The Night Caller (12 page)

The Flushing address of Ann Callahan’s parents was a shotgun apartment in a flat-roofed brick building with dead-looking vines clinging to one corner. It stood at weary attention in a block of nearly identical buildings. There was no elevator, and the Callahan unit was on the third floor. The stairwell smelled as if someone in the building was cooking something with every conceivable spice. Coop was annoyed by the fact that he was breathing harder than Deni when they’d finished the climb up the narrow wooden stairs.

They’d rung from downstairs and had been told on the intercom to come up, but the door to 3C, the Callahan unit, was closed. Coop knocked and immediately heard floor-boards creaking on the other side of the door.

It was Mr. Callahan who opened the door and peered out at them tentatively, as if he feared they might be bringing him even more terrible news.

He was a small man, with hunched shoulders and his chin tucked in so that he was staring up at Coop and Deni above the dark rims of his glasses. His straight gray hair was combed to lie flat over a bald pate. He was wearing pinstriped pants, a white shirt, black tie, and blue suspenders. Coop had found out that his first name was Edward and for the last twenty-two years he’d been a clerk for various city agencies and was now with the New York Department of Environmental Protection. With his rounded shoulders, bleary eyes, and pinched look about him, he fit the role of bureaucratic hermit crab.

“Can we make this fast?” he asked in a tired voice. “We’ve already talked to you people for hours. My wife’s exhausted.”

Deni started to say something and Coop nudged her. Better to let Edward Callahan assume they were police.

“I know it strains your patience, Mr. Callahan, and we’re sorry. But we very much want to find whoever killed your daughter.”

Callahan screwed up his thin lips in a way that suggested he might start to cry. Coop felt an unexpected pang of pity. He knew exactly how Edward Callahan felt.

But Callahan didn’t cry. Instead he composed himself, then stepped back and let them inside. The apartment’s interior was comfortably if a bit shabbily furnished, with overstuffed furniture and an ancient TV against the wall opposite the sofa. Imitation oriental rugs lay on the hardwood floor. A glass of water with half-melted ice cubes sat on an AARP magazine on the coffee table. Coop guessed that whatever the Callahans’ ages, they felt a lot older today.

A short, worn-looking woman in dark slacks and a wrinkled green sweater entered from a dim hallway that led to the kitchen and bedrooms. Her eyes were red, her face puffy. She was gripping a rosary tightly in her right hand, and she’d probably been crying moments before coming into the living room.

“My wife Louise,” Callahan said. “I told you she was exhausted. We both are. God…”

“I know how you feel,” Coop said.

Callahan shook his head. “Don’t tell me that. I don’t want to hear it.”

“We only want to ask a few questions about Ann,” Deni said. “Then we’ll leave you to your grief.”

Louise Callahan began to sob again but caught her breath in a series of gasps. It seemed to Coop that her frenzied inhalations took all the air out of the room.

“Do you or your wife have any idea who might have been angry or upset in any way with Ann?” he asked.

“Not enough to…do that to her,” Edward Callahan said. “Like we told the other detectives over and over.”

Coop ignored the comment. “Who were her close personal friends?”

“She didn’t have any that we knew. Maybe at work. She was a good girl, a shy girl who minded her own business.”

Coop thought that was a strange answer. “Ann wasn’t a student at the college. Do you have any idea why she would have been on its campus last night?”

“None. She was overdue from work at the bank. She took the bus home every weeknight. She was supposed to show up around six-thirty to help Louise start dinner.”

Louise made another gasping sound, barely under control. Everyone looked at her. She dabbed at her eyes with a wadded tissue, never loosening her grip on the rosary. “I’ll be all right,” she said, mostly to herself. She took a deep breath.

“We don’t know why Ann stayed on the bus all the way to the end of…to where they found her.” Callahan glared at Coop and Deni. “I told you I’m tired! My wife and I both are. Worn out with answering questions!”

“Edward!” Louise Callahan said.

“Shut up, Louise. This can wait until later.”

