I tapped the table a couple of times, trying to get my mind around what he meant. These murders occurred some forty years ago, back when they used fingerprints, not sophisticated DNA testing, to match murderers to crime scenes and prove guilt beyond any reasonable statistical doubt. Hank saw the look on my face, one of confusion, and continued.
“The killer left his semen — his DNA — at the crime scenes. I’m betting it was pretty well preserved.”
I replied, skeptically, “Okay, but DeSalvo’s dead and buried. Even if you could find those DNA samples, how would you match them to his?”
Hank drained his port and said, “That should be the easiest part of all. The knife.”
He let that linger there for effect before adding, “The knife that was used to kill Albert DeSalvo has his blood — his DNA — all over it. The question everyone’s been wondering for a whole lot of years is, where is it? It was left beside his body by whoever killed him in jail. Evidence in a murder case isn’t supposed to disappear, but my understanding is, this evidence did.”
Another pause, to even greater effect. Say what you will about Hank Sweeney. Call him dramatic. Call him melodramatic. But the guy knows how to hook an audience, which in this case was me.
“Find the knife,” he told me. “Find the knife and you’re on your way to answering the most enduring and troubling question in the history of Boston law enforcement: Was Albert DeSalvo the Boston Strangler?”
I thought of the look on Mac Foley’s face from across the room the night before, the fury in Commissioner Harrison’s voice as he warned us off that day, the grotesque way in which poor Lauren Hutchens was splayed across that chair, the notes that were so brief but said so much.
And I thought too that a knife, any knife, especially this knife, was like that proverbial double-edged sword. The closer I got, the more danger I would undoubtedly find myself in.
11
I was in the middle of this dream when I was awakened by the ringing telephone. I looked at the digital clock beside my bed and it said 5:40 a.m. The first thing I thought was that I had to get myself to Suffolk Downs that day and bet the trifecta, my mind was working on that kind of level. I mean, this was a very meta moment, but meta what, I wasn’t sure.
Second thing I thought of was that I was going to ring Peter Martin’s scrawny little neck, because there was absolutely no one else in the world this could be, and there was precisely no good reason for him to call. I reached for the cordless phone and mistakenly knocked it to the floor, where it kept ringing, ringing, ringing — the sound penetrating through my eye sockets and into my skull. When I finally grabbed it and said hello in a voice still thick with sleep, all I heard in return was a dial tone.
I flopped back down in the dark room, muttering to myself, “That goddamned bastard.” In other words, a terrific way to start the new day.
Seconds later, the phone rang anew. “What,” I said.
“Turn on the radio.”
It was, as predicted, Peter Martin, failing in what was becoming too typical a way to wish me a good morning or to inquire about my relative health or spirits, or even offer an apology for not prevailing on the publisher to run the most important story in the city that day. No, just an order to listen to the radio.
“There’s a lot of stations on the radio,” I replied, caustic now.
“Any special one I should find?”
“FM 99. The Barry Bor Show. Hurry up.”
Even in my foggy state, I didn’t like where this was heading. Barry Bor was a dim-witted cross between Howard Stern and Bill O’Reilly, minus their refined manners and classic good looks. He made hundreds of thousands of dollars every year by basically insulting people and saying outrageous things. He was a hero to morons; a guilty pleasure for quasi-smart people on their morning commute to work; a torturer of politicians; a flagellator of the rest of the Boston and national press. Everyone, in his mind, was stupid — everyone, of course, but him.
I’ll put aside the obvious question of what in God’s good name Peter Martin was doing listening to Barry Bor at five-forty on a weekday morning. The guy needed more help than was probably possible — Martin, not Bor, though probably Bor as well. I quickly hung up the phone, grabbed the remote to my Bose clock radio, and turned to FM 99.
“Ladies and gentlemen, you are the chosen ones who know intuitively when you tune into this show each and every morning that you’re listening to something special, something that only the elite thinkers in this city can truly comprehend. And now you can be more assured of that fact than ever before. Could I ever possibly feel more vindicated?”
