The Night Caller

by Lutz, John

  Cara lay sleeping now on her back on some crates he’d butted up against one another, limbs flung loosely to the sides. As if she were a willing offering to the gods. Like Julia.

  He couldn’t complete the ritual here. He hadn’t attempted it with Deni Green, hadn’t needed it. Had been interrupted with Theresa Dravic. Cara was perfect. He’d been almost ready for her anyway. He would take her to the privacy of his apartment and perform the ritual in his time, his own sweet time, then dispose of the body on the other side of town.

  He rested a hand on Cara’s still wrist, her pulse faint but steady, blood and life, and closed his eyes. His own sweet time.

  Julia. When he was twelve, and Julia was ten and so perfect and beautiful. Her long red hair was worn always in a braid. She took such pleasure undoing it at night and brushing it, then rebraiding it each morning. Her ritual. When he passed her open bedroom door he would look in on her asleep, her hair no longer braided, fanned like spun red honey on her pale pillow.

  And one night he couldn’t walk on, had to enter her room. He lay beside her, stroking her hair, caressing her, exploring her wonders, knowing she was pretending to sleep, as they all pretended. Women pretended everything.

  He returned to her the next night and the next and the next, until finally he probed too deeply and she screamed.

  Her father had burst into the room, then stopped and stood still like a statue of an ancient warrior in a museum, wielding a baseball bat he always kept beneath his bed rather than a sword.

  Then the sword fell. The Night Caller clenched his eyes shut, remembering the beating, the heavy blows, then the blade, the scars, what his father had done to him so no woman would look at him twice again.

  His crime was never mentioned, something that had happened in another, darker world. But he was sent away to a strict boarding school, St. Augustine. The saint who had been a carnal sinner. He would never be alone with Julia again. He’d been filled with shame, spent nights contemplating suicide, eventually run away and supported himself on the streets by learning the art of the pickpocket and petty thief. But he’d been caught, escaped the machinery of the courts because of his youth, and had to be institutionalized.

  He was held in the place of the roaches, huge ones peculiar to the region that actually hissed quite audibly. At night he would hear them, and sometimes feel them dart across his bare flesh with astounding speed. Though they were the size of a man’s thumb, they were like the brief touch of quill feathers on his soft cheek.

  Eventually he’d gotten used to them, learned to endure their touch. Like him, they were part of the dark.

  The shame and the scars bored in. The stains spread. It was a time he kept locked away in a deep, distant part of his mind.

  Four years later a nun came into his room and told him the news. His father had beaten Julia to death and then committed suicide. Hanged himself from a rafter in the garage of the family’s suburban tract house.

  Afterward the Night Caller had learned the details of the incestuous relationship his father and Julia had kept secret from him. The nuns and the doctors didn’t know he felt relieved—he wasn’t so sick and repulsive after all. His father hadn’t been punishing him, but eliminating him as a rival.

  Though he still mourned and missed Julia terribly, he began to feel better about himself, smarter. Eventually he was released from the institution and continued his education, this time at St. Alexius Academy. St. Alexius, defender, helper, patron saint to nurses and pilgrims. It was after his time at St. Alexius, during medical school, that he’d had the so ineffectual cosmetic surgery performed. The operations had been like a series of dreams that had only a temporary impact on the real world. The past had been cut away but had grown back.

  He’d never known sweeter moments than when Julia had lain still and allowed him to touch her. He’d never known such trust and acceptance since. Those moments in that long ago quiet bedroom determined his choice of career. He still was compelled at intervals to relive those moments. But only after making sure the woman would never cry out as Julia had, that she would never belong to another man or be harmed by him.

  Georgianna Mason had been a precaution, Theresa Dravic an interruption, Deni Green a practical necessity.

  Not again, he thought. Not this time. Not with this Julia. Destiny had touched destiny. Choice had become fate.

  The Night Caller had denied himself the complete and unhurried ritual long enough. The careful, detailed recreation of his nights with Julia.

