The Night Caller (14 page)

At first Coop thought a wasp somehow left over from summer was in his apartment.

But it was the buzz of the intercom that was pulling him up from a deep sleep the next morning at—he glanced at his watch—five after eight.

He dragged himself out of bed and padded barefoot across cool hardwood floor and warm throw rugs to the living room and small foyer, then pressed the intercom button and asked who was there.

Maureen’s voice; just what he wanted to hear.

He buzzed her in so she could get through the main door.

While she was elevatoring up, he put on a pair of pants, rinsed a stale taste from his mouth, then splashed cold water over his face to wake himself completely. He left his hands wet and was smoothing back his sleep-mussed hair as best he could when there was a knock on his door.

Carrying a towel and drying his hands as he went, he walked to the door and opened it.

Maureen looked grim. Since it was Saturday morning she was dressed for the weekend in a camouflage jacket, tan T-shirt, and khaki pants. She was wearing high-topped boots and her pants were tucked into them and bloused out paratrooper style. A black nylon fanny pack rode high on her left hip, and a small pair of binoculars had been slung around her neck by a thin strap to dangle just below her breasts. In her right hand was a folded newspaper. She was holding it as if prepared to swat a dog. Or Coop.

Without saying hello, she stalked past him and slammed the paper, opened, onto his desk that was pushed up against a living room wall. The resultant breeze caused several unpaid bills to flutter to the floor.

“Look at this!” she commanded, crossing her arms just above the binoculars.

Coop thought he’d better look.

Surprise, then anger, welled in him. The newspaper was opened to an inside page featuring a story captioned
DISTRAUGHT DAD SEEKS DAUGHTER’S KILLER
. There was a head shot of Deni Green, and another photo of Coop himself crossing a busy street. He realized it must have been snapped through the window of the Sapphire Diner.

Maureen was fuming. “I was on my way to go birding when I stopped to have some Evian and read the paper.” She uncrossed her arms and slapped the paper, crinkling it and making a surprising amount of noise.
“This
is what I came across!”

Listening to Maureen’s angry breathing, Coop quickly scanned the article, which contained only a brief account of his and Deni’s actions in attempting to find Bette’s murderer. Deni was quoted as being convinced Bette was a victim of a serial killer.

When Coop turned away from the desk, Maureen said, “Isn’t it rather questionable to alert a murderer to the fact that he’s being pursued by a former policeman who’s the father of one of his victims?”

“No argument,” Coop said, not liking the article any more than she did. He walked into the kitchen to make a pot of coffee. Maureen followed. “I didn’t know this was going to happen,” he said, fitting a filter into the Braun brewer. “I’m as surprised as you are. It had to be Deni’s idea.”

That Deni might be entirely responsible for the article brought Maureen up short. “Then maybe there’s a point to it. And you should use brown, recycled filters if you don’t want to drink bleaching chemicals with your coffee.”

“You’d have to ask Deni what was the point.” Coop spooned ground coffee into the bleached white filter, then poured water into the brewer from a plastic quart jug.

“I’m glad to see you at least use bottled water for your coffee.”

“It tastes better than tap water,” Coop said, switching on the brewer. He realized he was too petty to give Maureen the satisfaction of admitting he was using something natural for his health. She had a way of drawing out his worst qualities.

“I don’t think that article is a good thing,” Maureen said.

“That was my impression. And you’re right. It decreases the odds of an arrest.”

“Don’t tell me about odds. I’m in the insurance business. I deal with information and odds all the time.”

“I said you were right,” Coop reminded her, irritated by her hostility. “Weren’t you going bird-watching?”

“We call it birding. There’s a lot more to it than just watching. Probably Deni Green has an adequate explanation. If you were to read her books you might have a higher regard for her abilities.”

“I don’t know what was in her mind,” Coop said. “Remember, you’re the one who pushed me to link up with her.”

“Because our daughter was murdered and you and the police were doing nothing. That’s another reason why I have strong reservations about that news report.”

“I don’t follow you.”

“It might cause the police to close ranks and protect someone.”

“Someone?”

“Bette’s killer. If he is someone in the NYPD, he now knows you’re on his trail. He can work to cut off your sources of information, or even see that you’re fed misinformation. He might plant the idea that you’re interfering in police business. He has knowledge now. And options. He can hide behind his shield.”

