Kitabı oxu: «The Caller»
ALEX BARCLAY
The Caller
Copyright
This is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
HarperCollinsPublishers
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk
Published by HarperCollinsPublishers 2007
Copyright © Alex Barclay 2007
Daphne Du Maurier quote reproduced with permission of the
Curtis Brown Group Ltd on behalf of the Estate of Daphne Du Maurier
copyright © Daphne Du Maurier 1938
Cover design layout © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2016
Cover photographs © Shutterstock.com
Alex Barclay asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books
Source ISBN: 9780008180881
Ebook Edition © SEPTEMBER 2008 ISBN: 9780007279425
Version 2016-05-13
Praise for Alex Barclay
‘The rising star of the hard-boiled crime fiction world, combining wild characters, surprising plots and massive backdrops with a touch of dry humour’ Mirror
‘Tense, no-punches-pulled thriller that will have you on the edge of your deckchair.’ Woman and Home
‘Explosive’ Company
‘Darkhouse is a terrific debut by an exciting new writer’ Independent on Sunday
‘Compelling’ Glamour
‘Excellent summer reading … Barclay has the confidence to move her story along slowly, and deftly explores the relationships between her characters’ Sunday Telegraph
‘The thriller of the summer’ Irish Independent
‘If you haven’t discovered Alex Barclay, it’s time to jump on the bandwagon’ Image Magazine
Dedication
To Ciaran, Ronan, Lorraine and Damien
With screaming eyes
And weakened breath
’Twas not for life
He begged,
’Twas death.
Anonymous
Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Praise for Alex Barclay
Dedication
Epigraph
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Epilogue
Acknowledgements
Keep Reading …
About the Author
Also by Alex Barclay
About the Publisher
PROLOGUE
The room was eight by ten and windowless. Weak shafts of light stretched through the bars that ran from floor to ceiling across one wall. The small television, mounted on a black shelf outside, was full-volume white noise. On a tray by the door lay the shriveled remains of an overcooked dinner.
The bed, pushed against the right-hand wall, was perfectly made, each corner tight under the thin mattress, the coarse green cover smooth except for where he sat, hunched and focused. Sweat darkened the folds and underarms of his blue shirt, the odor mixing with the rising stench from the discarded food.
He opened his eyes and turned to the desk lamp beside him, flicking the switch. Under the brilliant white light, he held a model; a plaster replica of the thirty-two human teeth he could recall so easily as he traced his thumb over the contours; the imperfection of a prominent incisor, a pointed canine tip, the uneven surface of a chipped premolar. Only once had he seen the teeth in a smile: at the beginning, a quick flash before the terror struck. For hours afterwards, they had been clamped shut in agony or visible only as the lips curled back from them in a silent scream.
He bent forward and slid a box from under the bed, pulling it up to rest on his knees. Twisting his body, he removed a key from his pocket, then unlocked the box. He looked at the model one last time, then set it down inside with the others. One, two, three. Four.
The day after you watch your first victim die is not very different to the day before. You still wake up. Maybe you skip breakfast, even lunch, but you will eat … eventually. And you’ll sleep. And you’ll slip into a rhythm. Not identical to the one before; there might be an erratic beat, but at least it’s a silent beat. Yours.
He pushed the box under the bed, where other reminders lay – of lives taken and lives spared. He closed his eyes and breathed in the warm, captive air.
My prison is a tool, a training ground, a stopover. I look at the bars behind me, the space around me, the confinement. I think of where you are and how tragic for you it is that here I am, there you are, but oh so quickly, there I am. Right with you.
Entrance. Exit.
He switched off the desk lamp. He returned the key to his pocket, stood up and walked to the door. He slid back the bolt and stepped outside. He reached up and turned off the television, watching as the light was sucked into a tiny circle at the center and turned to black. Then he walked across the floor and up the steps, pausing as he crossed the threshold into his bright, air-conditioned home.
She was twenty-nine years old, small and slender, dressed in a white tank, pale pink cardigan and jeans, her dark hair twisted and secured with a dragonfly clip at the nape of her neck. Her skin was sallow, her eyes winter blue. Beside her was a doll, made from instructions that lost her interest before the mouth was sewn and the brown wool hair could be bunched and tied with bows. Beside that lay a clay ashtray, half-painted and dented by pressured thumbs.
She couldn’t remember why she had sat down. She opened the desk drawer and took out a laminated prayer card and red St Pio rosary beads. Wrapping them around her fingers, she bowed her head and began to pray. She told St Joseph that she dare not approach him while Jesus reposed near his heart.
From nowhere, it rose, a familiar unsettling pressure in her stomach. Her only relief was that somewhere mixed in with the fear came a euphoria she had never found anywhere else. But only the fear washed over her now. Her left hand shot out and slammed down onto a notepad. She slid it across the desk towards her, her head feeling free from her body as she tried to make use of what was happening to her. A dark reel unwound behind her eyes; edited razor-sharp, black and gray shapes, a frenzied acceleration of badly lit scenes. Her right hand groped the air, her fingers searching for two short vertical lines that would make it all pause, then backwards arrows to make it rewind. But this was nothing she could control. Coursing through her was the impulse to stay in the moment, not to go back, not to cast any light onto dark half-memories. But before she got a chance to write, she was gone, sliding to the floor, dragging paper and pens and pencils on top of her. The last thing she saw was her friend, standing in the doorway, shrunken to the size of a child.
