The Perfect Death Read Online Free Page A

don’t think she’d leave J-Ville. Someone had to have seen her.”
    They kept walking down North Myrtle Avenue, occasionally stopping to show the photo of Leah to different vendors or low-cost hotel operators.
    Stallings said, “My father doesn’t live too far from here.”
    â€œHow’s that going?”
    Stallings shrugged. “He’s got a lot to make up for and a lot to catch up on. We’ve been taking it slow, but the kids really get a kick out of seeing him. It seems like he takes their minds off my troubles with Maria. They don’t hold the resentment my sister and I did toward the old man. Shit, Helen hasn’t even spoken to him yet.”
    Patty nodded, knowing not to say too much about Stallings’s screwed-up personal life.
    Stallings said, “What’s your boyfriend up to?” He liked the face she made when he referred to the chief homicide detective as her boyfriend. Patty and Tony Mazzetti had worked hard to keep their relationship quiet so that no one in management would feel like they had to move either of them off the squad.
    Patty said, “He’s been on the Rolling Hills homicide since last week.”
    Stallings thought about the young mother who’d been strangled in her own bed in the upscale community. Thankfully the killer had not bothered her two sleeping children. The case had garnered quite a bit of media attention, which always seemed to please Tony Mazzetti. The community was always outraged when an innocent person was harmed in their own home. It struck a nerve. A primal fear everyone held. The TV stations thrived on shit like that.
    Stallings said, “Any new leads?”
    â€œNo, but you know what a bulldog Tony can be.”
    â€œYeah, a regular Rottweiler.”
    â€œI wish you two could learn to coexist more peacefully.”
    â€œTell him to stop being such an asshole.”
    â€œHe said the same thing about you last night.”
    Stallings stopped and turned, making a face like he was hurt. “You don’t really care what an asshole like Tony Mazzetti thinks of me, do you?”
    â€œHe doesn’t know you well enough to realize what an asshole you can be.”
    Stallings laughed as they kept walking, happy he had a partner with a decent sense of humor.
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    An hour later, John Stallings sat at a picnic table across the street from the Police Memorial Building or PMB. It was one of the places that many of the detectives used to get away from the office without being away from the office. He considered some of the things Patty had said about being edgy and latching on to the Leah Tischler case like a shark chomping on a chummed baitfish. He knew why he was acting like a maniac. It was the same reason Maria had been even more distant to him. The third anniversary of Jeanie’s disappearance was quickly approaching. Next Wednesday would be three long years without his oldest daughter in the house. The first year had gone by so fast it hadn’t hit him. He’d been so busy searching for his daughter and so hopeful she’d still somehow be found it didn’t seem like a big deal. By the second anniversary everything around the house had settled down and Maria had slipped into that odd, computer-support-group cocoon of hers. They were barely speaking and the daily activity of taking care of Charlie and Lauren kept him so occupied he didn’t dwell on it.
    This year was another story. The kids didn’t need him as much and he wasn’t even living at home. He avoided the lonely two-bedroom house he’d rented except to sleep and occasionally eat. So he’d had time to think about his missing daughter and what it was like three years ago. The wave of fear washing through him, the devastating aftermath of the empty bedroom at the top of the stairs, the feeling of failure and despair.
    The day Jeanie went missing was easily the worst day of his life. He was once stabbed in a fight