The Caller

by Chris Carter

  They reached the stairwell, and as they took the first steps down to the floor below they encountered a tall and well-built individual in black jeans and a red hooded sweatshirt tucked under a dark baseball jacket. He wore a faded pair of black All Stars. His hands were buried deep inside his pockets, his head low; with his hood pulled well past his forehead, Hunter and Garcia were unable to see his face. As they crossed each other, Hunter had to twist his body to one side to allow the man to go past him.

  ‘What part?’ Garcia asked.

  ‘When the caller told her not to call the police,’ Hunter clarified. ‘He told her that it would be a pointless thing to do because it would take them around ten minutes to get to Karen Ward’s apartment, while it would take him only one to rip her heart from her chest.’

  Garcia nodded. ‘Yeah, I remember.’

  They got to the first floor.

  ‘OK,’ Hunter said. ‘Right now I’m willing to bet that the average response time from Long Beach PD to Karen Ward’s apartment after a nine-one-one call is somewhere between eight and ten minutes.’

  Garcia paused and looked back at his partner.

  ‘Something tells me that he didn’t just guess that time frame,’ Hunter added.

  ‘He clocked the response time.’

  ‘That’s what I would’ve done,’ Hunter conceded. ‘And to be absolutely sure, I would’ve done it at least three times, probably more.’

  Garcia allowed that thought to run free inside his mind for a few seconds.

  ‘But that would still give him no guarantees, Robert,’ he said. ‘Police cruisers aren’t fire trucks. They don’t sit at the station’s parking lot waiting for a call. They cruise the streets. A black and white could’ve been just around the corner when dispatch sent out the call. That eight-to-ten-minute response-time could’ve easily been reduced to one, less even.’

  Hunter agreed with a head nod. ‘And I’m sure he knew that too. But as I’ve said, this guy seems to be very cautious, calculating, and he likes to plan ahead. Someone like that would’ve wanted to know the actual average police response time so he could factor it into his plan. The risk of a cruiser being just around the corner was something he could do nothing about, that’s just the law of probability, so he tackled it from a different angle.’

  The inquisitive look was back on Garcia’s face.

  ‘And what angle is that?’

  ‘By making sure Tanya wouldn’t even contemplate calling the cops. With no call, it didn’t matter if twenty cop cars were parked right in front of the building. No one would’ve disturbed him.’

  ‘OK,’ Garcia agreed. ‘But to do that he didn’t actually need to know the correct response time. He could’ve just made one up. Isn’t that a known psychological principal? Say something with enough conviction and most people will believe you, even if it isn’t true. He could’ve thrown any number at Tanya and I’m sure she would’ve bought it.’

  ‘Yes, you’re right, and that would’ve worked for a lot of people, but not for someone who seems to be very methodical, someone who looks to have been planning this for some time, because this sure as hell wasn’t a spur of the moment murder.’ Hunter shook his head. ‘No, people like this are usually either OCD or bordering it. For his own peace of mind, this guy would’ve dug for the correct answer.’

  ‘OK,’ Garcia said. ‘So what do we need?’

  ‘Tell Operations that we’re looking for bogus calls. Wild-goose chases, but logged as high-priority ones – gunshots heard, life-threatening violence, something along those lines – where the address given would’ve been either Karen Ward’s apartment block or immediately surrounding areas. The time of the call would’ve also been fairly close to the time of the murder, give or take a couple of hours. There’s a chance that he would’ve used his real voice while making the calls.’

  ‘And depending where the call originated from,’ Garcia offered, ‘and if it was made from a pay phone or not, we might get lucky with CCTV footage.’

  Hunter agreed once again.

  ‘We should also get started on a warrant to retrieve whatever we can from either Tanya or Karen’s cellphone network about this video-call,’ Garcia suggested. He knew that Tanya had done her best to remember and recount the call with as much accuracy as she could, but even a person in a clear state of mind wouldn’t have been able to remember every word, every detail, never mind someone as shaken and as traumatized as Tanya was.

