The Craigslist Murders

by Brenda Cullerton

  “Listen, Vicky. Hold tight. I’ll be up tomorrow morning. Okay?”

  “I don’t know, Charlotte. I just don’t know. How could he?”

  Even if Vicky had never heard the gossip about “Phil Phil,” which Charlotte sincerely doubted, why pull a tantrum now? She had six months to go before the second phase of her prenup kicked in. A phase that would involve what Vicky’s lawyers had described as “a life-affecting sum.” None was the only sum that Charlotte could imagine as truly “life-affecting” for Vicky. Hell, maybe Phil had dialed Vicky’s number from the Russian’s himself?

  When the phone trilled again, she checked the number. No way she was going to talk to Vicky again until tomorrow. It was Anna.

  “Charlotte, are you there?” she shrieked.

  “Yes, I’m here. Stop shrieking, Anna.”

  “I just got a call from a friend. About the murder of that Webb woman!”

  Charlotte’s heart was pumping as if she’d been running. “Yeah. So what she’d say?”

  “Ah Dio! Dio!” she said. “Cara, it may be the work of a serial killer!”

  Charlotte could see Anna’s hands, wildly acting out the drama while she spoke.

  “I’ll call you later, Anna. I’m on my way home.” Snapping the phone shut, Charlotte sprinted toward her loft on North Moore Street.

  20

  She’d missed New York News at 6. Only CNN had some footage with a few tantalizing sound bites. There were shots of Amy Webb at her wedding with her husband, of the divorcee with the Dom at the Whitney Biennale, and of the girl with the charm bracelet on some runway at a Paris fashion show. A brief close-up of the mayor and the police commissioner flanked by an army of flunkies was followed by the commissioner’s statement.

  “There is no reason for New Yorkers to panic. Yes, there are similarities. The victims are female, they died from blows to the head, and yes, as Ben at the Post pointed out, they seemed to be well-to-do. All we’re asking right now is that the public be aware—”

  “Sir, Sir! Is there a possibility that the murderer is using the Internet to get into these women’s homes? Maybe through chat rooms or—”

  “We’re following up on several leads at the moment, Ben,” replied the commissioner. “Forensic experts in the Computer Crime Squad will be working with detectives and—”

  “But I heard—”

  “Enough!” the mayor grabbed the mic. “To say any more at this point would be irresponsible. It’s just too early in the investigation.”

  “When exactly will we know more, sir? When the next victim dies?”

  The Mayor cast a withering look at the Post reporter and marched offstage with his army trailing closely behind him.

  Snacking on a few slices of Parma proscuitto, some Gorgonzola and a beet salad, Charlotte walked into her home office and Googled “female serial killers.” She hoped that she might find herself. Not by name, of course, but in additional stories that the search engine would have listed after the press conference. It was too early. She was soon lost in a sea of links.

  According to one expert, female killers were more successful, more precise, more careful, and quieter than males. It took twice as long to catch them. Apparently, most females preferred to distance themselves from their victims by using poison, guns or some other means of physical separation during the killing. But Charlotte found a great deal of pleasure in her proximity to the women she killed. She felt a strange sense of intimacy with them. Sharing the moment of death, after all, was just about as intimate an experience as sex.

  She then scrolled through the stuff about motives. The experts were way off here, too. She wasn’t in it for the money, or control or sex and drugs. She was a mercy killer. She was liberating these women; freeing them from their 40-million-dollar, 12,000-square-foot golden cages.

  The computer froze just as the phone rang. “Shit!” Charlotte whispered, picking it up while trying to reboot.

  “Hey, Charlotte! It’s Philip.”

  “Hello, Philip,” she replied icily, thinking of Vicky’s phone call.

  “Listen, did you have to kill that broad for the bracelet?”

  Charlotte’s heart was pounding.

  “I … I …” she stuttered.

  “JK, Charlotte. JK, as my daughter says. But when I read in the Post about the connection between those murders and the Internet, I couldn’t help but think of the bracelet you were wearing that night at the museum. You said you found it on Craigslist?”

  “Yeah. Well, I don’t find you even remotely funny, Philip,” she said. “Plus you’ve been a total bastard to Vicky,” she added as her pulse slowed and she caught her breath.

  “I told her I’m going to make up for it. I want you to find a bracelet for her. And I’m taking her on safari. To Ted’s bush camp in Botswana.”

