Close to You, page 10
While Eliza hadn’t shown him the interest he had hoped for at the Feeneys’ barbecue last night, Larson felt confident he could bring her around. There was always some way to get what you wanted. You just had to figure out how.
Larson handed his club to the caddy and climbed into the golf cart.
How to reach Eliza?
As his foot pressed the pedal, he smiled at the answer to his question.
The kid.
Chapter 44
The black-rimmed ivory stationery sat blank upon his desk. Samuel Morton was having a very hard time deciding exactly what to write. Such a special person deserved a carefully worded acknowledgment of her kindness.
He pulled out a yellow legal pad to make a first draft of his letter. With a fine-tipped black pen he wrote.
Dear Ms. Blake,
First of all, I want to thank you from the depths of my heart for the kindness that you showed to my Sarah. Every time she received a letter from you, her spirits soared. There was so little for Sarah to be happy about in these last difficult months and the memories of those smiles on my daughter’s sweet face as she read and reread your notes are ones that I will always treasure. I am so grateful that you provided her with some relief from the agony she was forced to endure.
I try to comfort myself with the hope that Sarah is at peace now, is not suffering anymore. But I am selfish. I wish that I still had her with me, sick or not. I try not to think of what life will be like without her. I cannot fathom it.
The flowers you sent to our home were beautiful. I am pressing them, keeping them with your letters that Sarah saved. I fear that I will be holding on to everything that was Sarah’s for far too long. I cannot give her up.
That was enough, he thought as he reread what he had written. Eliza Blake would think he was a nut if he poured out any more of his aching feelings.
Samuel carefully copied his words onto the heavy bonded paper.
Chapter 45
As Eliza drove over the upper level of the George Washington Bridge, she noticed with concern that the dashboard oil light popped up bright yellow. By the time she got to the Seventy-second Street exit of the Henry Hudson Parkway, she was sure she heard a knocking noise coming from somewhere under the hood of Poppie’s car. Oh, brother, now this has to be fixed. Please, just let it get me back home tonight.
The halls of the Broadcast Center were deserted as they always were on holidays, a skeletal staff manning the broadcasting ship. Eliza walked through the Evening Headlines studio, stopping at the Fishbowl and checking in before going up to her office. With Range taking Labor Day off, David Carter, one of the senior producers, had been bumped up to executive for the day.
“It’s fairly quiet. Thank God that hurricane turned and swerved out to sea.”
“What are we leading with?” asked Eliza, peering over Carter’s shoulder to look at the rundown on his gray computer screen.
‘Travel nightmares. Big delays at airports and backedup highways as Americans return from their last summer weekend.”
“See? I knew there was a bright side to working this weekend. We could be stuck out in all that,” Eliza said with a wry smile. “I’ll be upstairs if you need me.”
The telephone was ringing as she switched the light on in her office. She picked up the receiver in time to hear the click of the caller hanging up. Was it Mack?
He might be back in his hotel by now. She dialed the hotel, got the front desk, and asked for Mr. McBride’s room. The shrill buzzer rang a dozen times until Eliza heard a very English voice say that the party she was calling was not answering. Did she care to leave a message?
For some reason she didn’t.
Instead she dialed her new telephone number. Paul answered on the third ring.
“Everything okay out there, Paul?”
“Yes. We’re all fine. Janie is out in the pool with that new friend of hers.”
“James?”
“Yeah. They’re really getting along well. He seems like a nice little kid.”
“Great, but if it gets to be too much for you and Katharine, tell Janie that playtime is over.”
“It’s no problem, honey. Besides, that Mrs. Feeney said she was only going to let James stay for an hour. She’ll be back to pick him up in a few minutes.”
“Okay, then, Paul. I’ll see you later.” She remembered the oil light and the funny sound. “Oh, and when Susan gets there, would you get her phone number and ask who she uses as a mechanic for her car?”
“What’s wrong with the car?” Paul asked suspiciously.
“Nothing,” she lied. Why give him something to worry about? “I’m just trying to get my list of suppliers together.”
She looked up to see Keith Chapel standing in the doorway.
“I’ve got to record a track now, Paul. I’ll be home right after the show.”
Chapter 46
Bats.
Now she wanted him to look into bats.
Keith sighed deeply as he sat beside Joe Leiding in the editing booth.
“What’s the matter? You don’t like the way the shot looks?” asked the editor. “I’ll change it.”
“No, no. It’s fine just the way it is,” said Keith, glancing at the image on the television monitor stationed on top of the editing bay. “I was thinking of something else.”
Leiding looked at his producer skeptically. They had been teamed to put these FRESHER LOOKS together and would, over the months to come, be spending hours and hours side by side in the cramped editing booth. He wasn’t in the mood for Keith to be thinking of anything other than the piece they were working on right now.
Sure, the guy had a lot on his mind with his first baby coming and the pressures of this new series. But he better suck it up and stay focused.
The editor cued up the new section of narration Eliza had just recorded and inserted it into the middle of the child-care piece. Joe was pleased with the way the story was turning out, but it would be great to feel a little energy coming from Keith.
