The Perfect Death djs-3

by James Andrus

  Patty burst through the front door of the hotel with the uniformed cop right behind her.

  Liz Dubeck was distracted by all the things she could do to the hotel with her generous federal grant. She knew she was focusing on minor issues like buying new throw rugs or medicine-cabinet mirrors, but there was so much to do it was a little overwhelming.

  Right now she stood in the alley behind the hotel assessing about thirty throw rugs from the hotel’s bathrooms. She didn’t mind the physical activity under the bright, North Florida sun. It was a beautiful day. Even stuck between two crumbling buildings, she liked being outside.

  Liz had to admit that fixing the hotel wasn’t the only thing on her mind. She wondered what John Stallings was doing. She worried about the handsome detective and knew he was having a hard time in his personal life. Liz didn’t want to seem like a vulture, waiting to pick him off when his wife kicked him to the curb permanently, which is what Liz thought would happen. She didn’t know why, it was just the feeling. He was such a good guy, and it really did seem like good guys got treated like dirt by women.

  Liz realized she should be back inside at the counter, but things were slow right now and she had two employees running other errands. As she shook out a rug that was in pretty good shape, she thought she heard a sound behind her.

  As Patty and the patrolman rushed into the lobby, the man looked over his shoulder, then sprang to his feet. Before Patty could say anything the man said, “What do you cops want?”

  The patrolman, whom Patty had worked with and knew was a badass on the street, took a step toward the man as Patty said, “What’s your name?”

  Without the patrolman even touching him, the man started screaming, “Police brutality, police brutality!”

  Patty looked at him and said, “What are you talking about, you moron?”

  The man said, “I know how you cops work. I want witnesses before I get hurt.”

  “Is that your van out front?”

  The man screamed again, “Help, police brutality!”

  The patrolman hovered a few feet away and said to Patty without taking his eyes off the man, “What do you want me to do? Should I make this a self-fulfilling prophecy?”

  Patty said, “Stay here with this idiot. I’ll find the manager.” Patty hustled across the lobby past the counter and into the office. It was empty.

  She had a bad feeling.

  FIFTY-SEVEN

  Patty Levine drew her Glock.40 caliber and stepped through the door into the alley. The first thing she saw was Liz Dubeck walking toward her quickly.

  Liz said, “Hello, Detective. I heard someone yelling in the lobby and I was coming to check it out.” Then she saw the gun in Patty’s hand and said, “Oh my God, what’s wrong?”

  Patty said, “Where’s the glass guy?”

  “You mean Buddy? He was out front changing out the window the last time I saw him.”

  Patty motioned for her to follow and stepped back into the office, where the uniformed cop now had the guy from the lobby, cuffed behind his back and standing in the corner.

  Liz said, “What’s going on? Is Junior under arrest?”

  Patty said, “That’s not Buddy, the guy from Classic Glass Concepts?”

  “No, Buddy is a little older and shorter than Junior.”

  Patty exchanged looks with the patrolman, then headed out to the lobby. As soon as she looked out the window she froze.

  The white van was gone.

  Buddy sometimes wondered if his work of art had made him paranoid. He had no idea why the cops were hassling the carpet guy at the hotel, but he thanked God he’d heard them. He hustled around the outside of the hotel and peeked in through the office window to see a young woman and a uniformed Jacksonville patrolman pull the carpet guy roughly by his arm. They all seemed focused on the rear door so Buddy just slipped away. It couldn’t be a coincidence. He knew they were after him.

  The realization that his luck had run out had caused him to drive back home and rush around his apartment, packing a few almost random items, as well as assess how he would move his work of art. In his bedroom, he opened a dresser drawer to grab a pair of underwear and froze. There, sitting right where he had left it, was Cheryl’s pistol. He hesitated but overcame his hesitation, stuffing it into the front of his pants like he had seen on all of the police shows.

