The Caller

Fourteen

Despite Hunter and Garcia’s suspicions based on all the clues they had found inside Karen Ward’s apartment, the word ‘stalker’ still resonated in their ears like a bomb going off inside an echo chamber.

‘Karen Ward was being stalked?’ Garcia asked, sending a skeptical look Hunter’s way.

‘Oh, my God,’ Tanya whispered under her breath, bringing a hand to her mouth. She didn’t seem to have heard Garcia’s question. ‘I can’t believe it. I can’t believe I didn’t even think of it.’

‘Tanya?’ Garcia called, dropping his head a little to his left to try to recatch her eye. It didn’t work. Her stare had refocused on a random spot on the rug.

‘Tanya?’ He tried again.

Nothing.

‘Ms. Kaitlin?’ Firmer this time.

She finally broke away from her mini-trance and looked back at Garcia.

‘Sorry. What was that?’

‘Did Karen Ward ever tell you about her being stalked?’

‘Umm... yeah.’ Tanya still looked a little dumbfounded. ‘Yes, of course she told me. We were best friends. I just can’t believe I didn’t even...’

‘Could you tell us about it?’ Garcia interrupted her.

Tanya let go of a laden breath. ‘I can tell you what I know.’ She readjusted herself on her seat, this time finally scooting deeper into it and resting her back against the backrest. ‘I think it all started less than a year ago, after Karen got her job with Burke Williams, a very prestigious beauty spa in Santa Monica. You see, Karen was an awesome cosmetologist. Very knowledgeable. Very attentive to detail. Very good at what she did, and a sweet, sweet person. All of her clients loved her, so it was no surprise that she managed to land such a desired job so quickly.’

‘And that was when she moved from Alhambra to Mar Vista,’ Hunter said, remembering the information Garcia had read from his file.

‘Yes, that’s right,’ Tanya replied. ‘Very nice little apartment too.’

‘Was she sharing it with anyone?’

‘No, she lived alone.’

‘OK,’ Garcia said. ‘So what happened once Ms. Ward started working at Burke Williams?’

Tanya crossed her legs and scratched her left knee. ‘Well, I think it was about two months after she joined BW, she started getting these creepy notes.’

‘Notes?’

A head nod. ‘Yes. Paper notes — not text messages, not emails, not voice messages. Just a note on a regular piece of paper — no name, no signature, no address, no nothing.’

‘Did she recognize the handwriting at all?’ Garcia asked.

‘Oh no, I forgot to say, they weren’t handwritten either.’ Tanya’s gaze moved to the now empty pack of cigarettes on the coffee table and she breathed out in disappointment. ‘They were put together from letters and words cut out from magazines and newspapers. Just like those freaky ransom notes you used to see in old movies.’

Hunter found that odd and particularly unsettling. ‘You said “notes”, so there was more than one?’

‘Yes. I think she got maybe two or three of them in the few months she was working at BW, but they were enough to scare her.’

‘Was that the reason why she decided to leave Burke Williams so soon?’ Hunter asked.

A new, emphatic head nod. ‘Karen was really shaken by those notes. She didn’t know what else to do.’

‘Didn’t she take them to the police?’ Garcia this time. ‘Filed a complaint? Started an enquiry? Got them investigated?’

Tanya uncrossed her legs. ‘That’s what I told her to do. I even offered to go with her.’

‘And did she? I mean, did you go to the police with her?’

‘No, she didn’t want to.’

Garcia’s surprise was palpable. ‘And why not?’

Tanya shrugged. ‘She didn’t think the police would be able to do much since the notes were completely anonymous. She was afraid that they would just ask her a few questions and then push everything on to the backburner. She couldn’t see how that would stop her being scared, or any subsequent notes that could’ve followed. The notes really frightened her. She wasn’t sleeping well. She believed that if she simply moved away and changed her job, everything would be OK again. The notes would stop.’

‘Did she believe that the notes could’ve come from one of her clients at Burke Williams?’ Hunter asked, scribbling something down on to his notepad.

‘I did ask her that,’ Tanya confirmed. ‘But the truth was that she didn’t know what to think. She couldn’t understand why she was getting them at all. Karen had just started working at BW back then. She didn’t have that many regular clients. She also told me that at the time, all of her clients were women. Plus, as I’ve said before, Karen was the sweetest person you could ever meet. Everyone loved her, why would a client want to do something like that to someone like Karen?’

‘You said before that Ms. Ward wasn’t seeing anyone romantically?’ Garcia asked.

‘No, she wasn’t.’

‘When was the last time she was involved with anyone?’ Garcia insisted. ‘Do you know?’

Tanya looked away for an instant, thinking back. ‘Way over a year ago,’ she replied. ‘She was just finishing her internship at Trilogy, but it wasn’t anything serious.’

‘How so?’

Tanya shrugged. ‘Karen went on a few dates with this guy she met back then. He wasn’t American. He was from somewhere in Europe — Sweden or Switzerland or something like that, but neither of them was looking for anything serious. Karen’s priority was to get as much experience as she could from Trilogy so she could get a good first job. The guy, I think his name was... Liam, or something like that, he was studying music somewhere. Anyway, he finished his studies and went back to Europe just before Karen finished her internship.’

Garcia nodded. ‘No one else in recent months? Ms. Ward was a very attractive young woman. I’m sure she got asked out often.’

‘No one else I know about,’ Tanya replied. ‘Yeah, you’re right. When we went out together to bars or lounges or whatever, usually someone would try his luck, but she never really looked interested. I never saw her take anyone’s number, or give hers away.’

‘Did Karen ever show you any of these notes?’

Hunter saw Tanya’s jaw tense.

‘Yes...’ she replied. ‘She showed me one of them, once.’

‘Do you remember what it said?’

Tanya eyed the empty pack of cigarettes on the coffee table one more time. She was getting anxious again. She rested her elbows on the chair’s arms as she thought back. The memory brought with it an uncomfortable shiver.

‘It said something about touching her, about making her scream and about tasting her fear. I... can’t remember the exact words, but I remember that the note did creep me out, especially because of the cut-out letters and all. That was why I told her that she should take it to the police.’

Hunter was still observing Tanya attentively. The jittery edge had returned to her.

‘You said that Ms. Ward believed that if she moved away and changed her job everything would be OK again. The notes would stop.’

‘Yes, that’s right.’

‘Did they?’

As she began shaking her head, tears came back to Tanya’s eyes. ‘No. At first she thought they had. She’d been in her new place in Long Beach for over a month and everything seemed great. Her new job at True Beauty was also going well. Karen was beginning to relax again, but then one night, a few weeks back, she called me in a panic, saying that she’d gotten another note.’

‘Did Ms. Ward show you this new note?’ Garcia asked. ‘The one she received after she moved to Long Beach?’

‘No, she just told me about it over the phone.’

‘Did she tell you what it said? Do you remember it?’

‘No, she never told me. I asked her, but she never told me. She just said it was just like the others.’

‘Did she ever tell you how she got the notes?’ Hunter pushed. ‘Were they left in her postbox... or under her door?’

Tanya nodded at Hunter, but this time it was a nervous, almost fearful movement. ‘The previous notes were all left under her door, not in her postbox, but not the one she got once she moved to Long Beach.’

She paused, as if she needed time to wrap her head around what she was about to tell them.

‘The note she got in Long Beach... she found it on her bed. It was left under her pillow.’