with the logo of a bar he never remembered being in. He sat down on the sofa and turned on the television. He barely noticed the channels he was changing until he hit a press conference. The Police Commissioner was standing at a podium reading from a statement.
‘… established a link with two previous murders, the first of which happened in September last, that of William Aneto, and the second in December of Gary Ortis. ’ The room erupted. The Commissioner continued. ‘ All three victims were male, aged between thirty and forty years old and were brutally attacked in their place of residence and shot dead. A twenty-two caliber handgun was used in each of the crimes. There was no sign of forced entry, so we’re investigating the possibility that these men knew their killer. A task force working out of Manhattan North Homicide has been put together to handle the investigation.’
Questions were shouted from all over the room:
‘ Are you saying there is a serial killer loose in New York? ’
‘ What I’m saying is that we have established a pattern between three homicides that have taken place in the city in the past year.’
‘ Why did you not establish a pattern sooner? The first murder happened almost a year ago.’
‘ These three crimes were committed in different parts of the city over a period of a year and did not initially appear to be connected. For reasons I can not go into at this time, when we went back and got together with detectives handling each case, a pattern emerged.’
‘ How did he gain access to the apartments? ’
‘ Like I said, there was no sign of forced entry. We have to presume for now… the… uh… caller… was let in by the victims or someone familiar with the residences.’
‘ Were these doormen buildings? ’
‘ One was.’
‘ Have you spoken to the families? How did they respond? ’
‘ Yes. We have already spoken to each of the victim’s families and have impressed upon them our commitment to finding their sons’ killer .’
‘ William Aneto’s mother has been extremely outspoken in her dissatisfaction with your handling of her son’s case -’
‘ We have spoken with Mrs Aneto who continues to assist us with our investigation. That’s all I have to say on that matter at this point.’
‘ Have you established a connection between the victims? ’
‘ That is something we are looking into.’
‘ Gay Alliance has recently been raising awareness of the first anniversary of the murder of William Aneto. Do you think there is a homosexual motive to the killings? ’
‘ It is important not to jump to any conclusions in the early stages of an investigation.’
‘ What advice can you give the public? ’
‘ No-one is to panic, here. I would say what we always say: be alert, don’t open your door to strangers, ask to see ID from anyone purporting to be from the gas company, etc. And obviously, if anyone out there has information on any of these crimes, could they please contact Crimestoppers confidentially at 1800 577 TIPS. That’s 1800 577 TIPS.’
‘ Do you have any suspects? ’
‘ We are working through a list of names that are linked in some way to our three victims. Ladies and gentlemen, that’s all we have time for here, today. Thank you for your cooperation.’
‘Yeah, thanks for letting me know, you fucking douche-bags,’ said Joe. ‘And what about – hey, we didn’t make a connection because people don’t know how to fill out a form or fucking communicate with people?’
He changed channels again and every news broadcast he saw had the story.
‘ This perpetrator comes to the homes of his victims. We have no information right now as to how he gains access…’
‘ This dates back to last year’s murder of thirty-one-year-old actor, William Aneto. His body was discovered in his Upper West Side apartment…’
‘ The last person to see Gary Ortis alive is with us right now…’
‘ We’ll be back after the break with information on how you can secure your home.’
‘… being dubbed The Caller…’
‘ A detective who chose not to be named described the scene as…’
‘Fear, fear, fear,’ said Joe, turning the television off. Every day, articles in newspapers ran stories with headlines that screamed Deadly. Anger. Fear. Killer. Disease. Alert. Threat. These murders were not typical for New York. You were more likely to be killed by someone you knew than by the stranger who had now been given the title The Caller.
‘I’m going to take a shower.’ Anna walked back into the room. She leaned over and kissed him.
‘OK.’
He grabbed a magazine from beside the sofa and started flicking through it. He could hear the water running upstairs. He wanted to walk up, open the door, slide in behind her and do something they hadn’t done for months. His patience was low. He felt bad. But really, he was angry. He threw down the magazine and turned the television back on.
Anna came down half an hour later. Joe didn’t bother to look up. When he did, she was leaning over the counter with her back to him, opening a bottle of red wine. She was wearing the tiniest black shorts, no top. Her shoes were high and black with skinny heels and red soles. She turned around. He couldn’t decide where to look. When he made it to her face, she held his gaze and walked slowly towards him.
NINE
Mary Burig stood in the doorway of the library with her smartphone in her hand, open on a drawing programme. With the stylus, she drew a rough sketch of the room, L-shaped because a small storage area had been built in the back right-hand corner. Bookshelves ran around all the walls of the library and in the left-hand corner, the top of the L, was a circle of six low-backed chairs in worn orange fabric. Mary used the eraser tool to take the chairs away. She drew them into the space right inside the door. Then she put them back where they were, saving the drawing and putting the phone in her pocket. She walked over to the poetry section, pulled out a book and went straight to the page she had kept marked with a pink Post-It.
Stan Frayte opened the door and stuck his head in. ‘Hey, cut out the noise in there,’ he said, winking. ‘I got work to do.’
Mary looked up and smiled. ‘Come here for a second,’ she said. ‘Listen to this. “No night is endless, dark and bleak / When in the rising dawn, a weakened light / Erupts to blaze and fire / And guide me past a spirit tired / By heavy hopes and wingless dreams / To find another future’s gleam / And when I search the brightness’ source / I find your heart, a blinding force.”’
‘I don’t think the source of light was a heart, Mary. It was, like, a bulb, a lamp, something an electrician worked real hard at.’
‘Maybe it was,’ said Mary, smiling.
‘No maybe about it.’ Stan walked into the room, pulling a measuring tape from his utility belt. ‘It’s so great that you’ve got a library in the building.’
‘I know,’ said Mary. ‘But not a lot of people use it.’
‘That’s a real shame,’ he said.
‘I mean, I don’t want you to think all your work will be for no-one.’
‘If it’ll make one person happy,’ said Stan. ‘That’s good enough for me.’
‘Thanks so much,’ she said.
‘So what would you like?’
‘Well, this corner,’ she said, ‘where all the chairs are, there are no outlets. I think it would be nice to have some desk lamps here instead for night time, because,’ she pointed to a fluorescent strip-light on the ceiling, ‘that is really glarey. It hurts my eyes.’