Detective Joe Lucchesi sat with his head between his knees, tears streaming down his face and dripping onto the carpet below him. His face was gray, his forehead dotted with sweat and newsprint from the fingers he had pressed against it before the real pain had kicked in. Half an hour earlier he had arrived at his dentist’s office for emergency treatment – with pain he had gauged level eight. Now it was off the scale and rising. Nausea ripped through him, but he stayed doubled over, letting out a growl that choked in his throat.
‘Joe? Joe?’ A receptionist rushed in from the hallway. ‘Stay with me, sweetheart.’
She glanced around the waiting room. ‘Did anyone see what happened?’
‘He was sitting right there reading the newspaper, he took a call on his cell. He sat back down and then he started not to look too good.’ Joe knew it was the voice of a kind-faced older man who was sitting opposite him when he arrived.
The receptionist laid a hand on Joe’s shoulder. ‘Dr Makkar will be along right away. Is there anything I can get you in the meantime?’
‘Would he maybe take a glass of water?’ It was the man again. He had stood up – Joe could see his brown suede loafers on the carpet in front of him. Joe managed to raise a shaky hand that said no to both offers.
‘I don’t think he was even able to talk to whoever called him,’ said the old man.
But Joe knew it wasn’t the pain that had stopped him from talking. He just had no answer for the voice that came twisting its way back into his life, drawling and heavy and laden with unfinished business.
‘Detective Lucchesi? Every time you look at the scars on your wife’s pretty little body, right down … low down on that tight little belly. Or when you flip her over onto her front. She’s light, you can flip her easy, can’t you? There’s some scars there too – makes me feel like I’m the gift that keeps on giving. Well, what I want to know is this: when you see them scars? Do you still want her?’ He paused. ‘Or do you want me more?’ He laughed long and loud. ‘Tell me. Who’s gonna get it in the ass? Little Anna Lucchesi or Big Bad Duke Rawlins?’ His breath was gone, lost in a dead silence. Then his voice struck up, one last time. ‘And Detective? You’ll never bury me. I. Will. Bury. You.’
ONE
Detectives Joe Lucchesi and Danny Markey stepped into the elevator that would take them to the sixth floor office of Manhattan North Homicide. They were three hours into an eight to four tour. A short skinny man shot in after them, jumpy and light on his feet.
‘You know, I can read futures by your hands.’ He had weathered skin and a droopy left eye. He stood an inch from Joe’s chest and looked up at him with a gentle smile. Joe looked at Danny and held his palm out.
The man stepped back, banging his head on the elevator doors.
‘Not your palm!’ he shouted. ‘Not your palm! The back of your hand! I will know you from the back of your hand.’ Joe turned it over.
‘The other one too. You too,’ he said, looking at Danny. ‘Both hands. Both hands. Many hands make Jack dull.’
Joe and Danny smiled and did what he said.
‘You’re laughing too early,’ said the guy. ‘This could be bad news, what I see here. This could be too many ducks spoiling the bush.’
‘We don’t want to hear no bad news,’ said Danny. ‘Right?’
‘Right,’ said Joe.
‘Right,’ said the man. ‘But I’m not just the messenger here. You gotta appreciate that. I’m how it all begins. I’m what sets it all in motion. I’m, like, bang. And the future I see will start from right here in these nine stitches.’
Joe nodded slowly.
The man reached up and adjusted the purple crocheted hat on his head, pulling the ear flaps around so one of them hung in front of his face. He rotated it again, then looked back at their hands.
‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘I’m seeing things. I definitely am,’ said the man. ‘My name is One Line, by incident. One Line. King of Madison Avenue. Your product in one line. Your brand in one line—’
‘You were a copywriter?’ said Joe.
‘Your future in one line,’ said the man, staring at the hands in front of him.
‘OK,’ said Danny. ‘So what is it?’
The bell chimed and the elevator doors opened on the sixth floor. Joe and Danny got out. As the doors slid together, One Line pushed his face close to the gap.
‘One line: you’re fucked, both of you. Is that two lines? Could that be two?’ The doors closed.
They laughed.
‘Another EDP for the HPD,’ said Danny. An EDP was an Emotionally Disturbed Person. The HPD was the Department of Housing Preservation and Development – one of their jobs was to give out Section 8 housing subsidies.
‘Let’s send him into Internal Affairs, let him tell them they’re fucked,’ said Danny.
‘I’d like him to come up with a whole jingle for that,’ said Joe.
Sixteen detectives worked in three teams out of Manhattan North Homicide, a modern open plan space with a small glass-walled office in the corner, shared by the sergeant and the lieutenant. The NYPD was one of the only law enforcement agencies in the country whose officers weren’t put through regular fitness checks, leaving Sergeant John Rufo free to work his way up to 230 pounds and into his current predicament of trying to work his way back down.
‘Your mental agility is being impaired,’ he said, pointing at Joe and Danny with something beige speared on a fork.
‘Is that tofu?’ said Danny.
‘No it is not tofu. It is marinated steamed chicken. Tofu. Gimme a break.’
Joe and Danny exchanged glances.
‘It’s eleven o’clock in the morning,’ said Danny.
‘Eat little and often,’ said Rufo. ‘Them’s the rules.’ He pointed to his plate. ‘Vegetables, protein …’
‘Yeah, boss,’ said Danny. ‘Tomato sauce, meatballs: I got it covered already.’
‘How do you stay so trim?’ said Rufo.
‘You mean, “Have I been working out?”’ said Danny.
Rufo rolled his eyes. Then poked his fork through his salad. ‘Who’s up today?’
‘Me,’ said Joe. ‘And I eat well, by the way.’
