Chris Carter - The Caller

That didn’t surprise Hunter. ‘How about the mask, any luck with it?’

The sketch Tanya Kaitlin had worked on with the police artist had already been sent to every costume and party shop in the greater Los Angeles area.

Garcia breathed out. ‘So far, no matches. Apparently no one has ever seen anything like it. No score over the Internet either. This mask wasn’t bought from a shop, Robert. He created it himself.’

Hunter had no doubt that that had been the case, but they still had to try.

‘But it’s not all bad,’ Garcia announced. ‘We’ve got one positive result. One you were one hundred percent right about.’

‘And what is that?’

‘The nine-one-one calls.’

On his screen, Garcia clicked and scrolled a couple of times until he found what he was looking for.

‘In the past three months there were four bogus, high-priority, nine-one-one calls made, concerning the general area of Karen Ward’s home address. Two of the addresses given by the caller were to the same apartment block, the other two to neighboring ones.’

‘Any luck when it comes to CCTV camera locations?’ Hunter asked.

Garcia laughed. ‘You would hope so, wouldn’t you? You called it right, Robert — this guy is anything but dumb. He stayed away from payphones, choosing to use four different pre-paid cellphones — no chance of a trace.’

‘Do we have the audio files for the calls?’

Garcia sat back on his chair and gave Hunter a quirky smile. ‘We do now. I just got the email.’

Hunter got to his feet and walked over to Garcia’s desk. The email showing on his screen had four different audio file attachments. The first one dated back three months, almost to the date. The last one was dated nine days ago.

‘Let’s go through them chronologically,’ Hunter suggested.

Garcia nodded and double-clicked the first audio file. The time logged for the 911 call had been 10:55 p.m.

DISPATCHER [female voice]: ‘Nine-one-one, what’s your emergency?’

MALE VOICE: ‘Well... I think I just heard gunshots coming from one of the apartments down the corridor from me.’

The voice carried a somewhat pronounced Southern accent, but what caused both detectives to exchange a worried look was the youth of its tone. The voice sounded like it belonged to someone in his early twenties.

Keyboard clicks.

DISPATCHER: ‘Gunshots? Are you certain, sir? Could it have been just a loud bang, maybe?’

MALE VOICE: ‘No, I don’t think so.’

A short pause.

DISPATCHER: ‘OK, could you describe exactly what you heard?’

MALE VOICE: ‘One thing is for sure, they were arguing again. They argue a hell of a lot, you know. Always at night. Always screaming at each other. But tonight it sounded like they were going mad. I’m quite sure the whole building could hear it. Then suddenly — bang, bang, bang — three loud pops. And now everything has gone church quiet in there. I’m telling you, something isn’t right in that apartment.’

DISPATCHER: ‘OK, sir, what’s the address?’

The address the caller gave the dispatcher would’ve taken the police to the apartment directly below Karen Ward’s.

More keyboard clicks.

DISPATCHER: ‘A unit is on its way now, sir. Could I have your—’

The caller put the phone down.

‘It took around eleven minutes for a black and white unit to respond,’ Garcia said, reading from the email he had received. ‘Their report says that they were quite surprised when a woman, apparently in her mid-twenties, answered the door holding a baby in her arms. The woman, Donna Farrell, shared the apartment with her boyfriend, who works as a night security guard, so he wasn’t in. The officers asked her about any loud bangs or any neighbors who seemed to argue frequently, but she told them that she hadn’t heard any loud noises, or voices, or anything. She also told them that she had never heard any arguments coming from any of the neighboring apartments. Before logging it in as a bogus call, the officers knocked on several other doors. The reply was always the same. No loud bangs. No known arguing neighbors.’ Garcia scrolled down on the email. ‘The call was made from a pre-paid cellphone. Untraceable.’

‘Did they get a location?’ Hunter asked.

Garcia scrolled down a little more. ‘Yeah. The call came from the general location of Karen Ward’s apartment building. He was probably standing right in front of it when he made the call.’

‘Probably.’ Hunter agreed. ‘He had to be close by to be able to clock the response time. OK, let’s check the next call.’

Garcia double-clicked it. The call had come in at 11:08 p.m., fourteen days after the call they’d just heard.

DISPATCHER [male voice]: ‘Nine-one-one, how can I direct your call?’

MALE VOICE: ‘Yes. I live on the corner of East Broadway and Loma Avenue in Long Beach. From my window I have a clear view of the balcony and the windows belonging to the building across the road from me.’

This time Hunter and Garcia exchanged an even more confused look. There was due urgency to the caller’s voice, but it sounded nothing like the one they’d heard in the previous call. Gone was the pronounced Southern accent, replaced by a typical Angelino inflection. The youth of the voice was also gone. The person making the call sounded like he was in his mid-thirties, with a much deeper and darker voice.

DISPATCHER: ‘OK, sir, and what seems to be the problem?’

MALE VOICE: ‘I’m standing at my window right now, and I can clearly see into one of the apartments on the top floor. The curtains are wide open and the lights are all on. There’s a man walking back and forth in there, waving his arms around like a lunatic. The problem is, he’s carrying either a sword, or a machete, or something very similar. Whatever it is, it’s one hell of a menacing-looking weapon, I can tell you that.’

DISPATCHER [now sounding a little more urgent]: ‘Is there anyone else in the apartment with him? Can you see?’

MALE VOICE: ‘That’s why I’m calling. I’ve been watching this guy for the past five or ten minutes, and all he’s been doing, as I’ve said, is walking back and forth in the living room, waving his weapon in the air and shouting at the walls, or so it seemed. But just now I saw this little girl appear at the other window, not in the same room as him, but in the next room along. She must be around twelve or thirteen. She looked terrified. I can’t really see any details because of the distance, but I think she is crying.’

DISPATCHER: ‘A little girl, you said?’

MALE VOICE: ‘That’s right.’

DISPATCHER: ‘OK, sir. Do you have the address of this building?’

The caller gave the address to the dispatcher. Once again, it was the address to Karen Ward’s building.

MALE VOICE: ‘The apartment I’m talking about is the last apartment down the corridor on the top floor.’

DISPATCHER: ‘And you said that you can see the apartment from your window, could you give me your—’

The caller had already disconnected.

‘That would be Karen Ward’s apartment,’ Garcia said. ‘He sent the cops to her apartment?’

Hunter nodded. ‘What was the response time?’

Garcia checked the email. ‘Around ten minutes this time.’

‘Pre-paid cellphone again?’ Hunter asked.

‘You got it.’

Hunter leaned against the edge of Garcia’s desk. ‘OK, let’s try the next call.’

Garcia opened the file. The third call in their list had been logged in twenty-eight days after the second one. It had come in at 11:13 p.m.

DISPATCHER [female voice]: ‘Nine-one-one, what’s your emergency?’