The Shadow Killer (2 page)

She's my age, but tonight, with her blond hair tied up in a ponytail and her runner's body in a tank top and shorts, she looks about seventeen. Nova never wears makeup. She doesn't need to. Her skin is creamy and taut, and her eyes are the intense blue of an Alpine sky. Her steady gaze has rescued me more than once over the years.

Nova is not easily rattled, but she can't take her eyes off whatever's on her computer screen.

“Look at this.” She points to an email.

I lean over her shoulder and read the words aloud. “
For all of us, being dead would
be better than living with him. When Charlie
said ‘no man is a man until his father dies,'
I knew what I had to do.
”

“No name,” she says. “Just an email address. [email protected].”

There's a coldness in the pit of my stomach. After ten years, I can tell when someone is about to cross the blood-red line. I keep my voice even.

“Did I say that?”

Nova's fingernails are already chewed to the quick, but she slides what remains of her thumbnail into her mouth and nods.

“You did. I checked through the tapes for the last six weeks and found the exact words.” She adjusts the elastic on her ponytail. “The topic was guilt. The caller's name was Brian, and he was beating himself up because his father died, and all he felt was relief.”

“I remember,” I say. “That voice is pretty hard to forget. Brian sounded as if he was being torn apart by the hounds of hell.”

“It wasn't any easier listening to him the second time,” Nova says dryly. “I jotted down the key points of your conversation.” She picks up a scratch pad and begins reading. “Brian said, ‘A man's supposed to cry for his father, but I can't cry. I just keep feeling relieved that he's finally gone.' You tried a couple of approaches, but you weren't connecting. Finally, you reached into your Tickle Trunk of a brain and came up with something that worked. ‘Fathers cast long shadows,' you said. ‘It's easy to get lost in them.'”

“That's when Brian started listening,” I said. “I told him about an article I'd read. The writer believed fathers become an audience of one for their sons.”

Nova reads from her scratch pad.

“‘Fathers teach their sons how to throw a ball, and then they watch and cheer. A boy grows up knowing that his dad's always going to be in the stands, watching.'”

“Which is great unless the boy becomes a man who is still always trying to please that audience of one,” I say.

“And that's where the fatal quote came in.” Nova consults her scratch pad again and reads. “‘The son who is always trying to please his father will never be a man until the father dies.'”

I rub the back of my neck. The aspirin has not yet worked its magic. I watch Nova's face carefully.

“Would you interpret that as me giving someone license to kill his father?”

Nova's smile is thin.

“No. I'd interpret that as you telling Brian that he isn't a monster—that other people have reacted to a father's death the way he has. But people hear what they want to hear.”

“And loser1121 wanted to hear that he'd be justified in killing his father.”

Nova's face is tense. “Not just his father. The email reads ‘
For all of us
, being dead would be better than living with him.' Charlie, I think loser1121 is planning to kill everyone in his family, including himself.”

I feel as if someone just dropped a large barbell on the back of my neck.

“So where do we go from here?” I say.

“Your decision,” Nova says. “Since I came to work tonight, I've had two hangups. I usually take that as an indication the caller wants to talk to you.” Her brow furrows. “Do you think it's time to alert the police?”

I shrug. “We might as well cover our asses. But I can tell you right now what they'll say. ‘The World According to Charlie D' is broadcast coast to coast. All we have is an email address. Loser1121 could be anywhere. No police force in the country has the time or the resources to search for a needle in a haystack. Then they'll say we have to get loser1121 to call in so we can either talk him down or trace the call.” I rub my skull and wince.

Nova narrows her eyes. “Your Father's Day headache started early this year,” she says. “While we're on the subject… your father called. He's across the street at Nighthawks
.
He wants to come over after the show and take you for coffee.”

“Not going to happen,” I say.

After ten years together, Nova and I know each other's stories. Her mother died of cancer when Nova was five. She had two younger sisters. Her father ran the farm, cooked, ironed the girls' church dresses, and when the time came, he sat them down with a box of sanitary napkins and explained menstruation. When he died at fifty-two, he left behind three smart, self-reliant young women who still mourn him.

Nova's eyes search my face. Clearly, she's concerned about what she sees. “I have something for you,” she says. “I was going to give it to you after the show, but you look as if you could use it now.” She reaches into her backpack and takes out an eight-by-ten-inch photograph of her year-old daughter, Lily. Lily is wearing overalls and blowing the fluff off the dandelion she's clutching in her hand.

I look at the photo for a long time.

“She is so beautiful,” I say.

“Agreed,” Nova says. “Medical student number seven must have been a hunk. First time at the sperm bank, and I hit the jackpot.”

“Don't sell yourself short,” I say. “Lily's like you in many ways.”

The picture has been professionally framed. To set off the photograph, Nova chose a navy mat that matches Lily's overalls. There are tiny white handprints on the navy mat.

“How did you get Lily's handprints on there?” I ask.

Nova rolls her eyes.

“With white paint and great difficulty,” she says. “There's a verse on the back, but don't read it while I'm around. I don't want to watch your opinion of me take a nosedive.”

She glances at the big clock above the glass that faces my studio. “Two minutes to air,” she says. “There are some notes for the opening on your screen. I'll call the police, but I think you're right about their response. They'll need more to go on, and we're the only ones who can get it. I'm going to answer loser1121's email—urge him to give us a call on air or off. But, Charlie, you'll have to be the point guy on this.”

I nod agreement. “And I'll have to tread lightly. This guy is hanging on by his toenails. The last thing we want to do is freak him out.”

I pass from the bright light of the control room into the dark coolness of my studio. I slide into my seat at the desk and pick up my earphones. Nova's notes for the intro are on my computer screen, but I don't read them. I turn over the photograph she gave me and read the verse written on the back.

