“The mayor called,” she said, as the four of us sat around Martin’s table.
I wanted to correct her and say acting mayor, but for the second time in a matter of minutes, I contained myself. By the way, the office probably still seemed comfortably familiar to Steele, given that Martin hadn’t changed one single thing about it since moving in after her. If Steele had left her family pictures on the desk, Martin would have kept them there as well.
“She’s not pleased, and I have to admit, she raised some valid points,” Steele said, sighing. “This story is going to trigger widespread panic. We’re essentially telling the public that there’s a serial killer on the loose, even though police aren’t confirming there’s a connection between these two killings. On top of that, it has the potential to hinder two murder investigations.”
She paused and looked at each of us. “Are we one hundred percent sure what it is we have?”
Maybe I should have deferred to Martin to answer, but I was comfortable enough with Justine to barge right in. I had worked with her when she was editor on some of the biggest stories this paper has ever broken. So I said, “We know we got these letters. We know that one of them led us to a victim that the police weren’t aware of yet. We know that victim was strangled to death. We know the writer of these notes uses a nickname that was also used for the Boston Strangler.”
Here I paused, then added with a sigh of my own, “I’m not sure what more we need.”
“What we need is to make sure we’re doing the right thing,” Steele replied coolly. “What would your lede be?”
I said, “Right now, the lede is that a thirty-two-year-old woman was found strangled to death in her Fenway apartment yesterday morning after her driver’s license was delivered to a Boston Record reporter with a note saying, ‘More women will die.’ ”
Okay, maybe Mongillo was right. It’s not art, but good newspaper writing rarely is, and it cut right to the bone-chilling point.
I continued, “The second graph would point out that hers was the second death of a young woman in which the victim’s driver’s license was sent to the Record reporter, accompanied by a note. Both times, the note was signed ‘The Phantom Fiend’ — the same moniker that referred some forty years ago to a serial killer better known as the Boston Strangler.”
As I talked this through, I was feeling a rush of adrenaline. In a perfect world, reporters aren’t supposed to be part of the story, though the mere fact that a reporter covers a story makes him or her an inherent part. People change their actions when they know there will be public awareness. Politicians preen. Lazy bureaucrats suddenly rush. Businessmen become uncharacteristically concerned about the consumers they’re supposed to serve.
But if we printed this story, I wouldn’t merely be a part of it. I’d be dead center — pardon the term — especially given what happened on the Charles River the night before. A serial killer was communicating with the city he was terrorizing through a senior reporter at the largest newspaper in town. Sickening? Maybe. Intoxicating? Definitely. And this from someone who once found himself front and center in an international story when I was shot and wounded in what appeared to be a presidential assassination attempt. That’s an entirely different matter — though it does explain my fear of loud noises and presidents.
Steele said, “We don’t know definitively that it was a strangling, right? The cops aren’t confirming the cause of death yet. There is no coroner’s report. Things aren’t always as they seem.”
No, they’re not; she was right. But before I could reply, she said, “And the Boston Strangler — he’s dead. We know that for a fact.”
Mongillo interjected, “No, we don’t know that for a fact. Albert DeSalvo is dead, but he was never charged or convicted in any of the stranglings. There are a lot of people who never believed that he was the Boston Strangler.”
Mongillo said this with unusual intensity, much as when he corrected me on the same point the day before. His words were so heartfelt, I could even overlook the orange Cheetos crumbs that had taken residence on the side of his lips.
Steele said to Mongillo, “You’re not suggesting that the same Boston Strangler from the sixties is killing these women now?”
Mongillo shook his head slowly. A crumb fell from his face to his lap. He said, “I’m not saying yes and I’m not saying no. I’m only saying that our job is to keep an open mind. Life is strange.”
Life is strange. Tell me about it. I was supposed to be spending this day stretched out on a comfortable chaise lounge on a warm Hawaiian beach beside the woman I would love for the rest of my life — all the while with a paperback novel in one hand and a frozen strawberry concoction in the other, listening to the tranquil waves lap lazily against the Pacific shore. And here I was in Boston writing a story about a woman who apparently had been raped, then strangled in her Fenway apartment by a killer who had personally revealed his vile acts to me.
Yes, Vinny, life is definitely strange.
Steele said, “The thing that I have to keep in mind, that we have to keep in mind, is how do we do the most public good. Mayor Laird tells me that the police have made major progress in the investigation, and that publicity, and the resulting public outcry, could hamper the case.”
Martin interjected, “Or do we do the most public good by warning readers there is a serial killer in their midst who has told the Boston Record, and I quote, that ‘more women will die.’ ”
Steele shot him a look that wasn’t just cool but arctic. I mean, you could get freezer burn, that look was so cold. I had to wonder if the acting mayor had gotten to her. I’d read in the Traveler’s gossip column that the two were becoming buddies, seen together at a play one night, and in the Record luxury box at a Patriots game in December. I’ve never even sat in the Record’s damned luxury box. Did Steele leave her news judgment on the newsroom floor when she got promoted to the front office?
Martin ignored her look, or maybe he wasn’t aware of it. He added, “We could actually save lives.”
Steele replied, “Or the police could save lives by cracking the case faster without our interference.” Each word came out of her mouth with icicles hanging from them.
Then she looked at me, even sterner now. “Jack, you guys write up what you have. I want to see it before we make up our minds on this thing. It’s not an easy decision. But it’s one that I feel I have to personally make.”
Not easy? In the last thirty-six hours, I’ve had my fiancée flee the state on our wedding day. I’m on the friends-and-family list of a serial killer. And someone tried to drown me in the freezing, fetid water of the Charles River the night before. And she’s telling me that the decision she has to make in the comfortable confines of her fireplaced office is not an easy one? I made a mental note to land myself a job in management. It was starting to feel like the right time.
Of course, what we didn’t know then was that it was about to become even less easy.
I filed the story at 6:00 p.m., after taking feeds from reporters Jennifer Day and Benny Simms, neither of whom had a whole lot to offer, but just enough to help round things out. Just before I hit the Send button, Mongillo leaned over my desk, kissed the computer screen, and said, “I’ll see you in tomorrow’s paper. Please, story, please, get yourself into tomorrow’s paper.” And just like that, it was out of our hands.
I leaned back and thought about the voice mail I had received from the general manager of the Hawaiian resort that I should have been staying at that night but wasn’t. He expressed deep regret over my circumstances, and slightly less regret over the fact that there was nothing he could or would do about a refund on my significant deposit. I was, in a word, completely screwed — though I guess that’s two words.