The Craigslist Murders - Brenda Cullerton [75]
John was heading straight for her.
God! Not now, John! Not now! she muttered as he blocked her way. “I’m in a rush, John. I’ll give you something, later, I promise,” she said, pushing to get past him.
“Charlotte! Charlotte!” He whispered. “Police. Police!”
She stopped, nailed to the spot, as he shuffled around on his feet, his eyes flitting up and down the block.
“Calm down, John,” she said, soothingly. “What do you mean, police?”
“Don’t know. Don’t know. They’re in your building. They’re after me.”
Charlotte forced herself to breathe. “How long have they been there, John?”
He was rifling through his shopping bag.
“How many of them?” Charlotte asked, gently resting her hand on his arm.
“A few, Charlotte. A few …”
“Well, I’m sure they’re not after you. But I’ll talk to them, okay? I’ll tell them we’re friends.
He nodded.
“Here,” Charlotte said, pulling out a twenty dollar bill. “Buy yourself some cigarettes. It’s going to be okay, I swear.”
“Thanks, Charlotte. Thanks!”
Watching him head towards the Korean market, Charlotte turned around and began to walk towards SoHo. She thought about the fantasies she’d had after seeing Pavel, about his tattoo of the sailing ship and his talk of freedom. She also thought about how tired she had grown of her tiny, incestuous world in New York. She longed for the terror and the challenge of new beginnings. Thinking of Pavel and his banya, she imagined plunging into a river of cool rushing water. A burst of adrenaline surged through her veins as she stepped up her pace and looked up at a sapphire-blue sky. For the first time in years, Charlotte felt almost light on her feet—untethered. Like one of those big bright-striped hot air balloons that, once freed of the weights and the ropes that lash them to the ground, drift ever so slowly, up and into the air.
CRAIGSLIST MURDERER ELUDES COPS!
By Ben Volpone
In a story that only grows stranger and more complicated over time, police informed the media this morning that they have identified a “person of interest” in the attack on Gina Craven. “We would like to talk with her, ask a few questions, is all,” said the spokesperson. Although sources refused to cite her as a probable suspect, her name is Charlotte Wolfe.
Admired for her interior design work by the wives of the city’s richest, most powerful financial wizards, Ms. Wolfe lives in a downtown Tribeca loft where police were waiting to question her yesterday evening after receiving a call from her Greenwich Village psychiatrist. Unfortunately, Wolfe has yet to show up and police now fear that she may have been warned and left the city.
Reluctant to disclose the exact nature of the psychiatrist’s concern, sources close to the investigation did reveal that it involved a recorded cell phone conversation and the possibility of bodily assault. “It seems this person accidentally speed-dialed her doctor. And an emergency exception allowed police to enter the premises of the phone registered to the patient in question.” The source also disclosed that it was only after police had entered the premises that a possible connection was made between Wolfe and the Craigslist murders. “A detective on the case recognized several pieces of evidence, including a monogrammed silver spoon, at which point a search warrant was issued. It appears that there is other evidence also links Wolfe to the killings of Amy Webb and Christina Johnson.”
Described by Rita Brickman, a shocked longtime friend and client, as “both lovely and immensely talented,” Wolfe began her career working as an assistant to the celebrated late designer Harold Beamish. When asked to comment on the news about Wolfe, Beamish’s partner, Miles van den Broek, hardly minced words. “We called her the ‘halo from hell,’ ” he said. “Nothing about her would surprise me.”
In an exclusive interview, Philip Daft, a client of Wolfe’s and one of New York’s most respected philanthropists, mentioned that he had actually seen the suspect wearing what is now