  Everybody had heard about Ted the Billionaire’s private camp in Botswana. He shared it with some sheik from the Emirates who flew in with a 747 full of falcons or something.

  “That’s nice, Philip. I just hope you leave your Russian at home.”

  “Ha! Ha! Charlotte,” he said. “My masseur is here. Gotta go. Oh. I’m sure Tom told you he’s coming with us, right?”

  You mean my masseur, Charlotte said to herself, reminded of just how ungrateful they all were, including her so-called friends, Vicky and Tom. She hung up. Her head ached.

  Charlotte usually resisted the impulse to take a sedative. They implied that she was weak, not in control. But the pills seemed to eliminate the nightmares. Chewing a milligram of Ativan, Charlotte waited for the sedative to take the edge off her anxiety. If a man as dumb as Phil had made a connection between the reports of an Internet killer and Craigslist, why hadn’t the police? Surely they had read through the women’s e-mails?

  21

  Charlotte had scheduled Tuesday and Wednesday for reviewing project costs with Darryl’s architect, and choosing Pavel’s fabric swatches at the 59th Street Decoration and Design building. Open to the trade only, the D&D was the resource for fabrics and furniture. It was also chock-a-block full of back-stabbing faux blonde inferior designers, and buzzed with vicious rumors and gossip. The so-called “Sporty Socials” were the worst. Oddly devoid of glamour, there was a certain thin-lipped ennui, a brittleness about these young girls that intrigued her.

  She’d seen one of their latest projects in the final issue of House & Garden. It was a study in contorted edginess; so precious, so affected, Charlotte almost mourned the demise of chintz. “Exquisitely unlivable,” Anna had said, grimly, while flipping through the six page lay-out.

  Fingering a lush Scalamandre striped silk fabric (the list price was $1,500 a yard but she knew she’d get it for half that at net), Charlotte felt her phone vibrate.

  “Where are you?” asked Vicky. “I really, really need you.”

  Charlotte signaled a girl over to cut a swatch.

  “I’m at the D&D.”

  “Listen. I just wanted to thank you for being a shoulder to cry on yesterday.”

  “What are friends for?” Charlotte said, pointing the sales girl towards the silk. She mouthed a “thank you” as she tucked the swatch in her bag.

  “Anyway, Charlotte, I’m crazed. I mean, we’re leaving tomorrow on safari and I have nothing, nothing to bring as a gift for Ted.”

  Christ! Another favor, Charlotte muttered to herself.

  “So what do you want me to do, Vicky?”

  “Make a fast run up Madison,” Vicky wheedled. “See what you can find. Pretty, please?”

  “No problem,” Charlotte replied, grinding her molars. “But just out of curiosity, don’t you think bringing Tom is gift enough?’

  “I wish,” Vicky sighed. “Ted says he’s set up all the masseuses in one tent. There’s another tent for wardrobe. And he’s also sending over his butlers, his personal trainer, a tennis pro, his wife’s hairdresser, and the PV …”

  “You’ve lost me there, Vicky. The what?”

  “PV. Personal videog
rapher, Charlotte. Where have you been? The guy’s been following him around for the past year.”

  “What the hell for?” Charlotte asked.

  “Ted wants a visual memoir of his family. I think it’s a marvelous idea.”

  “Spare me the details, please,” Charlotte replied. “I can’t imagine anything more boring.” “Call me later,” Vicky said before hanging up.

  An hour later, she was wandering through FM Allen on Madison Avenue. She’d already seen the perfect gift in the window, a 1940s English “cocktail” suitcase. It looked like something Lord Erroll in Happy Valley would have had his porters lug out into the Kenyan bush. White Mischief was one of Charlotte’s all-time favorite books. The debauchery and deceit, the unutterable boredom, of Britain’s upper classes in 1930s colonial Africa, bore an uncanny resemblance to the New York world she now worked in.

  The sales clerk lifted the case out of the window and opened it for Charlotte’s inspection. Charlotte couldn’t believe the case was intact. There were two ebonized trays for lemons, limes, and olives, a miniature glass ice bucket, and six glass decanters with twelve interchangeable silver caps for brandy, bourbon, gin, rye, scotch, rum, wines and fruit juices. Ice tongs, a tiny silver hammer to crush the ice, silver shakers, and linen napkins completed the kit. Charlotte smiled. If there was one thing these Brits had that American billionaires most certainly did not, it was style.