You sometimes get discouraged because I am
so small

And always get my fingerprints on furniture
and wall.

So here's a final handprint so that you
can recall

How very much I loved you when my hands
were just this small.

My throat closes. When we're at our desks, Nova and I communicate through hand signals and our talkback microphone. I don't trust my voice, so I give Nova the thumbs-up.

She leans forward and switches on her talkback. “Don't get emotional,” she says. “It was either you or medical student number seven.” Her tone is ironic, but her crooked grin would melt a heart harder than mine. She holds up five fingers and counts down. We're on the air.

CHAPTER THREE

O
ur theme music, “Ants Marching” by the Dave Matthews Band, comes up. When the music fades, it's my turn.

There's an old joke: “He has a great face for radio.” In my case, it's true. I started doing radio because it allowed me to be somebody I wasn't. Like everyone in my business, I've developed a voice that works for my audience. Charlie D's voice is deep, intimate and confiding—the voice of the man women want to go home with them after midnight. The voice of the man other men wish they could be.

It was a kick when the fan mail started. Reading that a woman found listening to my voice like being bathed in dark honey was an ego boost. But when people began to write that my voice was all that got them through the night, I knew that “The World According to Charlie D” wasn't about me. That's when I started taking the show seriously.

I glance at my computer screen. Most nights Nova sketches out an intro for me, but loser1121 has distracted her. Always professional, she's left me some Internet quotes about fatherhood to riff on.

My eyes scan the page. Bill Cosby says,
Fatherhood is pretending the present you love
most is soap-on-a-rope
. The philosopher Friedrich Nietzche gives wise counsel:
When one has not had a good father, one must
create one.
Spike Milligan is provocative:
My
father had a profound influence on me—he was
a lunatic.
There are other quotes, but until the second page, the pickings are slim.

Midway down page two, there's a tasty morsel from Anonymous.
A man's desire
for a son is nothing but the wish to duplicate
in order that such a remarkable pattern may
not be lost to the world.
I read the quote again. Anonymous seems to have hit on yet another reason why I was such a disappointment to my father.

The final quote on the page is dynamite.
Those who have never had a father never
know the sweetness of losing one. To most men,
the death of the father is a new lease on life…
Samuel Butler.

I know nothing about Samuel Butler, but Google will. I type in his name. There are pages of information, but one fact leaps out at me: Sam was born on December 5, 1835. My birthday is December 5, 1978. Sam and I are birthday twins. And another coincidence: Sam and I both came up with snake-eyes when we rolled the dice in the great Daddy crapshoot.

The music of Dave and his band fades. Time for me to get to work. I lean into my mike and crank up the energy.

“It's June
20
th—Father's Day weekend. Time
to reward Dad for services rendered. And there's
the rub. When it comes to dads, it's not one-size-fits-
all. If your dad's like Ward Cleaver on the
old sitcom
Leave It to Beaver
, he deserves the
full treatment—a snappy golf shirt, an industrial-
sized bottle of Old Spice, a monogrammed
tie and a chocolate cake with
World's Best Dad
spelled out in Smarties on the icing. If your
dad's more along the lines of Homer Simpson
or the Family Guy, he'll welcome a six pack and
something to incinerate on the barbecue.

“Of course, there are Dad-zillas who don't
deserve gifts. In the Greek myth, Kronos ate his
own children. No soap-on-a-rope for Kronos.
And no A&W Papa Burger for Abraham—who
had the knife sharpened to kill his son Isaac,
until a ram got his horns stuck in a bush and
gave Abraham an option.

“We don't choose our fathers. The biggest
lottery any of us will ever be involved in is the
one in which the sperm swims over and knocks
on the door of the egg. The moment the egg
decides to let Mr. Wiggles in, our life is decided
.

“So how did you make out in the Daddy
Derby? Did you get a thoroughbred? A plug?
A skittish dad who never came out of the gate?
Or did you get a dad who streaked out of the
gate and never came back? Our lines are open.
Give me a call at
1-800-555-2333
or email me at
[email protected].”

I lower my voice to a level that is intimate and inviting.
“Here's a message for one
special caller. You sign yourself loser1121, but
you're not a loser, and you're not alone. Many
or us have learned that Father doesn't always
know best. Give yourself a chance. Don't do
anything you can't undo. We need to talk. On
air or off, your choice—but talking will help.”

Time to move the show along. I pick up the energy.
“And now here's Harry Chapin
with ‘Cat's in the Cradle,' a song about a man
who discovers too late that fathers pay a price
for being too busy for their sons.”

Harry Chapin's voice is gentle and tuneful. I open up the talkback. “Anything from loser1121?”

Nova shakes her head. “Nope, but there is news. Which do you want first—the good or the bad?”

“Hit me with the good stuff.”

“Aldo just called—Ruby's in hard labor. With luck, the baby will be born when we're on the air.”

I feel a jolt of pure joy. I never used to think about the future, but since Nova gave birth to Lily, I think about it a lot. Aldo has been the technician on “The World According to Charlie D” since we started, so this baby will be family. “Everybody okay?” I say.

“So far, so good,” Nova replies. “I talked to Ruby. The contractions are three minutes apart. She and I agree that on the utterly unbearable pain scale, childbirth is right up there with a Brazilian bikini wax.”

“What's a Brazilian bikini wax?”

Nova's mouth twitches. “Tell you after the show.” The fun goes out of her face. “And while we're on the subject of utterly unbearable pain, our first caller tonight is Evan Burgh. There were ten people ahead of him, but, as he reminded me, he does own the network.”

“And our show can be replaced,” I say.

Nova's lips are tight. “I believe that possibility was mentioned.” Her eyes meet mine. “Charlie, don't take on Evan Burgh. He's a snake, and a lot of people count on you.”