Ricochet

by Paula Gosling

‘Should suit him just right,’ Abbi said. ‘And here he is.’

  In the doorway loomed a charming bear of a man, wearing a sweater and chinos. David Waxman was tall and well-built, and his smile was devastating. No wonder Abbi fell for him, Kate thought. He had a diffident manner and was obviously a bit shy. Liz, who knew him from committee work at the university, made the introductions.

  ‘They have a weird project,’ Abbi told her husband with a grin. ‘But they haven’t said how weird yet.’

  ‘The weirder the better,’ David said. His voice was surprisingly soft for such a big man. ‘I could use some distraction.’ He turned to Abbi. ‘I just can’t get it right, somehow. Damn thing keeps eluding me.’

  ‘David’s built a new electronic instrument,’ Abbi explained. ‘And he’s trying to compose on it as well.’

  ‘I don’t know how I get myself into these things,’ David said morosely. He sank into a big leather chair that was obviously his and his alone. ‘I get an idea, mention it to someone and the next thing I know I’m up to my ears in details, details. I spend more time on the phone than I do anything else. Now they want me to help market the thing and all I want to do is get on with my music.’

  ‘David has an unfortunate capacity for thinking up ideas that make money,’ Abbi explained with a smile. ‘Personally, I think it’s great, but he lives for art and all the commercial side of it gets in the way.’

  ‘Aye me,’ David said in a gentle, self-mocking way. ‘How I suffer.’

  ‘And how our bank manager loves him,’ Abbi put in. ‘Me, I’m just a hack. Both of us spend more time on the phone than anything else.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Kate. ‘It’s the phone we need help on.’

  ‘I’ll leave you to it, then.’ Abbi stood up and gathered the empty coffee cups, discreetly retreating with them to the kitchen.

  Quickly Kate explained the basic problem and Liz’s idea that David might be able to help them identify the nasty phone caller by his voice.

  ‘Hmm – interesting,’ David mused. He thought for a moment, then jumped to his feet. ‘Come on down to the studio.’

  ‘Watch where you step,’ Abbi warned with a smile as they passed through the kitchen. ‘You could either trip, electrocute yourself, or blow every fuse from here to the Canadian border.’

  ‘It’s not that bad,’ David protested. ‘As long as you stick to the path.’

  ‘It’s a pretty narrow path.’ Abbi chuckled, closing the door of the dishwasher. ‘Meanwhile, Twister and I have to write an ad for a new cat food.’

  ‘Twister?’

  ‘Our cat.’ Abbi pointed to a large grey-and-white lump on a rocking chair in the far corner. The cat was wound so tightly into a ball that Kate had thought it was some kind of furry pillow – very avant-garde.

  David and Liz stood by patiently while Kate and Abbi exchanged details about their respective cats. Finally the three of them trailed down the stairs to the basement, leaving Abbi to her feline researches.

  ‘Good heavens, I see what she means,’ Kate said, as they left the stairs and entered a huge room filled wall to wall and floor to ceiling with . . . things. Kate recognized some conventional musical instruments and the cloth fronts of speakers, but everything else seemed to consist of electronic mysteries. Dials and switches everywhere – it was quite overwhelming. In fact, the only thing really recognizable was the dog who sat watching them from his bed in the corner. His ears were up and he looked curious.

  David laughed at their stunned expressions. ‘I know, it’s kind of complicated at first glance. It’s really pretty straightforward – this is a multi-track recorder, this is a forty-eight-track mixing board where we can bring all kinds of things together. This is what we call an ADAT. These are synthesizers – I can do Wave-Table synthesis and Physical Modelling, as well as Additive synthesis. And this is a sampler – that takes bits of sounds and lets me play with them. Over here is a reverb, digital compressor, phaser—’

  ‘Shades of Star Trek,’ Liz gasped.

  David laughed. ‘Not that kind of phaser.’ He turned to another piece of equipment. ‘This is my latest acquisition – an Avalon 737 with tube compression. It has a noise gate to cut out hiss. I’ve also just got a mackie digital built-in CD burner.’ He smiled as Liz’s eyes appeared to cross. Kate seemed interested in all of it, if a bit bemused. ‘OK, OK – I’ll leave out all the computers and microphones,’ he said, relenting. ‘Let’s just say I’ve got a lot of stuff down here to do with music and sound, OK?’