Lying in bed, Bor’s admittedly sonorous voice filling the room, I felt a pit in my stomach. Whatever this was, it wasn’t going to be good.
“Before we go on, let’s make a few stipulations. Let’s accept as fact that what the stupid analysts on all those fatuous cable shows call ‘the mainstream media,’ let’s accept that it’s really not all that mainstream anymore. What those liberal blowhards at papers like The New York Times and The Washington Post and the Boston Record and at the network news shows like CBS and NBC, what they are is tired, old, biased curmudgeons — liars, plagiarists, unreliable navel-gazers who wouldn’t know a piece of news if it crawled up their fat asses as they sit at their desks reading The New Republic and waiting for Hillary Clinton to call them back to tell them what to say and write.
“They’re all done. They’re part of a dying industry. And I have the goods to prove it now. I’m one-stop shopping — politics, news, analysis, anything you need, right here on the Barry Bor Show. And this morning, we’re about to break brand-new ground yet again.
“Ladies and gentlemen, I received a telephone call this morning. It was a very important call….”
Oh fuck. Before he even said it, I knew what it was. My pen pal, the Phantom Fiend or the Boston Strangler or whatever it is that he turned out to be, became undoubtedly frustrated with my inability to get his story into print, so he went to the Barry Bor Show on FM 99, where he knows that anything goes. Think about it. Why was this guy writing to a reporter, except that he wanted publicity? And what was I not giving to him? Anyone? Anyone? Right, publicity. I slammed my fist against the mattress, but all I could do was listen to my own ineptitude — or rather, that of the paper. Maybe Bor’s diatribe, sickening as it was, was actually right, and that’s what made it all so awful.
“A murderer called me. We’re not going to glamorize him just because he had the intellectual firepower to seek out Barry Bor. After all, even though he’s one of the chosen ones, he’s still a murderer, and though we can forgive a lot, we can’t quite forgive that — not unless it comes out later that he was only killing abortionists or stem-cell cloning scientists or anyone supporting the Social Security system exactly as it is now.
“I’m kidding, chosen ones, I’m kidding, so before any of those waddling, fat-assed critics at the Record start hassling me again, well, I’ve got something you don’t. I’ve got you beat on a crime story.
“So back to it. This murderer, he called me here at the Barry Bor Show as we were getting ready to go on the air this morning. I talk to a lot of people during show prep, as you can well imagine — congressmen and senators and sitting governors and retired presidents and big-time consultants. Rarely do I talk to murderers — except when the stray Democrat gets through on the line.”
By this point, I was up out of bed and getting dressed, only because I needed to move, to expend energy, while I listened to this pathological idiot prattle on about himself as he held information on a story that should have been exclusively mine. Here I was, at five forty-five now in the morning, listening to my own failure get broadcast across the city.
“He called me and referred me to a blog, but only under the condition that I not publicly reveal the address of the site, which I won’t. Barry Bor keeps his word, even to murderers. When you talk for a living, your word has to be gold, and mine is.
“On this blog were p
ictures of a young woman whose name is Lauren Hutchens. I’d be remiss in not informing you that she is quite a looker. But in this picture that was posted online, she also appears to be dead, with a cord around her neck. The site also contains a photograph of her driver’s license.
“I personally checked police records online, and have come to learn that a Lauren Hutchens was recently found murdered in the Fenway section of Boston. No one has been arrested in the crime. Whoever should be, that person is busy calling me. Ladies and gentlemen, I, Barry Bor, am in touch with a murderer, and the most chilling part I’ve yet to tell you. I will — right after this commercial message.”
“Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.”
That was me, yelling at the damned Bose radio that sat on a small armoire in my room — such an innocent object, such a bearer of bad news on this morning.
The phone rang again, undoubtedly with Martin on the other end of the line. I picked it up with a clipped “I can’t believe we screwed up this badly.”
