The Night Caller (11 page)

Milligan’s Lounge was on West 86th Street, near Columbus and the entrance to Central Park. Theresa Dravic worked at Vale’s Jewelry on Columbus, three blocks away from Milligan’s. More and more, she was walking those three blocks after work.

At quitting time at the large discount jewelry store, she said good-bye to the manager, Harv, and went out into the cold. Though it wasn’t yet Thanksgiving, holiday shopping had increased business. Vale’s had been crowded much of the day and evening with early gift buyers examining, shop-lifting, and sometimes buying jewelry.

The cold felt good to Theresa after the overheated store. Always Harv insisted on turning the thermostat up. Always one employee or another sneaked over and turned it back down. Until Harv had a lockbox installed around it. Now everyone sweltered all day, except Harv.

Theresa was an attractive woman in her forties, with long dark hair and a figure that still caused men to pause and look twice. Bitten by the cold at last, she buttoned her fur-collared coat all the way up and strode past her bus stop toward Milligan’s. She held herself erect as she walked, aware of the male eyes fixed on her. She used to enjoy knowing she was the center of male attention. But it had gotten old, along with her. Like a lot of things.

Once or twice each week she phoned and told her roommate Vera that she’d be working late. But where she went was to Milligan’s, and sat on a bar stool and drank dry white wine because it was a woman’s drink, not an alcoholic’s. She drank the same kind of wine at home, too, from bottles hidden where Vera wouldn’t find them. When she was home and had company and she needed a drink, she’d go into the bathroom, where there was a bottle hidden among the towels in the linen closet.

Sometimes at night she’d sit watching TV, warm and comfortable. Vera, a TWA flight attendant, would be with her if she wasn’t on a date or working a flight out of La Guardia. On top of the TV was a framed photo of Theresa’s daughter Jan, who was in Chicago, a student at Northwestern with an apartment just off campus.

Theresa had plenty to live for and wondered why she wasn’t happy or at least contented. It wasn’t cheap, keeping a daughter in college, which was why she’d taken the job at Vale’s, but she really didn’t mind working. She still missed her husband Vincent, who’d been dead for three years now. But she’d learned to survive without a man. And she loved Jan, who was doing well at school. With Theresa working, there was enough money if they watched how it was spent. So why wasn’t she satisfied with her life? Why did she crave and need and have to go to the bottle?

Usually she drank too much at Milligan’s and left walking unsteadily.

Lately she’d limited herself to three glasses of wine. She’d stopped wondering why she had to go to Milligan’s at least once during the week and usually twice. It wasn’t for the wine. Not since she’d met Chris.

A car slowed and the man driving blatantly leaned down so he could peer out at her, as if she were some kind of hooker. It wasn’t that sort of neighborhood. Didn’t the asshole know any better?

Theresa quickened her pace, gaze locked straight ahead.

“Hey, Terry! Theresa, it’s me, Harv!”

She slowed and turned her head, and saw that the car’s driver was indeed Harv, who must have closed the store early.

“You want a lift, Theresa?”

She shook her head no. “Thanks, but I’m meeting someone.”

He smiled and looked at her as if he didn’t believe her. He was always trying to get in her pants. One of those guys who figured a widow in her forties couldn’t hold out for long.

Horns honked. Harv shrugged, waved, and drove on.

Theresa knew what he was thinking: Maybe next time. Eventually. Inevitably.

There was Milligan’s, half a block ahead. The board out in front said they were serving angel hair pasta tonight. She decided that if Chris wasn’t there, she’d hang around and have supper. She would have wine with her meal.

Then later, as she often did, she’d walk down to the park entrance and venture just slightly inside to sit on her usual bench. There she’d give herself time to recover from her meal and her drink, so she wouldn’t make a fool of herself on the bus. So Vera, if she happened to be home, wouldn’t think she’d had too much to drink.

Then, if she found herself alone, she would relax in front of the TV and have some wine.

And eventually she’d fall asleep.

The days passed while Coop and Deni went over and over what they knew. Coop talked to some of Bette’s friends again and had dinner with the still disconsolate Lloyd Watkins. He found himself liking the young man, wishing again that Bette had lived and might have enjoyed a long marriage and motherhood. A father’s dream for the dead.

Maureen had been stepping up the pressure, calling Coop at odd hours to harangue him and goad him to dig deeper into Bette’s murder, to listen to Deni Green, who in Maureen’s mind had taken on a sagacity and importance far beyond reality. Maureen had begun reading Deni’s novels. Maybe that accounted for her heightened faith in the author’s own detection skills.

When the jangle of the phone by his bed shattered the early morning hours, Coop emerged from sleep assuming Maureen was calling him again.

Then he realized the bedroom was still dark. This was too early even for Maureen to be on the phone.

He dragged the receiver over to him and said hello in a sleep-thickened voice.

“Better get on your horse, Coop.” Deni’s voice. “We got another victim that looks like the work of our killer.”

He blinked and rubbed his eyes, thinking she sounded like a character out of one of her mystery novels. “You found this out on your computer?”

“No. One of my police contacts called to let me know about it.”