  To deny himself longer would be unbearable.

  Chapter Fifty-eight

  There had been an accident on Roosevelt Drive, and traffic was backed up for blocks.

  Coop sat stiffly in the back of the cab, eyeing the long line of vehicles before him, listening to the cacophony of blasting horns that accompanied every New York traffic jam. A cluster of three miniature Christmas ornaments tied together with a red bow hung from the rearview mirror. The cab smelled as if someone had recently smoked a cigar in it. Probably the driver.

  “Try the side streets,” he instructed the driver. “They’ll be faster.”

  The man simply ignored him.

  “The side streets!” Coop repeated. “Cut over to First Avenue!”

  “This is shorter,” the cabbie said, not turning his head. “Much faster.”

  “This is important, damn it!”

  “Everything is important, my friend. Put your trust in me. I know my job.” The cabbie turned up the volume on his radio, which was playing some sort of music Coop didn’t recognize. Like jazz blown through crude reed instruments.

  The cab braked again and was totally motionless.

  Coop dug a ten-dollar bill from his wallet and stuffed it into the swivel tray in the Plexiglas panel separating the passenger compartment from the driver. He opened the door and climbed out.

  “C’mon back, my friend. This is fastest. Put your trust in me.”

  Coop couldn’t. He was going to jog to First Avenue and try to catch another cab uptown.

  “You forgot your change!” the cabbie yelled behind him. “Here’s your change, my friend!”

  Ignoring him, rushing away, Coop wondered, should he have put his trust in the man?

  Cara could hardly move her arms and legs. Someone was helping her across a dim room. Her feet were dragging. One shoe came loose, was left behind. Then the other.

  She tried but couldn’t wake up all the way. Something was odd here, very—

  She remembered. Her heart leaped in her breast.

  Still she couldn’t clear her head. She felt herself forced down, into a sitting position in a chair, felt cool metal against her wrists. Something was wound around her midsection, pulling her tight to the chair back. She tried to struggle but remained detached from everything that was happening. It felt as if her arms and legs were moving, but she couldn’t be sure.

  Then she heard a ripping sound. When unyielding strips of material were wrapped around her arms, fixing them to the chair arms, she knew the ripping sound had been tape being torn. Duct tape? Surgical tape? Again her heart pounded with fear.

  She was aware of who was doing this to her, but he was shadow that came and went, bending over her, not touching her himself, using tape, other materials to bind her tightly to the chair. Her feet were forced against each other, her detached feet, and her lower legs were bound together. Then her thighs. She could move nothing now but her toes and fingers. Riiiiip! Tape was wound around her fingers. Cara tried to cry out but there was a numbness in her throat, at the base of her tongue. She wasn’t even sure if she was shaping her mouth to form a scream. She heard no sound.

  She did feel in the back of her right hand a sharp pain. She knew what it was this time. A needle going in. A burning sensation as whatever was in the hypodermic syringe surged into her bloodstream.

  She heard a voice like hers say, “No.” Off in the distance. “Please, no…”

  Everything was fading, going away. She tried to fight it,
struggled to remain aware. Was she falling asleep again? Dying? Was there a difference?

  Soon she didn’t care.

  The Night Caller withdrew the needle from Cara’s vein and checked the transparent syringe, making sure. He didn’t want to inject her with too much secobarbital. Not yet.

  Cara was already back in her state of semiconsciousness, drifting in and out of sleep, not caring, faintly aware. The Night Caller knew her twilight condition precisely. She would be somewhat cognizant but helpless and manageable.

  After dropping the syringe back in his pocket, he untaped Cara’s now limp right hand and placed a cotton wad on the needle mark, securing it with a thin strip of adhesive. He would leave that hand exposed, marking her as a patient who’d recently received intravenous medication. That would explain her semiconscious state to anyone who might be curious. He felt the slackness of her neck and jaw muscles, massaged her throat for a moment. She wouldn’t be able to speak, he was sure, even if she somehow thought of something to say.