“Bette’s killer isn’t a cop,” Coop told her.

“You don’t know that!”

“But I’m ninety-nine percent sure of it.”

“There’s something else he might do,” Maureen said, ignoring Coop’s protestations. “He might get close to the investigation, monitor it. That way he can escape and go underground if he has to. I want you to promise you’ll be on the alert for someone like that.”

“I promise,” Coop said, figuring it would cost him nothing.

“Not as if you mean it.”

The brewer was gurgling now, and the kitchen filled with the scent of coffee. It reminded Coop of Cara Callahan. Was he always going to think of her whenever he smelled coffee? He decided not to offer a cup to Maureen.

“I’m leaving,” she said. “Call Deni Green and ask her why she talked to that reporter. I’m sure she had a good reason. I expect you to let me know.”

“I will,” Coop said, taking the easiest course.

“I’ll be in Central Park.”

“Do you have a cell phone?”

“No. They give you brain cancer.” If she saw Coop wince, she pretended not to notice. “Call me at home this evening, or I’ll call you tomorrow.”

She shifted the bulk of her fanny pack and started for the door.

For some reason he suddenly didn’t want her to leave. They shared the same grief and pain, and reflexive anger. Coop had seen it before and now he fully understood it: the bond of a dead child.
Their
dead child of their creation.

“Maureen…”

“What?”

He didn’t know what to say. “Isn’t it a bad time of the year for bird-watch—for birding?”

“Not if you want to track their migratory habits,” Maureen said. “Like you’re supposed to track the migratory habits of that serial killer.”

Coop didn’t bother showing her out. Just before he heard the door open and close, she called, “I’ll leave the paper so you can enjoy it with your caffeine.”

He was glad she’d left it.

He wanted to read the Distraught Dad piece word for word.

Coop finished reading the Distraught Dad feature, then poured a second cup of coffee and decided to phone Deni.

He carried the newspaper and his coffee over to his desk, sat down, and punched out her number with the eraser end of a pencil. While he listened to the phone ring on the other end of the connection, he gazed out the window and saw by the streaks on the glass that the gray morning sky was delivering a light rain. The weather would interfere with Maureen’s bird-watching, he thought.
Good.

After the sixth ring, Deni picked up and muttered a hello.

“You woke me,” she said accusingly, after Coop had identified himself.

Good,
he thought again. He said, “It’s not so early that my ex-wife hasn’t already been here and gone.”

“And?…”
Deni asked.

“She left behind the newspaper she came to show me.”

“Oh.” Her tone had changed.

“The one with the piece on our investigation. Photographs of both of us.”

“Oh. I, uh, took that photo of you when you were crossing the street outside the Sapphire,” Deni said. “I thought it might be good for the book, the dust jacket. I meant to tell you. And I meant to call you and let you know about the article before you saw it this morning. Horseshit of me not to have. I guess I overslept.”

“Then I suppose you haven’t seen it.”

“I read it late last night, actually. Alicia had a copy sent over to me. A courtesy thing.”

“Alicia?”

“The article was her idea. She thought we could use the news media to aid in our investigation and get the book written.”

“Just how does she figure something like this will help in our investigation?”

“The national press might pick up on the story. Maybe the police in other cities will finally realize there’s a connection between the murders, that there’s an incredibly successful and dangerous serial killer out there. Maybe even the FBI will finally get off their dead asses and do some investigating. I don’t get you sometimes. Don’t you want to see Bette’s killer caught as soon as possible?”

“You knew this was going to happen and went along with it?”

“Of course. I need to get this book written, Coop.” Getting defensive. All the way awake. The old Deni now, like a bear aroused in its cave.

“That wasn’t the way to do it, Deni. All you’ll do is alert the killer and antagonize everyone who’s helping us.”

“Damn it, Coop, the killer already knows he’s broken the law. And who’s helping us that we’re going to antagonize?”

“The police, the FBI, victims’ family members, just to name a few. When people die violent deaths, there’s no way to be sure how the folks they’ve left behind will react, or the people close enough to the case to have seen and smelled the blood. I know the story being published didn’t make my ex-wife very happy.”

