The Perfect Death Page 5

  Sweat beaded on Peep’s forehead.

  “I don’t know. Her face is familiar.”

  Now Stallings had the man on his tiptoes and he thought about how Peep made a living on others’ sorrows. He thought about the value of scaring punks like this to get information and Jeanie’s cold trail and the slight possibility of reviving it if Leah Tischler had met the same fate.

  A woman’s voice broke his trance.

  “What’s going on here?”

  Stallings released Peep and turned to see a woman with dark hair in jeans and a Florida State sweatshirt.

  She locked her eyes with Stallings, not backing down.

  Stallings faced her and said, “It’s all right, ma’am. I’m a police officer.” She had a pretty face and beautiful, oval eyes. She was in her mid-thirties and wore her dark hair in a ponytail.

  “Is this how a JSO officer is supposed to act?”

  He thought for a moment and wondered if she was right. He let his emotions get the better of him.

  Peep blurted out, “I’ll keep my ears open and let you know what I hear.”

  Stallings hardly noticed him scamper past the woman and around the corner.

  The woman nodded good-bye and was gone as quickly. Stallings wanted to know who the hell she was.

  Buddy arranged the photos on the dreary brown wall of his apartment above his shop. He appreciated art in whatever form it took. In this case it was a photographer who, like him, had an eye for beautiful women. The photographer, named Petter Hegre, shot them in black and white, or as they said in the new millennium, monochrome. He missed simple phrases he’d grown up with. He missed the fact that artists were no longer revered, replaced by guys like Warren Buffett or that insufferable Donald Trump.

  Buddy had lived in the apartment since his thirtieth birthday over five years ago. Before that, he shared a house with a coworker at another glass company. His mom had kicked him out of the house at twenty-two. Even though she had plenty of room and was all alone.

  She had said it was so he’d become more independent, but mainly it was because she suspected him of killing her two cats. It was true, but he’d never admitted it. Not to anyone. He’d learned it was one of the keys to keep from being caught. It was also where he’d learned another important lesson: what attracted him to killing was that one, last, perfect breath. With his mother’s cats he’d used a kitchen knife to stab a tabby called Tiger. He’d stuck it and watched like a scientist as it wiggled on the blade for less than a minute. There wasn’t much thrill to killing something that way. But Blackie, a much bigger cat, was another story. He had a plan for this big black beast that rarely got off the couch and followed him with its eyes to let him know he was further down the affection chain in the house. He’d worn thick, canvas gardening gloves when he wrapped his hands around Blackie’s furry black throat. The cat had kicked and clawed at his hands and made a tiny squeal, but in the end he knew the feeling of choking something couldn’t be replaced: that last moment when his victim was conscious but had no hope. The divine instants when he realized he had the absolute power of life and death. But the whole experiment pissed off his mother. It wasn’t until a year later with a neighbor’s Yorkie he discovered the art of capturing a breath. He slipped a plastic bag over the dog and released his grip on its throat for just a moment. He noticed the fog of the dog’s breath on the inside of the bag and realized it was possible to capture the essence of something. To harness a last breath. Then it was a matter of finding the right container.

  He looked around his apartment and considered all he had learned in the past few months. It made him happy to know he had a grasp on eternity. He had a purpose in life that would outlast him. Most things would.

  EIGHT

  John Stallings picked Patty Levine up at her condo in his Impala so they could cruise along North Davis and talk to the managers for some of the hotels where runaways hung out.

  Patty said, “What’d you do last night?”

  “Hit the hay early.” It wasn’t an exact lie. He had gone to bed early, giving up trying to sleep, and come down here for a look around, but Stallings didn’t want to hear Patty tell him how he needed time for himself or needed more rest.

  Patty said, “I bet Tony five bucks you’d go out on your own time and see what you could discover. I guess I’ll pay up this evening.”

  Stallings turned and frowned at her. She knew him too well. He mumbled, “Don’t pay up.”

  “I knew it. You gotta stop going out on your own. You coulda been hurt and no one would’ve known where you were.”

  He hadn’t considered that argument.

  Patty added, “You need your rest. I told you to get seven or eight hours of sleep a night.”

  He nodded and listened for the next fifteen minutes as he cut in and out of Jacksonville traffic, taking surface streets and alleys like any good cop would.

  Stallings pulled the Impala to the curb in front of a four-story, brick apartment building. Each unit had one window and about twenty percent of those were boarded. Stallings figured there were maybe a hundred tenants in the whole place. He’d heard this was the new runaway central and under new management. Different buildings popped up in the city as mainstays of runaways. Sometimes it was cheap rent that attracted them. Sometimes it was a manager who looked after the runaways. Either way the new manager here might have seen Leah and maybe even if she met with anyone.

  They entered the neat lobby with new, cheap carpet and a plain set of Rooms-To-Go furniture in the corner, where people could gather on a couch and three matching chairs around a coffee table.

  Stallings stepped to the clean counter and knocked on the countertop. “Hello?”

