The detective flipped around the small chair, sat on it backwards. Pulled out a pad and a cheap plastic Bic. “So you guys got another call, Mr. Jennings?”
“Please, call me Rick.”
“Sure thing.” The detective stared at him, neutral expression.
“I’m sorry, I’m not very good with names.” Rick had remembered the detective’s face, but forgotten his name. He always relied on Barb’s great memory for names to rescue him from similar social lapses.
“Oh, right.” The detective fished a business card out of his shirt pocket and slid it across the desk to Rick. “Detective Tarver Adams.”
Rick picked up the card, flicked the corner of it with a fingernail. “May I call you Tarver?”
“Well, if we were having a beer or watching the Skins, I’d say sure, call me Tarver. Or Tarve, that’s what my friends call me. But I’m investigating a homicide, so I think it might be better if you called me Detective Adams.” He paused, clenched his jaw. “No disrespect intended,
Ringmaster
.” His eyes crinkled, but no smile appeared on his lips.
Evidently, Adams wasn’t a big fan of the
Circus
. “What can I do for you, Detective?”
“Trying to find me a killer. We listened to the tapes of the second call. Think it’s probably the same guy. Same tonal qualities. We’ve sent both tapes off for analysis to get a more thorough work-up,” Adams said. “The electronics he’s using to disguise his voice make things difficult.”
“Did you trace the call?”
“No such luck. We’re still working on it, but I’m not optimistic. You’ve seen the technician in master control? He’ll be around from now on. Trying to get a bead on things.” Adams cleared his throat. He tapped his pen against the side of the chair and glanced around the office. “You like working here?”
Rick’s eyebrows rose. “Do I like working here? What does that have to do with anything?”
“Nothing. Just making small talk.” More crinkling, no smile. “So, do you?”
“Sure, I guess. We’re a popular show. What’s not to like?”
“I heard your show was more popular before the Rhino overdosed. Things are sliding now. That true?” More tapping with the pen.
“The ratings have dipped, yes. We’ll turn it around.” If only he really believed it. Professionally and personally, Rick wanted that to happen, needed for it to happen. People were counting on him. “I don’t suppose you’ve identified the victim yet?”
“As a matter of fact, we did. Just this morning. That’s why I’m here. Got a missing persons call and matched x-rays. The victim broke his arm as a kid. Sometimes you just get lucky.” Adams stopped and fixed his eyes on Rick. “I believe the killer was right. I think you knew him. Ted Danzler.”
Rick’s stomach dropped two floors. “Oh shit. He was an intern for the Rhino.” He looked away from Adams. Young. Friendly, too. Double shit.
“That’s what I understand. Did you know him well?” Adams got up and spun the chair around. Sat on it correctly.
“No, not really. I’d seen him around. I was working a different shift. Middays. He was with the
Circus
during afternoon drive. Seemed like a nice kid, though.”
“Anything you can tell me about Danzler? He rub anybody wrong? Into drugs? Gangs? Womanizing?”
Rick shook his head. “Not that I saw. Like I said, he seemed like a nice kid.”
“Even nice guys have enemies, Rick.” Adams gently tapped the pen against his pad.
“J.T. would know more about him. He handles the interns,” Rick said.
“Okay, I’ll be sure to ask him.” Adams scribbled something in his pad. “Now that you’ve had a few days to mull things over, do you have any further insights you’d like to share?”
“Nope. Wish I did, but I don’t. Sicko. Nutcase. What other explanation could there be?”
“Let’s see. The victim worked here. The killer called here. Don’t you find that an odd coincidence?” Adams asked.
“He probably found out Danzler worked at the station and called in, for kicks.” Rick tried to sort things out, but he couldn’t get past the picture of a smiling Danzler in his head.
“Either that, or Danzler was killed
because
he worked here.” Adams glanced at his pad, then looked at Rick. “Hopefully, we’ll figure it out and catch this guy soon.” He crossed his long legs, settled in. “What’s your take on the arm?”
“My take?”
“Yeah, why do you think the killer cut off Danzler’s arm and stuffed it into a trashcan? What about the rest of the body?”
“I have no idea. I don’t think like a psycho.” Rick’s voice got louder.
Adams held up a hand. “No need to get insulted, I was just asking. You’ll be glad to know the amputation was post-mortem. He did a pretty tidy job of it.”
