I settled grumpily into my chair, on the starboard side of Regan’s desk. Without taking his eyes off Fanning, the Bishop handed me the steno pad he keeps for me for emergencies. He tried to keep a poker face, but the gleam of satisfaction in his eyes was unmistakable.
Fanning didn’t waste any time proving he was a true fundamentalist. He held his Bible high and demanded, “I got to ask it, Bishop. Do you believe on every word in this here Bible?”
That started a forty-five-minute argument. They went after each other hammer and tongs and I got the whole thing into my notebook, a useless exercise. And the fundie never backed off. I was impressed by him. In fact, I had him ahead on points, when Regan abruptly ended it.
Along the way they somehow got into Adam and Eve and Moses, which I followed a little bit; then into St. Paul (the guy, not the city), where they lost me fast. I’ll give Regan this: as mad as he was when they started, he used a lot less sarcasm than I’d have predicted and actually got less mad the longer they argued. In fact, he seemed to enjoy the whole thing, which is more than I can say for me.
I was thoroughly relieved when he finally sighed and said, “No more, Mr. Fanning. I’m afraid we’ll have to agree to disagree. Just tell me this: why did you come? What is it you want with me?”
“The Lord sent me,” Fanning blurted. I glanced up from my shorthand. He was blushing deeply, glaring at Regan, expecting a challenge. The Bishop raised an eyebrow.
“Oh? And just how did the Lord communicate this mission to you?”
“You probably won’t —” Fanning looked at the floor and took a deep breath. He seemed to come to a decision and met Regan’s gaze. “Okay, I’ll just plain tell it. I had a vision.” I glanced over to get Regan’s reaction and was surprised to see him nodding encouragement.
“I’ve had two of ’em,” the Okie said. “The first one came last winter. That time, Lord Jesus told me I had to bring my wife and baby and come to New York City. He wanted me to convert the city to Him and His holy word.”
That got me. I looked up from my notebook and stared at the guy. Fanning stared right back at me. “Yep, that’s right, Mister, the whole dern city. And that’s what I’m trying to do.” He turned back to the Bishop, who nodded more encouragement.
“Well sir,” Fanning continued, “me and Ida Mae — that’s my wife — we got here two weeks ago, and I been going from door to door ever since, trying to get people to accept Jesus as their personal Lord and Savior.” The fundie’s face relaxed as he smiled and shook his head.
“I been trying, but they ain’t been buying. I don’t know why the Lord picked me, or why He picked this city — but He sent me and that’s that.” He pounded the chair arm decisively.
“Admirable,” Regan murmured. Fanning, who’d been skewered by a couple of the Bishop’s sarcasms earlier, looked suspicious.
“No, no,” Regan said. “I mean it, sir. Would that every Christian — Hah! Would that I — were as faithful to my vision. What form did this vision take?”
“Oh, I don’t expect you’ll believe me. I had a hard time believing it myself. I didn’t know what was going on. But I just knew it was the Lord. No doubt about it.”
Regan’s eyes narrowed. “What do you mean, no doubt about it?”
“It’s real hard to describe.” Fanning said, so softly I had to strain to hear him. “Kind of like a dream, only it was real, that’s the only way I can say it.”
Not very convincing, I thought. But Regan was still nodding. “And you say you have had two?”
Fanning nodded back. “Second one was last night. Jesus told me to come see you. See, I passed by your house yesterday and saw the gold plate on your door that says Catholic Bishop.
“Well, Jesus come to me last night and told me to come tell you about Him. Even told me your name: Francis Xavier Regan. Said, I love the man, but he needs to get to know Me.’”
I grinned at Regan but he was intent on Fanning. “‘I love the man, but he needs to get to know Me’?”
“Yep. I didn’t want to come at first. Way I was brought up, you didn’t go near no Catholic priests. Much less no Bishop! But He told me to, and I finally decided the worst you could do was kill me.”
I grinned, but Regan nodded soberly. “I suppose. So you came here to bring me that message?”
Fanning nodded. “Yep. Trouble is, I don’t know if that’s all what I’m supposed to do. I know Jesus wanted me to come here. But I don’t know what for.”
