The Night Caller (8 page)

Coop sat in his car waiting for Maureen to emerge from the office building in midtown Manhattan where she worked. Her employer was Allied National, one of the giants of the insurance business. Coop wasn’t quite sure what her job title was these days, but she’d been with the company a long time. Insurance seemed to suit her; she was the sort of person who always dwelled on the worst possible outcome.

A steady stream of people issued from the revolving doors of the skyscraper. Maureen stepped out of the crowd, glanced around, saw Coop’s Honda, and headed toward him. Coatless despite the cold, she was wearing a plain gray dress, ugly ankle-high socks, and the usual clunky shoes made, probably, out of old tires. Her bra strap that was barely visible at the shoulder was the light tan color of natural cotton. Her slip and underwear, he knew, would be the same color. Maureen refused to wear chemically dyed clothing next to her skin. Yet she had dyed her hair red. Well, everyone had inconsistencies, but Maureen was so blissfully unaware of hers. He’d learned not to mention them to her. She had become stranger and stranger to him during the final year of their marriage as the stress of being a cop’s wife ate away at her. Never a religious person, after the divorce she had adopted causes as a spiritual substitute. They were mostly causes of concern and gentleness, as if she wanted to distance herself as far as possible from Coop’s violent world that had pervaded and poisoned their married life.

She didn’t smile as she approached the car and got in beside him, bringing a swirl of cold air with her. It was Maureen who had called him and suggested lunch so they might discuss their daughter’s murder.

After saying hello to him she stared glumly ahead. He considered again that if she thought more of herself, took better care of herself, she would still be attractive. But that wasn’t the new Maureen. She had no makeup on today and was wearing her gray mood as she was her gray dress. Coop didn’t blame her. He wasn’t looking forward to lunch either. He had a great deal to tell her, but he didn’t know how she’d react.

He checked traffic and gunned the engine, pulling out in front of a lumbering Madison Avenue bus. “There’s a nice place around the corner,” he said, “called Ferrante’s or something like that.”

“Ferado’s,” she said. “We’re not going there.”

“Ferado’s has Italian subs for me,” he said, “veggie pastas for you. I thought it would be a nice compromise.”

“Nice for you, maybe. They use the same pans and utensils, so the vegetarian dishes get tainted with meat. I can’t go to any restaurant that serves meat. I get sick afterward.”

“Okay,” Coop said. “How about the vegetarian restaurant on Fifty-second?”

“No. They use butter, milk, eggs.”

She suggested a place called the Common Carrot, and Coop capitulated, even though it was way down in the East Village.

Traffic was bad and the drive turned out to be long. Maureen was silent. Coop considered beginning his report on the investigation, then thought
Not yet.
Instead he asked, “What do you believe is wrong with eating dairy products?” She didn’t answer. He looked over in time to see her lips tighten. He thought he’d used a respectful tone. “I can see where you think it’s cruel to kill animals and eat them, but shearing a sheep or milking a cow doesn’t harm it.”

“People have no right to enslave animals, to keep chickens in tiny pens and cows in narrow stalls all their lives.”

“Well, we can agree that nobody should be unnecessarily cruel to animals.”

“You’re being sarcastic. You’d like to think I’m just a sentimentalist, weeping over brown-eyed bossy, wouldn’t you? But I’m worried about people’s health, too. We’re violating the natural order more and more and we’ll pay the price.”

“I wasn’t being sarcastic. I actually admire your concern for fellow creatures, human and otherwise.”

This was like when they were still married, the verbal duelling, the disconnection, the cold space between them ever widening. He decided to give up the conversation and concentrate on his driving.

When they reached Thompkins Square, where the restaurant was located, there were no parking spaces. Coop double-parked and flipped down his visor with the
NYPD OFFICIAL BUSINESS
sign he’d forgotten to turn in when he retired. He expected Maureen to make a comment about the arrogance of power, but she let it pass.

The Common Carrot occupied the ground floor of an ancient row house, between a store that sold old records, the vinyl kind, and a tattooing and piercing parlor. It had sidewalk tables, empty because of the chilly weather, and a big window giving a view of the square.

The restaurant was crowded, but Coop was the only man wearing a tie. Maybe the only person wearing leather shoes. He was relieved to sit down and get them out of sight. The table was wooden, unstained and unpainted. At least the walls were painted, the same drab green that had been in his office at the precinct. It didn’t matter, because not much of the paintwork could be seen. Political posters championing animal rights and environmental causes took up most of the wall space. Across from their table hung a large poster of a bulky woman wearing dark, turn-of-the-century clothing and a white sun bonnet. She looked as glum as Maureen, only more fierce.

“That’s Mother Jones,” Maureen said, noticing him examining the painting.

“The labor leader?”

