Strangled - Brian McGrory [30]
Yes, Vinny, life is definitely strange.
Steele said, “The thing that I have to keep in mind, that we have to keep in mind, is how do we do the most public good. Mayor Laird tells me that the police have made major progress in the investigation, and that publicity, and the resulting public outcry, could hamper the case.”
Martin interjected, “Or do we do the most public good by warning readers there is a serial killer in their midst who has told the Boston Record, and I quote, that ‘more women will die.’ ”
Steele shot him a look that wasn’t just cool but arctic. I mean, you could get freezer burn, that look was so cold. I had to wonder if the acting mayor had gotten to her. I’d read in the Traveler’s gossip column that the two were becoming buddies, seen together at a play one night, and in the Record luxury box at a Patriots game in December. I’ve never even sat in the Record’s damned luxury box. Did Steele leave her news judgment on the newsroom floor when she got promoted to the front office?
Martin ignored her look, or maybe he wasn’t aware of it. He added, “We could actually save lives.”
Steele replied, “Or the police could save lives by cracking the case faster without our interference.” Each word came out of her mouth with icicles hanging from them.
Then she looked at me, even sterner now. “Jack, you guys write up what you have. I want to see it before we make up our minds on this thing. It’s not an easy decision. But it’s one that I feel I have to personally make.”
Not easy? In the last thirty-six hours, I’ve had my fiancée flee the state on our wedding day. I’m on the friends-and-family list of a serial killer. And someone tried to drown me in the freezing, fetid water of the Charles River the night before. And she’s telling me that the decision she has to make in the comfortable confines of her fireplaced office is not an easy one? I made a mental note to land myself a job in management. It was starting to feel like the right time.
Of course, what we didn’t know then was that it was about to become even less easy.
I filed the story at 6:00 p.m., after taking feeds from reporters Jennifer Day and Benny Simms, neither of whom had a whole lot to offer, but just enough to help round things out. Just before I hit the Send button, Mongillo leaned over my desk, kissed the computer screen, and said, “I’ll see you in tomorrow’s paper. Please, story, please, get yourself into tomorrow’s paper.” And just like that, it was out of our hands.
I leaned back and thought about the voice mail I had received from the general manager of the Hawaiian resort that I should have been staying at that night but wasn’t. He expressed deep regret over my circumstances, and slightly less regret over the fact that there was nothing he could or would do about a refund on my significant deposit. I was, in a word, completely screwed — though I guess that’s two words.
Right now, I just craved a steak — a fat, juicy, dry-aged sirloin sizzling in its own juices on a warm plate that would also carry some home fries and grilled asparagus.
I was punchy. I was tired. I had precisely three hours of sleep the night before. And what I craved wasn’t what I needed, because what I needed was a crash course on the Boston Strangler and Albert DeSalvo, and why the latter was believed to be the former, and why it was that Vinny Mongillo didn’t think it was necessarily so. So I did something that no right-thinking reporter in any newsroom in America ever wants to do. I walked into the morgue, asked them to set me up at a table, and began my own exhaustive research.
Soon enough, a nice man by the name of Chadwick — or