Strangled (23 page)

She looked surprised. “So these notebooks aren’t worth anything?”

I said, “They’re worth a lot. This information might someday soon be invaluable to the hundreds and thousands of other people who have been affected by the Strangler case, people not all that much different than you. It may give them some sense of closure, some little bit of freedom from the past. But I’m not allowed to pay for it.”

She stood there in the garage, this beautiful woman dressed like a harlot, exhausted from pushing drinks to obnoxious, leering guys on the overnight shift at a casino bar on the Las Vegas Strip. She probably thought this notebook was about to rescue her from massive credit-card debt, or maybe was an opportunity to buy a nice used car. Instead, some schmuck from the East Coast was explaining to her that once again, she was screwed, just like she’d always been.

So I said, “I’d hate to think that you’d do this, but I feel like I should tell you anyway. A place like
The National Enquirer
might pay you good money for this.” I could picture the headline, “Good Cop Fingers Real Boston Strangler From the Grave.” The reason I mentioned it to her, aside from the fact that I felt legitimately bad, was that I already had the information from Walters himself.

She looked at the immaculate floor for a long, agonizing moment, and then up at me, and said, “No, I’d rather you had it. My father might have been a bastard, but he meant well most of the time. You’ll do the right thing with it.”

I said, “If you don’t mind, I’d like to get a look at what else is in these boxes.”

She nodded again. Then her brow suddenly furrowed and she said, “I always thought there was another box. For some reason, I always remembered seeing five of them. You know how you have that picture in your mind that just stays there? In this case, five boxes, stacked three and two.”

She shrugged and said, “But I must be wrong. I looked all over, and this is all there is.”

And with that, she walked into the kitchen.

The first box contained a lot of physical paraphernalia, pieces of clothing and various trinkets from every one of the murder scenes that occurred within Boston proper, which was six of them. It was odd, holding a kerchief from one dead woman, a bracelet from another, an ashtray from someone else’s apartment — but no odder than handling the driver’s licenses of recently slain women.

The second box was filled with newspaper clippings on every one of the eleven murders, all of them yellowed, some of them crumbling, each one more fascinating than the last. I love reading old papers, partly for the simplistically done ads for products that probably no longer exist, partly for the more formal writing tone that reporters used to take. I had to convince myself not to get lost in the stories or I’d end up spending the night in Vegas, which may or may not have been a bad idea. Edgar Sullivan would have probably advised me to stay.

The third box was a collection of official-looking police reports, transcripts of interviews with witnesses and perhaps suspects, and minutes of various meetings convened by the state attorney general and a group of police and prosecutors dubbed the Boston Strangler Commission. I gave it a quick scan, but had neither the time nor the patience to give it a thorough review.

Should this stuff have been walked out the police department doors — read: stolen — and be hidden away for years in some anonymous garage in the middle of a sun-baked housing development? Absolutely not. But was it a common occurrence for police to grab documents and other various trinkets from cases that were dear to their hearts? It happened every day, and Bob Walters appeared no different than anyone else.

The last box contained many of Walters’s personal mementos and correspondence that he undoubtedly pulled from his desk when he walked out of the homicide bureau that final time, at the end a bitter man. There were plaques from various victims’ groups, awards from civic associations, framed letters of commendation from the commissioner. I was about to pack them all away, call it a day, and head for the airport, when a leather-bound scrapbook in a corner of the locker caught my eye, and I flipped it open.

In it were various notes and letters. The first was from Hal Harrison, then a homicide detective, urging Bob Walters to take some time off in the midst of the Boston Strangler case. Right after it was a hand-scrawled note from a detective by the name of Mac Foley — yes, I believed, the same Mac Foley — telling Walters he was absolutely right about DeSalvo and to keep pounding away on the issue. It didn’t elaborate.

I flipped through page after page of what seemed to be meaningless material until I arrived at a handwritten note that gave me pause for reasons I can’t fully explain. Maybe it was the penmanship, which seemed vaguely, oddly familiar, or maybe it was something else. I honestly don’t know.

Regardless, the letter, dated November 1976, began, “Dear Detective Walters, I agree with you completely that Albert DeSalvo did not kill my mother. Thank you for telling me what you know, and for being honest about what you don’t. My dying grandfather, though, needs to believe that my mother’s killer has been caught and killed. He’s been very sick with cancer, and as he tries to cope with his pain, it helps him to think that DeSalvo was the murderer. That’s why your package was so helpful to him. Thank you for sending it. Me and my family truly appreciate all that you have done. Sincerely yours.”

I had to read the signature twice, and then a third time, to make sure my eyes or my brain weren’t playing tricks on me. It was jarring to see it there, like seeing an apparition, only this was the opposite: a living person so closely, unexpectedly associated with the dead.

