The Perfect Death

TEN

It was early evening and Patty Levine sat on the floor of her Jacksonville condo watching a Rodney Yee DVD and trying to master one of the more advanced yoga poses involving balancing on her hands with her torso lifted off the blue mat on top of the light carpet. She breathed in through her mouth and out through her nose, trying to fill her belly with air as well as her diaphragm. She cleared her mind and did everything Rodney said to, and still she felt like shit.

Patty plopped down onto the mat, placing her right foot across her left leg, and twisted her whole upper body, catching her reflection in the mirror of the open closet door in the hallway. She had no idea why she was so critical of herself. She generally didn’t care what others thought and her parents were perfectly reasonable about most aspects of her life. It wasn’t until she had gotten serious about gymnastics and started to compete at a high level that she expected more and more of herself. Her hair was tied back in a ponytail and although it wasn’t the most glamorous look, she liked her blond hair. But she’d always been self-conscious about her wide-set eyes and the scar at the bridge of her nose she’d received falling off a balance beam her senior year in high school. She bared her teeth to her image in the mirror and, despite most of them being straight and white, all she focused on was her left incisor, which turned slightly outward. She shook her head in disgust and followed the next move on the DVD. That Rodney Yee could really spread his legs.

She muttered, “This is bullshit,” knowing it had a lot more to do with her own choices in life than with anything Mr. Yee was telling her on the DVD she had picked up at Target for $19.95. She could remember a time, before she started to compete nationally in gymnastics, when she had enjoyed all kinds of exercise and stretching. Now it seemed like one more thing to cram into her already busy day. But she knew the real issue, the core of her problem tonight, was her back pain and her desire to refrain from using one of the assortment of painkillers she had stashed in her bathroom medicine cabinet. She’d let her normal prescription run out but couldn’t bring herself to dispose of the random pills she’d acquired over the years. Soon those would be exhausted too. That was why she was forced to do yoga in an effort to relieve lower back pain that had been building since midmorning.

The frantic pace she had kept with Stallings all day didn’t help her in any way either. They’d hit a dozen different places where Leah Tischler might have been seen. The only person who’d been of any help was Liz Dubeck, the manager of one of the downtown motels. Patty could tell Liz was attracted to Stallings’s good looks and charming manner. That wasn’t anything unusual. What surprised Patty was Stallings’s interest in the pretty motel manager. Sure, he didn’t say anything and avoided any questions about her after they left the motel, but Patty knew her partner as well as anyone and this was the first time since his separation he’d shown any interest at all in another woman.

Patty twisted and crossed her legs in an effort to stretch out the middle of her back. There was definitely an improvement, but she could feel the constant throbbing still coming from lower down her back. If she’d known this would be the result when she was thirteen and practicing one hundred backflips a day, she might not have had the enthusiasm that didn’t wane until her second year at the University of Florida. But that was her nature. She threw herself into anything she undertook.

The fact that Tony was working late and she had no real hope of seeing him for anything more than a few minutes over the next week didn’t help her mood. Something just wasn’t right with their relationship. She glanced at the Krazy Kat clock on her wall and realized it wasn’t even eight o’clock yet and she was starting to feel anxious about going to bed. This would be the fourth night in a row she didn’t sleep well, unless she took her usual dose of Ambien. And that’s what she wanted to do in the worst way. She’d had to take Xanax the last few days as pressure mounted with the discovery of two bodies being linked to one killer. The Xanax helped her get through the day; it was the Ambien that helped her get through the night. And in two or three hours she’d have to make a decision: go another night with almost no sleep and drag through the day, or pop an Ambien and feel pharmaceutically groggy until ten o’clock in the morning. The choices weren’t great. She wondered how Stallings functioned so well with as little sleep as he got each night. There was more than enough evidence of his nighttime activities like crawling around different neighborhoods looking for the right lead on a missing person or the tiny piece of forensic evidence that would help identify a killer. Patty also knew he spent a lot of time tracking down leads on his own missing daughter. That was something he couldn’t talk about around the sheriff’s office because he’d never been assigned to the case. He never would be; it was his own daughter. But he spent a lot of time on the computer and talking to missing persons detectives all across the country, hoping to find some clue as to what had happened to Jeanie after the Friday she walked away without a word to anyone. Poor John Stallings had a lot more to deal with than Patty did and she felt like he was a pretty good example. He was calm and patient, didn’t drink, and never took pills.

