James Andrus - The Perfect Death

Bell looked at the lieutenant and said, “We’ve gone as far as we can go on the investigation without being overt. We’re gonna need to start interviewing people and seeing if anyone talked or tried to sell the drugs on the street.”

Sergeant Zuni said, “Are you trying to say you think one of my detectives not only stole the pills but then tried to sell them for profit?”

Bell gave her a smile, but it was not like the ones she had seen over the last few days. “So you think it’s possible that one of your detectives took the drugs for personal use?”

“That’s not what I said.”

“But is it a possibility?”

The sergeant didn’t know what to say or how she should feel toward this man who only yesterday she had thought was something special.

Bell said, “I could narrow down the suspects.”

At the same time both the sergeant and lieutenant said, “How?”

“I checked the JSO medical records for everyone who was present in the squad bay.”

Sergeant Zuni interrupted him. “Wait a minute. You can’t check personal medical records for just any reason.”

“No, but I can check the records of JSO employees who have to go through a physical every two years. And I have a very good reason. A bundle of diverted prescription narcotics worth a small fortune is missing. That’s not just any reason.”

Sergeant Zuni caught a glimpse of the smugness that rubbed John Stallings and many of the other detectives the wrong way. Right now she didn’t much care for it either. She kept her mouth shut. She had to trust Lieutenant Hester to come to her aid before this got out of hand.

The lieutenant said in a very even tone, “What’d you find, Ronald?”

“I think Patty Levine is a plausible suspect in this theft.”

Sergeant Zuni almost sprang to her feet. “How in the hell did you reach that crazy conclusion?”

This time it was Bell who kept a very even tone. “At her last physical, Detective Levine listed the prescriptions she was currently taking. Those include Ambien and hydrocodone.”

The lieutenant said, “What is hydrocodone?”

“The most common drug you’d recognize from that generic name is Vicodin.”

Sergeant Zuni said, “So you’re telling me because she followed the rules and admitted to exactly which drugs she was legally prescribed, now you’re going to drag her name through the mud. That seems like pretty thin evidence to skewer a good cop on.”

“Another way to look at is that she knew there was a drug screen and decided that no one would check if she admitted it. She wrote on her own form that she only used the painkiller occasionally for back pain and never on duty. But that was more than two years ago. There’s no telling what her drug problem’s like now.”

Sergeant Zuni kept her mouth shut. Like a mother tiger, her first instinct was to protect her cub. She needed time to know how to go about that the best way. Finally she said, “So what happens now?”

Bell gave her that smug smile and said, “Think she’ll talk to me?”

Sergeant Zuni knew she’d wasted her entire weekend.

Lexie Hanover was excited and nervous. She’d only had two serious boyfriends in her entire life. Her first boyfriend, Elby Harris, had stayed with her three years until he graduated and went off to Auburn. She’d loved him and was not unhappy that she had lost her virginity to him. In the big scheme of things, losing your virginity on a king-size bed while his parents were out of town was not such a bad thing. It certainly wasn’t romantic, or at least how she had fantasized losing her virginity, but it was much better than the backseat of a Trans-Am or the bed of a pickup truck.

Lexie’s only other boyfriend was a guy named Chuck who had an adorable miniature Doberman he brought by the clinic. He was older than her, about twenty-seven, and had led her to believe he was crazy about her. He took her on a weekend to Savannah and out to dinner four different times. Somehow it had shocked Lexie to learn he was married and that was the reason he never took her back to his place. She tried not to let the experience jade her toward men. Lexie focused on how experienced he had been and how much she had enjoyed the things he did to her. It opened her eyes to the advantage of dating a man who was perhaps a little older and more mature. Maybe that’s why she was attracted to Buddy. So when he suggested she close her eyes while he stroked her neck, she listened

It was almost like a dream. Her whole body relaxed. She could drift off to sleep or turn into a wildcat on a second’s notice. She felt something on her throat. It was soft like cloth but heavier, but it wasn’t jewelry, it was too soon for extravagant gifts. As she drifted deeper into this wonderful state, she wondered what delightful trick he had in store for her.

She could feel his breath near her neck and it smelled fruity and fresh. Her whole body tingled with excitement and expectation.

Then something went drastically wrong. For a split second she thought she’d swallowed wrong. Lexie became disoriented and a violent jerk snapped her head. She was choking. She had no air at all.

As fast as it started, she could breathe again. She’d sucked in one breath and opened her eyes. Buddy was right next to her face with the homemade jar in his hand. Maybe he thought it would help funnel oxygen into her. Her mind raced with all the dreadful possibilities. Had she had a stroke? A brain hemorrhage? Some kind of heart attack?

Lexie tried to take another breath, but another sharp jerk cut off her wind. She realized it was a strap around her throat. It was Buddy. He was doing this.

Lexie saw him set the jar down on the ground. Then the pressure around her throat increased drastically and she realized he was using both hands on the strap to choke her. Why?

She struggled to stay conscious, her arms uselessly flailing against his; then she tried to dig her fingers under the cord around her neck. She didn’t know what to do or what she had done to cause this. She felt her consciousness slip away faster and faster as the room grew dim. The last thing she saw was Buddy’s pleasant smile.

John Stallings sat in the doctor’s office next to his mother on a small couch while his father reclined in a chair next to the wide, dark oak desk. He felt his mother’s small, trembling hand reach across the short gap between them to grab his. As soon as the doctor bustled into his office, Stallings knew what he was going to say. This was obviously not one of those doctors who could detach himself from the patient.

The middle-aged doctor, wearing almost comically thick glasses, tried to buy some time while looking through several pages of a lab report. Finally he looked, first at James Stallings, then over to John on the couch. He started to speak slowly, but it didn’t hide his New York accent.

“I’m afraid I have some very bad news. And I don’t believe in providing false hope. All the tests seemed to indicate …”

All Stallings heard was Blah, blah, blah, blah-Alzheimer’s. Then another phrase he didn’t want to hear: Prepare for the worst .

Buddy had held the limp body of Lexie in his arms until he felt a change in her body temperature. He was comfortable on the floor of her tiny apartment with her head in his lap and her smooth arms neatly at her sides. He had done nothing lewd or inappropriate as he tried to reassure her that this was for the best and she’d now be recognized for all eternity.

He looked over to the small glass jar he’d set back on a windowsill and smiled, knowing he had another piece of his work of art completed. He’d been careful not to move from this area of the apartment and slid away from her like he was trying to keep from waking her up. He took the jar and glanced around. There was nothing that indicated he’d been in the apartment. He knew the cops had a way of picking up flecks of skin or strands of hair, but he wasn’t that concerned about it anymore.