The Night Caller (17 page)

It didn’t take Cara long to slip into her new routine.

While she was pleasant at work, she kept her distance from her fellow employees. She wanted to talk to them, listen and learn about Ann, but she didn’t want to form new friendships. She knew Coop was right; what she was doing was dangerous. She had no right to make it dangerous for someone else.

So she took her lunches alone in nearby restaurants she knew Ann had frequented. When she heard where Ann had gone shopping sometimes during her lunch hour, Cara went there the next day. It was a clothing shop near the Citigroup Building on Third Avenue. Cara browsed through the merchandise for a while—even used the changing rooms to try on a blouse.

After leaving without making a purchase, she spent time in the nearby shops on the street, then the array of shops in the Citigroup Building. Though Christmas was still over a month away, there was a large model train exhibit in the building’s lobby, featuring a detailed, miniature town and at least ten trains running on synchronized schedules. She watched for a while, fascinated, then began skirting the large exhibit and observing the other people watching the trains. So large was the model town that one side of it was daytime, the other nighttime, with windows glowing in the tiny houses, streetlights dotting the thoroughfares, and the trains running with beamed lights. No one appeared to be paying any attention to Cara except possibly a man standing opposite her, on the night side of the town, wearing a tan topcoat, checkered muffler, and tinted glasses. Because of the glasses, Cara couldn’t be sure where the man was looking, but he seemed to be facing her directly and gazing over the level of the model town.

Odd that he should be wearing sunglasses in the building’s lobby, she thought, pretending to ignore him.

She decided to walk away and window-shop among the indoor merchandise to see if he’d follow.

After a while, she turned around and looked back at the model train exhibit.

The man was nowhere in sight.

She thought she caught a glimpse of him pushing through one of the revolving doors to go outside, but she couldn’t be sure.

Her heart was pounding.
Take it easy,
she told herself. This was only the first time someone seemed to be watching her, and she couldn’t even be sure of that. It was the tinted glasses worn indoors that had spooked her, and the way his muffler was wrapped high and concealing his chin. As if he didn’t want to be recognized.

But as she started toward the revolving doors herself, she noticed two more men wearing tinted glasses in the lobby. Maybe it wasn’t so unusual. Lots of people wore sunglasses in the late fall and winter, and it was easy to forget to remove them indoors. In fact, they made glasses now with lenses that appeared darkly tinted from the outside, but didn’t obstruct vision at all for the wearer looking the other way through them.

She went through the revolving door into the cold November air and walked to the Third and Lex subway station.

The platform was crowded, and everyone seemed rather subdued, possibly because down near the escalator a street musician was playing a mournful tune on a violin. It was Irish and familiar.

Pushing before it a cool wind that ruffled Cara’s hair, the F train heading east toward Queens roared in and rumbled to a stop.

She boarded and was hit by the odor of crowded bodies and perhaps urine. Now mothballs, as someone in a thick wool coat crowded against her. Cara remained standing so she could survey most of the car. The train lurched and accelerated, causing a heavyset woman gripping the same vertical steel bar Cara was holding to bump into her. She didn’t apologize. A ragged older man seated on the other side of the aisle stared blankly at Cara. As the car swayed, a bearded man glanced up from the Hebrew paper he was reading and momentarily locked gazes with her.

No one among her fellow passengers resembled the man with the tinted glasses and checked muffler.

Cara felt relief, and then guilt.

She shouldn’t be relieved. Wasn’t she doing this to lure the killer into the open? Wasn’t she exactly what Coop had said, knowing and willing bait in shark waters?

Unexpectedly, fear washed over her like a cold wave. So powerful was the sensation that she became slightly nauseated. Gripping the steel bar tightly as possible, she began to tremble, flexing her knees and trying to maintain her balance in the speeding, swaying subway car.

The woman standing next to her noticed Cara’s odd behavior and stared.

Her expression suggested she couldn’t care less.

The train roared like blood through its dark artery beneath the city.

