Midnight Voices

by John Saul

  Cocking his head and laying a wrist on Laurie’s forehead, Humphries gazed down at her, his eyes twinkling. “I’m assuming you’re not the sort of girl who’d fake being sick just to get out of school,” he said.

  Laurie shook her head. “I wanted to go to school, but Tony wouldn’t let me.”

  “Good for him,” Humphries pronounced. He dug into his bag, produced a digital thermometer whose earpiece he cleaned with alcohol before inserting it into Laurie’s ear, pressing the button, then reading the small LCD screen on the thermometer’s side. He repeated the process twice more before deciding he was satisfied. “One hundred and one,” he said. “Not bad. Do you feel sick to your stomach?” When Laurie shook her head, he nodded toward the scone. “If Virgie Estherbrook made that, you soon will be. Never ate anything heavier in my life.”

  “I like it,” Laurie said.

  Humphries gave a shrug. “Suit yourself. If it appeals to you, you should eat it.”

  “But if she’s sick—” Caroline began.

  “If she’s sick, that still won’t hurt her,” Humphries broke in. “Generally speaking, the body knows what’s good for it, and people should generally eat what they’re hungry for. Within reason, of course.” He winked at Laurie. “I trust you weren’t planning to stuff half a dozen of those into your mouth, were you?”

  Laurie shook her head.

  “Does anything hurt?” he asked.

  Laurie hesitated. “N-not now,” she finally said.

  Dr. Humphries’ heavy eyebrows moved closer together. “But something hurt earlier?” he asked. Laurie hesitated only a second before she nodded. Humphries’ frown deepened. “Can you tell me where?”

  “My throat,” she said. “When I first woke up. And my nose, too. Up here.” She put a finger on her sinuses.

  “Okay, let’s take a look.” Pulling a light from his bag, Humphries peered into Laurie’s throat then checked her ears as well. “Did you hurt anywhere else?” he asked when he was done. Though Laurie shook her head, Caroline was almost certain she saw a faint blush come over her daughter’s face. “You’re sure?” Laurie nodded.

  “All right,” Humphries said, straightening up and then burrowing once more into his bag. “I’m going to give you a couple of remedies, and I’m sure you’ll be fine by tomorrow morning.”

  Now it was Caroline who frowned. “What kind of remedies?”

  “Homeopathic,” Humphries replied. Seeing the doubt in Caroline’s eyes, he tried to reassure her. “I can guarantee they won’t hurt Laurie,” he said. “And I’m not going to promise you they’ll cure her, either. But I don’t think anything is seriously wrong with her, and I believe these will help. I’ll look in on her again tomorrow, and if she isn’t any better, we can decide what to do next. And do you mind if I talk to Dr. Hunicutt about her?”

  Caroline gazed at him in surprise. “You know Dr. Hunicutt?”

  “I wouldn’t say I know him, but medicine’s a smaller community than you might think. I’ve heard of him. And if you don’t mind, I’ll just give him a call, let him know what’s going on, and see what he thinks.” Then his eyes narrowed slightly. “And if I’m not out of line, I have to say you’re looking a bit worn out, too.”

  “I—I guess I overslept this morning. Something happened yesterday, and. . . .” Her voice trailed off as Tony slid an arm around her.

  “Something happened yesterday,” he said, not wanting to say too much in front of Laurie. “It was pretty upsetting. I’m sure she’ll be fine by tomorrow.”

  Once again Ted Humphries dug into his bag, this time producing a rectangle of cardboard with four pills neatly bubble sealed to its surface. “If I were you, I’d take a couple of days and just try to relax.”

  “I wish I could,” Caroline sighed. “But I have two children and a job and they won’t take care of themselves.”

  “And you have a husband who can look after the children. As for the job, I’ve never heard of one yet where everything collapsed if someone took a day or two off.” He handed the card containing the four pills to Caroline. “It’s up to you, of course, but if you have trouble sleeping, these should help. And they won’t hurt. That, I can guarantee you.”

