The Caller. Alex Barclay
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?’