She raised her eyebrows, also dyed the new red color, and looked surprised that he’d heard of Mother Jones. And a little resentful. She obviously considered Mother Jones hers. Coop didn’t see any connection between Mother Jones and natural products, but he didn’t push it for fear of further raising Maureen’s hackles.

Instead he opened the large, thick menu.
There must be a tremendous variety of entrées,
he thought. In fact the menu was more of a manifesto. He had to go through pages of political statements before he got to the food.

A waiter so thin and pale he might never have experienced solid food approached the table. Maureen ordered bottled water and a salad without dressing. Coop wondered how she maintained her thickened build, eating that way. He ordered the veggie burger, french-fried sweet potatoes, and a draft beer. This might not be so bad. The waiter smiled wanly and departed.

“Should you be drinking beer?” Maureen asked.

“Probably not.”

“You think it’s none of my business,” she muttered. “Private, secretive, just like you.”

Maybe she’s right,
Coop thought.

They were halfway through an unpleasant lunch before their dead daughter was mentioned. Coop realized neither of them had wanted to bring up the subject, though Bette was the reason they were there.

“You wanted my report about Bette,” he said.

“You can call it that if you like,” Maureen said, expertly folding and spearing dry lettuce with her fork.

She continued to eat while he recounted his talk with Billard and his trip to Haverton. When he started talking about Deni Green, though, Maureen put down her fork. She said nothing but listened intently.

“Do you agree with this woman that a serial killer murdered our daughter?” she asked, when he was finished.

“I don’t know. And I can’t promise you that we’ll ever know.”

She used her fork to toy with a tomato wedge, then looked up at him. “What would be the motive of such a man?”

“Maybe nothing we’d understand,” Coop told her. “Compulsive serial killers are moved in ways that normal people aren’t. They have certain hang-ups at times impossible for us to know about, or to understand even after we do learn about them. Almost all of them were mistreated as kids.”

“They hate their mothers.”

Coop thought that was a strange thing for her to say. “Sometimes. Often.”

“What about female killers? Do they hate their fathers?”

“There aren’t many female serial killers,” Coop said. “Women don’t react to certain kinds of adversity the same way as men.”

“A nice way of saying you’re the violent gender. Lots of women are molested by their fathers, but they don’t go out and kill men. Why not?”

“I don’t know. Maybe you’re the forgiving gender.”

“No,” she said sharply. “Some things can’t be forgiven.”

He looked at her, wondering. “Were you molested by your father, Maureen?”

She flinched and glared at him. “What makes you think you have the right to ask a question like that? Think you’re still my husband? Think you’re still a cop?”

He realized she hadn’t said no, but he let the subject drop. She was right, he shouldn’t have asked the question. “Getting inside the thought processes of this kind of killer can be impossible at times,” he said. “Sometimes they themselves block out the horror of what they were compelled to do. They’ve been known to pass lie detector tests.”

“Are you saying the killer himself might not even know he committed these crimes?”

“It’s possible. It’s happened before.”

“That’s absurd. Cop talk to excuse the fact that they never catch some random killers.”

Coop decided not to argue. Cop talk had always been a language Maureen didn’t understand.

“Deni Green,” she said. “What do you think of her?”

“I’m not sure I trust her.”

“Why is that?”

“She takes advantage of people’s vulnerabilities or their inattention.”

“She sounds smart. Insightful.”

“I suppose she’s both those things.”

“I want you to promise to stay with Deni Green on this, even though her motives might be selfish.”

“I already decided to do that,” Coop said. “If we can come up with some solid evidence that this killer exists, I’ll take it to the NYPD or the FBI. Then we’ll get some action.”

“How you love a bureaucracy with a set of initials. A lone woman has a better chance of catching Bette’s killer than any male-dominated bureaucracy.”

He was careful to keep his voice neutral. “How do you figure?”

“Women understand men who kill women. That’s because you all do it, in all kinds of different ways, either slowly or quickly. Probably Deni Green has experienced that, just as I have. I’m inclined to trust her.”

“Remember I was Bette’s father,” Coop said.

“What’s that got to do with it?”

“I care about her. Deni Green doesn’t. She’s working against a deadline to write a sensational best-seller. Bette is just another victim to her.”

“I’m still not getting you.”

“Investigations are hard to control—even when you haven’t got an ambitious writer in on them. Facts about Bette may come out that we don’t know—maybe that we don’t want to know.”

“You’re talking about yourself. Men are obsessed with hiding their vulnerabilities, stifling their emotions. That’s what makes you afraid of the truth. There’s nothing about Bette that I’m afraid to find out.”

She returned to her salad.

Coop realized they were through talking. He took another bite of his quasi hamburger. It was surprisingly good, but he’d lost his appetite.

Maureen finished her salad, then dug in her purse and laid a handful of one-dollar bills on the table. She clutched her half-empty plastic bottle of water and stood up. “It’s a nice day,” she said. “I’ll walk for a while, then catch a bus uptown.”