There were a few seconds of silence in response, which instantly struck me as bizarre. When there was still no response, I said, “Hello. Peter?”
The caller asked, “Are you listening to the Barry Bor Show?”
Whoever asked that question asked it in a voice that sounded in some way automated — as if he was talking through a scrambler or a synthesizer.
“Who’s calling?” I asked, blurting out the words.
“Are you listening to the Barry Bor Show?” Again, the words had that slightly synthetic quality to them.
I said, “I am. But who is this?”
“Why didn’t you write about me in today’s newspaper?”
Now my shoulders reflexively shuddered and my head clouded anew. I kind of knew how Barry Bor felt. I’ve talked to presidents and senators and even killers after the fact. But I’ve never talked to an unknown murderer who was vowing to kill again.
I said, “I was trying to get you in today’s paper. We didn’t think we had enough information.”
“You know Lauren Hutchens is dead. I killed her. You know Jill Dawson is dead. I killed her, too. And I’m going to kill again.”
The way he said kill, the k tripped over itself and the ll had a long echo to it, making it sound somewhere far beyond macabre, especially since I was reasonably sure he would follow up on his threats. I shook my head and pushed my shoulders back, silently attempting to get a grip on myself, and I said, “Why did you call Barry Bor?”
Now, I’ll admit, there were a lot of lead questions I could have posed to this admitted murderer, not the least of which were: Why are you killing? When will you kill again? Who will you kill? Will you give yourself up? I could have even asked the completely self-interested question: Did you try to kill me, or if not, do you know who did? But here I was, worried not so much about the safety of Boston’s female population as I was about the competitive position of the Boston Record.
The caller replied, “I contacted you first. You ignored me.”
“I didn’t ignore you. We need more information from you. I’m not a damned radio talk show. I deal in facts, and I need more of them.” I hesitated here, hesitated at the thought of what I was about to do, then said, “And we need you to work exclusively through the Record.”
I used the word work, as if what he was doing was political fund-raising or maybe whistle-blowing on some unraveling government project, everything polite and aboveboard and squarely on the side of virtue. But the reality was that I was trying to sell my paper and myself to a killer so we could get the exclusive story. There are some days I think I probably would’ve been better off if I had followed an old girlfriend’s advice and gone to law school. This day was foremost among them — and it wasn’t even six in the morning yet.
He remained silent, so I filled the void with “We can work together, but that won’t happen if you’re talking to inflammatory talk show hosts who aren’t going to treat your information with the respect that the Record would. And because you’re dealing through a medium that no one takes seriously, people, the public, aren’t going to take you seriously.”
Here I was, giving my full-on sales pitch to a guy who had strangled two women, actually stood there tightening a ligature around their necks and watching the life leave their panicked eyes. And I was trying to sell him on a relationship with the Record. I made a mental note that I was a complete asshole.
“What kind of information?” he asked.
Good question. What was I going to say, Hold the line while I call the damned publisher and ask her what the hell else she needs before we put this story into print? I wisely, even uncharacteristically, bit my tongue and instead asked, “Are you the Boston Strangler? And why are you doing this?”
The caller said, “Go to the bench in the northwest corner of Columbus Park at nine a.m. Don’t get there a minute beforehand or you’ll never hear from me again. Don’t call the police or you’ll never hear from me again. Bring your cell phone.”
He hung up. I could still hear the n vibrating on the word phone because of the synthesizer he was using.
As I put the receiver down, I listened to Barry Bor say on the radio, “Ladies and gentlemen, the chosen few, you are listening to talk radio history here today. We, meaning you and me, are making history. I have been talking to a gruesome murderer who is vowing to kill again, and will tell us where and when he strangles his next woman…”
I flipped the stereo off and the room went quiet except for the sounds of the ocean breeze pushing against the outside window — at least I hoped it was the breeze that was nudging the window. Who knew anymore?
