drove away in his Crown Vic, Tony Mazzetti had a fresh wave of concern about his girlfriend and what sort of things she was doing to make her so groggy in the morning.

  Stallings rehearsed some of the ways he might phrase things to his mother. One lesson he’d learned on the job was to not provide false hope or unrealistic expectations. On the other hand, he didn’t want to alarm her either. Even with his father’s history, Stallings could find no explanation for his disappearance other than something bad. He had done the whole routine of checking with hospitals to make sure nobody matching his father’s description had been checked in. He imagined the multitude of car crashes and hit-and-run accidents, cardiac arrests, strokes, and violent crimes or anything else that could happen to a sixty-five-year-old man with a shoddy memory running around Jacksonville completely unsupervised. When he thought of it in those terms he felt like a bad son. But considering the life his father had provided him, he felt like he was doing the best he could.

  He parked and took the three stairs in one leap to the porch of the three-bedroom house a block from the St. Johns River. He hesitated outside the door, trying to come up with something that might cushion the news his father was missing. In all honesty, he didn’t know how close his mother and father were, but knew that she had stayed in touch with him after the rest of the family had completely blocked him and the memories. He also knew that his mother tended to be lonely and that was one of the reasons his sister, Helen, still lived with her.

  He knocked gently on the door and stepped back, waiting see his mother’s usual smiling face. He could hear footsteps coming toward the door as the knob slowly turned and the door opened out. He was about to greet his mother when he was shocked to see who had opened the door.

  It was his father.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  Tony Mazzetti prowled inside the crime scene like an anxious tiger. The crime scene investigators had decided to rope off the entire fenced-in playground. It made for a very wide scene because no one had any idea how far away from the body they would have to search for evidence. That also gave Mazzetti a reason to close down the larger surrounding park with its open soccer fields and running trail. That kept the two news trucks almost two hundred yards away from where the crime scene techs were now excavating the body.

  God bless the crime scene techs. Mazzetti would never let them know how important they were, but he needed them. They had the patience, concentration and determination to do what almost no detective could: lay out a detailed map of the evidence. It always took hours and sometimes the better part of the day. It was time that Mazzetti spent formulating theories and deciding who needed to be interviewed on any specific case. Right now he was anxious to see if there was anything to identify the body or if he’d have to rely on the medical examiner and hope there was a matching record of fingerprints or dental records. He’d seen her T-shirt used to be white and had a logo of a sun rising. He couldn’t make out the lettering yet. Someone would clean it up so he’d see it later. The decomposition around her face would make identification of her by sight much less certain. He hoped there was enough flesh to get fingerprints. There were a number of lab tests to confirm an identity, but there was still something about recognizing a face, even in death, that made a homicide detective feel more competent.

  Inside the crime scene there were only two detectives, Mazzetti and Sparky Taylor, and a four-person crime scene team. This remained standard at almost every homicide crime scene investigation. Occasionally, if circumstances required it, another detective might come into the area. But the rule of thumb—and, as Sparky had pointed out, the policy of the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office—was to limit the number of people who might come in contact with evidence relating to a homicide.

  Outside of the scene, on a picnic bench under a tree, Patty Levine comforted a clearly upset young mother and her little girl. She had arrived at the scene about fifteen minutes after Mazzetti and he was pleasantly surprised to see how alert she looked.

  Sergeant Zuni motioned him over to the edge of the fence. She was dressed more casually than during the week but still had a professional and direct air about her. She was a good sergeant who managed the scene without interfering. She didn’t even try to enter the immediate scene around the body. Her job was to keep the perimeter secure with uniformed patrol officers, figure out what needed to be done right now, and keep the command staff informed of developments. She also talked to the media. Mazzetti didn’t like that so much. Before the squad had a regular sergeant, he’d gotten to like talking in front of the cameras. It made him feel important and gave his mother something to brag about. It was tough to compete with a sister who was a judge in Westchester County. The TV interviews aside, he’d found that Sergeant Zuni made life easier for him and that’s what a sergeant was supposed to do.

  He stopped at the fence and leaned down on the top tube that ran the perimeter.

  The sergeant said, “How’s it going?”

  “Female, dressed like she was in her late teens.” He looked over his shoulder at the team working around the body with Sparky Taylor hovering right over them. “We’ll know more soon.”

  Sergeant Zuni said, “I couldn’t work with someone over my shoulder like that.”

  “That’s his interpretation of the policy that says a detective must supervise evidence collection.”

  The sergeant laughed. “He follows policy like a religion.”

  “And he’s trying to convert me.”

