Cold Caller

by Jason Starr

  I had to finish what I had started anyway. It was time for phase two of the plan and I had to take several deep breaths to prepare myself for it.

  When I thought I was ready, I took out the gloves from my briefcase and put them on. Then I took out the saw. Trying not to think too much about what I was doing, I sawed off the prostitute’s head. The blade went through easy at first, then it met some friction near the bone, then it went through easy again. As you can imagine, sawing off someone’s head can get you sick to the stomach and I had to fight hard to keep myself from vomiting. I didn’t know if the police could trace a person’s vomit, but I assumed they could. I kept telling myself that she wasn’t a person, she was a piece of wood, and there was nothing sick about what I was doing. Believe me, I was getting no enjoyment out of it and, if I could have thought of any other way of keeping the prostitute from going to the police, I certainly would have done it. But killing her was the only sure way of keeping her quiet forever, and killing her this way was the only way I’d get away with it.

  My plan was very simple. I’d heard on the news the other day that someone had killed a prostitute in Queens and chopped off her head and taken it with him. The police were extremely concerned because another prostitute in Newark had been killed a few months earlier and her head had also been missing. The police feared that a serial killer might be responsible for the crimes, so I figured I’d give the police one more victim to think about. If I could make them believe that Denise the prostitute had been killed by the serial killer, then they would never suspect that I had anything to do with it.

  I took out a trash bag and tried not to look as I put the head inside it. The head was much lighter than I’d expected. I’d assumed it would weigh about as much as a bowling ball, but instead it felt as though I was carrying a large cantaloupe.

  There was blood everywhere, but I luckily managed to keep all of it off my clothing. There was only a little blood on the edge of my cast, but I’d have to worry about that later.

  I double-bagged the head and the bloody gloves and put the saw back in the briefcase. I carried the bag and the briefcase out of the parking lot and headed toward the subway.

  I wasn’t thrilled about carrying the head on the subway, but I had to get rid of it somehow – because that’s what the serial killer always did – and I knew that it would be best to take it as far away from the crime scene as possible. I’d decided that the Harlem River would be a good place and I got on the number 1 train going uptown.

  The train was pretty much empty and no one seemed to notice me. I tried not to look nervous, although inside I was a wreck. The reality of what I had done and what I was holding on my lap had finally hit me. I feared that I was becoming a lunatic, no better or worse than the actual serial killer who went around killing prostitutes. I thought about the events of the last month that had brought me to this low point in my life, wondering how it had all happened. I decided that it really started when I was fired from Smythe & O’Greeley and was forced to take a job as a telemarketer. If I had stayed in advertising everything would have been different.

  Looking up, I noticed a woman standing in front of me, staring at me. I thought I might have been talking out loud, then I realized that the woman looked familiar, but I wasn’t sure how I knew her. Then it hit me. She was Lisa, the woman I’d met at the bar that night.

  When she saw my look of recognition, she smiled at me and I smiled back reflexively. The last thing I wanted now was to get into a conversation and yet I didn’t know how to avoid it. I was about to get up to get out at the next stop when she sat down next to me.

  In the bright fluorescent light of the subway, the ruddiness of her skin was apparent as were the dark circles under her eyes, and she wasn’t nearly as attractive as she’d seemed in the dark bar.

  “Long time no see,” she said.

  “I was thinking you looked familiar,” I said. “I just didn’t recognize you at first.”

  “No loss,” she said. “So what happened to you?”

  “Happened? Oh, I was in an accident. A car accident.”

  She didn’t seem to care. I made sure to keep the part of the cast with the blood on it facing my lap.

  “So what brings you to the West Side?” she asked.

  “Work,” I said, anxious to avoid the subject. “A lot of work. What brings you here?”

  “Oh, just going to meet a friend,” she said ambiguously. I realized that she was being intentionally vague about the sex of the friend, trying to make me jealous.

  “Sorry I never called you,” I said. “A lot came up after that night and I just didn’t –”

  “Don’t worry,” she said, “I wasn’t exactly holding my breath. So what’s in the bag?”

  “The bag?”

  “Yeah, what do you do, bring your laundry to work?”

  I laughed tensely.

  “Of course not,” I said. “This is just garbage.”

  She looked at me, a combination of confused and disgusted.

  “Just some things at the office I needed to throw out,” I continued. “I didn’t want to put them in the office trash.”

  I wasn’t sure whether or not she bought the explanation.

  “There’s something weird about you,” she said.

  “Weird?” I said, feeling the prostitute’s nose pressing against the bag. “What do you mean?”

  “I don’t know, there’s just something about you I can’t put my finger on. My girlfriend said it that night, after we left the bar. She said, you know there’s something strange about that guy you were talking to and I agreed with her. But I really don’t know what it is. I just had a feeling there was some­thing, I don’t know, I can’t put my finger on it. Maybe it was the way you were dressed that night in that sweat suit, and the way you kept staring at me. What I’m trying to say is you shouldn’t feel like you lost out anything by not calling me because I wasn’t going to go out with you anyway.”