‘You gotta watch that French food,’ said Rufo, looking up at him. ‘It’s tasty …’ he raised a finger in warning, ‘… because it’s rich. Your wife is genetically wired for it. You might not be. You’re in shape now, but who knows down the line …’
Joe laughed. ‘Yeah, Sarge, thanks for looking out for me.’
‘A varied diet,’ said Rufo, ‘that’s what—’
The phone interrupted him. ‘Ruthie, yeah – put him through.’ He nodded. ‘How you doing? OK. Yeah. OK.’ He listened, then scribbled on a notebook in front of him. ‘Right away. Detectives Joe Lucchesi and Danny Markey. Yeah. Uh-huh. Take care.’ He put down the phone. ‘Gentlemen, we have a homicide on West 84th Street. Here’s the address. Guy found in his apartment.’ He ripped out the page and handed it to Joe. ‘The Two-Oh is at the scene already.’
Joe and Danny crossed Broadway to the parking lot under the railway bridge.
‘Who says “trim”?’ said Danny.
‘People who aren’t,’ said Joe.
‘It’s unbelievable,’ said Danny, ‘we get sucked into food talk every time we go in his office. I wind up starving.’ Danny was short, wiry and had no extra weight. He’d been wearing the same suit size since he was eighteen. He had pale skin and fading freckles, light brown hair and blue eyes. Joe was six-three, dark and broad.
Joe stopped. ‘Aw, shit …’
‘What?’ said Danny.
‘Would you look at that?’ Joe walked over to a silver Lexus. ‘That fucking shit.’ He pulled his keys out of his pocket and opened the door of his car, popping the glove box. He took out a cloth and started rubbing at a lump of tar on his windshield.
‘I’ve a pain in my fucking ass with that crap,’ he said. He looked up at the bridge from where the tar dripped in the heat.
‘Least it was a fresh one,’ said Danny. ‘How come you don’t have the ghetto sled?’ The ghetto sled was a detective’s B-team car, the one he could park two blocks from the projects and not have to worry about.
‘We got a meeting at Shaun’s school today, I’m going straight there. Or at least I would have been. Anna’s going to have to go it alone.’ Shaun was Joe’s eighteen-year-old son.
‘She won’t like that,’ said Danny. ‘What’s he been doing now?’
Joe shook his head. ‘You name it.’
‘He’s been through a lot.’
‘Yeah, but it’s fucking wearing me down. And Anna doesn’t need this kind of shit, going up to the school every month to answer to this asshole teacher fifteen years younger than us.’
‘Shaun’s a good kid,’ said Danny. ‘He’ll be in college next year, you won’t have to worry. Try having four under ten. I love them, but, man …’ He breathed out. ‘Now, come on. Say goodbye to the nice car and get into the shit one.’ There was a pool of five cars at Manhattan North. Any damage during a tour and the driver was left to face a bawling out by Rufo. The newer the car, the more likely Joe would take the wheel. Today, they had the oldest car – a gray Gran Fury; ‘You get a scratch on it, who gives a shit?’ said Danny. They pulled out and joined the traffic heading south on Broadway.
‘Can I ask what happened with Dr Mak?’ said Danny.
Joe grunted. ‘I staggered in, I got more Vicodin, I walked out.’
‘That’s it?’
‘That’s it,’ said Joe.
‘You mean that’s all you let it be, right?’
‘Who are you? Psych services?’
Danny ignored him. ‘I’m guessing you went in, told him you were real busy, just needed a prescription, gotta go.’
‘What else am I going to do?’ said Joe.
‘Let him treat you,’ said Danny.
Joe had TMD – Temporo Mandibular Joint Dysfunction. The least it would do was make his jaw crackle when he opened his mouth, the worst – spark excruciating pain all over his head. For years, Danny had watched him pop over-the-counter painkillers and decongestants. He’d recently moved on to Vicodin.
‘It’s getting worse,’ said Danny.
‘Yeah, so are you.’ Joe turned away. Yesterday’s phone call had jerked him back too far – to events he had spent wasted months trying to forget: the botched rescue of an eight-year-old kidnap victim and the near-destruction of his family. The little girl had been returned to her heartbroken mother and the two clung to each other, happily, desperately. Seconds later, the scene turned to graphic, bloody images he still couldn’t shake – the kidnapper had blown them up in retaliation for calling the cops. Joe confronted him moments later and pumped six bullets into his chest. His name was Donald Riggs.
After the case, Anna wanted Joe to take time out. She was offered a job in Ireland and they went with Shaun. After eight great months, everything went wrong. Donald Riggs had an associate – Duke Rawlins – a killer he had spent years on a murderous spree with, someone who wouldn’t let Riggs’ death go unavenged. Fresh from a maximum security prison, he had caught up with Joe and tried to destroy his family. During their time in Ireland, Shaun’s girlfriend, Katie, had been murdered. Shortly after, Rawlins had abducted Anna and left her so physically and mentally scarred, she struggled every day to get past it.
They pulled up by the patrol car outside the apartment block on West 84th Street. A well-dressed couple stood under the green and gold awning, aware something was going on, but more concerned about where they were going for brunch. The doorman inside was a neatly groomed older man with a mustache and a badge that read ‘Milton’.
‘Terrible,’ was all he said, shaking his head, gesturing with a white gloved hand to the elevators.
‘Has someone spoken with you yet?’ said Danny.
Milton nodded.
‘All right,’ said Danny. ‘We’ll be back down to you in a little while.’
‘Why were you shouting at him?’ said Joe when they got into the elevator.