  Like a good partner, Patty wandered to the hallway and casually stood, but in reality it was an instinct that couldn’t be taught at the police academy. She was in position in case something surprising happened and she had to cover Stallings, or if someone rushed them from the hallway, Stallings could do the same for her.

  He shifted to expose his gun and badge on his hip so they would be seen by anyone coming out of the office behind the counter. He didn’t want to waste a lot of time explaining who he was. He had plenty of his own questions that needed answers.

  He was about to call out again when he heard a woman’s voice say, “I’ll be right out.”

  He stared as she stepped out of the office and behind the counter.

  Her dark eyes met his and she gave him a cursory smile.

  The woman said, “Hello, Officer.”

  It was the woman who had scolded him last night.

  A stack of small notebooks were spread across the wide conference room table. Tony Mazzetti looked over the mess at his partner, Sparky Taylor. The fact that it looked as if there were two victims had already pushed everyone to the edge. New information was coming at him from three different sets of detectives and everything was piling up fast.

  Mazzetti said, “What’d you think, Sparky? It would help to have some kind of viable theory to filter through some of the shit.”

  Sparky slowly raised his face from the open file he’d been studying intently and focused his brown eyes on his new partner. “We’ve already checked former boyfriends and possible stalkers. Those would be the most likely suspects in a case like this. But if we look at the circumstances of the body being dumped it leads us in another direction.”

  Mazzetti slowly sat down in the seat at the opposite end of the table, staring at Sparky. “Go on.”

  “First, I don’t think the killer, which I’ll assume is a ‘he’ based on the nature of the crime and location of the body, lived close to the construction site. I believe he was driving, so why stay in an area that could help identify you if you’ve already made the risk of transferring a body to the vehicle? He’s pretty strong, yet not necessarily tall because he was able to get the body into the Dumpster, but there were two cinder blocks stacked next to the Dumpster where the body was found. With the number of canals and rivers all o
ver Duval County, a construction site is a poor choice to dump a body.”

  “All right, Columbo, where does that leave us?”

  “It leaves us with a lot of suspects if we considered all the construction workers in the city. I wonder what percentage of construction workers are felons?”

  Mazzetti let out a snort of laughter and said, “That’s like saying ‘What’s the bad part of Jacksonville?’ I have to say, Jacksonville.” He laughed at the old joke every cop in the city liked to tell.

  Sparky didn’t change his expression and said, “I like Jacksonville. I’m raising two boys here.”

  “Have you ever seen the NBC special on runaways in Jacksonville?”

  “We don’t really watch TV around our house.”

  “Really? None at all?”

  “We watch one hour a night as a family. Usually half is the national news and the other half is The History Channel.”

  “What’d you guys do for fun at night?”

  “We play games.”

  “Like Monopoly?”

  “Monopoly leaves too much to luck and has too simplistic a view of world economic pressures to be of any value to the children. We like to play a game which combines Trivial Pursuit with Jenga. You have to answer a question that challenges your intellect, then use your spatial abilities to dismantle the wooden tower pieces. The boys enjoy it very much.”

  Mazzetti couldn’t come up with anything to say and continued to stare in silence. After he gathered his thoughts, he decided his only hope was to refocus their attention on the case. He said, “So where does that leave us? We need a jumping-off point. We have all the usual bases covered. I’d like to hear what you think might be a new way of looking at this homicide.”

  Sparky said, “The logical place to start looking would be at construction sites. If we have no specific leads on a suspect and the other detectives are looking at the victims, you and I can focus on other things. Whoever dumped Kathy Mizell’s body specifically picked a construction site with a full Dumpster. It may not have been a coincidence he realized the Dumpster was going to be hauled away and dumped soon. It’s just an idea, but one I’ve been formulating all day.”

  Mazzetti took a moment to assess his enigmatic new partner. The guy may have been a techno-freak who had spent most of his career in the tech squad, but he had some good insight. Even with a light Southern accent and relatively soft voice, the guy’s comments had impact. He was right. Stallings and Patty were busy working the Leah Tischler aspect of the case. Another set of detectives was looking into Kathy Mizell’s background and associations. A third set was running leads and interviewing people at UNF and the health center. So far, Mazzetti and Sparky had been out at the health center talking to Kathy Mizell’s instructors and classmates. They had also looked through all the available forensic information. Sitting on the table were security-camera shots from ten different cameras at the health center. That was the last place anyone had seen Kathy Mizell alive and it might provide a clue. But this idea of considering a construction worker wasn’t half bad.

  Sparky Taylor turned in his seat and started to tap on the keyboard of the Dell laptop he took everywhere with him. He typed at a speed Mazzetti could not comprehend.

  Mazzetti thought about what his partner had said and looked down at his legal pad with a list of tasks to accomplish filling most of two pages. But years of experience had taught him to follow his instincts and right now his instincts said Sparky Taylor was more than just a puffy Georgia Tech engineering graduate with odd habits.

  Mazzetti said, “I wish there was an easy way to figure out exactly how many large construction sites there are in the city.”

