Toll Call Page 6

  “Okay.”

  “Peggy’s pretty vulnerable these days, Detective. What I want to say is that a wonderful guy wouldn’t take advantage of that.”

  This time she was gone for good. I retreated to the kitchen, her admonition stuck like a thistle on the sleeve of my threadbare conscience.

  I replaced the rolling pin on its hook and considered the state of the eggs. Unappetizing was a charitable description. I was still debating how to salvage them when Peggy shuffled up behind me and put a hand on my waist and looked over my shoulder. “I thought I heard you talking to someone,” she said, her voice thick and drowsy, her breasts pressing as lightly as a breeze against my back.

  “Your neighbor came by,” I said. “Karen.”

  “Oh. What did she want?”

  “To borrow some margarine.”

  Peggy laughed. “It serves us right, I guess.”

  “What?”

  “I ran into her at the store last night. We started talking, the way we do. And I must have forgotten the milk and she forgot the margarine. Thank God for Karen,” Peggy added after a pause. “She’s the only one who keeps me sane. Besides you and Marilyn, of course.”

  “She seems kind of … intense,” I said.

  “She’s had to be,” Peggy said soberly. “She’s had a rough time.”

  “Rough how?”

  “Oh, the usual. A divorce. Messy, protracted, painful. A custody fight which she won, but ever since she’s been afraid her ex is going to try to steal Lily away from her. Apparently he’s tried it more than once. Last year some guy Karen thinks was working for her husband tried to lure Lily into a car as she was coming home from kindergarten, so Karen took Lily out of school and is teaching her herself. At home. She got permission from the state and everything. It’s a tremendous burden, a tremendous responsibility. I really admire her for doing it.” Peggy paused. “I’ve always wondered how I would react if I had to deal with a problem like that, having to sacrifice so much for someone else. I don’t think I’d react very nobly, I’m afraid. I mean, when my father got sick I could have taken him in and cared for him myself even though he.…” She blinked. “But I let him go to that home and, well, I haven’t liked myself as much since then, you know?”

  Peggy’s voice gave way, leaving each of us alone with our altruistic inadequacies. Finally she patted me on the rump and moved to my side, though even that small maneuver hurt her. “Well, I’d better get dressed,” she said as she adjusted her balance to protect her foot.

  “Why?”

  “I’m going to go to work.”

  “Oh, no you’re not. Not with that ankle.”

  “It’s better, Marsh. Really. I got in here, didn’t I?”

  “It may be better but it’s not good enough for you to fight your way down Montgomery Street and up the stairs to the office. Anyway, at the rate you’re moving, by the time you get there it’ll be time to go home.”

  “You could give me a ride.”

  “I could but I won’t.”

  “But—”

  “I’ll lock you out if you show up.”

  “Then I’ll go up and spend the day with Art.”

  “Hah. It would serve you right.”

  Arthur Constable was the tax lawyer who had the suite of offices down from mine. He was a dandy and a prude and he fancied himself worthy of the trappings of a feudal lord just because he made more money than all the rest of us put together.

  Peggy pinched the bulge of flesh that lodged above my belt and muttered something I couldn’t catch, an angry something that seemed to vent the majority of her frustration. “Okay,” she surrendered a moment later. “I’ll stay home.”

  “Good.”

  “Can I at least go up and talk to Karen?”

  “Yep.”

  “Can I—” She stopped so abruptly I turned to look at her. She was gazing at the counter top and what was on it. “What on earth is that?”

  “Eggs. Pre-scrambled.”

  “I mean that?” She pointed to the mixing bowl.

  “Cinnamon,” I said.

  “And that?”

  “Pepper.”

  “And that?”

  “Honey.”

  “Honey?”

  “Honey.”

  “What else did you dump in there?”

  “Strawberry ice cream and chocolate chips.”

  “You must be kidding.”

  “Only about the chips.”

  “Will you do me a favor?”

  “Sure.”

  “Pour it down the drain. Please. Before I get sick.”

  “What’s the matter?”

