by R. G. Belsky
But something pretty damned important happened the night Reagan and I were there too.
That was when Loverboy was born.
There was a jukebox next to the bar playing ’50s and ’60s rock-and-roll hits. “Hound Dog.” “Bye Bye Love.” “Good Golly Miss Molly.” The two of us kept pouring in quarters and telling the guy behind the bar to turn up the volume.
At some point we got out in the middle of the floor and started dancing to something by the Righteous Brothers.
“Why do you think he does it?” I asked.
“Who?”
“The killer.”
Reagan shrugged. “It’s a thrill. A kick. There probably is no reason.”
“Sure there is. There’s always a reason. The killer has to get something out of it.”
“What?”
“I don’t know.”
“Maybe the reason is the key to catching him.”
Another song came on the jukebox: “Love Is Strange” by Mickey and Sylvia. Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey fell in love to it in the movie Dirty Dancing. And so did Jack Reagan and I on that long-ago night in Dorrian’s, I guess.
“What else do we know about this guy?” I asked.
“Not much.”
“Well, he definitely seems to be an equal opportunity killer.”
“What do you mean?”
“He kills both men and women.”
Reagan shook his head. “It’s the women he’s after. The men just get popped because they’re there. He never goes for a man by himself. Just women and couples.”
Jack was right about that.
“He needs a name,” I said.
“The killer?”
“Sure. Every serial killer worth his stuff has a cool nickname. Something catchy for headlines. Son of Sam. The Boston Strangler. Zodiac. What can we call this guy?”
“Son of Lucy.” He smiled.
“How about the New York Strangler? Or Capricorn?”
“Most of the victims are single women, right?” he said. “How about the Singles Killer?”
“Not alliterative enough for headlines.”
“The Singles Slayer.”
“Better.”
The song kept playing as we danced. I listened to the words of Mickey and Sylvia as they sang to each other.
Sylvia . . . how do you call your loverboy?
C’mere, loverboy.
That’s when it hit me.
“Loverboy,” I said.
“Loverboy?”
“Sure. He seems to be looking for love. Only when he finds it, he murders the lovers. So we call him Loverboy. What do you think?”
“I love Loverboy,” he said.
He kissed me.
After that, we drank some more.
Then we went to bed.
And that was how Loverboy got his name.
Chapter 22
The first note came a week later.
It was in an envelope that was mailed to me at the Blade from somewhere in Manhattan. There was a return address in Brooklyn Heights written in the upper left-hand corner of the envelope. And a single word.
“Loverboy.”
I’d used the name for the first time in a story after the night at Dorrian’s with Reagan. And I’d kept on using it in every story since. The rest of the media picked up on it too. Television stations. Radio news. The other newspapers in town. Even the police put out a press release referring to the “so-called Loverboy killings.”
So, of course, the envelope could have been just a practical joke.
But I didn’t think so.
I knew it was the real deal.
I was even more convinced of that after I read what was inside:
Dear Lucy,
Congratulations on finding out my little secret.
I was going to go public with it very soon anyway. Maybe have a coming-out party of sorts. You know, like a debutante. I could have even used the body of some pretty little debutante as a kind of party gift. But this way is probably better.
First off, let me make something perfectly clear—I am not crazy.
Helluva opening, huh? Sort of like Richard Nixon saying, “I’m not a crook,” or a guy proclaiming he doesn’t beat his wife, or Sgt. Schultz insisting, “I know nothing,” on Hogan’s Heroes reruns. He doth protest too much, as Shakespeare put it.
Trust me on this, though. What I’m doing is totally sane.
I think.
At the very least, it’s sort of like the old story about a patient who goes to see his psychiatrist and tells him, “All right, I may be paranoid, but that doesn’t mean someone’s not out to get me.”
Lucy, I want you to deliver this message from me to all the women of New York City:
I love you.
I love you all. I really do.
I LOVE YOU TO DEATH.
Now it’s time to go back to work.
For both of us.
Take a trip across the river to Brooklyn Heights.
You’ll find your next story there.
Loverboy
Her name was Cheri Barnes, and she was a cocktail waitress at a restaurant near the Promenade, along the East River.
The manager said she’d worked from 6 p.m. to 2 a.m. the night before. Her time of death was somewhere between 3 a.m. and 5 a.m., according to the medical examiner’s office. That meant Loverboy had probably followed her home. Or maybe he had waited for her. He could have even been stalking her for days, making records of her movements.
Who knew how a crazed murderer’s mind worked?
The cops found her in the bedroom. She was wearing the same miniskirt, low-cut top, high heels and nylons she’d had on that night at work. People who knew her said she’d been very attractive. But the killer had shot her at close range in the face, making such a mess of it that her beauty was just a memory now. He’d also pulled her miniskirt up over her hips and written in lipstick on her thighs the word “Whore!”
Twelve years later, when I found Julie Blaumstein’s body, I realized it was almost a carbon copy of the Cheri Barnes murder.
But why?
Was it the same killer all over again, trying to replay his greatest hits? Sending me a message that the nightmare had never really ended? That he’d only been resting for the past twelve years? Hello, Lucy—I’ve been away, but now I’m back.
