Shame

atonal and low, Caleb said, “Go to thirty-four seventy-two Via Monterrey in Rancho Santa Fe. There’s a woman there who has been seriously injured.”
    “Thirty-four seventy-two Via Monterrey in Rancho Santa Fe,” the dispatcher repeated. “Is that correct?”
    “Yes.”
    “And can you tell me the severity and type of injury?”
    “Get there quickly,” Caleb said.
    “What’s your name, sir?”
    Caleb hung up.
    That afternoon a call had been made from a different pay phone. A woman answered but didn’t offer any other greeting than, “Answering service.”
    The caller knew his voice wasn’t known to the operator, but he disguised it anyway: “I’d like to leave a message for Elizabeth Line.”
    “I’ll connect with her voice mail.”
    Elizabeth Line had told him that in an emergency he could have her service page her, but the man didn’t want to talk to her directly. It was easier just leaving a message.
    I feel like a fucking spy, he thought. Making this kind of cloak-and-dagger call wasn’t for him. He was a cop, a San Diego County deputy sheriff who’d never even had the ambition to hide his badge in his wallet.
    A computer-generated voice interrupted his thoughts: “Leave your message now.”
    The artificial voice didn’t sound very different from the operator who had answered. The deputy sheriff knew Elizabeth Line needed to protect herself. It came with her turf. But he wondered if her friends got tired of this routine.
    “There’s been another one,” he said. “It happened this morning in Rancho Santa Fe. That’s where a whole lot of rich people live. It’s in the north of San Diego County. The victim’s name is Teresa Sanders. Same MO as the other one. This one’s a bit older, she’s thirty-two, but I’m told she was pretty and could have passed for twenty.”
    The officer looked all around. There was no one within hearing distance, and no one who appeared to be looking his way.
    “They’re putting a big clamp down on the investigation. I was lucky to hear as much as I did. Prepare to be stonewalled. Prepare to be counterquestioned. I guess I don’t need to be telling you that. It’s not like you don’t know the routine. If you need to talk to me, call from a pay phone and leave a message on my machine. Identify yourself as Aunt Millie and leave a safe number where I can get back to you.”
    The deputy sheriff scanned the area a second time and decided he could say a few more hurried words.
    “I heard he used her lipstick to write the word, but that’s probably third- or fourth-hand information. A male made a nine-one-one call and said a woman had been seriously injured. The call came from a pay phone in Encinitas, about six miles from where she was murdered. There are a lot of theories going along with that call. Did a Good Samaritan see something but was too scared to get involved, or was Shame playing some kind of game? That’s what they’re already calling him: Shame.”
    He lowered his voice to a whisper. “’Course that’s not supposed to get out to the public on threat of severe reprisal. It’s not only the secrecy thing—people are worried about a panic around here.”
    If this Line woman hadn’t helped out his brother Larry, he’d never have dropped a dime. Larry was also a cop, and Line had saved his brother’s ass a few years back, had validated his police work in print when the entire city of Seattle was ready to ride him out of town. The family owed her. This was her marker.
    “Bet you never thought you’d be writing about Shame again,” he said. “He’s all yours, lady. Shame on you.”

2

    T HE NEWS BREAK allowed Elizabeth Line a five-minute respite from the phone calls. She left her headphones on and listened to the newscast, a junkie indulging in her habit.
    The door to the broadcasting booth opened, and the talk jock waved to her. He went by the name of Kip, or as he seemed to prefer, The Kipper. As he donned his headset he winked at Elizabeth, did a sound check with the engineer, then signaled to her that they were about to go on air. His signal came by hand instead of eye, and for that Elizabeth was grateful. The Kipper moved slightly forward to his microphone. He was round and his puffy face had an almost neon-pink hue, but he was porcine without the squeal. The Kipper had a mellifluous and powerful voice and had the power to make the inane sound important.
    “You’ve got the right-right station,” he said, “because this is the