by Lisa Jackson
“What can I do for you?”
“Samantha Leeds?”
“Yes.”
“Rick Bentz, New Orleans Police Department.” He flipped open a black wallet that displayed his badge and ID. Gray eyes drilled into hers. “You filed a report down at the station. This is a follow-up call.”
Everything looked in order, the picture on his ID matched the face staring sternly at her, so Sam unlocked the chain and opened the door. Bentz walked in, and Sam sensed the man was keyed up. “Let’s go over what happened,” he suggested. “We can start with”—he glanced down at his notes—“the call you got at the station and, it says here you got a threatening letter here at the house. You called the local police about it.”
“And the message left on my machine while I was on vacation. This way.” She guided him into the den, handed him a copy of the letter and marred photograph, then changed tapes in her answering machine. “These are both copies. The originals are with the Cambrai police.”
“Good.”
Sam played the message that had haunted her for nearly a week.
Bentz listened hard as he stared at the publicity photo with her eyes cut out.
“I know what you did, and you’re not going to get away with it. You’re going to have to pay for your sins.” The voice she’d become so familiar with oozed through the room, filling the corners, sliding behind the curtains, scraping her mind.
“What sins?” Bentz asked, and a glimmer of interest sparked in his eyes as he scanned the room, taking stock, she supposed, of her small library and equipment.
“I don’t know.” Sam was honest. “I can’t figure it out.”
“And the calls to the radio station, they were about the same topic—sin?” he asked, his gaze moving over the desk and bookcase as if he were studying her den to get a better picture of who she was.
“Yes. He, um, he called himself John, told me that he knew me, that he was, and I quote, ‘my John.’ When I said I knew lots of them, he insinuated that I’d been with a lot of men and he, um, he called me a slut. I cut him off.”
“Have you ever dated or been involved with a John?”
“I’ve thought about that,” she said. “Sure. It’s a common enough name. I think I went out with John Petri in high school and a guy named John…oh, God, I don’t remember his last name in college but that’s about it. Neither one of them were more than a couple of dates and nothing happened. I was a kid, and so were they.”
“Okay, so go on. He called again?”
“Yes. The other night…it’s on tape, but it was after the show. He called in and Tiny, he’s the technician that was setting up for the next prerecorded show, took the call. The caller asked for me, said he was my ‘John’ and that he hadn’t called in earlier during the show because he’d been busy and that what had happened was my fault.”
“What had happened?”
“I don’t know.” She shook her head. “It was eerie and sounded sinister, but then I was jumpy. I thought I might come home and find my house burned down or ransacked or something, but…everything here was as I left it.”
“You’re sure it was the same guy who called here?”
“Positive. But my number’s unlisted.”
Bentz scowled down at the photo as he leaned against a corner of her desk. “This is a publicity shot. Right? There were dozens of “em made. Handed out.”
“Yeah.” She nodded.
“And this is a copy from one of those.”
She swallowed hard. “I…I assume that he must have an original.”
“Why do you think he cut out your eyes?” he asked, his eyes thinning.
“To scare the hell out of me,” she said, “and, for the record, it’s working.”
“Did he ever mention your eyes or something you saw when he called?”
“No…not that I remember.”
“I’ll need a copy of the tapes from your program.”
“I’ll get them to you.”
“I’ll get the original letter, picture and message tape from Cambrai.”
“Fine.”
“But you don’t mind if I take these until I see the originals?”
“No.”
Carefully he placed the letter, envelope and picture in a plastic bag, then asked if he could look through the house. What he was looking for, she wasn’t certain, but she gave him the tour and they ended up in the living room as dusk was beginning to settle outside. She turned on the Tiffany lamp near the window and listened to the sound of crickets and mosquitoes as he sat on the couch and she took a chair on the other side of the coffee table. The paddle fan turned slowly overhead.
“Just tell me what happened, from the beginning,” Bentz said as he placed a pocket recorder on the glass top of the table.
“I already told the officer at the station.”
“I know, but I’d like to hear it firsthand.”
“Fine. Okay. Well.” She rubbed her hands over her knees. “It all started when I got back from Mexico…” She launched into her tale, told him about losing her ID in the boating accident in Mexico, again explained about the letter she received, the threatening call on her answering machine and the phone calls to the station. She mentioned that she’d thought someone had been watching her house, then dismissed it as a case of nerves. All the while Bentz wrote in a small notepad and recorded what she was saying.
“You ever get threats like this before?”
“Nothing so personal,” she said. “There are always crank calls. It comes with the territory, but most of them are screened. Once in a while somebody gets through.”
“Do you know anyone who would want to hurt you, or just scare you?”
“No,” she said, though David’s image flashed through her mind.
“What about your family?”
“I don’t have much,” she admitted. “My father’s a retired insurance broker and lives in LA in the house where I grew up. My mother passed away and my brother…well, he disappeared a long time ago. About ten years, just around the time Mom died. I…I, uh, haven’t heard from him in years. For all I know, he could be dead, too.” She linked her fingers and felt the same deep sadness she always did when she thought of Peter. As children they’d been close, as adolescents, they’d drifted farther and farther apart and as adults they’d had nothing in common.