  Buddy came out in the living room and stared at his glass wall. He knew the dimensions off the top of his head. Fifty inches wide by forty-two inches tall. When his work of art was set on its base it stood almost six feet tall. Although he had hoped to keep it in one place to be admired by everyone for years to come, he had been practical and made it so that the actual glass structure could be transported separately from the base. He judged the glass to be about one hundred pounds. It would be tough, but he could muscle it down to the van. He’d already removed the magnetic signs. He could leave town at a safe speed. No one would notice a plain white van.

  He grabbed the duffel bag full of keepsakes from his bedroom as well as the heavy comforter he intended to use to safeguard his work of art. His eyes were instantly drawn to the bottom right corner, the single empty slot left in the handmade blown-glass wall. He wondered if he’d be able to swing back by the hotel and use Liz Dubeck as his final subject. If not, he may not live long enough to find someone else. The idea of leaving it unfinished was the only regret he had in his life at this moment.

  Then he heard a noise and froze to listen intently. There was someone on his flight of stairs. He reached for the gun in his waistband and hoped he’d watched enough TV to know how to use it.

  It had taken longer than John Stallings would’ve liked to organize a few cops to come over to the warehouse of Classic Glass Concepts. Stallings left one patrolman with Liz Dubeck, who still didn’t know exactly what was going on. Now he, Patty Levine, and a burly patrolman who had worked with Patty on the road were carefully surveying the inside of the open shop used by Classic Glass Concepts and Arnold Cather. Another patrolman ran around the rear of the building and more patrolmen were on the way. Tony Mazzetti had asked Stallings not to do anything until he got there. Always looking for the credit of an arrest. Stallings would gladly give him credit for this arrest, but he wasn’t about to give this asshole a chance to slip away. They needed to act now.

  Inside the shop, Stallings placed a hand on the grille of the white van. Still warm. He stepped back in the shop, looked at the curtained windows upstairs, and motioned for Patty and the patrolman to meet him at the base of the stairs. He took a minute to consider waiting for Tony Mazzetti.

  Patty said, “Do we wait or do we go in?”

  Stallings shook his head. “I wouldn’t mind waiting, but we don’t know who he might have up there. Maybe even Leah Tischler.” He noticed Patty wince slightly and recalled her own incarceration at the hands of another crazed killer.

  Patty said, “Let’s get going.” She nudged him slightly until he took the first step, then started climbing as quickly and quietly as possible. The footfalls of three cops on the narrow stairs had to make a racket inside.

  Stallings barely had time to mutter, “Is today the day that changes my life?”

  He had a feeling it was.

  FIFTY-EIGHT

  Tony Mazzetti wasn’t sure he’d ever gone this fast in his whole life. The big Ford Crown Victoria was great on straight patches of road, but this was Jacksonville with stoplights and tourists and one-way streets and, possibly worst of all, Canadian drivers. Although he wanted to concentrate on the road, all his mind could consider was what was happening at the suspect’s house. Stallings had given him a quick rundown of the situation. It didn’t sound like he was going to wait specifically for Mazzetti no matter how much the lead detective protested.

  Mazzetti had called Sergeant Zuni and laid out what was happening, expecting her to call Stallings and tell him to wait. All she’d said was she’d meet him at the scene.

  Was he the only one who realized the lead i
nvestigator needed to be present at the arrest? How would it look on TV if he had to give credit to someone else?

  As Stallings, Patty, and the uniformed cop neared the closed door at the top of the stairs, Stallings recognized that the situation had taken on its own energy. The longer it went, the more the cops were convinced Arnold Cather was the killer. That’s how it always happened. It was also how mistakes were made in major investigations.

  There was no way he would take any chances. With all the help on the way, no matter what happened here, Cather wasn’t getting away. Not today. Another problem Stallings considered was the sheer number of cops that would be flooding the scene. Everyone wanted to say they were in on a serial-killer arrest. And sometimes that was the problem. With so many cops, things could get confused or out of hand.

  He looked behind him at Patty and the patrolman two steps down with their guns drawn and pointed at the window next to the door. “Knock and announce or kick in?”

