The Perfect Death

by James Andrus

  The nurse adopted Mazzetti’s slow condescending speech pattern to say, “He is a patient here. He’s treated three days a week in the psychiatric services section. But he’s harmless and good for the kids’ morale so we allow him to come and visit.”

  “Why’s he dressed like that?”

  “I think you’d have to ask him about that.”

  Mazzetti glared at the taller man, who shrugged and said, “I like to dress in white scrubs.” The nurse started to laugh again. Fuck, thought Mazzetti. He looked back at the nurse and said, “Did he know Katie Massa?”

  That sobered the woman instantly. She nodded and couldn’t find words to speak. Finally she said, “He had a little crush on her. Everyone did.” Then Mazzetti’s eye caught something on the console. He reached past the nurse and picked up the single sheet of paper with a crossword printed out on it. “Marvin mentioned something about crosswords.”

  The nurse said, “Katie did them all the time. She’d print out some for us to do too.”

  Mazzetti looked at Marvin. “How’d you know Katie got the crosswords from a guy?”

  “She told me she did.”

  Now the nurse, sensing where Mazzetti was going with his questioning, said, “She told me she got it from a guy too. She met him at Starbucks around the corner.”

  “Did she say anything else about him?”

  The nurse shook her head. “Not really. She had just met him and liked him. She didn’t describe him or give any details.” This was a sharp woman who recognized that any new man entering Katie’s life would be a suspect in her death.

  Something told Mazzetti this was a serious lead.

  FIFTY-THREE

  John Stallings couldn’t take his eyes off the garbage can in the custodian’s hands. Something in the back of his head was screaming at him, but he couldn’t hear what the voice was saying.

  The older custodian said, “You guys keep some long hours. At least you’re not as bad as narcotics with paperwork crumpled up and thrown everywhere and day-old food sitting on every desk. It’s like cleaning a frat house.”

  Stallings nodded absently, then suddenly recalled his conversation with Luis Martinez about interviewing a man at a glass company. At that moment he couldn’t pinpoint the source of his anxiety. He said, “Hold on a minute, Ben.” He stood and peered into the half-full garbage can and saw the sheet of paper Luis Martinez had tossed into it yesterday.

  Stallings plucked out the paper, pulled it out at the corners to clearly see the ring with a hint of moisture still visible. He looked at the custodian and said, “Gotta go.” And hit the door of the squad bay at a full sprint.

  Buddy couldn’t recall when his nickname had really caught on. It wasn’t long after he moved out of his mother’s house and started working the odd construction jobs. He always felt his real name, Arnold Cather, was formal and stiff sounding. His parents had never called him Arnie. Until the day his father died when Buddy was twelve he called his son Arnold. His mother had been no better. When she was happy with something he did she called him Arnold; when she was angry she called him Arnold. Now she didn’t call him at all.

  He liked the informality and anonymity of the name Buddy. He especially liked the way the woman who ran the hotel, Liz, said it with such a pleasant smile and upbeat tone.

  He had decided she was the final link. The chance to finish his work of art so it could stand for all eternity. He had the jar out, sitting on the rear shelf of his van along with the cord he had used on his last several victims. Now he was waiting for the right circumstance. He was certain he could do it sometime later today but was prepared to come back if he had to.

  As he replaced the bay window, for the second time in less than a week he found himself whistling.

  Stallings didn’t like to bully people, at least people who hadn’t committed a crime. But as he backed the lab tech into the corner, he realized the man was nervous because he feared actual physical pain. Stallings would never consider touching another employee of the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office in any kind of aggressive way. But he didn’t have to let this guy know that’s how he felt.

  The tall, thin young man had initially told Stallings he wouldn’t be able to look at the paper with the odd chemical ring on it for several days and that Stallings should submit it through official channels.

  Stallings said, “I don’t think you understand. This is urgent and relates to the multiple homicide investigation we have going on.”

  The young man stammered, “I won’t be able to tell you exactly what the chemical is without checking a number of variables. Could take hours or even days.”

  “All I need you to do is compare it to a previous sample we submitted from two other victims. You don’t have to tell me what it is, only if it’s the same chemical found at the other crime scenes.” Stallings stepped away from the man to let him relax slightly. “And I’m going to stand in the room until you get it done.”

  The young man scurried to the other side of the lab and grabbed a folder of recent reports. He came back and took the paper Stallings had given him in an open plastic bag and examined the stain, first through a large microscope sitting at the end of the bench and then with a magnifying glass as he looked into the light. The young man went to a bench and pulled out a bottle with a small eyedropper and placed one drop of clear liquid on top of the paper. He then examined the paper again with the magnifying glass and touched the drop of liquid with a small piece of litmus paper.

  Stallings fidgeted, trying to conceal his impatience. At least the young lab technician was doing his job and doing what Stallings had asked. He didn’t feel right rushing him if he was working diligently.

  After a few more minutes and two more tests, the young man looked at Stallings and said, “It’s the same chemical exactly.”