Her new attitude had caused her to not renew any of her pain-pill prescriptions and now here she was in the early evening, anxious, alone, worried about sleeping, and in pain. Maybe she should’ve thought this out a little better.

Buddy had cheated and used a mold to blow the glass containers for his work of art. He used a mold so each container would slip into the slot it was made for. Right now he had an extra two containers with lids and rubber gaskets ready to go. Some were a rich blue glass, others a Coca-Cola bottle green. Any of them would make lovely sea glass if they washed up on one of Florida’s sandy beaches. He had to have a clock directly above his workbench or he’d lose all track of time when he worked on his glass sculptures.

He ran up and took a quick shower in his apartment and changed into a nice pair of jeans and a button-down shirt. At exactly eight o’clock he heard a car door and the unmistakable rumble of feet on the staircase to the apartment. He felt a sense of dread as he padded to the door across the expensive hardwood floor he had put in two years ago. Somehow having Donna standing in front of her sister made him feel a little better. Buddy almost leaned down and kissed her on the cheek, but once again Cheryl’s scowl forced him back. He allowed them to step into the entryway directly in front of his small kitchen.

He started to get annoyed but remembered what the doctor had told him and took a deep breath. At least this time they’d made an appointment and hadn’t scared anyone off. He didn’t have enough time left to waste potential candidates for his work of art. Cheryl had already cost him a great addition. Even though they had an appointment and were exactly on time, the thought of that woman invading his home pissed him off.

He thought about the precious hours he had spent with Jessie and how he would’ve felt if they had interrupted him. He had gotten to know the sweet girl from Ocala even after he had to secure her in a chair for more than an hour before he finally used his braided cord. Thinking back on the whole incident he felt a pang of guilt. He’d released the cord to allow her to gasp her final breath but had fumbled with the jar and missed it, so he had to do it a second time. He didn’t enjoy terrifying someone like that. But there was nothing else he could have done. She’d been a good candidate to that point and he couldn’t just let her walk away. Now she rested in the jar at the bottom left of this work of art.

Buddy was shocked when Cheryl allowed her sister to do the talking. This meant Cheryl really wanted him to move out. Donna’s pretty eyes and natural body added impact to anything she asked and he found himself more open to what she had to say. She used that quiet little-girl voice of hers.

“We’d like to buy out your lease, Buddy.”

“What if I don’t want to?”

“What if we made it worth your while?” She gave him a sweet smile.

He shook his head like he always did.

Apparently that was too much for Cheryl, as she pushed past her sister and poked him in the chest, saying, “Look, asshole, we own this building. Our father left it to us when he died. We have plans for it once you’re out of the way.”

He didn’t react to her bony finger jammed in his chest. She was like an aggressive drunk in a bar, pushing toward him, doing everything but slurring her words. But he kept calm and said, “Your father may have left you the building, but he leased it to me first. If you thought you could get me out of here through a lawsuit you’d already be in court. I have my reasons for staying and not wanting to move right now. I wish you’d respect them.”

Cheryl spat out a curse, turned, pushed past her sister, and disappeared out the door. He could hear her heavy footfalls on the rickety wooden stairs and heard something in his shop fall over as she stomped out the door he’d left open for them.

Donna shrugged and gave him a slight smile, turned, and followed her sister.

The image of Cheryl standing in front of him was burned in his mind. She had a superficial beauty-the kind of looks that turned heads in some circles-but she had no inner beauty, no soul, and for that reason she’d never be of use for anything worthwhile.