The Caller

TEN

Anna sat at the kitchen table in a long black silk robe. Her eyes sparkled, she was smiling, she was eating pancakes. It reminded Joe about how everything used to be.

‘This is great,’ he said. ‘Seeing you sitting there, eating pancakes.’ He walked over to her, took her two small hands in his and pulled her towards him. He hugged her tight.

‘You’re a midget,’ he said, stroking her hair, kissing the top of her head. They stayed there for minutes, quietly, holding on.

‘How does he kill them?’ said Anna.

Joe pulled away slowly. ‘What?’

She stayed with her head against his chest. ‘The Caller guy,’ she said. ‘I saw the news.’

Joe tilted her chin up, but still couldn’t get eye contact. ‘Are you for real?’

She nodded.

‘I’m not going to go there with you,’ he said.

Anna finally looked up. ‘Please.’

Joe put a hand on her chest and felt her heart beat rocketing underneath it.

‘This is not good, you thinking this way.’

‘What way?’

Joe’s expression was patient. ‘Come on,’ he said.

‘But what if it’s…’

‘Sweetheart, I’ve been to the crime scenes. This is not Rawlins. This is no-one that has anything to do with Rawlins. This is a different guy. Trust me enough that you don’t need to know the details.’

‘But if I knew the-’

Joe shook his head. ‘You’re so beautiful. I look at you and it breaks my heart that inside that head… there is so much pain and fear.’

Tears welled in her eyes.

‘I know what that feels like,’ said Joe. ‘But I’m used to it. So you’re going to have to trust me. I’m not about to come home with all the details and add more to what you’ve already got going on.’

‘Is it worse than what the papers-’

He smiled with sad eyes. ‘You know the answer to that.’

‘You can’t filter the world for me forever, you know.’

‘Yeah?’ said Joe. ‘Well, I’ll die trying.’

Anna went to the worktop and took a tissue to wipe her eyes.

‘Do you want to go on a date tonight?’ she said.

‘What?’ said Joe. ‘Are you serious?’

She laughed. ‘That’s so depressing.’

‘I didn’t mean it like that,’ he said. ‘I’m just-’

‘Yes or no: do you want to go out?’

‘Yes,’ said Joe. ‘I’d love to.’

‘Then we will.’

‘Where would you like to go?’

‘Cardino’s.’

He smiled. ‘Cardino’s? I don’t know. I think I got some lightweight French girl drunk there once and she ended up having to marry me. “ I am a French woman! We do not drink beer like this! ”’

‘That is the worst accent.’ She smiled, about to walk away, but her robe slid wide open and off her shoulders. She slowly shook her head. Joe dangled the black silk belt high in his hand.

‘You gotta be quick,’ he said.

Artie Blackwell was the shortest journalist in the five boroughs. He had short, spiky grey hair and a perfect, tight grey beard, yet always managed to look unwashed. When he walked, he leaned left, weighed down by one of a number of free, branded shoulder bags. He was hovering outside the Manhattan North building, sweating in the early morning sun.

‘Woo, Case Detective Lucchesi. Someone’s being good to you.’

‘Artie,’ said Joe, glancing down. ‘Pleasure.’

Artie snorted. ‘You got to admit – it’s an odd choice, all things considered, what with the shooting and the whole Rawlins fiasco.’

‘You know the deal,’ said Joe, smiling and calm. ‘I caught the Lowry case. My partner caught the Aneto case. Oh, and I was cleared of any wrongdoing in the Riggs shooting, so here I am. And here we are, Artie.’

‘Good to see you again,’ said Artie, tipping his dark blue fisherman’s hat.

A breeze rose from nowhere and Joe was forced to turn away; Artie always smelled of his last meal. Sadly for Joe, none of them ever had been.

‘Creepy name too: The Caller…’ said Artie. ‘Does the perp make a phone call to his victims before he shows up?’

Joe rolled his eyes. ‘No. Under the bright lights of the cameras, the Chief got flustered and said “caller”. And some… journalist thought it sounded creepy enough to freak the public out. I could think of a lot of other names for the guy…’

‘Like what?’ said Artie.

Joe stopped. ‘What can I do for you?’

‘You got anything for me?’ said Artie.

‘Unless you want to do a nice three-way with the DCPI, no.’

‘I could do that.’

‘Come on, Artie. You know I’m not in a position to say shit. OK? Now, I’m coming into work a very contented man this morning, so please

…’

‘Just something that no-one else’s got. Throw me something.’

Joe looked at him like he had lost his mind. ‘Why are you even here?’

Artie shrugged. ‘I was in the neighborhood.’

Joe laughed.

Artie had to jog to keep up with him. ‘Have you made any further progress on the Duke Rawlins investigation?’

