surveying the inside of the open shop used by Classic Glass Concepts and Arnold Cather. Another patrolman ran around the rear of the building and more patrolmen were on the way. Tony Mazzetti had asked Stallings not to do anything until he got there. Always looking for the credit of an arrest. Stallings would gladly give him credit for this arrest, but he wasn’t about to give this asshole a chance to slip away. They needed to act now.
Inside the shop, Stallings placed a hand on the grille of the white van. Still warm. He stepped back in the shop, looked at the curtained windows upstairs, and motioned for Patty and the patrolman to meet him at the base of the stairs. He took a minute to consider waiting for Tony Mazzetti.
Patty said, “Do we wait or do we go in?”
Stallings shook his head. “I wouldn’t mind waiting, but we don’t know who he might have up there. Maybe even Leah Tischler.” He noticed Patty wince slightly and recalled her own incarceration at the hands of another crazed killer.
Patty said, “Let’s get going.” She nudged him slightly until he took the first step, then started climbing as quickly and quietly as possible. The footfalls of three cops on the narrow stairs had to make a racket inside.
Stallings barely had time to mutter, “Is today the day that changes my life?”
He had a feeling it was.
FIFTY-EIGHT
Tony Mazzetti wasn’t sure he’d ever gone this fast in his whole life. The big Ford Crown Victoria was great on straight patches of road, but this was Jacksonville with stoplights and tourists and one-way streets and, possibly worst of all, Canadian drivers. Although he wanted to concentrate on the road, all his mind could consider was what was happening at the suspect’s house. Stallings had given him a quick rundown of the situation. It didn’t sound like he was going to wait specifically for Mazzetti no matter how much the lead detective protested.
Mazzetti had called Sergeant Zuni and laid out what was happening, expecting her to call Stallings and tell him to wait. All she’d said was she’d meet him at the scene.
Was he the only one who realized the lead investigator needed to be present at the arrest? How would it look on TV if he had to give credit to someone else?
As Stallings, Patty, and the uniformed cop neared the closed door at the top of the stairs, Stallings recognized that the situation had taken on its own energy. The longer it went, the more the cops were convinced Arnold Cather was the killer. That’s how it always happened. It was also how mistakes were made in major investigations.
There was no way he would take any chances. With all the help on the way, no matter what happened here, Cather wasn’t getting away. Not today. Another problem Stallings considered was the sheer number of cops that would be flooding the scene. Everyone wanted to say they were in on a serial-killer arrest. And sometimes that was the problem. With so many cops, things could get confused or out of hand.
He looked behind him at Patty and the patrolman two steps down with their guns drawn and pointed at the window next to the door. “Knock and announce or kick in?”
Patty said, “Crazy cop’s choice. I’d say he knows we’re here already.”
Stallings turned like he was going to kick the door, stopped, and tried the handle and found that it was unlocked. He wasted no time shoving the door open and diving inside with his gun up. Scooting across an open space he slid behind a counter in a tiny kitchen. He peeked around the side of a kitchen bar and saw Arnold Cather standing next to a glass structure of some kind.
Cather had a gun in his hand.
Buddy had not considered eternity for himself. At least not in the terms he had to now as he held a gun to his own head. It was one thing to have Dr. Raja say he was going to die. It was another to know he’d be dead in the next few minutes. At least standing there with the gun to his temple had frozen all the cops in place.
He looked over at his work of art and the final slot empty on the bottom far side. He’d worked this out in his mind when he seemed to have more nerve, but right now he hesitated. He intended to breathe into the jar, seal it, and place it in his work of art, then pull the trigger before he took another breath. The way he figured it, he’d have a few seconds to revere his ultimate accomplishment. The more he considered being part of it for all eternity the more the idea appealed to him.
Buddy looked at the cops. One was crouched by his kitchen counter and two more stood at the door with their pistols all pointed directly at him. He knew he couldn’t give them any reason whatsoever to fire.
This was his final chance to finish his work of art.
Stallings had forced himself to scan the room around Arnold Cather before he focused all of his attention on the crazed glass worker. He knew that Patty and the patrolman would be covering the suspect and wanted to ensure there was no one behind him and nothing else in the apartment that could be a threat.
Stallings called out to him in a clear voice, as calm as he could make it, “Arnold, put the gun down.”
Cather said, “You don’t understand.”
Stallings said, “Why don’t you explain it to me?” The longer he drew this out, the better the chance he had to resolve it.
Cather said, “I just want to finish my work of art.” His eyes shifted over to the glass wall next to him. “I swear to God if you let me finish it, I’ll shoot myself and it will be all over. I won’t have to go to court or waste your time. It’s better for everyone this way.”
Stallings said, “Why is it better, Arnold?”
“I treasure each of the girls whose essence is stored in this wall. This is designed to remember them. Each jar holds a little piece of an angel.”
Stallings took a quick moment to count jars. There were seventeen in place and one in Cather’s hand. He wondered if Leah Tischler or even Jeanie was somewhere in the obscene wall. Stallings felt the anger rising in him as his finger slowly tightened on the trigger of his Glock.
Cather said, “Please, please, give me a few seconds. That’s all I ask. Is that so much? I’ll finish this, then finish myself.” There was a hitch in his voice.
Stallings saw how much the man worshiped the crazy hulk of glass and figured out what he planned to do. A fury started to boil in Stallings as he realized the man was breathing into the final jar. From somewhere deep inside him he heard a voice and he followed it.
With both hands firmly on the butt of his pistol, Stallings started to fire. Four quick rounds blasted inside the small apartment. He struggled to keep the pistol on target as each round caused the barrel to recoil straight up.
The sound of the shots, the smell of the gunpowder, the afterimage of the shots fired from the pistol froze the entire apartment in Stallings’s mind.
FIFTY-NINE
Tony Mazzetti brought his car to a squealing halt in front of Arnold Cather’s shop. He saw Stallings’s car and a patrol car in front of the shop. Mazzetti bolted from his car and darted inside. It was empty.
He heard Stallings’s voice. He turned toward the steps, but before he could reach them he heard gunshots from the room at the top of the stairs. It was clear as day. Four quick, individual shots.
A uniformed cop and Patty crouched at the top of the stairs with their guns pointing inside.
Mazzetti drew his gun and took the stairs two at a time.
Sergeant Yvonne Zuni turned down the street where Classic Glass Concepts was located. She felt confident having a veteran like Stallings on the scene but knew that things could get out of control quickly. Over the main radio frequency she heard the emergency alert tone, then the panicky voice of a young patrolman shouting into his
