“I’d just like to hear his voice,” I said. “Will you let me talk to him?”
Nothing other than the sound of a highway.
“Are you still there?” I asked.
Freeman walked in from the other room, holding a cellular phone. “They’ve got it,” he whispered to Cassidy, then left the room.
“Are you still there?” I asked again. “Please, let me talk to Frank. Just to know… well, you understand why.”
Freeman came in again, handed a note to Cassidy.
“If you won’t let me talk to him, would you please just say something?”
I waited, but there was no reply.
“Frank’s cousin is going to be out here from Texas,” I said, trying to remember the script I had gone over with Cassidy. “He’s due in today. They’ve planned this visit for weeks. He’s going to be worried when Frank isn’t here. Couldn’t I just talk to Frank for a moment, so that I could tell his cousin that he’s alive?”
I heard the sound of tires screeching on pavement in the background and, not long after, the squawk of a police radio and a dispatcher’s voice.
The police? My panic increased tenfold. If they caught this man, if they didn’t just follow him—
“Ms. Kelly?” a voice said. A different male voice.
“Yes?”
“Las Piernas Police. Would you please put Detective Cassidy on?”
“What have you done with the man who called?” I asked.
“He’s not here, ma’am. Please, just let me speak to—”
I handed the phone over before he could finish.
I waited impatiently while Cassidy talked to him. I couldn’t make out anything from Cassidy’s half of the conversation.
“What happened?” I asked as soon as Cassidy hung up.
“What you heard was a tape being played on a cheap little tape recorder. Phone booth is here in town — gas station near an industrial park. Nobody around this time on a Saturday morning, but of course we’ll be checking that out. Caller made sure you were answering the first time, then called back and pushed the play button.”
“That whole time — no one was there?”
“Probably not. We’ll dust everything for prints, look for witnesses.”
“You won’t find anything.”
“Let’s not make any predictions one way or the other, all right?”
I didn’t answer.
“I’m going to listen to Hank’s tape,” he said.
I hesitated, then followed him into the living room. Freeman, whose head made him look as if he were being paid by the cowlick, sat hunched over a recorder. “In spite of being second generation and all the other problems, it’s very clear,” he said. He played it for us. I listened to myself pleading and cringed.
Cassidy looked at his watch. “Should be getting another call at about ten o’clock.”
“What do we do until then?” I asked.
“Why don’t you try to get a little sleep?”
“I don’t think I can.”
“Try.”
“The effort will keep me awake. Besides, I need to call his family.”
The phone rang before he could respond, and once again I leapt to answer it while Freeman scrambled to monitor the call.
“Kelly?”
“Hold on, John.”
I looked over to Cassidy. He motioned to Freeman to turn off the recorder. Freeman hit the button and pulled off his headset.
“You coming in?” John asked.
“No. It’s my day off, remember?”
“I know, but I thought you might want to talk to us before you talk to the competition.”
“Jesus, how do you come up with this crap? Can you just stop thinking about the front page for a minute or two?”
“I’m not trying to upset you, Irene,” he coaxed. “I like Frank, you know I do—”
“Don’t”