“But it shouldn’t—”

“I said shut up!”

Coop wasn’t sure if Callahan was tired of answering questions, or mad at his wife. But in his grief and anger he was becoming intransigent. Coop had seen it before. Had felt it.

“If she’d done what she knew she was supposed to…” Callahan said bitterly. “What she’d been told. If she’d just got on the bus after work and come here without doing something that tempted fate…”

“We don’t know if she tempted fate,” Louise Callahan said. “Maybe whoever killed her made her stay on the bus and go with him to where no one would be around when they got off.”

Callahan glared at his wife but said nothing.

“Isn’t that possible?” Louise asked Coop.

“It’s one of a lot of possibilities we’re trying to sort out,” he said.

“Had Ann taken a trip by plane recently?” Deni asked.

Now Callahan swung around to glare at Deni. “She wouldn’t fly. Not anywhere. Had a thing about it.”

So much for Deni’s homicidal flight attendant theory, Coop thought. “Where was it you said Ann worked?” he asked.

“Mercantile Mutual Bank,” Louise said.

Callahan clenched his fists. “Damn it, Louise. Didn’t you hear me say the questioning was over?”

“No,” she said in a confused voice. “What you said was—”

“That’s it!” Callahan interrupted. “That’s goddamn
it!
We’re both done answering questions.”

“Okay, we’re sorry, Mr. Callahan.” Coop began fastening the buttons on his coat. “We understand.”

Callahan seemed not to have heard. “Done, over, finished,” he said. He stalked to the door to the hall and opened it, then stood rigidly holding it, waiting for Coop and Deni to leave.

Coop put his hand on Deni’s shoulder and guided her toward the door.

When Callahan saw they were cooperating and there was nothing to hurl his silent rage at, he gave a choked sigh and covered his face with his hands. “I’m sorry…I want to help you, really…”

“It’s all right,” Coop told him. “This isn’t the time. We’re sorry, Mr. Callahan. Mrs. Callahan.”

Louise managed to twist her mask of grief into a brave smile.

“We’ll catch the man,” Deni assured them as she stepped out into the hall with Coop.

Callahan closed the door without answering. The hall was cool after the apartment. The air seemed cleaner.

“You can’t be in there with them and not breathe in their grief,” Coop said, when they were going down the stairs. Thinking of his own grief immediately after Bette’s death, how dark emotion had engulfed him in a way he hadn’t thought possible.

“I hope he doesn’t start in on his wife now that we’re gone,” Deni said.

Coop looked at her as they reached the second-floor landing. “Why would you say that?”

“He impressed me that way, Coop. A tight-ass weakling who vents his anger on people even weaker than he is, especially if they live with him. Typical male household dictator.”

“They’re both heartbroken,” Coop said. “Maybe that’s why it looks that way.”

“Maybe,” Deni admitted, “but it’d surprise me if he wasn’t a spouse abuser. I still bet he’ll start in on that mousy little hausfrau if he hasn’t already.”

Coop was afraid she might be right.

Back on the street, a light, cold rain had begun to fall. Coop said, “Was there something else about the scene upstairs that didn’t seem right?”

“Don’t quiz me, tell me,” Deni said, turning up her coat collar.

“The sister, Cara. Usually in situations like this a family closes ranks, its members comforting and supporting each other. Why wasn’t Cara with her parents in their time of family grief?”

Deni grinned at him. “Why, indeed?”

“It’s only quarter to eight,” Coop said, “but I don’t have her address.”

“I do,” Deni said. “I know all about her.”

She was already lowering herself into the passenger seat of his car by the time he got in behind the steering wheel.

Cara Callahan lived in a prewar apartment building on the Upper West Side, not far from Columbus Circle. Its blackened stone facade, complete with chipped Roman columns flanking the entrance, suggested better times. There was no official doorman, but when Coop and Deni entered the lobby, an elderly guy in gray work clothes who might have been the super laid down a
Times
and got up from a small sofa to ask if he could help them.

