James Andrus - The Perfect Death

Finally Byrd said, “What kind of questions do you have?”

Stallings and Mazzetti had already worked out this little dance. Stallings would ask general questions about Leah Tischler; then Mazzetti would build up to the homicides.

Stallings said, “I’d like to ask you about this girl.” He slid a photograph of Leah Tischler across the table, and Byrd seemed to take a good long look at it.

Byrd said, “I’ve never seen her before.”

“You run into her within the last two weeks?”

Byrd shook his head. “No, no way. I’ve been working every shift I could the last month trying to get enough money together to pay off my traffic fines so I could get a job driving a cement truck.”

Stallings studied the younger man’s face carefully and looked over at Mazzetti, who made a few notes but was also trying to get a fix. Stallings said, “So you don’t want to say anything about this girl?”

“That’s not what I said. What I’m saying about her is that I never met her and have no information on her.”

Now Mazzetti got involved and said, “What about Kathy Mizell over by the health education building? The girl at the bus stop.”

Once again Byrd kept calm and looked Mazzetti directly in the eye. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. Why am I here really? Why were you guys chasing me? I’ve done a lot of shit, but I don’t know what you guys are asking about.”

Mazzetti said, “Whose dresses were those in your apartment?”

Byrd looked down at his dress and then gave a flat stare back to Mazzetti. “Really, dude, you can’t figure it out?”

Stallings admired the young man’s attitude.

Byrd said, “Take a wild guess why I can’t let the guys at work know I wear them. Construction workers aren’t known for their tolerance. This is the first time a dress ever really helped me out, other than to make me feel special and better than I really am.”

That caught Stallings by surprise, but he had to admit the man was very cool and calm if he had really killed anyone.

The door opened to the interview room and Patty Levine stepped in. This was a very unusual move among the detectives. Mazzetti and Stallings immediately knew something big had happened. Stallings looked at her, waiting to hear whatever vital news she had. The way Byrd looked at her, Stallings could tell he might’ve been a cross-dresser but he wasn’t gay.

Patty said, “He’s not our man.”

At the same time Mazzetti and Stallings said, “Why?”

“Because they just found a body in the courtyard at Shands hospital. She’d been strangled with a ligature sometime between ten and midnight. We were on Byrd the whole time and he never came close to the hospital.”

Stallings knew there was a lot of information to verify and forensics to ensure that this was a victim of the same killer, but somehow, in that moment and looking at the lack of response from Daniel Byrd, he knew there was still a serial killer loose on the streets of Jacksonville.

Buddy sat straight on a stool as he ate his chicken salad sandwich on whole wheat at the counter in his kitchen. The last jar needed for his work of art sat on the counter next to him. He stared at it with mixed emotions. It was the ending of so many things. He’d taken extra time to blow it just right and the glass glistened in the overhead light of his kitchen.

It was early for lunch, not even quite eleven o’clock, but most of the work he was doing today was in the shop and any time he felt hungry he could run upstairs and grab a quick bite. That’s how Men’s Health suggested men eat. Lots of small meals staggered throughout the day.

The TV was off and he didn’t have a newspaper open in front of him. He was enjoying the satisfaction he felt from completing another section of his work of art. He had also learned not to jerk on the cord too hard or you could break the subject’s neck. He had been lucky last night to be able to grab Katie’s final breath, but it had been just that, luck.

He’d hardly slept after the ceremony to put Katie in her rightful place. From the first moment he put his plan in action it had gone almost perfectly. He’d surprised her, calling pediatric endocrinology from the phone in the lobby. He’d been in the hospital enough to know they were cheap on security cameras and both cameras in the lobby pointed to the front. Easy enough to avoid. He’d worn an oversized Jacksonville Jaguars Windbreaker because it disguised him a little bit if someone had happened to see him and it had giant pockets where he had stored one of his homemade jars.

Buddy still had his pass from earlier in the day and had the sticker on the outside of his windbreaker so no one would ever doubt he had permission to be inside the hospital.

Katie had wanted to meet him in the coffee shop, but he met her at the elevator and led her out to the rear garden. It was a well-maintained courtyard designed to give patients a place to step outside into a world that wasn’t windy and usually had shade from one side of the building or the other. Even if there had been cameras out there it was too dark in most places to pick up anything. No one was out enjoying the night. Not with the things you could see inside, like American Idol or America’s Next Top Model . Sometimes Buddy wondered how culture could continue with crap like that on the airwaves, drawing so much attention. He wished people took more of an interest in serious art. If more people appreciated art, maybe he could’ve made a living at it instead of doing it as a sideline to his plate-glass business. Sometimes he forgot how bitter he was about people’s shallowness.

He was glad that for one evening people had been occupied and hadn’t bothered to come out to see the natural beauty of the gardens or the moon or the brilliantly lit constellations. As they sat on a hard patio bench in the corner of the courtyard near a low, manicured hedge of decorative plants, Katie had appreciated the majesty of the heavens, staring with those beautiful eyes and a relaxed, pleasant expression. He had wasted no time pulling out the cord and slipping it around her neck so quickly she’d never even realized it was there. Then he pulled as hard as he could with both hands to give her that shock and awe he needed to start his own artistic process. But her graceful neck did not have the muscle girth to withstand the stress and he felt a sickening snap.

He’d moved quickly, not releasing the cord until he had the jar in place. It’d been awkward and he had felt a little panic as he rushed through his process, but as he released the cord he realized there was just the slightest exhalation on Katie’s part. Not enough to fog the jar, but he could feel it gently on the fingers of his right hand as he held the jar to her lovely mouth.

He had not been able to sit and enjoy the process for fear of being discovered at any moment. He quickly dragged her limp body from the round patio table and laid her between two rows of decorative plants. She would be easy to find. He’d have enough time to slip out the south door, which had no camera and no security personnel. He took a moment to look down at Katie’s pleasant face. She looked very peaceful. He wondered if it was because her death came so swiftly. There were some marks on her neck, but her beautiful face had not been distorted and his memory of her would stay just like that.

The experience had been so positive he’d found himself whistling the theme to Hogan’s Heroes while working earlier in the morning. He couldn’t remember the last time he had whistled. Sometimes whistling set off a coughing fit so he had all but abandoned his childhood habit of whistling to keep himself focused.