Rick hadn’t even considered the killer might have cut off the arm while the victim was still alive. A shudder reached his toes. “Good. I guess.”
“Excuse me.” Adams plucked a tissue from the box on Rick’s desk and blew his nose. He wadded it up and flipped it into the trash. “Hey, did you go down to the park after the arm was discovered? Hang out there for a while?”
Rick hoped his surprise wasn’t evident. “As a matter of fact, I did. How’d you know?”
“ESP, of course.”
Rick waited for Adams to continue.
Adams laughed, a mellifluous sound that seemed out of place in a conversation about a crazy killer, like a harp at a cockfight. “Actually, we found out the old-fashioned way. We staked out the site of the trashcan. Had one of my guys taking photos from a bench across the road.” Adams began tapping his pen softly on the heel of his shoe. “Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why did you go down there? I mean, hell, the trashcan wasn’t even there any more.”
Rick swallowed, not sure why he felt guilty. After First Time’s call, he thought maybe he’d pick up some vibes first-hand, get a glimpse into the killer’s dark mind. “First of all, I didn’t know you guys had taken the trashcan. I just wanted to see it. See where some monster discarded a piece of a human being. Treated it like trash.” He swallowed again. “Curiosity is all, Detective.”
“It’s a curious thing, for sure,” Adams said. “And curiosity must be contagious, too. Because we photographed a ton of curious people sniffing around the site. Senior citizens, nannies with kids in strollers, construction workers on lunch break. Dozens of people approached the taped-off area. Most looked around, probably wondering what happened to the actual trashcan. Some strode toward the scene with purpose. Others came up to it tentatively, like there was a bomb nearby about to explode. People are funny, you know?” Adams stopped, peered at Rick. Waiting for some comment.
Rick shrugged. “Yeah, I guess so.”
“And you know who are some of the funniest people around?” The light glinted in Adams’s eyes.
“Who?”
“Radio people.” Adams nodded twice, small nods, almost to himself, as if he’d solved a great mystery. “Besides you, we photographed some of your station’s sales reps, deejays, engineers, what seemed like two dozen interns—they thought it was a grand joke, by the way—and your boss, Ms. Perez. All came by to check out the scene. Did the station hire a shuttle bus or something?”
Rick didn’t respond, feeling like his privacy had been invaded. “Anything else, Detective?”
“Don’t worry, we’ll get this guy.”
Rick nodded, relieved at the detective’s confidence. “The sooner, the better.”
“Right.” A knowing grin from Adams. “I realize Detective Bergman asked you this the other night, but have you remembered anyone who might have something against you? That might want to drag you into this? It wouldn’t be out of the realm of possibility for some crazy stalker or obsessive listener to try to bond with you like this, would it?”
Rick closed his eyes. Tried to shake the nasty thoughts from his mind. When he opened his eyes, the detective was still there, staring at him, waiting for a response. “Not that I know of. I’ll admit there are plenty of jock-sniffing listeners who’d pull all sorts of stunts to get close to a radio personality. But murder?”
E
VER SINCE HE
’
D
read an old Batman comic book as a child, he’d thought of himself as a modern version of the arch-villain Two-Face. While Batman’s foe had a horribly disfigured face, his face was unremarkable. His two faces were on the inside. One face he’d show to the public. Law-abiding. Responsible. The other face dwelled deeper. In the murky cesspools of his id. Where morality and virtue and decency were fleeting concepts.
As Two-Face, he’d weathered every storm that battered his shores. The cruel parents, the crueler foster parents, the uncaring bosses. He always figured out a way to get what he wanted. This time would be no different.
Yet now they wanted to call him something else. They wanted to call him First Time.
First Time. First Time. He rolled the name around in his mouth, felt the words gambol over his teeth, melt under his tongue, rebound off his gums. Nuzzle in his cheeks. He rubbed his naked arm with his hand. Patted his shoulder. Felt his smooth skin. First Time. He hated to admit it, but that vile toad Tin Man was right. First Time fit.
First Time got comfortable in his kitchen chair and picked up a dog-eared section of newspaper. Re-read the article in the
Post
for the twentieth time. He loved the attention, loved knowing thousands of other people read about him. About his deeds. About his life. He’d even looked up the circulation of the
Post
: 665,531. If only one out of every three subscribers read it, more than 221,000 people had admired his achievement. Not bad, but a mere drop in the Potomac. He was a radio celebrity. A phenomenon. The best thing to hit the airwaves since Howard Stern.