  The dog, having come over and sniffed them carefully, had retreated back to his bed, but was still watching them, hoping they might suddenly produce something to eat.

  ‘How come you have two rooms?’ Kate wanted to know and Liz sighed. Kate had always been fascinated by technology – even if she didn’t understand it. It came from having an engineer for a father. If she didn’t rein her in soon, they’d be here all day.

  ‘That room over there is for input – where instruments are played into microphones.’

  ‘Oh. So you could record people playing things?’

  David grinned. ‘That’s what I do best – except it’s usually me playing them. I do not, however, sing. Much to Abbi’s relief.’

  ‘Which of these things would you use to help us?’ Kate wanted to know, absorbed in looking at the slides and switches and dials.

  ‘Actually, what you need is pretty basic,’ David said, settling down on a rolling stool. ‘It’s the analysis that will be complicated. But I’ll be using a sound spectrograph, which is a sound wave analyser. I use it for analysing sounds and music, but it can be used to analyse speech, too.’ He indicated an instrument with a computer monitor. ‘Of course, I can’t make the kind of analysis that would stand up in court – you need a trained technician for that, I believe – but I could certainly tell one voice from another and see if they match in a gross analysis. If you want any more than that you’ll need an expert, which could cost big bucks.’

  Liz glanced at Kate. ‘We’ll be glad to pay for your time and—’

  ‘Hey, I don’t like nasty phone callers any more than you do,’ David protested. ‘I’m happy to help you. I think you’re pretty clever to realize you could catch this guy by his voice. But why haven’t you gone to the phone company or the police? Isn’t this kind of vicious phone calling illegal?’

  Kate hesitated, then explained more fully and confessed her worries. He had a very sympathetic face, listened patiently as it all came out. ‘None of it’s true. We think it’s a faculty member. If it is, we don’t necessarily want to take him to court – just get him straightened out before he makes more trouble.’

  ‘For the honour of GSU?’ David asked, raising an eyebrow. ‘That’s pretty idealistic.’

  ‘You’re a member of the faculty yourself. Surely you’ve got some loyalty towards the place,’ Liz said.

  ‘Sure. They pay for all this,’ he answered, gesturing around. ‘Well, a lot of it. And all I have to do is teach, which I really enjoy. Even so, the kind of hassle you’re talking about can be nerveracking. I’m sorry you’re being bothered like this.’

  ‘I know,’ Kate agreed. ‘He seems to enjoy it so much . . . it’s awful. Can you help?’

  ‘I’ll sure try,’ David said in his soft voice. ‘It’s pretty simple.’

  It might have been simple to David Waxman, but it took a lot of explaining for Kate and Liz. Especially when he made clear that they would have to get each suspect to repeat certain words so he could compare them. It would require some kind of script and some words would have to be the same as in the phone call Kate had already recorded using a simple cassette recorder mike held to the receiver. It was the first time Liz had heard the voice and she saw immediately what Kate meant about the irritation factor.

  David listened to what they had and scowled. ‘Bastard,’ he said. ‘But the quality isn’t re
ally sufficient for what we need. Let me check.’ He put the tape into another machine, played it through the computer into the spectrograph and sighed. ‘You really need a mike right in the receiver. Let’s look at what I’ve got that will help you.’

  They looked and then looked at each other. This was not going to be as easy as they had thought. After half an hour, though, they had the equipment and the instructions straight in their minds – and in their notebooks.

  ‘How long do you think it will take?’ David asked. ‘Getting all the samples, I mean.’

  ‘Well, a few days at least,’ Kate said. ‘Maybe a week.’

  ‘That suits me fine.’ David nodded. ‘I have this other thing to finish and it should take me about a week. Then I’ll be free to analyse your data. It’s not exactly my field, but I think I can do a good job on it. If I get stuck, I know a guy who is really expert – but like I said, we’d have to pay him.’

  ‘That’s fine,’ Kate said firmly. ‘Whatever it takes is fine with me. It’s really nice of you to help me out.’