  “How much is it?” asked Charlotte.

  “$14,000,” he answered nonchalantly. “It’s going to be in the March issue of Departures Magazine.”

  “Well, if you would, I’d like you to send it up, on approval, to my friend on Park Avenue. I’m sure she’ll take it.”

  “Of course,” the man replied, shooting his monogrammed Pinks cuffs. “I’ll take it up myself.”

  The phone was vibrating in her pocket when she walked back into her loft. Slamming the door with her foot, Charlotte flipped it open.

  “You’re just amazing!” Vicky cooed. “It’s the most divine thing I’ve ever seen. Ted will love it.”

  “Good! Glad I could help,” Charlotte replied, dropping onto the sofa and closing her eyes. Just the sound of Vicky’s voice was aggravating. People only have as much power as you give them. People only have as much power as you give them. She repeated Anna’s phrase to herself like a mantra while rubbing her feet. After Vicky hung up with promises to send a postcard, Charlotte’s muscles gradually relaxed. She was reminded, yet again, of the rift that separated the old and newly decadent. Back in Happy Valley, even if they screwed each other’s spouses and drank themselves into stupors, they sent thank-you notes in the morning. They had manners.

  Dr. Greene had once suggested that Charlotte carried the unresolved issues she had with her mother into her relationship with Vicky, that the two women mirrored one another. Charlotte didn’t like how that reflected on herself. For a long time, she’d assumed it was Vicky’s marriage that had come between them. Now she knew better …

  Like her clients, Vicky liked a life that ran as smooth as honey, no surprises, no bumps. The worst bumps she encountered came at 35,000 feet when she flew on the family’s G-5. What was it she’d said to Charlotte when she tried to explain her “need” for the 46-million-dollar aircraft? “There are two things that are important to me, Charlotte: One is avoiding people who might bum me out. And two is protecting my children. Who wants their kids sitting next to some guy who sets his crotch on fire?”

  The point was, try and talk to her about real life, about a life that entailed planning ahead, paying a mortgage, taking a taxi, working … Well, you might as well be talking to her about tribal customs in some far-flung region of Kyrgyzstan. Actually, Vicky had been to Kyrgyzstan on a rug buying expedition. Her only decisions seemed to involve choosing between vacations in Anguilla, Lyford or Parrot Cay, wearing Prada or Gucci, and lunching at Swifty’s or Bilboquet.

  But it was Vicky’s stinginess that Charlotte truly resented. Forget the fact that she’d turned down Charlotte’s request for a small loan, while she gave millions to charity. Charity was cheap for Vicky. It cost her nothing. It was giving in other ways that had become more complicated. Over the years, Vicky had become suspicious of even the most spontaneous, magnanimous gestures from her friends. Because such gestures carried with them the weight of obligation, of debt. And Vicky didn’t like owing anyone anything.

  Sometimes, she had wished that their friendship would simply end in a spectacular catfight. Catfights created new beginnings. They cleared the air. Instead, Charlotte had wasted years pussyfooting around minefields of jealousy and envy, never daring to expose or explore her pain. Why did they share only Vicky’s joys? Why were her own occasional triumphs tactfully ignored by both of them? And when had the talking, the real talking, stopped? That was what Charlotte missed the most.

  Then, she suddenly thought of Anna’s shrewd advice over lunch at Boulud. About knowing what to ask for from people. She was right, of course. But part of the delirium, the saving grace of youth, was not knowing. Not caring. Grabbing the things that glittered, she thought. Like the gifts that Anna loved. Things that caught the light and dazzled the eye. That was why she had always found it necessary, even easy, to forgive Vicky. Because Vicky had once seemed so utterly dazzling; so much larger than the small, lonely life Charlotte might have led without her.

  “The difference between one friend and none is infinity.” She’d read that in an Irish novel during her trip to Venice with Paul. Even with Anna as a new friend, Charlotte continued to cling to the habit of hoping that something would change with Vicky. But the pain had grown and hardened inside her like some malignant tumor. When Vicky returned from Botswana, Charlotte would finally end it. She would cut Vicky off and shut her down, just as Vicky had done to her countless times before.