  FIFTY-FOUR

  John Stallings rushed through the corridors of the Police Memorial Building like a maniac, at one point knocking a dispatcher out of his way with barely an apology or glance behind him. He’d dialed Luis Martinez’s cell phone three times only to reach his voice mail. The secretary in the Land That Time Forgot had seen him earlier and thought he was in the building somewhere.

  As Stallings headed back to the crimes/persons squad bay, he decided, on a whim, to check Luis’s former unit, Auto Theft. As soon as he banged through the door he saw Luis chatting and laughing with a detective in fatigues and a T-shirt that had the JSO emblem on the chest.

  Luis looked up and smiled at Stallings and started to introduce him to the other detective when Stallings gripped him by the arm and said, “What was the name of the guy you were talking to when you got the stain in your notebook?”

  “Huh?”

  Stallings resisted the urge to shake him. “Yesterday you told me about talking to some guy at a glass company.”

  “Oh, that guy. He’s nobody. He knew the victim on my homicide, but there’s no way that little fruit ball did it.”

  “Luis, what was his motherfucking name?” The tone and language clearly caught Luis Martinez by surprise.

  “Arnold Cather.”

  Stallings grabbed a pen off whatever desk they were standing next to and snatched a piece of paper. “Spell it.” He wrote out the name. “What was the name of the company?”

  “Classic Glass Concepts.”

  For some reason that name rang a bell with Stallings too. He wondered if his father’s memory problem wasn’t genetic.

  Liz Dubeck was having one of those days where everything fell into place. Her three employees actually showed up, sober and helpful. She had taken an hour right at sunrise to run, climb the four flights of stairs ten times, and finish with four sets of push-ups. The guy from Classic Glass Concepts had come on time and, although he appeared to be very slow and methodical, was making progress. She had eaten nothing but fruit and avoided any coffee. Mornings like this were rare indeed.

  She’d been in a good mood for several days since the money from the federal grant had been
deposited into her business account. She had been planning on it for some time and had everything in place to start sprucing up the hotel immediately. The only thing she was taking her time with was bringing the wiring up to code. It was not a cosmetic, superficial job and was proving to be much more expensive than she’d anticipated. She had two estimates scheduled after lunch and hoped one contractor might see the other and get into some kind of bidding war. Devious was not part of her nature, but she could justify her actions if it meant helping even one more runaway in greater Jacksonville.

  She knew a lot of this was to cover guilt she felt over Leah Tischler. No matter how many people told her it wasn’t her fault, she couldn’t help but worry about the missing teen.

  She sucked down half a bottle of water as she surveyed the lobby and approved of the job the carpet guy had been doing in the sitting area across from her office. The new glass that was being fitted in the window was so clear it took a moment for her to realize it was already in place.

  Could this day get any better?

  Tony Mazzetti was reeling from the discovery of the link between Katie Massa and a man who gave her crossword puzzles. The fact that Marvin wasn’t really an orderly but a psychiatric patient didn’t affect the information. It meant that someone at the hospital had to have seen Katie with the man. He delivered Marvin back to the floor where he was being treated. He was a noncustodial, voluntary patient and posed no threat to the public. But he was still as crazy as a shithouse rat.

  Mazzetti’s phone was in his pocket, and he dug it out to see Stallings’s name. He flipped open the phone, “What do you need, Stall?”

  “I might have a suspect’s name. Can you check it out at the hospital?”

  “How’d you get the name?”

  “Tony, it’s a long story. But Martinez talked to him on a different homicide and ended up with the same chemical residue as the one from Lexie Hanover’s apartment on a sheet of notebook paper.”

  Stallings’s information made his crossword seem lame so he kept his mouth shut and copied down the name Arnold Cather.

  “Sit tight, Stall. I’ll check this guy out and get back to you.”

  John Stallings had never been good at waiting patiently for anything. Now he paced while Luis Martinez gathered all the information he had on Arnold Cather and while Tony Mazzetti checked the guy out at the hospital. He forced himself to sit at his desk and write down the facts he had learned on one sheet of paper so he could explain it coherently if someone asked why it was important.

  Finally Luis Martinez came over to his desk with several reports. The smaller detective said, “I don’t know if this guy could be your killer. I didn’t get that kind of vibe at all.” He dug through a stack of papers and pulled out a report from the driver’s license bureau known as a D.A.V.I.D., which recorded the address, vital information, and a large color photo taken when a driver’s license is issued in Florida.

  Stallings looked at it for a moment and realized where he’d seen the name Classic Glass Concepts before. “That fucking guy was replacing the bay window over at a hotel where a missing girl had been seen.”

  The look on Martinez’s face told Stallings he might be onto something.

  It didn’t take long for Tony Mazzetti to track down the name Arnold Cather. He was on the log entering the hospital and when Tony ran down to records they immediately referred him to a doctor in the oncology unit.

  The doctor was on rounds when Mazzetti caught him as he was entering a room on the fifth floor. “Excuse me, Doc.” Mazzetti held up his badge. “Can I talk to you for a sec?”

  The young Indian doctor sighed and rolled his eyes. “I’m really quite busy right now. Can it wait?” The doctor assumed that would be enough to stop Mazzetti and turned his back on the detective as he started to enter the room.

