Strangled - Brian McGrory [27]
I said, “I received the note and driver’s license this morning. We called on the way over. We arrived at the victim’s doorway at roughly the same time as the police.”
Harrison stared at me for a long moment, like he didn’t believe what I had just said, his hands first on his cheeks and then sliding absently through his hair. They came to rest on the back of his neck, and he bowed his face in apparent thought. Mongillo and Martin remained quiet on either side of me — or as quiet as can be, in Mongillo’s case. I could hear him breathing out of his nose, the sound like wind gushing through trees.
Finally, Harrison looked up, directed his gaze at me, Mongillo, and then at Martin, and said, “You’re not going to report this.”
We sat there in silence for another moment until I said, “Not report what?”
“This. For starters, those damned letters. And you’re not going to report whatever it is that you saw in the Hutchens apartment this morning.”
Mongillo piped in, “Why not?” He sounded sincerely surprised, taken aback.
Harrison directed his gaze at him and said, “Because you’ll fuck up this entire investigation. You’ve got absolutely no idea what you have. You have no idea the meaning of what you saw. You’ll send this city into mass hysteria, and you’ll get in the way of us trying to do our jobs.”
The three of us sat in collective silence again. This time it was Martin who broke it.
“Commissioner,” he said, respectfully but firmly, “we regard this as a significant story, and are fully aware of the conflicting interests. Should the public know about the possibility of a serial killer? Will our reportage in any way compromise the integrity of the investigation? We’re very prepared to give this some serious thought, keeping in mind at all times that our ultimate responsibility is to our readers.”
I first looked at Martin out of the corner of my eye, and as he spoke, I turned my head fully to watch him. When did he grow a pair of brass balls? Actually, I say that in jest. As aggravating as Peter Martin can be to work for, I’ve never known another newsman who has his ability to reach the right decision for all the right reasons, story after story after story.
Apparently, Harrison wasn’t thinking the same thing. He looked at Martin incredulously and all but yelled, “This isn’t a fucking journalism ethics class, Mr. Martin. This is real life, and in this case, real death. Debate this all you want. Just don’t print it. If you have to, write that a thirty-two-year-old woman named Lauren Hutchens was found dead, and police are investigating the cause.”
“Given what we know, that would be a lie,” Martin said.
“You don’t know that. You don’t know if these notes are a fraud. You can’t even be sure of what you saw today. You caught one quick glimpse through a half-open door. You know nothing.”
Maybe, maybe not. But we knew, like he knew, that these notes weren’t likely a fraud. The first one could have been. The second one led us to a woman’s body. And through that open doorway we saw a crime scene that was pretty damned horrific, and we saw it long enough, well enough, to record in our heads, and later on notepads, the gory details of a young woman’s death.
Harrison bowed his head again. When he spoke, it was in a lower voice, with a calmer tone, as if he was trying to regroup. He said, “Look, there are three potential scenarios that could unfold if you print a half-cocked story. One, whoever sent you these notes will kill again very soon, because he’s obviously seeking publicity. The publicity you give him will fuel a desire for more. Two, antithetically speaking, it could cause the killer to not send you any more notes, stunting an opportunity for additional clues. Three, you may prompt copycat killings in the city, which serial killings often do. In other