Chris Carter - The Caller

Hunter took a couple of steps back as he finally managed to drag his attention away from the victim. Just like he’d noticed in the Jenkinsons’ anteroom, nothing in their living room looked to have been either disturbed or moved out of place. He had already studied Cassandra’s fingers, hands and arms. There were no bruises, no scratches, and no hints of any sort of defensive wounds. She was a reasonably tall woman — five-eight, maybe five-nine, slim and muscle-toned enough to suggest at least one weight-training session in the gym a week. Unless she had been taken completely by surprise, or subdued at gunpoint, she would’ve put up a fight, and a good one, Hunter was fairly certain of it, yet there were no signs of a struggle anywhere — not on her body, nor in her house.

‘Has her cellphone been found?’ Hunter asked.

‘It has,’ Doctor Slater answered. ‘Would you like to have a guess as to where we found it?’

‘Microwave,’ Garcia said.

Doctor Slater confirmed it with a sideways head nod.

‘Computer? Laptop? Tablet?’

‘We haven’t checked the whole house yet, but there’s a laptop on the kitchen counter.’ With her index finger she pointed in the direction of it.

Something new for IT Forensics to have fun with , Hunter thought.

Dr. Slater had gone back to studying the victim’s body. ‘This doesn’t make any sense,’ she said, dragging Hunter’s attention away from his thoughts.

‘You mean the apparent fluctuation in MO?’ he said.

She first nodded then paused, re-evaluating Hunter’s words. ‘Apparent? I thought I’d just described four major diverging points.’

‘And they were all correct and very valid,’ Hunter replied. ‘But I think that we’re maybe forgetting something here.’

‘And what’s that?’ the doctor asked.

‘If we are indeed talking about the same killer of three nights ago, this is his second offence. Right now, what really constitutes his MO, even his signature, is not totally clear because we have only one point of comparison.’

Dr. Slater thought about it for a quick second before accepting Hunter’s argument with an eyebrow movement.

He walked over to the fireplace and picked up a framed wedding photograph from the mantelpiece. It showed the victim and her husband standing at the steps that led up to a church entrance. Hunter recognized it as being the Cathedral of Our Lady of Angels in downtown Los Angeles. The smile on both of their faces told its own story.

‘Yes,’ Hunter said. ‘There are a lot of indications to what this killer’s MO might be. There are a lot of diverging points as well, but the truth is that right now he might just be experimenting.’

The doctor kneeled down in front of Cassandra to study her eyes. ‘Wait a second,’ she said, finally picking up the meaning in Hunter’s words. ‘If you’re right and he’s still experimenting, then we all know what this means, don’t we? This won’t end here. He’s going to kill again.’

Neither Hunter nor Garcia replied.

They didn’t need to.

As Mr. J joined the freeway heading towards Bakersfield and Los Angeles, he brought the speed on his Cadillac CTS-V up to seventy miles per hour, the maximum permitted by the California Department of Transport and the Highway Patrol. His head was still a mess. Thought processes would start at the back of his mind but, before developing into anything significant, they would be shattered into tiny pieces by flashback images of Cassandra being tortured in their own living room, by the hopeless look in her eyes, by the way she convulsed for the very last time. They would be drowned by the sound of that daemonic voice, a sound he knew he would never forget.

Mr. J took a deep breath and the effort made his whole body shake with sadness once again. He began coughing as if he was about to throw up, but his empty stomach produced nothing.

Coughing frenzy over, he checked the dashboard clock and then the speedometer. He’d already been driving for over an hour and even if he kept to the maximum limit throughout the entire journey, it would still take him around two hours to get back to Los Angeles and his house in Granada Hills.

‘Shit. Shit. Shit! ’ he screamed at nothing and at everything while punching the steering wheel.

He knew that LAPD Detectives and a forensic team would already be there, probing through his house, disturbing Cassandra’s body. He knew it because he was the one who made the call. That had been the first of the three phone calls he’d made just before leaving his hotel room in Fresno. The second call was made to one of his contacts inside the LAPD. Someone who he paid well, but who also owed him a lot more than his own life. He owed Mr. J his wife’s and his kid’s life too.

‘Hello!’ Skeptically, the deep, rough voice answered the call after the second ring.

‘Brian?’ Mr. J asked out of courtesy. Besides being able to recognize Brian’s very distinctive voice anywhere, Mr. J had called him on the usual number. A number no one else knew about. A number no one else used, except for the two of them.

There was a long pause where Mr. J heard muffled footsteps, followed by the sound of a door opening and closing, then a few more muffled footsteps.

‘Mr. J,’ Brian said, letting out a heavy lung of air, his tone now a little anxious. Mr. J never called him at night. He never called him at home.

Brian Caldron wasn’t an LAPD detective. He wasn’t a police officer either. In fact, he could barely use a handgun. What he was, was a mega computer geek, a top analyst inside the LAPD’s Scientific Investigation Division, with a very high clearance level. A clearance level that gave him direct and unrestricted access to most national and local law-enforcement databases, and with that he was able to provide Mr. J with the most valuable commodity of the modern age — information.

‘I’m sorry for calling you at home,’ Mr. J said, ‘but I need a favor.’ As soon as that last word left his lips, Mr. J regretted it. It was never a favor, it was always business. The word ‘favor’ implied weakness. It implied that Mr. J would now be in Brian’s debt. He hoped Brian hadn’t picked up on it.

He hadn’t.

‘Can’t it wait until the morning?’ Brian asked.

‘No.’

Mr. J heard Brian take another deep breath. ‘So how can I help?’

‘A nine-one-one call was made to the LAPD not that long ago,’ Mr. J explained. ‘Probable homicide.’

Brian took down the address Mr. J gave him.

‘The first thing I need from you is — I need you to find out if the call was a hoax or not.’

For some reason, Mr. J was still holding on to a sliver of hope that all this could’ve been nothing more than some sort of sick prank.

‘OK,’ Brian replied. ‘And if it’s not a hoax?’

‘Then I need you to ghost this case twenty-four/seven. Everything, and I mean everything that gets logged regarding this investigation, I need to know.’ A short pause. ‘Is there any way you can get that confirmation from your place, or do you need to be back at headquarters?’

‘If confirmation is all you need right now,’ Brian said, ‘I can do it from here.’

‘OK. Let me know when you get it.’

Mr. J checked his speed again. He was still keeping to the speed limit.

Ring. Ring. Brian’s secret number popped up on the large screen display on Mr. J’s dashboard. He thumbed a button on his steering wheel and accepted the call.

‘Brian. So what do you have for me?’

‘The call was no hoax.’

Mr. J felt an invisible dagger penetrate his heart. His fingers began choking his steering wheel until his knuckles went white.