Strangled - Brian McGrory [34]
He took a sip of his drink. He looked down at the table where the breadbasket sat, though I was sure he wasn’t really looking at the bread. Then his eyes settled on mine again and he said, “Depends who you ask.”
“I’m asking you.”
“I don’t really know. I was a junior detective then. I made detective about halfway through the killing spree and was put straight into homicide because they were stretched so thin and because the whole city was so damned scared. My role was minimal.”
“But Hank, I know you, you’re a good listener. What were your superiors saying? What did your gut tell you?”
Hank took another spoonful of bisque, a little more relaxed now. He said, “That’s what I mean when I say it depends who you ask.” He paused again before asking me, “You want the elaborate answer?”
“I want the best answer, yeah.”
He sighed deeply, as if he was collecting himself, then began.
“There were three lead detectives on the case. Each one had their own theory.
“The most senior guy was Lieutenant Detective Bob Walters. He was always something of a mentor to me. He believed that there might have been a serial killer who offed a few women, maybe three, maybe four, maybe five — six tops. I think he might have even had a suspect in mind by the end. But he always believed that the last six or seven murders were either the work of a second serial killer, or a bunch of copycat killers — disgruntled husbands, angry boyfriends. They know there’s a serial strangler out there. They realize if their wife or girlfriend shows up dead, she’s immediately going to be lumped in with the other victims.”
“Did you have proof that some of these were copycat killings?”
“Nothing forensic, only circumstantial. The reality is that serial killers, especially in sex crimes, virtually never dramatically change the profile of their victims mid-spree. The Strangler did. He started with older victims who almost always lived alone, and by the end, his victims were twenty, twenty-five, thirty years younger, many of them living with other people. It never made any sense.”
Luis came and hurriedly cleared away our soup bowls, dropping off two fresh drinks in the process. He was followed by a second waiter, delivering the steaks, starch, and asparagus. Sweeney surveyed his plate, then the rest of the table, and said, “The thing about not hanging out with you over the past year is that it allowed me to lose about fifteen pounds.”
We both lit into our beef. I said, “Go on.”
Hank swallowed another bite of sirloin and began anew. “The second detective you may or may not know. Name of Mac Foley. A damned good homicide investigator. He was a young upstart back then, put on the case for his sheer brains. He never believed DeSalvo was the Strangler. Didn’t think he had it in him to commit murder. Thought his confession was too pat. Never bought into any of it.”
I asked, “He thought they were a bunch of copycat killings and that the Strangler was a myth?”
“No. Maybe he thought one or two of them were copycats, but everyone thought that. He had another suspect in mind. He chased that theory to the ends of the earth trying to prove that he was the killer. I remember him being damned close, too. And then one day DeSalvo confesses and the books get shut and all the detectives get sent home, case closed, thank you very much.”
I asked, “And the third?”
“You’ve heard of him. Hal Harrison, then another young, upstart detective. I have no idea what he believed during the killing spree, but when DeSalvo confessed, he bought hook, line, and sinker into that — along with another guy you’ve heard of, Senator Stu Callaghan, who was back then the attorney general. They never seemed to question it, never looked at any other possibility. If DeSalvo said he was the strangler, then in their heads, he was the strangler all right.”
A busboy, who hadn’t been a boy in about five decades, silently cleared the plates, then made way for Luis, who cleaned up our crumbs and presented dessert menus in one seamless exercise. Hank ordered a glass of port; I asked for a plate of the macaroons.