Chasing the Boogeyman

by Richard Chizmar

  GALLAGHER: Besides that.

  CHIZMAR: And what did you find out?

  GALLAGHER: [pause, smiling] You know, don’t you?

  CHIZMAR: Know what?

  GALLAGHER: You know what we talked about that night.

  CHIZMAR: I’m not sure. I might.

  GALLAGHER: Yes. Yes, you do. [pause, smile fading] That’s why I asked to speak with you, Rich. You’re clever. That’s why people like to read your stories.

  CHIZMAR: Trust me, I’m not that clever. You can ask anyone.

  GALLAGHER: You are, though. And you know exactly what my father and I talked about. You know he saw something or remembered something and was getting suspicious. You know he was thinking about telling the police.

  CHIZMAR: So what did your father see, Josh?

  GALLAGHER: [long pause] He saw his ten-year-old son playing in the woods behind the house one day. He was so quiet, I never even heard him until he was standing right behind me. He cried out when he saw what I was doing to the dog. It was just a stray mutt I’d found down by the railroad tracks, skinny and full of fleas. I had it pinned to the ground with my knee and was choking it with both hands. I tried to explain, to tell him it was hurt, and I was just trying to put it out of its misery. At first, he seemed to believe me, or at least like he wanted to believe me. But then he saw the blood on my hands and what I’d done to the dog’s ear with my pocketknife—and he knew. I’d never seen him so angry. He dragged me home by my shirt collar and we never spoke of it again.

  CHIZMAR: Your father didn’t commit suicide that night, did he?

  GALLAGHER: [staring down at table] No, he didn’t.

  CHIZMAR: [long pause] Did you ever think about hurting me?

  GALLAGHER: [looking up] Do you remember the day you were shooting baskets behind the high school and I drove up and joined you?

  CHIZMAR: [nods] Yes.

  GALLAGHER: Do you know that was one of the happiest days of my life?

  CHIZMAR: How so?

  GALLAGHER: [shrugs] It just was. Before that, I was driving around down by the water at Flying Point. Had my windows down and my stereo cranked up, and I felt good. No bad thoughts. No worries. No Boogeyman. I felt almost… normal. And then on my way back, I saw you shooting hoops and decided to stop. You were cool to me. Didn’t say much, but you were nice. We played H-O-R-S-E and I beat you two out of three games.

  CHIZMAR: [nods]

  GALLAGHER: And when you had to leave, you told me to hang on to the ball and keep playing. You said you had three or four more at home.

  CHIZMAR: I remember that.

  GALLAGHER: A little later, on my way home, I remember thinking maybe I could stop. Maybe I could go somewhere to get help and when I got back, I could be like everyone else. Like you. [pause] But that never happened and—

  GUARD: Excuse me. Time’s up, Mr. Chizmar.

  10

  Lieutenant McClernan is waiting for me in the lobby after the interview. She hands me my cell phone, wallet, and car keys, and together we walk outside. The afternoon sun is high in the sky, but the temperature has dropped and there are fresh puddles in the parking lot. It rained while we were inside.

  “You okay?” she asks.

  “I think so.”

  “You did good. You got him started. Once that happens, they usually keep talking.”

  “He didn’t answer a lot of the questions you gave me.”

  “He answered enough,” she says. “And that business about his father… that’s the first time he’s admitted to his murder. How did you know to ask him that? It wasn’t on the list.”

  Before I can answer, I stumble over my own feet and drop the car keys into a pothole filled with dirty water. Grimacing, I bend down and carefully fish them out, wiping my wet hand on my pants leg.

  “You going to be okay to drive?”

  “I’ll be fine.” I turn and look at the lieutenant. “He wasn’t what I expected.”

  “They rarely are.”

  “I was sure he was going to say that his father told him he was adopted. The night Josh killed him.” I shook my head. “But I don’t think he has any idea.”

  “And we want to keep it that way for as long as we can.”

  I didn’t say anything then. I just got in my car and drove away.