  At the next stop, she got out. As the train pulled away, I saw her walking determinedly along the platform. I wondered if she somehow suspected that I had killed somebody. It seemed unlikely, yet why else did she say there was something weird about me? Then I decided that it was probably just a defense mechanism. Although she didn’t want to admit it, she was hurt that I hadn’t called her so she made up the excuse to herself that I was “weird,” so she wouldn’t feel bad about it. It was typical female psychology that had nothing to do with me.

  I rode the subway all the way to 145th Street without any more mishaps. I’d never been to Harlem before so when I got out of the station I was disoriented and wasn’t sure which way to walk to get to the river. I walked in a direction I thought would lead me there, then after I’d walked several blocks I turned back and walked in the other direction.

  Most of the buildings in the neighborhood were abandoned or chiseled down to empty lots. Compared to the Upper East Side it looked like a war zone. Groups of people on street corners stared at me angrily as I walked by, as if they feared me or hated me or both. I realized how unusual I must look, the only white person in the neighborhood. They probably thought I was a cop.

  Passing a housing project, a couple of teenagers started following me. I imagined what would happen if I got mugged. I remembered reading a story in the new­s­paper once about a girl who was dog-sitting for a rich Park Avenue couple when the dog died. Afraid to leave the dead dog in the apartment, she put it in a suitcase and took it to the A.S.P.C.A. On the way there she was mugged and the suitcase was stolen. The article speculated on the expression the mugger must have had when he opened the suitcase and discovered the dead dog. I smiled, thinking about the expressions the teenagers would have if they stole the garbage bag and discovered the prostitute’s head. Then I realized that this would be the worst scenario possible. The teenagers would be able to identify me to the police and I’d be arrested instantly.

  Clinging to the bag tightly, I walked as fast as I could. The teenagers increased the
ir speed also, then they veered off on a side street and left me alone.

  Finally, I saw the river ahead. It was like discovering a pond in the middle of a desert. I walked faster until I was practically jogging. I crossed a playground and a baseball diamond and then I reached the railing to the water. To the right was the bridge where the subway passed on its way to the Bronx, so I walked left until I thought I was as out of view as possible.

  From my briefcase, I took out the saw and put it inside a new garbage bag. I tied the bag tightly then threw it into the river as far as I could. It sank about fifty feet from the shore.

  Next, I flung the bag with the head and the gloves into the water. It didn’t sink, but this really didn’t concern me. When the head was discovered, the police would simply think the serial killer had dumped it in the river.

  I was about to walk away when I heard someone behind me. I stood still, hoping the person would leave me alone.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” the harsh male voice said.

  Terrified, I turned around slowly. Then my worst nightmare came to life. A police officer was facing me, his right hand resting on his holster.

  16

  I didn’t have time to think up a plan. I had to react impulsively and hope everything worked out.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “Was I doing something wrong?”

  “What the fuck are you doing here?” the officer said, still resting his right hand on his holster.

  “Nothing really,” I said. “Just taking a walk near the river.”

  “Up here?”

  “Why not?” I said naively.

  “What are you looking for?” he said. “Crack, heroin?”

  “I don’t do drugs,” I said.

  He looked at me closely. I realized that I’d lucked out – he hadn’t seen me throw the bags into the river.

  “You know where we are?” he asked.

  “Yes,” I said. “Near the Hudson River.”

  “This isn’t the Hudson River, guy, this is the Harlem River. This isn’t an area where people like yourself take walks.”

  “I’m new in town,” I said. “I’m just kind of exploring the city.”

  “Where are you from?” he asked.

  “Seattle,” I said. “Bainbridge Island actually. Where I’m from we’re kind of used to a lot of water.”

  This seemed to convince him. He took his hand off the holster.

  “This isn’t an area where you should be sight-seeing,” he said. “This is a drug zone. Get out of here before you get robbed or shot.”

  “Thank you, officer,” I said, acting concerned. “I’ll get home as soon as I can.”

  The officer went in one direction, I went in the other. I was terrified for what could happen tomorrow or the next day when the head was discovered in the river. If the police could estimate where it had been dropped and how long it had been in the water, then the police officer would be sure to remember me. The only thing I had going for me was that it had been very dark and I doubted the officer had seen me clearly, but I was still angry at myself for not weighing down the bag with the head to make sure that it sunk.

  I hurried to the subway, knowing that to protect my alibi I had to get home as quickly as possible.

  I took the 3 train to Ninety-sixth Street, then rode the crosstown bus through Central Park. By the time I arrived at my apartment it was nine-fifteen.

  As I’d expected, Julie was very nervous.

  “Where have you been?” she said. “I’ve been worried to death about you.”

  “Didn’t you get my message?” I said.

  “What message?”

  “I left it on your tape this afternoon, it must have gotten erased somehow. I went to a movie after work.”

  “A movie?”