‘Didn’t he look a little deaf to you?’
Joe raised his eyes to the ceiling. They got out at the third floor and walked down a gray tiled hallway to apartment 3E. A detective in a navy blue suit walked out, his eyes on the notebook in his left hand. His right hand was pressed to his stomach. He turned slowly their way. Danny and Joe made their introductions.
‘Tom Blazkow from the Two-Oh,’ he said. The twentieth precinct covered everywhere from 59th Street to 86th Street, west of Central Park. Blazkow was in his mid-forties and bulked-up, with a gray buzzcut, a massive jaw and bloodshot blue eyes. He turned to the detective walking out of the apartment behind him.
‘This is my partner, Denis Cullen.’
They all nodded. Cullen was in his early fifties and dressed in a limp brown suit and a tie from a bowling league with a stars-and-stripes pin. He had pale red hair thinning on top and broken veins across his nose and cheeks. He looked eager, but worn out.
‘So what have we got?’ said Joe.
Blazkow spoke. ‘Ethan Lowry, graphic designer, DOB 04/12/71, married with a young daughter. 911 got a call from his diet delivery people. Every morning, they bring his meals for the day. He didn’t open the door. First time in eleven months he didn’t. Delivery guy saw a drop of blood in the hallway, got a bad smell.’ He pointed to a pale, wheezing teenager. ‘The two uniforms tried the bell, banged on the door, no answer, went around the back, climbed up the fire escape, couldn’t see nothing through the window, so they called ESU. Body was right inside the front door. No sign of forced entry. Balcony door was locked. No response from the wife’s cell phone. We got a uniform down by the elevators. He knows who to look out for. You’re going to have to knock.’ He pointed to the apartment. ‘Careful going in. You might slip on a chunk of face.’
Joe reached into his jacket pocket for a handkerchief and a small bottle of aftershave. He shook some drops onto the white cotton and held it to his nose, taking in a few deep breaths. He knocked on the door and they walked carefully into the apartment. Ethan Lowry lay on his back, naked, his body pressed up against the baseboard behind the door. His arms were stretched out above him. His head was turned to the right, but there wasn’t much of a face to face that way. Ethan Lowry had been savagely beaten, more blows than were needed to kill someone who had clearly been finished off with a bullet. The damage was entirely to his face. Where the skin wasn’t plumped up and tight, it was pulped. His nostrils were plugged with dried blood.
‘What’s in his mouth?’ said Danny.
‘His mouth,’ said Joe.
‘Aw, Jesus,’ said Danny, leaning in closer. Lowry’s mouth looked like it had been turned inside out. It covered his whole chin and left side of his face like raw meat. Only one tooth was visible. The rest were hidden under the swollen mess, broken or lying alone on the floor beside numbered evidence cards. Joe sucked in a breath. The skin was split at Lowry’s left eye socket where a gun had been fired point-blank.
‘Hey,’ said Danny to Kendra, a smiley, bulky crime scene technician, who was squatting on the floor beside him.
‘Hey, Joe, Danny. I’m having an MTV Cribs moment. Here is the hallway. And this is where the magic happened. See all this?’ She gestured around the body and in an arc above it. ‘We’ve got expirated mist on the floor, on the wall. We’ve got cast-off blood on the ceiling. We’ve got it all basically. Over there we’ve got high-velocity spatter from the gunshot wound. Small caliber.’ She shook her head.
‘And—’
‘God bless you, but God slow you down too,’ said Joe. ‘Just give us a moment.’
‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘I get so—’
‘Cheery,’ said Danny.
Kendra turned to him. ‘I love my job,’ she said. ‘And if that’s an emotion that for some reason confuses you …’ She shrugged.
‘How could you not love this?’ said Danny, pointing to the body. Beside Lowry’s head was a black, blood-streaked cordless phone. Joe put on a glove, picked it up and hit the dialled calls button.
‘Someone was alive in here last night at 10.58 p.m.,’ said Joe. He took down all the incoming and outgoing calls.
‘Let me call Martinez,’ said Joe. ‘Unless you’d like to.’ He smiled. The year before, on his year out, Aldos Martinez filled in as Danny’s partner. Now, with Martinez’s partner, Fred Rencher, they made up the D team at Manhattan North, the only four-man team.
‘Hey, Martinez, it’s Joe. Do me a favor – could you do a victimology on an Ethan Lowry, 1640 West 84th Street, DOB 04/12/71. Thanks. Great. See you in a little while.’ Joe paused and looked over at Danny. ‘Yeah, he’s here. You need to talk to him?’
Danny shook his head violently.
‘Oh, OK,’ said Joe. ‘See you later.’
‘What did he want?’
‘Just to say he misses you.’
‘Look at this,’ said Danny. He was crouched down beside Lowry’s wrists, pointing with his pen to a series of holes in the floorboards. ‘His arms must have been restrained by something hammered in here. There are two holes on each side of each wrist.’
‘Did you find anything he could have used to do this?’ said Joe to Kendra.
‘Unh-unh,’ she said. ‘Perp’s not going to leave them behind – my guess is they’re his special toys.’
TWO
There were six doors off the hallway in Lowry’s apartment: into two bedrooms and a bathroom on the left; into the kitchen, living room and office on the right. The kitchen was painted citrus lemon with green glossy cabinets and cream worktops – all tidy and undisturbed. The living room had a deep red sofa, wide-screen TV and a pile of children’s toys in one corner. In the other was a yoga mat and two pink dumbbells.
‘I’m not sure any good graphic designer would have been involved in this interior,’ said Joe.