Deni Green picked up the phone in her apartment, then slammed it back down. The wind kicked up outside, rattling the windowpanes and causing the drapes to sway slightly. This apartment was too drafty, too small; it was becoming unbearable. She’d planned to move by now, but the royalty checks kept getting smaller. Her bank balance soon followed. Then the damned tech stocks her friend Midge had talked her into buying took a dive.

The windows rattled louder, mixed with the sound of light rain striking the glass, weather with claws trying to get in. Deni picked up the phone again and used a forefinger to peck out Coop’s number. As soon as she heard his recorded voice, she hung up.

She stared at the phone. It had its features, but it wasn’t a wireless or cell phone. Conversations on them could be prey to eavesdroppers with scanners. Technology. Who knew where it was going? Her stocks had plunged because they’d been leapfrogged by even newer technology. She wouldn’t be surprised if soon all books were first published on the Internet. None of them would be hers, if the Cozy Cat series kept using up its lives, if this true crime venture didn’t work. Time was working against her. Alicia was getting more and more demanding and threatening. Where the fuck was Coop?

Deni stood up and began to pace. She was wearing her baggy red sweater and gray sweatpants, and two pairs of socks to protect her from the draft that flowed close to the floor. She ran her fingers through her mussed hair. What was Coop up to? Was he trying to punish her just because she was smart enough to stir public interest in his daughter’s murder and he wasn’t? Naive asshole! “What did you expect out of him?” she asked herself aloud. “He’s just a dumb cop.” They weren’t paid to be imaginative. To be creative like writers.

She caught sight of herself in the wall mirror and grimaced. She’d never liked the way she looked. Her weight problem had plagued her even in high school. Dates had been nonexistent. In college there had been sex, but she’d known at the time that was all there was to it. And even the sex hadn’t been all that good. She’d never felt the earth move, that was for sure. Except for those times with…Well, never mind, that had been an experiment. Goddamn men! Damned Coop!

Deni found herself about to cry, felt her features contort. This was happening more often lately because she was under stress. A weakness, fault lines being tested.

She took deep breaths and the sensation went away and she could think clearly again.

This killer, he had his sexual hang-ups, no doubt fed by his disappointments in himself and in others. That was why Deni thought she had a way into his mind. Kindred spirits. Was she supposed to tell Coop that? What did he know, get on and get off kind of guy like him? She’d heard cops talk about women, knew how they thought. No worse than most men, only they didn’t hide the fact. Not among themselves, anyway.

She glanced in the mirror again at her lumpy figure and doughy face, eyes seeming smaller and beadier now in pads of florid flesh. So everyone didn’t have to be attractive. There was life without men. Happy, productive life, and without some guy drooling and pawing all over you. She had her electric boyfriend; he plugged in and vibrated at three speeds. That was all she needed in that department. And when they had a falling-out and he stopped performing, he could be replaced and with a manufacturer’s money-back guarantee that was more foolproof than a prenuptial agreement.

Deni walked back to where her computer monitor was glowing on her desk.

Alicia had phoned again, pushing her to get something to Whippet Books on the serial killer project. Deni had explained to her how it wasn’t easy, what with Coop suddenly getting a burr up his nose and not cooperating. Alicia had said she was done listening to excuses, that Deni would just have to deal with the problem. Sure. What did editors know about writing books, anyway? What did they contribute? As far as Deni was concerned, Alicia was mostly in the way.

Deni had been at the computer, trying to block out a basic outline for the book. She would get something to Alicia, and it would have to be good enough. She tried to convince herself that Whippet Books wasn’t about to tell the author of the Cozy Cat mysteries to take a hike. Plenty of publishers would line up to buy the series. Deni’s agent Kate might not think so, but Kate had been wrong before. Kate hadn’t even thought Cozy Cat was going to be successful at first. Now she was plenty enthusiastic about the series, glad to deduct her commission. Deni had known all along that women would love the Cozy Cat series. Single women struggling against the system, married career women beaten down and looking for an alternative world, married whores seeking escape from domineering husbands. What Kate and the rest of them didn’t understand was that Deni was an outsider. She knew how women thought because she was one, but she wasn’t born with what were sometimes called feminine wiles. And she understood men because she thought something like them only without the poisonous testosterone to cloud her logic. She understood the mistakes women and men made.