“Of course you do.” The Bishop was brisk. “And you’ve done it. Told me that Jesus loves me, and I need to get to know Him.”
I was looking back and forth at the two erstwhile antagonists. The conversation was taking a strange turn. The Bishop glanced at me.
“It’s highly unusual, Mr. Fanning, that you got in. Normally, Mr. Goldman is Horatio at the Sublician bridge, heroically keeping away all comers, occasionally even my oldest and dearest friends. But he let you in. An extraordinary day, Mr. Fanning — for all three of us, I suppose.”
Regan looked at a spot on the ceiling. “Albeit fearful, you came — bearing a message of love. A message available to me every morning at prayer, but seldom heeded.”
Regan lowered his eyes from the ceiling, gave me another brief glance, and returned to Fanning. I realized I’d stopped taking notes and quickly resumed.
“I am in your debt, Mr. Fanning. If you ever need my help, I hope you’ll call.” Regan held the gaze of the embarrassed Okie and nodded significantly. Then he glanced at me again and exploded.
“Oh, put away that pencil, David, and stop embarrassing both of us! You know perfectly well I was joking when I told you to take notes!” I looked at him and slowly shook my head. Who said bishops never lie?
Returning to his guest, Regan gestured at his useless legs. “I suffered a gunshot wound six years ago, Mr. Fanning, resulting in — this. My disability can leave me — cranky, at times. This morning, in a moment of pique, I gave an ill-considered order to Mr. Goldman. I was exasperated, I suppose.
“Your admission here, as you have perhaps sensed, is due solely to Mr. Goldman’s desire — a quite understandable desire, I must admit — to punish me.”
That’s as close to an apology as I’ve ever gotten from the man. I gave him a nod to acknowledge it, which he gave no sign of noticing. Except for a slight blush.
The visit ended soon after, but not, of course, without the fundie inviting the Bishop to pray with him. Regan surprised me again.
“By all means. I’d welcome it, sir. You may stay or go as you prefer, David.”
I stayed. Maybe I’d been so startled by the apology, I thought he needed watching. Of course I didn’t join in, Jesus not being among the people I pray to. Within five minutes I saw I’d made a mistake. The prayer was endless.
I quit listening after a couple of hours. Well, all right, it only seemed that long. I tuned back in when I heard that merciful word, finally.
“…and finally, Lord, we just ask you to help the families of those two poor women. Just be with them in their sorrow, Lord. And touch the heart of that hate-filled man. Help the police find him and stop him from hurting anyone else. Let him see the suffering he’s causing, and make him repent and turn to you, sweet Jesus. Amen.”
Fanning was obviously referring to the latest serial killer on the loose in New York, the one the press had branded Strangler John because he was knocking off prostitutes, apparently pretending to be a john.
By the day of Fanning’s visit, Strangler John had struck twice. The papers were filled with the story, as they always are when murderers are on the prowl.
I don’t use words like mystical or supernatural, but in hindsight, it’s kind of interesting that Fanning chose to end his prayer with that bit about Strangler John.
3
I said Strangler John had already killed two prostitutes the day the Bishop and I met Fanning. He whacked another one that Friday, and a fourth the next. The victims were no one I knew, so after reading
about them in the papers I put them out of my mind, though that was getting harder to do. With another corpse turning up every Saturday, people were growing panicky. The papers were complaining daily about the police. And the police kept promising a solution “soon,” except soon never seemed to arrive.
The cops were feeling the heat, especially Kessler and Blake. That’s Inspector Kessler, head of Homicide, and Lieutenant Charlie Blake, the guy in charge of the Strangler John Task Force, as the papers (not Kessler) were calling it.
As far as Blake goes (not very far, in my opinion), he deserved all the heat he was getting. Kessler was a different matter. He’s a good, hardworking cop just unlucky enough to be in one of those no-win situations where everything favors the perp.
