The Perfect Death Read online

  “What if we made it worth your while?” She gave him a sweet smile.

  He shook his head like he always did.

  Apparently that was too much for Cheryl, as she pushed past her sister and poked him in the chest, saying, “Look, asshole, we own this building. Our father left it to us when he died. We have plans for it once you’re out of the way.”

  He didn’t react to her bony finger jammed in his chest. She was like an aggressive drunk in a bar, pushing toward him, doing everything but slurring her words. But he kept calm and said, “Your father may have left you the building, but he leased it to me first. If you thought you could get me out of here through a lawsuit you’d already be in court. I have my reasons for staying and not wanting to move right now. I wish you’d respect them.”

  Cheryl spat out a curse, turned, pushed past her sister, and disappeared out the door. He could hear her heavy footfalls on the rickety wooden stairs and heard something in his shop fall over as she stomped out the door he’d left open for them.

  Donna shrugged and gave him a slight smile, turned, and followed her sister.

  The image of Cheryl standing in front of him was burned in his mind. She had a superficial beauty—the kind of looks that turned heads in some circles—but she had no inner beauty, no soul, and for that reason she’d never be of use for anything worthwhile.

  ELEVEN

  John Stallings leaned back in the hard chair at the dining-room table of his family’s house. As Charlie raced up the stairs to get ready for bed, he rubbed his eyes hard, trying to block out the trouble fractions still seemed to give him. As much as he disliked relearning all the rules of fractions or long division or any other math problems that he helped Charlie with each night, he wouldn’t give up one second of his time with his boy to do anything else.

  He looked out into the living room at his fourteen-year-old daughter, Lauren, lounging on the sofa watching TV. Occasionally she rolled onto her back and texted someone on her small phone. She said hello when he came in and grunted a couple times to his inquiries, but she’d had very little contact with him other than those basic communications.

  Then he got a surprise, something he hadn’t seen in over a week and certainly hadn’t expected tonight. At the top of the stairs, his wife of nineteen years stood silently staring down at him. She glided down the stairs one at a time like she was unsure of her footing or carrying a fragile piece of glass. She kept a steady pace, taking the chair directly across from him at the dining-room table, sitting with the grace of a dancer.

  She didn’t say anything as he stared at her beautiful face with her delicate, defined features and shiny dark hair dripping down over her shoulder. There hadn’t been one time since the day he met her at the University of South Florida he didn’t think she was the prettiest woman he had ever met. Even tonight, with all the acrimony between them, one look made it all melt away.

  Her voice was scratchy like she’d just woken up, but she didn’t look like she’d had any recent bouts with drugs or alcohol, which had plagued her since before Jeanie had disappeared.

  Maria said, “How’s it going, John?”

  He shrugged. “Charlie’s got a pretty good head for numbers.”

  “I’m glad somebody does. Thanks for coming over to help him with it.”

  “No sweat. I was over visiting my dad anyway.”

  “I’m impressed you’ve tried to work things out with him. I know the kids get a big kick out of seeing him. How’s he doing?”

  “I’m not sure, to tell you the truth. He seemed confused when I was over there.”

  “I can tell you from personal experience that even when you’re not drinking or drugging, the effects linger a long, long time. Confusion is the least of an alcoholic’s problems.”

  For the first time in many months she seemed interested and connected and what she said made sense. He felt better already.

  Tony Mazzetti sat quietly in his Crown Vic with Sparky Taylor content reading an issue of Popular Mechanics. Mazzetti was almost afraid to engage his new partner in conversation for fear he would learn about something as disturbing as his family not watching TV at night; his organic diet, which had yet to make a dent in his extra eighty-five pounds; his oldest son’s ability to deconstruct, then rebuild, any electronic device sold in the United States; or the fact that Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office policy drove Sparky’s professional life. He enjoyed the chance to think about not only the enormous number of tasks still needed to be completed for his case, but how to move his relationship with Patty further along. How to make it seem completely right again.

