The Night Caller

by Lutz, John

  The plastic St. Augustine left last time in the still warmth would divert the police. St. Augustine the forgiven. The Night Caller had come across the cheap souvenir saints in his travels and decided to use one. Yet he had bought a dozen. Eleven more were at home. No, ten. Seattle was a long way from New York.

  Nude, the Night Caller padded barefoot into the bathroom and removed the plastic shower curtain so it wouldn’t be in the way, then ran lukewarm water into the tub and began to arrange towels.

  Anticipating. Smiling.

  Everything under control.

  Dr. Rainier Gregory leaned back in his black leather desk chair, a green folder containing Coop’s charts open before him. Behind him were framed certificates attesting to his qualifications and expertise, family photographs taken at various vacation spots, attesting to his professional success.

  Coop hoped the certificates and photos meant something. Dr. Gregory was the surgeon who’d removed the part of his colon that was cancerous, and had, in a series of minor operations and chemotherapy, eliminated what cancer had spread. Once metastasized, the blood-borne cancer from the colon might turn up in any part of the body. It had to be dealt with in a way redolent of putting out brush fires. What was hoped for, prayed for, was the magic word: Remission.

  “Your numbers look good, Coop,” Dr. Gregory said. He was a man in his early forties, younger than Coop. His hair was dark and he’d grown a raven-black Van Dyke beard since Coop had first met him. “Blood count steady. PSA holding.” He put down the folder and sat forward. “So how are you feeling these days?”

  “Not bad. Tired sometimes. I think more in terms of rationing my energy instead of my time.”

  “There’s obviously been some stress, considering what happened to your daughter. Are you coping with that all right?”

  “I think so.”

  “I know it isn’t easy, but it would help if you managed it as well as you can. There are anecdotal data correlating stress with cancer.”

  “I’m dealing with it as well as could be expected,” Coop said.

  “Do you need anything?”

  At first Coop didn’t understand.

  “Perhaps something to help you sleep,” Dr. Gregory said, seeing his confusion. “Or to relieve anxiety.”

  “No, I want to keep thinking clearly. Stay active.”

  “I guess you know, from your profession, that everyone deals with grief, with stress, differently.”

  “True enough,” Coop said. Some of them murder women.

  “We’ll keep an eye on things,” Dr. Gregory said, standing up. “Continue your diet, Coop, and get at least some regular exercise. Let me know immediately if you perceive any change in yourself.”

  “I will,” Coop said, also standing, shaking the doctor’s hand. “Thanks,” he said simply, as always after an appointment. Thanks for saving my life.

  “Sure,” Dr. Gregory said, almost casually. “Don’t forget to stop and see Mary on the way out, set up an appointment for your next blood workup. In these cases, the tale is in the blood.”

  Balancing a box and two paper sacks containing her shopping bounty, Georgianna unlocked the door and entered her apartment. Once inside, she set her burden on a small table, carefully relocked the door, then fastened the chain lock.

  She got out a peach-colored blouse from one of the paper sacks and held it up to herself, beneath her chin, checking her image in the mirror. She was pleased. The blouse’s color was right for her, as it had appeared in the harsher light of the department store. That lighting could fool you when it came to color. She hadn’t been so sure in the store.

  She lowered the blouse but kept looking at herself, at the image of an attractive and confident woman with a mischievous grin. Somebody on the way to somewhere important, if looks and grooming were any indication.

  Georgianna tossed the new blouse over the back of the sofa and started toward the kitchen to get a glass of water.

  Then she stopped and stood still, feeling chilled and as if every fine hair on her body were standing on end.

  She had heard nothing but somehow knew that someone was standing behind her.

  Close.

  She made herself turn and look, and gasped at what she saw.

  Instinctively she whirled to run.

  She managed half a stride, hearing or imagining a single, whispered word, Julia, as the mallet fell.

  Chapter Eleven

  Coop met Deni Green at the Sapphire Coffee Shop after she called the next morning telling him she’d organized the material he wanted. When he walked in, he saw her seated in the same booth where they’d met the last time. She was wearing black again, a baggy dress of some sort of crinkly material. Coop wondered if she always dressed in black.

  The Sapphire was more crowded this time, with office workers taking brunches or early lunches, but Coop and Deni could still talk privately. He said hello and slid into the booth so he was seated facing her. Before Deni on the table was a plate of fried eggs, sausage, and buttered toast. Late breakfast, delayed because of Coop and his request for information.

  “It’s delicious,” Deni said. “I eat here all the time and I know. I recommend you order the same.”

  “I’ll just have coffee.”

  “Sure? It’s my treat again,” she said. “I have an expense account.”

  “I’m sure.”

  She let it drop and went back to her meal while Coop ordered a cup of coffee from the same waiter as before, the guy who looked like an anarchist poisoner. With her free hand Deni removed a fat yellow file folder from the black briefcase on the bench beside her and laid it on the table in front of Coop. “Here’sh the shtuff you ashked for,” she said around a mouthful of egg. “Photographsh an’ all.”

  He opened the folder and studied its contents, aware of Deni washing down the bite of egg with a long swig of coffee.

