James Andrus - The Perfect Death

The detective said, “I’m here about Cheryl Kazen.”

“I heard what happened to her. It’s terrible.”

“How’d you hear about it?”

“I saw it on the news and her sister called me.”

“When was the last time you saw her?”

Buddy tried hard to stay calm, but his face flushed and a trickle of sweat ran down the side of his face. His eyes roamed around the room and fell on the bullet hole in the wall of the kitchen. The hole put there by Cheryl before he plunged the knife into her chest. And while he was looking over the detective’s head at the bullet hole, his eyes dropped and he noticed, for the first time, a thin splash of blood at the base of his breakfast bar. If he had noticed, how long would it take before the detective picked up on it?

Finally Buddy was able to say, “Cheryl came by with her sister Donna one evening last week. Like Wednesday or Thursday.”

“Why’d they come by?”

“They’re my landlords since their father died and wanted to look around to make sure the place was in good shape and asked me if I wanted out of my lease.” He knew Donna would’ve told the story and he wasn’t about to give this guy any reason to hang around.

The detective made some notes and let his gaze drift around the apartment. Buddy could hardly keep his right hand from slipping behind his back, like it had a mind of its own. He found himself considering if the detective would have called in his location or if someone might be waiting for him outside. It didn’t seem to matter to his hand.

All that mattered was the magnetic pull of the butcher’s knife’s handle.

Patty Levine snapped awake on her couch about lunchtime. She had managed to doze off without the aid of Ambien or any other narcotic after the long surveillance and interview of Daniel Byrd. This single night’s simple victory lifted her spirits slightly until she remembered some of the things she had to be anxious about.

The image of the injured homeless man and his snotty attorney using words like “careless” and “negligent” in the IA office yesterday left Patty shaken. Her stomach growled and felt like someone was doing a ballet at the top of her intestines. She slowly stood, shaking off the stiffness of lying in an awkward position, and through force of habit padded back to the medicine cabinet in her bathroom. She looked through the rows of amber pill bottles, found the oldest vial of Xanax, and automatically took two just to get her day started.

Her back throbbed so she reached for an odd assortment of painkillers, poking through the variety of shapes and colors to find a Vicodin. Before she placed it in her mouth, she hesitated, then looked at her image in the mirror of the medicine cabinet. Was this really what she wanted to be doing with her life? Even though she had been out late working and not partying, she looked like hell and it was almost noon.

Patty tried to trace her exact anxiety and realized it wasn’t really about being sued. From her first day in the academy she’d heard that any good cop doing her job couldn’t avoid being sued at some point in her career. But this didn’t have anything to do with enforcement, it was just an accident. And it was her fault. Even if the homeless man was exaggerating his minor injuries and the lawyer was trying to milk the system. The sheriff’s office was constantly getting these kind of complaints because of the perception they had deep pockets. It was unusual, however, that Internal Affairs would get involved and allow a scumbag attorney to question a JSO officer directly. There was a lot more to this than Patty could decipher. She wondered if Ronald Bell was actually after something more serious than a minor car accident. He had insinuated that she had tried to cover up her activity, but there was still the rumor of the missing drugs. She wondered if she was a suspect in the drugs’ disappearance. Why not? She was an addict. She had to be honest with herself and admit some of the things she’d done recently were as a result of her drug use. This was not the way she wanted to live her life.

Maybe it was time she told someone else about her problem.

Buddy had tried everything to get Detective Martinez out of his apartment. He’d answered the same questions over and over and now was concerned that the sharp little detective had his suspicions about Buddy’s role in Cheryl’s death.

Martinez said, “I have to ask this. Have you ever been in trouble with the police before?”

Buddy shook his head. “No, not even as a kid.”

“Would you mind if I took a quick look around the apartment and your shop?” He made it sound so casual and easy that it would be hard for Buddy to say no without looking like he was hiding something.

Buddy hesitated. Finally he said, “I have no problem with it, as long as you don’t make a mess.”

The detective kept his dark eyes directly on Buddy as he shook his head and mumbled, “That’s fine. I won’t make a mess.” He slowly stood from the couch, looking down the hallway toward the bedroom, then over Buddy’s shoulder toward his work of art.

Buddy stepped back and reached behind him very slowly.

Detective Martinez turned and stepped toward the kitchen quickly. It took Buddy several steps to catch up to the energetic man. The detective was in the kitchen before him, but he could close the gap. Buddy felt he’d lost the initiative when the detective faced him in the small kitchen.

Buddy calmly picked up his newly blown glass jar and moved it from the counter to a shelf near the refrigerator. It was an instinct and it didn’t capture the detective’s attention.

Detective Martinez set down his notebook upside down on the counter so Buddy couldn’t see what he had written. The detective actually opened one drawer and looked down at several carving knives and another butcher’s knife. “The victim was stabbed a number of times. I’m learning a lot about knives as I work this case.” The detective sounded casual.

Buddy relaxed slightly until he looked on the wall and realized the bullet hole was directly behind the detective. He couldn’t keep his eyes from shifting down to the bloodstain he’d seen near the baseboard earlier. God, he hoped the detective didn’t follow his gaze.

He had to either keep cool or take action. He couldn’t risk being stopped when he was so close to completing his work of art.

John Stallings knew the news media would be all over the story of a young nurse found dead at one of the area’s major hospitals. But when he turned on the radio in his county-issued Impala the very first words he heard from a newscaster were “serial killer.” The phrase made him flinch. Often news stations would use the term in the form of a question like, “Is Jacksonville stalked by a new serial killer?” In this case the answer to that question was, “Yes.” And Stallings was pretty sure the command staff at the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office didn’t want that term used loosely.

The phrase itself struck a primal chord with the public and often caused more problems than it solved. The weight of useless tips could crush a team of detectives doing their best to solve a serial crime. He listened to the radio as the announcer gave a few details about the investigation. The next story was about a Christian revival that had been going on at the municipal stadium on and off for two weeks. The controversy was that they had to dismantle the stage so the Jaguars could play one Sunday afternoon. The news coverage on the event had swelled the numbers of believers filing into the downtown arena.

All Stallings could think about now was what he could to do to stop the man who was strangling young women in Jacksonville.

Buddy focused on Detective Martinez’s face, trying to catch any movement or expression that might give a hint to what the detective was thinking. He continued to ask Buddy simple, non-threatening questions. First about Cheryl and then about any friends or associates she’d had. He was particularly interested in boyfriends and asked Buddy if he’d ever been interested in her romantically.