The Caller (9 page)

As she kept talking, he lost interest in the screens in front of him. ‘Hmm. I’d like that a lot,’ he said, spinning around in the chair and standing up.

‘Wow,’ he said. ‘I … don’t know what to say back to that.’ He paced the room, listening to every word she breathed down the phone.

He sat on the bed, then lay back. ‘OK,’ he said, ‘I’m not good at this. I’m too sober to have this conversation.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘Why don’t you come over?’

Joe and Anna arrived back from the bar hungry. Joe went to the fridge and pulled out a dish of
leftover meatballs. He slammed the door and slammed the dish onto the counter.

‘Shhh,’ said Anna, pointing upstairs.

Joe ignored her and put the meatballs into the microwave.

‘What is wrong with you?’ said Anna.

‘Nothing.’

‘There is something wrong. Just tell me.’

‘I didn’t want to stay that late, that’s all. I’ve a lot on.’

‘It was fun.’

‘After lots of drinks, maybe.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘Nothing,’ said Joe. ‘Do we have bread?’

‘Yes,’ she said, pointing to a baguette right in front of him.

‘Oh.’ He grabbed a knife and started cutting it.

‘Come on,’ she said. ‘You enjoyed yourself.’

He was somewhere else, staring ahead, his face set.

‘Do you know who I liked?’ said Anna. ‘I liked Ireland Joe. I mean, before everything … the guy whose face was relaxed, who didn’t have a frown all the time, who made jokes, actually laughed.’

‘I still know how to laugh.’ He glared at her.

‘Maybe you just don’t put it into practice, then.’

‘Come on, Anna, there’s always something.’

‘No there isn’t.’

‘We were having a nice night,’ said Joe.

‘And then we weren’t. Because you had to—’

‘No, no, because
you
had to,’ said Joe. ‘You can’t face what’s inside you, so you look outwards, you’ve got your little roaming red crosshairs. Who can they land on? Who can they land on? Oh yeah, nearest person: me.’

‘It’s not that at all. You can’t bear anyone criticising you.’

‘Ditto.’

She shook her head. ‘You can’t. You come home from work complaining every time your judgment is called into question. Maybe it’s you who can’t face who you are or what you’ve done.’

‘What is that supposed to mean?’

‘I think you feel guilty.’

‘About what?’

She stared at him. ‘I think that’s obvious.’

‘If you’re talking about you, damn right I feel guilty. What guy – not to mention detective – is not going to feel guilty that he nearly got his wife killed?’

‘I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with you feeling guilty—’

‘Since when did I need your blessing on what I can or cannot feel?’

‘Joe, stop.’

He took a breath. Anna reached out and held his hand.

‘I’m just saying, I think you feel guilty, but you’re not dealing with your guilt and … you’re like a time bomb.’

He tilted his head. ‘OK. Well, I think you feel scared, but you’re not dealing with your fear and you’re like a time bomb.’

‘You are impossible to talk to.’

‘So are you.’

She dropped his hand. ‘How old are you? Grow up.’

‘Oh,’ said Joe, ‘just to let you know, I knocked over one of your boxes last night. I think something broke.’

Anna turned to him. ‘Which box?’

‘I don’t know. A navy blue one?’

‘No,’ said Anna, raising her hand to her mouth, running down the hallway into the front room. She grabbed a pair of scissors from the floor and cut through the tape on the box. She pulled it open.

‘Oh, no, no,’ she said, gently lifting out one half of a broken glass lampshade. Joe stood behind her.

‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘Was it expensive?’

‘You don’t want to know … because you’ll have to replace it.’

‘What?’

‘It’s only on loan for a shoot. I’m responsible for it. You broke it.’

‘Well, how much is it?’

‘Eight hundred dollars.’

‘Eight hundred dollars. You are shitting me. For a lamp?’

‘Oh, come on,’ she said. ‘I’m not working for the
Bay Ridge Gazette
.’

‘I don’t really have to replace it, right?’