All homicide cops detest the psychopathic murderer and not for the reason you might think. Oh sure, they object to innocent people getting wiped out. But worse for them is the frustration of knowing the S.O.B. always has the upper hand; with no rhyme or reason that any sane person can see, the psycho can pick his own time and place to strike. And like a blind fighter, all a cop can do is wait for the other guy to punch and then try to react, all the time getting his brains beat in by the press, politicians and public who can’t figure out why he doesn’t just go grab the perp and put him away. Having been there myself, I felt a little sorry for the cops. But it was no concern of mine. Yet.
If you’re wondering about that trip to Philly and whether Sally and I made the Halloween party, the answers are yes and no, respectively. Yes, I went to Philly and no, Sally and I never made the party. Right after Fanning left, the Bishop asked me — as opposed to the telling he’d done earlier — if I would be so kind as to take him to Philadelphia on Saturday, and I said, sure, no problem.
So the Fanning visit changed nothing about our agenda, but a lot about the overall atmosphere. Around the mansion, that is. The atmosphere between Sally and me was a different matter. For a week she refused to even talk to me. Then for another week she did talk to me but the tone of the conversation made me wonder why.
Finally, on the Friday of the second week, Sally and I did something that’s become old hat for us over the years: made up. I talked her into going to a Knicks game.
That day — Friday, November tenth — wound up being a very big day for the city as well as for yours truly, though the day was nearly over before I ever found out about it.
I’d been down in Atlantic City on a case and barely got back in time to change clothes and go pick up Sally. And I’d been listening to the tape deck instead of the car radio. So I had no idea what was going on.
The Knicks-Bulls game that evening was a disaster — unless you’re a Chicagoan. Ewing, benched with a pulled hamstring, got to watch Air Jordan put on one of his patented shows. Michael J. did everything to the Knicks but give them a fighting chance.
Naturally, our fair weather locals either left early or stayed purely out of meanness, hooting at the home team and cheering Michael on to bigger and better stuffs. They even booed Phil Jackson, the Bulls’ coach, when he took pity on his old team and yanked the star with five minutes to go.
“What a bunch of sissies!” was Sally’s succinct summary of the Knicks’ pitiful effort. We were leaving the Garden with the six or eight other dyed-in-the-wool fans who’d stayed with us to the bitter end. What she actually said was a bit earthier than sissies.
“Aren’t you being a little hard on them?” I rebutted. “Look who they were up against: probably the greatest basketball player in the history of the world.”
“Bullfrogs! Jordan’s the most overrated player in basketball. You want to know the real trouble with the Knicks?”
I didn’t, and you don’t, but try telling her that when she’s on a roll. She carried on till we got to O’Reilly’s for our traditional postgame brew. That’s where she changed the subject and the course of my life.
When she did, she caught me napping. Women can change gears faster than Ewing can slamdunk and I was suddenly aware she’d asked me a question that had nothing to do with basketball. I got something about Strangler John, and that was it. I asked her to repeat the question. She made a face.
“I said, what do you think about this guy the cops have grabbed? Think he’s really Strangler John? I mean, you’re the detective.”
I stared at her. I hadn’t heard about the cops’ big break that day. Last I’d heard, ladies of all sizes, ages and sexes were still being even more cautious than usual in this mugger’s haven of a city.
“What are you saying — they’ve had a breakthrough in the Strangler thing?”
“Davey! Sweetheart! Don’t you even read big page-one stories written by your own dear friend and fellow golf hustler, Chet Rozanski? The Dispatch was sitting right there on my coffee table when you came to get me this evening. Yes! They’ve broken the case. They’re charging some guy from out of town. Sounds like he’s confessed.”
I pumped her about what the paper had said, but she’d already told me all she knew — couldn’t even think of the guy’s name — and we quickly moved on to other more personal matters. After I left her in the early hours, I picked up a Dispatch down in the lobby of her co-op.
Only when I was back at the mansion, in my pajamas up in my bedroom, did I open it up. It must have been roughly five seconds before my eyes widened and my jaw dropped.