The man who’d murdered Bette Cooper and those other women only understood women, not himself. She understood the thought processes and weaknesses of both sexes. While the killer was sizing up potential victims, engaging in the foreplay of the hunt, then eventually the kill, Deni would be tracking him, getting closer to who and what he was, even though there had been blind alleys and would be more. She was confident she would eventually get inside this guy’s sick mind, understand him as he’d never been understood, then find him. She already understood more about him than Coop could ever imagine. This killer, this sick, testosterone-saturated fuck, while he was following his dick, she’d be following him.

She decided not to try phoning Coop again. Screw him. He needed her as much as she needed him. He’d come around.

Deni went into the kitchen, opened the refrigerator, and reached for a Diet Pepsi. Then she withdrew her hand, closed the door, and opened the freezer below. The hell with the diet soda, she’d have some chocolate Häagen-Dazs instead. She deserved it, with what she was going through.

She carried the bowl of ice cream into the living room and sat down with it before her computer at the desk. Deftly she moved the mouse and gave it a series of clicks, then leaned forward in her chair. Frowning as the first generous spoonful of ice cream made her molars ache, she studied the monitor screen.

After a few minutes, she exited her word processor and went to her bookmarked Web sites in her Research folder. She would continue her painstaking search through public records for parallels, cross-checking nationwide sources. Any problem with Alicia would disappear if she got a solid lead on the killer. So would any problem with Coop, if the prick would ever answer his phone.

Her own phone suddenly chirped beside her.

With her free hand, she lifted it and pressed it to her ear. “Deni Green here.”

“Miz Green, this is Maureen Morgan.”

Deni waited, poised to tell off whoever this idiot was who’d dialed a wrong number or thought she might sell her something.

“I’m sorry,” the voice said. “Formerly Maureen Cooper. Bette’s mother.”

Deni brightened, smiling. She was sorting through her mental file cabinet now, trying to remember everything she’d learned from her previous conversation with Maureen, everything Coop had let slip about his ex-wife. Tree hugger, teetotaler, animal rights nut, vegetarian…“Oh! I was just thinking about you!”

“And I you,” Maureen said. “Coop warned me not to talk with you again.”

“Then that’s something we have in common.”

“I think we should get together and talk more, despite what my former husband says. You might learn something valuable from me, and I from you.”

“Would this be without Coop’s knowledge?”

“Of course.”

“When would you like to meet?”

“What about tomorrow, if you’re not busy?”

“Sure. We can meet somewhere for lunch. A restaurant near where you work, if you’d like.”

“I guess that would be okay.”

“It will have to be vegetarian,” Deni said, spooning in a bite of Häagen-Dazs. “I don’t eat meat or dairy products. Is that okay with you? Or if you’d prefer, maybe we could just get together for a nonalcoholic drink.”

“That might be better,” Maureen said. “Do you like virgin mango daiquiris?”

“I’m willing to try one,” Deni said, licking the spoon. “In fact, they sound scrumptious.”

Coop expected Cara to turn into Darby’s Deli, where she’d eaten lunch before. Instead she walked past its entrance, then around the corner off 57th Street, and entered Viva Trattoria, a small Italian restaurant with a lot of ferns in its front windows. This was apparently another place she’d learned her sister Ann had frequented.

It was a clear day but cold. Since Cara would be inside the restaurant for a while, Coop considered going back for his car and parking it across the street, sitting in it with the engine idling and the heater on. Then he decided against it. Maybe she’d change her mind and have lunch somewhere else, or she’d entered the restaurant simply so she might be noticed by whoever had killed Ann. It might be one of the waiters, or a customer sipping Chablis or about to take a bite of pasta. He’d glance up and there would be a flash of almost recognition, and then, if Cara had it figured right, the attraction that had made her sister a victim.
Look at me,
she was saying,
I’m Ann Callahan’s type—your type.
Coop wondered again if Cara fully comprehended the danger she was placing herself in. How could she be so gloriously stupid or so brave?