  Ten minutes later, as she stared at herself in the mirror over the bathroom sink, Caroline suddenly wondered if maybe Dr. Humphries was right: the circles under her own eyes were every bit as dark as the ones she’d seen under Laurie’s, and as she once again thought of Andrea Costanza, her eyes brimmed with tears.

  Sleep, she thought. He’s right—I just need to sleep, and stop worrying about everything. Punching one of the pills through the foil on the back of the card, she stared at it for a moment, then put it in her mouth.

  With a swallow of water, it went down her throat.

  Going back to her bedroom, she picked up the phone and dialed the shop. “Claire?” she said. “It’s Caroline. I’m afraid I won’t be in today.”

  Without the least hesitation, Claire’s voice came back over the wire. “Take whatever time you need, darling. You know how much you mean to me.”

  Dropping the phone back on the hook, Caroline slid into bed and pulled the covers up to her neck. Amazing, she thought as the pill began to do its work. Six months ago, she would have fired me. But not anymore. And all because of Tony.

  Giving herself over to the comfort of the pill, Caroline drifted back into sleep.

  “How long is this gonna take?” Victor Balicki asked as Frank Oberholzer broke the police seal on the door to Andrea Costanza’s apartment.

  “It’s going to take as long as it takes,” the detective growled. “What’s it to you, anyway? Suddenly you own the building?”

  Balicki unlocked the door, pushed it open, then stood back, his hands rising defensively. “Hey, for all I care, you can move in here. But the owners want to know how long before we can clean it out.”

  “Tell the owners to call me,” Oberholzer replied. “We’re in the book.” Closing the door before Balicki could say anything else, he gazed at the few hundred square feet that until a few days ago had been home to Andrea Costanza. Except for the window having been closed after it was dusted for prints—unsuccessfully—everything was still as it had been when they’d found Costanza’s body yesterday; nothing had been moved or taken away since she had died. Yet there was an emptiness to the apartment, a feeling of vacancy much deeper than that of rooms whose occupants may be gone, but will soon be returning. It was almost as if every object in the apartment—the pieces of furniture, the pictures, the knickknacks and tchotchkes—was somehow aware that the single person to whom it had value was forever gone, and that collectively they had suddenly become nothing more than detritus, just so much junk to be cleared out before someone else moved their own things in. It was ridiculous, of course; Frank Oberholzer was not one to ascribe feelings to inanimate objects. Still, in the twenty-odd years he’d been working homicide he’d never yet come into an apartment whose sole occupant had died without feeling the peculiarly hollow emptiness than now imbued Andrea Costanza’s tiny studio, and he felt a slight shiver come over him even though the apartment was not only stuffy, but overheated as well.

  Lowering himself onto one of the two straight-backed chairs that flanked Andrea’s tiny dining table, he opened the copy of the Medical Examiner’s report and studied it once more, even though he could have recited the details from memory if need be. Her attacker had apparently come through the window, probably getting his arm around her even before she was aware he was even there. Assuming, of course, that it was a “he” who attacked her, which was an assumption Oberholzer had long since learned to guard against. Still, in this case he was leaning toward a man’s having committed the crime simply because of the strength necessary to break the neck of a human being. As he went over the report, Oberholzer kept glancing at the sofa, and the window behind it, trying to visualize the crime. This one wasn’t hard: she’d probably been sitting on the sofa, her back to the window. Maybe she’d even fallen asleep
, which would have made the killer’s work easy—one arm around the neck, the other hand shoving hard on the side of the head.

  Just a second or two, and not much of a struggle. No struggle at all, in fact, except possibly a futile attempt to escape that resulted in a few strands of fiber being found under Costanza’s fingernails. Though the labs hadn’t yet come up with an ID on the fibers, Oberholzer would have bet a year’s worth of retirement money that they came from some kind of man’s coat. Maybe an overcoat.

  It didn’t look like anything had been stolen, but it didn’t look like there had been anything worth stealing, either. But that was why Oberholzer was here—to try to find something that might give a hint as to the motivation for the killing. It hadn’t been rape, and given that the killer hadn’t even taken her purse, it didn’t look like robbery, either. Ex-husbands and former boyfriends usually slapped their victims around before killing them, which hadn’t happened in this case.

