Strangled - Brian McGrory [32]
How do you answer that? I hesitated and replied, “Pretty strong.”
He seemed to understand and handed me a perfectly nice magnifying glass, handle first. I headed back over to my conference table and held the glass about two inches above the photograph. I immediately saw the number clear as day, even though in the photograph it was night — 146; 146 Charles Street, Boston, Massachusetts. I thought I knew what I had, but to be sure, I snapped up the phone and called up to the newsroom.
“Mongillo here.”
“Flynn here.”
“I’m on the other line.”
“Doesn’t matter. What was the address of the Jill Dawson murder earlier this week?”
“One forty-six Charles Street.”
“You’re an animal.”
“You’re my bitch.”
I’m not sure his salutation was really necessary, but I got what I needed. I riffled through the files again, looking for stories on the other murders, until I finally found one from the Fenway — 558 Park Drive, to be exact, the same location where we found Lauren Hutchens’s strangled body that morning. The modern-day killer was retracing the steps of the old Strangler — a discovery that sent one of those electric chills up my back and into my neck.
Something else kept nagging at me about that Charles Street photograph as well — something about the scene, or the people in it. I placed the magnifying glass over the shot again and scanned the sidewalk, inside the windows of the awaiting police car, the street — until there it was: the young, handsome face of one Hank Sweeney walking several paces behind Detective Walters. Hank Sweeney is a retired Boston Police homicide detective. Far more important to the point of this story, he was also a very good friend who owed me a very large favor.
“Thank you, Hank Sweeney,” I murmured to myself.
I picked up the phone again and called Hank’s cell, a number I knew by heart, even if I hadn’t called it in over a year.
He picked up on about the third ring, his voice as smooth and calm as ever.
“Hank, how’s about I buy you the best steak at Locke-Ober in thirty minutes?”
“That place is so ten minutes ago, Jack. How’s about I meet you over at Grill 23 instead?”
That’s really what he said. The guy is in his mid-seventies and he’s talking like a sophomore coed at Wellesley High. Beyond that, he’s questioning my taste in restaurants. And beyond even that, maybe he could act a little more excited about having the pleasure of my company again.
“No, Locke-Ober,” I replied. I mean, you can push me around on a lot of things, but not about restaurants. “I’ll see you there.” And just like that, I was on my way — hopefully for a lot more than a good meal.
10
Tony, the world’s most hospitable maître d’, greeted me at the door of Locke-Ober as if he hadn’t seen me in months — mostly, I suppose, because he hadn’t. Life sometimes gets in the way of fine dining, tough as that fact is to accept.
“I was starting to think you went out and bought an oven,” he said, giving me that low-lying handshake that is his trademark.
“I did, but then I couldn’t get a license to operate it,” I replied.
He laughed, God love him. Then he asked, more confiding now, “Everything all right?” I merely shook my head and flashed a smile of futility. He nodded in agreement.
A word about Tony: solid. And another: knowing. He’s stood at the host’s podium of Locke-Ober for forty years, which makes him a relative newcomer at the restaurant, but still an institution in the town. He has seated kings and Kennedys, tycoons and tyrants, always with a gracious demeanor and just the right amount of solicitude.
“I hear you’ve gotten married,” he said. “That will always shake things up a bit.”
I shook my head again and smiled with even more futility. “I walked to the brink of the altar before I realized I was standing in the wrong church,” I said.
Tony nodded, looking away from me, not betraying even a hint of surprise.
“Smart boy,” he said. “I’ve got three weddings behind me already, and I’m thinking