The caller replied, “I contacted you first. You ignored me.”
“I didn’t ignore you. We need more information from you. I’m not a damned radio talk show. I deal in facts, and I need more of them.” I hesitated here, hesitated at the thought of what I was about to do, then said, “And we need you to work exclusively through the Record.”
I used the word work, as if what he was doing was political fund-raising or maybe whistle-blowing on some unraveling government project, everything polite and aboveboard and squarely on the side of virtue. But the reality was that I was trying to sell my paper and myself to a killer so we could get the exclusive story. There are some days I think I probably would’ve been better off if I had followed an old girlfriend’s advice and gone to law school. This day was foremost among them — and it wasn’t even six in the morning yet.
He remained silent, so I filled the void with “We can work together, but that won’t happen if you’re talking to inflammatory talk show hosts who aren’t going to treat your information with the respect that the Record would. And because you’re dealing through a medium that no one takes seriously, people, the public, aren’t going to take you seriously.”
Here I was, giving my full-on sales pitch to a guy who had strangled two women, actually stood there tightening a ligature around their necks and watching the life leave their panicked eyes. And I was trying to sell him on a relationship with the Record. I made a mental note that I was a complete asshole.
“What kind of information?” he asked.
Good question. What was I going to say, Hold the line while I call the damned publisher and ask her what the hell else she needs before we put this story into print? I wisely, even uncharacteristically, bit my tongue and instead asked, “Are you the Boston Strangler? And why are you doing this?”
The caller said, “Go to the bench in the northwest corner of Columbus Park at nine a.m. Don’t get there a minute beforehand or you’ll never hear from me again. Don’t call the police or you’ll never hear from me again. Bring your cell phone.”
He hung up. I could still hear the n vibrating on the word phone because of the synthesizer he was using.
As I put the receiver down, I listened to Barry Bor say on the radio, “Ladies and gentlemen, the chosen few, you are listening to talk radio history here today. We, meaning you and me, are making history. I have been talking to a gruesome murderer who is vowing to kill again, and will tell us where and when he strangles his next woman…”
I flipped the stereo off and the room went quiet except for the sounds of the ocean breeze pushing against the outside window — at least I hoped it was the breeze that was nudging the window. Who knew anymore?
Pleading with a killer for an exclusive story. Another day in the life of the intrepid reporter, and it would quickly get worse from there.
12
The day came bright and breezy, the breeze carrying with it more than a hint of spring. The sun caressed my cheeks with its golden fingers. The grass was even turning from winter brown to a pale shade of green.
So why, then, did I still feel such doom as I strode from Atlantic Avenue into Columbus Park at about two minutes to nine on this Wednesday morning? Well, first off, there are the obvious answers. I suspected the day would bring with it more death, most likely of yet another innocent young woman long before her time.
Second, I was still infuriated at my own newspaper for blowing a blockbuster story and putting me in this kind of bind with an admitted killer. And I wasn’t exactly pleased with myself over the unseemly telephone negotiations that I carried on that morning with this man who called himself the Phantom Fiend.
Third, there was no small amount of trepidation that I was being set up here on this park bench by whoever tried to kill me on the Charles River two nights before. Or maybe that’s whomever. I can never figure these things out. That said, I hoped that since he picked a place so prominent and a time so public, he wouldn’t be trying anything funny.
Finally, this was the park where I used to bring Baker virtually every day for the past many years to romp and fetch a tennis ball until his tongue was hanging to the ground. Baker was my old golden retriever, dead a little more than a year now, but never a flicker of the memory from my mind. We always saw the first red leaf of autumn together, the first flake of winter, and the first bud of spring. We were an item then, and I thought we always would be, until the day when he was diagnosed with advanced cancer at Angell Memorial Hospital and taken from me before I barely had a chance to say good-bye.
Okeydoke. So, we’re off to a perfectly terrific start to yet another wonderful day, one that would surely include murder and at least a little mayhem, as well as lame excuses from my newpaper higher-ups for their colossal screw-up, pleas for dinner invitations from Vinny Mongillo, and maybe a face-to-face meeting with a past and present serial killer who calls himself the Phantom Fiend. What was my alternative — to have gotten married to a beautiful woman and jetted off to a resort in gorgeous Hawaii? Then again, Maggie Kane hadn’t left that alternative on the table for me, not as she was fleeing on a connecting flight through the Atlanta airport to God only knows where. Maybe she was in Hawaii, which wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing, because at least someone would be getting use of a hotel that I had already paid for.
Ah yes, a great day getting even greater.
I found my way to a bench in what I believed was the far northwest corner of the park. It looked out over the grass, through a bare trellis, toward a part of Boston Harbor where I once swam in pursuit of an escaping intruder in the middle of the night, in what I guess I’d now refer to as the good old days. Now that I thought of it, I should apply for hazardous duty pay. Either that or enroll in swimming lessons at the YMCA and send Peter Martin the bill.
So there I sat, thinking, waiting, and wondering. I wasn’t there but two minutes when my cell phone chimed. When I answered, all I heard was silence.
Well, not exactly total silence. I heard what sounded like a young calf chewing on its cud.
“Mongillo?” I asked.
“Oh, hey, sorry, Fair Hair. I’m on the treadmill and didn’t hear you pick up.”
“Are you eating and running? Isn’t that illegal?”
“Just a PowerBar. And no, I’m being careful.”
He was out of breath, I noticed. I mean, really out of breath, as in, I was half tempted to ask him if I could be the beneficiary on his 401(k) plan and hold a microcassette up to the damned phone.
He said, “Did you hear your boy on the Barry Bor Show?”
Jesus, the whole world listened to that stupid call-in program at that ungodly hour. I replied, “Me and everyone else in Boston. We really fucked up.”
“That we did, but nothing more you or I could have done to prevent it. Listen, I have a pretty good guess where the next murder is going to be. How about we meet for lunch to talk about it.”
“You’re saying you know who he’s going to kill and you want to go have lunch?”
“No, I’m saying I think I know what neighborhood, or even street, he might kill next. And yes on lunch. Nice of you to ask.”
“I’ve got a meeting. I’m not sure if I’ll be out. But I’ll call you.”
He asked, “Who’s the meeting with?”