“Names?”
“What? Oh, Dad’s is Bill, er, William Matheson and my brother is Peter, Peter William. My dad doesn’t have a middle name.”
“Address?”
She gave it to him from memory and explained that she had friends scattered all over the country, and a couple of cousins in the Bay Area near San Mateo. Other than that, she had no family to speak of.
“You were married?”
Sam nodded. “Yes. It was a long time ago.”
He lifted his eyebrows, encouraging her to continue. “I was a freshman at Tulane University when I met Jeremy.”
“Jeremy Leeds?”
“Dr. Jeremy Leeds. He was a professor. My professor. He taught, er, teaches philosophy.” And she’d been a fool to fall for him, a naive girl who’d been enamored by an unconventional teacher—handsome, a rogue, one with a brilliant mind and a sexy smile.
“He’s still there? At Tulane?” Bentz asked, looking up from his notes.
“As far as I know.” She met the questions in the detective’s eyes. “Jeremy and I don’t talk. Haven’t for years. We didn’t have children, and he remarried soon after our divorce. Other than that, I don’t know anything about him.”
“But you live in the same town,” Bentz pointed out.
“City. New Orleans is pretty big, and I left for a while. Lived in Houston.”
“Were you married then?”
“Yes, but the marriage was falling apart. I thought it might just be a separation, but it turned out differently. I stayed. We split up.” She glanced out the window, didn’t want to think about those years.
“You haven’t marr
ied since?”
“No.” She shook her head and leaned back against the cushions. Glancing at the clock near the archway leading to the kitchen, she realized Ty had left over an hour earlier. He’d said he might be back today or tomorrow. She crossed her fingers and hoped he’d be delayed because she didn’t really know how she could explain him to the policeman.
“Been involved with anyone lately?” Bentz was asking, and Sam was brought back to the inquisition.
Here we go, she thought, and realized that one of the reasons she hadn’t wanted to contact the police was because she didn’t want to involve David. “Not currently, no, but I have had a few boyfriends since I was married.”
“Anyone named John?”
“Just the ones I told you about. Years ago. No one since.”
He scratched another note as Charon wandered into the dining room from the kitchen, a black shadow that hid beneath the table and peered through the legs of the chairs.
“The cat belongs to you?”
“Yes. Three years now.”
“And the boat?” He looked through the open French doors and past the few trees to the dock where Ty’s sloop was moored, the masts visible in the gathering darkness.
“No. That’s a friend’s…well, actually a neighbor’s.” She explained, and the cop stopped writing, just stared at her as if she’d announced she’d just flown in from Jupiter.
“So he’s a stranger?”
“Well, yes, but…He said he’d come back for the boat later today or possibly tomorrow. He just lives down the street and had some trouble with the sails and his engine.”
Bentz frowned. Lines creased his forehead. “Listen, let me give you some advice, okay? Lock your doors, use your alarm system, don’t go out alone and don’t acquaint yourself with strangers. Even neighbors.” He ran stiff fingers through his hair, pushing brown curls off his forehead. He seemed about to say more, as if he intended to give her a lecture, then thought better of it. “Okay, you get the picture. Now, do you have anyone who would consider you an enemy?”
“‘Enemy’ is a pretty harsh term.”
He shrugged.
“The only person I can think of is Trish LaBelle, and I wouldn’t call her an enemy, more of a rival. She works over at WNAB, hosts a show similar to mine. There’s been talk of some kind of feud between us, but generally we just avoid each other when we’re at the same social or charity function. I wouldn’t really call her an enemy, and I don’t think she’s behind anything like this. In fact, it wouldn’t make much sense because though the calls scare the hell out of me, they increase ratings. Listeners are intrigued with it. It’s the same mentality as a crowd gathering around a building that’s on fire, or other motorists rubbernecking at an accident scene.”
“So you’re thinking that it would make more sense for someone at the station to be behind it, to try and boost ratings?”
“No way! That’s…that’s sick. Who would terrorize an employee to improve the listenership?”
“You tell me.”
“It’s not what I was thinking. It just makes more sense than blaming Trish.”
He didn’t comment, but asked, “Any other people jealous of you? Want your job? Or hold a grudge against you?”
Again, she thought of David. Damn, why did she feel that she had to protect him? “Not that I know of. Nothing recent.”
“What about the guy on the desk?” Bentz asked, as if he could read her thoughts. “You said you weren’t dating anyone, but you’ve got some guy’s picture near the computer and it’s not the same guy in the graduation shot. That one’s your brother, right?”
“Yes. Peter. The other one is a man I was dating, David Ross.”
“But you broke it off? Or did he?”
“It was my idea not to see each other anymore.”
“He go along with that?” Clearly Bentz was skeptical.
“He had to,” she said bluntly.
Bentz rubbed his chin. “But he didn’t like it.”
“No. He thinks, er, thought we should get married.”
“You were engaged?”
“No.”
“He give you a ring?”
She felt her cheeks burn. “He tried. Last Christmas.
But…I couldn’t accept it.”
“So that’s when you told him it was over?”
