The Caller

Fifteen

‘We need to call Operations,’ Hunter said as soon as they stepped out of Tanya Kaitlin’s apartment.

‘Sure,’ Garcia replied. ‘What do you need?’

‘We need to ask them to run a check against all logged nine-one-one calls for Karen Ward’s residential area for the past... I’d say three months.’

‘Nine-one-one calls? Why?’

‘Because the guy we’re after is cautious,’ Hunter answered. ‘And he likes to plan ahead.’

Garcia flicked his palms up while giving Hunter an inquisitive look. ‘What does that mean?’

‘Do you remember what Tanya Kaitlin told us about the call she received?’

They reached the stairwell, and as they took the first steps down to the floor below they encountered a tall and well-built individual in black jeans and a red hooded sweatshirt tucked under a dark baseball jacket. He wore a faded pair of black All Stars. His hands were buried deep inside his pockets, his head low; with his hood pulled well past his forehead, Hunter and Garcia were unable to see his face. As they crossed each other, Hunter had to twist his body to one side to allow the man to go past him.

‘What part?’ Garcia asked.

‘When the caller told her not to call the police,’ Hunter clarified. ‘He told her that it would be a pointless thing to do because it would take them around ten minutes to get to Karen Ward’s apartment, while it would take him only one to rip her heart from her chest.’

Garcia nodded. ‘Yeah, I remember.’

They got to the first floor.

‘OK,’ Hunter said. ‘Right now I’m willing to bet that the average response time from Long Beach PD to Karen Ward’s apartment after a nine-one-one call is somewhere between eight and ten minutes.’

Garcia paused and looked back at his partner.

‘Something tells me that he didn’t just guess that time frame,’ Hunter added.

‘He clocked the response time.’

‘That’s what I would’ve done,’ Hunter conceded. ‘And to be absolutely sure, I would’ve done it at least three times, probably more.’

Garcia allowed that thought to run free inside his mind for a few seconds.

‘But that would still give him no guarantees, Robert,’ he said. ‘Police cruisers aren’t fire trucks. They don’t sit at the station’s parking lot waiting for a call. They cruise the streets. A black and white could’ve been just around the corner when dispatch sent out the call. That eight-to-ten-minute response-time could’ve easily been reduced to one, less even.’

Hunter agreed with a head nod. ‘And I’m sure he knew that too. But as I’ve said, this guy seems to be very cautious, calculating, and he likes to plan ahead. Someone like that would’ve wanted to know the actual average police response time so he could factor it into his plan. The risk of a cruiser being just around the corner was something he could do nothing about, that’s just the law of probability, so he tackled it from a different angle.’

The inquisitive look was back on Garcia’s face.

‘And what angle is that?’

‘By making sure Tanya wouldn’t even contemplate calling the cops. With no call, it didn’t matter if twenty cop cars were parked right in front of the building. No one would’ve disturbed him.’

‘OK,’ Garcia agreed. ‘But to do that he didn’t actually need to know the correct response time. He could’ve just made one up. Isn’t that a known psychological principal? Say something with enough conviction and most people will believe you, even if it isn’t true. He could’ve thrown any number at Tanya and I’m sure she would’ve bought it.’

‘Yes, you’re right, and that would’ve worked for a lot of people, but not for someone who seems to be very methodical, someone who looks to have been planning this for some time, because this sure as hell wasn’t a spur of the moment murder.’ Hunter shook his head. ‘No, people like this are usually either OCD or bordering it. For his own peace of mind, this guy would’ve dug for the correct answer.’

‘OK,’ Garcia said. ‘So what do we need?’

‘Tell Operations that we’re looking for bogus calls. Wild-goose chases, but logged as high-priority ones — gunshots heard, life-threatening violence, something along those lines — where the address given would’ve been either Karen Ward’s apartment block or immediately surrounding areas. The time of the call would’ve also been fairly close to the time of the murder, give or take a couple of hours. There’s a chance that he would’ve used his real voice while making the calls.’

‘And depending where the call originated from,’ Garcia offered, ‘and if it was made from a pay phone or not, we might get lucky with CCTV footage.’

Hunter agreed once again.

‘We should also get started on a warrant to retrieve whatever we can from either Tanya or Karen’s cellphone network about this video-call,’ Garcia suggested. He knew that Tanya had done her best to remember and recount the call with as much accuracy as she could, but even a person in a clear state of mind wouldn’t have been able to remember every word, every detail, never mind someone as shaken and as traumatized as Tanya was.

‘There’s no point,’ Hunter said. ‘The networks won’t have the data.’

‘How come?’

‘No network in US territory is allowed to keep video-call logs in the same way they do regular call ones,’ Hunter explained. ‘They’re already struggling with all these new privacy laws as it is. Retaining people’s personal images or videos without their consent would mean a whole new dimension of war for them. One I’m sure they’re not keen to fight.’

They finally exited the building.

‘How about the audio or a transcript of it?’ Garcia asked.

A new headshake from Hunter. ‘They still won’t have it because the audio doesn’t get split from the video when the call is made.’

‘So if they can’t store one,’ Garcia concluded, ‘they can’t store the other.’

‘Exactly.’

‘Are you sure? How do you know all of this?’

Hunter gave his partner a shrug. ‘I read a lot.’