He backed into a doorway of a small shop that sold watches and electronics and stood ostensibly looking at a display of refurbished antique timepieces. What he was actually doing was watching both sides of the street in front of the restaurant, taking note of people so he’d remember them if they appeared the next time he followed Cara. And he knew he would follow her again. Something about her attracted him with an almost palpable magnetism. Just as it must have attracted the killer, but for different reasons.

If she insisted on acting as bait, he would try to protect her. He obviously couldn’t spend all his time shadowing and guarding her, but he could do so often. Maybe it was his smartest move, anyway. If Cara succeeded in putting herself in the same place at the same time as Ann’s killer, Coop might be there along with them. Hunter, prey, and pursuer.

Then something that had nothing to do with the weather sent a cold tingle up his spine. If and when all three came together, he was the only one who’d be recognized instantly by the other two. He and Cara knew each other, and thanks to Deni and the interview she’d given the newspaper, the killer knew what Coop looked like.

Moving deeper into the doorway, out of the wind and out of sight from most of the street, Coop felt again his irritation with Deni, with her disregard for everyone in this case except herself. Aside from the usual request by Earl Gitter for a follow-up piece on the Distraught Dad article, there’d been an angry message, then several calls and hang-ups on his answering machine last night. All attributable to Deni, he was sure.

Coop wasn’t planning on returning her calls, or telling her he was shadowing Cara in her attempt to attract the killer. Not yet, anyway. He’d let Deni stew and maybe learn a lesson in cooperation. Maybe, for a while anyway, she’d play straight with him.

Deni pretended to like her mango daiquiri, a cloyingly sweet concoction that made her long for her customary straight bourbon. The health drink lounge, an almost unnoticeable place on Broadway called Growing, Growing, Grown, was something bizarre, too. It sold herbs and houseplants as well as vegetable and fruit drinks, and it smelled strongly of saffron. She’d use it in a book, Deni decided. There was a small serving counter, and an array of tiny round tables and miniature chairs that looked as if they belonged in an 1890s ice cream shop. Everything in the place other than the drinks seemed to be in shades of white or green. A sign behind the bar read
HEALTH, HERBS, AND HAPPINESS
. Deni had noticed a crushed cockroach on one of the green tiles. She’d decided not to point it out to Maureen.

How Coop’s former wife was dressed was really something. She’d removed her plain brown coat to reveal neutral-colored slacks and a sacklike long-sleeved blouse. She wore no makeup and had a sallow, slightly pitted complexion and drab hair. A photo negative had more color. Maybe she’d been a looker once, but not now. The most vivid thing about her was her choice of shoes, black and practical, sort of ankle-length boots made out of what looked like vinyl, with oddly pointed toes. Deni was glad when they were out of sight beneath the table so she wouldn’t give in to her compulsion to laugh at them. They looked as if they belonged on a fucking elf.

Deni cast all that aside and told Maureen most of what she and Coop had discovered. She skillfully tilted it so it seemed that she’d done most of the work and achieved most of the results. And she didn’t bother with worrying if Coop would want his former wife to know these things. He wouldn’t bother to pick up his phone, so screw Coop. And this was information that should be cross-referenced, anyway. If he had any sense, Coop would thank her for talking with Maureen. At least Maureen would talk to Deni; according to Coop, all his ex wanted to do in his presence was throw verbal darts at him.

“I wanted to thank you personally for what you’ve done,” Maureen said, sipping her disgusting mango drink, “and to let you know I stand ready to help you in any way possible. It seems obvious to me that you’ve been a lot more productive than the police.”

“They’ve got a lot of crime to cover,” Deni said, “and they have a short attention span.”

