Strangled - Brian McGrory [28]
He added, almost politely now, “Does this make any sense to you?”
Martin, rising now from his chair, said, “It does, Commissioner, it does. But there’s a fourth scenario as well, and that is, if we print the story, we warn people to take proper precautions against a serial killer, and we potentially save lives. Like I said, we’re going to give this some very serious thought. We appreciate your time.”
I reflexively got up right after Martin, mesmerized by his performance. I’d follow this guy into battle, and actually, I think I just had. Mongillo stood after me and completed the procession.
When you’re the commissioner of a major police department, you’re accustomed to giving orders, not merely making requests. You’re used to people doing precisely as you say, not tabling your demands for further consideration. Poor Hal Harrison. I don’t think he knew what had hit him. He was undoubtedly thinking about his mayoral campaign, about a city gripped by fear as the police commissioner tried to make the leap into city hall. What was taking place all around him was not a formula for electoral success.
As the door swung shut behind us, I heard Harrison holler into his phone, “Get me Mac Foley — immediately!” I think I also heard Martin clank a little bit while he walked. The question remained, though: What the hell were we going to do now?
9
I sat at my computer doing exactly as Martin had told me: writing what I knew. Vinny Mongillo stood over my left shoulder, loudly crunching on a large bag of Cheetos.
“Eating helps me think,” Vinny said defensively when I first shot him a withering look about the noise. If that had really been the case, he’d be the most thoughtful human being on the planet. I didn’t say that to him, but I wanted to.
On my screen, I described the murder scene. I wrote of the two notes that the Phantom Fiend had sent me. I asked Mongillo for more background on the Boston Strangler and included some of that as well. We had other reporters working the story who would be calling in soon from the field, including Jennifer Day, who was pressing Lauren Hutchens’s family for information and reaction, and our crime and grime reporter, Benny Simms, who was trolling his sources at Boston PD for any new nuggets.
“It’s not art, but it’ll do,” Mongillo said, now drinking a can of Diet Coke. Someone tell me how that makes any sense: a guy who just polished off a veritable burlap sack filled with processed cheese snacks was now drinking a sugar-free soda.
He added, “Get up for a minute, Fair Hair. Let the master sit down and write.”
I stared at his fingertips, which were orange from his Cheetos, and said, “Keep your goddamned mitts away from my keyboard.”
“Tough crowd in here,” he replied, wiping his palms across his plaid shirt.
At that moment, Martin materialized at my desk the way he always does, right out of thin air. He had a somber look on his face, which I initially attributed to him crashing from the high of standing up to the police commissioner. But he said in a tight voice, “We need to gather in my office. Justine’s got some concerns.”
Justine, for the record, is Justine Steele, the former editor in chief of the Boston Record, now the publisher, meaning she is the paper’s chief executive officer, the one who answers to the board of directors and the stockholders, who may or may not understand that good journalism is necessary for good profits. We’d probably find that out very soon.
“The mayor called,” she said, as the four of us sat around Martin’s table.
I wanted to correct her and say acting mayor, but for the second time in a matter of minutes, I contained myself. By the way, the office probably still seemed comfortably familiar to Steele, given that Martin hadn’t changed one single thing about it since moving in after her. If Steele had left her family pictures on the desk, Martin would have kept them there as well.
“She’s not pleased, and I have to admit, she raised some valid points,” Steele