Instead the producer was doodling on the lined paper on his clipboard.
“Eliza wants to do a story on bats,” Keith murmured glumly.
Joe shrugged. After two decades in this business nothing fazed him and he had long since stopped trying to figure out why some stories were produced and others weren’t. He did know one thing, though. If the anchor of the broadcast wanted a story done, the story was done.
“She found one in the bedroom of her new house the other night,” Keith continued.
“Nice housewarming.”
“Yeah. Lucky for me the wildlife controller had to inform Eliza that bats are helpful little creatures. Eliza thinks people would be interested in knowing the real skinny on bats and that we should dispel some of the gruesome myths about them.”
“What are you gonna do?” asked Joe as he loaded another beta tape into the editing deck.
“I’ll be damned if I know. I guess I’ll start by calling the Bronx Zoo tomorrow and asking for their bat expert. They must have one.” Keith groaned tiredly, slouched down in his chair and closed his eyes. He tried to imagine Eliza in her bedroom in the middle of the night, confronting the beady-eyed bat.
He wondered what she had been wearing.
Chapter 47
The Friday-evening phone message had been bothering her all weekend and the first thing Paige did when she arrived at work Tuesday morning was call the security office.
“Just transfer the message down here to me, Paige. I’ll take care of it,” Joe Connelly instructed.
“I’m sorry I didn’t save those other calls, Mr. Connelly,” Paige apologized. “They always sounded harmless before this one.”
“Don’t worry about it. If this guy is really dangerous, he’ll call again. When he does, let me know and transfer the messages to me. And, Paige, make sure you mark down what time the calls come in. Be as exact as possible. There could be dozens of other calls coming into the Broadcast Center at any time. It helps a lot to have a precise time.”
Connelly had saved hundreds of calls over the years, but he girded himself to begin the painstaking procedure to determine who this latest caller was. Executing a successful phone trap was not as easy as it looked on Law and Order.
It was simple enough to order the trap but increasingly more difficult to pull it off. There were very few “hard wire” telephone lines anymore. Satellites, prepaid phone cards, cellular accounts, unlisted and blocked numbers, had made tracing much more complicated. The phone companies had outsmarted themselves.
The security chief gave Eliza’s assistant a few minutes to transfer the call and then he played it back to hear for himself.
“I love you, Eliza. And I can’t live without you.”
If this had been the first call, Connelly would have waited awhile to see what developed. But Paige said she recognized the voice as a man who had been calling every day for two weeks.
Aberrant behavior escalates. The dictum was etched in Connelly’s mind.
He dialed the police department and made a complaint on behalf of Eliza Blake.
The wheels were set in motion. A complaint number and detective were assigned and the Unlawful Calls Bureau, located in Boston, gave Eliza’s call a case number.
The phone company would install the “equipment” on the line, setting up an enormously complicated computer program to intercept data pertaining to the calls. To do this sort of thing in a private home was relatively simple. In a place such as the KEY Broadcast Center, with its Centrex system . . . wow!
The Broadcast Center’s central number didn’t really exist. It was in limbo until the call was transferred somewhere. The operators sat at six consoles with six trunk lines each, thirty-six lines in all, spreading out to various trees throughout the company. Once a call was transferred by the operator to a specific extension, the call was not on the operator’s line anymore, making it a nightmare to track.
Connelly swiveled around to his computer to start a new file on this latest threat. As he entered the information, he wished that Paige Tintle had saved those first calls, the ones that had come in during the late-night hours. Not as many calls came into the building late at night, making tracking easier.
If this guy was going to start calling during the busiest hours at the Broadcast Center, he could take months to track down.
Chapter 48
There was no time to put on her makeup this morning.
Eliza hugged Janie and hurried out to the chauffeured Town Car which had been waiting at the curb out front for twenty minutes already. As she strode down the driveway, two men in a red tow truck pulled up. A heavyset man with a florid face lowered himself from the high passenger’s seat.
“Ms. Blake? I’m Augie Sinisi.”
“Oh, Mr. Sinisi, I didn’t expect you to be coming so soon. I just left the message on your answering machine last night.” Eliza reached out to shake the man’s hand, but he pulled back.
“My hands are kinda dirty, ma’am, excuse me. What seems to be the trouble?”
“I’m not sure, really. But the oil light is on and I heard a knocking sound when I was driving it yesterday.”
Augie eyed the blue Mercedes sedan parked up near the garage. It wasn’t new, he could tell that for certain. It had to be eight or nine years old at least. It was hard to be sure with Mercedes until you got up close. Their classic design didn’t change much from year to year.
He had expected Eliza Blake to have a newer, snappier car.
“Not to worry, Miz B. We’ll take it in and have a look. With a little luck, we’ll have it back by the time you get home tonight.”
“Really? That’s great,” said Eliza, relieved and surprised by how easy this was. If this was a sample of service in the suburbs, she was definitely going to like it here. In Manhattan, getting anything fixed was a major hassle. “Hold on a minute, Augie. I’ll run in and get the keys.”