Joe spun around. ‘That’s not an investigation I’m directly involved in,’ he said. ‘And you know that, you-’ He paused. ‘Go talk to the FBI. Just go, find out who the hell you’re supposed to talk to. Goodbye, Artie.’

Joe sat at his desk with Aneto’s file in front of him. He spread out the photos of the hallway and the close-ups of the blood stains, looking for anything about him that made him the reason why the killer started here. There were no guarantees he was the first victim, but it was unlikely he wasn’t. All the squads knew to look through their files for anything similar – nothing had come up – and the chances of a body lying undiscovered in a New York apartment for over a year were non-existent. He went slowly through the images. He had seen them before, but he was looking for another angle and he had a fresh cup of coffee to back him up. Six photographs in, he stopped.

It was taken in the hallway – a close-up of Aneto’s torso, nothing remarkable, except for a dark spot at the edge of the photo. He looked closer. If it was what he thought it was, it was totally out of place. He pulled a magnifying glass out of his drawer, looking around quickly before he held it over the photo. He was right. It was a dermestid beetle. Joe had spent two years studying entomology before he dropped out to become a cop. His father was a professor in Forensic Entomology.

Joe turned back to the photo. Dermestid beetles weren’t there for William Aneto – nothing on his body would interest them yet. They came to corpses at the end. After the flies had arrived to lay their eggs and the maggots had crawled off into the dark to pupate, dermestids showed up to feed on the dried tissue. William Aneto didn’t have any dried tissue. The body was found within twenty-four hours of his murder with eight hours of night time in between when insects would not have been active.

Joe laid out all the photos of William Aneto’s apartment looking for anything else that could have attracted a dermestid beetle – they also fed on hide and hair. A bad taxidermy job could have brought them out, even the horse hair from a violin bow. Joe studied the apartment, but it was modern and minimalist, lots of plastic and chrome and smooth shiny new surfaces. There was no mounted stag’s head on the wall near the body, nothing that Joe could find that would account for the dermestid beetle. The only thing he could think of was another dead creature in the house, a mouse or a rat. But then there would have been more beetles and there were none in any of the other photos.

‘You’ve got mail,’ said Rencher, holding up a white envelope with Joe’s name on it.

Joe looked at the envelope. ‘He strikes again.’ He pulled a pair of gloves out of the drawer and put them on. He sliced the letter open: more pages, squashed into an envelope made to take only two or three. Rencher hovered by the desk.

‘I’ll let you know,’ said Joe, tilting his head towards Rencher’s desk.

Rencher shrugged and walked away. Joe walked over to the copier, made a copy of the letter for everyone, then put the original in an envelope. They hadn’t got prints from the first one, so he was hoping for better luck this time. He sat down with his copy and read through it, marking parts as he went along. When he had read it three times, he called everyone over.

‘Reminds me of school,’ said Rencher. ‘Getting a letter was the highlight of your day.’

‘You went to boarding school?’ said Martinez.

‘Yes I did,’ said Rencher. ‘Got a problem with that?’

‘Relax,’ said Martinez.

‘OK,’ said Joe. ‘Letter two, same kind of envelope, same writing, mailed around the same time from the same post office. Similar kind of shit: talking about going to some gallery, going to the park, being spiritual, baking cookies in someone else’s kitchen – whatever the hell that’s about.’ He flicked through more pages. ‘There’s a lot of stuff about forgiveness here and redemption. And good and evil. And then we come to the case: “ It strikes a chord with me. I’m not sure why. I follow The Caller investigation with interest when I get the chance.” Then: “ But I know that somewhere inside me I, personally, wish you luck.” And it’s signed off – “ God be with you. May angels rest on your shoulders and lighten your load.”’ Joe shrugged.

‘And can you feel God with you right now?’ said Martinez.

‘I look at you guys and I think “Jesus Christ”. Does that count?’ said Joe.

Rencher shrugged. ‘“ I wish you luck ” because I want to stop, maybe? Is this the perp wanting to get caught?’

‘I don’t think I could bear the cliche if it was,’ said Danny.

Joe laughed. ‘Nah. He’s been so careful all along.’

Rencher shrugged. ‘Well could it be the perp and he doesn’t want to get caught?’

‘Then why engage us at all?’ said Joe.

‘For a mind fuck,’ said Rencher.

‘To me,’ said Danny, ‘the letter reads like your neighbor trying to give you some friendly advice

– the kind of advice that’s useless because really, you know he’s an EDP.’ ‘Your neighbor’s the one should be worried about living next door to an EDP,’ said Rencher. ‘I see where you’re coming from, Danny,’ said Joe. ‘“… somewhere inside me I, personally, wish you luck”. This could be someone who knows The Caller,’ said Rencher.

‘Or has witnessed the crime,’ said Bobby.

‘Or has been the victim of a crime,’ said Rencher.

‘Or has been a victim of The Caller,’ said Joe.