Coop picked up the bills and tried to hand them back to her, but she’d turned and was stalking toward the exit. She rounded a corner into the vestibule and he didn’t actually see her leave, but a minute later her stolid form in the gray dress passed by one of the windows. She was walking with her head bowed, frowning and gnawing her lower lip.

She does hate me,
he thought.
She really does hate me. For someone to hate me that much, I must deserve it at least a little bit.

He wondered, though. When they had gone into counseling together in an attempt to save their marriage, it had been suggested to Maureen that the hatred she directed toward others was really of herself. He recalled the pang of pity he’d felt for her when he’d heard that. Conveniently, she would say. Maybe she was right. She hated him and he deserved it.

Complicated, Coop thought. People were so damned complicated. And more exposed to danger than they imagined. That was why they were easily victimized. Just when they thought they were secure, that’s when they found they were most vulnerable.

He sat for a while, munching the few remaining french-fried sweet potatoes without really tasting them. His gaze fell on his glass of microbrewery draft. It was untouched, which surprised him. Had Maureen’s conversation about diet and health gotten under his skin? Did she actually care about his health? Were there still remnants of affection?

Complicated.

He picked up the glass of beer and drained it.

The Night Caller knew Ann Callahan.

Knew everything about her.

Almost.

There was her familiar head, visible at times when the bus she was riding turned a corner. There was her firm chin and slightly uptilted nose, her dark hair arranged to fall lightly about her narrow shoulders. A sharp and distinctive profile.

The bus lumbered and belched fumes from stop to stop through Queens, along seemingly endless Northern Boulevard. The Night Caller’s car stayed well behind the bus. Other cars got in the way, but he didn’t worry. You couldn’t lose a bus, if you knew the route as well as he did.

The bus would turn soon, and Ann Callahan would emerge at her regular stop and walk to the apartment in Flushing where she lived with her father and mother. When the weather was clear, like tonight, the Night Caller would park across the street and observe her lithe figure cross back and forth at the apartment windows. First she would be in the dress she’d worn to work; then he might catch a silhouetted glimpse of her changing clothes in her upstairs bedroom, then in casual clothes, blouses or sweaters, with slacks or jeans. A fashion show. A doll in a dollhouse.

The Night Caller found a certain charm in that. Steering with his left hand, he slipped his right into his pocket and closed it about the plastic saint.

Ann sat staring idly out through her reflection in the bus window at the cars keeping pace with or edging past the lumbering vehicle. Hers was a cheerless existence, especially since her older sister Cara had moved out, gotten a place of her own in Manhattan. That left only Ann and her parents. The Callahans had emigrated from Belfast in the 1970s, when the sectarian terrorism was at its worst. Ann’s father, Kevin, had brought his strict Catholicism with him. And his fear.

Sometimes Ann thought her father ought to be grateful to New York. The city had employed him for decades in the sort of arid clerking job that suited his crabbed nature. Instead he railed against New York, regarding it as the worst possible place for his two daughters, a city that was both a garden of temptations and a jungle of danger.

He and his wife had raised their daughters strictly, hemming them in with rules and prohibitions, punishing them severely for any transgression. Even now he kept them on a short leash. He couldn’t spank them or put them to bed without supper anymore, but he could work on their guilt. He’d had a triple bypass two years before, and he made it clear to the girls that any lapse, any resistance on their part, might bring death for him—and decades of recrimination for them.

Ann had discovered, with wonder and admiration, that Cara had a stiff enough spine to resist the old man. When she moved to her own place, though, he took it out on Ann. Each day she made the long trip to a mid-Manhattan skyscraper, where she worked in a teller’s cage or sat in a cubicle and tapped on a keyboard at Mercantile Mutual Bank. And each evening she made her way home by subway or bus, in time to set the table for the family dinner her mother had prepared. It was entirely clear to Ann that she was supposed to stay at home until it was time to take her mother’s place, to be the spinster daughter who looked after her father until he went to his eternal reward.

Even knowing this, Ann couldn’t stand up to her father. She was a mild, sweet-natured girl. She had love in her. And hope. And ambition, sometimes. Only sometimes.

She was trapped, and she accepted her fate.

Which was too bad not only for her but for the Night Caller. Ann Callahan’s drab life was so circumscribed that it created only limited opportunity for him. She left home only to commute to work, or attend church with her parents, or on rare occasion go to a shop or a movie. If she stuck to her routine, it would be difficult for the Night Caller to have a private session with her.

He glanced at the dashboard clock. Tonight, at least, Ann wouldn’t have to make any apologies or excuses. She was going to arrive while her father’s favorite newscast was still going on and he hadn’t begun to worry about her. She’d have plenty of time to set the dollhouse table. The bus was pulling up to her stop.