  But something was nagging at Frank Oberholzer’s mind, something he couldn’t quite put his finger on.

  His eyes drifted to the notebook computer that was still sitting on the table where Costanza had left it, and which no one had touched since he’d entered the apartment yesterday. A Dial-Up Network program was on the screen, along with a box that had popped up indicating that the Internet connection had been broken, and offering a button to reestablish it. Frowning, Oberholzer searched for some kind of log, and finally found one, indicating that the last web connection had been established at 8:32 p.m. last Friday night, and lapsed an hour later.

  So Costanza had been alive at 8:32, and though there was not yet any way to prove it, Oberholzer’s gut was telling him that the reason the connection had lapsed was that the person who’d made it was no longer alive.

  Saving the log, he stared at the familiar clouds of the Windows Desktop, then double clicked on the Outlook icon.

  The Contacts directory on Costanza’s computer was as empty as the one on his own, and he found himself smiling as he realized that there had been at least one person other than himself in New York who hadn’t jumped on the computer bandwagon. The smile faded as he realized he might now be alone.

  He checked the calendar folder of Outlook, and found it as empty as the Contacts.

  Sighing heavily, he heaved himself to his feet and moved over to the telephone table by the door. Propped against it was the big tote bag that had served as Andrea Costanza’s purse. Taking the purse back to the dining table, he carefully began removing its contents: a comb and brush, a compact and a lipstick, a half-empty packet of Kleenex along with a crumpled handkerchief, a wallet bulging with pictures of children but containing only a couple of credit cards, a cellular phone whose battery had died, and a worn Day-Timer that had not yet been replaced by Outlook’s calendar. Buried at the bottom of the bag was a thick address book, its cover as worn as the Day-Timer’s, but not yet replaced by some kind of handheld computer. Good for you, Oberholzer thought to himself. My kind of gal.

  Setting the address book to one side, he opened the Day-Timer and began going though its pages, starting from today and working backward. It didn’t take long before a picture of Andrea Costanza’s life began to emerge.

  Days spent working, with a lot of appointments outside the office, the last of which was with a doctor named Humphries.

  Evenings and weekends mostly blank.

  In short, a woman who worked hard, and didn’t have much of a social life.

  Another argument against a boyfriend, either former or current. In fact, about the only things he found that looked like they might have been social engagements were an entry for Caroline’s wedding—Plaza Hotel from a few weeks ago, and Lunch—Cipriani—B/R/C from several months earlier.

  He shifted his attention over to the address book, which was filled with entries executed in a variety of colors of ink and pencil. Though it was obvious that at some point many years ago the book had been laid out with care, over the years numbers had changed, some names had been scratched out entirely, while others went through various permutations of marriage and divorce. After thumbing through it quickly, Frank Oberholzer went back to the beginning and began again, this time page by page, not sure what he was looking for, but hoping that something would jump out at him.

  Nothing did, at least not strongly enough to make him start dialing numbers.

  He opened the briefcase he’d brought with him and put the Day-Timer and address book inside. Then he slowly went through the apartment, opening every closet and cupboard, searching every drawer, looking for something—anything—that might have a bearing on what had happened to Andrea Costanza.

  Nothing.

  Shutting down the notebook computer and adding it to the briefcase, he left the rest of the apartment for the evidence squad to go through, packing anything that might be relevant. He himself would go through the calendar and address book, calling everyone Andrea had known, seeing everyone she’d seen.

  Somewhere, he hoped, there would be a clue as to why Andrea Costanza had been killed.

  Assuming, of course, that there had been a reason, and it was Frank Oberholzer’s experience that in New York City, too many murders happened with no real motivation at all.

  Just a case of someone being at the wrong place at the wrong time, like that poor bastard who’d been killed in Central Park last year. What was his name?

  Evans. That was it. Brad Evans. Left a nice young wife and two kids, and there’d never been a hint of a reason as to why he’d died.

  Oberholzer could only hope it wouldn’t turn out the same way with Andrea Costanza.

