Caller unknown, p.28
Caller Unknown, page 28
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
He drove away from the warehouse with a squeal of tires, hunching forward as the wipers fought the ever-heavier snow. The alley gave onto a dockside presided over by massive cranes; moored ships and stacks of containers reared up into the night sky. No one was out. Beyond the container ships, a bay stretched away, and over the far shore aircraft landing lights could be seen on approach to a brightly lit airport. The word “Logan” popped into his head, then “Boston” followed. Memory was stirring in him like a green shoot. He’d lived here once, in this city.
He drove along the dockside and onto a bridge. More names were given to him by green overhead signs signaling an exit to South Boston Waterfront, then another to the Harbor Area. He took this: the run-down piers, storage units, and derricks gave way to brightly lit streets. A sign told him he was now in North End.
A mile and a half was as far as he could drive. His hands and feet were shaking. His steering was off. His mind was still spinning. He needed to park, regroup, remember more. Then he saw the waterfront hotel: the Marriott, North End. He pulled to the curb and studied the hotel front. Bellboys and guests were milling around the well-lit foyer. Too public. He drove around the side of the building into a side alley whose major features were overflowing dumpsters and a feral cat caught in his headlights.
He cut the engine, switched on the courtesy light and examined the contents of his coat and jacket. His billfold was nearly empty, just one five-dollar bill. He stared at the face of the man on the note and knew him first to be a president, then to be Lincoln. Little bubbles of recollection were popping in his head.
He pulled out the revolver. Best not to carry it in. He opened the glove compartment and made a new discovery: a padded envelope. Inside was a thick wad of cash: he riffled through the notes. Faces flickered past in the dim light: Lincoln again, Hamilton, Jackson, Grant… More names. He estimated there must be some $5,000 here. The money was all in used notes, a few fifties, but otherwise small denominations. In addition, there was a clasp knife and a flashlight. He took $100 from the bills and placed the bag and the gun in the glove compartment.
There was still that mysterious package he’d felt between his shirt and skin in the warehouse. He unbuttoned and pulled out a newspaper-wrapped package secured with tape. The red Woolworth’s notebook with Vermeulen’s name. There were also some charred, stapled A4 pages. He placed them next to the Bible.
He entered the hotel by unmanned revolving doors at the rear lobby, where a sign directed newly arriving guests to the front registration desk. He ignored that and took the sign to the bar instead. It was a dimly lit, quiet space. No one stared at him as he came in. Good.
He sat on a stool at the end of the bar. He wondered if he stank of gunshot residue. In fact, he wondered if he stank, period. Though he was dressed in a new lightweight gabardine suit and overcoat, he had the impression he had not changed out of them in a couple of days.
There was a mirror over the bar and he studied his surroundings in it. What he saw was, again, familiar yet unfamiliar: he knew it to be a hotel bar like any other hotel bar the world over. The waitresses were three college-age girls in black T-shirts and jeans. They stood together at the other end of the long stretch of dark wood, mostly chatting and gesticulating. It appeared to be a relatively slack night. Drinks trays laden with empty glasses piled up in the service area.
Despite the lack of traffic, it was difficult to get served. The manager was in his midthirties, button-down powder-blue shirt, conservative striped club tie, receding hairline. He was not getting the waitresses’ attention either. He was pouring most of the drinks himself, pounding the register’s buttons with unnecessary force as he made each sale. The clientele were largely middle-aged businessmen sipping beer and bourbon. The men’s attention was half on the waitresses, half on the football game showing on the TV high in the corner over the bar. Wherever the night-time game was happening, it was far to the south, untouched by the snow falling here.
Suddenly the overworked manager was in his face, breaking in on his reverie. “What’ll you have, mister?”
“Club soda,” he answered, not looking him in the eye. The manager brought it. Little ice, no lemon, the liquid spilling onto the paper coaster and onto the edge of the five-spot that he had left on the bartop. A real drink would have been good, but a voice kept telling him that alcohol would make him forget again. And he was a man who desperately needed to remember.