  It was nine o’clock and he knew the crews had been working almost eighteen hours a day to complete the renovation of this large office building. There were supervisors for every aspect of the job, but tonight he only wanted to speak to one of them. In the construction trailer sitting in front of the hollow building was Joe D’Annunzio, who was also known as Joey Big Balls. Joey Big Balls ran the administration of the construction project, paying vendors and figuring out payroll because he had no building experience whatsoever. No one wanted to screw with Joey Big Balls because, at least down here in Florida, every Italian from New York or New Jersey in the building industry was assumed to be part of the mob. It’d taken Mazzetti years to get used to the suspicious glances he got when locals heard his accent and saw his name written out on credit applications or business cards. It was a relatively mild and benign form of prejudice, which shows like The Sopranos hadn’t helped one bit.

  In the case of Joey Big Balls, Mazzetti knew the real story. He’d been kicked out of the longshoremen’s union in New Jersey for his third offense of stealing big-screen TVs from a freight depot in Newark. He’d moved down here and started fresh, first doing manual labor on construction sites but quickly moving up to the ranks to administrator when builders sought to get things done with a glare or a subtle threat. Mazzetti had met him years earlier when he’d been caught for fencing stolen auto parts. To avoid jail time Joey Big Balls had cooperated in the case and given up two different groups who were stealing high-end cars and breaking them down for parts. Joey didn’t care about anyone knowing he had an arrest record, but there was no way he’d survive anyone ever finding out he was a snitch. And that’s what Mazzetti was counting on today.

  Finally it looked like the trailer was empty except for the single light on in the back. Mazzetti turned to Sparky and said, “Looks like it’s showtime.”

  He didn’t wait for an answer; instead he popped out of the Crown Vic, hustled across the street and through the construction site. He was surprised to see that Sparky had kept up with him and was right behind him as he knocked on the door and entered.

  The giant man behind the desk at the far end of the trailer didn’t look up. All he said was, “I’m done paying out vouchers tonight. I’ll be back at noon tomorrow.”

  Mazzetti said, “I don’t need any money, Joey.”

  The fifty-year-old man looked up and focused his red eyes on Mazzetti and Sparky. He didn’t smile or show any concern at all. In a flat voice he said, “Whatcha need, Tony?”

  Mazzetti eased through the trailer back to the man’s cluttered desk. “How are things going, Joey?”

  The big man wiped his hand over his face and down his scraggly beard, showing two of his fingers had been broken and never set properly. He sighed and said, “It’s a goddamn right-to-work state, how do you think it’s going?”

  “Jersey is better?”

  “At least you knew where you stood with the unions. They may charge three times too much and have to shut down projects, but there was none of this bullshit of hiring guys right off the street or hiring guys you couldn’t trust. Sometimes I think the state is stuffed with goddamn morons.”

  “Look, Joey, I’m from Brooklyn so I feel like I have a pretty good view of things, and I’ll admit the state does have a lot of morons, but after a few years you start to realize the worst morons have come from Jersey or New York.”

>   Joey shook his head and rephrased his first question. “Can I help you with something, Tony?”

  “I need info on a case. You hear about this girl found over in the Dumpster?”

  The big man remained silent but nodded his head.

  “I’m looking for someone in the construction business who might notice another worker acting funny. Basically I’m asking you to keep your ears open and help us out if you hear anything.”

  “If I turned in every felon or guy acting strange, I’d have no drywall or carpet guys left to work with.”

  The conversation went back and forth for a few minutes with Joey avoiding any commitment to help. Mazzetti felt his patience start to lag and he stood quickly, shooting the chair back with his legs and leaning in close to Joey Big Balls across the desk. “Don’t make me do something we’ll both regret, Joey. This is serious.” Then he leaned closer, catching a whiff of the big man’s body odor. But out of the corner of his eye he saw Sparky Taylor shaking his head instead of backing him up on the threat.

