The Craigslist Murders - Brenda Cullerton [69]
She felt as if she had bare-wired herself into a hot socket. Was the woman dead? Could the child give a description of her? Thank God her bright red hair had been hidden under her hat. She knew that she’d been inexcusably careless; that the police would lift her prints from the leather armrest of the living room couch, from the silver fork, and from the front doorknob. Of course, they wouldn’t match her fingerprints. She wasn’t in their database. She’d never been caught committing a crime. She didn’t even have a driver’s license. But if they found her otherwise …
Fists clenched, Charlotte pulled the eiderdown over her body and slipped two Ativans beneath her tongue. She’d have to leave town for a while. Just until things calmed down. Maybe she’d make the trip to Alpine. She could feel the warmth flow through her limbs as the pill dissolved. Charlotte closed her eyes and plunged into the oblivion of sleep.
42
It was hunger that finally forced Charlotte to confront the agony of bright light that flooded through the kitchen windows. Checking the gilded clock on the mantle, she saw that she’d been in her room for nearly forty hours. Pulling in the pile of newspapers that lay on the hallway floor, her heart hammered up against her chest. The story was splashed on the front cover of the previous morning’s Post.
THE CRAIGSLIST MURDERS!
Ben Volpone
In what could be an astonishing break in the case of Amy Webb and other recent unsolved female homicides in Manhattan, a woman nearly bludgeoned to death in her Tribeca loft was left alive by her alleged attacker on Tuesday afternoon.
According to a Police Department spokeperson, “The victim, 27-year-old Gina Craven, is in intensive care at a local hospital. Doctors say her prognosis is good.” Similar to other, less fortunate victims, Mrs. Craven suffered blunt trauma to the head.
For the first time since last April when Upper East divorcee, Judy Gross, was found dead in the living room of her apartment, police acknowledge a connection between Craigslist, the popular online shopping bazaar, and the murders of Mrs. Gross, Mrs. Webb, and Christina Johnson, a model killed in her Village brownstone last summer. As the police spokesperson confirms, “It appears that evidence now indicates that Craigslist is the method by which the perpetrator gained access into these victims’ homes.”
Unnamed sources within the department report that the victim’s 4-year-old child was a witness to the attempted murder. As of late last evening, there was no news as to whether the mother or the child has yet helped the police identify or describe the attacker. The Police Commissioner will give a press conference on Friday morning at 9 a.m.
The victim, Gina Craven, is the third wife of renowned political pundit and “grape juice” billionaire, Timothy Craven. Married five years ago in a beach ceremony on the Caribbean island of Mustique, Craven is a huge supporter of “Free Tibet” and a self-proclaimed good friend of the Dalai Lama.
Calls to Craig Newmark, the gnomish, iconoclastic founder of the list in San Francisco, were immediately referred back to the New York City Police Department. A man who answered the phone at the office, however, did mention that Craigslist had flagged a warning on its New York site several weeks ago, reminding users to “exercise the usual caution and common sense when dealing with unknown buyers and sellers.” One of the hottest shopping sites online, Craigslist offers its users everything from antique furniture, clothing, and auto parts to sperm donors, and vintage Cabbage Patch dolls. With the possible exception of Mrs. Webb’s brown Louis Vuitton vanity case, it is still not known what the other victims had offered for sale through Craigslist.
Charlotte sucked in a deep breath and sank down into a dining chair. The furious blinking on her