  “Need anything else?”

  “Where’s Stall? He’s usually good for some theories.”

  “I didn’t call him out yet. I have to manage man power. As it is you’re not going to get a day off today or tomorrow. I had to send another team over to the Landing because someone found a body in a car parked in the garage.”

  “Please tell me the mode of death wasn’t strangulation.”

  “Relax, Tony. Knifing. Lots of blood.”

  “Thank
God. I got enough to worry about.” He didn’t even bother to ask who was going to be assigned; as long as it didn’t take Sparky or his crime scene away he didn’t care.

  The sergeant looked at him and said, “I didn’t call out Patty, either. How’d she find out about it?”

  Mazzetti paused, considering what he should say. She kept those sharp, green eyes on him and he understood why so many dopers confessed to her. “I called her.”

  “May I ask why?”

  “I heard kids had found the body and she’s better at keeping people calm.”

  The sergeant eyed him a moment more, then nodded as she turned away.

  Tony Mazzetti joined Sparky by the shallow grave and looked at the body. He thought about this girl’s family and felt something resembling pity. He wondered if he was getting soft. He thought back to the conversation he’d had with the construction worker last night. He’d been hoping to get a chance to track down this Daniel Byrd. Something in his gut said this was a suspect he needed to look at. Mazzetti had broken bigger cases with weirder hunches over the years and had learned to rely on his sixth sense. It was not something he could put into a PC affidavit or even something he could explain to the sergeant without a snicker or being dismissed altogether. But he knew he needed to find this Daniel Byrd.

  John Stallings sat on the couch in his mother’s living room while his father straightened up the kitchen. It had been an odd experience chatting with both of them for the last twenty minutes. He didn’t come to terms with it immediately because it was something that had never happened, not even once, during his childhood.

  Stallings looked at his mother said, “It creeps me out a little bit you guys are here in the same house.”

  “I told you that I saw your father occasionally.”

  “You made it sound much more casual and you didn’t tell me until recently.”

  His mother smiled, making him realize that even at sixty-two years old, she was a very attractive woman. “If you think you’re freaked out by it, imagine how your sister felt. When he showed up yesterday, confused, she refused to stay in the same house with him.”

  “I’m surprised that she didn’t call me. It would have saved me a lot of worry and time yesterday.”

  “She went up to Fernandina Beach to see her friend Mario.”

  Stallings raised an eyebrow in mock outrage.

  But his mother seemed more disappointed as she shook her head and said, “He’s just a friend. I’ve met the young man and I doubt that Helen will be able to convince him he has mistakenly believed he’s a homosexual. My hopes for her providing me with any grandchildren are fading faster than your father’s memory.”

  “So you’ve noticed it too?”

  “Noticed it? I’ve documented it over the past two years. But he manages his bus schedules okay and rarely confuses anything important. For a long time I thought it was a side effect of his alcohol use. I did notice that he started to refer to Jeanie as Kelly when he talked about her. For a while he even thought that she had visited him on occasion. I have no idea where he got that from.”

  Stallings looked over his mother’s shoulder at his father, who seemed to be happy scrubbing a pan and whistling some unknown tune. “I didn’t realize he thought she had visited him.”

  “He was never clear about it and I’m afraid I just dismissed the whole idea as part of his memory problem.”

  “Is he always like this?”

  “Keep in mind our visits could be sporadic. I dated on and off when he first tried to get back in touch with me and I had a regular boyfriend for a while last year. You remember Ralph. Your father didn’t come by at all when he was here. Unfortunately I haven’t had a chance at many dates recently so your father’s visits have been more welcomed.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  She gave him a look. “Your need for sex doesn’t diminish with age. And it’s hard for me to find a man able to participate at the level I want.”

  “C’mon, Mom.” He cringed and couldn’t look at her for a moment.

  “Just because I’m a mother doesn’t mean I don’t need sex.”

  “But because you’re my mother, I don’t need to hear about it.”

  “I guess we should have your father evaluated by a doctor.”

  “That would probably be a good idea.”

  “I didn’t like the way your sister stormed out of here when he showed up.”

  Stallings was starting to feel like he was living his childhood all over again.

  It was a beautiful Saturday afternoon, and already Buddy had heard more on the news that interested him than he had in the past year. There had been several blurbs on the radio and TV about a body being found buried in Pine Forest Park. That would be Jessie. He’d hoped she wouldn’t be discovered for several more weeks, if at all. He’d chosen that spot because he was able to park his van without anyone noticing it and the whole playground area was soft sand. It’d only taken him about ten minutes to dig what he’d thought was a good, deep hole and dump the warm body of the cute girl from Ocala into it. His reasoning also included a sort of “hide in plain sight” mentality. He thought because of the public nature of the park, there would be no reason for anyone to search for her there. But it didn’t matter because there was nothing to tie him to her.