  11

  According to a 2009 study conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, nearly 16 percent of American serial killers were adopted as children, while adoptees represent only 2 percent of the general population.

  There’s even a condition known as Adopted Child Syndrome that has been used as a successful legal defense in a number of death penalty cases where the accused has been adopted.

  12

  The main entrance to Green Mount Cemetery in downtown Baltimore resembles the outer gate of a medieval castle. The only thing missing is a drawbridge. As I sit in my truck in the parking lot, I keep expecting to look up at the twin stone towers and see armor-clad archers flexing their bows.

  Finally, a few minutes past 5:00 p.m., a bright red Audi trailing a plume of dust speeds into the lot and pulls up alongside me. Carly Albright, dressed in an oversized winter jacket, baggy black snow pants, and pink rubber boots steps out of the car. She looks like a pregnant Eskimo.

  I get out of my truck and make a show of looking at my watch. “You’re late.”

  “Bite me,” she says, pulling a faux-fur-lined hood over her two-hundred-and-fifty-dollar hairdo. “Some of us have jobs, you know.”

  “I have a job.”

  “Some of us have real jobs.” She leans into the front seat of her car and comes back out holding a bouquet of fresh-cut flowers. “I should’ve bought fake ones. These’ll be dead by tomorrow.”

  “Pretty sure they’re already dead.” I walk to the bed of my truck and pull out the miniature Christmas wreath I’d picked up at the florist on my way here.

  “Nice,” she says, and you can tell she means it. She takes my arm and we start walking.

  “You expecting a blizzard?” I ask, trying not to smile.

  “Oh, shut it,” she says, nudging me with her elbow. “You know I hate the cold.” She looks at what I’m wearing, which isn’t much. “Don’t blame me when you freeze to death.”

  Right on cue, the temperature drops a full ten degrees as soon as we enter the dark stone tunnel that marks the cemetery’s main entrance. When we emerge on the other side, we’re standing on a cobblestone walkway surrounded by almost seventy acres of ornate monuments and tombstones. What’s left of last week’s snowstorm blankets the rolling hills. If not for the Baltimore City skyline visible in the distance, we could be standing on a frozen hillside in scenic New England.

  “I always forget how beautiful this place is,” Carly says.

  “Me too.”

  “When’s the last time you were here?”

  “Kara and I stopped by at the end of summer.” I look at her. “You?”

  She shakes her head. “Not since the funeral.”

  “Come on,” I say, starting to walk again. “It’ll be dark soon.”

  “Any word from Lieutenant McClernan or Gallagher’s lawyer?”

  “Nothing yet.”

  Joshua Gallagher recently requested a continuation of our conversation from earlier this month. Despite my expressed lack of enthusiasm, Lieutenant McClernan and my literary agent are anxious to make it happen. Now it’s just a matter of cutting through the usual spool of red tape.

  “I wish he was here to see all this,” she says.

  “Not me.”

  “Why not?” she asks, surprised.

  “I know he’d be thrilled to close the case, to get a killer off the street, especially this one, there’s no question about that.” I give her a shrug. “But I think he’d be disappointed it was Josh Gallagher. All this time, we were looking for a monster… but it feels like we found something else instead.”

  “He killed eight people, Rich. At least eight. I’d say that makes him a monster.”

&
nbsp; I nod my head. “You’re right.”

  “You almost sound like you feel sorry for him.”

  “It’s not that. I just don’t… understand.”

  “Well, that makes two of us.”

  We walk in silence after that, eventually abandoning the walkway and cutting across open ground. As we punch our way through ankle-deep snow, I feel my socks soaking through, but I don’t say a word about it. I’ll never hear the end of it if I do.

  “You know who’s buried here?” Carly asks, finally breaking the quiet.

  “John Wilkes Booth.”

  She stops and looks at me. “How the hell did you know that?”

  “You told me at the funeral.”

  “Oh.” She takes my arm and starts walking again.

  At the top of a slight rise ringed by a grove of scattered pine trees, we come to a stop. “This is such a peaceful resting place,” Carly says, looking around.