  Mazzetti reached out and grasped the man’s pencil-thin arm, perhaps too aggressively, then decided to go with it and jerked him back out into the hallway. “No, it cannot wait.” He led the doctor down the hallway to the first empty room he found and all but shoved him into it.

  The young doctor said, “I don’t think I like this sort of treatment. Perhaps I shall have to speak to your supervisor.”

  “You can speak to whoever the hell you want after you answer a couple questions. This involves the murder of a nurse right here at the hospital and is absolutely time sensitive.” That seemed to catch the attention of the doctor, who remained silent, but now his eyes focused on Mazzetti. “Do you treat a patient named Arnold Cather?”

  The doctor hesitated. “Look, Detective, I understand you have a job and this is a serious matter. But ethically I cannot talk about who I treat or don’t treat without a subpoena. I have to worry about being sued every minute of every day.”

  Mazzetti swallowed hard, trying to think of a counterargument. Instead, he thought about the faces of the dead women he’d looked at over the past few weeks. “Doctor, I’m going to give you immunity to talk to me. I will get you a subpoena later if I have to. But it is vital that I find out about Arnold Cather.”

  “I told you I’m worried about the legal consequences.”

  “Perhaps you should worry about the physical consequences.” Mazzetti bowed up and stepped closer to the smaller young man with dark glasses and trimmed black hair.

  The doctor stammered for a minute. “You—you can’t be serious.”

  “We have women who’ve been strangled. One right here at the hospital. We also have a link to a suspect named Arnold Cather and I’ve already been told by the hospital he’s being treated by you. Now I need to know about him. Right now.”

  The young doctor swallowed and nodded his head. “Okay, but if I’m forced to later, I will say that you threatened me.”

  “I can give you a black eye to back up your assertion if you’d like.”

  “No thank you. I think I’ll be able to convince people myself.”

  “Then tell me about Arnold Cather.”

  “I wouldn’t think that he’d be capable of crimes like that. He is a little on the odd side but seems perfectly harmless. His hobbies are glassblowing and crosswords.”

  Mazzetti took in the information, digesting its significance. He kept cool and said, “What are you treating him for?”

  The doctor hesitated, knowing that this was a sensitive subject. Finally he said, “Mr. Cather is in the advanced stages of lung cancer.”

  “Is it debilitating yet?”

  “It’s terminal.”

  Mazzetti froze for a moment, looked at the doctor, and said, “How long does he have?”

  “I’m surprised he’s still alive and functioning so well. A couple of months ago I told him he only had six weeks to live.”

  Mazzetti instantly realized this was their man and why the pace of the killings had picked up so drastically.

  The killer was trying to beat his own deadline.

  FIFTY-FIVE

  John Stallings hustled down the stairs to the rear parking lot, frantically dialing and redialing Liz Dubeck’s cell phone. He’d left one quick message for her to call back but desperately wanted to reach her and tell her to just walk away from the hotel if the glass guy was there.

  He was about to call Patty and the dispatcher to get someone to head over there when Mazzetti’s name appeared on his phone. Stallings immediately answered it, saying, “What do you got, Tony?”

  Mazzetti all but shouted into the line, “This is our man. He’s a terminal cancer patient. That’s why he’s killing so often.”

  Stallings bounded through the rear door and out into the parking lot with the phone glued to his ear.

  Mazzetti said, “You know where this guy is?”

  Stallings said, “I think he’s over at an old hotel that caters to the homeless and runaways. His glass shop is not too far from the PMB.”

  “Don’t do anything stupid. I’m on my way now.”

  Stallings wasn’t about to wait and didn’t intend to do anything stupid.

 
Buddy had the jar and cord in his left hand as he casually strolled through the lobby, nodding to a stoned dude laying carpet. He paused at the empty counter to capture the full excitement of what he was about to do. He also needed to catch his breath and clear his throat with one long, hard cough. He wondered, once the artwork was completed, if he would even bother going back to see Dr. Raja, who’d done all he could but hadn’t really helped in any way. Buddy’s passion for blowing glass had also been his doom. His desire to capture the final breaths of beautiful women probably had led directly to his own imminent death.

  When he had savored the feeling, Buddy glanced over his shoulder to make sure the carpet guy wasn’t paying any attention. He scooted behind the counter and into the office. It was empty. He thought it was weird that a hotel, even a shitty one like this, didn’t have anyone at the desk.

  Then he noticed the rear door that opened into the alley behind the hotel was ajar. She was outside, where there was no one around.

  Perfect.

  Patty Levine was on her way into the office at the Police Memorial Building when John Stallings called. She rarely heard any hints of panic in his voice, but she instantly picked up on the urgency of his call.

  “Patty, go to the hotel Liz Dubeck runs. Stick close to her until I get there.”

  “What’s the problem, John?”

  “There may be a guy there fixing her front window. His company is Classic Glass Concepts. He’s our killer.”

  Although Patty would’ve loved to hear the reasoning, she knew she’d find out later. Right now her only job was to race over to the hotel.

  Stallings said, “I’m calling dispatch, too. Don’t do anything crazy, just make sure Liz is safe. Patrol will be on its way soon.”