The Caller jl-2

by Alex Barclay

  ‘No. I invited you into my home, Detective. Do you know how many people have been inside my home since the attack?’ He paused. ‘I don’t have visitors. I spend months, sequestered, happily, if that makes sense, you show up and the game is up. Did you see? I’ve made the news. “How ironic” people will think in the way that stupid people do not understand the meaning of the word ironic-’

  ‘I don’t know what happened here, but I can assure you this did not come from me or anyone involved in the investigation.’

  ‘I just don’t buy that. Because it sure as hell did not come from me. This should not have gotten out. Can you imagine how violated I feel? Violation after violation. Is that what I can expect from life now, Detective? Do I sit back and accept that fate?’

  ‘You don’t. This will pass. The press are more interested in the perp. Because they didn’t have a bright, shiny new victim this week, yours is the story they went for. How they got it, we don’t know, but they’ll move on.’

  ‘Just like me, Detective. I’ve nothing more to say. What you need to do now is read and re-read every word of what I told you the day I was foolish enough to let you into my home. And here’s hoping you’ll find enlightenment in those pages. Because my cooperation ends there.’

  ‘It can’t.’

  ‘Oh yes it can.’

  ‘But you’re the only one who has seen-’

  ‘I’ve told you everything. And honestly? I can’t imagine a time where I’m sitting on the stand pointing at The Caller across a courtroom. Because I can’t imagine a time where you will gain the insight to apprehend him. If you ain’t got him now, Detective, you ain’t never will.’

  ‘I disagree, Mr Blake. My colleagues and I won’t let that happen.’

  ‘Your colleagues and you are leaking, Detective. And a leaky vessel won’t hold water. And a leaky vessel sinks.’

  Joe hung up on the dial tone and went to Rufo’s office.

  ‘Come in,’ said Rufo. ‘Close the door.’

  ‘You see the-’

  ‘ Post? Yeah I did. What’s going on?’

  Joe shook his head. ‘Blake is really pissed. He just called saying all kinds of shit, me and Danny ratted him out, left him exposed…’

  ‘What did you say?’

  ‘I set him straight, obviously, but he didn’t want to listen.’

  ‘Do you know the guy who wrote this? Artie Blackwell? Why don’t you make a few calls, see if we can find out who did tip him off.’

  ‘Artie fucking Blackwell. I didn’t notice.’

  Rufo scanned the page again. ‘Whole thing seems kinda weird to me. You think Blake likes the attention?’

  ‘Not if you heard him on the phone just now. The guy’s like a recluse, far as I can tell.’

  ‘Was he screaming for the Chief, the mayor, Larry King Live?’

  ‘Nah.’

  ‘Was he looking for anything else? Did you tell him we can have a few guys watch the house?’

  ‘Yeah. He wasn’t interested.’

  ‘OK,’ said Rufo. ‘Let me put a call in to him, see if I can’t talk him off the ledge.’

  ‘Danny and me are heading out,’ said Joe. ‘Surveillance on the post office.’

  ‘Good luck,’ said Rufo, reaching for the phone.

  There was never a weekday quiet time on 21st Street. Danny and Joe were parked opposite the post office where the letters were mailed. The air conditioning was on high and the sun was beating down on the shiny black hood. Danny and Joe were quietly focused on everyone entering and leaving the building.

  Suddenly, something slammed against the driver’s window. Joe turned to see the white hairy crack of someone’s ass pressed up against the glass. Outside someone else was roaring, ‘You motherfucker! You fucking motherfucker!’

  A huge paper cup landed on the car, splashing strawberry milkshake up onto the windshield of Manhattan North’s new Chevy Impala.

  ‘Son of a bitch,’ said Danny.

  Joe hammered his forearm against the glass and shouted. ‘Get away from the car.’

  Danny got out the passenger side. ‘What’s going on here?’ he said to the two men.

  ‘None of your business,’ said the guy forcing the other one against Joe’s window. He was massively overweight and the skinny guy underneath him was feeling the pressure.

  ‘You’re going to suffocate him if you don’t get up off of him,’ said Danny. ‘And either way, my friend in there is going to climb out the passenger door and kill you both. Now, back away from the car.’

  The overweight guy pulled his friend off the door and Joe got out.

  ‘What’s going on?’ said Joe. ‘That I need to get so intimately acquainted with your spotty ass?’

  The skinny guy checked behind him and pulled up his jeans.

