The Caller

EIGHT

Joe and Danny sat in the hot, cramped back room of the post office where the letter had been mailed. A small television screen ran black and white video footage of the mailboxes inside the building. An over-excited manager hovered around behind them.

After a quarter of an hour, Joe turned around to him.

‘Hey… Simon, if you want to leave us here doing our thing, we’ll call you if we see anything we need your help with.’

‘Sure,’ said Simon. ‘Absolutely. No problem. I’ll be right outside.’

‘Yeah, thanks,’ said Danny.

‘God bless him,’ said Joe.

‘I fucking hate this shit,’ said Danny pointing to the screen. ‘I have nightmares about video tapes. Watching the same thing over and over and over until I lose my mind, I’m in a fucking straitjacket.’

They watched in silence for ten minutes.

‘We’re looking for someone mailing a single small envelope between 9 a.m. and 11 a.m. OK – here’s one guy,’ said Joe. ‘Let’s still that. Go bring Simon back.’

Simon rushed in ahead of Danny. ‘You got something?’

‘Do you know this guy?’ said Joe.

Simon put his face within three inches of the screen, then shook his head sadly. ‘I’m sorry. No. Do you want me to bring any of the others in?’

‘Yeah, that would be great,’ said Joe.

No-one recognized the man. Or the nine other men and five women who mailed letters around the same time. Danny wrote down all the relevant frames on the footage and they took the tape with them. TARU – the Technical Assistance Response Unit – had sent equipment to Manhattan North, so they could transfer the tape to DVD and print stills when they got back to the office.

‘OK,’ said Danny. ‘We still doing Chelsea?’

‘Yup.’

Dawg On It Pet Accessories was a long, skinny building between a closed tapas bar and a men’s T-shirt store on Eighth Avenue.

‘We’re too early,’ said Danny, pointing at the poodle-shaped hours of business sign and wandering into the T-shirt store instead. Joe followed him in. It was small and crammed with free-standing circular rails, wall-mounted rails and shelves of T-shirts. A hanging metal rack behind the counter was stuffed full of greetings cards. A three-foot long CD rack filled with hundreds of CDs behind glass was mounted like a shelf behind the counter with a sticker that said, In Emergency Break Glass. Resting on top, was an iPod hi-fi.

Danny pushed hard through the rails on the wall and pulled out a navy T-shirt.

‘Kind of cool,’ he said to Joe. ‘I need something for the weekend.’

He went to the counter and took out his wallet.

‘I’m going out on a limb here,’ said the guy behind the counter. ‘But would I be right in saying you two are not, like, together?’

‘That would be right,’ said Joe.

‘And you never would be.’

‘He’s not my type,’ said Danny.

‘Well, you need to look a little closer at the graphic on that T-shirt,’ he said to Danny. ‘Because you might not be sending out the message you want to.’

‘Oh,’ said Danny. ‘That’s not what I thought it was. You’re right. Thanks for that.’

‘Don’t worry about it. Happens all the time. If you seemed like assholes, I would have let you go. And get hit on, like, ten times, when you’re out with your wife.’

Danny headed quickly for the door. Joe followed, laughing.

‘You should have bought it. I wish he’d let you.’

‘I’m not an asshole, remember?’

‘Here we go,’ said Joe. ‘Open.’

They walked in to Dawg On It and the backwards motion of Buck Torrance in a purple cowboy shirt and tight white jeans with purple diamante paw prints on the pockets. He didn’t hear them over the vacuum cleaner, but turned it off when he caught their reflection in the mirror.

‘Hi. Buck?’ said Joe.

‘Yes.’

‘Detectives Lucchesi and Markey, NYPD. You’re the promoter at Bed, Bad and Beyond?’

‘Yes, sir. I am. Can I help you?’ said Buck.

‘I was speaking with Mark Branham from Gay Alliance. He said you were the man to talk to. We’re looking into some pretty violent attacks on men that have happened over the last year,’ said Joe.

‘Gay men,’ said Buck.

‘One of them was gay. We were wondering if we showed you a few photos…’

‘Sure. Go ahead.’ Buck took the photos. ‘No to this guy, doesn’t look familiar. No again. And yeah. I know this guy’s face. That’s William Aneto.’

‘Did you know him?’

‘I’d seen him around – in bars, in the club, whatever, so I knew his face. And then there were the posters all around the place last year. People lit candles on the street by the club, that’s it. I’m sorry.’