  David waved a negligent, well-kept hand. ‘Happy to. The Waxman Boys are known for their services to humanity.’ When they looked puzzled, he chuckled. ‘My brother is a doctor. He’s always telling me what I do is selfish, that I should have been a doctor like him and saved people’s lives.’

  ‘Well, you might be saving someone’s reputation here,’ Kate told him. ‘Not a bad thing.’

  ‘And no blood,’ David said. ‘That’s what I prefer, believe me.’ He reached out and flicked a switch. The result was a cacophony of sound, including (they thought) the dying buffalo horns Abbi had mentioned. ‘There.’ David mercifully flicked it off after a minute or two. ‘What do you think of that?’

  ‘It’s very . . . loud,’ Liz said, absently rubbing her ear.

  ‘Interesting,’ Kate said at the same time.

  David grinned. ‘Philistines,’ he said. ‘It’s the music of tomorrow.’

  ‘Maybe it will sound better with lyrics,’ Liz suggested.

  ‘Words are Abbi’s department.’ David got up to gather together the equipment they were taking with them. ‘Me, I just make the songs that make the world go round.’

  ‘And round and round and round,’ said Abbi from the doorway. ‘Come up and have some cake before you go. It will soothe your savaged ears.’

  NINE

  Neilson was lucky. he hit the ER during a brief lull and was quickly able to find the doctor in charge. He was a man of medium size, light-brown hair, fair-skinned, looking rather rumpled in his green cotton scrubs. He wore small steel-rimmed glasses and a long-suffering expression. He also looked very tired, but his eyes were everywhere, constantly checking on everything in the ER. According to the plastic ID badge clipped to the pocket of his scrubs, his name was Dan Waxman.

  ‘What is it this time?’ he asked wearily.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’ Neilson was startled.

  ‘Did we forget to fill out some papers, or are we treating someone you want to arrest, or—’

  ‘No, no, nothing like that,’ Neilson said quickly. ‘I have to tell you that one of your employees has been killed. We found him in his hospital clothes, and—’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘A young orderly named Ricky Sanchez,’ Neilson told him.

  ‘Good God,’ the doctor said, physically stepping back as if from a blow. ‘He worked an extra shift last night . . .’ He seemed stunned. ‘Where did you find him?’

  ‘In an alley off French Street,’ Neilson said. ‘He had been struck from behind, several blows to the head, fatal.’

  ‘But he was fine last night,’ the doctor protested, then heard himself and had the grace to blush. ‘This is terrible. Poor Ricky.’ They both moved against the wall as a gurney with someone bleeding heavily and moaning loudly was rushed past them by two ambulance men, chased by a nurse waving a clipboard.

  ‘Ann-Catherine,’ Dr Waxman said, grabbing another nurse who was going by. ‘Ricky Sanchez has been killed.’

  The nurse, who seemed to have some seniority, looked astonished. ‘But . . . are you serious?’ She glanced at Neilson.

  ‘I’m afraid so,’ he confirmed.

  ‘That’s terrible,’ she said. ‘That’s—’

  Another nurse grabbed her arm. ‘The patient in Four is bleeding out,’ she said.

  ‘Sorry,’ Ann-Catherine said and ran after the other nurse.

  ‘You knew Sanchez well?’ Neilson asked, after carefully looking both ways before stepping back into the centre of the hallway.

  ‘Oh, sure. Ann-Catherine and I interviewed him for the job. He was recommended by someone over at the university.’

  Neilson stared. A connection with GSU. ‘Not a Professor Mayhew, by any chance?’

  ‘No.’ Waxman frowned. ‘Who’s that?’

  ‘Oh, nothing.’

  Waxman shook his head disbelievingly. ‘I just can’t take it in. Was it a mugging?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Neilson said. ‘Wallet and watch gone. Also maybe he had keys, like to your drugs cupboard?’

  ‘No. Nothing like that. Keys to his own locker, maybe, but nothing to do with drugs. He was just an orderly.’ Waxman appeared barely able to cope with the obvious. He seemed suddenly aware of that himself and shoved his hands into his pockets. ‘Dammit, I deal with this kind of thing every day,’ he said apologetically. ‘I mean accidents, sudden trauma, things coming at you without warning. So you’d think I could handle it better. But this is so far out of left field – Ricky Sanchez – just so weird.’ He shook his head despairingly. There was the wail of a siren outside the double doors and people began shouting. Waxman’s attention wavered.