  ‘I… I…’ said the fat guy, gradually realizing he was dealing with two cops.

  ‘We don’t care,’ said Danny. ‘Long as you’re not going to hurt your friend here, we just want you to get away from our car.’

  ‘Sure,’ said the fat guy.

  The skinny guy had a plastic Gristedes shopping bag beside him on the ground. He bent down and pulled out a liter bottle of Poland Springs and handed it to Joe.

  ‘For the car,’ he said, pointing at the milkshake.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Joe, turning to Danny.

  ‘This is a caring neighborhood,’ said Danny.

  Joe poured the water over the hood and got rid of as much of the milkshake as he could. They got back in the car. Joe ignored the greasy smear on the driver’s window. He flicked on the wipers and a watery mix of milkshake and soap washed across the glass. As it was clearing, Danny sat forward. ‘Check this guy out,’ he said.

  The man walking towards the post office was about five foot eight, in his mid-forties, dressed in pristine blue Carhartt workpants, heavy black boots and a denim shirt with two buttons open and the sleeves rolled up. He had light brown hair, thinning on top and an unremarkable face. They looked at the photos they had printed from the tape.

  ‘That’s our guy,’ said Joe. ‘Let’s go.’

  They jumped from the car and ran. ‘Police,’ shouted Joe, flashing his badge. The man didn’t move. He stood, frozen, with his letter. Joe grabbed his wrists, yanking them hard behind his back and snapping cuffs on him.

  ‘Tell us your name, sir. What is your name?’

  ‘Stanley Frayte! My name is Stanley Frayte! What are you doing? What have I done?’

  FOURTEEN

  Danny pushed Stanley Frayte into the back of the car and Joe drove them silently the half mile from the post office to the 114th precinct on Astoria Boulevard. They left Stan in the interview room alone and waited outside. Joe got some gloves and opened the envelope. This time, the writing was on a cheap napkin stained with ketchup and mustard. He photocopied it and put it in a plastic bag.

  ‘Jesus, this one is different,’ said Joe. ‘He sounds very anxious. Listen to this: “ Oh, God. But he can find me now. If it’s a game, I don’t understand. My life is here. I’m terrified. Please, please. It can’t change. Look closer. I thought you would find him. It can’t change. I don’t know if you’re playing a game. It’s so wrong. I don’t want it to change. Ask more questions. I can’t have it taken away. Something is not right. Just not too many. You can’t find me too ”.’ He put it down. ‘Well I think we found you now, you son of a bitch.’

  ‘Short and sweet,’ said Danny.

  ‘And really scrawled,’ said Joe. ‘I mean, even more than the other one. This looks really rushed.’

  ‘Well I guess it’s easier to rush a napkin,’ said Danny.

  ‘It’s weird shit,’ said Joe.

  ‘Let’s see what Mr Frayte has to say,’ said Danny.

  When they went back in, Stan was asleep. Danny and Joe exchanged glances; the ones who slept when they were taken in were usually the guilty ones. An innocent man would spend the time desperately trying to work out why he was there. There was often a relief in the gui
lty that the lie was over, the game was up and they could relax enough to snooze.

  ‘Mr Frayte,’ said Danny, shaking his shoulder. ‘Mr Frayte.’ He shook harder.

  Stan woke up, irritated, then tried to calm himself when he saw where he was.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, rubbing his face.

  ‘Do you know why you’re here?’ said Joe.

  Stan shrugged. ‘No.’

  ‘Well why don’t you have a think about what you were doing when we picked you up,’ said Danny.

  Stan paused. ‘Mailing a letter,’ he said.

  ‘Glad you seem so happy about that,’ said Danny.

  ‘Yes. I was mailing Mary’s letter,’ said Stan.

  ‘Who’s Mary?’ said Danny.

  ‘Mary Burig.’

  ‘Yeah?’ said Danny. ‘Who’s this Mary Burig?’

  ‘Please,’ said Stan. ‘Can we tone this all down? You’re making me anxious.’

  Danny looked at Joe.

  ‘I’ve done nothing wrong,’ said Stan, shifting in his seat, sitting up straighter.

  ‘Tell us about Mary,’ said Joe.

  ‘Mary is a patient,’ said Stan, ‘well, not a patient, a client at the Colt-Embry Homes, a couple of blocks away. Part of the Rehab Clinic.’

  ‘Meaning?’ said Danny.