“That’s when it started falling apart. I’d dated him for about five or six months, then decided to take the job here, in New Orleans. George Hannah had left the station in Houston and moved to New Orleans a few years ago, then convinced Eleanor, my boss, to work for him at WSLJ. It was George’s idea to resurrect the Dr. Sam show here and Eleanor agreed. Eleanor had to do some fast talking for me to join on but I figured it was time.”
“To move from Houston?”
“And to get behind the mike again. I’d given it up nine years ago, there was…a difficult incident at the station and I went into private practice for a few years, but Eleanor convinced me that I belonged in radio and the truth was that I missed it, I felt that I helped a lot of people.”
“But you gave it up for a while.”
“Maybe that was a mistake,” she admitted. “I let one bad incident sway me and I decided to give it another shot. It was time for a change in my life and I knew someone who would take over my practice, that my patients would be in good hands.” That was glossing over her rationale for leaving radio nine years ago, but she saw no reason to go into the details of that horrid time in her life right now.
“Did David Ross agree?” Bentz asked, taking notes. “That you belonged in radio.”
“Hardly.” She still remembered the pinch of David’s lips when she’d told him her decision. His shock. It was almost as if he thought she was betraying him. “He didn’t like the idea at all, but my mind was made up, so I moved here last October and he tried to give me the ring at Christmas and then we just saw less and less of each other. Until Mexico. He bought the trip as a surprise, and I decided to go, just to see if I’d made a mistake by trying to break it off.”
“Had you?”
“No.”
“But you still keep his picture.”
Sam sighed. “Yeah, I know. It’s not that I don’t like him. I just don’t think we’re right for each other.” She caught herself and stiffened her shoulders. “I don’t think we need to get into the ins and outs of my love life.”
“Unless he’s the caller.”
“I said, it’s not him,” she reminded him, bristling. “I’d recognize his voice.”
Bentz didn’t let up. “When was the last time you saw him?”
“About a week ago,” she admitted, as Charon hopped into her lap. “In Mexico.”
“On that surprise trip?” Was there just a hint of judgment in his tone?
“Yes. I met him in Mazatlán…he thought it was going to be romantic, and as I said I just wanted to be sure I hadn’t made a mistake.” She read the questions in his eyes. “Believe me, I hadn’t. If I wasn’t sure before, I am now.”
“You didn’t mention him before.” It was a statement, not a question.
“I know, but he couldn’t have left the message or sent the letter; it was postmarked here, in New Orleans, and he was in Mexico. It wasn’t his voice on the tape. I would have recognized it, if it was. He didn’t call in, Detective.”
Bentz’s jaw slid to the side as if he didn’t believe a word she was feeding him. “I’m out here because you filed a report,” he said slowly, as if to a stubborn child. “I expect your cooperation.”
“I am cooperating,” she argued, though even she heard her defensive tone. It was true, the man got her back up. She felt as if she had to justify her actions.
“But you’re holding back,” he accused, staring at her so intently she wanted to squirm.
“I just don’t want a big scandal, okay? I’m a celebrity of sorts around these parts, but because I’m on the radio, the general public doesn’t really know what I look like. I have some anonymi
ty, and I’d like to keep it that way.”
He chewed on that for a while, nodded, as if he understood, and finally snapped his notebook shut, clicked off the recorder and pocketed both. “I think this about covers it, but I’ll want copies of his calls to the station and I’ll check on the phone records and get back to you.” He pushed up from the couch.
“Thanks.”
“You might want to keep a low profile.”
She nearly laughed out loud. “That could be tricky, Detective. I am a radio personality and though most people don’t recognize me on the street, some do. I’m involved in a lot of charity work. In fact the station’s hosting a big event soon for the Boucher Center. I’ll be there. I can’t exactly hole up and hide.”
“You should consider it.”
She shook her head. “We both know I can’t. Why don’t you just catch the guy.”
“We will, but in the meantime”—he glanced at the cat purring contentedly on her lap— “you might consider trading in kitty for a rottweiler or a Doberman. You know, a mean sumbitch.”
“Charon’s pretty tough,” she said, as the cat stretched and started licking himself as if to prove her wrong.
The hint of a smile touched the gruff man’s lips. “That’s good to know,” he said as she gently shoved Charon aside and walked Bentz to the door. “The department could save a lot of money by using alley cats rather than trained dogs. I’ll write up a report for the commissioner. I’m sure he’ll be in touch with the K-9 Division.”
“Glad to be of help,” she quipped as she walked him to the door.
He paused on the porch, his light mood disappearing as he stepped into the thickening twilight. “Just remember to lock your door. The caller might only be a prankster, but I doubt it. Phoning into a radio-station talk show is one thing, sending this”—he lifted the plastic bag containing her mutilated publicity picture—“is another. Whoever did this is a real sicko, and he wants to scare the life out of you.”
“I know,” she said as she shut the door and threw the new dead bolt, grateful that she’d had her locks changed and the alarm system jury-rigged. The system was old and faulty, and the alarm company had promised to install a new one “in a couple of weeks.” In the meantime she was stuck with this dinosaur.