‘Did you notice him with any particular crowd, any one guy?’

‘I just didn’t know him that well. Do you want to leave those photos here with me? I could ask around for you?’ said Buck.

‘No. We’ll hold onto them. Thanks for your help.’

‘My pleasure. If you need anything else, let me know.’

‘Sure,’ said Danny.

‘Should guys be worried around here?’

‘Don’t be,’ said Joe. ‘And you don’t want people staying away from the store because you’re freaking them out.’

‘Yeah. Who’s going to dress all the dogs in the neighborhood if you go out of business?’ said Danny.

‘Sweetheart? Those dogs you see out there? A lot of them? Don’t even have names.’

Danny frowned.

‘Those little doggies are sniffing butts so their owners can. The ohmygod-let-me-stop-talk-to-you-bout-your-dog/enough-about-the-dog-wha t-about-me approach. I mean, this store is, like, a major pick-up joint. You want to check out the dog run at Waterside Park. Sit on a bench there and you’ll have a date in no time.’

Danny was standing at one of the shelves trying to put something back where he found it.

‘That little red dog collar isn’t you,’ said Buck.

‘You haven’t met his wife,’ said Joe.

‘Wife?’

‘Funny,’ said Danny.

‘I know,’ said Buck. ‘Look, seriously? I know it’s hard for you to work a case like this. I’ve seen it before. I mean, gay men spread themselves far and wide. But they get to know the ones who like it rough and the ones who like it way too. So if I hear anything, I’ll let you know.’

‘This guy is really wrong,’ said Joe. ‘He’s not someone you want to be alone in a room with.’

‘Oh don’t worry about me.’ He laughed. ‘I’m straight, sweetheart.’

Danny and Joe paused, then walked out onto the street and took a left towards the car.

‘He is fucking serious,’ muttered Danny, waving back to Buck.

‘He is,’ said Joe.

Back at the office, Reuben Maller called again.

‘Joe? I’ve come up with a loose profile for you. Want me to fax it through?’

‘Machine’s bust,’ said Joe. ‘Can you run it by me now?’

‘I would say – surprise, surprise – white male in his thirties, most likely lives alone. He will come across as quite a regular guy. He won’t give off any weird vibes. He lives in the city – we’ve got one victim in SoHo, two on the Upper West Side. He’s mobile, drives to and from the scene. Reasonably stable work history, but probably with gaps in between jobs or maybe with a job that means he works alone, but has intermittent interaction with people. He must spend a lot of time alone to finely tune this fantasy of his. There’s hardcore evidence of overkill at the scenes, which suggests all this is personal, so maybe you should be looking at linking the victims or maybe they’re people who slighted him along his path.

‘The guy is a mixed offender. He plans well: he gets in to the apartments easily, no forced entry, so he must be doing something right. He brings tools with him: his hammer, his twenty-two caliber handgun. He doesn’t leave behind any evidence. Yet his attack is frenzied, which implies he also lets his control slip.

‘Think carefully about the locations. Killers usually ease themselves into it by operating in an area that’s very familiar to them, so we could be looking at someone who lives on the Upper West Side or grew up there, same goes maybe for SoHo.’

‘Great,’ said Joe. ‘Thanks for that. Did you come up with anything sexual? You know, the whole nudity thing?’

‘I’m just not getting that. It seems more like a humiliation thing. Or a control thing. I’d be surprised if there was a sexual motivation. But as they say, guarantee: no guarantees.’

‘Sure.’

‘Listen, if you need anything else-’

‘Yeah, I’ll be in touch.’

When Joe got home, Anna was sitting at the kitchen counter with a stack of pages she had cut out of magazines. Joe kissed her on the cheek, then reached out to pull open the tall narrow cabinet that was wedged between the fridge and the wall. It rocked wildly from side to side.

‘This thing feels like it is going to fall apart every time I touch it.’

‘Pull it quick,’ said Anna, ‘and lift it at the same time.’

He closed it and tried it again.

‘I have a lot of practice here all the time,’ she said.

‘Well maybe I can tempt you out on Friday. It’s Gina’s birthday. Danny has booked a table for the four of us in Pastis. Are you OK with that?’

She paused, but then nodded. ‘I think so.’

‘You can always cancel at the last minute. No pressure.’

‘Thanks.’

‘But I’d love you to be there.’

‘I know’.