  With Pinsky in mind, Neilson asked another question. ‘Was there anything special about the boy?’

  Waxman grinned. ‘He was a human sponge. Wanted to know everything. Always asking, always curious. I thought it was a sign he would be a good doctor. He was in pre-med, you know. And he would have been good, too. It’s a damn shame.’ Waxman’s eyes were on the double doors, on the nurses, running.

  ‘Questions about anything in particular?’ Neilson asked – one last throw of the dice for Pinsky.

  But Waxman shook his head. ‘Not really. He was just a lively kid with a lively mind. Nice kid, too. I liked him a lot. Eager to learn, eager to help. Always eager to help anyone, any time. Look, I have to go.’

  ‘OK, Doc. Thanks.’ As Neilson closed his notebook he saw Waxman heading towards the sound of the approaching ambulance.

  Well, he’d tried for Pinsky. Nothing ventured . . . and nothing gained. So much for fancy theories. Neilson walked slowly out of the hospital and back to the car. Ricky Sanchez was just another French Street fatality. Whether he was worried about something when he died or whether he was full of the joys of spring really made no difference. When you’re dead, you’re dead. Another number, another statistic, another ending to another show.

  Pinsky drove home slowly, hoping Denise was not back from classes. But as he reached the house he saw her little car already in the drive and so he parked in the street, leaving her an escape route. He had a terrible feeling she would want to flee from him when he told her. Run to her friends, seek comfort, get away from his presence. But she did not.

  ‘I don’t understand what you are telling me,’ she said, white-faced, sitting in a corner of the dark-green sofa and clutching a pillow to her chest as if it were a teddy bear. ‘You’re saying that it wasn’t just some kind of mugging?’

  ‘I’m afraid that’s what the others think. He was robbed, no getting around that,’ Pinsky said reluctantly. ‘But you know he kept trying to see me, we talked the other night about something that was troubling him . . .’

  ‘And you told him to confront the person he was worried about,’ Denise said in a flat voice.

  ‘Yes,’ Pinsky whispered. ‘I did.’ Sh
e looked so small and vulnerable against the dark sofa. He felt as if he had struck her, felt her pain, felt his shame.

  ‘And you think he must have done that,’ she said, still in that flat voice. ‘And that person killed him?’

  ‘I just think it’s possible.’

  ‘But that would make some kind of sense, wouldn’t it?’ she persisted.

  ‘Yes,’ he whispered again. ‘It would.’

  She seemed to suddenly focus on him, her father, and his obvious misery. ‘You feel guilty, don’t you?’ she said. She had always been very perceptive concerning his moods and the moods of others. ‘You think it was somehow your fault because you didn’t get back to him, didn’t follow through?’

  Pinsky nodded.

  ‘Well, I don’t think you should,’ Denise said, although her voice trembled a little. ‘Ricky wouldn’t tell me, either. He was really funny about it, secretive, mysterious. It was really bothering him, but he wouldn’t talk about it, or tell me anything. He was the same with you the other night, wasn’t he? Just wanting to know what to do next in some kind of theoretical situation?’

  ‘More or less,’ Pinsky admitted. ‘I tried to get him to give me some details—’

  ‘But he wouldn’t.’ She hugged the pillow tighter to her, her knuckles pale as she clutched the piped edge. ‘I know. I think he was going a little nuts about this thing, whatever it was. He felt kind of guilty and kind of excited and kind of confused . . . He did say once that if he was right it was terrible and if he was wrong he was an idiot.

  But he just didn’t know.’

  ‘Do you think it was about something at school or the hospital?’

  ‘I’m not sure. I think the hospital, really, because he was so caught up in things there. Maybe school, though. He had a class with some professor he thought was some kind of weirdo. The guy kept pushing him to work harder, hassling him about his future, seemed to think Ricky could save the world.’

  ‘Name?’

  ‘I can’t think of it . . . I’ll try to remember.’ She eyed him. ‘Daddy, maybe it was just a mugging, like Lieutenant Stryker thinks. Maybe Ricky was just unlucky. You know that’s a bad area.’