  ‘There’s no point,’ Hunter said. ‘The networks won’t have the data.’

  ‘How come?’

  ‘No network in US territory is allowed to keep video-call logs in the same way they do regular call ones,’ Hunter explained. ‘They’re already struggling with all these new privacy laws as it is. Retaining people’s personal images or videos without their consent would mean a whole new dimension of war for them. One I’m sure they’re not keen to fight.’

  They finally exited the building.

  ‘How about the audio or a transcript of it?’ Garcia asked.

  A new headshake from Hunter. ‘They still won’t have it because the audio doesn’t get split from the video when the call is made.’

  ‘So if they can’t store one,’ Garcia concluded, ‘they can’t store the other.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘Are you sure? How do you know all of this?’

  Hunter gave his partner a shrug. ‘I read a lot.’

  Sixteen

  ‘So how long do you think you’ll be this time?’ Cassandra asked, as Mr. J finished his last piece of toast.

  ‘Not long. Two, three days at the most.’

  ‘That’s exactly what you said last time.’ Cassandra had a sip of some dark-green drink she’d just blended. ‘And yet, you were away for almost a week.’

  ‘Yes, and I’m sorry about that,’ Mr. J conceded. ‘But sometimes things get delayed, people get delayed, and business takes a little longer than expected.’ He used a fabric napkin to dab the corners of his mouth. ‘But I don’t think there will be any misfortunes this time. I’ll call you and let you know if anything changes. If not, I shall be back on Sunday at the latest.’ He looked at his wife and frowned. ‘Cass, what the hell are you drinking? It looks . . . revolting.’

  ‘Trust me,’ she replied, finishing the rest of her juice, ‘you don’t want to know. But it tastes a lot better than it looks.’

  ‘I sure hope so, because it looks like you just drank a glass of . . . baby’s diarrhea.’

  ‘You are so disgusting sometimes, do you know that?’

  Mr. J laughed. ‘Me? I’m not the one drinking it. You look beautiful, by the way.’

  Cassandra was charmingly dressed in a dark pencil skirt with a plum blouse and shiny black shoes. Her hair was loose, falling past her shoulders, but the sides were held back over her ears by a couple of dainty hair clips in the shape of butterflies. Her makeup, though she’d applied it herself, looked professionally done.

  Mr. J checked his timepiece – 8:17 a.m. ‘OK. I’ve got to go.’ He got up, drank the rest of his coffee in one gulp, collected his plate and cutlery, and took everything to the sink.

  ‘You can leave it there,’ Cassandra said, before he had a chance to switch on the faucet. ‘I’ll wash it up later.’

  ‘Are you sure? I can quickly do it. It’s not a problem.’

  ‘No, it’s all right. I’ll do it later. You get going.’ She walked over to him and gave him a peck on the lips. ‘Where are you going again?’

  ‘Frisco,’ he lied.

  ‘Oh yeah, that’s right,’ she lied back. She didn’t really remember him telling her before. She placed her empty glass in the sink together with the rest of the dishes. ‘Well, drive carefully, and call me once you get there, OK?’

  ‘Yes, of course.’

  Mr. J gave his wife another kiss and grabbed his suit jacket, which was resting on the back of his chair. His dummy briefcase, the one he had packed in front of Cassandra the night before and which contained a change o
f clothes and a small bag of toiletries, was waiting for him by the door. His real briefcase, the one which contained what he really needed, he would pick up on his way to his hotel, from a storage unit he had rented years ago under a different name.

  Seventeen

  With mid-morning traffic in full flow, it took Hunter and Garcia over forty-five minutes to cover the almost fifteen miles between Tanya Kaitlin’s apartment in West Carson and Karen Ward’s one in Long Beach. They both wanted to have a second, undisturbed look at the crime scene before it was handed over to the CTS Decon team – crime and trauma scene decontamination – the team responsible for cleaning up and disinfecting the aftermath of crime and accident scenes.