‘Let me go change,’ he said. He went upstairs, took a shower, then came down in jeans and a blue T-shirt with the logo of a bar he never remembered being in. He sat down on the sofa and turned on the television. He barely noticed the channels he was changing until he hit a press conference. The Police Commissioner was standing at a podium reading from a statement.

‘… established a link with two previous murders, the first of which happened in September last, that of William Aneto, and the second in December of Gary Ortis. ’ The room erupted. The Commissioner continued. ‘ All three victims were male, aged between thirty and forty years old and were brutally attacked in their place of residence and shot dead. A twenty-two caliber handgun was used in each of the crimes. There was no sign of forced entry, so we’re investigating the possibility that these men knew their killer. A task force working out of Manhattan North Homicide has been put together to handle the investigation.’

Questions were shouted from all over the room:

‘ Are you saying there is a serial killer loose in New York? ’

‘ What I’m saying is that we have established a pattern between three homicides that have taken place in the city in the past year.’

‘ Why did you not establish a pattern sooner? The first murder happened almost a year ago.’

‘ These three crimes were committed in different parts of the city over a period of a year and did not initially appear to be connected. For reasons I can not go into at this time, when we went back and got together with detectives handling each case, a pattern emerged.’

‘ How did he gain access to the apartments? ’

‘ Like I said, there was no sign of forced entry. We have to presume for now… the… uh… caller… was let in by the victims or someone familiar with the residences.’

‘ Were these doormen buildings? ’

‘ One was.’

‘ Have you spoken to the families? How did they respond? ’

‘ Yes. We have already spoken to each of the victim’s families and have impressed upon them our commitment to finding their sons’ killer .’

‘ William Aneto’s mother has been extremely outspoken in her dissatisfaction with your handling of her son’s case -’

‘ We have spoken with Mrs Aneto who continues to assist us with our investigation. That’s all I have to say on that matter at this point.’

‘ Have you established a connection between the victims? ’

‘ That is something we are looking into.’

‘ Gay Alliance has recently been raising awareness of the first anniversary of the murder of William Aneto. Do you think there is a homosexual motive to the killings? ’

‘ It is important not to jump to any conclusions in the early stages of an investigation.’

‘ What advice can you give the public? ’

‘ No-one is to panic, here. I would say what we always say: be alert, don’t open your door to strangers, ask to see ID from anyone purporting to be from the gas company, etc. And obviously, if anyone out there has information on any of these crimes, could they please contact Crimestoppers confidentially at 1800 577 TIPS. That’s 1800 577 TIPS.’

‘ Do you have any suspects? ’

‘ We are working through a list of names that are linked in some way to our three victims. Ladies and gentlemen, that’s all we have time for here, today. Thank you for your cooperation.’

‘Yeah, thanks for letting me know, you fucking douche-bags,’ said Joe. ‘And what about – hey, we didn’t make a connection because people don’t know how to fill out a form or fucking communicate with people?’

He changed channels again and every news broadcast he saw had the story.

‘ This perpetrator comes to the homes of his victims. We have no information right now as to how he gains access…’

‘ This dates back to last year’s murder of thirty-one-year-old actor, William Aneto. His body was discovered in his Upper West Side apartment…’

‘ The last person to see Gary Ortis alive is with us right now…’

‘ We’ll be back after the break with information on how you can secure your home.’

‘… being dubbed The Caller…’

‘ A detective who chose not to be named described the scene as…’

‘Fear, fear, fear,’ said Joe, turning the television off. Every day, articles in newspapers ran stories with headlines that screamed Deadly. Anger. Fear. Killer. Disease. Alert. Threat. These murders were not typical for New York. You were more likely to be killed by someone you knew than by the stranger who had now been given the title The Caller.

‘I’m going to take a shower.’ Anna walked back into the room. She leaned over and kissed him.

‘OK.’

He grabbed a magazine from beside the sofa and started flicking through it. He could hear the water running upstairs. He wanted to walk up, open the door, slide in behind her and do something they hadn’t done for months. His patience was low. He felt bad. But really, he was angry. He threw down the magazine and turned the television back on.

Anna came down half an hour later. Joe didn’t bother to look up. When he did, she was leaning over the counter with her back to him, opening a bottle of red wine. She was wearing the tiniest black shorts, no top. Her shoes were high and black with skinny heels and red soles. She turned around. He couldn’t decide where to look. When he made it to her face, she held his gaze and walked slowly towards him.