‘Maybe he was a bad graphic designer,’ said Danny. ‘Why do you always make victims nicer or more talented than you actually have any proof they are?’
‘No, I don’t.’
‘When they’re in a nice house, you do.’
‘Yeah, well they’re hardly ever in a nice house, so that’s bullshit,’ said Joe. ‘They’re decomposing on the bare springs of a bed in some skanky crack den or some place that hasn’t seen a bottle of bleach …’
They walked into Ethan Lowry’s office.
‘This is more like it,’ said Joe. ‘See what I mean? Clean lines.’
‘People love crime shows. People love interior shows. You mix the two, Joe, you got a job for life. Extreme Make-over: Home Invasion Edition. CSI: Brownstone.’
Joe smiled. It encouraged Danny. ‘Detective Joe Lucchesi: investigating your death and your taste. What were your last movements? And why did you choose those drapes with that carpet? Find out after the break. This season, green kitchens are all the rage. Speaking of rage, savage beatings are—’
‘All right, already,’ said Joe. ‘Let me think.’
Ethan Lowry’s office was tidy and minimalist. Across one white wall was a long gray desktop, mounted on steel legs. A twenty-inch flat-screen monitor sat at the center, running the screensaver – a slideshow of Lowry’s family photos. Joe hadn’t set his up on his laptop yet, because he couldn’t think of anything he wanted to be reminded of. He paused in front of this happy montage of a dead man’s life. From the photos and the food deliveries, it was clear that Ethan Lowry had worked hard to slim down. The new, lighter body he had fought for was sad and pointless, lying in a pool of blood by his front door. The camera, a professional digital SLR, was on a low table to the right, beside two tall stacks of clear plastic drawers. Joe pulled a few of them open: receipts, paperclips, rubber bands, stamps.
‘Look,’ he said to Danny, ‘he was a good designer.’ The bottom drawer was filled with design awards that were gathering dust. ‘And,’ said Joe, ‘he was obviously modest enough not to display them. Which would lead me to believe he might have been quite a nice guy.’
Danny rolled his eyes.
Underneath the desk, the cables that ran from the computer, the printer, the disk drive and the lamp were grouped together neatly with cable ties and ended in plugs with icons. On the floor beside a well-made single bed in the corner was a pair of navy track pants, with a white T-shirt and a pair of white jersey boxer shorts thrown on top. A bunch of letters addressed to Ethan Lowry in girlie script and tied with rubber bands lay beside them. A seventeen-inch PowerBook was on top of the bed, its tiny white light pulsing. Beside it was a remote control vibrator and a short, stiff leather whip. Joe lifted up the screen of the laptop, which quickly flashed up a series of images from soft-porn DVD covers; oiled, topless men in jeans bearing down on tiny, lost blondes. Huge-breasted lesbian liplocks, cheerleaders, repairmen, soldier girls, soldier boys, police officers.
‘We’re a few shy of the Village People,’ said Danny, moving up beside him.
‘Tame,’ said Joe.
‘He’s no Marv.’ Marvin was one of the first dead bodies they had to guard as rookies, a morbidly obese victim of his own eating habits. All he had in his apartment when they found him was a tower of Krispy Kreme boxes, a mountain of crispy Kleenex and the sickest collection of amateur porn that Joe or Danny had ever admitted to seeing.
They moved into the master bedroom. Another tidy space, with a queen-sized bed and a pale green satin throw folded over the bottom half.
‘I wish Gina would let me have a bed this easy to climb into,’ said Danny. ‘Instead of taking a hundred fucking pillows out of the way first. Does that make sense to you ever, why women do that?’
‘No.’
There were books and bottles of water on each nightstand, some headache pills and a bracelet on the wife’s side, a wallet and a watch on the husband’s side. There was a chair in the corner with a pair of jeans and a gray sweatshirt on it. Up a step on the left-hand side of the room was a raised dressing area that appeared to be Mrs Lowry’s domain and the most disturbed by the attack. There was makeup, shoes, belts and bags everywhere. In a corner, two linen baskets were stuffed and spilling over with clothes, a suitcase lay half unpacked, the dressing table was covered with hair products and more makeup. A small stool was upturned on the floor. Joe studied the room for several minutes before deciding the perp hadn’t made it in here. It looked more like a case of opposites attract.
Joe took notes of where he needed photographs to be taken and checked with Kendra when he got back to the hallway. He drew a sketch of the apartment, marking in the smallest of details.
After three hours, everyone was winding down and heading back to the twentieth precinct.
‘What do you think?’ said Danny as they got into the car.
‘Well, it’s not a burglary,’ said Joe.
‘Yeah, with the wallet just lying around—’
‘Two wallets,’ said Joe.
‘What?’
‘Yeah. In the hallway, the little table was knocked over. There’s a kind of bashed-up wallet there. And a new one.’
‘Both the vic’s?’ said Danny.
‘Both have his cards in it. And money.’
‘Yeah and then the expensive watch on the nightstand and shit …’ said Danny.
‘With the computer and the sex toys and the naked body, it could be something sexual.’
Danny nodded. ‘Do you think maybe he had something going on on the side? Blazkow said the wife was in Jersey with her ma for the night.’
Joe nodded. ‘I’d say yeah.’
He took out his cell phone. He had eight missed calls. Six were from Anna: one voicemail, four hang-ups and a final voicemail:
‘Asshole.’
With her accent, Joe liked when Anna said asshole. He didn’t like the volume, though, and the crash of the phone as she slammed it down. He looked at his watch. He hadn’t made Shaun’s meeting. And he hadn’t called.