  With the exception of the victim’s body and several forensics agents walking around in white coveralls, the apartment was exactly how they encountered it in the early hours of the morning. The pool of blood that covered part of the living room floor was still there, but it had by then dried up and clotted, which exacerbated the strong metallic smell that blood acquired once it came into contact with oxygen. With every window shut and locked to avoid the influx of insects that pooled human blood inevitably attracted, and with the temperature outside already getting up to seventy degrees, the eye-watering, rusty-like smell that lingered in the air had intensified considerably and spread into every corner of every room in the apartment.

  As they cleared the beaded curtain at the front door, Garcia slipped on the nose mask he had brought with him.

  Hunter did the same.

  ‘I’d say that it’d be easier if we divided the workload, don’t you think?’ Garcia said, bringing up a hand to cover his nose, despite the mask. ‘So how about you take the living room and kitchen, and I’ll take the bedroom, the corridor and the bathroom. Sounds good?’ Without waiting for a reply, Garcia crossed the living room towards the entrance to the hallway on the other side.

  Hunter couldn’t blame him. Not surprisingly, the intoxicating smell was much stronger in the living room. In spite of all their experience, neither Hunter nor Garcia had ever gotten used to the smell of blood from a crime scene, or, more precisely, the psychological smell of blood from a crime scene, something that most LAPD homicide detectives understood very well. To them, there was a distinct difference between the smell of blood from a crime scene and the smell of blood from anywhere else, including accidents, hospitals and morgues. They found that at specific crime scenes, especially the ones shrouded by overwhelming violence, the sickly sweet, copper-like smell of blood was always complemented by something else. A scent no one could really explain or agree on, but they could all smell it. They could all sense it. They could all feel it crawling up their skin, as if it were alive and had somehow gotten trapped in the scene. A smell that saturated the walls and soaked the air with its presence.

  Some thought of it as the smell left behind by fear.

  Some thought of it as the smell left behind by pain.

  Some thought of it as the smell left behind by violence.

  Hunter thought of it as the smell left behind by evil.

  Before he could nod his agreement at his partner, Garcia had already disappeared down the short hallway and into the bathroom. Once he was gone, Hunter turned and faced the dining table and the chair in which Karen Ward’s body had been found. He pulled down his nose mask, letting it hang loosely around his neck, and then stood there, immobile, just staring at the chair. He blanked out every distraction in his mind, and allowed the strong and violating smell of blood, evil, and death to suffocate his senses. A minute later, Tanya Kaitlin’s sequence of accounts began playing in his ears again and, as if a film was being projected before him, his mind began visualizing scenes.

  He pictured the killer’s anger as he slammed Karen’s face down into a container full of broken glass, over and over again. He saw the ugly and deformed mask covering the assailant’s face, just like Tanya had described it. He imagined the killer’s satisfaction as Tanya failed to answer his question correctly. He pictured Karen’s desperation. Her fear. Her powerless struggle. But the images Hunter saw in his mind were broken and incomplete. Too many frames were still missing. Something wasn’t right.

  He finally snapped out of his daze and walked over to the open-plan kitchen. It was small but well equipped, with a modern microwave and fan oven all rolled up into one, an induction cooker, and a fridge/freezer with an external water and ice dispenser. Hunter pulled its door open and looked inside. It was practically empty, with the exception of a half-full carton of orange juice, and one of milk. A tub of ice cream – chocolate brownie flavor – sat alone at the very back of the large freezer compartment. Hunter shut the door, turned from the fridge, and tried the cupboards on the wall behind him. A few canned goods but no spices or condiments. It didn’t take a detective to figure out that Karen Ward barely, if at all, cooked at home, and something told Hunter that it wasn’t because she didn’t know how, or didn’t like to, but because she wanted to be home as little as possible.

  In the living room, Hunter avoided the pool of dried blood and moved over to the sitting area, where a three-seater, dark-brown sofa was flanked by a matching armchair on one side, and by a round acrylic coffee table on the other. The weaved, brown and beige rug in front of the sofa looked new, and so did the TV stand and the dark wood display cabinet that were pushed up against one of the walls.

