The Caller

FOUR

The body of Ethan Lowry was laid out on the perforated surface of a stainless steel table in the basement of the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner. A body block lay under his back, forcing out his trunk that had been emptied of its organs. A handwritten, bloodstained list with their weights lay by the scales.

Joe and Danny were dressed in scrubs, gowns and gloves, with face masks hanging around their necks. Joe’s digital camera and notebook were on the counter beside him. He had taken photos and notes and asked questions through every step of the three-hour autopsy.

Dr Malcolm Hyland was young for an ME. Cops liked him because he didn’t expect them to be doctors, but he didn’t expect them to be stupid either. He was soft-spoken until he had to use the microphone – then he turned stilted and loud.

‘OK, doc,’ said Joe. He grabbed the notebook and flipped it open again.

‘OK,’ said Hyland. ‘Estimated time of death somewhere between 11 p.m. and 3 a.m. Cause of death was a point-blank GSW to the head – you saw the small entry hole by his eye socket and the bruised and battered twenty-two caliber bullet taken from the skull cavity. The bullet’s trajectory was left to right, lodged in the temporal lobe. You remember the grazing around the wound margins as the bullet was spinning in. Because it was directly over bone, you got the radiating splits in the skin and the stellate effect – that star shape. Mechanism of death was an intracerebral bleed.

‘But before we even get to the gunshot, we had evidence of compressive asphyxia which is what I was saying about the diaphragm not being able to expand. I’d say the killer sat on the guy’s chest or pressed a knee down on it and the vic got the full force of his body bearing down on him. Subdued like that, the killer was able to assault him with what was probably a medium-sized hammer. With regard the facial injuries – you already saw that – extensive bruising and swelling, several irregular lacerations. The upper and lower lips showed external and internal lacerations … this is very common in homosexual killings.’

‘He was alive for all the facial injuries,’ said Danny.

Hyland nodded. ‘He’d inhaled blood and teeth fragments.’

‘And what you’re saying is this guy was already dying when he was shot, he wasn’t able to breathe properly,’ said Danny.

‘Yeah,’ said Hyland. ‘I guess I could understand if the killer bashed his head in, then asphyxiated him. But on top of that, he shoots him? It’s cruel stuff. You can imagine, the man’s fighting for his every breath, putting all his strength into that, then he’s slammed in the face with the hammer. He’s focused on that agonizing pain, then back to fighting for breath, then pain again, everything mounting right ’til the end. Then a gunshot wound. And that’s it. He’s gone.’

‘These wackos always got their own screwed-up reasons,’ said Danny. ‘Some of it is looking familiar to me, I gotta say. You remember William Aneto?’

Joe shook his head.

‘Oh yeah. You weren’t here. It was me and Martinez. This gay guy on the Upper West Side. It just … there’s something about it rings a bell.’

‘If we’re done here …’ said Hyland. He pointed to Joe’s notebook. ‘I’m sure you got it all there.’

‘Yeah, until I get back and I find one word I can’t make out and nothing else makes sense without it.’

‘Well, if you need anything else, call me.’

Joe nodded. ‘Thanks.’

‘Good luck,’ said Hyland. ‘You know, I wish when I dissected a brain I could find a little reel, like a victim’s-eye movie, so we could just sit back and watch a replay of what happened. It’d be foolproof in court for you guys, wouldn’t it? Slam dunk. Wouldn’t that be great? Or if I could find, like, a mental black box that would log the minute-to-minute psychological impact of what the victim’s been through. Although I’d say with this guy, it was all so horrific, a circuit somewhere would have blown.’

Anna Lucchesi lay on the sofa in her pyjamas with a light fleece blanket over her. She was watching the fourth episode in a row of Grand Designs. A couple had renovated a country estate somewhere in England and she was now watching the car wreck that was their 80s taste in interiors. When she first started watching the show in Ireland, it was from a different vantage point in a house that fit. She was a rising star at Vogue Living and had overseen the renovation of a lighthouse and the keeper’s home beside it outside a small village in Waterford. She was doing the job she loved in a beautiful location with her husband and son cheering her on. Watching Grand Designs now, she felt like a disconnected outsider, sitting in a grim two-storey brick frame house in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn – not Brooklyn Heights, not Williamsburg, not even DUMBO. It was older, it felt safe, the neighbors were nice, but it held no spark for Anna.

She stared towards the window, missing the sea view and waves that could get so loud, you had to close the window to hear people talk. The house had been peaceful and comfortable, with simple furniture and neutral tones. Then everything it represented was gone, shattered by Duke Rawlins. He wanted to destroy Joe. But he had underestimated his resilience. And when Anna thought of it now, she didn’t admire Joe for it, she resented him. Joe killed Donald Riggs and she paid the price. He was uninjured, back on the job. She was in her pyjamas in the afternoon.