I read it yet again, following the curve of the many letters with my eyes, picturing how old he must have been when he wrote his name across the bottom. And then I said it out loud, just to hear it, to put it in the public realm.

“Vincent Mongillo.”

My colleague, my friend, a victim of the Boston Strangler, and he kept it secret all these years and, as important, all these crucial days. I reread the letter, which had to have been written when he was about fifteen years old.

I recalled being surprised at his breadth and width of knowledge on the Strangler case, and I recalled asking him why he knew what he knew. That’s when he gave me the never - pickedin - the - neighborhood - baseball - games thing, that whole explanation of spending all that time sitting at home reading about old Boston crimes. Why hadn’t he wanted me to know?

I looked over at the door to the house, which was ajar. I pulled the letter from the scrapbook and placed it in my coat pocket, separate from the pile of materials I was going to take back to Boston.

Quickly, I reloaded the boxes back into the locker and pushed it back into the corner. I headed into the house and told Deirdre I needed to get back to the airport. She had changed from her tank top and miniskirt into a loosely fitting T-shirt and a pair of short shorts — and still looked great, albeit exhausted.

She kissed me on the left cheek and hung on what felt like a moment longer than I had expected. I kissed her cheek in return and again told her how sorry I was about what had happened, and how appreciative I was about her help.

On my way toward the front hall, I felt in my pocket for the small roll of hundred-dollar bills I had brought on the trip. I placed it next to a stack of unopened mail atop an entry table by the door.

I could probably be fired for doing that, but no one would ever know, no one but me and Deirdre Hayes. It seemed like the right thing to do.

I got in the rental car and pulled down Rodeo Road for what I expected would be the final time in my threatened life and had no complaint about this fact. As I turned the corner, my cell phone vibrated in my back pocket. If I thought for a moment that Mongillo’s name would be the biggest surprise of the day, I was about to be proven woefully, frighteningly wrong.

Trust.

It’s an interesting concept when you really stop and think about it. In huge swaths of America, it’s the way of the day, ingrained into the culture, the default attitude toward the people and institutions that make up civic life. On the sprawling farms of the heartland, in the village centers where ice cream sodas are still served at lunch counters in the local Rexall, people trust one another. They firmly believe that their neighbors, their friends, their colleagues, their business associates won’t try to slip a curveball past them.

Shopkeepers allow customers to run monthly accounts, rightfully expecting that they’ll always make good. Business deals are sealed on the power of a handshake. Families leave their doors unlocked at night. Little kids ride their bikes alone to the local park.

Of course, there are other huge areas of the country where trust is little more than a relic from a simpler, curious past. Here, people have double locks and police bars. They buy guns not to hunt but to protect. They hire $350-an-hour lawyers to comb through almost every single document that dictates their distrustful lives. Even Ronald Reagan’s famous “Trust but verify” philosophy seems antiquated, because to these people, there shouldn’t be any trust at all.

I’d like to think that my instincts belong with the former group, but my circumstances have thrust me toward the latter. I’d like to think that at my core, in my heart, I’m a trusting person, wanting to believe the words and respect the actions of those around me. But in my more self-aware moments, I know this not to be true. I didn’t get into this bizarre profession of words and news to write day after day that government is basically good, that businesses will always do what’s right, that people, left to their own devices, will always take proper care of one another.

No, in my advancing age, I’m as distrustful at anyone else — which is not to be confused with being untrustworthy. But who knows, maybe I’ve become that as well.

But never do I remember being more distrustful in my entire wary life than I was at that exact moment, driving through the Nevada desert in the direction of McCarran International Airport and a US Airways Boeing 757 that would return me to a place I may not have been ready to go.

I didn’t trust the Boston Police and other various government officials who said that Albert DeSalvo, long ago dead, was the Boston Strangler, responsible for the deaths of eleven women more than forty years ago who were identified as part of the Strangler spree, in addition to two other murders that he confessed to as well. I didn’t trust the same police who were telling me that this recent string of deaths was the result of a fame-seeking copycat killer.

I didn’t trust the sitting senior senator from Massachusetts, who built his career on his success in “solving” the Strangler case so long ago. I didn’t trust the current police commissioner for the same reason.

I didn’t trust the people I usually trust, and that may have hurt the most. I didn’t trust women, mostly in the form of Maggie Kane, who walked out on a marriage before it ever began. Of course, I was about to do the same, but that somehow seems beside the point.

I didn’t trust Peter Martin and publisher Justine Steele to do the right thing — not after they were browbeaten by city officials into not running the Phantom Fiend’s written assertion that the new strangler was the same as the old strangler.

