Strangled - Brian McGrory [127]
And then that thank-you note from Vinny to Bob Walters.
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.
I finally said, “It was you who Bob Walters gave the knife to all those years ago?”
Vinny looked at me quizzically, but the look quickly faded to his prior despondence. “The problem,” he said, “is proving it. It’s not the kind of thing you get a receipt for.”
Don’t be so sure. But before I explained what I had, I asked, “How did the cops find out you had the knife?”
He shook his head and said, “Because I gave it to them. I’d been holding it all these years, preserving it, because it held all these wonderful, scientific clues in regard to DNA. I gave it to a source of mine over at the police lab because they had pulled out some evidence from the original stranglings. This source said he’d do some tests on the sly. But someone else in the lab got wind, and next thing you know, I’ve got Boston’s finest pulling me off the treadmill to take me downtown. One asshole even tried putting me in cuffs before a cop friend cut in. Evidence tampering, receiving stolen goods. All that crap.”
I said, “Bob Walters might be helping you again — from the grave.”
This prompted him to give me a look that wasn’t so much curious as annoyed. “The fuck you talking about, Fair Hair? Come on, I could find myself in some real shit here, and the last thing this paper needs right now as we get this story shoved down our throats is for one of our lead reporters on it to be carted off to prison for possible involvement in the case. I mean, the Traveler’s going to have a fucking field day with this.”
That they would, and for good reason. I said, “You think the higher-ups here are hassling us to quash the story?”
He nodded hard. He was the old Vinny again, animated to the point of being emotional. “They absolutely are. They hate this story, because all it can do is hurt the guys who used to be in charge — Hal Harrison and Stu Callaghan. There’s nothing good in this for them. They know it’s not going away, because these murders aren’t going away. But they don’t want the Record to be on a crusade. If they weaken us, we can’t be.”
He was telling me what I already knew, but it was good to hear nonetheless, reaffirming in a world that was suddenly spinning beyond control.
I said, “So they charge you with receiving stolen merchandise. They ominously say that the investigation is ‘continuing.’ Maybe they bring some witnesses before a grand jury and leak a few tid-bits to the opposition. And suddenly, the focus isn’t on them, it isn’t on the Phantom Fiend, but on the Record’s coverage of the Phantom Fiend.”
Vinny nodded again. “And I’m stuck in the middle.”
“Maybe not.”
He gave me that annoyed look again.
I reached into my coat pocket, pulled out the sheet of paper, and unfolded it. I began to read to him the particularly pertinent parts, concluding with, “That’s why your package was so helpful to him.”
I thought Vinny might start to cry, and I knew if he did, it wouldn’t be because I had just saved his sorry and substantial ass, but because of the paper, which is just another reason why I love him so, even if I’d never want a conjugal visit.
“I have my receipt,” he said, nearly in disbelief. “Holy shit, I have my goddamned receipt.”
He simply stared at me in wonderment, the way a dog might stare at the master that just gave him a particularly meaty bone. Then he said, “Next time I’m about to think something negative about you, which will probably be within the next thirty minutes, I’ll think of how you got this letter.”
“Good policy,” I replied.
He said, “Now, in case they charge me, did you bring bail?”
I reached deep into my pants pocket and pulled out three single