For two months after Ireland, she stayed with her parents in Paris. Joe and Shaun came for the first three weeks, but the tiny house started to close in on them. She felt like Joe was trying to rush her recovery and make things go back to a kind of normal she knew they never would. She eventually persuaded him to take Shaun back to New York.

When she followed them over, she spent time adjusting to the new house in the new area she had been too depressed to take an interest in choosing. She would wake in the morning, wondering why she was there, but never able to figure out where she would really like to be. But she knew she wanted to avoid the outside world. And that meant embracing the four walls.

Her boss, Chloe da Silva, had allowed her to work from home, but had made it clear that it was only a temporary arrangement – Anna was too good an interior designer to lose on the big jobs. That was fine at the start, but as the months went by, Anna felt a rising insecurity that any day she would be fired and the only thing keeping her sane would be taken away. She liked styling shoots from home, choosing products from catalogs or jpegs or from the packages that were sent nearly every day to the house. It was unorthodox, but it worked. She hoped.

She dragged herself up off the sofa and was about to go into her makeshift office when the phone rang. She heard the harsh clatter of being punched off speaker phone in Chloe’s office.

‘It’s me again.’

Anna held her breath.

‘I’m sorry to land this on you, but, Anna, I really am under serious pressure here. There’s a major shoot at W Union Square tomorrow morning and Leah has let me down big time. Anyway, the shoot is bedrooms – models in hotels slash extravagant homes, sleeping off all that hard work they do – walking and um, staring. A lot of our major advertisers are involved and, here’s what I’m hoping you’ll go for: the photographer is Marc Lunel. You can work with someone who doesn’t pronounce Moët wrong. Come on. Please. Please. Please.’

Anna paused, watching the couple on television directing two men into the house with a red leather sofa. ‘Only if I get the main credit,’ she said finally.

‘You’ll do it?’ said Chloe.

Anna’s heart was beating rapidly, but not out of excitement. ‘Yes.’

‘God, if I’d known it was going to be that easy, I would have called Marc months ago.’ Her laugh was shrill. Anna was silent.

Chloe jumped in. ‘Oh, listen to me being so insensitive. Of course you needed all that time—’

‘Please,’ said Anna. ‘Email me the details.’

‘Of course. Done. Darling, thank you. Thank you so much.’

Joe leaned into the mirror in the men’s room, snipping away the nasal hair that had spent three hours soaking up the smell of death. He never figured out if it was a practical or a psychological routine or both. He didn’t like seeing his face up close, seeing the new lines around his eyes, the extra gray hairs at the side of his head; more things that were out of his control. He went to his locker and grabbed a bottle of tea-tree shower gel that Anna had given him. He got undressed and threw his suit into a plastic bag.

‘The smell of that crap,’ said Danny walking in. ‘I think I’ll go back to the autopsy.’

‘Screw you,’ said Joe. ‘I’d rather smell—’

‘Like weird-ass tea—’

‘Like – clean, than how you go out with your cheap foaming shit that doesn’t cover up nothing.’

‘If a woman can’t handle the smell of death from a man—’

‘She can’t go out with a deadbeat.’

‘Shit,’ said Danny, closing his locker door. ‘I’m all out of shower gel. Give me some of that crap.’

Joe went back to his desk and checked his email. Danny walked over a few minutes later, smelling the back of his hand and frowning.

‘Get over the fucking shower gel,’ said Joe.

‘Let me pull that file,’ said Danny. ‘The one I told you about – Aneto.’

Joe made space on his desk, laying a stack of files on the floor beside him. Danny came back and opened William Aneto’s file in front of him. Aneto was thirty-one, slightly built, handsome, with collar-length black hair. Joe looked at his head shot and saw a TV actor’s face; the four-line max guy, two or three steps back from the main action. His role in a Spanish language soap opera was the friend of the brother of the leading man. He was killed almost a year earlier, his body discovered in his Upper West Side apartment by a female friend. The case had quickly gone cold. As a victim, William fell into the high-risk category, promiscuous on the gay scene, known for disappearing at the end of a night with a stranger. Danny and Martinez had interviewed hundreds of Aneto’s friends, acquaintances and lovers and had gotten nowhere. His murder was down as a hook-up gone bad.

Joe pulled out the next photos and laid them in rows on the table in front of him. Danny stood beside him. Like Ethan Lowry, the body was found in the hallway. But behind William Aneto, hair smears of blood curved across the gray tiled floor like tracks through red paint from a dried brush.

‘Yeah. It’s all coming back to me,’ said Danny. ‘Most of the action happened in the kitchen. He was killed there and then dragged to the front door to be finished off. Wait ’til you see the kitchen. Hand prints, footprints, all over the floor, up the wall – kindergarten art class. You know – if all the paint was red. And the children were Damian.’