‘Shit,’ he said. ‘Shit. I forgot to call Anna.’
‘You’re a dead man,’ said Danny, reversing out of the space. ‘Speaking of dead men, did you hear why Rufo lost all that weight?’
‘No.’
‘His brother died, forty-nine years old, heart attack. Bam. No warning.’
‘Yeah, I remember that.’
‘No, but there’s more. Apparently, at the funeral, Rufo had a few too many and one of the guys heard him tell some old aunt that he didn’t want to go down the same road as his brother because – wait for it – he’d never been in love. Specifically, he’d never found true love.’
‘Rufo?’
‘Yes.’
‘I’m seeing him in a whole new way now.’
‘Yeah,’ said Danny, ‘in soft focus, running through a cornfield.’
‘How long ago was that?’
‘Three years ago.’
‘And we haven’t seen him with a woman yet.’
‘It’s sad. For all of us. He could have kept his fuller figure and we could have been spared the salad, quinoa, couscous talk.’
‘You go ahead in,’ said Joe when they got to the twentieth precinct. He walked past the entrance and called Anna. ‘Hey, honey, I’m sorry. I’m not gonna make—’
‘I know,’ said Anna. ‘Because I’ve already been to the school and now I’m back home.’
‘I caught a homicide. I’ve been tied up, honey. How did it go?’
‘Oh, well the principal was there and she started off by—’
Joe saw Cullen and Blazkow walk from their car into the building. ‘Honey? I’m sorry. I can’t get into the details right now. But did it go OK?’
‘That depends,’ she said stiffly.
‘I gotta go, look, I’m sorry. I’ll call you when I get back to the office, OK? It’ll probably be late. I love you.’
‘I love you too,’ she said, her voice tired.
Joe made his way up to the second-floor office. Everyone was standing around drinking coffee.
‘So what have we got?’ he said.
‘Closed homicide, no witnesses? A bag of shit,’ said Blazkow.
‘Any video?’ said Joe.
‘Not so far,’ said Martinez.
‘Not even from across the street?’ said Joe.
‘Nope.’
‘Not everyone was home in the building,’ said Blazkow. ‘So we’ll see what comes up, but neighbors on either side heard nothing and the doorman didn’t see shit.’
‘What about the wife?’
‘She’s at her ma’s with their kid,’ said Martinez. ‘She was a mess, tried to hold it together for the daughter, but … fuck. I got what I could from her, which was not a lot. She has no idea why this happened. They don’t socialize a lot, they hang out together most of the time.’
‘OK – Rencher, can you pull Lowry’s phone records?’ said Joe. ‘Cullen, could you run the plates of all the cars on the street? Tomorrow, we’ve got the autopsy. When we’ve got an idea of the time of death, we can work out about canvassing the building again.’ He turned to Blazkow. ‘You get anything from BCI or Triple I?’
Anyone who was arrested in New York got a NYSID number – New York State Identification. The Bureau of Criminal Investigations had the records. If Lowry had a criminal record, a phone call to the BCI would have details and a photo. A Triple I check would show if Lowry had an out-of-state record.
‘Nada,’ said Blazkow.
‘OK,’ said Joe.
‘Grab a desk,’ said Blazkow. ‘You want coffee?’
‘Thanks, yeah,’ said Joe. He took off his jacket and sat down. When he looked up, Denis Cullen was standing over him.
‘Uh – Joe? Can I put myself forward for going through the financial records, maybe the phone records?’
Joe laughed. ‘That’s the first time in my life I’ve ever been asked that.’
‘Yeah, well … I guess I’ve kind of got an eye for it.’
By 1 a.m., Joe was slumped in his chair, his fingers stiff from typing. He had crossed the coffee threshold. It was now sending him to sleep. He never realized he was ODing until it was too late.
‘I’m outta here,’ he said, standing up, suddenly.
‘You OK?’ said Danny.
‘I’m tired. I’m going back to the office. You coming?’
‘Sure. You not going home?’
‘Not tonight. Not with the autopsy first thing.’
The dorm in Manhattan North was off the locker room and had four metal beds with thin mattresses and covers that nobody risked sleeping under. Working the ‘four and two chart’ meant four days on, two days off. The first two tours were 4 p.m. to 1 a.m., the last two were 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. The turnaround tour ended at 1 a.m. and was followed by an 8 a.m. start. Most detectives stayed in the dorm on those nights or at least told their wives they did. Anna didn’t like being alone at night any more, so Joe had been coming home; because they lived in Bay Ridge, he didn’t have far to go. But the first few nights on a major case, she wouldn’t expect to see him. He called her anyway.
‘Sweetheart, it’s me again. I’m staying at the office tonight.’
‘I know,’ said Anna.
‘Well, it’s just I hadn’t said, so I thought—’
‘It’s fine. Don’t worry.’
‘Will you be OK? Is Shaun home?’
‘No. But he’ll be back.’
‘What happened at the school?’
‘Well, the principal was very nice. I think she likes Shaun, but understands he’s … changed. She said he’s been rude and uncooperative.’
‘That’s the French blood.’
Anna laughed. ‘Yes. His falling grades they’ve put down to the American.’
Joe laughed. ‘They said the same thing about his charm and his looks.’
‘And low self-esteem …’
‘What was the bottom line?’ said Joe.
‘Just that they will give him a chance to improve. They think he’s tired in class, staying out too late and—’
‘Did they give us a hard time?’
‘They didn’t have to say a word.’