“Maureen’s upset about it? I don’t know why she should be. Alicia had me talk to her. She gave me some of the information for the article.”

Coop was astounded. “You’ve been talking to Maureen, too?”

“Of course. She was thrilled to meet me. Do you know she’s read most of my Cozy Cat novels?”

“Did you tell her what she said might find its way into the news media?”

“Well, no. How could I? I was flying blind at the time, didn’t know myself the piece was going to be written.”

Coop sat pressing the receiver to his ear so hard that it hurt, staring furiously out the window at the rain.

“Coop,” Deni said in a slow and reasonable tone, “I still don’t understand why anyone would be angry about this being in the newspaper.”

“Neither you nor Alicia cleared it with me.”

“Why should we have to?”

“Don’t you understand we’re civilians walking the edge of an open homicide investigation?”

“Sure. But we’re staying legal, aren’t we?”

“It isn’t so much a matter of legality as it is of having continued cooperation. There has to be a sharing of information, a mutual trust. That means no surprises.”

Deni sighed into her phone. “I have a feeling, Coop, that you’re overreacting and are going to be the only one upset about that story in the paper.”

He slammed the receiver down and sat squeezing it in his frustration.

It rang beneath his hand.

He was sure it was Deni calling back, but he was at least calm enough to modulate his voice when he said hello.

The voice that came back at him sounded furious. “Coop, this is Billard. What the hell’s with that Distraught Dad story in the paper this morning?”

Coop explained it to him, then gave him the phone numbers of Deni Green and Alicia.

Billard had still been plenty irritated when he and Coop were finished talking. Coop suspected that police cooperation would have ended with the conversation if he and Billard hadn’t been old and good friends.

Watching the rain fall harder and at a sharper angle from low gray clouds, Coop tried to calm himself. It had been brought home to him that both Deni and Alicia were even less trustworthy than he’d thought. If Deni had talked to Maureen without mentioning it to him, and been a willing source for a reporter, who else might she have confided in? He looked at the story’s byline: Earl Gitter. The name rang no bell in Coop’s memory. He folded the newspaper and dropped it into the wastebasket in the desk’s kneehole. If only he could do that with every copy.

The phone rang again. He picked up.

Deni.

“Have you calmed down by now, Coop?”

“No. I don’t think Art Billard has, either.”

“Billard?”

“He called here. He’ll be calling you and Alicia soon.”

“So let him. I don’t think there’s any reason—”

“That’s because you don’t realize what you’ve done, Deni.”

“I think I do realize it. Why don’t we wait and see what kind of fallout occurs before we get all excited?”

“Here’s a bit of fallout I should remind you of,” Coop told her. “Now the killer knows who is personally looking for him. He knows our names. He knows what I look like. He knows what you look like. And he might be even more upset than Billard.”

He hung up on her again.

Before she could call back, he punched out the number of Whippet Books.

When there was no answer, he remembered it was Saturday and the publisher was closed.

Coop didn’t want to wait until Monday to talk with Alicia Benham. Leaving the receiver off the hook, he pulled a phone directory out of the drawer and hoped Alicia Benham had a listed number.

She was the second A. Benham he called, noticing that her address was on West 82nd Street. Easy walking distance.

Like Coop, Alicia hadn’t had breakfast. They agreed to meet at Morgan’s on Amsterdam for coffee and pastry within the hour.

Morgan’s was a small bakery that served mostly carryout but had half a dozen tables across from its display case and serving counter. As usual, there were several customers around the counter and cashier, but only a few of the tables were occupied. The sugar and cinnamon scent of the pastry piqued appetites. Even the coffee smelled good, though Coop had already drunk three cups this morning and the taste of it still lay bitter beneath his tongue.

The weather cooperated. Rain had stopped falling shortly after he’d left his building, and the black umbrella he carried was folded wet and leaned now like a huge crashed bat against the wall by his chair.

Alicia, dressed in black as usual, even to the black raincoat she shrugged out of as she walked into Morgan’s, saw Coop immediately and smiled and walked toward him. She was wearing a skirt today, short enough to reveal legs that were thin but nonetheless shapely.

She sat down opposite him at the table and they both ordered warm cinnamon rolls that were slightly larger than the plates they were served on.

