Strangled - Brian McGrory [29]
She paused and looked at each of us. “Are we one hundred percent sure what it is we have?”
Maybe I should have deferred to Martin to answer, but I was comfortable enough with Justine to barge right in. I had worked with her when she was editor on some of the biggest stories this paper has ever broken. So I said, “We know we got these letters. We know that one of them led us to a victim that the police weren’t aware of yet. We know that victim was strangled to death. We know the writer of these notes uses a nickname that was also used for the Boston Strangler.”
Here I paused, then added with a sigh of my own, “I’m not sure what more we need.”
“What we need is to make sure we’re doing the right thing,” Steele replied coolly. “What would your lede be?”
I said, “Right now, the lede is that a thirty-two-year-old woman was found strangled to death in her Fenway apartment yesterday morning after her driver’s license was delivered to a Boston Record reporter with a note saying, ‘More women will die.’ ”
Okay, maybe Mongillo was right. It’s not art, but good newspaper writing rarely is, and it cut right to the bone-chilling point.
I continued, “The second graph would point out that hers was the second death of a young woman in which the victim’s driver’s license was sent to the Record reporter, accompanied by a note. Both times, the note was signed ‘The Phantom Fiend’ — the same moniker that referred some forty years ago to a serial killer better known as the Boston Strangler.”
As I talked this through, I was feeling a rush of adrenaline. In a perfect world, reporters aren’t supposed to be part of the story, though the mere fact that a reporter covers a story makes him or her an inherent part. People change their actions when they know there will be public awareness. Politicians preen. Lazy bureaucrats suddenly rush. Businessmen become uncharacteristically concerned about the consumers they’re supposed to serve.
But if we printed this story, I wouldn’t merely be a part of it. I’d be dead center — pardon the term — especially given what happened on the Charles River the night before. A serial killer was communicating with the city he was terrorizing through a senior reporter at the largest newspaper in town. Sickening? Maybe. Intoxicating? Definitely. And this from someone who once found himself front and center in an international story when I was shot and wounded in what appeared to be a presidential assassination attempt. That’s an entirely different matter — though it does explain my fear of loud noises and presidents.
Steele said, “We don’t know definitively that it was a strangling, right? The cops aren’t confirming the cause of death yet. There is no coroner’s report. Things aren’t always as they seem.”
No, they’re not; she was right. But before I could reply, she said, “And the Boston Strangler — he’s dead. We know that for a fact.”
Mongillo interjected, “No, we don’t know that for a fact. Albert DeSalvo is dead, but he was never charged or convicted in any of the stranglings. There are a lot of people who never believed that he was the Boston Strangler.”
Mongillo said this with unusual intensity, much as when he corrected me on the same point the day before. His words were so heartfelt, I could even overlook the orange Cheetos crumbs that had taken residence on the side of his lips.
Steele said to Mongillo, “You’re not suggesting that the same Boston Strangler from the sixties is killing these women now?”
Mongillo shook his head slowly. A crumb fell from his face to his lap. He said, “I’m not saying yes and I’m not saying no. I’m only saying that our job is to keep an open mind. Life is strange.”
Life is strange. Tell me about it. I was supposed to be spending this day stretched out on a comfortable chaise