The sodium lights glowed faintly orange-yellow through the net curtains mottled by the silhouettes of large, drifting flakes. Nothing else could be seen of the outside world, of the harbor or the distant airport across the water. It was as if the world had ceased to exist beyond the reach of the bar, the chattering girls and the flickering TV screen.
He was sitting quietly, listening for sirens from the dock area a mile and a half to the southeast and wondering what to do next, when the woman came up and asked if he would like a drink, just like that. She was, as far as he could tell, the only businesswoman in the bar. Auburn hair, center parting, hazel eyes. A light freckling over the nose, as if her pale, milky skin had seen a little sun even in this northeastern winter. A two-piece suit, understated gray, and white silk T-shirt underneath. The only jewelry she wore was two heavy scalloped gold earrings. He noticed she gripped the inside of her left suit sleeve, half concealing her wedding and engagement rings in the folds of material. Her perfume had a beguiling scent reminiscent of peonies and sandalwood.
Her smile was as winning as her scent: rather shy and sweet. He felt there was no danger from her: more, should the cops suddenly arrive, her presence might deflect suspicion from him. In fact, she could be the saving of him. She got up on the stool next to him.
“So, you drinking?” she asked.
“Well, I wasn’t up till now.”
“But you’ll join me?” That smile again. It was difficult to resist. Besides, one drink couldn’t hurt, could it?
“Sure,” he said.
“It’s on me, then,” she said.
He exchanged the soda for a Manhattan, another name that had just popped into his head. He’d decided he’d call himself Martin. Martin will have a Manhattan, he thought to himself, and smiled, and the woman said, “What’s so funny?”
And he said, “Oh, nothing. Just been a long day.” And that seemed the right thing to say, he was glad to notice, because she gave another tentative smile. She ordered a martini for herself and told him she was called Nell Smith, but he wondered if that was her real name.
She had a quiet voice, only just above whispering, which he found hard to make out against the noise of the football game. Wherever she was from, there was a reserve about her. He found it confusing, but he decided he liked Nell’s slightly contradictory mixture of assertiveness and reserve.
One drink followed another. The conversation, perforce, was mainly on her side. In fact, it was so one-sided maybe she thought he was already too drunk to talk. There were periods of silence, but she didn’t seem to mind. It turned out she was a pharmaceutical rep. She told him of the meetings she had had that day in the city. The details of which eluded him the moment she had uttered them. The alcohol was having its effect. She leaned in as she repeated something. Almost imperceptibly the top of her foot came to rest on his calf and didn’t leave. Her eyes didn’t leave either. The drink seemed to give her Dutch courage. What would happen next?
Her hazel eyes, slightly glazed now, flickered from the martini on the bar to Ed and back again. It was her third since they had met sometime after nine. It was 10.35 now. She was heading on a tide of gin to whatever lay at the end of this road. Already her quiet words were a bit slurred. He was really only understanding about half of what she said, if that. Perhaps he was no better?
He wondered whether this was her first time with a stranger in a bar. Also, he wasn’t sure what the protocol was. Was she waiting for him to initiate things? Or would it be more subtle than that: would she flash her key card and abruptly leave and see if he followed?
He hadn’t thought it through. At first he’d decided she would be good camouflage while he gathered his thoughts. But now it occurred to him that spending the night with this woman might save him. He didn’t know if he liked himself, whoever he was, for this idea. Should he just up and leave and take his chances on the road? By now, Scarface and Gangbanger’s friends might be looking for him. And if they were looking for him, the police would certainly follow soon after.
He realized she, too, might be caught in indecision. The flirtation had, after all, been noncommittal. Now the moment had come. There was responsibility even when you were free: free and damned to do what you pleased all at once—such was the lot of the stranger. In his bones he knew he had once been like Nell, lonely and rootless in a strange place. Maybe she had no wish to do this thing other than to prove it could be done.
She was rummaging in her purse. A quick glance in a compact mirror, a tilt of the head, a model’s moue transforming her; this, too, reminded him of a moment with someone else. The woman who had signed that picture?