Coop came all the way awake and switched on the bedside reading lamp. “You mean this murder was in New York?”

“Yep. Queens. On the campus of a community college out near Nassau County. Security guard came across the dead body of a woman laid out on her back beneath a tree. Her head was resting on one of the larger roots near the trunk as if it were a pillow, and her hair was carefully fanned out like with the other victims.”

“So there’s a police report on this?”

“Not yet. That’s the best part, Coop! Why you and I need to get out there soon as possible and examine the crime scene before the police make their usual dumb assumptions or overlook something like a nearby footprint that doesn’t seem to be connected to the murder.”

“How long ago was this murder?”

“Only hours. That’s what’s great about it. Ann Callahan isn’t even cold yet!”

Coop was surprised Deni already had the victim’s name. Probably Ann Callahan’s family didn’t even know yet that she was dead. Deni’s police contact must be a good one, to pass out that kind of sensitive information. Maybe one who had little choice. There were a lot of questions he wanted to ask Deni, but he knew this wasn’t the time. “You know the exact location?”

“You bet I do.”

“I’ll get dressed,” Coop said, “then swing by and pick you up outside your apartment.”

“Don’t loaf on me, Coop. This murder’s a lucky break for us. We should make the most of it.”

“I won’t be long. Keep in mind I was sound asleep only a few minutes ago.” He scooted sideways, then stood up from the bed as he spoke.

“Hurry!” Deni pleaded. “I’ve never been to a homicide scene and I want to get there before they move the body. Maybe I can even see the fatal wounds. You think that’s possible?”

“It’s possible,” Coop said, and hung up on her, disgusted.

The sun had been up only minutes when Coop and Deni reached the community college. Ann Callahan’s murder had taken place near the edge of the campus. Coop peered through the windshield and saw yellow police scene tape near some trees, and a knot of figures standing motionless around something on the ground. In the diffused, early morning light, the scene was hazy and unreal. He wished he were dreaming, but he knew he wasn’t. The figures in the scene were real, all right, and were mostly cops. And the object on the ground was a dead woman.

“Park there, near that bus stop,” Deni said, pointing through the windshield.

Coop braked and pulled to the curb beyond the bus stop sign, parking behind an ambulance. The emergency vehicle’s parking lights were on, but not its flashing roof-bar lights. The emergency here was over. A white cloud of exhaust from a car engine drifted to the side up ahead on the cold breeze. Coop glimpsed a police cruiser parked in front of the ambulance. He was glad the bus stop was there to prevent solid parking along the curb. An unbroken line of parked cars might have prevented him from noticing the somber scene beneath the trees.

Coop and Deni climbed out of the Honda and walked toward the knot of people gathered like early mourners around the body. The wind was blowing in off the campus, seeming to carry the scent of death and causing Coop to turn up the collar of his black topcoat. His throat was raw. He wasn’t feeling terrific this morning and didn’t like being up so early. Especially to visit a homicide scene.

A few of the people around the body had noticed their approach and were watching them.

Coop looked over at Deni, who was staring straight ahead intently, her chin thrust forward.

“We’re going to play this low-key,” he told her. “It doesn’t take much for two civilians nosing around a murder case to be cut out of the loop by the police. We need to keep our lines of communication open.”

Deni snorted, her fogged breath streaming from her nostrils in a way that reminded Coop of cartoon bulls about to charge. “I’m the one with the line of communication here. It was my informant who called me on a cell phone less than an hour after the body was discovered.”

“Don’t mention that to anyone here other than me,” Coop said.

“You think I’m stupid?” Deni asked.

“No. I think you’re too clever.”

When they got to within about twenty feet of the body, one of the figures standing over it detached itself from the group and advanced to head them off while the others resumed talking among themselves. They would allow anyone only so close to the frozen zone, cop talk for a crime scene that needed to be preserved.

The man who approached was stocky, with thinning, rust-colored hair and a broad, weathered face. Though he was wearing a tan raincoat buttoned to the neck, his brown pants and black cop’s shoes splattered with mud told Coop he was police and had been a while on the scene.

“Sorry,” he said with a reluctant smile, “no media allowed.”

“We’re not media,” Coop said, before Deni could answer and seize control of the conversation. “I’m Ezekiel Cooper, used to be with the NYPD.”

The man sniffed several times as if he had a cold. “Used to be?”

Coop noticed that his eyes were red and swollen, either from the cold or lack of sleep. “I’m retired,” Coop told him, “working independently on my daughter’s murder.”

The stocky cop’s expression softened. “You’re Lieutenant Cooper. I remember you from a long time ago at the Two-Four Precinct. You and Art Billard partnered in a patrol car.”

“You know Billard?” Coop asked.

“Sure.”
Sniff, sniff.
“Haven’t seen him in a while though. I’m Don Quinones, got the squeal on this one.” He shook hands with Coop, then looked at Deni.

“Deni Green,” Coop said. “Partner of mine.”

Quinones nodded at Deni, who smiled at him.

“I read about what happened to your daughter,” Quinones said to Coop. “Heard you were working the case as a civilian. Can’t blame you for that. You think there’s some connection between this murder and your daughter’s?”