  He took a long, last look around. It might be apparent that someone had been in the storage room, but there was nothing to indicate the trespasser’s identity.

  He had only to remove Cara from the hospital without detection. And he was sure he could accomplish that. She would soon be where they wouldn’t be disturbed.

  Soon now.

  He did wish he could have gotten to know this one more thoroughly before the final recognition. But he knew her sister Ann. He’d administered the relaxant and amnesiate in the pre-op room and asked Ann the usual questions about her medical background, family, medications she might have taken. As she lost control he asked her more personal questions, about her private life, her computer service, password to get on-line, finances, love life. He would remove her house key from her purse in the wire basket that would be placed in a locker, make a wax impression of the key, then return it.

  He wouldn’t touch the patient after that. Not then.

  When the OR nurse arrived he would accompany the patient as she was wheeled into the operating room. It was all a routine with him, with certain female patients. Always he would have recommended general anesthesia and MAC—monitored anesthetic care—so he could minister to them in the operating room, so he could make sure they wouldn’t say anything revealing. After the operation he’d visit them that evening, talk with them, make sure the amnesiate had done its job. Invariably they remembered nothing of the operation. Nothing of any conversation beforehand.

  Then he would enter their lives like a shadow. Become intimately acquainted with them though they’d virtually forgotten him. He would become a part of them they didn’t know, like the dreams and memories they couldn’t touch.

  And when he knew them well enough, as if they were a sister, there would come the recognition and the final bonding.

  He was thinking clearly through his anticipation. He could do that.

  Because he knew, because he understood, there wasn’t much he couldn’t do.

  He’d already removed his tie, using it along with surgical tape and strips of worn sheets to secure Cara. He turned up his collar, ducking his head so his grotesqueness wouldn’t show.

  This would work, he assured himself. People would only glance at his face, then look quickly away. It would be as if they hadn’t looked at him at all. And why should someone entering or leaving a hospital—visitor or employee—pay particular attention to a patient being transferred to a car? Checking out. Only if the Night Caller encountered someone he knew might there be a problem. But his route would be a short one, and Mercy Hospital was immense, so there was little chance of that.

  Little chance, but some. A chance he would have to take. A lie he would have to tell. A circumstance he could deal with later if questions arose, if anyone guessed that Cara Callahan had disappeared from Mercy, if anyone even connected her to him. And even if someone—the Distraught Dad?—did make a connection, he could only suspect. All any of them could do was suspect. Shadows left no trace, not even a scent. They were here, they were gone, had they been here?

  Confidently, he pushed the wheelchair toward the door.

  Chapter Fifty-nine

  To the police and FBI, Coop was still a wanted man. He knew that. Maureen’s phone call to Billard might raise serious questions, and he prayed it would bring help in time at Mercy Hospital. But it wouldn’t mean Coop was in the clear, or that Cara was out of danger.

  When he reached busy First Avenue, he kept his head down and walked close to buildings, watching for a cab with its service light glowing. He thought about Nighklauer. Coop had gained plenty of experience in medical and hospital procedure during the past few years, even if it had been only from the patient’s point of view. He understood how an anesthesiologist could take advantage of his profession to learn more than he should about his patients. They usually saw you in your room or a cubicle where there was privacy. There they asked you a lot of precautionary questions, smooth-talking you to make you more at ease while they inserted the IV needle. Soon something to relax you was flowing through your veins, loosening your tongue along with the rest of you. Then something to make you forget; doctors didn’t want patients recalling painful or gory details of any medical procedure, or any embarrassing conversation by patient or medical personnel.

  Coop remembered two nurses talking about whether operations were painful. If the patient didn’t recall the pain, one argued, then in effect there had been no pain. Coop didn’t see it that way. He’d seen too many crime or accident victims block memory of horror from their minds completely, and without the use of anesthetic. They had experienced plenty of pain.