‘You do,’ she said. ‘It’s in my care.’

‘Tell them it broke in transit.’

‘They know it arrived here OK.’

‘I don’t have that kind of money to hand over to some fucking … and who the hell spends eight hundred dollars on a lamp?’

‘You’d be surprised.’

‘I am surprised. I’m also surprised that more things don’t get broken in this house. It’s out of control, Anna. It’s crazy. It’s like a bomb site in here. I can’t live this way. Meanwhile, you’re happy as can be, getting a ton of new stuff in every day. Every day’s your birthday. Every time, you open the door to the mailman, UPS guy, whoever, sign, take the package, walk five steps into the front room, throw it in there, maybe open it, see what’s inside or hey, just leave it lying there—’

‘You don’t need to reconstruct everything in your life, Joe. I’m here, I’m not a dead body. You can just
ask
me what I do when my doorbell rings.’

Joe rolled his eyes.

‘Go ahead,’ said Anna. ‘Ask me what I do when my doorbell rings. How much fun it is for me.’

‘Spare me,’ said Joe. ‘It’s pretty clear what happens and how all this crap piles up in the front room.’

‘You’re leaving some things out. Here’s what happens: the doorbell rings and wherever I am in the house, I freeze. Then my heart jumps and starts to beat faster. I wonder will I go and open it or will I wait until they go away. If I’m near a window, I can check. I look at the uniform, see if it’s correct, I look at the person’s face, see if I am looking at an honest one, I see if I can see their truck, I check if anyone else is out there on the street. In the middle of this, guess what else I’m thinking about?’

Joe stared at her and it was clear that anger was winning the fight over sympathy.

‘Maybe,’ said Anna, ‘if you paid attention at home, you would have a better understanding of things that are not black and white or follow some sequence that you imagine in your head because you’re not around to see it.’ She walked across the room and yanked open the top drawer of an old mahogany bureau, grabbing with both hands the piles of cards inside it. ‘Sometimes,’ she said, throwing the contents at him, ‘things don’t always work out the way you think.’

Joe stood still as all around him FedEx and UPS failed delivery slips floated to the floor.

‘Shaun?’ Anna knocked on the bedroom door lightly and pushed it open. The quilt was gathered in a huge mound, hiding his face …
and the face
of the girl lying beside him
she realized when she saw two abandoned strappy sandals on the floor. Anna’s stomach gave a jolt. She walked backwards out of the bedroom and closed the door quietly behind her. The she stormed back in to Joe.

‘That little …
salope
is in there with Shaun,’ she hissed.

‘Oh,’ said Joe. ‘No.’

‘Yes. In bed with him!’

Joe stared at her. ‘I didn’t think she’d be on the floor.’

‘She will be in a minute. And the smell of beer in there!’

‘OK, OK, don’t do anything crazy that will scar him for life,’ said Joe. ‘Let’s see how he handles this first.’

She glanced towards the door.

‘No,’ said Joe. ‘Come back to bed for a few minutes. I promise I’ll de-stress you.’

‘So, we’re friends now?’ she said.

‘Of course we’re friends. We’re united against the teenage enemy.’

Anna choked back a laugh, then put her finger to her lips. ‘Shhh,’ she said. ‘I’m going down for breakfast.’

‘I’ll make it,’ said Joe. He jumped up and ran after her to make sure she wasn’t going to do anything. He ran back at the last minute and grabbed a pair of jeans in case Tara was going to arrive down for breakfast and be scarred too. Anna was sitting at the table with a glass of grapefruit juice. Joe took charge of making pancakes and distracting her. With every break in the conversation, she was leaning an ear towards the door.

‘Stop that,’ said Joe, looking around at her.

She shrugged. ‘I’m just—’

‘I know,’ he said. ‘But …’

‘Have you got a dentist’s appointment this morning?’ she said, glancing at a calendar pinned to the wall.

He paused. ‘Maybe.’

‘Do you need a hug?’ she said, smiling.