Then Nell snapped the compact lid, bringing him back to himself.
She waved the manager over for the check.
“Let me,” he said.
But she shook her head. “I said, it’s on me.” She leaned over the check and scrawled a signature that he didn’t see. She shut the purse and slid from the stool. She didn’t catch his eye, but looked instead at the purse clasp. He’d forgotten how petite she had been when he first saw her. Five six, he guessed, in her heels.
“Are you coming?” she whispered, her voice not quite controlled.
He slid off his own stool and reached out an arm, steadying her. As he did so, his eyes went to the mirror. He scrutinized the back of the bar in it. No one new, no one looking at them. He picked up his coat and helped her to the elevator bank in the foyer.
She was fumbling in her purse again; again, no eye contact. They got off at the sixth floor, walked a step or two down the corridor. She punched the room card down into the keyslot and there was a faint click and a green light shone on the display. They hadn’t spoken a word since the bar.
“Listen…” he began, but she shushed him, holding up a finger to his lips. It trembled a little. That faint exotic scent again. Familiar but enchanting. A night in an exotic garden. She pushed open the door, slid the room card into the interior light array.
She must have left all the lights on standby when she went out because now every single one blazed into life. A small bathroom suite was on the left. Makeup scattered on the countertop, a wet towel untidily forced back on the rail, and a wet mat with her small, wet footprints still pressed into it. The room was small, the space between bathroom and window mostly taken up by a double bed. She walked toward it, then turned. The far wall was taken up by a window, a single standard light over an armchair, a minibar and a dressing table with a mirror. The curtains were open and fat flakes of snow were dancing in the blackness outside. One or two hit the window and slid slowly down the glass. The door’s weight finally overcame the resistance of the latch and chunked shut behind him.
He shrugged off the overcoat. They stood close in the small space, without touching. He could feel her breath faintly on the front of his shirt. Her head hung, looking at the carpet. Her open purse in one hand, her other twisting the front of her suit jacket.
“Well, here we are,” she whispered, then she looked up, for the first time since the bar. A small, wry smile as she bit her lower lip. In the hard overhead light she looked like a young girl. A sad young girl. She dropped the purse on the table. Its contents slid out. The compact again, lipstick, the room card, change… and a picture.
Her partner was good-looking. Blond, bronzed, fit… a sporting type. Could have modeled in Men’s Health. There were two girls on either side of him. Blond like their father, but with their mother’s face. Dad’s arms were around them. The girls smiled shyly. The breeze was blowing strands of hair over their eyes and brace-covered teeth.
Then the people in the forefront of the picture rushed away and the background came sharply into focus. Behind the dad and kids was a lake. Ed distantly heard himself draw a sharp breath. A calm expanse of blue-black water framed by a tree limb fronded with green. A sailboat out in the middle distance, a haze of pine-covered forest beyond the water.
The Lake. A voice said: “You need to go to the Lake.” But what lake? Some homing instinct in him, the scintilla of magnetite in his brain, told him it was north.
He realized both Nell and he were staring at the picture on the table.
“My family,” she explained, needlessly. She reached forward and swept the photo and the rest back into the purse.
“Maybe I could use another drink,” she said thickly. She knelt by the minbar. She pulled open the door. The inside light shone on her face, her foundation, the small imperfections of her skin, and a smear of mascara where she had wiped away a tear.
He sat on the bed as she pulled out two whiskey miniatures and poured them into plastic glasses. She held out one. He took it and knocked it back.
She sat next to him, thigh to thigh, and turned her face up to his.
They kissed for a few moments. Contradictory waves of lust and wrongness hit him simultaneously.
“Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea,” he said, standing abruptly.
She stood quickly as well, pulling down her rucked-up skirt. “It’s fine. We don’t have to do anything; just have a drink with me.” She stared up at him. “I could use the company,” she added.
He took a deep breath. “Listen, you’re a beautiful woman, but”—he gestured—“I have to get somewhere.”