  Patty said, “Crazy cop’s choice. I’d say he knows we’re here already.”

  Stallings turned like he was going to kick the door, stopped, and tried the handle and found that it was unlocked. He wasted no time shoving the door open and diving inside with his gun up. Scooting across an open space he slid behind a counter in a tiny kitchen. He peeked around the side of a kitchen bar and saw Arnold Cather standing next to a glass structure of some kind.

  Cather had a gun in his hand.

  Buddy had not considered eternity for himself. At least not in the terms he had to now as he held a gun to his own head. It was one thing to have Dr. Raja say he was going to die. It was another to know he’d be dead in the next few minutes. At least standing there with the gun to his temple had frozen all the cops in place.

  He looked over at his work of art and the final slot empty on the bottom far side. He’d worked this out in his mind when he seemed to have more nerve, but right now he hesitated. He intended to breathe into the jar, seal it, and place it in his work of art, then pull the trigger before he took another breath. The way he figured it, he’d have a few seconds to revere his ultimate accomplishment. The more he considered being part of it for all eternity the more the idea appealed to him.

  Buddy looked at the cops. One was crouched by his kitchen counter and two more stood at the door with their pistols all pointed directly at him. He knew he couldn’t give them any reason whatsoever to fire.

  This was his final chance to finish his work of art.

  Stallings had forced himself to scan the room around Arnold Cather before he focused all of his attention on the crazed glass worker. He knew that Patty and the patrolman would be covering the suspect and wanted to ensure there was no one behind him and nothing else in the apartment that could be a threat.

  Stallings called out to him in a clear voice, as calm as he could make it, “Arnold, put the gun down.”

  Cather said, “You don’t understand.”

  Stallings said, “Why don’t you explain it to me?” The longer he drew this out, the better the chance he had to resolve it.

  Cather said, “I just want to finish my work of art.” His eyes shifted over to the glass wall next to him. “I swear to God if you let me finish it, I’ll shoot myself and it will be all over. I won’t have to go to court or waste your time. It’s better for everyone this way.”

  Stallings said, “Why is it better, Arnold?”

  “I treasure each of the girls whose essence is stored in this wall. This is designed to remember them. Each jar holds a little piece of an angel.”

  Stallings took a quick moment to count jars. There were seventeen in place and one in Cather’s hand. He wondered if Leah Tischler or even Jeanie was somewhere in the obscene wall. Stallings felt the anger rising in him as his finger slowly tightened on the trigger of his Glock.

  Cather said, “Please, please, give me a few seconds. That’s all I ask. Is that so much? I’ll finish this, then finish myself.” There was a hitch in his voice.

  Stallings saw how much the man worshiped the crazy hulk of glass and figured out what he planned to do. A fury started to boil in Stallings as he realized the man was breathing into the final jar. From somewhere deep inside him he heard a voice and he followed it.

  With both hands firmly on the butt of his pistol, Stallings started to fire. Four quick rounds blasted inside the small apartment. He struggled to keep the pistol on target as each round caused the barrel to recoil straight up.

  The sound of the shots, the smell of the gunpowder, the afterimage of the shots fired from the pistol froze the entire apartment in Stallings’s mind.

  FIFTY-NINE

  Tony Mazzetti brought his car to a squealing halt in front of Arnold Cather’s shop. He saw Stallings’s car and a patrol car in front of the shop. Mazzetti bolted from his car and darted inside. It was empty.

  He heard Stallings’s voice. He turned toward the steps, but before he could reach them he heard gunshots from the room at the top of the stairs. It was clear as day. Four quick, individual shots.

  A uniformed cop and Patty crouched at the top of the stairs with their guns pointing inside.

  Mazzetti drew his gun and took the stairs two at a time.

