convicted car thief had felt as if he was being harassed for a crime he had already served two years in prison for. Now he worked as a carpenter and kept pretty steady hours. Mazzetti didn’t want the guy to feel persecuted, but he needed some questions answered and it took a little pressure to get the guy to talk. All Mazzetti did was mention that he could be forced to look into the disappearance of two trucks near the worksite. He had no idea whether this guy was involved in the theft of the trucks, but there were reports in the system and it seemed to make him much more talkative. He claimed he’d been at home and his wife and at least one neighbor could verify his story. But Mazzetti really didn’t even need to talk to the wife because he could read people pretty well and this guy wasn’t pulling his chain.
So now he was at the last site and had forty minutes to find his man, talk to him, and drive the 3.2 miles to the restaurant to meet Patty about eight o’clock. It seemed like a good plan and a decent end to a hard week. He hoped to take tomorrow off to recharge his batteries and maybe even Sunday too. The sergeant had been very easy about the progress of the case. She knew all the detectives were working as hard as they could and they really needed a break in the case and in their workweek. That was a good fucking sergeant.
Mazzetti calmly walked onto the construction site and looked at the five-story building, which only had the walls and bare cement floors built. There were wide, gaping holes for the windows and doors. Joey Big Balls had said the crew was behind schedule on this building and worked two full shifts from 6 A.M. until 10 P.M. This seemed like the perfect time to catch as many workers as possible at the site.
He knew he stood out in his Brooks Brothers suit and silk striped tie, but this wasn’t a mission of secrecy. He paused in the dusty gravel in front of the main open door to the building and cringed as he looked down at the dust on his new leather shoes. He looked up and mumbled, “Motherfucker.” As his eyes scanned the building he saw a man lean out one of the windows and look down at him. It was only a short glance, but he recognized the man as Eldon Kozer. To be sure, he looked back down at his info sheet with Kozer’s driver’s license photo, identifiers, and criminal history. This was his man, there was no doubt.
Mazzetti stepped into the building, moving quickly to avoid a man with a wheelbarrow full of jagged metal debris. He saw several ladders strapped to the ironwork inside the building and one set of temporary stairs. He took a deep breath to cleanse his lungs before tromping up the stairs. So far no one had even bothered to ask him who he was or what he was doing on the site, and that was fine with him.
About halfway up the stairs, Mazzetti glanced to his right and saw someone easing down the ladder secured to the next wall. His eyes met the man coming down the ladder. It was Eldon Kozer. Kozer looked Mazzetti up and down but didn’t move.
Mazzetti said, “I need to talk to you for a minute.”
“Me?”
“You’re Eldon Kozer, aren’t you?”
The man scowled and said, “Who are you?”
“JSO.”
Without another word Kozer pulled his feet out of the rungs of the ladder and clamped them on to the outside edge and used his heavily gloved hands to slide down the ladder like it was amusement ride.
Mazzetti could hear Kozer shouting something to his buddies as he smacked the ground and started to run. Mazzetti turned to race down the stairs.
The chase was on.
TWENTY-ONE
He couldn’t believe how lucky he’d gotten convincing Mary to leave her car at the airport parking tonight. He’d said it’d be easier to drop her off directly at the terminal. When she’d asked why she couldn’t leave her car at his place for the week she was gone, he’d told her he wasn’t going to be around to pick her up and he didn’t think it was a safe enough neighborhood. She’d bought it. And now he had no worries whatsoever.
He’d spent a few minutes showing her his ware-house before they walked up the loud wooden stairs to his apartment. Over the years he’d put in nice hardwood floors and tile and bought decent furniture so the apartment didn’t feel like a place above a dingy workspace. The two bedrooms were for him and guests, which he had never hosted. The main living room had a big-screen TV and a leather sectional couch. The kitchen was attached to the living room and at the far end, past the hallway to the bedrooms, he had his private workshop with his main work of art hidden under a clean padded moving blanket. He knew once he showed it to her she’d be in such awe of his talent that he could probably tell her what was going to happen and she wouldn’t be upset.
As soon as they walked in the door Mary wrapped a hand around his neck and pulled him in for a long, deep kiss. She’d done this a couple times and it made him a little uncomfortable. Her soft lips did feel like satin against his. It was her long, probing tongue that startled him.
She said, “I hope you don’t have a water bed because the way I feel tonight I might cause a tsunami.”
He looked at her, thinking how a comment like that was not the way he’d pictured her. Not with the angelic face and wholesome smile.
Then she said, “I got some decent grass with me if you want to get high.”
What’d she say? Drugs? Angels didn’t use drugs.
As she flopped onto the corner of the couch, he started to realize she had some serious flaws. He looked closely and realized for the first time how much eyeliner she had on. She had a lot of makeup on in general. Maybe her dazzling smile had blinded him or maybe he was seeing her in a new light.
As he stepped closer she leaned forward and acted like she was going to playfully bite at his crotch. He jumped back partially out of reflex but mainly from repulsion. Who was this? Is this the kind of behavior that should be rewarded with eternal remembrance?
He wondered if he shouldn’t move forward quickly before he changed his mind; otherwise he might be stuck with her for the night. He watched as she nestled herself on the couch and he mumbled he needed a second. He knew what he wanted to use, a heavy braided cord from a shipment of cut glass. He had taken the storage hooks off each end of the cord and tested it several times for strength and elasticity. He retrieved it from the drawer near his work of art.
He heard her belch from the couch and turned to see she’d unbuckled her pants and unbuttoned the last three buttons of her blouse. She looked at him and smiled, saying, “I might’ve had too much to eat.” She belched again and giggled.
He turned away from her, wrapped the ends of the strap in each hand, and pulled out one last time to make sure it was strong.
Tony Mazzetti had never been much for foot chases. Of course as a uniformed officer with the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office he’d been in several. One fact he tried to forget and certainly never mentioned to anyone was that in his entire law-enforcement career he’d never actually caught someone by running after them. That’s not to say he’d never made an arrest of someone running from him. Once, the year he started with JSO, he’d chased a burglar on foot behind a row of houses for more than ten minutes. He remembered gasping for breath as he shouted into his handheld radio for help. He’d lost the fleet runner and walked back to his car feeling like a failure. As he drove away from the scene, just before he went ten-eight, or in-service, on the radio, Mazzetti had taken one last look over his shoulder to the area where he’d lost the runner, taking his eyes off the road. In that instant he’d felt a sickening thud of a body crumple against his hood. He’d popped out of his cruiser, sick to his stomach with fear, and been shocked to see he had hit the man he’d been chasing. Two months later he’d received a commendation for not giving up the chase. He’d never told anyone exactly what had happened.
His last foot chase had been two years ago during a homicide investigation involving gang members. The suspect had run from Mazzetti, who lost him in two blocks. Luckily for Mazzetti but not so lucky for the suspect, he’d run into a rival gang area and been gunned down twenty minutes later.
Mazzetti’s wide body was built for lifting weights, not running after criminals.
He kept all that in mind as he raced down the stairs and landed on the cement floor with an ungraceful thud. All he caught was a glimpse of the man’s white T-shirt and fast-moving legs racing through one of the interior doors of the unfinished building. Mazzetti stayed on the trail and caught several more quick looks at the man, who seemed