It had become dark, and the bus’s brake lights were dull red stars in the haze of its exhaust fumes as it slowed and pulled to the curb. Half a block behind it, the Night Caller’s car also pulled to the curb and sat with its engine idling.

Two extremely fat women stood politely to the side at the bus’s front door while an old man with a cane climbed gingerly down to the street. Two teenage boys in Knicks warm-up suits jumped from the rear door and went swaggering down the block. A woman emerged from the rear door after them, just as the fat women were climbing into the bus. Not Ann Callahan, though, an older woman carrying a shopping bag.
Not Ann Callahan.

The Night Caller’s heartbeat quickened as the bus rumbled and accelerated back into the sporadic stream of traffic.

So Ann was going to make it one of
those
rare nights. Once in a great while she would steal a little time for herself. Her usual practice was to call in the afternoon and say that she had to work late. Her father would put up with that, if she didn’t do it too often. Ordinarily she waited two weeks or more. But this time it had been only a week. The Night Caller had followed her on Wednesday. And here it was Wednesday again. No doubt about where she was going, then.

The Night Caller’s car jumped away from the curb and caught up with the bus, passed it smoothly to pull in front of it before the next traffic light.

The bus didn’t make the light.

No matter.

The Night Caller knew its destination, and Ann’s. The end of the line. He drove along slowly, just keeping the bus in sight in his rearview mirror. The mirror framed the bus, made it real. The Night Caller’s car was only one of many, sometimes nothing but taillights like the red eyes of a demon among other demons. Unnoticed. Unreal. The future looking into the past. Mirrors could do that.

Gradually, electric signs gave way to trees. The traffic thinned and streetlights dimmed as they neared the border between Queens and Nassau County. The bus pulled up to its last stop.

Ann stepped down from the bus and stood in the darkness beneath the trees, watching the vehicle’s boxlike bulk recede down the street. She didn’t move until its twin taillights drew close together and disappeared as it turned a corner.

She looked around, took an obvious deep breath, and strode through a small parklike area onto the campus of a community college.

Ann had considered registering for classes here some time ago but had changed her mind. Perhaps because she was shy, or she simply couldn’t afford the meager tuition. Possibly she’d been considering classes simply as a way to meet men. True, she was an adult and her father couldn’t stop her from dating, but he did arrange his periods of ill health to coincide with her dates. She’d never been able to talk him out of waiting up for her. And cross-examining her. And pestering her to invite the young man to a family dinner. Eventually she’d given up. She hadn’t dated or even been to a party in months.

The Night Caller followed her at a distance along winding sidewalks, past unlighted brick buildings, until she came to a building whose lobby and windows glowed. The Fine Arts Building, according to the lettering over its entrance.

She entered as she had before and walked along the hall, past a cluster of night students sitting on the stairs and talking. One of them, a handsome black man with a shaved head and an earring stud, smiled at her as she passed, but Ann didn’t pause. Her father would be proud, the Night Caller thought wryly. He followed as she climbed the stairs and turned down a dimly lit hall. Most of the doors along the hall were open to dark rooms.

As she approached a narrow rectangle of light cast through one of the doors, Ann slowed her pace. There was a small window in the door at eye level.

With deliberate slowness Ann walked past the door and glanced in through the window. In the light that suddenly transformed her face, the Night Caller saw her slight smile. It was the sort of smile not meant for others to see.

Ten paces beyond the door she paused, turned, and repeated the procedure, moving in the opposite direction.

The Night Caller didn’t have to look in the room to know what was going on inside. He’d checked last week. This was a class in figure drawing. The model was a man. A young and rather muscular young man. The Night Caller had been a bit startled when he’d glanced in last week; not so many years ago male models in college had worn jockstraps. Not anymore. Luckily for Ann.

This time the Night Caller, ducking back into the shadows of one of the darkened classrooms, didn’t see Ann’s secret smile, but it was certainly there. He smiled as she walked past unaware of being observed. Ann did this almost every week. It was the repressed young woman’s little thrill that she thought was harmless and private. It was a safe bet that she’d be back next Wednesday.

She would retrace her steps to the street now, and catch the inbound bus. Back home, in maimed love and light, her mother was no doubt keeping her dinner warm in the oven, and her father was watching the clock. They were calling her, making no sound, but she heard them. Lonely calling lonely.

The Night Caller waited until her footfalls echoed up the stairwell before following. It was an art, maintaining a proper distance when shadowing, interpreting body language and anticipating the subject. But it was easier if you were already inside the mind and skin of the person you were following. If you knew her apartness and desperation and galaxylike pattern of tiny moles on the inside of her right thigh.

Once they were outside the building, Ann seemed preoccupied, not at all on guard, for an attractive young woman walking alone across a dark campus. Not that it mattered. She was safe tonight.

For the Night Caller this was merely an exercise.

Practice and prelude.