I didn’t trust Vinny Mongillo. I didn’t think I’d ever say those words, except maybe in regard to leaving him alone with some really expensive food. But why on God’s good earth had he not told me that his mother was a strangling victim all those years ago?

And I wasn’t so sure I trusted myself anymore. The great Edgar Sullivan was dead because of me. So was some guy on the Public Garden who I never even knew. And here I was, ambling along, herking and jerking my way through a story that had no clear end. Was the Boston Strangler ultimately planning on confessing to me? Did he intend to kill another ten women, bringing his total this time around to what it had been before? How was this thing going to be resolved, and what role could I play in hastening a resolution?

And I certainly didn’t trust that anything good was about to happen, not as I listened on my cell phone to the aforementioned Peter Martin explain to me that the Phantom Fiend had reached out to me again in his most foreboding note yet, this one in the form of an e-mail to my
Boston Record
account. In the hours after Edgar’s death, Martin was wise enough to hire a security consultant, which had people monitoring my e-mail account, my U.S. mail, my house, and the newsroom. Thank God I didn’t live a life of secret fetishes, constantly communicating online with big-breasted blond amputees, because I would suddenly have a lot of explaining to do.

That consultant, in turn, read the e-mail and forwarded it on to Martin, who, in turn, read it to me, and it went exactly like this: “Mr. Flynn, you didn’t honor the one, simple request I made of you, to publish my words in the way I asked you to. I thought you were better than this. For that, there will be swift and severe consequences. People will suffer for your gutlessness. You will suffer with them. You may personally pick up a package at six o’clock tonight at the corner of Winter Street and Winter Place. The Phantom Fiend.”

I swallowed hard as I listened to every dreadful word. The Phantom didn’t seem to be a killer prone to hyperbole — i.e., see the word
killer.
Once he’s willing to kill beautiful young women, there’s not a whole lot that’s really worth exaggerating about. And now he was informing me that I, along with some nameless people, presumably other young women, would suffer from my gutlessness. I was half tempted to buy an advertisement in my cowardly little paper to let him know that I desperately wanted to run his words exactly in the way he had written them. Gutless my ass.

I said to Martin, “This doesn’t bode well on pretty much any level.” It was really all I had to say. There was no “I told you so” necessary. It wouldn’t get me anywhere different than I already was, and I knew that immediately.

Martin was so upset that his voice was on the brink of quavering when he said, “Maybe it’s not really him. Maybe this is the other side of the equation, the side that wants to see you dead.”

I replied, “That doesn’t add up.” I didn’t really intend to keep this mathematical metaphor going, but I did nonetheless. “I don’t think the other side would know that we didn’t print something from the Phantom that we were asked to print. That is, unless you and Justine spread the word around a little too far.”

No, I was just about certain that, unlike that deadly debacle on the Boston Public Garden, this was the real thing.

Silence. It was rare for Peter Martin to offer a flawed analysis like that, rarer still for him to be at a loss for words. Maybe this thing was taking a harder toll on him than I realized.

So I said, trying to present at least the veneer of calm, “This presents us with a bunch of problems, most that we don’t know about yet, but some that we do. First and foremost is that I’m not going to be back in Boston in time for that six o’clock pickup.” The clock on the rental car dashboard read 2:06, which meant 5:06 p.m. in Boston. I don’t know if I could have gotten there on the space shuttle, not that I’d be willing to fly on that thing anyway.

Martin said, “I’ve directed the security consultant to reply to the sender from your account, in your name, that you’re out of town until later tonight and you won’t be able to make the six o’clock rendezvous. He’s doing that as we speak.”

Okay, this was reassuring now, to hear Martin talk again like a man in control of a situation, like he usually is. I heard a muffled sound, as if he put his palm over the phone, then he got back on the line and said, “Buck, our new security guy, wants to know what time you’re back on the ground.”

I wondered if Buck would have put his life on the line for me like Edgar Sullivan did, and quickly decided he would not. Maybe it was irrational for me to dislike him, even disdain him, without yet knowing him, but I did. I mean, give me a break on the name: What the fuck is Buck?

“Twelve-thirty. What’s the e-mail address the Phantom’s using?”

More muffled sounds, then, “[email protected].”

I asked, “Any chance the origin can be chased and linked to a computer somewhere?”

Martin answered, “Highly unlikely, but Buck’s working on it.”

I was about to ask for funeral arrangements for Edgar when Martin shot out, “Hold on, here, Buck says we have a response. I’m going to make this easier and put you on speakerphone, Jack.”

He pressed a button, because suddenly I could hear a low humming sound, like when you place a shell against your ear at the beach. Martin said, “Jack, I’ve got Buck here. Buck, this is Jack on the phone.”