  “Yeah, you know just to unwind from everything that’s been going on. I feel awful that you’ve been worrying about me.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with my tape at work.”

  “Well, I called,” I said. “I’m not making it up.”

  I went to the bathroom and started taking off my clothes. Julie followed me.

  “I can’t stand this anymore,” she said. “I just can’t stand it. I mean I’m not making all of this up. I have a good imagination, but it’s not that good.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “The affair you’re having!” she was screaming. “Why can’t you be a man and just admit it to me?”

  “I opened my wallet and took out the ticket stub.”

  “Here,” I said. “If you don’t believe me, here. I don’t know what’s wrong with you lately, Julie? Maybe you should see a shrink or something.”

  She walked away into the living room, as meekly as an injured animal.

  That was when I realized that I never truly loved her. If I loved her I would have left her right then and not gotten her more involved in my life than she already was.

  But I was too worried about myself to worry about her.

  When I came into the living room in my underwear she was waiting for me, crying.

  “You killed him, didn’t you?” she wailed. “I’m really engaged to a murderer!”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I didn’t want to believe it, but it’s true, isn’t it? I know he was going to fire you, that’s what the detective told me, and I know how angry that must’ve made you. I still don’t know why you’d kill him unless...unless there was somebody else involved, some woman. Maybe you killed your boss to be with this woman. That explains why you’ve been so mysterious lately.”

  “You’re crazy,” I said.

  “I don’t think so,” she said. “I thought so yesterday, but now I know the truth.”

  “Please let’s not have another night of fighting,” I said. “If we do, we’ll wind up regretting it.”

  “What’s that on your cast?”

  “I don’t know, I guess it’s some ketchup. I had a hamburger before the movie.”

  “It looks like blood. What’s been going on, Bill? Have you been having rough sex with this woman? Is that how you got your fingers broken?”

  “Listen to yourself,” I said. “Just listen to yourself.”

  “What if I called the police right now?”

  “The police? What the hell for?”

  “I’ll tell them all the things I didn’t tell them yesterday. How I don’t know for sure that you left the office when you said you did that night, how I think there’s some woman involved.”

  “You better not call the police,” I said.

  “Why? You afraid they might find out about you?”

  “There’s nothing to find out,” I said. “If you want to call the police, go ahead. The phone’s right over there.”

  She waited a second then went to the phone and picked it up. Mascara tears were streaming down her face. She was shaking. Slowly, she started to dial. I counted six digits when she dropped the phone on the floor and started to cry uncontrollably. I put the phone back on the counter.

  Julie didn’t say another word to me all night. She just stayed in bed crying. I thought she might call her parents or one of her friends, then I decided this wasn’t her style. She’d once told me how she felt alone in the world, how she felt she had no one to talk to about her problems. I told her not to worry, that she could always count on me. I realized how lonely she must feel now that I had broken that promise.

  I was tempted to go into the bedroom and try to console her, to convince her one last time that I was the person she’d thought I was. But I knew it wouldn’t work. I had deceived her too many times. The old Bill Moss had died a long time ago and she was just starting to realize it.

  As far as I was concerned, Julie was more of a liability to me now than an asset. I didn’t have any specific plan in mind, but I knew that if she continued to be suspicious of me I’d have to find some way to keep her quiet. It wouldn’t be something I particularly wanted to do, but if I had to do it I would.
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  While Julie was crying, I watched television. There was nothing about a prostitute being murdered on the ten o’clock news, but by the time the eleven o’clock news came on, the story had broken. Reporters and police were on the scene at the parking lot and people were crowded behind the yellow crime scene tape, waving at the camera. The reporter said that the case was just developing, but that police believed that the serial killer had struck again. The decapitated body of a woman had been discovered by a janitor who was returning to his car. The identity of the woman had not been determined and the police were investigating whether or not the woman was a prostitute.

  I smiled when they showed a police sketch of the man the police thought was responsible for the murder. He was a heavyset Hispanic man with a beard.

  Before I went to bed, I washed the blood out of my briefcase. All of it washed out and I made sure all the excess blood went down the drain. Then, to make sure any blood residue didn’t remain, I rinsed the drain with Drano.

  The blood on my cast was harder to get out. After several minutes of scrubbing a faint pink stain still remained, and I finally had to slice off the stained layer of the cast with a razor blade and flush the material down the toilet.

  I slept on the couch. In the morning, Julie was still in bed, wearing the same clothes she’d been wearing last night. I asked her if she was going to work today and she just kept staring aimlessly at the wall. I wasn’t worried about her calling the police because I knew there was little she could tell them. She had no idea about the prostitute and she had no hard evidence that I had killed Ed. Besides, she was too depressed to get out of bed, no less make a phone call. It occurred to me that she might be capable of committing suicide. Although I knew I’d be sad if Julie ended her life, I also knew it would solve a lot of problems.

  Approaching work, I watched closely for the black van, but I arrived at work safely, with no sign of the van or the pimp.