  I immediately drop to a knee and use my hands to wipe away snow and ice and twigs from a modest granite headstone. When I’m finished, I place the wreath next to the marker and get back to my feet.

  LYLE ALVIN HARPER

  1938–2019

  Loving Father

  “Interesting,” Carly says, leaning down and leaving the bouquet of flowers at the base of the marker. “No mention of his police career.”

  “I noticed that, too.”

  “Why do you think?”

  “I think, at the end, he was a lot prouder of being a good father than he was a good cop.”

  She looks at me. “You miss him, don’t you?”

  “I do.”

  “When was the last time you saw him?”

  “That’s the thing,” I say, wiping my eyes. “It’s been thirteen fucking years. We went fishing the week after my father’s funeral. It doesn’t make sense that I feel this way.”

  “It makes sense to me.”

  We stand there in silence, staring down at the grave marker, lost in our private thoughts. Finally, I clear my throat. “You want to do the honors or me?”

  She gives me a look, confused.

  “Who’s going to tell him we finally caught the son of a bitch?”

  “Ohhh,” she says, smiling. “And let you get all the credit? No thanks. I’ll tell him.”

  She takes my arm again, gives it a squeeze, and rests her head on my shoulder. Our laughter echoes across the rolling, snow-covered hills. It’s a good sound.

  The Joppatowne town house where twenty-two-year-old Joshua Gallagher lived at the time of the murders (Photo courtesy of the author)

  Nineteen-year-old Joshua Gallagher at Penn State University (Photo courtesy of Shane Leonard)

  Joshua Gallagher’s Hanover, Pennsylvania, home where he lived with his wife and two sons (Photo courtesy of the author)

  Joshua Gallagher on a job site (Photo courtesy of Shane Leonard)

  Fifty-four-year-old Joshua Gallagher’s mug shot (Photo courtesy of The Baltimore Sun)

  Joshua Gallagher being escorted out of the Harford County Courthouse (Photo courtesy of Logan Reynolds)

  A gold necklace belonging to Madeline Wilcox found by police in Joshua Gallagher’s basement workshop (Photo courtesy of The Baltimore Sun)

  Natasha and Joshua Gallagher during a visit to the Penn State campus (Photo courtesy of Shane Leonard)

  Russell Gallagher holding a young Joshua Gallagher (Photo courtesy of Shane Leonard)

  author’s note

  Beginning in August 1986 and continuing until the early months of 1990, someone entered the homes of at least twenty-five Edgewood, Maryland, women and touched their feet, legs, stomach, and hair while they were sleeping. When the women awakened, they found the man standing by the bed staring at them or lying nearby on the floor. In each instance, the man fled and disappeared into the night. Local police were unable to capture or identify the assailant until October 1993, when a former Edgewood resident jailed in Baltimore City on breaking-and-entering charges confessed that he was the so-called “Phantom Fondler,” as many newspapers had taken to calling him. The man’s fingerprints matched evidence found at numerous Edgewood crime scenes, and the case was finally closed.

  That much of Chasing the Boogeyman is based on hard facts.

  As are the myriad colorful stories of my childhood adventures and the loving observations of my mother and father and so many other cherished memories from the time I spent living on Hanson Road before walking down the aisle and marrying my high school sweetheart. The town of Edgewood itself, the stores and gas stations, the schools and parks, the neighborhoods and roadways, they’re all real. They all exist. At least, they did back in 1988, when the bulk of this story takes place.

  The rest of Chasing the Boogeyman—including, for example, the four murdered girls, the police investigation, the small town under siege, and characters such as Carly Albright, Detective Lyle Harper, and Joshua Gallagher—is nothing more than fiction. The result of an overactive imagination, a lifelong attraction to exploring the shadows, and a nostalgic streak a mile wide.

  I’ve always wanted to write a novel set in my hometown. If you’ve read much of my short fiction, you already know that Edgewood plays a significant role in my storytelling catalog. As does Hanson Road, Winter’s Run Creek, weeping willow trees, and countless other memories from my youth.