Pleading with a killer for an exclusive story. Another day in the life of the intrepid reporter, and it would quickly get worse from there.
12
The day came bright and breezy, the breeze carrying with it more than a hint of spring. The sun caressed my cheeks with its golden fingers. The grass was even turning from winter brown to a pale shade of green.
So why, then, did I still feel such doom as I strode from Atlantic Avenue into Columbus Park at about two minutes to nine on this Wednesday morning? Well, first off, there are the obvious answers. I suspected the day would bring with it more death, most likely of yet another innocent young woman long before her time.
Second, I was still infuriated at my own newspaper for blowing a blockbuster story and putting me in this kind of bind with an admitted killer. And I wasn’t exactly pleased with myself over the unseemly telephone negotiations that I carried on that morning with this man who called himself the Phantom Fiend.
Third, there was no small amount of trepidation that I was being set up here on this park bench by whoever tried to kill me on the Charles River two nights before. Or maybe that’s whomever. I can never figure these things out. That said, I hoped that since he picked a place so prominent and a time so public, he wouldn’t be trying anything funny.
Finally, this was the park where I used to bring Baker virtually every day for the past many years to romp and fetch a tennis ball until his tongue was hanging to the ground. Baker was my old golden retriever, dead a little more than a year now, but never a flicker of the memory from my mind. We always saw the first red leaf of autumn together, the first flake of winter, and the first bud of spring. We were an item then, and I thought we always would be, until the day when he was diagnosed with advanced cancer at Angell Memorial Hospital and taken from me before I barely had a chance to say good-bye.
Okeydoke. So, we’re off to a perfectly terrific start to yet another wonderful day, one that would surely include murder and at least a little mayhem, as well as lame excuses from my newpaper higher-ups for their colossal screw-up, pleas for dinner invitations from Vinny Mongillo, and maybe a face-to-face meeting with a past and present serial killer who calls himself the Phantom Fiend. What was my alternative — to have gotten married to a beautiful woman and jetted off to a resort in gorgeous Hawaii? Then again, Maggie Kane hadn’t left that alternative on the table for me, not a
s she was fleeing on a connecting flight through the Atlanta airport to God only knows where. Maybe she was in Hawaii, which wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing, because at least someone would be getting use of a hotel that I had already paid for.
Ah yes, a great day getting even greater.
I found my way to a bench in what I believed was the far northwest corner of the park. It looked out over the grass, through a bare trellis, toward a part of Boston Harbor where I once swam in pursuit of an escaping intruder in the middle of the night, in what I guess I’d now refer to as the good old days. Now that I thought of it, I should apply for hazardous duty pay. Either that or enroll in swimming lessons at the YMCA and send Peter Martin the bill.
So there I sat, thinking, waiting, and wondering. I wasn’t there but two minutes when my cell phone chimed. When I answered, all I heard was silence.
Well, not exactly total silence. I heard what sounded like a young calf chewing on its cud.
“Mongillo?” I asked.
“Oh, hey, sorry, Fair Hair. I’m on the treadmill and didn’t hear you pick up.”
“Are you eating and running? Isn’t that illegal?”
“Just a PowerBar. And no, I’m being careful.”
He was out of breath, I noticed. I mean, really out of breath, as in, I was half tempted to ask him if I could be the beneficiary on his 401(k) plan and hold a microcassette up to the damned phone.
He said, “Did you hear your boy on the Barry Bor Show?”
Jesus, the whole world listened to that stupid call-in program at that ungodly hour. I replied, “Me and everyone else in Boston. We really fucked up.”
“That we did, but nothing more you or I could have done to prevent it. Listen, I have a pretty good guess where the next murder is going to be. How about we meet for lunch to talk about it.”
“You’re saying you know who he’s going to kill and you want to go have lunch?”
“No, I’m saying I think I know what neighborhood, or even street, he might kill next. And yes on lunch. Nice of you to ask.”
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