  22

  The early morning grogginess was troubling. It often signaled the beginning of a bone-deep fatigue. Usually the vividness, that almost painful alertness to sensation, that transformed Charlotte after a killing lasted for weeks. It was exhilarating—the intensity of that awareness. The sun shone brighter. Noises were louder. It even inspired her in her work, gave her a certain clarity of vision. But today, she just felt weary, fed up.

  The doctor’s appointment at 11:15 loomed over her like some noxious cloud. Cracking her knuckles, she rubbed her eyes. She’d been roaming around Craigslist for hours. She never e-mailed potential “victims” from home. But occasionally, her wanderlust, her need to lose herself online, was so intense, her palms sweated. How would Dr. Greene analyze her obsession with auto parts? Her fascination for postings like: “Got Rhino Grill/Brush. It don’t Fit the Ram” or “18 Rims Wit Tires off Escalade” and “For Sale is Hurst Short Shifter?” Sometimes, she liked them so much, she wrote them down. Her other favorite were the Strictly Platonic postings in Personals.

  “This Guy’s Into Footsmelling” (“I enjoy stockings and socks”)

  “Female Sasquatch with Bedsores” (“I just want washing and conversation”)

  “Help! My Hair looks like crap!”

  “Dentist Needed Desperately” (I noticed the hole in December. PLEASE—I can’t take it anymore.)”

  “Tattoo Artist wants to drill you.”

  “Wrestling Challenge” (“No real violence. Just wanna see who comes out on top. No sex involved.”) No sex, my ass! Charlotte thought, shutting down her computer and heading off towards the bathroom.

  As the needles of hot water worked into the muscles of her back, Charlotte sloughed off the dead skin with a new body wash. It was made of meadow foam oil. Sniffing the bottle, she wondered how exactly one went about collecting meadow foam oil. The product had been a complimentary gift from Rapture, the new spa in Soho.

  “You’re going to love it, Charlotte,” one of her clients had promised, after regifting her with a certificate for a morning of free treatments. “It’s like a spiritual rebirth.”

  Greeted on her arrival with a hushed hello from her massage
therapist, Charlotte had changed into a pair of fuzzy slippers and a soft linen robe and shuffled along behind her toward the spa’s inner sanctum. After four hours in a sepulchral room, breathing in the fragrance of pine-scented incense and trying to block out the sounds of wind chimes, chirping birds, and rolling waves, she still couldn’t fathom how this kind of self-indulgence translated into a spiritual “rebirth.” What did getting one’s skin rubbed, scrubbed, pummeled, exfoliated, detoxed, steamed, wrapped and buffed have to with God?

  Toweling off her body, Charlotte applied a thin layer of moisturizer and brushed her wet hair. Pavel had called from Moscow and asked her to pick up a bottle of champagne. She was planning to open the Dom.

  “I’m bringing over something very special,” he’d said. “Because I think it is an honor to be invited into your home.”

  “An honor indeed,” Charlotte said out loud as she sauntered off naked toward her closet.

  23

  She was ten minutes late for her doctor’s appointment. The room was packed.

  “I’m very sorry, Ms. Wolfe,” the nurse said when Charlotte checked in at reception. “But the doctor’s had an emergency.”

  “How long is the wait?” Charlotte knew it was a dumb question.

  The woman shrugged. “Why don’t you sit down, dear, and I’ll keep you posted,” she said, returning to the ringing phones.

  Perched on the edge of a red upholstered chair, Charlotte drummed her fingers on the chrome armrests. As her eyes flickered over the row of vacant faces seated around the room, she realized that there was a bond she shared with these strangers. Like her, they had spent too many years waiting. Waiting for love, for dinner, for subways, for sleep. Waiting for bank loans and dentists, for sex, for success, even for dry cleaning.

  Fidgeting restlessly in her chair, Charlotte sighed. Whoever had said that good things come to those who wait certainly didn’t live in New York, she thought. Age and death were the only two things that came to those who waited around in this town. She had been obsessed with death ever since those nights as a child when she’d tried to sing herself to sleep. That was why she’d chosen to block out the pain. To postpone the doctors. She didn’t want her fears confirmed. So why had she lied to Anna? Why wasn’t she here, making her laugh, quieting her fears? Casting her eyes down when she caught sight of the skeletal features of what had once been a staggeringly beautiful woman, Charlotte struggled against the urge to leave, to jump up and run for the door.