“Cara Callahan,” Coop said.

The man’s expression changed.

“We don’t like it either,” Coop said, “but we have to see her. It’s about her sister’s murder.”

The man looked at Coop and saw cop. “Hell of a thing,” he said.

“Hell of a thing,” Coop agreed.

“I’ll call up, tell her you’re coming.”

“That’d be good,” Coop told him.

In the elevator, Deni said, “What would you have done if he’d asked for identification?”

“I would have acted surprised he thought I was a cop. But I wasn’t too worried about it. I saw he was the kind of guy who could spot a cop.”

“You’re beginning to impress me,” Deni said.

“Only beginning?”

Like her mother, Cara had obviously been crying recently. She was an attractive woman in her thirties, and she strongly resembled the old photo of her sister the TV news had been showing. Her hair was blond though, rather than red like her sister’s, shorter and worn in bangs. She was barefoot and had on a tightly sashed blue silk kimono with a beautifully done gold dragon design. Coop saw no other sign of Asian art or decor in the efficiency apartment, which was furnished traditionally and tastefully. He thought the place had probably been rented furnished, then given the personal touches that made it more livable.

“We’ve been to see your mother and father,” he told Cara, after declining her offer of coffee.

“How are they?”

“They were understandably tired and preferred not to answer many questions about Ann.”

Cara waved for Coop and Deni to sit on the sofa, then sat in a small gray vinyl chair and curled her legs up beneath her. “I’m not surprised. We’re all…Well, you know how it must be. With your job, you must have seen this kind of thing before.”

“Unfortunately, yes,” Coop said, sitting down next to Deni. He unbuttoned his coat but left it on, and Deni followed his lead. They didn’t want to give the impression they were settling in for a long visit, imposing themselves on Cara Callahan.

Deni said, “Your father was angry when we left.”

Coop felt like kicking her.

Cara gave a sad little smile. Coop thought there might be a gravity about her even on an ordinary day. She was attractive but not a giggler. “So what’s new?” she said.

“He get mad a lot?” Coop asked.

“He gets frustrated,” Cara said.

“What’s he do about it?”

“Let’s just say it wasn’t a happy family situation in that apartment. Then let’s leave it at that.”

Coop thought Deni had called it right. If Callahan didn’t beat up on the women in his family, he probably abused them in other ways. That would explain why Cara had chosen to grieve her sister’s death alone.

Cara hugged herself as if she were cold, though the apartment was comfortably warm. “You mind if I go get a cup of coffee?”

“Not at all,” Coop told her. “But maybe you shouldn’t drink coffee. It might keep you from sleeping.”

“Who can sleep anyway?” she said, and got up and walked to the small kitchen, her hips moving gracefully beneath the silk kimono.

They waited until she’d returned and was settled back in her chair, her legs tucked beneath her again, exactly as before only with a steaming white mug of coffee in her right hand. The strong aroma of the coffee began to permeate the living room.

“Instead of us asking the questions you’ve probably already heard,” Coop said, “why don’t you just tell us about Ann. Your own words, whatever you want to talk about, however you want to say it.”

“Ann,” Cara said thoughtfully. “She’s—she was my little sister, three years younger. The shy one. All her life. Our family…my father is a fine man in some ways, but not in others. He likes control. No, he craves control. I broke away and left home, got a job and this apartment five years ago. Ann, she never had a chance.”

Coop looked at her. “You lived at home until you were twenty-eight?”

“Off an on, but mostly on,” Cara said. “Dad wanted it that way.”

“And your mother?” Deni asked.

Cara gave a sad laugh. “She never had a chance, either.”

“Did he ever abuse you?” Deni asked.

Cara shot her a look that gave even Deni pause. “Is that the crime we’re investigating?”

“No,” Coop said quickly. “Murder. Ann’s. Do you have any idea who—”

“No.” Cara cut him off. “Do people need a reason these days to murder someone? Aren’t people killed by strangers all the time?”

