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Driving back downtown, I stop at a Stop n’ Rob that’s located in one of the more rundown sections of the city. The entire reason for my stopping here is it houses one of the last wall-mounted payphones in Albany. One of the last ones I know of anyway. No way I could call the police and not have them trace my cell phone number. They would immediately find out who’s calling and then Detective Danish would be chasing my fat ass down. This time for real and for murder. Doesn’t matter that I’m not directly involved in the killing of Hector and Julio Perez. I’m an accomplice.
Getting out of the mail truck, I go to the phone, dig in my pocket for a quarter. I have two quarters and some smaller change too. I’ll only need one of the quarters for what I’m about to do. I pull out my cell phone and look up the general number for the Albany Police Department. I don’t want to call 911. This isn’t an emergency. Not that kind of life-at-stake emergency anyway. It’s just an informational call and that’s all.
When I find the number, I slip the quarter into the slot, listen to it tumble down into the metal box. I then dial the number and wait. People are coming and going from the Stop n’ Rob. Black people mostly from the projects down the road, along with a few Hispanics and whites mixed in.
This is the part of the city that people refer to as “the hood.” It’s not all that unsafe during the day, but if you were to come here at night, you would most definitely be approached to buy some drugs. You’d maybe make out the sound of gunshots coming from a drive-by shooting not far away. Some of my fellow postal workers refer to this part of the city as the concrete jungle, and there’s a lot of truth to that. It’s that dark and that dangerous, especially at night.
As I wait for someone at the APD to pick up, it dawns on me that this is the place where we’ll be pushing our product. We’ll be selling to young people. Kids. It doesn’t make me proud to know I’m about to become a part of the problem and not the solution. But then, like Joanne said, they’re gonna buy the drugs anyway. Why shouldn’t it be from us?
“This is the Albany Police Department,” the woman on the other end of the line says. “How can I help you?”
I clear my throat.
“I want to report an anonymous tip in a murder case.”
She pauses for a long beat. I wonder if she’s flipping a switch or typing a command on her computer that will immediately record the phone call and/or trace the number. Probably both. I stare at the chipped and dented chrome plated face of the phone and the metal wall-mounted cage that surrounds it. A Black Lives Matter bumper sticker is stuck to the cage on the diagonal. Someone wrote Fuck the Cops in black Sharpie. Someone else wrote, Burn the Pigs, Fry them like BACON. Bacon is written in all caps, like it somehow drives home the point. Someone else has drawn a big penis and scrawled a telephone number inside the shaft. “For an awesome blowjob, call me,” he or she wrote over the number. I feel like taking a shower suddenly.
“Let me transfer you to one of our officers,” the woman says.
She puts me on hold. I stare at more of the colorful artwork that makes me want to set fire to the payphone. But then someone picks up.
“This is Detective Danish,” the voice says.
My stomach drops and my pulse skyrockets. My initial reaction is to hang up.
“Hello,” Danish says, his voice louder this time. “To whom am I speaking?”
“Don’t panic,” I tell myself.
I can’t hang up. I need to do this. If I speak slower and lower my voice a little, he’ll never know it’s me. He can trace the location of the call all he wants, and he’ll never connect it to me.
Clearing my throat once more, I say, “The Perez brothers...I know who killed them.”
I’ve made my voice real low. I’m also talking slower than I normally do. I don’t know if Danish is buying my act, but then, I can’t take a chance that he’ll recognize my real voice.
He doesn’t say anything for a while, and it makes me even more anxious. But then he says something that takes me by surprise.
“Who are the Perez brothers?”
He’s playing dumb. My guess is he needs to keep me on the phone for a while until he can figure out where I’m calling from. But that’s when something else dawns on me. The cops can tap into satellites now. They can take pictures from space. Pictures of even the smallest things on planet earth. All they need are GPS coordinates and they can focus their outer space cameras on anything they choose. I know this because I saw it on one of the shows we watch in bed. CSI Miami or something like that. The cops got an anonymous phone call like this one, and they kept the caller on the line long enough to get the satellite to take a picture of the caller. It means I have to act fast. I can also hide my face, but my mailman uniform will be a dead giveaway. They can also get a picture of the plates on the mail truck. They will cross reference the number on the plates with the postal service and attach it to me.
“You know who the Perez brothers are because you’re investigating their murder,” I say.
“Oh,” Danish says, “those Perez brothers.”
“Yeah, those Perez brothers,” I say. “If you wanna know who killed them, look into the caretaker and the caretaker’s wife. They live at Little’s Lake.”
“Wait!” he barks. “Who are you and how do you know they are the responsible party?”
“I prefer to remain anonymous since I fear for my safety. And how do I know? I just know. That’s all.”
Then I hang up. On TV, I believe they need to keep someone on the line for three minutes minimum before they can establish a location and get the photo they need from their satellite. If that’s the case, then I’m in the clear. He had me on the phone not much more than a minute and half, including the time I spent on the line with the woman who answered the call, and the short time I spent on hold. Of course, I can’t be sure they needed three minutes, but judging by the way Danish was stalling, I’d say it’s a good bet they were not able to figure out who was making the anonymous call.
Heading back to my truck, I hop up into the seat, and back out. I exit the Stop n’ Rob knowing full well, that Detective Danish has no choice but to look into Mark and his wife at Little’s Lake. I also know that soon the FBI will converge on the scene of the crime, and they too will point their fingers at the Little’s Lake Caretaker and his wife when they come upon the physical evidence I had no choice but to illegally plant.