  Hunter walked over to the TV stand and opened the drawer on the left; inside it he found a power extension flex, a couple of paperbacks, and the instruction manuals for the TV, the cable box, and all the kitchen appliances. He tried the drawer on the right – spare light bulbs, a set of screwdrivers, and two plastic folders containing house bills. The display cabinet, to the right of the TV stand, held a few well-arranged and colorful decorative items – pots, bowls, jars, wooden flowers, a square tin box, and a couple of cat figurines. He reached for the tin box and pulled its lid open – empty.

  A loud noise, which came from deep inside the apartment, startled Hunter.

  ‘Carlos, are you all right in there?’ he called out, returning the tin box to the display cabinet.

  ‘Yep,’ the reply came from the bedroom. ‘All good. Just bumped into the shoe tower in here by accident and half of them came crashing down on me like a shoe rain. Man, do you think she had enough shoes?’

  Hunter smiled. He would never be so pretentious to claim he understood the way a woman’s mind worked, but there was one thing he knew for sure, when it came to women’s shoes, in their minds there was no such thing as ‘enough shoes’.

  He turned on the balls of his feet and his gaze circumnavigated the crime scene for the nth time. And that was when realization finally hit him.

  Earlier that morning, something inside Karen Ward’s room had bothered him. Something other than how unnecessarily crammed the space looked, but he couldn’t really figure out what it was, until now.

  Adrenalin shot through his body like a bullet, causing the hair on his arms and on the back of his neck to stand on end. He took two steps forward and paused, looking straight at something.

  ‘You sick sonofabitch!’

  Eighteen

  In the bathroom, Garcia pulled open the cupboard mirror above the washbasin and once again rummaged through the contents inside it. As he did, he felt like one of those people who needed to open the fridge door every time they stepped into the kitchen.

  ‘Yup,’ he said. ‘Just like I thought. Nothing new has magically materialized in here since this morning.’

  He closed the mirror and moved over to the shelf unit to the right of the bathtub. The top three shelves held an astounding number of beauty creams, lotions, and oils, all perfectly arranged in separate groups. Garcia reached for one of the bottles on the top shelf and silently read the description on its label.

  Facial cream with high UV protection.

  He looked thoughtful for a moment. He was sure that his wife, Anna, had bought that exact same product not that long ago. He placed the bottle back
and reached for another one.

  Facial cream with low UV protection.

  And another.

  Facial cream with cucumber extract.

  He carried on.

  Facial cream with avocado extract.

  Facial cream with olive oil.

  Facial cream with almond oil.

  Garcia shook his head, a little amused. ‘I feel like I’m shopping for salad here,’ he said under his breath. He returned the bottle to the shelf and tried a different group. This time he frowned at the bottle. ‘What? Strawberry cheesecake scented body lotion? Really?’

  His lips parted with a smile but, despite finding it funny, he was also quite intrigued and couldn’t resist. He pulled his mask down, flicked the bottle cap open and brought it to his nose. To his surprise, it smelled so much like freshly baked strawberry cheesecake, he heard his stomach rumble. The question bouncing around in his head though, was why would anyone want to smell like strawberry cheesecake?

  Garcia readjusted his mask back over his nose before going through a couple more bottles.

  Coconut.

  Vanilla.

  ‘I guess this must be the dessert group.’

  He decided to move on to the next shelf.

  Eye cream.

  Eye cream.

  Eye cream.

  Hand cream.

  Foot cream.

  Neck cream.

  Once again he paused. ‘There are creams developed specifically for your neck?’ he asked the empty bathroom.

  The next shelf was full of hair and skin hydrating oils and lotions. The one after that held several expensive-looking perfume bottles. The fifth and sixth shelves were where Karen Ward kept all her towels.

  Garcia exited the bathroom and moved on to the bedroom. Instead of switching on the lights, he walked over to the unobstructed window on the west wall and pulled open the curtains, allowing sunlight to finally bathe the room. From where he was standing, he looked around the crammed space for a long moment before deciding that he would start with the bed.