Rick Jennings. For a radio guy, he was okay. Down-to-earth. Thoughtful. A little aloof at times, but he had a job to do. On the other hand, Tin Man was a bunghole-licker. Phony blowhard, only interested in his own puny problems. He’d show ’em. First Time knew how to entertain, how to capture an audience. He knew what the fans wanted; he’d been around enough listeners to know exactly what they needed. Since his teenage days, everyone had told him he had a voice for radio. And listening to a tape of the conversation he’d had with Rick, he’d have to agree with them. Even with the black box distortion, he was a natural.
The Afternoon Circus boasted more than a million listeners. In more than forty cities across the country. All over the United States of Fucking America. He’d be able to go into a 7-Eleven in Topeka and hear people discussing his latest exploits as they filled their Big Gulps. He could wait in line at the dry cleaners in L.A. and hear people voicing their opinions about his adventures. Or he could sit at a sidewalk café in Boston, drinking in the adulation of the listeners right along with his latte. And no one would know who he was.
He was Two-Face.
He was First Time.
T
HE SCHOOLS WERE
closed for Martin Luther King’s Birthday, and Rick jumped at the chance to take Livvy to Sterling Commons Mall for a little father-daughter time. Their first stop had become a tradition: Mrs. Fields Cookies. Livvy pressed her face against the glass display case as the lady behind the counter readied a bag.
“Daddy, can I have a giant cookie today? Please?” She looked up at Rick, one eyebrow raised.
“Honey, I think if you got a giant cookie, I’d have to help you eat it,” Rick said. “And you know what a big mouth I have.”
Livvy’s face squinched up.
“You could pick out a regular sized cookie,” Rick said. “Or you could get a brownie. I think that’s what I’m going to have.” He pointed to a tray of dark chocolate brownies at the top of the case.
“Okay, Daddy. That’s what I’m going to have, too. But no nuts. Just a plain chocolate brownie. With icing.”
“Of course with icing. Do they make brownies any other way?” Rick knew that’s what Livvy would get. That’s what she got every time they came to Mrs. Fields. Livvy was a certified junior chocoholic.
Rick paid for their treats and they strolled toward the children’s play area.
During the spring and summer, Rick didn’t frequent the mall. But in the winter, as an antidote to cabin fever, he often braved the crowds with Livvy. A habit he and Barb had started when Livvy was a few months old and one they’d perpetuated. With Winn bringing her here from time to time, Livvy would often hit the mall two or three times a week, especially when it was too cold outside for some more wholesome activity. Some people had winter homes in Boca. Livvy had one with a view of Nordstrom.
Rick didn’t mind. Today’s mall, like yesteryear’s town square, offered people a place to meet and mingle. The bright lights and bustling shoppers helped lift the winter doldrums, and Livvy could run around and scream and spill Cheerios to her heart’s content without anyone getting ticked at her.
In the play area, all of the molded plastic playthings were themed like an airport, a nod to nearby Dulles. A bunch of planes, a runway, and a four-foot control tower entertained the under-six crowd. One of the airplanes even had “FedEx” painted on its side. Rick wondered if they had to pony up some product placement money.
“Wow. Look at all the kids here,” Rick said.
“I like it when it’s crowded. There’s more kids to play with.”
Rick smiled. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think today was a school holiday.”
Livvy rolled her eyes at Rick. “Daddy,” she said, drawing the word out like it was four or five syllables. “It
is
a holiday.”
Rick gave her his best innocent face, then steered her over to a bench being vacated by a mom with a stroller. “Here, have a seat. We can eat our snacks and then you can go play. ’Kay?” He pulled a Juicy Juice drink box out of his coat pocket and handed it to Livvy, along with her brownie.
She took the juice box and pierced the top with the little straw. Took a short slurp of juice, then started in on her chocolate fix.
In front of them, dozens of kids ran from one miniature airplane to the next, like bumblebees buzzing from flower to flower, not wanting to miss a drop of nectar. “Remember last year, when we took an airplane to see Grandma up in Boston?” Rick took a bite of his brownie, careful to catch all the crumbs with his tongue. Livvy came by her sweet tooth honestly.