  Sparky looked from the computer screen and said, “There are thirty-nine sites requiring one or more debris Dumpsters in the downtown area and surrounding residential neighborhoods. There are an additional eighty-two three-yard Dumpsters spread out at smaller sites across the county.”

  “How in the hell do you know something like that?”

  “I accessed Waste Management’s website and went to a page designed for city employees. It’s supposed to help code enforcement people when they have issues with debris.”

  Mazzetti sat, openmouthed, and finally said, “How did you know that site was even available?”

  “It was in a memo sent out by the Intel squad about six months ago. Don’t you read the memos sent out by the other divisions?”

  “Why would I do something like that? It’s all I can do keep up with my cases as it is.”

  Sparky calmly looked across at Mazzetti and said, “Because it’s in our policy manual we should read memos distributed from other divisions. It also makes sense on a practical level by increasing the number of people looking at any one problem.”

  “You’d have to prove to me the value of reading memos from other divisions.”

  “I thought I just did.”

  NINE

  The pretty woman standing behind the counter in the hotel lobby extended her hand to Stallings and smiled politely. “I’m Liz Dubeck and I run this place. You might recall we met last night.” Her sly smile conveyed more than any words could.

  Stallings took the hand and nodded, avoiding Patty’s intense gaze.

  Patty whispered to him, “Aren’t you glad you told me the truth already? Otherwise this might be an awkward moment.”

  Stallings felt like a school kid in a parent/teacher conference as both women turned their attention to him.

  Patty took the woman’s hand and introduced herself, then set her battered metal case on the counter and started to take down contact information.

  Stallings liked how professional Patty could be on a moment’s notice.

  As soon as Patty had finished, the woman looked at Stallings and said, “What was your problem with the man I saw you with last night?”

  “Just a miscommunication.”

  “You seemed to be making your point very clear.”

  Now Stallings felt a physical pressure from Patty’s gaze. He reached across into Patty’s metal case and pulled out a photo of Leah Tischler and laid it out on the counter. “We’ve been trying very hard to find out if anyone saw her in this area in the last few days. We have reason to believe she might’ve used a pay phone at the check-cashing store down the street and she would’ve been looking for a place to stay.”

  The woman leaned down to look at the photo closely. Her dark ponytail slipped across her shoulder. Stallings appreciated the attention she was giving the photo as well as the shape of her shoulders and neck.

  She looked up and said, “She said her name was Lee and she was looking for a room for a couple of nights. I told her she had to let someone know she was okay. She didn’t have to tell them where she was, but I didn’t want whoever was responsible for her worrying. I could tell right away she wasn’t a street person. She had on a school uniform of some kind.”

  Patty turned to him and said, “That must’ve been why she called the music teacher.”

  “I offered the phone here, but she said she’d have to think about it and left before I could stop her.” The hotel manager paused. “I hate to ask this, but is she okay?”

  Patty took this one and Stallings was glad of it. “She’s been missing a few days and there’s an indication she may have fallen victim to violent crime.”

  “Oh my goodness. Is there anything else I can do?”

  “You can keep your ears open and let us know if you hear anything.”

  It was clear this woman was concerned. “Of course, of course, anything you want. Almost everyone in this area comes through here at one time or another.” She stepped from behind the counter and joined Stallings and Patty in the lobby.

  Stallings took in a breath as she walked past and brushed his arm. She gestured toward the couch and two chairs in the corner of the clean lobby. When they were all seated she said, “I work very hard to make this a clean, safe place for people down on their luck. We get a few grants and I don’t always have t
o charge full rates. I would have let Leah stay here for free if she’d come back after I told her to let someone know she was safe.”

  Patty reached over and gave the woman a gentle squeeze on her shoulder. “You did the right thing.”

  Stallings looked around the room and said, “It does look like a nice place. That’s hard to find if you’re lonely, scared, and have no money.”

  Liz looked around and nodded. “We’ve come a long way, but there are always a lot of things to finish around here. You can see the linoleum is peeling in the corners and throw rugs only cover so much. About half the rooms need new beds and it’d be nice to do some cosmetics like replacing this front window that’s cracked from top to bottom. I’ve applied for several federal grants to help.”

  Stallings looked at the bay window and saw a reflection of light from outside and the hairline crack. “There’s only so much you can do, and believe me you’ve already helped us tremendously.”

  “I’d do anything to help ease the suffering of a parent worried about a child. Even in your job it’s probably hard to completely realize the anguish of missing a child.”

  Stallings leveled his eyes at her and said, “No, I think I can imagine it.”

  Buddy sat on a hard, carpeted floor of the dentist’s office way down in the southern part of the county, on the edge of an area known as Mandarin. Instead of the goofy posters of giant teeth most dentists had used when he was a kid, there were framed, signed cartoons featuring Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse. The office was comfortable and the staff had been very friendly. And it was really good money for simply installing one four-foot, etched-glass divider with a nicely drawn dolphin exactly in the middle. There were also three outside windows he was going to change, but they didn’t have the artistic edge this large sheet of glass offered. For some reason he didn’t really mind the mundane job on this bright September morning.