James Andrus - The Perfect Death

He stopped at the Starbucks near Shands Jacksonville Medical Center to grab a cup of green tea, which he’d been told to drink on a daily basis. He waited in the short line until the barista greeted him with a big smile.

“Don’t I usually see you on Mondays?”

He smiled and nodded, mumbling, “The usual.”

The barista produced the local Starbucks version of tea, and he shuffled to an open table in the rear of the store.

Buddy worked on a crossword puzzle he’d downloaded from the New York Times site. The Jacksonville Times-Union was not known for complicated mind and word games. He enjoyed the few minutes he had to himself while he planned all the things he needed to complete in the next few days. Chiefly among them was finding a place suitable to deal with Donna’s sister, Cheryl. He’d blocked off a few hours this afternoon to see what he could do about that.

He glanced at his watch as he filled in the final word in the puzzle. It was “corpulent” for “a fancy fat man.” He didn’t solve it all in one sitting, but he’d done it in under twenty minutes. He didn’t think that was too bad.

From the corner of his eye he saw someone squeezing down a narrow part of the coffee shop to the table directly across from him, so he shifted in his seat. He casually let his gaze drift up and saw it was a nurse on her way into a shift at Shands. He did a double take when he saw the girl’s wide, beautiful features and light brown hair braided down the back. She may not have been the kind of girl who turned heads at a party or in the club, but to him she was everything he looked for in a woman. The fact that she was in the nursing profession enhanced her beauty twofold.

She plopped down with a large latte and a pastry, flipping through the Times-Union to the crossword. She glanced over to him and saw his completed crossword, saying, “That’s not from the local paper, is it?”

“ New York Times . I downloaded it.”

“That’s a great idea. I don’t know why I waste my time on this silly thing, but I do it every day.” She smiled and said, “You look familiar.”

“I’m in here all the time and I’ll try to remember to bring in a crossword for you next time.”

She reached across the narrow aisle and patted his hand and smiled. “That’s very nice of you.”

He tried not to stare, but all he could think was how beautiful she was. A deep-down, personal beauty. Some would call it an eternal beauty.

Tony Mazzetti had to admit it would’ve taken much longer to go through the detective bureau analyst and run profiles on each of the names Joey Big Balls had given him. But Sparky Taylor had jumped right on it and now had a driver’s license photo, personal data sheet, and, for four of the five names, a criminal history.

Mazzetti said, “Are you telling me four out of the five men at a construction site have criminal histories?”

Sparky shook his head. “Statistically that would be quite improbable. The reason so many of these men have histories is their names were brought up specifically because you told your informant to look for potential violent criminals. Your informant wouldn’t give us the names of men he had no reason to suspect of a crime. Therefore, it’s not surprising four of them have a criminal past.”

“Who are you, Spock?”

“You can ridicule logic and reasoned thinking all you want, but the fact remains that not all construction workers have felony convictions. And while we’re on the subject, Spock, as portrayed by Leonard Nimoy, is an extraordinarily interesting and complex character, and his actions are based on a well-thought-out literary principle.”

Mazzetti really couldn’t answer because he was actually afraid to engage his partner in any further conversation.

It was later in the afternoon when Yvonne Zuni found herself standing in the doorway to her small office looking out over the squad bay. The entire detective bureau took up the better part of the second floor and had been called the Land That Time Forgot for as long as she’d been with the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office. Each detective had his or her own desk, no matter what shift they worked. In addition, there were a number of extra desks that were used when people were brought in to help on specific cases. There were four secretaries and four criminal intelligence analysts in the room at any given time, except for the evening and most of the midnight shift. That left a whole lot of potential suspects in the theft of the pills lost during the fight. And that’s what she had to keep reminding herself. It was not necessarily a theft, even if she could find no other rational explanation for what had happened to the melting pills.

The use and abuse of, and trafficking in prescription pain medications had risen drastically over the past few years. When she’d first started in narcotics, the unit focused almost solely on cocaine and specifically crack, which had torn apart certain communities worse than anything else. She had noted a sharp rise in the use of heroin. But it was nothing compared to the industry being built around prescription narcotics on the streets. Even though the pills were controlled and supposedly tightly regulated, there was always a way around the system and she felt that drug companies had to be complicit in the wave of painkillers that had swept through the country. The idea they’d become so valuable someone would steal them directly from a police department was unsettling but not unbelievable.

As she eyeballed the room and thought about her own detectives, Sergeant Zuni considered them in a different light. She wondered, How does Stall keep going at full speed all the time? Is Tony Mazzetti sore from all the weights he lifts? These were things she’d never considered. She hoped she wouldn’t start to look at someone who slept late in the morning as a potential drug user, but Ronald Bell had planted the idea in her head.

She wanted IA to keep things as low-key as he had said they would and resolve the issue before rumors started to run rampant.

As John Stallings and Patty Levine cut through downtown Jacksonville from the Thomas School on their way to the Tischler house near the beach, Patty closed her cell phone and said, “The housekeeper told me Mrs. Tischler won’t be home for another forty minutes. I think we should talk to her before the husband gets home.”

“Should we try to meet her while she’s away from the house?”

“I don’t want to scare her with a call, and this is something we should handle face-to-face.”

Stallings nodded his agreement. His mind was whistling through the information they’d learned today, as well as a very cold phone conversation he’d had with Maria when he called to inquire about the kids. That made him think of a pleasant conversation he’d had with Liz Dubeck at her small hotel not far from where they were right now.

Stallings said, “Let’s go by and see if the lady at the hotel remembered anything more about her brief conversation with Leah.”

“You mean the pretty lady at the hotel near Davis Street?”

“That’s exactly who I mean. And I would appreciate it if you didn’t give me any shit about it.”

“For how long?”

“Until tomorrow morning?”

Patty smiled and said, “Done.”

A few minutes later Stallings was looking into the dark eyes of Liz Dubeck while Patty politely waited in the car and made a few phone calls.

Liz said, “Any luck on finding the girl?”

He shook his head. “That’s why I’m here. See if you remembered anything.”

“Nothing new, but I could ask around. People might be more inclined to talk to me than a big, scary cop.”

“You think I’m scary?”