“All the time,” Coop agreed. She looked directly at him and a silent understanding seemed to arc between them. Coop, surprised, wondered if she had somehow realized he wasn’t a cop. Or that if he was, there was something different about him. Her look had suggested that if she did suspect he was there under false pretenses, for some reason she didn’t care. She’d play along. “Did you and Ann have any common friends or acquaintances?” he asked.

“Only a few. Ann’s life was about going to work, returning home, helping with meals and housework. She was going to take care of Mom and Dad in their old age. That was her fate and she was resigned to it. That’s still the way it is in some Irish families, Detective…What was your name?”

“Cooper. And that’s how it is in a lot of families. Old-fashioned but it persists.”

“And Ann knew Dad was going to outlive Mom. She told me that.”

“How could she know?”

“We both knew. He has the willpower. He’s the force. Not much can kill him. Mom’s the one who bends, and when you bend often enough, you break.”

Coop was beginning to appreciate what it must have taken for Cara to leave, to be on her own. “Did you talk to your sister about leaving home? Try to help her?”

“We talked about it a lot. Then came a time when we both knew talk wasn’t going to change anything. I even helped Ann to find a job. That was so she could get her own place. But she never did, just talked about it. Then talked about it less and less. She fell into her routine, taking the bus to work, then home, then up in the morning and repeat yesterday.”

“What about weekends?” Deni asked.

“Housework. Activities with the folks.”

“No dates?”

“Only occasionally. Ann was very shy. There was nobody special. I kept waiting for that to happen, hoping she’d meet somebody who’d give her strength. But it never did.” She took a long sip of coffee as if she wanted to burn her tongue. “Now it never will happen.”

“If Ann had been seeing someone, had a lover or intimate friend in her life, would she have confided in you?”

“I probably would have been the first person she told. There wasn’t anyone like that. I’m sure of it.”

Deni leaned forward on the sofa. “Your mom and dad said Ann was afraid to fly.”

Cara’s lipstick-smeared lips curved slightly upward. “Isn’t that what I’ve been telling you?”

“Sure. But what I’m asking is, might she have just told them she was afraid? Did she ever go anyplace by air, maybe just for a day, without them knowing?”

“No, I don’t think that was possible. She really was afraid to get on a plane. She was afraid of so many things. It was built into her; then more and more doubt was added.”

“Did you two often get together here in the city?” Coop asked. “Go to lunch or anything?”

“Only occasionally. I work in the loan department of Longpoint Bank down in the Village. Ann was a teller at Mercantile Mutual on the Upper East Side.”

The phone rang, and Cara excused herself and went into the bedroom to answer it. They could hear her talking, thanking someone for their sympathy. Coop didn’t have to hear the words to recognize that sort of phone call. He remembered receiving them after Bette had died, people talking uneasily to each other, not knowing what to say over a thin wire stretched through the terrible void left by sudden death.

When she returned, her eyes were moist. She’d been crying again.

Coop couldn’t take it anymore, what they were doing to her. “We’ll leave you alone,” he said, standing up from the sofa. “Thanks for taking the time to talk to us.”

Deni stood up beside Coop, and Cara followed them to the door.

As they were leaving, Coop was surprised to feel Cara’s hand on his arm. He turned around and she was looking up at him with her red-rimmed eyes. There was something in them other than grief now, something bright and hard.

“I want my sister’s killer caught,” she said.

“Of course. He will be.”

“I’m not talking about assurances,” she said. “I mean I
really
want him caught. Ann and I were closer than most sisters, especially when we were younger. I feel guilty myself, as if I’ve let her down. And maybe I have.” Her grip on his arm tightened. “I want this son of a bitch to pay!”

Coop saw what was burning in her, how constant and brilliant it was. He knew now why a bully like Edward Callahan was no match for her.

“I want him caught just as much as you do,” he said, as he and Deni stepped into the hall.

“No, you don’t. You can’t.”

“Don’t you believe it,” Coop told her, and closed the door behind him.

She couldn’t know how he burned with her.