Joe studied the photos of the kitchen. He pointed to the bloodied corner of a granite counter top. ‘So I’m the perp, standing here behind the vic, bashing his face off this.’ Blood was spattered onto the wall, the counter, the floor, misted across the granite.

Danny nodded. ‘Yup.’

They looked at a wide shot of the hallway – the crumpled corpse, the spatter of a gunshot wound, the pooled blood under his head.

William Aneto’s face was more damaged than Ethan Lowry’s, destroyed by injuries that left the entire surface pulped and bloodied. His right eye socket was completely impacted from one of the blows, obliterating the entry wound from the bullet that, based on the autopsy results, followed a similar trajectory to Lowry’s.

‘Yeah. It’s a no-brainer,’ said Danny.

‘The caliber was too low,’ said Joe.

‘Funny guy. Shit, the phone – look,’ said Danny, pointing to the tiny silver cell phone beside Aneto’s body. ‘I forgot about that.’

Like Ethan Lowry, it looked like William Aneto could have made a call just before he died. Joe flipped through the file to a statement from a Mrs Aneto.

‘Yeah,’ said Danny. ‘His mother said the call was just to say goodnight.’

‘Maybe you should talk to Mrs Aneto again.’

‘She no likey me,’ said Danny, making a face. ‘Maybe Martinez could warm her up again.’

‘Yeah, that’s one I won’t be tagging along for.’

‘Why’s that?’

‘Maybe you should ask Martinez,’ said Joe.

‘What the hell’s that supposed to mean?’

‘See how he looks at me? I’m a homewrecker. He had eleven good months with you, I show up, you take me back, the guy’s life is over.’

Danny shook his head.

‘He gets that glint in his eye when you’re around,’ said Joe.

‘Screw you. What you are seeing is professional admiration.’

‘Come on. Let’s go talk to Rufo.’

‘Gentlemen,’ said Rufo when they walked in.

‘We got a link,’ said Joe. ‘Between Ethan Lowry and William Aneto.’

Rufo frowned. ‘The guy I’ve been getting all these calls about this week?’

Danny nodded. ‘Yeah. The year-anniversary-still-no-answers thing.’

‘Interesting timing,’ said Rufo. ‘Tell me more.’

‘Both happened at home, no sign of forced entry, similar facial injuries, similar twenty-two caliber gunshot wound, phone found beside both of them, bodies left in the hallway behind the door.’

Rufo nodded. ‘That’s good enough for me.’

Shaun Lucchesi lay on his bed staring at the ceiling. The stereo blasted the same lyrics over and over: left behind/left behind/left behind. It had been almost a year since his girlfriend, Katie Lawson, was murdered. They had met on the first day in school when he arrived in Ireland and they had been inseparable until she died. What made things worse was that Shaun had started out as the prime suspect, convicted by most of the small village until they learned the truth.

For months after Katie’s death, Shaun had woken up with a void inside him that had ached like nothing else he had ever known. On the good days, he was lifted by memories. On the bad ones, he was trapped in a loop of images that started from the time he picked her up that night and ended at the last moment he saw her. Everything now seemed unimportant. He came back to New York and met his old friends and went to the old hang-outs, but it was such a different life to the one he had with Katie, it was surreal. His life with her was stripped down to how they felt about each other, how they made each other laugh, how they lay on his bed wrapped around each other for hours, just talking or watching movies. It wasn’t about who your friends were, where you went, what you owned, who you were sleeping with, who had the latest cell phone, who had the fastest car. Sometimes he was so overwhelmed at the thought of never being that happy again, he almost couldn’t breathe. He turned off the stereo and went to his closet. From the top shelf, he pulled out a small, chunky round tin. A thin layer of wax coated the bottom of it and a short black wick twisted from the center. It was Katie’s favorite candle – Fresh Linen. He took a lighter from his drawer and lit it. He could only burn it for a few minutes at a time, it was so low. He couldn’t bear the thought it would ever burn out completely.

Everyone else would remember the anniversary of Katie’s funeral three weeks from now. But this night, one year ago, was the night he nearly had sex with her for the first time. But then they had fought. And then she had run away from him. And then she was killed. He lay down on his bed, closed his eyes and, for half an hour, let the tears run down his face onto the pillow. Then he sat up and grabbed his cell phone and scrolled through his photos. Katie at school. Katie on the beach. Katie in his room. Delete. Delete. Delete.

FIVE

Joe sat at his desk, pressing his fingers against his forehead, pretending to read a report that had started to blur a few minutes earlier. His phone rang. It was Reuben Maller from the FBI, Eastern District – the office that covered the whole east coast. They got on well since their first case together. The last one they worked was Donald Riggs.

‘Can you talk?’ said Maller.

‘Go ahead,’ said Joe.

‘How are you all doing?’

‘Who?’ said Joe. ‘You mean here? Manhattan North?’

