The Caller

‘I don’t want to make things worse for her. Even though I haven’t done anything … just, the only weird thing that night was Ethan told me … that he loved me.’

Joe frowned. ‘What? And you hadn’t seen him in how long? A year and a half?’

‘Yeah. He said he was just calling to say he loved me.’

‘What did you say to him?’

‘I was shocked. I mean, he sounded pretty normal except for what he was actually saying to me. That was it. I didn’t know what to say back. I mean, he’s married, I heard he has a lovely wife and daughter and … I don’t know. I mean, I don’t love him. Didn’t. I said that to him. I said about his wife and that I’d moved on.’ She shrugged. ‘Now I feel terrible. For him. For his wife. I’m guessing she has no idea. Do you think … I mean, he didn’t kill himself or anything?’

‘No,’ said Joe. ‘Had he hinted about his feelings when you met at your brother’s funeral?’

‘No,’ said Clare. ‘He was really sweet to me. But that’s Ethan, he just is. There was no major interaction between us, no plans to meet up, I didn’t encourage him, nothing.’

‘Is there anyone you could think of that had a problem with Ethan? Was he ever in trouble?’

‘It was eight years ago when we broke up. But before then, Ethan was, like, normal, just a nice guy. I never saw him even have an argument with anyone. He was low-profile, you know what I mean? He’d be the last person I would think would end up murdered.’

Rufo was sitting at his desk pressing keys on his cell phone when Danny and Joe walked in. He held up his left hand to silence them. They looked at each other. Joe shrugged. Rufo spent another few minutes focused on the tiny handset. He was smiling to himself. He hit one last key and put the phone down.

‘Texting,’ he said. ‘What a great way to communicate. You should check it out.’

‘I lived in Ireland, remember?’ said Joe. ‘It’s nearly taken over from drinking.’

‘Who were you texting?’ said Danny.

Rufo looked up at him. ‘None of your business, Markey. Now, to what do I owe the pleasure?’

Joe spoke. ‘I’m thinking of setting up a meeting with Reuben Maller in the Eastern District, get some sort of profile worked out on this perp …’

‘Sure. Go ahead,’ said Rufo. ‘As long as we’re all clear it’s his friendly assistance you’re after.’

Joe nodded. ‘I’ll see what comes out of the profile. If there’s anything we think he should stick around for, anyone he’d like to interview, we’ll see, but you know Maller, he’s a good guy, he does his thing, then disappears back—’

‘Under his rock,’ said Danny.

Joe rolled his eyes. ‘Do you ever think it might be you?’

‘What the hell’s that supposed to mean?’ said Danny.

‘You know? The whole world’s an asshole or a dickhead. Did you ever think it might be you?’

‘Ladies, take it outside,’ said Rufo.

Anna stood outside Bay Ridge subway station, searching through her huge navy bag. She found her white headphones, but as she pulled them out, she realized there was no iPod attached.

‘Merde.’ She remembered seeing it in the speaker dock in the kitchen. ‘Merde.’

She checked her watch and thought about running back home for it, but instead, she forced herself to walk into the heat of the station and down the steps. Raised voices echoed up and when she reached them, she saw a tall well-dressed woman push a scruffy teenage boy by the shoulders, slamming him against the ticket machine. He spat in her face. She threw money at him and walked away. Anna had no interest in working out what had happened, she kept her head down and moved as far away from him as she could. It annoyed her that her heart rate shot up. It happened too easily, any confrontation, any sudden movements, any loud noises. When she had her iPod on, Mozart made her feel that she could drift everywhere untouched by her surroundings, a gentle soundtrack for a different place, a different set of scenes.

She swiped her Metrocard and waited on the platform, glancing over at the woman in the suit, keeping her where she could see her. The woman was tweaking – coming down off crystal meth, radiating crazy. Anna could hear the young guy behind her shouting – ‘Crazy bitch! She took my money, the crazy bitch!’ Then, ‘No! I got it here! Crazy bitch threw it back at me!’

Nervous energy ran through the crowd. The woman walked away swinging her briefcase, her head held high, her own special tune playing in her head. The R train pulled in and everyone moved on. It was rush-hour cramped and Anna, small and slight, got pushed into a tight spot against a huge student who smiled an apology down at her. She smiled back.