  Joey Big Balls raised both of his hands and said, “I’ll start asking some guys quietly and see if I can come up with a name for you, but in return you can’t come around here anytime you want.”

  “Joey, I don’t want to come around here at all, but I don’t think you want to feel any responsibility if another girl turns up dead and you’re not willing to help us.”

  After giving Joey his cell phone number and making his good-byes, Mazzetti headed out of the trailer with Sparky in tow. He turned to his partner and said, “What’s with the look back there?”

  “I don’t agree with those kinds of tactics. They’re not prescribed in law or the sheriff’s policies. There’s a reason we have rules, Tony. You’re treating that man like a criminal.”

  “Hello. He is a convicted felon and a snitch.”

  “Is he a documented source of information?”

  “No, I haven’t officially listed him as one of my snitches.”

  “Then by policy he’s only a witness and we don’t treat witnesses so poorly.”

  “We don’t let killers run free either and if we don’t find the guy responsible for Kathy Mizell’s murder and maybe Leah Tischler’s too, he’s gonna kill again. And I can’t let that happen. That’s my fucking policy.”

  TWELVE

  Stallings could always tell when the whole squad was on one big case by the way detectives tended to focus on reports and information on their desk rather than chatting back and forth. The usual friendly atmosphere of the detective bureau went out the window when cases got serious and detectives got tired. In the past, before the recession, when overtime was plentiful, everyone had been buoyed by the idea they were making a lot of extra money by working such long hours. Some cops had equated the extra hours and pay to specific material things like, “Fifty more hours and I can get a pool.” Some cops had built a future on it—“This is Tommy’s college fund.” Now the detectives seemed to work a lot of hours for comp time or some other bullshit they never got reimbursed for. That was never Stallings’s motivation for working hard. He wanted to find who was responsible for Leah Tischler’s disappearance and punish him.

  He and Patty had been looking for the last person who’d seen Leah. They had a list of friends and intended to go out to the Thomas School for interviews later in the day. Stallings really felt like he needed to know if Leah had run away, and if she had, where she’d run to. Maybe Jeanie had done the same thing and gone to the same place. Leah’s mother had called him three or four times since he’d first gone out to their opulent house at the beach. He knew how tough it was and he wasn’t going to tell her to stop calling.

  Patty stepped over from her desk and said, “Almost done here. Besides going to the school, is there anyone else we need to talk to today?”

  “I have a couple more questions for Liz Dubeck.”

  “I’ll bet you do.” Patty flashed that perfect smile.

  “No, it’s not like that at all.”

  “Really? What is it?”

  It surprised Stallings he had to think about his answer, but he was rescued by Sparky Taylor walking past on his midmorning routine of eating organic whole wheat bread and a stack of vitamins.

  Stallings said, “Whatcha got there, Sparky?”

  “The usual weight-control stuff. Eating a slice of organic, whole wheat bread and drinking two glasses of water helps me keep my weight in check.”

  Stallings stared at the portly detective and managed to hold his tongue when he saw how sincere Sparky was.

  The squad door opened with a bang, and a tall narcotics detective, whose name Stallings couldn’t remember right away, stepped in with an armload of packages wrapped in duct tape. The man, in his mid-thirties, was tall and stooped and looked a little like Big Bird with thick glasses. The man glanced around the room until his eyes fell on Sparky. “Hey, Spark. Our sergeant told us to come up here to process evidence and prisoners to keep them away from some meth-lab guys we have down in our office. He cleared it with the Yvonne the Terrible.”

  Sparky stepped over and helped the man lay out the packages on the desk. Stallings realized they knew each other from the tech unit, where they had obviously shared similar interests.

  Stallings wandered over and casually inquired about the prisoners who were on their way.

  The nerdy detective said, “We scored big. One of the guys bought fifteen hundred OxyContin from a gang not far from here. They’d been selling them to some dude from Kentucky who resold them and made a fortune. When we took down the guy from Kentucky on the highway he gave up a gang.”