  ‘Meaning what?’ said Stan.

  ‘Patient/client – what’s that all about?’ said Danny.

  ‘I guess Mary – like all the other clients in the building – is there because she got a brain injury.’

  ‘Everyone staying in these apartments has a brain injury?’ said Joe.

  ‘Yes. You go there after rehab, but before you go home. To help, you know, initiate yourself into society.’

  Danny locked eyes with Joe and slowly shook his head.

  ‘So what you’re saying is this Mary is brain damaged,’ said Danny.

  Stan’s jaw clenched. ‘No. I am not saying that.’ He paused. ‘In fact, I would hate to say that.’ He shrugged. ‘I guess you guys can say what you like.’

  ‘What’s your relationship with Mary, exactly?’ said Joe.

  ‘None. I mean, I kind of know her, she’s a nice girl. I’m an electrician/handyman working in the apartment building she lives in. That’s it.’

  ‘Why were you mailing letters for her?’ said Danny.

  ‘Because she asked me to. Jeez. There’s no mystery to this. She’s a nice girl. She asked me a favour. I go out on my morning break. I mail her letters.’ He shrugged.

  ‘Did you know why she was mailing them?’

  ‘No idea. To be honest, I didn’t even read the envelopes. None of my business.’

  ‘You never read the envelopes,’ said Joe.

  ‘Sure,’ said Danny.

  ‘I did not,’ said Stan. ‘Privacy is a big thing there. Clients have got to feel respected. I would never want to upset anyone. Look, I’ve told you everything. Can I go now?’

  ‘No you can not,’ said Joe.

  ‘You’re an electrician, right?’ said Danny.

  ‘Yes.’ Stan nodded.

  ‘So you got the keys to a lot of houses, a lot of apartments,’ said Danny.

  ‘What do you mean?’ said Stan.

  ‘Do you or don’t you?’

  ‘Sure I do. But so do lots of people. A lot of people have a lot of keys.’

  ‘You gotta understand,’ said Joe. ‘That not a lot of them are mailing letters to the case detective of a serial homicide.’

  ‘Homicide? Oh, no. You’re not investigating that Caller guy, are you? You think… Oh my God. No way. No way. What’s Mary mailing you guys for?’

  ‘Well that’s what we’d like to know,’ said Joe. ‘If Mary really is the person who wrote them, why? And why you are the person mailing them to me, without allegedly looking at the address or the name of the person.’

  ‘I didn’t know what I was mailing!’ said Stan. ‘If I thought it was something weird, I wouldn’t be walking right up there to the Astoria Post Office in broad daylight with no gloves on or nothing, mailing it. I’m truly sorry that this has caused you problems, I really am, but I did not know. Please talk to Mary. She’ll clear this up.’

  ‘That seems fair,’ said Joe to Danny.

  Stan got up to leave.

  Danny laughed. ‘Buddy, I’m afraid you’re going to have to sit it out while myself and my partner here take a visit to this Colt-Emory.’

  ‘Embry,’ said Stan. ‘Embry. You’ll need to speak to Julia Embry. She’s the boss.’ He shook his head sadly. ‘They’re good people there.’

  In 1992, Madeline Colt and Julia Embry came together at The Mount Sinai Hospital of Queens to watch their teenage sons paint. Separately, they had turned away and walked crying into the hallway outside.

  ‘My son used to hike,’ said Madeline.

  ‘Robin made us laugh so much,’ said Julia. They had both looked back at their sons, one with the easel lowered to the level of his wheelchair, the other having his brush guided around the page by a nurse. The women looked at each other and smiled.

  ‘But they’re here,’ said Julia.

  ‘They are,’ said Madeline. ‘We’re blessed.’

  Ten years of campaigning and fundraising later, the Colt-Embry Rehabilitation Clinic was founded to support patients with traumatic brain injuries. It sat on a one-acre site between 19th and 21st Street in Astoria. Tucked into the north-east corner were the Colt-Embry Homes, a small block of twenty apartments to ease the transition for patients from rehab to home.

  Julia Embry sat at her desk, pressing a Kleenex carefully under her eyes to catch the tears before her mascara did. She held a photo of Robin in her hands. It was taken at his eighth birthday party. He was wearing a huge black pirate’s hat and a white shirt with a red kerchief tied around his neck. An eye patch was beside his plate, a glass of orange beside that. His chin was so far forward and he was grinning so wide, that he almost didn’t look like himself. But what Julia loved about it was just how happy he looked, how bright those eyes were, how gentle the little blond boy looked as a fearsome pirate.