‘What are you talking about? Do I look like the kind of guy who needs a hug before going to the dentist?’

‘Yes.’ She walked over to him, grabbing him
from behind, leaning her head against his back. He pretended to shake with fear. They were laughing when Shaun strolled in, dressed in board shorts and a T-shirt, his eyes puffy, his hair on end.

‘Get a room.’

Anna’s smile faded quickly.

Shaun pulled a carton of orange juice out of the fridge, drank straight from it, then put it back in.

‘Is that empty?’ snapped Anna.

‘Yes,’ said Shaun.

‘Stop doing that,’ said Anna. ‘I’ve told you over and over.’

‘Big deal,’ said Shaun. ‘It’s just a carton.’

‘If I’m going to the store, I don’t know what I need to buy if you keep …’

Shaun flung the fridge wide open, knocking bottles against each other, pulled out the carton and threw it in a pile for recycling.

‘There,’ he said. He waited a beat. ‘Hey, Mom? If you’re going to the store? We need juice.’

‘Don’t be a jerk,’ said Joe.

Shaun made a face as he put a bagel into the toaster.

‘What time did you get home last night?’ said Anna.

‘About three o’clock,’ said Shaun. ‘I had to drop Tara home.’

‘Really?’ said Anna, raising an eyebrow to Joe.

‘Yeah,’ said Shaun. ‘Why?’

Anna stood up and walked upstairs, opening the door to Shaun’s room, then the bathroom. No Tara. She walked back into the kitchen and sat down. She shook her head at Joe. Anger simmered behind her eyes. Shaun grabbed his bagel, smeared cream cheese on it and left the knife on the counter top by the open tub.

‘Your knife,’ said Anna. ‘The cheese.’

Shaun kept walking.

Joe slid into the seat beside her. ‘There it is,’ he said. ‘The Mom’s approach to a problem. You start by identifying the issue – girl in Shaun’s bed – you can’t say it right out, so you survey the child going about his business and pick apart all the other things he’s doing. That’s good.’

‘Ugh,’ she said. ‘Tara. Ugh.’

‘Hey, even I feel dirty.’

Shaun stuck his head around the door, his cell phone in his hand. ‘Guys, I’m going out to meet Tara.’

Dr James Makkar had accepted two important things about Joe Lucchesi: a. he didn’t do alternative therapies to alleviate stress, therefore, his symptoms and b. he was surgery-phobic. Joe and Dr Mak had an understanding.

‘Hello, Joe. Nice to see you for a scheduled visit.’ Dr Makkar was dressed in white scrubs with a white mask hanging around his neck. He was in his late
thirties, but his silent-movie grooming added years. ‘Need me to wipe that sweat off your brow?’

‘You’re not supposed to make fun of me,’ said Joe.

‘You are looking for a nurturing environment?’ said Makkar.

‘I don’t know why I come here,’ said Joe.

‘You need me.’

‘Right. But thanks again for helping me out last time.’

‘Temporarily,’ said Makkar. ‘With all the limitations you put on me, my hands are tied. Which is obviously how you like them.’

Joe smiled.

‘Follow me.’

Joe walked behind him down the short corridor.

‘Take a seat. Let’s have a look at that jaw.’

Joe sat down and opened his mouth when he was told.

‘How’s work?’ said Makkar.

‘Crap. How about you?’

‘Fantastic, of course. It’s all about smiling.’

‘Or crying out in pain.’

‘You wouldn’t come to me if I caused you pain. The amount of times I’ve numbed your mouth before you even knew I was in the room. Your
condition
causes you pain;
I
make it go away. I’m good cop.’

Joe raised his eyes, one of the few responses open to a patient in a dentist’s chair.

‘You get very close to people’s eyes in my business,’ Makkar had told him before. ‘We see right in, all those little reactions. I think I’d make a great jury consultant if I wasn’t doing this. Or a cop, of course.’ Joe wanted to smile at the thought of this slight, dapper Indian cop, patrolling the 75th precinct, but he couldn’t.