“Why?” she asked. “It’s late.”
“There’s a place I have to be. It’s important.” He reached down and picked up his overcoat from the bed.
She stood. “Stay, please.”
He took a step back. “It’s better I go, believe me.”
Her brows knitted suddenly and the quiet woman was immediately gone.
“So, you’re just one of those assholes, are you?” she said.
“I’m going, OK?” He held up his hands and backed to the door and unlatched it. He glanced quickly up and down the corridor. Empty. Then he looked back. She stood there, shoulders slumped, looking at the floor. He let the door go and hurried away.
It was just before twelve when the knock on the door came. By then Nell, whose real name was Gail McReedy, had had a couple of vodkas out of the minibar and the room was spinning slightly and out of focus at the edges. She had discarded the suit and her tights on the bed and was sitting in front of the vanity mirror in her underwear, staring mournfully at the small wrinkles around her eyes and mouth.
So he’d come back, she thought wearily. Maybe he had gone back to the bar for Dutch courage and had now conveniently forgotten about his wife or whatever else had been bothering him. Well, it was too late now. The rap came again, insistent. She would have to get rid of him before he made a scene. She pulled on the hotel bathrobe and opened the door, ready for sharp words.
But the words never came out because gloved hands grabbed her throat and mouth and bundled her back into the room. She realized there were two of them. Both wearing high-collared jackets and hats. Why hats indoors? she thought inconsequentially as the first man bore her backward onto the bed, where he straddled her, his hands like iron on her mouth and throat. The other shut the door softly behind him and advanced into the room. He paused, took off his hat and placed it neatly on the provided stand, like nothing so much as an office worker returning home after a busy day at work. He came to the bedside. There was a click and a switchblade gleamed in the soft light. He showed her it and then played it down her cheek. She felt its razor edge scraping the foundation and down away. He had a widow’s peak and pockmarked cheeks. Her eyes were locked on his. She thought she had never seen such cold, blue eyes before. His teeth glinted with metal. Braces of some kind—a dental prosthesis? Why, in a grown man?
“Where’s Ed?” he asked, taking his hand from her mouth.
“Ed?” she replied.
“He might have called himself Martin,” the man said.
“He left. An hour or more ago.”
“Too bad for you then,” he said.
Then he clamped his gloved hand over her mouth again and it began.
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
Just after half past twelve there was a call from the Marriott house telephone about a disturbance in Room 611. No one ever discovered who made the call. When the night security went up to check on things, the man got no response from within. He used his pass key to enter. Gail McReedy was lying on the bed. Her tights were tied tight around her neck. Her eyes bulged in death as they never had in life and her blue tongue hung out of her mouth. Her panties had been torn away and her legs lay open. There were several distinctive bite marks on her breasts and inner thighs. Perfect dental sets.
It was not long before the place was swarming with cops. Guests trying to see what was going on were being held back in the corridor. The medical examiner made sure the SOE took careful photographs and measurements of the teeth marks. Dental forensics might be an incipient science but these perfect imprints were probably good enough to send someone down for life. Soon, the fact of the bite marks got out to the reporters; even before the early editions of the papers, the late-night radio shows started talking about the killer as the North End Cannibal.
There was a picture of the guy. The hotel’s CCTV footage, which in those days only covered the lobby, showed McReedy with a dark-haired man who looked about thirty heading toward the elevators at just after 10.30. The man had reappeared in the footage some fifteen minutes later, walking rapidly toward the rear of the hotel. He looked flustered and jittery. Had he been gone long enough for rape and murder? Perhaps, the homicide detectives concluded.
The bar manager remembered the couple very well. He thought there was something off about the guy. Furtive, constantly checking his surroundings. He’d overheard the lady introduce herself as Nell something, but when she signed off the bill he saw her real name was Gail McReedy. He witnessed a lot of these bar hookups in his line of work and hadn’t thought any more of it when the two had left together. But the lady—the dead lady—had seemed into the twitchy guy. Despite the fact that he had served him, he couldn’t add much to the CCTV description.