  The last time she had a visit from two detectives, it was to tell her about Robin’s car accident.

  He was seventeen years old when the car he was driving was involved in a crash and the other driver left the scene. Robin was rushed to the hospital where his bones were repaired and his wounds eventually healed. But his brain injury was too severe and after hanging on for a year in rehab, he died. The police never caught the driver.

  There was a knock on the door.

  ‘Come in,’ said Julia, putting the photo back on the desk facing her. She stood up.

  ‘I’m so sorry about all this, detectives,’ she said. ‘Please, sit down.’

  Joe and Danny introduced themselves and took a seat.

  ‘Firstly,’ said Julia. ‘I really would like to reassure you about Stanley Frayte, for what it’s worth. He’s worked with me for so long now. He’s the best. He really is. He was trying to do the right thing by Mary. But, you know, he doesn’t know everything about everyone. He’s been with the clinic and me for ten years, but he’s only been working here in the apartment building several weeks, so…’ She smiled. ‘Poor Stan.’

  ‘We’d like to talk to you about Mary Burig,’ said Joe.

  ‘OK,’ said Julia. ‘What would you like to know?’

  ‘Let’s start with how she came to be here,’ said Joe.

  ‘Mary was found last year, wandering the street three blocks from her apartment. When they got her to hospital, doctors discovered the TBI. She had no recollection of what happened to her.’

  ‘So Mary has never spoken about her accident.’

  Julia shook her head. ‘No. She can’t remember it. It’s not uncommon. It’s kind of like the brain’s defence mechanism.’

  ‘Can you talk us through her, uh, situation, condition…’ said Joe.

  ‘First of all, Mary is a person… who suffered a traumatic brain injury.’

 
‘I understand,’ said Joe.

  ‘Not a brain injury sufferer.’

  Joe nodded.

  ‘So Mary as she was before – what we call pre-morbidly – is still there, but she’s got a new set of behaviours. Every program is individual here. This is Mary’s.’ She handed a copy to each of them. Joe flicked through twelve pages on Mary’s treatment and details of how each one would help her. He paused at psychiatric. Impairment: brain injury. Function: emotional regularity. Participation: inability to regulate emotions/thoughts.

  Joe looked up. ‘Let’s say Mary can make sense of these letters-’

  ‘She might not,’ said Julia. ‘She might not remember writing them at all.’

  ‘OK, but let’s say she does. Can we believe what she is saying to us?’

  ‘I would say so. Yes. If you can decipher it.’

  Danny looked up from his notebook. ‘How do you think her injury might have happened?’

  ‘Her medical records are confidential, as you can appreciate. Unless Mary gives you permission to access them. Or her guardian does.’

  ‘Who’s her guardian?’

  ‘Her older brother, David Burig.’

  ‘We’ll get his details from you, if that’s OK,’ said Joe.

  ‘Sure,’ said Julia. ‘Mary’s lucky to have David. There’s not a lot of support out there for people with a TBI. Places like Colt-Embry are not common. Most of the time, people are released from hospital into rehab and after that, they’re on their own, back home expected to function as they did before. It’s crazy. And a lot of people are not covered to stay in a place like this. If they don’t have the right insurance, they better have a wealthy family. Can you imagine? Just to be able to live normally? It’s crazy. And because a lot of people physically look the same as they did before the injury, people expect them to act “normally” and when they don’t, they can’t handle it. It’s a very hard thing for everyone to have to adjust to.’

  ‘How does Mary’s injury affect her, like day to day?’ said Joe.

  ‘Mary suffered right temporal lobe damage. The temporal lobe is all about memory, emotional stability, reading social cues – crucial parts of everyday life,’ said Julia. ‘Someone who’s had the right side damaged, like Mary, would have problems interpreting facial expressions, so would find it hard to know if you’re angry, sad, etc. Also there would be tone-of-voice issues – their own speech patterns are quite flat and also, they won’t recognize, for example, sarcasm in your tone. They’re not great with humor. Anything non-verbal: faces, music, shapes – she’ll have a problem with. A lot of Mary’s long-term memory is intact. Her short-term memory is where she has difficulties. For example, she may remember someone visiting her apartment this morning, but she may not remember why.’