  The waiter had brought his coffee and glanced over Coop’s shoulder. “My God!” he said.

  “We’re writers,” Deni told him.

  He nodded and hurried away.

  “So what do you think?” she asked Coop.

  “I’ll take it home, read it all, and get back to you.”

  “But your first impression?”

  “My first impression is we have a long way to go before we can convince any law enforcement agency we’re dealing with a serial killer.” He’d asked Billard to contact the police departments in the cities where the other murders on Deni’s list had occurred and inquire about plastic saints. None of the departments had such information and was withholding it from the public.

  “What about the footprints?” Deni asked.

  “What about the fact that the women were murdered in different cities, with different weapons, in different ways, and that in one case an arrest and conviction was obtained, and in two others the police think they know who did it?”

  “Well, that’s how it works: He kills in different states and jurisdictions because he knows the local police won’t run everything through national computer banks and make the connections.”

  “Don’t be too sure you can read his mind,” Coop told her. “You have to guard against making too many assumptions or you’ll head off in the wrong direction.”

  Deni stared at him. “I could have sworn you were trying to tell me there was nothing there.” She pointed her egg-yellowed fork at the file folder.

  “There might be something there,” Coop assured her. “Just cool your jets so we don’t make a mistake.”

  Deni grinned. “I’m rocket powered, haven’t you heard?”

  This woman was beginning to irritate him. “You and Cozy Cat.”

  “Cozy Cat’s not the main character in my novels.”

  “So what is your detective’s name?”

  “Deni. I’m the main character. Deni Green. Like Ellery Queen’s character was Ellery Queen.”

  As Coop closed the file folder and moved it aside so coffee wouldn’t dribble on it, he noticed Deni staring beyond hi
m. He turned and saw a frail, fortyish woman, whose prettiness prevailed despite a militarylike buzz cut, approaching them. What was left of her hair was red and she was wearing light makeup and bright red lip gloss. She had on a black blouse and black jeans, a men’s oversize black blazer, black platform shoes. Coop wondered when they would get over dressing in black.

  “Alicia!” Deni said, grinning broadly. “How funny running into you here!”

  “I came to get some takeout so I could eat in my office,” Alicia said.

  “Alicia’s my editor at Whippet Books,” Deni told Coop. “Coop, Alicia Benham.”

  Coop reached across the table and shook Alicia’s delicate hand gently. “I figured that.”

  She looked at him with emerald eyes made to seem huge by her frailty and close-cropped hair. “Oh?”

  “I tried to call you at Whippet yesterday,” he explained. “You aren’t easy to get in touch with.”

  The glossy red lips arced up in a slight smile. “If you met some of the people who try to get in touch with me, you’d understand why.”

  “Coop’s helping me on The Killer Inside,” Deni said. She glanced at him. “That’s only our working title.”

  “You’re a writer?” Alicia asked.

  “No. Former cop, NYPD.”

  “Ah! Well, whatever you are, if you’re collaborating with Deni I suppose we do need to talk.”

  “We’re not exactly collaborating,” Deni said. “This is my book.”

  “I can come by your office this afternoon,” Coop told Alicia.

  “That’d work. Know where it is?”

  He nodded. “The address is in Deni’s previous book.”

  Coop continued looking at Alicia. “Who’s Smurger and Bold?”

  The question seemed to take her by surprise. “My husband’s attorneys. I’m in the process of getting a divorce.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Not necessary. You know Smurger and Bold?”

  “Only their names. They came up when I was getting the brush-off on the phone from the receptionist at Whippet Books.”

  “Oh. I thought for a moment you were going to hand me some sort of summons or court order.”

  “Not my game. Two o’clock okay?”

  The counterman called Alicia’s name to let her know her order was ready. She said good-bye and it was nice meeting Coop, not answering his question.

  “At your office,” he reminded her.

  “Two’s fine,” she said over her shoulder, headed for the register.

  He watched her walk away. He’d sensed a glint of dismay in Alicia’s eyes when Deni had called her name. Maybe the editor and the famous author weren’t all that compatible.

  Coop thought it couldn’t hurt to have an ally at Whippet, to know what Deni might be writing about Bette in her book.

  “She’s going through a horrendous divorce,” Deni said. “Her husband is an abusive son of a bitch.”

  “He abuse her physically?”

  “Worse than that—psychologically.”

  Coop remembered some of the women he’d seen on domestic violence calls after physical abuse. Did people like Deni think that kind of damage left little psychological effect?

  “The world can be a shitty place for women,” Deni said.

  “For men, too. For cats.”

  Deni smiled around a bite of egg. “I betcha we get along just fine, Coop.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Coop had done his research. Whippet Publishing was an imprint of a larger publisher that was a division of a major publisher that was owned by a French conglomerate specializing in commercial concrete applications. All of this resulted in Alicia Benham having an office on the fifth floor of a building on Hudson Street.

