The Perfect Death (19 page)

Read The Perfect Death Online

Authors: James Andrus

THIRTY-FOUR
John Stallings leaned against the wall as several residents peeked out their doors at the sound of Mazzetti's incessant pounding. There was no turning back now. Even if Daniel Byrd wasn't home, the neighbors would drop a dime that the cops had been here looking for him.
Mazzetti glanced at Sparky briefly, then over at Stallings. “What do you think, fellas? Simply go in to take a look around?”
Sparky Taylor appeared outraged at the suggestion. He didn't have the most forceful voice, but he got his point across. “We do not have nearly enough PC for a warrant and there are no exigent circumstances. We have no more right to walk into this apartment than we do to walk into any other room in this building.”
Stallings said, “Most of the other rooms don't house a potential murder suspect.” When he looked down the hall at a couple of the residents gawking out their doors, he wondered how accurate that statement was.
“We don't know that this apartment does either. This doesn't just go against policy, it goes against the Constitution.”
Stallings said, “Look at the totality of the circumstances for the probable cause. With his failure to report to his parole officer, and the comments from the other construction workers, we have enough. Citizens get jumpy when young people in the community end up strangled. I feel confident that a judge will cut us some slack.”
“Is that what you want to base our court case on? Slack? Gentlemen, there's a reason we have policies and rules, and neither of you are such legal scholars that I trust your reasoning about why we should enter this private apartment without court authorization.”
Stallings recognized that Mazzetti was sitting back and letting him make the argument. If they made some massive fuck-up, Mazzetti would claim he was just following Stallings and trying to keep him out of trouble. At this point it didn't matter. They had at least two dead girls and Stallings didn't want to go to three. He briefly looked at Sparky Taylor, saying, “If this makes you uncomfortable, I suggest you head back to the PMB.” Without another word or glance, Stallings threw his shoulder into the door and popped it off the lock instantly, tumbling into a cramped, cluttered apartment.
Sparky Taylor refused to step past the doorway and stood there, shaking his head.
Mazzetti chimed in, “Spark, we can't have an unsolved homicide our first case together. We gotta take a few risks to find this guy.”
Stallings scanned the small apartment, then turned to Sparky at the doorway. “What happens if he kills again while we're building a case? Or, if this guy Byrd turns out to not be the killer, we can't let him distract us from our mission for very long. Homicide works a little differently than narcotics or tech. There's a bit of art involved with the science.” Stallings could see his comments had no effect on the portly black man, who refused to cross the threshold of the nasty apartment.
There was a tiny bathroom that had no door and only a filthy toilet and sink. On the single bed, a sleeping bag was laid out on one side with no sheets or pillow.
Stallings didn't want to touch anything, let alone search, but he knew it had to be done.
Mazzetti stepped to the other side of the small room, muttering, “Maybe Sparky's right. This is bullshit.” Then he slid open the single walk-in closet door and froze.
Stallings glanced from the pile of clothes on the bed and saw what was in the closet. Even Sparky had fallen silent.
 
 
Patty Levine had given up on being productive today, shut down her computer, gathered a few notes, and headed down to her car. She didn't speak to anyone as she plodded down the stairs. She felt like the new girl in high school who wanted to be alone but didn't like being lonely. The walk through the rear lot seemed to take forever, but at least it wasn't raining for a change.
She slipped into her county-issued Ford Freestyle and plopped her notebook and purse onto the front passenger seat. She felt like calling Tony Mazzetti and finding out if he had some time to see her later, but she knew he and Sparky Taylor had gone out on a lead. She'd also felt some underlying tension between she and Tony and wondered if it was her reticence to move in with him. Patty didn't feel like it was the right time and the fact that she had spent Sunday afternoon in a comfortable, drug-induced haze supported her idea that she should get a better handle on her drug use before she tried to make someone else happy. Her sour mood and lack of focus today were a direct result of the pills she had taken yesterday. She in no way felt recharged or rested, which was the only reason they were all given Sunday off in the midst of a big homicide investigation.
Patty pulled through the lot, twice braking hard to avoid patrol cars coming and going. Each time she mumbled some swear or curse, when, in truth, she didn't know if it was more her fault or theirs.
The rear gate moved in slow motion. As always there were several day laborers and homeless people wandering on the sidewalk behind the building. Two young black men hurried down the street on the opposite side; their quick strides and confident manner told her that they weren't homeless people. An elderly woman pushed a tiny shopping cart along the sidewalk toward the young men, who politely stepped to the side and allowed the old woman the full width of the sidewalk. On Patty's side of the street a middle-aged Hispanic man wobbled toward her. At first she thought he might be drunk; then she realized he had one bad leg and he compensated for it with a lively swing of his arms.
Finally the gate locked open and Patty pulled through onto the street only to have to mash her brakes again. There was never traffic on this side street behind the PMB. The jackass in a pickup truck coming toward her wouldn't swerve around. Instead, he stopped and stared until she threw her Freestyle into reverse and started to back into the lot.
Before she was out of the way of the pickup truck, still moving in reverse, she felt a thump and heard a sickening shriek.
 