For the first part of the journey, everyone was focused on their books and newspapers or talking to their friends. Anna stared through the window at nothing. Then the subway doors slid open at Cortlandt Street and stayed open. Panic struck up in her again. Announcements boomed from the speakers on the platform. No-one could hear them. People started to look up, then around at everyone else.

Anna felt a sickening urge to push her way through and burst onto the platform, but was held back by the attention that would attract, everyone staring at this women who was alarmed because a train stopped for two minutes longer than it was supposed to. She could feel the sweat soaking into the fabric at her back, the heat of the platform, of the people around her, of their breath. The doors slid closed and the train started up again. She breathed out and talked to herself all the way to her stop, telling herself she was stupid, then brave, then irrational, then strong, then stupid. She almost ran up the steps into Union Square, relieved to hit air that wasn’t suffocating her. She peeled her top away from her skin and let the light breeze cool her. ‘I can’t do this,’ she said to herself. ‘There is no way I can do this.’

She straightened up and looked across at Barnes & Noble and felt the pull of a morning spent drinking coffee and flicking through design books of faraway houses on stilts in the ocean or on beaches or cliffsides. A shiver ran up her spine. She took a deep breath and walked towards the W Hotel. She stood at the window and saw everyone gathered in the early morning darkness of the bar. She recognized the back of Marc Lunel’s head, his long, black shiny hair, the red tab on his Prada shoes. She saw four models, two makeup artists, two hair stylists, the intern from Vogue Living … everyone waiting for her guidance. She saw her reflection in the glass, her tired eyes, her downturned mouth, the sheen of sweat on her forehead. She turned away. She started walking. And she hailed the first cab that passed by.

When Joe got back to his desk, a white envelope lay there, stamped and addressed to him. Most of the mail he got was yellow-envelope inter-departmental. He picked it up. It was light but bulky; cheap paper with no return address. He grabbed a ruler from his drawer and sliced through it. The thin white pages were folded in half and sprang open, both sides covered in scrawled writing and short sentences: Dear Detective Lucchesi, The noise this morning was almost unbearable. I could try to create it in letters and words. I got out of bed. I wouldn’t know how. Two directions. And it’s agony. I get anxious sometimes if I do. And actually what I need is peace to find my way through everything. There was no point in just laying there. One forward, one back. I made coffee and fixed myself scrambled eggs. I still know how to do that. I’m not sure which is harder. But it was loud. Not everyone else does. I don’t think I can figure it all out without quiet. Bass and drums. There are times when I’m nearly there …

Joe paused, rubbing his temples. He flipped the page over and kept reading. On it went, a random series of thoughts and the vague sense that there was a story inside, one that only the writer knew. It was a complexity of simple facts, observations, theories and descriptions. What Joe read on the sixth page made it relevant to him. Vertically, in the right-hand margin was written: Lying, badly beaten. Lowry is the result. I don’t know if I could have done anything differently.

Something cold shot up the back of Joe’s neck. He scanned quickly through the pages that followed, through writings about rooms and stories and calculators and theaters. It ended after sixteen pages, signed off namelessly: More will come. Captured at the right time.

‘Jesus,’ said Joe. ‘What the fuck was that?’ He called the others over.

‘Guys, I just got a letter about Ethan Lowry.’

‘A letter?’ said Danny. ‘From who?’

‘A randomer,’ said Joe.

‘Who’s Arrandoma?’ said Rencher.

‘Randomer. A random person. Person unknown. It’s something I picked up from one of Shaun’s friends in Ireland.’

‘OK, what’s this randomer saying?’ said Rencher.

‘A little and a lot,’ said Joe.

‘Don’t be fooled by the rocks that I got,’ said Danny.

Joe ignored him and looked down at the letter. ‘OK, so we got a lot of information on exactly where the salt is in the kitchen for when the guy is microwaving his eggs in the morning, a bunch of other stuff about what he likes to do – major detail there …

‘Did he sign it?’ said Rencher.

‘Yeah, sure he did,’ said Danny, ‘with his address too, that’s why we’re all sitting around here, trying to figure out who could have sent it.’

‘Yeah, I meant with anything—’

‘What? Like, From the killer …?’ said Danny.

‘Shut the fuck up,’ said Rencher.

‘Shut the fuck up all of you,’ said Joe. ‘Let me read this out to you.’ He read through the letter and waited in the silence that followed.

‘Are we taking this seriously?’ said Rencher.