Because she was already late, and had to take the time to explain to Katharine and Paul why they would be without transportation for the day, Eliza didn’t bother taking the car key off her ring when she came outside again. She just handed the whole thing over to the mechanic.
Chapter 49
“We could have a problem here.”
The message summoning Eliza to Yelena Gregory’s office at eleven forty-five was waiting for her when she arrived at work. Now Eliza, along with Range and Joe Connelly sat in the news-division president’s large office. Joe Connelly, with his jacket off and shirtsleeves rolled up, was doing all the talking.
“Actually two problems.”
The three listened as Connelly described the series of letters and now the phone calls that he thought should be taken seriously.
“Could they be from the same person?” asked Range.
“Possibly, but I don’t think so. The letters are vicious and the phone calls, well, we’ll have to see what develops with the phone calls. So far, I only have a recording of one of them, but from what Eliza’s assistant tells me, this man’s tone has been almost reverential when he’s called before. The tone of this latest call was more intense than the others. I think we are dealing with two separate characters.”
“What’s being done about this?” Yelena asked brusquely.
“A phone trap is being set up.”
“How long will that take?”
“It’s hard to say. The more the guy calls, the better the chances are for catching him.” Connelly paused and looked at Eliza. “Of course, we hope he doesn’t call again.”
“And what about the letters?” Yelena snapped.
“I’m sending them to the FBI, to their stylistics department at Quantico. But it may take a long time to get something back. I sent some letters to them six weeks ago that someone in the entertainment division was getting and I still haven’t heard anything on them.”
“They check for fingerprints, of course,” said Range.
Connelly nodded. “But don’t bet the bank on prints. The guy could be wearing gloves when he writes and the envelope gets handled many times before it gets to us.”
There was silence in the room. The three newspeople took it for granted that they could get pictures from the moon or from the top of Mount Everest. They were unabashed picking up their telephones and being put through to the White House. The idea that they had to sit and wait for others to do their jobs, that they had no power over this situation, didn’t sit well with them.
“What should I be doing?” asked Eliza quietly, trying to keep the fear out of her voice. She knew the others were watching for her reaction. She wouldn’t whimper or cry. Weakness didn’t become an anchorwoman. Take a deep breath and get a grip. Joe Connelly had a solid reputation. She had no choice but to let him do his job. She just prayed he would do it quickly.
Over the years Eliza had reported many stories about fans—both male and female—who were obsessed with celebrities. In fact, stalking seemed to come with the territory of being a public figure. Most celebrity-stalkers believed there was a special love relationship between themselves and the celebrities they hounded. Many cases ended with the stalkers being caught and tried and sent off to prison or psychiatric hospitals. At this moment Eliza resolutely pushed from her mind the other, more tragic, violent outcomes. It wouldn’t serve her well to go there now. She had to keep her wits about her.
“The key word here is ‘control,’ Eliza,” she heard Joe saying. “It’s the common element in all these types of cases. These guys lack self-esteem. They can’t control other things, but they think they can control you. They want to freak you out.”
“They’re doing a pretty good job.” Eliza managed a weak smile.
“Look, I don’t want to scare you”—Connelly kept his voice even—”but I don’t want to lessen the impact of what I’m telling you. Trust your instincts. If you feel something is wrong, it probably is. You’ve got to watch yourself. Be aware of everything around you.”
Chapter 50
Abigail finished screening the approved first FRESHER LOOK piece, which Keith Chapel had delivered to her office. Now she sat down to the task of coming up with the twenty-second script for the promotion that would air after the broadcast this evening, teasing the audience to watch tomorrow’s show.
Millions of Americans leave their children in the care of others as they go out to make a living each day. But how do you choose the people you entrust with those you hold most precious? How can you be sure that your child is safe? Eliza Blake will share with you what she’s learned on A FRESHER LOOK. Tomorrow on the KEY Evening Headlines.
Abigail read what she had written. Anyone who had heard or read about Eliza’s experience this summer surely would want to tune in. Abigail hoped that her copy was catchy enough to pull in the others. Even more, she hoped that Eliza would be pleased.
Chapter 51
“Uh-oh. What’s wrong?”
Doris stood with her back to the lighted mirrored wall as Eliza took a seat in the makeup chair and peeled back the orange wrapper of a jumbo Butterfinger.
“What could be wrong?” Eliza shrugged. “There are at least two maniacs out there obsessed with me and the one person in the world I really want to be obsessed with me is three thousand miles away and hasn’t called me. I’m the luckiest woman in the world.” She bit off a big chunk of the chocolate candy bar. “I thought I’d just really make the perfect picture complete by downing a couple hundred extra calories.”
“Whoa, girl. Back up. What do you mean there are two maniacs out there?”
Eliza recounted the morning meeting as Doris nervously lit up a Marlboro Ultra Light.
“You’re not supposed to smoke in here,” Eliza said automatically, though she couldn’t have cared less. The fact was she wanted a cigarette herself.
Doris ignored her.
“Well, what are you supposed to do?”
