Tim went over to the end table, played the message a third time.
“There’s just too much wind and static,” he said as it ended.
Laura got up and walked into the kitchen, came back a moment later with a small notepad she used for grocery lists.
She returned to her spot on the hearth, pen poised over the paper, said, “Okay, who are we close enough friends with to be on their speed-dial?”
“Including family?”
“Anyone we know.”
“My parents, your parents, my brother, your brother and sister.”
“Jen.” She scribbled on the pad.
“Chris.”
“Shanna and David.”
“Jan and Walter.”
“Dave and Anne.”
“Paul and Mo.”
“Hans and Lanette.”
“Kyle and Jason.”
“Corey and Sarah.”
This progressed for several minutes until Laura finally looked up from the pad, said, “There’s thirty names here.”
“So, I’ve got an unpleasant question.”
“What?”
“If we’re going on the assumption that what’s on that answering machine is a man we know murdering a woman, we have to ask ourselves, ‘which of our friends is capable of doing something like that?’”
“God.”
“I know.”
For a moment, their living room stood so quiet Tim could hear the second hand of his grandmother’s antique clock above the mantle and the Bose CD player spinning Bach up in their bedroom.
“I’ve got a name,” he said.
“Me, too.”
“You first.”
“Corey Mustin.”
“Oh, come on, you’re just saying that ‘cause he took me to that titty bar in Vegas, and you’ve hated him ever—”
“I hate most of your college friends, but he in particular gives me the creeps. I could see him turning psychotic if he got jealous enough. Woman’s intuition, Tim. Don’t doubt it. Your turn.”
“Your friend Anne’s husband.”
“Dave? No, he’s so sweet.”
“I’ve never liked the guy. We played ball in church league a couple years ago, and he was a maniac on the court. Major temper problem. Hard fouler. We almost came to blows a few times.”
“So what should I do? Put a check by their names?”
“Yeah…wait. God, we’re so stupid.” Tim jumped up from the hearth, rushed over to the phone.
“What are you doing?” Laura asked.
“Star sixty-nine. Calls back the last number that called you.”
As he reached for the phone, it rang.
He flinched, looked over at Laura, her eyes covered in the bend of her arm.
“That scared the shit out of me,” she said.
“Should I answer it?”
“I don’t know.”
He picked up the phone mid-ring.
“Hello?”
“Tiiiiiimmmmm.”
“Hi, Mom.”
“How’s my baby boy?”
“I’m fine, but—”
“You know, I talked to your brother today and I’m worried—”
“Look, Mom, I’m so sorry, but this is a really bad time. Can I call you back tomorrow?”
“Well, all right. Love you. Kisses and hugs to that pretty wife of yours.”
“You, too. Bye, Mom.” Tim hung up the phone.
Laura said, “Does that mean we can’t star sixty-nine whoever left the message?”
“I don’t know.”
“You think there’s some number you push to like, double star-sixty—”
“I don’t work for the phone company, Laura.”
“Remember, I suggested we buy the package with caller ID, but you were all, ‘No, that’s an extra five bucks a month.’ I think it’s time to call the police.”
“No, I’ll call Martin. He’ll be off his shift in an hour.”
A few minutes shy of eleven o’clock, the doorbell rang.
Tim unlocked the deadbolt, found his brother, Martin, standing on the stoop, half-squinting in the glare of the porchlight, his uniform wrinkled, deep bags under his eyes.
“You look rough, big bro,” Tim said.
“Can I come in or you wanna chat out here in the cold?”
Tim peered around him, saw the squad car parked in the driveway, the engine ticking as it cooled.
Fog enveloped the streets and homes of Quail Ridge, one of the new subdivisions built on what had been a farmer’s treeless pasture, the houses all new and homogenous, close enough to the interstate to always bask in its distant roar.
He stepped to the side as Martin walked into his house, then closed and locked the door after them.
“Laura asleep?” he asked.
“No, she’s still up.”
They walked past the living room into the kitchen where Laura, now sporting a more modest nightgown, had put a pot of water on the stove, the steam making the lid jump and jive.
“Hey, Marty,” she said.
He kissed her on the cheek. “My God, you smell good. So you told him about us yet?”
“Never gets old,” Tim said. “You think it would, but it just keeps getting funnier.”
Laura said, “Cup of tea, Marty?”
“Why not.”
Martin and Tim retired to the living room. After Laura got the tea steeping, she joined them, plopping down in the big leather chair across from the couch.
Martin said, “Pretty fucking quaint and what not with the fire going. So what’s up? You guys having a little crumb-cruncher?”
Laura and Tim looked at each other, then Laura said, “No, why would you think that?”
“Yeah, Mart, typically not safe to ask if a woman’s pregnant until you actually see the head crowning.”
“So I’m not gonna be an uncle? Why the hell else would you ask me over this late?”
“Go ahead, Laura.”
She pressed play on the answering machine.
They listened to the message, and when it finished, Martin said, “Play it again.”
After the message ended, they sat in silence, Martin with his brow furrowed, shaking his head.
He finally said, “I know you’re too much of a cheap bastard to have caller ID or anything invented in the twenty-first century, so did you star-sixty-nine it?”
“Tried, but Mom called literally the second I picked up the phone.”
Martin undid the top two buttons of his navy shirt, ran his fingers around the collar to loosen it.
“Could just be a prank,” he said. “Maybe someone held the phone up to the television during a particular scene in a movie.”
“If that’s what it is, I don’t recognize the movie.”
Martin quickly redid the buttons on his shirt, said, “What do you think you’ve got there?”
“I think someone’s phone got jiggled at the worst possible moment, and we were on their speed dial.”
“You call nine-one-one?”
“Called you.”
Martin nodded. “There’s gotta be a way to find that number. You know, something you dial other than star-sixty-nine.”
Tim said, “Star-seventy?”
“I don’t know, something like that.”
“We tried to call the phone company a little while ago, but they’re closed until eight a.m. tomorrow.”
Martin looked at Laura, said, “You okay, sweetie? You don’t look so hot.”
Tim saw it, too—something about her had changed, her face seasick yellow, hands trembling imperceptibly.
“I’m fine,” she said.
“You sure? You look like you’re about to blow chunks all over your new carpet.”
“I said I’m fine.”
Martin stood. “I need to use the little girl’s room.”
Laura watched him walk out of the room and down the first-floor hallway, and only when the bathroom door had closed, did she look back at Tim and whisper, “You see it?”
“See what?”
“When he unbuttoned his shirt a minute ago, it exposed his white tee-shirt underneath.”
“So?”
“So I saw blood on it, and I think he saw me looking at it, because he buttoned his shirt up again real fast.”