“Not to mention tunnel vision.”

“Funny,” Deni said, “I accused your former husband of that not long ago. He got angry.”

“He often gets angry at the truth. Why do you even work with him?”

“He’s a valuable line into the police department. I use him to get information; then I use the information my way. That’s why I wouldn’t want him to hear about this conversation and get in another huff.”

“I suppose he’s in a huff now about that newspaper article.”

“That’s right,” Deni said. “How did you feel about the article?”

“I thought it was fine. At least it’s something. Nothing else was being done. That’s what Coop doesn’t seem to realize. And I told you before, he won’t learn about our conversations from me.”

Deni caught the plural “conversations” and liked it. She faked another sip of mango drink and leaned closer to Maureen. “Is there anything Coop talked about with you that I didn’t touch on?”

Maureen toyed with her plastic swizzle stick and looked thoughtful. “I don’t think so. He’s baffled and all over the map. Even told me once the killer might not know himself he’d done these terrible crimes. Told me psychotic murderers sometimes blank out the horror of their deeds and might even pass a polygraph test.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Deni said. This time she actually did take a sip of her mango daiquiri and almost gagged.

“Of course. The notion that someone is wandering around not knowing he’s the sort of person that could do these things is absurd. Magazine-stand psychiatry. Do you believe in psychiatry as a science?”

Deni knew she’d better be careful here. “As a science?”

“Have you ever been to a psychiatrist?”

“No. Never. You?”

“Once. After our marriage broke up. It was the biggest bunch of bull I ever heard.”

Deni smiled understandingly. “I think it can be just that. Only at a steep price.”

“I’d just as soon talk to someone like you,” Maureen said. “Someone with imagination and insight. I have a feel for these things, and I know that somehow you can get inside this killer’s mind, know what he’s thinking.”

“I’m trying,” Deni said.

“It’s not a question of trying.”

Deni wondered what she meant by that.

Maureen frowned and shook her head. “It was easier to talk to Coop, to trust him, before the cancer.”

“Cancer?”

“Yes. It’s in remission now. There’s no telling how long he has to live.”

Holy shit!
Deni thought. That explained a lot of things. Such as why Coop was in such a hurry to find his daughter’s killer. This was terrific for the book. “That’s too bad. I hope he’s out of the woods.”

“He’ll never be that, as I understand these things. And I know something about them, working for an insurance company that sells whole life. Statistically, I mean. Did you know medical research has established that cancer cells don’t die? They’re immortal.”

“I read that somewhere.”

“There’s no telling when the disease will resume its course.” Maureen used her hollow swizzle stick for a straw and sucked on it until it made a gurgling sound as she finished every ounce of her drink. Then she looked up at Deni. “You mean Coop entered into a long-term business arrangement with you and didn’t even tell you about his illness?”

“He mentioned it,” Deni lied, “but he didn’t go into any detail. I didn’t want to pry, figured it wasn’t any of my concern.”

“I’d think it would concern you, under the circumstances. It was something you should have known.” Maureen glanced at a wall clock that looked like a beer advertisement, only the beer was a brand of celery drink. “I’d better get back. You’d be surprised how busy the insurance industry can be. Not that it isn’t interesting. It really is.”

“I can imagine,” Deni said.

Maureen smiled at her. “Yes, I believe you can.”

Deni knew what she meant: they were both part of the sisterhood that tried to lose loneliness in their dedication to their work. And both knew loneliness was a persistent stalker.

Maureen tried again to use the swizzle stick to drain more daiquiri from the bottom of her glass, then stood up. “If I think of anything that might be useful, I’ll call you. Will you do the same for me?”

“I’ll keep you informed,” Deni promised, realizing that this was the second reason for their meeting and maybe Maureen wasn’t so dumb.

Maureen nodded, picked up her coat from where it was folded on a chair, and strode from the health lounge.

She hadn’t left money for her drink, leaving Deni to pay the check.

Cheap at the price,
Deni thought.