‘OK,’ said Makkar. ‘First of all, how are your symptoms?’

‘Not as bad as the last time. Pain in my jaw, cracking when I open my mouth.’

‘And,’ said Makkar tapping Joe’s chin and looking inside his mouth, ‘grinding your teeth.’

Joe nodded.

‘Your options are … well, keep taking painkillers. But that’s getting a little tired in my opinion. It’s not getting you anywhere. I’m thinking you really should consider surgery.’

‘What?’ said Joe, struggling to sit up. ‘We’ve been here. I don’t do surgery.’

‘Joe,’ said Makkar, laying a hand gently on his shoulder, ‘if you shattered your leg in an accident, you’d do surgery. You’d have no choice. Of course, you do have a choice in this case, but you can’t keep going on as you are, suffering with this unnecessarily. The pain does go away, but it’s been years now and I think your lifestyle and what you’ve been through – and are probably still going through – are taking their toll. Those problems are not quick-fix ones. It’s likely
you’ll be signing up to a lot more pain for a lot longer.’

‘That’s positive thinking.’

‘I’m being realistic. Hear me out. I know you fear surgery—’

‘It’s not fear, it’s—’

Makkar tilted his head patiently. ‘I know you
fear
surgery, but this is different. I mean, I don’t even need to call it surgery.’

‘Doc, I’m forty. I’m a big boy. Call it what it is.’

‘OK, then: arthroscopy. Here’s the deal – you go under general anaesthetic. The surgeon makes a little incision right here in front of your ear.’

Joe touched the side of his face. ‘I don’t like the sound—’

‘Oh, shut up. He inserts this tiny instrument with a little lens and a light and he has a look around. If he sees inflamed tissue or whatever, he’ll remove it. Or he might need to realign the disc. Or he might inject liquid steroids if you need it. You’ll have a couple of little stitches, some swelling afterwards, that’s it. No overnight stay in hospital. It’s way less hardcore than open-joint surgery. Recovery time is quick, there’s no major scarring. And a few weeks of physical therapy, just twice a week.’

Silence.

‘OK,’ said Makkar. ‘Why don’t I tell you about an alternative: joint replacement procedure. You go under general anaesthetic. You’re out. And
then you wake up with a new jaw. Recovery period – six weeks, jaw wired shut.’

Joe laughed. ‘Let me tell you about the clippers guy. When I was a rookie, my partner and I were called out to an apartment after we got a load of reports of a bad odor in the building. We break down the door and let’s just say I’m glad I can’t mentally store smells the same way I’ve stored the pictures from that night. Our victim is face down in the hallway in a pool of puke etcetera, with a cut finger and a pair of clippers across the floor from him. His jaw had been broken a couple weeks beforehand when he was mugged and then it was wired shut by doctors in the ER. And as you know, he was given the clippers so he could clip the wires in case he needed to puke or whatever. The poor guy, who was only eating liquids through a straw himself, was making dinner for his girlfriend and cut his finger real deeply while he was slicing through some peppers. It turned his stomach and he knew he was going to throw up. So he went to grab his clippers, but his hands seemed to be covered in this olive oil marinade, the clippers shot out of his hand across the floor, he couldn’t hold on much longer, he puked and choked on it. And he wasn’t found for two days, because the girlfriend had stood him up.’

‘Women can be such bitches.’

‘Yeah, that’s not exactly the message I got from
that little story. Jaw, wiring and shut: no thank you.’

‘You’re married, your wife’s not gonna stand you up.’

Joe shook his head.

‘So, arthroscopy sounds good, right?’ said Makkar.

‘Better.’

‘Here’s what I’m gonna do. I’m sending you for a consultation at the Facial Pain Clinic at Columbia. They will do a better job of encouraging you. Please. Humor me.’

Joe swung his legs off the chair and stood up. ‘I can’t promise anything.’