They looked at him. ‘Woo,’ said Danny.

‘It doesn’t sound like some sick twisted psycho,’ said Joe. ‘But I can’t make up my mind if it’s one of those harmless loser psychos who lives with Mom.’

‘Maybe the guy doesn’t know who or what he knows,’ said Bobby.

‘And maybe, just maybe…’ said Danny. ‘This is all just a load of bullshit.’

They stood in silence, their eyes moving between the letter and the photos still laid out on Joe’s desk.

Bobby spoke first. ‘We worked this case, don’t know if any you guys saw it – the mugger who was targeting those Columbia University girls? We got in touch with the papers, fed them some stuff and within, like, a week, we had our guy.’

‘No,’ said Joe. ‘I’m not going to do that. We don’t know enough about-’

‘Do you know the case I’m talking about?’

‘Yeah,’ said Joe, ‘but it doesn’t matter.’

‘What do you mean it doesn’t matter?’

‘Look, Bobby,’ said Joe. ‘How far into your investigation were you? Come on. What you were doing with the papers was after – what? – nine, ten attacks? You knew a lot about the perp. What are we? At the start of a homicide investigation, no witnesses, no nice descriptions, no suspect, nothing predictab-’

‘I still think he could-’

‘No,’ said Joe, too loud. ‘I’m not doing it.’

Cardino’s on Broome Street was small, loud and pumping out angry music. Anna was sitting in the corner in jeans, a black off-the-shoulder top and scuffed black ankle boots. Her hair was in a ponytail and she had dangly silver earrings on.

Joe was laughing as he walked over to her. She laughed too and kissed him on the lips. He guessed by her eyes she was about two glasses of wine down.

‘Is that what you were actually wearing?’ he said.

‘Nearly. The jeans and boots are. But I don’t think I can do these for much longer.’ She let the ponytail down and pulled off the clip-on earrings.

Joe looked around the bar. ‘All the girls here are going for the same look.’

‘Yeah – they’re about twenty years old. You get to do every look once,’ said Anna. ‘That’s the rule. Second time round, you’re always going to be too old.’

‘I never knew that,’ said Joe.

She nodded. ‘It’s true.’

‘Does that mean I never get to wear skinny jeans ever again?’ said Joe.

‘Who said you could the first time?’

‘My physique.’

‘Oh my God. Are we back in time? Can I change my mind?’

They laughed. But Joe got a flash of something that made him wonder how Anna’s life would have turned out if she had walked away from their first date.

‘Let me go to the bar,’ he said. ‘You want some Coors for old times’ sake?’

‘You know what happened that night-’

‘Exactly.’

‘Sauvignon Blanc, please.’

She watched him walk away. The man beside her got up and left his newspaper behind. Anna waited a few minutes for Joe, then dragged the paper across the seat towards her and started reading. She jumped as Joe put the drinks down on the table.

‘Am I boring you?’

‘Never,’ she said, folding the newspaper and pushing it back where she got it. ‘Thanks.’

‘Cheers, sweetheart. Thank you for going on a date with me.’

‘My pleasure,’ she said.

‘And thanks for putting out on the first night.’

Shaun Lucchesi sat at his desk, scrolling through his cell phone. His myspace profile was open on the laptop in front of him. Behind the Explorer window was iTunes, behind that was Skype and hidden at the very back was a blank Word doc he had opened an hour earlier to write an English paper. His phone rang and Tara’s face filled the screen. He turned the sound off on the computer.

‘Hey, Tara.’

He clicked onto iTunes as he listened to her. ‘Nah,’ he said. ‘Just English. And I have not written one word. I can’t even remember the title.’

As she kept talking, he lost interest in the screens in front of him. ‘Hmm. I’d like that a lot,’ he said, spinning around in the chair and standing up.

‘Wow,’ he said. ‘I… don’t know what to say back to that.’ He paced the room, listening to every word she breathed down the phone.

He sat on the bed, then lay back. ‘OK,’ he said, ‘I’m not good at this. I’m too sober to have this conversation.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘Why don’t you come over?’

Joe and Anna arrived back from the bar hungry. Joe went to the fridge and pulled out a dish of leftover meatballs. He slammed the door and slammed the dish onto the counter.

‘Shhh,’ said Anna, pointing upstairs.

Joe ignored her and put the meatballs into the microwave.

‘What is wrong with you?’ said Anna.

‘Nothing.’

‘There is something wrong. Just tell me.’

‘I didn’t want to stay that late, that’s all. I’ve a lot on.’

‘It was fun.’

‘After lots of drinks, maybe.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘Nothing,’ said Joe. ‘Do we have bread?’

‘Yes,’ she said, pointing to a baguette right in front of him.

‘Oh.’ He grabbed a knife and started cutting it.

‘Come on,’ she said. ‘You enjoyed yourself.’