‘You, Anna … Shaun. How are you holding up?’

Joe paused. ‘We’re good … why? What’s going on?’

Maller let out a breath. ‘OK,’ he said, lowering his voice. ‘Off the record, I got some news from the Bureau in Texas. On Duke Rawlins.’

Joe stopped breathing.

‘Before you say anything, Joe, it’s sketchy, I don’t have a lot of details. And you do not know this.’

Joe fought the nausea rising in his stomach. ‘Tell me,’ he managed.

‘Duke Rawlins’ home town, Stinger’s Creek? Geoff Riggs – Donald Riggs’ father – said he had a visit last week from Rawlins. Geoff Riggs is in really bad shape, Joe. No-one knows the last time he was sober. He walks through town, railing about things, not making a lot of sense. Last week, he said to some young kid in the liquor store that Rawlins was out at his cabin the week before. The kid was freaked out and called the cops. They went to speak with Riggs. I have it written here verbatim. Geoff Riggs said, real calm: “Sure, I had a visit from Dukey. He was wanting to say Hi, catch up. Been years. Wanted to take a look around Donnie’s bedroom. I said, ‘Knock yourself out, buddy’. Not a lot in there since y’all turned it upsideways last year. So Dukey comes out, then he go on out to the shed out back where I keep my tools and I say, ‘Sure you can, Dukey. You’re a good boy.’ He seemed kinda aggritated. Had some sort of bug in his bonnet. Anyways, last I saw of little Dukey.”’

‘That’s it?’ said Joe.

‘Yep.’

‘Geoff Riggs didn’t call the cops, nothing?’

‘No – this guy’s brain is so fried. That statement I just read to you took two hours to extract from him. My guess is Rawlins is taking advantage of the relaxed surveillance.’

‘The no surveillance,’ said Joe.

‘Yeah,’ said Maller. ‘It’s been a year – he hadn’t shown anywhere anyone expected him to. And his visit to Geoff Riggs is only part one of the story. The second part is that a few days later, the custodian of the Stinger’s Creek cemetery was doing his rounds and when he got to Donald Riggs’ grave … well, there was another one opened up right beside it.’

Joe paused. ‘Someone was dug up?’

‘No. Someone had just dug a grave. It was empty. It was thoroughly searched and there was nothing or no-one in it.’

‘Jesus Christ,’ said Joe.

‘What we have got to remember is everyone out there knows what Rawlins and Riggs did. And on the one hand, you’ve got people baying for blood. On the other, some of the officers from the sheriff’s department who went to investigate this, spoke to a group of stoners who were all, “Man, Duke Rawlins is, like, sick.” In a good way. So it could have been an angry relative of a victim, it could have been a teenage prank.’

‘Maller, why don’t we cut the crap, here? You know what this is. Alcoholic witness or not. It’s not a coincidence – we hear Rawlins shows up, pays a visit to a tool shed and within days a grave is opened up next to his old buddy. Come on.’

‘Yeah,’ said Maller. ‘It’s just I know what this man has done to you. I mean, that’s why I called you on this … yeah, I don’t think this one’s a false alarm.’

‘Jesus Christ.’

‘I have to ask,’ said Maller, ‘has he tried to get in touch with you?’

Joe did not hesitate. ‘No.’

Anna Lucchesi sat at her dressing table in her bathrobe, her hair pulled back with a black jersey headband, her face pale, her eyes shadowed. She opened a packet of cleansing wipes and started wiping down her makeup products, getting rid of dust and dried-in foundation and caked powder. She grouped them together and lined them up, ready for the following morning. A photo beside the bed showed her as she used to be, her hair dark and glossy, her cheeks healthy, her eyes alive.

The notice board at Manhattan North was covered with badges from police departments all over the country and around the world. Joe stood in front of it, thinking about Duke Rawlins. Every evil thing Rawlins had done had settled close to the surface and deep down inside. He didn’t know what would end it, but every day a new scenario took him away from where he was supposed to be.

‘Joe? That’s your freakin’ phone,’ yelled Martinez.

Joe grabbed the receiver.

‘Joe? It’s Bobby Nicotero. From the 1st.’ Bobby’s father was Victor Nicotero – Old Nic – a retired cop and close friend of Joe’s.

‘Jesus, Bobby. What’s up?’

‘Not a lot.’

‘How’s Old Nic?’

‘You tell me.’

Joe paused.

Bobby’s laugh was off. ‘I was going to ask you the same thing. How is my father?’

‘Well … last time I saw him was at that barbecue, couple weeks back. You had to be somewhere with the kids, I think. He was good, taking it easy, enjoying writing.’

‘Writing what?’

‘Oh,’ said Joe. ‘He’s working on a book.’

‘Yeah, well, I’ve been busy …’

‘Yeah – your old man’s writing his memoirs.’