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.