Desk space was tight at Manhattan North, with twelve extra detectives drafted into the task force to add to the original eight. Martinez walked over to Joe’s desk with Rencher, holding a sheet of paper above his head.

‘We have a match,’ said Martinez. ‘Between 11 and 11.30 a.m. both Mondays, we have this guy.’ He put two photos down in front of Joe. Danny came over to join them.

Joe nodded. ‘Good work. Anyone at the post office know who he was?’

‘No,’ said Rencher. ‘The guy there made a big effort to help us, though.’

‘Do you think he’s our guy?’ said Martinez, pointing to the photo.

‘He looks like he ticks a few of those profile
boxes,’ said Joe. ‘But who knows? Next Monday, Danny and I’ll be waiting for him, see if he’s trying to send us anything else. While you’re here, I was going to fill you in on something I noticed in the Aneto crime scene photos. There was a dermestid beetle there that didn’t really have a place.’

‘Oh no – not a domesta beetle,’ said Martinez. ‘Shock. Horror.’

‘Dermestid,’ said Joe.

‘Whatever.’

‘This could mean something,’ said Joe. ‘Dermestid beetles only feed on the dried tissue of a body. Like when it’s practically skeletonized, which Aneto’s body wasn’t even close to being. Put it this way – dermestid beetles are used by museums to clean animal bones so they’re all nice and white for the display. They put the bones in a box with a colony of dermestids and any skin, tissue, muscle, whatever, is eaten away.’

‘Yawn,’ said Martinez.

‘So,’ said Joe. ‘I’m thinking this is a hitch-hiker bug. It could have come in on the killer.’

‘Hey!’ said Martinez. ‘Someone put a call in to the Natural History Museum. See if they’ve got an escaped dinosaur skeleton with maybe a hammer he robbed from the cave man exhibit.’

‘Callersaurus Rex,’ said Rencher. ‘The Calleraptor, The—’

‘You know, you’re a bunch of fucking retards,’ said Danny.

Joe shook his head. ‘Look, all I’m saying is this one little bug is out of place. It’s something to think about. I mean, maybe the guy owns one of the businesses that breeds dermestids for museums, that kind of thing.’

‘Suuure,’ said Martinez.

Anna flashed a glance at the bed and her pyjamas lying there and thought how comfortable her night could be if she tucked herself back in. Joe arrived home earlier than she expected.

‘Hi,’ she said, forcing herself to get up, slipping out of the bathrobe and putting on the jeans and top she had thrown on the chair earlier.

‘You look beautiful,’ said Joe, grabbing her and kissing the top of her head.

‘Thanks.’

‘You ready?’

‘Nearly. By the time you’re finished in the shower, I will be.’

She went downstairs and put on Shaun’s Kanye West CD and started tidying anything that wasn’t going to mess up her clothes.

Joe came into the kitchen, grabbed a glass of water and knocked back two Vicodin.

‘If there was no dole you would have a serious problem,’ said Anna. She tried to sound light, but failed.

Dole testing was the NYPD’s random drug test. Every day a list of officers were called at random,
without notice, to the Medical Division in Queens to give a urine sample. If they fail, they’re fired. If they test positive for prescription drugs and don’t have an up-to-date prescription, they’re fired.

‘What are you talking about?’ said Joe. ‘I have a prescription for these.’

‘What about the times you go to your friend in the Village?’

‘It’s no big deal,’ said Joe. ‘You really think I’m a better person or a better detective when I’m going around in fucking agony? Or when my brain has other things to focus on other than pain?’

‘I worry about you.’

‘Let’s go.’

The night was warm and still and the traffic into the city was light.

‘So,’ said Anna. ‘Would you like to bet with me? Whether Gina will be wearing red and black with gold jewellery, red and black with red jewellery or gold and black with gold jewellery? Boobs squished together and out or separated, up and out?’

‘Well, that’s bitchy,’ said Joe.

‘Come on,’ said Anna. ‘It’s true. Red lipstick or red lipgloss? Black eyeliner or black
er
eyeliner?’