James Andrus - The Perfect Death

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.

One of the prisoners had already been tossed through the door and bumped into the nerdy detective working on the evidence. The prisoner jumped up and kicked the nerdy detective squarely in the head, knocking him sideways, where he struck his head on the corner of the desk on his way down. This emboldened the other two prisoners, who started struggling immediately in the grasp of the muscular cops. One headbutted a young black police officer, shattering his nose and driving him back into the hallway. The third prisoner used his legs to kick off the wall and forced two detectives back with him on the ground, taking them all out of the fight.