 
Maria Stallings had spent many evenings wondering what went wrong in her life. One thing the Narcotics Anonymous meetings had taught her was not to dwell on the bad things but think about the good things in her life. The easiest way to do that was to think about her two children still at home.
Tonight she wasn't contemplating anything; she was taking action. She'd been doing a lot of that lately. No matter how hard it was for her to send her husband away, Maria felt like it'd given her room to look at her life and hopefully make him realize how important the family was. No matter how many people he arrested, it wasn't going to change what happened to Jeanie. Tonight's activity had Maria in Jeanie's room. It was largely the same way it had been the day she disappeared. Maria made it a point to vacuum and clean in the room just like she did the rest of the house. It made her feel better, and if Jeanie did come home she'd realize that no one had ever given up on her.
There were a number of things stored neatly in boxes stacked in Jeanie's walk-in closet. This was where Maria had started her search. She had questions that needed answers, and she liked the idea she was the one who was going to find them.
Tony Mazzetti had not said a word. Now he, Stallings, and Sparky were inside Daniel Byrd's apartment in front of the walk-in closet. In addition to a work shirt and a pair of men's pants, there were five dresses hanging in the closet.
Mazzetti had a feeling this could be their man. Something about dresses in the shitty apartment didn't fit. He looked around the apartment and said, “I'd bet my left nut that no woman lived in this apartment.”
“At least not willingly,” mumbled Stallings.
Mazzetti and Stallings turned to Sparky at the same time.
The portly detective looked at each of them and said, “No matter what we found, it doesn't make breaking into this apartment right.” He checked the labels on each of the dresses quickly and said, “All big sizes. But this doesn't mean anything.”
Mazzetti shook his head, “Come on, Spark, the totality of the circumstances, man. We get more and more information about this creep and it's starting to add up. It may be that he likes to keep a dress from each of his victims. It may be something weirder. I know we need to snap some photos and decide what to take with us.”
Sparky said, “Now we're gonna include theft with our burglary?”
Mazzetti knew he was in an odd position. He had no idea what could be evidence. Anything they took now would be thrown out if they made a case. At the very least he needed some DNA samples. He glanced around the room and saw an ashtray overflowing with Marlboro Light cigarette butts. He hesitated, not wanting Sparky to see what he was about to do.
Mazzetti pulled several small Baggies from his inside coat pocket. He always threw a couple in when he was going to do an interview of a suspect or be in a place where he might need to store something for DNA testing later. These were all hard lessons learned through experience. He let Stallings see the bags in his hand and then cut his eyes to the ashtray. He thought Stallings was an asshole, but he was an asshole Mazzetti could trust. Mazzetti knew Stallings wanted this guy captured more than anyone.
Stallings took the cue and knew exactly what to do. He said to Sparky, “Come into the hallway and let's discuss this.”
Mazzetti heard the other detectives' voices raise as Sparky stuck to his position and Stallings tried to get him to look at the other, less legal aspects of the investigation.
That was all Mazzetti needed to reach down and pick up four of the cigarette butts. He shuddered at the thought of touching something that had been in a convicted felon's mouth, but sometimes he had to do what he had to.
Mazzetti heard Sparky make a final comment on his stance that everything in the apartment was off limits. But he had all he needed.
Now Mazzetti had to worry about this apartment along with everything else. They had to put a full-court press on to find Daniel Byrd and get some questions answered.
THIRTY-FIVE
Patty Levine froze behind the wheel and felt her blood turn to ice. She didn't want to look into the rearview mirror, but when she did there was nothing to see. The pickup truck scooted around her, the redneck flipping her off as he drove past. None of the pedestrians on the other side of the street turned to look at her way. She pulled the car forward a few feet, threw it into park, and bailed out like she was about to chase a suspect. Instead she ran directly to the rear bumper and her worst fears were realized when she saw the man lying flat on his back with his one good eye focusing on her.
She put both her hands to her cheeks and said, “Oh my God.” She dropped to her knees and put her hand gently on the man's shoulder. “Can you understand me, sir?”
The man just moaned.
“I'm going to get help. Don't move.” But when Patty started to stand up he gripped her wrist firmly. She turned back to him.
The man said, “No, no. I okay.”
Patty stared at the man carefully. Even in those few words she heard his Spanish accent. Patty didn't want the man's immigration concerns to keep him from getting medical treatment. “It's all right. We have to make sure you're not injured.” But he wouldn't let go of her wrist.
The man slowly sat up and twisted his head around in every direction. “See, I not hurt.” He braced himself on her and slowly worked his way to his feet. Then he spent another thirty seconds shaking his limbs, even though one leg had been hurt by some earlier injury.
Patty kept her hand on the man's shoulder to make sure he was steady. Finally she said, “Are you sure you're okay?”
The man gave her a smile that revealed crooked and broken teeth. He nodded his head vigorously and started to walk the way he had been headed originally.
Patty looked in every direction and saw that no one had even noticed her accident. Her stomach burned and her hands were so shaky she wondered if she'd be able to drive.
The man turned and gave her a brief, cheerful wave.
Patty smiled and waved back. She had to get home and swallow something that would calm her down.
 