  “Look at it. If you tried to cook that mess I couldn’t get it out of the pan with a chisel. Please. Just do it. I’ll go call Karen.”

  “Do you need help?”

  “Nope. I’ve got this hopping thing down pat. I’ll probably be made an honorary rabbit.”

  Peggy bounced out of the kitchen and I did as she asked, then rinsed out the mixing bowl and put it in the dishwasher, then went into the living room and waited for Peggy to hang up the phone. “So what do we eat?”

  “Toast and juice,” she said. “Or I’ve got some of those frozen waffles if you’d rather. You didn’t add anything exotic to the coffee, did you?”

  I shook my head.

  “It’s hard to believe you’ve survived to such a ripe age, Marsh, given the rather enormous gap in your knowledge of cuisine, haute or otherwise.”

  “Hey, I never cook breakfast for myself. I always eat at Zorba’s.”

  “Now you tell me.” Peggy laughed and gave me a shove, then instructed me how to put together a nonrepulsive meal. “I don’t know if I can stand it without milk in my coffee, though,” Peggy said when I had the toast in the toaster.

  “Why don’t I run up to your friend Karen’s and borrow some. Tit for tat, as it were.”

  Peggy grinned. “Of course. Take that with you.” She pointed to a large glass tumbler on the counter. “Get enough for you, too, if you want some cereal or something. It’s apartment forty-one.”

  I grabbed the tumbler and took the stairs to the next floor up. When I knocked, the door seemed different than Peggy’s, heavier, denser, a more formidable barrier. Moments later a shadow flickered behind the peephole in the center, and a high, thin voice asked me what I wanted. I told it I was from Peggy Nettleton and I was there to beg for milk.

  As I held up the tumbler for inspection as proof of my mission, a deadbolt slid back and a chain rattled loose and two other safety devices clanked and scraped behind the door. Then it opened slowly and a young face peered at me from around its edge. “Hi,” it said.

  “Hi. Are you Lily?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m Marsh. I met your mom down at Peggy’s place a little while ago. Is she here?”

  “She’s in the bathroom.” The girl emerged enough for me to see that she was as bright and cheering as a daisy, blond, delicate, a blossom dressed in white flannel pajamas and fuzzy yellow slippers. Her cheeks were soft and dimpled; her blue eyes gleamed like stones in a stream bed. She seemed eager for me to join her, as though I was bringing her a treat.

  When I was inside the apartment she closed the door and refixed the various security devices. When we faced each other it was with a matching shyness. I was about to ask about the milk when I heard footsteps behind me.

  “Lily, have you seen my … good God. What on earth have you done? I’ve told you and told you never to let anyone in here. I …”

  I turned in time to see a furious Karen Whittle glance desperately toward the wall beside the door. What she saw was a pistol—a snub-nosed .38 it looked like—dangling by its trigger guard from a nail within easy reach of Karen if not of Lily.

  I stepped back against the door, trying to be less threatening. Since I wasn’t sure she knew who I was yet, I hurried to speak out. “Take it easy, Mrs. Whittle. I’m Marsh Tanner. We just talked; down at Peggy’s.”

  It was enough to stop
her from arming herself but not enough to keep the bulge of alarm out of her eyes. “How did you get in here?” she demanded.

  I glanced at the young girl and smiled. “I broke down the door.”

  “He said he was from Peggy,” Lily blurted, almost in tears. “He said he wanted to borrow some milk. He had a glass and everything.” The plea was unspoken, but what it begged for was forgiveness or at least a suspended sentence.

  “I don’t care what he said, young lady!” her mother shouted. “People can say anything. You are not to let anyone in here. Do you understand? No one. Ever.”

  “But Mom—”

  “No. I don’t want to hear it. Now go to your room and write your spelling list. I’ll deal with you later.”

  I leaned against the wall to let poor Lily past. “It wasn’t her fault,” I said as the crestfallen girl slunk by, eyes downcast, shoulders slumped, the blossom now wilted and forlorn.

