The Caller

She held up a finger. ‘There is nothing you can say to me that will change my truth.’

‘Your truth, Mrs Aneto,’ said Danny.

She stared him down. ‘I have spent a year having my anger and bitterness grow inside me. And this is my break. I won’t cry for those white boys, because maybe they’ll help me lay my William to rest. This is a tragic spotlight to have shined on my son, but I’ll take the light where I can get it.

‘I have two dead sons,’ she said. ‘Pepe, my youngest, was killed three years ago in drive-by crossfire, some gangs in Alphabet City. I was told he was scoring drugs. I never believed that. Something never seemed right about that to me. His killers have never been found.

‘On the night William died, as you know, he called me. But no, it wasn’t just to say goodnight.’ She paused. ‘I could barely hear him. He sounded drunk, he was sobbing, breathing so badly. He said to me, “Mama? I killed Pepe.” I said, “William. Is everything OK? What is the matter?” He said everything was fine. Then he told me what happened. He told me that he had sent Pepe to pick up drugs for him. And that was why Pepe was there. And that’s why he was shot. William apologized. Over and over. I was so angry with him, but I was so scared for him, he sounded so hopeless. When the police came the next morning to tell me he had been found, I thought it was suicide.’

‘So William was a drug user.’

‘I didn’t know he was. But he must have been at one stage. I knew William was clean when he died – his toxicology proved that – but if I told you what he said in this phone call he made, you wouldn’t get by the fact he had been involved with drugs.’

‘Mrs Aneto, every victim is important to us,’ said Danny. ‘Every single one. No-one gets treated any differently because of the color of their skin, the lifestyle they have, the choices they make, nothing. We want to find your son’s killer. And we just want all the information we can to do that. We’re not judging that information, running it through any filter. They’re just facts to us – black and white – things that may or may not lead us to a killer.’

Mrs Aneto reached for a photo of William from the sideboard, framed in shiny black wood. She stared down at it. ‘I’m only talking to you today, detectives, because I have hope. I am still bitter, I am still angry, but I have hope. I’m not sorry I didn’t tell you this a year ago. I stand by that decision. Because I hate to think how bad your efforts would have been if you had known he had been into drugs.’

Joe grabbed his suit jacket from the back of his chair. He looked around the office.

‘I haven’t eaten yet. I’m going to get breakfast. Anyone need anything?’

He took three food and drink orders and as he was getting out of the elevator, his cell phone rang. It was a number he hadn’t seen in over two years and had never deleted from his contacts: Anna (W).

He frowned. ‘Anna?’

‘Do you know where she is?’ It was Chloe. Her tone had none of its usual confidence.

Joe could not speak. Anna cannot be anywhere other than the W Hotel in Union Square. The number he had programmed into his phone that morning. Just in case.

‘What?’ he said. His hunger had gone, the void in his stomach now filled with something else.

‘I’m sorry. It’s Chloe here. Anna didn’t show up at the shoot this morning. I’ve been trying her cell, the home phone – nothing. I dragged your number out of some next-of-kin thing we had for her. I’m sorry to bother you—’

‘Whoa,’ said Joe. ‘What’s going on? I left her this morning and she was taking the subway to Union Square and everything was fine—’