  A couple of years ago, not long after moving into a new house, my wife, Kara, and I were looking at photos in our wedding album, when I made an offhanded comment about how strange it’d felt all those years ago to move back home after graduating from college. I remembered those months leading up to our wedding in vivid and affectionate detail. Of course, all Kara recalled is that I didn’t help enough with the wedding invitations or any of the other preparations. “Except the food,” she told me. “You were very involved in choosing the menu.”

  Shortly after closing the photo album and returning it to the cardboard box from which I’d discovered it, I felt another blast from the past worm its way into my head—the Phantom Fondler.

  It was the first time I’d thought of him in years and it hit me like a bolt of lightning from a cloudless summer sky. Instantly, I flashed back to the series of cautionary headlines that dominated our small weekly newspaper and remembered how on edge the residents of Edgewood had become; how people started locking their windows at night and installing alarm systems; how worried and scared they grew that the mysterious intruder would one day soon escalate to doing more than touching his slumbering victims.

  And that’s where the idea for Chasing the Boogeyman was born.

  Now, as many writers will tell you, some stories are born premature; you might have the skeleton of a decent idea and perhaps even a main character in mind, but all the rest—supporting characters, plot points, a beginning, middle, and end—is missing. Of course, many other stories are birthed plump and healthy; in these cases, all of the major plot points are in place, the complete roster of characters are present and ring true in your heart, and all that’s left to do is to connect the dots and create a seamless and entertaining narrative. Still other tales, as rare as precious jewels, are born fully formed, as if merely buried in a mound of sand that needs only to be brushed away in order to discover the entirety of the story—crackling with life and energy and wonder—underneath.

  Chasing the Boogeyman was like that for me—just waiting there beneath the surface.

  Fully formed, brimming with mystery, and chock-full of surprises.

  Surprise number one: for some unknown reason I immediately envisioned Chasing the Boogeyman as being told in the structured format of a true-crime book; in fact, presented as a “true story of small town evil” (which incidentally was the novel’s original subtitle). Surprise number two: despite a well-earned reputation for being somewhat of a recluse and someone not very fond of the spotlight, I also saw with complete certainty that the story needed to be told from my own personal viewpoint. Twenty-two-year-old Rich Chizmar would not only serve as the narrator of
the Boogeyman’s dark story, he would also act as its conscience. Surprise number three: as a lifelong fan of true-crime books, one of the first things I usually do is flip ahead to the photo section—more often than not, positioned near the center of the book and presented in unsparing black-and-white imagery—to see what the real-life people and places involved in the crime look like. Studying those faces and crime scenes—the houses and alleyways and wooded areas—often serve to add another layer of reality and poignancy to the words I’m reading. I recognized from the very beginning that Chasing the Boogeyman would feature dozens of such photographs—and they needed to appear unquestionably authentic. The first thing I did to make this happen was to bring in the talented folks from Sympatico Media (a local production company I’ve been fortunate enough to work with on several movies). I furnished them with a lengthy, detailed shot-list, and they hired actors to play the roles of policemen, detectives, news personalities, and local residents. Then they spent two long days and nights capturing the majority of the images for this book. Several other good friends stepped up and volunteered to pose as the Boogeyman’s victims. A young neighbor assumed the role of Annie Riggs, the Boogeyman’s sole survivor. Because I run into my neighbor on a regular basis, I didn’t have the heart to kill Annie Riggs. My son Billy and I managed to arrange and take the remainder of the photographs. Surprisingly, with all the various roles and moving pieces involved, we only made a single embarrassing mistake: one of the detectives from 1988 also makes an appearance in a photograph from 2020—and what do you know, he hasn’t aged a single day.

  So there you have it: the nuts and bolts and how and why of Chasing the Boogeyman. A hopefully unique and satisfying fictional melding of “this actually happened” and “this could have happened”—and a personal snapshot of a very special time in my life that took place in a very special small town. I hope you’ve enjoyed the journey as much as I have.