“Having already read this morning’s paper,” Alicia said, “I bet I can guess what you want to talk about. I suppose you’re angry.”

“I am goddamn angry! And disappointed in you.”

“I never pretended to be somebody I’m not. I want Deni’s manuscript, and soon. I’ll do most anything to get it.”

“Pathetic.”

“Did you pass any bag ladies on your way here, Coop?”

“I don’t know.”

“You might have looked right through them. I don’t want to be one of them.”

“What about your word that you’ll try to protect Bette’s reputation if Deni smears her?”

“I meant that. I’ll do what I can. There’s no reason why I shouldn’t. Believe it or not, I like you, Coop.”

While she cut her roll into quarters and spread rapidly melting butter on the exposed sides of one of the wedges, he told her about his conversations with Deni.

“She didn’t express any reservations to me about sending her to give the interview,” Alicia said.

“Maybe she doesn’t trust you.”

“Of course she doesn’t. Deni doesn’t trust anyone, because she knows no one can trust her.”

Coop used a fork to take a bite of cinnamon roll. He’d never regarded any kind of sticky or greasy confection as finger food, even ate french fries with a fork. “What the hell kind of people did I get mixed up with?”

“That’s an odd question for a cop to ask.”

He thought about it. She was right. He’d certainly met even less scrupulous people than Alicia or Deni Green. Lots of them. “Let me ask you another question,” Coop said. “Has Deni at least had conversations with you about the book?”

“We’ve talked about it,” Alicia said, “but not in any way I find very revealing. I learned more from that newspaper article than I have from Deni herself.”

“She doesn’t seem to realize she’s alerted the killer that we’re dedicated to his capture. And she’s revealed who we are, what we look like. She’s put herself in mortal danger.”

“But she’s stirred up publicity to keep public interest from cooling off. That will pay, eventually. Anything to sell books, Coop. You’ve heard of the
New York Times
best-seller list?”

“Of course.”

“If Deni gets a book on the list, it will give her career a rocket boost, and it will preserve my job at Whippet for a while, keep me from falling victim to consolidation and technology like so many other editors.”

“Is it really that serious?”

“Oh, maybe not. I can always freelance edit or become an agent. But everybody in publishing knows it, feels it—the Internet’ll get you if you don’t watch out.”

“Progress, huh?”

“’Fraid so. I’m simply being honest with you. And Deni knows what the interview can do for her. She’s trying to flush the killer out, maybe even prod him into committing another crime and possibly making a mistake, so she can have something to write about.”

“This isn’t a goddamn writing exercise,” Coop said, “it’s a homicide investigation. These are real people. My daughter, Bette, was very real—is still very real to me. Don’t either of you have enough humanity to understand that?”

“I told you, I’ll try to protect your daughter’s memory. And Deni, well, she’s a writer.”

“Do all writers think like that?”

“Not exactly. She possesses more of one characteristic than most writers.”

“What’s that?”

“She’s an asshole. But I endure her for the same reason you do, and should continue to do: you need her. Or at least she’s useful to you. And she’s going to write her book, one way or the other. This way I stay employed and you have some knowledge of what she’s up to, and maybe you can even influence what she’s going to write. And most importantly, she might help you to solve the riddle of your daughter’s murder.”

“You’re saying I need her more than she needs me.”

“Or at least as much. And try not to worry. I’m sure she’ll stop talking about the book and write it. She’s working up to it. She told me she hasn’t yet figured out quite how to deal with the subject matter. Doesn’t even know yet who the main character will be.”

“Meaning?”

“She hasn’t yet decided who the story will mostly be about.”

“I hope it won’t be Bette.”

“I can’t promise you it won’t be, Coop. Even though I’m Deni’s editor, and I’ll try to protect Bette’s reputation for you, my options are limited. Who becomes the central character in her book mostly depends on what Deni learns, and how she decides to use it.” Alicia buttered another wedge of cinnamon roll. “The book might be mainly about the killer, if he’s interesting enough. Or it might be about one or another of the victims.”

Coop stared at her and absently picked up a piece of his roll, not noticing he was getting icing all over his fingers.

Alicia smiled across the table, knowing what he must be thinking. “It even might be about you.”