  Sergeant Yvonne Zuni turned down the street where Classic Glass Concepts was located. She felt confident having a veteran like Stallings on the scene but knew that things could get out of control quickly. Over the main radio frequency she heard the emergency alert tone, then the panicky voice of a young patrolman shouting into his radio, “Shots fired, shots fired! Warehouse on Davis.”

  Sergeant Zuni picked up the handheld radio from her passenger seat, waited for dispatch to acknowledge, identified herself clearly, and said, “Is anyone hurt? I’m coming down the street in an unmarked Ford Taurus. What is your current location?”

  Her calm tone and commanding presence forced the young officer to think for a moment, take a breath, and say, “I’m covering the outside rear of the building. The shots came from inside. I’m headed around front now.”

  Sergeant Zuni was quick to come on the radio and say, “Hold your position. I’ll be there in less than one minute.” She couldn’t resist the urge to press the gas a little harder. Experience had taught her to be steady and calm as soon as she arrived on the scene. It was her job to inspire confidence and dissipate panic. But she was only human and she allowed herself a few moments of anxiety as she wished she were there right now.

  The gunshots reverberated in Stallings’s ears. Patty and the patrolman seemed to have suffered less having the open shop behind them. Stallings was relieved no one else had fired out of reflex. Often, one cop shooting spurred others. It had been a fact since the Boston Massacre.

  Stallings kept his pistol trained on Arnold Cather’s head even after he’d dropped his gun to the ground. The glass structure Stallings had just shot four times was shattered into thousands of pieces. Only the bottom row of jars remained intact and even that had cracks and fissures still erupting.

  Cather started to tremble, then weep, and stumbled back against the apartment’s flimsy wall and slid to the ground like he had been shot through the chest. Stallings had figured out that no bullet fired into the man could have caused as much damage as the ones fired into his obsession.

  Arnold Cather would never harm anyone again.

  Arnold Cather, known to the entire world as Buddy, lost all control of his limbs as he watched his whole world crumble into a pile of useless fused silica. Instead of his life flashing before his eyes, memories of endless hours over the hot furnace, blowing different pieces of the structure and painstakingly making each jar to fit each slot so exactly, flooded into his head. Even the pleasure he had derived from identifying each subject so carefully, then capturing her breath so lovingly, seemed like a dream to him now.

  How could that cop be so cruel? How did he know it would hurt him so much to destroy his work of art? He wanted to strike back, but his whole body was fighting just to keep his heart beating. He felt worse at this
moment than he had the day he was told he would never recover from the tumors growing in his lungs.

  As he bumped the wall, his legs gave out and he slid to the ground with a graceless plop.

  Why couldn’t the cop have shot him and saved him all this sorrow?

  SIXTY

  John Stallings felt like a caged animal as he watched Tony Mazzetti and Sparky Taylor interview Arnold Cather at the PMB. He sat in a viewing room next door to the interview room, watching the proceedings on a closed-circuit TV with Yvonne Zuni in one chair and Lieutenant Rita Hester in the other. He couldn’t sit still, standing and pacing in the back of the room, giving handwritten notes to Patty in the hallway so she could text them to Mazzetti.

  Stallings recognized that, as the lead detectives on the case, Mazzetti and Sparky should be the ones in the room staring down the suspect. Since Arnold Cather liked to go by the name “Buddy,” Mazzetti immediately started calling him Arnold and Sparky called him Buddy. They set up a good dynamic for the classic “heavyset compassionate good cop and annoying bad cop.”

  After the fifth question Stallings sent in, Mazzetti turned directly to the camera and shut off his phone. Once again Stallings sprang up and faced the back of the small observation room. He had tipped his hand and it took an old friend and former partner like Rita Hester to call him out on it.

  She lifted her wide frame, nicely hidden behind a brown pantsuit, and motioned him out of the small room into the hallway. As soon as he was clear of the door she wrapped her strong hand around his elbow and tugged him into the empty conference room across the hall.

  She leveled those clear, brown eyes at him and said, “You trust me, Stall?”

  He nodded his head, noting that she had not removed her hand from his arm.