James Andrus - The Perfect Death

Mazzetti droned on about the scene and his brilliance in noticing the unusual buckle on the belt used in the homicide. He told them the victim’s brief background to give them avenues to investigate, like who she hung out with, boyfriends, and creepy guys in her classes, but the biggest detail was Leah Tischler’s belt. All Stallings could think about was where Leah was. Dead or alive, he’d like to find her and give her parents some form of closure. Her wealthy attorney father was already blaming his long hours for her disappearance. Stallings could relate. But now Stallings wondered if he thought Leah could hold a clue to his own daughter. Was this what he would find? Had Jeanie run away, then stumbled into a monster like this? He shuddered at the thought and looked back up at the crowd in the room as the sergeant started to talk.

Yvonne Zuni’s dark eyes flashed at Stallings. “Stall, we’re gonna need you to work your magic. Focus on Leah Tischler and find out if anyone noticed her around. There’s a good chance she had run away when this creep found her.”

Stallings just nodded. This was his strength and what he was needed for most often. Besides, he owed the new sarge and would do anything she asked. She may have been a pain in the ass administratively, but there was no one he’d rather have backing him up if he ever got in trouble again.

Tony Mazzetti stared down in silence at the plain chicken breast, tiny helping of pasta, and raw vegetables on his plate. It was tough staying fit while trying to make a relationship work. He glanced over at Patty’s plate of lasagna and basket of garlic rolls. As a kid in Brooklyn, a meal in a nice Italian joint was a special occasion. Now it was an exercise in restraint. Before he could feel sorry for himself he remembered he needed to talk to a supervisor at public transportation. He pulled out his pocket-sized, leather-bound notepad and scratched a one-line reminder. When he looked back at Patty, her blue eyes were focused on him like lasers.

He stuffed the notepad sheepishly into his coat pocket. “Sorry, I’m not used to having to balance a homicide and a relationship. It’s all new to me. And with no overtime to go out and hit the streets you have to make use of any time an idea pops into your head.”

She smiled that sweet smile and took another monstrous bite of lasagna. She looked tired, and he worried she pushed herself too hard in her search for runaways with John Stallings. But homicide was no piece of cake either and if she was gonna be running leads on this new case, she wouldn’t catch up on her rest anytime soon.

Relationships might be new to him, but homicide was old hat. He wasn’t sure what would happen in his romance. It was uncharted territory-a scary, thrilling adventure ride-but he knew he’d never be able to stomach an unsolved homicide. His phenomenal clearance rate was one of the few things he could point to as an accomplishment and he liked everyone at JSO knowing he kicked ass in homicide investigations. He told himself that was why they called him the King of Homicide. The murder he’d been working on until this afternoon had really eaten at him. Pamela Kimble had left behind a husband and two kids. She was no gang-banger or dope dealer gunned down by a competitor. He knew someone else would take up any slack on the Kathy Mizell case. Maybe even Stallings, who seemed to have a thing for young, confused women who ended up in bad situations. Everyone in the S.O. understood Stallings had some kind of deep-seated desire to make up for whatever had happened to his own daughter. He may not have been Mazzetti’s best friend, but there was no denying he was a hell of a cop.

Patty set down her fork, wiped her face, and said, “Do you really think the world would come to an end if we went public with our relationship?”

“There’s nothing I’d like better than to tell people you’re my girlfriend, but based on policy and what they’ve done in the past, one of us would have to transfer out of the squad. I figured we’d let things go until we have no choice.” He didn’t want to bring up the recent feeling that they were drifting apart. Maybe it was just the natural rhythm of a relationship and he didn’t have the experience to deal with it correctly.

“You mean you wouldn’t be willing to work road patrol instead of homicide just for me?”

He hesitated, not only unsure of his answer, but not wanting to upset Patty. She burst out laughing, covering her face with her hand. Then gave him a sly smile.

“I can’t believe you’d fall for something like that. I’d never put you in that position.” She reached across the small table and clasped his hand.

He liked her playful side and realized he had to loosen up. He’d been out of uniform and stuck working in the detective bureau for so long he’d forgotten what it was like to just play around. Every cop knew half the job was practical jokes, but somehow he had missed out on that because of his ambition. He’d never really minded being on the outside looking in, but now he realized there was nothing wrong with making a beautiful girl like this smile.

Even if it wasn’t as much as he had made her smile a month ago.

Buddy watched the two women as they marched through the small McDonald’s courtyard. He had to admire the shape of them walking away, even though in Cheryl’s case he didn’t want to. Her surgically enhanced body gave her outrageous curves. It was Donna’s beautiful innocent eyes he noticed as she glanced over her shoulder at him, stepping into the passenger seat of her sister’s Chrysler 300.

He had considered Donna for his work of art on several occasions. Those big brown doe eyes and wide, full lips gave her an innocent look. She just had nothing to offer eternity. Donna was a lost child who followed her sister around like a puppy. Besides, he knew her and she might point police in his direction if she turned up dead. Buddy liked the twenty-four-year-old. Her sweet disposition more than made up for her lack of brainpower.

He knew the pressure to break his lease and move out was a direct result of Cheryl’s incessant harping. She’d taken over most of the daily business activities of her father, including the renting of the six warehouses across the city as well as the small apartment complex on the east side of the river. Her mother had been an internationally known model in Lebanon and greatly preferred lounging at their beautiful house in Ponte Vedra Beach to being troubled with the daily burdens of collecting rent and dealing with tenants.

Cheryl, on the other hand, had a ruthless streak that served her well as a landlord. Buddy had only met her mother once and she seemed pleasant enough and certainly the women’s father was a gentleman. After Buddy had blown him a special glass vase for his twenty-fifth anniversary, the man had signed a sweetheart ten-year lease with him, which he allowed Buddy to pay up front. Now, with six years left on the lease, he was probably Cheryl’s biggest problem.

He caught Cheryl’s murderous glare from inside the black sedan and thought to himself how nice it’d be to choke the life out of her. Too bad she wasn’t worthy.

John Stallings rolled over for the fifteenth time in the last sixteen minutes and stared at the clock on the nightstand. He flung the covers off in frustration and growled quietly to the empty room, then growled louder, so it filled the empty house. It was nearly midnight and he was no closer to sleep than he had been when he laid down at 10:15. His insomnia was as much a result of having no family and therefore no anchor in his life as it was of picturing Kathy Mizell shoved into a Dumpster and Leah Tischler at the bottom of a canal somewhere. Both families were crushed tonight.

Stallings couldn’t shake the feeling he’d failed Leah Tischler. He knew rationally that wasn’t how to look at the situation, but who could stay rational when a young woman was dead? If you stayed rational you went crazy.