  After a brief wait in a quiet, carpeted anteroom done in shades of blue and gray, Alicia had appeared and led Coop to the office. It was Coop’s idea of an editor’s office, small and book-lined, with a window that afforded a distant view of the Statue of Liberty. Alicia sat in a gray upholstered swivel chair behind a gray desk. There were a few yellow file folders on the desk, a gooseneck reading lamp, a stack of rubber-banded manuscripts, and on one corner a notebook computer with the lid raised. It was a prewar building of generous construction; no sound from the street made it all the way up five stories, through the thick walls, and into the office. All in all it was a good place to work, to ponder punctuation.

  Coop sat in a gray chair in front of the desk. Alicia leaned back in her chair and smiled at him. The harsh sunlight pouring through the window revealed fine lines in her face but seemed only to add to its delicacy. She seemed to have had pain in her life and dealt with it in an objective way that hurt all the more and left its imprint.

  “Know anything about commercial concrete applications?” Coop asked.

  She laughed, surprised. “Should I?”

  “Guess not.” He nodded toward the stack of manuscripts. “Those what authors hope will turn into books?”

  “By the time they get to me it’s already been decided that they’ll be books.” She motioned with her right arm. “Like those.”

  Coop followed her glance and saw a lineup of about a dozen Cozy Cat novels on one of the bookshelves. “If Deni’s such a successful mystery novelist,” he said, “why does she want to try writing a fact crime book?”

  “You asking as her collaborator or a cop?”

  “Former cop,” Coop reminded her. “And more of a researcher than a collaborator. I’m also the father of one of the victims who’ll appear in Deni’s book.”

  Alicia’s expression changed. Crows’-feet deepened around her blue eyes. “I’m sorry. Really.” Then another, more subtle expression entered her eyes. “Is that why Deni?…”

  “It’s how she got me to help her,” Coop said.

  Alicia clasped her hands together and leaned forward. “Listen, Mr. Cooper—”

  “Coop.”

  “Okay, Coop. I asked Deni to venture into the field of true crime. There’s pressure on me to provide Whippet with writers who sell. Her Cozy Cat series has gotten stale and sales are slumping.”

  “Why?”

  Alicia regarded him carefully, weighing whether she should confide in him further. “The book business being what it is, you could get a lot of different answers to that. Frankly, I think it’s because the main character is becoming rather unlikable.”

  “Isn’t the main character Deni?”

  “That might be the problem. Too much of the real Deni is creeping into the books. You might have noticed she’s somewhat self-involved.”

  Coop nodded. “I figured what the hell, she’s a writer.”

  “Do you know many writers?”

  “None other than Deni.”

  “Well, she’s only typical of today’s writers in some ways. The fact is, Deni’s an egocentric, devious opportunist who’s constantly calculating what she can do for herself at anybody else’s expense.”

  Coop stared at her. “You are her editor?”

  “Sure, but I don’t have to be her friend.” She squinted up her eyes and regarded him. “Whatever the reason, I decided to warn you about her.”

  “You haven’t asked me not to repeat any of this.”

  “My feeling about you is that I don’t have to ask.”

  “And you are going to buy the true crime book if she writes it?”

  “Sure, I have no choice. But I wouldn’t tell her that. And if she doesn’t make deadline, my replacement will buy it. If Whippet doesn’t publish it, someone else might. And the way things are going, if nobody buys it, it might still turn up on the damned Internet. Be assured, when an author like Deni writes a book, it will be read. The only question is, how many copies will it sell? Make no mistake, Coop, I’m acting out of self-interest here. I need a big seller from Deni, and I’m going to make sure she delivers the manuscript on time to save my job.”

  “You’ve been candid,” Coop said. “I appreciate it, but I’m wondering why you’re talking this way.�
�

  “Deni’s not the gentle soul some of her readers still think she is. She isn’t to be trusted. I learned that the hard way in my dealings with her over the years. She uses people. I don’t want to see her use you, especially under the circumstances.”

  “Would you be talking this way if Cozy Cat sales weren’t slumping?”

  She smiled. “Of course not.”

  One of Coop’s reasons for wanting to talk to Alicia was to get added insight into Deni Green. He’d sure gotten that in a hurry. His other reason was to feel out Alicia to see if she’d become his ally and source of information if Deni proved to be a problem. To have some idea if she would squelch whatever defaming passages about Bette might be in Deni’s manuscript. He now had a pretty good idea that she’d cooperate. Out of self-interest if not because she was basically a pretty decent sort.

  He stood up.

  She seemed a bit surprised, maybe slightly disappointed. “Interrogation over, Officer?”

  “Only for the moment, I hope. Your husband…”

  “My soon-to-be ex.”

  “It’s none of my business, but I understand he mistreated you. If there’s an ongoing problem with that, I have friends in the department.”

  “Deni tell you he mistreated me?”

  “Well, yes. Abused you verbally.”

  “Deni doesn’t know.”

  “No, I suppose she doesn’t.” He shrugged, embarrassed. “Sorry. You were candid with me, so I thought I’d be candid back. But I shouldn’t have gotten into anything so personal.” He moved toward the door.

  “You be careful, Officer Coop.”

  “Of Deni?”

  “Her, too.”

  He wanted to say more to her, but she’d turned her attention to her work and was already snapping the rubber bands off one of the manuscripts.