  As he strode he became incensed again that a doctor would take advantage of his patients, learn intimate details about them while they were sinking into unconsciousness, medicated so they wouldn’t remember. He could imagine Nighklauer wheedling everything he needed to know from them, bank account numbers, names of lovers, computer passwords. He must have stolen their keys and somehow had duplicates made and returned them before they recovered from the anesthetic he’d administered. That was why he visited them later that night in recovery, not because he was compassionate and diligent, but so he could be sure they wouldn’t know, that they didn’t remember what he’d asked, what he’d done.

  Another terrible thought entered Coop’s mind. Had Nighklauer taken physical liberties with his future victims when they were unknowing and helpless? An initial indignity before stalking and killing them because something about them triggered his murderous impulse. Seeing Bette in his mind, recalling her from childhood on, made him grit his teeth with rage.

  Very near him, water splashed and brakes squealed.

  Startled, he jumped aside as a car with a light on its roof, lettering on its side, pulled to the curb alongside him, its front tire in a deep puddle of melted snow.

  Police car?

  No. A taxi! And without a fare!

  Coop’s heart slowed and relief washed over him.

  The driver was leaning down to see out the side window, staring at him expectantly. He was wearing a turban and smiling broadly. Coop was still standing motionless, getting over his surprise and instinct to bolt, as the cabbie used a forefinger to draw a question mark in the air, then pointed to the backseat.

  Coop nodded and quickly climbed into the cab.

  “Mercy Hospital! It’s—”

  “I know exactly where it is, sir,” the cabbie said in flawless English.

  As the cab accelerated, a recording by Joan Rivers came on, exhorting Coop to buckle his seat belt.

  Sound advice. The first two blocks were fast.

  Then they were in slowed traffic again.

  The cabbie on Roosevelt Drive had been right. Coop stared out the mud-stained window in frustration, listening to the same discordant symphony of blaring horns, waiting for traffic to break loose and the cab to surge ahead.

  Right now, he could be crawling faster to the next intersection.

  Chapter Sixty


  Billard had met FBI Agent Fred Willingham before. He’d never liked or trusted the man. But he had to admit that now his distrust was heightened because of his fondness for and faith in his friend. Billard knew Coop was innocent of murder. He also knew that what Willingham was doing was proper and prudent. Still, he couldn’t make himself like it.

  The FBI had arrived at Mercy Hospital moments after the NYPD and had virtually taken over the operation. Billard, standing in the lobby near the gift shop and elevators, had to admire how quickly and smoothly things were going. It was enough to give a city department cop an inferiority complex, like a bush leaguer suddenly finding himself part of Major League baseball.

  No one at Mercy other than administrators knew what was happening. Not only would that be safer for patients, Willingham said—that was how he’d sold the idea to the chief of surgery—but it was imperative that the suspect not notice anything unusual. Unobtrusively, agents assumed the roles of attendants and nurses. A few of them were even roaming the halls in pale green OR scrubs, complete with plastic booties over their shoes and stethoscopes draped around their necks.

  Willingham had instructed Billard where to station NYPD personnel. The FBI SWAT team was present. Billiard thought that was, to put it succinctly, overkill. Yet what choice did Willingham have? What they were dealing with here, the Bureau had finally decided, was the most desperate and dangerous kind of serial killer. So trained marksmen walked the hospital halls, and snipers were stationed on the roof over the main entrances.

  Billard glanced at his wristwatch. The orders had been issued to everyone involved in the operation only a few minutes ago, but he imagined that by now most of them were in place and on the alert.

  Late visiting hours were over, and the elevators were mostly full when they opened onto the lobby. There was also some kind of shift change going on, uniformed nurses and other medical types leaving and arriving. A man in his thirties, wearing work clothes and carrying a teddy bear, emerged from an elevator trailed by a woman and two small kids. Billard saw that there was a third child, an infant in a kind of sling arrangement backpack, peeking over the woman’s shoulder. Get your family out of here, he shouted silently to the man as they leisurely strolled past on their way to the exit.