  Stallings mumbled, “Sweet.”

  “I knew Yvonne wouldn’t mind us using the squad bay. She was our sergeant before she was yours and we hated to see her go.”

  “Then why’d you name her Yvonne the Terrible?”

  “What better way of keeping people from stealing a good sergeant?”

  Stallings had to nod, appreciating the simplistic brilliance of their plan. He let the detective sort out his evidence and noticed Patty talking with Mazzetti at his desk. Even though he knew about the relationship, that didn’t mean he liked to see her too close to the weasel.

  Buddy used his grinding wheel to put an edge on the long knife he intended to use to kill Donna’s sister, Cheryl. There was no simple way to say it. He had to kill the dumb bitch before she ruined his life completely. He had to be careful because he might be considered a suspect in this killing. The fact that he knew her and disliked her meant he might have to answer some questions. He’d always been careful in selecting women for his work of art and he didn’t think anyone had ever suspected him. He had never really worried about answering questions from the police, but this time he had to plan things out.

  Most importantly he’d make sure he’d be able to find her somewhere away from her house and from his shop. He’d never risk letting her contaminate his work of art. She had no business being remembered for all eternity. In fact, he wished he could just forget about her now, but as long as she continued to hound him about the lease and barge in when he needed privacy, he had to take action.

  He was going to use the knife because it was so different from the strangulations he’d done in the past. Although it was comfortable using his hands to choke someone, he’d never stabbed anyone and he didn’t own a gun so he couldn’t shoot her. Guns were too dangerous and he opposed them. His first preference would be to simply run her down, but he wasn’t sure he could do it without witnesses and his van was fairly recognizable. That left the knife. He had read several articles on the Internet about stabbing someone to death and knew he’d have to either stick it in under her rib cage and into her heart or into her throat. He had no illusions and knew it’d be a messy job. Stabbings didn’t always kill someone; in fact unless they were well-planned and delivered with force it was very difficult to kill someone with a knife attack. But it might make his life a lot easier.

  He’d never considered the advantages of murder
for convenience. He felt like art was a decent justification, but the idea of stabbing someone because they annoyed him made him uncomfortable.

  Patty Levine looked into Tony Mazzetti’s intense brown eyes and said, “This is not the time or place to have a talk like this.”

  “When is the time?”

  “Off duty and in private.”

  Patty noticed Mazzetti’s jaw clench and the muscles on each side work. She couldn’t believe she’d said something like that, but it was true.

  Mazzetti said, “I just want us to take the next step. No one visits either of us. No one would know if you moved in with me. It’s not like we’d be adding to our secret.”

  “Why wouldn’t you move in with me?” Patty folded her arms like a schoolteacher waiting for a child to answer for some transgression. In fact she was ready to live with anyone, anywhere.

  “Because I have a house. With a garage and a yard and a property value that’s increasing. There was no sexist meaning in my comment.”

  Patty considered the sincere offer from her boyfriend, but it really wasn’t the right time to accept. She had a lot going on, and until she got a handle on at least her prescription drug problem she didn’t want to drag anyone else into it. She also wondered if his offer was an attempt to bridge the chasm that had recently grown between them. She couldn’t put it into words, but it just didn’t feel right. On the other hand she didn’t want to chase him away, either. As she was about to say something conciliatory a crash at the front of the squad bay startled her. Someone flew in through the door, smacking into the table with a thud next to the detective who’d been processing the seized OxyContin.

  Stallings’s head had jerked up at the sound of the commotion and he saw three young black men in handcuffs held by a mix of tactical, plainclothes officers and narcotics guys, mostly twenty-five- to thirty-year-old hotshots who spent lots of time in the gym. These young, slick detectives seemed to be more in love with the idea of being a cop than with the hard work needed to be a good police officer. They looked good in tailored shirts and low, tactical holsters worn outside their jeans, but any time a big case rolled down the pike those were not the kind of cops he wanted to work with.