What followed was the typically awkward start of a speakerphone call. Buck called out, “How are you, Jack? Nice to meet you.”

I wanted to point out that we hadn’t actually met yet, and that it wasn’t bound to be all that nice when we did. Instead I said, “Good, Buck. Where are we with the Phantom?”

Buck said, “He’s just come back and essentially said he wants to meet in Downtown Crossing at one this morning.”

I gritted my teeth. By the way, the Nevada desert was giving way to development, which was leading to the airport, which meant that I was getting close to being wheels up and flying home. I said, “Buck, I don’t want to know what he
essentially
said. Tell me
exactly
what he said.”

“Why don’t I just read it…”

“Good idea, Buck.”

“Sure. He wrote, ‘Dear Mr. Flynn, then please appear at the corner of Winter Street and Winter Place at one a.m. Come alone. Do not alert authorities. Do not send anyone in advance. If you violate these conditions, you will suffer even greater consequences, and so will many more women. I will contact you at the appropriate hour and location. PF.’ ”

Buck added in a confiding tone, “I think the PF stands for Phantom Fiend.”

“Thanks, Buck.” I added, “Peter, can I talk to you for a moment?”

The line clicked and became clearer, and then Martin said into the phone, “I don’t like the feel of it.”

He didn’t like the feel of it because he’s the one who put us — namely, me — into this situation by not standing up to Justine Steele’s bullshit.

I said, “But you’re not going to do anything about it. You’re not going to the police. You’re not going to Justine. You’re not going to flag the mayor. Every time we include authority figures in our thinking, we get screwed, Peter. Let’s just do what we do best and report this story out.”

I liked the simple sound of all that, apparently more than Peter did. He said, “You could get arrested for interfering with an investigation. And maybe so could I.”

I replied, “Hey, jail’s probably a hell of a lot safer than where I’m at now.”

He didn’t have a comeback to this one, least of all because he undoubtedly knew it was true. He said, “All right, against my better judgment, go. But I’m going to have Buck meet you at the airport when you arrive.”

I said, “I don’t think Buck can find the airport, but go ahead and let him try.”

And then I heard another little click. Peter Martin had just hung up the phone on my ear.

Before I could even put the phone down, it chimed anew. I thought it was going to be Martin calling me back to apologize for the abrupt cessation of our conversation. Instead, it was the serious voice of a self-important young woman telling me — not asking me, but telling me — in her words, to “please hold the line for Commissioner Harrison.”

“I don’t want to hold the line for Commissioner Harrison.” That was me, replying, but there was no one on the other end to hear, no one except some Muzak version of the Rolling Stones’ “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction.” Believe me, I know how you guys feel.

A good two minutes passed, and by then I was pulling into the Avis return lot, some guy in a brown shirt walking briskly toward me with one of those handheld checkout devices as jet airplanes roared overhead. Still no sign of Harrison on the phone.

It’s an unvarnished power trip, this whole “hold the line for” stuff, a blunt declaration that my time is more important than yours, and you should be thrilled to wait while I finish up whatever else I may have been doing to get on the line and grace you with a few moments of my busy day. Another two minutes passed. “Satisfaction” morphed into “Rhinestone Cowboy,” a song I’ve always liked, and that played to the end. By that point, I was curious as to just how long Boston Police Commissioner Hal Harrison was going to leave me waiting on the phone for a call I had neither made nor necessarily wanted to have. But I wasn’t quite curious enough, so I hung up.

Ten minutes later, as I was walking through the airport terminal, my cell phone rang. This time when I picked it up, it was Harrison acting as if that whole prior incident had never occurred. Or maybe he just didn’t know about it.

“Jack? Hal Harrison here.” He said this in an abnormally loud voice, as if he were giving a speech at the morning roll call.

“Hello, Commissioner,” I said.

“Jack, it’s been too long since you and I got together and chatted about things. And that conversation the other day didn’t exactly go the way I had hoped or planned. You know what I mean?”

I didn’t, but I didn’t say that.

Instead I said, “What do you have in mind, Commissioner?”

“Well, nice of you to ask. You’re under a lot of pressure at the
Record
with these murders. I think I’m in a position now to share a little perspective on this whole thing with you, seeing as I was one of the lead detectives back in the sixties on the successful Strangler investigation. Mind you, I’m not looking for any publicity on this thing. God knows, we’re getting too much of that as it is. I just think I might be in a position to give you a little help.”

“When do you have in mind, Commissioner?”

“Any chance you might find your way to my office tomorrow morning, say, ten a.m.? I’ll have coffee for us. I think I can make it worth your while.”