Hunter shrugged and pressed down on the intercom button. ‘Please put him through.’
Thirty-Two
Outside the Police Administration Building, the sky was turning. Helped by the constant wind that blew in from the North Pacific, menacing dark clouds had started gathering over Downtown Los Angeles, making it look like either a solar eclipse or doomsday was just around the corner.
As Hunter told the switchboard operator to connect Joseph’s call, Garcia and Captain Blake stepped closer to his desk, but as the operator patched the call through, all they got was a cracking/static sound, then nothing… just silence.
Hunter frowned at the phone. ‘Hello…? Joe…?’
The line cracked again.
‘Joseph…?’
And again.
‘Are you there?’
Joseph’s voice finally came through the intercom speaker.
‘Hello? Is this Detective… Robert Hunter? Can anyone hear me?’
‘Yes. It’s a bad line,’ Hunter replied. ‘But I can hear you now. Joseph?’
‘It’s Joe,’the voice said, a sliver of annoyance already detectable in his tone.‘I don’t use the name Joseph anymore.’
‘I apologize, Joe. And please, call me Robert.’
‘I don’t think that that will be necessary, Detective. This won’tbe a long call. All I wanted to do was ask the LAPD… again… to stop calling me. And please, stop making up stuff just to get me to call you back. I – don’t – know – where Terry Wilford is. And I don’t care to know either. Can you guys please get that through your heads?’
‘Making up stuff?’ Garcia mouthed the words at Hunter. ‘What did you say?’
Hunter gave Garcia a very subtle shake of the head. ‘I’m sorry, Joe, but what do you mean by “making up stuff”?’
‘Are you joking?’
‘Not at this moment, Joe, no.’
Hunter heard Joe breathe out an irritated breath.
‘All right, I’m going to explain this to you really slowly, in case you are as dumb as the first detective who called me, OK?’
Hunter glanced at Garcia and Captain Blake.
‘About three weeks ago,’Joe began.‘I get my first call from a Detective Cohen from the LAPD. He left me a message telling me that Terry’s gone missing, wanting to know if I knew where he was.’He chuckled a little nervously.‘As if I would know, or even care about that man. I stupidly believed that my best move would be to simply ignore the message, but the dude just wouldn’t quit – leaving message, after message, after message. I finally called him back and very politely explained that I hadn’t seen, talked to, or even heard from Terry in five years. I did my best to make all of that perfectly clear, including the fact that I – don’t – care – what happens to Terry. I thought that I had managed to get the message through, but as it turned out – that wasn’t the case.’
There was another pause, and this time Hunter could hear the sound of a cigarette lighter flicking, followed by a long drag.
‘Just over a week ago, I get a new message – Detective Cohen again – telling me that Terry had taken his own life.’Another long drag.‘That was hard to believe, I’ll tell you that. My luck has never been that good, but hey, guilt and karma can be a realbitch sometimes, you know? Anyway, I really had nothing to say about that, so I never called back. Now imagine my surprise when this morning I wake up to a whole new message from the LAPD… a whole new version to this fucking soap opera – there was no suicide. Terry was murdered.’Joe laughed nervously.‘What’s next? Abducted by aliens? Jesus, guys. So I’m calling to say this for the las—’
‘Joe,’ Hunter cut him short. ‘Please listen to me.’
‘No, Detective. You listen to—’
‘None of it was a lie.’ Hunter tried to grab Joe’s attention again, but the kid really didn’t seem to care.
‘Let it go, already, will you? I don’t care—’
Hunter hated having to resort to shock tactics, but this wasn’t going at all as he had envisaged it.