 
John Stallings almost bolted from Tony Mazzetti's car as he parked behind the PMB.
Mazzetti said, “Where you headed in such a hurry?”
“I'm gonna sit on Byrd's apartment.”
“You need some sleep. We'll get out and hit it hard tomorrow and find the shithead. Believe me, we got plenty to do without wasting our time sitting on an empty apartment.”
“I got nothing to do anyway. I wouldn't be able to sleep if I went to bed now. I'm gonna give it an hour or two.”
Mazzetti shrugged. “Suit yourself.”
Stallings noticed Sparky Taylor wasn't speaking to either of them and was giving Stallings a dirty look as he hustled to his county-issued Impala.
 
 
Stallings found a place a block down from Byrd's apartment where his silver Impala didn't stand out too much. He could see the entrance to the apartment building and the street in each direction for a couple of blocks. He had Mazzetti's information sheet on Daniel Byrd, which included several photos from over the years. The guy had been in and out of jails since he was sixteen. He went by a number of aliases and one narcotics report noted Byrd always maintained more than one residence. Sometimes it was a small apartment he could run to in addition to a house in a residential area. That got Stallings thinking about how long it'd been since someone had slept in the dingy apartment. It dawned on him that this place was probably a safe house where Byrd only came if he was in trouble. He wanted to talk to some of the neighbors, but it was too late and that was something he needed to talk over with Mazzetti.
As he was about to start the car and head back to his lonely house, his phone rang.
He flipped open the Motorola phone and said, “Stallings here.”
He instantly recognized Maria's voice. “John, come to the house right away. I've got to show you something.”
The line went dead, but Stallings didn't need any explanation. If Maria needed him, no matter what time of the night, he was going to be there as fast as possible.
 
 
Patty Levine lay on top of the covers of her bed ferociously stroking her cat, Cornelia. She'd been practicing deep, cleansing breaths she'd learned in yoga, trying to calm down from the anxiety built up since earlier in the evening. It was not only backing over the homeless man that had upset her. She realized things were unraveling with Tony Mazzetti. She had no idea where he was or what he was doing, just like he had no idea where she was or what she was doing. If that wasn't a sign of a dying relationship, she didn't know what was.
Her big concern was that her drug use had bled over into her daily life. She used to think that she'd confined it mainly to the evenings in the privacy of her own house. But she wondered if the effects of Sunday's prescription-drug binge hadn't lingered and made her less attentive than usual. She should've known the older homeless man would walk behind the car when she pulled out. She should've checked before she put the car into reverse. There were one hundred little things she should've done, but she had not. It scared her.
The irony of it was that her solution was to down another Xanax, and now, as she lay on her bed, she popped two Ambien as well. This was not the first time she'd faced irony in her drug use. It was, in fact, her overuse of the sleeping drug Ambien that had saved her life less than a year ago. While working on her first serial-killer case with John Stallings she'd allowed herself to be captured by the killer, dubbed the Bag Man, for his penchant for leaving bodies in suitcases. He'd thought he'd knocked her unconscious with two Ambien and a cocktail of painkillers, but the tolerance she'd built up through overuse allowed her to maintain her consciousness, escape, and save the girl she'd been imprisoned with.
It was also one of the reasons she cared so much about John Stallings. He was the only one who seemed to understand what she'd gone through, yet he hadn't made a big deal out of it once she came back to work. He treated her like he always had, as an equal and true partner.
The incident also solidified her relationship with Tony Mazzetti. He'd shown that he cared about things other than police work by opting to stay with her at the hospital instead of traipsing off with Stallings to find the killer who'd escaped from the scene. She wondered if he'd do the same thing today.
All that seemed like a lot to deal with for a young woman who graduated from University of Florida with a degree in psychology. That should be reason enough for Patty to keep using a few anxiety drugs now and then.
 
