The Caller

Forty-Nine

As Mr. J joined the freeway heading towards Bakersfield and Los Angeles, he brought the speed on his Cadillac CTS-V up to seventy miles per hour, the maximum permitted by the California Department of Transport and the Highway Patrol. His head was still a mess. Thought processes would start at the back of his mind but, before developing into anything significant, they would be shattered into tiny pieces by flashback images of Cassandra being tortured in their own living room, by the hopeless look in her eyes, by the way she convulsed for the very last time. They would be drowned by the sound of that daemonic voice, a sound he knew he would never forget.

Mr. J took a deep breath and the effort made his whole body shake with sadness once again. He began coughing as if he was about to throw up, but his empty stomach produced nothing.

Coughing frenzy over, he checked the dashboard clock and then the speedometer. He’d already been driving for over an hour and even if he kept to the maximum limit throughout the entire journey, it would still take him around two hours to get back to Los Angeles and his house in Granada Hills.

‘Shit. Shit. Shit!’ he screamed at nothing and at everything while punching the steering wheel.

He knew that LAPD Detectives and a forensic team would already be there, probing through his house, disturbing Cassandra’s body. He knew it because he was the one who made the call. That had been the first of the three phone calls he’d made just before leaving his hotel room in Fresno. The second call was made to one of his contacts inside the LAPD. Someone who he paid well, but who also owed him a lot more than his own life. He owed Mr. J his wife’s and his kid’s life too.

‘Hello!’ Skeptically, the deep, rough voice answered the call after the second ring.

‘Brian?’ Mr. J asked out of courtesy. Besides being able to recognize Brian’s very distinctive voice anywhere, Mr. J had called him on the usual number. A number no one else knew about. A number no one else used, except for the two of them.

There was a long pause where Mr. J heard muffled footsteps, followed by the sound of a door opening and closing, then a few more muffled footsteps.

‘Mr. J,’ Brian said, letting out a heavy lung of air, his tone now a little anxious. Mr. J never called him at night. He never called him at home.

Brian Caldron wasn’t an LAPD detective. He wasn’t a police officer either. In fact, he could barely use a handgun. What he was, was a mega computer geek, a top analyst inside the LAPD’s Scientific Investigation Division, with a very high clearance level. A clearance level that gave him direct and unrestricted access to most national and local law-enforcement databases, and with that he was able to provide Mr. J with the most valuable commodity of the modern age — information.

‘I’m sorry for calling you at home,’ Mr. J said, ‘but I need a favor.’ As soon as that last word left his lips, Mr. J regretted it. It was never a favor, it was always business. The word ‘favor’ implied weakness. It implied that Mr. J would now be in Brian’s debt. He hoped Brian hadn’t picked up on it.

He hadn’t.

‘Can’t it wait until the morning?’ Brian asked.

‘No.’

Mr. J heard Brian take another deep breath. ‘So how can I help?’

‘A nine-one-one call was made to the LAPD not that long ago,’ Mr. J explained. ‘Probable homicide.’

Brian took down the address Mr. J gave him.

‘The first thing I need from you is — I need you to find out if the call was a hoax or not.’

For some reason, Mr. J was still holding on to a sliver of hope that all this could’ve been nothing more than some sort of sick prank.

‘OK,’ Brian replied. ‘And if it’s not a hoax?’

‘Then I need you to ghost this case twenty-four/seven. Everything, and I mean everything that gets logged regarding this investigation, I need to know.’ A short pause. ‘Is there any way you can get that confirmation from your place, or do you need to be back at headquarters?’

‘If confirmation is all you need right now,’ Brian said, ‘I can do it from here.’

‘OK. Let me know when you get it.’

Mr. J checked his speed again. He was still keeping to the speed limit.

Ring. Ring. Brian’s secret number popped up on the large screen display on Mr. J’s dashboard. He thumbed a button on his steering wheel and accepted the call.

‘Brian. So what do you have for me?’

‘The call was no hoax.’

Mr. J felt an invisible dagger penetrate his heart. His fingers began choking his steering wheel until his knuckles went white.

‘Female victim,’ Brian continued. ‘Forty-two years old. Her name is Cassandra Jenkinson.’

‘Any doubt about her identity?’ Mr. J asked. His hope was now just fantasy.

‘Not according to the team at the scene. Official identification is just a matter of protocol. The victim’s driver’s license was found inside her handbag.’

The invisible dagger dug deeper into Mr. J’s heart. He could feel it lacerating everything inside of him.

‘Have they found her cellphone?’ Mr. J asked. Once again his voice was as cold and as emotionless as ever.

‘Cellphone? That I won’t know until a manifesto is logged into the system. Hopefully in the morning.’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ Mr. J thought. He would find that out before Brian could anyway.

‘She was married to...’ Brian tried to move on, but Mr. J cut him short.

‘It’s OK. For now this was everything I needed.’ A short pause. ‘Now. As I’ve told you, I need everything about this investigation ghosted. Same format as always. Same untraceable email as always. Any new discoveries you deem important, call me on this number ASAP. If I need any other information, I’ll be in touch.’

The call disconnected.

Mr. J peeked at the speedometer one more time. Seventy miles an hour just wouldn’t do. His Cadillac CTS-V went from zero to sixty in 3.7 seconds. It packed a 6.2-liter supercharged V8 engine under the hood, with a top speed of two hundred miles an hour. It was also equipped with a state of the art radar detector that could pick up a speed gun or camera from a mile away. The car was, without a shadow of a doubt, a super sedan. It was time to put all that power into use.