Or was this a new monster, playing out a deadly game with someone else’s hand?
I called Jack Reagan as soon as I got that first note about Cheri Barnes. We drove out to Brooklyn Heights together, and I hung around with him during the investigation of the crime scene. Lieutenant Ferraro showed up later.
Ferraro wasn’t happy to see me.
“What’s she doing here?” he wanted to know.
I just love being talked about in the third person.
“The killer sent her a note at the Blade,” Reagan said. “Told us where to find the body.”
“You got the note?”
I handed it to him.
“You realize, of course, that you’ve probably already destroyed any fingerprint evidence the killer left on it.”
“I was very careful, Lieutenant. As soon as I realized what it was, I only held it by the top corner. If he left any fingerprints—which I doubt—they’ll still be there. All you have to do is eliminate my prints and Detective Reagan’s. And now, of course, yours too. Anything left belongs to our murderer.”
He grunted. “So you’re an expert on fingerprints, huh, Shannon?”
“I watch a lot of Columbo and Perry Mason,” I said.
Ferraro looked down at the note, frowning as he read the message.
“Okay, thanks for your help,” he said to me when he was finished. “You can go home now.”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I’m a reporter. I have a right to be here.”
We glared at each other.
“You have a right to report on whatever infor
mation we decide to disseminate to you through normal law enforcement communication channels,” Ferraro said.
“Are those the same law enforcement communication channels that have kept these killings covered up for so long? Maybe if the public knew there was a killer running around out there, Cheri Barnes might still be alive today. Ever think about that, Lieutenant?”
Ferraro turned to Reagan. “Just keep her out of my way,” he said.
He walked over to a group of other cops and medical people standing around the body.
“What’s his problem?” I asked.
“The lieutenant’s a real by-the-book kind of guy. Got that whole policeman’s manual memorized. He can quote from it for you if you want—page by page.”
“Good for him.”
“Tommy’s very ambitious too.”
“Well, this case could make him—or break him.”
“Yeah. As long as no one knew about it, he was pretty safe. But now there’s going to be all this public scrutiny—and the head of the task force is going to take the heat if we don’t catch somebody pretty soon.”
“Big deal. So he doesn’t make captain.”
“Tommy thinks he’s going to be police commissioner someday.”
“No kidding?”
“Like I said, he’s a real ambitious guy.”
I called in the story to the paper. It was another big exclusive for me and the Blade. The editors were ecstatic. No other reporter in town had even heard about it yet. They’d all have to do follow-up stories the next day. I wasn’t merely covering this story. I was a part of it now. I was on a roll.
Later, as they were taking Cheri Barnes’s body out, Reagan whispered something to me. I don’t remember exactly what he said, after all these years. But it was some sort of sexual innuendo about what he wanted to do to me in bed that night. I giggled loudly.
Ferraro heard it.
“You think this is all a big joke, don’t you?” he said to me.
“I’m sorry, I just—”
“There was a woman murdered here tonight. Other people are dying too. Of course, to you it’s a big story that’s going to make you famous. You think it’s going to turn you into a female Jimmy Breslin or Woodward and Bernstein, don’t you?”
I didn’t say anything.
“Well, that’s real blood over there. And Cheri Barnes was a real person. I don’t think there’s anything funny about her death at all.”
“C’mon, Lieutenant,” Reagan said. “Back off on her.”
Ferraro shook his head. “You think I don’t know about you too, Jack?”
“Know what?”
“Shannon here didn’t simply stumble onto this case. You handed it over to her.”
“Hey, she’s a reporter. She found out herself. . . .”
“She couldn’t find Times Square without someone’s help. She’s a kid. She’s been working at the Blade for about five seconds, and this is the first big story they’ve ever let her cover. I checked. I know how she got it, Jack. I’m not stupid.”
He turned to me.
“Let me give you some advice, Shannon. You’re young, you’ve got your whole life ahead of you. Don’t get involved with someone like Reagan. He’s a fucking lush. He’s bad news. He’s going to cause you nothing but trouble. Of course, from what I hear, you’re pretty much a lush too. Maybe the two of you deserve each other.”
Then he stomped away. I just stood there, too stunned to say anything back.
“Fuck ’im!” Jack Reagan said as we watched him go. “Let’s get a drink.”
Chapter 23
Look, it wasn’t exactly a breaking news flash that I was doing a lot of drinking.
But Lieutenant Ferraro’s remark that night really bothered me.
I used to think of myself as pretty tough back then. On the other hand, I was only twenty-four years old—and having a police lieutenant talk to me like that about my personal life shook me up.
Until then, nobody else had ever come right out and told me I had a drinking problem. Oh, I know people sometimes gave me funny looks at parties. Or made jokes at work about how far gone I was the night before. I’m sure now they probably talked about it behind my back too.
But before my confrontation with Tommy Ferraro, I’d somehow managed to convince myself that my drinking wasn’t really all that big a deal—that I could handle it.
In those days I was a pretty good drunk.