  About an hour later he heard the first report of a body being found in the parking garage of Jacksonville Landing. That was the report he had been waiting for. The big news there was not necessarily the body but the fact that the police had shut down the entire parking garage and commercial tenants of Jacksonville Landing were screaming for them to reopen. Bars and restaurants remained open, but empty, on what should be the busiest day of the week.

  The only thing he regretted about his busy Friday night was that he was forced to expend the effort to get rid of two bodies but was unable to advance his project in any way. Mary was the one who was a real disappointment. Considering the way she had died, he wouldn’t have been able to capture her last breath anyway.

  During his restless fit of sleep he dreamed of plunging the knife over and over again into Cheryl’s heart. In his dream, a little like in real life, she just wouldn’t die. But now, in the light of day, he felt a certain satisfaction and excitement at the thought of eliminating one of the big pains in his ass. But he had his story straight in his head for when cops came to ask when the last time he’d seen her was. He’d even practiced acting surprised, but not too surprised. He knew the cops were pretty sharp when interviewing people so he was prepared not to be shaken.

  Right now he was in the northern part of the city, where a row of small cafés offered privacy and intimacy. He even had a small bouquet of flowers in his hand as he slipped into the front courtyard of the modest café. He saw her sitting under an umbrella waving to him.

  He appreciated the beautiful smile and bright eyes as he said, “Hello, Lexie.”

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  Tony Mazzetti was afraid he’d missed something by moving at such a fast pace, but the sergeant had only approved a half day for this Sunday and he wanted to use it wisely. In this case she wasn’t being cheap and withholding overtime. She was actually showing some supervisory sense and encouraging him to get some rest and clear his head for the busy week ahead. She even told him she wanted him home and in bed by nine o’clock. Imagine someone imposing a curfew on a thirty-nine-year-old cop. Normally, he’d have balked at an order like that, but she scared the holy shit out of him and he had no doubt she’d kick his ass if he wasn’t in bed by nine. That was truly the mark of an outstanding sergeant.

  He’d told Sparky Taylor to spend some time with his kids today and had a hard time telling Patty Levine to take the day off as well. She even told him she wanted to come as his girlfriend, not as another detective on the squad, while he went into the office and organized the most important tasks, then went to the medical examiner’s office to witness the autopsy. Mazzetti really did want Patty to rest, but some part of him didn�
�t want her in the same room with the cute, female medical examiner who’d asked him about working out earlier in the week. He knew it wasn’t right and it didn’t make him feel good, but it did keep him thinking about the medical examiner’s offer.

  It was going to be a hell of a week.

  Lauren Stallings loved these Sunday afternoon lunches with her grandfather. Not that she’d ever admit it. She liked playing the role of super-cool teenager. Today was even better because her grandmother sat next to her grandfather at the long table in the Pizza Kitchen on Atlantic Boulevard near the beach. She’d never seen her grandparents together and it felt like a party.

  The shocking thing was that her mother had joined them and sat silently at the end of the table with Charlie on one side of her and Grandmother on the other side. Lauren’s father sat next to her and didn’t say much either.

  Her grandfather was in the middle of one of his stories about life in the Navy. She studied his face, noting the small blemishes and scars. She knew he was an alcoholic and had spent a long time living in homeless shelters. The issue of alcohol and drug abuse on both her mother’s and father’s sides of the family made her worry about herself and her sister Jeanie. Were they genetically disposed to abuse issues? She missed her sister, especially on days like this when everyone was together. The gathered family made her loss more acute, as if Jeanie had disappeared last week instead of three years ago.

  Now she looked at her father and saw the resemblance with her grandfather. Her father looked rugged and put on a tough façade, but he was actually fragile since Jeanie had disappeared. She’d caught him crying more than once and knew he prowled the Internet for any clues about her missing sister. Lauren realized her mother was almost the opposite. She looked frail emotionally, but she had proved to be tough. She’d asked her father to move out because of his obsession with his job and Jeanie. Lauren knew she wasn’t supposed to know any of that, but it was hard to keep secrets in a house. She didn’t think her father was hurting the family, but she wasn’t in her mother’s shoes. Marriage was complicated and she wasn’t sure it was something she wanted to try. Not based on what two decent people like her parents had gone through.