‘Look, are you sure you’re going to be OK tonight? Would you like me to get Pam to come over and stay?’
Pam was his father Giulio’s second wife.
‘Pam?’ said Anna. She laughed. ‘Yeah, babysitting by a woman the same age as me … who is my mother-in-law.’
‘Step.’
‘Whatever.’
‘It wouldn’t be babysitting. You could ask her over for a glass of wine and a movie. I’m just trying to help.’
‘Just to remind you – it’s after one in the morning. And I’m OK. Sleep well whenever you get there.’
‘Thanks. I’ll see you—’
‘In a few days. I know.’
‘I love you.’
‘Me too.’
‘Honey?’
‘Yeah?’
‘I love laughing with you.’
‘Me too,’ she said. ‘And Joe?’
‘Yeah?’
‘At least I know you sleep in the dorm.’
‘I wouldn’t want it any other way.’
Anna was right. He did sleep in the dorm. But Gina Markey thought the same thing about Danny.
THREE
Stanley Frayte had an hour to kill before he showed up for work. He drove down Holt Avenue in his white Ford Econoline van stamped with the chunky blue lettering of Frayte Electrical Services. He pulled into the parking lot at the south end of Astoria Park. At 8.30 a.m., it was quieter than it would have been an hour before when the dawn walkers, runners and swimmers were making their way back home to take a shower before work.
He got out of the van and let the cool breeze from the East River raise goosebumps on his bare arms. Where he stood – by the park, under the Triborough Bridge – was Astoria as it had always been to him. On the Shore Boulevard side, the luxury condos that looked over the tennis courts on one side and Manhattan on the other represented change. Like Brooklyn, Astoria had lured people out of the city and was going through the makeover to prove it. Stan liked it all. He was just happy to be anywhere he could feel the sun, look out over beautiful water, walk through the trees, sit on a bench. When it hit 8.50 a.m., he went back to his van.
He drove down 19th Street and pulled into the small parking lot of the apartment building he had been working on for the previous two weeks. He unloaded his equipment and walked up the flagstone path. He stopped halfway and bent down, laying his gear beside him and pulling a penknife from his utility belt. He flipped it open and sliced at a weed that was pushing up through a gap in the cement. June, the receptionist, waved to him from behind the front desk as he walked towards her. He pushed through the front door into the lobby. The smell was lemon disinfectant, rising from the shiny floor tiles. June’s desk was on the left-hand side, a crescent moon that curved towards the door. The walls were pale gold with a cream dado rail that traced around the corner to the elevator bank. Behind the desk, free-standing plastic barriers closed off the corridor to everyone except the construction workers who were renovating that section of the building all the way up to the fourth floor.
‘Hey, Flat Stanley,’ said June, smiling up from her desk. Flat Stanley was a character from a children’s book who in a tragic accident got flattened to 2-D. The Stanley standing in front of June was not flat; he was Stanley with a belly inflated to bursting point. Stan grunted, shifting the utility belt that only ever came to rest under his gut, no matter how high he tried to move it.
‘Anything I need to know?’ he said.
‘Just that Mary Burig on the second floor is going to plant that little strip of flower-bed you’ve been kind enough to lend her.’
‘Mary?’ His face lit up. ‘Today?’
June nodded. ‘Yup.’ She smiled. ‘I think someone has you wrapped around her little finger.’
He frowned. ‘She likes flowers.’
Mary Burig checked her smartphone. It held everything she needed to remember: phone numbers, addresses, bank account details, appointments, shopping lists, birthdays, anniversaries, maps and guides. She spent fifteen minutes tidying her living room, starting by the front door and working clockwise through each corner. She moved into the kitchen and wiped down the surfaces. She was about to unload the dishwasher when the doorbell rang. She jogged back to the front door and opened it.
‘Hi, Magda,’ she said. ‘Come in. I’m working hard here. Tea?’
‘Coffee,’ said Magda, hugging her. ‘Thank you. I can make it.’
Magda Oleszak was in her early fifties, with a healthy glow from eating good food and walking everywhere. She came to New York from Poland with her two teenage children ten years earlier, learned perfect English, but never lost her accent.
‘The place looks great,’ said Magda, walking around as she took off her light vinyl jacket. Upside down and open beside Mary’s bed was Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier.
‘Are you reading Rebecca again?’ said Magda.
‘I know,’ said Mary. ‘It’s cheating because I know it inside out.’
‘It’s not cheating,’ said Magda, turning to her, holding her hands passionately. ‘Don’t ever let me hear you say that again, Mary. It’s beautiful what you and Rebecca have. You are friends for life. She’ll always be with you, won’t she? Or whatever that girl’s name is. Does she have a name? I don’t think she does, does she? I get confused myself, see? I get confused. You don’t. It’s wonderful, Mary. You hang on to that feeling. You remember what Rebecca brought you when you were lying on your bed as a young girl.’
Mary smiled.
‘Now, because we are talking about books,’ said Magda, ‘I have some good news for you. Stan Frayte, you know Stan, is going to do your make-over on the library.
Mary clapped. ‘Cool.’ Then she frowned. ‘So do you think it’ll wind up looking more like a library than a store window?’
‘Nothing is happening with the glass if that’s what you mean. We want to make sure no-one’s making trouble in there.’
‘No-one makes trouble in libraries.’
‘They do, going right to the dirty bits in all those romance novels. Hot throbbing whatever.’
‘Magda!’
Magda laughed.
‘I wish they’d do something about the other windows,’ said Mary. ‘They’re too high up. You can’t see out if you sit down. You’re just staring at a blank wall.’