  Caroline wasn’t quite asleep when the phone rang, but she wasn’t quite awake, either, and as she groped for the receiver she suddenly felt disoriented. Then, as her hand closed on the hard plastic of the phone, she remembered: she’d gone back to bed after calling in sick at the shop. “Hello?”

  “Mrs. Fleming?” a female voice asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Please hold for the headmaster.”

  The headmaster? What was going on? Sitting up, Caroline glanced at the clock: not quite three. Had she really slept all day? She’d only intended to sleep another half hour—an hour at the most. Then the voice of Ralph Winthrop came over the line. “I’m sorry to have—” he began, but Caroline cut him off, her heart suddenly pounding.

  “What is it?” she demanded. “Has something happened to Ryan?”

  There was just a moment of hesitation before Winthrop spoke again, and in that split second Caroline felt a cold sweat of terror turn her skin clammy. “No, he’s all right, but I’m afraid—well, I’m afraid he’s been in a fight.”

  “A fight,” Caroline heard herself repeat as if the word had no meaning. “I—I’m afraid I don’t understand. You’re sure he’s all right?”

  Again there was a hesitation. “He’s not injured, no. But as to his being all right—” He hesitated again, as if searching for the right words, then went on. “I wonder if you could come over to the school.”

  Caroline was sitting up now, her feet planted on the floor, but somehow she couldn’t quite get her bearings. “I’m sorry,” she began. “My daughter has some kind of a bug, and I didn’t go to work and—”

  Suddenly Tony’s voice came on the line. “Stay in bed, darling,” he said. “Whatever’s going on, I can take care of it.” The timber of his voice shifted slightly as he directed his next words to the headmaster. “This is Ryan’s stepfather. I . . .”

  But Caroline wasn’t listening any longer. What was she doing, still lying in bed at three in the afternoon? It wasn’t as if she was sick—she’d just felt tired that morning. “It’s all right, Tony,” she broke in. I’ll take care of it.” Now it was her voice that changed. “I’ll be there in half an hour.” Hanging up the phone, she went into the bathroom, stripped off her nightgown, and took a shower, finishing with a blast of ice-cold water that made her skin tingle and knocked the last vestiges of sleep out of her brain. Ten minutes
later she emerged from her room and started for the stairs, then remembered Laurie. She opened her daughter’s door a crack, peeked in, then opened it wider when she didn’t see Laurie in the bed.

  Though the bed was unmade, the room was empty.

  “Laurie?” she called out. When there was no answer, she felt another sudden surge of fear, even worse than the one she’d felt when she’d heard the headmaster’s worried voice on the phone. But it was ridiculous—it wasn’t as if anything could have happened to Laurie. Still, she found herself hurrying down the stairs and calling her daughter’s name even before her foot hit the last step.

  “Back here,” Tony called. “We’re in the kitchen.”

  And sure enough, there was Laurie, wearing her bathrobe and sitting at the kitchen table eating an open-faced grilled cheese sandwich. “May I assume you’re feeling better?” Caroline asked.

  Her daughter’s head bobbed. “I bet I can go back to school tomorrow.” She held out the half-eaten sandwich. “Want a bite? Tony makes the best ones I’ve ever tasted. The cheese goes all the way out to the edge so there’s no yucky hard crust, and he knows how to cook it so it gets all brown but not burnt.”

  Caroline shook her head. “I have to get over to the Academy.”

  “You’re sure you don’t want me to go?” Tony asked. “If you’re not feeling up to it—”

  “I’m feeling fine. Or at least I will be until I see what’s going on with Ryan. Be back as soon as I can.”

  Kissing her daughter and her husband, Caroline hurried out of the apartment, and it wasn’t until she was already on the street that she suddenly remembered the worry she’d had the night Laurie’s first period had begun, when Laurie had dreamed there were people in her room.

  When Tony hadn’t been in bed.

  When Laurie had dreamed someone had been touching her.

  When she had thought—

  But no—she’d been wrong—nothing had happened! Laurie wasn’t the least bit afraid of Tony.

  No, it wasn’t Tony she had to worry about—it was Ryan.