Strangled - Brian McGrory [134]
“What’s your relationship like with Foley?” I asked.
“Nonexistent. Lord knows I’ve tried. We started together. We’re leaving together, but he’s refused to be even civil to me in the forty years since Albert DeSalvo confessed — like I was somehow responsible for his cockamamie theories not panning out on the Strangler case.”
My phone vibrated yet again. I cussed Martin under my breath, pulled it out, glanced at it, and saw it was a 702 area code — a call from Las Vegas.
As I put the phone back, I felt Vinny Mongillo’s thank-you note to Bob Walters folded up in my back pocket. So I pulled it out and said, “While we’re off the record, you’ve got to see this. These charges you’ve filed against Vinny Mongillo are bullshit, and this proves it.”
I placed it on his desk and he read it. Afterward, he looked up and said, “This will certainly factor into a complex investigation, and when we empanel a grand jury, I’ll urge the district attorney to allow them to see this.”
“That’s garbage,” I said, my voice thundering out louder than I expected. I knew his game. He was essentially trying to disqualify the Record from driving the story forward by making us a questionable part of it. I could see The New York Times headline now: “Record Reporter Ensnared in Serial Murder Case.” It might be the only time Vinny Mongillo would be called “Mr.” by his peers.
Harrison seemed taken aback, probably not so much by my assertion but by the fact someone would speak to him like that. He said, confidingly again, “So let’s deal. You need me, and whether I like to believe it or not, I may need you at the moment. What else do you have?”
And there we were, at the crux of this meeting, with Commissioner Hal Harrison following the age-old adage that you keep your friends close and your enemies closer, and at that moment, I might have been the biggest enemy to his mayoral ambitions — at least in the way he perceived the world.
I ran a few scenarios through the reporting calculator that was my mind. Do I share? Do I withhold? I decided quickly, perhaps too quickly, that I was better off placing my suspicions of Mac Foley on the proverbial table, if only to see the chain of events that they might cause.
So I said, “I have some concerns about Mac Foley.”
He arched an eyebrow at me and leaned back again.
I said, “You know from your underlings that I’ve received the driver’s license of New York Times reporter Elizabeth Riggs, for all practical purposes targeting her as the next victim. Take a look at who she was with earlier that day.”
He nodded, still saying nothing, obviously intrigued by what I was telling him.
I continued, “And you might try to ascertain how Mac Foley knew the apartment number of Lauren Hutchens over in the Fenway.”
“What do you mean?” Harrison asked, his features scrunched up in thought and curiosity.
I replied, “I never gave it to him. The cops he sent to the scene said Foley gave the apartment number to them.”
Harrison nodded. He was about to ask something else when there was a knock on his door on the other side of the room. Harrison angrily called out, “What!”
The same cadet who led me up walked in and said, “I’m sorry, sir, but Mayor Laird is on the line and said she needs to speak to you immediately.”
Harrison snapped up the phone and barked, “Commissioner here.”
Silence.
He said, “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me. Why are they doing this now?”
My own phone vibrated yet again. It was Martin trying to reach me yet again. This was a lot, even for him.
Harrison stopped to listen to the mayor, his brow furrowed in frustration.
“Well,” he said, “you know what this is? It’s fucking irresponsible. And it’s fucking war. They want to fuck with me, they’re making a big fucking mistake.”
I stepped to the far side of the office, by the windows that held the gray hue of the dull day, and gave Martin a quick call. He picked up on the first ring and without