 
Buddy was awake late, partially on an adrenaline high from his afternoon with Lexie and partly because he was in the mood to get some work done. That was the true beauty of living above his shop. He'd always kept a small apartment downtown as a place to hide if things ever got too hot. The rent was cheap and he rarely even visited the place anymore. And it was times like this he realized how lucky he was to have a large workspace near his sleeping quarters. Glassblowing wasn't like any other art. It took space and could be very dangerous. He needed a place for his furnace, as well as plenty of space for the raw material.
The furnace got as hot as two thousand four hundred degrees and radiated heat in all directions. Buddy often used potash and soda ash as an added fuel, which vaporized almost immediately but was easy to get off the final product with a spritz of industrial cleaner. He used a cleaner the consistency of jelly. It looked like a tub of K-Y Jelly but was a hell of a lot cheaper.
He used a mold for the jar so all the jars would be very consistent in size and shape. They had to be to fit into the glass wall he had made.
Next to the furnace was the steel marver, a flat table used to work the glass and form a cool skin on the exterior of the glass.
Buddy liked the idea of practicing an art developed before the birth of Christ. Sure, it had been refined, the equipment updated, but the craft was roughly the same.
After he'd made a jar and cleaned up his workstation, Buddy carefully carried the jar containing Lexie's last breath to his apartment, where he kept his work of art safely stored behind a padded moving blanket. Once inside he carefully removed the blanket and started the simple ceremony he'd created over the years. It was very personal and, for the first few years, short. All it involved was placing his hand over each jar that contained the final breath of one of his subjects. He took a second to recall them in as much detail possible. How they had looked when he first met them, how long he had talked to them, how easily they had made the transfer to eternity.
In his first three years of this project he'd only had two jars. Then he settled in to about a jar a year until the last three years when he knew things were moving far too slowly. Back then he wouldn't have believed the pace he kept now.
He rushed the ceremony as he slipped his hand past the jars in the top, then moved onto the next row, pausing only on the jar in the middle. He remembered Alice. She had been so sweet and young. Maybe too young. It was only through the news that he had learned she was fourteen years old. She had those big blue eyes and blond hair and that thin, graceful neck that his left hand was able to envelop completely. He remembered that stunned look on her face. He'd only known her a few minutes. It was entirely a wild opportunity that he took without any hesitation.
During the lunch hour on a job in northern Flagler County she'd sat down next to him on a bench near the Intracoastal Waterway. They chatted for a few minutes. He excused himself and walked back to his van, picked out a jar he'd made only the day before, walked back, and sat next to her like he was about to finish his lunch. Instead, he casually reached across and clamped down on her windpipe like a vise. She let out a little squeak. Her legs thrashed, but he'd used so much pressure he almost didn't get her final breath. He had never heard for sure, but he thought he might have broken her neck because he'd moved so quickly and she was so fragile. For some reason during the ceremony he always paused over Alice.
He also let his hand linger over Rhonda. She'd been a few years older than most of his subjects. Classy and beautiful in her own way. He remembered seeing her eighteen-year-old daughter on the news afterwards and wondered if there was a place in his art for her too. How old would she be now? Twenty-six?
Overall he was well satisfied with his efforts and knew, given the expanse of time to look back, each of the women would appreciate how much care he had taken to save them for eternity.
 
 
Stallings arrived at his former residence, darted up the driveway, and knocked once before bursting in. Maria had sounded serious enough for him to not waste time and knock. Maria sat alone on the living-room couch, and when she looked up he could see she'd been crying. Her eyes were red and puffy and a pile of tissues sat on the coffee table they'd bought together the week after they moved into the house. She had a notebook in her lap as she slowly turned her head to Stallings with that sad face.
Stallings did a quick scan of both downstairs rooms to see if either of the kids were around. He stepped forward and said, “What's wrong? What do you have to show me?” He eased down on the couch next to her and she immediately grasped his hand. He asked one more question, “Where're the kids?”
Maria sniffled, then said, “Charlie's already asleep and Lauren's in her room studying.” She held up a small leather notebook and turned it so he could see Jeanie's name on the small brass plate in the front. “This is the diary I gave Jeanie on her tenth birthday. The detectives with JSO took it for a couple of weeks after she disappeared, but because her last entry was more than two years before she disappeared they returned it to us.”
Stallings couldn't recall the exact details of what they had taken from his daughter's room. It sounded about right. That was sort of thing Patty Levine would look into. Stallings was more of an interviewer and hunter.
Stallings gave Maria plenty of time. No pressure, just a gentle arm around her shoulder while she started to cry again. Finally she sniffled and wiped her eyes with a Kleenex before blowing her nose. “I never looked at the diary. It felt like an invasion of Jeanie's privacy. It was like I didn't want her to be angry when she came home. But tonight I searched through her closet and pulled this out of storage.” She tapped the leather cover of the diary. “And I found an entry that might lend credence to your father's comment that he saw Jamie after she disappeared.” Maria carefully opened the diary and read a passage.
“I learned more about my grandfather. My dad saw him today and thinks he lives in a rooming house on Davis Street. My mom encouraged Dad to visit him. But my dad said there was no way he would go see him.”
Maria closed the diary and looked up at her husband. “That's the only entry that mentions it. I searched the whole diary a couple of times.”

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