James Andrus - The Perfect Death

Buddy said, “It’s his loss to miss out on his son and someone as bright as you.”

Katie smiled and it was dazzling.

John Stallings found his father working in the community center across the street from the house where he lived. He hung back to watch with an unmistakable pride as his father patiently supervised three younger homeless men while they worked on out-of-date computers with huge, green-screen CRTs. When it looked like he was done with his lesson, Stallings started across the floor.

The old man’s face brightened, and he said, “Johnny, what are you doing here?”

“Came by to check on you, Dad.”

“How’d you know I was here?”

“Your landlady told me.”

James Stallings sighed and looked off into the distance. “She is a fine woman. Almost as great as your mom.”

Stallings smiled.

His father looked at him and said, “Everything all right?

“Why wouldn’t it be?”

“I’m a drunk and a shitty father, but I know when someone’s preoccupied. Spill it and tell me what’s going on.”

“I worry about you, Dad.”

“What are you worried about me for?”

“Your memory problem, for one thing.”

“What memory problem?”

Stallings stared at his father and was about to explain some of the problems he’d been having when the old man grinned.

James Stallings said, “You can’t even take a joke anymore. Oh wait, I forgot, you never had a sense of humor.”

Stallings had to give his father a chuckle for that one. He led the older man over to a set of chairs and they sat, facing each other. “There’s something I’d like to talk to you about, Dad.”

“Fire away.”

“I think Jeanie did know where you were living and would’ve been able to find you. What I need you to do is think real hard about your visit with her. Try and remember if she said anything that might give you a clue as to where she was going or if she was in real trouble.”

The old man looked off in space and seemed to concentrate as his face clouded and his eyes began to water. Finally James Stallings said, “I’m sorry, son. I’m not even sure I know what you’re talking about. I remember enough to know that I’m causing a lot of pain when I didn’t mean to.”

Stallings put his hand on his father’s shoulder. “Don’t worry about it, Dad. I want you to think about it and maybe write some notes.” He knew he wouldn’t get anywhere with the old man today, but he wasn’t going to give up either.

Then his phone beeped into the text message from Sergeant Zuni: COME BACK TO THE OFFICE RIGHT NOW-YZ.

Tony Mazzetti heard the sergeant’s voice when she called out for Stallings. It had an edge similar to the voice of his second-grade teacher, Sister Teresa, when she’d yell at him for not paying attention in geography class. Mazzetti had a similar reaction to the sergeant’s call for Stallings. He almost giggled out loud thinking of all the things Stallings could have done to rate the sergeant’s ire. Knowing Stallings, he probably punched a city commissioner or roughed up a doctor who didn’t tell him everything he knew right that second. Whatever it was, aside from providing temporary amusement, it was not Mazzetti’s business.

Then Mazzetti heard his name in the same tone. He looked around and saw Stallings hustling in from the hallway and realized she must’ve already sent him a summons over his cell phone. The two detectives slipped into the small office and stood silently for a moment until Yvonne the Terrible stared up at them and said in a brusque voice, “Shut the door.”

Both detectives were so big that Mazzetti had to step to one side while Stallings carefully shut the door.

Then the sergeant said, “Sit.” Both detectives complied immediately. Then she did what all good sergeants did when they wanted to make a point: she let them stew in silence for a few seconds. Finally she cut her dark eyes back to them and said, “What the hell were you two thinking?”

Neither detective answered. Mazzetti didn’t want to be the one who had to ask what she was talking about.

Then the sergeant said, “It’s bad enough you’re out searching for a suspect no one even told me about, but you broke into an apartment with no warrant or authorization. Shit, you didn’t even have any probable cause.” She kept her green eyes on them like they were bright lights and she was giving them the old third degree.

Mazzetti stuttered as he began to answer. Nothing he said seemed to make any sense with the long pauses and clearing his throat. Finally he said, “I’m not sure how to answer that, boss.”

Stallings got right to the point. “Sparky ratted us out, right?”

“Sparky followed policy. He could’ve gone to IA. He could’ve done a lot of things. Instead, he came to me to handle it as quietly as possible because he didn’t want to go to jail if things went bad. I don’t call that ratting someone out. I call that showing some good common sense. Something neither of you have shown.”

Mazzetti was amazed how calm Stallings appeared. Stallings looked at the sergeant and said, “Let me ask you one question?”

“What?”

Stallings took a moment and then said in an even voice, “Do you want us to start acting like Sparky, strictly by the book, or do you want us to catch this goddamn killer?” He kept his eyes solid on the sergeant.

Mazzetti was impressed by Stallings.

Yvonne Zuni said, “Catch the goddamn killer, but use common sense when others are around.”

After the meeting with the Yvonne the Terrible, things had happened so quickly John Stallings’s head was spinning by the time he arrived at the crime scene west of U.S. 1, in a northern industrial section of Jacksonville. When a veterinary tech named Lexie Hanover had not shown up for work and her employer was unable to reach her, he got worried. After he contacted her parents, they got worried too and their first stop was her tiny apartment wedged between industrial buildings. They found their little girl lying so peacefully on the couch with the TV on that at first, they thought she’d died of some natural cause like a stroke or an embolism. It was the paramedics who realized she’d been the victim of violent crime and had the patrolman at the scene call in the body to JSO homicide.

Stallings wasn’t even sure why he’d come all the way here. The crime scene investigators were doing their job efficiently and didn’t need an old-time detective interfering. Mazzetti, as the lead investigator, was running things along with Sergeant Zuni. Sparky Taylor was right on top of the crime scene investigators, watching their every move. Stallings wondered if Sparky felt differently about how they handled Daniel Byrd’s apartment the night before now that he was looking at another victim.

Mazzetti stepped out of the apartment and chatted with Stallings at the end of the hallway. He said, “Gotta be the same shithead. She was strangled with a ligature that left very similar marks to the girl we found over at Pine Forest Park. This shit is getting way out of hand.”

“What d’you want to do?”

“We’re gonna be stuck here for a long time. They’ve already started the canvass of the neighborhood, but so far no one saw anyone or anything suspicious. We’ve gotta either shit or get off the pot with Daniel Byrd. You go out there and beat the bushes. I guarantee you no one will care how you find him or what you have to do.”

Stallings said, “You thought about putting it out to road patrol?”

Mazzetti shook his head. “We can’t risk it getting to the media and causing him to flee to another city where they’d have to start an investigation all over again. We gotta find him.” Mazzetti flipped several pages of notes and said, “I looked up some old reports in narcotics. Narcotics boys say Byrd used to be a mid-level meth dealer in the city. He always kept more than one residence. That place we checked out last night might not be his only pad. Keep that in mind.”