“It’s possible. Mind if we get closer?”

“C’mon, Lou,” Quinones said. He sniffed and led the way toward Ann Callahan’s body.

They ducked beneath the crime scene tape, but Quinones stopped them about ten feet away from the corpse. “The lab guys are still looking at the area immediately around her,” he explained. “We don’t wanna stomp around there.”

“You guys were all standing around her,” Deni noted.

“We figured out where to step.”

“Are there any footprints?” Deni asked.

Quinones looked at her. “Not that we can see so far. The grass was dry, and we haven’t had rain or snow for a while so the ground is hard.”

Coop stared at Ann Callahan’s corpse, the way it was laid out on the ground, the head resting on the tree root as if it were on a pillow, her red hair fanned out in a perfect, unbroken crescent. She was fully clothed, still wearing a gray coat with a white leather collar. There was a small dark stain near the pelvic area the coat covered. The coat wasn’t twisted or bunched. Coop guessed she’d been moved, arranged carefully after her murder. Her hands were folded just beneath her breasts. Her eyes were closed. She’d obviously been attractive when alive, but didn’t seem to bear any resemblance to Bette or to Marlee Clark. Yet something about her in a subtle way reminded Coop of when he’d found Bette dead in the cottage, and of the crime scene photos of Marlee Clark’s body. There was an odd peacefulness about the dead woman, Coop thought. Someone had cared. The same someone who had killed.

“How did she die?” he asked Quinones.

“ME suspects she was knocked unconscious first, then stabbed in the back with a long, thin blade that pierced her heart. Gotta wait for the autopsy to confirm, though.”

“Sure,” Coop said, glancing again at the bloodstain on the victim’s coat, wondering if it signified what he couldn’t mention because he wasn’t supposed to know it. “What
do
you know about her?”

“Only what we found in her wallet, which was still in her purse and still contained thirty dollars. Robbery didn’t seem to be the motive here.”

“That doesn’t surprise me.”

“We learned from her wallet ID that her name’s Ann Callahan, twenty-nine years old, address in Flushing. And at this point that’s about all we know about her. The ME’s guess is she was killed sometime before midnight last night. Security guard found her about four this morning and called us. Oh, one other thing we know about her is she wasn’t registered as a student here. The admissions office has already checked for us on their computer databases.” Quinones looked at Deni, then Coop. “Any of this help you?”

“It might,” Deni said.

That wasn’t what Quinones wanted to hear. Coop knew it was time to be honest with the man, especially if they wanted more information on the Ann Callahan case.

“Here’s how it might,” he said. He told Quinones what they’d learned since Bette’s murder.

Quinones listened quietly, then excused himself and blew his nose four times into a handkerchief. He shook his head and frowned to express his discomfort and the misery of the world in general, then folded the handkerchief and stuffed it into a side pocket of his raincoat. “You sure got a lotta maybes.”

“I know,” Coop said. “That’s why we’re here. It’d help if you found anything tying this in with the other homicides.”

“Especially a matching footprint,” Deni said.

“Gimme your number,” Quinones told Coop. “I’ll share with you what I can. It’s gotta run both ways though.”

“You’ll get what we have. And you can always check with Billard. He’ll be up to date.”

Quinones tore a sheet of paper from a small leather-bound notebook and handed it and a pen to Coop, who wrote down his name and phone number, then gave them to Quinones. He didn’t give Deni a chance to write her name and number, knowing it might be an affront to Quinones. This wasn’t your usual arrangement between cop and civilian. Deni wasn’t and never had been a cop. Coop knew it and didn’t want to have to say it. Quinones could probably guess it anyway.

“I’ll give you a call sometime after the autopsy report,” he told Coop. He shook hands with both Coop and Deni, then turned back toward the body beneath the leafless tree.

As Coop and Deni trudged back toward Coop’s Honda, Deni said, “We didn’t learn a hell of a lot by coming here, other than we both better wash our hands when we get home. Quinones has a god-awful cold.”

“Except for the part about the cold, I can’t agree with you,” Coop said. “We learned weapon and cause of death, approximate time of death, and that the victim probably wasn’t sexually molested or mutilated. And there was something about the way she was laid out, the way her body was arranged…. It reminded me of when I found Bette.”

Deni was silent for half a dozen steps, then said, “That
is
something.”

When Coop dropped her off at her apartment, she climbed out of the car, then turned and leaned down so she could speak to him. “I’ll call and let you know what the police come up with, long before you hear from Quinones.”

“It won’t hurt to hear it twice and compare it,” Coop said. He doubted Deni’s police contact was in tight enough to know about the plastic St. Augustines, or if he did know, he was too smart to pass on the information to her. Coop sure as hell wasn’t going to tell her.

“I’m glad we drove out there this morning,” Deni told him, then straightened up, shut the car door, and strode toward her building entrance.

Coop wasn’t sure he was glad. He kept seeing again the woman lying peacefully on her back beneath the dormant, skeletal tree. The tree would be rejuvenated with spring. The woman would remain dead forever.