Give me one second to scan the headline, (POLICE NAB STRANGLER JOHN! in twelve-point type), another for the initial glance at the photo below, in which I recognized my one-time place of employment, Homicide Headquarters on Twentieth, and a couple more to grin at Charlie Blake’s determined-looking face. (You don’t often see a lofty lieutenant cuffed to a criminal. Unless there’s a chance to make the news.)
The fifth and final second was spent in taking a close gander at the arrestee. Looking scared, shifty-eyed and guilty as hell was our Bible-pounding Okie, Jerry Fanning.
4
The caption confirmed it: “STRANGLER JOHN SUSPECT. Lieutenant Charles Blake conducts prisoner, Gerald Fanning, from his cell at Homicide Headquarters to the interrogation room.”
I looked at the picture again, frowning. How could Jerry Fanning be the Strangler? It didn’t track.
In a moment of temporary insanity I even considered waking up Regan. But it was already after three and he’d be up at five to do his upper-body exercises. I quickly regained my senses.
Sitting back in my easy chair, slippered feet on the hassock, I read the story. Rozanski has that irritating Dispatch style, but he’s a whiz on facts.
Nov. 10. Police today announced the arrest of the man they believe to be “Strangler John,” Gerald C. Fanning, 23, of 212 Gramercy Park. Fanning arrived in the city, according to police, two days prior to the murder of prostitute Theresa “Little Teri” Langelaar, the first “Strangler John” victim.
At a hastily summoned press conference today at Homicide Headquarters, Inspector I. M. Kessler said the case against Fanning is “all but airtight.” When asked to elaborate, Mr. Kessler refused, saying more information would be available “very soon.”
Joining Kessler for the briefing was Lieutenant Charles Blake, head of the Special Task Force assigned to the Strangler John case. Reporters were not permitted to question Fanning, though Blake stated “…full opportunity for questioning the prisoner will be granted after he has spoken with his attorney.” When questioned, Blake declined to say who Fanning’s attorney is or whether he even has one.
According to police, Fanning has been living in rented rooms at the Gramercy Park address, with his wife and one child, since their recent arrival.
Independently, the Dispatch has learned that Fanning is unemployed. The Fanning family arrived October 11. The police consider it of considerable significance that the first Strangler John murder occurred two days later — on Friday, October 13.
At the press conference, Kessler stated that Fanning came to New York from Ada, Oklahoma, his home. To the question, “Why did he come here?” the Inspector
responded, “I guess you’ll have to ask him that. And you’ll have that opportunity within forty-eight to seventy-two hours, I promise you.”
I tried to recall what I already knew about the murders. There’d been four, all prostitutes but one. They’d happened on four successive Friday nights, the fourth the previous Friday, November third. From what I’d read in the papers the last day or two, the police didn’t seem to be getting any closer to a solution than ever. But my memory needed refreshing.
I got up and went to the ancient wooden cabinet in the corner where I keep the most recent six weeks of the Times, Dispatch and Post. It was 3:14 by my Timex, but I was a thousand miles from sleepy. I fumbled through the papers in the cabinet, found the ones with something on the murders, hauled the armload back to my chair and educated myself on Strangler John and his murderous activities.
The first victim, Theresa “Little Teri” Langelaar, had been murdered during the night of Friday, the thirteenth of October, in a room in the Terrace View Motel, a fleabag at Forty-eighth and Ninth. That crime didn’t get a lot of coverage — the violent death of a prostitute not being front-page stuff, even for the Manhattan Dispatch — until someone claiming to be the Strangler called the Dispatch the following Wednesday, October eighteenth. The caller spoke in a whisper, presumably to avoid identification. He said he’d murdered Langelaar “for sweet Jesus’ sake” and threatened the life of every prostitute in the city. Not surprisingly, the Dispatch had played it up big. But the other papers barely mentioned it, and the Langelaar murder stayed in the minor leagues. That week.
When Joy Foxworth bought the farm the following Friday night, strangled in identical fashion, the press — and not just the Dispatch — was in full cry. Not only was the victim garroted the same way — the police were guessing the killer had used piano wire — but it happened on another Friday night. And the way the body was left begged for headlines.
The Fundamentals of Murder (Davey Goldman Series Book 2) Page 2