  “Don’t tell me how to raise my child,” Karen Whittle ordered fiercely. “I don’t have to take that from you. I don’t have to take that from anyone.”

  “Sorry,” I said, since anything else would have probably propelled her back to the gun on the wall.

  “You don’t know. You have no idea what I—” She shook her head, suddenly and violently, as though to dissolve her thought in a milder solution. “Why are you here?” she asked finally, suddenly another person, the one I’d met at Peggy’s.

  I held up the tumbler. “To borrow some milk. For Peggy’s morning coffee. So you won’t have to pay her back for the margarine. Barter, and all that.”

  “Oh.” Her swell of ire was still subsiding. “You want a full glass?”

  “Half, if you’ve got it.”

  “I’ll see.”

  She took the tumbler and disappeared around the corner. I took a couple of steps in her wake, then stopped beside the gun. It was real and loaded and disturbing. Its grip was chipped and cracked, as if it had been used to pistol-whip someone.

  Two more steps brought me within sight of the living room. It was more like Romper Room than House Beautiful, with two desks, a blackboard and bookshelves, an art easel and similar accoutrements, all clustered in a circle at the center of the room. There were cutout animals taped to the windows, and lumps of modeling clay on a table in the corner. I had an urge to dip my hands in fingerpaint and smear every surface in the place, then carve a sailboat out of soap. But when I heard Karen Whittle returning I hurried back to the entryway.

  She rounded the corner at a rush and thrust the half-full glass at me, almost spilling it in her haste. She asked if I needed anything else but there was never a question that was less sincere. When I shook my head she said she had to go to the store later, and would be happy to get Peggy some milk and anything else she needed if she’d call and tell her what. I promised to tell Peggy. Then I apologized for causing trouble for her daughter.

  “It’s all right,” she said resignedly. “I’m sure I overreacted. It’s just that I thought I saw Tom parked on the street out front yesterday, and I’ve been hyper ever since.”

  “Tom’s your ex-husband?”

  She nodded. “He’s made a try for Lily four different times. If he ever gets her I’ll go crazy. I’ll do anything to keep that from happening. Anything.”

  Our glances met at the revolver hanging on the alabaster wall. When we realized the implication we were slightly stunned. She arched her back and gave me a level stare. “You know nothing of my situation, Mr. Tanner.”

  “I know that, Mrs. Whittle.”

  She nodded, accepting my admission. “Tell Peggy I’ll call her. Will you be with her all day?”

  “No. But someone will.”

  “Good.”

  “Say good-bye to Lily for me,” I said, then waited while Karen Whittle undid the locks and let me out the heavy door.

  When I got back to the apartment, Peggy was lying on the couch. I poured us each a cup of coffee, added milk to hers, and joined her. “Are you hungry for something else?” I asked.

  “I’m fine.”

  “And you got a good night’s sleep?”

  She nodded. “How about you?”

  “Fine,” I lied. “And your ankle doesn’t hurt as much?”

  “No. I told you.”

  “So that means there’s no reason why we can’t have a nice long talk about what the hell’s been bothering you for the last few weeks, right?”

  Peggy’s smile shrank. “Do we have to?”

  “We do.”

  “But it’s so—”

  “Someone tried to frighten you, Peggy. Maybe even kill you. Surely you know me well enough to know that I’m not leaving this apartment until I learn everything you know about the guy who did it.”

  Peggy gave me a rueful smile. “I’m not worried about what you’ll learn about him. I’m worried about what you’re going to learn about me.”

  NINE

  “It has something to do with telephone calls, doesn’t it?” I began, trying to blend sympathy with insistence, trying, most of all, to get Peggy talking long enough to come up with something I could do.

  She lowered her head, eyes downcast, fingers fiddling with the lapel of her housecoat, wrinkling the rose. Her bloated, blotchy ankle was extended toward the far end of the couch, where Marilyn curled beside it like a heating pad that purred.

  “What is it, an obscene caller? Some guy harassing you on the phone?”

  “I guess so,” she said, still lax and uninterested.

  “You mean that’s not it?”

