Chris Carter - The Caller

‘I don’t think I can go any further, man,’ the cab driver said, pulling up behind a police cruiser.

Hunter paid the fare and jumped out.

The rain that had announced itself when he first got to the Seven Grand Bar still hadn’t materialized, but the dark clouds that had now completely obscured the stars gave it the five-minute call. Water was coming, there was no doubt about that.

Hunter zipped up his jacket.

Five uniformed officers with sturdy expressions on their faces maintained the perimeter, keeping reporters and curious onlookers alike from getting any closer. Hunter zigzagged through the crowd, flashed his credentials at two of the officers and stooped under the tape.

From the top of Flanders Street to the Jenkinsons’ house, Hunter calculated it to be somewhere between one hundred and one hundred and fifteen yards. Officers were already going through protocol and running a door-to-door up and down the street. Every front window on every house was lined with shocked and frightened faces.

On the left, towards the end of the street, a white forensic van was parked next to Garcia’s Honda Civic. As Hunter approached the house, he spotted his partner standing next to a black and white unit, talking to a senior officer.

‘Robert,’ Garcia called, waving his hand. ‘Over here.’

Hunter approached the large house. It was painted a light shade of green, with white trimmings around the gable-styled roof. The front lawn was small but very well maintained, with colorful flowerbeds contouring its entirety. To the left of the house, a two-car garage sat at the end of a concrete driveway with black inlays, where a silver Cadillac SRX was parked. From the outside, one could easily tell that whoever lived in that house took pride in their home. This was the nicest house in a street of very nice houses.

‘This is Sergeant Thomas Reed from the Valley Bureau,’ Garcia said once Hunter reached them.

They shook hands.

Reed was about Garcia’s height and in his mid-forties. His head was shaved, but he wouldn’t have much hair had he let it grow. An old scar crossed his chin from the right edge of his lips to the left edge of his jaw.

‘Sergeant Reed was first response,’ Garcia revealed.

‘I was just telling your partner here that the circumstances of the nine-one-one call were a little odd.’ There was a certain smooth quality to Sergeant Reed’s voice that made him sound like a children’s story narrator.

‘How so?’ Hunter asked.

‘For starters, the call didn’t originate from here,’ Reed said. ‘And when I say here, I mean Los Angeles.’

Both detectives squinted at the sergeant.

‘The call was made from Fresno.’ Confused looks all around.

‘That’s right,’ Reed confirmed, noticing their intrigue and giving them a firm nod. ‘The nine-one-one call came from about two hundred miles away.’

A blue-and-white forensic tent had already been set up at the entrance to the Jenkinsons’ house, completely covering the entire front porch. A CSI agent was busy checking the concrete driveway, searching for any tire tracks that differed from the ones left by the silver Cadillac SRX that was parked there. Two other CSI agents were carefully checking the front lawn, the flowerbeds and the window to the right of the porch.

‘If we really are talking about the same perp here,’ Garcia said, as he and Hunter left Sergeant Reed behind and began making their way towards the house, ‘this doesn’t make a lot of sense, does it?’

Garcia had noticed the overly concerned look on Hunter’s face when he first saw him coming down the street. He figured it was for the same reasons he himself could hardly believe it when he got the call less than an hour ago: Karen Ward’s stalker has killed again?

‘No, it doesn’t.’ Hunter shook his head. ‘What do we have on this victim?’

‘Very little at the moment. Just the basics, really.’ Garcia reached for his pocket notebook. ‘Her name was Cassandra Jenkinson, forty-two years old, from Santa Ana in Orange County. Worked as an events organizer for a social club not that far from here in Porter Ranch.’ Reflexively, he pointed west. ‘Apparently she also volunteered once a week to help at a coalition for women with heart disease called “WomenHeart”.’

Hunter’s eyebrows arched. He had shopped at one of their charity shops before, he was sure of it.

‘She was married to a John Jenkinson,’ Garcia continued. ‘Forty-eight years old, from Los Angeles. He runs his own business consultancy practice based downtown. As we’ve heard from Sergeant Reed, he’s the one the killer video-called. John and Cassandra Jenkinson have a single child, a son, Patrick, twenty years old, who goes to college in Boston, Massachusetts. Ms. Jenkinson also had a complete clean record. No priors. No problems with the IRS. No outstanding debts. Not even an outstanding parking fine. From her records alone, she was a stand-up citizen.’ Garcia flipped a page on his notebook. ‘And that’s about it for now.’

Hunter nodded as his gaze moved from CSI agent to CSI agent.

‘They basically just started their operation,’ Garcia clarified. ‘They were just setting up when I got here about five minutes ago.’ He returned his notebook to his pocket.

‘Who’s the lead agent, do you know?’

‘Same one as last time,’ Garcia replied. ‘Dr. Susan Slater.’ He gave Hunter a quirky smile.

‘What was that?’ Hunter asked.

‘What was what?’

‘That “I ate the last donut” smile. What was that for?’

‘C’mon.’

Hunter paused and squinted at his partner.

Garcia made a face. ‘C’mon, Robert, she’s hot and you know it.’

‘Who, Dr. Slater?’

‘No, my grandma in a Brazilian bikini, doing the samba on Copacabana beach. Yes, Dr. Slater. Don’t play dumb, Robert, it really doesn’t suit you. I saw the way you were looking at her last time... and she at you. You should ask her out.’

‘We were working a crime scene, Carlos.’

‘So? Romance can blossom in the strangest of places.’

Hunter chuckled. ‘You’re sick.’

As they set off towards the house again, Hunter felt a drop hit the top of his head and looked up. Garcia did the same. Another one hit them both on the forehead.

On the driveway, the CSI agent searching for tire tracks seemed to have found something, but he too saw the first drops of rain hit the concrete and all of a sudden his movements became a lot more urgent.

‘Shit!’ they all heard him say as he frantically searched the bag he had with him for something he could use to cover the driveway patch directly in front of him.

Hunter and Garcia rushed over to help him, but one of the agents on the front lawn beat them to it.

‘Have you got something?’ Hunter asked as he towered over them, unzipped his jacket, and pulled it wide open like bat wings, to use it as an improvised umbrella.

The raindrops got thicker and more frequent.

‘I think I’ve got a partial tire track here,’ the agent replied, without looking up. ‘If we manage to protect it from the rain, that is.’

Garcia unzipped his jacket and mimicked Hunter’s movements.

‘Crap!’ the first agent said to the second. ‘I didn’t even have time to photograph it. If the rain washes this off, we’ve got nothing.’

The two agents were moving as fast as they could. A few seconds later, after using some tape to fix a piece of impermeable material to the concrete, the first agent finally looked up at Hunter and Garcia.

‘This will hopefully do it,’ he said. ‘Even if the rain manages to wash some of it off, I’m sure we’ll still get something. You guys with Homicide?’