I had my routine down perfectly. I never took the first drink until after noon. That was the magic hour. Lunchtime. I usually had a couple while I was eating, but no more. I was really good about that. Then it was straight back to work. Bright-eyed, bushy-tailed—without even a trace of alcohol on my breath. I always kept a package of mints in my purse for just that purpose.
After work, I’d have a few drinks to relax, then get down to some serious drinking. I drank everything. Lots of beer. Martinis. Tequila. Bourbon. And vodka. Especially vodka. Vodka was my drink. My specialty. My own private poison, as one counselor called it later during one of my periodic visits to rehab. God, I loved it. At some point in the night, I’d always switch to vodka on the rocks or vodka martinis and then I’d be gone for good. There was no turning back.
Sometimes people would have to help me home at the end of the night, but most of the time I was okay. I’d fall into bed, sleep for five or six hours and wake up feeling fine. Then it was back to work, where I’d start the cycle all over again.
There were no hangovers back then. No nausea. No blackouts. No waking up in a hospital emergency room at 6 a.m. and wondering where I was and how I got there and feeling like I wanted to die.
That would all come later.
But back then I was having fun.
Loverboy was page-1 news during that entire summer.
For three months he prowled the night streets, gunning down young women or couples in parks or singles clubs or out on dates all over New York City.
By Labor Day the total stood at twenty-one. Thirteen dead, eight wounded. Most of those happened after I got involved in the case. The killer had worked slowly for the first six years, carrying out a number of attacks but doing nothing to call attention to himself. But now he had a name—and a mission. Loverboy struck time after time in quick succession, taunting the police and the public with notes to me about each victim.
Evil was in full bloom during that summer of 1984.
And New Yorkers were terrified.
Most crime doesn’t truly touch people. It happens before we realize it, or to someone else in another neighborhood, or to a specific targeted group like prostitutes or gays or drug addicts. But this was different. People knew this killer was out there before he struck. And he was targeting young, white, middle-class people. Most of them women.
Everyone out on a date or a night on the town was looking over his or her shoulder. People started staying home after it got dark. They bought guns for protection. The first few victims that summer all had long brown hair, so lots of women cut theirs very short or wore blond wigs in the hope they wouldn’t be a target. (It didn’t matter—the victims included several blondes and a redhead before the killer was finished.)
I suppose I should have been scared too. I mean, Loverboy had targeted me as the person to send his death notes to at the Blade. I was a young woman. I even had long brown hair. There was no reason to think he wouldn’t turn on me at some point.
But I never worried about that back then.
To me it was all just a big game.
Even the victims didn’t seem real. Oh, I knew there were people dying out there, all right. But when you’re a reporter, you develop this ability to separate yourself from people’s tragedies and traumas and deaths. You have to when you see them every day. All I knew was it was a great story—and I was right in the center of it.
In a few short weeks I’d gone from a lowly cub reporter to the most famous journalist in town. I was interviewed on TV. I was written about by all the other papers in town. Time,
Newsweek and People did big articles on me. Even the police came to me for help—at one point they got me to write an open letter to the killer on the front page of the Blade, urging him to surrender.
Loverboy was my whole life that summer.
And Jack Reagan.
Jack and I spent all our time together working on the case. Wherever he went, I was there. Questioning witnesses. Looking for evidence. Checking out leads. We were a team. Probably more of a team than he and Ferraro, who didn’t like either of us.
That was okay. I made Jack the hero of the investigation in my stories. And he was my pipeline for exclusive information that put me light-years ahead of every other reporter in town.
Then, of course, there was the sex. We spent hours in bed together; we tried out all sorts of different positions and techniques. I was twenty-four years old, I was from Ohio and I’d never had sex like that with anyone in my life before. Sex was always one of the strong points about my relationship with Jack.
That and, of course, drinking.
Looking back on it now, I find it difficult to think about Jack Reagan without thinking about the drinking too. We were doing it all the time. We weren’t always drunk, of course. But we sure were high a lot—or at least had a pleasant buzz working for us.
I sometimes wonder what my romance with Jack would have been like without alcohol. Or if we would have even had one. I remember that on the rare occasions when he wasn’t drinking, I didn’t find him nearly as interesting. Maybe he felt the same way about me.
But alcohol fixed that. Alcohol was the answer to any problems in our relationship. It was the answer to everything in those days. Vodka always made everything better.
Jack Reagan and Lucy Shannon—a love affair for the ages.
A modern-day Romeo and Juliet.
A real fun couple.
Well, most of the time. But there were a few disturbing things starting to happen.
You see, Jack wasn’t a happy drinker like me. He sometimes got ugly.
Once, we were in a bar on Staten Island and someone asked me to dance. It was no big deal, really. The guy was as drunk as we were, and I just said no. But Jack turned it into this big macho thing. He took out his detective’s shield, waved his gun in the guy’s face and threatened to arrest him and do all sorts of terrible things to him before they got to the police station. Then he made him apologize to us in a loud voice, in front of all his friends in the bar. Christ, all he’d wanted was a lousy dance.