  “No, I … it’s as close as anything, I guess.” Peggy’s voice still indicated ambivalence and complexity, which seemed a strange reaction if the problem was as basic as I’d supposed.

  “How long ago did it start?”

  “About two months. Maybe three by now.”

  “How often does he call?”

  “Every night, almost. He’s only missed nine nights, I think.”

  “Jesus. No wonder you’re a mess.” I was sorry I’d put it like that, but Peggy didn’t seem to notice.

  “And of course now it doesn’t matter whether he calls or not,” she was saying, “since I expect a call every night, I expect to be upset, I expect to lie awake all night, waiting for … just waiting.” She paused, defeated and resigned. “Sometimes when he calls it’s a relief,” she went on, her tone now low and wondrous.

  I started to ask another question but Peggy interrupted. I had made her look at it again, whatever it was, and she was suddenly determined to tell me exactly what she saw. “I don’t know anything anymore, Marsh. This thing has thrown me for a loop.” Her eyes searched for an understanding she seemed dubious that I would give. “When you’re a woman and you live by yourself it’s very important that you develop the feeling that you can handle anything and everything that comes along, you know? It’s absurd, of course. There are all kinds of things out there that I can’t handle, from muggers to vacuum salesmen to gold-chain gigolos, but I’ve got to believe I can handle them, otherwise I’d never go out of the house. Well, this … this guy has totally destroyed my confidence. He’s made me feel vulnerable, to all sorts of things. I’m having trouble handling that, is all. I’ll snap out of it.”

  “You’ll snap out of it a lot quicker if I can find him and shut him down,” I snapped.

  “Maybe.” She was uninterested again.

  “So he calls almost every night,” I prompted. “But he didn’t call last night.”

  “No.”

  “I’d say that’s a pretty good indication he was the one who pushed you down.”

  “I suppose so.” She didn’t seem impressed by my deduction, seemed to already regard the inference as banal. I began to worry that she was suffering from shock or severe depression, so much so that she would neglect to protect herself, would possibly even court disaster in the hope of forcing the issue to its end, one way or another.

  “What time does he call?” I asked.

  “Usually about midnight
. Sometimes not till one or two.”

  Her voice was singsong, a robot’s rondo. I didn’t know what to do about it so I just kept asking questions. “Do you know his name?”

  “He told me to call him John.”

  “Last name?”

  She shook her head. “I’ve no idea.”

  “Does he know your name?”

  “Yes. That’s the … yes.”

  “What else were you going to say?”

  “That’s the thing that scares me.” Her whisper was symptomatic of her fright. “He knows so much.”

  “How did he find out your name? Did you tell him?”

  Finally she was animated. “No. He just knew. I don’t know how, but he knew.”

  “Did he know the first time he called, or did he find out later?”

  “He knew from the first. My name was the first thing he said to me, almost.”

  “Did he get nasty on the first call?”

  “Yes. Sort of. He’s not nasty, exactly. I mean, he is, but …”

  “We’ll go into that later. Did you try just hanging up on him?”

  “Of course. I tried everything I could think of.”

  “What happened after you hung up?”

  “He called right back and told me what he would do to me if I ever did anything like that again. It was … horrible. He was graphic, and sick, and he made me believe he was quite capable of doing exactly what he said he would do. So I didn’t hang up anymore.”

  “And you tried to change your number, didn’t you? But it didn’t work.”

  Peggy’s mouth dropped open, as though in that instant she considered me a pair with her assailant. “How did you know?”

  “You told me, remember? You asked me in the office how someone could learn your new number so fast.”

  “Oh.” She was dazed again, by events that had raced beyond her reach. “It took him two days, Marsh. Just two days to learn the new one. How is that possible?”

  “Well, he could work for the phone company.”

  She shook her head immediately. The thought had obviously occurred to her already and she had rejected it. So I asked her why.

  “He’s so, so … arrogant. So self-confident. I can’t see him working for someone else, being a part of a big bureaucracy like the phone company. Besides, they must have pretty close checks on access to unlisted numbers.”