The Craigslist Murders - Brenda Cullerton [36]
“But I heard—”
“Enough!” the mayor grabbed the mic. “To say any more at this point would be irresponsible. It’s just too early in the investigation.”
“When exactly will we know more, sir? When the next victim dies?”
The Mayor cast a withering look at the Post reporter and marched offstage with his army trailing closely behind him.
Snacking on a few slices of Parma proscuitto, some Gorgonzola and a beet salad, Charlotte walked into her home office and Googled “female serial killers.” She hoped that she might find herself. Not by name, of course, but in additional stories that the search engine would have listed after the press conference. It was too early. She was soon lost in a sea of links.
According to one expert, female killers were more successful, more precise, more careful, and quieter than males. It took twice as long to catch them. Apparently, most females preferred to distance themselves from their victims by using poison, guns or some other means of physical separation during the killing. But Charlotte found a great deal of pleasure in her proximity to the women she killed. She felt a strange sense of intimacy with them. Sharing the moment of death, after all, was just about as intimate an experience as sex.
She then scrolled through the stuff about motives. The experts were way off here, too. She wasn’t in it for the money, or control or sex and drugs. She was a mercy killer. She was liberating these women; freeing them from their 40-million-dollar, 12,000-square-foot golden cages.
The computer froze just as the phone rang. “Shit!” Charlotte whispered, picking it up while trying to reboot.
“Hey, Charlotte! It’s Philip.”
“Hello, Philip,” she replied icily, thinking of Vicky’s phone call.
“Listen, did you have to kill that broad for the bracelet?”
Charlotte’s heart was pounding.
“I … I …” she stuttered.
“JK, Charlotte. JK, as my daughter says. But when I read in the Post about the connection between those murders and the Internet, I couldn’t help but think of the bracelet you were wearing that night at the museum. You said you found it on Craigslist?”
“Yeah. Well, I don’t find you even remotely funny, Philip,” she said. “Plus you’ve been a total bastard to Vicky,” she added as her pulse slowed and she caught her breath.
“I told her I’m going to make up for it. I want you to find a bracelet for her. And I’m taking her on safari. To Ted’s bush camp in Botswana.”
Everybody had heard about Ted the Billionaire’s private camp in Botswana. He shared it with some sheik from the Emirates who flew in with a 747 full of falcons or something.
“That’s nice, Philip. I just hope you leave your Russian at home.”
“Ha! Ha! Charlotte,” he said. “My masseur is here. Gotta go. Oh. I’m sure Tom told you he’s coming with us, right?”
You mean my masseur, Charlotte said to herself, reminded of just how ungrateful they all were, including her so-called friends, Vicky and Tom. She hung up. Her head ached.
Charlotte usually resisted the impulse to take a sedative. They implied that she was weak, not in control. But the pills seemed to eliminate the nightmares. Chewing a milligram of Ativan, Charlotte waited for the sedative to take the edge off her anxiety. If a man as dumb as Phil had made a connection between the reports of an Internet killer and Craigslist, why hadn’t the police? Surely they had read through the women’s e-mails?
21
Charlotte had scheduled Tuesday and Wednesday for reviewing project costs with Darryl’s architect, and choosing Pavel’s fabric swatches at the 59th Street Decoration and Design building. Open to the trade only, the D&D was the resource for fabrics and furniture. It was also chock-a-block full of back-stabbing faux blonde inferior designers, and buzzed with vicious rumors and gossip. The so-called “Sporty Socials” were the worst. Oddly devoid of glamour, there was a certain thin-lipped ennui, a brittleness about these young girls that intrigued her.
She’d seen one of their latest projects in the final issue of House & Garden. It was a study in contorted edginess;