He was somewhere else, staring ahead, his face set.

‘Do you know who I liked?’ said Anna. ‘I liked Ireland Joe. I mean, before everything… the guy whose face was relaxed, who didn’t have a frown all the time, who made jokes, actually laughed.’

‘I still know how to laugh.’ He glared at her.

‘Maybe you just don’t put it into practice, then.’

‘Come on, Anna, there’s always something.’

‘No there isn’t.’

‘We were having a nice night,’ said Joe.

‘And then we weren’t. Because you had to-’

‘No, no, because you had to,’ said Joe. ‘You can’t face what’s inside you, so you look outwards, you’ve got your little roaming red crosshairs. Who can they land on? Who can they land on? Oh yeah, nearest person: me.’

‘It’s not that at all. You can’t bear anyone criticising you.’

‘Ditto.’

She shook her head. ‘You can’t. You come home from work complaining every time your judgment is called into question. Maybe it’s you who can’t face who you are or what you’ve done.’

‘What is that supposed to mean?’

‘I think you feel guilty.’

‘About what?’

She stared at him. ‘I think that’s obvious.’

‘If you’re talking about you, damn right I feel guilty. What guy – not to mention detective – is not going to feel guilty that he nearly got his wife killed?’

‘I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with you feeling guilty-’

‘Since when did I need your blessing on what I can or cannot feel?’

‘Joe, stop.’

He took a breath. Anna reached out and held his hand.

‘I’m just saying, I think you feel guilty, but you’re not dealing with your guilt and… you’re like a time bomb.’

He tilted his head. ‘OK. Well, I think you feel scared, but you’re not dealing with your fear and you’re like a time bomb.’

‘You are impossible to talk to.’

‘So are you.’

She dropped his hand. ‘How old are you? Grow up.’

‘Oh,’ said Joe, ‘just to let you know, I knocked over one of your boxes last night. I think something broke.’

Anna turned to him. ‘Which box?’

‘I don’t know. A navy blue one?’

‘No,’ said Anna, raising her hand to her mouth, running down the hallway into the front room. She grabbed a pair of scissors from the floor and cut through the tape on the box. She pulled it open.

‘Oh, no, no,’ she said, gently lifting out one half of a broken glass lampshade. Joe stood behind her.

‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘Was it expensive?’

‘You don’t want to know… because you’ll have to replace it.’

‘What?’

‘It’s only on loan for a shoot. I’m responsible for it. You broke it.’

‘Well, how much is it?’

‘Eight hundred dollars.’

‘Eight hundred dollars. You are shitting me. For a lamp?’

‘Oh, come on,’ she said. ‘I’m not working for the Bay Ridge Gazette.’

‘I don’t really have to replace it, right?’

‘You do,’ she said. ‘It’s in my care.’

‘Tell them it broke in transit.’

‘They know it arrived here OK.’

‘I don’t have that kind of money to hand over to some fucking… and who the hell spends eight hundred dollars on a lamp?’

‘You’d be surprised.’

‘I am surprised. I’m also surprised that more things don’t get broken in this house. It’s out of control, Anna. It’s crazy. It’s like a bomb site in here. I can’t live this way. Meanwhile, you’re happy as can be, getting a ton of new stuff in every day. Every day’s your birthday. Every time, you open the door to the mailman, UPS guy, whoever, sign, take the package, walk five steps into the front room, throw it in there, maybe open it, see what’s inside or hey, just leave it lying there-’

‘You don’t need to reconstruct everything in your life, Joe. I’m here, I’m not a dead body. You can just ask me what I do when my doorbell rings.’

Joe rolled his eyes.

‘Go ahead,’ said Anna. ‘Ask me what I do when my doorbell rings. How much fun it is for me.’

‘Spare me,’ said Joe. ‘It’s pretty clear what happens and how all this crap piles up in the front room.’

‘You’re leaving some things out. Here’s what happens: the doorbell rings and wherever I am in the house, I freeze. Then my heart jumps and starts to beat faster. I wonder will I go and open it or will I wait until they go away. If I’m near a window, I can check. I look at the uniform, see if it’s correct, I look at the person’s face, see if I am looking at an honest one, I see if I can see their truck, I check if anyone else is out there on the street. In the middle of this, guess what else I’m thinking about?’

Joe stared at her and it was clear that anger was winning the fight over sympathy.

‘Maybe,’ said Anna, ‘if you paid attention at home, you would have a better understanding of things that are not black and white or follow some sequence that you imagine in your head because you’re not around to see it.’ She walked across the room and yanked open the top drawer of an old mahogany bureau, grabbing with both hands the piles of cards inside it. ‘Sometimes,’ she said, throwing the contents at him, ‘things don’t always work out the way you think.’

Joe stood still as all around him FedEx and UPS failed delivery slips floated to the floor.