‘You know what?’ said Magda. ‘I like to think that the reader uses it as a blank screen and they project onto it the world of whatever book they’re reading at that time.’
Mary thought about it. ‘I’ll go with that,’ she said. ‘I like it.’
‘Oh, you want to know how they got the money to do the library? Stan himself. He said he got a discount on some light fixtures for the hallway. I’m not so sure.’
‘That’s so kind,’ said Mary. She paused. ‘There’s something sad about Stan.’
Magda went into the kitchen. ‘You’re out of coffee, Mary.’
‘Oh. I’m sorry.’ She hit Tasks on her phone menu and added coffee to her grocery list.
‘So,’ said Mary, ‘what’s going on?’
‘David’s coming this morning, isn’t he?’
‘Yes,’ said Mary. ‘There’s cake in there. I’m not hungry, but you can help yourself.’
Magda opened the bread bin and pulled out a cake wrapped in aluminum foil. It was covered in mould. She flipped the lid of the bin and threw it inside.
‘Thanks,’ she said, ‘but I’ve eaten.’ She came back into the living room and sat down on the sofa. ‘Will I stay until David comes?’
‘That would be great,’ said Mary. ‘Today is ironing day, so I’m going to start now, if you don’t mind.’
‘Go ahead,’ said Magda.
David Burig was thirty-four years old, looked younger, and spent most of his time dressed in a suit so his staff would take him seriously. He ran a successful catering business he bought after offloading an overvalued software firm nine years earlier.
‘Hello there,’ he said, hugging Mary and kissing her on the cheek.
‘David,’ she said. ‘Yaaay!’
‘If only everyone had that response when they saw me.’
‘Yaaay!’ said Magda.
He laughed. ‘Why thank you, both. I feel very special. So,’ he said to Mary. ‘I believe it’s time for bed.’
Mary frowned. She looked at the clock. ‘But it’s only 10 a.m.!’
He smiled. ‘Flower-beds.’
She shook her head. ‘Is that supposed to be funny?’
‘Yes.’
‘Just because you say so, I’m still not sure that means it is.’
He held his hands up. ‘It actually wasn’t funny at all.’
‘It was dumb,’ said Magda.
‘Worth a try, though,’ said David. ‘Let me go change. And can I ask? What are you wearing?’
‘Do I look nuts?’ said Mary.
‘You look … creative.’
Mary smiled because David did. ‘I thought it was kind of cool.’ She was wearing a pair of orange baggy cotton pants that tapered at the ankle, a green vest and white sneakers.
David laughed and disappeared into the bedroom with his sports bag.
‘OK,’ said Magda. ‘Have you got what you need for gardening?’
Mary pointed to the tools lined up on the table: ‘Two trowels, mat to kneel on, watering can, fork thing … is that everything?’
‘Yes,’ said Magda. ‘There’s a faucet at the back of the building.’
David appeared in a battered pair of jeans, a blue long-sleeved T-shirt and green retro Pumas. ‘Right,’ he said. ‘I am ready to garden. I am proud – no, I’m shocked – to be assisting in such a noble endeavor. Come on, lady in scary pants, let’s go down and bring that dirty brown soil to life.’
‘I’ll take the elevator with you,’ said Magda.
Mary laid down the mat in front of the flower-bed that ran along the edge of the property, fifty feet away from the back of the apartment block. A row of pots filled with chrysanthemums in bright shades of yellow, orange and magenta was lined up against the wall.
‘They’re so beautiful,’ said Mary.
‘They are,’ said David. ‘Stan always sticks with the same color theme, doesn’t he? Just changes the flowers in fall.’
She nodded.
David turned to the bare flower-bed and laughed. ‘Look – he’s marked out where we can plant: the shadiest, quietest corner—’
Mary smiled. ‘In case we do it wrong?’
‘I’d say so.’
‘But I’ve helped him before, he knows I’m good.’
‘You. But not me.’
‘OK,’ said Mary. ‘We need to take the flowers out of the pots, break up the roots gently and plant them here in a pattern.’ She handed him a piece of paper with a rough diagram.
‘That should be easy,’ said David.
Mary knelt down on the mat and started to dig a hole. David tended to the pots, pushing a small trowel into the first one, working it around the roots, pulling the plant free and shaking off the excess soil.
‘Everyone I know is at the office right now,’ he said. ‘Do you know how good that makes me feel?’
Mary smiled. ‘Thanks for helping me.’
‘Helping you? I’m helping myself, here,’ he said. ‘This is therapy. This is what life’s all about. Outdoors, fresh air, office avoidance.’
He spotted a weed, growing by the grass at the edge of the flower-bed. He pulled it out and held it up. ‘Isn’t it funny?’ he said. ‘How easy it is for beauty to attract such ugly, clinging things.’
‘Like the garden in Manderley,’ said Mary.
‘Yes!’ said David. ‘Exactly.’
They worked on, talking and laughing for over an hour. David stopped and watched his little sister, her concentration unwavering, stooped over the bright petals, holding them gently in her tiny hand, pouring her heart into the job.
‘How are you doing?’ he said.
She looked up at him. ‘I guess I’m OK.’
He squeezed her hand. ‘That’s good. That’s good, Mare.’
She smiled. They continued in silence until David stopped again. He looked at her and started a quote from Rebecca: ‘We all of us have our particular devil who rides us and torments us.’
Mary smiled sadly and continued. ‘And we must give battle in the end. We have conquered ours . . .’
David let out a breath. ‘Or so we believe.’
Pulsuz fraqment bitdi.
